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soveryanon · 4 years ago

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Reviewing time for MAG168!

- Yay for Oliver! From the announced title I had suspected The End and/or him because of his veins/roots/tendrils/not-tentacles, so that one wasn’t misleading!

Most of the episode was an audio pun on “Roots”/“Routes”: both the veins, and the reference to a Corpse Road. I’m… not sure about the double-meaning, though (since usually, titles refer both the core of the “statement” and something happening in the metaplot) – obviously, the “roots” were The End’s, they were almost a character by themselves (we could hear them creaking in the background alongside the whispers, a reminder that… they could grow. They could invade other domains when they would need); and the system presented by Oliver could (as he explained) come out of his domain to invade others’ in the search for more victims, which is how this universe could potentially end… but is there an additional meaning that could apply in Jon&Martin’s discussion, or in Jon’s decision to not go after Oliver?

(Regarding Martin: jealousy associated to “roots” makes me think of Corruption, though I don’t subscribe to the idea that Martin is being supernaturally OOC right now (I see how he could potentially be led towards bad choices, but I don’t feel like he’s under an influence right now outside of his own feelings). But I wonder if one of the meanings of “roots” will make sense in retrospect…)

- I was a bit sad to not hear Oliver himself but:

* Jonny, once again, did an amazing job at nailing the intonations and inflections of Oliver’s VA for the character; so, yes, it wasn’t directly Oliver, but we could hear when it was him directly addressing Jon, when it was the “statement” form, and when it was back to Jon.

(* Though I have a tiny sliver of doubt regarding the final “Report ends” afterwards: was it Oliver’s, making fun of Jon’s “statement ends” in the same way that Simon did after he got compelled to blurt out his life story after Martin prompted him? Interestingly, Oliver hadn’t joked about the “statement ends” in MAG121, though he already knew a lot about Jon and his dreams back then, and made it obvious in MAG168 that he knew more than us about Jon’s current state and how he functions (calling him The Eye’s “archive”, and pointing out that Jon can “only take”, which… yeah, feel like that will be relevant later). Or was it Jon saying the “Report ends.” to gain back a semblance of normalcy and making light fun of Oliver’s way of organising his “report” and/or trying to distance himself from what Oliver was saying, reminding himself that it was a subjective statement and that whatever Oliver says is to take with caution since he’s above all an agent of his own patron, however convinced and convincing he may sound? I feel like it was Jon saying that “Report ends.”, given how his voice sobered up, but both could make sense in their own ways…)

* Funnily, it makes sense for Oliver to give his “statement” in this fashion! Because, so far, he had never directly communicated with an Archivist in a situation that would allow reciprocity: he gave his statement to the Institute, while watching Gertrude in the next room (MAG011); he gave his statement to Jon while Jon was in a coma, so unable to answer him (MAG121); and now, he gave his “report” about his domain through Jon, addressing it both to The Eye and to Jon (… but is there a difference at this point?). In all cases, he was unreachable. So now, it feels even more significant that the only person he has ever interacted with on tape was End-touched Georgie, and that she managed to exchange words with him…

- Given how Oliver gave this “report” to Jon, that the “I” was clearly Oliver… What does it say about the narrator of previous statements? Were the “I”s in those the domains or the Fears themselves, talking through Jon?

… If that’s the case, what is exactly happening with the tape recorders, who are gorging themselves with these new forms of statements and apparently freeing Jon from the weight of them…?

(And who was the narrator in MAG167 then? The Eye itself?)

- Laughing so hard because Oliver’s background (MAG011: “I’ve lived in London for almost a decade now. I came here to do my undergraduate degree at the London School of Economics. I ended up taking a position with Barclays shortly after graduating and did well enough there.”) showed so much in the way he organised his ~report~ (not a “statement”, not a “terror”, but a “report”, Oliver wanted to be SPECIAL, uh…):

(MAG168) ARCHIVIST: “Report to prevent future deaths. This report is being sent to: [STATIC FADES] The Great Eye, that watches all who linger in terror, and gorges itself on the sufferings of those under its unrelenting, stuporous gaze! And its Archive, which draws knowledge of this suffering unto itself. 1 – Coroner I am Oliver Banks, sometimes known as Antonio Blake, or doctor Thomas Pridchard. I serve The Coming End That Waits For All And Will Not Be Ignored. 2 – Coroner’s legal powers […] 3 – Investigation and inquest […] 4 – Circumstances of the death […] 5 – Coroner’s concerns […] The matters of concern are as follows. a) […] b) […] c) […] d) […] 6 – Actions that should be taken […] 7 – Your response”

Organised, classified, taking an example to illustrate… and even: doing something else than the subject of his report. It wasn’t a report “to prevent future deaths”. It was a report “about” future deaths and how they couldn’t be prevented. Oliver, please.

- Handsome Man Of Many Aliases:

(MAG011, “Antonio Blake”) “First off, I should admit that I lied to get in here.” […] ARCHIVIST: I had Tim look into it, as I don’t entirely trust the others not to have written it as a practical joke and slipped it into the archives. Unsurprisingly, he came up with nothing. Antonio Blake is a fake name and all of the contact details he provided were similarly fraudulent. It’s almost certainly a joke, a bit of hazing for the new boss, maybe? Best not to engage with it, I think.

(MAG121) OLIVER: So… My name is Oliver Banks. In my other statements, I used the name “Antonio Blake”, but I don’t really think either name has much meaning for me anymore. […] I’m Antonio. GEORGIE: Sure.

(MAG168) ARCHIVIST: “1 – Coroner. I am Oliver Banks, sometimes known as Antonio Blake, or doctor Thomas Pridchard. I serve The Coming End That Waits For All And Will Not Be Ignored.”

… jumped on the Apocalypse occasion to get himself a fancy title, “Coroner”. With the interesting point that a coroner goes back through time to investigate someone’s death, backwards, while Oliver reads the death forwards, as in how it will happen.

- I find the way Oliver referred to Jon really interesting:

(MAG121) OLIVER: Hum… Hello, Jon. Do you… m–mind if I call you Jon? I… I mean. You don’t actually know me, it’s just… well. “Archivist”, it’s so… formal, isn’t it? And I do kind of know you…?

(MAG168) ARCHIVIST: “This report is being sent to: [STATIC FADES] The Great Eye, that watches all who linger in terror, and gorges itself on the sufferings of those under its unrelenting, stuporous gaze! And its Archive, which draws knowledge of this suffering unto itself. […] Please, Jon, do not interpret this report as a ‘plea for mercy’ or a ‘call to action’.”

