#I need to explore all the implications of Rose's background and her relationship to her mom and culture

[autisticrosewilson]

You guys would be throwing up and sobbing and writhing on the ground if you knew the Ravager: Year One comic I have in my head, and you'd all kill yourselves if you could read the Ravager: Renewal comic that I'm constantly thinking about. Untold secrets in the mind of a writer who can't draw for shit. Many such cases.

[fermented-writers-block]

PART 1 of 6 of the Owl Deity Hooty Theory

[NEXT PART]

[OWL DEITY HOOTY THEORY MASTERPOST] (in development)

(TLDR at bottom of post)

Over several long months of research and analysis since March of 2020, I have been following an utterly fascinating thread of potential misdirection and subtle details throughout The Owl House, and today, I would like to start weaving together of what I believe could become one of the biggest and most cleverly disguised twists in the entire show.

To begin, let’s take a look at the B plot of Understanding Willow:

On first glance, it’s an ultimately inconsequential sidestory with the sole purpose of justifying an excuse to keep Luz and Amity in Willow’s mind, as well as providing some well-needed room to breathe and release tension after the veryemotionally charged confrontation with Inner Willow. After half an episode of Eda and King outdoing the other in ridiculous ways to win Gus’ vote and Gus running off in frustration at the end of the episode from Hooty’s inane rambling, it’s easy to laugh off Gus’ pick and assume that nothing/of value was said when he closed the door for the interview.

However, if one pays close attention to that very scene, Hooty actually canstill be heard (if faintly) underneath Eda and King’s grumbling, interestingly talking about how “It all started with a hunt. Blood red skies. That’s right, I was created-.”

Now, while it may seem silly to focus on dialogue from Hooty of all characters, this A) tells us that there was an event in the past involving blood red skies and a hunt of some kind, B) that Hooty had been created close to said event, and C) implies that what he knows but can’t tell as a story worth a damn is EXTREMELY important to be included and be hidden in such a manner.

For comparison, the only other instance of dialogue being tucked away in the background in the entire show is in Wing It Like Witches:

During the lecture at the beginning of the episode, the history teacher openswith lore on Belos appointing a head witch to each coven over 50 years ago, immediately cluing in the audience to try and decipher the rest of the lecture as it moves to the background. Adding to this is how the musical sting when Luz shows off her movie obscures what he says even further, making it even more of a intriguing puzzle that the creators clearly intended for viewers to pick up on and attempt to solve.

In contrast, the hidden dialogue of Hooty’s interview is much shorter and not as hard to decipher as the teacher’s history lesson, but at the same time, there are few to no indicators whatsoever in that scene to clue in the audience to even check for something like that. It comes at the end of an episode where most viewers would have been paradoxically tired out and driven abuzz by the revelations of Amity and Willow’s relationship, doesn’t attempt to draw much attention to itself, and frames itself as a comedic subversion of audience expectations with neither the “greatest witch who ever lived” or the self-proclaimed king of demons being picked by Gus.

Instead, he picks someone that the show portrays constantly as an oblivious and gullible idiot after being described as a “state of the art defense system” at the very beginning of the series. Someone who, despite it being played for laughs, is scarily capable of casually subduing Lilith offscreen one episode and then beating her and an entire squad of Emperor’s Coven members without even the slightest change in personality or temperament.

Someone who, due to being the Owl House itself, could be considered the titular character of the entire show, yet is taken for granted by those who inhabit him and barely gets any respect from even the cutely patronized King - including when Hooty could be interpreted as having potentially been full on DEAD for a time given the use of extremely cartoony X eyes and a lack of vital signs in The Intruder.

And someone who Eda at best tolerates and at worst abandons in personal interactions and only occasionally acknowledges him when he’s actually doing his job. Yet at the same time is so implicitly trusted beyondprotecting her home to the point where - when up against the closest person Eda has to an equal outside of likely Belos - the only actually recognizable spells Eda used in combat were 1) stereotypical energy blasts, 2) a single shield spell in Covention, and 3) a noticeably large reliance on imitations of Hooty above any other spells she could have decided to use instead.

In short, the show repeatedly tells us he is just an idiotic gag character through and through, but at the same time demonstrates he has immense power through both onscreen and offscreen demonstrations, implicitly tells us his importance ahead of time through Eda’s imitations in actually serious situations, and treats his interview and origin story as - if not even more- important to keep secret than a long lore dump about how Belos’ reign works.

After all, there being only two instances of hidden background dialogue in the entire season is already intriguing on its own, but for one to get plenty of clues to draw in people’s attention and for the other to be treated as just another gag about a “mere comic relief character” - aka a good way to draw away attention and lower one’s guard - heavily suggests a far deeper significance buried under layers of misdirection, comedy, and conditioned audience expectations.

I mean, when Eda bragged about being “a bad girl living in a secret fortress,” Hooty followed with a remark about how “I’m the secret.” While that line may sound like Hooty simply being confused as part of a one-off on the surface, it’s an odd dialogue choice for the writers to pick when you think about all the other reminders of his nature as the house itself throughout the season. With the precedent these moments set, it would have been much more appropriate for him to latch onto the “fortress” side of “secret fortress” AND it would have been just as equally funny of a joke about his awareness skills, but instead, Hooty broke away from the established trend to say something that would make people suspicious were it to come from anyone else.

In a way, this reminds me much of the many subtle bits of foreshadowing strewn across the show, like Luz unknowingly describing Amity in Witches Before Wizards and Eda burning a hole through Luz’s coven type quiz that coincidentally selected the same track she had taken at Hexside as “a punky potionist.” At the time of airing, these initially seemed like one-off jokes, but eventually came back in full force several episodes later with Amity’s hidden sensitive feelings and love for the Azura books becoming clear in Lost in Language, and the reveal of Eda’s school track in Something Ventured, Someone Framed with her school misdemeanor pictures.

That said, compared to these individual bits of minor foreshadowing, the jokes about Hooty in Understanding Willow appear to simply be the most obvious pieces in a giant puzzle, implicitly and outright telling attentive viewers that there’s a major mystery to be uncovered here.

In fact, I feel bold enough to say that we could be looking at a twist on a similar scale to that of the Pink Diamond/Rose Quartz and Stanford Pines twists in Steven Universe and Gravity Falls respectively, what with this particular puzzle piece coming from how Gus wanted to make THE greatest interview of all time, and how he was looking for someone who was “interesting, accomplished, AND noteworthy:”

Note the emphasis on the ‘and’ here, as Gus had made a big deal that “people aren’t meantto be all those things” at the beginning of the episode, so as a result, stripping away all the comedic framing of his subplot leaves the intriguing implication that whoever - and, perhaps, what- Hooty is, they really are the most interesting, accomplished, AND noteworthy person out of everyone.

I could go further and talk about why I suspect the mystery surrounding King’s origins, whether true or not, is partially meant to misdirect us from paying attention to Hooty, or how the TOH crew’s could be disguising legitimate clues to his nature among made up and highly meme-able joke answers in order to proliferate said concepts throughout the fandom - thus letting us do all the dirty work of getting ourselves used to the ideas and used to dismissing them at the same time - but to bring things to a close for now, I’d like to leave you all with a question that I’ll start answering next time:

What does it mean when both the most powerful and notorious witch on the Boiling Isles and the possible actual king of demons/the Titan itself/something don’t match up to a house? And what do you think it is that makes him so special to warrant such misdirection?

TLDR: Between Eda’s golem spells, the show stressing his nature as the titular house, his implicit strength, and the odd dialogue and structure of Understanding Willow‘s subplot in relation to him, I believe I have good reason to suspect the show has been giving us many hints towards Hooty being much, much more important than it would like us to currently believe or even joke about. Particularly, through clever uses of comedy to establish and enforce a strong audience bias against looking closely at him or unironically taking him seriously, and to potentially plant the seeds for something I will start exploring in Part 2.

[shortnotsweet]

The Allegory of the Tin Man, the Dictator, and the Knight: a Dissection of Ironqrow and a Character Arc of Failure

“There lived in the Land of Oz two queerly made men who were best of friends. They were so much happier when together that they were seldom apart.”

— L. Frank Baum

A brief Ironqrow meta and character analysis of James Ironwood, the ultimate screw up, in three parts.

I. Qrow and Ironwood’s Homoeroticism in Canon Source Material and its Translation

II. Ironwood’s Repressed Characterization and the Inherent Chivalry of the Dictatorship

III. Ironwood, Alone

Qrow and Ironwood’s Homoeroticism in Canon Source Material and its Translation

Within the Oz series, the Tin Man and the Scarecrow are layered within homoerotic subtext, even if it is included unintentionally. Tison Pugh’s analysis Queer Utopianism and Antisocial Eroticism in L. Frank Baum's Oz Series posits that the land of Oz as portrayed within the series is a largely asexual environment of suspended adolescence that involves the deviation of binary gender norms, and of performative heterosexuality. Pugh refers to it later as a “queer utopia”. Men are portrayed as a lesser military force to women, and heterosexuality is a flimsy presence at best; all signs of procreation within Oz are stifled. While this could be chalked down to Baum not wanting to get into the subject of sex and exploration in a children’s series, it does contribute to a particular tone with real-life critiques of capitalism and a particular deconstruction of gender norms. Ozma, who will become the ruler of Oz after the Wizard and the Scarecrow respectively, for example, is originally a boy named Tip (the name itself holds phallic implications) who is “transformed” into a girl. The strongest military force is one of all-women led by a rebellious female general. Pugh observes, “At the same time that Baum satirizes...women as leaders…he consistently depicts women as more successful soldiers than men, and female troops appear better capable of serving militarily than male troops…[the] male army comprises of twenty-six officers and one private, and they are all cowards…” and cites the Frogman’s declaration that “Girls are the fiercest soldiers of all...they are more brave than men, and they have better nerves”.

RWBY itself isn’t opposed to this kind of subversion, either in its characters or its relationships. There’s an obvious effort to include LGBTQ+ representation (albeit primarily in the background), strong female characters are prevalent and make up most of the main and supporting cast, a character’s gender is not strictly reliant on its source material, and BlackSun, while cute and a valid ship in its own right, is treated as a heterosexual red herring to Bumbleby. Additionally, there have been a lot of hints by the voice actors, writers, and creators on social media that Qrow himself is queer, the infamous Ironqrow embrace included.

Admittedly, if I wanted to write an essay about the likelihood of Qrow being LGBTQ+ or having some kind of queer identity, I would probably focus more on his relationship with Clover, which had a lot more overt and probably canonically intentional Gay Vibes, and despite having known Qrow nowhere near as long as Ironwood has, it has just as much, if not more, to extrapolate. Unfortunately, that’s not the main point of this essay, although it remains relevant. While I personally don’t doubt that Qrow has had sex with women or experiences valid sexual attraction to them, I get the feeling that it is, to a degree, a performative act and a masculine assertation of enjoyment intended as a coping mechanism. It plays into the trope of the handsome, tortured alcoholic (best exemplified, perhaps, in the MCU’s Tony Stark, Dean Winchester in Supernatural, and critiqued in the superhero episode of Rick and Morty) who sleeps around just to recall the feeling of intimacy, or because he associates sexual ‘degradation’ as a reflection of his worth. Real self-deprecating, slightly misogynistic stuff. Qrow’s recall of short skirts, as well as his brief exchange with the waitress in an earlier volume, reminds me of one specific interaction between the Scarecrow and his own love interest. Within the series, the Qrow’s source-material counterpart, the Scarecrow, has one canonical love interest, the Patchwork Girl:

“Forgive me for staring so rudely,” said the Scarecrow, “but you are the most beautiful sight my eyes have ever beheld.”

“That is a high compliment from one who is himself so beautiful,” murmured Scraps, casting down her suspender-button eyes by lowering her head.

Pugh points out that the two of them never develop this relationship further than flirtation, and heterosexuality is reduced to a “spectral presence” lacking the “erotic energy [driving] these queer narratives in their presence”. Specifically, Qrow never reveals a serious or long running heterosexual love interest - he is not the father! [of Ruby] (despite much speculation that he and Summer Rose were involved) and he and Winter never really moved past the stage of ‘hostility with just a hint of sexual tension’ - and there is no debunking of potential queerness. His interactions with Clover (deserving of an entire essay on its own) seem to support this interpretation, and is more or less a confirmation of some kind of queer inclination or identity. Again, the “queer utopia” of Oz comes at the cost of the expulsion of the sexual or the mere mention of reproduction - still, through this device, same-sex relationships gain a new kind of significance with the diminishing nature of heterosexuality. Speaking of queer narratives, the Scarecrow and the Tin Man have the most tender and prolonged relationship of perhaps all the characters in the series, exchanging a lifelong commitment:

“I shall return with my friend the Tin Woodman,” said the stuffed one seriously. “We have decided never to be parted in the future.”

Within the source material, the Tin Man and the Scarecrow voluntarily live together, and are life partners in nearly every sense of the word. The second book in the Oz series is The Tin Woodman of Oz. In summary, the Tin Woodman recalls that he had a fiancée before the events of the first book, forgot all about her, and now must search her out so that they can get married. Who does he ask to accompany him in this pursuit? None other than his no-homo life partner, the Scarecrow. Although this sounds like a stereotypical heteronormative storyline, “this utopian wonderland...rejects heterosexual procreation...First, the Tin Woodman does not desire...Nimmie Amee...” and even acknowledges that due to the ‘nature’ of the heart that the Wizard had given him, he is literally incapable of romantically or passionately loving or desiring Nimmie, and by extent, women in general - to me, that works perfectly as an allegory for a gay man who is literally incapable of experiencing legitimate heterosexual urges, but ‘soldiers on’ out of obligation and societally enforced chivalry. “The Tin Woodman excuses himself from the heteronormative imperative...Only his sense of masculine honor, rather than a heteronomratively masculine sex drive, impels the Tin Woodman on his quest to marry his long-lost fiancée.” Again, Ironwood’s character follows the lines of propriety within the sphere of the wealthy elite, and his persona as a high-ranking military man and politician, as well as the conservative values instilled within Atlas, prioritize duty and obligation. This kind of culture is stifling and in a lot of ways aloof, as the upper class deludes itself into believing that it is objectively better and more advanced than its neighboring territories. *ahem the myth of American exceptionalism ahem*

“There lived in the Land of Oz two queerly made men who were best of friends. They were so much happier when together that they were seldom apart.”

I think it’s funny that the characters that Ironwood and Qrow are based off of are canonically the closest of friends, who coexist almost as a unit. In contrast, the first introduction we get of Ironwood and Qrow is a hostile exchange where they’re at each other’s throats, never on the same page, and never in sync, not when it matters. Indeed, Qrow snaps at Ironwood for his lack of communication, which is a recurring issue between the two of them on notable occasions. If the source material is anything to go by, there should be a significant relationship between the two of them, or at least some kind of connection, even if it goes unspoken or unacknowledged. To be fair, in RWBY’s canon, I think there is.

I’ve seen this joke that while Qrow hates the Atlas military, the only people he really seems to flirt with is Atlas military personnel. “Ice Queen” is something I interpreted to be partially hostile, partially mocking, and partially flirtatious, in equal spades - the voice actors and creators have indicated that it was flirtatious, and there was a whole Chibi episode dedicated to the concept of Qrow and Winter’s extrapolated sexual tension, albeit in jest. I might argue that his use of abbreviates aren’t reserved for people he dislikes, but for people who bring out his playful side. “Brat”, “Pipsqueak”, “Firecracker”, and “Kiddos” are all drawn from a place of affection, however short or mocking it may seem, because that’s what crows do: they mock others.

Qrow has little nicknames for people; while it’s not exclusively a sign of affection, I do get the feeling that ‘Jimmy’ is an informality that irks Ironwood, but can also be interpreted as Qrow giving James what he needs, rather than what he wants.

Glynda is by no means a pushover, but in assuring him that while he does questionable things, he’s still a good person, she’s softening the blow and probably further enabling deeply rooted and pre-existing traits, many of which contribute to his problematic control complex. It is established early on that Qrow resents the military (as he should), and it is implied that he’s spent a fair amount of encounters harassing and provoking military personnel (Winter being the most evident example of this), and has insulted the military numerous times to Ironwood’s face. He lectures Ironwood about the way he conducts his operations, his inability to communicate, and basically what a complete, inconsiderate asshole he really is.

