#anamysis

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sorry this is random but if klaus and gang hadnt died what wouldve happened to them when the sun exploded or whatever do they just start over on some other planey? do they just decompose till new life forms on earth with blood hopefully? will they evolve?

on a slightly more serious note, do you think any of them wouldve staked themselves? or tried to use the energy from the end of the world for some witchery that would save them? i can picture klaus being like grrr finally the end of all my enemies 🔥

I have to teach kids math early tomorrow morning but I can’t sleep so…

*puts on my Lore Nerd Glasses*

According to canon, Esther’s Original Vampire spell was powered by Tatia’s blood, the White Oak, and… the sun! Specifically, the sun is the element that resurrected them after Mikael killed them all to get the party started. So from my perspective, if the sun “dies”, then our Originals die too.

I think they wouldn’t have gotten to that point if they had a choice. Once all of humanity was gone, and probably other vampires, I think they would have tried to figure out a way to die or gone mad trying. Unless tech had developed to the point where people could leave the solar system? An interesting idea, Originals in Space.

And while Klaus would definitely SAY that, he would be so pouty about not having any more enemies to play with.

[melissa-s23]

👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆 I'LL PRIME TO THAT

I am actually devastated. 

Tommy really thinks he “betrayed” Techno when in reality, he had to leave Techno for the sake of his mental health and well-being and for his family.

I doubt Tommy will ever see it that way and will continue to feel guilty about it. And that fucking hurts.

I also know, without a shadow of a doubt, that Techno-“pog, I hated him anyways” Blade will also always see Tommy as a selfish traitor, and that also fucking hurts. Especially, when time and time again, Tommy has shown us that he considers Techno family.

I am in shambles, y’all

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just got distracted by a recommended gifset featuring Klaus in one of his deep-V shirts with a necklace and remembered how we all went BUCKwild when it was revealed in flashback that his mother made him a charmed necklace to repress his lycan traits telling him it was to ‘protect him’ and that he could ‘never take it off’ because we’ve known for a long long time that Klaus goes on to wear either one or multiple rosaries/tokens/symbols of strength and protection and guidance around his neck like they’re part of his BODY for the next THOUSAND YEARS and BOY WHAT A DEVASTATING WAY TO WEAVE THAT LONGSTANDING COSTUME CHOICE INTO THE BACKSTORY WITHOUT EVER DIRECTLY CONNECTING IT

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How would you have done the klaus/Hope relationship if you wrote the show? Especially when she’s old enough to see him. Your tag on the klaus gif set made me wonder

You mean this set by the beautiful and talented Sahar?

This is a ginormous and multi-layered question the likes of which I haven’t seen in a long time so I’m going to try to do it justice. Honestly, from what I’ve seen of the young and teen Hope dynamics, I’ve really loved the way the tone of the relationship was set and the general idea of him being estranged/captive during a portion of her elementary years, then willfully and somewhat-cowardly-y absent during some of her adolescence.

Mainly, I would introduce plot that forced the pair to acknowledge tensions that I really value and the show did not approach, in order to really solidify the similarities/differences/love between them. When Hope is a child, Summer!Hope age, I would force Klaus into a situation where he felt he must kill someone that Hope loves in order to protect her (Mary would be the ideal candidate) the way he killed his own father in order to protect her. He can sacrifice his own frivolous hopes and affections — but what about hers? I think that he would do it. I think that he would be the big bad wolf and let her hate him for it, knowing that she will never believe (and maybe the rest of his family will also never believe) that he did the right thing.

I believe that Legacies has done something or other on the subject of Hope reading the history books on Klaus. What about a notebook, a stack of printed papers, and a flash drive left to her by Camille O’Connell in her will? A draft of the biography that she was writing from Klaus’ perspective. Perhaps Vincent would give them to her one day, asking her not to read it until she was sure she wanted to know. She wouldn’t go to Klaus first after reading it -- maybe not even Hayley, because Hayley is so young -- but she’d go to Elijah, and he would acknowledge it all and still love Klaus anyways, and Hope would have to figure out if she wanted to do that -- if she could do that -- too. 

Finally, and the most important thing that I would do to develop their father-daughter bond: I would put Hope in danger at the end of season 4, still Summer!Hope age, and the only one who can save her is Klaus. I would do a reprise of Klaus’ fight in “The River in Reverse”, maybe even with the same song and a different cover. Klaus would be restrained, and then he draws on his Hybrid strength, and he fights back. But there are too many foes, and he is still shackled somehow, and Hope screams. 

Klaus HOWLS. 

It’s ludicrous to me that the show ended without this moment, without Klaus choosing to shift fully into a wolf in order to harness his full power and protect his baby girl. The thing that he most hates about himself isn’t the loathing ingrained in him by Mikael, it’s the never-ending conflict in being a beast, and he craves his wildness. He is the same as the creatures that slaughtered Henrik. He is the creature that will save Hope. 

Hope will recognize him. Shocked and still a bit scared and the whole area drenched in blood, she will look him in his yellow eyes. He will approach her, but stop an arm’s reach away, suddenly remembering that he is a monster, that he should be ashamed. She will throw herself into the gap and wrap her arms around his neck and cry into his fur, and he will be at peace in a way he has never known existed. 

When Hope is a teen and more threats abound, there will be a few times when she is at risk of killing someone, and triggering her werewolf gene. There is the same discussion over whether or not to bind Hope as Klaus was bound, and repress the gene, repress her birthright, and Klaus will not let anyone make this choice for her. Whether or not she chooses, for some plot-reason she does trigger her gene without this binding ritual, and she must turn. 

She’s terrified. Hayley tries to be there for her and sympathize and show her how to move forward, but she feels the way the other werewolves watch her and doubt her and whisper bloodsucker’s bastard behind her back. She tells Hayley she doesn’t want to be part of the pack at all. 

Everyone notices how lonely she is. Everyone sees the way she throws herself into her magic studies with Freya and Vincent and never says a word about wolves or vampires, and finally one day an entire room implodes and Klaus finds her in the wreckage bawling. Forgetting himself as he holds her, he calls her Little Wolf, and she rages at him, and he takes her punches, and he tells her he knows how lonely she is, he feels it too, and she should not hide from herself. 

“Like you do?” she asks, and he realizes his hypocrisy is a tool she’s using to hurt herself the way he hurts himself, and so he abandons it without a thought. 

“I’ll go with you,” he promises. “I’ll... try, too.” 

And the next time the pack gathers to run and hunt, Klaus is there with Hope under his arm. Hayley kisses Hope’s forehead and lets the two of them hang at the outskirts as she leads. They learn together how to accept themselves for the anomalies they are, how to fit in the world that polarizes self against self, and find balance.

(Klaus learns how to barbecue)

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Yeah so none of this was necessary in order to come to the conclusion that it was VERY STRANGE for Bekah to be in PJs, Klaus not, both killed in what was supposedly the front room of their home, waking up without the rest of their fallen siblings beside them.

A girl knows there was no real rhyme or reason to it but I want there to be INTRIGUE and it seems like there is intrigue here.

Anyways. This is the second time I’ve researched Viking longhouses for this quandary, so I know a fair bit now. Like how the TVD set should have had bedding accessible/laid out in the same room as the tiny hearth. Why would they sleep in the back room that *didnt* have heating? Maybe it was in the corner we didn’t see, but that’s not enough room for 8.

That one did attempt pseudo-plank platforms tho which the fancier set didn’t bother with. TO s1 did this too: it’s almost a perfect mini makeshift longhouse except for the fireplace being on the back wall and not a pit in the center.

The bedding arrangement from s1 could also fit in the fancier s2 set! My guesses from top to bottom? Eldest to youngest, with one or both parents at the bottom oval. Mikael was shown sleeping alone when Bekah tried to kill him, just sayin. Dividers to make enclosed spaces weren’t unheard of but basically the idea was to be cozy in front of the fire when you slept alongside your family, and I doubt Ester particularly wanted alone time with Mikael after she met her side piece.

The s2 set is the grandest. They probably have a storage loft up there in the roof! Again the fireplace is not in the middle but hey I get why a fire pit in the smack dab center of your tv set is not gonna be fun to work with.

So for the Mikaelsons chronologically, the s1 and s2 sets are prob’ly just the same room filtered through budgets. We could HC that Mikael built it up to the s2 appearance then there was a fire, and he basically had to remake what they’d had when the kids were li’l. We could also HC that somehow these rooms fit together (TVD and TOS2 might, but there wouldn’t be two hearths like that?) or that the TVD set is actually Ayana’s house, since it has the necklace that Ayana gave/gives to Esther and we don’t know when that exchange happened. It’d be super rude of Esther to drag her five semi-undead kids to Ayana’s house to finish the ritual, but hey it’s not like Esther wouldn’t pull something like that and maybe she forgot some frogs’ eyes.

(I have no idea why the newborn!Klaus scene and the TVD scenes look like they could be the same set, esp when they had such a beautiful shiny new set in s2. I guess Mikael hadn’t chopped down enough trees yet)

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Talk to me about Andy/Freya parallels I have.. thoughts

Gladly! SPOILERS FOR THE ORIGINALS AND THE OLD GUARD BELOW.

I don’t know about you, but my own thoughts are that for two immortals with such wildly different experiences, Freya and Andromache have an exquisite similarity in their tone and attitude. 

Neither is what could be called ‘warm’, but both are extremely loving. Their views on human life and goodness strike a chord, not necessarily because they do similar things but because there is a circle for each of them, that they had lived without for so long, and there is outside the circle. Lives are precious, and should be saved, but not at the expense of their family -- family is to be defended with all of the brutal efficiency both women have on offer. 

Both women are ludicrously powerful and incapable of death. This point becomes muddled for both of them when Andy’s healing slows and Freya’s link to Dahlia is broken (it is never fully established -- I think? Y’all know I avoided the ending season and a half -- whether Freya’s immortality was conditional on Dahlia’s life, but it is heavily implied). This point is negligible to both of them, as both have longed for death for centuries and have pretty much unlearned how to see themselves as humans. Losing their power is only important in that they feel as though they are not as sturdy a tool as they once were, which is aggravating and inconvenient, but it has nothing really to do with pride. 

Freya tries more than Andy, and I’d posit that this is first because Freya’s circumstances were ones she could understand and ones that had faces and places and pasts, and second because Andy probably has at least a thousand years on Freya. Freya Mikaelson longs for blood family, and parenthood, and people to love for the sake of love. Her goal for a thousand years was breaking free of her imprisonment and finding her family, even knowing of their evilness and knowing she would likely be rejected. 

I have only watched through TOG once, but I got a much bleaker feel from Andromache. Her power doesn’t come from a source she can name and hate and plot against, her ties to her human family and human world are long turned dust, and she is haunted not with the solid guilt over deaths of the people she most loved (as Freya is with Mathias and her baby) but with the twisting, confusing helplessness of watching Lykon die, or the despairing helplessness of knowing Quynh is there, suffering, endlessly. 

Andy has had to find her way to feeling as though life is worth it, with whatever it is that she has left -- I think Freya always had that seed of worth tied to her family, and, allowed to grow, she could open herself to Keelin’s love. But all the same, I feel like the lines and stares and gameface and methods concocted by each to protect those they love are so similar. Just, tonally, I feel like these two are in harmony, despite all of the differences there are that I have and have not mentioned. 

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y’all thought I forgot about this one

a good (3) of you really wanted this meta and well. It’s been like. Four years? Anyways. 

‘Stolen Dance’ was on the radio today and it makes me think of Klaus and Care, because I get it mixed up with ‘Dangerous’ and that’s my song for them. Also, Stolen Dance has a line that I THOUGHT was ‘Stolen Paradise’ and it’s ACTUALLY ‘stoned in paradise’ so I USED to get K/C vibes from that. Anyways. Whenever I think of that ship I think of @hairzier, and I remembered that I had given her a teaser of this meta a while back. Before I got home, I had FINALLY constructed a thesis (wow amy what a nerd) for this analysis that I’d tried to write FOREVER ago, but it didn’t have a central focus and it was way too bogged down with me trying to find one as I went along. 

Don’t know what the hell I’m talking about?

The meta is this: Klaus as an artist + Klaus’ relationships with three featured women in his life circa 2010′s. If you came to the fandom late or haven’t ever seen my username, hi, I used to write a ton of TO meta, I Don’t Do Ships Really At All For It. At least, not the ‘big’ ones. I digress. Just -- don’t expect me to bash or gush over any ship, I’m gonna compliment and critique them all. Please avoid or read on accordingly <3

Caroline: The Art

I tried to find my write-up for Sahar from ages ago, because it was clear and concise and exactly what I intended. Oh well. Once more. 

Shippers and Antis pretty much love it and hate it for the same reason: Klaus is so different around her. Well, that and it’s either empowering for Caroline or abusive. Depends on perspective. I am firmly in the camp that every relationship in Klaus’ life during this time period is abusive in some way. What he does to Caroline is particularly messed up, but also particularly kind, in turns. The lightness and puppy-love-ness of Klaus around her was so jarring, is so jarring, because he doesn’t display that behavior for anyone else. He allows himself to be foolishly partial to her, but he also seems to only have selective guilt for the horrors he subjects her to. As a viewer who will bend over backwards to create complexity rather than label something ‘bad writing’, I found that Klaus’ relationships, especially with women, especially with Caroline, are steeped in his relationship with art. 

