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whateverthedragonswant · 2 years ago

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This might be a hot take but I've gotta get this off my chest:

I have seen so many times in the past two years the point being made by a particular section of the fandom that Sam was the hero of SPN, the "Luke Skywalker" of the series as Kripke himself stated, and that the finale ending made sense for not only Sam getting to live but also for Dean's ending. And in the very same breath, it's mentioned that the show was always about the brothers, no one else, that's what Kripke always wanted, etc., but this argument is always made from a very pro-Sam slanted/skewed anti-ship (and sometimes anti-Dean) point of view without taking into consideration of just how much the story of SPN evolved even before Kripke left the show.

Like say what you will about Sam being the hero of the story, and I'm not going to disagree with you about that being Kripke's original intention because you're right. Sam was the main protagonist; that's clear from the outset of the series. The whole first season is everything being told from Sam's POV. It's evident in every single episode in how each case has resolution thanks to Sam. He is made to be the hero. The whole arc of season 1 is about Sam being dragged back into this world due to his desire for revenge for what happened to Jessica which turns into something more aka Sam is naturally a hunter and he wants to help people/help his family->Dean. It's even Sam in the season finale that chooses a different way compared to John's quest for revenge by choosing Dean/his family over his revenge.

So, yes, you're right when you say in the beginning of the series that Sam was the hero/main protagonist. Absolutely. But what is not being mentioned/realized is that somewhere along the way, during Kripke's era, Dean's own story within the series became just as integral to the main story like Sam's as did their relationship as brothers. Kripke developed the story to include both. They both become essential to the main overhead arc of the entire show. The whole reason John and Mary even got together (through Heaven's intervention as per SPN canon) was to bring about both Sam and Dean's existence. Dean becomes the complement to Sam's role. We find out that Sam is the chosen vessel for Lucifer, and then we find out Dean is the chosen vessel for Michael, which leads to the showdown between Heaven and Hell essentially through the two. Both have a decision to make; both are tapped on the shoulders by both sides (i.e. Cas/Ruby); both are essential to the main plot while having their own separate arcs/journeys. Dean is no longer a side character or even the "Han Solo". His story is developed and we not only see his own hero's journey that he has to go on (when physically separate from Sam for example; going into the future though this is still intertwined with Sam's journey itself; going back in time, etc.) but his own desires, thought processes, relationships (outside of Sam), are also brought into the forefront for his story. Can this happen with side characters? Sure. But that's not what happens here because Kripke not only develops/beefs up Dean's story but also interweaves it with Sam's very carefully, to the point that the show doesn't work without both characters. Hence, Sam is no longer the sole main protagonist.

Which is why, for example, Dean is the one to kill the YED even though Sam had been determined to make YED pay for what happened to Jessica. And Kripke masterfully balances the main plot between the two as the show develops, so much so that we get payoff for Sam's journey (which leads up to Swan Song but I'll get to that in a moment), by fulfilling big plot points such as his killing Lillith and setting Lucifer free. He even still gets the hero's end by choosing to sacrifice himself to save Dean and the world in 5x22. Kripke beautifully takes Sam's original journey and tweaks it in such a way that while Sam had his dad's training and a similar quest for vengeance, he made a different decision and he did that while having much more on his shoulders (literally the weight of the world) than John ever did. And we still get payoff for what was initially set up way back in season 1. We get a close out to the Jessica story line, to Sam's powers story line, all of it, before Kripke dipped out.

And in the same fashion, we also got a closeout to Dean's story line. If he would ever get out of hunting, would he allow Sam to go into that dark night alone, would he be the same as John -- all of it.

So the ending to 5x22 absolutely makes sense. And we get: Dean surviving and going to live a "normal" life & Sam making the sacrifice (as the hero the series started out with) while also somehow surviving & making his way back to his brother. That's Kripke's ending. Now to be fair, Sam making his way back to Dean more likely had to do with them setting up the next season, but ultimately he wasn't dead after throwing himself and Michael into the pit.

Then in the later seasons, which some fans like to exclude or dismiss (but it's still part of Sam and Dean's official story), their stories were still integral to the main story but they had also evolved to include other characters (such as Cas, Jody, Donna, etc) and they had developed over the next ten years. So when looking at the series as a whole, Dean and Sam's endings in the series finale do not make sense. Kripke already got his ending in 5x22 and the show moved past that, and quickly set out to dismantle it in 6x01. This theme continued and the idea of free will became the center stage even more than it had in the first five seasons. By the time the last season rolled around, Dean and Sam had different desires, their stories had not only been completely intertwined to make both of them the main protagonists but both the heroes, and how their ends/hunting boots were hung up in the end would both matter.

So if you watched all of the seasons, 15x20 doesn't make sense. Because Dean and Sam wanted very different things by that point, they had both built relationships with other characters (Cas and Jack were the biggest ones but those two were not the only ones), and their story had effectively changed.

And if you didn't watch any of the later seasons (or you dismiss it), 15x20 still doesn't make sense because this wasn't the ending Kripke had for the seasons 1-5 Sam and Dean. If anything, it felt like it could have been 1x02 instead of the Wendigo episode, ending Dean and Sam's story in two short episodes with nothing in between.

That does not make sense.

Imagine we were discussing the show Buffy the Vampire Slayer. We all know how that ended (I'm talking TV only, not the comics). Buffy saved the world, she survived (finally!), and she was free from Sunnydale. Now imagine she had been killed off. Not only would it feel redundant but it wouldn't feel like a true ending for the story told over the past 7 seasons. What would have been the point of her being resurrected in season 6 then? What would have been the point of her relationship with Spike, Dawn, and the others? Could Joss Whedon have made it into another hero's sacrifice (instead of Spike doing the heroic/redeeming sacrifice), that she got Dawn, Willow, Xander, and the other Slayers ready to defend the world that she would die saving? Sure. But again, when you compare that ending to her story, it doesn't really make sense. There is no payoff, for the viewers or for the character of Buffy. She had earned that ending, the freedom from the Hellmouth and from the burden of being alone as the only Slayer (aka Chosen One). Which is why we get that great shot in the end:

Willow: "Yeah, the First is scrunched so...what do you think we should do, Buffy?"

