#I keep coming across theories that Door will be some ultimate villain in the series

[velvetjune]

Reblogging my own post, but I love the relationship between Door and Alan, and kind of hope we see them meet again (especially with that ominous final talk between them!).

❗️Spoilers for the Final Draft of the game: Door, traversing through the doorways of universes, everywhere all at once, holding some cosmic power. Then, you have Alan, master of many worlds, overlapping with different iterations of himself, holding some cosmic power from ascension. They seem to be in somewhat similar positions (perhaps in future games, Saga could also traverse more worlds—other than the Dark Place—with ease like Warlin too). Makes me wonder what exactly happened between the Anderson brothers and Door. What was the circumstances between him opening too many doors. But I hope this wasn’t the last Door and Alan meeting. They also had great chemistry!

[ID: Screenshot from Alan Wake 2 cropped to show a picture frame of Mr. Door and Alan standing side by side. Door is grinning with a hand up in a wave. Alan is grinning and pointing a finger at Mr. Door. They are in front of the show’s sign ‘In Between with Mr. Door’. End ID.]

Taken in the Dark Place: you’re drowning. you will never escape. wake. alan wake.

Mr. Door and Alan: :D

[iamanartichoke]

I started typing this in the tags of this post, and it got too long, and then I was going to just reblog the post with this as an addition but that got too long too, and I've been meaning to make a post addressing free will vs. predestination since the premiere anyway, so - here we go. Spoilers, obviously.

Cut for length and spoilers. Please blacklist #loki tv series spoilers, #loki series spoilers, and #loki spoilers.

This is kinda rough and I'm not sure it actually makes any sense but I'm posting it anyway.

I realize that the post is a joke, obviously (and it is hilarious) but I started thinking about the implications and couldn't stop because it's honestly a goldmine of existential reflection and an inevitable crisis or three.

Let's look at a scenario.

Say you're late to work for reasons totally beyond your control: your neighbor stopped you to ask a question on your way out the door; you swung through the drive-thru for a quick coffee but the person in front of you is ordering a full continental breakfast ffs (this happened to me this morning); there was an explosion and then the Winter Soldier randomly dropped from the sky and landed on the hood of your car. Whatever. Shit happens.

So you're late, but on this particular day, your lateness somehow has consequences that lead to and create a nexus event and the next thing you know, you're being arrested, tried, convicted of time crimes and ultimately (a version of you is) erased from existence.

And this is if it's not even your fault you're late.

Now say that you're late and it is your fault. You took a new route on a whim and drove a little more slowly because you passed a particularly pretty meadow; you hit the brakes at a yellow light instead of speeding through bc you wanted the quick chance to check your email; you sat in your car for a few extra minutes in the parking lot, because maybe your job sucks and you really needed those extra minutes today to psyche yourself up into getting out of the car and going inside and clocking in.

These little choices are you exercising your free will. Because to me, free will is all or nothing - it doesn't just apply to the big decisions.

On the other hand, predestination means that regardless of the choices you make or if it's a big decision or not, everything you do is ultimately going to lead you to a set point or position or place (your destiny).

And I can kind of look at it like a GPS - that is, there are a number of "insignificant" choices you could make and they will still lead you to where you're predestined to go. Like how a GPS will reconfigure your route if you miss your exit on the highway. It doesn't matter if you took Route A or Route B, you're still going to end up at your destination.

But say sometimes the route does matter. Say that there are certain scenarios in which there's only one road (for example, 14 million losses vs 1 win) and you can only get on it by following a specific series of events and what determines the ultimate outcome is whether or not you're late to work that day.

If you decide to wait those extra five minutes in the parking lot, that means that you weren't in your cubicle at 9:03 when Stanley from Accounting wandered by with his giant stack of papers, and when Mary Sue said hello to him, he got distracted and tried to wave and ended up dropping those papers. Had you been at your cubicle, you'd have swooped down to help him but since you weren't there, Stanley is crouched on the floor alone and doesn't notice Joe coming at him with a paper trolley so when he stands up, he and Joe collide and Stanley loses his balance and goes face-first toward the trolley and breaks his nose when he hits the metal handle on his way down.

Now Stanley has to go to the hospital to get his nose set because you wanted to sit in your car and spend five extra minutes hating your life that morning.

If the sacred timeline says that Stanley is supposed to be in that ER at that specific time on that specific day, and no other set of circumstances would get him there, because this will ultimately take Stanley down the road to whatever greater journey he's supposed to go on, then it has to happen. But say you exercise your free will and decide not to wait those five minutes, because the free will applies to every choice you make, even the tiny, insignificant ones. You chose to put on your big person pants and took a deep breath and just head inside - and because you chose to do that and because you were at your cubicle to help Stanley with his papers, Stanley never ends up in the ER and the timeline that's supposed to happen is suddenly at risk and the TVA has to get involved (I assume).

So having free will introduces way, way too many variables into a fixed timeline to ever keep track, because you're taking these tiny, seemingly insignificant choices that people are making every minute of every day, and you're multiplying them by trillions of sentient beings in the universe, and you're saying the fate of the timeline and reality itself depends on all of these beings either always making the choice they're supposed to make or constantly sending the TVA out whenever they don't.

It's fair to conclude, then, that both free will and a fixed, single timeline can't exist at the same time. Either you adhere to the fixed timeline and everyone does exactly what they're supposed to do every second of every minute of existence, or you have free will and autonomy over all of your decisions, no matter how big or small, and those decisions can result in a number of outcomes, ultimately leading you to one of several possible destinations.

Case in point: Tony didn't have to snap his fingers in Endgame. He chose to. Had he not, Thanos would have won. It doesn't matter if there was one way to victory or 14 million ways to failure; the timeline could ultimately only go one of two ways and the choice Tony willingly made determined that Thanos lost. It wasn't predetermined because if Tony had not chosen to snap his fingers, the timeline would have gone the other way.

