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n1kolaiz · 4 years ago

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"Man fears death and yet, at the same time, man is drawn to death. Death is endlessly consumed by men in cities and in literature. It is a singular event in one's life that none may reverse. That is what I desire."

Character Analysis: Dazai Osamu

Age: 22 || Ability: No Longer Human

I've done a lot of research concerning Dazai's character because of how complex he'd initially appeared to me. It is still a question as to what his personality type is; some say he's an ENTP while others argue that he's an INTJ, and his enneagram would most likely be 7w8 (The Realist), but that isn't the thing I'm going to focus on.

According to general databases and fan analyses, his temperament is dominantly melancholic. A person's temperament is basically how they react to and live in this world. For those of you not interested in such details, don't worry, I'll get to my point.

The melancholic behaviour is characterised by individualism, self-reliance, and reservation. People of the melancholic temperament are described as having been overcome with sorrow and depressive thoughts, which is beyond the feeling of "just being sad."

Nonetheless, they are generally calm beings, with a tendency to hide how they truly feel by keeping their composure, even in events that demand severe reaction otherwise. Other aspects of melancholic temperaments is that they are absorbed in the cruelty and tragedy of this world, and tend to get lost in their thoughts.

Sound familiar?

Dazai is seen to be as the comic relief of the adaptation, and he'd never fail to bring about a sense of lightheartedness to relieve the serious moments; we all know that for sure. Remember the time both him and Kunikida found Nobuko Sasaki in that godforsaken hospital, and how Kunikida asked him about his opinion on the current state of affairs?

But, despite having developed a calm and serene personality, Dazai's dark side was more apparent during the Dark Era. There was a type of intimidating and arrogant flair evident in his behaviour, or even on his face. It was the type of demeanour that came off cold and terrifying to the rather unlucky people he dealt with. In a moment's notice, they could literally die by his hands. And I believe most of them usually did. It was during this time, he was more brutal and vicious. He lacked remorse. Plus, Dazai's suicidal ideations were more dense during this Era, and his suicidal tendencies did not do anything to alleviate the depth of how dark his character was posed to be.

Side note: Unfortunately, people misunderstand this 'depressed' part of Dazai; they minimise his character so much to the point that people use only a single word to describe him: suicidal. He is, in fact, so much more than that. I'll elaborate more on that in a while.

"Hey, Odasaku, do you know why I joined the Mafia? I joined the Mafia because of an expectation I had. I thought if I was close to death and violence—close to people giving in to their urges and desires, then I would be able to see the inner nature of humankind up close. I thought if I did that… I would be able to find something—a reason to live."

Dazai's approach to life is that of an aimless soul, weary of the world's oppressions and exhausted from the concept of living itself. Nevertheless, what he said above about having an expectation made me realise something: he had a goal, which he wasn't that enthusiastic about achieving—seeking for a reason to carry on with life. So he joined the Mafia.

And there, he met Oda Sakunosuke.

Despite how resilient Dazai carried himself to be (especially during the Dark Era), this specific excerpt stands in direct opposition of how he effortlessly embodied all things daunting:

"With every step I take, I feel as though the earth has opened up into a bottomless pit as I fall endlessly. As Dazai pointed to his forehead and approached the muzzle, the look on his face – like that of a child about to burst into tears – had already been branded upon my eyes."

- quoted by Oda Sakunosuke, excerpt from Dazai Osamu and the Dark Era Light Novel.

When I read this, it sent my mind into a spiral of despair and confusion. It was so vague, yet it made so much sense. Dazai was desperate to escape from this life, but part of him seemed to live in conflict with his desire for death. I won't elaborate more on this, because this specific excerpt has personal meaning to me, as I'd expect it to have for others as well; so I wouldn't want to ruin anyone else's perception on it.

Back to my point: Odasaku was one of the only characters who managed to interpret the complexity of Dazai's mindset and was able to compartmentalise the specific details of his persona that made Dazai the way he was. Oda knew that Dazai wasn't just suicidal.

"For most things in life, it's harder to succeed than fail. Wouldn't you agree? That's why I should attempt suicide rather than commit it! Committing suicide is difficult, but it should be relatively easier to fail at attempting suicide!"

Others boasted about how he was just a suicidal maniac, and that was only because of how good Dazai was at concealing his own feelings whilst flamboyantly priding himself in new, risky techniques, which he sometimes elaborated on. But Oda, on the other hand, saw through his jokes, and empathised with his friend, never wanting to ever barge into his vulnerability without Dazai's permission, but still trying to be there for him.

"Listen. You told me if you put yourself in a world of violence and bloodshed, you might be ale to find a reson to live. You won't find it. You should know that. Whether you're on the side that takes lives or the side that saves them, nothing beyond your own expectations will happen. Nothing in this world can fill the hole that is your loneliness. You will wander the darkness for eternity."

Notice how Odasaku recognised Dazai's despair, before Dazai even dared to acknowledge his very own emotions? That was why, at Oda's death, he took the initiative to uncover Dazai's bandaged eye to show him that there was no use in concealing his feelings anymore.

Odasaku's last words to Dazai was to "be on the side that saves people," for he was aware that even though Dazai didn't believe there was a clear distinction between good and evil, he thought that perhaps Dazai would find meaning in his life, even if it was just a little bit of purpose.

In Dead Apple, we briefly relive this moment, but I'll write more on that some other time.

And when Dazai joined the ADA, he loses that dark side to him. No, wait, let me rephrase that: he loses a part of that dark side to him. He eliminated the raw sense of bitterness against the world from his face, and instead, he is seen to be a little more passive, and a little more adaptive. No doubt, he still does explicitly state his desire to die, but his wishes are very specific, if you know what I mean.

And a few years later, his journey with Atsushi began.

Atsushi and Dazai's relationship is just one of a kind. I think it isn't a matter of whether Atsushi needed Dazai, or whether Dazai needed Atsushi. It's the fact that they both needed each other. It's the way they both worked hand in hand, and how they sustained each other in ways they were lacking.

The two were polar opposites, but they had a tender kind of warmth embedded in their protectiveness for each other. Atsushi was just as lost as Dazai, but somehow, they worked together just fine. It was like their duality was meant to be. It was the type of symbiotic relationship, where their care for each other was implied, but very deep.

Does this also sound familiar... perhaps, in relation to Dazai's friendship with Odasaku?

Side note: Oda and Atsushi have the same enneagrams, which is Type 2, 'The Helper.'

There is a sort of balance that is brought about by two opposites. Odasaku taught Dazai many things, and I believe Oda learned a lot about a man's life from the way Dazai lived out his life with the innate desire to die. Atsushi sought for the right to live, while Dazai searched for a reason to live; in addition, Dazai validated Atsushi's feelings, and Atsushi was able to acknowlegde the amount of pain Dazai was going through.

Despite how Dazai's perspectives and beliefs stood in contrast with those of Oda's and Atsushi's, a type of inseparable bond connected the man who no longer felt like he was human, to the people who was the most human.

No Longer Human in the Japanese romaji is 'Ningen Shikkaku.' Ningen means "human," and Shikkaku means "disqualified." The late author, Dazai Osamu, wrote the book No Longer Human. He had gone through the rough throes of trauma and wrote this book as a semi-autobiography, whose plot was centred around a man who faked happiness, for he was tainted by the truth that everyone around him was fake themselves. He turned his life into a joke in order to protect himself from the delusions of this world.

This brings us back to the melancholic temperament, where a person was too deeply immersed in the sad truths of reality and the world itself.

And that's what Dazai's character and ability is based on: being disqualified as a human being, because he wasn't well-versed with what being human was actually like. The fabrications of being human sprung up all around him, but he wasn't willing to be fooled by how ingenuine the world truly was.

“I am convinced that human life is filled with many pure, happy, serene examples of insincerity, truly splendid of their kind—of people deceiving one another without (strangely enough) any wounds being inflicted, of people who seem unaware even that they are deceiving one another.”

- excerpt from Dazai Osamu's No Longer Human.

People who don't feel human emotions or don't react to circumstances the way humans do have a variety of ways of explaining how they feel inhuman. They are highly intelligent, which separates them from the average class of humankind, since they've analysed and untangled the truths of life in order to attain understanding, which they value above all else. But, this understanding of the world and its painful truths results in a deep kind of sorrow, which only a few people can seem to empathise with in order to help them out with that burden.

“Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart. The really great men must, I think, have great sadness on earth.”

-excerpt from Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment.

Don't you think that this deep sorrow that lies in the heart of the intelligent, makes them the most human of all? They're too human, to the point where they don't feel human. Perhaps, it is a type of defence mechanism, where the mind numbs the heart from feeling normal human emotion, because logically breaking down such concepts is easier than feeling them. But it comes at a price. The heart is willing to recklessly comprehend and fathom any sort of emotion, including pain in its true form, but the mind bears more pain in understanding such concepts because it seeks to decipher every single agonising detail of how complex human emotions are. The mind thinks, the heart feels. There is a clear distinguishing factor between the two. Whether feeling hurts more than thinking, or thinking hurts more than feeling, or whether both these processes work hand-in-hand to make up the reality of life itself, is up for an individual to decide.

Only a few people can seem to empathise with intelligent people who are deeply sad at heart, in order to help them out. As for Dazai, it was Atsushi and Oda. They never took away the pain, but they made him grow from it; it worked vice versa, too.

Of course, there are less tedious and more appealing aspects to the concept of Dazai's intelligence. Dazai was seen as a threat to his enemies because of how manipulation and his keen skill of deduction made up how sharp his mind was. Besides, no one could commit '138 murders, 312 cases of extortion, and 625 cases of fraud, along with various and sundry other crimes,' without having a certain level of intelligence, right?

Dazai had the moral alignment of 'chaotic neutral.' He was more focused on using his intellect to achieve the desired end results of a predicament, and he wasn't afraid to use the wrong means. A famous example was when he deflated the airbags of Ango Sakaguchi's car in order to gain the assured protection of Kyouka Izumi.

Justice is a weapon. It can be used to cause harm, but it cannot protect or save others.

Another example was when he blew up Chuuya Nakahara's car.

Just kidding. That was just a simple pastime (；・∀ ・)

His moral alignment points to what Oda said about him: the part where he mentioned that Dazai didn't really see any difference between good and evil. As long as his ends were achieved, especially if it were in the benefit of his fellow colleagues, he wasn't afraid to exploit, threaten, or endanger others' wellbeing. Because, at the end of the day, the end result triumphed the morally bad methods utilised to achieve it, correct? He always had a reason for his motives and actions, even if those actions were evil and inexcusable.

(eg. action: the psychological abuse he bestowed upon Akutagawa Ryunosuke.

motive: to enable him to hone his own ability favourably and to curb his arrogance)

But the consequences of one's actions will always catch up with a person, no matter what heights they've achieved.

Okay, we're reaching the end of my rambling very soon, I promise.

“If I had to go, I’d like to go out just as beautifully.”

“I’d prefer you don’t go.”

This part of the post is highly inspired by iwachuwu!!

An important factor of Dazai's development is highlighted BSD Wan's episode 10:

I'd like to appreciate that this scene focuses on how much Dazai actually means to Atsushi. When Atsushi responds with "I'd prefer you don't go," he said it lightheartedly for he thought Dazai was joking. But he wasn't. And once Atsushi absorbed the fact that Dazai meant what he said, he was overwhelmed with anguish at the thought of ever losing Dazai. Dazai, on the other hand, had a sense of longing on his expression. There was that look of pure desperation on his face. He was so desperate, yet he knew he couldn't act on his desperation due to a promise he'd made to someone dear to him. But keep in mind, Dazai is unpredictable, so we can never be sure of what's going on in that headspace of his.

Nevertheless, this time, Atsushi recognised Dazai's suffering, as no one usually cared to do, and Dazai didn't put in any effort to hide how he truly felt, as he habitually did. And this mutual emotional connection happened countless times during all the times Oda spent with Dazai as well.

To summarise,

Dazai's character had been carefully wired and patterned out in a way only a few would put in the effort to understand. Dazai was more than just suicidal; he was a being wandering from place to place with no specific aim. He was too smart for his own good. Dazai understood too well of how the world worked and deemed it void of any sort of hope.

Side note: Yes, the truth does come at a price, but it all comes down to how a person understands the truth. As for Dazai (both character and the author he was based off upon), well, it was quite tragic. But that's the way it is for some people, I suppose. But everyone has a different path to travel on, remember that.

His transition from working with the Port Mafia to the Armed Detective Agency was proof of how well-executed his character development was. It was two different personas morphed into what he is today: a womaniser with questionable morals a person who is still standing even after the rough refining process endowed upon him by the realities of this life.

However, he had people along the way come and teach him a thing or two, which perhaps made his life a little more interesting. Perhaps these people were passing clouds that hid the void out of sight for just a moment, and Dazai was always seen to be grasping on to these moments, and letting them go whenever it was time to let go.

His outlook on life makes his intellect look all the more intriguing. It shows that not only does his intelligence contribute to his own wit and shrewdness, but also the practical sense of realism that explains how tired he is of the concept of living because of the truths there are to bear.

However he's enduring the pain right now is by far the most bravest thing a person could commit themselves to doing. It takes courage, and it takes strength, but only a few would ever take the time to recognise such efforts.

Dazai has one of the most beautiful character developments, but I do hope that the development doesn't reach its end anytime soon.

fanart credits: @S7dOZPN3jWBB6cW on twitter

“Now I have neither happiness nor unhappiness.

Everything passes.

That is the one and only thing that I have thought resembled a truth in the society of human beings where I have dwelled up to now as in a burning hell.

Everything passes.”

excerpt from Dazai Osamu's No Longer Human.

#bsd #bsd dazai #bungo stray dogs #bungo stray dogs wan #bsd wan #bsd dazai osamu #bsd characters #literature analysis #literature #dazai osamu #bsd odasaku #bsd atsushi #bsd analysis #bsd atsushi nakajima #.ryley.speaks

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oswinsdolma · 3 years ago

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Proving all the Knights of the Round Table have magic part 3: Elyan

I've seen quite a few people headcanon Elyan with magic before, and it's definitely one of the more popular magic!knights hcs, so I apologise if I accidentally hijack anyone else's points xx

The most obvious indicator of this is the fact that Elyan leaves Camelot a year before Merlin arrives. This is about the same age Morgana's magic shows itself, so it would be natural to assume he left because he began showing signs of being a warlock, Camelot's laws being what they are.

It is also implied that Elyan left fairly abruptly, with Gwen having no idea where he went. He may have left in a hurry because somebody might have noticed him, and not told Gwen or Tom for fear of putting them in danger.

Perhaps in a darker note, he didn't say where he was going because he was ashamed of his magic and didn't think his family would accept him.

Gwen says that "[Elyan] always seems to be in the wrong place at the wrong time". Maybe accidents happen around him because he had trouble controlling his magic and found it increasingly difficult to cover for. This could be another indicator as to why he left.

Elyan didn't return to Camelot even for his father's funeral, and while he expresses his guilt, he doesn't give sufficient reason why: the reason? He may not be able to tell Gwen because he was still scared to return with magic.

When Gwen reveals her relationship with Arthur, Elyan is skeptical, and maybe even a little panicked. After all, would your sister falling in love with someone with the power to set you ablaze not be a terrifying concept to anyone with magic? But when Arthur comes to rescue them and proves himself to be slightly less of a prat than he may think, he tentatively agrees to return home, though I suspect this is mainly for Gwen's sake.

When the immortal army invades Camelot, Elyan manages to stay hidden and fight off some soldiers. Note that he is the only one of the group within Camelot with no Knights' training, which begs the question: how did he manage to escape? The answer could very well lie with magic.

Again, in The Darkest Hour, he is one of two knights that survived the meeting with Morgana. He is one of the more inexperienced knights as well, which suggests that he may have aided himself magically in the fight.

When faced with a seemingly unbeatable threat, Elyan says to Arthur: "tomorrow, we fight in your name, sure. For freedom and justice in this land." Now there is a lot to unpack here, but if we break it down, firstly there is the fact that Elyan places is emphasis on "your" when addressing Arthur. He has previously made a statement about the Pendragon crest, but in this moment, it seems that he cares more about Arthur than this. This is clearly indicative of the fierce bond between Arthur and the core knights, but it could be more than that: the emphasis of "your" is specific to Arthur, but perhaps more importantly, it is an exclusion of Uther. In his time, Arthur has made mistakes, but he has generally been more sympathetic towards magic than his father, and this may be Elyan's subtle way of acknowledging that.

In addition, the words: "for freedom and justice in this land" could just be in reference for Arthur's abilities as king, but this is a deep speech and one would assume it has a deeper meaning. Freedom and justice are two things that have not been afforded to those with magic for a long time. Uther's twisted "justice" involved executing anyone who disagreed with him and anyone who could be vaguely affiliated with sorcery. As for freedom, Arthur has created a fairer kingdom than his father, but magic users still live in fear. Combined with the earlier stress of "your", this is indicative that Elyan too believes that Arthur may one day come to bring peace to anyone who is born with magic.

This last point also has the implications that Elyan knows of the Once and Future King and surrounding prophecies. Though he is described as a troublemaker by Gwen before he comes to Camelot, he keeps his head relatively low upon arrival. Perhaps in the time he spent travelling, he sought help from magical communities, e.g. the druids, who helped him control his powers. This would also explain his vagueness about his whereabouts and lack of contact during the years he was missing.

I could go on about this quote but we'll leave it there for now.

Before he is overtaken by the power of the Lamia, Elyan is vocal in standing up for Merlin. This could be because he knows what it is like to be shunned by society. Magic could be a reason for that. (Also I fully believe that the only reason the Lamia didn't try and take over Merlin was because she was scared of the extent of his magic, not just because he had magic.)(and the merthur reasons when I'm in the mood)

Then Elyan falls sick, before the others begin to show symptoms. Maybe the Lamia sensed some magic and decided he was more trouble than he was worth.

Elyan was not raised by druids, and does not have the same powers as Merlin so wouldn't have sensed the power of the shrine, at least not too strongly. When he first sees the spirit though, he is genuinely sympathetic, even before the murderous intent takes hold.

In the Dark Tower, Elyan is consumed by his need to find Gwen, convinced that he is to blame for her capture. This could be survivor's guilt (and to an extent, probably is), but it is equally probable that Elyan believes that he should have used his magic to protect her.

Going off on a slight tangent here, the theme of "I have magic so it must have a purpose" within warlocks/sorcerers in the show is a) not a healthy mindset and b) uncomfortably common. Elyan may have latched onto the idea that he must use his magic to protect Gwen to convince himself to stay in Camelot, and with that conprmino, he began to fall apart. His behaviour is almost identical to Merlin's fervour regarding Arthur at this point, and it's fairly disturbing that these characters adopt this mindset that is Not Good For Their Mental Heath, Please Get Some Therapy.

Elyan dies. It's heartbreaking, and he does so trying to save his sister. But what is interesting is his funeral. When most main characters die, they are given a funeral in Camelot, e.g. Uther, Lancelot (the first time). But then Freya and Shade!Lanceot (and later Arthur) are set to rest in the Lake of Avalon. The difference between the two is that the lake funerals were arranged by Merlin, and those laid to rest there can somehow be affiliated with magic.

Now I'm not saying that Merlin knew about Elyan's magic, because sometimes he can be really not very perceptive about that (though it's always fun when fics cheerily toss that out the window because it's fun goddamnit-), but I don't believe he was entirely oblivious. Think about it: there are two of Arthur's closest friends canonically hiding magic from him and it's fairly probable that they'll pick up on Elyan's magic at some point. Even if it's just little things like his sympathies with magic or gentle arguments about the way mages are treated. There are so many avenues to explore with this it's overwhelming-

I also think Elyan may have picked up on Merlin's magic later in the series: the point of realisation was probably when Merlin rescued him during his time being possessed by the drowned druid boy, upon which he says: "you know, Merlin, you're much braver than you look." This is the first time Merlin has revealed his more BAMF side to Elyan, and in this moment, something unspoken passes between them. If not mutual understanding, it is at least Elyan realising what Merlin does beneath his carefree exterior, and despite the possession, I think he acquires a lot of new respect for his friend.

(also are we going to ignore that the lake funeral implies that it was arranged by Merlin. How close were they and what stuff did we miss out on behind the scenes for him to be trusted with this?? I need to know)

Elyan and Mordred have a friendship in series 5. If the earlier headcanon about Elyan learning to control his magic with druids is true, perhaps he may have recognised Mordred from his time there. They probably didn't acknowledge it much, but it created a bond between them.

And now for the mythological context!!

Of all the Knights of the Round Table, Elyan's backstory is perhaps the most estranged from the original legend (of course all of them are fairly disconnected *flashbacks to pope-gwaine* but Elyan's is w a c k y)

As a consequence, there is little to draw on for behind-the-scenes evidence of magic.

Elyan, or Helayn, was another Knight whose origins stem from France (the Vulgate Cycle, I think, though he could have surfaced earlier). He is said to have joined Lancelot in exile after his affair of 'courtly love' with Guinevere (go and look up this concept- it gets convoluted in the myths but is really interesting in terms of both origin and content). Anyway, his exile here could represent the time he spent out of Camelot before his appearance in s3, and relates to hiding from harsh laws, particularly if we regard Lancelot and Guinevere's relationship in the same way as we do in the Vulgate Cycle (basically keep the context with the appropriate work and it sort of makes sense)

I appreciate this seems a little like grasping at straws but that's literature I suppose ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

In the legends, Elyan is nephew to another of Arthur's knights, Sir Sagramore. This knight is less famous than some, but at one point, he embarks on a quest to find the fay. The fay are closely linked with the she, and perhaps also live on Avalon, somewhere mortals are only supposed to see moments before death. Perhaps Elyan can be associated with this magic?

In reality, there is little written of Elyan and no prose or poetry dedicated to him so it's quite hard to find stuff about him.

Also legend!Elyan is heir to the throne of Constantinople, which just goes to prove how widespread and deeply convoluted the mythos is.

#pope-adopted-gwaine and emperor-of-constantinople-elyan team up in an epic crack-y au lmao #honestly the idea of elyan having magic is so plausible but also so sad #he isolated himself and then lost the person he cared about and that's heartbreaking #won't stop the headcanoning though ✌️#bbc merlin #bbc elyan #sir elyan

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hoseas-angry-ghost · 3 years ago

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YES YES YES I WOULD LOVE TO HEAR UR THEORIES

Hello anon! I am very surprised anyone wants to hear my chutney but here's my Strange Man Hot Take with some hopefully interesting info for curious parties:

To be honest, R* included so much misdirection around the Strange Man's identity (especially in RDR1) that I'm not *totally* convinced they're married to any one idea. RDR2 also complicated things by introducing new religions into Red Dead's world (Voodoo, Old Norse, etc.): he's no longer limited to just Christian / Western interpretations, as in RDR1, and it's possible R* might try to syncretise him with figures from other faiths (they did place Bayall Edge in Bayou Nwa, where most of the Voodoo stuff is).

At the same time, though, I think RDR2 actually narrowed things down somewhat in terms of the direction R* chose to take his character, and what we were shown of that. There's still a level of misdirection in RDR2, but IMO, it almost comes off as half-hearted in comparison to what was basically trolling in RDR1 -- it seems like they were a lot more focused on playing the "bad news" angle the second time round.

Based on what we know, and on the balance of things, I'm not convinced that the Strange Man is necessarily meant to be any one thing or figure, but I do think he's meant to fulfil some type of Satanic role within Red Dead's world, either in main or in part.

I won't compare and dissect other theories or anything, I just thought I'd list off some things that people might find interesting:

Armadillo. The deal between the Strange Man and Herbert Moon seems to be a pretty textbook Faustian bargain: Moon is offered earthly rewards ("happiness or two generations"), and although the price was (tellingly?) never specified, it seems like the recent Blood Money update for RDO all but confirmed that the cost was probably his soul. Although it's left ambiguous what Moon actually chose, the Armadillo curse was possibly an unforeseen (for Moon) consequence of the deal's terms, which would fit with similar tales of the devil or demon in question taking liberties with their end of the bargain.