Faith: "Yeah, you're not the one and only Chosen anymore. Just got to live like a person. How's that feel?"

Dawn: "Yeah, Buffy, what are we going to do now?"

The hero, who had already made the hero's sacrifice more than once, finally earned the ending that she wanted: freedom and the ability to choose to live her life for herself. The burden of being The Slayer had been removed and spread out to others (effectively building a network, hold that thought for a minute), she was no longer alone, she had defeated the Big Bad (which was effectively the Hellmouth since it kept creating/calling to these other Big Bads she faced over the years as well as the monsters she started out fighting), she might have more to face in the future, but it's up to her now what she wants to do. She is given the choice aka free will and that's what she earned after everything she had gone through during the duration of the show.

That's an ending.

This isn't:

Death wasn't supposed to be their ending. While some might be able to turn to you and say 'but they end up in Heaven together, they're at peace', that doesn't make it a payoff ending, for the viewers (early seasons only or all seasons) or for the characters of Sam and Dean. That's not effective storytelling. Neither ending was heroic or earned.

Dean dying, while again wouldn't make sense given the story, could have been painted as heroic if it happened during the battle with Chuck for example. Their final battle with the ultimate Big Bad. Even though they both died heroically quite a few times before this, it could have been done and while ultimately disappointing, it could have been the hero's end for Dean (just like Sam's end in 5x22 was the hero's end for him). This death wasn't heroic; instead it was from vampire stunt guy #4 who apparently juiced before that scene getting an upper hand on the hero and impaling him on a piece of sharp rebar. During a milk run hunt. Now imagine if that were Sam. Ask these people who think that by the end of the series that Sam was the only hero, ask them if that happened to Sam instead, would they still be praising the finale? Or imagine that was Buffy. That she survived like she does, the Hellmouth in Sunnydale was finally gone, only to be killed by a random forgettable vampire who she had faced off with in the first season and got away, only to suddenly return and take the hero out, thus negating the payoff/earned ending she and the viewers got. Doesn't make sense, right?

Now imagine if say Dawn was killed off in a similar way (though tbf Dawn's role was not the same as Dean's in the story) or during the battle, and we see Buffy living her life through the years, getting out of slaying, having a family which consists of a daughter she names Dawn, wearing her own Party City wig and looking at a picture of Dawn all teary-eyed, dying in her sleep as an old lady, and then reuniting with her in Heaven. It doesn't work. Not only because Dawn had a very different role in the show when it came to the main story but also because it DOESN'T WORK. What kind of hero's end is that? What payoff is that? Is it great that Sam gets to choose to get out of hunting and have a family? Sure. But that's not where his story was headed, in later seasons, or even during Kripke's era.

Going back to the network thing I mentioned with Buffy, Sam had done that. Not only were there strong hints of leader!Sam near the end of the series, but he had effectively built a network of hunters for a time until Alt!Michael killed them all. But he and Dean still had a network going through Jody, Donna, Claire, even Jack until he turned God!Jack. Wayward Sisters might not have taken off when it first aired but the point was made: a hunter network still existed. And these characters, this network, even though not shown in the finale, still survived no matter what happened with Sam and Dean in the end. Why is this important? Because not only does it extend the hunting universe, but it also removes the burden from the heroes' shoulders. So they could have gotten out of hunting if they wanted to, just like Buffy could have laid down her axe (or stake). The heroes had earned it.

So for Dean to die on a random hunt and for those few to say that it was being foreshadowed this whole time with Dean's quotes (from before season 15 btw) and a proper ending to his story...they really don't know what show they were watching or how storytelling works in general. Because when they say that, they negate Dean's whole arc of season 15 (while also negating his whole series arc). Dean was angry in the beginning of the season because he thought not only had his free will been taken from him, but also because he thought he hadn't had any free will this whole time. There's a reason why he says what he says to Cas in 15x02. There's a reason why he was so gung ho on letting Jack sacrifice himself, and only once once Sam and Chuck say what they say in 15x17 does Dean make a different choice: his family (and the world) vs his own desire (his idea of free will, not fully realizing that he's actually utilizing it by making that choice). It's only when he chooses not to kill Chuck in 15x19 that he is completely self-aware and that he is using his free will to make a choice. A choice that affects how the Big Bad is ended/defeated. "That's not who I am."

He was given the hero's choice and he made it. And his decision was the right one that had payoff from not only the events in 15x17 and 15x18 but for his overall story. That's why what Cas says to him in 15x18 about who he is as a character was so important. It set Dean up to not only have self-realization but to also act upon it. Think about how many times over the years Sam and other characters have told Dean this about himself but he never really believed it. Why? Because he hadn't reached that part of his journey yet. Because he hadn't reached the end of it yet. So it makes perfect sense how 15x17, 15x18, and 15x19 play out. This is the appropriate ending battle for not only Dean but Sam as well:

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This was the hero's sacrifice they made. They could have been killed from Chuck beating on them as he did. He could have chosen to snap his fingers at any point. They made the sacrifice in order to get Jack the time and energy he needed to power up to overpower Chuck. And they never stayed down no matter the pain, no matter the potential of their deaths at Chuck's hand. They refused to give it up. This is why Sam helps Dean back up and why they're laughing/smiling. Because they know that no matter what happens to them, Jack/the world is going to win. "Why are you smiling?" "Because...you lose." And their sacrifice not only hands victory over to the new generation aka Jack but also instates the new God who replaces Chuck aka The Big Bad of the entire series. EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS SCREAMS HERO.

So it's not only payoff for Jack's story (as well as Chuck's) but also for Sam and Dean's. And both brothers were the heroes. Which is why Sam tells Chuck that he loses and Dean tells him that they won. Why both of them tell Chuck about their plan that they formed together (and Jack doesn't say a word). Which is why Chuck says he's going to die at both of their hands, both Sam and Dean look at each other, and then Dean makes the choice not to kill Chuck. "See, that's not who I am. That's not who we are." Because they both were the heroes and main protagonists of the series. Something that Kripe had set up long before 5x22.