He used to go with “Archivist” (as a title) and Jon. The “Jon” was clearly a callback to the time he had visited Jon in the hospital (pushing towards casual sympathy? At the very least, reminding him of the last time Oliver had chosen to call him “Jon”, and why he had visited him in the first place), but calling him The Eye’s “Archive” is new on all levels: first time that Oliver calls him that way, and first time that anyone except Jonah called him that way.

(MAG160, Jonah Magnus) “Because the thing about the Archivist is that… well: it’s a bit of a misnomer. It might, perhaps, be better named “the Archive”. Because you do not administer and preserve the records of fear, Jon – you are a record of fear. Both in mind, as you walk the shuddering dread of each statement; and in body, as the Powers each leave their mark upon you. You are a living chronicle of terror.”

So, as much as I had a few reservations about the content of what Oliver was seeing/predicting… it’s true that he knows a lot, about Jon and about how he functions, what he is right now in the grand scheme of things.

* Also: once again, The Eye’s Archive. Not Jonah’s. Jonah is irrelevant. “The Magnus(’) Archive” is not applying to this season so far.

* … Interesting that, although Oliver had directly mentioned that the “Spider” had pushed him to come visit Jon in MAG121, there was no mention at all of any Web activity in this one, as if it was also irrelevant/wouldn’t be able to do anything noteworthy to change the planned course?

- I really love how Oliver tried to sound professional and respectable and kind of… objective about everything?, and at the same time, absolutely went into “My Patron Is Better Than Yours” territory:

(MAG168) ARCHIVIST: “Report to prevent future deaths. This report is being sent to: [STATIC FADES] The Great Eye, that watches all who linger in terror, and gorges itself on the sufferings of those under its unrelenting, stuporous gaze! […] I am Oliver Banks, sometimes known as Antonio Blake, or doctor Thomas Pridchard. I serve The Coming End That Waits For All And Will Not Be Ignored. […] I make this report under no “authority”, no “regulation” or act of law, save the hollow power and grim responsibility given me by the Termination Of All Life. […] a) When Danika Gelsthorpe reaches the end of her Corpse Root, she will die. This new world of Fear reviles death as a release, but the Coming End cannot exist without its reality. It is not a being of dangled promises and shifting torments; the certainty of death waits for all who travel the Corpse Roots, and that certainty… will be delivered on, without hesitation or consideration of any other factors. b) This place has a limit, on the fear that can be generated from them, as their pool is necessarily finite and ultimately, however slowly, it will be exhausted. To be offset, this consideration will require the acquisition of victims from other domains as replacements, potentially inciting… “bad feeling” between those domains. […] However slowly, the domains of Death will be removing sufferers from a closed system. However many thousands of years may be experienced in the meantime… eventually, this world will be left barren and empty. […] Even if such a fate could be avoided, as it comes closer and the other Entities grow in their awareness of their own end, the grotesque ripples of their own impossible panic shall glut and feed my master, gorging it to the point where, perhaps, it will even surpass The Watcher in prominence. […] The End does not fear its own cessation, for it is the certainty and promise of all life, however strange, that it will one day finish, and that includes its own stark existence. It shall be the last and, when the universe is silent and still forever, it shall perhaps, in that impossible moment before it vanishes, finally be satisfied.”

* That condescending tone towards the other Fears, and the fact that they do not truly deliver death (as it would mean losing their victims), but My-Patron-Is-Better-And-A-True-One so The End has to deliver what it promises. (Does that confirm that, for example, Richard-the-human-worm respawned or was still “living” in a way after Sam went through him?)

* … My-Patron-Is-Better-Than-Other-Fears so it will go after the others to get access to their pools of victims, to find new ones.

* My-Patron-Is-Better-Than-Other-Fears so it will feed from them since The End will come after their victims and dry them out of victims, and they can do nothing about it.

* My-Patron-Is-Better-Than-Beholding so it could grow even stronger than it even though Beholding is the current ruler and had reality reshaped to have it on top of everything.

* My-Patron-Is-Better-Than-Everything so it will celebrate its own death, since Ending Itself after having ended everything means that it will have accomplished its true purpose.

(* Bonus “I-Am-My-Patron”, so Jon killing him would just be fine in the order of things, too.)

Like. WOW, Oliver, wow. Really fond of your patron, aren’t you, down to making it like a “challenge” to The Eye.

- Confirmation that The End’s domain lies both in the fear of death (since Danika had served it her entire life), but Oliver insisted pretty much that it also requires actual death to function/to work with its nature.

… So, I’m torn about what degree of credence to give Oliver. On the one side: it goes very well with the message Jonny keeps repeating (including in his gaming streams or in The Mechanisms universe) that “all things end”, that nothing can last forever – it’s what Oliver directly told Jon, it works. It could be the programmed annihilation of this world, whether we (the audience) get to witness it or not: I’m still thinking that The Extinction could come into play and wipe out everything, but if no other Change/cataclysm happens, it could go this way, with this world gradually, slowly dying, because at the core of it, it contained its own doom (the Fears have free reign and can never be truly satiated, so they’ll dry out the whole world without caring about creating a long-lasting “ecosystem”. They don’t know how to preserve, only to consume).

On the other hand, Oliver was extremely adamant about the fact that it would happen, but… has no proof that it will?

(MAG168) ARCHIVIST: “In exactly thirteen stretches of the root on which Danika travels – a stretch being measured in the waves of nauseating terror that flow out of her with such rhythmic regularity – she will finally arrive at her destination. […] I watch, as with each motion, each laboured, reluctant movement along her path, Danika Gelsthorpe is painfully, and inescapably aware of what it is that lies at the end of it. She tries to move backwards, off to the side, any direction other than that unstoppable, inescapable forwards. But her limbs seize up with the attempt. She tries to stay still, but can do so only with the most incredible of efforts. To eke out another few seconds of stasis sets every nerve in her body aflame with agony and effort, begging her to scream, despite her jaw being set in a frozen rictus of sombre mourning. I see her relive the coming moment of her inevitable demise. […] When Danika Gelsthorpe reaches the end of her Corpse Root, she will die. This new world of Fear reviles death as a release, but the Coming End cannot exist without its reality. It is not a being of dangled promises and shifting torments; the certainty of death waits for all who travel the Corpse Roots, and that certainty… will be delivered on, without hesitation or consideration of any other factors.”