To Klaus, Caroline is an exquisite work of living art. Pleasing to the eye, challenging to his thoughts, but benign -- safe, and static. More than wanting to ‘own’ her, though, I believe he wants to join her. Make himself into something that compliments her colors and her lines, because the experience of interacting with art is one of the purest joys Klaus knows. In this way, he intimately analyzes her life and feelings, he inserts himself into her narrative, he plays a part that he enjoys -- maybe one, at times, he truly wishes was not a performance. In this way, he adores her, he respects her, but not really as a person, and certainly not as an equal. He values every moment with her, treasures it; lets himself get drunk on it. She’s the Mona Lisa, living, breathing, and bold enough to insult him to his face. When she breaks the frame he makes for her -- when she really challenges him in ways only a person can -- he can only retreat, and lash out. 

And ask for forgiveness with acts of kindness, or material value (he even, incredibly, uses his art to soften her to him, on more than one occasion) -- trying to shift her attention as if she can forget his abuses.  In all: he wants her to enrich his life, not change it. 

Hayley: The Clay

(Or the canvas, or materials, or what have you.)

One of Hayley’s first scenes with Klaus sets her up as a direct foil to Caroline: 

Klaus: Painting is a metaphor for control. Every choice is mine-- the canvas, the color. As a child, I had neither a sense of the world nor my place in it, but art taught me that one's vision can be achieved with sheer force of will. The same is true of life, provided one refuses to let anything stand in one's way.

Hayley: So this is your thing-- show a girl a few mediocre paintings, whine about your childhood, and I swoon and spill all my dirty secrets?

Hayley doesn’t want to see him as a person. Klaus doesn’t really want to see her as a person, either. Eventually, he learns that he has to respect her as a mother, at least, or he will not deserve his daughter. Eventually, he learns to see her as family. But at the core, and I don’t think he ever loses this -- he sees Hayley as his work-in-progress. Potential. Not only to be a strong ally, but to be -- just maybe -- an equal.

Which is annoying for him, because she also happens to be the only person he cannot reliably control, or predict. His only choice is to try to shape her into someone that he can work with. That someone is himself, mostly, but with some key improvements. His tone with her is so often instructive, mentor-ly, a thin veneer above his need for her to be someone he doesn’t have to worry about, damn it! He can understand her so why can’t he control her! 

This kicks into gear, mostly, after Hayley’s transformation. She estranges herself from Elijah, somewhat, and Klaus does not interfere with her spiral into blood and rage because it’s part of the process. He sees himself in her, but not like he saw himself in Marcel. His perspective on Marcel was so tied to fatherhood that he was trying to raise a young Klaus, while in Hayley’s case, he is trying to sculpt her in his image. 

His advice on how to deal with rage, vengeance, and wildness is sincere and from personal experience. His advice on what to do about love? Well, certainly stay with Elijah while it’s convenient for me, but don’t let love blind you to what you need. What we need. What I need. Don’t tell Jackson you slept with my brother -- honesty won’t keep this vital political alliance strong. Don’t forget you’re one of us now. It’s what I would do. 

I guess you could even say that Hayley, while pregnant, was a very different kind of work-in-progress for Klaus that made it near-impossible for him to see her as anything but a thing meant to be changed or cause change. Art, unfinished, and his. 

Camille: The Critic

All of these relationships are unique and powerful in their own ways. I admit I’m partial to the poetry of this one, the radicalness of this one, but again, I don’t really ship it as a romance? Maybe I do, now that I’ve had time away from it, but I don’t ‘stan’ it as ‘otp’. 

This one is obvious. Their ‘art’ scene is straightforward, and kind of cliche. A woman watches a street artist fill a huge canvas. Another passerby notices, and stops to ask her what she thinks. She floors him with her response -- so insightful, so bold, and so compassionate. The clever bartender that Marcel has a crush on just so happens to be a psychologist -- and, he learns later, with a particular, personal empathy for violent and cruel offenders. 

He feels a unique desire to be seen by her, and to be considered by her, in his entirety. Not that he does not want to control what she knows -- obviously -- but that he does not want to put on a single, convenient mask with her to accomplish his ends. He wants to be known, and he wants to know what she thinks of him. 

Again, he does not want any of this to touch him, or change him, really. He begins his Gallery Of Self not by making a therapy appointment but by ‘hiring’ (forcing) her to transcribe his biography (and making her forget everything she knows the moment she leaves his sight). This is safe, and it lets him bring out the masks and the goals and the good and the ugly of him and air them for her reaction. Will he, too, be worthy of empathy? 

Yes. But he’s also worthy of critique. Eventually, he takes baby steps to allowing her to impact his life (to varying degrees throughout all seasons that, in my opinion, make for a shamefully circular set of arcs on the writers’ parts. The point is I saw where they were trying to go with it, and letting Drama of the Week get in the way). Eventually, he makes real appointments. Tells himself he needs to change, somewhat, for Hope’s sake. 

And Camille is the kind of strong, confident woman he can imagine Hope to someday resemble. He wants his daughter to be free from the cycles of Mikaelson abuse, and he wants her to know goodness and have no reason to be evil. And if he is to do that, and if he is to know that Hope, then someone like Camille should be able to look at him and deem him capable. Worthy. Warts and all. He’ll spend time with her because he likes her, because he’s attracted to the beauty in her heart (like Caroline!) -- but he opens himself to her scrutiny because for once in his life he knows he has to change for the better. He knows he has to get help, and, well, the clever bartender seemed to fall into his life at exactly the right time to take in all of his decades and all of his deeds -- piece by piece, movement by movement, style by style, and understand them. Critique them. Maybe with that in mind he can make himself into a work that he can one day show to Hope. 

With that in mind, I can’t help but have a soft spot for those cheesy lines from the very first episode.

Klaus: Do you paint?

Cami: No, but I admire. Every artist has a story, you know.

Klaus: And what do you suppose his story is?

Cami: He's...angry. Dark. Doesn't feel safe and doesn't know what to do about it. He wishes he could control his demons instead of having his demons control him. He's lost. Alone.

Cami: Or maybe he just drank too much tonight. Sorry. Overzealous Psych major.

Klaus: No. I think you were probably right the first time.

@florafaunaandeldritchhorrors @ptonkin @furrydolphin @jungshoook (DID YOU ABANDON THE KLEBEKAH URL REDIRECT????? MOM??????!?!!?!??!?!??!?!!?!!?!??! I JUST CHECKED AND IT’S NOT THERE ANYMORE???? I NEED TO *MOURN* AND YOU JUST DIDN’T *TELL* US??!)

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hey so if you wanna hit me with that sweet sweet elijah’s characterization meta anytime please feel free. or direct me to any previous posts because my dumb ass is using this time to re-obsess over vampire melodrama.....

It appears that most of my non-tag and non-petty-casual commentary is still in drafts... so instead of finishing the ‘What the hell is wrong with season 4: an itemized list’ meta and finishing answering the ‘What would you change if you could rewrite any of the show?’ ask from a while ago, I’ll just pick out the Elijah bits and add on to them for garnish. (Those posts might exist at some point. But honestly not soon enough for me to worry about people getting annoyed with copy/paste so PREVIEW TIME: ELIJAH FLAVOR)

This is way sloppier and un-cited than I usually meta, by the way, but what the hell, The Fandom is Dead and I Only Have Friends to Entertain Now, so if anyone gets angry and tries to step into my asks then it’ll just be nostalgic rather than annoying.  Here’s the starter, which is from the F*CK YOU SEASON 4 meta and quite a few of these points will be repeated later because you asked for it technically so.

The cracks in the narrative began to show as early as season two, and believe me when I say I’m not saying this because I love him - it began with Elijah. I can make a lot of arguments to this effect, but the only one that I am certain is not propelled by my very strong bias concerns the presentation of the Red Door.

Initially, I was ecstatic at the opportunity to explore Elijah’s past, his perspective, his darkest moments. I was a bit wary in that it seemed as though the narrative wanted to Explain Everything about Elijah through this device, but he was finally getting some attention so I tried to hold back judgement.The result was pretty promising. One of the most gorgeous moments on the show occurs when Klaus enters Elijah’s mind and tells him how much he needs him. It showcases the main pillar of the show - the structural trifecta of Hope, Klaus, and Elijah. And afterwards, as usual, Elijah pushes the experience away.Until it’s convenient. 

Elijah begins to be erratically vicious. At first, I felt as though it wasn’t handled poorly, I could explain away my worries easily, and that was all I needed. But it happens over, and over, and over again, with the same excuse - protecting the family, protecting Hope. Elijah’s triggers, once so crucial, begin to break down, but we don’t see why or how that process occurs. He begins to be the character that is level-headed when it is convenient, and a violent one-track-mind when it’s convenient. Eventually, in order to maintain balanced tension with a softening Klaus, Elijah became violent without nuance in every situation. His continued development is no longer possible, since his character no longer displays depth.

Which is annoying, as a fan. But as a person who loves to analyze narrative, it’s a huge red flag. Elijah is necessary for this story. His love for Klaus, and Klaus’ relationship with him, is one of the things that holds the narrative together as it goes forward. The two of them need each other in order to experience growth, but cannot grow from each other any longer - and that friction is what provides energy and substance that can help drive a multi-year melodrama. This is why I mentioned above that Elijah’s violence was likely intended to balance with Klaus’ changing heart - but there is no balance in the level of development the two brothers experience. It has been shoddy in many places, but attention has been given to Klaus’ journey towards peace and kindness, while Elijah has been given a single metaphor, a single psychosis, and is expected to carry half of the narrative weight. The story has no choice but to make a plot device out of him - he simply does not have the required depth to be anything else, which is made obvious by the attempt to do so in the ritual to bring Inadu to the material plane, which I will discuss later.

When his development is ignored, when he is used as a tool to get from point A to point B time and time again - that’s when the pillar starts to crumble.

Zooming back in on s1, this was actually my only major structural gripe with season 1, so it comprises the entirety of the ‘what would you change’ for that season:

The poison that rotted the whole dang show started very small — casting Elijah too strongly as a white hat, to offset the darkness of the rest of the main family. This was the right move, of course, but it was pushed a twinge too far and it was the tiny weight that set everything wobbling. As an offshoot of that, this was also done with Hayley to a degree. I would have had them bond very similarly to the way they do in the show, but I would have had them connect at least once over the skeletons in their closets. (Only once or twice, again, since their ship relied in this season on the fallacy of each other being saviors). In fact, this was one I felt so strongly about that I actually did rewrite their scene in 1x07 ‘Bloodletting’.

Then season two when it gets more pronounced: 

The rift in the show widened with the swing-and-miss that was The Red Door arc. Elijah became a Problem when it was convenient for the plot and A Fixer/Sounding Board when it was not. They used probably the most INTERESTING and INTEGRAL part of his characterization -- which had been a mystery for YEARS counting The Vampire Diaries appearances -- and Elijah discovering that either from trauma or his mother’s magic, he has repressed the moments which forged him. This lack of knowledge, this lack of control, should have been something much more cataclysmic and its effects should be clear when comparing ‘Elijah Before’ to ‘Elijah After’. Instead, it kind of served to take off Elijah’s ‘White Hat’ that he’d been illy-fitted with in S1, and allow him to accessorize with it or whatever version of Elijah fits the episode at hand.

This tension, and this chaos should have been much stronger and much more messy than simply putting the Suit back on and being Pretty Much Okay (barring one plot-insignificant diner massacre) only a few episodes later. It would make the therapy scene later with Camille even more gorgeous than it already is and it would then place Elijah’s moment of catharsis, and the beginning of his attempts to move on, with Klaus’ monumental forgiveness in 2x11. I think this is what was intended, but it was not at all achieved, because Elijah is such a tricky character to write, and it is so very easy to use him for whatever the scene requires. Because of this, Elijah’s struggles got dropped just long enough for Klaus’ forgiveness to hit powerfully in viewers for Klaus, but not for Elijah. The writing began to lean on Elijah as a Drama Everyman more and more throughout the show, and it’s just tragic to me that The Red Door wasn’t utilized to its potential. (And that we didn’t have a Klaus/Tatia conversation, but hey, I have an unfinished fixit for that whole saga on Ao3, you’re welcome and I’m sorry).

In season three, we got a few good glimpses of the kind of complexity that Elijah should live in -- the way he kills Arianne, for example, I’ve linked what I called a ‘headcanon’ but in retrospect it was pretty explicitly canon -- and we see the youth and terror and involuntary power in him in the flashback where he discovers that Klaus killed their mother. But the relationship between Tristan and Elijah? The man that he made, and that made him? That was far too pedestrian to have produced either of them. If Elijah learned ‘nobility’ from Tristan, learned what ‘superiority’ looked like, and this was the time that he began to change... we should have had words between them, or a scene highlighting just them, at least once in the flashbacks. 

If this season was supposed to be about the creation of the Trinity, the First Children (because Finn didn’t tell no one that Sage is actually the oldest ‘cuz he’s an ashamed little bitch) why did we see only TWO of the THREE transformations? Klaus turned Lucien accidentally, trying to heal him. Rebekah’s sympathy and love were used as Aurora’s tool to turn herself. When and how did Elijah turn Tristan? It is explained that Elijah turned him in order to create a third vampire for his plot to trick Mikael into chasing them instead -- it is explained that Tristan, Aurora, and Lucien were compelled to believe that they were in fact Elijah, Rebekah, and Klaus in order to make their decoy impeccable. But when this compulsion was shattered -- when Lucien learned that he had been used and made monstrous as a tool for a monster who wasn’t even noble -- did he confront Elijah? Did they ever speak, or was their next meeting the day Elijah learned that Tristan had taken over Elijah’s coven? I would argue that Elijah needed equal weight in the France flashbacks even though he didn’t have a flashy romance (though if early press release rumors were true, he and Tristan could have had one and that would have been perfect) 

Season four is really where you can pick an episode and Elijah will put on the stage makeup and play any part. It’s also -- BIG COINCIDENCE -- where the plot deteriorates completely. Here’s just one example from my Excuse You What the Hell? Season Four meta: 

On to the next moment that showed major neglect (I know this has been Elijah-heavy so far, but again, this is where the problem started so I want to carry this thread through for a while before addressing other issues) - the ritual to bring Inadu to the mortal realm. The purpose of this ritual was to scare viewers with the risk of Hope’s safety and hype the Hollow’s “bad”ness, but also to make the first move in the ‘Letting Go’ thread between Hayley and Elijah. Elijah was supposed to be forced to choose between children's lives and letting the Hollow loose upon the world, and decide to kill the children. That was the dramatic point of placing this ritual in the narrative, but it isn’t mechanically sound.

