#Also WHATS THEMATICALLY MORE COHERENT WITH THE SHOW'S MORALS AND IDEALS

[set-wingedwarrior]

I will forever be sus of people complaining about Steven Universe's handle of villains.

You mean that the show whoose main theme is conflict resolution through understanding and forgiveness and emphaty should have straight up execute the Big Bad? Are you for real????????

[lovebecomeshim]

hello! your zutara posting today has finally motivated me to ask this question because I came to atla very late(last year, to be specific) and I Love It Very Much but am 1000% out of the loop as far as why what remains of fandom (at least that I've seen among my friends) is so very strongly zutara. I'm not opposed to it per se I just don't really know what has driven it to apparently be such a popular ship? can you help me understand and maybe convert me a little bit?

Hey!! Your ICON! :D I can try but I’m not sure how coherent I’ll be; however I AM sure someone a lot more competent will be willing to add to this. Either way, I’m glad you asked because my plan was to drag down as many people as possible with me.

*smacks the hood of zutara* this baby can fit so much mutual love and support!

This got so long, I’m so sorry. I don’t know how to put it under a cut on mobile and it already got deleted once so I’m scared to mess with it lol. Moving on.

I’m gonna start this with a disclaimer that im on mobile so formatting is tricky and I’m also really new to atla in that I only completed my first watch through in like 2019??? So some of my info is all just based on what I’ve picked up from Discourse 👀 so anyway the sparknotes version: zutara was wildly popular from the beginning. To the point where the atla crew internally disagreed on which ship should be endgame. (Ex. Bryke [showrunners] asked the writers to rewrite The Southern Raiders to make Zuko seem less ideal for Katara than Aang [which failed, depending on who you ask]; the animation team purposefully created a visual parrallel between Oma and Shu in the Cave of Two Lovers and Zuko and Katara in the catacombs under Ba Sing Se in the Crossroads of Destiny; etc.)

The ship was popular enough that Bryke actually chose to display zk fanart at a con for the sole purpose of mocking the fans, but that’s neither here nor there. The entire episode Ember Island Players, while a love letter to/parody of the whole show, was an opportunity to address zutara’s viability as a canon pairing (while, again, mocking zutaras for romanticizing that catacombs scene). Point is! It’s always been popular but with it not being endgame, there’s got to be something that’s given it staying power.

And that’s honestly got to do with three things: their dynamic, thematic cohesion, and potential.

(You know what... you know what, it’s four things. The fourth is they’re so aesthetically pleasing together and individually. Like, they’re just good looking people [specifically when they’re grown but they’re also cute kids] and that absolutely doesn’t hurt) (but it’s not the Point, it’s just nice to point out sometimes)

The dynamic is hard to get into without also looking at the canon pairings, but I think I can do that without unnecessary bashing. It’s just that part of the magic of zutara is really highlighted by what they give to each other that their other relationships don’t.

First off, it’s classic enemies to (would be) lovers. The absolute truest form of it. It’s not too different from how CS started out: a rogue antagonist with a job to do—but no personal vendetta against the future love interest—who is deeply and emotionally invested in his personal storyline (revenge/redemption) with little regard for how it effects other people after his entire life and genuine good nature are marred by suffering, and a fierce warrior girl with a strong moral compass and her own personal investment in stopping him (protect her family and save the world doing it). Obviously frustration and animosity grew between them by the nature of them being on opposing sides, but that just lends itself to the sweetness of their later reconciliation.

The thing is that while they’re wildly different on the surface (he’s a hot-headed prince of a fascist regime who is trying to capture the Avatar to please his father; she’s a nurturing daughter of the chief who is trying to protect and train the Avatar in order to topple his father’s throne) they find out that they have so much more in common both in their experiences and their personalities.

(What follows is an excessive use of the word “both” and I’m sorry about that)(I can edit it. I can do that. That IS an option............)

They both have an innate sense of justice that they are determined to see done (zuko, at the war meeting, sticking up for the Earth Kingdom kid when the guards torment his family, choosing not to steal from the pregnant couple despite his circumstances, abiding by his word to leave the SWT should Aang come willingly, etc.; katara, literally.... at any point). They both have pretty one-track minds at accomplishing certain goals once they’ve put their mind to it, regardless of a lack of support in that endeavor (it goes without saying I guess, but zuko’s entire hunt; katara’s determination to get the earth benders to fight back, her determination to absolutely destroy Pakku until he agrees to teach her, etc.). They both lost their mothers at young ages. Their worlds are war-torn and traumatizing to them both, if in different ways, but that ultimately forces them to grow up too quickly to be wholly independent individuals. They both have issues with their fathers (for WILDLY different reasons, but). They both hold extreme prejudices that they need to learn to overcome (which ties into thematic cohesion)(bit like Lizzie and Darcy in that way but magnified by a million). They’re both extremely emotional and empathetic—which can and often does result in loud outbursts. Katara’s a bit better adjusted and can temper her anger for longer than S1 Zuko can, but they both feel that anger deeply and have no compunctions expressing it (Katara is, usually, more justified, particularly in S1. Again, S1 Zuko is severely maladjusted but at the point when they could’ve feasibly become a couple, he’s so much better off with the way he carries himself). They both struggle with feelings of inferiority in their bending abilities when confronted with prodigal benders like Aang and Azula, but have the work ethic required to double down and become two of the most powerful benders in the three remaining nations. This is a little more minor but it is a parrallel that appeals to some shippers that they both have these alter egos in the Painted Lady (notably fire nation coded) and the Blue Spirit (water tribe coded) that are pretty different from who they are day-to-day and are useful in accomplishing a purpose that they as themselves cannot.

(I’m.... I just realized that this could potentially get very long. Should I have made a slide show with bullet points??????)

Anyway, similar. I know there’s more but there’s literally so much to love about zutara that I’ll drive myself a little crazy trying to compile all the ways they’re similar. (Just gonna say that at this exact moment I went back to add more similarities.... so okay then)

Once they’ve reconciled, we see how all of these things only lend themselves to a deeper intimacy together than they share with literally anyone else. There’s a steady partnership that positions them as the mom/dad of the gaang, while also providing the support necessary to allow the other to not have to carry so much responsibility. A lot of zutaras will point out how zuko is actually depicted doing the more domestic chores that are normally relegated to Katara once he joins the gaang, since the others in the group are two 12-year-olds and sokka. The one that sticks out the most is how he makes tea for the group and then serves them, while Katara is able to just relax with her friends around the fire. Fanon expands upon this a lot to Zuko helping with the laundry or the cooking or whatever else needs doing since he, as a once-refugee, is used to doing his own domestic tasks. Before Zuko joined, Katara was the one mothering everyone, sewing for them, cooking for them, etc. She’s always tending to the needs of the group, and that includes emotionally. She does the emotional labor for the gaang 99% of the time, but when she’s the one falling apart, she’s usually doing it alone and without the comfort that she normally provides for others. Until Zuko. And that’s before they’re even friends.

Which is WHY people romanticize the catacombs of Ba Sing Se so much. Katara is verbally attacking Zuko out of her own righteous anger but also her own prejudice when Zuko, surprisingly, chooses to be vulnerable with her. He’s been on a journey that’s opened his eyes a bit, but he’s never actively chosen to expose the rawest parts of his past to anyone. But for some reason he chooses to do that with Katara of all people. While she’s yelling at him. He sees her humanity, and for once can look past his prejudice and empathize with her. And this time, when she breaks down, she gets to be comforted. Katara normally talks about her mother when she’s trying to explain to someone else that she sees and understands they’re pain, as a form of comfort to them. Here, Zuko uses the exact same tactic. He sees her and he understands. And for zuko? He’s not being shut down. He’s allowed to articulate his pain regarding his mother without being ignored and made to internalize it, and he’s allowed to process how he feels about his scar out loud without being told that he deserved it. And then he lets her touch his scar, something we’ve seen him actively avoid before. He’s completely open to her and she’s completely open to him and all it took was one five minute conversation. She was about to use the little bit of Spirit water that she had, that she was saving for something Important, to heal the scar that still daily causes him pain just because they had, somehow, connected.