The “thirteen stretches” sound like a clear references to the 13 Fears used in Jonah’s incantation (the fourteenth, The Eye, being supposed to rule over the others) and/or the fact that it requires 14 “points” to work (thirteen stretches meaning that there are fourteen points between the beginning and The End), but what I’m more interested is that… there are still thirteen stretches for Danika to travel. What if there is actually no way to travel a whole stretch, because it keeps stretching and getting longer, just because death has to be a horizon that is, by nature, forever elusive, even though Oliver is convinced that it must be a reachable goal since he believes in his patron? (Plus: how come The End will be able to touch other domains when necessary? Wouldn’t it just collapse on itself and disappear on its own, without first putting a dent into others?)

I’m not sure! On the one hand, it works well as a programmed ending, makes sense, and Oliver and The End have displayed time and time again that The End deals in certainty (and Oliver kept repeating that word); on the other hand… as he said, he’s absolutely loyal to his patron, now. Of course he would feel like The End makes the most sense in this world, that the cycle it functions in will keep going, that the same rules apply, that The End will even surpass The Eye. It all feels very subjective. So… we’ll see.

(But given that uncertainty: it feels to me like precisely, we won’t get that scenario, we won’t know for sure that it would have worked this way, because something else will happen. Something that won’t prevent all things from “ending”, but in different circumstances than the current ones…)

- What about Georgie, in the order described by Oliver, though? Given that the rules have changed, and if people are only able to die in The End’s domain by fearing their death, what would happen if the last human standing doesn’t “fear”?

- That puts to mind Peter’s explanation to Martin about why, according to him, The End had not attempted to carry its ritual, and how it was distinct from The Extinction:

(MAG134) PETER: There are two Powers that, to my knowledge, have never attempted to fully manifest, never had followers set them up for a ritual: Mother-of-Puppets, and Terminus. The Web, and The End. The Web, I’ve never really been sure about: if I were to guess, I would say it actually prefers the world as is, playing everyone against each other, and so on. The End, on the other hand… The End doesn’t really need one: it knows that it gets everything eventually, so why bother. The End manifesting would not be a new world of terror; it would be a lifeless world. Devoid of everything. MARTIN: … Including fear. PETER: Exactly. It has no reason to truly attempt to enter our world, it’s… passive. But The Extinction… The Extinction is… different. It’s active. It will seek to create a lifeless world, in a way that none of the other Powers ever would. Some interpretations suggest it might replace us with something new, that can then fear annihilation in turn. But I and those like me would rather that did not happen.

Not that passive given that Oliver mentioned that his domain would go after others’ to get a new supply of victims, when necessary (and that it would the one to upset the current equilibrium), and that Oliver was actually participating in spreading in patron’s fear by warning about the end to come, but!

- Interesting bit is that The End and Oliver have a relationship with time that seems to tie present and future close together (“The moment that you die will feel exactly the same as this one.”), with The End being the only and absolute future possible, while Beholding… doesn’t. It has access to past information, to events currently happening, but Jon pointed out that his powers couldn’t access the future:

(MAG164) ARCHIVIST: She… thinks she’s going to kill Daisy. Like she promised. [STATIC DECREASES] But she’s conflicted. MARTIN: And will she? ARCHIVIST: I–I don’t know, th–the future, th–that’s… that’s not something I can see.

Nice contrast, which makes sense, but also: Jon is special, even for an agent of Beholding, something that Oliver seemed to imply (“But know that, even you, will all your power, cannot keep the world alive forever.”). What can Jon do, in this new reality, besides turning predators into preys and being untouchable for the monsters…?

(I’m also squinting at Oliver’s words, because it could imply… that Jon is currently the only thing keeping the world “alive”, right now?)

- … If Oliver is right, though, laughing forever that Jonah, who feared death the most, would have BROUGHT IT ON HIMSELF:

(MAG138, Robert Smirke) “I beg you, do not pursue this goal; if only a single lesson may be gleaned from my life of long study, and longer hardship, it is that the fear of Death is natural, and to flee from it will only bring greater misery. Repent of your sins, Jonah. Seek forgiveness. I am certain the Dread Powers cannot take a soul that keeps faith in the Resurrection.”

(MAG160, Jonah Magnus) “Why does a man seek to destroy the world? It’s a simple enough answer: for immortality, and power […]; to place yourself beyond pain, and death, and fear. It is an awful thing to know about yourself, but the freedom, Jon, the freedom of it all…! I have dedicated my life to handing the world to these Dread Powers, all for my own gain, and I feel… nothing but satisfaction, in that choice. I am to be a king of a ruined world, and I shall never die. I believe there are far more people in this world who’d take that bargain than you would ever guess. And I have beaten all of them.”

… since his invocation also invited “[all that] dies”. He could have gone with “all that fears to die” or something like that, allowing for a loophole, but he specifically called for all that “dies”.

Jonah.

Jonah, you’re so effing stupid.

(- Re: Jonah, it’s delightful that… he has not been mentioned at all by other monsters/avatars (Annabelle, Helen, the Not!Them) so far. Oliver didn’t either. When it comes to establishing who caused the apocalypse, they’re fully crediting Jon and/or pointing out his relation to The Eye:

(MAG164) HELEN: What would I have to gloat about? Much as I am delighted by this brave new world in which we find ourselves, I can take no credit for it. This was all… you!

(MAG165) NOT!SASHA: Well, of course you want to wallow in my shame like your voyeur master!

(MAG166) HELEN: And Jon, well… he is part of The Eye; a very important part. And he’s able to, shall we say… shift its focus.

(MAG168) ARCHIVIST: “This report is being sent to: [STATIC FADES] The Great Eye, that watches all who linger in terror, and gorges itself on the sufferings of those under its unrelenting, stuporous gaze! And its Archive, which draws knowledge of this suffering unto itself. […] Perhaps once it might have horrified me, or given me some sense of pursuing the ultimate release of the world that you have damned.”

And yes, obviously, Jon was manipulated into doing it, didn’t willingly and knowingly cause it! But it’s hilarious that they’re all “Who?” about Jonah’s whole existence; he… seems absolutely irrelevant to the whole apocalypse deal although he tried to take credit for it. I wonder in which state we’ll meet him and/or if he will be able to express himself in any way – so far, I’m banking on him either being the Panopticon (having merged with the building) or being wrapped in cobwebs.)

- Interestingly, Oliver seemed to credit some level of sentience to the Fears themselves?