My personal belief - and this isn't necessarily for the MCU, but in general - is that we do possess free will and the future is ever shifting and changing because nothing is written in stone. It holds up against most, if not all, of the world's belief systems. For example, if you believe that people have guardian angels, the rule is generally that your guardian angels can help you but you have to ask them; they can't decide to intervene without your permission because to do so would infringe upon your free will.

Similarly, you can go on etsy and pay $5 for a funsies psychic reading or pay a lot more money for an in-depth, specific tarot reading and both will tell you that the outcomes may change depending on the paths you take, and that their ultimate advice is for you to keep your focus on your goals and your own self so that you can be subconsciously manifesting the best possible future for yourself. (Not that I know this from experience. It was one time. It was a few times. My point stands, and also stop judging me.)

To get back to the MCU, though - if you determine that both a single, fixed timeline and free will can't simultaneously exist, and your ultimate purpose is upholding said timeline and not letting anyone fuck it up, lest it break off into lots of different branches, then it poses a pretty serious moral and/or ethical question of - who decides what choices we make and what paths we're destined for? The time lizards? Who gave them that authority? Did anyone, or did they just manifest themselves into existence one day, create the universe, and then decide all of the rules (and, if so, where does that leave the norns and the gods and other super powerful beings who are generally thought to be in charge of things)?

If free will doesn't exist and everyone is acting based on what has been predetermined for them by some higher being (or, in this case, time lizards), it takes away our autonomy, and if everything we do and every single tiny step we take is decided for us, what makes us any different than cogs in a machine just following orders? What separates us from robots?

Speaking of robots, it's interesting to me that the TVA's screening process (if you can call it that) has a failsafe against robots specifically. Any robot that might come through is destroyed immediately and in this case, “not a robot” is defined, more or less, as a sentient being that possesses a soul. What does the TVA have against robots if their ultimate goal is ensuring that the robotic machinations of the time lizards are consistently carried out to protect the sacred timeline?

A soul makes you human; the energy of the soul is what you, at the core, are. It can be assumed that having a soul also means that you have some sort of moral and ethical code by which you live your life but, if you don't also have free will, then what is the point of possessing a soul and a moral and ethical code?

Loki is a villain and he's told by Mobius, the TVA, Odin, and pretty much everyone who ever meets him that the only thing he's good for - the only reason he exists - is to cause pain and suffering and death. This has been predetermined for him; this is not his fault and he did not choose it. And every single choice he makes has either already been destined as the choice he was supposed to make, or will be pruned so it won't grow into the wrong timeline. Ultimately Loki can change neither his final destination, nor the purpose and meaning of his existence.

Which leads me to the theory that the several Loki variants that the TVA keeps coming across are the result of Loki consistently resisting against his predetermined path; he's trying to find the timeline where he is able to latch onto and keep his own free will in defiance of the timekeepers but, so far, he hasn't been successful. This could segue into why the current Variant is now going scorched earth and just obliterating the main timeline completely - because if there is no sacred timeline, there's nothing dictating who or what Loki can be, and free will is regained. If there's a multiverse that branches and branches beyond anyone's control, then there must be a branch in there, somewhere, where Loki can exist on his own terms and decide how his own story goes.

This also might be a theory for why Loki is already setting his sights on taking over the TVA (assuming that's not just something he told the variant for reasons). But my original point in delving into all this is to ask: if Loki is predestined to always be a villain whose story plays out exactly the same way because that's what's supposed to happen, then how can anyone ever hold his misdeeds against him? He's literally just existing as the timekeepers decided he would exist and everyone is blaming him for it.

And this leads me to ask, as well, if one's soul is generally good, and one possesses more good traits than bad, what is the logic in making them exist only for pain and destruction? If it's for a greater good, then it stands to reason Loki is not the only one predestined for misery, and what greater good could come from all that suffering?

Conclusion: the existence of the TVA as an organization means that there is one fixed, sacred timeline but the existence of said timeline is immoral and unethical because it means no one actually has any free will at all in the MCU. The very notion of heroes and villains is pointless because it has nothing to do with your own qualities or morality, it's literally the luck of the draw. In order to have free will, the sacred timeline has to be destroyed, and so my prediction is that the Big Bad of the Loki series is not the TVA and not the time keepers but the actual timeline itself, and the entire fate of the MCU rests on whether or not Loki can ultimately succeed.

Also, don't be late for work.

[thevoidable]

Why did Dabi let Hawks into the League? (major manga spoilers ahead)

This is a question that’s been plaguing my head ever since Dabi proudly announced to Hawks that he’d known all along that he was lying.

If that was the case, what was the point of bringing him in? Surely Dabi must have seen this coming by enabling Hawks to continue his infiltration? What exactly was Dabi’s end-goal here???

It’s unclear whether or not if this will get explained eventually, but after giving it a lot of thought, I think I have a pretty good answer to the question regardless. Essay under the cut.

What is Dabi fighting for?

First, we have to address Dabi’s motivations. They run deeper than just making Stain’s will a reality - he’s taking steps that Stain never even considered to make, because even he was blinded by something that Dabi despises more than anything: hero idolization. Stain saw All Might as a true hero, someone worthy of the title, but in Dabi’s eyes, All Might is one of the biggest contributing factors to why there is such a huge problem with the hero system, and aside from All Might allowing other heroes to become complacent, it’s all because of Endeavour.

Hawks and Dabi are two sides of the same coin when it comes to the new no. 1; Hawks grew up seeing Endeavour’s ambition to surpass All Might as impressive and heroic, mostly due to the fact that Hawks himself lacks the drive to become so great, because all he wants is to live life comfortably. But for Dabi, Endeavour’s need to surpass All Might was nothing but a blinded greed for power, the need to be the best of the best for his own selfish desires rather than to actually save people. It was a path that led him to horrifically abuse his own family in order to achieve it, because he saw Quirk breeding as the only way to fix his own flaws. As such, Dabi, AKA Toya, suffered greatly at the hands of it. He knows firsthand just how much the hero system is unjust, allowing for people with unhealthy mindsets like Endeavour to gain positions of power. He knows that people admire Endeavour for his heroism, but are unaware of the monster that lurks behind closed doors, even when his temper comes out during public patrols. This is a man who is the very definition of a false hero, a man who let his eldest son die and traumatized his entire family.