In the files, there's some great audio of Moon off the shits and straight-up saying "I've made a deal with the devil, and I will never truly die!" It's possible this was cut for its own reasons (too overt?), but as a lot of stuff was apparently cut from Armadillo, I'm guessing it was either cut when Arthur in New Austin got cut, or it was part of something that R* didn't have time to implement in the epilogue. Either way, if it's not actually in the game then it's not technically canon, but it is an indication of what R* was thinking during development.

There's a lot of audio from the Armadillo townsfolk in general about devils and "devil curses," but the only thing I know of that definitely made it into the game is a line from the town crier ("Devil has the town in his hand").

There's audio of the Armadillo bartender saying "I heard the Tillworths made a deal with the devil to keep from gettin' sick! I don't wanna die any more than the next man, but ain't no safety worth a man's soul." Possibly idle gossip, but given Moon, possibly not.

RDO seemed to flirt with the idea of soul-selling a little bit with Old Man Jones' line "Well, this is America, so anything can be bought -- even souls," but then RDO pretty much just came right out and said it with Bluewater John in the Blood Money update. Bluewater John also apparently made a deal, almost definitely with the Strange Man (given the Moon deal and how close Bayall Edge is to all the drama); he was based on blues musician Robert Johnson and the myth that he sold his soul to the devil for mastery of the guitar. It's basically a rehash of the Moon deal, except it's... not subtle in its dialogue about deals, devils and souls.

"I GAVE EVERYTHING FOR ART, AND I LEARNED TOO MUCH AND NOTHING AT ALL" written on the wall at Bayall Edge also sounds like a reference to another one of these deals to me ("everything" being their soul, and "I learned too much and nothing at all" the foolishness of accepting eternal damnation for temporary knowledge). I think Bayall Edge might have originally belonged to a painter who struck a deal with the Strange Man for artistic skill, but then the Strange Man slowly possessed him or something -- which could be why some of the landscapes depict RDR1's I Know You locations, and why the writings on the wall kind of look like they deteriorate in quality. The puddle of blood at the foot of the portrait might also be linked to this somehow (whose is it?).

It's the deal-making for souls that really pushed the "devil" theory over the edge for me, because I can't think of whose wheelhouse that would be in except a devil's, or someone similarly malevolent.

Alternative name. The Strange Man's character model is called cs_mysteriousstranger in RDR2, and he's referred to as "the mysterious stranger" at least once in RDR1's in-game text. This could be a reference to The Mysterious Stranger, written by Mark Twain between 1897-1908, in which the stranger is a supernatural being called Satan. (At the end of the last version written, he tells the protagonist that nothing really exists and their lives are just a dream.)

Bayall Edge. Bayall Edge was possibly based on a Louisiana urban myth called the Devil's Toy Box, which is "described as a shack. From the outside, it is unappealing and average. ...The inside of the shack consists of floor-to-ceiling mirrors, including the walls. No one can last more than five minutes in this room. ...According to the legend, if you stood inside this mirror-room alone for too long, supposedly the devil would show up and steal your soul." The Strange Man does show up in the mirror eventually, and it's kind of curious that the paintings that change depending on your Honour act as metaphorical mirrors. This was also cut, but in the files, Arthur's drawing of the interior of Bayall Edge is unusually sloppy, like his faculties were impaired or something.

"Awful, fascinating and seductive". John writes this about Bayall Edge after the portrait is finished, and I think that's as good a description of something like the / a devil as any, but "seductive" is a big red flag for me, because it's such an odd choice of word and, from a Christian perspective, it's so loaded with connotations of evil and sin and temptation.

I Know You. Some have pointed out that I Know You in RDR1 resembles the Temptation of Christ, as it also takes place in three separate locations in the desert, and John is given moral tests in which he must choose between higher virtue or worldly vice. John is also, in a weird way, a kind of Christ-like figure in that he ultimately sacrifices his life for others. I do think the "temptation" in these encounters is very surreptitious but very much there ("Or rob her yourself" -- excuse me??), but they may also be operating on a Biblical definition of the word, i.e. a test or trial with the free choice of committing sin.

RDR1 dialogue. I don't want to get *too* much into this because I feel like we're all just getting punked in RDR1, but I think the Strange Man's dialogue broadly fits with something like a "devil" interpretation, or at least doesn't contradict it.

I'm thinking particularly of lines like "Damn you!" / "Yes, many have" (which would work metaphorically but also literally, given that the devil was thrown from heaven by God and his angels), and "I hope my boy turns out just like you" (of all the leading theories, I think Satan is the only figure who's popularly conceptualised as having a son, or prophesied to have a son -- God obviously had a son, but that ship kinda sailed).

I think the "accountant" line refers to Honour (which even uses an invisible numerical system), and how John's fate depends on the number of both good and bad acts he's committed throughout his life, and how these weigh against each other. If the Strange Man likes to collect souls, then he would have a vested interest in auditing you and seeing if your accounts are in the black or the red, as it were (and providing you with opportunities to push yourself further into the latter...), because if you're bankrupt, you're his.

Blind Man Cassidy. Interestingly, Cassidy seems to distinguish between "Death" and the Strange Man, implying that he's something else beyond his understanding: in one of Arthur's fortunes, after his TB diagnosis, he says "the man with no nose [Death] is coming for you," but in one of John's fortunes, he says "Two strangers seek thee: one from this world, perhaps one from another. One brings hatred; I'm not so sure what the other brings."

Arthur's cut dialogue. In the files, there's audio of Arthur having the exact same conversation with Herbert Moon as John in the epilogue, asking about the Strange Man picture because he "just seemed familiar". I think it's interesting that, like John, Arthur also would have apparently recognised the Strange Man despite (presumably) never seeing him before. Given how strong a theme morality is in Red Dead -- and how much both John and Arthur struggle with it -- my theory is that they find the Strange Man vaguely familiar because they're both familiar with the evil within themselves, or the potential for evil; and likewise, the Strange Man "knows" John because he embodies evil in some sense, so is aware of John's worst sins (like his involvement at Blackwater), or possibly even all of his sins (which would be, like, a lot).

Honourable mention: There's such a greater emphasis on conspiracies, myths, etc. in RDR2 that I half-wonder if the Strange Man's RDR2 incarnation was partly inspired by Hat Man (~excuse the link~ but often it's hard to find good sources for the kind of weird shit R* includes in their games).

ANYWAY, this got a little long but I hope someone found all this at least passably interesting. Thanks again for letting me ramble about the video game man, anon!

#The Strange Man #inbox #Me @ me: God jsut shut the fcuk-

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commentaryvorg · 3 years ago

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Digimon Data Squad Dub Comparison Episode 1 - There Are Monsters Among Us!

This is a companion to my commentary on the original Japanese Digimon Savers! Reading my commentary on the original version of this episode (which you can find here) is recommended before reading this dub comparison.

Original name ~ Dubbed name

Masaru Daimon ~ Marcus Damon

Yoshino Fujieda ~ Yoshino “Yoshi” Fujieda

Captain Rentarou Satsuma ~ Commander Richard Sampson

[Since several characters share the same name between the original and the dub, quotes from the dub will always be in italics, while quotes from the original will not, in order to distinguish them.]

First off, can we talk about the characters’ dub names? The dub doesn’t actively draw attention to its setting much (but then again neither does the original, really), but it also does not change the fact that this is taking place in Japan and these characters are actually Japanese, despite that we’re hearing them speak English. Some of them keep their Japanese names, too, even if maybe they have slight shortenings of them to be easier for a Western audience to remember. But then some characters’ names are randomly changed to completely English ones, even though these characters are apparently still meant to be Japanese and living in Japan. It’s just strange – if they’re okay with keeping some of the Japanese names, why not keep all of them?

(Honestly, despite my complaints, I am kind of a little glad that they changed Masaru’s name in the dub, because Marcus comes across somewhat of a different character to Masaru for reasons I will be discussing at length. In that sense, it’s convenient to have different names to differentiate them by.)

Kudamon: “He’s a renegade to begin with. We have no choice but to dispose of him.”

~~~~~

Kudamon: “The target is a renegade. We must catch him before he gets out.”

This is actually more reasonable than what Kudamon says here in the original.

Satsuma: “The only ones who can keep Digimon under control… are Digimon!”

~~~~~

Sampson: “Only a high-level DATS agent can capture a Digimon.”

The original version of this line was already awkwardly expositiony, sure, but this one just doesn’t make as much sense. The point is not that Yoshi is a high level DATS agent, but that she has a Digimon partner.

The dub completely replaces the original’s soundtrack. I did a shoutout to the BGM here in the original, and I also want to do a BGM shoutout here in the dub! This piece here is very different sounding from Provocation Infinity but still gives a similar sort of actiony gung-ho feel appropriate for Marcus and Agumon being fighty dorks, and I like it. It’s used often enough in moments like this such that it’s the only dub theme aside from the evolution theme that I’ve become able to pick out and recognise the melody of, even though this is only my second time watching the dub. Though I don’t know what the dub soundtrack’s titles are (actually, after having a look, it seems like the dub OST was never released, so nobody does), I like to think that this one is probably Marcus’s theme based on the moments its used in, so I’m going to be calling it Probably Marcus’s Theme.

Marcus: “This is my training ground!”

This park is apparently specifically his “training ground”, even though it’s just an ordinary park that anyone can visit. Um, okay? (More on this at the end of this episode.)

Masaru: “I’m the number one street fighter in Japan, Daimon Masaru-sama!”

~~~~~

Marcus: “One day, I’m gonna be a champion ultimate fighter!”

They’ve changed “street fighter” to “ultimate fighter”, which, okay, makes him come across a bit less like a delinquent, fair enough. But a noteworthy difference is that he’s only trying to be the best ultimate fighter. Masaru, on the other hand, feels like he already is Japan’s number one street fighter. This change still sounds fine and in-character enough on the surface, but it’s a meaningful distinction that will become quite relevant further in as we get more into Masaru’s character, so keep this in mind.

Marcus: “Fans all over will chant my name! They’ll say, ‘Marcus Damon is the best!’”

I get that what the dubbers are going for here is something equivalent in spirit to Masaru using -sama on himself. But there’s other, simpler ways to do that – just have him call himself “the great Marcus Damon”, or something like that.

As it is, what they’ve done here is make it seem like, apparently, Marcus has fans, or at least he wants to have fans. Which is not even remotely the point of his fighting thing in the original, nor will it be in the dub, either. He’s not doing this for recognition from others; this is something he’s doing entirely for himself.

Yoshi: “Raptor-1 can talk…?”

This was not a thing implied in the original – that apparently, Yoshi (and presumably therefore everyone else at DATS) hadn’t even heard Agumon talk until now. I guess they’re going for giving more of an explanation as to why DATS treated him like a monster, but I find it difficult to buy that Agumon really wouldn’t have said at least some stuff while trapped at DATS HQ. (“I’m hungry,” if nothing else, right?)

Lalamon: “Yoshi, he’ll destroy the human!”

Oh, boy. This is one of those English dubs that refuses to directly acknowledge the concept of death because apparently the poor kiddies can’t handle that or something. I will attempt to not rag on it every time it does so – only because that’d get really boringly repetitive – but I will be talking about it a lot in future episodes when death becomes quite a story-important thing that is happening.

For now, let’s just point out that it sounds really silly to talk like a human can be “destroyed”. There’s plenty of other ways to get across that Agumon is dangerous without directly referencing death that would sound more natural.

Marcus: “Then I’ll knock you out like I did these guys!”

Masaru did not mention the fact that he was responsible for beating up all the dudes this early on. I guess here in the dub, Yoshi just isn’t paying proper attention, because she’s going to continue to assume it was Agumon who hurt all the students.

Kudamon: “He’s too dangerous.”

~~~~~

Kudamon: “We cannot let this escalate.”

I am sad that the dub lost the fun “who’s too dangerous?” double meaning of Kudamon’s original line.

Yoshino: “Hey, you! Get away from him! You’ll only lose if you fight him!”

Masaru: “Huh? This isn’t about win or lose! This is about fighting man-to-man!”

~~~~~

Yoshi: “You can’t fight that creature! He’s too dangerous!”

Marcus: “Huh? Look, toots, I’m the dangerous fighter here! And I don’t need any babysitter to hold my hand!”

We really, really did not need Marcus being vaguely misogynistic by calling Yoshi “toots”, or by implying that she’s nothing but a babysitter. We really didn’t.

This also replaces Masaru’s original line that has that fun aspect of him not even caring about winning and just wanting to have a good challenging fight with a worthy opponent, so we lose that, too.

(Though, ignoring the misogyny, I do enjoy Marcus responding to “he’s too dangerous!” with “hey, I’m dangerous”.)

Agumon: “Yeah! It’s man-to-man!”

~~~~~

Agumon: “That’s right! This is between him and me!”

Agumon then also isn’t able to agree about this being man-to-man, and this just becomes a less interestingly nuanced “stay out of our fight”, rather than really about the kind of fight they want to have.

Masaru: “Got it? Now stay out of this!”

~~~~~

Marcus: “This is a fight between men, so stay out of it!”

Having removed Masaru’s reference to men a few lines earlier, the dub does something which is going to be extremely rare by its standards and actually adds in a reference to men here. …Unfortunately, because they’d also added in Marcus’s random misogynistic lines earlier, this comes across much more like it’s about gender, and he’s just essentially saying “we don’t want any girls in our fight”. Which, no. Masaru talking about manliness is never actually that much about gender at all, despite the word he uses.

Masaru: “I see you’re pretty brave.”

~~~~~

Marcus: “I dunno what you are, but you’re goin’ down!”

We lose the sense of Masaru having respect for Agumon challenging him in place of some basic I’m-better-than-you trash talk. And this also adds in Marcus calling Agumon a what, rather than a who, indicating that apparently Marcus is paying some attention to Agumon’s species and is seeing him, at least a little, as not quite worthy of the same respect as a human.

After their big cross-counter…

Agumon: “I wasn’t ready. But you won’t get me this time!”

~~~~~

Agumon: “Hey! I wasn’t ready! I was waitin’ for you to say, ‘One, two, three, go!’”

The dubbers completely missed the point of the original, “I wasn’t ready.” Original-Agumon’s line comes across as “I wasn’t expecting you to be that strong, but now I’ve got the measure of you”, like he’s gained more respect for Masaru’s strength. Meanwhile dub-Agumon is just whining and acting like Marcus totally cheated rather than acknowledging his unexpected strength.

Agumon kicking Marcus in the crotch is cut, replaced with a rather cheesy-looking comic book POW sort of effect across the whole screen.

There’s a cute acoustic guitar BGM here for their bonding moment that I like, especially after recognising its melody and realising that this is a variation on Probably Marcus’s Theme! That seems very appropriate.

Agumon: “You’re… pretty good… for a human.”

Geez, what a backhanded compliment. Apparently dub-Agumon still sees Marcus as below him simply because he’s human, rather than fully acknowledging his strength regardless of species.

Agumon: “Let’s call it a draw.”

This line fills a silence, stating something that was already perfectly well implied in the first place by the fact that they’re no longer fighting and yet there’s no clear winner. It shouldn’t need to be said. In fact, it makes it seem a lot more like this fight really was just about winning or losing to both of them, when in the original that was never the point.

Rather than “Aniki”, which, okay, works fine in subs but can’t really be kept in a proper official English dub, Agumon calls Marcus “Boss”. I guess this is acceptable, but I feel like it would have been better for them to lean into the “big brother” meaning of aniki, rather than the “boss” one, for reasons I will be grumbling about a lot.

Masaru: “Aniki?”

Agumon: “Yeah. You’re the first person to acknowledge me as a full-fledged individual, Aniki.”

~~~~~

Marcus: “Boss?”

Agumon: “Yeah. Y’see, you’re the only guy who’s ever matched me blow-for-blow in a fight before.”

So, in this version, Agumon gaining respect for Marcus has absolutely nothing to do with Marcus treating him like a person. It’s just because of his strength, nothing else. Way to lose that really fun little bit of nuance and character depth on both sides.

(Also, what does Agumon even mean, “before”? It’s not like he’d have been able to have proper fights that weren’t just defending himself while trying to escape until now.)

Agumon: “That’s why, from now on, I’ll be your follower!”

~~~~~

Agumon: “That makes you the boss. From now on, you give the orders and I’ll faithfully follow!”

Matching Agumon in a fight shouldn’t really suddenly make Marcus the boss who gets to order him around, should it? Plus, here’s Agumon explicitly saying Marcus can give him orders, which was not at all part of the arrangement originally. This whole thing has such a different tone to “you treated me like a person when nobody else did, so now I look up to you and will be loyal to you.”

Marcus: “I never thought one day that I’d have an employee that’s as funny-lookin’ as you are.”

Oh, boy. Meanwhile, instead of “follower”, we have… employee. That is even more completely missing the point of the aniki-and-follower relationship of the original. If they didn’t like the gang connotations of “boss”, maybe they should have gone for “big bro” instead, perhaps? But no, they just doubled down on the “boss” in a totally different and inappropriate direction. Marcus has apparently just started up a small business.

The heartwarming BGM gets a record scratch as Yoshi reminds them she’s still there. I admit, it made me chuckle.

Yoshi: “So, are you gonna come quietly, or do I have to use force?”

Marcus: “Who’s she talkin’ to, you or me?”

I do enjoy this – a little implication that Marcus has some experience with being treated in a similar way, perhaps by the regular police.

Masaru: “It’s the aniki’s job to look after his follower. I’m not handing him over to you!”

~~~~~

Marcus: “I’ve never had an employee before, and I’m not turning my only one over to you!”

Instead of Masaru doing this out of feeling like it’s an aniki’s responsibility, Marcus is making it about himself. He doesn’t want to lose his new and only employee. Like Agumon’s just a possession of his now. Nothing about how this is something that should be expected of him as a boss.

Later, at the tower, as Agumon asks Marcus to help him evade DATS:

Marcus: “What am I getting myself into this time?”

I enjoy this too. More implications that Marcus is used to getting himself into all sorts of Trouble.

Agumon: “I’m starved!”

Marcus: “Well, suck it up and act like a real man!”

Again with the dub adding in references to manliness that weren’t there originally, as if Marcus actually has a concept of manliness that will continue to be a running theme. Haha, I wish. Get ready for me complaining about the exact opposite of this in basically every other dub episode.

Agumon: “I’m a growing boy!”

How does Agumon even know this phrase? This is an entirely human concept. Dub Agumon will be doing a lot of this, awkwardly invoking human ideas that he shouldn’t have any conception of.

Yoshi: “Yum. I love chocolate pudding – it reminds me of being a little kid again!”

Yoshino’s coffee jelly gets localised into chocolate pudding, because I guess coffee jelly is more of a Japanese thing that Westerners might be unfamiliar with? I enjoy the added detail that it reminds her of being a kid and that’s why she likes it.

Masaru: “I don’t know anyone by that name!”

~~~~~

Marcus: “I have no idea who this ‘Raptor-1’ is!”

Marcus’s line loses the technically-not-lying and respecting-Agumon’s-identity of the original line. He does know who this “Raptor-1” that Yoshi’s talking about is, even if that isn’t actually his name.

Masaru: “How’d you know my name?”

Yoshino: “You yelled it out earlier for everyone to hear.”

~~~~~

Marcus: “How do you know my name, anyway?”

Yoshi: “I know everything about you.”

No pointing out that he yelled it out earlier like a huge dork. Instead, she just really leans into the DATS-are-creepily-authoritative vibe that she already had a little of in the original.

Yoshi: “Born April 2nd in Tokyo, blood type B, Ootori middle school eighth grade.”

Him being born in Tokyo was not a detail mentioned in the original. And also probably not true in the original, since the series is set in Yokohama and there’s no indication that his family moved here. The dub is presumably still set in Yokohama even though it’s never mentioned, just because the scenery is that of Yokohama, so I guess they’ve just established some dub-only canon that the Damon family moved home at some point. This will actually come up briefly later. I am shocked that I’m saying this.

At least, props to the dub for mentioning Tokyo and making it pretty overt that, yes, this is set in Japan. (You know, with this Japanese guy called Marcus.)

Yoshi also does not explicitly specify Marcus’s age, only that he’s in eighth grade. Which (I’m pretty sure, though I’m unfamiliar with American school grades and may be wrong) would make him fourteen anyway, at least assuming he hasn’t been held back at any point. Keep this in mind, because this will also come up later.

Yoshi: “…and you now live with your mother Sarah and your little sister Kristy, who looks up to you even though you generally act like a jerk.”

First of all, how the hell does DATS have so much information that they even know how his sister feels about him?

Second of all, more importantly, way to just tell us that, hey, did you know, Marcus is A Jerk, hey, guys, you’re supposed to think he’s a jerk, because… he fights things, I guess?

The reality? Masaru is not a jerk. Not even slightly. He’s reckless and hot-headed and will fight anything that poses a challenge, but that is not even remotely the same thing as being a jerk to people.

But apparently the dub doesn’t understand this, and they seem to think that being a jerk is somehow meant to be one of his most noticeable character traits. And I guess they’re trying to present the idea that he’s going to slowly grow into being a nicer person through the power of Digimon and friendship? Which is not at all any kind of arc that Masaru is going to have, because he is not actually a jerk in the first place.

If it was just this one line that seemed to think this, I wouldn’t be that annoyed. But one of the biggest things I’m going to be complaining about with the dub is the fact that they actually do change Marcus’s character significantly to make him noticeably more of a jerk than Masaru ever was. We’ve already seen a little bit of this sort of thing going on so far in this episode, with how they’ve removed focus from the bits with Masaru treating Agumon like a person and instead made it all about fighting, and specifically winning those fights. But, oh boy, there’s going to be a lot more, to an extent that it has to be deliberate.

And aside from me just finding this very frustrating as someone who deeply loves Masaru’s character to see him distorted like this, I also can’t help but boggle at why they would ever want to do this at all. Why would you deliberately adapt a character – the main character – to be less likeable than in the original version of the work? How does it not occur to you that this is only going to make your new audience enjoy the work less? I do not get it.

Lines like this one here are even worse, because they blatantly violate “show don’t tell”. Along with making Marcus act like a jerk and showing us that, the dub’s narrative is also telling us that he’s a jerk and insisting we should think that about him instead of letting us make up our own minds. It’s so lazy and heavy-handed. There will be more like this and I do not like it one bit.

Yoshi: “I’m with the Digimon Data Squad.”

I guess the Data Squad really is its full name in the dub. Even though the acronym is still DATS. Don’t ask me how that’s meant to work.

Marcus: “That’s a great story, dollface, but what’s it gotta do with me?”

Can we not with the Marcus being casually misogynistic? Can we not? (Thankfully, this isn’t going to be a recurring thing. Other ways in which Marcus is being made less likeable will be, but at least not this.)

Marcus does not say anything about assuming Agumon was just a frog. Since Masaru having thought that is going to be relevant again later in the series, this is a loss of not just a moment of amusing dorkiness but something actually meaningful.

(One thing that is very clear about the dub is that, with a few exceptions, they do not appear to have watched ahead to see the whole series first and are just dubbing episode-by-episode. For a series like this with quite a strong overarching plot and lots of little things like this that get callbacks, that means that a lot of this overarching sense of cohesiveness will be lost, simply by accident, because they didn’t realise there was something important there worth keeping around. This is another thing I will be talking about a lot.)

Yoshino: “As long as you keep running from DATS, Raptor-1 will only starve to death.”

~~~~~

Yoshi: “If you don’t return Raptor-1 to us, he’ll starve to death!”

This is a little different. Yoshino was only trying to get Masaru to come to DATS, supposedly to pick up some Digimon food. Yoshi, meanwhile, wants Marcus to bring Agumon to DATS. Which on the one hand is a more helpful strategy for what she’s trying to achieve. But on the other hand, he doesn’t bring Agumon, because obviously the dub can’t change the episode that much, so instead we’re just left with that awkwardly not being what happens despite it being brought up.

Yoshino: “You…”

~~~~~

Yoshi: “Thank you.”

The hint that Yoshino is gaining a new respect for Masaru from his desire to help Agumon gets lost here, in favour of simply a thanks-for-finally-co-operating. Might partly be just lip-flap’s fault – the Japanese “you” is two syllables – but still, Yoshi’s tone of voice could at least have done some of the work to imply the same as the original, and it doesn’t really.

