#also meaningless character regression

[frommike]

The Mike not being able to say ily to El in season 4 plotline is stupid as fuck if he really loves her. She already thought he loved her by the end of season 3 and Mike was not able to reaffirm that, when confronted with losing her if he didn't. Instead he just decided to be a defensive little shit about it and call her ridiculous

[middle-earth-mythopoeia]

No, Amazon’s Rings of Power is not “woke”

It annoys me so much when people complain about Rings of Power being “woke.” First of all, because of the way they overuse the word, woke has become a next-to-meaningless term that can be applied to anything conservatives don’t like. Second, Rings of Power is only progressive in the most surface-level way; underneath that it is in fact extremely regressive. People who whine about Rings of Power being woke are not only annoying, they’re also just plain wrong.

Ever since the casting was announced, right-wing idiots have been shrieking about Black actors being cast in Rings of Power. These trolls have made all kinds of dumb statements about how Middle-earth = Europe, but they seem willfully ignorant of the fact that Europe has never been exclusively white, and there is no reason to exclude people of color from the cast of any Tolkien adaptation. Still, this didn’t make the show progressive in its casting (which was tokenistic) or its writing (which ranges from bad to horrible).

For instance, the only storyline Amazon writers could apparently think of to introduce Arondir was literally him being enslaved. I mean, really? Is that really the best plotline to go with? To be clear, I’m not criticizing the actor, I’m criticizing the writing. In addition, Amazon cast actors of color overwhelmingly in parts invented for the show—rather than as actual Tolkien characters—which more easily allows them to be sidelined by the narrative, and the casting overall was in no way diverse enough. So I find it bizarre that people criticize the show for its so-called wokeness, when very little effort was made from a diversity and inclusion standpoint.

Right-wing nutjobs also threw a fit about Amazon portraying Galadriel as a warrior, to the point where they started calling her “Guyladriel.” They whined about Galadriel being too feminist and too masculine in the show, but that’s the opposite of what happened and betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of Galadriel as a character. First of all, she fought at Alqualondë in one version of the story, so no one should have a problem with her wielding a sword. What IS a problem is everything else about her portrayal.

Amazon’s writers took one of Tolkien’s most interesting characters and stripped her of her power, her authority, her gravitas, her wisdom, and her ambition. They had Gil-galad, her younger cousin, order her around. They had Elendil compare her to his children, even though she’s older than the sun and moon. And they made her a petty, naïve, incompetent brat whose entire first season involves being manipulated by Sauron, and as if that wasn’t bad enough, having a bizarre will-they-won’t-they relationship with him. In addition, Galadriel is canonically tall and strong, and one of her names means “man-maiden,” but they made her short and waif-like instead.

Galadriel in Amazon’s show doesn’t even resemble the character Tolkien wrote—the character named Nerwen, who never trusted Annatar, who certainly never had some creepy Reylo thing with him, who was powerful and wise and authoritative, who had a marvelous gift of insight into the minds of others—not a quippy, rude, annoying idiot who is constantly being controlled by the men around her. I don’t know why anyone would look at Rings of Power and think this portrayal is progressive. It’s actually a failure of imagination: Amazon’s writers literally cannot conceive of a powerful woman even when all of the work of imagining her has been done for them.

In addition to the faux-feminist-and-actually-sexist portrayal of Galadriel, Rings of Power is also on the whole weirdly regressive from the standpoint of gender roles and gender expression. Tolkien’s Elves are canonically tall, beautiful, and long-haired, regardless of gender. Tolkien’s Dwarves all have beards. So what did Amazon do? They gave most of their male Elves short hair, while the female Elves still have long hair, and they did away with female Dwarves’ beards. They patted themselves on the back for “letting” Galadriel fight, but don’t show other female warriors—in battle scenes, for instance, why are all the soldiers male? In general, they made their characters adhere to conservative gender roles and gender expression, which is especially glaring because it contradicts what Tolkien actually wrote.

On top of all this, they decided to throw in some anti-Irish stereotypes with a side of classism, just for fun. They had the ragged, dirty, primitive Harfoots speaking in Irish accents, while the regal, ethereal, advanced Elves speak with English accents. None of the actors playing the Harfoots are Irish themselves, to my knowledge, which makes the choice to have them speak this way especially questionable. Seriously, who thought this was a good idea?

All in all, it makes absolutely no fucking sense to criticize Rings of Power for being woke. It may look progressive on the surface because there’s a Black Elf and a woman with a sword, but that’s as far as it goes. The show isn’t particularly diverse to begin with, and it treats its characters of color poorly. Galadriel’s portrayal is disgustingly regressive, as is the show’s overarching take on gender. This is to say nothing of the caliber of the writing in general, which is unsurprisingly low. There is so much to criticize—like the nonsense about mithril, or the fact that Celebrimbor of all people doesn’t understand alloys, or the fact that you can apparently swim across the Sundering Seas now—which makes complaining about the show’s supposed wokeness especially irrational.

I also have to wonder if the people still whining about wokeness know anything about Tolkien’s works. Do they know that the crown of Gondor was based on the crown of the Pharaohs of Egypt? Do they know that Tolkien considered Byzantium the basis for Minas Tirith? Do they know that female warriors already exist in Tolkien’s books? Do they know when they rant about how much they hate “Guyladriel” that Amazon’s portrayal is actually too feminine? Ultimately, people who complain about wokeness in Rings of Power—or any Tolkien adaptation—are just betraying their own idiocy. I honestly think if Tolkien’s books were published now conservatives would scream that they’re woke too.

[conejita-canelita]

I could never be on board with the hatred of Colin being Penelope's HEA because it just sounds so cruel no matter which way you put it. What I love about Colin's character is his softness: Colin is genuinely, truly, and deeply kind and good. He likes to look for the best in everyone and is genuinely confused and hurt when he is met with the reality that most people will lie and cheat and tear down others for their own gain or for no other reason besides just being mean. He is empathetic towards Marina in a situation where any other person would've scandalized her further and kicked her to the curb, because he *understood* that she is not a cruel and evil person, but was someone who suffered a cruel tragedy and was desperate to secure safety for her future. He is kind to Penelope and values her deeply as her friend, and ironically how highly he regards that friendship ends up hurting both of them in its own respective ways because of the regressive views of the ton. He messed up in saying what he did about Penelope at her mother’s ball, but he also takes responsibility for his actions and makes amends to show just how much he values her. He is such a nerd even if this season he wants to pretend like he’s this cool and mysterious rebel; he’ll buckle and fall like a newborn deer the second he sets eyes on the love of his life. He is such a romantic and wants to show off his wife to anyone who will listen. He is a family man who adores his siblings to the moon and back; he buys his younger sisters little gifts and always had his mom’s back. He adores being a father and thinks that his greatest passion in bachelorhood (traveling) is meaningless if his wife and kids aren’t there to join him. Just. How can you hate Colin??? I’m seriously trying to see how anyone can assume malice or bad faith from him and his actions. Is he perfect? No!!! But he’s a character that tries, truly and deeply, to actively be a better and good person. He loves so unabashedly and so deeply to where you can’t help but have a soft spot for him.

[orphiclovers]

Ya ever think Pre-Scenarios Yoo Joonghyuk went to church / ya think Yoo Joonghyuk has catholic guilt?

You would never get asked questions like this on any other site. Gotta love tumblr. And of COURSE I have thoughts on this that I will ramble on in great detail.

In general, I always try to be careful to not accidentally project my western understanding onto things with a different cultural context. Especially in regards to things like Christianity, since it’s not universal and…idk it would feel inaccurate to ascribe it to characters who wouldn’t realistically encounter it themselves? Not that you can’t, but I personally try not to. That's irrelevant with ORV though, they literally made the biblical Garden of Eden be a place YJH has been shirtless in. So I’m just going to go ahead and assume that all the Christian motifs I find are intentional and fair game lol

I’ll start with your second question: KDJ’s the one with the catholic guilt, not YJH. YJH has something much more sinister going on.

He gets two main monikers in canon - ‘Pilgrim of The Lonely Apocalypse’ and ‘Puppet of The Oldest Dream.’ In ORV your moniker basically reveals what your ‘story’ is all about. These two names are supposed to show what Yoo Joonghyuk represents, and my thoughts there are…

1. Puppet of the Oldest Dream

He’s the incarnation of the all-seeing and all-knowing god that created the world. 

What I’m saying is, he's a Jesus figure, alright? HEAR ME OUT. He is cursed to walk the world and suffer eternally to bring salvation to one man - at the end it's revealed that he willingly chooses to bear this burden (talking about 0th here). It’s that classic scapegoat story, bearing the sins of the world to save everyone else, but he's also choosing to do this, despite knowing it will be awful.

At the end of his regressions, when he breaks free of his chains, stops being a puppet, he finds himself lost and missing their weight. He had a terrible purpose in regression - without it, he's meaningless again.

