#THIS GOT LONG OOPS... SORRYgsdfhjkgfhd

[dementedgnomicwizard]

celestriakle replied to your post “oh my god i fucking HATE the wolf 359 finale no podcast has ever made...”

Man I feel you. Personally I didn’t see a tpk coming and for me that probably woulda been too dark, but I remember feeling so weird about the ending as is, it was just, uncomfortable? It felt like they were trying for a happy ending and def did not get there, there was for sure a balance off. (Keeping in mind I listened like 2 or 3 years ago probably)

yeah i think it was maybe me being used to/having a preference for slightly darker fiction generally gfdhsjkhf i like stuff that’s humorous and doesn’t emotionally fatigue you but the stakes are high as hell and you know that none of the characters are ever 100% safe regardless of how much of a main character they are yk

ok i just started writing and then it got Long so i’m putting this under a readmore, ALSO HUUUGE SPOILERS UP AHEAD OBV FOR ANYONE WONDERING

what put that idea in my head initially was when eiffel almost got sent back to earth and turned back—in my head i was like ah, okay, so that’s the moment where he makes his Choice to come back no matter the cost, they’re gearing up for an Ultimate Sacrifice ending. (now looking back i’m like.... well. i Guess that’s still what was going on but.... lol.)

i assumed that for most of the episode the plan would be “stop goddard+kill cutter pryce and young, get home,” and that towards the end it would become clear that there wasn’t enough time/options/whatever to accomplish all of the above (either that they would succeed in killing cutter+price+young but in order to finish it they’d have to stay on the station as it crossed the red line or something like that, or that they would realize there were no options left besides destroying the station with everyone on board) and they’d have some touching moment as a crew where they reflect on all the development they’d undergone as people throughout the journey and all things considered are pretty gung-ho about accepting what has to happen.

it just feels (to me) like the logical and satisfying conclusion for their arcs! they finally have ALL the answers they’ve been looking for, they’ve succeeded in stopping goddard, etc. for lovelace it would’ve been a pretty kick-ass “the captain always goes down with the ship” moment and honestly a well-deserved /rest/ after everything she’s been through and all the loss she’s witnessed (because... um... can she die? now? of anything? bc it doesn’t seem likely, and ‘going back to earth so i can settle into a normal life again and then watch everyone i know get old and die around me while i stay alive because i’m not fully me anymore’ feels like ... kind of a really cold and sad ending for her, considering everything). 

for hera it would’ve been a chance to (once again) reaffirm her humanity and just how much she’s progressed beyond what goddard tried to make her be; a really excellent final fuck-you, ESPECIALLY if the nature of the TPK in question was like “hera has to initiate the self-destruct and pryce is alive to witness this but powerless to stop her for once.” 

for jacobi... i mean... like am i forgetting something or did they just not really bother establishing much information about like, what jacobi has to return to on earth? bc it seems like blowing the station could’ve been a way for him to 1) let go of a lot of his guilt/grief over maxwell and 2) a salute to kepler for his efforts (assuming that by the time the TPK happens kepler has already been revealed as a double-double agent + swooced out the airlock)

for eiffel it would’ve been a good conclusion to the Massive amounts of development he had; he spent the entirety of the show slowly and painfully learning how NOT to be an asshole/selfish/basically everything that he Was that contributed to destroying his life on earth care about, and how TO Show Up For the people around him despite getting off on the wrong foot initially. he arrived on the hephaestus as a (mostly) well-meaning but self-absorbed jackass with virtually no concept of boundaries or self-restraint, and by the end of the show he’d Realized this about himself and put in a colossal amount of hard work in order to Be Better... and then at the very peak of that arc, which the audience and the characters themselves have invested so much time and energy into, the decision is just to... throw all of it away? IT’S JUST GDFKSJGHFDK SOOO MUCH MORE FRUSTRATING TO ME THAN IF THEY’D JUST STRAIGHT-UP KILLED HIM because they try to dance around it like “Ahhh but IS he the same person anymore... who can never be sure.... maybe it’s a second chance....” but that logic just doesn’t WORK given the questions+answers about what makes up one’s humanity/personality as established AT LENGTH by like everything else in the show!! according to everything we’ve learned so far from hera/maxwell/pryce etc as they address these questions through the lens of the AI system, the answer to “are you still the same person if you’re physically unchanged but every single one of your memories is altered or removed?” is a resounding “NO.” i hate it when writers spend their entire story establishing certain rules/information/logic and then suddenly make decisions that completely fly in the face of all of it and think it’s a “subversion” when really what that’s called is “a bad writing decision.” i genuinely think they were just too hesitant to actually kill him so they tried to do “the next best thing” but it just... didn’t work the way they wanted it to. i’ll elaborate more on why i think they would’ve been afraid to kill him (beyond just “he is the beloved main character”) in a second 

for minkowski... i mean... from a character/writing standpoint, if lovelace, hera, or eiffel (not including jacobi here only bc i don’t think they were QUITE close enough by the end for his death to have caused her As Much guilt as the other three would have) died during the finale then minkowski would almost definitely have to die as well, bc her primary motivation as we’re all very aware is to ensure the safety of her crew above all else; i don’t think there’s a universe where minkowski is okay with leaving herself if all three aren’t with her. BUT i think this became a corner that they wrote themselves into with her by the end, because then (i assume) the dilemma became “well, as much as we might like to, we basically can’t kill off any one single other character, because it will cut minkowski’s strings” WHIIICH is why i think they couldn’t go through with killing eiffel. 

ANYWAY. YEAH. ALL THIS TO SAY for me personally an ending where the characters all have to sacrifice themselves, but it’s a choice they arrive at together easily + something they welcome and accept without much sadness/regret because they’ve done everything they could (and, in the case of those crewmembers w active ties to earth, successfully ensured the safety of their loved ones on earth) would’ve made a lot of sense and been satisfying. i’d be sad, definitely, but in an “this story and characters were excellent and i’m sad it’s over” way more than a “wait i’m so frustrated by this ending that can’t possibly just be It” way