Kudamon: “This is the boy that put Raptor-1 under control? He doesn’t appear to have any special power, at any rate.”

~~~~~

Kudamon: “Interesting that this is the boy who fought Raptor-1, because nothing about him indicates that he’s able to fight at that level.”

We lose any implication that Satsuma might have been telling Kudamon things about Masaru offscreen, and instead here’s dub-Kudamon simply refusing to believe the evidence of his own eyes. You literally watched him fight Agumon on your screen. He very evidently can fight at that level.

Kamemon: “Enjoy.”

Marcus: “I’m not thirsty.”

Kamemon: “Suit yourself.”

Kamemon actually says words in the dub as he brings Marcus tea! This was very bizarre to me when I’m used to original-Kamemon, who almost never speaks at all.

Masaru: “Just hand over what I came for.”

~~~~~

Marcus: “Just say what ya have to say and stop wasting my time!”

Apparently the dub has forgotten that Marcus only came here to pick up Digimon food for Agumon, and suddenly he expects to be receiving a speech here when he shouldn’t.

Masaru: “Renegades?”

Kudamon: “Yes. Raptor-1 has already entered the human world and injured humans. He cannot be allowed to go free.”

~~~~~

Marcus: “Why are you calling him a renegade?”

Kudamon: “Because Raptor-1 has already entered the human world and made contact with human beings, so he can no longer be allowed to go free.”

I would complain that it’s a bit much that Agumon’s getting in so much trouble simply for meeting humans in the dub, and not specifically injuring them like they were assuming in the original. But, as it turns out, the original is also going to call Digimon simply meeting humans a “crime” in the next episode, possibly as part of its early weirdness. So, eh, this isn’t really the dub being any sillier than the original here.

Satsuma: “Daimon Masaru, you should work with us to create a bright future for both humans and Digimon!”

~~~~~

Sampson: “Please co-operate. The future relationship between humans and Digimon depends on you returning Raptor-1 to us.”

Also, apparently Sampson isn’t actually trying to recruit Masaru to join DATS with this speech. I can understand the logic behind changing that, since Satsuma was going about that whole thing weirdly vaguely.

That said, saying that the entire relationship between the two species hinges on this one Digimon being returned doesn’t make any sense. So I get the feeling that the implication of what Satsuma really wanted in the original line just went completely over the dubbers’ heads, and they simply thought they were translating his intent directly and made it sound rather silly as a result.

Masaru: “What the hell is this? Stop pestering without even listening to what I have to say first!”

~~~~~

Marcus: “Why not? Because I don’t owe you people a single thing!”

We lose the fun subtle Masaru-y nuance of him caring about being given a chance to express how he feels here. Though I suppose it’s also relevant and illustrative that Marcus is implying he would help them if he felt like he owed them, showing a sense of responsibility there.

Masaru: “…but have you even considered why he suddenly showed up in this world? He admired this place! He admired this wide world, filled with things moving around that he’d never seen before.”

~~~~~

Marcus: “Have you thought about why he came to the human world in the first place? What if he didn’t have a choice? Maybe things were bad for him back in the Digital World!”

This would be Marcus being sweet and thinking about how Agumon feels… if it wasn’t for the fact that Agumon told him he doesn’t know about anything except the institution, and therefore clearly didn’t deliberately try and run away from something bad in the Digital World. Pay attention to your foll – uh, employee, Marcus. Masaru’s line there had somewhat forgotten or misinterpreted what Agumon had told him, but Marcus’s is doing so to a much greater extent.

Masaru: “But if he starts rampaging, then I’ll be responsible.”

~~~~~

Marcus: “And if he gets into any sort of trouble, I’ll claim full responsibility for his actions.”

This sounds like a perfectly reasonable translation, but the dub version of the sentence does not work nearly as well to foreshadow the thing that the original line is foreshadowing and this makes me sad.

Marcus: “But only if you give me some food for him!”

…This is immediately following the previous line. So I guess, since they never give him any food, Marcus doesn’t end up obligated to take any responsibility for Agumon getting into trouble. (Even though that’s still what he is going to do when they think Agumon’s attacking the hamburger shop. But this makes him come across like someone who’s less willing to do so no matter what and has less of a strong sense of responsibility.)

Kudamon: “It looks like you’ll have to take responsibility sooner than you thought.”

~~~~~

Kudamon: “Do you now see how hiding him has created a security breach for all of us?”

This change makes a fair amount of sense, since original-Kudamon was being unreasonable by insisting Masaru should take responsibility for Agumon’s hunger when that was really Yoshino’s fault. And it also fits with the fact that Marcus never actually promised to take responsibility since he wasn’t given any food.

Yoshino: “So this is where you were hiding him. Since he’s nowhere to be seen, it must be him who attacked the hamburger shop.”

~~~~~

Yoshi: “So this is where you were hiding Raptor-1. A lot of good it did you, since we confirmed it was definitely him who attacked the hamburger stand.”

No, you didn’t! How did you confirm a thing that isn’t true? If this is Yoshi lying, that’s just a dick move; she doesn’t even have anything to gain from it. It feels more like this was the dubbers not paying attention and missing the original’s meaning, which is very obviously that Yoshino was assuming based simply on the fact that Agumon went missing. But he didn’t actually attack the hamburger stand! Did they not even watch ahead to the rest of this episode to realise that?

Marcus: “Why’d you attack a hamburger stand?”

Marcus asks this of Agumon after finding him with his head dorkily stuck in a trashcan, not really all that close to the explosions and flames. Way to jump to freaking conclusions after basically just finding proof that Agumon isn’t the culprit, geez! …Though I suppose that can be partly blamed on Yoshi inexplicably insisting he definitely was.

Agumon: “Huh? I didn’t attack anything, but a hamburger sure sounds good!”

Agumon should not know what a hamburger is. Again with his dub version knowing more human things than he should.

Kudamon: “He hasn’t been tamed. I don’t understand why he’s fighting alongside human beings.”

This just makes no sense. What the hell does “tamed” even mean? Doesn’t it just mean “has become willing to work with humans”? Because if so, he evidently has been tamed, actually. Just sounds frustratingly like Kudamon trying to insist he Knows Better than this nobody kid, and I don’t think that’s meant to be his character.

Agumon: “Aniki! He’s really strong…!”

Masaru: “Doesn’t that just fire you up!?”

Agumon: “Y… yeah!”

~~~~~

Marcus: “No! Agumon!”

Agumon: “Boss! I’m fine, but could you lend a hand?”

Marcus: “Ha! How about I lend a couple of fists!?”

The dub’s version of this exchange is kinda still cute, but it loses that fun nuance that Masaru loves how strong their opponent is, and that Agumon is learning to agree with that idea thanks to him.

Yoshi: “That thing will tear you to pieces!”

See, here’s a way to avoid directly using the word “die” or “kill” while still making it clear that’s what she’s referring to, without awkwardly acting like humans can be “destroyed”.

Masaru: “When you’re in a man’s fight, you’re already risking your life! The moment you get scared of dying is the moment you’ve lost the fight!”

~~~~~

Marcus: “Besides, the ultimate fighter is always willing to make the ultimate sacrifice!”

This significantly changes the meaning here, and instead Marcus is apparently consciously willing to get himself killed if necessary, even though the kinds of fights he’s been in before really aren’t something that’s actually worth dying for at all. Masaru’s philosophy of acknowledging but then choosing to brush aside the potential risk in order to fight better makes more sense, because he’s not actually intending to die for anything.

The dub’s changed version of this line will also not work for the callback that the original line is going to get later in the series. I’d talk a lot more about why not, but, spoilers, so I’ll save that for then.

There’s a brief snippet of music here during the Anime Sads that appears to be a sad piano variation of Probably Marcus’s Theme, which feels appropriate. I don’t remember it from my one previous dub watch-through, but I hope it gets used in some of the future much more substantial moments of Marcus being sad about things.

Masaru: “You… How dare you hurt my follower!”

~~~~~

Marcus: “It’s… It’s fightin’ time!”

We also lose another future callback here. But on the other hand, “it’s fightin’ time!” is going to become Marcus’s catchphrase that he uses basically every time he fights (a dub-only catchphrase that Masaru has no equivalent of, and that I’m really pretty happy with), and this moment when he’s avenging Agumon getting hurt is definitely an appropriate moment for it to start being a thing.

The dub’s term for Digisoul is, instead, DNA. Luckily for the biologist in me, who would otherwise be tearing my hair out over this, this stands for something entirely different from deoxyribonucleic acid, because boy would it being that kind of DNA make absolutely zero sense. It’s still pretty awkward that it happens to be the same acronym as a commonly-known thing that it could easily be mistaken for, mind you.

I don’t know why they couldn’t just keep the term Digisoul, though. It’s a perfectly good term! It can’t even be that the dubbers have some kind of oh-no-religious-references objection to using the word “soul”, because that word is also in the dub’s opening song that we’ll be hearing every episode.

Old man: “By mastering this technique, your Digimon can Digivolve.”

Um, sure. The technique of waving your glowing hand over the Digivice is definitely something that needs to be “mastered”.

Marcus also yells “DNA Charge!” out of nowhere for the first time. But in his case, the old man never actually mentioned the word “charge” when telling him what to do here, so it’s even less clear how he knew that was what he was supposed to say.

Alas, the English dub does not dub the original evolution songs in Digimon. The evolution music instead is an instrumental version of the dub’s opening song, which, though I prefer Believer, is an acceptable replacement in terms of creating a similarly triumphant mood.

Marcus: “That’ll teach ya! Don’t mess with my employee!”

Oh my god, wow, way to completely unintentionally mood-whiplash the triumphant moment by reminding us that this huge powerful dinosaur is actually just your subordinate in the new small business you’ve set up here, Marcus. A small business of punching everything.

Agumon: “Aniki! I’m hungry!”

Masaru: “What the hell… That’s so anti-climactic…”

~~~~~

Agumon: “Boss! I’m hungry.”

Marcus: “What else is new? I’m just glad you’re safe.”

This addition is cute. Originally Masaru’s just referring to the anticlimax of Agumon devolving so fast.

Masaru: “How about going for a hamburger?”

Agumon: “Does that taste good?”

~~~~~

Marcus: “How about a nice hamburger?”

Agumon: “Ooh! With cheese, too?”

On the one hand, at least the dub remembered the fact that this Agumon somehow already knows what a hamburger is. On the other, this raises even more questions in terms of how he also knows that they can come with cheese.