2. As Pilgrim of the Lonely Apocalypse

He's literally called a ‘pilgrim’ - someone who goes on a journey to find god. Catholic guilt is about thinking you deserve to suffer for some perceived sins, but Yoo Joonghyuk already is in Hell. ‘Hell of Eternity’ specifically, which manifests with the Christian imagery of fire and brimstone. His ‘journey to find God’ takes him through a world of unimaginable pain and cruelty that he has to somehow find meaning in. (Both YJH and SP have different answers on what that meaning is in different points in their life. )

Needless to say, he has A LOT of imagery associated with religion.

On a more personal level, YJH is motivated by this ceaseless search for the meaning of his own existence. There's the extra layer there that he knows instinctively he was put on this earth for some grand reason, only no one ever tells him what it is. He’s cast into the world without memories and has to stumble through life blind, just like the rest of us. He desperately seeks someone who can tell him what he’s supposed to do, parent, god, prophet or anyone else. (Basically, he's an edgy atheist teenager.)

That’s why he never reaches his ‘▪️▪️’ - the cruel thing is that he can’t ever truly find his purpose, because he is driven by having an unreachable goal.

To answer your first question: Pre-scenarios Yoo Joonghyuk is busy trying to survive his shitty job and taking care of Mia. He doesn't have time for church or having a life or anything. All he can do is daydream of one day finding whoever created him and gave him life. He puts all his hopes on getting enough money to hire a private investigator and keeping this single goal in mind for years. 

He will meet his parents and they will tell him what he’s supposed to do right? The really fucked up thing is, he does eventually get there.

The investigators give him an address, which he visits but finds only an empty house. On the way back, he has a little bit of an existential crisis and starts really thinking about it all. even thinks the classic YJH ‘who am I?’ Then, not even one second later, THE FUCKING APOCALYPSE STARTS. THERE’S HIS ANSWER I GUESS!!!!!

[yellowocaballero]

Survival in another world begins with a death.

It’s just genre convention. Usually for transmigrations or reincarnations, although sometimes regressions follow the pattern. Isekais where the main character dies suddenly and wakes up in another world are very popular. The method of death is usually pretty simple: hit by a truck or death by overwork are the most common. It’s never important. Death was only a method, a panel or a few lines in the beginning to explain how the lead left their world to wake up in another body and become the protagonist of a story.

The story requests something of the reader: that you don’t stop and wonder about the lives left behind. The lead is usually an orphan with no loved ones, friends, career, or future. Their death is inconsequential and meaningless, because they will not be remembered. They will find love and family and a future in the new world. Please do not worry about their old life. Death doesn’t matter if you mattered to nobody. Death is good if the life was bad. 

Ways of Survival was my favorite story. Within its snow-white gardens I was Yoo Joonghyuk. Reading other isekais, I was only ever the solitary person trapped in a hopeless world. I could not follow the will of the story: I always wondered about the people left behind in the other world. 

Did these leads never come home because nobody remembered them?

If somebody remembered them…would they come home?

New fic drop tomorrow! Please keep a lookout for The Ending of Han Sooyoung: featuring one yearning and emotionally constipated man, one self insert Mary sue, and one extremely pathetic nerd.

I meant to get this posted today, but things got very busy. That's also why I forgot to mention that this fic exists at all jalksdf.

[leikeliscomet]

No, Ncuti Gatwa's Casting Isn't Regressive

**Contents** Intro Chapter 1 - For Black Boys? Chapter 2 - Strong (White) Female Character Chapter 3 - Dancing Queen/Conclusion

Intro

Ncuti Gatwa is making history. I don't say this as an exaggeration or flex. He literally is. In Doctor Who’s 61-year history, he is the first Black queer man to play the role. To reactionary sides of fandom, this is meaningless virtue signalling and from the colourblind, we’re erasing Gatwa’s skill by ‘focusing on race instead of the content of his character’ (or whatever MLK quote they’ve decided to misuse that day). But their ignorance doesn’t matter. When Gatwa’s casting was announced, there was joy all over the internet from Black diasporas across the globe. Black Brits were excited. Black Scots were excited. Black Americans were excited. Black Africans were excited. Black fans were excited. For Black and mixed-race fans of this show, we see this light no matter how hard right-wing British circles want it dimmed. 

In the words of the man himself, the Doctor is fucking Black.

So when did the word ‘regressive’ become attached to Gatwa’s name? How could this be a sad moment when there was so much joy? This announcement came at the end of the Chibnall era which for many had been a major moment of representation already. Jodie Whittaker was the first woman to play the Doctor and her casting was felt by many women and girls who were fans of the Chibnall era. Not only them, but many other marginalised genders felt seen by Thirteen because Whittaker saw the gender fluidity of the character, specifically noting Thirteen wasn't just wearing a ‘woman's costume’, but that it could be worn by anyone. But as one door closes another opens. Whilst Thirteen’s exit was painful for many, Gatwa’s casting is not a step back or a lesser form of representation. This creates a binary of Black v woman which alienates Black women in the fandom like myself and further perpetrates misogynoir that makes us have to ‘choose’ which parts of our identity matter more. On top of that it not only erases the significance of a Black doctor but also erases the potential of showing the Doctor from a queer Black male (presenting) POV in a show that has historically been underwhelming in representing the experiences of Black men and boys.

Chapter 1 ->

[starbylers]

That ring is a very small thing, but I feel like if that was a tiny Byler detail we wouldn’t think of it as meaningless. It could very well be that El just kept it on because she still loves him as a person and it’s sentimental to her, or that it’s not made important enough to symbolise anything storywise and was just a nice gift, but regardless I don’t think a post time skip break up is an impossibility. I understand why it might seem worrying or tedious but I think we have to remember that Mlvn has a track record of like…not ending things even when it’s demonstrated to them repeatedly why they don’t work together? I mean it starts with the lying & drama of s3 that they both forget about without addressing after El says ‘I love you’. It continues in s4 with El lying to Mike, their awful poorly communicated argument & Mike’s insecurities that he discussed with Will instead of El, which were again all unaddressed between Mlvn and painted over by Mike this time being the one to say ‘I love you’.

Mike ended s4 by basically regressing in his conformity arc. Maybe this is because I don’t think Mike consciously lied (at least not completely, I think he sensed something didn’t feel right) in the monologue, but where we left his arc in s4…the guy was fighting for his life to hold onto straightness and not lose El. El who also regressed in her independence arc when she relied on Mike to give her power (and ended up losing). Will also regressed, in deciding to lie to Mike instead of speak his truth. I know it might seem to us like ‘they are so clearly over what reason is there for them to stay together?’ but I think it’s possible we are further ahead in that realisation than the characters themselves. Them still being together is definitely tiring because we all know they are not going to work out, and we want to get to the part of the story we’ve been waiting for (aka Byler) as soon as possible. But that sense of inevitability/it being over to us doesn’t necessarily mean the characters themselves have reached their breaking point yet. We also know the painting plot is essentially the Benverly poem plot from IT, and Bev doesn’t find out that Ben wrote it until part 2 literally 27 years later lol.

There are so many paths they could take. Maybe they get into a Karen/Ted-esque dynamic where they’re just staying together and going through the motions. Maybe they fight, even more and worse than before. Maybe it has to get worse before they finally break it off and become friends, and then it gets better. Maybe they’re on-off during the skip. Maybe during that time Mike and Will get extremely close, closer than they’ve ever been. Maybe things between them start to feel like what Mike isn’t feeling with El, and that’s how he knows he has to end it. Maybe Will even dates someone else during the skip or temporarily ‘gets over’ Mike so it’s not like he’s spending years just pining. Maybe Mike and Will drift again, and then post skip they are brought back together and Mike gets hit with all the feelings he’s been missing and realises he needs to leave El. Or maybe he leaves her and the Will realisation comes after. Maybe it’s less clear cut than that. We have no clue. I think it has potential to be done well though.

For all we know they could literally break up as early as episode 2/3 right after the skip, which gives plenty of time for single Mike Byler build up. Remember we also don’t know the time span of the entire season.

I mean it could still be a pre-skip break up who knows, I just think it’s a possibility we should be somewhat prepared for and open to. I don’t think it should be written off entirely as either bad writing or it meaning Byler can’t/won’t happen. I’m personally going into s5 with no expectations except complete confidence in Byler being the endgame :)

[beheworthy]

I understand that you appreciated enough things about Love & Thunder (as in Jane's scenes, Thorjane, etc) to consider it canon, but what are your thoughts on the Thor2 deleted break up? I can't help but prefer them breaking up because of the long distance, or Jane being so overwhelmed that she "couldn't imagine a life with him" after everything, than what we got in canon. Maybe my opinion would change if I watched the movie, not sure, but I'm interested in your take on it.

*takes a deep breath* Buckle up.