Dabi goes on to claim in chapter 267 that there are no true heroes - this, however, does not mean that true heroes cannot exist. All he means is that there are simply no heroes currently present and he plans to change that, because in the system that society has right now, it’s near-impossible. Hero idolization forces heroes to become perfect images that people can admire, and it also enforces the mindset that only the greatest heroes can come from schools like UA and Shiketsu. This results in a flood of people longing to become heroes for reasons other than saving people. Uraraka, for example, while she is gentle and kind-hearted, is still only becoming a hero so she can support her family. It’s a well-paying job, and that kind of promise will most certainly lure anyone in who is desperate enough. Yes, she has good intentions in mind, and she does want to save people, but saving people is not her ultimate goal. So, by Dabi’s definition, she is not a true hero.

Becoming a hero should also not be as easy as it is, and becoming a hero certainly should not start at such a young age. UA and the other hero schools are putting teenagers between the ages of 15 - 19 at severe risk, and we’ve seen worst-case scenario results of this twice over the course of the series, and it’s terrifying to think that there are most likely more that we haven’t heard of.

First you have Shirakumo who died before he had even graduated, an incident that led him to becoming a nomu working for the League, who would then go on to cause the second result.

By placing children in such a dangerous training course, it automatically places targets on their backs for villains before they even get their licenses. The League proved just how incapable the staff are at protecting their students by not only successfully attacking a location within the school, but also kidnapping one of said students later on, even after UA’s attempt at keeping the location of the training camp hidden and Dabi himself had revealed their basic plan to Aizawa.

This is all fuel for Dabi’s fire in his journey to rip hero society apart at the seams, and while he is absolutely planning to kill every false hero he comes across, he also has a secondary plan in mind, and that is for the students.

In One’s Justice 2, Dabi has this particular voice line to Hawks: “We’re working for the glorious future where those UA kids are hollowed, and brought down to earth. We’ll have to see what you’re working for.”

Dabi knows that while they are all still young, there is still time to prevent them from falling into every hero’s brainwashed mindset: villains bad, heroes good, no matter what either of them do. 

Something extremely important that the MVA and the current war arcs do is flip the black and white narratives on their heads, showing us just how human and empathetic the villains can be, while the heroes are doing nothing but making unheroic choices and opting for making the violent move first. We’ve seen all of the heroes do nothing but dehumanize Shigaraki, calling him “it” and “thing” like he’s just some monster that they have to kill. We’ve had to watch Hawks murder Twice in the name of “justice” simply because Twice refused to come quietly and be forced back into a life he felt miserable in. Even X-less chose to focus on the machinery next to him rather than getting a near-dead Shigaraki medical attention, and we all know how karma decided to treat that.

And this is where I would like to bring your attention to Tokoyami.

We’ve seen multiple times before how Dabi seems to have no interest in actually harming the students - initially, anyway. He leaves Aoyama alone even though he saw him; he taunts Shoto but doesn’t attack him to get him away; and lastly, Tokoyami first showing up to rescue Hawks actually calms Dabi down. Dabi shows no intent of hurting them because they’re still just kids, not heroes.

Calling back to how the heroes are currently being depicted as the ones making all the disturbing decisions, Dabi doesn’t hesitate to be the first to call out their decision to bring the students into what is essentially a covert-ops assassination mission that has turned into an all-out war. He first recognises that the boy in front of him is just that: a boy, and instead of attacking, Dabi gives Tokoyami a chance.

But what chance, exactly? To escape? Absolutely not.

The first thing Dabi does is make Tokoyami aware of the crime his so-called mentor just committed, and carefully wording it so that the stakes were made clear.

Twice was trying to run away to protect his friends.

But Hawks still killed him.

Dabi is giving Tokoyami a chance to recognise that the hero system he admires hides many skeletons in its closet, and is something that is severely corrupt. He’s giving Tokoyami a chance to rethink his working relationship with Hawks and everything Hawks has taught him.

But Tokoyami doesn’t take it.

As soon as Hawks speaks up again, Tokoyami returns to being obedient, ignoring everything Dabi just said and focusing only on the task at hand regardless of the moral dilemma presented before him, and that’s when Dabi’s intention for Tokoyami changes, because as Dabi put it, “You’ve stopped thinking for yourself.”

And indeed, Tokoyami has. Tokoyami is now cemented in the brainwashed mindset, blindly putting his faith in that Hawks’s decision to kill Twice was right, simply because Twice is the villain and Hawks is the hero, and Dabi realises this.

Tokoyami is now a false hero, and thus on Dabi’s kill list.

So, we have established that Dabi fully intends to wipe-out existing false heroes, while simultaneously trying to save those who have the chance to recover/escape from the brainwashing before it’s too late.

“Keigo Takami!!”

It’s no secret that Dabi clearly knows exactly what kind of situation Hawks is in. The fact that he knows Hawks’s real name alone tells Hawks that Dabi knows far more than he is comfortable with. So, seeing as Dabi was able to see through Hawks’s lies so easily, let’s assume that Dabi knows most, if not all, of what we the readers know about Hawks and how the HPSC groomed him.

