#*[punts v8 out the window]* stop making me almost like you!

[a-mellowtea]

So, I haven't seen the scene from "Worthy", but I have had it described to me and caught a decent number of gifs and screenshots, and I gotta say, for a hot second, they would've had me fooled.

This was very solid setup for James to realize what he'd done, and for the traditional fallen hero arc to finish playing out in earnest -- ie, for catharsis.

I mentioned in a post last year (still some of my proudest gifs, tbh) that James fulfilled, quite wonderfully in the "this is good but ow" kind of way, three out of the four qualities of a tragedy/tragic hero as outlined by Aristotle. The one missing was catharsis: the healthy purging of sympathy, pity, fear and/or other uncomfortable emotions felt by an audience in regards to watching the hero's downfall, typically brought about by the hero's revelation that they caused their own fate.

Running down what I know of this moment... I would have thought for sure that that's what they were going for.

"They-... They've got the Staff!" as a breathless moment of realization and fear. His Kingdom is falling. He has no idea what RRAYNBOW's plan is. Winter just (in his view) betrayed him. And now he's stuck in a cell to do nothing but wait it out with Jacques "you lose" Schnee (who doesn't, in fact, even bother to mention Winter said she'd be back for them).

After everything, he lost. After everything -- his integrity, his morals, his image, his arm -- he personally sacrificed and everything -- RRAYNBOW, the honest loyalty and faith of his men, Mantle -- he was willing to throw away for a chance at what he thought was right, he still lost. That's huge, especially for a character like James.

Imagine, if you will, that -- albeit with a slight timeline tweak -- this is how James went. Not with a stupid gun-cubed and some frankly eye-rolling dialogue and a fight that apparently wasn't interesting enough not to keep cutting away from, but with despair and sorrow and the realization that he was wrong, he lost, and worst of all, now there's nothing he can do to rectify it.

Oviously, the story went the "he quadrouples down and adds another, marginally satisfying, murder to the list" route, which, if the state of my blog isn't clear enough in spelling out, I am... disappointed and dissatisfied with (which, lord let me not be misinterpreted, is not me saying I necessarily think it's bad for the direction they wanted). It leaves me with this feeling of incompleteness, like they almost finished something but turned away from it at the last second. It could be argued that the small moment in "The Final Word" where he lowers his gun and his head in defeat after Cinder's parting words is meant to be a form of catharsis, but it feels far too late, and far too many read it as cowardice rather than realization.

Had I been actively watching this moment in "Worthy", though, for a second I think I would've been excruciatingly hopeful.

I dunno if I want to give kudos for that or not, but good god does it ever hurt my heart and, even with what we got (maybe especially given what we got), I wish it had been lingered on just a little longer.