1. I appreciate you saying whether I'd consider anything canon or not. Buddy, my acceptance is irrelevant. Anything Marvel puts out IS canon, regardless of how we feel about it. That's the whole entire reason I can't let this shit go. Because he's CANONICALLY drilled into the ground by Marvel with nowhere to go. And it depresses me.

2. I hate both break-up scenes because I simply don't want my OTP separated. Period. But if I have to validate any one, I'd go with Thor4 because at least its idea was understandable, the issue was its failed execution. The Thor2 breakup makes no sense and regresses their characters. The two reasons you present that the movie presents:

a) Breaking up because of long distance is such a bastardization of their magical relationship that transcends realms that I just cannot. He's not a coworker or a one-night stand she tried to have a relationship with and decided it wasn't working out. He's the Prince of the paradise in the clouds that's advanced to her realm by a millennium. He's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity as far as boyfriends go lol. And his mother died to protect her. Why? Because she had all but accepted her as her daughter-in-law.

You don't just break up with THAT because of long distance, that's unbelievably simplistic.

b) Jane being overwhelmed that she "couldn't imagine a life with him" is also against her character because she is such a zero self-preservation inquisitive soul that was so fascinated by Asgard's advanced technology, she would be at home on Asgard. She would want to be with him and explore his magical world she's studied about her whole life.

And ok, she was so overwhelmed that she would dump him. For what? To return to her boring 9 to 5 life and do theories of the phenomenons she could do practicals of on Asgard. That makes no sense with Jane's character.

Or she was so scared by the challenges of a life with him (even tho she was ready to die saving him a scene ago) that she just quit? That's not the Jane I know either. She takes challenges head-on and is not a quitter.

The ONLY reason she would break up with him is for him - like I said in my theory that Odin made her do it.

3. Even from a story-telling perspective, it was a terrible choice because it resets every character to their factory settings, rendering the development of Thor1 and 2 completely pointless. Jane becomes a meaningless person forgotten going forward. Thor and Odin are chilling in Asgard with nothing to do and Loki and Frigga are dead with their sacrifices for Thor and Jane amounting to a big fat 0. Why dedicate two whole movies to their romance only to break up because of freakin long distance?

You can't have the event of Ragnarok with Thor in Asgard. You can't have him on Midgard for Avengers movies. What is the point of this then?

-

Not to elongate an already long answer, but I always thought the plan was to make her the Queen of Asgard, the perfect foil for King Thor. Her love and quest for knowledge + kindness to help shirtless strangers combined with Thor's sense of justice and protection of his people would make them the PERFECT rulers. Do you know what I'd give for this to be Thor's final ending in the MCU?

Like, I thought she was written to be so fascinated with the stars beyond because that where she belongs. That's where she'll rule. That if anyone from Midgard in the MCU was meant to leave it and stay on Asgard their whole life, it's Jane because she's so far ahead of her time.

But I was Boo Boo the Fool. Her entire purpose in life was to die for him. Because Marvel's all about feminism.

[doctordragon]

I warned you about stairs, bro - a Homestuck mini essay

Homestuck often uses repeated phrases as callbacks and parallels, and oftentimes these are used to string together greater thematic elements. Some examples are “acrobatic fucking pirouette” and “It’s hard being a kid. It’s hard being a kid and no one understands.” 

However, I think the most iconic one is “I warned you about those stairs bro!!!” making its first appearance in the first SBAHJ comic. This comic depicts Sweet Bro about to “be a useless piece of shit and play all these games” as he walks towards a flight of stairs, but inevitably falls down them. Hella Jeff calls out to his friend with the iconic line and we are shown the same repeated image of Bro falling down the stairs, while Jeff watches helplessly, insisting that he warned Bro about those stairs. 

A character’s position in physical space is often used to represent that character’s state. More specifically, ascension and descension are used to represent character growth vs regression. Stairs are heavily utilized in this manner, as they are a physical symbol of ascension. One must exert themselves to climb stairs and make a conscious effort to climb them, representing the conscious effort of bettering yourself. 

Already, we can start to see some thematic connections between stairs and the SBHAJ comic. The opening line of the comic Bro states that he is going to “be a useless piece of shit” by wasting his time on video games. Bro acknowledges that his actions are detrimental and regressive, yet he is insistent on going through with them. The repeated falling down of the stairs shows this downward spiral Bro is on. Jeff can call out to Bro and warn him about those stairs as many times as he wants, but Bro will inevitably fall every time. 

Now if you think I’m crazy for overanalyzing SBAHJ, irony being used as a mask to cover sincere emotions is a central theme of Homestuck. Dirk said himself in something I consider to be somewhat of a thesis statement of Homestuck “The upper echelons of irony should always include measures of sincerity,” and I think this quote can and should be applied to SBAHJ, the highest echelon of irony. In addition, Homestuck contains characters like Rose who love to overanalyze seemingly meaningless shit, meaning Homestuck is begging to be overanalyzed itself.

“I warned you about those stairs, bro” is a tragic, yet funny statement. It represents watching someone you care about falling inevitably into a downward spiral. It’s something you know, but no matter how much you try to warn them about those stairs, they will still fall. Yet, this phrase is also deeply soaked in irony and humor, especially having originated in SBAHJ. It’s a self-aggrandizing mockery, as you demonstrate someone’s own stupidity towards them - they could not avoid the stairs, despite your repeated and correct warnings. Both Vriska and Bro Strider use this as a means to mock their abuse victims. 

I don’t really have a solid thesis - this is more of a ramble than an essay, but I really think “I warned you about those stairs bro” is a very thematically interesting line worthy of analysis. 

[edalynn]

ok an entire year later how do you feel about the owl house season 3........ i rewatched it recently during that one marathon and auhhhhh honestlyyyyy idk it was fineeeee...... the second episode fucking sucks every single time i watch it (other than the luz and camila scene) but i found myself enjoying "watching and dreaming" more than i did the first time. i think the parts that really mattered were fucking amazing, like eda & king & luz reunion, luz's "death" (seriously the music and animation was SO good), the final fight, belos' death. they did the best they could with the extreme time restraint, and i do like how it focused more on just luz and eda and king instead of Those Other Guys (said with love). but i can't believe how bad "for the future" was. it somehow manages to get worse upon every rewatch LOL. what are your thoughts? also hiiiii

HIII!!! I agree entirely, the parts of the episode that mattered were REALLY REALLY good! Everything involving the main story and plot were done insanely well with how much they probably had to cut out with the series being shortened. The final fight still gives me chills and while I wish we got to see more than we did, I'm satisfied with how the main story was wrapped up, and I'm happy that the final episode finally put all the extra side plots going on with the other characters to the side to bring the main three back to the focus like they were at the start of the series. Removing the episode from the rest of the disaster that was the second episode, I actually really enjoy it and like it. That being said, SERIOUSLY. Why was FtF SO FUCKING BAD. Every time I watch it, it makes me find more things to be mad at it for/dislike about it. Easily the worst episode of the entire series, it still feels so out of place and unnecessary. And half the episode feels like it recons certain characters' arcs just to give the episode some "villains". Which is stupid because Belos and the Collector ARE STILL RIGHT FUCKING THERE. Like, there was no reason to make Kiki still power hungry as if Belos telling her to go die in a hole and her helping King because she was just so broken at the end of it all during the Day of Unity never fucking happened. She was always fighting for Belos (and herself by extent, but), so why would she still be trying to rule people? That makes no sense in the context of the story. And Boscha begging Amity to take her back? Also makes no sense. Like, yes, it makes slightly more sense than Kiki, but only for the fact that we don't really see Boscha ever get "better" yet, she mostly just became irrelevant. Although, that' not entirely true either, because we see her being disgusted by Luz and Amity being romantic in the beginning of LR, so actually I take it back. It makes just as little sense as Kiki regressing back to her old ways, now with no purpose behind it. It just reads so much like bad fanfic writing from a 12 year old that just discovered Wattpad lmao.

And obviously, don't even get me started on the Willow bullshit from the episode. I feel like I've repeated myself a million times about how that episode fully put the anchor on the sinking of her character & arc. And the fact that they used Hunter as a way of doing it, which also made Hunter extremely OOC and made half his arc and growth meaningless. Just makes me SO fucking mad.

[pttucker]

[Story, 'One Who Is Loved by All', has begun its storytelling.] Tiny flowers began blooming on the vines created by the Outer Gods, as if they were giving me their precious hidden something. Fragrance wafted out from those flowers, soon becoming lyrics to a song. And afterwards, it formed a story. ⸢"Captain."⸥ It was a fragment of a very old memory. ⸢"Yoo Joonghyuk-ssi."⸥ I listened to those voices like an entranced man. They belonged to different people, but I could accurately guess the owners of those voices with my eyes closed. I had been thinking about this for a long while. If the 'Secretive Plotter' was Yoo Joonghyuk from the original story, and just like what he had shown me, if the countless world-lines of the 'Ways of Survival' existed out there, then… The innumerable failed stories within those regression turns, just where would they have ended up in?