"What kind of an ending is this?" One the heroes had earned. Chuck as the Big Bad wanted violence and death, an ending he would be entertained by. And even for an ending he hadn't imagined for himself (where he loses), he still expected a grisly death at the hands of the heroes. Had either Winchester done that, then Chuck would have gotten what he wanted and it wouldn't be the heroes' end that they had earned.

This was the ending that Sam and Dean earned:

The choice to continue on if they wanted or to get out of hunting for good. To go see Jody, Donna, and the girls, or go get Cas out of The Empty, or go on milk run hunts for a while, or even to go to a freaking baseball game (screw you, John!); the point is it was their choice. That's what they had earned by the end of the series.

The ending that Chuck earned was not only the worst he could imagine but it was punishment for everything he had done. Both brothers say as much:

Sam: "I think it's the ending where you're just like us. And like all the other humans you forgot about."

Dean: "It's the ending where you grow old, you get sick, and you just die."

Sam: "And no one cares. And no one remembers you. You're just forgotten."

This was not the heroes' ending or the ending both characters had earned/deserved:

This was:

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For the ones who insist that Dean's sacrifice was the right ending for his story and that he got a new Heaven as a reward are incorrect. Heaven wasn't what Dean wanted, not before he got what he earned.

For the one who insist that Sam's ending was right for his story and that he got to have a family and choose to get out of hunting as a reward are incorrect. Sam wanted Dean to be a part of that life (however it looked) and he had no desire to get out of hunting by the time the series came to an end.

15x20 is not the right ending for either Winchester.

And for those who say that Dean hadn't become one of the heroes in the series or that the finale was right because Sam was the sole main protagonist by the end (or even Kripke's ending in 5x22) clearly weren't paying attention. Not only did Sam not get the heroes' end or the end he wanted and earned, but neither did Dean who had been developed into the other main protagonist of the series, by the series creator himself before he left the show.

Bonus:

15x20 was not their real finale and here's how you know:

Next shot (after cutting to black):

Nothing after it.

SPN:

Next shot (after fading to black):

And then:

(while still in costume, the two leads thanking the fans and then the crew/bridge drone shot complete with show music)

Compare this to how 15x19 ended as well. We get the montage, the drive off shot, and then the scene from 1x01 of Sam shutting the trunk of the Impala as Dean watches. Then cuts to black.

That's their finale.

#dean winchester #i'm not tagging the other guy because...ya know #both deserved the ending they had earned #with both being given the choice of what they wanted to do #that finale was shit #don't let “industry experts” on this site tell you different #it's storytelling 101 #spn #spnposts #anti spn finale #anti 15x20 #that episode was pure garbage #no disrespect to the cast and crew who worked hard #but that was shit writing #it negated 15 years of storytelling #even kripke's own story for both brothers

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dropthedemiurge · 1 year ago

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Why Kawi is so Ace-coded (and anxious)[Cinematography wise]

I decided in order to keep discussing and analyzing Be My Favorite EP10 with @pinkkop and @rocketturtle4 posts on board, I want to point out more details and signs. Disclaimer: I may not know the depth of sexually-undesiring allo people but I know my visual storytelling tools when I see some.

It seems like there are two camps of viewers who view Kawi as ace vs who view Kawi as just hesitant to changes/intimacy. As a proud and hopeful member of the first camp, I want to show why do I think Kawi always felt somewhat ace-apec, but especially it kicked the ace people right in the heart in Episode 10. We talked about all the too intentional lines (ace-core from Kawi and ace-phobic from Max & Pisaeng) so I'm not pausing for them much.

So, Kawi has gone 30 years without relationship or sleeping with someone, or even trying. As @pinkkop said, how come he realizes he's queer only now? We have Max and Pisaeng who know they're gay for years, and a lot of queer people find their heart doesn't align with society norms in youth. But ace people often don't realize they are queer until 20+ or even 30+.

Kawi has lived with his romantic crush on Pear for years and a couple of time travels. As we know, he doesn't know how to navigate the relationship once he gets it, once he starts dating her, he can't give her marriage and a kid (partially because he was not ready and it wasn't what he needed/wanted, he wanted only the idea of dating Pear and stop being a loser). Not once he commented or agreed with Not & friends talking about Pear being hottest girl in uni (tho mostly it was Pisaeng dealing with it) – Kawi liked her for being kind and caring.

But then, he fell in love with Pisaeng. He started dating Pisaeng. Is he ready to go further? No, and there could be plenty of reasons, ranging from anxiety, self-doubts and trauma to lack of desire. He drank just to be able to kiss him, ffs. I am sure Kawi has a lot of psychological things holding him back from trying, it's been established, but that's not all of it in my opinion.

I'll put the rest under the cut because I feel like this post will be too long with all the screenshots, feel free to read the rest of it and let me know your thoughts~

Whenever in BL main characters end up on one bed, it's almost inevitable trope of 'will they won't they'. BMF teased us the other day with the drunk brave kiss from Kawi:

And that's how you show someone's desire to kiss: Kawi was staring at Pisaeng for minutes (notably, Pisaeng didn't have any thoughts until Kawi demanded attention and meaningfully stared some more). Everything slows down, you get some slow music, you cut down to faces/details to express emotions and let the viewer absorb the atmosphere (romantic or sexual or even inner dramatic turmoil – all the important bits use tools like this).

That's how I know Kawi wants to kiss. Kawi will want to keep kissing Pisaeng even when sober, once he gets past his block. Yeah, ace people can be comfortable with kissing too.

But do we ever get an impression Kawi wants to have sex with Pisaeng? Are we ever shown this? Not in my humble opinion.

Kawi doesn't touch Pisaeng much when kissing him. In fact, I think that scene is the only instance. We have talked about how intentional not-touching is seen with Pisaeng and Kawi relationship development, sorry I won't find those comments now. Then Kawi conveniently gets what he wanted (da kiss) and falls back asleep:D While Pisaeng is having his slow-close-up romantic moment by himself:

Now, fast forward to the future (but not the Future future) - Kawi is sober, lies in bed with Pisaeng (way less sober last night), already happy in a brand new relationship... and the only thoughts he's having is how Pisaeng is good looking and they are dating now.