Yoshino: “But that one’s already injured 13 students!”

~~~~~

Yoshi: “But Agumon still injured fifteen men!”

Remember how the original tried to calculate fifteen minus one and got thirteen? Well, the dub tried it and got fifteen. Somehow each of them managed to get this very simple sum wrong in a different way.

(And yes, the dub did also specifically have Lalamon sense fifteen humans at the park in the beginning. Actually, it flashes back here to a part where Yoshi was then relaying to HQ that there are fifteen victims, but that was before she saw that Marcus was still standing. I guess it’s plausible to assume that Yoshi herself forgot to subtract Marcus after that and this is her mistake rather than the writers. Not convinced that’s the case, though.)

Also, told you the dub would forget about the part in the beginning where Marcus yelled out within Yoshi’s earshot that he beat up the dudes.

Marcus: “Those were some punks claiming to be ultimate fighters who wanted to train in my area, so I fought them for it, and guess what, I won!”

This begs the question: how the hell is that park supposed to be Marcus’s training ground? Surely, it’d make most sense as a training ground if it was where people regularly come to challenge him to fights? Instead, he only fought the dudes there because he wanted to drive them away from his training ground, so that he can continue to train there, alone, in a perfectly ordinary park that isn’t a gym or anything like that. How is he supposed to train there without opponents? Does he just, like… punch the trees?

I understand if the dub wants to make Marcus have slightly less of a teenage delinquent vibe, but the resulting implications they have here instead are just amusingly nonsensical. It does not seem like they actually thought about this very hard at all.

Overall differences

Overall, the dub of this episode shows a pattern of things generally making a bit less sense and having a bit less nuance, and Marcus in particular being just a bit less interesting and distinctive than Masaru. This is going to be such a regular pattern for every single dub episode that I probably won’t even bother to remark on it in most of these summaries going forward.

In terms of more specific effect on how this episode comes across, I think the most noticeable shift is that the sense of Marcus’s empathy towards Agumon despite his species is watered down slightly. Perhaps most notably, Agumon did not become loyal to Marcus because Marcus treated him like a person, but instead just because he matched him in a fight, which is less meaningful.

The terms “boss” and “employee” also give something of a different vibe to their relationship than in the original. Obviously the dub had to localise “aniki” to something, but I don’t think this was the best choice. This’ll be a thing in every episode, of course, but I’m bringing it up here because this is where it starts.

Then there’s the part where one of Yoshi’s lines casually established that Agumon had never spoken before. As much as this doesn’t make any sense to be a thing – why would he not have spoken while being held in DATS? – I guess it makes it slightly more reasonable that DATS then sees him as just a monster? Though they should also be changing their tune quite quickly when they realise he can speak, which of course they don’t. I guess this could have been an attempt to justify the original’s issues with DATS’s attitude towards Agumon… but not a very effective one.

#digimon #digimon savers #digimon data squad

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microsuedemouse · 4 years ago

Text

man it has been a MINUTE since I made my own post about anything fandom-related on this website but @suzirya is blogging about The Old Guard and I haven’t seen anyone else talking about it really and I’ve got. some thoughts

I had literally never heard of this movie at all until a few nights ago when we were eating dinner in the living room and my dad pulled it up and said ‘hey I want to watch this’ and played the trailer for my brother and me. We were pretty much like yeah, sure, we all enjoy a good action flick, and aside from my other brother (who was occupied with D&D) it ended up being the whole family watching it. and I enjoyed it WAY more than I’d anticipated, especially for something I’d never heard about.

if you don’t know what I’m talking about: drop what you’re doing and go watch The Old Guard on Netflix. (it’s a Netflix original so yes it will be there.) it’s a very fun and good action film based on a series of graphic novels about a small group of immortals trying to do what’s right. there are many selling points but one of them is that it will be very good for your little gay soul, bc Charlize Theron stars (in a character with no explicitly-stated romances but lots of relationships that will make you Feel Things) and two of the other main characters are two men who met during the Crusades and are just amazingly in love with each other. And not in a vague way that the straights can interpret as Powerful Friendship. They are explicitly in love with each other and so devoted and ugh.

ANYWAY. putting the rest of my chattering under a cut bc spoilers and also I’m a wordy piece of shit

1 - early in this movie I was thinking about how glad I am that Charlize Theron has stepped into this role of like... cool female action star, but also, her characters are never super sexed up. almost any female characters I can think of in action movies, if they’re part of the action rather than victims/bystanders, are always made sexy. even when they’re Strong sexy, they’re still... a lot sometimes? I was thinking especially of some Angelina Jolie stuff, Scarlett Johanssen, etc. there are probably lots of exceptions to this that I just don’t know but still - we’ve had Theron in several roles like this recently, and appearance-wise she’s treated with the same respect as her male counterparts, which is so fucking cool and also such a fucking relief. we all love beautiful ladies, obviously, but it’s so SO good to see our female heroes just doing their jobs, without us ever being made aware of their sexuality.

and as the movie went on this was hitting me more and more, and I was also thinking it about... everyone? like. the other female lead, played by KiKi Layne, was arguably more feminine than Theron but not any more sexualised. even once she’s out of her army fatigues she’s dressed with practicality in mind, and again, we never have her female-ness pointed out to us. and I was so about every bit of that. both objectively and as a person whose relationship to female-ness and femininity is kind of weird, it’s such a good thing to see leading women whose gender and appearances and bodies aren’t being focussed on that way.

and as a sidebar to that, while I wouldn’t describe any of the prominent male characters as unattractive by any means, none of them were like... Marvel-actor hot. and I just, idk, especially in action/superhero movies, that’s refreshing to me. a lot of them looked like Regular Dudes in a way that I find very appealing.

2 - can we TALK about Joe and Nicky. holy shit. my brother and I kept leaning over to each other to be like ‘if anything happens to either of them I’ll riot.’ I MEAN.

we got a genuine, explicit, on-screen established romance between these men. it was not implied, it was not just how the actors played it in the hopes that people would catch on - it was right there. they hold each other to sleep, they kiss each other with such love, they talk to other characters about how much they adore each other. they met during the Crusades. they’ve been in love for centuries! and they’re so sweet, so devoted, so adoring! and they never have any arguments or tension to further the plot (one of my personal most-hated plot devices in any story with an established relationship). they just spend this movie loving each other, protecting each other and their weird little family, doing anything they can for each other. they’re taken prisoner and spend their time awake joking and making each other smile. and the one singular bit of casual homophobia they encounter on-screen is met with a declaration of love so heartfelt and intense that the guy who made the shitty comment literally doesn’t know what to say - which is a brief but extremely good scene in the movie, imo.

oh, also worth noting: this romance is biracial and interfaith (inasmuch as either of them may be men of faith after being alive for centuries). just to add to how good this is to see on-screen. all of this on top of them being IMMORTAL AND UNKILLABLE. NO GAYS BURIED HERE

2.5 - can I talk for a second about how goddamn much I love seeing non-hetero romance in genre fiction!!! I know it’s getting easier to find, but still. genre fiction is very much my domain and I love seeing queer romance there, especially when it’s simply an accepted fact and the characters’ queerness isn’t central to the story. narratives about queerness are good and important and serve a function but most of them aren’t really my thing, personally. a story that’s about all kinds of other things but also has queer characters there, being themselves, being in love, is so 1000% my shit.

3 - also? Charlize Theron’s character, Andy?? fascinating from a queer perspective. she doesn’t have any explicitly-stated romance with anyone, but her relationships with other characters are so compelling and so interesting. The backstory about her and another immortal, Quynh, very very distinctly gives you the impression that they were women in love. everything about Andy’s guilt and bitterness over not having been able to find/save Quynh feels so much like there was a romance there. it could have been platonic or familial - they were together, without anyone else, for centuries at least, and therefore obviously developed a very deep love - but the way Andy talks about Quynh it feels so much like there was something left unsaid, or unresolved.

also, her scene with the clerk in the pharmacy. oh my god. this woman clearly recognises that whatever is going on with Andy, something is wrong, and she offers her help, no questions asked. she takes her into the back room and patches up her wound. this scene has such an inherent intimacy because of the close quarters and the privacy and the act taking place, but... there’s also this really interesting connection happening between them, where they recognise something in one another but don’t state it. (personally, I couldn’t help wondering if the clerk was a domestic abuse survivor, maybe? but there are so many ways you could interpret her character from her behaviour and dialogue in that scene, and I’d love to see other people’s takes.)

and then on the other hand you have her relationship with Booker, who’s been with her the longest out of any of the living immortals. they’re incredible. their relationship is so, so interesting and well-depicted! they have such chemistry, that you can easily read as romantic or platonic. they’ve been together for so many hundreds of years and they work together, trust each other, with such a deep understanding and love and respect. and it never quite tips over into the romance you kind of think it will, which imo only makes it that much more compelling - there are so many directions you could take that dynamic.

4 - and then on the topic of Booker: I am SO into the way his betrayal was handled.

he did, undeniably, betray the others. there’s no argument on that fact. his motivations were understandable (and heartbreaking), even to Andy, though certainly not an excuse. so yes, they were furious with him. reasonably so! but... that didn’t actually break their relationships with him. they didn’t leave him behind in the lab, even if in some ways they might have wanted to. and in the ensuing battle, they were still able to work together and trust each other as they always have. the damage done to their larger relationship was put aside to be dealt with after all of this, as it should be. and even when they did deal with it, what they agreed on was just a century of exile from their group. given the lives they’re all living, that seems like such a mild sentence.

but to me, it makes so much sense. again, these people have lived for centuries, and there are so few of them. they need each other. the bonds they’ve formed over all this time together - the trust, the love, the sense of family - would not only be vital to both their survival and their sanity, but also incredibly difficult to truly break. what he did would seem unforgivable from an outside perspective, and even after that century passed I’m certain he’d have to earn back their trust and respect, but it makes absolute sense that they’d be willing to take him back one day.

god. GOD. I’m sure there’s more I could talk about but this is what I can think of right now and I’ve been typing for like forty minutes probably so I’m done for now but.

god.

this movie and its characters GOT ME, guys. I’m really in it. ugh UGH

#the old guard #Courtney talks

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scripttorture · 4 years ago

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(Villain story PT 1) My story is about two enemies/villains. Character A is tortured by B as punishment for harming a friend of B. A escapes and tortures B for retaliation (other people who have been wronged by character B also help character A do that). A and B are not directly involved in each other's tortures but they know who is responsible for their punishment. Later, A and B come closer to each other's side and start to compromise their politics. They also come closer as people.---

(Villain story PT 2) They also come closer as people. They realize they think alike. They don't have regrets about the torture they did to one another but they don't want to repeat it. Later there is some atonement for their actions. I am doing the trope "enemies to friends" but with both characters having a twisted mentality (aka "it's fine if you come closer to your torturer"). (Villain story PT 3) However, I don't imply that torture is something light or harmless or that it's natural for someone to be kind to their torturer. i also don't try to excuse the actions of the torturers.I am worried if with this story I present torment in the wrong way. Any commentary or advice? Thank you!

OK I think I understand what you’re going for here.

I’m going to start off by saying that I don’t think there’s anything wrong in writing ‘bad’ characters. Or characters who believe in stuff that’s awful, stupid or just plain wrong. If you want to write unhealthy relationships, characters making bad decisions or characters having rare/unusual responses there’s nothing inherently wrong with that.

The issues come when we start teaching people these things are ‘normal’, that survival should look a certain way or that a particular kind of trauma ‘wasn’t that bad’.

Sometimes that stuff can be very subjective, so this is always a learning process.

But this isn’t about telling people to stop writing particular plots or characters. It’s about the problems that come when fiction is the only source people see for something real and complex and misunderstood.

I don’t have a problem with authors breaking from reality; it’s called fiction for a reason. The problem is when we present a potentially damaging fiction as fact and do so in an environment which makes finding the facts almost impossible.

I talk about what is or isn’t realistic often because I think it’s important that we understand the reality. We get better stories when the writers are aware of how and where they’re deviating from reality. We get more compassionate stories when writers take the time to think about what those breaks from reality imply.

I don’t think you’ve chosen a plot that’s inherently torture apologia but it could stray close to some of the common misconceptions about torture. And you’ve recognised that, which means you’re thinking about it critically. That’s a really important step.

First off in this kind of scenario it’s worth distinguishing the torturer from the person who ordered torture.

You’ve made it clear that neither of these characters actively tortures the other. They order it but it isn’t even clear if they’re in the same room when the abuse takes place. And I think that gives you a lot more leeway.

I don’t know of a single case where a survivor and their torturer (ie someone who directly, actively tortured them) became friends or had any sort of positive relationship afterwards.

There are abuse cases where the survivor and abuser have gone on to have a healthy and mostly positive relationship afterwards. It’s rare*, but it does happen.

The thing is abusers usually have an established prior relationship with their victim. Torturers don’t. The most I’ve found is a couple of cases where they were vague acquaintances before hand; I’ve yet to find a case where torturer and victim were actually close beforehand.

What I’m saying here is that generally there isn’t a reason for survivors to want anything to do with their torturers in any capacity. And there are a lot of good reasons for them to not want to be near their torturer.

There aren’t a lot of accounts of survivors encountering their torturers afterwards. The ones that I have found-

Well Fanon describes one that happened in his hospital. Both torturer and survivor had a panic attack. The survivor ran into a bathroom and tried to commit suicide.

Hospital staff managed to convince both of them that they were mistaken about who they thought they saw (a decision Fanon justified as being the only way they could continue to access the treatment they needed). They rearranged the schedules to make sure they never encountered each other again.

I’ve read more recent accounts that were by survivors. Most of them seem to be describing panic attacks or at the very least, extreme distress on the part of the survivor.

That’s partly in response to the torturer in a way that’s beyond the control of both individuals. But it’s also partly because of the attitude torturers typically seem to have to their own crimes.

I’ll pre-face this by saying we really need more research on torturers. At the moment there isn’t a lot in the way of good quality long term studies. Based on the information we have now torturers seem to struggle to understand the scale and impact of their crimes. Some of them do express regret. Some of them will admit that what they did was wrong.

But they might also say (example taken from one of the survivors accounts and paraphrased) ‘Well I served my time in jail so you shouldn’t have a problem with me any more. I have as much right to be here as you do.’

As you might imagine this sort of attitude and lack of understand tends to make a healthy or positive relationship less likely.

As I said, I never heard of a case where a survivor and their torturer had a positive relationship afterwards and I think that it’s extremely unlikely.

But the survivor and the person who ordered torture… that is potentially a different story.

People who order torture usually aren’t present when torture occurs. They don’t exist in the toxic torturer sub-culture these organisations have. They are not typically at risk from the torturers in their organisation. And since they don’t typically witness torture they’re not going to develop the mental health problems torture typically causes.

And because they’re not typically present when torture is actually happening there’s less chance that a survivor is going to feel triggered by their presence. They might blame them, they might hate them. But the visceral response they have when seeing their torturer doesn’t seem to be there, as far as I can tell from what I’ve read.

I think that difference, that distinction, gives you a fair amount of leeway. Because a person can know, logically, that the head of the organisation that tortured them is ultimately responsible for their torture and still not have the same level of emotional response or distress.

Because they weren’t part of the toxic sub-culture torturers create in organisations, a person who ordered torture is less likely to have the same attitude towards their crimes. I can’t say for certain that they’d have greater insight or perspective into what they did; there’s even less research on them then on torturers.

But I think they’d be able to denounce, regret or move away from torture with less personal risk. They’re not going to lose their whole social circle for saying torture should stop. And they’re unlikely to be physically attacked by their peers for it.

I still think that gaining that insight, that understanding of the scale and impact of their crimes, would be difficult and unlikely. But my instinct is that it would be more likely in someone who is at a remove from torture then in someone who was actually a torturer.

Showing that torture is serious is more about how you portray the effects then how you have the characters’ relationships developing. It’s about showing consistently showing the effects symptoms have on the characters’ lives.

Having more survivors then just these two characters could serve to highlight that this relationship isn’t usual, as well as underlining that people’s responses are very varied.

If you make the effort to show, consistently, that both the main characters and any secondary survivor characters are effected by what they went through then you should avoid downplaying the damage torture causes.

You’ve probably already picked out the 3-5 symptoms you want your main characters to experience. Decide what those problems look like for them and show those problem consistently even when the character is improving.

The story I’m writing at the moment has a character with a minor brain injury and part of the symptom set I gave him involved having lower inhibitions. Which in this character looks like a complete lack of brain-mouth filter, he says what’s on his mind constantly. And he does get better at managing his disability through the course of the story but he still says the ‘wrong’ thing constantly. Which in turn impacts on his ability to relate to other people.

That’s the sort of thing you need in order to show the effects are serious: a commitment to showing them all the way through the story.

For instance if one of the characters has severe anxiety that gets set off by crowded spaces, improving and managing that condition might look like:

Rearranging their schedule to avoid places at the most crowded times

Medication to reduce the effects of panic attacks

Constantly using breathing exercises in crowded spaces (and possibly sounding a little strange when they talk as a result)

Sending other people to potentially crowded spaces in their place

Putting off or cancelling things if a place seems too crowded for them

Taking the rest of the day off to recover after going somewhere crowded

Any of those might lead to the net result of less panic attacks and overall improvement. But they’re still working around a serious condition. The fact the character has to make these adjustments constantly in their life means the condition is still there and still serious.

The rest of this is probably less about the overall themes or plot and more about how it comes across when it’s written.

I can’t give you a roadmap to a perfect story that no one will ever take issue with. That does not exist. Because every individual reader will bring something different when they sit down to read and they will take something different away too.

Getting beta readers can help with this, and help build your confidence. I’ve found in person (or in these days over skype) writing groups to be really useful.

You’re trying to do better and that is the main thing. You’ll learn in the process of writing this story and what you learn can feed into the next one.

This is a complex topic you’re tackling and your fear is natural. Do everything you can to do it justice, but give yourself permission to be imperfect. You’re only human. I assume.

I think the main thing to consider here is whether you’re portraying what happens with these characters as ‘normal’ or not. Because however you look at it this is an unusual outcome. I think you know that and I get the impression from the ask that you’re not trying to portray this as the ‘usual’ or ‘correct’ response. You’re just trying to tell a story that interests you using an unusual response. Nothing wrong with that.

Implications and atmosphere can be hard to get right. They take practice. Having someone else read over the story can help confirm that scenes are coming across the way you intend them to.

Once again I think having other examples of survivors will help you avoid any suggestions that survivors ‘should/naturally are’ kind to the people who ordered them to be tortured. Showing symptoms consistently should also help you avoid excusing the torture. Especially if that effects the relationship that’s building between these two characters.

Take your time. Take breaks. Read your own writing critically and think about what you might be implying with each scene. Get second opinions to make sure it’s coming across as you’d like it to.

I hope that helps. :)

Available on Wordpress.

Disclaimer

*The fact that it can happen is occasionally used to encourage victims to stay in dangerous situations on the off chance they might be able to ‘fix’ their abuser. This is, of course, dangerous rubbish.

#writing advice #tw torture #tw abusive relationships #writing survivors #writing torturers #writing witnesses #writing recovery #people who order torture #torture apologia #torture survivors and relationships #torture is not safe #writing symptoms #effects of torture #behaviour of tortures #enemies to friends #not sure what to tag this

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daisylincs · 4 years ago

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Hi friend! I've never watched agents of SHIELD, but would you tell me about your fave ships and why? I just like hearing about otps :) 💛

Oh my gosh, hi, and thank you SO much for asking!! 😍😍😍 I’ve been grinning down at this ask on my phone intermittently for the last day and a half - because if there’s one thing I really love gushing about, it’s my Agents of SHIELD OTPs. Seriously, finding the time to sit down and answer this has been the highlight of my entire weekend so far. So once again - THANK YOU SO MUCH, FRIEND!! 😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍

I’m going to put a cut here, because *coughs* I know myself, and this is going to get long.

#1. Staticquake (Daisy Johnson/Lincoln Campbell)

So to give you a little bit of background information, Staticquake is the (formerly) canon ship between Daisy Johnson (who used to be called Skye, and now also goes by the superhero name Quake) and Lincoln Campbell, an Inhuman who had the power to manipulate electricity. Yes, had - he died, for her. 😭😭😭

Why, then, you may be wondering, do I still count this as my top OTP? Well... I actually have a whole long story behind that!

So in Season 1, Daisy (who was still called Skye then, it’s confusing I know) had this other love interest called Ward. Everyone was super-happy when they finally got together in episode 17... which lasted for about five seconds, because right after that, we found out Ward was working for HYDRA all along.

Yeah. After that, the bar for a new Daisy love interest was very low - basically, “not an evil psychopath.” So when we met Lincoln in season 2, I personally was very excited - because Daisy is my favourite, and I want happiness for her!!

I only started watching this show in the lockdown thanks to one of my friends constantly nagging me to do it, so when I got to the episode where we meet Lincoln, I texted her immediately, like, “Lincoln is going to be the new Daisy love interest right?”

She replied with something along the lines of “yeah but don’t get your hopes up, it’s really not that great a ship.”

My immediate reaction was, quite understandably I think, “oh no, he’s not another Ward, is he?!?!”

My friend was quick to reassure me that, no no, Lincoln’s not another Ward.

Whew. But... “why isn’t it a good ship, then?” I needed to know.

The answer I got was something like “🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️, it just isn’t. Don’t expect to like it too much.”

Now, I don’t know about you, but I’m that stubborn person who will, if someone tells me I won’t like something, go out of my way to like it. (In my defence, I have red hair.)

But, really - she gave me no good reasons why I wouldn’t like the ship, other than a vague “it’s kinda boring.”

And that just does not work for me. You can’t tell me something’s boring and I won’t like it if you can’t give me any reasons why it’s boring and I won’t like it!! So I went on a deliberate search, trawling through thousands and thousands of words of fanfic, meta and theories, most of which were totally archaic by fandom standards, ahahaha.

This is what I found out:

1. Staticquake is a criminally underappreciated ship. My friend wasn’t the only one who thought it was boring and was barely interested in it.

This actually brought up a fairly interesting point for me. Along with being stubborn, I’m also the person who will root for the little guy, or seek out the less popular ship, as it were. The fact that there were so few people who properly appreciated it actually drew me to Staticquake.

2. Staticquake is in NO WAY a boring ship!! The only way you can possibly think it’s boring is if you really go to no trouble to understand the characters, and even then I... fail to see how it’s boring.

Staticquake’s beauty lies in the nuance of it (and I’m going to elaborate on that in just a sec) but even on a surficial level, it’s really very far from boring. First of all because both Daisy and Lincoln are people with awesome powers (and very attractive people, my poor bi heart.) They also both know what it’s like to struggle with things in their past, and to struggle with controlling their powers. Plus, the way they make each other smile is anything but subtle!

And that’s just on the surface. Once you go into the nuance of the ship (which I am guilty of doing far too often) you start to see just how well these two are suited to each other.

Firstly, and I think this is a very important one, because they were friends first. Lincoln helped Daisy out when she was in a very bad place and really struggling with her powers, and gave her someone normal to talk to, someone who got what it felt like, but who also didn’t think she was some kind of monster. He made her smile, which in that particular arc of episodes, was a big thing.

Secondly, because they’re as close to equal partners as you can get. And that’s something that I think is very often underestimated, both in shipping and in real life - just how important it is that your significant other has to be your equal, too.

While it’s true that opposites attract, there also has to be some level of shared interest. I can attest to that from personal experience - a couple of years ago, I was dating this lovely girl who was studying forensic science. I really liked her, I did. But she knew nothing about music, she was allergic to horses, and she had never even seen a single Marvel movie, whereas I’m a music teacher, an avid equestrian, and I adore anything and everything Marvel.

And the thing is, no matter how much I liked her, it was just insanely frustrating that she didn’t have a clue about the things I enjoy so much. You can try to be interested all you like, but there’s a point where it just gets so frustrating that they don’t get it. I want to be able to talk, really talk, about the things I enjoy, and have my SO not only keep up, but add valuable insights. I want an equal partner. Not in everything, maybe, but at least in some things.

Which brings me back to Daisy and Lincoln. For Daisy, becoming Inhuman and getting her powers changed her life. And Lincoln understands that in a way most of her friends and family simply can’t. That’s really special, I think, and important.

Going on from that, they also work together really well as a team (and they look so badass.) I said to myself when I started this that I was going to limit myself to one gif per couple, but...

Talk about a power couple!!

And the last thing I’m going to say about Staticquake - because I’m going to cut myself off here even though I could go on for a lot longer - is how they’re always there for each other, and accept each other. They know they have issues, and they’re willing to talk about them - as evidenced when Lincoln starts telling Daisy about his past in 3x15, and she says, “you’ve told me this.”

This implies that they talk about their problems off-screen, and stay with each other and accept each other despite them. They don’t make it an issue, they just support each other through it all.

And isn’t that just the most beautiful thing?!?!

So, yeah, all the Staticquake content I went and found turned my brain from “liking this out of stubbornness” to “THIS IS THE BEST SHIP IN THE WORLD OH MY GOD.”

And my ship might technically have sunken, but... I’m still that stubborn. And AUs are my life!