It is stated outright that the ritual has to end with the death of the children linked to the spell. The children were linked via their totems found in 4x03 - placing Hope definitively in this group.

But we only ever see four of the five in one place. Maybe it was worth it to the Hollow to reach as far out as Hope was to bind her via her hairbrush, maybe it was worth it to the Hollow to drain her from afar, I’d buy that easily. But they made no attempt to kidnap her and place her with the other four children during the ritual. The ritual that required the deaths of five children. Unless it required Hope to be there only on standby, which is absolutely ridiculous. They had the kids on an alter, even if it was just for show. But why not all of them? If the real goal of the ritual was to lure Klaus and/or Marcel, wouldn’t kidnapping Klaus’ child be a more surefire way to accomplish that rather than just hoping the Mikaelsons would come to the right mystical diagnosis in time?

The reason why Hope wasn’t there was because the ritual was never thought through. The reason she wasn’t there is because it didn’t make sense for Elijah to want to kill Hope to stop the Hollow, which is what this ritual actually demanded if it actually worked the way Vincent claimed. In actuality, all that was desired was for Elijah to display a willingness to kill innocents in front of Hayley, and in doing so it demanded that Hope’s life both be at stake and not at stake at all. This failure to coherently execute a single-episode arc is plainly poor storytelling. It displays not only disrespect to the narrative structure, but a blatant flippancy towards one of their main characters and arguably the most complex one on the series. The sloppily contrived tension here between Hayley and Elijah does eventually contribute to the supposed theme, yes, but at what cost?

Elijah was neglected because he was hard to write, and even harder to write well as a ‘light’ foil to Klaus. Marcel should have fully owned that role, and not been similarly jerked around as a plot-serving every-man once the mystery of season 1 and the reasons behind Marcel’s ‘senseless’ cruelty were revealed. 

Elijah was always the cornerstone of the family’s narrative, because he was complex enough to carry it. Camille provided an additional column of support to Klaus’ individual journey as a person/father, but she was bulldozed for Allmighty Plot as well. By the end of season three, both she and Elijah had effectively been thrown in the garbage one way or another, and the show tried to go on without them. It couldn’t. 

I will say that Elijah’s conversation with Hope in that ludicrous backdoor pilot did make me feel things. I did also see the clip where Elijah and Klaus have a heart-to-heart in some sort of european flashback, which was touching, but felt incongruous for their relationship/dev at the time. Hope asking Elijah how old he was when he made his promises to Klaus, though? Elijah offering carte blanche to Hope for how to punish her friend’s bullies? TWO OF THE THREE SCENES INVOLVING ICE CREAM? 

SOME of season 5 is valid but ONLY because it stole scripts from my headcanons.

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How much time does Elijah spend practicing the piano a day? Like...how does he schedule it in between sibling emergencies?

Hi, Jen. Thanks for this

Elijah does not practice daily, at least, not anymore. He has always gravitated towards creators in arts, philosophy, and the sciences, and so as Klaus followed the great art movements of Europe (and beyond?) Elijah followed the music and thought. Rebekah, when not in time-out with a dagger in her heart, followed her brothers, because if she followed art with them, she would always find humanity and love. 

I would say that Elijah was intrigued by the harpsichord, and fond of it, but found it inferior to the established instruments of the time. Harpsichords, while innovative, could not modulate volume, and this gave their sound a flatness that Elijah could not get used to. (An organ? Now, that, that was an immaculate thing. But not easy to take with you when you have to flee the country. again.)

And then the pianoforte. 

It was the 18th and 19th centuries – Klaus was off his ass on liquor and opium, salons and art shows. Rebekah was in and out of lover’s beds and her coffin confinement. The hunt for Katerina had become less of a passion and more of an annoyance, and so Klaus would paint for days. Party with his friends. Torment Rebekah. And paint, and paint, for weeks. 

Elijah spent that time at some of the same salons, and some of the same shows, and was occasionally convinced to offer his opinion in Klaus’ studio. As always, he composed. He also read, and studied, spoiled Rebekah when she was awake, and spent ludicrous amounts of money on high fashion. 

Mostly, though, he became so closely acquainted with the piano that it soon felt like a part of his own flesh. The range and convenience of a harpsichord, the diluted-but-still-ringing thunder of an organ, and the beautiful blend of hammer and string that made a timbre so new and exciting and full of possibility. Personality. Muse.

After the first fall of New Orleans, Elijah lost much of the time he spent with instruments. The twentieth century was full of confusion, and pain, and terror over family matters. But in his isolation, there were occasionally moments of pause. Whenever he found a piano, it spoke to him like another facet of the same true, true love, one that Klaus could never kill.

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alien smoochies

Short and sweet of it:

If supernatural romance and small town drama are tropes you like, I think you won’t be disappointed if you give this show a shot. All of my concerns are ones that could turn out to be pilot-specific, and all of my accolades are ones that have every reason to continue showing up in every episode.

Character motivations were very strong and barring the placement of one scene, feel like natural parts of both the character’s lives and the necessary plot.

Chemistry between all of the actors was also a plus, though the pace of information and the desire to keep secrets from the audience at times worked against the main ship.

Plot isn’t anything to write home about, it’s an alien drama on a YA-centric network based on a YA novel, are you expecting anything more than the classic tropes applied to modern-day, and applied well? If you are, I suggest The Expanse, but you’ll be sacrificing the heady YA romance focus for a plot-oriented and philosophical-political lens. Both shows deal heavily with ideas of identity, community, and the rights of man, though, which all alien stories worth their salt should do!

That being said, the political overtones that are present are not shy. If it were ten years ago and I was reviewing, I’d say it was a bit much. But it’s not ten years ago, it’s now, and I’d say much is fucking warranted in a small town American drama set in 2019. It takes a stance with immigration, diversity, mental illness, lgbtq, feminism, “the wall”, and disabled veterans. It knows that escapism in fiction is important, to a point, but chooses to put itself in what I think is a brave and effective in-between.

let the long-winded-ness begin: Spoilers, of course

Basically all I wanted out of this show was for it to have a cute lead romance that was as charming or more charming than the one on the ill-fated Star-Crossed (yes I watched some of that, yes it could have been way better, but also yes it tried some things that made me smile and I thought worked pretty well), plus a plot that only made me suspend disbelief when it came to the existence of aliens that look like models and have superhero powers.

The romance was almost too heavy-handed for me, and I was watching this show for the heavy-handed romance. It feels this way, in my opinion, because we see the heart-stopping, sappy, magnetic draw of these two characters over and over again in ways that just seem over-the-top without knowing their history. Having them flustered at seeing each other again unexpectedly is endearing, but insisting overtly and repeatedly that we’ve got true high school sweethearts love on our hands folks! before giving us the hints that a lot happened that contradicts/questions the initial information feels a bit like the carriage before the horse.

The main place where this really gummed up the wheels for me was the post-healing, pre-reveal bit where the aliens are fighting about what happened. The current indication at this point in the show is that Liz did not give Max the time of day until maybe the very end of high school, and if so there was not any reason to believe it got to a romantic level (could be remembering this wrong, I’m not infallible and also I don’t want to go through CW ads again to confirm). This in the subtext of Max’s obvious infatuation mixes to present an obsessive/idolistic vibe to his feelings. As the pilot progresses, chinks fall into place in the backstory until we finally get enough foundation to fully support the way these people are talking to and about each other.

This intense withholding to me was a net negative -- I would have preferred more overt hints in the first twenty minutes that the main relationship meant much more in high school (and possibly was much more) than a long crush met with a budding one, and nothing happened from there. It would have made me feel I had more freedom to fall into those sappy loving longing scenes without the nagging sensation of unbalance.

Despite this, I was able to still totally go weak at the knees for the ‘You’re just feeling echoes of what I feel for you... It’ll wear off...’/’When will it wear off?’/’A few days, maybe a week’/’Okay, I’ll kiss you then.’ because THAT’S HOW YOU WRITE THE HELL OUT OF A BUDDING SUPERNATURAL ROMANCE. With each line I was hoping they’d go in this direction, and when I have hopes like this for sci-fi/fantasy romance dialogue I’m usually disappointed. This was *kisses fingers* bellissimo.

Other than the romance, the alien confrontation scenes in the early/mid portion of the episode could have really used a bridging line or two. Michael and Isobel are furious that Max healed someone and caused a scene when they’re not even sure if she remembers or suspects anything. Meanwhile, Michael is shorting out cameras and causing supernatural mayhem in nearly every scene he’s in. While Max and Isobel aren’t thrilled about this, there’s no acknowledgement by any of the three that Michael doesn’t have a leg to stand on here, or if they really feel that what Max did was that much more dangerous, they don’t nitpick at why. They shouldn’t have done the latter, really, since they were in their own dynamic with their own established norms and if this was part of those norms they wouldn’t have had to debate them. But as an audience member it took me out of the scene and lessened the impact of the job it was supposed to do in establishing how these characters fit together.

(also, i feel that since the scenes I just mentioned fell a bit short, I can’t say I see the point of Max telling them ‘I’m going to reveal our secret!’ when it will be for all intents and purposes unavoidable for him to do so regardless. To reinforce the character motivations, these scenes may have played better if Max was on the fence about telling Liz, and his siblings convinced him not to despite his concern for her and desire to alleviate her fears of mental illness. This would have shown his viewpoints -- “I think it’s right to tell her”/”I should be in charge of this decision” -- warring with his core value -- “Protect my siblings” -- and this conflict would have provided a lot more fodder for establishing the dynamic norms for these three.)

My other big-ish gripe was the military man set up to be the antagonist. In a “legend” fraught with red tape, cover-ups, and lies to highest branches of government, Commander Manes has one conversation with a young doctor (the son of his trusted dead colleague, yes, but still) and said young doctor plays the information barter game... and wins? The plot seems to need these two to be trusting in each other to some degree, but to have it happen so soon? A short scene where Doc Valenti was up to his ears in legally binding scary paperwork plus a half dozen checkpoints and failsafes before getting to the secret alien HQ would have been nice. I just don’t really buy that this head honcho guy waltzes on to base with a civilian and tells him the whole story just because he was BFFs with the guy’s dad.

This isn’t really a gripe, more of a standard that I think is worth aspiring to: disabled actors exist, and it would have been better if one had been cast as Alex. Maybe something sci-fi happens in the plot later that would have made this unfeasible, I don’t know. Maybe it was attempted and there really wasn’t anyone for it. There are a lot of maybes. I just know that representation always happens this way: it is simulated before it is direct. It’s good to support the simulation as far as it affects public opinion, but not talking about how it can be better is treading water. So: I’m incredibly happy for the work this show is doing to put different types of people in the public eye. As a part of that public eye, I feel the need to make my voice heard, so to speak, in continuing to push the standard.

Getting off my tiny little tumblr soap box, I think that’s about it for my thoughts. Of course I’m a writing nerd, so I have thoughts on every line written in every show I’ve seen in the past five years, and I’m not going to subject myself or anyone reading to the tedium of that. Of course I didn’t even scrape the surface of all of the topics covered by this pilot and what I thought about each and every one of them -- Liz’s characterization and relationships with her sister and best friend especially -- but suffice to say if I didn’t pick on it then I really enjoyed it. 

Anyone who enjoyed this, let me know! I’m not putting it in the tag since I’m trying to limit my fandom interaction, but I am interested in maybe doing more series or pilot reviews if people want to read them.

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Klaus acknowledges his daughter to be part wolf. Does he regard himself the same? I mean yes he has a huge ego about him being the hybrid but has he ever shown any real interest in that wolf heritage of his or shown any desire to turn into a wolf? Does he think turning into a wolf will limit him to be an animal? Why have we not gotten to see that side of Klaus yet when that is the big part of him, that separates him from other supernatural. Hayley is proud of being a wolf but not KLaus?!

First off, Klaus and Hayley are different people, so there’s absolutely no reason to expect them to have the same feelings regarding any parts of their identities. Even if Hayley seemed to refer to some universal pride when she talked about it, that doesn’t mean that it can override a thousand years of character development in Klaus.

I believe Klaus has a very conflicting opinion when it comes to his werewolf nature. I believe Klaus has very conflicting feelings about almost everything at all times, which is why I love him so much.

He loves his werewolf side for being something that Mikael didn’t give him, especially because it’s something that makes him stronger than Mikael - stronger than the one who beat him for being weak.

He looks on on the pack dynamic with longing, because his instincts tell him that that’s where he belongs, that he’s an alpha and he has a heritage and a wolfiness that ties him to a legacy, again, that has nothing to do with Mikael’s legacy.