What Ironwood needs is someone who operates outside of the pretense that he works, breathes, and lives under, and just tells it like it is. Jimmy isn’t all that - he’s a person, just like the rest of us, and he can flaunt all the titles that he wants, but James stripped down is still just Jimmy.

Qrow also is the kind of person who pries, who is insistent, and not particularly sensitive. For someone like Ironwood who has a lot of (physical and emotional) barriers, logically, in order for him to receive genuine understanding, Qrow fits the profile of someone who is invasive but not exploitive, who sees past the cracks in his armor and takes him for what he is. What is just important is that whoever Ironwood is with is someone who makes him want to try not only to be better, but to be real; thematically, General Ironwood seems to have a great respect for but a deep struggle with authenticity. He clearly resents the ignorance and frivolity of Atlas’s wealthy elite, as evidenced by his support for Weiss at the dinner party in announcing that “she’s one of the only people making any sense around here”, while struggling to project the facade that he’s carefully created.

See, we don’t have evidence that there is something going on between Ironqood and Qrow so much as we have enough evidence to inconclusively say that there’s not not something going on. I think there’s enough evidence to support the idea that something could be going on, or was going on.

When Qrow saves Ironwood at the Battle of Beacon, who is under the false impression that Qrow believes him to be the culprit of the attacks, his eyes follow Qrow and we get a closer shot of his awed expression; we the viewer can only imagine what he sees as Qrow arcs through the air and slices down a Grimm from behind his back. The focus on Ironwood’s expression portrays something like shock (so Qrow wasn’t trying to attack me after all, but then what the hell is he doing?), maybe wonder (I can’t take my eyes off of him, I can’t look away), maybe respect (I know he’s a good Hunter, but I’ve rarely seen him in action), but it is unfiltered nonetheless. In a show where fight scenes are vital to the progression of the story itself, the dynamics of these fights are at their best when they are character driven, whether it is revealing or reinforcing something about the characters and their relationships, or it is deciding their fates. There’s something to be said about characters being given moments together in battles, and what that says about the significance of their relationship. The best example of this might be the battle between Blake and Yang vs Adam; it served to give Adam what he deserved, help Blake and Yang reach closure in certain aspects of their own trauma, and solidify the bond between the girls. Similarly, Qrow and Ironwood’s moment is meant to reveal a theme that will later be revisited in volume 7; trust. Ironwood is startled but not shocked when he believes that Qrow distrusts him to the degree of attacking him, and is ready to attack or defend as needed.

Qrow tells him what he needs to hear, more or less: YOU’RE A DUMBASS. Ironwood is, indeed, a dumbass. While he does extend the olive branch of trust and good will to CRWBY and co. this trust is highly conditional and proves to be, while from a place of desperation and sincerity, at least partially performative.

When Ironwood snaps, he snaps hard.

Amber’s voice actress tweeted early on, joking that Qrow has two Atlas boyfriends, and Arryn has made comments, too. It’s one of the older ships, and the crew is certainly aware of it (“...extended chest bump...”).

Kerry has stated that he finds the Ironqrow relationship interesting, and wishes it had been explored more (additionally, allegedly lobbying that Ironwood’s arm in the Ironqrow hug scene be slightly lower). I’m not saying that they’re going to both make it out alive, or canon, or even that romantic subtext was intentionally woven into the script. All I’m saying is that I think their relationship is interesting too, especially when the subtext of their source material relationship is taken into context, and the way their characters are positioned is suggestive of some sort of compatibility, even if it is a hit or miss kind of opportunity, and I have the sinking suspicion that it was missed on both accounts.

The Tin Woodman of Oz concludes,

“All this having been happily arranged, the Tin Woodman returned to his tin castle, and his chosen comrade, the Scarecrow, accompanied him on the way. The two friends were sure to pass many pleasant hours together in talking over their recent adventures, for as they neither ate nor slept they found their greatest amusement in conversation.”

Ironwood’s Repressed Characterization and the Inherent Chivalry of the Dictatorship

“I don’t give a damn about Jacque Schnee...what about the other two? Do not return to this office until you have Qrow Branwen in custody.”

“And that’s not all we’ve lost...I had Qrow in my hands, and I didn’t do what needed to be done.”

Observe: Ironwood, at this point, does not care about politics. I doubt he’s ever wanted to, or ever liked it (if his tired outburst at the dinner party is any indication) but his Knightly qualities (we’ll get to that) have, up till this point, prompted him to adhere to them for both power and etiquette. James surrounds himself in a world that he understands and despises; more than anything, he’d like to be a general, a commander, and the Knight in Shining Armor archetype, because warfare is something he understands. It is a testament to his (superhuman) willpower that he forces himself to become fluent in the language of politics, and to live and breathe in it. To clarify, Ironwood sees himself as a man who does what needs to be done; if he wants to change and control Atlas, he will have to involve himself in its politics.

Likely, his resilience has contributed to the way he views himself and what he deserves, as someone long-suffering and almost martyr-like, a silent hero doing what needs to be done. But at the moment, he’s lost his goddamn mind coming undone. He’s murdered and jailed his political dissent (and might have considered executing prisoners), but at this point, that’s all that Jacque and Robyn are to him. First he dismisses Jacque, narrows it down to the two escaped prisoners, and finally reveals what’s really on the forefront of his mind: Qrow, free and out of his hands.

[ When recalling this dialogue, please do so while imagining a bad recorder cover of the Titanic music playing over the background. Here is a sample. ]

In the most recent episode, Ironwood seems to have gone off the rails even further. The fact that Winter, his most faithful lieutenant, is losing her unshakable faith in him, says a lot about how hard he’s fallen off the deep end. In Winter’s mind, I think that she sees him almost as a surrogate father figure, or at least a patriarch who can be positively compared to Jacques in every way. The previous volumes go to lengths to compare the two as adversaries and showing James in a favorable light; Winter is in her own personal horror right now, because she is beginning to understand that Ironwood is a man who may not be her father but is just as susceptible to corruption, and may have been that kind of person all along. Skipping over the...ah, genocidal tendencies, and the fact that he’s proposing to kidnap Penny’s friends to force her to obey him and likely is starting to realize that Winter is the perfect bait (let’s just say that “Ironwood is not good with kids” is the understatement of the year) Ironwood wants Qrow back (in captivity), I think that it’s significant that while Ironwood registers that Robyn is gone as well, his first priority is Qrow, probably for two reasons. On one hand, he still refers to Qrow by his first name, instead of the formal Branwen. Of course, that doesn’t have to mean anything at all. They’re colleagues within the same age range, both members of the same secret brotherhood and similiar skill sets.

On the other hand, it reminds me of the moment when Qrow and the kids first fly into Atlas, and they see the heightened security, and Qrow mutters, “James...what have you been doing,” under his breath, sounding concerned, apprehensive. He’s not addressing the kids, he’s talking to himself; he regards James much more seriously both as a potential threat and a friend than he’d rather the other know, and I think that James’ focus on Qrow at this point is similiar, only not only is this a sign of them knowing each other well, but of Ironwood’s slipping control. He offered Qrow his trust and camaraderie, his last attempt to keep a handle on his humanity (or, his heart). Qrow, in return, withheld vital information, got close with another operative instead, then allegedly killed him and and escaped ‘rightful’ imprisonment.

The Tin Man is offering Qrow his heart, at least proof of it, and the Scarecrow [and co.] steps back to observe the situation, and assesses that no, what you are going to do is wrong, and I cannot agree with it.

Ironwood is not an objective person, as much as he wants to be. He’s angry, desperate, scared, and humiliated. Worst of all, he’s rebuffed, and he’s taking Qrow’s escape personally. First, he understands that Qrow is a threat. He’s Ozpin’s best agent, he has years of field experience, and he knows too much, probably more than James knows. Second, they have history.

My personal interpretation of Ironwood is something this:

He’s a sad, sad, lonely bitch. What Ironwood longs for, just like his source material counterpart, is a heart. He will go to any lengths to achieve this, because he believes that he has self awareness and therefore is able to check and balance himself. He treats his subordinates well, is diplomatic, skilled in a variety of trades, fighting the good fight, and longs for the affirmation that yes, he is a good person, and yes, he’s had a heart all along. He just strays from the path, and loses his way.

This is symbolically represented by his partially mechanic exoskeleton; we have no idea how far the cyborg extremities extend, or how deep, but we do get the visual notion of humanity in conflict, or a man’s soul deconstructed and split between the cold efficiency of machinery and the very real warmth of a human body. Ironwood wants to appear human, and benevolent, and genuine, and in return, loved; he is human, and he could be all of these things. If my reliance on the source material holds any merit (although I highly doubt it), then there is also a potential struggle with sexuality, (Glynda herself even explicitly and exasperatedly references a testosterone battle between Ironwood and Qrow, suggesting a regular overassertation of masculinity) and a further incentive to achieve love and subsequent acceptance.

To clarify, I do believe that there were less-than-subtle allusions to Ironwood and Glynda having a vaguely flirtatious history, taking their shared scenes and background dancing into account, but this, again, does not “debunk” the presence of queerness within a narrative; it could be an assumption of heterosexuality, or performative itself, or just not an exclusive interest. Besides, Ironwitch isn’t what this essay is about. I’m not trying to persuade or dissuade someone of the notion that Jimmy is gay, or straight, or something else, only that the potential ambiguity exists. What I do think is most important is that James doesn’t openly ward people away, not when those people aren’t under his command and are technically outside of his jurisdiction. He’s friendly with Glynda, tries to extend trust to Qrow, is kind to people in the aftermath of battle, and overall clings to diplomacy as his first weapon. He wants to be accepted, to be liked, and to be welcomed. This is not an outrageous want, nor is it uncommon. Unfortunately, Ironwood’s understanding of love and acceptance is entangled within the concept of control, and he associates unquestioned compliance with this Want.

Ironwood’s introduction into the series shows him being openly cordial, and very considerate, especially his interactions with Glynda and Ozpin. He’s a gentleman, he’s apologetic, and, as Glynda assures him, he’s a “good man”. She doesn’t really elaborate on what a “good man” is, exactly, but we might presume that a “good man” is a person with good intentions, who strives to do what’s right, regardless of his options.

Here’s the thing - one similarity between Ironwood and the Tin Man is that they both have the capacity to love, but they fool themselves into thinking that they don’t; before the Wizard gives him a ‘heart’, the Tin Man suggests that he is only kind and considerate to everyone in Oz because he believes he needs to overcompensate for what he lacks, and is therefore doubly aware of how he treats others. However, the Wizard knows no real magic, only tricks and illusions, and what he gives the Tin Man is essentially a placebo that enables the Tin Man to act towards and feel about others the exact same as he always had, only with the validation that what he feels is authentic. Similarly, Ironwood has always had the option to be empathetic and not fucking crazy open to collaboration, which he’s very aware of, until his own paranoia cuts into his rationality and compels him to cut himself off from all allies and alternative perspectives. He then uses his difficult position and responsibilities to justify unjustifiable actions, to rationalize irrational urges, and to gaslight and brainwash his subordinates into compliance.

The Tin Woodman knew very well he had no heart, and therefore he took great care never to be cruel or unkind to anything.

“You people with hearts,” he said, “have something to guide you, and need never do wrong; but I have no heart, and so I must be very careful. When Oz gives me a heart of course I needn’t mind so much.”

Qrow sees through this, however, and not only seems incapable of following orders himself, but disrupts the decorum that Ironwood is used to. In return, I think we see a little more of James that he’d like to reveal.

“If you were one of my men, I’d have you shot!”

“If I was one of your men, I’d shoot myself!”

In case this entire ass essay doesn’t make it obvious, I do really ship Ironqrow. I’m open to other pairings, definitely, but this one in particular is just more interesting to me. It feels more revealing, more subtle. I have more questions.

In hindsight, maybe the dialogue example above ^ didn’t age well, considering where they’re at, but I do like how their professional animosity is flavored with a kind of camaraderie, and understanding. This exchange isn’t exactly playful, but they’re taking each other seriously - and, like repressed schoolboys, taking the piss at each other in a childish way, and isn’t that part of the fun of banter, when they’re so focused on each other that they forget to act their age? In a lot of ways, this is a really fun dynamic to watch. They’re opposite-kind-of-people, which I like, at least on a superficial level, and I can easily imagine them tempering each other in ways that would make them ultimately happier people.

They even look well-coordinated, with similar color schemes that lean on the opposite sides of the shared spectrum (white, grays, reds and black); I think the decorative design on Qrow’s new sleeves are supposed to be more ornate simply to communicate that Qrow is committed, and willing to be sentimental, but some viewers have suggested that it resembles the pattern on James’ weapon, Due Process (the revolver is based off of the Tin Man’s pistol, although, curiously, in The Wizard of Oz, the Scarecrow was the only character to carry a pistol, and the commentaries suggest that the 2007 Tin Man miniseries was the “basis of the allusion”. Does that mean anything? I don’t know. Probably not.). Still, it raises the questions: who was in charge of designing the team’s new clothes and gear? How much input did Atlas get, and was this intentional? Personally, I think that the vine-like pattern on Qrow’s sleeves also bear a resemblance to Ozpin’s staff, a subtle reaffirmation and foreshadowing of his allegiance in contrast to Ironwood, but I digress.

They can also deliver that UST kind of banter that takes up their attention, and get up really close to each other, in each other’s faces, and just be pissed, which I think is very sexy of them, mhm. Enemies to Colleagues to Reluctant Friends to Lovers is a trope that I very much appreciate. Gaining some sort of common ground at the Battle of Beacon only to reunite, tired and battered, after the shit has already hit the fan? Slow burn kinda vibes.

That hug between them was something genuinely vulnerable and a sign of Ironwood letting his guard down because he is tired as fuck. It also was uh...kinda fruity.

Ironwood approaches closer, and Qrow scratches the back of his head, a characteristically nervous gesture that he’s made before; it’s a nervous twitch, manufactured nonchalance. He has no idea what Ironwood wants, but he does know that Ironwood wants something. James is the one to initiate the hug, and Qrow startles and even freezes up before relaxing into it. He seems suprised, but gives the bisexual eye roll of grudging fondness. This is out of character for James - Jimmy - but Qrow doesn’t think that Ironwood is a bad person. He leans into the hug, and the camera cuts out before they separate, suggesting that they probably end up standing there for a long ass time. You can also see from the side shots that it’s a close hug; their torsos are pressed up against each other, front to front, and there’s not a lot of wiggle room. James must be really goddamn depressed. It’s a long, manly, intensley heterosexual hug. Like I said, kinda fruity.

Other people have analyzed the hug shot for shot, so I won’t get too into it, but I think that it was intentionally left as a double red herring; some people thought that maybe he bugged Qrow, and after finding out that he didn’t, we were forced to conclude that this is a genuine olive branch. To find out that Ironwood is sincere but was still susceptible to corruption is that second subversion that I didn’t really expect. I hadn’t prepared myself for it, at least, and neither did Qrow. I wouldn’t go as far to say that Ironwood’s descent into fucking craziness paranoia is triggered by Qrow not ‘reciprocating’ or something, but I do think it’s interesting how the volume opens up with a signifigant interaction between Ironwood and Qrow, only for Qrow to spend the rest of the volume homosexually bonding with Clover, while Ironwood basically has no one as emotional support (again, his subordinates do not have the power or the place to be viewed as equals and the veil of formality is one of isolation). Qrow initiates nothing further, and nothing further happens.

Ironwood’s downfall, in a thematic sense, is that what he Needs is a heart, and when he gets that chance to demonstrate tolerance and empathy, James ultimately rejects his Need (a heart) and his arc reverts into one of villainy. To be specific, Ironwood is essentially a fascist dick, and that is not very sexy. (Speaking of dicks, the thought of Ironwood’s dick makes me laugh. I bet in the RWBY universe, people have made memes about that. I do not accept criticism because I am correct. Anyway,).

