#and B- I missed the valid opportunity to watch the show lol

[mycological-mariner]

I’m so mad I just watched the first episode of Hornblower. Only now! After finishing my dissertation! When my dissertation topic was literally the portrayal of epilepsy in film and television

[data-is-my-favorite-android]

You know, having finally watched Dollhouse, I can’t help but notice some similarities between BtVS’s Spike and Dollhouse’s Alpha:

They’re both pretty unrepentant murderers (Spike because he’s a vampire, Alpha because he’s like 50 people and all of them have been fucked up by what they’ve been through)

They’re both hopeless romantics albeit in a totally twisted way and would do anything--and I mean ANYTHING--for the one they love including truly heinous acts

They both love super-strong women and literally worship the ground they walk on

though they also both oscillate wildly between proclaiming their love (usually in wildly inappropriate ways) and wanting the object of their obsession dead (but not really, because god fucking damn it they love them and they’re both suckers for love it’s like literally their reason for existing)

Since everyone’s superhuman here, they have no problem throwing down with their prospective honey if that’s how it’s gonna be

They both know instantly that something is genuinely special about The Girl

They both develop an obsession with the main character (Buffy/Echo) as soon as they clap eyes on them. Is it creepy? Kinda. But they get better, so... *shrug?* look, this is fiction, it’s not real, we can have this here okay

They both begin as Big Bads but canonically end up as Good Guys (even though we sadly didn’t really get to see the evolution from A to B in Alpha’s case)

They’re both really insightful and actually have some pretty valid points, however difficult or uncomfortable those points may be. But they’ve also got some pretty skewed logic mucking up the works, too

They both get an idea in their head and won’t stop until they’ve achieved their goal

They both show the ability to evolve. Like, they both realize at some point that they’re missing something critically important for them to be with the object of their affection and try various ways to fill that gap. Unfortunately, they both get it wrong a few times before getting it right (again, Alpha was on this road, but the show got cancelled before we got to see the whole transformation. We really only got to see the beginning and end :( which sucks, but we know it happens somewhere in the vaguery between S2 and the Epitaphs timeline)

There are so many opportunities for the main characters of both shows to just kill the Big Bad Evil son of a bitch and end things then and there, but they just... don’t? and then Spike/Alpha just get up and walk away lol

Some of the developing themes around their characters revolve around similar questions of identity and nature vs. nurture: how much does your original self remain when you become a demon/Doll? Which is stronger, your original self or what you were made to be? Are you shackled to your “nature” or can you change to become someone better? Someone you want to be? How can you do that when you’ve done so much wrong (and you’re low-key kinda not sorry about a lot of it)?

They both can switch between being comedy gold and genuinely menacing on a dime

And **MORE SIGNIFICANT SPOILERS AHEAD**

honestly? I think they both ultimately end up in love with the reality of The Girl than the idealized version of her. At first Spike is attracted to Buffy as The Slayer. As he evolves and they grow closer, he tries to convince Buffy to become a creature of darkness like him because he thinks that’s the only way they can be together. But he does love the human parts of her, and in the end accepts the complexity of who she is and loves all of her without reservation or expectation. Angel, on the other hand, loved the idea of Buffy more than the reality of her and never really moved past that. He insisted he knew who she was and what was best for her. By the same token, Alpha believes Echo will love him the moment he frees her by recreating his Composite Event. He tries to convince her that they are the same kind of new being, that they are gods/ubermensch, but she rejects his worldview and him. That doesn’t stop Alpha from trying to understand why she did that and attempt to bridge the gap between himself and her. He initially rejects Caroline and "loves" Echo (the Doll and all her many personalities). He’s frustrated by her rejection, but seeks to understand it. After he imprints himself with Paul Ballard’s personality, I think he would have gone on to a) actually understand love beyond obsession, and b) love Caroline AND Echo. Additionally, like Spike when he got his soul, I think he would also have better understood his own deficits and felt more remorse for his past sins. He would have vacillated between doubling down and seeking atonement, at turns hindering and aiding the main characters before eventually committing to a heel-face turn. He was on the same road to reformation and redemption as Spike was and likely would have loved Echo completely without asking for anything in return (as seems to be implied by their interactions in Epitaphs II). Paul, on the other hand, is attracted to Echo but in love with the idea of Caroline (without having ever actually met her until much later, and that didn't really work out too hot for him because, like he did with Echo, she holds him at arms length emotionally). Despite realizing that Echo is becoming a person in her own right with her own desires and feelings, he shuts Echo down every time she tries to get closer to him, presumably because he feels like any relationship beyond a professional or platonic one would be a violation of Caroline’s being. Basically, he sees Echo as only and forever a vessel, an empty shell to someday be filled back up by Caroline--and when that day comes he is hoping that she will love him back when he “rescues” her (and, unlike Alpha, seems more stubborn about sticking to his guns and waiting for the “real” girl to come back instead of realizing shit’s a lot more complicated than that now). 