But wolves were always the monsters in his people’s nightmares. Wolves gutted and eviscerated his baby brother, probably as he watched, helpless. Not only were they monsters, they were beasts. And for the Mikaelsons, there’s a pretty significant distinction between the two. Elijah exemplifies this rather well - people see him as noble, but he doesn’t. He knows he’s a monster. But he has his dignity (maybe too much dignity) because he is a monster with an intellect. He can think past his instincts, and make decisions.

Werewolves lose their minds every full moon. They act purely on instinct.

Klaus acts purely on one specific instinct at almost all times - pain. This is why I believe Mikael hated him from the beginning, even though neither of them could identify the reason. And even if Klaus hasn’t associated this ‘weakness’ with his werewolf nature, I think it is absolutely a subconscious association in his mind.

And this is why I think Klaus has never willingly turned into a wolf. Even when he knows he can control it, he can’t shake the association with beastliness in the worst sense. He’s been trying for a thousand years to prove to himself and to his family that he is not a beast - even though he longs for almost everything about being a werewolf, he can’t shake the negative association about himself and about the species.

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Hi Amy! I was just wondering if you or anyone had written a meta or anything about Klaus' parenting. Especially how it will differ from Marcel to Hope. Thank you in advance!

I’ve touched on it in other ways, since it is pretty central to the show, but I’m not sure if I’ve addressed it directly before?

I definitely think @klausmikelsons or @klausmikaelssn (don’t blame me for the names, trust me, I know) has also touched on it as well, maybe in the past? My memory fails me, so if the following isn’t what you were looking for you can always ask them as well!

Your question is a really good one, though, and I thought it would be super easy for me to answer - I thought that I’d thought about this extensively! But when I actually was like ‘Hm. What is it - besides blood, which is certainly a factor - that really makes this different?’ I had to really sit down and think. Why?

Klaus has always been subconsciously trying to achieve the things his father valued. Consciously, he calls this ‘strength’, since that’s what Mikael called it. When those around him constantly marvel at how he viciously seeks a legacy, they always attribute it to his loneliness. That’s a part of it, yes - wanting to feel a kinship that he can truly trust and truly control - but think about how obsessed Mikael was with legacy. With having a warrior as a son, with carving his ancestor’s runic symbol on a stave a thousand years after he was supposed to have died. Legacy was everything to Mikael.

So Klaus says in TVD that he needs to make hybrids as an army to use against Mikael. Rebekah picks up on how it’s more than that, but all she sees is the loneliness. What he’s also seeking is legacy, that thing his father held above all else, the thing that made Klaus so disgusting in Mikael’s eyes - that the weakness he saw in Klaus was connected to him, was because of him. What was that line? “I cannot describe the relief I felt when I learned that you were not actually my son.”

The hybrids ended up being a failure - their loyalty was forced, even if it was pure. It was another farce (as much as he loves his half-siblings, he has never been able to trust that they truly love him back) in his eyes.

Two hundred or so years earlier, before he had broken his curse, before he was strong enough to face his father mentally and physically, he saw a small opportunity for legacy. He saw himself in a young boy, on a funeral walk. He saw spirit and rejection and loneliness and greatness.

When Mikael first saw Klaus, swaddled in Esther’s arms, he was filled with joy. He looked into the baby’s face and saw a “warrior’s eyes”.

When Klaus first saw this boy, he asked him if he had a name. He said no. Klaus looks into the boy’s eyes, and suggests Marcellus. The boy is a little confused, the name sounds so grand and old. Klaus has to explain: “It comes from Mars, the god of war, and it means ’little warrior’.”

As genuine as Klaus’ love for Marcel is, from the very first moment, Klaus was motivated by his feelings of inferiority, his need to prove himself, his desire to be strong and great and powerful. His sympathy for Marcel was real, his tenderness was real, none of that is worth any less. But the context is tragically important.

Because when Klaus tries to be a father to Marcel, he’s trying to teach Marcel how to live his life as a rejected bastard son - Klaus is trying to help a younger version of himself achieve greatness. In Klaus’ mind, this is the purest expression of his love for Marcel. But it’s not what Marcel needs.

It’s no surprise that Marcel ended up so much like Klaus. That he nurtures his inferiority complex with bravado and power-lust. It’s the only way Klaus ever showed him how to cope, because it’s the only way Klaus knew how to cope. So when Marcel seeks the power that has comforted Klaus, vampirism, Klaus is shocked and confused - vampirism is the curse that gave him power, yes, but it’s a curse all the same - but he understands Marcel’s need all too well. He paved the road for Marcel to follow. His refusal to turn Marcel until his hand is forced is a testament to his conscious desire to give Marcel a better chance at life, one that is healthier and less fueled by evil vices. But subconsciously, he needs to turn Marcel into a warrior, he needs to build his legacy, he needs to show his father that people like him can create and dominate and thrive. He needs to feel strong.

The difference between his fatherhood of Hope and his fatherhood of Marcel, I think, has way too many aspects to examine in one meta. Maybe some of my friends can expand on it, but there are a few things I feel like really, really, get to the core of why Klaus is going to be able to walk down a different path this time.

When he first saw his little girl, he didn’t see himself. He didn’t see the cycle of pain that drew him to Marcel, he didn’t see power, he didn’t see strength. He saw a tiny creature, innocent, new, and irrevocably tied to him. He saw something that the likes of Mikael had never touched. He saw a baby who needed a father.

This time, it’s truly selfless. His need for legacy is what kept Hayley alive, no doubt, during the pregnancy. But now he needs something more than he has ever needed legacy - he needs to raise Hope in a world that will never teach her that she’s inferior, that will never make her feel unwanted or unloved, that will never tell her that she is weak for feeling pain.

He has no idea how to do that.

In order to give her a safe world, he dived headlong into his Mikael-esque tactics of dominion and power. Killing his own biological father is the height of this, and every time he embraces the fear and hatred of others is another brick to the defense. He has to suddenly face every horrific thing he’s ever done, though, and wonder, how am I going to keep my enemies from hurting her, when I have done worse to them? By becoming bigger and by becoming badder.

That’s what we’ve seen so far. He definitely has every intention of ending the cycle of abuse, of being a loving and open and caring father. But he feels that in order to have an environment safe enough for Hope to live, he has to create a space where no enemy would dare defy him. Since Hope has been too little to really understand Daddy’s actions in seasons 2 and 3, this has only been an issue in the back of Klaus’ mind. It’s a problem he knows exists - especially when everyone keeps pointing it out to him - but he doesn’t know any other way to even begin to change.

That’s why he goes to a person like Camille, to try and figure out how to change all of those well-worn cycles within him, but that’s a bit of a sore subject for me, as everyone knows. Point is, he makes conscious and active choices to face the ways that he perpetuates abuse, and to change them. He’s not always successful, poor boy, but he finally wants to change and feels like he actually might be able to do so.

Now that she’s old enough to really see him, if not understand his actions, he’s going to have to make big and scary decisions about the example he wants to set. For his parenting of Marcel, teaching him Machiavellian authoritarianism and alpha-male posturing was a way for Klaus to teach Marcel how to protect himself from his insecurities, from his fears. In doing so, he inadvertently reinforced and normalized those insecurities. He can’t do that with Hope. She doesn’t have those insecurities, and it’s on his shoulders to parent her in a way that will keep her from developing them.

He’s going to have to lean on his family, now that he no longer has someone ‘safe’ and non-Mikaelson like Camille. Klaus doesn’t know how to do that. He knows how to manipulate them (well, everyone but Hayley) but he doesn’t know how to trust them with that vulnerability within him. It’s not about legacy any more, not about patting himself on the back and saying ‘take that, Mikael, I really am worth something! Look what I’ve made!’

And that’s been Klaus’ goal for a thousand years. With this new goal… who knows how he’s going to handle it, but the fact of his shifting and warring priorities alone is enough for us to hope. That’s what Elijah saw in Klaus before it even began. That’s why Elijah latched on to the idea of Hayley’s pregnancy and didn’t let go. This new opportunity for Klaus to have a love he can trust and a family member who can trust his love in return - it’s unprecedented. So no matter how many times Klaus has and will fail in achieving his new goal, the one that finally, finally exists outside of that thousand-year-long cycle of abuse… there’s always hope. Always Hope.

[sicklyscribe]

gather up the thoughts: 4x01 review

So I figured I’d do another one of these, especially since some people (Ashley) are particularly interested (Ashley) in how I feel about it! ( @hopepeaceandblackgirlmagic)

I’m going to try to go through scene-by-scene with cons, then pros, because at the moment I feel like I have to get all the negativity out of me before I even try to see the positive.

Vincent’s speech to the alliance:

Opening lines have always been pretty killer for the premieres. Sometimes they don’t fit seamlessly into the scene or character context, but this one was broad enough and the setting was appropriate enough to match - in all ways but one.

I personally adored the relationship between Camille and Vincent in every episode where it was featured. It was one of those things that just made sense, felt so right, that these two people would become such close friends in such a short amount of time.

But Camille was in no way a sacrifice, in any sense of the word. Flashing back to Camille during the lines “We paid a high price for that peace” is incongruous and insulting. Camille’s death was not a quid pro quo, it did not achieve anything - the whole “point” was that she was chosen to die because she was special to Klaus. She was collateral. How much more clearly can the creators communicate how little they valued this arc in their story, if they don’t bother to reference it accurately? Vincent may have been thinking about how much he misses Camille for that entire speech, but Camille’s death had nothing to do with buying peace. That was Davina.

It would have been so easy to make those flashback dedications only about Davina, or to flash back to Camille during the lines detailing the Mikaelson horrors. There’s no excuse that’ll make that right.

So I have to believe that Camille was considered after the fact, and inserted thoughtlessly. Inserting Camille into the narrative whenever loosely possible is not honoring her memory, it is desperately and obviously attempting to make an apology to viewers that is much too late. If Camille’s final arc was written respectfully, if her death was truly being honored as a significant moment later on, these kinds of insertions would be totally seamless. There would be no need to construct situations to remember Camille, because they would occur naturally as the narrative progressed. The aftermath of poor decisions in a continuing narrative is that you have to build on those decisions - and therefore writing a good story becomes that much harder.

What I did enjoy about this speech is that Vincent has obviously been forging this community with nothing but the sweat of his brow. The witches are weaker, so much weaker now, but he has them beginning to work with vampires instead of against them. He’s not asking them to be friends. He’s just asking for what they all need - peace. And achieving that for five years is... well... Let’s just say I wouldn’t mind if Vincent kept being in charge of things. In fact, put him in charge of more things. Less people die that way.

Now I’m only a minute into the premiere and it’s already pretty long. OOPS.

Setup scenes (Marcel & Sofya, Hayley & Mary, Marcel & Josh & Vincent):

Gotta say, I am still unimpressed with Sofya. That’s nothing against the character, it’s because at the moment she’s being used as a plot engine. There is literally nothing else about her in the narrative. She gets information, she spouts information. Great?

I’m not really seeing the point of her, for this reason. Josh could easily be the courier of Sofya’s intel, providing some color and personality and actual relationship dynamic on screen for viewers to digest with their information-vegetables. It just comes off as so flat, at the moment. Having more screen time for a female character isn’t worth much if everything she says goes under the ‘things we need viewers to understand so we can get to the Good Parts’ column. Allusions to sex don’t count.

I’d love to be proven wrong, of course, but we knew Sofya a bit in s3 as well, and she served the same purpose then. Clock’s kinda ticking for me.

I do love how much Marcel has thought about what’s going on “behind his back” with Hayley. How much it must frustrate him to know that in order to keep Rebekah alive, he must keep Elijah alive.

As for my BABY! I love. I love. I LOVE I LOVE I LOVE I LOVE how our very first shot of Hope this season, of Hope at 7 years old, is her drawing. It’s so cheesy it’s so unnecessary it’s so PERFECT all the same. Not only was Klaus’ biological father an artist, his daughter is as well. I’m not crying. Shut up. Shut.

As for Mary, sigh, I still hate her guts but i can acknowledge that she’s probably a great “grandmother” to Hope and a really good resource for Hayley. So I guess she can stay.

Now, something I thought I was going to rage over actually was resolved by a quick google search. When Marcel walks into Rousseau’s, we see him take a sad look over at the picture of Cami and Davina on the wall. In the shot, this picture looks sooooooo fake. At first glance it looked like two headshots smooshed together, and it made me want to vomit. I was outraged by the cheapness. Turns out, it’s an actual picture of Leah and Danielle together, only change being Charles is cropped from Leah’s left side. I still wish they’d chosen a different picture, but it’s not as cheap as I thought. Jumping to conclusions really does a number on my blood pressure.

I feel like Josh’s line “Everything Cami wanted” could have been delivered and framed waaaaaay better, but I feel like having it in the script wasn’t a bad idea. This line is actually referencing values that Camille held while she was alive. Also on that note, is Josh half running the bar and half... DJing at NOLA clubs??? I know the kid needs something to do and he’s kinda not that into being Marcel’s yes-man any more, but... It seems kinda silly to me. And later, when we see him ‘spinning’.... I love Josh, but that kid looks so awkward at the discs. Is all of it just because he said he liked House music in season one? C’mon...

A nice civilized conversation:

The only gripe - the only tiny gripe I have about this is that Marcel is still repeating the same exact line about ‘IT’S MY CITY NOW HAHA’. It’s a tiny gripe because yeah, Marcel still cares about it, but Klaus did officially relinquish power at the end of s2, right? Not that that means he didn’t still have a ton of power in the Quarter after that, but Marcel wasn’t really taking the city back from him last season. Like, it just seems unnecessary for the point it made. We know how Marcel feels about the symbolism of the city. It just wasn’t a big enough point to bring up again, because they are really bordering on broken-record with that line, no matter how it’s worded. It should only be brought up in specific and necessary explorations of that particular part of Marcel, and it was used to frame a much broader sense of personal superiority.