Considering that Dabi came from the no. 1 hero’s household, there’s a high chance that he knows quite a bit about the HPSC and just how shady they actually are, especially if the theories are true that they had a hand in covering up his own death. Dabi is well-aware then that the HPSC is responsible for the hero system being so broken, and the reason they do nothing to fix it is so they can stay in power. They are not afraid to make questionable decisions which they know is only making the villain situation worse, because villains are what’s keeping them in business. And what’s sad about this is that even when the decisions they present are clearly morally wrong, the heroes are in no position to argue, because the HPSC is in complete control of their jobs. The HPSC governs the hero system, so whatever they do must be just, right?

Well, Dabi definitely knows the answer to that.

The HPSC deliberately manipulated the heroes to believe that the UA students were needed on the front lines for this mission, and so far, we’ve seen that they really weren’t, actually. The evac team remains the best place for the students to be, because while the pros with all the combat experience can focus on the villains, the heroes-in-training can focus on the smaller task of getting people to safety. Sure, Kaminari, Tokoyami, and the other front-liners helped, but the pros absolutely overwhelmed the PLF on their own. All the front-liners did was just kind of...pave the way, make things easier, and then they were sent back to rejoin their classmates. And the heroes didn’t question the decision at all.

What’s even more disturbing is that the students weren’t even aware of what they were getting into, and most of the pros weren’t aware that the students weren’t aware.

But, as mentioned before, Dabi doesn’t hesitate to call this out.

It’s highly likely that he’s able to connect that the HPSC were the ones who organised this attack and sent the kids out onto the battlefield, which also means that he’s unfortunately no stranger to the HPSC reducing talented children to nothing but weapons, a concept he is also personally familiar with.

Toya was bred with the intent of creating a Quirk superior to Endeavour’s, and then put under extremely harmful training that abused both his mind and his body. We already know that Dabi is heavily against valuing a person’s Quirk over their individual worth, thanks to his fight with Geten.

And in the world of heroics, this unhealthy mindset is unfortunately in abundance, especially in Hawks’s case.

What makes Hawks an especially tragic character is that he started out with the same longing to be a great hero that every child has. He wanted to be a comforting sight to those in need, and his innocent mind thought that the HPSC would help him make that reality.

Instead, the HPSC presented him with a life-changing decision that a child his age has absolutely zero mental capacity to consent to, and it’s heartbreaking that Hawks’s grooming began right from the second they met. The HPSC forced a child into intensive training at an age even younger than students training at proper hero schools, and they ever-so-gradually began chipping away at Keigo’s hopeful dream, starting with the erasure of his own name, the first step in disconnecting him from who he once was.

Over the years of the hero Hawks growing up under the HPSC’s wing, he had been stripped of his childhood and moulded into the perfect image of a hero, one that is loveable to the public, obedient to his handlers, talented in his work, and completely self-sacrificing to his missions.

The HPSC has successfully groomed Hawks so that his selflessness is now their trump card that they hold over him - instead of using his selflessness to save others no matter who they are, he’s been manipulated to believe that he has to give up everything in his life to be a great hero, that he’s not suited for being a “shining light”, thus bringing about his new goal of creating a world where heroes have free time, a goal that he is unfortunately pursuing in the wrong way. He’s been brainwashed to not think about villains too much, to not sympathize with them and dig into where they came from and why they became villains, which is why he’s targeting the wrong problem when it comes to making his dream a reality. He believes that he has to solve every case as fast as possible, and eventually there will be virtually no more villains left to hunt down, but the League has already shown us that the roots of villainy stretch much further down than that.

We catch a glimpse of how Hawks even acknowledges that he’s being held down by hero society, caged, and yet he does nothing to change it.

The result of his grooming has left him stuck in a thoughtless state, where it’s easier to believe that everything he is doing is right, and the villains are wrong.

And this is unfortunately something that he has spread to Tokoyami, as evidenced earlier.

Hawks is a hero who was groomed and manipulated from a young age, being thrown into training just so he could become a tool for those in power to use.

Sounds awfully familiar, doesn’t it?

Dabi can read Hawks like a book

It’s wonderfully ironic how Hawks prides himself in being capable of fooling anyone and everyone, making himself the hardest person in the room to read while simultaneously being able to read everyone else, and yet the one person that he couldn’t predict ends up being the only one who knows him better than anyone else.

Throughout all of their interactions, Dabi has always been two steps ahead of Hawks, able to catch him off-guard and ruffle his feathers. Keeping in mind that Dabi had known all along that Hawks was faking his desire to join the League, it’s interesting just how long Dabi kept stringing him along. Was he simply doing it for his own enjoyment?

Maybe a small part of him was, but in the long run, Dabi was absolutely still testing Hawks’s worthiness. What makes this great, however, is that Hawks was unaware that Dabi wasn’t testing him for what he originally thought.

Loyalty was absolutely out of the question for Dabi, since he knew from the start Hawks wasn’t planning on being as such. So, what exactly was Dabi looking for?

Looking through the tests that we know Dabi put Hawks through (the battle with Hood, and taking out a hero of Hawks’s choice), we can analyse what Dabi was impressed with, and what he wasn’t.

First off, there’s not a lot that Dabi didn’t like about what Hawks did. The most he complained about was Hawks simply bringing along Endeavour to the Hood fight instead of someone else.

It appears that he also complains about Hawks not letting anyone die, but Dabi is always quick to point out when heroes are prioritising lives, and this will become important later.

Then, we have Dabi asking Hawks to take someone out who isn’t the no. 1. When Hawks brought him Jeanist’s body, Dabi was genuinely surprised, but pleasantly-so. 

Now, Jeanist’s death here serves multiple narrative purposes:

It shows us that Hawks won’t hesitate to kill for a mission (RIP Twice),

It shows Dabi that Hawks is capable of killing anyone, not just villains,

And lastly, it serves as blackmail for Dabi in his pursuit of bringing down false heroes.

(There’s also Bakugo’s whole thing with his hero name, but this isn’t about him.)

That last point is what granted Hawks access into the League, contrary to Hawks believing that the only reason he got in is because the merging of the League and the MLA suddenly made it easy to do so. 