Idk, I'm just saying from what I see there's a lot of common ground here. Don't get me wrong, there are some significant differences between Spike and Alpha, too (as well as Buffy and Echo's respective situations), but I found some of the parallels intriguing. A lot of this is conjecture for Dollhouse/Alpha because the show got canceled before they could really explore Alpha's character arc. And look, I know this is personal taste, but just like with Spike vs. Angel, Alpha was way more intriguing than Paul imo.

(also, like, there are THREE gifs of Alpha that I can find. THREE. How? Is? This? POSSIBLE??? How am I supposed to work in these conditions?!?)

Anybody else see any other parallels between Spike and Alpha? Or maybe between Buffy and Echo/Caroline? and are any of my fellow spuffy shippers also on this ship? if anyone out there loves spike but hasn't seen dollhouse, I'd recommend it, also please talk to me, I need people to talk to about my new hyperfixation/problematic blorbo...

[jazzypizzaz]

CATS thoughts

saw it Saturday and I’ve taken this long to have actual coherent thoughts instead of just the full range of emotive wailing jklsdfjkl

my overall opinion: almost all the criticisms about it are completely valid and I agree with, in that it was unequivocally a Bad movie, BUT ALSO!!! it made me so so  Happy. jklsdfkljklsdfjkl  *SHRUG EMOJI*.  it had the same strange hypnotic factor as the stage show, where no matter what I thought about any individual aspect in particular, it all worked together into a grander whole that meant I left the theater with music buzzing under my skin and felt like dancing in the streets.  I’d simultaneously rate it both a 2 and a jellicle 20 out of 10.

but... it was fucking weird, completely unnerving, and so many choices were made that seem beyond human comprehension

the initial trailer didn’t freak me out the way it did for most!!!  I thought I was prepared!  I was HYPED because it seemed weird in a way that made perfect sense imo (don’t @ me)... 

that said while I don’t disagree with that in theory it was very much a case where the longer I watched the movie (past uuhh the first two minutes), the weirder and more disconcerting the cat/human hybrid design got, and it was impossible to acclimatize .  the human brain just wasn’t meant to comprehend.  they’re cats, but they’re also people?? they’re cats AND people???  a total mindfuck

a lot of that was due to the particular choices about what aspects were human and what aspects were cat.  I’d be watching the human expressions across Victoria’s spectacularly emotional face, and something like all the cat tails I had forgotten about would suddenly whip up erect, and I would LOSE it

also -- Cats would slink really close to each other, brush against each other, nuzzle -- feline social behavior! -- but the whole time I’d be afraid that they were about to kiss, because when humans get into each other’s space it’s likely to precede romantic intimacy. I didn’t trust that the human-ish faces wouldn’t kiss, when though they’re otherwise sort of acting like cats, and I absolutely postiviely could not handle that if it happened.