Dictators are charming, charismatic, and one of the pillars of their method is absorbing potential political opponents into their own administration to reduce the threat of rebellion, to appear openly tolerant to their supporters, and to further consolidate power. A good example of this would be Mean Girls, which runs on a comedic commentary of dictatorships as a political structure of power. I hate to compare James Ironwood to Regina George, but Regina’s posse includes Karen and Gretchen, two of the only girls who might take away from the authority she holds over the rest of their school, both in their wealth and attractiveness, and Cady’s interesting backstory and conventional attractiveness is the main reason Regina draws her into her own sphere - because she detects a potential threat. Much in the same way, while Ironwood likely has good intentions, his efforts to win over team RWBY and co. - including Qrow himself - is a logical way to consolidate resources. His willingness, at first, to cooperate with political opponents (ie Robyn) is because he’s not inherently evil, and he has nothing to lose. It’s when he is openly opposed and diplomatic gestures no longer hold the necessary weight that he snaps.

In one really interesting meta about Ironqrow’s archetypes (that I reread occasionally just because I really love it), @onewomancitadel posits that Ironwood is framed within the archetype of the Knight in Shining Armor, which should inform us of the moral consistency of his character. The meta was written around the beginning of volume 7, I think, and obviously we have a lot more character development and information to go off of now, but I think she makes a really interesting point about the nature of parallels and how that might help drive Ironwood as a character. I love her analysis of the visual of Ironwood stepping out of an airship wreckage, onto the street, the smoke billowing around him to reveal his cyborg prosthetics, and of the intentional framing. Once his uniform is stripped back, we see a man who is literally half-armor, which could be indicative of a lot of things. He’s emotionally guarded, he’s used as a human weapon, and he wants to be a line of defense. In her words, “The symbolism is really obviously put into perspective of his actions in trying to do the right thing: in the flesh (his true physical self) he is literally a knight in shining armour. From the ground up. Even if it's unseen or distorted by his uniform, his nature is still true.”

While Ironwood clearly has gone down a darker path in the most recent volume, I think this analysis holds true in a crucial way. “Ironwood is working with different information, and he’s doing exactly what he knows: stick to his knightly virtues, even disgraced.” Disgraced, indeed. Ironwood is holding onto his knightly values, and doing what he believes is right. If not right, he believes that it is necessary. The problem is that these values are manifested within Atlas’s sociopolitical-military culture in an inherently toxic way - his response is, at this point, neither rational nor empathetic, but it can be explained partially due to his cultural (flawed) understanding of justice, and because of the extenuating circumstances. The harsher the conditions become, the more difficult it is for anyone to project a facade that is not sincere at its core. If James is to uphold his Knightly virtues, he needs to be a protector, a leader, and a servant all at once while operating under limited intel with dwindling trust. All he has left are the few key players still in his grasp, and the control of the people he is responsible for.

To digress: generally, knights take an oath. It could be to a King, or Lord, or some noble, but Knights are supposed to operate on a code of honor, and chivalry, and to uphold these values throughout the land as an extension of whoever they have pledged themselves to. The story of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a really good example of the way that, back in the day, chivalry and honor was supposed to place knights on a moral high ground compared to the common people.

In the middle of a celebration in Camelot, an obligatory tradition that has since lost real value but is rehearsed because Camelot fears that failure to uphold traditions that once had meaning is disrespectful, a Green Knight interrupts the celebrations and offers a strange challenge that boils down to a fight to the death. Gawain volunteers because accepting this challenge is what is expected of him, and Arthur would be humiliated if his knights, supposedly the best in the world, would not rise to the challenge. Gawain - and to a certain extent, the rest of Arthur’s knights - are fickle, in a sense, because their adherence to this code is performative, and it allows them to delude themselves into moral superiority and lie both to the commoners and amongst themselves; their identity as knights is based on a falsehood. Gawain is offered the first blow, and after beheading the Green newcomer, is horrified to see him become reanimated and immune to mortal blows. He invites Gawain to receive his own - likely fatal - blow, and gives him a time in which to meet, before promptly leaving.

Throughout the story, Gawain is tested in a variety of ways - in his final test, he fails, and allows his greed for self preservation and the fear of death to lead him to lie to his hosts and proceed to his meeting with the Green Knight under dishonest pretenses. While he is spared at the last second and becomes a better person (after it is revealed that Morgan le Fay orchestrated the ordeal to spook Queen Guinevere) - and by extent, a truer Knight, by the end of the story, the superficial and hypocritical nature of Arthur’s court is still in question, and still unanswered.

See, the entirety of Gawain’s trials was a test, not necessarily for him, but for Arthur and his court as a whole. Morgan wanted to prove the fickle nature of Arthur’s knights. The Knights of the Round Table were considered the best in the land, and to discredit one was to discredit all. What use is tradition if the meaning is empty, what use is chivalry if it is performed for reward instead of merit, and what use is loyalty if it is blind and unearned? Returning to Oz, the Tin Woodman, or Tin Man, grew to be made of tin because his axe became enchanted by the Wicked Witch of the East to sever his own body parts instead of the lumber he tried to cut down. A nearby tinsmith replaced each amputated limb with one of metal, until his entire body became tin and his meat body had been entirely discarded. Something to note is that Nick Chopper’s, (General Ironwood’s) wounds are technically self-inflicted. Each time he swung his axe, he made the decision to continue, knowing of the end result each time. In losing his bodily functions, the Tin Man believed that he had lost his humanity and ability to love.

The tragedy of his origin story draws a pointed correlation to Ironwood’s current dilemma; his unwillingness to stop, his self-imposed isolation, playing into the hands of the witch, and finally, the decision to let go of his ability to love remain consistent throughout both stories.

Watts even refers to Ironwood as a “Tin Solider”; a reference to the Tin (Woods)Man, no doubt, but could also evoke a soldier clanking around in metal armor. Ironwood is a Knight in Shining Armor, through and through. He wants to save the world, but at the terrible cost of civilian autonomy and possibly life. The problem is that he’s pledged himself to a discriminatory and hypocritical system, and his code is something that can easily be misconstrued by fear ( @disregardcanon ), much as Gawain’s own values. The Tin Man is, after all, still a man, and if we’ve learned anything from real fairytales, it is that men are fallible, whether or not they are made of metal.

Ironwood, Alone

he’s a lonely bitch

I know I f- up, I'm just a loser

Shouldn't be with ya, guess I'm a quitter

While you're out there drinkin', I'm just here thinkin'

'Bout where I should've been

I've been lonely, mm, ah, yeah

— Benee, Supalonely (2019)

You do get the sense that Ironwood is riddled with self-loathing conflicting with pride, with self-doubt clashing with competence, and that he is the kind of person who longs for things without verbalizing. Maybe his dad never paid enough attention to him as a kid. Maybe he suffered some terrible physical and emotional trauma, which might as well be assumed, given the extensive nature of his cybernetic limbs. Maybe (probably) he’d be more well-adjusted and would’ve made better decisions if the people around him trusted him and were a little more open. To be fair, though, he is the one at the wheel, and he is making the calls; no one else is to blame for his mistakes, and to pretend otherwise is to deny him accountability. I think we do enough of that in everyday life, in excusing powerful men of their responsibilities. To his credit, I do think he wants to help people. I think James also wants to project the personality of a leader who is stoic, controlled, and measured. He is charming when he wants to be, sympathetic when it suits him, and influential in just the right areas. He is not a sociopath, but he is a politician, and in a lot of ways, those are the same thing. We see in his brief flashes of temper, often prompted by Qrow, or most notably by Oscar, that this is not a calm, stable person. This is someone is on the verge of exploding, who is so fucking angry that he is not in control that it’s killing him, and so he is going to lash out and kill the things that are not within his grip. If the people beneath him will not reciprocate the heart that he offers, then he has no real use of it. James Ironwood does not begin this story as a bad person. This is a tragedy, in however many parts it takes.

I read, in one very smart and very put-together analysis that I cannot find and properly credit at the moment, that part of Ironwood’s (many) failures can be seen in Winter, and how, like Ozpin, he has appointed a woman as his talented, no-nonsense, second chain in command at his right hand. In this way, Winter is an intentional parallel to Glynda, who is, without question, a bad bitch. In theory, surrounding yourself with strong individuals is a demonstration of self restraint, in implementing your own checks and balances. James wants to project that he is powerful, yes, but he is reasonable.

I take this to mean that, to some degree, even if it’s unintentional or subconscious, Winter serves to boost Ironwood’s ego.

The issue with this is that within the inherently hierarchical structure of the military, Winter cannot question, undermine, or challenge Ironwood in a way that is particularly meaningful and their relationship is one of commander and subordinate before colleagues or equals (link to a fantastic post about Winter’s role as the Good, Conscientious Soldier by @fishyfod). Whereas Glynda is free to argue with, converse, and be as combative as she needs to be with Ozpin (although their power dynamic is arguably one of commander and subordinate albeit informally), Winter cannot temper Ironwood effectively, and through the illusion of equality, Ironwood is further isolated.

His head and arms and legs were jointed upon his body, but he stood perfectly motionless, as if he could not stir at all.

Dorothy looked at him in amazement, and so did the Scarecrow, while Toto barked sharply and made a snap at the tin legs, which hurt his teeth.

“Did you groan?” asked Dorothy.

“Yes,” answered the tin man, “I did. I’ve been groaning for more than a year, and no one has ever heard me before or come to help me.”

The Tin Man needs oil to lubricate his joints; without it, he cannot move, and he is rendered helpless and inanimate. When Dorothy and the group find him, he is entirely isolated with no one in sight, and he has been there for such a long time that he has begun to rust. Similarly, Ironwood needs valued voices of dissent to keep him in check. His colleagues were able to serve that purpose in the beginning, and out of them, Qrow is the best example of someone who doesn't take his shit, openly questions him, and looks down on the performative decorum of the military culture that Ironwood is surrounded by. What Ironwood needs is to be flexible and adaptable; his Semblance, Mettle (heh, metal, very nice pun, RoosterTeeth), is a double edged sword in that it gives him supernatural focus and willpower - enough, perhaps, to flay/chop off your own limbs - but it blindsides him, and is only further prolonging his pain.

There is a lot of sympathy to Ironwood’s character, as much as I’ve ragged on him for being an authoritarian, kind of a dick, and bad with kids. There are moments, such as the previously mentioned dinner party, where he shows his colors a bit, and when he assures the students at the Vytal Festival that there’s no shame in leaving before the battle begins, and in giving Yang a prosthetic arm before her father even has to ask. As far as Generals go, it seems that he’s seen soldiers come and go and understands, at least in his best moments, that not everyone is the same, and not everyone has power of unflinching determination to rely on. Ironwood performs his best when he tempers himself because he understands himself, and others. It’s when he fails to self-reflect that his hypocrisy shows through. Glynda points it out, too, as does Qrow; Ironwood advocates for trust but often fails to give it himself, going behind Ozpin’s back, being absolutely shit at field communication, and now the whole fascist, borderline-genocidal keruffle he’s gotten himself into.

I think that Ironwood reaching out to Qrow was his ethical last stand, his last chance and conscious effort to choose the right path. Qrow is unequivocally an equal, not like how Ozpin is the Big Boss, the authority that James becomes disillusioned with and tries to overthrow. He wants someone to trust, desperately so, and Qrow wants that too, but narrative subversion has hands. The Scarecrow and the Tin Man have no brain and heart respectively, and are in need of them. As it turns out, Qrow is actually a pragmatic guy with solid principles angled against authoritarianism, and Ironwood is a dick who would rather enforce martial law than to empathize and tame his military-shaped boner for one second.

I might conclude that someone like Qrow might be best for Ironwood, but that does not mean that someone like Ironwood would be the best for Qrow. Qrow has a brain after all, but Ironwood does not choose his heart when it matters, case in point. Even the intro of the current season features Salem and Ironwood on a chessboard; his white pieces are disappearing, dissolving into dust, as hers transform into Grimm. Ironwood is isolating himself by depleting himself of allies. As this post by @hadesisqueer points out, Ironwood isn’t even positioned as King, the supposed commander, but the Queen, the most versatile player on the board that is so far underused, since he hasn’t moved from his spot. Ironwood’s refusal to unify against Salem is his failure to strategically utilize the best resources that were available to him; soon, the pieces will be swallowed by the dark.

James is guilty of something that a lot of us are guilty of: doing a Bad Thing for what we have convinced ourselves is a Good Reason, when in reality, it is actually a lot of Very Bad Reasons. James Ironwood is a Knight archetype, through and through, and he is charging forward to do the right thing. He is afraid, he is lying to himself, and he will never surrender.

“All the same,” said the Scarecrow, “I shall ask for brains instead of a heart; for a fool would not know what to do with a heart if he had one.”

“I shall take the heart,” returned the Tin Woodman; “for brains do not make one happy, and happiness is the best thing in the world.”

Dorothy did not say anything, for she was puzzled to know which of her two friends was right, and she decided if she could only get back to Kansas and Aunt Em, it did not matter so much whether the Woodman had no brains and the Scarecrow no heart, or each got what he wanted.

The lesson of James Ironwood is a lesson of failure, and of the way that we succumb to fear, because that is Salem’s agenda, really, in the end: fear. It’s the negative emotions, fear being first and foremost, that draw in and empower the Grimm, and it’s fear and uncertainty that causes chaos. It is when Dorothy’s friends give into their fear that they are truly defeated. FDR’s assertion that “The only thing to fear is fear itself” holds true here; it’s not so much that these characters are afraid of losing their lives, their loved ones, and of the dark, but that they do not have the love or the resources to be brave for themselves or for others.

Qrow as a character is introduced as one who is already defeated, in a sense. Half of his team is gone, dead or estranged, he’s forced into the shadows of espionage to protect a world he knows is darker than it should be, and he’s fighting a losing battle with alcoholism. As charismatic as he’s written, he’s referred to as a “dusty old crow”, a hunter of renowned skill but past the prime of his life.

Dorothy’s three titular companions are defined by what they lack; in the same vein of the Disney I Want song (a main character’s main monologue song in which their wants and desires that motivate them throughout the rest of the film is laid out in song; ie Part of Your World, Reflections, How Far I’ll Go), the Lion, Tin Man, and the Scarecrow want bravery, a heart, and a brain respectively. RWBY relies on flipping the script of its characters based on what the audience might expect from the source material; Ruby is not just a helpless little girl - her introduction is a badass with a scythe. The Scarecrow is a chronic alchoholic. Cinderella is a victim of abuse, and is also a villain who wants to set the world aflame. Subversion, subversion, subversion.

There are obviously parallels between the characters in RWBY and in their own fairytales to keep them in character, and part of the fun is spotting those clues and occasionally connecting the dots to anticipate the direction of the narrative and certain connections between characters and the significance of their arcs. While I’m not aware of Dorothy Gale’s RWBY counterpart, if she has already been established or is yet to be introduced, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to assume that Ruby has adopted a Dorothy-eque persona and can act as a surrogate in a way. She begins as a sweet, naive child eager to join a world of color and excitement, who initially believes that she has “normal knees” and is thrust into a political scheme full of powerful and older players. She even has a small dog as a companion, Toto Zwei, who seems like an odd addition, since he’s usually sidelined and basically forgotten about except in a few spare moments, unless he’s there to draw further comparisons to Dorothy. She may not be from Kansas, but she is first helped by Glynda (the Good Witch), and later expects assistance from Ozpin, Qrow, and the later Ozian counterparts. I find it a peculiar detail that for Ruby to be Little Red Riding Hood alone, she is surrounded specifically by Dorothy’s companions. This, of course, only increases the importance of the relevance of the Oz series in particular and the characters that are borrowed.

In the case of Ozpin’s inner circle, Dorothy’s closest comrades (sans Toto) differ in crucial ways to their source material. (After finishing this essay, I found a much better, condensed explanation by @neopoliitan )

Disillusioned by the Ozpin, the Wizard (who has been projecting an illusion of a failsafe) and overwhelmed by the rise of the Wicked Witch of the West, Lionhart (the Lion), gives into his cowardice and ultimately forgoes the arc and redemption of his character from the source material; as such, he is by all definitions, a failure and a premonition, as Ironwood eventually follows. If RWBY is a dark take on classic fairytales, then it is only fitting that these characters are charred husks of their fairytale selves - these are people, and some people are selfish, scared, and cowardly, and they do not overcome these traits.