Dabi wasn’t going to let Hawks in without making sure he had a backup in mind in case Hawks tripped up.

But, blackmail wasn’t the only thing that Dabi was looking for. If anything, it was just a bonus.

What the Hood battle and Jeanist’s death showed to Dabi were the two sides that Hawks possessed: a bird of prey that isn’t afraid to kill for a cause, and the innocent child who just wanted to help people. Dabi was searching for both of those qualities within Hawks, because they’re both qualities that Dabi himself has.

Dabi relates to Hawks

As previously mentioned, there’s no doubt that Dabi is aware of how Hawks was trained and forced into a life he didn’t want. He’s very aware of how much Hawks longs for freedom but still wants to help those in need, but what separates them from each other is that Dabi has achieved the freedom that Hawks wants and is pursuing his dream in a way that works.

Dabi kills for his cause, but that cause is ultimately to prevent the future suffering of innocent lives at the hands of false heroes. In his own twisted way, he too wants to save lives. He wants to stop the possibility of another him from being created. He is choosing to be the unfriendly reminder that something is very wrong with the current system, and it needs fixing ASAP.

And that is exactly why Dabi can see through Hawks’s lies, because he recognises that Hawks too is a victim of the same system.

Dabi’s plan for Hawks

With Hawks presenting himself in front of Dabi, it offered up a multitude of opportunities for him. Dabi not only had a new connection to Endeavour through Hawks, but here was a hero who was prepared to get his hands extremely dirty just for a way to bring down the League. 

Dabi’s prior knowledge of Hawks and his past allowed him to constantly have the upper hand, but not in case Hawks attacked.

Through testing Hawks to see what qualities he possessed, Dabi was able to see if Hawks was worthy not for joining the League, but for undoing the brainwashing he’d been subjected to.

Dabi let Hawks into the League because he was giving him a chance, the same chance he gave to Tokoyami, to see hero society for what it really was and decide to do something about it. Dabi saw the potential in Hawks to be a true hero, to return to the boy he once was and save people for the sake of saving them. He saw Hawks’s potential to kill false heroes and that he wasn’t afraid to do it, and the idea of someone thinking the same way as Dabi, of understanding him and his goals wholly, would have absolutely been enticing to him.

Dabi claims to not care about the League, but even if that were true, Dabi recognises that the other League members are important to each other, especially when it comes to Twice and how eager he is to make friends. Dabi introducing Hawks to the League was his chance to show Hawks that they’re all human, and gain sympathy for them and what they stand for. It would have been the ultimate power move on Dabi’s part for Hawks to turn on the heroes and go villain, undoing what hero society did to him, providing him the freedom he always wanted and ultimately proving Dabi and his ideals right.

But, unfortunately, that wasn’t how things went.

How Dabi’s plan backfired

When Hawks first joined the PLF, it was obvious that Dabi was sticking close to him, both to keep an eye on him and to be genuinely friendly and accepting.

It’s rare to see a smile like this on Dabi when he’s around heroes, and he never smiles around the League, but for Hawks specifically, Dabi is always smiling. I think it’s safe to say that Dabi did genuinely enjoy Hawks’s company and that he was the only one Dabi actually liked, which is probably what led to him being comfortable with leaving Hawks to his own devices for the next few months, especially when he started a budding friendship with Twice.

Dabi must have been confident that Twice would be the one to break through the last of Hawks’s walls, because if we were seeing genuine smiles from Hawks, then Dabi must have seen them too.

However, it’s clear that Dabi severely underestimated Hawks’s capability to kill anyone. 

Hawks leaked the information to the heroes, an attack was launched, and Dabi immediately knew why.

And he was, understandably, incredibly pissed.

Upon confronting Hawks and hearing how he was about to kill Twice, Dabi used what he’d learned about Hawks during the Hood fight to his advantage and triggered Hawks’s rescue response, prompting him to subconsciously save Twice from Dabi’s flames, because Dabi knows deep down that a hero is who Hawks really is. What he was most likely hoping was for Hawks to maintain that response, but he instead made a mistake and directly caused Hawks to go back into mission-mode.

And it’s just a downward spiral from there, with all of Dabi’s last-ditch efforts falling flat. In one last desperate attempt to reach through to Hawks, he called out his name. His real name.

Dabi’s final chance to bring Hawks to his senses was to try and reconnect him with his past self of whom the HPSC had carefully erased, and it almost worked. Dabi let Hawks know that he knew everything about him, everything that he once was, but just like with Tokoyami, Dabi learnt the hard way that Hawks was beyond saving.

With Twice’s death, Dabi completely lost it, scolded Hawks for not focusing on him, and dropped one last bomb on Hawks before ending yet another false hero.

Until, yet again, that too backfired due to Dabi’s hope that he could save an innocent mind from the hero system’s brainwashing, and Hawks escaped with his life.

We get a glimpse of Dabi’s defeated expression, the knowledge that he can’t cry, and that he just lost two friends within the span of just a few minutes.

What next?

Honestly, if there’s one thing that is going to break Hawks, it’s knowing the truth about Endeavour. My hope is that Dabi is going to have a chance to make his reveal public to the entire nation, and exposing Enji Todoroki for the abuser he is will really shake things up.

At the moment, it’s still not clear exactly what Dabi told Hawks in his redacted bubble, but it was obviously something relating to his identity. Only time will tell what Hawks knows once he regains consciousness.

[yelloskello]

My thoughts about the latest episode of a not-great show that, god damn it, i’ve already invested 7 seasons worth of time into, I might as well finish it out.

(Game of Thrones. This is a Game of Thrones Season 8 Episode 5 spoiler post. Read on at your own risk.)

So this ep. Hmmm.

PRO: they did a very good job getting across the devastating effects of the siege. It felt raw, jarring, horrifying, exhausting. All that good shit.

CON: I get they were running it home, but that’s also all they did. The entire episode. When it came down to characters actually interacting, it felt weak.