(MAG168) ARCHIVIST: “To be offset, this consideration will require the acquisition of victims from other domains as replacements, potentially inciting… ‘bad feeling’ between those domains. […] Even if such a fate could be avoided, as it comes closer and the other Entities grow in their awareness of their own end, the grotesque ripples of their own impossible panic shall glut and feed my master, gorging it to the point where, perhaps, it will even surpass The Watcher in prominence. The others may take what actions they wish; they may plot and plan and tear themselves apart in an attempt to separate from the fate that they know they cannot escape; but they will fail.”

I could expect the avatars/monsters to panic and try to sustain themselves, but the Fears/domains themselves…? (And once again: that phenomenon is very reminiscent of the way Peter described his own fear of The Extinction, as something that could eradicate him and other Fears/avatars…)

- AHAHHA about the image that when Danika would have travelled through the “thirteen stretches”, she would reach the end/The End and die… because that suuuuuure seemed reminiscent of Jon&Martin’s current travels, having to travel through (13) domains in order to reach The Panopticon, without knowing what would happen then.

Not ominous at all.

- I am… really interested in Oliver’s mention that Jon now “may only take”, combined with the fact that Oliver directly called him The Eye’s “Archive”. Specifically since, in MAG121, Oliver had highlighted Jon’s ability to extract statement:

(MAG121) OLIVER: Sorry to go on…! I’m… I don’t talk to many people these days. Putting my thoughts outside myself, it gets a bit… mm… clumsy. Be easier if you could talk back, right? Ask me questions and just have it tumble all out. But no. It’s… it’s just me. Wish there was a better way, but… Touching someone’s mind, it’s not… as simple as that, is it? Doesn’t always make things clearer, y’know? Still. I gave the old woman a statement so, maybe I owe you one as well. That’s… how it works, right? Give you a terror, give you a dream. ’s not like I don’t have them to spare.

(MAG168) ARCHIVIST: “I make this report under no ‘authority’, no ‘regulation’ or act of law, save the hollow power and grim responsibility given me by the Termination Of All Life. With it, I may see and spread the hidden veins of destiny that wrap us close and draw us through the empty, yearning parody of meaning that we call life, knowing at all stages that the last and final point of this journey is a blank and futile end. […] Please, Jon, do not interpret this report as a ‘plea for mercy’ or a ‘call to action’. I would have offered it willingly, of course, but to do so is no longer an option. You cannot ask; you may only take.”

The circumstances in season 5 have changed, we’ve seen that in the way Jon is managing the new “statements”: he has to let them out, he gets liberated from their weight once they have “poured out of [him] down into the tape”. He can only delay the moment he does it for a very short while, he has to do it when they reach a domain. The only exception has been in MAG167, when he gave a statement about Gertrude and her assistants, which was (at least partially) prompted by Martin’s questions.

So we see a difference between “Archive” and “Archivist” as of now with the statements. We’ve also seen Jon using his powers to “know”, prompted (Martin asking him questions in MAG164) and not (Jon knowing about Annabelle’s phone call in MAG167).Witht the exception of channelling The Eye’s powers to turn a predator into a prey, his abilities now seem mostly passive, but I wonder if it will mean something more, regarding his status as an “Archive” (and if Annabelle is planning to use that)…

(… Concrete question too: is Jon still able to compel, nowadays?)

- There are some bits of Martin’s words that made me go “!” because it implies that he had discussed with Jon about these matters beforehand:

(MAG168) MARTIN: Okay… [FOOTSTEPS] I mean… Well, I don’t like this place. ARCHIVIST: Once again, Martin, that’s… [CHUCKLING] sort of the point…! MARTIN: Yeah, yeah, I know, alright, I get it, it’s just… it’s more than that. This place, what did you call it, the… th– … the “Rotten Core”? ARCHIVIST: The Corpse Roots. MARTIN: Yeah, yeah, that. Well, it… It feels… [SIGH] I don’t know, it feels like it’s– ARCHIVIST: Waiting. MARTIN: Yeah! [CREAKING SOUND] Waiting. [SILENCE PUNCTUATED BY THE WHISPERS] This is the one with the, em… the Death guy, isn’t it? ARCHIVIST: This is Oliver Banks’s domain, yes. MARTIN: … So it’s him who’s waiting. […] Alright, fine, yes, yes, I am jealous, alright? Yes, if you absolutely must know! ARCHIVIST: Because he woke me up. MARTIN: [SPLUTTERING] I was there weeks, and nothing. He talks to you for five minutes, and suddenly you’re back on your feet, and bouncing around like a, like a spring chicken! ARCHIVIST: [NERVOUS CHUCKLING] I mean, that’s really not– MARTIN: I mean, what’s so special about him, that you wake up for him and not me, hm? [CREAKING SOUND] Enlighten me.

* “Rotten Core” is MAG157’s title; it’s Adelard’s last message to Gertrude, that was put on Jon’s desk together with the tape of Martin&Peter’s conversation about going down in the tunnels, the association of the two prompting Jon to panic by realising that Martin was probably manipulated into something that didn’t actually have much to do with The Extinction. “Rotten Core” in itself never appeared in Adelard’s email (could have been the subject of it, though?) and, officially, we still don’t know who sent that statement to Jon (Jonah didn’t take credit for that one, neither did Martin or Peter, so… probably Annabelle). But Martin using the phrase seems to imply that he has been filled in about it – did Jon&Martin talk about The Extinction, since the end of MAG159?

* Martin already knew that the “Death Guy” had woken Jon up, so… Jon has explained what happened, too. Unless Martin heard the other tapes during season 4? (And Jon remembered about it and about the fact that it was specifically Oliver who woke him up: this is the first time he has acknowledged that.)

So! They have been exchanging information offscreen!

- I’m HOWLING at petty/jealous Martin.

I didn’t feel like it was toxic or dangerous or OOC at all – Martin [INORDINATELY PLEASED] Blackwood has… quite often been portrayed as incredibly petty and jealous when it came to Jon:

(MAG088) BASIRA: I just, I mean he was good company. Y’know, when he wasn’t being a paranoia machine. He was funny, you know? MARTIN: What, Jon? BASIRA: Yeah. MARTIN: I don’t think I’ve ever heard him tell a joke. BASIRA: Maybe you weren’t listening. MARTIN: Right. Well, I’m sure it’ll get sorted out when DAISY brings him in and you can probably talk to him then. Oh! Sorry, I forgot you’re not actually with the police any more, are you.