Plus there’s the whole parallel to the star-crossed lovers forbidden from one another, a war divides their people—

And then zuko messes up, he regresses, he gets what he wants and he HATES it. And the sense of justice he had as a child has been restored to him against his will and he can’t think of anything he wants to do more than the Right Thing, so he joins team avatar. Before he does that though, we get to see his relationship with Mai, which is where comparison really comes in. And what we see is Zuko, fresh off of his encounter with Katara in the catacombs, trying to be emotionally honest with Mai... and getting shut down and dismissed. Which is just how Mai is and it’s fine, but not for Zuko. Still, he keeps trying, and he keeps getting ignored or scoffed at or yelled at. Which is really a larger symbol for how he doesn’t fit in his old life anymore, but again that’s about thematic cohesion. He tries to articulate his anxieties about returning home, he tries to make romantic gestures, he tries to explain how morally conflicted he’s feeling—and Mai diverts to some kind of physical affection to shut him up and a parting comment that is pretty much always, in essence, “I don’t wanna talk about this.” So they don’t. On the other hand, once zuko and Katara are friends, we see him again emotionally distraught and caught up in his anxieties about facing Iroh, and it’s Katara who comes to him and listens to him and comforts and encourages him.

Similarly, we have Aang clamming up and getting uncomfortable whenever Katara shows any negative emotion, usually resulting in him making excuses or running away. Or, in the case of the Southern Raiders, lecturing her on how she needs to just let go of her anger about her mother’s murder. People have talked this episode to death and usually better than I ever could, so imma... keep it brief. There’s a serious disconnect between Aang and Katara in his ability to empathize with Katara and her needs that has her tamping down her vulnerability and amping up her anger. He tells her that he was able to forgive his people’s genocide and appa’s kidnapping (petnapping? Theft??), which is blatantly not true but also not an entirely equal parrallel to Katara’s situation, and continues making these little remarks throughout the episode. But it’s Zuko that Katara opens up to. It’s with him that she’s able to talk about the most traumatic day of her life, and it’s with him that she’s able to get the closure she needs, cementing their bond as friends and partners. This disagreement between Aang and Katara is then... never resolved. They just never bring it up and hear what the other is saying.

There’s a fic called The Portraits of Ember Island that has a line that so completely sums up the heart of the matter for why people love their dynamic. For context, zuko has woken up early to help Katara with the cooking and they spend the whole time just letting one another talk, and zuko stops to ask why she always just lets him talk. And so she stops to ask why he’s always helping, and it goes as follows:

There’s just... so much mutual support! Trust! Intimacy!! And it just continues like that from the Southern Raiders on, listening to each other, advising each other, watching each other’s backs! And then! Literally saving each other’s lives!! I will never be over the last Agni kai. Not ever. Zuko may have been willing to jump in front of lightning for anyone, but he actually did it for Katara. And in a show, that’s the thing that really matters. It’s a fulfilled trope usually exclusively applied to romantic pairings, and it ended up applying to Zuko and Katara. And then she ran out into the middle of a fight with tunnel vision just to get to him.

Also!! Also Zuko pushing Katara out of the way of the falling rocks at the Western Air Temple!! And Katara catching him as he fell from the war balloon that he fought Azula on!! Before they’re even getting along, they’re the ones reaching for each other. They come to this place of equal ground, as partners, who watch each other’s backs, call each other out but still listen attentively and understand, and provide the support that the other has been sorely lacking up until they knew each other (whether that be from lack of effort or lack of understanding from others, or an unwillingness to accept it for themselves).

Then, trailing along under the surface of this, we see the themes of the show totally embodied by Zuko and Katara as individuals and in their relationship to one another. There’s a YouTuber, sneezyreviews, who has a, like, 2-hour explanation on why she not only loves zutara but also believes that their endgame would’ve actually elevated the writing of atla to new levels particularly because of thematic cohesion and resolved character arcs. It’s the zutara dissertation I never knew I needed, and it’s funny and eloquent and effective, so I’m just going to sum up her section on thematic cohesion to the best of my abilities and then link it for whenever you have the time. And I HIGHLY recommend it, especially if you want a full understanding of what makes zutara so great and gives it such longevity.

Guru pathik has a line that goes something like this: separation is an illusion; things that seem different are just two parts of the same whole. Iroh also tells Zuko something similar: balance and strength are achieved when the different nations come together and influence one another and celebrate what makes them each unique. And this lesson is a massive central arc that both Zuko and Katara go through, moving past a black-and-white, good guys-vs-bad guys, us-vs-them mentality and into a greyer, more nuanced view of the world. Zuko sees the fire nation from an entirely new perspective and while he still loves and hopes for his nations future, he surrenders his blind loyalty to them in exchange for an unflinching loyalty to peace and love. Katara too had to come to terms with the fact that cruel people exist in the earth kingdom and water tribes, while some fire nation citizens are just regular, kind people who also need and deserve to have someone speak on their behalf. And this is honed in directly on how they view each other. They grow in their individual journeys to be open to the humanity in the other and then, once they’ve found that, they’re able to grow more in compassion for others in a beautiful feedback loop. And this is all matched in the symbolism repeatedly and intentionally associated with them in canon: sun and moon, fire and water, yin and yang, Oma and Shu who found love despite their warring nations. Their individual arcs are completed in each other and complement the themes of atla beautifully.

The canon pairs... just don’t. Which, again, is fine. But the very things that give atla longevity and popularity are anchored in zutara. Kat@ang doesn’t accomplish this. They’re... nice. Sweet. Especially when you erase a good portion of their interactions in S3. It could’ve been just a sweet love story. (Personally, the dynamic between toph and aang accomplish the same thing that zutara does, with complementary personalities that fulfill the theme of opposites blending in harmony) M@iko, on the other hand, is less sweet but I think wasn’t even supposed to last. Zuko’s relationship with Mai seems to represent his relationship with his old life as a whole. He can’t be emotionally vulnerable, he’s goaded into abusing his privileges, his agency and opinions aren’t respected. They just don’t have common ground with which to discuss anything that matters, so they don’t. As far as themes, the relationship doesn’t fit with atla. It’s zuko returning to and sticking with what is (on the surface) like him, what’s expected. Fire nation with fire nation. Fluid water bender with the flexible air bender. Like with like, separated from what is different and challenging and complementary.

And all of these things combined of course lead to the potential for the ship. I don’t know how familiar you are with the post-atla canon but... well, miss “I will never turn my back on people who need me”, miss “I don’t want to heal! I want to fight!” ends up living quietly in the SWT as a designated healer who turns a blind eye to the water tribe civil war happening right outside her front door. Which can be fine! People change! Some people just wanna stay inside. I just wanna stay inside! But the potential future for zutara is so much more satisfying, with Katara becoming the most unconventional Fire Lady the uppity old cads who are stuck on the old ways have ever seen. Fanon has her serving as a voice for the other nations within a kingdom at the point of its biggest political upheaval, as a confidante to Zuko who can actually help him while he’s trying to figure out how to move forward and make reparations. They have the opportunity, together, to accomplish what they both have set on their hearts to fight for: positive change that lends itself to harmony and balance. And the steambabies! A popular headcanon is that their firstborn daughter, the crown princess, is actually a waterbender, which causes such an uproar among the people who are adamantly clinging to the old ways. It’s just a future full of potential to be forces for good together, full of trust, intimacy, joy. The exact era of peace and love and balance that zuko announces that he intends to ring in with the start of his reign as Fire Lord is, again, magnified by the very personal zutara relationship. And we love to see it.

tl;dr zutara isn’t for everyone. Some people just don’t vibe with it. Some are nostalgic. Some love the canon they grew up with. Some have been disappointed for years. Some just see themselves in other characters and want their happiness instead. Whatever the reason, that’s fine. But for me, I love the way these two, from the moment they give each other a fair chance, are able to lower their walls and prejudices to see the other for the kindred spirits they are. They see each other’s humanity, and their response is to pour out love and support and compassion. I love that they’re a power couple in battle. I love the symbolism and, honestly, soulmatism that colors their every interaction. I love that they embody the whole storyline of atla in their relationship and how it develops, which is notably why their seasonal arcs always culminate in each finale with how they relate to one another. I love that zuko adopting a waterbending move is what actually saves his life and then katara’s. I love the chemistry! And I love the future they could’ve had, instead of the ones they were given.