Also, confusion - where is Klaus being kept? It’s implied to be beneath the compound, but I would have thought Marcel would keep him in the Garden? Since we never knew there was a dungeon beneath the compound? Like, it wouldn’t surprise me if there was one, but it’s just strange to me. Marcel already has a place for this.

Other than that, damn. Just...

Joseph Morgan kills every single scene in this episode with his eyes alone. Mad with boredom at first, weak with hunger, unfocused and dull. But the core of all of it is shame. Sadness. The quietness of self-hatred. He’s not proud of staying alive for his family. He’s in a much older, much more familiar place in his mind in that dungeon. So he returns to the oldest, most familiar pattern.

Klaus makes a threat at the first opportunity. Trying to scare Marcel, just a bit, so that he can get that safe feeling of superiority for that small moment. I don’t think he actually wants Marcel to rot in hell - he doesn’t kill those he loves when they hurt him, he just makes them suffer. But saying he wants Marcel to rot in hell is what Klaus needs in this moment to make himself feel strong... like Mikael was strong.

“There’s two ways this can go” Marcel tells him, showing him the stick and the carrot - the Suffer Knife and the Blood Bottle - Klaus can’t help but laugh. Marcel didn’t react to Klaus’ posturing, but the fact that Marcel came down here wanting something from him is enough of a high, enough of a comfort. Marcel has the barrier holding Klaus in, Marcel has the blood and the blade, but Klaus is the one making choices, Klaus is the one that has something Marcel would come all the way down here to get.

But then Marcel does something that lets us know exactly how that shame and sadness became the ghost in Klaus’ eyes. And I’m not sure if he does this because he knows he’s given Klaus a bit of power in this moment, I’m not sure if he knows just how much this hurts Klaus, but he certainly is following a pattern he learned from Klaus - confront others with your power over them before getting what you need.

“You know, once I figured you had suffered enough, I pulled this out. And on that day, I heard a word that I had never heard you say: Mercy.”

The gleam of power in Klaus’ eyes dies in that instant. He can’t look Marcel in the eye, he can’t look at his own bound hands, he can’t think of the people he’s defending. “Why not just kill me?”

When Klaus submits to pain, he is reliving every moment his father ever punished him for. Asking for mercy is like saying he deserves to die. Because that’s what Mikael taught him. That’s how he learned words like weak and strong. For all those lonely years he has been re-affirming all of those “truths” about himself - his weakness, his worthlessness, his inferiority, patheticness. He’s been living with that, and only that, ever since Marcel took that blade out. There’s no power-play in his question to Marcel. There’s no angle. Just sorrow. Self-hate. Disgust. Klaus didn’t believe he deserved death for his crimes against his sireline, but he would welcome it after wallowing in this pain without dignity or endurance. Of course he knows he has to stay alive, but there is that almost wistful note to the question. Just that spark of longing. He’d asked for mercy. How can he ever pretend to be strong? How could he ever pretend to deserve to live?

After he asks it, though, he has to look up at Marcel. He has to look up and see with his own eyes what the answer is going to be, and if he believes it. What he gets in return is more of his own bravado thrown back at him - this speech from Marcel reminds me so much of the one Klaus gave to Mikael in 1918. “I am worthy, I am king, I am STRONG” - Marcel learned this speech, this need, from Klaus. And yet his very first sentence is “Because I’m not like you, Klaus.”

I adore it. Especially since, as I said before, Klaus doesn’t kill those he loves when they hurt him. He does exactly as Marcel is doing now. He isolates them, and makes them suffer alone. It is so perfect.

This speech has given Marcel enough momentum to get to his goal - Alastair. And this is the moment when life returns to Klaus’ eyes. His head rises, like he’s feeling lighter, less tired, less miserable. Because Marcel is not only asking something of him, he’s showing his hand. Which means he’s desperate. And he’s cornered. As soon as Klaus hears ‘Alastair Duquesne’, the wheels are spinning again in his mind. He can use this. He can use this.

He can barely contain that grin.

He’s got to work fast, if Marcel is going to buy it. So he bullshits at an exceptional speed and with commendable skill. I didn’t know if he was telling the truth, the first time I watched through. Because Klaus chooses his words so carefully when he’s like this. It’s impossible to tell if he’s lying. And he knows it, oh, he knows it.

I can’t help but think that when he ends his advice with “You’ll find him quite malleable.” he’s actually talking about Marcel. This is his game, and he’s finally getting to play it again. Marcel can tell that he’s broken Klaus, but he’s underestimated Klaus’ desperation. Even after saying ‘Mercy’, there was still that tiny bit of fire inside him waiting to be fed kindling, to blaze again. To prove superiority. To win the game.

He takes the blood as his prize, Marcel not knowing he’s rewarding his prisoner for setting him up to fail. That, alone, I think, is just as rejuvenating to Klaus as the blood itself.

“and I won’t be alone”:

and also this

Church Scene:

I really have nothing against this scene. I feel like it does so much work in so little time, and it does it while showcasing new and old characters. It flows really well. It just works.

Like I said earlier, the stuff with Josh was pretty awkward/forced to me, but here, he’s spot-on. Put Josh in more scenes with kids, please, it’s perfect. Also, Adam is acted really really well. That kid is talented. Where are all these talented kids coming from?

As a staunch supporter of villainshipping, the idea of Vincent with someone other than Eva is a little sad to me, but honestly the man deserves it. I adore the way Josh was headed to help her when the basket flipped, but Vincent zoomed in there like he had radar for the woman and you can just sort of see Josh scurry out of the shot - I wasn’t here, don’t mind me - wingmanning without uttering a single word.

I also like how Vincent is the practical, stoic leader, but he breaks the mould of the trope and again, it works. When Josh is like ‘The hot mom is into you, you should get on that’ he’s surprised for a moment, or kind of shy about it, but he doesn’t Repress(TM) like so many guys in his character type. He’s like, wait, yeah, I really should get on that. WAIT UP MA’AM I WOULD LIKE TO FLIRT.

It’s refreshing. It’s nice.

Also, I love any scene that gets into the practical mechanics of ‘Leading the Quarter/City’. It’s such a big deal in the show, but we rarely get to see what that actually looks like. For Vincent, it’s keeping his community safe by stocking them up on amenities for the weekend. Vampire Party Night is treated like a hurricane that must be rode out, and he realizes the ramifications of asking people to stay in their homes for days. He prepares for that. And he is appreciated for it.

Vampire Brunch:

They’re partying at like, noon. I love it.

Alastair is perfect. More on him and his glorious accent later.

This scene is so perfectly parallel with Klaus crashing Marcel’s party in what, episode 1? I love seeing Marcel tested in front of a crowd. It’s where he thrives. Whereas I’d say Klaus is slightly better with one-on-one manipulation, his son has got working a crowd down to an absolute science. They’re both unfairly good at both, but there are those tiiiiny advantages that play against each other so well in this show. 

AUSTIN, TEXAS:

IT’S MY CITY! I love that Keelin is an Austin girl. Thank you, Carina. And yeah, I know it was you. Who else would have suggested that the new character be from Austin.

I adore Keelin. She’s everything Sofya isn’t, as a new female cast member. She has plot purpose, but she also has personality. She has fire. She already has a dynamic with Hayley from their first back-and-forth. It’s delicious. And Hayley really gets to shine in these scenes - every premiere Phoebe Tonkin blows me away even more. I’m always like ‘Wow, NOW she’s hit her stride!’ and then the next year she proves that she was only beginning to warm up. So proud and excited. I’ve done nearly a full 180 on Phoebe and Hayley since 1x01.

Civilized Conversation, Part Two: Electric Boogaloo:

Look at Klaus, sitting on the rock that he is chained to like it’s a THRONE. His voice is no longer weak with starvation, it’s deep and merry and sarcastic and reveling and perfect. He is in total control again, and he is thriving. He is smiling openly now at his captor, knowing that he has weakened him without even having to lift a finger, at his own behest. 

I’m just gonna bask in the glow of that awful smile for a bit, guys. I’ve missed Klaus’ manipulation almost as much as I’ve missed his development as a father. 

“You think I don’t know?” At this Klaus is a bit intrigued - what is Marcel’s next card going to be? And it turns out it’s the only card that can wipe that smirk off of Klaus’ face. 

When Klaus realizes what Marcel is saying, what Marcel knows, the smile on his face goes from being genuine to being a facade. Marcel showed his hand and was hurt for it, so now he’s gonna reveal that he’s known Klaus’ ace in the hole this entire time. It really wasn’t something Klaus or Hayley could have expected to keep secret, not with Elijah’s sireline running around, but it stings Klaus to hear it from Marcel’s lips. To have it out in the open. 

But Rebekah saves him, saves all of them, with the very thing Klaus can’t stand about her - her love for people other than Klaus. The Rebel romance has been a nuisance to Klaus from the start, and the wound its left on Marcel and his sister is never left to fully heal. Now that it’s saving his life, and the lives of his siblings, Klaus has a bit of a soft spot for it. Like I’ve always said, Klaus loves to be around lovers. They’re so easily manipulated. And this time, even in the romance he didn’t want to have around him, it’s working to his advantage without a single move on his part. Good old lovers, always so soft and sentimental. So weak. 

“You may have no choice but to kill poor Alastair. Aw well, heavy head, heavy crown, et cetera, et cetera...” 

I LOVE THIS MAN SO MUCH Y’ALL. 

HE IS SO KLAUS.

I mean, there are cool things going on here power-dynamic-wise. Klaus is light on his feet, so to speak, switching subjects and smoothly offering advice without addressing his vulnerable family or the fact that he lied to Marcel to put him in this exact situation. 

He knows he can’t make Marcel believe him any more, but that’s the beautiful thing - Marcel doesn’t have a choice now. He’s got to get rid of the problem, and that will inspire more insurrection in the future - the more he protects Klaus, the more unstable his rule becomes. All because he can’t kill Klaus (and Klaus would definitely like to believe it has less to do with Rebekah and more to do with their father-son relationship, but he’ll take what he can get).

But Klaus, in dodging the subject of his linked siblings, doesn’t realize that he hurts himself as well. What Klaus wants out of this Alastair affair is for Marcel to be challenged, and eventually bested. He is banking on the new leadership being incapable of restraining him or killing him, but he doesn’t consider how easy it would be for them to get a drop of his blood. 

And find Hope. 

Klaus’ face falls. He realizes his mistake. I’m reminded of that beautifully ironic scene between Klaus and Davina in season two - “How does that feel, to be one of us? Someone with something to lose?”

It feels beautiful. And it’s the most horrifying thing Klaus has ever faced. 

“But hey, I guess that’s my problem, right?” Marcel is the perfect amount of callous in this line. Throwing back all of Klaus’ plotting and sabotaging in his face. And it’s exactly what spurs Klaus to a sudden declaration of a plan B. 

It’s a spectacular proposition, really. Klaus offers to be the bad guy, because he is the bad guy. All Marcel has to do is let him. Marcel stays on the throne, and Hope can stay hidden away. Klaus can put on a show. 

And Marcel knows first-hand how well Klaus can put on a show. 

“Creatures such as they respect only one language, and I speak it fluently.”

Again, Klaus is using what Mikael taught him to protect his daughter. He’s fluent in this language. He suffered in this language. And he can deal out suffering in kind. It’s incredible. It’s everything I wanted out of the scenes of Klaus in captivity. 

Witch stuff: 

I would have really appreciated Marcel saying please. Just fyi. 

I love those two men in power together. It obviously works. Just. Love it. 

NOW FOR MY FREYBABY! Or, sleeping beauty, as a certain gorgeous new werewolf would say ;) ;) ;) ;)

She is so ready, as soon as she wakes. Quick hug, then right to business. I had a conversation with Ashley earlier about how this spell works, and I can totally understand why people would be questioning how it all works. If the siblings’ sleep is linked, then waking one instantly should wake the others instantly. 

The way I see it, Freya cast the spell on all of them, but not before concocting that syringe for herself. I don’t think it was just a shot of adrenaline - it was an additional spell that would not transfer down the sleep-link. That spell allowed Freya to wake instantly, and delay the chain reaction that would wake the others as a result. The reason she’s rushing is because that delay is not going to be a long one. 

The reason something like this is necessary gets to the start of an unfortunate issue with this episode that is nobody’s fault - Nate and Claire couldn’t be in this episode. There wouldn’t need to be a special wake-up spell like this if they could just have all the Mikaelsons in the scene where they wake all the Mikaelsons. So it’s a bit of a work-around, yeah, but there’s a reason for it and it’s pretty well-thought-out, considering. More on this issue later.

Puttin’ on the NOLA Ritz:

In other words, “Klaus puts everyone in their place and there’s a lot of gore involved”

The look in Klaus’ eyes initially, as he’s dragged in and put before Alastair, is partially fabricated. He’s not as weak as he lets on. But in my opinion, a bit of that despair is very genuine. He’s the very image of weakness, from his perspective, and even if it’s not entirely as pathetic as he lets on, he still hates himself for the display.

“Do you suffer, Niklaus? As my wife suffered? As my CHILD suffered?”