Wait, are all of the outer gods people from the other worldlines who finished their stories after Joonghyuk regressed???

Or maybe people who didn't?

Joonghyuk asked his sponsor a while back and he claimed that this world would continue on without him so I guess it's possible either way? Either they finished and became powerful enough to move to another worldline like Secretive Plotter (but weren't powerful enough to maintain their forms?) or they failed and ended up here automatically???

Granted, Joonghyuk's sponsor could have been lying just to get him to regress and leave Dokja since he wasn't thrilled about Dokja's influence over him...

In which case, once Joonghyuk regresses does the entire world just get shifted over to another worldline and they become outer gods?

And the Final Scenario in each "new" world is to "clean up" all of the stories that "failed" AKA kill all of the previous world's 'characters' without even realizing it? Like back when Dokja turned into a squid and the Star Stream basically tried to trick everyone into fighting?

Especially with Dokja reading that book and realizing that they're all basically outer gods to each other, as well as the fact that TWSA never really explained anything about the outer gods. So is everyone an outer god in waiting?

Also, I was pretty much joking about how Dokja's new Modifier should be something related to how much people both love and hate him (still haven't gotten that Modifier yet hmmm) but the fact that he actually does gain a story that's called One Who Is Loved by All makes me think that maybe something similar is actually a serious possibility.

Also...is he loved because he's their precious reader who reads and remembers their stories? The one who doesn't want them to disappear even if they're boring or they don't end happily.

He is the one who said this to the giants after all:

"Are all failed stories meaningless? Even if you know you will fail, isn't the story of those who have fought to the end worth it?"

[betawooper]

why YJH orv shouldve been a girl

*Specifically a trans woman, btw. If she was a cis woman that would be a different conversation and there are nuances regarding transness which wouldnt exist in what im talking about otherwise

(This is gonna be a bulleted list bc fuck ordering things in an essay format, also mega orv spoilers so look away if you havent read the novel in its entirety)

it wouldve been a legitimate time save in previous regressions while mastering breaking the sky swordsmanship and that concept is So Funny to me

the transcenders are all gnc af, theres a whole theme surrounding breaking from the norm to reach their true potential, it wouldve fit thematically

if done right, it could emphasize the theme of loneliness thats tied with joonghyuk’s character if none of her other companions are trans; even if they were it wouldnt have mattered since they would have forgotten she was a woman in future regressions anyway

if she tries to repress her identity bc expression of it is deemed unnecessary or meaningless, even more points

would have pushed the narrative foiling with dokja even further since they already have opposing imagery and metaphors, now they would be the opposite gender too

the ‘does dokja and joonghyuk is gay’ joke wouldnt poke fun at the thought of two men being together, but rather at the absurdity of a relationship occurring and still being called such in the first place simply bc of joonghyuk’s gender

bonus points if you emphasize joonghyuk’s canonical lack of interest/attraction to men in light of this, dokja could have joked about that easily

random person: “you two look like lovers lol”

dokja, internally: the bitch is literally a lesbian but Okay-

it would have fit orv’s style of comedy a lot and also remove the slightly homophobic undertones of the original joke too, do you see a downside to this? i dont

she would parallel sookyung (dokja’s mom) even more since joonghyuk essentially “raised” dokja after sookyung could no longer do so

theres already a strong theme about how twsa became dokja’s caretakers in a sense and having joonghyuk be a mother figure instead of a father figure would push the idea of her taking up what should have been sookyung’s duties

besides, the narrative focuses way more on how the lack of a present maternal figure affects dokja over a paternal one so itd be more relevant

also insert joke about joonghyuk being a milf

next, this would parallel sooyoung a lot more, there tends to be this joke amongst creative circles that a creator often projects parts of themselves in their works and that includes characters, both of them being women would make that way more obvious

parallels hayoung bc uh, Trans obviously (sooyoung loves her trans main protagonists lmao)

transfem joonghyuk wouldve made her dynamic/relationship with seolhwa much more interesting since they wouldnt be a typical “het” couple anymore, seolhwa’s character could have been given a little more relevance with the kind of conflicts which could arise from this, the most obvious relating to sexuality

on that note, their ideas of femininity and how they prefer to express it are completely different despite them both being the same gender which could bring up interesting conversations about it (mostly thinking about that scene where seolhwa and joonghyuk go to the auction house prior to gigantomachia and talk about cosmetic skills, this scene couldve been way more fleshed out than it was presented in canon)

if you still want the punisher to exist, this could also fit into that conversation about gender expression and bring up interesting ideas depending on how butch you make joonghyuk

both seolhwa and the punisher would add a lot of complexity to joonghyuk’s whole relationship with self-indulgence and happiness since again, bc of her situation as a regressor she either wouldnt want to open herself up in the interest of practicality or doesnt feel deserving of it when her goal hasnt been accomplished

god are there more points? ill edit this if so but this is already so fucking long-

I actually wrote a whole thing about joonghyuk being uncracked during the events of orv and the comedic potential of it is endless when dokja is the only one who knows, so trust me when i say it does work out very very well (i can link to the stuff in the replies? so far ive got uhhhhh *counts* 54k words of that shit)

Anyways transfem yjh supremacy

[miirshroom]

An Elden Ring Word String Theory

I was thinking a bit about the anagrams of the name "Radagon". As it turns out "a dragon" is far from the only functional anagram that can be spun from this short 7-letter name. And on the one hand I understand the perspective that asks: why? Why make one name an anagram and no others? Or are words meaningless and we should look for anagrams in all Elden Ring names now? This would certainly contradict everything else I've found regarding how character and place names are selected for the sum total meaning of their syllables and translations, that leaves little room for more secret scrambled meanings. But here is an actual argument in favour of the anagrams of Radagon:

TOM MARVOLO RIDDLE

I AM LORD VOLDEMORT

One name split into meaningful anagrams is I think the only instance that FromSoft/GRRM would really need to bring into focus some parallels to a certain other story that called attention to a single plot important anagram. And it was in the name of the main villain of the book series. That and the way that both Radagon and Voldemort split their souls into 7 or so pieces (i.e. Great Runes) and were trying to become immortal. But a deep dive into the way that psychological alchemy can reinforce a toxic worldview dissociated from reality deserves a separate post. This one is about anagrams.

The Literary Tradition of Anagrams

Regarding Voldemort specifically, I did a search to confirm that I am correct that there is only the one anagram name, and the answer is - yes and no. If there is any other name that JKR cared to make an anagram of she only did so unofficially and using the English language. Fans have apparently found some odd plot coincidences buried in names from the mountains of sludge of possible anagrams - so who knows. Regardless, there is a self evident thing about making a declarative statement into an anagram rather than simply a scrambled name - it doesn't work across multiple languages. Which is awkward when the anagram features in a dramatic moment of the book. And so I did behold a list of Voldemort anagrams, with a few selections as below:

Tom Elvis Jedusor = Je suis Voldemort

Tom Sorvolo Ryddle = Soy Lord Voldemort

Tom Vorlost Riddle = Ist Lord Voldemort

Anton Morvol Hert = Archon Voldemort

Romeo G. Detlev Jr. = jeg er Voldemort

Marten Asmodom Vilijn = Mijn naam is Voldemort

Tom Gus Mervolo Dolder = Ego Sum Lord Voldemort

It's a strange solution to a manufactured problem. "Vol de Mort" has meaning - it is from French and translates to "flight of death". So paradoxically the "pseudonym" of the name cannot be compromised and seems to be what was selected first. The rest of the name exists in service of "Voldemort" - you can tease meaning from the name-shaped word of "Marvolo" but wasn't there an easier solution? What about "Tom V Rolde"? With that you get a whole middle initial to work with - maybe "Vincentius" or something. Perhaps "Thomas Vincent Enigma Rold" is also opaque enough with "Rold" passed off as a portmanteau of red-gold that suits the alchemy theme (that's a speculation on how Elden Ring uses it for the "Rold Lift Medallion"). There is a long literary history of authors using anagrams, and it is rare to find that they use filler words like the addition of "I am Lord". I imagine because they do things the logical way around for cause and effect and start with a mundane name that is then scrambled into the fake name. When we say that JK Rowling was never a very good writer, short-sighted anagram planning is just a drop in the bucket next to her regressive social politics, British colonial view of all countries outside of her home, and racial stereotyping word association used in the selection of other character names.