So, in conclusion: I just think they’re neat and I hope you do too, at least a little bit. Even if it’s just respectfully from a disinterested distance cause you do you. And now here is the video I mentioned. I’m sorry this post got so long and then I gave you an even longer homework assignment, but I can’t recommend it enough. She says it all better than I can.

[robotnuts]

i stayed up for 26 hours and wrote some ideas for an rvb season here it is. it’s a s14 they stay on chorus au

-epsilon is recursed and all the fragments are split but theyre shoved back into an orb because i ! miss orbsilon. so it’s basically all the fragments copiloting the orb body with the orb glowing the color of whoever is speaking. ep2ilon is his own dude who is heavily influenced by the fact that all of the fragments were put in caboose’s head immediately after the charon battle because he was the only person with a head empty enough to Handle It so he still has the caboosification which is so important to orbsilon, but he also doesnt view himself as the old epsilon with amnesia but like the steven universe to original epsilon’s rose quartz

-caboose goes through his teen angst phase because epsilon doesnt remember who he is and wont go by church anymore and he backtalks wash like a teenager saying i hate you dad!! while wash is scandalized 

-wash in general is just desperately trying to make the blues and the reevbs in general... not morally better people, because he doesn’t know how to do that himself, but more competent and functional adults who don’t have a youtube channel where they review how different metal spoons blow up in the microwave. 

-simmons gets tucker’s s16 arc where he goes mad with the power hes gotten from being a war hero but in a disctinctively simmons way where he doesnt like his description given in a newspaper that calls him lanky and describes him as like somehow an overgrown bird was given all the properties of a chihuahua being held at gunpoint so he doxxes the reporter, dylan, on twitter

-the mercs show up at one point because i miss the mercs. in this season anyone i want to bring back from the dead can come back because the philosophy is 100% whatever is funny to me and not thematic coherence with the rest of the show. i still think it would be a better sequel to chorus than shisno

-felix shows up trying to break up grocus because grif has become too friendly with locus and he’s Mad about it and so is Simmons because simmons is an awful freak with many flaws, which is the best part about his character. he like thinks grif is cheating because grif keeps talking about how great locus is but he doesn’t realize that’s because grif is imagining locus’ backstory as like, the ideal Hot Guy riding a motorcycle dean winchester archetype that he thought was the coolest someone could be. this is fueled by locus’ blatant autism which let him adapt to talking like an edgy batman villain for so long because the only person he was friends one ups him by being essentially an edgy joker motivational instagrammer who microdoses LSD to make himself more productive and read somewhere that “macrodosing” was the new hot trend, so he gets tricked into having a horrible trip. so felix is much worse and have allowed locus to put up this act for so long

-aforementioned unbearable narcissist teams up with simmons in order to bring down grif and locus because neither of them have a healthy or normal approach to relationships and think this is an acceptable reaction, and anyone who knows better is too busy doing other shit to notice. they mostly ineffectively try to sow discord between the two but it keeps failing due to both grif and locus’ ambivalence to their respective partner’s antics at this point, along with the fact that locus often just doesnt understand what the fuck felix is talking about. grif just thinks simmons is being neurotic as usual until they pull a tatami galaxy and send the both of them obviously fake letters from the other being rude and trying to get the two of them to fight, but it’s immediately seen through and grif is like, god DAMMIT simmons you’ve been off lately but this is so obvious i actually have to address your weird behavior instead of continuing to let it slide in favor of doing literally anything else

-the literally anything else is grif’s arc with sister where he has to learn that she’s grown up and doesn’t need to be protected from herself as much anymore because hes so used to being her Big Brother,  but also she has to learn that he wasnt just being annoying like mom and dad but he was protecting her from real shit that she had no idea about. this isnt funny i just want more grif siblings okay

-locus somehow manages to make himself a dependent of washington and place wash under community service arrest which wash, after being unable to remedy this, forces tucker and caboose to come along with to help Build character or something but it really ends with all of them bitching about how bored they are and pinching each other with the grabbers theyre supposed to be using to clean up litter in symphonia’s long abandoned shopping center so it can start being used again. as people move in bitters can achieve his all time intended character role: snarky store employee at the asexual tech repair store

-they keep matthews in a sealed box in to fix the laptops and make palomo hold everything wearing oven mitts

-the lieutenants were promoted to the same rank as the reevbs because the pelicans got to charons ship extremely quickly and the reevbs’ role in the battle was pretty much the same as the other soldiers in the end, the reevbs just got the cool gear out of it, so now the lieutenants are on the same leeel and want the bgc to admit that they suck and the fednews rule. palomo especially has gotten way too big for his britches and now thinks tucker is lame and hes the new hot shit in town. sarge was very angry about this but kimball isnt easily bullied like doyle was and he couldnt get a promotion above grif and simmons. it really eats away at him so he diverts effort into trying to get new recruits lower on the food chain to join the red army because hes getting empty nest syndrome.

-sarge is also upset that red and blue team both have equal representation by having one seat in the new chorus government, so he demands that chorus recognize a new robot faction run by lopez and FILSS to try to get another red team vote in chorus parliment. church has been tormented by emily grey since shes in charge of rebuilding the new goverment’s infastructure and she registered ep2ilon as 0 years old so he joins the movement. and since FILSS is always loyal to the director lopez actually gets outvoted by the blue team 2-1. sarge is devastated. 

-they tried to veto ep2ilon joining the robot union but hes the one in charge of doing calculations for like their supply runs and agriculturral seectors to make sure food doesnt run out (because it turns out that the sangheli were really into redbull, which is disgusting, and thats all they left behind in the temple of bountiful harvest) so he has enough leverage to protest the robophobia in the capital

-doc and donut take pity on how pathetic wash’s attempts to improve the blue team are so they try to get wash to come with them to their open-polyamorous morning routine and juice cleanse which is where you go like a spa or a massage to clear your mind once a week and do yoga and other homoerotic slash homeopathic related shenanigans. donut swears it’s not like, actually gay it’s just like a new high tech way that people who make startups and spend all of their time trying to emulate billionaire’s routines for maximum productivity do now according to a ted talk donut found, and is totally normal, he promises. doc is doing it just because he does all sorts of new age medicine or treatments and donut because he’s working really hard on his pyramid scheme idea startup that everyone keeps telling him is a pyramid scheme but he refuses to admit to. anyways wash says yes and when he gets there during their warm up stretches as he’s helping donut stretch his leg even higher in the air donut says “so... why did you shoot me in the chest wash!” and he instantly realizes this was a bad, bad idea.