This is all opinion based, pure speculation. I have no idea what will happen in the next episode, and whatever goes down will be...shit will hit the fan. I’m under no delusions that Ironqrow is going to be canon in a healthy, tender, endgame sense. They’re both kind of losing their minds, and Ironwood is shitting absolute bricks. No, they’re going to try to kill each other, and I personally cannot wait for Qrow to cleave this man in two. (Not sexually, just, literally. Like, with a scythe.)

On that note, I think that the RWBY writers are good at callbacks, at drawing attention to their own connections, and if Ironwood and Qrow’s inevitable confrontation is scheduled, then it will include visual callbacks to Qrow saving James at Beacon, maybe shot for shot. Their visuals have only gotten better as time goes on, and I imagine Ironwood’s eyes widening as Qrow leaps through the air, scythe drawn, in recal of a moment so long ago when they weren’t on the same page, but they were at least on the same side. When Qrow brings the blade down, there will be no enemy behind him. Only Jimmy James. The difference between the two of them will be that Qrow isn’t fighting out of fear, but out of love, for what happened to Clover, and to what could happen to his girls.

Qrow’s reliance on alcohol, as well as his (mostly) feigned nonchalance is meant to fit with the motif that the Scarecrow has no brain, and, had he a mind to desire anything, would desire it most of all. His role is, also, notably, gathering intelligence for Ozpin (his character is also based on Munnin from Norse mythology). There is so much about Qrow that is an act and so much that is not, and I think that this act is born both from this motif and from his own cynicism, and the alcohol contributes to this act. However, he eventually gets sober after Ruby expresses legitimate frustration, and he understands that he’s putting their lives at risk. While one could say that he gave up drinking for the kids, I would argue that the kids - Ruby in particular - made him want to give up drinking for himself, to better himself.

While Lionhart and Ironwood betray the people depending on them, Qrow’s love for his nieces (and for the kids) allows him to deviate from this pattern. The answer to fear is perhaps not merely bravery - Qrow’s triumph is love.

Ironwood knows triumph in the context of a military state, but he’s backed himself into a corner. Soon he will find himself alone and friendless. Hopefully, his last stand will not be in vain.

[bisexualadamparrish]

why the hunger games series had to end the way it did...

      Okay, so before I get going I want to give a little background on my own perspectives of this book over time. The first time I read the series, I was ~11 years old and in the sixth grade. I read the books shortly after my mom (for some context, I come from a southern, pretty conservative, military family, which obviously gave me some very specific world-views). Now I’m 21, have been out of my house for 3 years at college, and have very different views on society, the government, and military/police forces than my family and myself at age 11, which are the major themes explored in this series. The point of providing this information is to say that, as an 11 year old reading and discussing this series with my mom and other 11 year olds, a lot of the real-life implications of the series were lost on me, and I think these real-life implications are pretty important to understanding why the series had to end the way it did. 

My full analysis is under the cut (as well as a “too long, didn’t read” summary)

      Looking more into the real-life connections in the series, I never put much thought into the fact that Panem is specifically a future & fallen version of North America, that fell specifically as a result of natural disasters and resource scarcity that led to a nuclear war. The series could have been written as a vague unnamed location in the future, but Collins chose to explicitly say that this new society rose out of the ashes of North America, and the USA specifically. If you read the prequel, it explores a little more in-depth how the capitol specifically rose to power, and how the relationship between the districts and the capitol were in the early years of Panem, during the first revolution, and in the early years of the era of the games. 

      The Capitol is very clearly painted as the direct result of wealth and resource hoarding and the abuse of the working class and how insidious it is for that to be allowed in even small amounts because with time it can snowball into more and more severe exploitation.This makes the themes explored even more relevant, because all of the major themes in the novel (war, military/police, capitalism, and government), while portrayed as more severe than in real life currently, are all big factors that do effect every-day life in America. This story is a portrayal of a potential future if these kinds of actions are left unchecked and the opinions and well-being of the vast majority of the population are swept aside in favor of the interest of the powerful. Sound familiar? 

      As a kid reading this, these are the points that were lost on me, and I think these points being lost are what made me feel that the ending was disappointing, or too abrupt, or unfinished. Back then I chalked it up to miss Collins being put under pressure to finish the last book and meet stricter deadlines, etc. We see that kind of slight decline or failure to wrap up loose ends a lot in series that get rapidly popular, and I genuinely just thought that was the case. Now however, while I do still feel that the ending is depressing and upsetting, I do believe it was the perfect way to end this series and a perfect ending to Katniss’s character arch.

      Katniss is a character that has been hit with hardship after hardship from a very young age; forced to grow up even earlier than the other kids in her district, who all had to grow up earlier than they should have anyways. She then had to face the games, which were incredibly difficult on her physically, mentally, and emotionally; which we see the effects of throughout Catching Fire. On top of her own personal troubles moving past that, president Snow targets her that entire year and she witnesses other people hurt and killed because of her actions surrounding the games, which is horrible for her to go through. Then we reach Mockingjay and she is pretty much forced into this leadership role against her will, and even though she does embrace it eventually on her own terms, that’s a lot for an already traumatized teenager to be put through. Katniss is a wonderful character and Collins does a truly wonderful job at showing how these different situations she gets put through affect her. The books do not shy away from showing the uglier side of things and the inner-turmoil it all causes Katniss and how all of the different people in Panem are affected by everything.

      All of this has been a really long lead up to my ultimate point, which is that if the story had wrapped up any differently; if Gale hadn’t committed the crimes he did, if Katniss hadn’t killed Coin, if Prim, and even Finnick, had lived and no other significant characters had been taken in their place, it would have undone three books worth of build up. To give the story an idealized ending where Love Heals All and the Good Guys™ win and they all live happily ever after would have suggested that the after effects of the war could have been overcome quickly. This would have undermined the entire message of the series. This series is a poignant look into the effects of capitalism, a totalitarian and authoritarian government, unchecked military/police force, wealth disparity, and war. In real life, there would be casualties and Katniss would never fully heal, and it makes sense that it would take her years and years and years and Peeta’s unwavering hopefulness to get to a point where she could even think about the world in a generally positive way. 

      I always felt when I was younger that the ending was just so depressing- it felt like they could have given us a little more of the epilogue, a little more cheerful of an ending to Katniss and Peeta’s story, but now I realize that the small amount of hope Katniss shows in the end is enough. She’s a deeply traumatized woman in a deeply traumatized world that is overcoming generations of war and poverty and oppression. Katniss never felt very hopeful even before she got put in the games, so for her as a character and the story as a whole, that small bit of healing and the hope that things will continue to get better, even if they aren’t just yet, is what we needed without it being so much that it disregards the serious tones of the series. Of course I wish Katniss and Peeta could have been completely fine and lived happily ever after, but the fact of the matter is that their society will take generations to truly heal, because the themes explored are things that leave deep scars and I think the ending Collins gave us helps prove that point. 

TLDR: Yes, the ending of the Hunger Games series is depressing, but if it had been more focused on romance or if things were fixed quickly/totally it would have been too idealistic and undone three books worth of build-up showing the lasting effects of unchecked capitalism and wealth disparity, totalitarianism, and military/police forces. 

[violet-sabres]

Some quick observations re: TROS and some "reylo"musings (spoilers)

- the editing removed A LOT of emotional pay-offs for so many scenes. The decorations and actors change quickly, a bit randomly - in fact it takes a while before this movie finds its tempo and footing. Something weighty happens and no reflection is allowed even in briefest sketch of a reaction. Next scene. Next scene-

- Poe, Finn, Rose and two new female characters were absolutely robbed. Both by the ungodly pace of this movie (there is much potential for scenes that could mean much much more in the whole storyline. As is, they are discarded as soon as they happen). The bond between Finn and Poe got severed in the beginning with some awkward finnrey moments and strange jealousy (was that what it was???) from Poe. I say either carry out the finnrey thread (which was also beautiful actually, though Finn deserves so much better than how she treats him in TROS...) or finnpoe, something which JJ himself built up. Rose should be given an independent arc with no romance involved, or a love interest of her own.

- Rose's infatuation with Finn is never touched. Rose herself is absolutely erased - she is a statist, providing some dialogue with absolutely no weight behind it. JJ treated her terribly - it was his privilege and responsibility to utilize whatever he got from Johnson as he saw fit; but throwing away her potential only underlines the racist sidelining he did to all characters of colour.

- the heteronormativity I can't understand - Finn and Poe are JJs babies after all (and yeah, I know - shareholders...). Why tease hetero relationships for both and STILL leave even them hanging?? Like, he discarded Rose bc first of all racism, second - Johnson's 'leftovers' I guess? Unacceptable. The lady of Poe's was sketched boldly - but still sketched. Her inclusion wouldn't feel so random if Poe wasn't shown to be this randomly emotional abt her all of a sudden. Why now? It felt a bit forced and this is a shame bc she (and Janah, omg Janah...) is super cool. I'd love to read and see way more about all of them.

- Finn and Janah - wonderful rapport, so much empathy and loyalty, they are wonderful together. I definitely could see them together as well - so many threads to explore! There was so much potential to embed meaningful relationships for Finn into the plot. Janah is one of those that felt quite right but deserved more still. She deserves a story of her own. Not for the first time it is a secondary character of colour who carries so much potential and substance and gets sidelined. I dont mind Kylo content btw - but this series was shown to concentrate on 3 people and a villain. Keep to this proportion or perish I say. They didnt keep them and the movie feels unfairly skewed towards the force dyad of Rey and Ren. Hence, robbed. We were robbed of much of quality content here.

- the implication/suggestion that Finn may be Force sensitive held so much promise. I love Finn and Boyega played him with so much passion and dignity. He grew into leadership without pretense or drama, was competent and knowledgeable about the inner workings of the Fleet and found hope he was struggling for. Honestly the problem here is that his prominence was teased to be greater than the actual time and the weight of scenes he was given. This movie should be longer, scene order less abrupt and random - so the characters that were shown to matter in the first part could matter here as well.

- JEDI FINN please. The potential of it was teased - they should scrap some of the scenes and build those kinds of plot points more thoroughly. Finn's arc should be more - but that doesn't mean Boyega played it any other than magnificently. He got what he was given and made it his. I hate that this still means it was not as much as he and Poe deserved it. Same with Rose.

- galactic generals (*husbands) Poe and Finn. It could be marriage, it should be - Isaac played a man in love. I enjoyed this new romantic angle with the spice smuggler lady as well - but it required more buildup. As it was, it made for an awkward and frankly homophobic ersatz for finnpoe plotline of the first and even second movie. I hate wasting the potential of new characters in the movie, and this is what happened here. Also Poe's smuggling past - no previous setup that felt offensive to many bc of its randomness and no previous grounds in existing media. Felt like unnecessary sensationalism here.

- Rey is complicated here. I didnt like her attitude towards Finn and wished for more appreciation of their own idiosyncracies between them. Finn deserved his love (whether romantic or platonic) to be recognized. It was lacking here.

- I loved the fight scenes, the dialogues with Ren that should begin in TFA if they wished for the romance to be acceptably wet up. Driver is so fucking physical and huge, a bit awkward and very strong. To me it was attractive - but to me Kylo always lacked the threat in him when it came to Rey; I know this isnt so for others and respect that.

- Choreography is super effective here, the body work of Rey and Ren is wonderful.

- lighting, the sith locations were one of my favourites

- the creatures - while in the background, theybwere lovely. They made for lusher world out there.

- Palps was eh. Needed for the ending setup, ultimately fell a bit flat. The twist re his endgame would feel better if the whole scene didnt play this fucking quickly.

- the death (you know whose...) is quick and abrupt, passing fleetingly with no real depth or importance. They are rushing to another scene so quickly they forget that if you love somebody enough to accept them fully, this person's death tends to leave some kind of impression. As it is, Rey is hardly the first character robbed of emotional engagement in TROS.

- sigh. Ren. I love to hate him and hate to enjoy him still. Also feeling like a hypocrite bc would I enjoy him if not for my prefernce for how Driver looks like? Would anyone who I respect a bit more than his most fanatical reylo fans? I have no answer really.

I've never seen a character ripped into shreds from so many angles. For incels and dudebros he is a pussy (a lot of girls I know also mentioned that). He is supposedly not cruel enough, not awesome like Vader, whatever.

For others he is a genocidal criminal, and that he is. You can't sidestep Tuanul or his passivity in front of Star Destroyer wiping out whole planets. He is implicated in this genocide - and that scene where he is supposedly mutely watching it from the distance falls flat if its intention was to show he wasn't entirely behind Hux's agenda. He still never stopped him. So yeah, it is obvious that for many he is absolutely undeserving of any empathy, much less a romance plotline with movie's heroine. Especially when the first scenes setting it up were so messed up.

Now I hate the word reylo and I'd rather choke than call myself that. But I did enjoy their enmity and idk love?? towards each other? It should be plotted more consequently and I believe if JJ didn't muck it in tfa people would be a lot less opposed to the whole villain x heroine thing. Nobody opposes it bc of that - it's the torture bed and it's the "whatever I want" line that made so many recoil. It's the absolute lack of coherence at a time where more self awareness was needed from the director of the very first part in the series.

I believe there is a kind of generational divide on topic of their romance. Youve got gen z "antis" who argue about the abuse (and have a lot of good point more reylos should think hard and long about) - and mostly adult to older women (this includes older milennials also!) who grew up steeped in gothic romanticism that, up to gen z growing up, was a dominant romance paradigm in the West.

Youve got your Wuthering Hills, your Pride and Prejudice and Beauty and the Beast. I hate it. I absolutely abhor it, and the more the reylo fandom hammered their whole relationship from this angle, the more I was distancing myself. I believe the whole genre is steeped in toxic masculinity and yes, you can look at reylo from this angle as well - and I understand that when you saw those scenes from TFA, and didn't feel convinced by entirely paradoxal romance teasers (bc JJ mixed them both in equal measure, and thus killed wide enthusiasm for reylo for good) then what happened in TLJ and TROS must look like the embracing toxic hetero romance in entirety. And to some degree it is - entirely by JJs fault. The other elements that you mightve ignored in tfa suddenly get amplified in tlj, in tros and youre left wondering why the hell Kylo Ren could ever be seen as romanceable?

But the thing is, while the analogy of angry white male pursuing a pure young woman seems fitting, it doesnt work for me here. I also acknowledge that it may be in part bc I'm used to the gothic paradigm, attracted to Driver as Ren and feeling safe and assured that Rey would stay herself despite whatever he wanted from her (and she did in my opinion, she never caved even when she loved him). Kylo is white, and he is aggressive - he is a villain, he tortures and hurts Poe and Finn and plays psychological games with Rey, he shouts a lot and is very physical, which in itself looks threatening.

All those could end up somewhat accepted bc he is a villain - people will accept the consequent villain, or paradoxical one done with self- awareness on side of their creator. JJ was absolutely unaware of what a mess he did I bet - the worst elements that crossed "reylo" off the list for so many people I'd argue were first sown by JJ himself in paradoxical chase of I tease this-now I don't. Here's what I mean.

It was JJ who put Rey on that horizontal torture bed, even when Poe's was upright. It was JJ who had Ren say those gross words abt taking what he wanted. It was also JJ who irreaponsibly and paradoxically played with symbolism normally reserved for gothic princes DESPITE the gross elements he himself planted - the mask going off to reveal a goofy Disney prince, the crouching so as not to scare her, the freaking bridal carry, the humanizing via showing Ren's vulnerability. I actually hated some of those scenes - I loved the face reveal no lie, but what followed was unacceptable. Why style your villain this lush and vulnerable when you're shooting your own foot a few minutes after, with dialogue that had whole groups of young women discard him as trash? Why not polish your villain with more self awareness so that the ground for the romance is understood and cautiously accapted?

So youve got an internally cracked TFA that for some was obviously teasing reylo but for others made it unacceptable forever. This is one hell of a difficult mix to continue with and I believe if JJ was given the 2nd part to work with, perhaps he might be able to somehow work with Ren so that TLJ wouldnt feel like slap to the face to those who saw mostly the worst parts of Ren that JJ himself designed. Perhaps he would also polish the romance teasers or got rid of them altogether, idk. TROS shows that while he was eager to discard anything that Johnson had put into motion, he chose to leave reylo content still. This is really paradoxical to me, today as it was back then.