Again, Morgan’s eyes blow me away. He is literally face to face with the man whose child died a violent, pointless death for Klaus’ gain. This is by far not the first time he’s stared down a man furious at having lost his family, his children, because of Klaus. But this is the first time Klaus looks into a father’s eyes and see’s a father’s pain as a father himself. This rage, this protective impulse, this near-mad expression of loss... Klaus felt something like this when the witches tried to kill Hope, when Esther tried to kill Hope, when Dahlia tried to take her. But he sees in Alastair a sorrow and a madness that he knows is deeper than anything he’s ever felt as a father. And he’s floored by it.

He knows he’s responsible for it. And I think he knows that if someone forced him to kill his daughter, he would burn nations to the ground, not just get his revenge from the guilty party. This is true, shocked guilt in his eyes. Klaus is intimidated by the force of his own sympathy - terrified, even. Connecting his experience as a father with the universal fatherhood experience hasn’t really been applicable to him lately, not with an example like Mikael and so little time with Ansel. But here Alastair is. And their faces are inches away from each other. And Klaus can see the horror in his crimes, he can see the agony in his collateral damage. He can glimpse the death and the rage and the sorrow as something that is real, and not just tools for manipulation.

“I want the last words you ever hear to be my solemn vow -”

Klaus’ gaze settles a bit, back to the superior glare that he knows will provoke Alastair into striking (he needs him to swing so that he can use the momentum catch him off balance) with just a bit of that guilt residing at the edges.

“I will find your daughter-”

His eyes widen. These worlds are not supposed to collide, his evils are not ever supposed to reach Hope...

And they never fucking will.

You can see it. You can see it. Klaus kills a lot of people, it’s kind of just what he does. But sometimes you can see the decision in his eyes, clear as if he’d shouted it from the rooftops. We saw it when he decided to kill Ansel, but it was softer, pained, mournful. This time it’s worlds different, and much more apparent. This entire display was always supposed to end in Alastair’s death. Klaus’ motivation in helping Marcel with the killing was always motivated by a desire to protect Hope. But a threat had not been made at that point, only inferred. When it actually happens... When Alastair has the gall to say it...

It’s like a switch is flipped in Klaus’ eyes, they narrow to a vicious, predatory gleam that honestly shakes me to my bones. As Alastair continues, “- and when I do, I will eradicate your malignant bloodline from this earth.” the look deepens. Klaus is seeing the kill. He’s relishing it. He’s craving it. It’s not a display anymore. It’s as personal as personal can be.

No one threatens the Alpha’s cub.

It goes quickly after that.

He smiles as his eyes gleam black and yellow, vampire and werewolf, speaking that language he speaks so fluently. One last look at the Scot before he bites a lethal chunk into the vampire’s neck. A few more bodies for show. One or two for Marcel to heal, to make his argument concrete.

“WELL WHO’S NEXT?”

Power. Klaus has it, they don’t. “Aw, come on. Meet. Your. Maker.”

I love this character more than air.

Marcel’s speech is fantastic, of course, he hits all the right beats and makes all the right points, but it’s so hard to focus on it after that powerhouse display by Joseph Morgan. I can’t even express how perfectly it was executed (ha, puns) and framed and filmed. The guest actor for Alastair, bless him, was such a good foil and such a good way to showcase Klaus in the first episode this season. I wish we’d seen more of him, but I’d trade a hundred of him for the sake of this scene at the drop of a hat.

THE LADIES KICK ALL KINDS OF ASS:

Freya melting a vampire brain mid-incantation was such a nice touch, even if it does kind of invalidate her ‘this ritual will take all my strength’ claim from earlier. I don’t even care. It’s such a good throwback to her intro, and she gets to show off in front of the hot Texan werewolf, so I have 0% nitpick because I am totally and blissfully biased. 

I cannot express how excited I was when the promo of Hayley’s wolf form dropped. I was on the floor, yelping, for maybe fifteen minutes. Evidence from my twitter:

WOLF.

I kind of really like wolves.

I know a lot of people think that we won’t see Klaus’ wolf form, that this was just for Hayley for this episode, but I will die on this hill, and I will hear no argument. I will never let this go.

The CGI is so gorgeous. The fur looked a bit thin and clean for realism’s sake, but that is such a tiny factor considering how often wolf CGI gets basic things slightly off, like body type, tail length, fur length & volume, and facial structure. Hayley was built perfectly from that standpoint, it’s easy to see even in the shadow. (The lighting was also a factor on what made the fur so difficult to get spot-on, because it had to have some glow and translucency - it would be damn hard to even attempt that kind of effect, and they pulled it off really well with minimal reduction in realism in my opinion)

Just gorgeous. Gorgeous.

This also supports a headcanon, now turned justified-theory, that Klaus hasn’t used his full strength since breaking the Hybrid curse. Hayley chooses to transform because she is stronger in her transformed state - that’s kind of obvious given the context, it’s not just for intimidation. She needs to kill and kill quickly, not put on a show. She chooses to do this as a wolf.

So when Klaus has been tested physically since season 3 of TVD, he has never chosen to use this form. Ever. It speaks, I think, to a lingering shame learned since childhood - werewolves are the vicious monsters. The beasts. And he cannot be “strong” as a beast, not in the way his inferiority complex desperately needs. Even though he is literally at his strongest when he embraces who he really is, it is that identity itself that haunts him and reinforces the idea that he is Other in the worst of ways, he is unworthy of family and love, he is nothing but a brutal animal.

I pray that we get to see him use this form to protect Hope. He’s used Hybrid power before to overcome enemies, for sure, he knows the effect his yellow eyes has on his prey - it’s the threat of venom and death, and he loves it. But actually transforming must feel way too real, way too expressive of ‘beastliness’. I want him to be put in a situation where he isn’t strong enough unless he goes full Wolf, because Hope is in danger. I want a full fuckin’ Bigby scene, for those who have played The Wolf Among Us. I want it so bad. And I won’t listen to anyone who tells me it ain’t gonna happen. I don’t care. Doesn’t change how much I want it and no amount of logic is going to make me give up hope.

Enter Elijah Mikaelson:

I know I’ve said I don’t ship H/E, but the performance from Phoebe as the bodies hit the floor around her, as she felt a presence behind her, smelled his scent in the air - it was incredible. Like I said, she just keeps getting better and in season one all I could say I hoped for was that she could improve enough to hold her own. My standards were way too low, in retrospect. I can’t wait to see more of her.

I am obsessed with the look on Elijah’s face. Unlike the last time he did this in 2x09, this time the stoicism really works for me. (While I definitely have come to terms with and agree with a very good interpretation of the scene from Map of Moments, I can’t help but still wish we had gotten a single freaking flash of a smile) I can’t say I really know what’s going on with him yet, but it isn’t that he doesn’t love Hayley (as much of a weight of my back as that would be, I just don’t see it. Doesn’t make sense)

It’s gotta be guilt.

Elijah has never been guilty for something like this, ever, in his long life. He nearly killed them all. He took Klaus from his baby for five. years. This man puts everything on his shoulders, and he’s recently opened his eyes to repressed acts of horror he’s committed. But every single one of them pales in comparison to nearly destroying everything he’s ever wanted for his brother, and causing the deaths of all of them in one fell swoop.

Every time Elijah gets an emotional arc, it’s brushed away with the excuse of his repressive tendencies, because the story needed to focus on other things. His repression should not and never should have been used as a story crutch to leave loose ends because there wasn’t time to finish the development - repression is a challenge that has to be respected in moments of development like the ones Elijah has been through. While I doubt this time will be any different, I’m choosing to give it a chance before I say anything more.

Waking the Sleeping Giant:

This really could have been one of my top scenes for this episode. The dynamic between Vincent and Klaus is killer. Better than its ever been. I want more of it. I need more of it.

But this is another case where Camille was inserted in such a lazy way. It puts such a bad taste in my mouth.

If they wanted Vincent to remind Klaus about Camille’s hope in him, they could have set it up with an actually appropriate topic of conversation.

When someone literally chains you up and tortures you for five years in a dungeon, threatening vengeance isn’t a particularly evil thing to do, no matter how evil you actually are. Talk about the cycle of violence, yeah, started by Klaus, yeah, but Marcel is the one who is literally torturing him. No one’s innocent in this situation. And I really fucking doubt Camille would have wanted Klaus to let this go. Reconcile with Marcel? Hell yes. Try to understand Marcel’s side? Absolutely. But Klaus can’t make that happen without Marcel’s cooperation. This is not his responsibility alone to be a better person in this scenario. Would she want Klaus to threaten new violence? I mean, yeah, probably not, but again, that’s not exactly an evil impulse in Klaus. It’s a pretty standard human one. Vincent is holding Klaus to a higher standard and it’s just off. It just is. “Be grateful we gave you a chance to live in a life or death situation, then put you back in a dungeon.”

I know my argument here isn’t super strong, but I’m just too pissed to really get into it and make it clearer and better. I’m so done. I’m so done. Camille doesn’t deserve any of this bullshit, and she hasn’t since season three. Nothing Vincent said about her is wrong or bad, it just does. not. fit. here. And it wouldn’t have been hard to make it fit.

“You had a deal with Hayley, not me.”

ho. ly. hot. damn.

(freylin seems too close to freyinn. What’s the consensus? Keelya? Keela?

I am not prepared for how good this is gonna be. I am. already. shook.)

“Let’s go get ‘im”

Scenes like this are really frustrating for me. They work in every sense except for the fact that I feel these characters should never have been placed in a serious relationship with each other.

I’ll put it this way - every line from Hayley in this situation is perfect, every line from Elijah in this situation is perfect - I just don’t like that they’re in this situation. So, basically, this is one of the very very rare times where I think the ship has actually been written very very well with respect to the characters.

“How is my niece” and Hayley answer just warm my heart so much. The glow in Hayley’s face and voice when she describes her. The tenderness and neediness with which Elijah asks the question. “A girl after my own heart”

I melt.

And ‘let’s go get him?’

Klelijah is a potent drug, even in small condensed doses it can easily render one Amy totally speechless and send her into an alternate state of euphoria and fanaticism.

Pair that with Elijah running to Klaus’ cell in the promo for tonight’s episode... my heart can’t take it.

“All the time down here is rotting your brain.”

Seeing Klaus tugging at his chain does things to my soul. Yeah, he’s awful, he’s a villain, but he’s my villain, dammit. He had a power kick, he heard someone threaten to kill his daughter to his face, and now he’s back down here. Helpless. Alone.

When Marcel comes, probably also seeking a little superiority high, the two desperations clash inevitably. Klaus saw the power that Marcel was able to wield after his brutal display, and he’s jealous of it. He knows he’s the one who handed it to Marcel, and he can’t stand it. So he has to make it all about him - he has to tell himself and Marcel that he’s the center of Marcel’s world.

“You NEED me, Marcellus, because deep down inside, YOU ARE WEAK.”

This is Klaus using two things Mikael gave him - pain and abuse. It’s a refraction of every speech we’ve ever heard from Mikael, with a few key differences - Klaus knows what it’s like to break under the weight of these words, he knows exactly how much they hurt, and he knows how alike Marcel is to him. It has that edge of mutual need because of this shared pain. Mikael comforted himself by pushing Klaus away with his abuse, but Klaus needs to pull Marcel in for him to get what he needs out of the inflicted pain. It’s what Klaus saw in Marcel from the very first moment, the reason he took him in - he saw himself in the boy. An opportunity to feel less lonely, first in his need for family, but now in his need to feel less alone in his monstrousness.

I love the little flashes of love in their eyes as Klaus is stabbed, and as Marcel sees his body hit the floor. Another difference between this abuse and Mikael’s - these two love each other despite it all. The language of power and hate can only disguise that so much.

Ouroboros:

I honestly have no expectations when it comes to this season’s plot, since last season the plot seemed to steamroll lots of development for terrible reasons. I don’t really care if it’s good or if it’s bad, I can’t let myself care. I just can’t invest that, I have to focus on my Mikaelsons, really, unless I get a really really good reason to trust again.

When it comes to analysis, though, I can definitely do that. Just bear in mind that I don’t have much motivation to go too deep at the moment.

Exploring the ramifications of the severed link with the ancestors, and possibly the origin of ancestral magic in New Orleans, looks to be the focus of the witch/Hope plot for the first arc of season four. What’s intriguing about the Ouroboros in particular is probably unintentional - the Ouroboros is the symbol for Mikael in the season two portrait promos (let’s all take a moment to remember how good the season two promotional art was. It was a gift the likes of which I’ll never get again.)

The Ouroboros is showing up everywhere in TV dramas, not just supernatural ones. It’s kind of like a fad, if you will, of the metaphor cycle in the industry. So I kind of have the feeling they used it for Mikael, then got an idea they were really excited about this season and wanted to use it again.

I say this mostly because Mikael had nothing to do with New Orleans until his children settled there. Basically all he did was burn it down and then come back later to trash some witches.

But was always partial to his parallel to Chronos, and I know it’s mixing mythologies but the focus on NOLA’s children also has that kind of vibe to me. Nice how they’re both framed with the Ouroboros.

And especially nice how Hope is going to be central to the plot again, or even just freaking mentioned in relation to the plot at all *stares at s3 judgingly*

We’ll see how all of this develops tonight.

@klausmikelsons @drbobbimorse and I forget who else was interested in this... here y’are

[sicklyscribe]

The Originals! (You have fallen for my trap. Half the reason I reblogged that meme was to get you to reblog it. :P)

I kind of suspected. But I kind of wanted to use this as an exercise to test my own objectivity. Trying to narrow it down to 5…

5 things I would change about The Originals:

Gonna put this under a read-more, in case people don’t want to see negativity. I know it’s hard for me sometimes. Just know all of this comes from a place of love and passion, and ultimately a betrayal of trust in a narrative that I had held higher than pretty much any other for a long time.