I think I can safely bet how in all the other BLs there is usually a moment to close up on the romantic interest's face, or lips, longing stare showing the MC's desire to be intimate with your love. It's in 99% of the shows. Kawi has none of it. He just has a funky cute dialogue in his head that says 'I just want to keep staring at him' (and nothing else huh?)

The next trope BLs just love to use is someone undressing in front of their crush/partner. Let me just pull the scene from The Eclipse out (I wish I could compare it to P'Waa other works but BMF is his first BL, yet he definitely knows how to use visual tools)

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Here at 2:25 we have Akk, a guy, inexperienced with dating and relationships too AND having insane amount of trauma, anxiety, self-doubts and holding back. So much that he has to break down crying several times to allow himself seek his own love and happiness. And yet in the beginning of his journey he still CLEARLY shows his interest in Ayan, even when they are enemies/rivals. It comes with:

staring at Ayan, looking him up and down, swallowing, turning his head away (indication of being flustered and having dirty thoughts)

close-ups on Ayan undressing

sexy music as bgm

And then we get his feelings and desire confirmed with very hot bed kiss that Akk, turns out, literally fantasized. (i actually was headcanonning akk as ace-spec but i accepted that wasn't the case as the show went on and we got shown more so yeah i can change my mind but kawi is heavily aced in 10 episodes and it's not stopping so far)

Compare the similar scene and trope with Kawi and Pisaeng undressing. Kawi is confused, mildly annoyed?, not a single swallow or eyes running away until he takes a hint (accompanied by the familiar sound that BMF uses for 'oh shit' realization). Funky comedic music on the background (and we know BMF does have osts for the romantic mood). Most importantly, there is never close-up/detail shot on Pisaeng.

Detail shots are 100% the go-to when you want to show desire, as I already said. Put a close up on the detail on someone else's body and add person's face reaction. Boom, you've got it.

Like, see the difference? Do you see it? That's Akk's POV.

And that's Kawi's POV:

Mind you, these are ALREADY BRAND NEW BOYFRIENDS. All poor Pisaeng gets is half- and full-body shots (adding to the comedy/simply telling what's happening), no slowing down the narration - and all the detailed looks on his body are simply out of focus, on the edge of the frame. I am fascinated by this cinematography.

We literally can see the book Kawi reads clearer than Pisaeng having his sexy striptease alone. Kawi is more interested in reading Sherlock Holmes than ogling Pisaeng and fantasizing about being close to him (even with all the inner turmoil he could be having – he is having it later, once he catches up on Pisaeng's blunt hit of inviting him to the shower and condoms in his backpack). it's also funny how kawi has the time to nag pisaeng about towel but since it's improv from krist to gawin who kept forgetting it, i'm not taking it seriously

Even then, his thoughts are confidently said out loud 'can we not have any sexual activities at all?', avoiding staying alone with Pisaeng in his room, 'i don't want to ride, i'm just here to take the vibes' (and while Pisaeng is upset and sad from the failed metaphor, Kawi genuinely thinks their date was great, this was enough for him, Kawi is brutally honest with Pisaeng, he wouldn't say this if he really didn't think so).

I can't remember any instances where sexy close-up shots were used in Kawi's POV. Only with kissing. Adding all the dialogue lines from Kawi and answers from others that are painfully precisely familiar for majority of ace people, adding how Kawi never has thought dirty thoughts until he clicked on people suggesting them (and not enjoying it)... I am dying on this hill and begging BMF not to fuck this up. Please don't give me ace erasure when ace-spec!Kawi has been hinted so heavily through several storytelling tools. They can meet in the middle, I just want BMF to be caring to Kawi and his feelings and not force him to cater to Pisaeng's needs because that's 'what happy boyfriends do and turns out, he did need to try it first to learn that he craves it!'

P.S. I do know Pisaeng and Kawi talked before the last scene and we'll 99.9% see it later, I'm also 90% sure Pisaeng time travelled in Ep.10, and I would be pleasantly surprised if we end up with Kawi and Pisaeng not going too far when they explore being intimate for the first time.

Oh, about the last scene. I had many mixed feelings (and was surprised to see people commenting how awww romantic and touching it was), because Krist shows a lot of internal struggle for Kawi (and no, not because he doesn't wanna kiss Gawin, fight me).

(nicely colored gifs by @piningbisexuals that portray everything i want to point out, thank you)

It's the blinking eyes, heavy breathing as soon as Kawi sheds his shirt, the swallowing, neck muscle twitching, furrowed determined eyebrows) and several little nods when he responds to 'Are you sure'?

It's very intentional acting. It's fucking brilliant acting in showing Kawi's anxiety and gosh, Kawi is being so brave to take this challenge and change his whole life once again, I might cry. If he turns out to be ace, I might actually cry but like I pointed out before, for me Kawi's lack of sexual desire is very readable. But no matter what, I have my trust in BMF to tread Pisaeng and Kawi intimacy carefully, it's been great so far and P'Waa knows what he's doing and how he is filming. I just hope it aligns with my wishful thinking.

#be my favorite #be my favorite meta #be my favorite the series #pisaeng x kawi #ace kawi #asexuality #i took courses in cinematography as a cameraman and that's why i pay attention to the framing and visual storytelling and details #i'm not an expert of course but i worked for a while in indie filming #and yes i am still dying on that hill but i understand why people who aren't ace can't notice the signs or don't relate to the dialogue #huh that was long and i already wrote like several posts #thai bl #thai drama #the eclipse #the eclipse series #bl meta #dropthemeta #bmf meta

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flame-shadow · 4 months ago

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I should do a little visual breakdown of that quirrel nosk comic. I think it's fun to analyze comic choices and share my thought process when composing my own

#rambling #not that I'm a comic expert but i am passionate about and decently competent with this method of storytelling #and breaking down this like this could be cool for others too

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moe-broey · 7 months ago

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GOD. HELP. PLEASE FORNTHE LOVE OF GOD. HELP ME <- is slightly self-conscious and extremely worried about doing something Incorrectly