Often, but not always, anagrams are used for comedy - as in the way that Lemony Snicket uses anagrams - or a means of having a legally distinct name from some source material used as inspiration - think Da Vinci Code's "Teabing" being an anagram of "Baigent" - the man who popularized the psuedo-history that was then used for the thriller novel. Or else it's used in a fantasy and/or multicultural setting where exotic sounding nonsense names just blend into the other odd names - like "Dandelo" ("Odd Lane") the psychic emotion-stealing vampire who appears in the last volume of Stephen King's The Dark Tower series. And then again in Gulliver’s Travels, where “Tribnia” and “Langden” (Britain and England, respectively) are mentioned in passing in the section of the story dedicated to the voyage to Laputa, Balnibarbi, Luggnagg, Glubbdubdrib and Japan. Although there is something off about a name that is used by no person in the real world, few people will pause in the middle of reading to search and find that all results point to the fictional character (or even expect to find anything when placed beside sich an obvious fake name as “Glubbdubdrib”), so no drama is sacrificed. That's suspension of disbelief at work.

A Case for the Anagrams of Radagon

All this to say that there are writers out there who like to play with anagrams. And I think that perhaps the writers of Elden Ring took that concept to an extreme. In the examples above and most others it is one meaningful English language anagram extracted per name. In contrast, I'm currently at a count of 24 different anagrams of Radagon that are all consistent with other information from FromSoft’s body of work. Because I have been playing the FromSoft word games with other character names and I am not satisfied with just considering modern English. Archaic words, other languages, even abbreviations are on the table as far as I'm concerned. There are three that seem to me particularly strong evidence that "Radagon" is indeed a name with a multitude of anagrams that were spun out into characters and meaning throughout the history of the Lands Between: "D Aragon", "A Narog D" and "Gor Adan".

The first came about when I was browsing through the history of alchemy and witch hunts. The Dominican priest (i.e. "D") Nicholas Eymericus is best known for being the Inquisitor General of Aragon and for writing the Directorium Inquisitorum (1376) an instructional guide for identifying and prosecuting heresies including witchcraft. And here can be extracted another previously known facet of Radagon - as an Inquisitor who went out to hunt the witch Queen of Raya Lucaria. I see an immediate connection here to D, Hunter of Death, who has long been suspected of hinting at something about the dual nature of Radagon and Marika due their description along with D, Beholder of Death of being a single being in two bodies. And both have the very odd decision to be introduced as an initial rather than by name. In particular, D Hunter is on a mission to hunt down unnatural creatures. D Beholder directly calls Fia a "rotten witch". The idea of an Order of witch hunters is elevated from subtext to text with witch-hunter Jerren in his pursuit of the witch Sellen. And there's the symbolism in the hammer wielded by Radagon - another major text of the witch hunts was the Malleus Maleficarum (1486) or "The Hammer of Witches". Which itself has a direct line of connection in Recusant Henricus near the Limgrave Colosseum who drops the Hammer Talisman - Henricus Institor is the latinized name of the churchman and Inquisitor who wrote that book. It was swiftly denounced as heresy by the Church for its cruelty, but escaped containment and became well known after widely spreading among the people and secular courts.

And as for “A Narog D” that is a word string that seems meaningless at first glance, but I see it as the complement to Aragon D. Its significance came up while I was looking into Tolkein’s histories regarding the linguistic connections of Gelmir and Faroth. Contemporary with the War of the Silmarils, the Narog river passed through the area called “Taur-en-Faroth” or “the Hills of the Hunters” from its upstream origin point at the Pools of Ivrin. Also found in this area was the hidden underground city of Nargothrond, which was originally constructed by petty dwarves, then occupied by elves, and then turned to a dragon lair after its fall. And then sank into the ocean along with the rest of the continent at the end of the pre-history. So with the context of an underground city rendered inaccessible by time and the Narog river, “a Narog D” would be D, Beholder of Death, who is found in Elden Ring at the underground city of Nokron.

If there’s one name that I would give special attention it is "Adan Gor". Firstly the obvious: Adan is a Spanish variant of "Adam" - presumably with connotations of "Adam and Eve" - and "Gor" is a dialect version of "God", with well known uses including Moby Dick ("And, by Gor, none of you has de right to dat whale"). To get biblical for a moment it evokes the thought of the first Man Adam created in the image of God. The character “Adan, Thief of Fire” also incorporates the image of Prometheus bringing fire to humanity, having in his possession the Flame of the Fell God, which appears like the 3D orb of the sun. A merging of religious connotations on multiple levels, with a hint of the scientific in how the orb is reminiscent of the modern images that we can obtain of the sun and its corona. Element 61, Promethium, was so named at around the time that humankind first demonstrated the terrible power of the nuclear bomb. Radagon also rearranges to “and a Gor” - further emphasizing that Radagon was made in the image of a Creator and rose to be a “god” in his own right, in some fashion.

And that's neat, but "gor" is a versatile word and I think that it can be squeezed for more understanding of the nature of how Radagon modifies the conceptual Adam. In the German Ore Mountains dialect, "gor" means "refined" in the sense of metal or "cooked/ready for consumption" in terms of food. In Old Norse and Faroese it means "the old portion of food brought from the stomachs of ruminants to be chewed a second time". In Middle Welsh it means "over" or "next to". From Irish there are several along the lines of "to hatch, to heat, to burn, to inflame, to incubate, to brood". In Rohyngia it means "upwards" and in Slovene it means "do". Altogether, Radagon is not the base form of the first man, but one that has been grown and reiterated and improved upon over time. In German "gor" can mean "has agitated" or "has seethed". Seethewater Cave is found at the base of Mt. Gelmir filled with mushrooms and pests and deliberately sealed with two stonesword keys. What is sealed in this cave are items connected to the scarlet rot with which Radagon’s daughter Malenia is afflicted.

But there are still more meanings and I am going to go through every single one from Wiktionary. From Azerbaijani and North Kurdish there are "the grave/the afterlife". Radagon is man made in the image of his Creator, but what he is created for is to watch over an afterlife - hence the strong theming of death and graves in the Lands Between (and in Dark Souls and Bloodborne games as well, as will be apparent in the next paragraph - consider this a warning for spoilers ahead). In Old English "gor" means "dung" or "feces" and in Middle English "muck" or poetically a "weapon with a sharp point" like sword or spear, or the act of piercing with this weapon. Radagon is made in the image of his Creator that was a terrible god rooted in violent bullshit. This theming comes through strong in the Dungeater and Golden Tinged Excrement. And for a George RR Martin tie-in - see his novelette “Sandkings” which is a microcosm of this exact scenario. In Carribean Hindustani "gor" means "foot". How often is it a joke that Miyazaki loves rendering bare feet? In Armoured Core V the legs parts are named after mountains - characterized by solid foundations. In Elden Ring there is an interplay between various demigods who attempt to compensate for their failing feet. Feet are associated with deep roots and origins and agency and willpower.

For Welsh "gor" is a mutation of the word "cor" meaning "dwarf", "pygmy", "little urchin", "spider", "shrew". And this may perhaps be a hint to just how long FromSoft has known that they would be making a villain named Radagon. Because these can point directly to the oddly named Furtive Pygmy (a diminutive bald man who rather resembles Elden Ring's statues of man cultivating a single golden shoot from a tangle of sunflowers). Even a nod to "Patches the Spider" as he appears in Bloodborne, where Patches himself has been something of a multiverse traveler in FromSoft games dating back to Armored Core: For Answer (2008) and may even be a deliberate callback to a character from Shadow Tower Abyss (2003), and has himself been speculated to be a form of the pygmy. FromSoft has tended to work economically like this - if they find something deep in the catalog that they can call back to they will use it. In the anagram breakdown section below I can point directly to Kings Field (1994) as providing inspiration that was pulled all the way forwards to Elden Ring.

In Basque "gor" means "deaf". This synergizes well with the long-run running theme in FromSoft games that ringing bells allow communication with the past. It can even be seen in the title of the game - the Elden Ring. Because what is a man to do who is deaf and cannot hear the ringing? He must work through proxies - and the inherent drawbacks this has for communication. This theme of deafness comes into focus in Bloodborne with Ludwig the Accursed - who according to Occam's Razor is most likely named for Ludwig van Beethoven. It is from Ludwig that the FromSoft staple of the Moonlight Sword is received, and one of Beethoven's best known works is the Moonlight Sonata dedicated in 1802. Famously, from his late 20's and onwards - shortly after writing the Moonlight Sonata - Beethoven gradually lost his hearing and developed tinnitus (persistent illusory ringing), until he could no longer hear voices or music by 1812, but continued to compose even while on the edge of being totally deaf. An odd environmental occurrence early in the Old Hunters DLC is when a snail person drops from the sky, just before the whirligig saw pickup. The inner ear has the spiral shape of a snail shell. Bloodborne is more dense with bells than any other FromSoft game - I would hazard a guess that part of the madness of the Hunters is that they develop tone deafness and become unable to distinguish between the various beckons of bells that call them to hunt monsters and the ones that call to hunt fellow hunters.