#2. Fitzsimmons (Leo Fitz/Jemma Simmons)

It’s hard to think of a fictional couple who has been through more than Leo Fitz and Jemma Simmons. They were best friends for ten years, and in true trope-y style, the thought of being together never occurred to them until Jemma almost died, and then Fitz almost died, and then Fitz did die but that’s a whole different story. Anywho, these two have had the most incredible journey over seven seasons, to the point of being recognised as the MCU’s best love story. I could write paragraphs and paragraphs and paragraphs about them, but I’m going to settle for saying that it’s worth watching Agents of SHIELD just for Fitzsimmons. They really are the definition of endgame.

#3. Huntingbird (Lance Hunter/Bobbi Morse)

If you’re a comic book fan, you may know Bobbi Morse, a.k.a. Mockingbird. Well, I’m delighted to announce that she shows up on Agents of SHIELD - and she is awesome. She also has the most chaotically-wonderful relationship with Lance Hunter - if exes-who-are-totally-still-in-love-but-too-stubborn-to-admit-it is your thing, then you will love Huntingbird.

Personally, I live for that trope, and Bobbi and Hunter take it to a whole new level - bickering, snarking, but unable to stay away from each other for long, and secretly so soft for each other. Their relationship is total chaos - as Hunter puts it, “we’re 100% compatible, 50% of the time.” But, damn, that 50% is SO worth it - these two really were the best.

(Don’t worry, the were is not because they die - thank God, no. Their characters got written out because they were going to have a spinoff called Marvel’s Most Wanted - yes, people liked them that much. Sadly, the spinoff didn’t get picked up, and we lost Bobbi and Hunter for no reason. It’s SO sad.)

But yeah, for the season and a half we have them, they’re absolutely great - all chaos, but also all supportiveness, secretly-softness, and off-the-charts chemistry. They’re also another pair of SUPER attractive people, help.

I could actually gush about every single ship on Agents of SHIELD, because it’s one of those few shows where I ship everything that’s canon, and a decent amount of things that aren’t. But if I do that, we will be here all year, I’m not even kidding.

So here are my top three. I hope you enjoyed this gushy and unnecessarily long answer - and, gosh, thank you again, and thank you so much, for asking, friend!! This has seriously made my entire weekend. 💜💜💜😍😍😍

#ask #aos asks #staticquake #fitzsimmons #huntingbird #THANK YOU SO SO MUCH FOR ASKING 😍😍😍😍😍#gushing about my favourite ships is the best. thing. ever!!!

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the-busy-ghost · 4 years ago

Text

Forensic Incoherence - TSP Edition

Ok I snapped and thought I’d get it out of my system. Also because I’m petty and I let things annoy me more than they should. I’d like to say first and foremost that people can and should still enjoy ‘The Spanish Princess’ as a fun tv show if they like, I’m simply pointing out that when it comes to Scotland, it bears even less resemblance to actual history than usual.

Also it is by no means the worst representation of Scotland! Which is saying something because it is NOT good. It’s about par for the course I’d say, with regards to the way mediaeval and early modern Scotland are portrayed in the media. Outlaw King and Outlander rise slightly above the mark but only just- i.e. they’re somewhat good pieces of historical media that are still inaccurate but are recognisably Scotland (and have some nice panning shots and good soundtracks). The middle point is probably inaccurate MQOS movies because they’re the least painful kind of inaccuracy that’s still kind of bad (but even their soundtracks don’t save them- I’m sorry John Barry). I will not say what the absolute worst piece of media is, I believe I have yet to encounter it and for that I am grateful. TSP is somewhere between the worst and the middle. The point is, most historical media about sixteenth century Scotland generally sucks, and this tv series is about the usual kind of bad. So I wouldn’t be so irritated with the people who made it if it weren’t for one or two individuals’ saying things about how ‘it really happened’.

With that in mind this is a good teachable moment. Usually there’s little point to a detailed analysis of where inaccuracy occurs in a tv show or movie- let’s face it, if they weren’t all a bit inaccurate they probably wouldn’t work too well on screen. However in this case it is such a classic example of the usual, standard depiction of Scottish history that it provides a great resource for showing where these things go wrong (which is everywhere).

So I thought I’d strip back a reasonably mediocre, not too terrible, not overly interesting piece and ask what we have left of sixteenth century Scotland after we’re finished.

I should point out I did not watch the first series of this show, and am basing this solely on the representation of the actual country in the first episode of season 2.

(Hours of James IV, source- wikimedia commons)

Now I’ve talked about James IV’s children in the first of the three scenes involving Scotland already. The last scene doesn’t have much meat in it except that I can confirm Margaret Tudor did lose multiple children and it WAS sad. So that leaves us with the second scene- the so-called ‘council’.

We open on your Usual Nonsense. Lots of men, many wearing tartan, with two famous surnames thrown in there for fun, arguing because The Clans Are Fighting Again.

I don’t have room to go into a whole analysis of the clan system and why our 21st century concept of ‘Highland clanship’ is not really applicable to many of the families at the centre of sixteenth century politics. Safe to say it is especially not applicable to the Red or Angus line of the Douglases (because yeah there were multiple different branches of that famous family), and only applicable to some of the branches of the Stewart family (and there were dozens of them, spread all over the country and operating in very different cultural worlds).

If Scottish politics worked the way that these writers seem to think it does- i.e. you support everyone who shares your family name against all others- then one wonders why James IV hasn’t taken the side of the Stewarts, seeing as that was his surname. Surnames and blood feud were very important in Scotland, both to traditional “clans” and to other families to don’t fit that bill, but they’re not everything. T.C. Smout famously said that “Highland society was based on kinship modified by feudalism, Lowland society on feudalism tempered by kinship.” Not everyone would agree wholly with that statement, but it’s a good starting point for beginners. Nonetheless, at no point should that confirm anyone’s belief that Scottish politics consisted basically of a bunch of clans with their own unique tartans and modern kilts running around the hills killing each other.

It’s also quite funny since James IV’s reign was one of the most (comparatively) peaceful in Scottish history between the Wars of Independence and the Union of the Crowns. He also had very little trouble controlling most of his subjects when it really mattered.

But I digress. We have Clans TM. They are Arguing. There are Douglases. There are Stewarts. It’s about as complicated as an Old Firm game, but less intellectual. This is supposed to be a serious political council.

(read more below)

Firstly, I can’t seem to find a good concise source, but based on a brief flip through the various charters, council decisions, accounts, and secondary sources on James IV’s reign I don’t think there were even any Douglases on the privy council in early 1511. Not that it’s a huge issue in itself- I don’t think that period dramas really put that much thought into representing the bewildering government reshuffles and that’s not really their main purpose anyway.

But what it leaves is this motley collection of characters, some of whom have historical figures’ names, and others who have vaguely plausible names that can’t be assigned to a specific person, and others who are unnamed set dressing but I get the feeling have probably been discreetly named something like Big Chief Hamish McTavish.

So among the few named characters you have George, Gavin, and “Angus” Douglas. These three are all presumably based on historical figures and it’s not too difficult to identify them, even if (like James IV’s children in another scene) they probably shouldn’t have been in the room.

“Angus” is presumably supposed to be Archibald Douglas, Margaret Tudor’s second husband, who became 6th Earl of Angus in 1513 (so two and a half years after this scene is set). “Angus Douglas” is not his name, in any way. It would be like me referring to Henry VIII as King England Tudor. Bit of a ridiculous mistake to make, if IMDB is not lying to me, since it implies that not only did the scriptwriters not even bother to use google, they didn’t even read the (somewhat inaccurate) novel that they based their show off.

Angus is not a common first name in the Douglas family during this period. In fact I don’t think I have ever heard of anyone called Angus Douglas from the sixteenth century or earlier. It was popular in some families from the west and the far north- mostly Gaelic-speaking families like the MacDonalds and the Mackays- but not really among the inhabitants of the Borders and Lowland east coast, which is where the Red Douglases held *most* (though not all) of their power. The earls of Angus took their title from a region in the east/north-east of the country, but they had a large power-base in the Borders and East Lothian too (not least the hulking red sandstone castle of Tantallon on the Berwickshire cliffs).

(The highlighted region is the modern version of Angus, between Dundee and Aberdeenshire. Nowadays, it has red-brown soil, old Pictish monuments, it grows wonderful raspberries and strawberries, and its main towns include Montrose, Arbroath (with its red sandstone abbey), Brechin, and Forfar. The urban and agricultural make-up would have been different in the sixteenth century though. The Borders meanwhile are pretty self-explanatory).

In 1511, Archibald’s grandfather, also Archibald, was still alive and held the title Earl of Angus. His eldest son George, Master of Angus (the younger Archibald’s father) was his heir apparent in 1511. Now the elderly 5th earl was still a wily character but he was old, and had also been held in custody on royal orders on the Isle of Bute until as recently as 1509, because the 5th earl and James IV had... well it was a complex relationship. We could perhaps assume that he was not able to travel easily- hence why his eldest son George, Master of Angus, seems to be the ‘George’ who is represented in that council scene. Somehow, I don’t see Archibald Junior being called his own grandfather’s title rather than his name when his father was in the room. George, Master of Angus, died at Flodden, which is why he did not succeed to his father’s earldom and the claim passed to his eldest son Archibald.

(There was another George Douglas worth mentioning, though he wouldn’t be in this scene- George Douglas of Pittendreich, Archibald’s younger- and, let’s be honest, smarter- brother. He was father to the Regent Morton).

The last is Gavin Douglas- probably the most interesting of the three to any literary scholars. He was the younger brother of the Master of Angus, and thus uncle to Archibald. He is one of the most important Scots poets- or makars- of James IV’s reign, and personally I would only place him beneath the great William Dunbar (the other big contenders, Henryson and Lindsay, respectively wrote most of their works before and after the adult reign of James IV). His works include the “Palice of Honour,” “King Hart”, and his greatest achievement the “Eneados”, completed c. 1513, which was the first full vernacular translation of the Roman poet Virgil’s Aeneid in either English or Scots. After Flodden, he became Bishop of Dunkeld, partly through Margaret Tudor’s influence, and didn’t find much time for writing any more poetry in the reign of James V, being consumed by political struggle. He died in exile in England in 1522.

Sixteenth century Scots had many complex and conflicting emotions and opinions, and one could severely hate and distrust England while remaining friends with certain Englishmen or respecting certain English customs. Nonetheless I find it a bit funny that Gavin Douglas is the one who is given the line ‘the English are the root of all our troubles’ since there was one thing that the English gave the world that no early sixteenth century Scots makar worth his salt could ever forget- and that was Geoffrey Chaucer (as well as his compatriots Lydgate and Gower). In his ‘Eneados’, Gavin Douglas himself described the great poet as “venerable Chaucer, principall poet but peir”. Which is not to say that such a character could not also have raged against the English on more than one occasion, this is merely to demonstrate that these three named men were rather more complex than the simplistic kilt-wearing, knife-wielding, drunk, Anglophobic, entirely uncultured stereotype we have on screen.

(And while I’m on the kilt and tartan thing- I literally JUST said that the Red Douglases were mostly centred on the Lowlands, and in particular the Borders. While it’s not impossible that they could have occasionally worn tartan, it’s not exactly everyday dress for them- unless you think it was also day dress for people in Carlisle as well. I notice Archibald Douglas himself isn’t really wearing any- perhaps this is to make him look more palatable. And don’t even get me started on the whole “the clans are fighting” thing).

(Look here’s a nice picture of Archibald Douglas, 6th Earl of Angus- admittedly when he was a bit older and had been in exile in England, but look! He’s dressed like other people in sixteenth century Europe! Nothing wrong with tartan but not your usual sixteenth century Borders earl gear.)

Funny thing is though, while the earls of Angus were undoubtedly important (and Gavin Douglas, being a university man, could act as an official), they’d lost their influence a bit by the end of the reign (again, the 5th Earl and James IV had a very layered relationship). Now, while lists of witnesses to charters do not necessarily reveal everything, if you were looking for powerful men who are likely to have been at the centre of government and on the king’s council in 1511 (and not just noblemen who were friends with the king but didn’t have government posts) I would look for some of the below first:

- Alexander Stewart, Archbishop of St Andrews and Chancellor of Scotland in 1511. He appears at the head of the witness list in almost every charter in the first half of 1511, and also signed off on the royal accounts. A young man, only about eighteen in 1511, who had studied under Patrick Paniter (see below), and then later had travelled on the continent and studies under humanists like Raphael Regius and Desiderius Erasmus. He was also James IV’s eldest son, though illegitimate- however although his promotion was undoubtedly nepotistic, there are signs that he would have made a pretty competent archbishop and he certainly actually did his job as chancellor. Although an archbishop (but never old enough to be fully consecrated or receive the revenues of his see), he followed his father to Flodden and died in battle. Erasmus famously eulogized him in his ‘Adages’, saying that:

“when a youth scarcely more than eighteen years old, his achievements in every department of learning were such as you would rightly admire in a grown man. Nor was it the case with him, as it is with so many others, that he had a natural gift for learning but was less disposed to good behaviour. He was shy by nature, but it was a shyness in which you could detect remarkable good sense.”

(A sketch from the Recueil d’Arras which is allegedly a copy of a painting of Alexander Stewart)

- William Elphinstone, Bishop of Aberdeen and Keeper of the Privy Seal in 1511. A man with many years of experience at the centre of government. After studying at Glasgow, Paris, and Orleans, he was made bishop of Ross and travelled to abroad on diplomatic missions. He had previously been High Chancellor of Scotland under James III, and even though he spent a small part of James IV’s early reign out in the cold he was soon brought back into the fold and played a leading role in government. Even though he was never chancellor again, he held the privy seal until the end of his career and often acted as de facto chancellor during the tenure of James IV’s younger brother the Duke of Ross (also an earlier Archbishop of St Andrews). William Elphinstone is also remembered for being a very active bishop in his diocese- he built a bridge over the River Dee, rebuilt part of the cathedral, and founded the University of Aberdeen, which received its papal bull in 1495. He organised the construction of King’s College, and the chapel built on his orders is still at the centre of the university’s campus today. He also sponsored the publication of the Aberdeen Breviary, on Scotland’s first printing press. He is supposed to have been against the invasion of England in 1513, but after the king’s death, Elphinstone was seen as the natural choice to succeed Alexander Stewart in the archdiocese of St Andrews, despite his age. He died in late 1514.

Andrew Stewart, Bishop of Caithness, Treasurer in 1511 takes third place on a lot of charters. Less can be said about him than the first two, though his rise at the centre of government really took off around 1509. He was Treasurer in 1511. It is not clear which branch of the Stewarts he hailed from, but it may have been the Stewarts of Lorne, which would have made him a distant cousin of the king and a slightly closer cousin of the king’s last known mistress, Agnes Stewart. Things are not made any simpler by the fact that, after his death, the next bishop of Caithness was ALSO called Andrew Stewart, and this one was an older half-brother of the Duke of Albany and a son of James IV’s uncle. The main takeaway- there are lots of Stewarts in Scotland, including the Royal Stewarts, and too many branches of the family for any simplistic tale of “clan” rivalry with the Red Douglases to be at all compelling or make sense. It is also worth noting that until 1469, Caithness would have been the most northerly diocese in the kingdom- whether Andrew spent more time there or at the centre of government is unclear.

(A rare contemporary painting of William Elphinstone, bishop of Aberdeen and Keeper of the Privy Seal)

Archibald Campbell, 2nd Earl of Argyll and Master of the Household in 1511- This post was less explicitly a ‘government’ post but the royal household still had an important political role. Even without this government post, though, the earl of Argyll was an important man. One of the two ‘new’ earldoms created in the reign of James II, the earls of Argyll were sometimes seen as royal ‘policemen’ in the West Highlands and islands. Their earldom was named after the large region on the west coast of the same name, cut up by sea-lochs and mountains. However they often had their own agenda and could exercise some independent policies in the Isles and northern Ireland. The earls of Argyll were usually the chiefs of Clan Campbell (look! An actual Highland clan for once!), including its many cadet branches. Clan Campbell has a very black reputation now (with some justification), though it is worth mentioning that in the sixteenth century they were also patrons of Gaelic culture and poetry, and frequently intermarried with the families they were meant to be ‘policing’. Notably, Archibald’s sister had been married to Angus Og (MacDonald), son (and supplanter) of the last “official” Lord of the Isles, but after Angus Og’s murder in the 1490s, the then earl of Argyll kept Angus’ son (his own grandson) Domnall in custody on behalf of the Crown- at least until he escaped and started causing all kinds of trouble in the early 1500s. Archibald Campbell, also called Gillespie, was the second earl of Argyll and rather less influential than his father had been, but he was still one of the most important laymen involved in government in the latter part of James IV’s reign. He died at Flodden in 1513.

Matthew Stewart, 2nd Earl of Lennox and Lord Darnley- Appears as a witness in many charters and is mentioned at council meetings on occasion. Yet another branch of the Stewart family- I must reiterate, a shared surname, though important, did not necessarily mean that everyone shared the same rivalries or stuck together through thick and thin. The Lennox is a region at the south-western edge of the Highlands, and north of the River Clyde- it is mostly centred around Loch Lomond. The Stewarts of Darnley had also had close links with France and in particular the Garde Écossaise for over a century. This earl of Lennox’s father led a short rebellion during the early years of James IV’s reign, but most of that was smoothed over in the end. In all honesty I don’t know that much about Matthew personally, except that he pops up a lot in government and court records (and there was also a very delicate case that came before the council in 1508 involving his daughter). I will need to look into him further. He died at Flodden- his son was the earl of Lennox who then died at Linlithgow Bridge in 1526, and his grandson married Margaret Douglas, daughter of the earl of Angus, and was the father of the infamous Lord Darnley who married Mary I.

Alexander Hume, 3rd Lord Hume and Great Chamberlain of Scotland in 1511. In the early sixteenth century, the Humes were borderers par excellence. Lord Hume was Warden of the East and Middle Marches, and had a great many kinsmen and friends (and a fair few enemies) throughout the borders counties. His great -grandfather and, especially, his father had also carved out a role for themselves at the centre of government. In the first couple of years of James IV’s reign, the Humes and even more so their neighbours the Hepburns (family of the earls of Bothwell) were practically running the show- this may have been one of the main causes of the earl of Lennox’s rebellion. In 1506 Alexander succeeded his father as 3rd Lord Hume and Great Chamberlain (less of an active administrative role by this point, but it still entitled the holder to access the centre of government and the royal household). He fought at Flodden but escaped- unfortunately for the Humes, rumours later circulated that they were partly responsible for the king’s death in the battle, and indeed James IV’s son the earl of Moray is supposed to have accused Hume of this in later years. Hume was one of the men who supported the appointment of the Duke of Albany as governor in 1515, after Margaret Tudor’s marriage to the Earl of Angus, but he very quickly grew dissatisfied with the duke, and by Christmas of the same year he had crossed the Border to join Margaret in Morpeth. After another few months of shenanigans in the Borders, Hume and his brother were captured by the Duke of Albany and executed in 1516- their heads were displayed above the Tolbooth in Edinburgh. This resulted in even more drama but I’m getting off topic and I think enough has been said on Lord Hume to give you an idea of his, um, colourful character. He is *supposed* to have had an affair with the second wife of the 5th Earl of Angus, Katherine Stirling, and was later the second husband of James IV’s last mistress Agnes Stewart, Countess of Bothwell.

(Restored windows in Stirling Castle Great Hall, the 20th century glass bearing the coats of arms of earls from the reign of James IV. The hall dates from around 1503 and was restored in the 1960s to look like it may have done in James IV’s time. It’s bright yellow and gorgeous and I’m furious it’s never used in anything).

Andrew Gray, Lord Gray and Justiciar in 1511- A lord of parliament like Hume, but with a less committed following, whose main interests lay in Angus (the region). Andrew Gray was one of the men who backed James IV in his rebellion against his father in 1488. Indeed, late sixteenth century legend has it that he was the one responsible for James III’s death- either arranging his murder in the mill at Bannockburn or carrying it out himself. However he acted as a loyal servant of the Crown until the end of his life, and as the justiciar he would have accompanied the king and other important nobles on justice ayres across the kingdom (and held some of his own). Traditionally, there had been two justiciars in Scotland- one for Scotia, north of the Forth, and one for south of the Forth (usually identified with Lothian- there was a third sometimes for Galloway as well). In the 1490s, Lord Drummond and the Earl of Huntly had also acted as justiciars at various points, but from around 1501 Lord Gray appears to have been the only justiciar. He died in early 1513.

Master Gavin Dunbar, Archdeacon of St Andrews and Clerk Register in 1511. Not to be confused with either of the poets Gavin Douglas or William Dunbar, nor with his nephew, Gavin Dunbar, Archbishop of Glasgow. This Gavin Dunbar was a graduate of the University of St Andrews and had travelled to France in at least one embassy in 1507. Technically, in 1511, Dunbar was clerk of the rolls, clerk register, and clerk of council- which is a lot of writing (if we assume he did it all himself, which I doubt). In 1518, Dunbar succeeded to William Elphinstone’s old diocese of Aberdeen and showed a decent amount of interest in the diocese. He undertook an extensive rebuilding programme at St Machar’s Cathedral and provided the nave with the wonderful heraldic ceiling that can still be seen today.

Master Patrick Paniter, Secretary to the King (among other things) in 1511. A very interesting individual. Paniter’s family were from the area around Montrose, in Angus, and he attended university at the College of Montaigu in Paris (as did many of his compatriots, including the contemporary theologian John Mair). He was clearly a bright spark since upon his return to Scotland he seems to have been appointed tutor to James IV’s young son Alexander and the two had a good relationship, with Paniter writing to the young archbishop as ‘half his soul’ and Alexander in turn keeping in touch with his ‘dear teacher’ while on the continent. By that time though, Patrick had moved onto bigger things, since the king appointed him royal secretary some time around 1505. Eventually Paniter became one of James IV’s most influential servants- in 1513, the English Ambassador Dr Nicholas West described the secretary as the man “which doothe all with his maister”. Of course Paniter enriched himself quite a bit too, becoming, among other things, archdeacon and chancellor of Dunkeld, deacon of Moray, rector of Tannadice, and Abbot of Cambuskenneth and, controversially, James IV also attempted to appoint him as preceptor of Torphicen. Paniter helped to direct the artillery at Flodden but unlike both his patron and former pupil, he survived the battle. He is also *reputed* to have been the father of David Paniter, bishop of Ross, by King James IV’s cousin Margaret Crichton.

The men whose careers I’ve outlined above all witnessed the majority of royal charters issued under the great seal in the first half of 1511 (by modern dating). A few others also appeared frequently- for example, Robert Colville of Ochiltree, John Hepburn the Prior of St Andrews, and George Crichton, Abbot of Holyrood. Obviously the make-up of the council changed frequently too. Equally though charters are not necessarily the only or best indication of who would have been part of the king’s ‘council’ and there are other officials and nobles whom we know were close to the king but rarely appear on these, either due to the date range or just their own status- Andrew Forman, bishop of Moray; the 1st earl of Bothwell (before his death); the 5th earl of Angus (in the 1490s anyway- I told you it was a complex relationship); John, Lord Drummond (especially in the 1490s), and others.

But why did I bother giving those long biographies? Well partly to demonstrate the complexity of individual stories in sixteenth century Scottish politics and that they did do important and interesting things. Also since several of these men held opposing political views and family interests, but were usually expected to cooperate at the centre of government, it underlines the point that sixteenth century Scottish politics was a bit more complex than ‘The Clans Are Fighting’. And also this is partly to show that we DO actually have this info at our disposal. Most tv shows and films just choose not to use it.

But the real reason for this long rant was mostly so I could ask, given the info I’ve provided above, WHO THE HELL IS THIS SUPPOSED TO BE:

It’s a bad picture, I know and again, nothing against the actor who seems to be having a lot of fun with the role. But other than James IV, Margaret, and the three Douglases (one of whom has the wrong name and they all have the wrong clothes and also none of them should have been there), this is the only named character in that scene. And I cannot for the life of me work out who he is supposed to be.

He’s given the name Alexander Stewart. As we have seen, there was certainly an Alexander Stewart on the king’s council in 1511- the king’s son who was born c. 1493 and was also Archbishop of St Andrews. Now this this man very much NOT younger than Margaret Tudor, and very unlike the boy Erasmus described, and even though that Alexander died fighting in battle I’m not sure he would have spent most of his days brandishing daggers and yelling abuse at the Douglases in council meetings. He is also probably not our man because as I discussed here, I think the archbishop’s supposed to be counted among James IV’s children in that other scene where this tv series wrongly implies that Margaret Tudor played nursemaid to all of James’ children (again, not one of those kids should have been in the room and it’s really weird that none of them seem to have aged even though two of them were probably older than Mary Tudor).

So who is he? There were definitely other Alexander Stewarts who were both associated with the royal household and who were kicking about sixteenth century Scotland more generally. One was in fact the half-brother of the Duke of Albany- but he really doesn’t seem to have played any role in government, and mostly he appears when his expenses were met by his cousin the king, presumably out of familial responsibility (see also the king’s other probable cousins Christopher, the Danish page, and Margaret Crichton). Another one was Alexander Stewart, Earl of Buchan, a more distant cousin of the king (he was the grandson of Joan Beaufort), but he was dead by 1511 and his son was called John- meanwhile his half-sister Agnes, the king’s mistress, was enjoying the profits of the earldom. In character he seems to come across more like an earlier earl of Buchan, that infamous Alexander Stewart who got the nickname ‘The Wolf of Badenoch’- but he died over a century before 1511. There are probably a couple of other Alexander Stewarts I’ve missed out- it’s a popular name- but none I can think of who would have had any sort of reason to be on the king’s council.

Also worth mentioning I’m not sure what he means when he accuses the Douglases of ransacking his family’s ‘Lowland lands’. That’s just so confusing I won’t even get into it.

ANYWAY there was a point to all this ranting. As I said above, people should absolutely enjoy this show if they want to. However, two things may be said- firstly that if a show is already fairly inaccurate about English history, I am always willing to bet that they have been 200% more inaccurate about Scotland- to the extent that it’s not even inaccuracy any more, it’s just a completely different world and story.

Secondly, when the producers or whoever (and no disrespect to them necessarily except when they say this) claim that they did their research and say stuff like "we are totally with her story, we're up in Scotland, we're sort of Spanish Princess meets Outlander" I would like to remind everyone that not only is this waaaay less accurate than even Outlander could manage:

- Probably none of the kids in the first scene should have been there

- Probably none of the men in the council scene should have been there (except James, obviously)

- The costumes are the same nonsense as usual.

- There were only five named historical figures and somehow they still managed to balls up one of the names (again, Angus Douglas??? How did they even manage to mess that one up??)

- The sixth named figure is a completely made up individual with a vaguely plausible name who appears to serve no other purpose than to get stabby and foul-mouthed and show that The Clans(TM), as they put it, Are Fighting Again.

- It’s heavily implied that absolutely nobody involved in the production has ever looked at a map of Scotland properly, or tried to work out where any of these guys come from. Which is amazing given it’s literally attached to the map of England. Essentially, the land and regions matter in Scottish history and it’s one of the biggest things that period dramas misunderstand or simplify.

