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rowanthestrange · 6 months ago

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i just read the entirety of your Rogue is the Bad Guy essay, and i’ll admit, you’ve convinced me, but not that he’s the Master, but that he’s trying to cosplay the Master cosplaying whoever. Also, it was really long so, like, i’m asking with full concern: are you okay? it just seemed like it took a ridiculous amount of time /lh

What I think is the case, probably 51% the Master. Just squeaks it.

What I want is Chuldur/Pantheon member ‘The’ Rogue cosplaying the Master cosplaying Jack. I’d prefer it by a very large margin. A huge one. But as to whether I think it will happen, I give that 49%. But that’s still good odds.

(I’ve got a lot of Pantheon!Rogue feels, ideas, and desires and have had nowhere else to put them yet, and this is a valid place to share them, rip. And to anyone else who followed the first Essay, let me convince you of my secondary Sub-Thesis in it.)

I’m giving that seemingly crazy high 49% despite the risky complexity of double-layering, because A) that was the Ruby resolution: she cosplayed the bird cosplaying as her - we’ve done it already and everyone got it.

And B)…Is actually complicated literal-meta but hear me out. Since they’re the only other writers this season I think there’s a very high chance they’re forerunners for next showrunners. I know at least one has high level management experience, and if they were given that as a test to do highly complex work to cut their teeth, this would be an incredibly good test that they passed imo. The Master is in themselves hard to write but necessary to fully comprehend because even when not present they are a lynchpin of the show. Here you’d have to write him well. But also effectively set up two twists (that he’s the Master, and then that he’s not he’s just pretending he is). You have to establish a Pantheon member - make an important part of an overarching narrative. And link together with other writers current and past. As well as create a good story with all functioning meta, on multiple levels.

The second you let Rogue be The Bad Guy the complexity of literally everything skyrockets anyway. (And one of the reason I’m a little annoyed that people want to believe he’s so flat - it does the writers a deep disservice to just think they wrote Space Darcy and there’s no shared metaplot there). But while Russell likes a certain amount of simplicity — Occam’s Razor 51% Master — RTD2 has been having fun with more complicated stuff, more prior-knowledge and using that, more thinking needed if you’re going to get the answers early. I think if he was going to give future showrunners something hard to do this would be it. For me Chuldur/Pantheon!Rogue is the pinnacle of that while still being perfectly possible to pull off to casuals without too much brainache. ‘The American accent guys, come on.’

I certainly think they have seeded all they need to, obviously can’t grade without seeing the full execution. And they certainly succeeded in writing ‘the Master’ well. Rewatching that ending? That actually got to me. And I’m a wall. I hated him which is what makes an actually good Master/Master-Proxy - you can neither go too far with that or the character becomes too unenjoyable (Simm!Master), but also too little with the hatred being turned almost entirely into pity (fandom), or even just they’re pretty purely enjoyable (Missy - but she’s an odd duck anyway), also robs them of something essential. This is pitched very well. Test passed on that score.

If my preference and height of percentage seems confusing, to me it makes no difference when talking about them whether he’s the Master or The Rogue perfectly playing the Master. Because if he’s perfectly playing him, as his Pantheon power should presumably allow him to do, it tells us about the Master anyway, so I don’t actually feel any need to differentiate most of the time. Certainly in The Essay it seemed stupid to bog it down with that and risk confusing the people still on ‘but he’s a good guy’ where it wasn’t necessary, because all arguments stay basically the same for a perfect copy. I trusted the reader to apply the level of abstraction themselves for the most part, only coming in with that where I thought something could be particularly relevant/missed in regard to that specifically. Muddying the issue with too repetitiously focusing on ‘remember it called also be a perfect Master cosplay’ and that seemingly complicated (even if I think valid) double-layering didn’t feel like the right call for something where just Rogue Is Playing The Bad Guy was already a hard sell to who I wanted to reach. Ymmv.

The only things that give me pause are that 1: The implication that he’s cloaked seems very high - the earring interference, psychic scents can mask real ones, seeming lack of recognition by allies (until the end I think - they shut up while he’s doing the scene rather than threaten or beg for their lives) etc. The Pantheon seem to have a lot of reality twisting powers. You wouldn’t need to, surely? You’d need to have a reason other than ‘same devices too close’ for that interference which starts the whole thing at minimum and I think ‘he made it happen for the Doctor to come over’ is too cheaty. And 2: The Bag. Why would you need to pack a bag and ensure you have it on you at the end if you can just snap your fingers?

But could be that it actually just contains his dice and he’s a stickler for doing things manually - think of daddy here, rules and ways to do things and following structure while also being creative within those constrictions. Which also very much applies to Dungeon Masters (won’t lie, the ‘Master’ part of that is what eeks it to 51% for just being him). This could come up, it’s feasible.

A Chuldur needing the teleport is also fair of course. And would want the psychic jewellery for the reverse of Ruby - being a Chuldur who needs to smell human to keep the gang on their toes and unsuspecting it’s him.