And here's one more thought to shelve and see if it makes an appearance. There is at least one proper and complete name that I have extracted as an anagram: Gordana. It is a feminine Cyrillic name from the areas in and around present day Serbia and North Macedonia and from the word "gȏrd" meaning "proud". In the 300's BCE - at roughly the same time that Alexander the Great was active - present day Serbia was at the southern limit of the lands occupied by the Celts. Before the area was conquered by the Romans. It interests me that this name ends in the suffix "na". There is a quite large subset of names in Elden Ring with that suffix. And afterall, “burning the Erdtree is the first cardinal sin” which in the Catholic tradition is: pride.

Elden Ring and a Theory of Word Strings

And it can be said that this is all a matter of confirmation bias and that I am selecting meanings. Which is true. But I did spend a significant amount of time doing the research into the intersection of language, history and science that led to these conclusions. At risk of explaining badly (see acollierastro for an actual physicist's explanation), I think the point is that it's like String Theory of physics, but applied to word strings.

If I were to show an English speaker who has never engaged with Elden Ring a list of 400 anagrams ranging from "a dragon" to "a ag dr no" then there is a preference to latch on to the immediately identifiable word strings and dismiss the rest. It is only after experiencing the game and the many linguistic frameworks that it encompasses that the possibility for other significant word strings is revealed. To my understanding, string "theory" of physics is more of a validation tool for completing elegant math on already known parameters and outcomes. String theory is not predictive - and similarly the majority of word strings generated are likely meaningless. And so the 'Word String Theory of Anagrams' is - in the case of this one trickster character themed around mimicry - perhaps only useful as a way to validate character traits and connections that are otherwise intentionally obfuscated.

To tie the topic back to the contents of the game itself there is indeed a game item which alludes to String Theory, hiding in plain sight. In one of my previous posts I discussed the symbolism behind the Cracked Pot item with regards to physics Crackpots. Well, "String Theory" has generally proved to be an unsuccessful model of physics, such that anyone currently still taking it seriously as a "theory" rather than a mathematical tool might be described as a crackpot. The Roped Pot items in Elden Ring are not crafted with pot + contents + rope as one might expect, but instead with an item called string. String leaving behind it a trail of crackpottery.

String

Boasting no special qualities, this is merely a goodly length of string. Material used for crafting items. Often carried by demi-humans. Used to make certain items easier to use.

In fact, strings have always had a central importance in Elden Ring. The trailer for the original game showed fine strands of golden light strings trailing from Marika's Hammer, and DLC trailer has provided a recent reminder of the significance of "strings" in the narrative with the golden strands being manipulated by the central figure.

And words also have a power for those who are faithful. The Cipher Pata is a weapon retrieved from the Round Table Hold and is comprised of a string of words written in golden light.

Cipher Pata

One of the weapons originating from the Two Fingers. A formless sequence of ciphers comprise its blade, and as such no shield can repel it. Deals holy damage.

The furtive inscription appears to hang in the air; the language of light spoken by the Two Fingers.

Another significant component of this Theory of Word Strings is that it is also a multi-verse theory. Notice how I did not limit to just Elden Ring in the previous section discussing anagrams of Adan Gor. This is also tied directly back to the real-world reference point - providing a framework for the existence of multiverses was one of the things that people found exciting about String Theory.

Radagon Anagrams Examined

The first 3 anagrams were presented in such a way as to tie in directly with named characters in Elden Ring. Consider that a validation check or proof of concept. The remainder of these are used as launching points to discuss whatever concepts that I feel match most closely in Elden Ring and other FromSoftware games.

Several of these were previously covered in another post, but I browsed through a second time and enough more to add that for the sake of presentation I think that it's worth keeping the whole set in the text of this post.

"rand oga" - "rand" and "oga" are both Old English/proto-Germanic meaning altogether "on the edge of terror". As blacksmith Hewg says of Marika (who is Radagon): "The sheer terror of her…". In the deep FromSoft history, there was once a minor miner NPC character in King's Field (1994) called "Rand Ferrer" whose name means "on the edge of a blacksmith". Blacksmiths are creators, and have been explicitly equated in FromSoft games as the “Hands of God” at least dating back to Demon’s Souls, where blacksmiths Boldwin and Ed drop the fist weapons of this name.

"a dog ran" "a god ran" - the dog part is self explanatory as Radagon is described as a leal hound and here we see that Radagon was a dog god who fled - to borrow the language of Placidusax’ fled god. And there is a specific dog god who fits surprisingly well - Xolotl. From Aztec mythology, Xolotl is the dark personification of the planet Venus, which is the “gold star” in Japan. Also a god of fire (“heavenly fire”) and lighting, twins, monsters, misfortune, death, sickness, and deformities. The later half of that description fits well to the afflictions of Morgott/Mohg and Miquella/Malenia. Common depiction of Xolotl is as a dog headed man, sometimes with a blade in his mouth to symbolize death. This is echoed in the knife-dog design of the wolves of Radagon, but also the design of Gurranq. I am not certain if it is hearsay that Gurranq will place his blade in mouth when executing the Ground Rupture attack with both hands, but I do know that the Cinquedea dagger can be found after platforming below the Bestial Sanctum in Caelid and the item is sitting conspicuously posed in the open jaws of a broken beast pillar that has been knocked to the ground. Another feature of Xolotl depictions is to show him with empty eyesockets in acknowledgement of the time that Xolotl wept so much at the sacrifice of the gods required to start the motion of the newly created sun that his eyes fell out of their sockets. Every depiction of Radagon shows him with empty voids in the place of eyes, and this also extends to the depiction of 5 of the 6 stone imp masks obtainable in game - which are themselves evocative of the Aztec style of stone carving. Similar to the Norse god Loki (who I believe has many other parallels to Radagon), Xolotl is also characterized as a shapeshifter, and with his shapeshifting extends even further to becoming plants as well as animals. Conflating Radagon and Gurranq/Maliketh is something that I take for granted - after all Maliketh is the shadow of Marika and Marika is Radagon. 

"Ra Dagon" - "Ra" Egyptian god of the sun and "Dagon" the principal deity of the ancient Middle Euphrates region. Also the Lovecraftian Dagon fish god thing. There is a dense mythology around the sun throughout FromSoft’s games and only the faintest hint of Egyptian mythology in places such as Oceiros (Osiris) the Consumed King of Dark Souls 3, the eye of Horus used as emblem for the LYNX pilot Joshua O’Brien in Armored Core 4, and the appearance of scarabs in Elden Ring. I am guessing that this is so that it is hinted but not immediately obvious that characters with their eye of Ra open - the left side eye, from perspective of onlooker - have a close connection to the sun and characters with their eye of Horus open - the right side eye - have a close connection to the moon. The Euphrates region is referenced directly in Elden Ring with the copy of the Imago Mundi at the feet of the bearded tree man statues found in underground areas. And then there is the Fishing Hamlet in Bloodborne which seems a nod to the Lovecraftian story of “Shadow over Innsmouth” in which the inhabitants are worshipers of Dagon - in this case with Kos taking the place of Dagon. Unpacking intent here will likely lead to circular logic, but a broad guess is that Dark Souls as a series examines the eclipsed sun in tandem with Bloodborne examining the eclipsed moon.

"naga d'or" - "naga" is Hindu meaning "a member of a race of spirits recognized in Hinduism and Buddhism that have mingled superhuman and serpent qualities, are genii of waters and rain, and live in a subaqueous kingdom", and "d'or" is French meaning "of gold". There is a particular snarl with the Naga, as with all living religions, that it is rather disrespectful to invoke them by name as a beast to be slain in a fantasy context. But there are still many ways to use the aesthetic without the name, such as in the case of Mytha the Baneful Queen from Dark Souls 2 - a silver serpent-woman perhaps as counterpart to an absent gold king. After looking beyond the specific hinduism lens, an example of a being with mingled superhuman and serpent qualities can be found in the story of Eglė the Queen of Grass Snakes who lends her name to the Temple of Eiglay. Eglė herself was no serpent, but her husband was King of the Grass Snakes and could transform back and forth between man and watersnake. In the abstract, the Elden Beast seems to exist in a plane of endless water and is a creature of the Golden Elden Ring. Though it is also tempting to guess that this might be a DLC payoff one.

"Ra Gonad" - Ra is god of all of the sky (and earth and underworld), not just the sun. Venus was born of the testicles of Uranus - god of the sky - thrown into the sea. The second phase of Malenia's fight is styled as an allusion to Botticelli's "The Birth of Venus". So technically this one can work with Radagon as a link between his own father - the old god of the sky and/or sun - and his daughter Malenia.

"Agro DNA" - from the slang term "agro" meaning "aggressive". Perhaps that Radagon has an aggressive nature in his genes. He is something of a Beast.

"And Agro" - as in "Radagon and Agro" - the name of the horse from the Shadow of the Colossus (2005). Elden Ring similarly has the player form an attachment to horse. Notably, The Shadow of the Colossus was directly cited as an inspiration for Elden Ring. Perhaps even a response to it - that game is focused on preserving the life of a deceased maiden at all costs and has an inevitable grim conclusion at the end. In contrast Elden Ring lets the player choose wrong 5 out of 6 times, but there is still the 6th more hopeful choice once you learn to read developer intent - a choice that will try to break the cycle by moving past everything that has come before. Also, Elden Ring has 15 Remembrance Bosses in base game, which stops one short of the 16 Colossi that leads to that inevitable conclusion in SotC.