1. The framing of Elijah’s development (including the development of H/E) He needed to be framed as the ‘good’ brother in season one, but the ‘true love�� treatment of H/E from s1 onward really doesn’t make sense for him, and it skews and twists a lot of things concerning him when the writing tries to make Elijah Elijah-like when this uncharacteristic bit is hanging over it all. He also needed the arcs he was given in later seasons, but they were much too quickly picked up and dropped, and that also hurt his development. He deserves more nuanced consideration, even if he couldn’t have gotten more screen time.

2. The depiction of Kol: Again, with the idea that slapping a true love label on a man can prime him for any kind of behavior the story calls for. I don’t care if he falls madly in love with someone, even true love, but if you don’t spend time exploring how he goes from centuries of literal sadism and psychopathy to a sweet puppy who just wants to be Good for his lady, then don’t. Do it. Instead, make him struggle. Make him do everything he did in s3, but without being ‘cursed’. Have Davina wish it was a curse, try to prove it was a curse, and not want to believe that his love for her isn’t a cure-all. I can forgive “he’s calmer and nicer when he’s human, because vampiric urges and emotions were what ruined him” in s2, but when he turns back into a vampire again, and he’s pretty much A-Okay because he has True Love? That’s weak, and it’s embarrassing, and it could have been easily changed to something just as beautiful but with depth and justification.

3. Camille’s ending arc: Here is what I would have wanted. My issues with this can be found… anywhere on my asks tag or anamysis tag.

4. Strengthening the Hope thread of the narrative foundation in season 3, overall: A lot of the reason the general direction of s3 fell flat is because it tried to move both forward and backward (advance the plot while filling in the Mikaelson lore) without its anchor. Hope is that anchor. The Trinity mentioned her maybe twice? Absolutely ridiculous. I don’t think she needs to have a scene or a plot in every episode, but a lot of season three acted as if other focal points could take Hope’s place, and that is a huge reason why it didn’t work. Along this same vein, in order to heighten drama over Camille and Davina’s passing, the writing specifically avoids just how much danger Rebekah was in at the time of Lucien’s death. I’m not saying the characters should have acted differently, or felt differently, but having Kol confront Freya about what she did, and not talking about how it was to save their sister, who they both adored? Having Klaus absolutely broken over how much he’d hurt Marcel, and Freya specifically citing Camille as the reason Lucien had to die when he did, and not even give Rebekah a passing word? It just feels so so shoddy. In general, relationships were downplayed or overplayed in order to shape the narrative, when the relationships should have been the shaping force.

5. I thought that I couldn’t come up with a fifth, and that made me really happy, but then I remembered that the werewolf lore is all over the place. It’s not really necessary for it to be fixed in order for me to be content with the show, but it’s a pet peeve of mine and I would loooooooove to just get the kinks ironed out.

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Amy talks Critical Role

This is a re-post, the original had formatting glitches. THIS ONE DOES TOO APPARENTLY on the dashboard. Should be fine when viewed on my blog.

As a certain show’s air date rolls around again, if you’re still hanging around my blog you may be wondering “What’s Amy up to these days? All she ever reblogs is gifs of half a dozen people sitting at a table yelling out numbers and saying weirdly dramatic things to each other.”

I’ve reblogged a ton of ‘What is Critical Role?’, ‘How to watch Critical Role’, and ‘Why you should watch Critical Role’ posts in the past, all of which have been awesome (If you want a quick version of this post, click here). But a few of you on twitter were interested in my own soapbox sermon of these things. So, in the hopes of saving a few more people from fantasy TV with too much internal and external politics and not enough focus on character and story (which is all of them, I’m not trying to make a dig at anything in specific -- really honestly I’m not) let me introduce you to a narrative that is all about character and story. Period. By design.

“Welcome to Critical Role, where a bunch of us nerdy-ass voice actors sit around and play Dungeons & Dragons.”

In the read-more I will go into detail about:

What specifically is the Critical Role game

Who are the nerdy-ass voice actors

What is Dungeons & Dragons

How (and why) to watch

Along with all of the reasons I think it is a one-of-a-kind storytelling masterpiece. With no costumes, props, life-size sets, or special effects. It’s not without flaws or things that might not be people’s cups of tea, but it is, without a doubt, full of talent and love of good storytelling.

Come with me, friends, below the cut!

“Critical Role” ?

The story began years before we as viewers begin, but when we do what we see is seven adventurers (and sometimes, when we’re very very lucky, an eighth) comprising a party called Vox Machina -- formerly the S.H.I.T.s -- making their way below-ground on what no one hopes will turn out to be a rescue mission.

They’ve been tasked by their friend and sometimes-employer, the Arcanist Allura Vysoren, to find and rescue if need be the paladin of Bahamut known as Lady Kima of Vord. Lady Kima’s last contact with Allura stated that she felt called by her patron to weed out an immense evil in the subterranean depths of the Underdark. That was months ago...

So Vax, Vex, Grog, Keyleth, Scanlan, Tiberius, Percy, (and sometimes Pike!) are on Lady Kima’s trail.

Who are these guys, you may ask? I’m planning on replying to this post with my love letters to each character, but for now, take a look at this awesome reference sheet made by @emilianadarling that I used when I was curious about starting the show! It has pictures of the players alongside the characters, so you know who’s who, which is a life-saver in the beginning! I know it doesn’t have a ton of detail, but it’s enough to get you curious and introduce each character’s #vibe, y’know?

The story continues in a few major arcs, sometimes called ‘seasons’ by the fans, I think? There are some brief mini-arcs in-between, but the heavy hitters go something like this: Underdark, Whitestone, Chroma Conclave, and -spoiler spoiler spoiler spoiler-. All in all, we have 115 episodes of jaw-dropping action, drama, humor, and horror. We go from saving a paladin to saving a city, then a country, then the entire world.

A NEW story began a few months ago, with new characters on a new continent in the same world, about twenty years after the last story ended. If you know enough about the show already to know you aren’t interested in Vox Machina’s story since it’s too much to get involved in, but might be interested in this new party, I say go for it! I will have a few notes at the end of this post you may want to keep in mind as you start.

Quite frankly, the new story is not yet at the same caliber as Vox Machina’s, since it is so new. Everyone’s getting used to their characters, getting used to the story, getting used to the dynamics. It will be just as good as the first, I have no doubt, but I’m focusing on Vox Machina because I believe that it’s the best place to start for most viewers.

“Nerdy-ass voice actors” ?

The game is played by nine voice-actors in the beginning, and eight after the Underdark arc. Years back, an actor named Liam O’Brien (have you played any Tolkien video games? He’s Gollum. Any video game ever? He’s in there. Watched any dubbed anime? Guess who.) started it all. He wanted to play a game of D&D with his friends for his birthday, like he did when he was a kid. Quite a few of these actors had never even heard of the game (one of them, famously, knew so little that Liam chose his character for him), but they were all down to try for a fun night with friends. Matthew Mercer agreed to be the Dungeon Master (the guy in charge, think ‘narrator’), and once they started, a one-night game wasn’t enough. They began to play whenever their schedules could allow, usually around once a month.

The characters that started out as flat, what-the-hell-am-I-doing cliches quickly became multi-dimensional individuals with rich backstories and layered relationships. That’s what happens when you let a bunch of brilliant actors who trust each other run wild with their imaginations! Now, I may be remembering this wrong, but I want to say that it was at a party two years later that Felicia Day (nerd actress extraordinaire and nerd media mogul) told them she was looking for new shows on her online network, Geek & Sundry, and wondered if the group would like to play their home game live in front of a weekly online audience.

After some consideration, everyone agreed they’d give it a shot. The rest is internet history, folks.

Important note about the cast: after the Underdark arc, it was mutually agreed that Orion Acaba would leave the show. There has been a lot of speculation as to why this happened, and it is generally one of the uglier topics involving the show. What is obvious from watching the first arc is that Orion’s style of play is different from the rest of the table’s, and at times this causes friction and confusion. I personally choose to adore Orion’s character Tiberius and not dwell on the IRL circumstances of his player’s departure from Vox Machina.

“Dungeons & Dragons” ?

Dungeons & Dragons is a tabletop role-playing game. If you’ve seen Stranger Things, the IT crowd, Community, or Buffy the Vampire Slayer, you’ve seen characters playing this game.

(Gif-maker has deactivated, formerly @theschuuylersisters)

What it all boils down to is this: think of those make-believe games you used to play with friends where you made up a character and acted out their story, not always knowing what would happen next. Add some dice-based rules to that to make the events play out fairly, and you’ve got yourself a Dungeons & Dragons campaign. It’s improv, it’s strategy, it’s story, and it’s art.

One person narrates the world and the people in it -- they’re the “Dungeon Master” or “Game Master”. They are, in the end, the ultimate authority on what does and does not happen. They paint the world and the circumstances for the players to interact with, often nudging them towards specific possible plots. “Sure, I won’t force you to go deal with that dragon over there, you can continue arm-wrestling at the bar and making pillow forts at the inn if you want to... But oh no. The inn just burst into flames...”

The rest of the people at the table are players. They control one character within the game. To make rules that fit for different types of adventurers, there are abilities and traits for each race and class that can be chosen by a player. There are many expanded lists of races and classes available to choose, and even more when you consider homebrewed (homemade/unofficial) content. The classic options, though, are as follows:

Race: Human, Half-Elf, Elf, Dwarf, Gnome, Goliath, Half-Orc, Tiefling, Dragonborn, and Halfling.

Class: Fighter, Ranger, Monk, Cleric, Paladin, Rogue, Bard, Druid, Barbarian, Wizard, Warlock, and Sorcerer.

Players choose one of each, along with a Background that gives them a few extra traits and a bit of a starter for their story. Then the dice-rolling begins.

All you really need to know as a viewer are a few words and numbers to listen for. You’ll pick up on them super quick based on the reactions of the players.

Roll for/Make a ___ Check/ Make a ____ Saving Throw: This means that the character is attempting something in the game that the DM wants a number for. This number is usually compared to another number to judge a success or failure. The player rolls a 20-sided die, a D20, and adds or subtracts modifications based on their character’s skills. So, if I was a sneaky and dextrous rogue, and I rolled a 10 on my stealth check, the number that I gave the DM may be 16 since my character is trained or naturally good at being stealthy to the point where they get a +6 bonus. This is what I mean by “the dice make it fair”. In the same way, if my sneaky rogue was also not very bright, they would have to subtract from their intelligence rolls.

Rule of thumb for how “good” or “bad” a number is:

less than 10: Below average

10: Average

10-20: Good

more than 20: Amazing

Now, to account for dumb luck in-game, any time a player rolls a 1 on their dice, that’s called a Natural 1, and it is an AUTOMATIC AND SPECTACULAR FAILURE. Any time they roll a 20 on their dice, that’s a Natural 20 and it is an AUTOMATIC AND SPECTACULAR SUCCESS! So, if my dextrous rogue rolled a natural 1 for stealth... I don’t get to add bonuses, it’s just a super awful failure. And if they rolled a natural 20 for intelligence, it doesn’t matter how dumb they are -- somehow they know exactly the right information! These rolls are often the most fun part of the game, since they imply fate and/or the chaos of the world.

The one time the players won’t always be using a D20 is when they’re in battle -- other dice are used for damage and effects and all the snazzy jazz. So the “good”/”bad” list above doesn’t work for all of the numbers you hear shouted in a fight, just the Attack rolls and Saving Throws.

Disadvantage on a roll means that the player has to roll the D20 twice, and take the lower number. Advantage means the opposite!

There are a ton more rules, but you don’t really need to know the ins and outs to enjoy watching. Even the terms I described above are easily learned by watching just an hour of the show by using context clues.

The Critical-Role specific phrase that Matthew Mercer uses to let his players know that an enemy has been defeated is “How do you want to do this?” since he gives the player who makes the killing blow creative leeway to describe how the victory happens. So that’s why everyone goes crazy when he says it ;)

“OK, that’s great and all... but isn’t it like a gazillion hours of content? How do I start? How do I find time? Why is it worth it?”

Yes, it’s a lot of hours, yes, it’s hard to know where to start. And yes, it’s worth it. I’ll give you a few different places you can consider starting from that also serve as good litmus tests for what the show is like and what you can expect if you keep watching.

First off, you don’t have to watch it -- the entire show is available in podcast form! I would recommend watching when you have the opportunity, because facial expressions and gestures and nonverbal interactions are a big deal and they can add a ton to the most powerful moments in the game. But if you just can’t justify sitting down and watching, check out any major podcast platform for Critical Role.

If you have a subscription to Geek & Sundry’s Twitch channel, all of the past episodes are available on their channel. (If you have Amazon Prime, you can subscribe to a Twitch channel for free! It’s what I do) If you don’t, episodes are uploaded to Youtube the Monday after they air live. Sometimes I have trouble finding the later Vox Machina episodes via Youtube’s search engine (I think that some may be unlisted for some reason?) but if you search the episode name or number on the Geek & Sundry website, they’ll pull the video and podcast versions up for you.

Each episode is around 3 hours long, or more. Think of the story of Vox Machina like all of the seasons of a single Doctor in Doctor Who. That’s a lot of hours worth of content! No one’s going to expect you to watch all of it unless you fall in love with it early on. And not everyone likes Doctor Who! And that’s okay.

Here are some complaints you may have about the format:

“They take too long talking about what they’re going to do.”