- As usual the architecture is slightly off, though it could be worse. Despite the claim that ‘we’re up in Scotland’, suffers from the usual feeling that actually no camera crew made it any further north than Alnwick (though the CGI Warwick-Edinburgh thing kind of worked.).

- Everyone is a classic stereotype of the Barbarian Uncultured Scot and the only sop thrown is the bit with James and the teeth.

- The above thus implies that the creators have not considered that Scotland could ever have anything of any cultural value, such as a talented poet they are literally showing on screen or a bunch of bishops and other churchmen they aren’t. Which is just European Renaissance stuff, and not even getting into the highly impressive cultural world of Gaelic Scotland and Ireland.

- Everyone Is Sexist Except the English (for god’s sake, it’s the 16th century)

- Person wanders around yelling that they are the king/queen and expects this to work. No.

- Bruce and Wallace are (accurately) mentioned a lot but it’s probably more because that’s the only people the writers have heard of, rather than any nod to 16th century literary and historical tradition. No James Douglas or Thomas the Rhymer or St Margaret is expected to make an appearance.

- Incredibly evident that nobody has opened a book on the reign of James IV or even one of those dodgy biographies of Margaret Tudor. I’m not even entirely convinced that they read Gregory’s novel, which is supposed to be their source material.

So what do we actually have?

- James IV’s interest in medicine and alchemy and other proto-sciences is given a nod with the teeth thing

- We know there were black musicians at James IV’s court and that was shown.

- It is implied Margaret Tudor has lost babies. This is true. However there are still allegedly two alive so the maths doesn’t add up.

- Some modern Scottish accents, one done by a Northern Irishman.

- A handful of historical figures’ names scattered around willy-nilly (one of them incorrect).

The overall point is, once again, if you thought the inaccuracy about English history was bad, there isn’t even any inaccuracy in the Scottish stuff, because it’s not even sixteenth century Scotland any more. And that wouldn’t be an issue if the creators didn’t keep going on about how this is what really happened.

(King’s College, University of Aberdeen, with Bishop Elphinstone’s chapel to the right. On other sides of the chapel, the coats of arms displayed include those of James IV, Margaret Tudor, and Alexander Stewart, Archbishop of St Andrews- I think the Duke of Ross might be there too, can’t remember)

- Most of my sources for this included Norman McDougall’s biography of James IV, Macfarlane’s biography of Elphinstone, good general overviews, and a lot of primary sources- especially the register of the Great Seal. Also general knowledge about Scotland because, you know, I’m from there. HOWEVER if anyone wants a source for a specific detail I should be able to find that reasonably easily. Just let me know.

#Scotland #Scottish history #British history #Margaret Tudor #period drama #didn't know what to tag as sorry

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dorizardthewizard · 5 years ago

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TLNM musings, part 2

Okay, here I ramble about problems with the movie. Ended up adding more stuff since I first wrote this :’P

Screentime and characterisation of the other ninja:

One of the biggest complaints from fans... they're all introduced individually with very different personalities, they’re told they each have a special element they control, making you feel like they should each get some moment to shine and affect the plot of the movie, but then none of that happens. Ultimately you could take out all the ninja and the story would be the same, you don't even necessarily need them for Lloyd's character since his journey of reconnecting with his father and bringing his family together can still work without them. It's so sad because if you read and watch extra material, you can tell thought went into their personalities, but we never get to see this as they're all just lumped together, mostly there to support Lloyd's development.

For someone who hasn't seen the show, it must feel a bit off seeing characters with distinguished personalities and no payoff for it; take Zane for example. Imagine not knowing anything about the characters and seeing one of them is a robot, for some reason? You wonder why he's a robot, what significance that has for the plot and why it's important for his character (I mean they missed a big opportunity to develop Zane from always trying to fit in and seem like a “normal teenager” to accepting that he's different but that that doesn't mean he's less valid), but then this really specific characteristic is never expanded on except for comedy purposes. People probably thought “oh, guess it makes more sense in the show”, but this just detaches viewers and makes them feel like they're missing something if they haven't seen the show beforehand.

Sigh, still gotta give the crew credit for fitting in a load of little subtle details about the ninja, I had to rewatch it a couple of times because there were things I didn’t notice at first, like Kai sliding down a bannister in the Temple of Fragile Foundations and falling off :’D

Group dynamic:

Another thing that bothered me is that the movie isn't that good at making you care about them as a team. They're already established as friends but I wish there were more material showing us how much they care about each other. The Kai hug scene was 10/10 but then when Chen and the other cheerleaders started picking on Lloyd, nobody said or did anything? In merchandise it said Kai is a hothead who isn't afraid to speak up or stand up to people, then show it in the movie! Him and Nya should have been on the verge of tackling that guy to the floor! Ok, I can see Lloyd asking them not to get into fights as it makes people hate him even more and he probably feels guilty if one of the ninja gets into trouble because of him. This would still have given more emotional connection between the characters but we're never shown it, except in the novelisation where Cole tries to block Lloyd from his locker so he doesn't see the insult written on it, I think. But again, we shouldn't have to read/ watch extra material for that.

Instead of moments showcasing the ninja’s friendship and close bonds, we got the opposite- everyone turned on Lloyd incredibly quickly for one mistake. Sure, it was a pretty big one and resulted in Garmadon taking over the city and their mechs being wrecked, but Lloyd was the only one doing anything about Garmadon at the time and he didn't exactly know what the consequences of using the ultimate weapon were; it's not like he knew it could potentially hurt his friends. In fact, how did the ninja know he used it anyway? That would mean they already knew about it and what it could do, yet Lloyd was not told? In which case, how can they blame him?? Damn it Wu, why couldn't you just tell Lloyd that using the weapon would unleash a cat that could destroy the city, instead of vaguely saying the weapon can be dangerous in the wrong hands. That's taking too many pages from TV Wu's book!

Honestly, it's like the ninja were just one character either shunning Lloyd or supporting him, depending on what the plot needed :/ That scene where they're talking with Garmadon while carrying him through the jungle really rubbed me the wrong way because first, no one seemed to care that Lloyd is so snippy because he's been forced to work with the man who made his life hell, and second they joke about Lloyd with that very same person and imply they don't respect Lloyd as leader, as Jay says he doesn't usually want to listen to him when he's talking? What??

Lloyd and Garmadon’s relationship:

I mentioned this in part 1, but they really didn’t execute this well- I feel like they had so much fun playing up Garmadon being the worst dad in the world that they forgot to give him redeemable qualities. It took me a second viewing to realise his relationship with Lloyd was actually pretty messed up, because they played off his despicableness as comedic and glossed over it by suddenly giving him a flashback to make it seem like he’s sorry. They wanted to go for the father-and-son-have-issues-but-reconnect story, and had Lloyd say “I wish we didn’t have to fight all the time” in his emotional ending, but that’s a line usually present in a daddy-issue story where both have a part to blame and there's issues with communication. In this, though? Lloyd did nothing wrong! It was just Garmadon being trash, and there wasn't even a particular scene of him recognising and apologising for his actions- not the bit about driving Misako away, but how he treated Lloyd after.

The message is all mucked up - hoping to find some good in neglectful parents is just gonna get you hurt, and in a story like this it would make more sense for the protagonist to realise they don't need validation from this guy, shouldn't feel like they have to keep connected with toxic relatives just because they're family, and that they should focus on the friends and family who actually love them (although, whether Lloyd's friends were even portrayed as liking him is a different story). I mean, Koko could just teach him to throw and catch! Does he have to have two parents just for that?

Tone and humour:

I think another main reason this movie didn't do as well was its more childish tone and dialogue; unlike the previous two movies, it was marketed at younger children. One of the main reasons TLM and LB were so successful is because of the self-aware jokes that could actually be enjoyed by adults too, while in this movie I may have properly laughed only a couple of times. Plus, in its effort to connect with kid's humour it just got cringy in some parts, like the Ultimate Weapon compilation. It would have been funny if it was ironic, like Amazing World of Gumball style, but it just didn't come across like that, so I can see why many jokes fell flat for older audiences.

People probably had different expectations for the overall tone as well- everyone loved the previous LEGO movies because of their constant barrage of action, witty jokes and a ton of references. This was never the selling point of Ninjago, but TLNM didn’t manage to capture the show’s dramatic style and deep lore-driven plot either.

The writers:

Okay last thing. This movie had three directors, six producers, six screenwriters and seven people working on the story. Compared to most animated movies, that's a lot, and its shows. It feels like they had a few different ideas and themes and couldn't quite patch them together, with vague messages like “looking at things from a different point of view” being thrown in as well to try and link it up. I guess at the end of the day, this is a father-son story, and that makes it very difficult to fit in a power-of-friendship plot at the same time, but still. Also, the shifting plot and ideas is really clear in the trailers, I mean half the stuff there wasn't even in the movie, it's as if the entire story was changed!

Final verdict? I think an overall theme with this movie is that the writers wanted to overhaul Ninjago to introduce it to new viewers, but also wanted to keep the fans happy so shoehorned in lots of elements from the show without giving them enough development. This just disappoints fans and alienates general audiences, which is a problem since Ninjago doesn’t have a huge following already backing it up like LEGO Batman did, and could have been the pilot for more original LEGO lines making it to the big screen. It was a technically amazing movie, with beautiful animation and visuals, an epic soundtrack and stunning voice acting, but it was also such a waste of potential.

The only other thing we can do is think about how it could have gone differently, so here's some of my ideas :'D

NOT using the deleted time travel plot. I know that after being disappointed in a movie you welcome any alternative, but giant mechs were already a big deviation from the ninja theme; flinging in time travel as well would be too much for non-show watchers. Plus, I thought we were all complaining about how time travel in Ninjago always just messes things up :'P

Also not following the show closer. We have over 10 seasons of the show, the whole point of a movie is giving a fresh take; using a giant snake or the Overlord possessing Garmadon again would just be boring.

Delete the first act? One of the best parts of the secret high school heroes trope is seeing how they juggle both lives, if you're gonna drop it after half an hour there's not much point of it being there.

Could instead just have Garmadon attacking again, the last invasion attempt being ages ago. Maybe the ninja rediscover a rich history of elemental masters protecting Ninjago when Wu decides to get a new team together to fight the new threat?

Make it about learning master building instead so they build their mechs at the end, and then gain elements in a sequel?

Or don't mention anything about elements and have every ninja individually go through an obstacle to obtain an elemental weapon, then they all lose them but don't know they're not necessary, so it's actually a surprise that the power is inside them? Everyone gets a sort of true potential moment?

Ninja having to warm up to Garmadon's son, so we have a plot of Lloyd slowly gaining their respect and becoming leader?

Higher stakes at the end, make the Shark Army more threatening and have them turn on Garmadon using Meowthra, so there's still an intense climax of the ninja fighting the army before Lloyd reaches Meowthra and gets his emotional ending?

Get rid of the live action sequence, or make it fit the message of the story more?

Feel free to add any ideas/ thoughts!

#ninjago #ninjago movie #lego ninjago movie #RIP lego cinematic universe v_v #my posts

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assassins-and-hidden-blades · 5 years ago

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Regarding AC Trailers...

This is just gonna be me rambling on about AC trailers for a bit and why the more recent ones are (personally) not as good as/a bit more flawed than the earlier ones, so I’m putting it under a cut if you don’t want to read it, haha.

One thing I think I’ve noticed with AC trailers is that the ones with music as well as/instead of talking/monologues are imo a lot better than ones without any music.

So like AC Syndicate is a great example of both music and dialogue — it’s an awesome trailer overall because it gives moments of anticipation and tells the story through actions.

Another great example is the AC Revelations trailer — for me it’s one of my top 3, if not, my favourite trailer. Although there is the extended cut with just a monologue on its own, it’s probably easier due to the fact that everyone already knows who Ezio is, and knows his character. As well as this, the music version is badass, and shows just how lethal he actually is.

If you look at the AC 2 trailer, when Ezio is introduced, he doesn’t say a thing. Not a single word. His character is shown through his actions, such as when he smiles at his target once he’s revealed, or how he slightly cocks his head with a smirk as he spares the last guard, dropping the spear before he sprints off to chase his target. You can see that he isn’t too experienced — his fight scene is a lot simpler compared to Revelations (but that could be due to technology restraints), and you can make that particular assumption; he smirks as if he’s proud of himself for winning, or even surprised. This would intrigue the audience because his actions raise so many questions:

The obvious ones are usually made from the taunts of his target and the way Ezio reacts once his father is mentioned — why did he freeze like that? What made him retract the hidden blade — how did he recognise that his words were a trap? (As the game is out, we obviously know, but pretending we didn’t...)

There’s also talk about his family, once again showing that he is a lot more human than his blade shows. It is implied that he cares about them a lot (otherwise the target wouldn’t have used it), which intrigues us as the audience more. He is also the first character to have family that he knows; Altair as our first assassin didn’t have any proper family until Maria, and he was a very closed off character, especially at first. Having Ezio to juxtapose those previous ideals enriches the criteria of who an assassin can be.

To counteract this point, we have the AC Odyssey trailer. I personally didn’t like this trailer, because it didn’t raise any questions to me. Personally, it automatically felt like Templars were not the main focus here, even though that was what AC was originally all about — stopping Templars from gaining control. There was no tension or proper action for me; instead, my mind drifted off a bit. It wasn’t good at maintaining my personal attention, and as a cinematic trailer, it didn’t feel very fluid at all. Adding onto that the fact that they had to repeat the trailer for both Kassandra & Alexios, it could easily lose people’s attention. There was no action, and no visible plot line to follow — all it did at most was create a backstory. The only question that I really had from this trailer was “so what’s the story about? Gods?” The trailer I think was misleading in this way, because it spoke more about the mythology of Greece and not about the backstory of Alexios/Kassandra, which, as a protagonist, doesn’t make much sense.

I appreciated Origins’ trailer — I thought it was very action packed, because you saw the target, and Bayek was again, a man of few words but of big actions — he gave off the impression of being able to think on his feet, and the trailer kept my attention throughout the whole thing. You had the connection to the culture without info dropping us; the trailer showed us instead of telling us, which is more than what AC Odyssey did. Although there was no ‘music’, per say, the narrator spoke lyrics that fit the mood perfectly. Additionally, he took his hood off at the end, which I actually quite liked because it built the tension up and indulged us in the end. The trailer also ended with a build up into the actual song, which I felt was quite effective.

So, that brings me to the AC Valhalla trailer. It certainly wasn’t bad — it was much better than Odyssey imo, and there was a vague story you could follow. However, when introducing Eivor, there was no tension and not really much suspense, which I didn’t really like all that much. I would have also liked to have seen who the antagonist(s) were in a bit more detail, so we can empathise with the protagonist (Eivor) a bit more. Also, I didn’t really feel like there was much of a mystery towards Eivor — we know what he looks like, we know what he sounds like, etc. With Ezio, we never saw his face until gameplay, but with Eivor, and Alexios/Kassandra, their identity is known immediately.

For me, showing your face doesn’t look nearly as intimidating as covering it with a cowl or something. I get that for historical accuracy it may not be possible, but even moving the camera behind the character during high tension shots (such as the religious ritual) or action scenes (with his face somehow being obscured), people would probably be a lot more intrigued about who this character is, and the reveal would be a lot more satisfying or shocking once their face was revealed.

Personally, it would be cool to have a trailer start in the modern day, perhaps Layla’s been found by the Templars; they need to get somewhere safe. It would be fun to explore Layla’s side of the Animus for once, and trailers can give a lot more freedom than gameplay to actually showcase more of who she is and what her actual motives are. This also applies to current situations, such as the said action scene. Then she gets into the Animus, maybe in a rush, because she needs to find something quick. This raises a question -- is this at the beginning, middle, or end of the game? Is the scene when she is in the Animus the last boss fight, or the first? (If she’s in a rush, it’s probably the former, let’s be real).

I think what makes people connect with a character is really the questions they raise. If the only question people can think of is, “Who are you then?”, instead of, “So what happened to your father?”, then I think we’ve got ourselves a problem.

But these are my thoughts and my opinions, not facts at all. If anyone has any other thoughts, please let me know! I’d love to talk about this some more. Feel free to reblog with your thoughts too!

P.S -- (This is probably not organised very well -- sorry about that, haha.)

#assassin's creed #assassin’s creed revelations #assassin’s creed 2 #assassin’s creed syndicate #assassin’s creed odyssey #assassin’s creed valhalla #ellie's thoughts

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neuxue · 5 years ago

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Wheel of Time liveblogging: The Gathering Storm epilogue

In which the sun comes out

Epilogue: Bathed in Light

Okay, it feels a little weird to have an epilogue after that last chapter, but…sure, let’s see what this is about.

Egwene, apparently. Which is fitting, I suppose; this book has very much been hers and Rand’s, with other characters mostly showing up around the edges. It’s getting the Dragon Reborn and the Amyrlin to their places, and playing their arcs against each other for maximum comparative impact.

She’s in the Amyrlin’s study now, which is more or less a symbol of victory for her. She won her battles, she won her war, and now she takes her place.

Not sure how much useful information you’re really going to get from going through Elaida’s things, but sure.

Meanwhile Romanda and Lelaine are continuing to make nuisances of themselves, but…hate to disappoint you two but the window on that opportunity has most assuredly passed. Get over it.

It was late afternoon, and light peeked through the slits of the louvered shutters to her balcony. She didn’t open them, preferring the quiet dimness.

Should we be concerned about that, Egwene?

No number of wall hangings would banish her memory of those days, not when Silviana herself was Egwene’s Keeper. That was fine. Why would Egwene want to banish those days They contained some of her most satisfying victories.

It’s vaguely similar to but also much healthier than Rand riding away from Far Madding, thinking that the cell—and the box—had been a gift because it allowed him to…forge his soul in the fires of pain. Egwene, instead, focuses on the victories that came out of the pain she endured. It’s not a happy set of memories, perhaps, but they’re memories of strength and perseverance and victory.

Silviana’s put together one of the weirder censuses (censi? What the hell is the plural of ‘census’ and why did I never actually study Latin), with categories for ‘yeeted off the Tower’ and ‘grabbed in the night by fruitbat-dragons’ and ‘Black Ajah so should have been executed but fucked off to live and cause problems another day’. No question on citizenship, it seems, though.

Verin’s list was almost perfect, but over sixty escaped, which…doesn’t detract from the sheer fucking badassery that is Verin Mathwin, but it is something of a Wheel of Time classic: you’ve solved the problem! Only…too late or not quite or in a way that lets circumstance screw you over anyway. Which, honestly, is one of the things I like about the series. There aren’t a lot of convenient solutions that just…work. Things work, and then end up breaking something else. Or things work, but not as widely as one would have hoped. Or things work, but before the results can fully play out, someone else comes along and fucks things up again, or differently.

Verin was incredible and Egwene was incredible and lots of the Black Ajah escaped anyway, because no solution is going to be perfect. Because protagonists aren’t the only characters with agency, with the ability to act. Other characters aren’t just going to wait around for the main characters to put their plans in place; they have their own contingencies and ideas and sometimes everything tangles up worse than a cat in a yarn store, and it’s messy and realistic and fun.

(Especially for the cat).

What had tipped them off? Unfortunately, it had probably something to do with Egwene seizing the Black Ajah in the rebel camp.

…you don’t say.

Something about that entire thing reads as absolutely hilarious to me. Also, is my ebook just weird or is that meant to say ‘probably had something to do with…’?

But yes. Yes, Egwene, it probably had something to do with that. Just maybe. Though that would imply that the Black Ajah has done what no one else in this entire series has managed: communicated quickly and effectively. Credit where it’s due.

Everyone left has sworn all the Oaths again, though, so that….probably covers the majority, though I’m sure one could find a way around that if one were truly determined.

I will find you, Alviarin, Egwene though, tapping the sheet with her finger. I will find you all.

I can tell you this: I would not want to be on Egwene’s shit-list. And I would especially not want to be on Egwene al’Vere’s hit-list.

Egwene’s now turned her attention to the puzzle of ‘which one of you is Mesaana in disguise’ and I swear I had a theory on this at some point but I have actually forgotten who I thought it might be, so uh…well, I had to forget something sometime, right?

I really am curious how she’s managed to hide her strength in the Power, though. I know it’s possible to mask the ability to channel completely, but is it possible to do a partial masking? Make yourself appear weaker than you are? If not…how the hell has no one found Mesaana before now, if she’s disguised as an Aes Sedai? (And how have I never thought about this? I’m just doing terribly on All Things Mesaana, I guess).

Either way, Egwene had a problem.

Maybe I’m just slightly giddy from the fact that I’m almost finished with this book, but again I’m finding this inordinately funny. Problems? Egwene? As Amyrlin in a Tower that’s held together by duct tape and denial? Nah.

I don’t even recognise any of the three names on Egwene’s ‘maybe Mesaana’ list so I doubt it’s any of them.

Was Mesaana still hiding in the Tower? If so, she somehow knew how to defeat the Oath Rod.

That’s…an intriguing possibility. Unless she just conveniently stepped out for the day and she’s just been masquerading as someone so unremarkable no one would notice she’s not there?

A soft knock came at her door. It cracked a moment later. “Mother?” Silviana asked.

That is suspiciously conspicuous timing. Silviana couldn’t be Mesaana….could she? That would be so infuriating but also kind of genius. Huh. *squints at Silviana*

Except Egwene just said Silviana was the first to volunteer to re-swear the Oaths.

But if Mesaana knows a way around the Oath Rod…or, really, she could truthfully say she’s not a member of the Black Ajah, and then remove the Oaths later…yeah okay it falls apart a little the more I think about it but that timing sure as hell is suspicious and it would be kind of excellent. You know, in the worst sort of way.

I don’t think you can just…make a hole in the wall into a rose window…I’m pretty sure architecture doesn’t work like that…ah, fuck it, they have the Power, they can do what they want. Who am I to stand in the way of stained glass?

Silviana wants Egwene to see something, so this is either going to be good or very, very bad.

Oh.

After all this time, the clouds had finally broken.

That’s all.

And yet, it’s everything. The fact that Silviana called the Amyrlin to come see sunlight tells you something about how remarkable it is—and thus, by extension, just how dark the last weeks have been.

Such a small thing, but we saw the reason for it last chapter and…I suppose in its way, even that was a small thing. Just a boy on a mountain, fighting with himself and coming to a conclusion. No fireworks, no battlefields, not even any witnesses.

And yet, everything has changed. Even if none but Rand, alone on Dragonmount, know why. Everything has changed because something as simple—and yet as integral—as his perspective has changed. Because he’s remembered why he fights, remembered that there’s hope, realised what he’s doing this for.

It’s for the world, and so for the first time in a long time, that world gets to be just a little bit brighter.

The sun shone down, radiant, lighting the distant, snowcapped crag. The broken maw and uppermost peak of the blasted mountainside were bathed in light.

It’s just a beautiful, quiet moment. A broken mountain finally bathed in light. Not healed, precisely, but no longer shrouded in darkness.

(Also...is anyone else reminded here of Do not stand at my grave and weep?).

And of course it’s the Amyrlin looking out at it and noticing this change, though she doesn’t yet know why. Egwene and Rand are looking at each other across a distance that is as symbolic as it is literal, though neither of them know it. But this has been their book, and they have in their strange ways mirrored each other through it, and now they can look at the same sunlight, now that the storm has broken for both of them.

They’ve ended on very different kinds of victory, but they have both found a position of…strength, and self-realisation, and readiness for what they must face next.

And in its way this is almost like a quiet, shared moment between them, though they are not in the same place, or even truly aware of one another. But it feels like a…breath, a single beat, in which they both get to pause at the same place.

There was something beautiful about it. The light streaming down in a column, strong and pure. Distant, yet striking. It was like something forgotten, but somehow still familiar, shining forth from a distant memory to bring warmth again.

OH. OKAY. OKAY THIS IS ACTUALLY AMAZING BECAUSE.

Lews Therin, creating Dragonmount in a column of light and Power, too much for any one person to hold and survive, destroying himself and tearing at the world itself. A bright light on Dragonmount as the final moments of the one who would be known afterwards as Kinslayer. A bright light on Dragonmount as the Dragon’s death, and darkest hour.

And now, it is echoed in this Age but inverted, because it’s a second chance. The same, and yet utterly different. A moment of realisation for the Dragon, and a bright light on Dragonmount, but this time the realisation is not one of horror and tragedy but of love and hope and second chances. And the light is not annihilation but sunlight, and life.

That? Is a fantastic parallel and inversion.

Of course it is ‘like something forgotten’. Of course it is ‘somehow still familiar’. Of course it shines forth ‘from a distant memory’. Because that’s what it is, and yet in this Age, it gets to be something different.

(A memory of light, even. Sorry, sorry…)

“Storms will soon come,” it seemed to say. “But for now, I am here.” I am here.

Oh, damn, shivers. Wow. What a line to end on.

Not the chilling horror, this time, of ‘I am the storm’, but the cathartic comfort, at last of ‘I am here’. Shelter from the storm, or a light to guide the world to its end, rather than the tempest itself.

We began with the strange clouds, with ‘What the Storm Means’, with people looking to the sky in fear and dread and strange premonition, as the storm gathered and the sky darkened. And we end now with the clouds breaking, with the sun shining, with ‘Bathed in Light’, and people looking to the sky in awe and hope. Atmospheric imagery as bookends done right.

I wasn’t sure how an epilogue was going to work, after that chapter, but to allow for this to be the ending…it did.

----

At the end of time, When the many become one, the last storm shall gather its angry winds to destroy a land already dying. And at its centre, the bland man shall stand upon his own grave. There he shall see again, and weep for what has been wrought.

I don’t really have a lot to say about this except that it’s absolutely beautiful, and perfect, and just a little bit devastating, but in an oddly hopeful way.

He’s reached this point at last, and he can see again, here at the centre of the storm. He can weep again. And now it is time to face the ending. Now that, at last, he is ready.

Next (TGS final thoughts) Skip to: TOM prologue pt1 Previous (TGS ch 50)

#holy shit I finished the book #Wheel of Time #neuxue liveblogs WoT #The Gathering Storm

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noddytheornithopod · 5 years ago

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Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker - Initial Thoughts

So yeah, this is a thing. Of course I’m gonna discuss spoilers in-depth, but I’ll put that under the cut. If you want a spoiler free summary, here:

It's not perfect, and I particularly struggled with the first act and it's really fast pacing (JJ LEARN TO SLOW DOWN), but I'm not gonna pretend I didn't enjoy it overall. As long as you're not attached to certain specific ideas and willing to accept it for what it is, you might like it well enough. That being said, I can already see this is gonna be at least as divisive as TLJ unfortunately.

Okay, first thing’s out of the way: I was aware of the leaks about the film, and I can confirm that they were pretty spot on overall. It sucks 99% of the plot got out, there’s a few moments that thankfully didn’t get mentioned in any leaks I saw, so yeah. Anyway, time to get started.

Okay, yeah, the pacing. Definitely my biggest issue with the film. It’s an issue I have with The Force Awakens’ first act too, but there it at least was able to do enough to establish the characters. Here the story moves along relentlessly. Honestly, for the first act, in fact right until Rey and Kylo Ren’s Kijimi confrontation, I struggled to keep up. So much happened, so much exposition and action I felt like nothing really got to land. There wasn’t any time to breathe or let the characters have more moments. I’m not sure if the Rey/Kylo fight on Kijimi was just a major emotional turning point that finally had me properly hooked, but from there either I finally got into the film’s groove or it actually learned to slow down a bit, at least enough for things to actually land instead of BAM NEW SCENE BAM NEW SCENE.

My other biggest issue with the film is something that unfortunately couldn’t be helped: the handling of Leia. It’s VERY clear they were writing around the cut scenes from The Force Awakens, and how vague and generic her lines were REALLY showed. Because of this, her death scene didn’t really work for me? In fact, I’m not even sure why she chose to reach out to Kylo Ren at that specific point, either it was Force shenanigans feeling it was the right time SOMEHOW knowing he was at a vulnerable point or I really missed something (see this is why you don’t pace things at the speed of light, JJ :V). THAT BEING SAID... I can’t really fault the filmmakers for this, because this is obviously the best they could’ve done without a controversial recasting (especially if they used CGI to make the new actress look like Carrie Fisher). It’s clear this was a really hard job, and I can tell they did the best with what they had.

I mentioned the first act was too fast paced, but I actually really dug the opening with Kylo Ren. Palpatine obviously sensed the First Order had subjugated the galaxy, so it was time for him to come out and reassert control with his secret Sith Fleet, hence the message in the crawl. But yeah, Kylo Ren finding the wayfinder and traveling to Exegol only to discover Palpatine was an excellent sequence that really got things getting exciting.

For specific things here: first, Exegol is an awesome planet. It’s perfectly creepy and the best place for the final showdown to take place. The sound design for the place was particularly great. Visually, it’s all epic. I’m also curious about its history - C-3PO says it’s apparently a Sith Homeworld, though I wonder if this is more like an origin point given Moraband was also a Sith Homeworld. Oh look, I’m being a nerd, lol.

I love how Snoke was handled purely because it’s so hilariously anticlimatic and I can see so many people getting mad at it. Like seriously... Palpatine so casually going “I made Snoke” says SO much. Everyone was making up elaborate theories on who he was and why he’s a thing but in reality, he’s just some dude created in a lab for Palpatine to puppet while he’s gone. :P One has to wonder how Snoke felt about the whole thing, literally being made just to be an interim ruler for former Imperials before Palpatine was ready to return, while also being a powerful Dark Side user himself (wow geez, Palpatine can make super Dark Side users now).

Palpatine himself was definitely one of the best parts of the movie, Ian McDiarmid’s performance alone was worth it. I definitely get why JJ chose to bring him back, I agree it feels appropriate for the main Star Wars villain to have a presence in the new trilogy in some way. For how he comes back, it’s curious. The way he speaks and looks, he’s pretty much dead, Palpatine literally says he died in fact. As for how he’s back, he just says his infamous “the Dark Side is a pathway to many abilities, some to be considered unnatural.” Look, it’s SO on the nose and cheesy, but because I’m a nerd I loved hearing that line again. From how I understand it, he’s basically a weird Dark Side zombie, I mean he has a downright undead appearance. It’s not actually explained how he survived, but I kinda don’t mind that it’s currently mysterious? I have some theories based on EU stuff I might go into later but basically, he’s now Zombietine and he’s somehow ended up on Exegol with his weird Sith cult devotees making Snokes and building the Sith Fleet while influencing what he can from afar. Speaking of which... his “I’m every voice you have ever known” line pretty much confirms it was HIM who was talking to him through Darth Vader’s helmet, not a remnant of Vader himself. Him using Snoke’s voice in that line even makes me wonder how much free will Snoke has, and whether him being a puppet is more literal than we think.

Leia like I said I felt despite doing the best they could it didn’t fully work, but I can see how Leia would’ve tried being a Jedi but decided not to follow through with it. I mean, ghost Luke couldn’t always show up, so Rey would need advice from the closest thing to a remaining Jedi.

Pasana was hectic. Given a lot of the first act was there, that and the Resistance scenes on Ajan Kloss were most of what really rushed. Like, you have potential great moments, but the fast pace means the story needs to move on so nothing can land. There’s attempts at character moments but they don’t have time to breathe. Like, even Lando returning just whisked by because of the pacing.

Lando was good I guess. Not much stuff for him, but what we had was cool I guess. It sounds like he was hunting for a wayfinder with Luke, though I guess one wonder why Luke was looking for Exegol? Was this after he confronted Snoke (see the new Kylo Ren comic, that confirms that was a thing that happened, oh look more nerdy shit only I care about) and was looking for answers on what Snoke was up to, did he just want to make sure the Dark Side wasn’t fucking things up, or was he feeling like something was off? Anyway, Lando: obviously he’s a minor character, but him bringing all the ships at the end was cool.

Much of the stuff on Kijimi was pretty fast up until the lighsabre duel of course, so there was issues there too. Zorri’s introduction sped by so it never really landed, she goes from “maybe I’ll turn you over” to “fine I’ll help” VERY fast. Same with C-3PO’s memory wipe scene - the story does finally start to steady a bit and it did have me feeling things, but it still goes by too fast for it to fully land. Poe and Zorri’s one on one was a bit better, though again Zorri changing her heart so fast doesn’t really work for me.

Thinking about it, I did like Poe’s arc in the movie well enough. It could’ve been smoothed out but I did like how even he was struggling with the forces they were up against, and learned to have hope even in this dire situation. That’s why I like the chat with Zorri - even if her character feels rushed, it did establish Poe’s central arc and we see how that plays out.

Finn I feel like doesn’t have much of an arc here? Like, I know his storyline in The Last Jedi was divisive, but at least he did have a major arc there and had major growth. Here, I guess his arc is concluded, but then he’s just kinda along with the crew? I really liked the scene where he met Jannah and discovered more First Order deserters, but unfortunately that didn’t really end up going anywhere. Finn and Jannah are a cool duo, but in the climactic battle they kinda felt like an afterthought? I mean, even Poe and the ship stuff kinda did, but at least I kinda got what was going on there. With Finn and Jannah it’s just “we’re on Pryde’s Star Destroyer, destroy some shit” and... that’s it? Probably the most interesting thing with Finn in the movie was how open he was to the Force. Like obviously he couldn’t sense it, but he definitely believes in and trusts it, and it makes sense how that helps a lot of decisions he makes, especially after befriending Rey.

Jannah was cool but like I said she doesn’t really get much to do. I think what people will mainly focus on is that final scene with Lando, which was TOTALLY not suggesting Lando’s her dad. It’s a shame, because the First Order deserter stuff could’ve lead to some cool stuff, but I can see the film probably couldn’t fit it in with how much it’s trying to do.

Rose was an afterthought. I didn’t expect her to be in it much so I prepped myself for that, but I was at least happy to see she was still around. :) I wonder about how Finn looked at her at the end though, was that supposed to suggest romantic feelings? Kinda funny given they drop the Finn wanting to tell Rey something plotline, which I suspect was meant to imply romantic feelings?

On the topic of romance, Poe and Zorri, meh. And to literally nobody’s surprise, the queer couple we see is two Resistance women having a kiss at the end. At least one is a character that kinda exists, even if I don’t even know her name and just know she’s important enough to be sooorta recognisable given she was in The Last Jedi? It’s pretty anticlimactic, but nobody was expecting the representation to be significant anyway. :P Still better than Endgame from the sounds of it though.

Okay, I wanna discuss Hux. His role is small, but he’s as pathetic as ever and it’s glorious. So one plot point is that there’s a spy feeding intel to the Resistance, and then when Finn, Poe and Chewbacca are captured on the Star Destroyer above Kijimi we discover... Hux is the spy. He didn’t even have a change of heart and turned good, he simply just hates Kylo Ren. :P Like damn, helping the enemy purely out of spite, that’s something alright. And as soon as the heroes escape, Pryde just knows instantly he’s the spy and shoots him without a second thought. Yep, that’s how Hux goes out. Pryde is just there to be the evil military leader of course, and he works in that part.

Rey definitely was a major force in carrying the film, like of course she is given she’s the central protagonist but her story just holds up the best for me. Probably one of my favourite things about it was that we finally got to properly explore the Dark Side in her, and of course that becomes a big part of her story here. It’s something we’ve seen in the past two films, but here it actually becomes a focus.

Okay, let’s talk about Rey’s family. Specifically, how she’s Palpatine’s granddaughter. I’m sure some people who are VERY attached to the “nobody” thing in The Last Jedi will dislike this no matter what, but I still think it works? I will however say that it’s VERY cheeky how they go “oh your PARENTS are nobodies, but your GRANDFATHER IS A BIG DEAL AND YOUR DAD JUST CHOSE TO FUCK OFF”. Weird cheekiness aside, I guess I don’t mind the reveal because for one, Star Wars is a family saga, so I see how this works into things, plus it helps justify Palpatine’s return? But perhaps more importantly, I think the film still honours the ideas from The Last Jedi in a way - yes, Rey may have found she has a major lineage after all, but said lineage comes from the most evil man in the Universe. However, her ancestry doesn’t define her, her family isn’t important, who SHE chooses to be is. Luke outright says blood isn’t everything. Luke and Leia figured out she was somehow a Palpatine descendant, but accepted her anyway because they saw her potential for good. I will say I hoped the nobody thing stuck to being literally myself, but this is a nice compromise that I can work with and has a nice message to it. Also, I should emphasise this: just because this changes how we might see The Last Jedi, it doesn’t mean that what the film explores and says is meaningless. In fact, I think the film goes out of its way to make sure it still matters even if JJ obviously had his own ideas on where to take the story. Whether she’s nobody or connected to someone significant, Rey’s destiny is her own to forge and its still about her, not who she’s connected to.

There’s also this Ochi dude who was around doing work for Palpatine while he was around, and he killed Rey’s parents. Kylo initially assumed he wanted to kill Rey, but in reality Ochi was meant to bring Rey to Palpatine early.

Luke’s appearances were cool. I’m sure some people who love TLJ and dislike this film might cynically take his “a Jedi’s weapon deserves more respect line” as a diss against TLJ, but you have to remember: TLJ was literally about Luke finding hope and something to believe in again. Of course he’d get over his cynicism, everything he said about the Jedi was right, but TLJ’s point is that instead of just burying everything wrong with the past, we learn from its failures and take what’s still good to form something better. That’s what Rey’s meant to do with the Jedi. And I mean, the reason him catching the lightsabre Rey throws works at all is because of the surprising moment where he tosses it away in TLJ.

So, Kylo Ren. I enjoyed his storyline. Like, even when he discovers Palpatine and is made to serve him, he’s already secretly hoping to get Rey on his side for them to take him out and rule together (presumably as the new Sith Lords?). He’s pretty brutal and evil in a lot of the film. Also... I LOVE how they expanded on the Force connections. I love me some freaky World Between Worlds style space bending shit. Like, they even fight even though they’re on different locations. As for the mask, I’m sure someone has a better read on it but I think with Palpatine back and being made to be subservient to another master, he puts it together to seem more intimidating again even though the cracks show the facade (the cracks are based on Kintsugi, a Japanese art or craft where repaired things have the lines of where they were broken visible to emphasise how things have changed since they were broken... someone can explain it better but yeah). With the Force Dyad, I have to wonder: is it something Snoke specifically created when he bridged their minds and left that connection to fester (as we see it still is there after all given what happens here), or was it something the Force always had with them?

So, the big scene on the Endor moon with Kylo Ren (I assume Kef Bir if it’s really called that is a different moon to the forest one from Return of the Jedi). Rey’s already struggling with the darkness after the vision of her dark self, but she goes pretty dark during her fight. She strikes Kylo down in a moment he doesn’t fight back, and said moment was him sensing Leia’s passing. Like I said, I don’t feel like her death was handled that well, though it could just be circumstance with Carrie Fisher’s passing. It’s oddly meta as well - she seemed to know reaching out to her son would kill her but did it because she believed it would save him. So she kinda fridged... herself???? It’s weird, I’m not sure how to feel about it. Is it really worth dying just for your son who’s running what will become a new Empire? And if she was dying already, they didn’t establish it at all. It just happens out of nowhere. And I mean, at least it works, Kylo Ren still has some heart left and feels sad about his mum, and then we get... Han Solo. They do say it’s a memory, but I wonder if this was Force induced. Even if the Leia stuff doesn’t work for me, I still liked the scene with imaginary Han. It’s very on the nose with its parallels to TFA, but it still works I think. Also let’s be real... Kylo Ren deciding to stop being a space fascist just because his mum died, that’s not exactly the kind of person I would still feel safe around lol.

If Kylo Ren has an actual redemptive moment, it comes later. Honestly, him showing up in the final battle to help Rey against Palpatine was pretty cool. Like I said, he’s only really doing this because mum dying made him sad, but hey at least he’s fighting the bad guys, right? Yeah, I’m sure you can tell I’m not the biggest Kylo Ren fan. I just feel like his internal conflict isn’t that compelling compared to what Anakin went through, who is much easier to empathise with, not to mention Kylo Ren is honestly pure redemption bait compared to Vader, who didn’t even have plans on redemption until he was made Luke’s father, lol. But rambling aside, his stuff in the climax was awesome. Rey giving now Ben Solo the Skywalker lightsabre through their Force connection was one of the coolest moments of the movie, and bam he just wrecks the Knights of Ren the moment he gets a new sabre (after throwing his own one away).

Palpatine in the climax is curious, because I’m not actually sure what his ultimate goal was: was it to be killed off for good by Rey, or did he always count on Ben/Kylo to show up to get the Force Dyad in place to drain their life force to rejuvenate himself? I mean, he seemed to find Leia’s sacrifice incredibly unexpected in how it made Kylo turn away from the Dark Side, so it seems like he was ready to be killed, though TBH it actually sounds like he very well could’ve possessed her. I actually want to know what this whole Sith thing is about. He says that all the Sith that have ever lived live on through him, which I guess is something that started with the Rule of Two given it follows that philosophy. The apprentice kills their master, but their master and all subsequent masters have what’s left of them transferred into them. It’s an eerie way Darth Bane can still be around for the day the Sith rule the galaxy. Still, I have to wonder how it works. For someone like Rey who wasn’t an actual Sith, it sounds like all the Sith souls would’ve corrupted her, or Palpatine would outright possess her. I know most people don’t care about this nerdy stuff, but I do so lol. This whole Sith souls thing is intriguing and I look forward to EU stuff exploring it more. I want to know if it’s like Rey and her reaching out for the Jedi souls, or the Sith literally all pile up into this monstrosity and the master becomes a single entity.

Anyway yeah, Palpatine drains Rey and Ben to rejuvenate himself so he can live again. This is the exact kind of creepy Dark Side stuff I’m here for. Ben tries to stop him, but he’s thrown down a chasm. Sheev immobilises the entire Resistance fleet, but Rey is able to draw in his attention, and when she uses both the Skywalker and Leia’s lightsabres she calls on the souls of past Jedi to give her the power to defeat Palpatine (something foreshadowed at the start where she tries to reach voices of past Jedi). So there’s lots of juicy cameos for sharp eared listeners. First, we hear Obi-Wan saying a homage to his TFA line, but with final instead of first steps. We hear LOTS of Jedi, but I was just happy we heard Anakin. I would’ve liked him to have a bigger appearance, sure, but I’m happy he existed at all. He says something like “bring balance again, just as I did”, which is pretty cool, and further cements Anakin as The Chosen One. It’s just Sheev refusing to stay truly dead caused another fuckup that Rey needed to solve. This arguably could change how one reads the Chosen One prophecy, but it still works with it being Anakin. Rey is stopping the Sith from being revived because as I said, Palpatine is basically a zombie and arguably not even really alive. I’m sure one could argue it’s changed, and Yoda DID say the prophecy could’ve been misread, but I’m sure it might feed interesting discussions... I just hope they’re not shitty toxic ones like we always get. For me, the coolest moment was when it concluded with QUI-GON JINN. You know, the Jedi who started it all. Look, Jedi voices is obviously fanservice, but this is fanservice I eat up like the hopeless nerd I am. :V We also heard non-movie Jedi like Kanan (I got so excited when I saw him in the credits I had to explain to the guy next to me my outburst lol), and it seems even ex-Jedi like Ahsoka were included. Given these are Jedi who are supposed to have passed on into the Cosmic Force, I have to say this doesn’t look good for Ahsoka. Not sure if Ezra was in there either, but if he was, then welp indeed. I’m officially worried for them, and whatever evil plans Dave Filoni has for them.

So yeah Rey beats Sheev, but it takes the life out of her to do so. BUT WAIT... BEN SOLO LIVES. Well, for now. Not gonna lie, I got excited when I saw him climb out of that chasm, I was like YEAH GO SAVE REY MAN. I literally heard someone cheer when he climbed out too. Rey of course did the Force healing thing on him before (and earlier on a serpent creature), but to bring her back Ben uses that same ability at the cost of his own life. But before he dies... Rey kisses him. Okay Reylos, you win. Not gonna lie though... I actually didn’t mind that moment? *raises internet hate mob shields* Don’t get me wrong, I’m not suddenly a Reylo convert so no need to cancel me or whatever you guys do, but for what it was, I didn’t mind it? Ben comes back knowing he’s going to probably die saving Rey, but does it anyway. When I said I feel like his true redemptive moment comes later than moping about Leia, this is what I meant. Before, he joined Rey to not betray his mother’s ideals and because of his connection with her. But now, he knows he’s a goner but wants her to live so he sacrifices his life to revive her. Like, this is a proper selfless act. He probably thinks she deserves to live more than he does after the shit he’s put everyone though anyway. It also averted my biggest concern with the Reylo thing - I was worried that it would end up making Rey’s story about saving Ben Solo like all the fan theories wanted, but here it was still firmly Rey’s story. If anything, Ben came to serve her story by letting her live on lol. So yeah, Reylo happened for like a minute... I somehow expect BOTH sides of the debate to be angry. The hardcore Reylos and “Bendemption” people will be upset because Ben dies, but the anti-Reylo people will hate it because Reylo happens at all, even for a second. And here I am, who’s just here like “that was a nice sweet moment plus yeah I want Rey to live over Ben lol”.

Okay, I should say that the whole climax got me smiling. From all the ships across the galaxy arriving to help to Rey getting power from past Jedi, to them melting away Palpatine (yeah he’s not surviving literal disintegration from force lighting deflected with the help of dead Jedi lol), to them taking out the Sith Fleet and everyone celebrating, it just was happy and more importantly, hopeful. Look, I get why people might not be into this movie, but I was genuinely giddy during this climax of not just a film or trilogy, but a now nine part saga (and yes it’s definitely staying as a nine part Skywalker Saga after Ben died, Rey only takes the name to honour the past). It really did feel like a big epic finale. Sure, like I said some of the stuff in the battle could’ve been fleshed out more, but the dumb nerd part of me enjoyed the epicness of it and its climax anyway.

The final scene was nice I guess. Rey finding an identity for herself she feels secure in, and the Luke and Leia ghosts was nice. Also the yellow lightsabre’s first film appearance signalling something new to come.

D-O was there I guess. Didn’t focus much on him and BB-8. C-3PO of course had a fair bit going on and his memory wipe did have some emotional impact even if we recover quickly because FAST PACE. R2 had some nice moments, I felt bad for him when 3PO didn’t recognise him actually, though of course R2 backs up whatever memories he has left of him (IDK what memories R2 had though). I wonder why C-3PO had a thing in his memory blocking him from translating Sith runes though.

Yeah, okay, there were a few fanservicey moments, I already mentioned some of course. Some felt like natural parallels but just with JJ’s lack of subtlety, there were a few that felt on the nose, but many were genuinely fun. Since it’s not just Return of the Jedi 2.0 but a new story that still has a few parallels (naturally, I need to dig for the ROTS and Phantom Menace ones next), it doesn’t feel as in your face as The Force Awakens which called back to so much of A New Hope and the Original Trilogy. But I mean, stuff like the Wedge cameo was cool (though ouch his son in law is dead, JJ killed off one of his best friends in Snap Wexley lol). IDK what the Tantive IV is back, but hey I can work with it. Since it’s capping off the whole saga, it calls back to all three trilogies and doesn’t hyperfocus on just one so it feels less over the top, to me anyway (or maybe my Prequel bias is showing lol).

So yeah... definitely not a perfect film, with a pretty rough first act, but I don’t think it’s a disaster like some people see it as. Could some things have been handled better? Definitely. Would I have preferred George Lucas’ ideas for the Sequel Trilogy instead despite them probably having less popular appeal? Yeah, I’m a weirdo, I know. But look, I went into this film simply wanting to enjoy it for what it was. And for what it was, I’d say it was mostly good. Sure, there’s rough patches, but the good parts are really good.

#sw spoilers #star wars spoilers #star wars #episode ix #episode 9 #the rise of skywalker #sequel trilogy #skywalker saga

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commentaryvorg · 5 years ago

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Danganronpa V3 Commentary: Part 6.3

Be aware that this is not a blind playthrough! This will contain spoilers for the entire game, regardless of the part of the game I’m commenting on. A major focus of this commentary is to talk about all of the hints and foreshadowing of events that are going to happen and facts that are going to be revealed in the future of the story. It is emphatically not intended for someone experiencing the game for their first time.

Last time as we properly began chapter 6’s investigation, the Hope’s Peak book in Kokichi’s lab was obviously planted and had nothing to do with him, a random kid in one of Shuichi’s fake flashbacks was delightfully relevant to Kaito’s issues, Kokichi’s room was a mess in both a literal and a narrative sense, his motive video at least gave some insight into how he could have been sometimes not a dick and had some vague semblance of actual friendship, Himiko was clearly thinking of Kaito as she declared herself Shuichi’s sidekick, it must have sucked to be Rantaro just before his memories were erased, and another fake flashback happened to show just how amazing Kaito was at hiding his illness.

We’ve finished investigating Rantaro’s lab, and Himiko has now left to go check Rantaro’s dorm room for the other part of his Survivor Perk that he mentioned in the video. (This is the same oversight the writers made with Kokichi’s dorm room in that nobody should be capable of entering it without Keebo blowing up the door. And while Monokuma could potentially have forgotten to lock Kokichi’s door in all the confusion of case 5, Rantaro’s door has been very explicitly locked since the end of chapter 1.)

Shuichi is about to go and head to the library next, since Keebo can blow open the hidden door for him, but before he can, Tsumugi shows up to tell him to come and see something in Kaito’s lab instead. Possibly she’s trying to distract him in the hopes that he’ll never have time to get around to the library, but it’s probably mostly just that she really wants him to see some totally relevant evidence that totally isn’t a red herring. It is very telling that the thing Tsumugi helps you investigate in this chapter is the one thing that’s related to the in-universe story about the Gofer Project and the spaceship, while everything that everyone else helps you find is related to the real truth of the situation that proves that story false – that Kokichi wasn’t a Remnant of Despair, Rantaro’s previous killing game, etc.

(It’s rather misleading that they describe Kaito’s lab as being on the sixth floor, when we’re currently on the fifth floor and so you’d think that the way there would be to go up. But nope, the only way to Kaito’s lab is all the way back down to the first floor and then up the spiral staircase behind that one door. Of course Kaito’s lab just had to be special, that dork.)

(I also messed up dealing with an Exisal that was in the way. While obviously the Exisals here won’t actually kill Shuichi if you don’t call Keebo to get rid of them quickly enough, they do have an animation which implies Shuichi gets picked up and thrown backwards into the nearest wall, which is neat. So, uh, that happened a couple of times here. Sorry, Shuichi.)

As soon as we enter the cold sleep room that’s been blown open behind Kaito’s lab, there’s another flashback, and it’s… everyone we care about! Well, sort of. This never really happened and is just Tsumugi’s fanfiction of how they would have interacted while meeting each other and preparing to go into cold sleep, but at least she gets them in-character. Or maybe it’s just some kind of simulation based on the data about their personalities in the Flashback Light computer. …Not that it’s super hard to get them right in this context, because this isn’t a very complex conversation and so they’re mostly just displaying their most recognisable character traits.

This is supposedly everyone meeting for the first time, which is the only point at which it actually matters that they were apparently all in different classes at Hope’s Peak, making that a very unnecessary plot point of the previous Flashback Light. Even if they were in different classes, though, wouldn’t each Gofer Project member have sought out the other ones after hearing they’re in the project together, to get to know them better? They’d especially want to talk to that one guy who’s already an astronaut; surely he’d have some interesting thoughts on this situation and would be able to tell them what it’d be like on a spaceship.

Kaito: “But y’know, it’s a man’s dream to leave Earth behind and travel across the stars!”

Oh, Kaito, of course it is. Mostly just for the kind of man that you are, though. Curiosity!

(grrr I know this isn’t really Kaito and is just a display of some of his most obvious character traits, but I miss him.)

There’s all kinds of stuff here reminding us of old character interactions – Maki jabbing at Kaito even before they were friends, Kaito reacting to being called an idiot, Kokichi being a dick to Keebo (you know, that thing that made him so lovable), Kiyo hinting at being a fucking serial killer (ditto), which, to at least some extent, really does bring back fond memories of when everyone was alive and things weren’t so bleak. There’s also lots of Kaede, being her adorable optimistic self!

Kaede: “We’re friends from here on out.”

Kokichi: “Hmm… Even though you just met us and you don’t even know what we’re like?”

They even managed to fit Kokichi’s trust issues in there.

Kaito: “No matter how many times we fight, we smile in the end… That’s what true friendship is.”

I would say this is also Kaito being good, but… I’m not completely sure that this is something the real him would have said, actually. It sounds a bit too simplistically waxing-lyrical-about-friendship with nothing distinctively Kaito about it. Especially when you consider the fact that Kaito very rarely referred to Shuichi and Maki as his friends because he was so hung up on the whole hero-and-sidekick thing.

But regardless, because this at least seems on the surface to be the characters we know and (mostly) love, this is the one flashback which actually does inspire hope for us in the audience too! And it probably gives more hope to Shuichi than any of the others did, because this one is based on the people who were real and he genuinely cared about instead of only feeling like he cared about them in the first place through fake memories. These are the people he’s already said are his source of hope, and it’s almost like he’s seeing them all again.

While every character in the flashback had at least one line, most of them didn’t have much more than one or two, except for Kaede and Kaito, who had the most. I wonder if this is just because they would be the two most talkative while meeting a new group of people and trying to encourage them all to get along, or whether it’s because we’re seeing a version of this scene which is tailored to Shuichi specifically and therefore puts the most emphasis on the people he cared about the most (and, for example, Himiko’s version gave Tenko and Angie more lines).

Flashback over, the reason Tsumugi really brought us here, of course, is a document about the Gofer Project participants that just happens to be here (why would this have even been left in the cold sleep room of all places?). Specifically, she wants us to see the part of it that claims Kaede had a twin sister.

Tsumugi: “It said her sister was adopted by a relative and they barely had any contact, but…”

This serves as a convenient excuse for why Kaede never mentioned having a twin. If they didn’t live together, this twin would be functionally more like a cousin to her and not a significant enough part of her life for Kaede to be likely to bring her up unless she was specifically asked about extended family.