"Argo DNA" - Argo was the ship sailed by Jason to find the Golden Fleece. Note the golden sheep in the Altus Plateau area of Elden Ring. It is also the name of a gigantic constellation that was split into three parts in the modern day - thus Radagon's lineage is found in the stars. Afterall "It is said that long ago, the Greater Will sent a golden star bearing a beast into the Lands Between, which would later become the Elden Ring".

"Ag Ra don" "Ag adorn" - "Ag" is chemical short form for Silver, so "Ra dressed in silver", I suppose. One might recall that "Radagon" seems not to have been needed as an entity until going to Liurnia to confront a house of the moon (traditionally associated with silver). Also "Ag" derives from the French "Argent" and another major use of French that I've noted is in the name of "Seluvis" forming "se lu vis" meaning (probably with broken grammar) "To read one's own face".

"Argon AD" - "In the Year of our Lord, 18" - Argon was isolated in 1894 by William Ramsay ("Will I Am, Ram Say" - see Golden fleece above). It is element 18 on the periodic table and has a lavender/violet glow when placed in an electrical field, evocative of the visual used for gravity magic. Notable event in the year 18: "Winter – Germanicus Caesar arrives in Syria, as new commander-in-chief for the Roman East." I'm going to pull on Gideon Ofnir for this one, as he is partly named for the Germanic god Odin and also the visual of his intro screen echoes the opening of the Shakespeare play Julius Caesar: "lend me your ears, I come to bury Caesar". Much of Radagon’s concern in Liurnia seems to have been involved with refining the purple gravity magic, judging by the scholars who use in Rennala’s fight, the Alabaster Lord on the grounds, the hands using it at Caria Manor, and Radahn’s overall skill set. As mentioned in a previous post about Loki, it makes sense for Gideon to have also been around at the time.

"ad argon" - "Ad" is a Latin modifier as in the case of "ad absurdum" or "to the point of absurdity" and etc (much like this post!). "Argon" is a Greek word meaning "lazy" or "inactive". Overall perhaps stretches to "to the point of stagnation"

"Argon Da" - Argon is an obscure semi-canon character in Tolkein's Legendarium but his father is King Fingolfin who is known for wielding an icy sword called "Ringil" that he used to cut Morgoth's foot and cause him to be lamed (many characters in Elden Ring with this condition). In Elden Ring, the icy blade called the “Frozen Needle” is found in the Kingsrealm Ruins. Ringil is also the name of a mountain stream in the area called "Taur-en-Faroth" which was already discussed above, but an added note here would be that Fort Faroth is where Radagon's soreseals is found.

"A Angrod" - Another Tolkein reference - Angrod is the Sindarin form of “Angaráto” meaning “champion”. Thus “A Angrod” means “O Champion!”. The character Angrod belongs to the “Golden House of Finarfin” and is nephew of the previously mentioned Fingolfin. Radagon first appeared as a Champion of the Golden Order.

"A Do Rang" - FromSoft has a recurring thing about bells. "do" is a syllable used in the Solmization music scale: do-re-mi-fa-sol-la-ti. After "ti" the scale wraps back to "do" again for a full octave. So the "do" rings at the beginning and end, at the start and at the eighth note. Perhaps hints to Radagon's involvement with the 4 Belfries and the Mausoleum bells in Liurnia, at the eighth era corresponding to the octave. And it is an open question as to how many characters may have meaning embedded in their names relating to the musical scales. Dolorus could easily also correspond to the eighth. Farum to the fourth. Miquella to the 3rd and 10th.

"a DGN aro" - DGN is an representation of the Egyptian word meaning "dwarf" or "pygmy". "Aro" is Spanish for "ring". A pygmy ring. This one actually brings more to mind the Ringed City DS3 DLC, since that game also teases the Egyptian connection with Oceiros ("Osiris"). And the Ringed City being euphemistic of the City of Gold (the alchemical symbol for gold is a ring) that Spanish Conquistadors tried to find in the Americas.

"Aaron G-D" - Specifically Aaron Kosminski - a man who was one of many suspected of being Jack the Ripper, though never formally convicted. He suffered from aural hallucinations and was committed to a psychiatric facility for a separate event. I learned of these recently through the video "The Enduring Mystery of Jack the Ripper" by LEMMiNO. Three connections here to Bloodborne: 1) One of the questions of the Ripper was "does he or does he not have medical knowledge?", which suits the medical theme of Bloodborne presented by Charred Thermos. 2) Aural hallucinations. I find this to be a theme in Bloodborne where the various types of bells are representative of tinnitus (relating to Ludwig van Beethoven being afflicted with this - see "Adan gor" above). 3) Kos. Kosm-. Kosminski. In Yiddish "Kos" means "goblet" or "cup", and may have been an occupational name for someone who makes glasses or cups. Minski has meaning of "from Minsk" which is a city in present day Belarus. The Nemiga river that flows through Minsk was buried in the early 1900's (diverted through underground pipe culverts), and its name means in Lithuanian "the river that never sleeps". As for the "G-D" this aligns with one of the abbreviations of God commonly used in Jewish print, but keeping on the aural theme these are also musical notes.

"Rán goad" - Rán is a Norse goddess and personification of the sea. Her name has come up a few times in FromSoft's body of work ranging from Ciaran ("who is Rán?") to Ranni ("Rán not/Rán two"). A goad is an English word meaning "long pointed stick used to prod animals (typically cattle)", or a Scots word for "god", or Swedish for "had tricked someone to a place and then beat up or murdered them". Taking Ranni as a manifestation of Rán, this could allude to Radagon manipulating Ranni into the state of mind where she would want to carry out the dual assassination of Godwyn and herself. Note that Ciaran's Gold Tracer blade resembles the Blade of Calling that is held by Melina (with minor differences at the hilt), who herself is noted to have similarities to the Black Knife Assassins. It could simultaneously refer to a much older event that was alluded to with the cut mimic tear quest. In the abstract, the previous "Rán" was tricked into shedding her aspect of water and adopting the persona of a fire giant - a form of ego death or murder of self to appease a god of fire.

"a grand O" - oh Elden Ring

"a dragon" - I think that the Elden Beast is a fine example of a dragon. The dragon is also a symbol of the never-ending cycle of alchemy, as both prime materia and the end product. The dragon is endlessly splitting into brother and sister parts and recombining into the divine hermaphrodite - so says Carl Jung in CW12 "Psychology and Alchemy". And the connection that I make personally is that the red-haired Rand al'Thor as ‘The Dragon Reborn' is the main character of the Wheel of Time books (1990-2013), whose name means "on the edge of a god" because that's really just his whole character arc in a few words. What does it mean to be “The Dragon” in the Wheel of Time? This is revealed quite early, but in the kind of offhand way that only makes sense in hindsight: "The land is one with the Dragon, and he is one with the land". The Dragon is the amnesiac avatar of the Creator (in this case, the author) experiencing his own Creation. When the Dragon suffers the landscape physically undergoes a Breaking and years of chaotic weather patterns - but when he achieves balance he has the Deus Ex Machina power to cause improbable good fortune wherever he goes. The last obstacle at that point is to confront the Shadow that has been the source of the suffering - see Jung again. One of the two most significant supporting characters is a blacksmith named for the god Perun - another hammer wielding god that stands a lateral shift to the side of Thor. Although Thor may wield a hammer to protect or destroy, he is not known for craftsmanship - thus requiring another aspect in the blacksmith who completes acts of creation. There may be only one author avatar elevated above the rest, but all characters that an author creates are splinters of their own thoughts. See also above usage of “Rand Ferrer'' - my guess is that this is one of the deepest literary influences for everything that FromSoftware has ever produced.

Conclusions

I believe that the name of “Radagon” and only that one name is intentionally used as a cornerstone around which much of the worldbuilding was completed. For multiple games leading up to and including Elden Ring. I believe this because it is more interesting than the belief that all of these incredibly specific coincidences are unplanned. Radagon is the villain after all, and symbolic of all of the faults of the Lands Between. If there is one thing that anagrams are good for, it is generating fantastic nonsense, as in the supposed case of "Naga d'or" or "Argo DNA". It's a shortcut to creating a surprise twist ending. It might be said that FromSoft/GRRM went hard into making a web of cause and effect to justify the twist when working backwards with the knowledge of hindsight - but in the worst case I can see this being used as a crutch. Perhaps as a prompt generator by an author who isn't sure what to do with a character and uses anagrams to inject "noise" into an otherwise formulaic story. Rather than having considered psychologically motivated reasons for their actions, it would be a way to get a character to do something unexpected to generate drama. It strips away causality and meaning for the sake of "originality".