#like i promise my og piece for today was sharena centric I PROMISE. I SWEAR. I PROMISE. ON MY LIFE. I SWEAR #like a rule i set for myself was to include alfonse as little as possible and if he's there he's just There #like i was rambling to my sister about it the other day but like. alfonse is an extremely important part of sharena's life #and like sharena is luigi. younger sibling syndrome. ofc she's gonna bring him up he's a huge part of her life #i still don't have the proper words for it but i said it's like misogyny ouroboros. specific phenomenon #where someone is soooo caught up in perceived misogyny (whether it's there or not) that like.#they don't even give the female chara a chance. like eg camilla or charlotte immediately being written off for being oversexualized #and this type of person ONLY focuses on that and refuses to actually engage w camilla or charlotte as characters #under the guise of like. caring about women. and maybe they do! but the way you're doing it you're eating yourself.#and how this relates back to sharena is like. that 'let female characters exist outside of their male counterparts'#WHICH. SOUNDS GOOD. ON THE SURFACE. but like i feel like it's too easy for some people #to see a female chara have a significant tie to a male chara and immediately decide to write her off as 'just that'#when like. ESPPPP in sharena's case. and esppp in alfonse's case. two things are happening here #sharena and alfonse have VERY different ways of expressing their affection for each lther #sharena more overt and alfonse way more subtle. and then there's the mario and luigi thing happening #where mario exists and stands on his own as The Main Guy. objectively #meanwhile luigi is just always thinking about mario and how cool he is. cause he looks up to him #and like idk idk i am not a mario expert i can't do a full analysis/comparison here but like. that's the dynamic they have.#NONE OF THIS IS RELEVANT. or maybe it's Barely Adjacent. to the entry i'm gonna submit #BUT I FEEL SO BAD.... my big piece had sooooooo much more storytelling i promise...........#the one i'm about to post I PROMISE YOU. it's just concept art and the focus was Not primarily on alfonse i swear to god

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officially-other · 7 months ago

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A longer post because there were some fun dragon things today

I'll be posting the other half (which actually happened first, chronologically) on my other account, but this is the part that I feel like writing out first. Obligatory UPG disclaimer, this is a personal experience so it has no basis in anything other than my own beliefs!

So! Crash course in how I believe reincarnation works for context: I believe that I- and everyone else- have what one would call a "higher self." Think of this like a lake, and each individual incarnation is a little whirlpool. Still part of the overall lake, but it's an individual at the same time. Or, I suppose, you could view it as a cake with pieces or whatever other metaphor you can think of- point is, my soul is whole but I am not all there is to me. My higher self is more aware, and not stuck in a physical body like I am.

My mother works very closely with her higher self. I... somehow just never saw that as an option for me. When I realized I was dragonkin, I immediately knew why; big huge dragon + little tiny human who's easily intimidated and doesn't know that they're a dragon yet = bad time. After I realized that, I decided that when I had the time I wanted to sort of say hello. Today I finally got the chance to meditate and have a chat.

I've understood my Amphitere nature is the draconic form that, in this lifetime, is likely the form it'd be most useful to know of and relate myself to. Not my truest form, but the one that will FEEL truest in this lifetime. So I knew higher self wasn't gonna look like that.

He is... fucking huge. I expected that, but it was still surprising. I couldn't get a good clear image of the body plan or anything, but he had feathered wings. The thing was; he was gold. I asked if he was actually gold, because that would mean that me and my mom separately picked up on that, and the following conversation ensued:

"Wait, so are you really gold?" "Yes.... sort of?" "WAIT OH MY GOD ARE YOU SHRIMP COLORS?????"

He laughed and said yes. I asked in the first place because it was something I just suddenly knew intuitively; gold is really the closest in energy that a human can perceive, but if I had a wider spectrum of color available to me he wouldn't look the same.

After some chatting I asked if he could help me connect us a little better, because I just... have a hard time looking at this massive fucking dragon and going "you're me, but big! :D" like no that's a dragon. Who am I to claim that that's me. Wtf. And after a moment, I just... sort of felt these massive fucking wings?? not my blue ones, but HIS wings. On my back. The full wingspan of them wouldn't even fit in my fucking room, it was wild.

Also, Loki and I have worked together WAY LONGER THAN I THOUGHT???? I asked higher self if he had worked with Loki, not as me, but as him and he and Loki looked at each other like they were in on some joke and I wasn't. I shit you not, he just sort of...

"Not... all lifetimes, just most of them-" LIKE THAT'S WAY MORE THEN A DOZEN, WHO WAS GONNA TELL ME THAT???

Anyway the punchline of this was the "shrimp colors" I just wanted to put the rest of that so I remembered, I fucking cannot deal with how weird my practice is getting over here XD

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the-far-bright-center · 2 years ago

Text

‘Revenge of the Sith may be the greatest work of art in our lifetimes...’

(an excerpt from a long-deleted blog post, archived here)

“Revenge of the Sith is still (and probably always will be) the greatest thing that will ever come out of the Star Wars franchise. I always go further, in fact, and say that it’s the greatest thing that will ever come out of big-budget, action/fantasy cinema at all. George Lucas’s final contribution to his Star Wars legacy—2005’s final prequel offering—was not only an artistic, cinematic and operatic masterpiece, but it was the ultimate, consummate manifestation of everything Star Wars was capable of being and, for that matter, everything that big-scale cinema is capable of being.

It literally does not—and probably can’t—get better than this ever again.

Lucas, who himself pretty much set the standard and invented the genre in 1977, had now taken us to the absolute zenith of what that genre of film-making could produce.

Epic, ambitious, stunning, moving, nuanced, and everything else, it was the glorious completion of Lucas’s original Star Wars saga that I had been waiting for—and something for which I will always be immensely grateful George Lucas came back to film-making to give us. I have already made the case at length for why Revenge of the Sith was an absolute masterpiece of staggering proportions, so I’ll refrain from re-stating here all the ... reasons I eternally bow at the altar of that film and its unfairly maligned architect.

People who didn’t get it or still don’t get it probably never will get it.

I’ve given up arguing with those on the tedious backlash bandwagon, those who join in with the Lucas-bashing for the sake of YouTube channel views, or those who, like [spoilt children] throwing a tantrum, bitterly disavow George Lucas and whine about how the prequels ‘ruined Star Wars’.

Someone who did get it, however, was the noted author and social critic Camille Paglia: she of course famously declared a few years ago that George Lucas was the greatest artist of his time and specifically that Revenge of the Sith was the greatest work of art in the last thirty years.