PRO(?): Lots of people are saying that Dany going Mad Queen is throwing away seven seasons worth of building up her character to be a good person, and I don’t necessarily agree. I feel like the last seven seasons hasn’t been seeing a good person; it’s been seeing a person who is juggling between struggling to maintain her composure in the face of fits of impulsive anger (return their cities to dirt! i’m just gonna fly over to the red keep and burn it tf down!), and only maintaining it at the behest of the people around her, so at best actively fighting trying to become the Mad Queen, and running on what is quite frankly a power trip. And then big emotions and grief and trauma happens in spades and you know what’s a great way to just throw every coping mechanism you might have ever built up out the fuckin window? That! Exactly that.

She is a woman who feels entitled based on birthright to rule, with the most powerful beings alive under her command and a trail of good deeds - or, at least, deeds she perceives as good - to bolster her belief in herself and what she’s doing. (I bet she flashes back to that deeply uncomfortable White Savior scene a lot in her off time and just feels reeeeal good about it.) She’s always been hellbent on revenge for… Basically everything, and we’ve absolutely seen that desire for revenge outweigh her compassion: remember Mirri Maz Duur? Remember how she played up the role of Benevolent Khaleesi Saving the Poor Civilians? Remember Mirri telling her, ay fuckface, your people had already assaulted me by the time you got there and my future looks hella bleak, you haven’t saved shit? Remember how, when Mirri did what was best for people like herself and saved civilizations from a hellish prophecy, Dany threw all that compassion and what mirri had told her clear out the fuckin door, showing where her priorities as a ruler lie? (I mean, I get it. It’s her husband. But you get what i’m saying.)

People who are capable of significant evil don’t all act like cartoon villains, here. Not every “”””insane”””” person is foaming at the mouth screaming BURN THEM ALL!! 24/7. Someone who’s kind, gentle, and fair in one situation can be a fuckin’ monster in others, especially if they believe they’re doing what’s right, or if their emotional regulation is uhhh h hh garbage and all their loved ones just died in the span of, like, a week. If anything, i’d actually applaud that they managed to overtly include bits and pieces of that characterization while still largely maintaining her appearance of having her shit together to the point where so many fans buy it. Her anger and impulse was clearly there, and some folks caught it, they got their theories, but for the most part, red flags were only kinda raised. Disney could take notes on this the next time they wanna write a hans.

CON: all that being said, hey, thanks for fucking demonizing mental illness again, GoT writers. Just what we needed. : | how fucking lazy and tired, falling back on ‘ha ha she’s crazy and thus the FINAL ULTIMATE VILLAIN :^)’. On a milder level, like… They took a woman fighting for justice and peace, a woman in power and control, and decided to put her down the villain route, which i’m sure is disappointing to fans of the ‘feminist’ parts of her story.

…least we still have Sansa, I guess.

CON 2: and they had to fridge a fucking black woman for it.

PRO: Cleganebowl was a nice wrap-up to that storyline.

CON: Varys, Jaime, and Cersei’s wrap-ups felt rushed, impotent, disappointing, unnecessary (in varys’ case, and somewhat in Jaime’s case), and failed to land emotionally. What the fuck was varys even doing? He’s supposed to one of the smartest characters in the show, but he’s running around like hey you wanna talk treason?? no?? oh okay i’ll go talk to frank about it–HEY FRANK, YOU WANNA TALK TREASON??

PRO: I guess, as meh as it was, there is something poetic about Jaime and Cersei’s end that goes to show how insidious low self-worth can be. that even after everything, all he’s been through, he still comes back to Cersei. Not everyone’s story ends with them breaking free, as sad as it is. And, ofc, the whole ‘came into this world together; going out together’ yadda yadda.

CON-ISH: I just think he should’a gotten to live and redeem himself and grow, far away from his sister. But that’s because literally the entire reason I started watching the show is Brienne, LITERALLY the whole reason, and I want her to get everything she wants in life. And, y’know, while it’s outside the realm of this episode, I feel like the wrap-up of the Jaime/Brienne story felt pretty impotent, too. 

CON: Man Arya sure did do nothing useful the whole episode, huh.

PRO: At least she’s already gotten to enjoy the honor of being the coolest motherfucker in the entire series. Good for her.

Now, for ep 6, i have a dream. And that dream is that its not jon snow who kills dany (but its gonna be, unless they pull a shyamalan and dany ultimately wins it all), but arya disguised as jon (whether its only the faces of the dead she can use is kinda wishy washy, right) which arya is doing to get close to dany without raising her suspicion. (But she already got to kill the night king, so i doubt they gonna let her do THIS, too). ...and then jaime crawls out from the rubble but cersei is still dead o no what a tragedy so he somberly returns to winterfell to keep his head down and start a new, quiet life for himself. (This *definitely* isnt happening.)

[fictionfilmcodesandconventions]

Action

Genre: Action

In this blog I am writing about action films. I have watched a wide range of action films but watched two in depth.

21 Jump Street (2012)

Format & Purpose: 

21 Jump Street is a feature length production for entertainment, that is the story of two cops fresh out of the academy who get put on jump street to go undercover as high-school students to shut down a dangerous drug ring that has spread to the school, as we find out Schmit and Jenko (main two Protagonists) discover high school is nothing like how it used to be. 