oh!! and the dancing!!!  a lot of the background dancers or like Victoria would be slinking and fluid, and I totally got that it was a feline dance style. cats are a liquid!  yes!  but sometimes (maybe when it was actors rather than dancers?) the body movements weren’t as polished and apparently it’s a very thin tightrope line between “slinking feline” and “sexual writhing”. jklsdfjkl

another thing was the stage play vs cinematic choices?? really seemed like it should have been more one way or the other.  sometimes they’d be singing about stuff they’ve done as cats, and it’d just be a close up of the cat singing, and that seemed like a missed opportunity to actually SHOW the cat doing those things in the way you could in a movie better than on stage -- Gus was maybe the worst offender, would have loved to see some flashbacks!, and also Mungojerrie/Rumpleteaser number was way less interesting than the circus-type acrobatics I remember from the stage show.  and then, of course, the cinematic editing and cutting between cats really butchered what would have looked great if you could see the whole  “stage” at once.

also the half-assed attempt at plot ............... like I get it, you do need more of a narrative thread in a movie version! totally get that!  I didn’t need a cat romance though, or not between Victoria and Mr M, and would have liked more of Rum Tum Tugger than there was just in general.

best cats: Rebel Wilson, Ian McKellan, Ole Deuteronomy, Skimbleshanks.  I expected Rebel cat to be too hammy, cringey even, but actually ??  she totally captured that particular type of graceless zippy chubby cat (as tired as the fat jokes are), body movements all definitely reminded me of my bf’s cat, a true Gumbie cat lol.  She’s legit charming.  Ian McKellan invented ACTING holy shit, the complete uproar in the theater when he said “meow!” and lapped up milk from a bowl, or did ANYTHING ahahaha -- truly elevated the weirdness in a perfect way.  Ole Deut was properly majestic and completely embodied the role, loved it (unnerving 4th wall breaks aside).  Skimble was wonderful, loved the tap dancing and the whole musical number, great.  as I said before, I also loved Victoria’s cat movements but a) she needed actual fur, b) I got tired of the constant level 10 wide-eyed wonder at everything, please chill.

I didn’t dislike Bustopher Jones, but I wasn’t crazy about him either.  the fake-looking belly was bad.  Everyone else was fine I guess? except --

worst cats: Taylor Swift and (sorry) Grizabella.  Taylor Swift was the worst offender of moving exactly like she would as a human, so that her particular strut swaying her human curves (the only time I noticed the fur lump cat breasts tbh) was VERY distracting to me, broke my brain. nope nope, that’s NOT a cat! not very jellicle of you taytay!  and I feel so bad for Jennifer Hudson, clearly so so talented and really really tried, but the heartbroken angst was dialed up all the way to 20 the entire time -- I couldn’t be moved by the climatic points because there wasn’t enough emotional variation to really feel it.

oh frick I blocked out about the mice and cockroach.  Why. wHY!! why

[naruhearts]

OKAY SO I've just spent the best part of an hour scrolling through your blog and reading a bunch of your destiel meta and I HAD to message you... I was one of the many people who STRONGLY believed destiel had a chance of being canon after season 8 (more like season gr8 am i right), but throughout the years I slowly lost all hope. However, S14 has made me 110% invested in the show again and YOUR META IS GIVING ME HOPE FOR DESTIEL, which is TERRIFYING. Your writing is wonderful and I'm STRESSED.

Got back from Washington late last night!

Oh my gosh @alovelikecas, your message really made my day and I’m SO glad you enjoy my meta xox (even when most of my meta looks like, to me, sloppy-ass writing, haha! I’ll probably make an end-season meta post after 14x20 — if I have the time — that touches upon SPN’s current and repeating themes since Season New Beginnings S12/Dabb Era, not to mention I have, like, some more unfinished meta in my drafts >.>)

Yeah I mean, I didn’t join Destiel land until Summer 2016, and before that, I was late to the Season 11 party, so I basically had no narrative context for anything, and I’ll copy-paste what I said here: 

Looking back, one significant thing I recall? S11 gave me a sense of Destiel’s true narrative validity (as not a ‘fanon’ ship but organically developed in the canon) when I perceived it as a season that was ‘missing something’. Keep in mind I had no idea about Destiel yet while watching S11 at the time.