The respected, if often controversial, academic Paglia didn’t argue that Episode III was merely the best movie of the last thirty years… but the best work of art in any genre and in any medium.

[...] Predictably a lot of people either assumed Paglia was being sarcastic or they simply pooh-poohed her conclusions. Paglia, however, was not trying to be ironic, and she has reaffirmed and defended her position over and over again and with a passion—Lucas’s final Star Wars film, she maintained, is the greatest work of art in the last three decades.

[...] I cannot think of any film in any genre that has been as absorbing or as immaculate (or as ambitious). Even just conceptually, what Lucas tried to do with the prequel trilogy was staggering and is without any parallel. And while we could argue that the execution was off-the-mark in certain places, the sheer visceral power and broad artistic value of what he did manage to create—even with its various failings—puts Lucas’s saga (and ROTS in particular) into a different stratosphere entirely.

In her own view of it, Paglia especially focuses on the final act of the third prequel—the climactic finale centering on the extended Anakin/Kenobi lightsaber duel against the dramatic lava backdrop and the extraordinarily powerful way that the birth of the Skywalker twins is juxtaposed with the ‘death’ of Anakin and ‘birth’ of Vader. That latter sequence, by the way, in which the death of the mother coincides (and even feeds into) the birth of the ‘dark father’, all of it underscored by John Williams haunting, gothic choral/hymn composition, is just one example (among many) of Lucas’s extraordinarily acute and nuanced levels of vision.

‘The long finale of Revenge of the Sith has more inherent artistic value, emotional power, and global impact than anything by the artists you name,’ she said in this interview with Vice. ‘It’s because the art world has flat-lined and become an echo chamber of received opinion and toxic over-praise. It’s like the emperor’s new clothes—people are too intimidated to admit what they secretly think or what they might think with their blinders off.’

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Speaking to FanGirlBlog, Paglia continued her celebration of Lucas’s final masterwork, saying, ‘I have been saying to interviewers and onstage, "The finale of Revenge of the Sith is the most ambitious, significant, and emotionally compelling work of art produced in the last 30 years in any genre—including literature".

Paglia’s assertions flowed from her 2012 book Glittering Images: A Journey Through Art from Egypt to Star Wars, which in part addressed the problem of modern cultural ignorance and the author’s worries that 21st century Americans are overexposed to visual stimulation by the “all-pervasive mass media” and must fight to keep their capacity for contemplation.

In the book, Paglia discusses twenty-nine examples of visual artwork, beginning with the ancient Egyptian funerary images of Queen Nefertari, and then progressing through various artistic works, including creations from Ancient Greece to Byzantine art and Donatello’s ‘Mary Magdalene’.

She explained, ‘Lucas was not part of my original plan for Glittering Images, which has 29 chapters crossing 3000 years. My goal was to write a very clear and concise handbook to the history of artistic styles from antiquity to the present. When I looked around for strong examples of contemporary art to end the book with, however, I got very frustrated. There is a lot of good art being made, but I found it overall pretty underwhelming. When I would happen on the finale of Revenge of the Sith, I just sat there stunned. It grew and grew on me, and I became obsessed with it. I was amazed at how much is in there—themes of love and hate, politics, industry, technology, and apocalyptic nature, combined with the dance theater of that duel on the lava river and then the parallel, agonizing death/births. It’s absolutely tremendous.’

Paglia also entirely recognised the sheer scale of Lucas’s creation and the value of even its various constituent parts as important or worthy works of art. ‘The fantastically complex model of the Mustafar landscape made for the production of Revenge of the Sith should be honored as an important work of contemporary installation art,’ she argued. ‘And also that Lucas’ spectacular air battles, like the one over Coruscant that opens Sith, are sophisticated works of kinetic art in the tradition of important artists like Marcel Duchamp and Alexander Calder. No one has ever written about George Lucas in this way—integrating him with the entire fine arts tradition.’

The problem is that Lucas and the prequel trilogy have become so widely misrepresented as ‘bad’ that most people don’t know how to deal with someone like Paglia sincerely proclaiming “Nothing in the last 30 years has been produced—in any of the arts—that is as significant or as emotionally compelling as Revenge of the Sith…”

[...] In fact, contrary to widespread misconceptions about how the Star Wars films are viewed, a Rotten Tomatoes poll ... found that Revenge of the Sith (and not Empire Strikes Back) scored as the best-regarded of the [Lucas] movies according to aggregation of archived reviews. So the idea that everyone dismisses the prequels seems like a misconception; but it is fair to say that a substantial body of people —including a lot of people who, rather incongruously, regard themselves as Star Wars fans—do completely dismiss this film along with its two predecessors.

As I said at the start, people who didn’t get it or still don’t get it probably never will get it.

But what has always struck me as pitiful about the whiny ‘Lucas Ruined Star Wars’ attitude is that it seems to flow from the premise that Lucas—a man whose stubborn commitment to his own singular vision gave an entire generation from the late 70s and early 80s unparalleled joy—somehow ‘owes it’ to those same people to do things precisely how *they* deem acceptable. That’s essentially what it comes down to—that he, as the artist, should make the art that the fans or the public want and not follow his own creative vision.

What people don’t realise, however, is that if he had done that from the beginning, there never would’ve BEEN an original Star Wars trilogy at all—and arguably all of these huge blockbuster SF/fantasy films that people spend their money seeing today wouldn’t exist either. What a lot of people also don’t realise is that Lucas was never setting himself up to be a populist or even mainstream filmmaker. On the contrary, he was the avant-garde film geek, the rogue, the outsider. The fact that Star Wars spiraled into a billion-dollar behemoth was an accident; and when the first Star Wars movie was released in 1977, it was an oddity that no one in the film industry understood or believed in.

But Lucas had stuck to his own creative vision—a vision that was largely incomprehensible to everyone else at the time the film was being made—and his singular vision hit the mark big-time and accomplished something unprecedented.