-doc also takes carolina to a pottery class because he thought she needed a more active relaxation strategy and it ended with carolina being dragged out of the building by caboose and wash because she smashed clay in the instructor’s hair in a public meltdown. emily grey was the instructor and it was because she had keept making passive aggressively rude suggestions in an overly cheery voice and she just snapped. carolina is forced to go to court ordered therapy but the thing is emily is also the only licensed therapist on chorus because doctors registration paperwork hasnt been overhauled for the new government yet. there are other therapists still operating but none of them are “licensed” yet so wouldnt you know it, it seems like carolina is gonna be seeing emily every week from now on :)

-wash is still trying to strike the balance between blue team leader who barely keeps all of them from cutting their fingers off while cooking and overly regretful overcome with guilt for his past actions so he like, organizes everyones sock and underwear drawers by like size and color because he thinks this is like, a normal Good Deed to show appreciation on the level of doing everyones dishes in the sink instead of something extremely creepy that tucker tells him he needs to stop doing immediately

[panharmonium]

@dreamersscape​ please forgive me for tagging you in a post to respond to your comments; tumblr’s reply feature is hard to have an extended/coherent conversation on, and I’m so excited to talk to a kindred Naruto spirit that I knew I was gonna write too much for it all to fit in that space XD

re: hinata - Oh my gosh, YES, my sister and I were so frustrated by how they just completely never addressed that moment again.  I wasn't surprised, because it's been clear from the beginning that this show doesn't really care much about women, so the female characters' storylines getting dropped or never explored in the first place is pretty much what I've always expected, but it's still infuriating.  

Honestly, the only good thing about this show's general disinterest in women is that it means that I don't place any blame on in-story Naruto for never addressing what Hinata did for him, because I know the fact that we don't see him dealing with her confession isn't actually intended to communicate anything about his reaction/non-reaction/level of investment; it's literally just a function of the fact that the writer doesn't care about her story.  It's the same way I feel about how we see so much less one-on-one time between Kakashi and Sakura - her lack of screentime with him isn't something about which a person can credibly argue "Oh, this means Kakashi doesn't care about her enough and he's a bad teacher etc etc," because the imbalance isn’t a deliberate writing decision we're supposed to analyze for characterization.  It's a reflection of the fact that the entire show is super sexist. XD

re: danzo: It’s one thing to have your villain believe himself to the hero of his own story, and like, another to have Danzo basically tout having darkness in your heart being a great thing and encouraging it’s presence/cultivating it - lmao YES!  And honestly, this is why I actually find Danzo LESS infuriating than the Third Hokage.  Like, Danzo is Super Evil and every time he exploits another child I want to watch him die all over again, but at least he like....owns his horribleness?  Whereas Hiruzen is the biggest hypocrite on the planet - when I rewatched the Shonen Jump stuff a while back (my sister and I took a little break prior to Season 11 and rewatched some old stuff), I couldn't stand listening to Hiruzen go on and on about how the entire Leaf Village is his family and it's his role to protect all of them etc etc, because like - he literally covered up the genocide of Sasuke's entire family and let the perpetrator remain in power (and that was before I even knew about all these other crimes he allowed to go unpunished!!!)  Danzo may be the Worst, but at least he's not pretending to be anything other than what he is.  Hiruzen is still acting like he's everybody's sweet old grandpa, and that makes me even more angry than Danzo's straight-up horribleness.  (And I do agree with you, they definitely lean harder into the "Lord Third is amazing" stuff pre-Shippuden, I just still feel confused about what the show is ultimately trying to say about him because we haven't gotten an explicit enough condemnation of his choices yet, and I feel like it's way overdue XD )

re: minato - Hard agree that Minato is an enigma.  I don't feel like I fully understand him either - and not in a bad way, just in the sense that he's hard to read.  The toughest thing for me to parse was always how distant he seemed with his students, which was surprising to me at first, because he'd been built up as sort of this "ideal shinobi" figure for such a long time, but to me, an ideal shinobi teacher looks more like...well, Kakashi, to be honest.  And it took a while for me to reconcile with the fact that Minato and Kakashi really do just relate to their students very differently.  I think Minato has always been a soldier, and I think he sees children as soldiers, too - not in an evil way at all, just in the sense that this is how the shinobi world works, and how it has always worked.  It's not a "wrong" way to perceive shinobi kids, in the context of the story's universe.  And so when things happen to those kids, he absolutely cares, but it's also sort of just a grim fact of life for him.  It's like when Kushina tells him she doesn't want to make Naruto a jinchuriki, and she asks 'why do we have to do that to him, why does he have to suffer that way for the sake of the balance of power between nations,' and Minato's response is “Because our family is Shinobi.”  That was a really telling moment for me in terms of how he sees the world.  It's not something I'm interested in condemning him for, like you said; I don't think the story is ever asking us to do that, it’s just a philosophy that's very different from how Kakashi sees things and what he thinks children's experiences should be like.  

I guess what I ultimately think (from the material we’ve seen so far, at least) is that Minato seems to perceive the loss of his students as something that Kakashi is struggling with, not something he himself is agonizing over.  It’s a very sad thing that happened, of course, but it’s just part of the way their world works/a function of the times they live in.  It's not something Minato is tormenting himself about.  Whereas I think that if Kakashi ever lost a kid, it would have killed him.  And I don't think this fact is in any way supposed to paint Minato as a bad person.  He's not!  All it means is that there is a generational difference between the world Kakashi and Co. are trying to create and the world Minato always knew, and people like Minato are doing the best they can with the framework they have.  

I do like the guy a lot - and I wonder what he might have been like if he had lived to see a permanent peace established.

re: little Yamato - oh boy, those episodes nearly ended me.  I am already very, very, VERY weak for Kakashi and Yamato’s friendship, and seeing Kakashi rescue Yamato from that horrible place (literally and metaphorically) was too much for me to handle.  Kakashi’s silhouette replacing Danzo in Yamato’s memories of being rescued from Orochimaru’s lab - that slew me.  And the way Danzo tells Yamato “you have no past, no future, no name” juxtaposed with Kakashi introducing Yamato as Tenzo because he remembers from three years ago how Yamato once rebelled at being called Kinoe and yelled “MY NAME IS TENZO” - Kakashi just using that chosen name without hesitation, without question, without needing to be told...it all ties back into the recent thematic throughline the show is working with about Identity - the importance of the Tailed Beasts having names, Kabuto’s desperate and misguided search for “who and what he is,” Itachi reclaiming his true self by undoing the reanimation justu and declaring “I am Itachi Uchiha of the Leaf Village,” Obito claiming that his real name doesn’t matter anymore, that he’s Nobody...it’s fantastic how they’re pulling all this together.

re: Kakashi and little Naruto - oh man, the feelings.  I agree with you that Kakashi was in no place to be dealing with this, but certainly under different circumstances I think he would have loved to be a part of baby Naruto’s life.  I actually think the reasoning behind “let’s put Kakashi in a situation where he’s in close contact with someone bringing new life into the world” is sound - I think that would be a really good thing for him!  Just not in the sense of “you’re Kushina’s personal bodyguard, so if anything happens to her and the baby you can blame yourself for it.” XD  Like...Minato could have invited Kakashi in for dinner sometimes, instead of having him constantly stand guard under their window???  If it had been more “we care about you and we want you to be a part of our family”....ugh, that would have been amazing.  Kakashi is already SO good with Naruto (who is NOT by any means an easy kid to manage) - he just has such good instincts about how to talk to that kid and teach him in ways that work WITH Naruto’s particular brand of high motivation/low frustration tolerance, ping-pong emotional extremes, explosive energy levels, zero impulse control, and an inability to process more than one thing at a time.  Handling Naruto effectively would be a challenging project for any teacher, never mind taking care of Naruto and two other kids, but Kakashi is a natural at it.  It would have been awesome to see what Kakashi was like with Naruto when they were even younger...though the Feels might knocked me out.

[also, you mentioned Naruto and Obito - I cannot even tell you the Extremest Agonies I was in when the big reveal happened and I had to hear Naruto blankly go “who is he” - utterly clueless, without the faintest idea that he’s looking at the person who shaped his entire moral philosophy.  The amount of things that these kids don’t know...that fact that Naruto has been quoting this very person all his life and making all his major life decisions based on the lesson Kakashi relayed to them on Day One - Obito’s words - oh boy oh boy I was not capable of handling that even the littlest bit.]

[fictionadventurer]

Have you seen the new little women movie? If so what do you think of it?