(MAG106) MELANIE: [CHUCKLE] Right, well… The jury’s still out on Elias. And anyway, Martin’s always been lovely to you. BASIRA: Hm. I dunno, I mean, you should have seen him when I turned up last year. I think he thought I was trying to steal his precious Archivist. MELANIE: Aaah…! I got the exact same, when Jon was hiding out and came to me with his “source on the inside” stuff. Martin was not impressed. BASIRA: Huff. That boy needs to relax. MELANIE: Or at least find someone else to fuss over.

When MAG121’s case number had been revealed (not in Early-Access, but on the public release), there had been many laughs about the fact that Jon had woken up on February 15th, and how much would it suck for Martin to think that his tearful begging from the trailer migt have happened the day before, on Valentine’s Day, only for handsome mlm Death Prophet Oliver Banks to waltz in and get Jon to wake up instantly? So I’m laughing very hard that yes, Martin is INCREDIBLY and irrationally jealous about it, about not having been able to be the one to wake Jon up like in cheesy romance movies.

… the part that does worry me, however, is how lightly Martin seems to be taking the whole “Kill Bill” thing, and how much of it was being jealous over someone Jon had “needed” help from (not so long after Annabelle made a dig at Martin for the fact that he wasn’t feeling useful to Jon right now). I feel like most of the exchange had Martin caricaturing himself a bit, or at least being aware of how silly he sounded, though? And it felt to me like his insistence towards Jon explaining his reluctance to murder was for Jon to, well, explain what is bothering him about it (outside of an ethical question, there is also the fact that Jon… might feel like if he were to do that to avatars, then other avatars/people would be entitled to do the same to him. Which, honestly? Fair. Jon attacked and wrecked innocent people for his own benefit in season 4. If they decided that, even though he has stopped now, he still has hurt people, still is a monster and still needs to die, the same logic could apply.)

There is indeed an absolute disconnect between Martin’s solution (“smiting”) and the tone/enthusiasm/casualness with which he offers it, and it could be rooted in his own feeling of uselessness, the fact he wants to take revenge over those who hurt him and Jon… So I don’t feel like he’s being supernaturally manipulated, but I’m definitely worried that he could take risks and/or make a veryyyy bad decision while trying to prove that no, he can be “useful”…

- ! Jon sounded SO FOND and so amused at Martin’s jealousy! His insidious “Martin~?” and audible smiles! “My husband is a bitch and I love him” feeling, overall.

I like that the exchange seemed well-handled for both of them: Jon naturally standing his ground and pointing out that Martin’s logic was absolutely childish (“Look, Martin: I am sorry you feel that way, but I’m not going to kill a man just because you’re jealous.”), without sounding accusing either; and Martin ultimately relenting (“Fine. I suppose that’s… reasonable.”). They were two idiots in love, Martin being a bigger idiot this time around, but! Idiots.

- Really curious about how Martin will react if they cross paths with Simon or Daisy. Would he encourage Jon to “smite” them too? Or would he be more ambivalent, a bit torn about it? Why has he reacted differently towards Helen – is it strategical, and he just wants to try to use her as long as he can? Is it because he identifies her as the woman he had seen in the corridors, and still feels guilty about not trying to help her then?

… I’m terrified of how he will react if they cross paths with Jared or Jude, however. Jared terrorised him and caused him to accept Peter’s offer, and Jude hurt Jon deeply, something Jon has a very obvious mark to show for. (Same with Jonah: I think that for Martin, it’s clear in his mind that they’ll “smite” Jonah once they reach the Panopticon. I’m not convinced that, after what happened with the Not!Them, Jon would want to do that anymore: if some monsters and avatars didn’t really have a “choice”, then what about Jonah? At which point did he go rotten, irredeemable? What’s the difference between him and Oliver, who’s currently diversifying the way he’s torturing his victims in his domain “for variety”? Is it only Jon’s personal feelings about whether someone helped him a little bit or ensured his personal misery?)

(- ;; Now that Martin has a connection to Oliver through his jealousy… What if Martin’s ending is to lose Jon and then join Oliver’s domain to at least get an exit and cease to be…?)

- I’m a bit more concerned about what is happening in Jon’s head. First off, the way he presented Oliver, as someone who had “helped” him… versus the way he used to describe his “choice” to wake up:

(MAG121) OLIVER: The thing is, Jon, right now, you have a choice. You’ve put it off a long time; but it’s trapping you here. You are not quite human enough to die, but – still too human to survive. You’re… balanced on an edge, where The End can’t touch you, but you can’t escape Him. I made a choice. We all made choices. Now, you have to– […] Make your choice, Jon.

(MAG136) ARCHIVIST: My– [PAUSE] [INHALE] [SIGH] My memories of the coma are not clear. But I know I made a choice; I made a choice to become… something else. Because I was afraid to die. But ever since then, I… I don’t know if I made the right decision; I–I’m stronger now, tougher, I can… … If I do die, now, or get sealed away somewhere forever… I don’t know if that’s a bad thing.

(MAG168) ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] I don’t know, Martin. [FOOTSTEPS] I just, I don’t think he’s… [SIGH] I don’t know, I don’t think he’s evil. [CREAKING SOUND] MARTIN: Oh, yeah, sure, he’s probably a really kind, benevolent ruler of a hellish fear prison…! ARCHIVIST: It’s just… He helped me. Wh–when I was… He woke me up. MARTIN: Wow. What a hero.

Back in MAG136, Jon wasn’t sure he had made a good decision; it was put into perspective when we learned a few episodes later that, at this point, Jon had already attacked three people to feed, without letting the others know. Trolley problem: was it right, for Jon not to die, if it meant sacrificing three people (soon-to-be five) to sustain himself? Was it a “good” choice?

This episode, Jon unnaturally presented it as Oliver having “helped” him by waking him up, which, mMMM. Seems like he has made his peace with that choice – which, on the one hand, good because less self-deprecating (it’s normal to want to survive), but on the other hand, there would be reasons to still feel guilty for making it, given the consequences?

I’m not really surprised about Jon expressing a degree of sympathy towards Oliver, or at least pointing out that their degree of “choice” in their transformations bears similarities, given that Oliver’s story, his first dreams, the power inflicted on him, came with a gradual desensitisation and acceptance. Chronologically, Oliver’s story is that of someone who gradually stopped fighting fate and came to embrace his Fear-patron (a turning point being when he lost someone precious to him).