Unfortunately, words and literature are messier and more ambiguous than the mathematical models we use to describe the physical properties of the real world. I can suspect that at least some of the worldbuilding of Elden Ring was influenced by selecting anagram word strings and spinning meaning from them, but it is still is not an explanatory theory of everything. The flaw of string theory is that it cannot make predictions and cannot be proved. As much as FromSoft may pretend that Elden Ring exists in a parallel universe to all other game franchises that they have created in the spirit of the parallel worlds predicted by string theory (and I know that this is by no means a popular theory in the fandoms), that too is a lie. There is only one universe - the real world in which a videogame company creates fantastical worlds “from software”. Which is probably why the closest I've gotten to actually piecing together the FromSoft metanarrative is by consulting my absurd spreadsheet that lists the initial release date of basically every game made by FromSoft and tracks information and trends for each date - zodiacs, tarot, moon phase, etc.

The year 2007 corresponds to tarot #7 - The Chariot - which represents "overcoming challenges and gaining victory through maintaining control of your surroundings". In a move never seen before or since, the only two original IP's that FromSoft released in the year 2007 were word puzzle games called Nanpure VOW and Iraroji VOW. And since this is the year after the release of Armored Core 4 - for which I find the "Lynx" AC's to be referenced in the "Loux" of Hoarah Loux and thus correlated with Godfrey's rise to Elden Lord - the year of word games is perfectly positioned for the origin of 'Radagon' as an entity riddled with anagrams.

[piduai]

sugimoto not kicking it was also the weakest of two options as far as impact goes but i can live with it. yadda yadda need to cater to my pissbaby audience who wants a happy ending or whatever. fine. but tsurumi's survival was not only meaningless (for either the character or the story) but also regressive and anticlimactic

[razorblade180]

My Hero Manga Stuff

Ya know…I’ve liked villainous characters before and the rude people; some might say I’m too sympathetic to multiple things perspectives. That being said, I never excuse their actions and the current circumstance. So I absolutely mean this when I say…

If Endeavor ends up having to kill Dabi or Dabi dies at all by the end of this; that’s perfectly acceptable. Now I know that upsets a lot of people, but that’s okay. At this point there’s a section of the fandom that hates Enji no matter what he does regardless of its actually his fault or not. They can’t be pleased unless it’s him dying and that’s pretty wild.

People want to argue it would make Shoto’s efforts and the story meaningless, no it wouldn’t. If Enji kills his own son it solidifies that if his atonement and safety for his family means him not being around or resenting him, then he’ll still do it because it’s not about getting to an ending where he’s still in their lives. He’s not fighting for that right. And isn’t like he’s been disregarding or regressing to old mindsets since his arc.

Trusting his family, acknowledging his wrongs, facing them, listening, and asking/letting others help. He even is addressing Dabi as Touya, but none of that means this ends pretty because Dabi himself doesn’t feel wrong or wants to change. Not only is he at the point where he’s basically a flaming corpse, but Shoto developed an entire move to contain him but Dabi does not care. He’s still killing and ramping. If he were to die then it wouldn’t be fault on any of his family or heroes. He rejects all opportunity despite them trying and despite it being upsetting Shoto, the message he can gleam for that is while it’s invaluable to try, you can’t save a person who doesn’t want to be. Dabi is after friends, family, civilians, everyone. There’s a point where being concerned for him can’t take priority or else everyone else who matters to him will die.

I’ve always thought Dabi is cool and his story is interesting, but there’s also a point it becomes the most selfish and less about tragic for me personally. I originally thought Enji personally pushed to do a move that burned him regardless of his well being and led to his “death” but no! Endeavor was never shitty enough to let a child burn to death; he wasn’t even there at the incident! Dabi is fully aware that he got stolen off the mountain so his father could not find him and was then trained viscously to be stronger than him. Dabi saw the memorial and life going on and while he’s definitely right to be upset and messed up in certain regards, he did nothing to change his own circumstance after the incident. Enji never hid him like a secret, didn’t look, or stopped thinking about him. He was misled to think Dabi was dead which made him spiral into worse habits! So all his monologues about Endeavor being the absolute worse fall a little flat when you realize all of his mistakes didn’t lead to Dabi, but it was several mistakes and All For One orchestrating to make it the worst thing possible.

It’s why I really don’t get Dabi stans when hating Enji so feverishly because yeah, he definitely did terrible things, but a portion of how he became was the byproduct of All For One capitalizing and off of Touya’s tragedy and Dabi never going back. AFO is evil, so I never expect him to do anything good. Enji is a fuck up, but partly do to circumstances and knowledge he wasn’t aware of that could’ve radically changed his mindset and actions if Dabi actually tried returning, who is also a victim in the beginning. Honestly Enji and Dabi have both been played by AFO for personal gain.

I guess that’s all I wanted to say. It just feels so bizarre how this late in the story people still want to put everything on Enji when he can’t be accountable for everything without people truly believing Dabi willingly killing people of his choice is entirely Endeavor’s fault and that’s insane. After all, Deku says it best, “It’s your quirk, not his.”

[bilbobagginsomebabez]

i finally watched battlestar galactica because it was VERY highly recommended by an old friend group and i should have known this shit was gonna be fucked up that friendgroup was toxic as hell and what the fuck is this ending. what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck. we have MULTIPLE SEASONS where the assumption of the characters and the narrative itself is that this HUMAN/CYLON HYBRID BABY is the SHAPE OF THE FUTURE. okay. total transcendence regarding the meaning of humanity, literally melding with the machines through romantic love, the children of which are the only hope for both races to survive (cylons sterile with each other, resurrection destroyed, human women infertile due to radiation poisoning)-- transhumanism as salvation! structurally really well done! everything built up SO WELL! it is narratively very difficult to move characters from literally genocidal hatred to looking at their nemesis people group like their only chance for survival. and to have their conflict carry them to that place! to have them literally destroy each other to the point that they will go extinct unless they not only give up their hatred but become one people. the lore of the show hinging itself on cycles of time and cycles of violence--"this has happened before and will happen again"--humans destroy cyclons so cylons destroy humans so humans destroy cylons. it started because humans enslaved cylons and refused to grant them freedom and autonomy, which is especially fascinating as an early post-9/11* work, only a few years after the towers fell. ran from 04-09 and that was the height of what can only be described as a national frenzy of xenophobic bloodlust, one that lead to 20 years of war, the destabilization of 3 governments, and 11 million dead. this story took that bloodlust and followed it to the near-annihilation of both groups, forcing them to rely on each other for survival or go utterly extinct. interesting stuff!!

and in the LAST EPISODE. okay. the last fucking episode. they find a second earth (because we already found Real Earth which was really a cylon colony) and this earth2 is NOT their species' homeworld. they find human populations on earth2 anyway and specifically comment on how totally crazy unlikely it is to have the same exact species evolve half a universe away. earth2 is also our planet, same continents. so yaaay! not all humans will go extinct AND these earth2 humans solve their fertility problem because they aren't radiation poisoned which removes the need for the cylons! hold up though! the indigenous earth2 human populations are PRE-LINGUAL. WELL BEFORE THEIR OWN FUCKING STONE AGE. our galactic colonizers react by saying "we can teach them all that" (yes! the visual was racist!) and then talk about how their space civilization wasn't actually destroyed by the injustice of slavery or meaningless hatred but instead Really by "too much science, too fast." so they decide to REGRESS TO BEFORE THE STONE AGE, disperse the last of their survivors into smaller groups across the planet not to merge with existing people groups but for "better chances of survival," and SHOOT THEIR TECHNOLOGY INTO THE SUN. just to put a point on it, they will never be able to reach or speak to each other again seeing as they shot their planet-traveling technology into the fucking sun. they are trapped on different continents with only pre-stone age technology. no one has a problem with this.

so back to before the last episode, we spent MULTIPLE EPISODES building a strong alliance with the rebel cylons based on the hybrid shape-of-the-future baby. because our special hybrid shape-of-the-future baby was stolen by pure-machine cylons and they had to get her back For The Shape Of The Future!! supposed to become one people remember! everything building up to it. well! the pure-machine cylons still hate humanity but have basically agreed to an opposite-sides-of-space nonaggression pact and won't go extinct because they got resurrection back in exchange for the girl. they are planning to discontinue the human-model cylons because the leader of that faction thinks machines trying to be like humans is an atrocity and resents his own existence for it. OUR rebel cylons who escaped that maniac and were planning to interbreed only get about three lines and are suddenly just totally okay with their type of human cylon going extinct. they want to "be as useful as possible" before they "expire" or some bullshit. the human-cylon hybrid baby is not addressed once. the multiple battle episodes about getting her back are just the reason the other cylons aren't trying to exterminate them anymore.

the writer was a fucking mormon and you can tell he wrote himself into a corner on the Legitimacy of God and could not let it go.