My initial thoughts on the movie are here. I just rewatched it for the sake of answering this ask. My thoughts can be summarized as follows:

This is a beautiful movie. So much loving focus on the things and the textures. The clothes are extremely Pinterest-and-Hallmark-movie aesthetic rather than anything remotely resembling history, but it’s hard to mind when every character is wearing three different textures and patterns at all times and giving the eye so much to look at. (Also, I was knitting during rewatch, so the knitwear was especially satisfying).

But I’m still not sure it succeeds as a story. Much like the outfits, there are so many different bits and pieces layered together, with different textures and colors that make it interesting to look at, but I’m not sure they come together into a coherent whole. Individual scenes could be good, but it was hard to connect emotionally to any of the characters when the backstory was chopped up into so many pieces.

I found it easier to differentiate between the past and the present this time--I finally figured out that the golden light is for childhood and the blue light is for adulthood. Noticing that also made me like the ending more, which I’ll get to later.

I liked the dancing scenes a bit less. They were a little less joyful and emotionally uplifting than I remembered. I did find it interesting how Jo and Laurie’s dance at their first meeting turns into a sort of silent film for part of it, until Meg intrudes and brings them back into the real world by telling them about her hurt ankle.

I liked the Meg and John story less. Emma Watson just doesn’t seem very motherly or wifely. However, the ending scene of the silk subplot was very touching and one of the few scenes in the movie that showed the self-giving side of marriage.

I still wish there had been more focus on the virtue development part of the plot--the “Meg falls to vanity” scene falls kind of flat because Laurie is just scolding her for...wearing a fancy dress? In a way that makes it seem like he’s just scolding her for being feminine and liking pretty things. We don’t have the context to make it clear that she’s bending her morals for the sake of being liked. The scene does set up a contrast between Laurie-the-moral-guardian and Laurie-living-a-life-of-vain-pleasure in the very next scene, but it’s not enough to make the Vanity Fair scene work on its own.

And why didn’t the movie have more of Mr. March? Let us see the marriage that has shaped the girls’ ideas of what marriage is supposed to be.

I found it interesting that the devoted spinster Aunt March who believes in marriage as a purely economic concern rejected offers to enter Meg’s wedding dance twice. She keeps herself but missed out on the joy.

I found Amy and Laurie slightly more believable as a couple. Though when Amy has the struggle of “marry for financial gain or marry for love”, it’s rather too convenient that the resolution is that she decides she’s really in love with a different rich guy than the one she was going to marry solely for his money.

Beth was a lesser character than I remembered (both in terms of screen time and emotional impact). However, I did like her role in the story far more because she’s kind of key to some of the themes (which I’ll get to in a moment).

I still hate Jo changing her mind about Laurie. It makes her choice of Bhaer seem like she’s settling for second-best.

Now’s the point where I’m going to talk about the themes and the ending. Which was the primary reason I wanted a rewatch--to clarify my ideas about this movie’s message and resolution.

SPOILERS AHEAD. FAIR WARNING TO ANYONE WHO HAS NOT ALREADY BEEN FRIGHTENED AWAY BY THIS WALL OF TEXT.

This movie is about three things: Marriage, Art and Money. Money is necessary to survive. Marriage and art can both be a source of money, but they are also pursuits that should be entered into out of love.

This movie harps and harps upon the fact that marriage is an economic proposition. It’s the most stable way for a woman to get money. She also gets love, ideally. But where the movie falters is focusing so much on the getting part of marriage and rarely on the giving. Laurie wanted to marry Jo because he wanted to get her love. Jo’s “I’m so lonely” scene specifically has her say that she wants to be loved, but not to love--she wants to receive rather than give. I’m not sure there’s any indication that either Jo or Laurie ever give or give up anything when they finally do enter into matrimony. It seems that they just get who they decide they want. Amy gets a rich husband and gets a man who loves her, but what does she ever give up for him, aside from another man who she also did nothing to love?

The silk scene with Meg and John is one of the few times where we see a married couple giving to each other, rather than focusing on what they get out of it.

Art, too, is a love that can be turned toward money, and most of the characters have this out of balance as well. Jo loves writing, but she wants to be seen as good, and she mostly cares about the money that she gets out of it. Amy gives up art completely when she realizes she’s not a genius. “I’d rather be great or nothing” is the exact opposite of doing art for the love of it--what she cared about was getting praise rather than giving something of herself to the world.

Beth is the only one who understands the giving nature of both love and art. She performs for no one’s praise or payment--she plays because she loves music. She’s the one who gives up her time to bring the donations to the Hummels when her sisters are caught up in their own pursuits. When she gets the piano, her sisters are the ones who are caught up in admiring it as a thing, but she runs off (without any of her sisters even noticing, too caught up in the wealth in front of them) to thank Mr. Lawrence because she recognized the love behind the gift.

Jo starts to understand the importance of love within art after Beth dies. We have the lovely scene of Beth encouraging Jo to do her writing for someone--give of her art. When Jo returns to her writing, the camera beautifully focuses on the For Beth at the head of the manuscript--Jo is not writing this for money or praise, but out of love for her sister.

I like the ending much better than I did before. I can see the golden sunlit ending as the “real” end of the story, because I noticed the lighting trick. When Bhaer is leaving the March house, Jo is standing in the blue light, but Bhaer is in the golden light. It’s as if Jo sees that a life with him could provide the same level of happiness that she knew in childhood.

It’s still odd that her family has to convince her every step of the way that she’s “in love”. But because of the lighting trick, I can more easily believe that she really did want to spend her life with him.

That dumb scene with the publisher is what ruins everything. We had Jo writing her book out of love. We had Jo deciding to give Bhaer a reason to stay. But it’s derailed by this weird focus on money. Jo keeps insisting that she’s “selling” her heroine into marriage, and that she’s willing to sacrifice her artistic vision just because this ending is what sells. I feel like if they’d cut out all that stuff about the contract negotiation--which seems only to have been put in because Gerwig wanted to show off this bit of trivia about Alcott’s business acumen--the ending would have been a million times more coherent on a plot and thematic level.

I can believe that the sunlit ending at Plumfield is Jo reaching happiness by giving of herself to others. Everyone is using art to give to others--Bhaer is teaching music, Laurie’s teaching some kind of drama class, Amy’s teaching painting.

The shot of the gold leaf being stamped onto the cover of Little Women, which had seemed like the final stroke saying “this ending is fiction” now seems to be saying that “this is the way the story really ends.” It’s helped by the fact that after Jo gets the book in her hands, we cut to the image of a group of little girls playing pretend--it’s Jo being satisfied in her book not because it’s her achievement or a source of money, but because she knows it will inspire another generation of little girls. Thus we can have Jo achieving artistic and personal fulfillment by publishing the book and teaching at Plumfield.

If it wasn’t for that contract negotiation scene, there wouldn’t even be a question of what the real ending was supposed to be. There’s only one version that shows Jo prioritizing the giving part of art and marriage over any selfish gain, and I hate that the ending muddles it so badly for the sake of misplaced meta-feminism.

[drinkthehalo]

Macro perspective on each Lymond book

I've been listening to the Lymond Chronicles audiobooks, which has given me a different perspective than reading them. With audiobooks, you’re less inclined to stop and dive into the details, to look up an interesting word or obscure historical fact; instead you get swept along with the larger arc of the book.

So, I thought it would be interesting to look at what each book is about from a macro perspective.

Spoilers for the entire series follow.

The Game of Kings

In genre, it's a mystery told in a historical adventure style; it asks the question "Who is Lymond?" and gives us a ton of contradictory clues, then finally reveals the truth - in a psychological sense by stripping away Lymond's defense mechanisms and revealing the human being underneath, as he breaks down in the dell, "the guard was down... every fluent line and practised shade of Lymond's face betrayed him explicitly"; and in a narrative sense via the trial, which examines each "clue" we received throughout the story and tells us what it really meant.