Narrative Structure:

21 Jump Street is a closed, single stranded, linear, realist narrative. The cause and effect for this film is drugs, the main two protagonists Schmit and Jenko have been assigned to be students in a  high-school to infiltrate the dealer and to find the supplier to stop the spread and selling of these drugs, throughout their is themes of comedy, violence, friendship and jealousy. The stereotypes in this film are reversed when we see Schmit and Jenko go back to high-school, instead of Jenko (tall, built, athletic, not so smart) being the popular one, it is actually Schmit (Small, chubby, smart) who is the popular one. 21 Jump Street also fits Propp’s narrative theory, for example:

The Hero- the person on the quest through which the audience follows the narrative (Jenko and Schmit)

The Villain- struggles to stop the hero(s) in their quest (At first we think it could be the bikers but that is a “Red Herring”, the actual Villain is the gym teacher) 

The Donor- prepares the hero(s) for their quest (Captain Dickson) 

The Helper- offers help to the hero in their quest, usually a sidekick (Jenko and Schmit helping each other and “the nerds” helping Jenko)

The Princess- person the hero marries, often searched for during the quest (There is no Princess in this film)

The Princess’ Father- gives the task to the hero (Captain Dickson) 

The Dispatcher- the person that sends the hero on their quest (Deputy Chief Hardy- the one who sent them too jump street) 

The False Hero- a character that initially appears as good but turns out to be evil (the gym teacher, turns out to be the “evil” one all along) 

21 Jump Street also has a MacGuffin in its narrative, it has something that everyone is wanting to find out, in this case it is who the supplier of the drugs is in the film. As well as this 21 Jump Street also has one of Barthes narrative theory, the Enigma/Proairetic Code in which tension is built up and the audience is left guessing what happens next, this is done well, especially in the hotel scene in 21 Jump Street as there are many anticipatory moments in the scene leaving the audience asking the question what is going to happen next. It also links to another of Barthes narrative theory the Cultural Code/Referential Code in which it refers to an external body of knowledge, in this case at the end of the movie where Jenko and Schmit reference Die Hard.

Visual Storytelling: 

Mise-en-scene in 21 Jump Street starts off with the opening scene being a flashback, by showing us a flashback of Jenko and Schmit at high-school we see what they were like at the time and we can get some background information on what they were like and if they are still like that now. From how both Jenko and Schmit are dressed we can also see that Schmit was not popular in high-school and it looks like he hated it while he was there, Jenko on the other hand looks to be the most popular person in high-school but lacks in his education so is told he can’t go to the prom and so he can’t be “prom king”. This ultimately leads to both characters coming together and helping each other in the police academy, Jenko helping Schmit with all the practical work and Schmit helping Jenko with all the impractical written work. Through all of this they become partners and pass the academy, they then are on park duty where we can see they mess around a lot and in making an arrest Jenko forgets to read the man he’s arresting his rights and so they get booted off to jump street. As an action film, 21 Jump Street does deliver what you would expect from an action film. The camera and lighting are both used well in action scenes, camera shots such as Jenko diving in slow-mo while gunshots are being fired and then a slow-mo shot of the “bad guys” getting shot, allowing viewers to really see what is happening without missing is a gunfight is usually quite fast. Lighting is also used well as all scenes are visual because they are not too dark, in addition when in a car chase it is dark outside but due to the light from street lamps the scene is easy to see what’s happening. As well as this the design of the costumes in this scene deciding to go with white reflects the light well and allows the audience to see the main protagonists well. 

Sound: 

Both diegetic and non-diegetic sounds are used well in 21 Jump Street as they fit the action genre codes and conventions well. The onscreen sounds of explosions, gunshots etc are all used efficiently and with the right purpose. In addition the non-diegetic sounds are also used very well, especially to emphasize the two main protagonists when doing something “epic”. Furthermore the non-diegetic sound is used also to make scenes more pulse racing and gripping allowing audiences to digest more in the scene and not miss anything, they are also used the particular scene where Jenko and Schmit are being chased by the bikers, the non-diegetic music is used in a dramatic way leading us to believe an explosion is going to happen but it cuts off when it doesn't, making the scene funny as the anticipation leads up to nothing until the most unlikely thing does blow up, the truck with chickens.

Genre & Audience: 

21 Jump Street is an Action/Comedy and does well in what you would expect from an action/comedy. The general codes and conventions of this type of film is mismatched partners and 21 Jump Street serves this well as both Schmit and Jenko are complete opposites. In addition the audience would expect the main protagonists to be faced with a series of challenges that typically include physical threats, extended fight scenes, violence, and frantic chases, all which 21 Jump Street include, for example right at the start of the film both Jenko and Schmit are in separate frantic chases, allowing the audience not only to get the view of one chase but two and the differences in the chases. One very obvious code and convention was what the “hero(s)” were wearing near the end of the film, they were both wearing white tuxedos (Good) and the “villains” were wearing black/dark clothing (Evil). This also links to Levi Strauss’ theory of good versus evil. Additionally most camera shots in an action film will be fast paced to keep up with the action and to get a feel for how quick it is for the characters, there will also be many establishing shots to show where the action is taking place, usually in main cities in this case Vancouver, British Columbia.

Textual analysis of media texts: 

One scene in particular in 21 Jump Street is the hotel shootout scene, this applies very well to an action film. First off both the protagonists are wearing white tuxedos (Good) and the antagonists are all wearing black/dark clothes (Evil). Jenko and Schmit are then taken to the hotel room, where to their surprise they see their gym teacher (Mr Walters) is actually the supplier, this is accompanied by dramatic tension building non-diegetic music which keeps the audiences gripped. Then still bewildered by the surprising supplier, there is a knock at the door to which the bikers walk in, tensions then start to build even more (linking to Barthes’ Enigma/Proairetic Code) as the bikers start to recognize Jenko and Schmit. As the scene goes on Jenko and Schmit are recognised and are now at gunpoint, however two undercover DEA agents turn and point the guns towards the bikers. This all leads to a massive shootout with fast pace and tracking shots to keep up with all the action, then the camera changes to a slow mo shot with confetti flying everywhere and Jenko shooting a “bad guy”, while all of this is going on there is epic non-diegetic music playing over them to emphasize the “awesomeness” of the scene. Overall 21 Jump Street has all the codes and conventions of an action film and as well as some comedy.