Now reylo isnt super mainstream - if he got rid of it, it would surely anger a lot of people but also satisfy an equal amount of others. Yet he chose not to and I'd argue it is because he planned for reylo to happen from the beginning, just in a shitty way we first witnessed in the worst scenes of TFA.

I'll also argue another point - if Johnson was given the saga from the beginning, reylo wouldnt be nearly as much hated and regarded as abusive for so many. It is this particular humanization of Kylo that was criticized by so many that would protect the 1st part from that torture bed, and from taking whatever Kylo wanted. As it was, when all this sudden humanity followed JJs paradoxical mess, only opposition could come bc it kind of must - it looked for many as woobifying somebody who was already irredeemable. The irony is that JJ probably never planned for this - maybe he thought he could pull this off, somehow work out the agreement between ugly Kylo and Kylo worthy of Rey. Johnson just put a fat line between TFA and his own vision, and irresponsibly ignored all the ugly heritage that should be better worked on if he ever hoped to rectify JJs paradoxes. He didnt do this and thus the mess.

I dont know if it would ever be possible though. Perhaps theres been a shift in ethics, in aesthetics even, so big that for the gen Z this kind of relationship is unacceptable. I dont see anything bad in this - even if I enjoyed a lot of reylo's potential, there will be better content, better romances done by those kids who despise reylo now as well. Meanwhile I plan to stay on this weird pole stuck deep into my ass between reylo enthusiast and haters bc I cant for shit choose a side fully.

Bc I dont see the abuse this clear cut - but am also unsure how much of it is my cultural baggage, the history of normalizing toxic masculinity etc. I bet it's both to some degree, like with all gothic romance genre, - and that there wouldnt be this whole rift at the heart of tfa without toxic masculinity normalization at all. Without it there would be no torture bed and no threats. And the irony is that Johnson would probably see to that better. But not as good as a woman behind the camera to begin with - if you want a heroine at its heart that is.

Like, you can see JJs initial vision as pretty homogenous - the bed, the words, and ignore all the paradoxical romance symbolism in there. You can also look at it as fractured and absolutely lacking coherence, and fish for the elements youd like to stay in next parts. I welcomed Johnson bc he took the best in Kylo and left JJs mess behind. This is also the very reason youre gonna hate the TLJ if TFA felt coherent for you. Bc you cant ignore that which felt threatening and cruel and very much obvious.

I have no easy recipe at dealing with this saga. I cant throw my weight behind reylo fully, ever, but will cautiously accept the potential it could have should it be more coherently written. I love so much of art and those fics that are in line with my wishes towards how Ren should be done from.the beginning.

When I was considering what to.think abt all that, back in the beginning, I didnt want for Rey to cater to emotional demands and baggage of an aggressive male, and I believe she actually doesnt - time and time again she asserts herself, maybe messily but she has the right to her anger and pain so the messy it has to be. She is shown to hope for him becoming better - and isnt manipulated or groomed to do so, and if loneliness was the only reason to stick to him then any other person would suffice, which isnt the case. She is loyal to the cause to the end and happily carries on despite Ren dying, even if it's clear she loved him. She is her own woman and the magnitude of his emotions, the physicality of his behaviour hardly influence her - she neither cowers before Kylo nor caters to him, ever. I love her for this, actually.

So there you have it, my messy thoughts on both TROS and 'reylo' dynamics. I cant say Im satisfied with both. There could be more, Ren could be fleshed out better in the beginning. The potential of so many characters was left undeveloped. I dont feel satiafaction even with elements I loved abt reylo bc there is no counterpart in other aspects I hoped to see developed. I wanted Rey to have more time with Finn, for Finn to have more time with Poe, for Rose to matter in tros as well. I wanted more of Rey and Leia, and for Ren to have more coherence to his character. Ultimately I got crumbs and some bits unable to be stomached.

Go and watch tros, stay in the place of engaging with this series that feels best to you, closest to your needs abd perceptions. Tros will not satisfy anyone in full, also bc of editing and the pacing - which is terrible. Reylo will either frustrate you or frustrate you for entirely different reasons. Dont take JJs shit, dont take Johnson's. Take from the saga whatever works for you.

I dont think it's possible to fully embrace reylo, without reservations. There are grounds for the so called antis to point out the toxic masculinity and potential for abuse. There are tropes suggesting romance despite this still, all in just TFA. It was a mess from the very beginning and it's normal people took sides.

I'm just glad it's finally over.

[homespork-review]

Homespork Act 2: The Racism of the Conductor’s Baton (Part 3)

BRIGHT: Also, the prompts in John’s head are back and are making increasingly strident demands. Namely, they want John to follow Nannasprite to the cookies. John isn’t too keen on this idea. He’s so not-keen on it that he fails to notice Rose whacking him in the head with a box. Frustrated by his lack of compliance, the voice devolves into insults. I’m not sure why the Wayward Vagabond is so insistent on this? It’s not like he can eat the cookies.

On the whole this is a really good sequence, I think. It lays out some basic background information for the reader and John, and it’s paced pretty well.

Back in the future, an agitated slip of the finger causes a cupboard door to open in the Wayward Vagabond’s hideout. Out fall a few tins of food and a heavy tome of HUMAN ETIQUETTE.

Rose has updated her GameFAQs walkthrough with the new information from Nannasprite. We’re getting something of a motif here: Cut-aways to the Wayward Vagabond are followed by a walkthrough update. It’s a nice little pattern.

Rose also speculates on the prototyping process and on why the prototypings of other players worldwide have not affected John’s foes, and comes to the conclusion that each client/server pair -- or daisy chain -- spawns its own copy of the Incipisphere, or ‘session’. She’s also caught up in rewriting her work. Couldn’t the reader go somewhere else? Or somewhen else?

Why yes, the reader can. Namely the reader can jump back to Rose’s birthday, where she’s having a conversation with GG.

This conversation reinforces that there’s something funny about GG. She asks about John’s present the moment Rose opens it, and Rose isn’t surprised by this. GG also knows without being told that Rose’s dead pet is a male cat, and she’s been working on her birthday present for John for years.

Finally, she asks what Rose would say if GG told her she knew a game that could bring said cat back to life.

TT: If someone told me that, I would regard the remark with a great deal of skepticism. TT: If that someone was you, on the other hand, then I would have to ask preemptively: TT: Is that someone you? GG: yes that someone is me!!!!!!!! GG: i just thought you might find it interesting TT: So what is this game?

Whatever strange abilities GG has, Rose is familiar with her knowing things she shouldn’t, and trusts her even when she makes claims that sound impossible.

CHEL: Note, also, that here GG is the one who brings up the game, while in an early convo with John set chronologically after this one she asked “lol! whats sburb?” This is not an inconsistency. Again, it comes up later. We end up saying that a lot. Sorry.

BRIGHT: Also: Rose knows John well enough to guess that he was wearing a disguise when he talked to her earlier -- but still interprets his gift of knitting needles and yarn as a subtle jab at her habit of making analytical comments, much as her mother. GG points out that he probably didn’t mean it that way. Later, Rose says she’ll make him a gift with strong sentimental value as a dig at him, but admits she doesn’t really mean it that way when GG points it out. Then again, this takes place some months before the comic starts, and may show how Rose and John’s relationship has evolved.

Back in Dave’s home, the sun is beating down. Meteors pepper the city, and smoke is rising. Dave captchalogues his katana, and sets out in search of his brother’s copy of the game.

Dave elaborates a little on the concept of irony that he and his brother live by. His brother is awesome, apparently. Dave can only hope to one day reach those heights of irony.

The puppet theme from earlier continues, with puppets strewn around the living room where Bro lives and sleeps. Among them are a Mr. T puppet, which is wearing a leather thong and handcuffed to a pantsless Chuck Norris puppet. What makes it a little disturbing is that this is just lying out in the living room, which Dave presumably goes into all the time. Dave’s narration here sounds a lot like he’s trying to convince himself that these things are totally cool, no, really. He can’t see Lil Cal anywhere, though...

CHEL: Other puppets are the iconic Smuppets, possibly a portmanteau of “smutty puppets”, vaguely humanoid nude puppets with enormous behinds and phallic noses. There are implications that they are intended for non-PG purposes. Further implications are that the leaving of obscene material around the home has been going on for all of Dave’s life. For the record, intentionally showing pornography or sexual aids to children is classed as a form of sexual abuse. Casually leaving them lying around the house in front of kids long-term, well, the motive may not be malicious but I doubt a jury would care. It certainly counts as neglect. The popular fanfic Brainbent explored the damage this kind of thing could inflict on a kid in a realistic setting.

Also note, there is no hint of Dave having or ever having had parents, not even a photo in the background or something. The immediate assumption would most likely be that they’re dead, but Bro’s strangeness might also suggest estrangement - behaviour like that would probably result in one’s parents not talking to one anymore, though they most likely wouldn’t leave a child in a place like that if they were around. We find out the truth later, and it’s even weirder.

BRIGHT: Between one panel and the next, Lil Cal appears atop a speaker box. Dave is fine with this. Totally fine.

CHEL: For the record, this is Lil Cal:

Not something one would be very happy about finding behind one, is he?

BRIGHT: He plays a bit on the Xbox, gives Cal a fistbump, and then checks out his brother’s computer. It’s password-protected, but Dave knows the password, and Bro knows he knows it, and Dave knows this, and it’s all totally cool.

One of Bro’s websites is a puppet pornography website. Apparently this is popular enough to bring in thousands of dollars a month, and Smuppets are a multi-billion-dollar-per-year enterprise. Time for our next point:

Magic-onomics - wherein characters’ funds issue from nowhere Half-baked attempts to justify a protagonist’s mystery money can also backfire. Explanations should amount to more than “Somehow Rain had lots of money.” Giving Rain an inheritance, or explaining that she recently gave up her job at a top law firm to pursue her art, will work only where these things feel like part of the world of the novel.

Bro and Dave live in a crappy apartment in which Bro doesn’t even have his own bedroom, instead sleeping on the futon in the living room where he works. Yet they have the funds to spend on swords (not cheap) and expensive turntables. The Con Air bunny prop Dave bought for John sold in real life for almost $1,300.

And how the heck do smuppets bring in multiple billions of dollars a year? That’s a niche market, even if Bro is the only supplier. (Which he wouldn’t be — if it’s worth that much, someone else would want in on the market.)

CHEL: Even if said market is fairly disturbing. If there’s enough people who like it enough to buy it, there’ll be people comfortable with supplying it.

BRIGHT: Their income shouldn’t be anywhere near that high, even with puppet pornography adding to the revenue stream. If we grant that in this universe it is that high, then they should be living somewhere more comfortable.

HOW NOT TO WRITE A WEBCOMIC: 13

CHEL: In order for this to actually work as stated, not only would the puppets have to appeal to everyone on the planet, but there would probably have to be a lot more people on the planet than there actually are. I’m pretty sure it’s an exaggeration for humour, but considering the inconsistencies with their income status as presented, it’s still a bit shaky.

It’s also worth another count, because this is basically a handwave to mean the characters presented aesthetically as poor are still as financially secure as is necessary for writing the scenes Hussie wants to:

WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 6

If the comic was presented as a non-serious cartoon for the whole story, this would pass without comment, but when one’s trying to be dramatic and include real stakes, I think one needs to apply real stakes to everyday things too.

BRIGHT: Then again, it’s possible that their financial status is higher than the apartment would suggest, and Bro just chooses to spend his money on katanas and expensive equipment rather than upgrading. (And/or is lying to Dave about their income.) That might not be out of character given what we see of him later. But overall, this is a mess.

FAILURE ARTIST: Maybe the Smuppets is a money laundering business.

CHEL: A lot of people would read that fanfic.

The theory that the guardians knew the game was coming might explain why he chose to spend so much on swords, at least. He’d know Dave would need them. Not so much of an explanation for everything else though. Considering the weirdness that’s going on, I could imagine Bro not wanting attention drawn to it, but wouldn’t hiding weirdness be much harder in a flat than in a house set off some distance from neighbours?

For that matter, where’s John getting the money for movie memorabilia? Later reveals show the Egbert family originally came from money but they don’t seem to have that much to throw around now.

BRIGHT: Remember how Rose said earlier that she quite enjoyed Bro’s websites? I think that counts as a point for CALL CPA PLEASE…

FAILURE ARTIST: I question how pornographic the site really is. It might just literally be puppets being mashed together with no human body parts. A thirteen year old can surely see that.

BRIGHT: Fair point -- the page we see is teen-safe, at any rate.

CHEL: If it isn’t actually sexual, that possibly makes the supposed popularity level even sillier. Fetishists need constant fresh material and there are probably people who don’t have a specific puppet fetish who would ignore the puppets to look at the guy, but to keep up that level of popularity the viewers who don’t have a puppet fetish would have to keep finding it funny long after most people would think the joke had worn off. Both options say disturbing things about the world this comic is set in and their tastes in either pornography or humour. At least Veronica Chaos appears onscreen with her puppet… (Link contains no porn but you probably don’t want it on a work computer.)

For the record, I think Smuppets would actually make pretty bad sex toys. Plush is a porous material, so it would be hard to clean sticky substances out of it properly, and the phallic noses seem to be too floppy to use for penetration of a human orifice. Maybe that first point is why he brings in so much cash - the smuppets are single-use? People do use plush toys for masturbatory purposes, but usually when they can’t find anything else to use, specific fetishes for them being rare, and generally don’t use the soft parts as penetration toys.

Personally, I quite like the theory the kinkmeme brought up years ago; PlushRumps is actually an elaborate multimedia webcomic a la Homestuck itself. Now that I can see bringing in that much cash. Or possibly it just looks like this, which was made by the guy who wrote Thirty Hs (warning for eye injury and surreality): "Jumping!" (Watch on YouTube)

I could see Bro being that dude.

BRIGHT: And Dave admits, again, that he finds the puppet thing unsettling.

This is a pretty good depiction of someone trying to convince himself to be okay with something that freaks him out. He pesters John to distract himself from the puppets everywhere, and when he doesn’t get a response, he pesters Rose. And Hussie once again repeats the entire blinking pesterlog we read fifty pages ago instead of just linking back to it.

GET ON WITH IT!: 6

CHEL: Just occurred to me; why is Dave so bothered by the puppets? I can’t imagine that Bro suddenly started leaving them around when he hadn’t before - in fact, I believe a later flashback shows infant Dave using a Smuppet’s nose as a pacifier (eww, god I hope it was a freshly-made unused one). Dave really ought to be used to the things by now. Then again, now he’s reaching his teens, he’s probably old enough to start realising this is weird and creepy on a deeper level. But then that brings up the same problem we had with John; doesn’t he have any local friends he could have learned this from sooner? Though I could picture Bro not bothering to send him to school, and we do later learn there is quite possibly magic afoot in hiding the oddness of the Strider household. That’s a complicated theory and requires much more setup than we have here, though, so pin in that for later.

Also, the puppets thing counts for a point of ARE YOU TRYING TO BE FUNNY?, and Dave is in fact the reason we created that count. A kid in Dave’s situation in real life would be messed up, but so would a kid in the situations of the others (or at least the girls), and Dave’s situation seems to be taken more seriously than theirs, at least later on.

ARE YOU TRYING TO BE FUNNY?: 5

BRIGHT: Back to Rose, who’s beating John over the head with a box in a futile effort to get his attention. She eventually gives up and deploys another piece of equipment called a Punch Designix, using the Shale John collected. Since she doesn’t know what it does, she pesters John and asks him to experiment.

Unfortunately John has bigger problems to deal with: His garden is by this point overrun with imps, who are climbing on his tire swing and wearing his disguises. This is enough to snap him out of his Wayward Vagabond-induced state and get him to respond to Rose. They need to get those monsters off his pogo ride!

Fortunately, Rose is able to help by picking up the piano and dropping it on the imp. Less fortunately, the piano does not survive the experience. Neither does the imp.

The pogo ride seems fine, though.