(MAG011, “Antonio Blake”) “It was there, sleeping on my friend Anahita’s sofa, in the depths of my misery, that I first started to have the dreams. […] These dreams have been a regular part of my sleeping for about eight years now. Even as life improved and I found a new job and place to live – believe it or not I now work selling crystals and tarot cards in a “magic” shop – they continued to crop up a few times each month.

(MAG032, Jane Prentiss) “How many months has it been like this? Was there a time before? There must have been. I remember a life that was not itching, not fear, not nectar-sweet song. I had a job. I sold crystals. They were clean, and sharp and bright and they did not sing to me, though I sometimes said they did. We would sell the stones to smiling young couples with colour in their hair. I remember, before I found the nest, someone new came. His name was Oliver, and he would look at me so strangely. Not with lust or affection or contempt, but with sadness. Such a deep sadness. And once with fear.”

(MAG121) OLIVER: And about two years before I came to your Institute, something happened – something I didn’t want to talk about. Didn’t even want to think about. I… [SIGH] I started to see them when I was awake.

(MAG042, Jennifer Ling) “The sign above didn’t have an obvious name, simply reading ‘Crystals. Books. Tarot’. He was tall, black and careworn, deep lines of worry etched into an otherwise handsome face. When he saw me looking at him, he began to walk up to me, still with that intense look. I took a couple of steps back, and asked if I could help him. He shook his head as if unsure what to say, then asked me what I was listening to. A chill ran over me as I realised he was staring at my ears. I said I wasn’t listening to anything, as I wasn’t wearing headphones, and asked him what he wanted. He shook his head again, and mumbled something about protecting my hearing. He turned away then, and started walking back into the shop.”

(MAG011, “Antonio Blake”) “This worked fine until I saw my father in the dream, walking down Oxford Street, the pulsing veins climbing up his leg and into his chest. I tried to warn him of course – asked leading questions on his health and how he was feeling, whether he’d been tired recently. I even went so far as to book him a doctor’s appointment, much to his annoyance. It did no good, though – ten days later the heart attack came for him and, despite the rapid response of the paramedics and how much of his medical history I had immediately to hand, there was nothing I could do to save him. He died on New Year’s Eve, and as 2014 ended, so did any hope I had of my dreams doing good in the world.”

(MAG121) OLIVER: Wish I… knew why I came here. I s’pose there’s only so long you can dream about someone, and not at least try to find them. That was it with the old woman too. That was different, though. Way I figure it? She stuck her nose in just about everywhere it wasn’t wanted and stirred up hornets. ‘Till all the precautions in the world couldn’t stop Death from finally catching her. If I’d’ve known more back then, I’m… not sure I would’ve bothered trying to warn her. Still. You live and learn, don’t you?

(MAG011, “Antonio Blake”) “I’m well aware that I don’t even know your name, and I have no responsibility to try and prevent whatever fate is coming for you. Based on my previous experience, such a thing is likely impossible anyway, but after what I saw I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t at least try. I did as much research into your Institute as possible, and arranged an appointment to provide a statement about some spurious supernatural encounter. Even then I was told that the Archivist only reviews the written statements once they have been taken, so here I am, pouring out my lunatic story on paper in the hopes that you might eventually read it. If you do see this in time and read this far, then to be honest I don’t know what else to tell you. Be careful. There is something coming for you and I don’t know what it is, but it is so much worse than anything I can imagine. At the very least you should look into appointing a successor. Good luck.”

(MAG121) OLIVER: Mmm… Let me tell you about how I tried to escape. […] It’s been almost ten years since I first started dreaming about the deaths of others, seeing those… awful veins crawling into them. Into… wounds not yet open, or… skulls not yet split. People who were about to die. Every night, I’d watch as they’d… sneak up and into folks about to choke on blood, or urging into hearts about to convulse. I’ve… come to terms with it. [DRY LAUGHTER] I’ve learned to live with it! […] And the worst part was that somewhere in me, I… I liked it! Underneath all that awful fear, it felt… like… home. […] I wanted to escape. I… needed to. […] At that moment, a sudden calm came over me. I understood it all. I could follow the line of the huge veins that encased the ship down into the water, leading off to a point almost a mile from the South-East. There. That was it. That was our fate. Where we would always be. Because I was going to take us there. Running was pointless. To try and to escape from my task would only serve to fulfil another. I finally understood what I needed to do.

(MAG168) ARCHIVIST: “With it, I may see and spread the hidden veins of destiny that wrap us close and draw us through the empty, yearning parody of meaning that we call life, knowing at all stages that the last and final point of this journey is a blank and futile end. I have no power to stop it, and even if I did… I would not do so; for to rob a soul of death is as torturous as its inevitable coming. […] And I shall help, ushering on this final, blank emptiness. Perhaps once it might have horrified me, or given me some sense of pursuing the ultimate release of the world that you have damned. But I am too much of my patron now and my feelings cannot help but reflect the shadows of… anticipation that lurk within the grave. […] And so the scope of my domain is yours…! Enter it and destroy me if you wish. I fear the annihilation you would gift me as little as I desire it. I am now, as the thing I feed, a fixed point, that has neither the longing nor the ability to change its state of existence. […] All – things – end, and every step you take, whatever direction you may choose… only brings you closer to it.”

[Dates-wise: Jennifer Ling left her statement in November 2013 and events were about the previous month; given Oliver’s reaction, he was already seeing the veins when awake back then. Jane Prentiss left her statement in February 2014, so she had met Oliver before he lost his father. “Antonio” left his statement in March 2015; Oliver visited Jon on February 15th 2018.]

It has been around eleven years, by the date of the apocalypse, for Oliver to reach this current state in which he describes himself as “The End that laces through every fibre of my soul” and “too much of my patron”. It only took Jon three years.

Though, overall, I was back at the feeling of the MAG140s episodes with the words/thoughts Jon has for victims and avatars:

(MAG168) ARCHIVIST: A lot to think about. I… I feel… [FOOTSTEPS] No. I don’t want to destroy Oliver Banks. It wouldn’t do any good. I know that, and he never asked for this any more than I did. I feel badly for those that exist in his domain, o–of course, I do, but… At least, their suffering will be over, eventually. I can’t destroy everyone I cross paths with, it… [SIGH] No. If Oliver will not seek me out, then… I will leave him be. [TINY CHUCKLES] The avatar of Death… shall live. Martin’s going to be thrilled…! [SIGH]

* Stfu about deciding what is “better” for victims, Jon. (As a personal choice, yes, I would probably prefer the prospect of dying over eternal torment; HOWEVER, it’s not Jon’s place to establish what’s better for others, so Jon trying to rationalise his decision to go after Oliver? Nop, I don’t care, own up to your feelings, don’t scramble for excuses by saying you think it might be more ~charitable~ :<)

* Oliver who “never asked for this any more than I did” also explained very casually that:

(MAG168) ARCHIVIST: “Sometimes, for some small variety, I will allow Danika to brush against another root: the final fate of someone she loves. […] And with each one, she knows her steps forward bring closer not only her own end, but all of theirs. Time walks forward with her, but she has not the strength to stop it. Her fate draws ever-nearer, filling me with the joy of watchful fear, but also my own concerns.”