TRUE. It’s hard to get half a dozen cats to walk in one direction sometimes. It’s also hard, at times, to all see the same fantasy room or layout or situation in your heads, and there’s a disconnect between perspectives. Some great moments come out of these pow-wows though, especially when the party can’t agree on one thing and goes off in two directions!

“The fights are slow!”

If you can’t stand the fights, I can understand that. I personally think that the gameplay builds suspense rather than drops it. It may take ten minutes to do ten seconds worth of combat, but if it’s life-or-death, you’ll be on the edge of your seat praying to any and all gods that each dice roll comes out well for every single second of it.

“There’s no animated or live-action version I can watch that isn’t a bunch of actors sitting at a table.”

There are a few animatics made by fans that answer this niche, but they’re never very long. Animation takes budget, sadly. But there IS a comic book prequel series currently being published about how these jackasses came to be a party of adventurers.

There’s also a show intro that was released at episode 50 with the players as live-action versions of their characters!

Some (super spoilery) fan performances/animation I love:

“Oh no you don’t!”, some boys talking about divinity and identity, The Sunken Tomb, Breakfast Chicken, Grog has some questions, how to open a door, and Keyleth’s Rage. 

“No matter how I watch, or listen, or whatever, it’s just TOO MUCH.”

I get that. We can’t watch and experience every good thing in the world, and I’m not gonna fault anyone for making time for other good things over this good thing. I do think that this particular thing saves me from so much fan heartache over quality of and dedication to narrative, but if the format’s not for you, it’s not for you. 

“OK, OK, I’m still willing to give this a shot! Where do I start?”

There are lots of good options! I myself tuned in live one night to find the party fighting a fleeing dragon, with two party members having teleported inside the dragon’s body to try to stop him from getting away... I was instantly hooked. It depends on what kind of viewer you are though when it comes to extended stories.

In the beginning of each episode, Mercer recaps the story up until the present moment. There will be times that I start you mid-episode, and in those cases I’ll write my own intro! When this happens, be sure to read the indented paragraph below the links you choose to follow.

“I want to start from the beginning!”

Go for it! Disclaimer before you start, though: The audio in the first two episodes is on-and-off pretty awful, since they didn’t have their mics quite figured out. They also, in my opinion, don’t do a lot to introduce the characters, and don’t have a ton of interesting action. If you want to start at the Underdark, but get to the good stuff in the Underdark, then let me direct you towards the end of Episode 3: Strange Bedfellows.

The party finds themselves pretty deep into the world of the Underdark, following clues of Lady Kima’s movements. They’re faced with a bridge over a deep ravine. On the other side of the bridge is a huge war camp of Duergar, or Underdark Dwarves. Vex and Keyleth want to try exploring the tunnels in the ravine instead of trying to cross the camp undetected, while the rest of the party is worried about a large creature in the water below that is dragging living things down below the surface. After some debate, and a vote where the ladies definitively lost, the girls decide to take the group’s flying carpet and investigate anyways. What they find behind one of the underground waterfalls changes the course of their journey. And don’t think they aren’t pretty smug about it, too!

“I want the really good character moments, the stuff you rave about in tags.” and/or “I read about the Orion situation, and I’m not sure I want to watch that and feel strange about knowing what will eventually happen.”

Most fans agree that while the Underdark is fun, the characters themselves are still a bit underdeveloped. The Whitestone arc is where the show gets truly cinematic and deep in plot, character, and theme. If you want to watch the show for the drama, I’d recommend starting here. You’ll miss out on cute Tiberius moments and Lady Kima’s BadAss introduction, but you won’t be waiting for the show to ramp up in depth. For this, you’ll want to start either at the end of Episode 24: The Feast or at Episode 28: The Sun Tree.

The Feast: Start here if you want the true beginning to the Whitestone arc, where our villains are introduced and the party faces them for the first time (though it is not the first time for one of them...). Starting here will also show you the end of Tiberius’ journey with Vox Machina, as his character leaves in Episode 27. ***You’ll probably want to skip Episode 27: The Path to Whitestone, as it is not very rich in plot. ***If you want to skip one of the funniest and most iconic CR filler episodes ever, you can also skip 26: Consequences and Cows.

Watch this until they start talking about hats and mustaches strategy. It’s the first time Percival has opened up to the party (and the first time the player, Taliesin, has opened up to the rest of the table) about his backstory. Then skip to the feast in question. (There are some amazingly fun and amazingly boring moments in-between that are not plot-related, so unfortunately I’m skipping the lot of it. Message me if you want my links for the good parts throughout the episode! High points: Gay Capitalist Sorcerer Extraordinaire and The Prank to End All Pranks)

Since gaining the trust and thanks of the Emperor Uriel of Tal’dorei, Vox Machina has enjoyed some fame and some hefty connections. Percival, the human gunslinger, asked Tal’dorei’s spy-master Seeker Assum to notify him of any Empirical dealings with a noble couple by the name of Briarwood. Upon returning from the Underdark, Percy receives a letter from Assum informing him that the Briarwoods would be attending a state dinner with the Emperor very soon, and that Vox Machina are to be invited to join them.

The party comes up with a plan: they will all got to the palace, but Percy will be disguised as Vax, and Vax will be made invisible. While the Briarwoods dine, Percy can get a read on them without being recognized, and Vax can sneak into their rooms to try to find any information on who -- or what -- they are and what their plans really are.

The Sun Tree: Start here if you want an easy place to just let the playlist go. Mercer always re-caps the plot so far in the beginning of the episode, enough to let you know what the situation is when the episode starts. The party arrives in Whitestone, finding it bleak and gray. They do some reconnaissance before disguising themselves and making their way into town, finding a curious and macabre display in the town square... the city’s Sun Tree has some strangely familiar fruit.

“I want to watch the new campaign! It’s less daunting and I can catch up to watch live.”

In that case, there’s no better place to start than Episode 1, Campaign 2. Keep in mind that the players have done a ‘Session Zero’ with Matt to test their characters without an audience, so when they refer to things that happened ‘last night’ etc, you haven’t missed anything big or important. Episode 12 of the new campaign just hit Youtube yesterday.

You could also start at Episode 12 if you like. This is an episode where the party pulls two heists in one night, and there is a fantastically dramatic ending.

New episodes air at 7PM Pacific Standard Time and run until around 10PM or later (vary rarely has an episode gone past 12PM PST). To watch, go to https://www.twitch.tv/geekandsundry.

“I want to start where you started, Amy. That sounds WILD!”

You’re probably gonna be VERY confused, just like I was, but okay! Have at it!

“I know Critical Role has guest stars! I want to start with a guest star that I know.”

Here’s the list of Critical Role guests for the Vox Machina Campaign:

Felicia Day, Will Friedle, Wil Wheaton, Mary Elizabeth McGlynn, Kit Buss, Chris Perkins, Chris Hardwick, Patrick Rothfuss, Noelle Stevenson, Darin de Paul, and Joe Manganiello

And for the new campagin:

Khary Payton!

Google ‘Critical Role’ and their name to get the episode! Friedle, McGlynn, and Rothfuss are on multiple episodes, fair warning, so choose the smallest episode number if you want to try to keep things chronological.

“Tell me where I want to start, Amy.”

Message me hon, tell me your thoughts and desires.

(Gif credit: @wistfulwatcher)

Why watch?

Well, there are a lot of reasons I love this show, but chief among them are character development, creator commitment, and well-rounded arcs. You’d think that a bunch of people improv’ing around a table wouldn’t turn into a beautifully nuanced narrative with foreshadowing, themes, and yes -- I’m not even kidding and there are times when the DM is not even involved -- dramatic irony. It’s a story fueled by friends and just... forms itself out of nothing.

There are conspiracies in the fandom (anti-fandom, really) that the show has to be scripted, because things just play out in a way that seems orchestrated, and not in any way that Mercer can control as a DM. I believe it’s an instance of a story showing its true colors -- stories are independent creatures that we can interact with and interpret, but even the fantasy ones have a will and a life of their own, just like we do.

The ships are all brilliant. Even the ones I don’t ship myself are beautiful. And natural. And well-acted. And so, so true to character. And yes, there are inter-party ships.

This show will make you laugh, and cry, and sick to your stomach with horror. It’ll put you on the edge of your seat just begging that Marisha says a number above 18, or that Liam rolls a natural 20, or that Percy is able to get his damn gun un-jammed in time to make a shot. You won’t see the drama coming, because no one at the table does. It happens in the moment. Media res. Creation and execution and distribution, all in the same moment.

There are a few episodes that you can watch and before they’re over you’ll believe that the dice themselves want this story to be told. There are some Nat 20′s that are just, well, meant to be.

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I recently saw someone discussing klaus/rebekah and klaus/hope, and someone said they thought rebekah will always be no 1 to klaus and its possible he would save rebekah over hope if it came to it. I really disagree with them, i think a parents love is stronger than anything. I love your thoughts on the show and relationships so i was wondering your thoughts on this?

I was actually lucky enough to watch my friends discuss this exact thing in a private chat, and with their permission I’ll be adding their comments to my response (because like dang my friends are good at words) ‘cuz otherwise I’d just be parroting for half my answer. 


First off, the idea of ‘no. 1′ is pretty damn insulting when it comes to characters that have been lovingly and complexly written to have rich and dynamic relationships. Building from this, the idea of a ‘who would he save’ question pretty much makes me growl internally. People who value questions like this are, even if it’s unconsciously, only adding it to the discourse to make themselves and their preferences feel important and look more ‘correct’ than others. A loooong time ago i went into this (I think the situation was ‘cami v rebekah’ - ugh ) but the sum-up of my response was this: no one, especially Klaus Strategy Mikaelson, enters a situation without context. There is no pure ‘who would he save instinctually due to a greater need for that person in his life’, not now, not ever. It’s ridiculous and divisive, and pointless in any productive or even remotely interesting kind of analysis. Again, ESPECIALLY for someone like Klaus, who, upon feeling an instinct, sends it through thousands of micro-filters before he allows himself to act, if you want to take that away from him for this ridiculous scenario… you no longer have Klaus, so why would the ‘answer’ mean anything for Klaus? (parent-instinct point will show up in a moment, ‘cuz it IS super important, but now more on the context of the situation from my Mom @harleequinnzel:)

“Here’s the thing, choosing between Hope and Rebekah would never be an easy choice for Klaus, but his result in the end would always be the same. Rebekah would never forgive him if he chose her over Hope. Even if his own base instinct was corrupted to a degree he would choose Rebekah over Hope (which I don’t think it is - at one time, yes, but not now), then Rebekah would neverrrrr forgive him for it. Even if we set all of Klaus’s parenting instincts aside (and the love a parent has for their child can’t be explained really - it’s the most selfless thing you’ve ever felt in your life), and just take into consideration Rebekah’s reaction to it, then we would know he wouldn’t choose her over Hope. She would never let him do that, and Klaus respects Rebekah’s opinion (whether he pretends like he doesn’t or not).”

Klaus has something with Elijah that he’s never had with anyone else. Klaus has something with Rebekah that he’s never had with anyone else. Klaus has something with Freya, with Hayley, with Marcel, even with Aurora - that he has never had with anyone else. Those are important. Those are pieces of him that matter to him, even when he tries to hide it, even when he doesn’t act on it. Losing Rebekah or Elijah would make Klaus into a different person. Klaus has never existed without them. 


But when we come to Hope, the reason I say things like ‘this IS the show’ in tags, or ‘THIS IS THE POINT’ is not because I’m celebrating some sort of non-existent hierarchy between Klaus’ dearest loves (which, I will say that I believe to be Rebekah, Elijah, and Hope). 


It’s because Hope has awakened something in Klaus that no one ever could. An instinct to change, beyond the desires he’s had to be good that have fallen so short for a thousand years. Not to say that this instinct is infallible in him, but it is an instinct. The parental instinct. And we have already seen this instinct make choices for Klaus that defy his other more twisted motives, and for that I’m gonna turn to sis. @hybridqueen puts it this way (bolds are my own):

“This is Klaus who was willing to tie himself to Dahlia, the biggest enemy the family had ever known, in order to protect Hope. He was willing to die - he had no idea if his fam would pull through and save him in time.

And I’ll also say, to a degree, that as much as Klaus and Rebekah know Marcel and ‘knew’ he wouldn’t kill him, Marcel could’ve quite easily turned the other way and killed Klaus and thus his siblings. Which is why Klaus had to ensure that Hope was taken care of before he went.

Klaus didn’t have to be daggered by the Tunde blade in order for Freya to link them and to draw from his life force, Hayley, Hope and Klaus could’ve gone off together with the family in coffins to try and find cures, but Klaus knew that he would be relentlessly pursued, putting Hope in danger. So he chose to go into the lions den, a coin toss between whether Marcel would let him live or die (and his siblings too) - to protect Hope from his enemies.

tldr;

Klaus went to marcel knowing he and his siblings could die as a result, purley to protect Hope. So basically Klaus has already been faced with “protect your siblings and keep yourself alive but subject Hope to running and danger” or “possibly get yourself and your siblings killed but Hope will be safe with her mother” “

The world has fundamentally changed for Klaus now that his role in it has changed. The role - Father - propels him into acts of true selflessness. This does NOT devalue his other acts of selflessness - like when he offers his immortality for Rebekah’s - how could it possibly devalue the beauty and power of that moment? The significance of his choices based on his characteristics that existed before Hope don’t mean that they’re worth less than the choices he makes because of Hope. 

I hope I’ve not been too convoluted or self-contradicting. I’m trying to do justice to the complexities of an imagined soul, which is, in many ways, convoluted and self-contradicting.

God I’m pretentious

Forgive me