But, really? I don’t think Kaede even had a twin at all. Obviously, technically her entire family wasn’t real and was all fake backstory, but I mean in the sense of Kaede thinking she had a twin and remembering that as something about herself. I don’t think she did. This is a desperate last-minute red herring of Tsumugi’s that goes nowhere; if she’d had this idea in mind from before Kaede’s creation then you’d think she’d have gone somewhere with it and made it into an actual thing.

Tsumugi: “I’m still a little worried. Because Junko Enoshima also had a twin sister.”

Shuichi: “Ah, true, but…”

Tsumugi: “On top of that, Junko used her twin sister to run her killing game from behind the scenes. I mean… it’s probably just a coincidence, but I thought I should mention it to you, Shuichi.”

For her supposedly thinking it’s probably nothing, she sure is pressing this point that Junko was the same as if she’s trying to get him to think this isn’t nothing, now, isn’t she.

Shuichi: (This is the first time I’m hearing that Kaede has a twin. But is that… relevant? It doesn’t really matter, does it?)

But Shuichi knows exactly what the fuck is up. This is not remotely relevant, and the fact that Junko had a twin doesn’t change that. The only actual relevance this has is to hint towards the real mastermind’s identity, since Tsumugi was so insistent about telling us this.

As some bonus dialogue, Tsumugi wonders where Maki and Himiko are.

Shuichi: “Maki is in Kokichi’s room at the dorms.”

Tsumugi: “Kokichi’s dorm room? Why’s she there?”

Heh, Tsumugi looks slightly worried at this, almost as if she’s afraid they might have seen Kokichi’s motive video and realised he wasn’t a Remnant of Despair at all.

Next, Shuichi and Tsumugi head to the library together and find Maki already there.

Maki: “…I knew you would come here.”

Maki’s smiling as she says this! She’s friends enough with Shuichi that she’s come to understand him pretty well, and she’s happy about that fact!

Huh, I’m pretty sure that if you ever came back to the library at any point during earlier chapters past 1, the books Kaede set up had been put back to the mess they were in before. But in this scene, they’re still organised. Guess that’s another minor oversight.

Maki: “I found a design that worried me a little. It was drawn with *too* much detail…”

If you think about it, Kokichi shouldn’t have needed to draw such a detailed blueprint in order for it to be something Miu could make. Miu is the inventor; she should be able to take someone’s idea of “I want a thing that can do this” and figure out the blueprints and how to build it herself. The writers could have had Maki identify a relevant design simply from the fact that it seems actually buildable and potentially useful compared to all his other childish ideas, without the blueprint needing to be detailed.

This blueprint was for the Bugvac, which Maki then grabbed a finished prototype of from Miu’s lab. Despite it being a prototype, it has apparently already been used a few times, which begs the question of how much Kokichi knew about this. If he was the one who used it, he should have known he wouldn’t be able to see these “tiny bugs” for himself and should in theory have gone to Gonta to ask if he could see them. It’s quite possible this did happen, and Kokichi was able to confirm how Monokuma’s surveillance worked and be sure an Electrobomb would knock out the cameras. (Of course, if so, he still never told anyone else about this because lol what is being helpful, that might compromise his plan.) Or it’s possible he just never got around to this – maybe this was the last thing Miu built, and by the time Kokichi realised it was finished, Miu and Gonta were already dead thanks to him, good job Kokichi.

Himiko then also shows up, but is hesitant to say what she found in Rantaro’s room.

Himiko: “If I say I didn’t find anything, you’re gonna decide I’m useless, aren’t you…? I-I won’t let that happen…”

Aww, don’t worry, Himiko, you’re still a good sidekick. Someone had to search Rantaro’s room to confirm there’s nothing in there, and that’s still a useful clue in itself! I do like this little bit in this chapter of Himiko wanting to be useful. After seeing so many others try so hard to make a difference, she must have realised she hasn’t really contributed much herself, and she wants that to change!

Himiko: “You’ve got guts to label me, the legendary mage, useless!”

This is… perhaps a little bit Kaito of her? It’s not quite exactly like him, because Kaito would never pull out his Luminary of the Stars line when confronted with how useless he felt (he was probably aware how empty and desperate that’d sound), but he did often try and act like he was a much better investigator than he definitely knew he was and what do you mean he’s useless. Himiko having started to feel useless and wanting to be more help in investigations without knowing how is, after all, rather Kaito of her too.

(Why yes, I am also going to be finding every excuse possible to bring up Kaito in this chapter even when the game isn’t directly referencing him, and you can’t stop me here either.)

Himiko: “Maybe… the mastermind is hiding behind this hidden door?”

Maki: “Then, if we kill them… we can end this killing game…”

Shuichi: “No, I told you, we can’t kill them. If you do that, we’d be the same—”

Listen to Shuichi, Maki Roll! And remember what happened the last time you tried to kill the mastermind! It’s so sad that this is still her ingrained go-to method for solving any problem that doesn’t have an easy solution.

Maki: “…You don’t have to tell me. I’m not going to kill… I’m just going to get revenge. It’s weird… Sometimes, you’re just like him, you know?”

But she’s fighting against that ingrained instinct! She is learning from what Kaito taught her! And even though anyone would not want their friend to kill someone, Maki associates that sentiment with Kaito in particular because he was always so adamant about saving her from ever killing again.

I also like the way she just says “him”, because she knows Shuichi will know exactly who she’s talking about. He’s still so important to them.

Maki: “I’ll go in first… I’m the only one who can fight if anything happens.”

And she’s realising that she can fight to protect people! She wasn’t able to use her skills to protect Kaito in the end, but at least she still can for the rest of her friends!

Motherkuma: “Puhuhu… You found me. Or rather, you just found a place that you were meant to find.”

Sort of. Motherkuma definitely didn’t plan for things to enter “endgame” mode just yet, but since Keebo’s gone rogue and there’s nothing he can do about that, I suppose he does now want to give them hints that’ll help them figure out the mastermind so that the story can be entertaining.

Motherkuma explains that he’s the machine that can make spare Monokumas, and everyone thinks it’s too convenient that he’s just admitting this, which I suppose is a reasonable excuse for why they all then try and get him to prove it.

Shuichi: “Could you do that right now?”

Tsumugi: “Yeah! Try and make a new Monokuma!”

Tsumugi is the first one to directly ask, before Motherkuma has brought up the word “birth”. Because of this, it doesn’t seem so out of place that she doesn’t use that word.

Motherkuma: “I can’t birth a Monokuma for someone who doesn’t love me.” […]

Himiko: “Whatever, just give birth to a Monokuma!”

Motherkuma: “No! I won’t do it! I’m not gonna birth one for someone I don’t like just cuz they tell me to!”

Maki: “…Hurry up and give birth to a Monokuma.”

Motherkuma: “…”

Shuichi: “…Are you listening? We said to give birth to a new Monokuma.”

And then once Motherkuma uses the word, everyone else who asks phrases it that way. Which honestly is still pretty forced – that’s not the usual way you’d describe a robot making a copy of itself – but it’s at least somewhat reasonable why they all used that word when Tsumugi did not. And of course Tsumugi doesn’t chip in on this sudden train of people awkwardly saying “birth”, because she’s totally already asked him to do that, right?

I say this is awkwardly forced that everyone says “birth” like this, but even so, I absolutely did not catch the significance of this at all, even after Motherkuma later explained that the word “birth” was important. If Tsumugi had only asked after everyone else had said “birth” and had not used that word, it would probably have stuck out, but because she went beforehand, it’s genuinely pretty innocuous even if everyone else using the word seems a bit odd.

Tsumugi: “I wonder if the thing about the spares… was a lie after all.”

Shuichi: (A lie, huh… But why lie about that? There has to be some motivation to lie…)

Obviously it’s not at all a lie. But even if it was a lie and Motherkuma couldn’t make spares (and there was always just the one spare Monokuma lying around for that one time at the beginning I guess?), lying about it would make perfect sense. The supposed Monokuma-making machine was exactly why Kaede ended up “killing” Rantaro, and keeping up that lie even now would help prevent Shuichi from figuring out it was all just a trap.

Survivor Perk Monopad: Your best chance of exposing them is when Monokuma needs a spare. At that time, the mastermind will go to the library’s hidden room.

Yep. Rantaro was very much lured there by the mastermind so that (hopefully) Kaede would kill him.

Survivor Perk Monopad: To prove this hint is accurate, I will predict something. The first thing you will remember is the Ultimate Hunt.

Still not sure how that was supposed to be any proof of credibility at all (especially since the plan was to get Rantaro killed before that Flashback Light even happened). Maybe it was purely to get Rantaro to mention it and make himself sound even more suspicious and end up feeling even less safe trusting anyone, which is exactly what happened.

Survivor Perk Monopad: Only share this information with people who you know you can trust. How you determine that will mean your life or your death.

And they definitely didn’t want Rantaro to go trusting anyone enough to tell them about his plan in case that prevented Kaede from accidentally killing him. So here’s another part that’s trying to make Rantaro super paranoid.

Survivor Perk Monopad: —Rantaro Amami

Yeah, no, it wasn’t written by Rantaro’s past self at all. This whole thing is simply a note, so there’s no proof it was really from him, and everything in it is designed to get Rantaro killed off in exactly the way that it happened.

Shuichi wonders about the blood on the Monopad, and Maki offers to go retrieve the relevant photo of Rantaro from Kokichi’s room since he was such a convenient mysterious hoarder.

Shuichi: “Maki… be careful, okay? Keebo and the Exisals are fighting—”

Maki: “Hey, who do you think I am?” [she smiles] “…Do you want to die?”

[Maki runs off]

Shuichi: “…I’ve finally reached the point where I can tell that was a joke.”

They are friends! It’s not just that Shuichi can tell she’s joking now, but also that Maki’s become better at showing when she’s joking. I also just like Shuichi worrying about her – of course he already knows she can protect herself and she doesn’t actually need to remind him, but he still worries just a little bit about her getting hurt anyway because she’s his friend!

Shuichi: (Inspecting it closely, I can see several pink fibers stuck to the surface of the shot.) “They’re pink…” (Wait! That means, this shot…) [he winces] “…” (…I understand. I know how to pin down the mastermind of this killing game…)

Shuichi obviously can’t directly voice what he just figured out because the players need a game to play, but regardless, I do like this moment of him realising that… Oh. Oh, shit, Kaede didn’t actually kill Rantaro, that’s awful… but at least he can use that fact to end this game and finally fulfil her wish.

Shuichi has one last flashback, about when Monokuma woke him up from cold sleep to taunt him before wiping his memories.

Monokuma: “Although we’re meeting for the first time, you already know me… Puhuhu… Well, of course you know. I’m famous, after all.”

While Monokuma goes on to clarify that this is because everyone watched the Hope’s Peak killing game, these lines here happen to amusingly line up perfectly well with the real truth. He could have said these exact lines to pregame Shuichi, hypothetically.

Monokuma: “The bonds of trust you’ve forged, your disgusting promises of friendship… All that’s gonna go bye-bye when the killing game starts!”

Yeah, there’s definitely not going to be any bonds of trust or promises of friendship whatsoever in this killing game, right? Hah. This is supposed to make them sad about losing those bonds, but really they forged better bonds after the killing game started than they had in that one supposed brief conversation beforehand. (It was stupid of Tsumugi to write that they were in different classes and didn’t know each other; that just makes this backstory seem even more irrelevant.)

Shuichi: “What…? Wh-Why are you doing this…?”

Monokuma: “There’s no point in asking me questions. You’re gonna forget everything, anyway.”

Shuichi: “Who’s behind this!? Who *are* you!? Junko Enoshima is dead—”

Monokuma: “Like I said, there’s no point. You’ll just forget that, too.”

Since he’s going to forget this, Monokuma should have no reason not to explain himself anyway only to taunt him that he’ll just forget it all. But he doesn’t, because the only actual reason this exchange exists is as something Shuichi will “remember”, and they didn’t want to give him any meaningful information in it. Or rather, since there is no meaningful information in a backstory that’s all lies, Tsumugi probably hadn’t even figured out the exact supposed reason for this killing game in the context of the Hope’s Peak universe at all, so it was easier to just be vague.

Monokuma: “I’m gonna use this light, then I’m gonna shove you all into lockers while you’re unconscious…”

So apparently everybody was in lockers at the beginning. But there aren’t sixteen lockers in this school. Damn it, this game and its thing of how any part of the story that you the player don’t need to interact with simply doesn’t exist as part of the game world.

Himiko volunteers to stay behind in the hidden room to look for more clues, since she still feels that she hasn’t been particularly useful yet.

Himiko: “With my skills, I’ll catch the dastardly Monokuma and the mastermind!”

Shuichi: “…I understand. Then I’ll leave it to you, Himiko.”

Himiko: “What? W-Wait, really? Are you seriously going to leave it to me? All by myself?”

Aww. She’s not used to people actually believing in her and giving her this much responsibility! She was talking herself up like the great mage she totally is, but she doesn’t really think she’s that good at helping at all.

Himiko: “Since you believe in me, I need to give it my all… I’ll find the clue, even if it uses up every last drop of my magic and kills me!”

Tsumugi: “D-Don’t say such unlucky things…”

Himiko: “I’m just letting you know how determined I am. You guys should believe in me and go on ahead.”

Shuichi: “Thank you. That really makes me feel better, Himiko.”

She’s being a performer! She’s saying things she doesn’t quite mean in order to give people a certain impression of her and influence their mood to be more positive and optimistic! Kaito’s shoes were very big shoes, but Himiko’s doing the best job she can at filling them.

(Himiko Yumeno, Luminary of Magic. She’s trying, at least.)

Shuichi: “We need to split up and check all the labs one more time. If we missed a clue in any of them… it would most likely be *that* one.”

We never find out which lab Shuichi is thinking about here. The only other lab I can think of that’d have anything relevant in it would be his own, thanks to all fifty-two of those very telling murder case files in there, but Shuichi never gets to have another look at that.

As soon as Shuichi and Tsumugi leave the hidden room, Keebo’s fight with an Exisal accidentally blows up the entrance, leaving Himiko trapped inside behind a pile of rubble.

Shuichi: “…Let’s use the Exisal.”

Keebo: “What?”

Tsumugi: “Use the Exisal…? How? We don’t have any more of Miu’s inventions, and the Monokubs are in the Exisals—”

We should technically still have four charged Electrohammers lying somewhere near the entrance of the hangar and could run to get those. The story kind of conveniently pretended they stopped existing last chapter as soon as everyone saw the body in the press.

(We would also have an Electrobomb and the Exisal remote if only a certain someone who is under that press had ever cared about actually helping us, of course.)

Tsumugi: “Himiko is the Ultimate Magician… I bet she’ll use her magic to find a clue in that room that’s just plain amazing.”

I wonder if Tsumugi is actually worried that she will. After all, Himiko’s talent should make her very good at finding secret mechanisms and hidden passageways.

Keebo: “I can’t keep evading the Exisals’ attacks beyond that time limit. If we don’t settle this soon, I’ll be destroyed.”

This is the actual reason why Keebo gave us this arbitrary time limit, even though it’s still pretty flimsy that he’d apparently know exactly how long he could keep it up for.

(Oh, hey, Keebo sure would be able to keep it up longer and give us longer to investigate if someone had given us the goddamn Exisal remote, now, wouldn’t he???)

Tsumugi: “I don’t know if I can get to all of them, but I’ll do what I can! I’ll see you later!”

So Tsumugi is in fact going to go check all of the labs for extra clues. Supposedly. Obviously she very deliberately never goes to Shuichi’s lab and points out the very relevant clues in there. She’s not going to bring back anything of note from any of the labs at all, because of course she wouldn’t want to do that.

This part here is a window of time in which it is possible that Tsumugi could in fact have gone to her own lab and used the sets in there and her ridiculous cosplay-shapeshifter skills to fake the audition videos that she’ll show us in the trial. I acknowledge that possibility, but I don’t believe that’s what happened. We’ll get to that when we see the videos.

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neth-dugan · 6 years ago

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Nine Worlds - Saturday

Friday found [here]

I got a full night’s sleep! I was still tired but it wasn’t too bad. I think I grabbed a nap at some point between panels but for the life of me I can’t say for sure when. Just that I really needed it. It was also the first day when I sat on or ran a panel.

ALCHEMY AND CHEMISTRY IN SF/FANTASY

This ended up being more about the history of chemistry and alchemy through time with a few examples of how it isn’t done accurately in either SF or Fantasy. Not what I was expecting, to be sure, but I still enjoyed it. I recognised a lot of it from a programme about the history of science and chemistry by Prof Jim Al Khalili on the BBC. The person presenting used to teach Chemistry and thus knew their stuff.

My only concern is that they said they were probably going to take longer than the slot assigned to them willy nilly like. Which. People have to get to things. Thankfully volunteers do pop their head in near the end of the slot if needed and it over ran a bit but not by too much.

Something that is important to note, and that not many realise but the presenter here made sure people knew, is that alchemy and chemistry aren’t that different in many ways. It isn’t like astrology and astronomy. Alchemy is where chemistry came from, like its ancestor, more than anything else, and there was this period of transition where it gradually grew from alchemy into what we realise as the modern day science of chemistry.

HARRY POTTER AND THE CURSED CHILD APPRECIATION

... behind the scenes footage of the first cast rehearsing the play. Clemmett as Albus and Boyle as Scorpius. Not in costume/wig but look at Albus glomping his best mate. Look!

I went to see this play when it was still new, when we had to keep the secret safe and before the script was published. I loved it. I remember the little girl next to me in utter awe about the stage as we walked in. I remember of the Dementor flying just above my head. The thump that got you in your core as time travel took place. Adoring Scoripus so so much. My heart breaking during the scene with Albus and Scorpius on the stairs, and with the cast at the end when they must let events play out. And I remember learning that a lot of Potter fans weren’t a big fan of the play.

So when I got an e-mail asking if I’d be willing to be on a panel about appreciating Cursed Child? I was all in. And when we were trying to figure out who would mod it I volunteered and so it began.

It was a great panel. Me who had only seen it, not read it. Someone who’d only read it. People who’d done both. People who know a lot about plays and how they work and theatre and the like.

We talked about the legacy of pressure of family, how that impacted Albus and Scorpius, and how there was these two stories - the kids and the adults. How we think it works that the characters aren’t these perfect adults and parents who do no wrong. Harry has a lot of trauma that the others around him don’t and that brushes up against the plot and also the needs Albus himself has. It’s messy and we think it works. There was also a lot of discussion around how it works as a play, how that makes it different from a book and the impact this probably had on reception. Play texts are fundamentally different from traditional prose and this can make it hard for those not used to reading them, who don’t know how to literally read between the lines. And we had huge appreciation for the stage craft from all sides of production.

I’m not turning this into a blow by blow of the panel. But there was a lot of love for the play. And considering this panel was up against the Black Panther panel? I think we did well. I am sad I didn’t get to go to the Black Panther panel but Nine worlds has not yet invented time travel so alas. I had a lot of fun, I hope others did too.

TOP OF THE SFF COPS

...tragically nobody mentioned Odo until I suggested him at the end. So I’m sticking him in here.

This panel is slightly infamous at this point, and going in I had no idea. Whilst I knew there were issues with a separate panel and a serving police officer being placed on it, I didn’t know this one would blow up. So far as I knew there’d been a similar one last year and I’d only heard good things. I also know that I have a lot of privilege being white and despite being queer I pass.... but I’ll go into that in a separate post later. Will post a link here when up.

A lot of genre fiction has police or security type characters in it. From X-Files to Star Trek to Discworld to Alien Nation and way way more. And like many professions who are portrayed on TV or otherwise intersect with it a lot (doctors, archeologists, writers, scientists) a lot of it isn’t done particularly accurately. So a group of people who work in law enforcement in various ways decided to do a session on which characters do their actual job best and in line with actual standards. It was made clear that they were there on a personal basis and not as an on duty or official representative type thing.

They put forth a set of criteria - things like knows the law, exercises discretion, compassion, does the day to day hard work and not just the action stuff and so on. Mulder? Is right out. Scully however was in, and the only character I recognised. So I was mostly went by who sounded the best and it ended up being the guy from Discworld who wont the vote. I don’t know the books well though so who knows. This was literally the entire panel. Still, I can see in retrospect how it would make some people uncomfortable.

It was an okay panel. I wasn’t expecting it to be a big vote thing, and more of a discussion type thing but in hindsight that may have caused more issues.

LET THE PAST DIE: SACRIFICING SACRED COWS IN STAR WARS THE LAST JEDI

This was put into a room far too small for what it needed to be. People were crowding in and it wasn’t great. Not long after it started a volunteer came in and offered up the room across the hall that had way more seating, so we voted on it and unsurprisingly we moved across. This would have been easier for some to do than others but it also have people who needed more space that space whilst letting people in. But it likely caused issues for those who have a harder time moving. I’d had a big dizzy spell on my way to this but seemed to be okay moving.

Part way through I decided to start live tweeting it and you can find that HERE. I’m not really sure what else to add but it was an interesting panel. Lots of talk about letting whiney fanboys whine to themselves, a lot of stuff they keep going on about was also in or also missing from the original trilogy. Nobody explained Palpatine until the prequel trilogy after all. He just turned up as a vague big bad when needed for plot. One panelist wished them the prequel trilogy ‘they deserve’ which amused me.

What I found most interesting though was a note on the green milk scene with Luke. I’ve seen people joke and deride that scene a lot since the movie came out. But one of the panelists, a woman from with roots in Hong Kong, said that it really struck a chord with her in relation to the diaspora. It reminded her of going into Tesco and finally seeing a noodle that isn’t exactly the same but reminds her a lot of something from home. And this was Luke claiming something that reminds him of where he came from even as he’s far away from it. It had honestly never occurred to me but it makes so much sense, and gives that scene a lot more value. I have no idea if the writers did that on purpose or if they did it as the easy joke though.

LAYERS OF MEANING: THE DIMENSIONAL DIFFERENCES BETWEEN ENGLISH, CHINESE, AND SIGN LANGUAGE

I loved this! This was hosted by a woman who was born in China and whose first language is Mandarin, but moved to Britain as a kid and later in life learnt BSL and now works as a sign language interpreter. She does this for Nine Worlds in various panels, as well as hosting a few sessions relating this to herself. And so she decided to do a panel that talks about her three languages as they’re all very different and go at language in different ways.

It was awesome.

...Mulan is not at all relevant but she is Chinese this is the best gif I could find that is both nerdy and has the writing system talked about in this session. And also, y’know, Mulan.

She isn’t a linguist, which she made sure everyone knew. But I think that made it work. It was also kinda amused because on the front row on one half of the aisle was a native speaker of BSL, and on the front row of the other half was someone who knows Mandarin better and I get the feeling probably came from a different part of the Chinese speaking world. But I’m just assuming there. And the interplay between the three was informative but also amusing.

I kinda knew the general concepts of what she was talking about. Or very vague versions of the concepts anyway. English is phonetic and the letters themselves have no meaning. D implies nothing when used in dog or door etc and it can be polysyllabic. Mandarin is logarithmic, it’s tonal and uses that rather than multiple syllables and it doesn’t have individual letters. The symbol for ‘female, woman’ 女 but as a radical can become a part of words like ‘calm/peace’ 安 which has the radicals for woman and home. Which, being at home is calming so I get that. There are also some not great words with woman as a radical too.

And then there is sign language which doesn’t have just the mouth to speak. It has two hands, your face and your mouth. It takes place in a 3D space and adjectives are often included as part of the word, not separate to it. You can say entire sentences with a gesture, and you pick up on ways of expressing things because they look interesting in the same way you’d vocalise something a certain way because it sounds nice..

It was interesting. I don’t know a lot about language, and anything too technically worded would have lost me. But this didn’t and this was another of my favourite panels this year.

THE POLITICS OF ACTIVISM IN MARVEL COMICS

So I don’t know a lot about the comics. I’ve read a couple Wolverine books but that is about it. But I thought I’d go along and listen cause it seemed interesting. Jaime was hosting it, someone who’d worked on the comics was meant to be there but had to pull and out and so Jaime was left by themselves but... Jaime did a good job.

A lot of the specifics were beyond me. But it seemed to be a common theme that activism within the comics would change the world too much beyond the baseline - a baseline that needed to remain stable. And a fear of how the much vaulted cis het white male would take it I’d imagine though I don’t remember that being touched on a lot.

I did comment at one bit. I tried to do a ‘I only really know the movies so maybe this is stated in-verse’ type of disclaimer and then was given what felt a bit like I’d been shot down with ‘comics only!’ despite others bringing MCU up before including by the mod. If they hadn’t, I’d have said nothing at all. But I may have just been a bit sensitive. In any case, I wondered if perhaps the characters did do things, within the parameters of their non-hero lives. Tony Stark is the CEO of a massive company after all, maybe he funds charities, treats workers well and make sure workers rights are a thing etc, invests responsibly. I dunno. And we just don’t see it much because it isn’t about punching people. I don’t remember a lot of what was said after that as I was too busy berating myself for daring to speak in a comics panel. Note to self, never go to one again, it is not meant for me. The vague idea I had about an X-Men as metaphor panel for next year? Likely wont submit that now.

But it was well moderated. People got a chance to speak, bounce ideas around and I think what I said was taken in as part of that. The session didn’t get stuck on one thing and it flowed through topics and ideas and the like and it was interesting. Except for that one moment I did genuinely enjoy it. Given the last minute alterations due to a key component having to drop out it was very well done.

... why do tumblr gifs all have to be so big?

DR MAGNETHANDS

This is kind of hard to describe, but it was very adult friendly, It had Captain Picard with swearing crashing the moon onto London, and Theresa May as a monster head fighting against a butterfly made out of lamb chops in some kind of anti-Brexit accidental metaphor. Especially as the lamb chop butterfly was a heroic character that Theresa treated as a bad guy. Everyone boo’d her at every turn.

It’s kinda hard to describe in any logical way what this session was like. Drawn off of audience suggestions and participation it’s basically crack fic made manifest.

... giant jellyfish in the sky didn’t happen, but were a distinct possibility.

It was just pure fun really. I laughed a lot, I had a great time, it was awesome.

SEX AT HOGWARTS

Another session that needed a bigger room. I got there pretty early and so had a good seat and then being a tad hyper I decided the room needed mood music. So I searched for romantic music in Spotify and played it. This is whilst the room was mostly empty and I did stop before the session started. Those who could actually hear it seemed amused. Not sure if it was at me or the music. And there were lots of tipsy people around.

We were also graced with Professor McGonagall who visited us and gave us all a good staring at.

Much like the late night panel on Friday, it was a pretty lively discussion with lots of absurdity and very clearly adult only. There was a sensible power point that combined info released after the books about who was dating who, comics and some parodies of what sex ed at Hogwarts might look like. It’s not what I’d have done but given it’s slot it worked out pretty well.

...given the topic, probably best to have a gif of adult characters. Also it’s cute.

There was discussion of what counts as bestiality in a world where all sorts of beings are sentient. I even posited the question that if someone kept up with polyjuice for nine months, could someone usually lacking a uterus become pregnant and give birth? This was laughed down and dismissed as it was meant to. Think it was kinda obvious in how I delivered it that I was being absurd. There was a lot of speculation of what portraits get up to and.... yeah. it was exactly as it sounds.

A lot of fun, and probably nothing teens haven’t heard or thought before but still, a good thing they weren’t there.

I’d have liked to go to bar and play Slash but alas, I was tired so I went to bed. Hoping for sleep and rather sad that the next day would be my last for another year.

[SUNDAY HERE]

#nine worlds #nineworlds #harry potter #marvel #star wars

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