He’s not a passive jailor. Oliver is actively enjoying tormenting his victims in different ways “for some small variety”.

I thiiiiink more and more that Jon might now be targeting the whole Fear-system, and not (anymore) the individual avatars/monsters who were pushed and twisted by the Fears to become their servants, as he had begun to think about in the second half of season 4 (“I was so sure I’d find something up there. But instead, it was just another broken person trying to come to terms with the wreckage of their life.” about Manuela, lamenting over Jane, etc.) But that brings us back to that awkward stage where it feels to me like Jon is almost more humanising avatars/monsters currently hurting their victims, than the victims themselves who are just… there, and not extremely relevant.

(I’m reaaaally really really curious about how Jon will behave towards Jonah.)

- … I’m also a bit concerned that Jon deciding that Oliver’s victims at least get to die implies something bigger: that Jon is… giving up on the idea to reverse/undo this apocalypse. If these people die, they die, it’s over. Which means that, right now, Jon doesn’t think he has a better alternative to offer them. He had hopes at the end of MAG162, he got a few hints in MAG164 about how to banish the Fears; he… might already be giving hope of fixing things, without officially voicing it?

MAG169’s title screams Desolation to me (+ bonus Agnes, with the way she got anchored to Gertrude and/or her death), and that could mean Jude (… which would be extremely interesting right now, given Martin “Kill Bill” Blackwood’s willingness to harm monsters/avatars; what could go possibly wrong with making him meet someone who physically hurt Jon, leaving a mark to show for it on one of his hands? So much). There is also a potential connection to the Distortion, and in way that could mean bad stuff (and Jon and/or Martin having to go through the door). Potentially Jon’s lighter being put to use, or Jon&Martin getting a clue about why Jon was gifted it?

Alternatively, if the meaning is more oblique and meant to subvert expectations: Vast stuff?

#1 #2 #3 #4 #5 #the magnus archives #tma season 5 #tma liveblog #mag168 #long post/#tma spoilers/#i'm lucky there is a delay with EA this week! :D

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cryoflyte · 6 years ago

Text

WE WERE WARNED

I was going to tweet this but it turns out Twitter only lets you thread up to 25 tweets in a draft. That’s insufficient. So fuck it, I’ll do it here. I’ve been ranting about this since season 1 (back when it looked like just a tiny blip on an otherwise great show, rather than our first warning sign that these people might have no fucking clue what they’re doing), it’s actually managed to get worse since then, I’m not over it, I’m not getting over it.

Gather round, dear Voltron Twitterati (or tumblrati or whatever y’all are called around here). Let Cryo the Salt Phoenix regale you with ALL the reasons why Pidge's gender flip being a plot twist was, and remains, completely fucking stupid.

First, a couple of external biases to acknowledge:

1) I feel Pidge was the worst possible character to gender flip, precisely because it was so obvious. He's spent 30+ years getting "lol DotU Pidge wore a headband and had a squeaky voice, maybe he was a girl!" jokes. Buying into them is a disservice to both the character, and the stated idea that VLD Pidge is supposed to represent people who don't fit a norm. Okay sure, you took the character who got mocked for not sufficiently conforming to his gender, flipped him, then went "look how our Pidge represents not fitting in with the norms!" Nah, guys. Not how it works.

2) ...of course that's if you believe them suddenly saying Pidge is supposed to represent people who don't conform to begin with. All we heard in the beginning was "We wanted to make him a girl! Look, he's a girl! Girl, girl, girl! No, not trans, not nonbinary, GIRL! Look how smart we are for making him a girl!" That and how Lauren didn't like DotU Pidge, so she decided she needed to make him more appealing. To her. Which...

3) Pidge has, in all prior canons (possibly excluding DDP? Was it ever fully explained there?), been an alien. In VF (which supposedly Lauren did watch but didn't like him any better in) he was explicitly an alien ninja. So, you know, forgive me for being a little bitter that we got "the only way to make Pidge appealing is make him a girl. Now here, have five seasons of Keith the alien ninja!"

4) My complaint is not really against the concept of gender flipping Pidge. Had they done it upfront as they did the changes to Sven and Allura, I'd have been somewhat irked for the aforementioned reasons, but hey, new reboot, new rules. My complaint is about them lying to our faces for three months (up to and including Bex bluntly saying "Pidge is a boy" in an interview) in service of perhaps the most pointless plot twist in franchise history.

And that brings me to our feature presentation. Get the popcorn, y'all, I've got the salt.

Someone name for me a single solitary moment, watching the first three episodes, where there was even a hint that Pidge was wrestling with his (gonna use male pronouns until the reveal) identity. No, not "oh hey if you go back with knowledge of the twist this was foreshadowing it!" A point where prior to knowing about the twist you went "huh, what is Pidge not telling the rest of the team?" and it was NOT answered by him revealing that Commander Holt was his father. Seriously—please point one out to me. Pidge's premise is very consistent in the first three (and a bit beyond, but I'll get to that) episodes: he has his own reasons and priorities for being there, he'll do the bare minimum of teamwork necessary to achieve his own mission, and he's not there to make friends. Everything he does is consistent with this read. Nothing is pointing to further complexity, him hiding something totally unrelated. There's the picture, but it's at best confusing: I just figured it was his brother with HIS girlfriend, to be honest. Were we really intended to interpret a sad look at an ambiguous photograph as "Pidge is hiding another completely different big secret related to that picture!" rather than "Pidge is sad about his family, like he keeps saying"?

It would have been simplicity itself to add actual hints. Instead of Hunk just presenting "look, it's his girlfriend!" as fact when he finds the picture, "who's the girl? She's cute!" and have Pidge get defensive over that. When they're putting on their armor, maybe skip Hunk making the first of 500 throwaway fat jokes in favor of Pidge looking uncomfortable at the thought of, you know... changing in front of the others? Have him duck behind the armor case? Do something. Do ANYTHING.