And there are lots of little things that complement the Pantheon element. We have the dancing scene where the lights dim. We have the fact he’s working with alternate dimension creatures and knows a lot about them. Certainly shows no fear at being sent to an alternate dimension once he’s got what he wanted. We have the American accent. We have him probably having watched Doctor Who like Bridgerton because he’s very familiar with Jack’s introductory episodes with all the references. We have the Vitamin String Quartet’s cover of ‘I’m The Bad Guy’ - Dungeon Masters love making playlists for their scenes, so why wouldn’t he (and also Theme of Music)? Maybe he doesn’t overtly use his powers during The Session because that sort of ugly manipulation of the world is cheap and bad DMing. Daddy liked the Spice Girls, why wouldn’t he like Kylie? He’s a game player like daddy but there’s no winning D&D, especially as DM, which makes an easy natural conflict between them. And we need at least one Pantheon member, cus while I think this is actually just a set-up season for them, there needs to be at least four, really five to truly feel ‘Pantheon’, three would be bare minimum and not enough for when the shit actually starts to go down next season, need at least four by then. I’m assuming we see one: The Writer, or The Audience, or Death or (The Twist At) The End/Grand Finale or whatever else you interpret the oldest one/one who waits to be, in the finale itself.

And this means we get a new (and if Pantheon rather than Chuldur) long-term character. Cosplaying the Master means The Rogue isn’t a copy of them, can just be playing The Bad Guy cus it’s fun right now, but they themselves don’t have to be Master-like, they can be anything. Something new. Anyone who knows me knows I wanted more rogue Time Lords and these guys are like that but with magic powers - what’s not to love? If The Rogue is a Joker, A Wildcard, and they just become a character that fills a void, that’s fascinating. Or they want to create exciting stories whatever that means and become whatever NPCs necessary to drive them on, that’s so interesting. Or they’re guided by being whatever they find cool much like the birds, with all the capricious ‘eh, bored now I’m wrapping this story up’ of a greek god (cus, well.) with all the associated dangers and disregard of these not being characters but people they’re playing with, and also expects there to be no hard feelings after The Session is over and next time it’s a new one. Can they perfectly roleplay a character but still break character if needed, or are they locked in to it until The Session’s done? Do they believe themself to have a ‘real’ personality or is that all fuzzy? Or all of the above. You could go anywhere from standard villain to a full Chaotic Neutral with that. And all the implications you could have of their power being to perfectly roleplay a person. And I use ‘they’ here because surely this is the most genderfluid a character you could get. The Rogue could literally be the red-nailed woman who picked up the gold tooth, think about that. How perfect would that be. Maybe that’s what’s in the bag. Live Tooth Reaction To The Kiss Not Clickbait. A character that could literally be anyone at any time, we would never know peace again. If Susan Twist appearing everywhere is something Pantheony, The Rogue is the inverse of this. Siblings maybe.

And see my Christmas Special pitch. Which is both a joke, but also an example of what fun you could have with The Rogue if you wanted. It doesn’t have to be pure heartbreak and misery Master 2.0. Especially if they are as seems here, a god not just trying to entertain themselves, but also entertain others. D&D requires a group, it’s co-operative, we see Rogue appear to adapt rather than (in any way immediately evident to us at least) externally force the story a certain way like a good DM. He never shoots the birds or threatens to or gets them in actual danger despite the in-character reasons to, and they looked like they all had fun - besides squished beak #5. But also sees NPCs as little more than set dressing as we ourselves would in a D&D game. What a dynamic that could be in a Pantheon god. It’s unique. Which is so valuable. A Chuldur slightly less interesting in that score but still.

If it is the Master I’ll be fine and accept it, but I want this, because it does double duty. It might as well have been a Master episode as it has most of the benefits of one (for me anyway), but also gives us all this new possibility and complexity on top of it. Those options are currently open and I want it.

It’s not popular, but I’m really pro trusting the writers. All of them. They’re smart. And I know these two just seem like randoms, but I doubt they are, they could be our new mothers, and I really think that while the Pantheon Rogue option is complex, it’s viable and has so much scope. If I hate people trying to see Rogue as flat Space Darcy because it shows zero belief in the writers, then I gotta do the opposite and entertain the option that they have intelligently created a deep and complex story, and have taken that to the end of the road. Even if complicated is by nature less likely than simple.

also lol I started The Essay at around 11pm sunday, wrote til gone 4am. Then woke up at 9:30am and wrote solidly plus edits until about 4am, and in-between edited the subtitles into that video. Am I ok? Physically, yes. Mentally, probably not. It is literally 10k and that’s why I made the joke. But I’ve done infinitely worse writing fanfics so...

EDIT:

‘Chuldur/Pantheon member The Rogue cosplaying the Master’ has just flipped into the dominant reading! Alert! Alert! Cus he’d never do this about him literally being the Master. If he’s acknowledging we’re having the feelings we’re intended to have, there’s another twist in it.

I officially move The Rogue Cosplaying The Master to 55% from 49% likelihood, and Rogue Is Just The Master down to 45% from 51%. You may wish to adjust your stock investment accordingly.

#replies #meta #pantheon rogue #tl;dr #pantheon!rogue can often include chuldur!rogue it just means cosplay #when i say rogue!master #i mean both just the master #or chuldur/pantheon!rogue playing the master #AS OF EDIT:#now not only is cosplay rogue my preference #but i also think most likely by a slight margin

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