Thematically, it's mainly about "serving honesty in a crooked way" - that morality isn’t simple and that sometimes you need to break the rules to do the right thing.  Nearly all Lymond’s acts are apparently bad things done for a goal that is actually good. We see the theme also in Will Scott (who learns that the world is more complicated than the "moral philosophy" he learned in school) and the various characters who help Lymond, breaking the rules of society by aiding a wanted outlaw (Christian, Sybilla, the Somerviles). 

It is also about the balance of looking out for self vs the obligation to the greater society - Lymond is not completely selfless (after all, he is back in Scotland to clear his own name), but when forced to choose, he always chooses the greater good above his own goals. He is contrasted with Richard, whose great mistake is to put his obligations to Scotland at risk in pursuit of his personal vengeance, and Margaret Lennox, who is purely and grotesquely out only for herself.

The historical context is part of this theme, as we see the various border families playing both sides between England and Scotland, with the heroes being those who ultimately stand up for Scotland, even as we understand that some have no choice but to profess one thing while doing another.

Queens Play

In genre, it's a spy novel; thematically, it's about what Lymond will do with the rest of his life. The question is asked explicitly several times (most obviously, "You have all your life still before you." / "The popular question is, for what?") It's important that Lymond loses his title at the start of this book; he has to figure out who he will be without it.

The main characters all represent possible paths Lymond could take -

O'Liam Roe, who sits back and laughs at the world with detachment, while abdicating all responsibility to use his mind and position to change the world for the better.

Robin Stewart, who loses himself in bitterness about the ways the world has been unfair to him, and in fixating on how he deserved better, fails to take any action to improve himself.

Oonagh, who works passionately to change the world for the better, but whose ideals have become corrupted because she has attached herself to a leader who is more out for himself than for their cause.

And of course Thady Boy and Vervassal, two extremes of himself that Lymond tries on, and (by the end of the series) must learn to reconcile.

The recurring imagery of the first half is the carnival, the masks, the music, the parties, and our hero in danger of losing himself amidst the debauchery. In the second half the imagery every time Lymond appears is of ice, the ultra-controlled, hyper-competent version of Lymond at risk of losing himself by denying his artistic soul. (There’s a wonderful essay here that explores these motifs.)

In the end, Lymond comes to the conclusion that he must not withdraw into detachment or bitterness, that he must find a way to make a positive difference in the world, but that he also must not attach himself to a powerful figure who may be more out for themselves than for Scotland (ie, his refusal to attach himself to Marie de Guise). This sets up the creation of his mercenary army in the next books, as a way he can exercise independent influence in the world.

The Disorderly Knights

This book couldn't be more relevant to the world today. It's a portrait of cynical hypocrisy in pursuit of power; it lays out step by step the tactics of propaganda and manipulation used by despots to build up themselves and tear down their rivals: pretend to be pious, accuse of others of your own crimes, tear down straw men instead of engaging in real debate. It tells us to "look at his hands"; what matters is what a leader actually does, not what he professes to believe.

It shows us how leaders use charisma to manipulate, and, in showing the battle between Gabriel and Lymond for Jerott's loyalty, shows how Lymond takes the harder and more ethical path, by refusing to use his charisma to seduce (a lesson learned from his experience with Robin Stewart) and instead guiding Jerott to come to his own conclusions by means of rational thought instead of hero worship.

At every level the novel advocates for tolerance and internationalism, and against petty sectarianism, as Lymond questions whether the Knights of St John are really any better than the Turks, and as he tries to get the Scottish border families to abandon their feuds in favor of the greater good of the country.

In terms of genre, it’s a pure adventure novel. I never get bored of the masterful action sequences with the battles in Malta and Tripoli, and the extraordinary duel at St Giles in the end. (Also in terms of thematic imagery, there is some crazy S&M shit going on in this book, with Gabriel and Joleta's sadism and Lymond's self-sacrificial masochism.)

I love Disorderly Knights so much. It is nearly perfect - well structured, thematically coherent, witty, fun, breathtaking, and heartbreaking.

Pawn in Frankincense

In genre, this is a quest novel. In several places it explicitly parallels The Odyssey.

In theme, it explores -

Do the ends justify the means? How much sacrifice is too much? Lymond gives up his fortune, his body, and his health; Philippa gives up her freedom and her future; we are asked often consider, which goal is more important, stopping Gabriel or saving the child? We even see this theme in Marthe's subplot, as she gives up the treasure, her dream to "be a person," to save her companions. Perhaps the most telling moment is right after Lymond kills Gabriel; despite all his claims that Gabriel’s death mattered more than the fate of the child, he’s already forgotten it, instead playing over and over in his mind the death of Khaireddin. If you do what is intellectually right but it destroys your soul, was it really right?

The other big theme is “nature vs nurture.” What is the impact of upbringing on how people turn out? In its comparisons of Kuzum vs Khaireddin, and Lymond vs Marthe, it seems to fall firmly on the side of nurture.

It’s also a kaleidoscope of views on love, with its Pilgrims of Love and their poetry, and the contrasting images of selfless, sacrificial love (Philippa and Evangelista for Kuzum, Salablanca for Lymond, Lymond for Khaireddin, perhaps Marthe for Lymond as she helps him in the end) with possessive, needy “love” (Marthe for Guzel, Jerott for Marthe or Lymond, arguably even the Aga for Lymond).

This novel is also a tragedy. Its imagery and the historical background complement the themes by creating an atmosphere lush, beautiful, labyrinthine, overwhelming, and suffocating.

The Ringed Castle

I have to confess this is my least favorite, in large part because I find the historical sequences (in Russia and in Mary Tudor's court in England) go on way too long and have only tangential relationships to the themes and characters.

It seems to be primarily about self-delusion as a response to trauma.  Lymond spends the entire novel trying to be someone he isn't, in a place he doesn't belong, because he is too damaged to face reality. (His physical blindness as a manifestation of his psychological blindness; the sequences at John Dee's, surrounded by mirrors, forcing him to see himself.) 

Lymond convinces himself he can build a wall around his heart to block out all human connection, that he can be a “machine,” but despite his best efforts, he cares for Adam Blacklock and develops a true friendship with Diccon Chancellor. And of course, by far the most important moment is after the Hall of Revels, when Lymond's heart unfreezes and he suddenly sees one thing VERY clearly. (And then tries, desperately, to escape it.)

The only reason I can think of that the book lingers so long on Mary Tudor (so boring omg) is the parallel with Lymond, her false pregnancies as a manifestation of her desire to see the world as she wants it to be, and her failure to see reality as it is. Ivan of Russia also is a parallel: delusional, unable to trust, and dangerous. Their failures, and the failure of Lymond's Russia adventure and relationship with Guzel, tell us that you cannot hide from reality forever.

The book spends so long painting the backdrop of 16th century Russia that it makes me think that Dunnett got too caught up in her research and needed a stronger editor, although there is also a parallel with Lymond in the idea of Russia as a traumatized nation struggling to establish itself, and of course, Lymond subsuming his need to deal with his own issues into a goal of building a nation.

It's also about exploration, about the intellectual wonder of discovering that there is more to the world, as we learn about Diccon Chancellor and the Muscovy Company. It’s wonderful imagery, but I struggle to how this fits coherently into the overall theme of the novel, and am curious how others reconcile it.

I like the idea of this book more than the reality. If you’re going to do to your hero what Dunnett did to Lymond in “Pawn,” there has to be consequences. But hundreds of pages of our hero in such a frozen state is difficult to read.

That said, the Hall of Revels is one of the best things in the series, and I’ll always love this book for that.

Checkmate

Checkmate is about reconciliation of self and recovery from trauma, as Lymond is forced (kicking and screaming) to accept who is and what he's done, and to allow himself to love and be loved. Philippa is his guide, as she discovers the secrets of his birth, understands his childhood, hears his tales of all the terrible things he's done, and loves him anyway. As far as genre, this is definitely a romance.