Even after the internal reveal in episode 3, we get nothing. Allura specifically drills her about "hey, do you have a big personal secret?" and she doesn't look the slightest bit worried or defensive, she just looks confused. Pidge is not that good an actress, we know that from Lance having to save her butt back at the Garrison. Also from seven seasons of watching her complete inability to keep her emotions in check, ever.

Pidge's internal struggle is never once presented as being about her gender, or about how the team thinks of her. It's about whether she's going to put aside her own personal priorities for the sake of the team. This is the struggle that's been built up. This is the struggle that she's invoked and settled in the climactic moment with Haxus: "I'm not a child. I'm a paladin of Voltron!" Haxus could just as easily have called her a "little girl" if we were supposed to be reading any sort of gender conflict into this.

(Of course as it is Haxus didn't know she was a girl—more on that later—but that's purely arbitrary. A show that wanted to sell Pidge having a gender conflict would have made Haxus realize she was a girl, especially given Coran's "we were supposed to think you were a boy?" in the next episode. You can’t just pretend it’s so obvious then have nobody else notice it ever.)

Now, I of course acknowledge not every worthy plot twist has to be able to be guessed by the audience prior to the reveal. But it doesn't work here. Because here's the reveal: Pidge is all "I was afraid you'd think differently of me" and the whole team is all "of course not!" and that's that.

Wait, she was WHAT now?

We have not seen Pidge struggling with this. At ALL. There is zero emotional weight to this scene because there were absolutely no stakes shown. You cannot have her say "I've been worried you'd think of me differently" when you haven't fucking shown her worrying that they'd think of her differently. This is writing 101, guys. And then Shiro is all "owning who you are is going to make you a better Paladin"—WHEN HASN'T SHE? Literally the thing she's been shown struggling to accept is THAT SHE'S A PALADIN! Not that she's a girl!

This reveal is bad. It's so, so bad. The only way I could make sense of it after first watching it was assuming they'd wanted to make her trans and chickened out at the last second. Nothing said in this scene seems to be part of the same show we've been watching for the past five episodes. It's not clever or interesting, it's just bizarre.

But now let's take a step back. Because in order to set up this terrible, pointless, non-event of a plot twist, we have also done great violence to certain characters. We have turned Pidge and basically all of Galaxy Garrison into morons.

Is Pidge not supposed to be a genius? What exactly was her thought process here? The whole wide world of possible disguises was open to her, and she went "I know! I'll pretend to be a boy, and I'll make myself look identical to my brother, the famously MIA space explorer. Nobody will catch on." Really, Katie? You couldn't buy some hair dye, maybe a spray tan?

And then nobody fucking does catch on. The Kerberos mission is so well-known it's being used as an object lesson for cadets, Pidge flips out every time the mission is brought up, and not one person thinks "hey, this kid who looks exactly like Matt Holt totally freaks out whenever the mission Matt Holt disappeared on is mentioned." This does not hold up if you think about it for more than two seconds.

Why does she even need to look like Matt for meta purposes? Oh right, because of the picture that was attempting to carry the entire load of this twist. Great. That's totally worth the blatant insult to everyone’s intelligence, not to mention the affront to common sense.

On that note, one specific point of the disguise: why does Pidge wear glasses? We know she doesn't need them. She takes them off to wear her helmet, Katie never wore them. And sure, they make her look less like Katie Holt... but they make her look more like Matt Holt. This was fairly weird even in season 1. It only gets weirder when we finally meet up with Matt.

Oh hey, guys. She's not just wearing a pair of fake glasses that make her look more like her famously MIA brother. She's wearing his literal glasses. Which, incidentally, we know are functional prescription glasses because he says he doesn't need them anymore because the Garrison fixed his eyes.

How many people did this go through without anyone pointing out that wearing glasses you don't need actively fucks with your vision?

Yes, I know this is a show about alien space cats that I'm holding to standards of opthalmological realism. But most television manages to understand how glasses work. And again, it's just pointless. Why not just have Katie wear glasses to begin with? Oh right, because we need the guy in the picture to wear glasses and the girl not to because SMART PEOPLE DOING A PLOT TWIST, DERP!

It didn't work, guys. It didn't work at all. You know how people figured it out early? Because you gave her a female VA and we've had thirty years of "lol Pidge looks like a girl" so hey look, the picture confirms the meta theory that people were pitching even before we saw the character designs. Doesn't add even a shred of impact to the reveal. The only way to add impact to the reveal was if she’d actually been worrying that the others wouldn’t accept her being a girl. But no.

And after all this dumb, what exactly is there to show for it? Well... nothing. Nobody else in the show knows she's a girl. Aliens consistently refer to her as male. The team has used female pronouns for her what, once in seven seasons? Miss the right four episodes and even a viewer wouldn't have a clue.

Don't get me wrong, I respect the stated rationale that gender shouldn't matter. Know how else they could've shown that? JUST MAKING HER A GIRL IN THE FIRST PLACE. I mean, if they're going to crow about how brilliant they are for "plot twist, she's a girl!" maybe people should at least be able to tell she's a girl after said twist. Or hey, even better, they could make her trans, or genderfluid, or non-binary, put in some rep that would actually be brave and interesting. But no, instead we get "she's totally a cis girl, but it doesn't matter and nobody can tell because she's there to represent people who don't fit neatly into a box!" That's pretty much the worst of all options, guys. Good job.

And then everyone went “OMG yes! You made Pidge a girl! Yay rep, you’re so smart!” without the slightest shred of critical thought on how it was handled, while a tiny handful of us hoped it was just a fluke, the product of a showrunner pet project that didn’t signify anything for the rest of the series.

Then we got Keith’s Galra reveal, which somehow managed to be even worse.

Then we got season 4 making the bulk of season 3 immediately irrelevant.

Then we got two years on a space whale.

Then we got season 7, where everything is garbage.

Every season has just been more and more ridiculous plot twists in place of character or consistency. It turns out nope, if we wanted to see where this show was going, the horrible Pidge twist was the ONLY part of season 1 we should’ve looked at. Let the salt flow freely.

Okay, I think that's it. Thank you for coming to my TED talk?

#voltron salt #voltron legendary defender #voltronlegendarydefender #voltron #vld pidge #we were warned #pidge was a way better alien ninja #hey lauren your plot twists suck #this would've been the best tweetstorm

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