John is reluctant to risk Nanna’s ghost cookies to go retrieve the grist, so Rose uses the pogo ride to transport it up to his room. Then she tells him to go find out what the Punch Designix does, while she works on building the house up to the gate. Apparently stairs cost a lot of grist to build. John makes a SBaHJ reference while Rose recoups the grist she used to build the catwalk earlier, sending an imp tumbling into the depths.

In the kitchen, Nannasprite has produced a lot of cookies. An imp tries to sneak one, and is blasted into grist by Nanna as a result.

John sets out on a hunt for imps and useful items, grabbing some shaving cream and his pogo ride, and launching his telescope out of the window. Amazingly, this proves relevant only a few pages later.

CHEL: Dad apparently keeps an entire cabinet filled with nothing but shaving cream. Rule of Funny, I know, but how fast does this guy’s beard grow?

BRIGHT: His living room is full of imps, who have taken a shine to the Cruxtruder and left cruxite dowels lying everywhere. Armed with hammer and shaving cream, John mounts his trusty steed and pogos his way to victory, which works amazingly well (read: works at all), until he slips on a cruxite dowel and lands flat on his back.

This is incredibly dangerous!

Acting on a polite prompt, John absconds into his Dad’s study, and Rose covers his retreat with the refrigerator, which levels up to FIVESTAR GENERAL ELECTRIC and earns 285 Boondollars.

Further extremely polite prompts ask John for a can opener. Despite the presence of two imps in the study with him, John stops to consider where to find one, while Rose takes out the imps with Dad’s safe. I don’t think that counts as HURRY UP AND DO NOTHING, though, since it’s clearly supposed to be the joke.

Back in the future, the Wayward Vagabond munches on a few pages from the etiquette book. Rose updates her GameFAQs walkthrough with a series of images of John’s house in the Medium. She does refer to Colonel Sassacre’s as racist in one of these, but it’s not really much of a rebuttal.

CHEL: She experiments with building a bit more on John’s house; ladders prove cheaper to build than stairs, albeit harder to use safely. John eventually stops contemplating can openers to examine the Punch Designix, while Rose answers Dave’s angry rant about being buried in Smuppets. I think this may be another point for ARE YOU TRYING TO BE FUNNY, because in the context of a kid ranting about his brother’s annoying hobby and his friend snarking back it’s hilarious, and it seems at this point to be presented as funny, but as discussed above the nature of Smuppets makes this rather creepy.

ARE YOU TRYING TO BE FUNNY?: 6 TG: i am enrobed in chafing, wriggling god fucking damned puppet pelvis TG: an obscenely long, coarse kermit cock is being dragged across my anguished face TT: Let's put this into perspective. You put up with the puppet prostate because you love it.

Okay, this I think could be a point for CALL CPA PLEASE. A child probably would make fun of another child’s discomfort with non-consensually being surrounded by sex toys on the grounds of not knowing better, but it’s unsettling to read.

CALL CPA PLEASE: 2

John discovers there are codes on the backs of his captchalogue cards, which can be entered into the Punch Designix to make punch cards. Punching the captchalogue card itself renders the item irremovable from it, but the punch card can, he guesses, be used to recreate the item via the Totem Lathe and Alchemiter. Before he can test this, Rose hurls a bathtub through the wall to kill some nearby imps; to be fair, when he checks his PDA, he sees he missed a message from her warning him about it. He messages her back and she says the precarious staircase up to the gate is ready. John is nervous and asks why she didn’t build straight up through the hole in his dad’s bedroom ceiling.

EB: oh come on. what's the big deal, i'll just climb up and go right through! TT: Will you? EB: yeah, why not? TT: Are you saying you've never wondered what's in there? Or why it's been kept a secret from you? EB: well, i mean yeah... TT: Then trust me. You won't be going "right on through." EB: wait, are you saying there's something, like... EB: troubling in there? TT: I don't know. EB: what do you mean? what do you see in there? TT: I can't see in there. EB: oh. TT: But I don't have a very good feeling about it. EB: pfff... EB: whatever! EB: i think i can handle a few more stupid clown paintings.

Well, that’s ominous.

Examining the destroyed safe, John finds a book about shaving, several old newspaper clippings about meteor strikes, and a much older copy of Colonel Sassacre’s book, possibly the one involved in the mysterious accident which caused Nanna’s death. Behind where the safe was, he finds an empty captchalogue card and a proud fatherly note from Dad, praising him for now being strong enough to lift the safe; presumably intended for several years in the future at least, since the safe is big enough to fit John inside it. The note further explains that John is now entitled to the contents of the safe, and provides the now-useless combination for the lock. Further sylladex shenanigans launch Sassacre’s book, killing an imp, and John heads up the stairs, but slips. As he precariously clings on, the hands and jester’s motley of something much, much bigger than the imps start to emerge from the chasm...

Cut back to Dave, still searching for the beta and/or his brother, finding only that one of Bro’s swords is missing. A brief shadowy flash takes the second sword from the wall too.

You know this drill all too well. Trouble's a brewin'.

Dave heads for the door, finding one of Bro’s “ironic” comics pinned to it. The comic in question:

Erm.

TIER: Now that is, as the folks would say, unsettling.

FAILURE ARTIST: This is another work that Hussie created pre-Homestuck and decided to add. It was part of this drawing battle on a forum.

CHEL: It took me an embarrassingly long time to realise that was supposed to be Kermit. I was seeing it as a teddy bear, with the spiral cheeks as eyes and the eyes as ears.

TIER: . . . I was “literally just now” years old when I realized that was supposed to be Kermit.

BRIGHT: Ditto!

CHEL: Me too, actually, it was after I saw it while posting it here. Before I thought it was Fozzie, drawn even worse than the rest of the comic.

Dave is fairly mellow about the comic as compared to his reaction to the puppets, but thinks that he “[doesn’t] need to see this shit right now”. It looks like something a kid his age would either draw themselves or like (I know I would have loved it), but having things like this pasted randomly about your house would definitely be unsettling even so. He understands it as further irony, and thinks Bro is trying to annoy him with it as “some weird gauntlet he's throwing down to see if you will "GET IT"”.

Worse than the comics, however, is what’s in the kitchen. Weapons are piled up on every counter and the sink is full of fireworks. Dave considers this “awesome”, the implication again being that this has been normal for his whole life. He’s really lucky he’s a cartoon character, there’s no way a real kid would still be alive here. When he turns on the blender, a green puppet in it is shredded to pieces, releasing fake blood; inside the eye socket of a Jigsaw puppet on top of the microwave is a webcam, broadcasting the incident. Okay, again, we need to consider how “pornographic” PlushRumps actually is to determine whether this is a problem. Videos of a kid shredding a puppet are harmless in and of themselves. If it’s actually being marketed as fetish material… ew. Dave appears just as unsettled by this as I am, enough so to behead the cam-puppet, so the implications aren’t good.

More Smuppets spill out of the microwave, and then we go back into fucking sylladex shenanigans as Dave tries to collect every dangerous object in the room

GET ON WITH IT!: 7

Distracted by same, Dave fails to notice a silhouetted figure which is presumably his brother appearing briefly behind him, dropping Cal on the stovetop, and disappearing. Dave’s expression doesn’t change on seeing it but he literally leaps a foot in the air. Poor kid, that is freaky. We also discover why Dave had juice in his closet way back; Bro uses the fridge as storage space for swords instead of comestibles, and cherry bombs in the icemaker.

… Okay, where does Bro keep his own food? Both humorously and actually abusive/neglectful guardians still require energy intake, you know. There are later hints that Bro himself is someone’s puppet, but only in the figurative sense.

TIER: Dude probably has spots around the apartment to stash stuff, like how Dave has apple juice hidden away in his closet.

Figuring out how seriously we're supposed to be taking things can get tricky, especially with the Big Thing way later on in the comic putting earlier events in a new light upon rereading (well, mostly just stuff related to Dave).

CHEL: And if we are supposed to take it seriously, how the fuck is Dave alive? A real kid in this situation wouldn’t have lived long enough to be traumatised.

[lj-writes]

How Finn and Rey saved each other again in The Last Jedi

Or: How TLJ is RotS averted far more than RotJ subverted

At the end of The Force Awakens we watched Finn and Rey both stand up to Kylo Ren for each other, effectively saving each other and themselves from the Master of the Knights of Ren. When Rey was knocked out Finn took up the lightsaber; when Finn was injured, Rey woke up to his screams and snatched the lightsaber from Ren to defend Finn and herself.

This dynamic takes place again in the climax of The Last Jedi, except Finn and Rey were not in the same scene like they were during the dueling sequence in TFA. in TLJ, though kept apart until their heartwarming reunion hug, they saved each other through the choices they made and what each meant to the other.

The A-plot of TLJ has been called a subversion of Return of the Jedi, for good reason. Rey attempts to bring Kylo Ren back to the light in scenes that are some very direct callbacks to Luke and Vader in RotJ, except Kylo Ren, unlike Vader, refuses Rey’s plea and rises to the position of Big Bad instead.

TLJ is only primarily a subversion of RotJ if you focus on Rey and Ren, however. If you broaden the focus to Rey, Finn, and Ren and the dynamics between them, it is the tragic ending of Revenge of the Sith averted.

In fact, seeing TLJ as RotS averted subverts the very idea that Kylo Ren was ever Anakin to Rey’s Luke: Rather he is Palpatine, and Finn and Rey parallel Padmé and Anakin respectively, except they each avoided destruction and enslavement. Rey, in no small part due to Ren’s manipulation, saw him as a tortured soul who could be redeemed. In fact he was a master manipulator who was drawing her in for his own gain.

Rey’s lack of genre savviness, based on a mistaken character reading, almost led to her meeting Anakin’s fate as the subservient apprentice to an abusive master. Instead, she was able to avoid it because of the love between her and Finn. In turn, Finn and the Resistance avoided destruction in part because Rey did not turn on Finn as Kylo wanted and as Anakin turned on Padmé.

The similarities between Finn/Padmé and Rey/Anakin, and also their story together, have been commented on enough times, recently in posts like @jewishcomeradebot’s (link with my addition). What I have not seen discussed is the similarities of their dynamics to Kylo Ren/Palpatine, the man who manipulated a powerful younger Force user under the guise of friendship only to use them to grasp l power, and tried to take his rival out of the picture for good.

Put simply, Finn is Ren’s opponent and rival, much as Padmé was Palpatine’s opponent and rival. They share a common background and know each other, have opposing convictions and goals, and work against each other. Rey on the other hand, is someone Ren wants to turn and make his apprentice, much as Anakin was targeted and groomed by Palpatine. The tragedy in RotS was that Palpatine achieved his goal of defeating Padmé and making Anakin his apprentice. The happy ending in TLJ is that Finn and Rey escaped that fate.

How did Finn and Rey avoid the tragedy that was Padmé and Anakin’s story? On Rey’s side, it was because she knew Kylo Ren was full of bantha poo-doo (and also was poo-doo himself) when he told her she was nothing except to him. She had incontrovertible proof that this wasn’t true, no matter how he might twist the knife in the wound of her abandonment, no matter how alone and desperate she felt by his design.

She knew because Finn had come back for her to Starkiller Base. He had returned to the very heart of the nightmares that he was ready to flee to the ends of the galaxy to run from, and he very nearly paid the ultimate price for it--for her. She knew that Han had thought of her as a daughter and that Leia and the Resistance loved her. The love she had been filled up with since she left Jakku, with Finn and his sacrifice for her at the center of it all, anchored her and prevented her from being swept onto the shoals of Kylo Ren’s deceit.

On Finn’s side, he avoided total defeat and death in large part due to Rose’s and later Luke’s intervention, but even their help would have meant little in the long run if Rey had turned against him and the Resistance as Anakin had turned against Padmé and all she stood for. Where Anakin and later Kylo himself had committed mass murders at their masters’ behest, Rey refused to stand by and let her friends be slaughtered and joined forces with them. Where Palpatine had triumphed by turning Anakin against Padmé, Rey was steadfast in her loyalty to Finn, and Kylo failed to tear their bond apart. Their love proved stronger than his violence in TFA and his wiles in TLJ.

The culmination of TLJ, then, repeats that of TFA with Finn and Rey saving each other through the strength of their love. The duels in TFA were just between Finn, Rey, and Kylo with a personal, even claustrophobic feel. Only Finn’s life and Rey’s freedom were in suspense since the destruction of Starkiller Base was already imminent. In TLJ the stakes are even larger, with more people involved and the future of the Resistance--and by extension, the galaxy--in the balance.

Incidentally, seeing TLJ as RotS averted and Ren as a so-far unsuccessful Palpatine means there is no need for Ren to have an understandable motivation. As @jewishcomeradebot has pointed out (link), Vader’s motivation for falling to the Dark Side is completely opaque in the OT. Luke, the actual protagonist, had no reason to know or care about Vader’s reasons. I would like to add that the PT explored Anakin’s internal life, but that was because Anakin was the protagonist of that series. Kylo Ren is not a protagonist, he has been and remains the main antagonist. The motivation behind his fall is irrelevant to Finn and Rey. It may be that there is no reason other than his belief that he is superior to others and is entitled to power, much like Palpatine.

Where does Finn and Rey’s story go from here? With the pretension of TLJ being the new RotJ dispensed with and the tragedy of RotS avoided for the moment, SW is on entirely new ground. The ends of both preceding trilogies were teased but subverted or averted. There is no precedent to guide us now.

One constant in the ST, however, is the strength of the bond between Finn and Rey. Both the ST movies so far ended with that bond both reaffirmed and acting as a powerful force (maybe even Force) for good in the lives of our protagonists and the ongoing war. To carry this motif forward Finn and Rey’s love could be tested even more, with still larger stakes--the outcome of the entire war.

On Rey’s side, one interesting dilemma would be whether she can accept the risk of losing Finn in order to honor his conviction. This was a test that Anakin had failed in regard to Padmé, to both their destruction. Rather than stand with Padmé Anakin turned against everything she believed in, and the desire to control her to avoid losing her overwhelmed his love for her. We know that Rey, like Anakin, wanted nothing more than a sense of belonging and attachment and she found that with Finn. Now that Finn, like Padmé before him, found a cause bigger than the two of them, can Rey honor that cause even if it might mean she cannot be with the only person who came back for her? What is love? is it holding on to the beloved no matter what? Or does it lie in accepting change if it may come, and accepting the beloved’s free will even if it means parting with them?

On Finn’s side, his story has been about freedom and the ever-expanding awareness that he cannot be free by himself. From the first he needed another person, Poe, to escape the First Order. After losing Poe he sought freedom for himself as he continued running, unexpectedly picking up a comrade that he became more and more attached to. This attachment grew to the extent that it overrode his original goal--he found that his individual freedom meant little if Rey was suffering. Then, in late TFA and TLJ, the Resistance and a larger awareness of the galaxy were enfolded in his circle. In the next movie the galaxy itself, including possibly the Stormtroopers in forced servitude, is likely to be included in his fight.

With his circle of moral obligation expanding so much, can Finn remember to think about himself and his closest relationships? This was something actively discouraged in him in the First Order as selfish and inconsequential, and after his arc in TLJ his earlier conditioning may lead to his falling into the same habit of self-effacement, though for an opposing cause. Is it selfish to think of his beloved when the universe is at stake? Can he bring himself to think he deserves to love and to be loved? Does true freedom exclude considerations of love, or is freedom only complete with love? Rose gave one answer at the end of TLJ, that freedom can only be won through love, and certainly Rey avoiding servitude through love is a case for that assertion as well. This conclusion is likely to be tested, though, as the fight intensifies and the demands of the war grow harsher.

Where Rey’s continuing story seems to be about the nature of love with implications for freedom, Finn’s appears to be about the nature of freedom with implications for love. Resolving this continuing arc will hopefully lead to a satisfactory conclusion of the sequel trilogy and the story of Finn and Rey.

(For @finnreyfridays )

[starwarsnonsense]

The questions I would like to see Episode IX tackle

One of the most fascinating things I’ve observed about the fan reaction to The Last Jedi has been how many people were thrown off because what they saw as the big questions of The Force Awakens were either shrugged off or weren’t even acknowledged. This, naturally, means it is dangerous to go into Episode IX expecting answers to specific questions. Nonetheless, I think it is fun and potentially constructive to consider which questions J.J. Abrams will have been asking himself when coming up with a story to wrap up the sequel trilogy. 