Die Hard with a Vengeance (1995)

Format & Purposes:

Die Hard with a Vengeance aka Die Hard 3 carrying on from 1 and 2 is a feature length production for entertainment, which is the story of two people, John McClane (main Protagonist) and Zeus Carver (Protagonist) who have to stop Simon (main Antagonist) who is detonating bombs off across New York. 

Narrative Structure: 

Die Hard 3 is a closed, single-stranded, linear, realist narrative, with a cause and effect of revenge from Simon Gruber wanting to avenge his brother Hanz Gruber who John McClane killed. This leads to Simon playing a game with John and Zeus, making them run around New York City looking for the bombs and trying to prevent them to go off. Die Hard 3 also follows Tzvetan Todorov’s traditional 5 step narrative theory: 

The narrative starts with an equilibrium- New York is like every other day and everyone in the city is working or going to work

An action or character disrupts the equilibrium- a bomb goes off in a department store called Bonwits 

A quest to restore the equilibrium begins- John McClane is brought in and then so is Zeus Carver to to what Simon says 

The narrative continues to a climax- John and Zeus are continually put under pressure running all around New York trying to prevent the bombs going off, and we also find out that there is a bigger plot at hand, building the tension and narrative’s climax

Resolution occurs and equilibrium is restored- John manages to take down Simon Gruber

Furthermore Die Hard 3 has links with Barthes narrative the Enigma/Proairetic Code in which tension is built up and the audience is left guessing what happens next, which Die Hard 3 does extremely well in as it does this the whole way through as the audience are always left guessing what will happen with the bombs Simon is taunting John with. One scene in particular that this occurs in is the scene where John and Zeus have limited time to work out Simon's water jug riddle in which tensions are so high the audience don’t know whether they are going to do it or not. In addition, Die Hard 3 also fits Levi-Strauss’ theory of binary opposites, good versus evil, in this case John & Zeus (Good) versus Simon (Evil).

Visual Storytelling:

The mise-en-scene starts off with an establishing shot of New York City and with ever shot brings us closer to the streets where we see everyone going about their busy lives. A general action code and convention setting is a large well known popular cities, Die Hard 3 has chosen a very popular city and starts off straight away with the action by blowing up a Bonwit Teller department store. By setting the scene in New York and blowing up a department store, the film is setting up that the “bad guys” in the film are serious. In addition due to the explosion John McClane then comes into the story, from his costume and figure expression we can see that he is unshaven, wearing only a vest and is clearly not looking after himself, allowing the audience to get an understanding of John and establishing the character his is in the film. Also the use of camera and lighting is used to establish characters as well. In the first scene we see Simon Gruber and his crew we can see that they are well trained and are experienced in what they are doing as they get to the explosion very fast and begin clearing up straight away leaving the audience to believe they could be ex-military. Additionally, the scene of the bomb on the train many camera shots are used to show the explosion from many different angles, allowing the audience to get more of a perspective of what is happening. Moreover in the train scene lighting is also used well as it is daylight when the explosion goes off so we see all of the people above the subway running away, as well as this we are able to see through the lights on the train down below where we can see what John is doing again allowing the audience to see what’s going on in detail. 

Sound:

The use of diegetic and non-diegetic sound is used very well in this film, in fact the opening scene in Die Hard 3 starts off with the song ‘Summer in the City’, establishing the film is upbeat and setting the time of year within which the film is shot. In addition the scene where Simon and his crew come to “clean up” the mess of the bomb the song ‘Johnny comes Marching Home’ starts to play establishing that these people are of ex-military background, allowing the audience to perceive that they are well experienced and get an understanding of the characters. Also as an action the diegetic sounds of explosions, moving cars, screaming people are all used well and not too much making it fit the codes and conventions of an action fit well. The non-diegetic anticipatory music also adds a sense of tension to scenes like the train bomb as when it looks as if John may die trying to throw the bomb off the train the music gets louder and faster to keep the audience wondering what's going to happen next linking to Barthes Enigma/Proairetic Code theory. 

Genre & Audience: 

Die Hard 3 is a Action/Thriller and has the expectations of an action you would expect. This film fits all  the codes and conventions of an action film, it has the main protagonist John (the hero), the villain who is often a rich millionaire or ex-military and has an accent that is very menacing and usually has a female companion, which Simon fits into perfectly, he is ex-military with a menacing accent and a female companion called Katya. It also fits the basic storyline of an action, the hero fighting against the evil, John against Simon. Most action films also take place in large cities and where better a location than New York City for an action film. Furthermore camera shots in an action film will be fast paced, including close ups to show emotion, establishing shots to show where action is taking place tracking shots to keep up with the action and the shaking of the camera after an explosion which Die Hard 3 has and the audience can perceive this from the many fast, different and establishing shots. For example the many different angles and speed of shots in the train scene. 

Textual analysis of media texts:

The park scene in Die Hard 3 is a good example of what fits the action genre. John McClane and Zeus Carver have to travel “90 blocks in 30 minuets in New York traffic” before another bomb goes off, already the tension is building and Barthes Enigma/Proairetic Code is showing again as the audience are left guessing what is going to happen next. This leads to John’s idea that they take a taxi “through the park”. Due to the fast pace the scene has built up the fast camera work and mise-en-scene capture a thrilling scene of John just missing civilians in the park. Through POV shots from the car to watching it side on through trees and over the shoulder shots this scene manages to show a pulse racing car race to the bomb. Overall Die Hard 3 is heavily loaded with the codes and conventions of an action film with its good visible lighting, fast paced car chases, emphatic bomb explosions and its menacing villain Simon Gruber. 

Comparing both: 

Both 21 Jump Street and Die Hard 3 are classed as action movies, however Die Hard 3 applies to more codes and conventions of an action movie with its recurring themes of violence, car chases, setting, villains etc... whereas 21 Jump Street focused on comedy more than Die Hard so lacked more in action compared to it, although 21 Jump Street did have most codes and conventions of an action movie.