By the time of the endlessly-maligned The Phantom Menace in 1999 and everything that followed, Lucas was still doing exactly the same thing—following his own vision, trying to create something extraordinary and largely ignoring contemporary trends or opinion. The only difference was that the vast fan-base he had acquired from the original films were older now, far more jaded and over-saturated with blockbuster movies (most of which were influenced by Lucas’s pioneering work in the 70s) and they essentially didn’t *want* something new, creative or challenging—they just wanted the same thing they’d had when they were kids.

In effect, they weren’t interested in Lucas the artist or Lucas the pioneer—they only wanted Lucas the Popcorn Movie dispenser. But Lucas the Popcorn Movie Dispenser had never existed—he was simply an illusion created by the extraordinary commercial success of the Star Wars Trilogy.

What Lucas had in fact envisioned—and created—with the prequel trilogy, especially Revenge of the Sith, was something that transcended the whole summer blockbuster ennui, transcended genre, transcended the very medium of film itself, and could be discussed in the same breath as Shakespeare, Virgil and the Aeneid, Julius Caesar, and a number of equally fascinating and endlessly debatable works of serious and complex gravity.

But there was an audience of millions who were instead looking for something that could be discussed alongside Jurassic Park or Terminator 2. Which is fine—Star Wars of course can also be discussed just as validly in that latter context too; but it also exists in a stratosphere beyond it. And because Lucas’s process and vision was in that higher stratosphere a lot of the time, there was a frequent disconnect that occurred, whereby a lot of people were unable to meet him halfway or relate to the films on those kinds of levels.

But Lucas pushed on with his long-envisioned trilogy; and by the time the final installment of his Star Wars saga arrived in 2005, a sizeable proportion of the old fan-base had either departed or were by now just coming to the party for the thrill of seeing Darth Vader one last time. Some dismissed the film the same way as they’d dismissed its two predecessors, some were full of scathing mockery, while others were ambivalent. Some were suitably entertained, but didn’t take it much further than that.

Another group, a smaller minority—myself included—had just seen something of epic, overwhelming proportions and had the greatest cinematic experience of their lives.

But great art is like that.

Great works of art divides people, provoking endless debate [...] An argument could be made that the greatest artist will go all-out to create something special and substantive, even if it won’t appeal to everyone. Said artist would follow his own creative vision and not compromise it to the committee of consensus or demand.

Lucas, it should be borne in mind, never made ANY of the Star Wars films with film-critics in mind—even the Original Trilogy movies were not critically approved, despite becoming cultural landmarks. And interestingly, the hang-ups of many of those who were scathing about the prequel movies—ROTS included—were virtually identical to the hang-ups of the critics in the early 80s who either just didn’t get those original Star Wars films or were unwilling to praise a rogue filmmaker who was rebelling against Hollywood at the time and who was making something entirely out-of-step with contemporary trends and sensibilities.

Fittingly enough, the Lucas who was out-of-step with the sensibilities of the time during the late 70s and early 80s is the same Lucas who was equally out-of-step with sensibilities and trends at the time of the prequels too. In both eras, Lucas rebelled against the sensibilities of contemporary cinema and carved out his own piece of utter magic according to his own stubborn vision—the difference is that so many of the same people who adored what he had done in the first instance couldn’t understand what he was doing in the second instance.

Even though what he was doing was essentially the same thing.

For that matter, I always suspected that one of the main reasons so many people failed to appreciate (or in a lot of cases, to even understand) this film is precisely because it isn’t contemporary. That’s a key thing to understand about the Star Wars prequels—they were not made in a contemporary style.

Lucas doesn’t make contemporary cinema. Both of Lucas’s Star Wars trilogies are written and designed specifically to NOT be contemporary, but to have a more timeless quality, steeped in traditions from the past.

Lucas, you have to remember, has never been a contemporary or generic filmmaker, but a more avant-garde artist and experimenter who foremost specialises in tone and impressionism. The fact that he invented modern blockbuster cinema is purely an accident. As he himself once said, “None of the films I’ve done was designed for a mass audience, except for ‘Indiana Jones.’ Nobody in their right mind thought ‘American Graffiti’ or ‘Star Wars’ would work”.

[...] They were not contemporary or generic at all—consequently, a lot of people didn’t understand or relate to what they were watching: because they couldn’t find a point of comparison in popular culture.

To really understand these films, you have to go back to some of the historical epics of the fifties and sixties, particularly films like Ben-Hur, Cleopatra or Spartacus. If you watch any of those films (and all three are timeless, truly marvelous cinematic works) and then watch the three Star Wars prequels, it will suddenly make much more sense. The acting style, the dialogue style, the themes, the epic scope and settings, the vast mythologizing, the way the films are scored, even the intricate costume design—all of it.

There’s nothing surprising about that. After all, it’s easy to overlook the fact now from our current vantage-point, but the original Star Wars trilogy movies weren’t contemporary in style either—they were stylistically based on things like Kurosawa, Flash Gordon and the Saturday matinee serials of the 1930s and 40s. The original trilogy films made no stylistic sense in terms of contemporary cinema or sensibilities in the late 70s or early 80s—they were, in style, a homage to a long-gone era.

So too were the prequels—just a different homage to a different era.

[...]

When you look at everything that makes up Revenge of the Sith, the scope of vision along with the degree of artistic nuance and juxtaposition is breathtaking.

There’s lots of action, yes, as you’d expect; but the action, like so much of what Lucas was doing by this stage, is almost transcendent. Sure, the acting or delivery is off in a few places; mostly due to some of the actors having to perform in non-existent CG environments—remember Lucasfilm and ILM were breaking new ground technologically in these movies, which we take for granted now with all our CG and digital filmmaking, but which at the time were bound to cause some teething problems. But Ewan McGregor is superb in this film, while the maligned Hayden Christensen....in fact does a solid job in any number of key scenes.

And there’s everything else. The special effects aren’t just good, they’re actually often beautiful in a way that most special effects don’t aspire to be. The level of detail and artistry in the visuals mean you could turn the sound off and still be captivated. Some of the backdrops could make extraordinary paintings that could hang convincingly in art galleries. And Lucas is the absolute master of the establishing shot and the scene transition, turning it into an art every bit as nuanced as in a piece of music.