So, with no further adieu, check out the questions that I would like to see tackled in Episode IX below.

1. What sort of ruler will Kylo Ren become?

Kylo ends The Last Jedi as Supreme Leader of the First Order, and the opening crawl of the film makes it clear that the First Order is on the brink of total domination of the galaxy. With the Resistance decimated by the film’s end, it looks like Kylo will have a clear path to becoming ruler of the galaxy. With no external opposition, the only threat to his rule will come from within the First Order itself. While he starts his reign on shaky ground by using his new-found power to enact a colossal temper tantrum, he ends the film humbled and filled with regret, his head bowed as he ruminates on everything he has lost.

What sort of ruler he will become will depend on whether he learns a lasting lesson from this. Kylo tells Rey that he wants to get rid of all the old factions and systems of power, creating something new. He speaks about his vision as if he imagines a utopia with him at its head, and it will be fascinating to see what he has planned - if indeed he has a vision of anything concrete at all. Kylo is likely to be a lonely and isolated ruler, aware that there is something empty about having power but no one to share it with. He may seek to be a better ruler than anyone would have imagined him to be, striving to prove Rey wrong and show her what they could have achieved together. Alternatively, he may be bitter and disillusioned by his experiences, seeking to consolidate his powers in the hope of compensating for how empty he feels inside.

2. How will the conflict between Hux and Kylo develop?

There are doom-laden implications to every moment between Hux and Kylo in The Last Jedi - Hux briefly considers shooting Kylo while he lies unconscious, and asserts himself as the true commanding force while Kylo is ineffectually screaming orders at his subordinates. The final shot of Hux in the film sees him waiting in the wings as Kylo steps away from him, clearly signalling that Hux’s ambitions in no way cohere with Kylo’s.

Kylo bullies Hux into submission by using his brute power, but it is unclear how long Kylo will be able to maintain his figurative and literal grip around Hux’s throat. Hux, while snivelling and embarrassingly insecure, is not without cleverness - he is an excellent strategist and Kylo needs him if he wants to stand any chance of controlling the First Order military. But Hux clearly has his own agenda and bears a deep-seated resentment of and loathing for Kylo - I sense that there’s a coup d’etat on the horizon, and it’s possible that this could become a key plot point in Episode IX.

3. What will Rey’s place in the Resistance become?

At the end of The Last Jedi, Rey becomes the hero the Resistance had been waiting for - while all hopes had been pinned on Luke, the actual new hope was Rey herself. Rey still has a lot left to learn and remains young and inexperienced, though she has been able to develop through her experiences with Luke and Kylo. She recognises the task ahead of her by the end of the film, and she is most likely destined to become the spiritual leader of the Resistance - probably working alongside Poe, who is more likely to head up the military arm and form a strategy for how the Resistance will re-build and become a viable fighting force once more. It’s unclear what Rey’s new position in the Resistance will involve, but I see it being very likely that she will become something of a poster child - she’s an inspirational figure because of how her great power transcends her humble origins, and her story is the kind of tale that inspires revolutions.

It’s also possible that Rey will take it upon herself to mentor the new generation of young Force users - any propaganda involving Rey is likely to attract young and dispossessed Force sensitives, like the orphans on Canto Bight, to the Resistance cause, and they are likely to be eager for lessons in the Force. Another interesting question, then, is this - how well equipped will Rey be to teach others, given that she barely had any training herself?

J.J. could take Rey in any number of directions in Episode IX - I would like to see her become a confident and collected leader, a kind of sci-fi Joan of Arc, who remains steadfast in her convictions and represents the ‘spark’ that will bring the First Order down. (At least, this could be how we see Rey at the start of the film - for the sake of drama, she should be allowed to waver, have doubts and experience trials over the course of the plot.)

4. What will become of the Force bond between Rey and Kylo?

The Force bond between Rey and Kylo is one of the key plot devices in The Last Jedi, as it facilitates their interactions and sees their relationship develop from antagonism to intense admiration and even affection and desire. When we last see Rey and Kylo communicate through the Force bond, Snoke is dead - while he claimed to have been responsible for bridging their minds, it is clear that the bond transcends him. Kylo is devastated and broken by the end of the film, acutely aware of how empty his ascension is without Rey, and has to look on as Rey looks down upon him with stern disappointment. She shuts the door of the Falcon and Kylo looks stung and wounded by the rejection, but it is unclear what the closing of the door means. It could indicate that Rey has severed the bond, but since neither Rey nor Kylo seem to know how to control it - with the bond occurring randomly, and frequently at inopportune times - this strikes me as unlikely. 

It’s unclear how Rey and Kylo will navigate their bond going forward, but I fully expect it to remain significant and allow the dynamic between the characters to evolve in exciting new directions. Their feelings for each other, while marred by the pain of rejection (for Kylo) and disappointment (for Rey), clearly still remain, and are likely to lend fascinating ambiguity and unpredictability to their encounters - a lightsaber battle between them could just as easily culminate with an embrace as it could a strike.

5. Will the connection between Rey and Kylo be discovered?

While Rey and Kylo clearly have a unique and intimate connection through the Force, what is less clear is how much others will be made aware of their connection. Luke learnt of it and responded with Old Testament-style fury, and Snoke claimed ownership of the bond only to get his just desserts when he was sliced in two. Besides these two mentor figures, both of whom are now dead, no one else seems to be aware that Rey and Kylo are linked through the Force. Kylo even tells Hux that Rey killed Snoke, going to the other extreme by painting her as an arch-enemy of the First Order rather than the girl he killed his master for.

I think this question raises some of the most interesting narrative possibilities for Episode IX. Rey and Kylo are both leaders of their respective sides, and the popular belief is likely to be that they hate each other and are fighting for the other person’s defeat and death - the impact of their intimate personal connection being discovered has the potential to be seismic. Any sniff of sympathy for the leader of the enemy would be perceived as a terrible betrayal. They could both be branded traitors and turned out from their positions of leadership, cast adrift with what would feel like the whole galaxy against them. 

6. How will the relationship between Finn and Rose develop?

Finn and Rose have a relationship that begins with the starting point of Rose’s hero worship of Finn - he is less a real person to her than he is an icon of heroic defection. Over the course of the film their dynamic evolves, with Rose seeing Finn’s imperfections and weaknesses and Finn coming to appreciate Rose’s brand of everyday heroism. At the end of the film Rose saves Finn from what would have been a futile suicide mission by knocking his skimmer from the path of the laser cannon, using her last moments of consciousness to kiss Finn and pronounce “I saved you, dummy. That's how we're gonna win. Not fighting what we hate, saving what we love.”

Later, we see Finn move a blanket over Rose in a gesture that indicates his tender protectiveness - while it’s probably too early to say that he’s in love, he clearly cares for Rose deeply. Episode IX has a responsibility to show where Finn and Rose go next - while I find any developments in this regard almost impossible to predict, I think it’s safe to say that Finn and Rose will continue to care for each other deeply.

7. Will Finn’s history with the First Order shape his story?

While I loved the film, I did see a missed opportunity in terms of Finn’s First Order background. While The Last Jedi sees Finn draw upon some of his knowledge of First Order systems and protocols, it doesn’t really explore the ramifications his defection could have on the other stormtroopers. Just as I see Rey becoming an inspirational figure to dispossessed Force sensitives from across the galaxy, I think there is potential to show Finn as an inspirational figure to stormtroopers who may be having doubts about the First Order. A fascinating way to bring the First Order down would be to show it crumbling at the foundations, with the rank and file troopers deserting and causing the whole hierarchy to collapse. This is just one possibility of many, but I feel like it would be a good way to give Finn a key role with real resonance and clear ties to his origins.

8. In what capacity will Luke appear?

Luke died at the end of The Last Jedi, but his words make it clear that he’ll be sticking around as a Force ghost. He tells Kylo “See you around, kid”, enraging the young man by evoking the manner of his father. The implication is that Luke intends to haunt Kylo, and Luke even says (rather mockingly) “Strike me down in anger and I'll always be with you. Just like your father.” So, while we have previously only seen Force ghosts as benevolent mentors imparting wisdom, it looks like we might - with Luke - have a Force ghost who intends to haunt his own nephew. But while Luke is almost puckish with Kylo on Crait, it seems unlikely that he would haunt Kylo merely for the kicks - one imagines he hopes to scare a few lessons into him, serving as both spectre and teacher from beyond the grave. Luke is aware he let Ben down when he was a boy, and he has an opportunity to redeem himself further in death by forcing Ben to ask himself the questions that might get him to bring himself back. Luke acknowledges that neither he nor Leia can bring Ben back, but he still has hope for him and recognises that the sustained conflict within him means he still has a way back.

There is also, of course, room for Luke to appear to Rey as well as Kylo. Rey requires more training and more wisdom to grow as a Jedi, and while she is going to be left to do much of this work alone it would make sense for Luke to at least point her in the right direction.

9. How will the absence of Carrie Fisher impact the story?

We know that Leia was envisaged as a key part of Episode IX, with that film intended to be her movie - just as TFA was Harrison Ford’s and TLJ was Mark Hammil’s. With Carrie having passed on and Lucasfilm standing firm about neither re-casting nor using CGI to re-create her character, it seems pretty clear that Leia will need to be written out of the story. As far as I am concerned, the best way to handle this would be to write Leia out of the story in a way that recognises her significance and has potent ramifications for the rest of the story. Leia’s death, for example, could be an assassination ordered by General Hux - in this way it could be the inciting incident that puts a coup d’etat into motion. Equally, Leia’s death could be felt by Rey and Kylo in the Force and re-awaken their long dormant bond as they are united by their mutual grief, just as they were once united by their mutual loneliness. We see Rey and Leia connect in The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi, and we know that Kylo holds onto his love for his mother, since he is unable to bring himself to fire on her. The re-awakening of the bond in this way could leave the path open for the connection between Rey and Kylo to be discovered, leading to further divisions and betrayals. 

[hetmusic]

What it means to be a producer right now | HumanHuman

A little while ago, I was chatting to Luke Hester and Lucy Hill of Dahlia Sleeps for our interview with the ambient-pop pair. We came onto the topic of production, since Hester produces most of their music, and discussed how this previously hidden world is now more open than ever thanks to advances in technology and increased accessibility. Hill stated that “It’s totally the age of the producer at the moment,” because they’ve emerged from the background and the small print credits. This optimistic discussion led me to wonder, is all change in this area positive? What this article aims to do is to trace over the aspects of what it means to be a producer right now.

Let’s start off with a standardized definition that comes from the performing rights organisation BMI: “A producer is to a recording as a director is to a film. When it comes to making a film, the buck essentially stops with the director. [..] In short, a producer provides the experience and necessary perspective to guide a recording from start to finish.” With this in mind, we’re going to explore the ways that this role of a ship-captain/director is changing, bending or indeed being affirmed by the various forms that the modern producer takes.

One of the recurrent ways that this subject comes into conversation here at HumanHuman, is when an artist handles their own production. There’s something quite impressive about this, although some suggest that self-production is now becoming the rule and not the exception. You only need to browse our collection of discoveries in order to come up with a handful of acts with self-producing abilities. Some of the more notable ones are Palmistry, Ben Khan, A.K. Paul (whose credits in single “LANDCRUISIN’” mean there’s no mistaking who produced it), Mura Masa, TÁLÁ, Astronomyy, Morly, William Arcane and the much-praised Holly Herndon.

Why are more artists than ever self-producing? Well, there’s a few ways we can answer that. For starters, it means that musicians can have a greater creative role in the whole process behind making a song, EP or album. This is something that polymathic artist FKA twigs has demonstrated throughout her work so far. Having taken the lead on everything from composition to production to direction of her music videos, Tahliah Barnett explained to Rookie Mag that “I really want to be in charge of everything creatively,” but there also comes a deep seated frustration with not being recognised for one’s own vision.

“It [production and directorial work] hasn’t been covered enough and I think that’s unfortunately partly down to me being a female artist; everyone’s constantly trying to turn you into a pop star. Pop stars don’t write their own music, they don’t produce their own music and they don’t direct their own videos.”— FKA twigs via Clash

Correctly placed recognition is also something Bjork struggled with following the release of her Vulnicura LP, in which it was misreported that Arca produced the full album, but in fact it was a piece of co-production (something which we explored in our International Women’s Day article.) Equally, Grimes who also featured in our ‘Women In Music’ piece, is fatigued by the expectation that musicians need producers otherwise they’ll “flounder” as she calls it. As Stereogum reports, Claire Boucher is “tired of the weird insistence that i need a band or i need to work with outside producers.” In the place of these eternal contributors, Grimes relies on her home studio and a plethora of digital tools, which neatly brings us on our second point for why artists are so keen to self-produce - and that would be the technology.

In an interview with Future Music Magazine (MusicRadar online), Grimes details the digital audio workstations (DAWs) that she used for creating and producing her music, like Logic and Pro Tools, although it was the easy-to-navigate Ableton that took over for her Art Angels LP. The Canadian artist also has favourite plug-ins, like iZoptope Ozone for mastering demos and Waves’ Manny Marroquin Reverb tool, which perhaps are essential for that distinctive Grimes sound.

“You can “hear” the use of Akai, Pro Tools, Logic, and other digital recording and sample-based composition in most pop music written in the last twenty years.”— David Byrne, How Music Works

Morly

One HumanHuman artist who is consistently credited for her sophisticated production is Morly, aka Katy Morley, an electronic artist hailing from Minneapolis. We were first drawn in a year ago thanks to her mysterious images, dreamy soundscapes in tracks like “Seraphese” and “Maelstrom”, and the unabiding attraction of a self-producing artist. The fact is that Morly has been working on this project for six years, but as explained in an interview with Dummy Magazine, she was no child prodigy or a front woman who spent years cutting her teeth in dingy gig venues, but her first act as a musician was to purchase Ableton and Maschine. She also goes some way to answering what is means to be a producer right now: “It’s almost a euphemism for “electronic artist” or even a composer.”

It’s interesting that in a section of the music industry that is male-dominated, with female producers only making up 5% of the profession in 2014, our focus keeps coming back to the women bucking the trend. What Pitchfork suggests is that the access to DAWs has a feminist implication, as Dum Dum Girls front woman Dee Dee states “Garageband [the pre-installed Apple workstation] definitely encouraged a lot of my female friends to explore something that has previously seemed out of reach.” We can even refer to successful bands like Haim, who used a horn sound from Garageband that was set a bassy two octaves down to underpin the epic rhythm of “My Song 5”. Although, they did use a traditional studio process to complete the single.

“So while audiophiles and classic rock enthusiasts might sneer at the software's humorously simple design, digital natives simply see it as making something impenetrable now liberatingly accessible.”— Pitchfork

Astronomyy

However, it’s not only female bands and artists that are transforming what the role of a producer is. As anyone who understands feminism, they will know that it’s a movement of equality and anti-elitism encompassing all genders. Bringing back one of our earlier examples, the British beatmaker Mura Masa, whose own production work is well documented across the Internet. What’s so special about Alex Crossan is that he openly offers tips to budding producers, as seen in his Q&A on Reddit in 2014. On top of that, the Guernsey-born artist has also started collecting and nurturing production protégés like Bonzai and Jadu Heart under his Anchor Point record label. Another notable musician who has used self-production as a platform from which to circumvent the traditional industry routes is Astronomyy, who has used his self-taught technical expertise in order to set up his own Lunar Surf Studios, in which newest single “The Secret” was written and recorded.

Aside from the need for creative control and access to technology, another reason for a many artists, especially the emerging class, choosing to handle their own production is down to financial reasons. Although some commentators argue that we’re in something of an economic upturn within the creative industries; for example, British music contributed a sizeable £4.1 billion to the overall economy in 2015. However, as The Guardian pinpointed revenues from recorded music fell by £3m and 21% of musicians worked for free in that same year of supposed growth. Perhaps in a bid to correct what UK Music Chairman Andy Heath refers to as the “unacceptable balance of negotiating power” between musicians and consumers, these artists have been forced to become self-sustaining.