There are villains in this book (Leonard Bailey, Margaret Lennox, Austin Grey) but they're all fairly weak; the true antagonist is Lymond himself. From the beginning, he could have everything he needs to be happy (he's married to the woman he loves, and she loves him back!); his true struggle is to stop running from it (by escaping to Russia or committing suicide) and to break through his own psychological barriers enough to allow himself to accept it.

The primary parallel is with Jerott and Marthe, who also have happiness almost in their grasp, but never manage to achieve it.

The heritage plot looms large and is (IMO) tedious; it's so melodramatic that it takes some mental gymnastics to get it to make thematic sense to me. It ultimately comes down to Lymond's identity crisis and childhood trauma. His “father” rejected and abused him, so he based his identity on his relationship to his mother, but his suspicion that he is a bastard means he lives in terror that he doesn’t really belong in his family and that, if his mother isn’t perfect, he is rotten. (I love him but, my god, it is juvenile. The only way I can reconcile it is that his fear about the circumstances of his birth is really just a stand-in for his self-hatred caused by his traumas.) He also continues to struggle with his envy that Richard was born into a position with power and influence that Lymond has spent the past six books struggling to obtain, and that Lymond’s terrible traumas (starting with the galleys) would not have happened if he had been the heir. The discovery that he actually IS the legitimate heir is what finally snaps him out of it, since his reaction is to want to protect Richard, and this also reconciles him to Sybilla since protecting Richard was her goal too.

There are some other parts of this book that I struggle to reconcile (Lymond's inability to live if he can't have sex with Philippa; the way the focus on heritage seems to undercut the nature vs nurture themes; that no one but Jerott is bothered by Marthe's death, which undercuts some of the most moving moments in "Pawn”; and I mostly just pretend the predestination and telepathy stuff didn’t happen). On the other hand, I do sort of love the way this book wholeheartedly embraces the idea that there is no human being on earth who will ever be as melodramatic as Francis Crawford.

In terms of the historical elements, in addition to providing the narrative grounding for the character stuff to play out, it sets up the idea that Scotland has troubles coming up (the religious wars, the betrayal of the de Guises) and that Lymond needs to go home, let go of France and Russia, and focus on Scotland where he belongs. I’m sure there is also some political nuance in the fact that our Scottish hero, after spending so much time and energy in France, ends up with an English wife.

The conclusion in the music room is perfect - it brings us back to the amnesiac Lymond who innocently played music with Christian Stewart, to Thady Boy whose songs made the cynical French court weep, and fills the “void” Lymond described to Jerott where there was no prospect of music. The aspects of himself are finally reconciled and he has a partner to share his life with.

I am curious what others see as the macro / thematic big picture meanings of these books. :)  And if anyone can find the key to make “Ringed Castle” and “Checkmate” make more sense to me...

[azuresquirrel]

rhiorhino

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Someone remind me to later put down some random...

Oh? I’m super interested to hear your thoughts!

oh god I love to say that I’m going to talk about a thing and then forget about it and then be unable to come up with anything coherent

BIGASS SPOILERS FOR BOTH THE ENDING OF THE GOOD PLACE AND BOJACK HORSEMAN INCOMING and also this got so fucking long so I’m throwing it under a cut anyway

I’m going to try to put things as simply as possible (ETA: oh my god, I didn’t) - I thought the very last episode of The Good Place was a lovely and fitting send off for each of the individual main characters we’ve gotten attached to, but in terms of setting up big philosophical truths regarding morality large parts of season four really let me down.

(wow you expect a network TV sitcom to give you Big Truths, Shannon? Well when you put it IN THE PREMISE, KIND OF? and no I’m not expecting TGP to answer the question of life’s meaning, if we were capable of answering that question for good I think we would’ve managed it at some earlier point in history than an NBC sitcom, I’m just saying you put that out there)

I’ve been seeing a sentiment floating around that TGP had a great season 1 and 2 and then seasons 3 and 4 were lesser. I don’t agree on season 3, I found that on par, but season 4 verged on some issues I had with the last season of Parks and Recreation where characters were suddenly given absurdly over-the-top happy endings and what little conflicts there were were contrived and solved without much effort.

Basically I’m deeply unsatisifed with their treatment of the Actual Good Place, and if they were going to go there and fix it it had to take more than ONE EPISODE. 

Also this is ENTIRELY a “me” problem but I don’t think the sentiment that “life only has meaning because it ends” is a profound, radical statement (honestly I’ve heard people say it so often it might as well have the depth of a “Live, Laugh, Love” poster). For that to be the answer of how to “fix” the Actual Good Place left me cold and underwhelmed. Everything the show said thematically up to that point was that the reason people want to be good and owe it to themselves and each other to be good is COMMUNITY and CONNECTIONS. I thought the focus should’ve been on THAT versus immediate instant gratification of all of ones hedonistic desires, but what do I know.

Also I found the sheer terror at the prospect of the nothingness beyond death as shown in “The View From Halfway Down”, the penultimate episode of BoJack, to be a much more honest and resonant reaction. To me the whole “oh life only means something because it ends” is just as much a coping mechanism as is the idea of an “eternal paradise” to try to offset the terror that we simply Do Not Know what death is like.

Speaking of BoJack, things ended on a more hopeful note in that show than I expected, but it didn’t feel inconsistent with what had come before, and was more satisfying because it faced extremely difficult questions about the behavior of its protagonist and the duties of the people around him to help him or not in the face of that.

Perhaps that is unfair of me to ask from The Good Place, which was always conceived as an inherently optimistic show, and more focused on ideas of “what ideal environment would make people choose to do good” and less so on grappling with what to do about truly evil actions. 

But I find that in its specificity - in choosing to focus on essentially a few individuals instead of making broad statements about “Good,” BoJack more successfully grappled with the real kind of moral dilemmas that we face in this very imperfect and very real world we live in. 

People can make mistakes, can do bad things. It’s good to help people and to help them be better. These things are easy to say. But what happens when other people are seriously hurt by someone’s bad actions? When it’s a person who has a lot of power - power of money, fame, social status - and that person’s victims, their “collateral damage” don’t have that? BoJack doesn’t say that people can’t change - they can. But does that actually erase the hurt? What role does consequences play in a just universe?

It’s easy to condemn actions from Evil Characters twirling their moustaches. BoJack makes you sympathize with him. It’s hard not to want to root for BoJack when you see his terrible, terrible childhood, how the deck was seemingly stacked against him from the start. But the show BoJack makes it very clear that that stopped being an excuse from him deciding not to grow a very long time ago.

In the end, BoJack got exactly what I wanted for him. I didn’t want him to get a happy ending, he didn’t deserve one from his actions. But I also didn’t want him to get a bad ending, giving the idea that some people are just doomed from birth and will never get better. What I wanted was for BoJack to experience the consequences of his actions, but also to be able to find peace for himself. And both things happened.

I’ve also seen it floating around that by not killing BoJack, but by letting him live in the final episode, that the show “let him off the hook.” I absolutely disagree. Despite said terror in “The View From Halfway Down” death would have been a way out for BoJack. For him to not have to wake up the next day and deal with the mess made by his own actions again. And finally everything caught up to him. As said in the final episode, “sometimes life’s a bitch and you keep on living.” Becoming a corpse in his pool from yet another self-loathing bender was seemingly BoJack’s destiny, but he doesn’t get that. He needs to do the hardest thing possible for him - learn to live with himself.

So it’s much more fitting that we don’t end with BoJack’s End. It’s left up in the air. There’s a hint that he might relapse to addiction again (not to drugs or alcohol but his worst addiction of all - the spotlight), but it’s not final. 

The show also makes it clear that it is more than okay for the others around BoJack to move on with their lives and not be defined by his toxicity. The show doesn’t condemn Hollyhock, the kindest and probably most mature character, for cutting BoJack out of her life when the interviews aired. She doesn’t exist to be BoJack’s “morality pet” to exist in order to prove he is a Good Person because he cares about her and her opinion of him. She had a life long before BoJack and she’ll have a life long after him, and faced with that pattern of behavior she made the most healthy and safe choice for herself.