For that matter, the music is extraordinary—and actually if you look at how underwhelming or non-existent the music is in the post-Lucas ‘The Force Awakens’, it becomes clear that Lucas and Williams had a collaborative process that really influenced how these films were scored (and which is now no longer the case). Lucas himself said that the music was 50 percent of what mattered in these films and that is certainly evident.

Much of it, particularly the climatic Kenobi/Skywalker duel and that final act with the birth of the twins, death of Padme and creation of Vader, almost isn’t cinema at all—but opera. This could’ve been something Wagner was composing if he had ever existed in the cinema age.

In fact, the final few scenes of the film don’t even have any dialogue, but are purely musical and visual. Even some of the most stirring parts earlier on in the film are without dialogue; take, for example, the breathtakingly beautiful sequence of Anakin and Padme trying to silently sense for each other across the exquisite, sunset cityscape—it’s all visual, tone and subtle music, pure emotion with no dialogue. A scene like that could almost be part of a silent movie; and it’s also like an impressionist painting in motion.

Even that Kenobi/Skywalker duel itself is more than just an action sequence. With Williams’ epic, stirring, choral score, it too is opera. But it’s opera married to performance art: the level of intricacy, fluency and speed of Ewan McGregor and Hayden Christensen’s dueling is insane, having required an immense amount of prep and practise. The choreography takes it onto the level of dance; of true performance art as opposed to disposable cartoon violence or cheap blockbuster action.

Everything here—to the last detail—is choreographed like a ballet and it is spellbinding.

Yet while other filmmakers would try to sell an entire movie on such an exquisite centerpiece, for Lucas all of this—all of this poetry, opera, dance, music, visual art and everything else—is ultimately mere constituent part to a greater whole: a Shakespearan epic of a tortured fall from grace and a Greek tragedy... wrapped within an even larger epic about the fall of a Republic, the fallibility of religion and the genius of the Devil and failure of the angels.

[...] What Lucas created in fact was the ultimate expression/culmination of the art of the epic itself—fittingly enough, in order to conclude the defining epic of our modern times (what Brian Blessed once described as the Shakespeare of our age). The Shakespeare comparisons aren’t trivial. The evident Star Wars/Shakespeare resonance has even prompted things like Ian Doescher’s book William Shakespeare’s Tragedy of the Sith’s Revenge: Star Wars Part the Third—a retelling of Revenge of the Sith as if it had been written by William Shakespeare for real.

[...] Various observers, including academics, have noted the obvious fact that Lucas’s story is also a retelling of the fall of the Roman Republic and birth of the Roman Empire. Lucas himself admitted this, pointing to how Revenge of the Sith in particular is partly a story about democracies become dictatorships and citing the historical stories of Caesar and Augustus. You can quite easily watch the prequel trilogy alongside I, Claudius or something like HBO’s brilliant Rome series.

But none of those references or allusions are the important part. Even the fact that the prequel trilogy—and again, ROTS in particular—is quite clearly in part a story about false-flag wars, banking conspiracies, the corporate and military-industrial complex, the Bush administration and the Iraq War, etc—isn’t particularly relevant to the issue of why it’s such an epic work of significance.

Lucas is the author and architect of our preeminent modern mythology—as interviewer Bill Moyers asserted during his fascinating and revealing 1999 interview with Lucas (for the release of The Phantom Menace). Partly inspired by his friend Joseph Campbell’s thoughts on mythology, but moreover informed by his own careful distillation of elements from various cultures and civilisations (what he has referred to as our collective human ‘archaeological psychology’), Lucas is every bit as influential as Virgil, Homer or Shakespeare were in their respective times, and has crafted out the ultimate mythological saga.

Revenge of the Sith is the final, completing piece of that saga—the piece that gives the saga its full scope and true soul, and the piece that makes every one of the other films count for so much more.

And it does it so well—with such vivid and breathtaking quality—that, even having written an article as long as this one now is (and another before this), I still don’t feel like I’m adequately able to explain its full brilliance.

Neither could Lucas himself, I suspect. I’m not sure Lucas even realised how masterful it was; but, as Paglia and others note, the guy is so mild-mannered and self-deprecating that it simply wasn’t in his nature to boast about his own work. Instead he just took in all the abuse and mockery with mild bemusement, shrugged his shoulders and walked off into the twin sunset, knowing that with Revenge of the Sith he had finished what he’d come back to do.

In fact, what Lucas did was so extraordinary, so complex and so nuanced that it may take another decade or two for people to even appreciate it properly—assuming they ever do. As film experts like Mike Klimo have noted, some of what Lucas did in ROTS and the prequels may have been so sophisticated that he deliberately didn’t talk about it, but just left it there, not knowing that anyone would ever even notice.

This, as I said earlier, goes beyond cinema, and possibly even beyond Star Wars itself. Lucas genuinely outdid himself, and it is unlikely anyone will reach that height again—firstly because no one is going to be in the position Lucas was in again in terms of total ownership of a property, and secondly because no one is going to have that kind of ambition again, especially having seen how much of a backlash Lucas received from the legions of popcorn munchers, YouTube profiteers and ungrateful fans who were really looking for something much more in keeping with a generic, formulaic, standardized blockbuster formula.”

#the prequels #revenge of the sith #rots #george lucas #prequels appreciation #lucas' star wars as created-myth #Paglia is an expert on the Fall of Civilizations #which explains her fascination with RotS in particular #as for the blogger who wrote the post...i don't necessarily agree with every single thing he says #particularly his view on some of RotS' themes #(he seems to miss the fact that the Prequels are not about love as a negative element but are rather about the Fear of Loss )#(Anakin's tragic flaw is not Love but rather his FEAR losing his loved ones to Death)#but there's enough here i found worthy of sharing (and you can read the rest on the wayback machine link)#ultimately i feel that the inability of contemporary audiences to appreciate Lucas' work #is very much akin to the bafflement with which Tolkien's work was met in the mid-20th century #Tolkien was writing in deliberately archaic medieval tradition during the very height of the Modern era #and similarly ...#Lucas was making homages to old-fashioned cinema/Greek tragedy/and mythic Romanticism during the peak of cynical Post-Modernism #audiences seem to have truly have LOST the ability to comprehend older forms of storytelling #and that is the real tragedy

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