Where does all this artistic independence leave the traditional music producer? First of all, I should clarify what I mean by a “traditional” producer, and for that I’m turning to The European Sound Director’s Association's definition as “a freelance or independent Music Producer [whose role is] to direct and supervise recording sessions”, which tends to take place in a professional studio. Securing a working relationship with these production experts comes at a cost, that’s a pretty obvious point, but it’s the variation in that financial figure that is less clear-cut. One publication, The DIY Musician, draws upon two wildly different examples to demonstrate this point by comparing the $600 that it cost to record Nirvana’s debut album Bleach and the $13 million spent on Guns N’ Roses latest LP Chinese Democracy. Yet, more numbers are thrown around by singer-songwriter (and here journalist) Michael Corcoran, who implies that “Most industry types would say between $150K and $1Million for an album.” Contrast this to a potential bottom line of nil (excluding the instruments or equipment already in the musician’s possession) for a self-produced piece of music put together on a laptop rather than in an expensive studio, and it’s easy to understand the appeal of the do-it-yourself approach.

“A Music Producer has technical skills and administrative responsibilities, but as with any other artist, it is the creative ends to which those skills are employed that distinguishes a great Music Producer from the rest.”— The European Sound Director’s Association

Despite the growth in DAWs, plug-ins, knowledge exchange and a trend for cutting corners, the music production sector has proved to be resilient in recent years. One place we can see evidence of this is in UK Music’s various reports on the music industry’s contribution to the British economy. Not only does the report highlight a 5% overall growth, but they also show that Music Producers, Recording Studios and Staff went from having a GVA (gross value added) contribution of £80 million in 2012 to £116 million in 2015, outstripping the Music Representatives sector who had previously been more lucrative. Equally, IFPI’s Global Music Report 2016 is positive about the direction that the music industry is going in. One thing that this international statistics hub refers to is the “dynamic album”, illustrated by their case study on Hakuna Matoma, a Norwegian producer whose living digital album is being edited, written and finalised online in order to involved listeners in the process. You’ll also notice that IFPI calls this songwriter/musician a “producer”, and thus further blurring the lines of exactly where this role begins and ends. In reflection of this, I’d like to introduce another term - the “dynamic producer”. This can be applied to anyone from an songwriter who dabbles in production to a producer who picks up an instrument. We explored this idea earlier with self-producing artists, but another area yet to probed is that of the superstar producer.

Felix Snow

Many of these recent examples first came onto our radar here at HumanHuman, such as BOOTS, who was credited with 80% of production behind Beyoncé’s surprise self-titled LP, which arguably propelled Jordan Asher into the limelight. However, our community has also been fascinated with BOOTS’ personal music, like his debut song collection WinterSpringSummerFall featuring the likes of Beyoncé, Son Lux and Kelela. Another producer with star appeal is Felix Snow, a name that has been recurrent among our new music discoveries due to his immediately audible influence over Kiiara’s hit first single “Gold” and more recently on Belgrave’s “Lift Me Up”. Staccato trap, glitchy robotic vocal samples and that rain-drop effect are all hallmarks of Felix Snow’s production work, which he has now brought to the table for collaborative project Terror Jr. Our final example is Diplo, who has been instrumental in helping artists like Justin Bieber, M.I.A. and MØ reach number one. The Floridian DJ also teamed up with superstar producer Skrillex to present us with all the colours of dance-pop under the label Jack Ü. In a return to our earlier point about the impact of technology on the modern producer, Diplo told Spin Magazine that the affordable and user-friendly DAWs are great for the future of production globally. However, he also holds some reservations:

“There are too many gatekeepers holding the keys and they all want to be compensated for being part of the process. The current big-name producers are lucky to be where they are simply because it’s harder for everyone underneath them to reach the same level and it’s going to keep being harder to break through to that top tier.”— Diplo via Spin Magazine

Throughout this discussion we’ve weighed up the factors that go into being a modern producer - creative control, technology, finances, expertise and even reputation - and all come with an equal mix of liberation and limitation. So, what does it mean to be a producer right now? For some this means being the triple threat of songwriter, musician and producer, and this is a breed of artist we’re becoming much more familiar with. We’ve only really scratched the surface with Holly Herndon, FKA twigs, A. K. Paul, Mura Masa, Morly, Astronomyy, TÁLÁ, Felix Snow, BOOTS etc. As technology and accessibility continues to advance, self-production has a good chance of becoming a given rather than an anomaly, and I doubt that even an improved economy will slow that progress down. However, these dynamic producers are a threat to the status quo and they challenge the expectations of a working relationship between artist and producer, which is perhaps why Diplo forewarns us of the “gatekeepers” to the upper echelons of the music industry. For now the term producer does still apply to those directorial experts in their professional studios, but as the universe is expanding, so is the role of a music producer.

https://humanhuman.com/articles/what-it-means-to-be-a-producer-right-now

[pubtheatres1]

TALOS II Presented by Cyborphic The Bread & Roses Theatre 22nd – 25th March 2018 ‘has a lot of ambition but needs a higher benchmark for quality’ ★★ Founded in 2015, Talos (named after the mythical Greek giant automaton made of bronze who protected Crete from its enemies) is the UK’s first and only Science-Fiction theatre festival. Each night consists of three plays, showcasing new writing from an International pool. In total 12 plays will be staged featuring single-gender worlds, dystopias, clones, robots, unicorns and a Frankenstein live radio drama. I attended opening night and had high hopes going in. I’m a sci-fi geek and aside from ‘Horatio Theatre’ who specialise in new writing for sci-fi and have taken productions to the Edinburgh Festival and Camden Fringe, there’s limited opportunity to see Science-Fiction and Fantasy themed plays on the stage. Talos has great promise as a platform for new sci-fi based writing, the problem lies in the execution. An introduction was made at the beginning of the evening by Christos Callow Jr (the Festival Director) to explain the origins of Talos and give a bit of background to the festival. He was funny and possessed an off-beat charm, unfortunately, what followed was an uneven hotchpotch of plays. The first offering was the derivative “RIP”, written and directed by Edward Einhorn, about a young man who falls asleep on his sofa to awaken 60 years later, having missed his life. Old and decrepit, he’s now reduced to a fashion accessory - for every house in the future has ‘a corpse’ in it, to give it character and a sense of history. He tells the new owners of his house that his main ambition had been to win the Nobel Literary and Peace prize, only to be informed that books have been outlawed. He soon discovers that his ex-fiancé has accomplished all his ambitions and led a colourful life while he wasted his. Next was “Last Tragedy”, written by Christos Callow Jr and directed by Sokratis Synitos, which had the intriguing premise of a human and robot sharing a house in a future where Humans are outdated and have no value apart from being cultural relics and are largely kept as pets by robots. It had an enjoyable playfulness to it and the strongest performances of the night. Zoe, the only human actress in the city (who can’t get a job playing a human because she’s not convincing enough), was portrayed with comic frustration and warmth by Evi Polyviou. Rosita, her robotic owner, who is growing increasingly disinterested in Zoe by the second and thinking of having her terminated, was played with conviction by Bee Scott. The final play, “Paper Doll” written by Susan Eve Harr and directed by Katherine Sturt-Scobie, centred on a nameless couple who can’t have children. She’s infertile which causes friction in their relationship – it’s revealed that he has had her cloned so they now have a baby to raise. The cloning factor is thrown in towards the end with great chunks of scientific spiel hurled at the audience without exploring the moral implications of the subject in any real depth. Meandering, disjointed and largely pretentious, the physical confrontations between the couple were awkward, the dialogue was unbelievable and the acting stilted. None of the plays were redeemed by a basic lighting and sound scape. So much more could have been done to create atmosphere. Also, with the exception of “Last Tragedy”, I was hard-pressed to find sci-fi elements and was disappointed by the lack of scope and vision. “RIP” and “Paper Doll” had science-fiction components winched in, as if an after-thought. There were attempts to be cutting-edge but nothing like its TV counterparts such as ‘Black Mirror’ or ‘Electric Dreams’. No clever twists or commentary on current political and social issues using the uniqueness of the science-fiction and fantasy genre. Science-fiction is a vital genre for pushing boundaries and exploring contemporary issues in imaginative and fearless ways. Talos is a great concept for a theatre festival and it’s still early days, currently it has a lot of ambition but needs a higher benchmark for quality. I only hope the plays for the rest of the run are of a higher calibre. We need a decent Sci-Fi theatre festival and with Talos the potential is there, unfortunately, for now, it isn’t being met. Box Office: https://www.breadandrosestheatre.co.uk/talos.html Reviewer Annie Power is an award-winning writer, director and FCP Editor.

[nofomoartworld]

Hyperallergic: The Color Palette of Materialism, from Rose Gold iPhones to Millennial Pink Shopping Bags

Sara Cwynar, “Tracy (Grid 1)” (2017), pigment print mounted on Dibond, 30 x 38 in. (76.2 x 96.52 cm.,) edition of 3 with 2 AP (all images courtesy Foxy Production)

Long interested in the intersection of media, technology, and image culture, Sara Cwynar, artist and author of Encyclopedia of Kitsch, continues to probe our complicated relationship with image-saturated advertising and materialism in her latest film project and accompanying series of photographs, Rose Gold.

In the fall of 2015, Apple released the iPhone 6S, which was offered in a new color option: Rose Gold. This was one of many recent indicators of a shift in gendered color norms and cultural tastes, and a broader change in the ways we think about color, branding, and gender. Cwynar’s film questions how much choice is involved in the popularity of Rose Gold and how much we are being commercially manipulated — and to what end.

Still from Sara Cwynar, Rose Gold (2017), 16mm film on video with sound, 8 min.

Still from Sara Cwynar, Rose Gold (2017), 16mm film on video with sound, 8 min.

“They invented this color, Rose Gold, and I’m mesmerized,” says a male voice at the beginning of Cwynar’s film. The eight-minute short draws from a diverse range of sources, including the writings of Lauren Berlant, Toni Morrison, and Ludwig Wittgenstein, Apple’s website, and the Encyclopedia Britannica. It is visually and materially dense, with quickly flashing images, film clips, and overlapping and interwoven voiceovers by a male and female speaker. The style of fast-moving visuals, self-referential images of images, and overlaid voice narration brings to mind Camille Henrot’s Grosse Fatigue. Both adopt the form of an educational documentary, similar to the tone of Encyclopedia of Kitsch, with scripts that attempt to explain and instruct. The visual motifs in Rose Gold are exhaustive — many more than I could catch, even after multiple viewings. Several do recur: sets of ceramic mugs and plates in pastel blue and pink, vintage and retro pink telephones, pink Acne Studio shopping bags, and color charts. iPhones appear floating against solid backdrops as in Apple billboards, sometimes spinning on an axis or lying flat with shattered screens. Staggered throughout are shots of Cwynar in her studio staging and filming oversized printed images of objects, particularly a large rose. She also appears at other moments in the film, at one point sitting against a soft pink background in a matching colored T-shirt and speaking on an old (beige) phone.

Still from Sara Cwynar, Rose Gold (2017), 16mm film on video with sound, 8 min.

The Cut recently ran the piece “Why Millennial Pink Refuses to Go Away,” which features a timeline of the explosion of a specific pink hue. It includes the release of Acne Studio’s pink shopping bags in 2007, Drake’s “Hotline Bling” album cover in July 2015, and, of course, the Rose Gold iPhone. This is the cultural background Cwynar taps into, through familiar visual references and brief but expletive-laden audio selections, exposing our complacency in the face of the construction of material desire. The opening line of the film continues, “I totally fell for [Rose Gold], it’s almost embarrassing enough to blush.” We know we’ve been sold, but if the sell is good enough, we’re happy to buy into it.

The film has two main strands. One is an exploration of color through semiotics, advertising, and branding, into which the previous discussion of Millennial Pink fits. “I hear that the gold iPhone was for the Chinese market, where gold still really means something,” the male voice says. What do colors mean, if anything at all? What is the concept behind red, or a manufactured color like Rose Gold? “Rose Gold doesn’t need to be anything at all, just an idea,” the audio goes on, ”something to look forward to.” Cwynar’s film asks what it means to covet an idea made manifest in a color.

Still from Sara Cwynar, Rose Gold (2017), 16mm film on video with sound, 8 min.

Still from Sara Cwynar, Rose Gold (2017), 16mm film on video with sound, 8 min.

“Rose Gold is flattering to most skin tones,” the female voice narrates as images of various skin tones flash across the screen in circular make-up samples. It reminded me of artist Beatrice Glow’s investigation into Pantone’s racialized color-naming system. Pink has long had gendered associations, but what are its racial implications? “My skin fades, but Rose Gold doesn’t change,” the voiceover says. Perhaps Rose Gold is the eternal glow of youth — but only for the fair-skinned.

The other thread in the film is our relationship with new technology. “You forget when you learned to use your inside voice,” says the male voice, who is quickly interrupted by the female voice asking, “When did you learn to swipe?” Just as we once learned the social etiquette of vocal volume, we’ve now learned another kind of etiquette: the swipe, type, and message. The thirst for newness, for advancement, becomes linked to materialism: new technology equals progress. Rose Gold is only an idea, and we cannot buy an idea, but we can buy its material manifestation in the form of cutting-edge technology. “The future was pure potential,” the narration claims. With new forms of digital touch and means of communicating, who knows what’s next? The voiceover adds, “I don’t really have to talk anymore, I delegate my speech to my fingertips.”

“What is the right way to talk about something? Do people understand more if you communicate with things bought and sold?” the male voice asks. The question of communicating through things is especially thought-provoking when coupled with Cwynar’s semiotic concerns about naming and excess. If the naming of colors is unstable and commercially motivated, what’s to say that our other means of naming and communicating are any better?

Sara Cwynar, “Avon Presidential Bust (Washington, Gold)” (2017), c-print mounted on Dibond, 30 x 24 in., edition of 3 with 2 AP

Accompanying the film, Rose Gold includes a series of aluminum-mounted photographs in which specific objects figure heavily — things like the artist’s friend Tracy, flowers, and a series of commemorative Avon bottles shaped like presidential busts. Perhaps because the film is so intellectually and visually stimulating, the photographs, by contrast, seem stagnant and less interesting. It’s noteworthy that some of the visual motifs from the film, such as highlighted book pages, color charts, and circular frames, appear collaged into the studio portraits of Tracy. Avon bottles and several other things also appear in both the short and still images, adding a bit more continuity to the show. And it’s clear that these photographs are also meant to interrogate our relationship to advertising culture, objects, and obsolesce. But the studio portraits are not manipulated as interestingly as the film, which successfully synthesizes the educational documentary and TV commercial.

Sara Cwynar, “Tracy (Gold Circle)” (2017), dye sublimation print on aluminum, 30 x 38 in., edition of 3 with 2 AP

Neither the film nor the photographs come to clear conclusions, other than implicating us all in our materialist desires. The overall tone of the exhibition is cautionary about the newfound popularity of this object and color, which is just one out of myriad trends that seem to spread so rapidly these days and fade just as quickly. The massive popularity of Rose Gold and Millennial Pink could suggest a shift in gendered thinking, perhaps even a feminist reclamation, but I am led to think otherwise. Just as Cwynar appears in the film talking on a nearly obsolete landline telephone, this too shall pass, and we will be left with an emptiness that can only be filled by the next new trend that’s been branded to make us believe we’ve made a choice.

“Several male artists I know have told me I am having a moment,” the female voice says in the film, “as if the moment will pass soon. Rose Gold is having a moment too.” Commercial trends extend to artists and artworks, to social movements and political causes. But where does the wildfire of a trend stop, and what’s left after it burns out? Is there any lasting power? The final line of the film lets this question hang: “Is the Rose Gold iPhone a totem?” the male voice muses. “Maybe you won’t even remember it at all.”

Still from Sara Cwynar, Rose Gold (2017), 16mm film on video with sound, 8 min.

Rose Gold continues at Foxy Production (2 East Broadway) through May 14.

The post The Color Palette of Materialism, from Rose Gold iPhones to Millennial Pink Shopping Bags appeared first on Hyperallergic.

from Hyperallergic http://ift.tt/2oYMH3y via IFTTT