And likewise with Diane, who has struggled so much with her own mental health issues and is far from perfect but always cared so much more about the potential consequences of her actions than BoJack ever has. (of course you could argue she took it too far the other way, as Guy said once, “I don’t know why I should have to suffer because you have a moral perrogative against feeling good”). Of all the characters Diane struggled the most between her duty to BoJack as a friend she cared about personally, and his actions as yet another rich, protected, powerful man with a history of damaging less powerful women. And the finale lets her let him go. “What if this was the last time we ever talked to each other,” and Diane doesn’t answer.

Because for BoJack to have everything he ever wants, after the hurt he’s caused people like Penny, Charlotte, Sarah Lynn, Gina, many others - is that really a fair and just universe? 

BoJack is messy the way that life is messy and it doesn’t provide easy answers, but it does provide hope, it gives us the truth that life, that living with yourself is often just FUCKING HARD, but you keep on doing it. In the hope that maybe you’ll find some peace. And it doesn’t ignore that real pain caused doesn’t magically “go away” when someone decides to “get better.”

Basically, BoJack to me really grappled with difficult questions of what is to be done when someone we like does bad things, and what are the necessary consequences of that when real hurt has been caused. 

Early on The Good Place was radical for suggesting that the mundane flaws of its main four humans - not war criminals, but selfish, conceited, passive, and unthinking - made them indeed, not good people. It was then radical again when it basically came to the conclusion that true goodness is compromised in a capitalistic system. But in the final season it just kind of devolved into pleasantness instead of grappling with real questions in the way BoJack did.

Again, no one on The Good Place ever did anything as bad as BoJack did - for one, none of them are culpable for the death of a woman in their care like BoJack was for Sarah Lynn - but there was at least some meat to its philosophy. Rolling into paradise and fixing it in the space of one episode does not match that depth or complexity, nor give the sense that anything is really on the line here.

OKAY I HAVE NO CONCLUSION TO THIS, this is literally just unconnected thoughts I have on why I found one series end more satisfying on a thematic level than another’s - maybe???? God help you if you read all the way through this, I have to get back to work now.

[warsofasoiaf]

Per @goodqueenaly, the Blackwood v. Bracken feud has never been portrayed with nuance. Throughout the history we have read, the Blackwoods are always protagonists while the Brackens are always antagonists. Yes, that’s remarkable considering the families are supposed to be related due to so much intermarriage, but that’s what we get. Don’t you think it’s time to give up hope when GRRM has already shown us what he intends to do with this? Simply put, the feud is entirely shallow ...

And by shallow, I do mean that it is literally shallow. For instance, Bloodraven is made to “look cool” while I can hardly remember what Bittersteel looks like. Barba is meant to be “buxom” and “seductive” while Melissa is thin and model-like with a beautiful face. All Barba has are her breasts. Jonos Bracken could not have been Harry’s father because Harry was good-looking and since Tytos is the protagonist here, we are to believe him. The degree of shallowness here is stunning.

So while I love your essays, don’t you think you have looked at it with more nuance than what GRRM actually wrote? Even the Dance of Dragons wasn’t that nuanced. GRRM had a clear favorite in this conflict and while a few blacks may have been morally questionable, there is no mistaking that they were objectively better at everything than the greens and in that conflict we see how much better the Blackwoods are, too. Don’t forget Benjicot the 11-year-old military genius, which was plain ridiculous

And to be clear, there have been a few clearly bad vs. good wars in history. WWII, for example, but even then you had, for instance, some Russian soldiers on the good side committing mass rape. I think GRRM promises WWI and gives the opposite. However, this comparison doesn’t even make sense because Blackwood and Bracken are just families. You can’t choose your family, so it makes no sense for all Brackens to be bad and all Blackwoods to be good all throughout history. Yet that is what he wrote.

Recently, I mentioned how the point of the Blackfyre Rebellion seems to exist to justify the stigmatization of bastards. I thought of how Ramsay does as well. Domeric Bolton, clearly a good person, was killed by his bastard brother Ramsay. Ramsay also happens to be the epitome of evil. Jon Snow, our bastard protagonist, probably will turn out not to be a bastard at all. Is GRRM doing this unintended? Because it comes across as bad to me.

And you can counter it by saying that Daeron the Good had his bastard brother Bloodraven on his side, but I don’t feel like that is a counter to my point. Bloodraven, while fighting for the “good side,” is still a kinslaying, tyrannical child murderer and while the majority of the fan base admires him, the same can’t be said of the Westerosi in-universe. They hate him.

This might be my first six-parter. That isn’t a criticism or a complaint, the content here is thoughtful, the arguments coherent, and the questions excellent. I’ll try to address these issues one at a time, from top to bottom.

I will continue to maintain optimism because I know GRRM is capable of portraying a conflict with nuance and depth. I circle back to the painful reckonings Dunk has in The Sworn Sword and the repeated portrayals of Bloodraven’s tyranny. It undermines a great deal of the thematic points if Bloodraven becomes a monster, but the Blacks are to a man awful, because it justifies Bloodraven’s tyranny and misrule.

Now, I don’t argue that the Bracken-Blackwood feud has really not been done well so far, and has been shallow and one-sided. The slightest hint we get of it is “The Encyclopedia that Rides” Hoster Blackwood discussing how there were marriage pacts and constant land squabbles, but we never see the Blackwoods be the aggressors. Even when dealing with the Teats, it’s Aegon IV who takes them and gives them to House Blackwood in a moment of fitful caprice, not the Blackwoods who schmooze their access to the royal person. 

Where I’m hoping that changes is the story that makes Pennytree into a royal fief. Ideally, the resolution will be Aegon V stopping a conflict over Pennytree and its shifted overlordship by making it a royal fief in honor of the deceased Ser Arlan. I don’t doubt that the Brackens will be portrayed as schemers, you don’t get a name like “the Brute of Bracken” for being an enlightened and thoughtful individual. I might be succumbing to wishful thinking, working backwards from the resolution in a way that satisfies me.

I also agree with you that the Dance was very poorly done. But the War of the Five Kings was done much better. I’m not going to pretend that I have some sort of magic Batphone to GRRM so that I could tell him that I thought the Dance was poorly done, even if sometimes I wish I did. I think GRRM sometimes has a problem with sticking the landing, of creating characters he wants to root for, and a love of lurid spectacle that doesn’t necessarily correlate to authenticity. Same with Robert’s Rebellion. No one disagrees that Robert was a pretty trash person when you get right down to it, but when it came to the aftermath of the First Blackfyre and Robert’s Rebellion, only one of them had lingering animosity where “red or black was a dangerous question, even now.” 

I’m not so sure the “all bastards are bastards” mentality sticks. Even if Jon ends up not being one (which I don’t believe will happen), we’ve got plenty of bastards who are good. Addam of Hull, Cotter Pyke, these lesser bastards don’t get as much play as someone like the Bastard of Bolton, but I think their existence shows that GRRM is thinking about it, even if he falls into the authorial trap of wanting to create conflict because it’s more interesting.

So, I agree with a lot of your points, and I think it’s good that we criticize when we feel things fall short. Maybe I’m just an optimist, but I think the things that Dunk experiences, combined with the short snippets we get about Haegon being “treacherously slain” by a POV who would have no real reason to be favorable towards the Blackfyres (and perfectly willing to bias his conclusions) will bear out.

If I’m wrong, so be it. I’ll be disappointed and you can say I told you so. But, and forgive me for assuming, I think we’d both prefer a better outcome than that.

Thanks for the longform analysis and questions, Anon. You should think about compiling them into an essay, you have a good head on your shoulders.

SomethingLikeALawyer, Hand of the King