I was literally asking myself — repeatedly — why Dean/Amara seemed to contain odd narrative holes, considering A. Dean explicitly said that the non-consensual attraction he felt for Amara was NOT love and “it scares him”, B. Amara told Dean that ‘something stops you - keeps you from having it all’, C. Djinn!Amara stated that she can: ‘feel the love [Dean] feels, except it’s cloaked in shame,’ and D. Mildred’s iconic ‘You’re pining for someone’ —> which did not logically correlate with A and C, meaning: since Dean doesn’t freely love Amara and thus isn’t possibly pining for her — with female love interests as currently non-existent (I remember crossing off the dead/gone girls on a piece of paper lol) — who the hell was he pining for, then?

Originally posted by elizabethrobertajones

Obviously, without writing long-ass paragraphs of meta about it again in this post, S11 made sense as soon as I watched it within the Destiel context (especially after I read up on some grandiose pieces of Destiel meta (@charlie-minion was the very first person who inspired me to write meta; I followed her once I joined the fandom Oh my god, here we go, holy crap this subtext – I’m invested in this godforsaken ship because they’re in love with each other and I’m not getting off any time soon. The rest is history.

I’m aware that I do come off as positive (and I’m still Destiel-positive; whatever happens in 14x20 this week may or may not change that), but I hope you don’t mind if I use your lovely ask as an additional opportunity to clarify my meta standpoint: no one’s saying Destiel WILL become text. 

The general Destiel meta community (all subfactions: Destiel-positive, -negative, -neutral, and in-between) is not the Most Holy Canon Word, and we aren’t SPN writers, and again, we can’t actually speak to the veracity of Destiel as guaranteed-gonna-go-textual, but we — a diverse pool of critical thinkers from all walks of life: particularly those who have some degree of experience in literary academia/English literature studies (fun fact: I was actually pursuing a Minor’s in English until I changed my mind - my first love’s Health Science/Biology, which I stuck with, but here I am doing lit-crit analysis on the side *wink*) — can speak to the veracity of Destiel as a real, palpable, and ever-substantial long-running romance narrative aka the love story between Dean and Cas IS THERE. I see it. We all see it. We didn’t pluck it out of the random ether one day. It naturally evolved across the show’s overarching narrative like some vast spiderweb, linked together by numerous character arc amalgamations of Dean Winchester and Castiel as separate individuals who were then brought together — who brought themselves together, by the sheer force of free will and choice — and are now inherent parts of the other’s story (and respective character progression).

I say this too many times to count: the entire point of writing meta? Personally, it enables me to appreciate the literary gorgeousness of Dean and Cas’ relationship as, first and foremost, a tentative alliance offset by the very moment Cas raised Dean from perdition (it’s a poetic beginning). Their alliance then inevitably proliferated into a rocky — at times, necessarily turbulent — friendship, then a deep profound bond…one that crossed platonic boundaries since S7/8 and is, ultimately, indelibly rooted in romance. Together, Dean and Cas build up each other’s strengths, complement each other’s flaws, and narratively motivate the other to self-introspect — to become the best version of themselves that they were always meant to be: self-actualized entities who let go of their painful, horrifying, psychologically/emotionally destitute pasts.

These above reasons and more are why I think Destiel belongs right up there on the shelf of Ye Olde Classics, similar to epics by John Milton, Shakespearian tragic dramas, Homeric characteristic cruxes, and the great Odyssey journey: a legendary journey, fraught with circumstance, that finally ended with Odysseus (now an enlightened man) returning to Penelope, the love of his life.

Channeling the scope of Homer’s Odyssey, Destiel is an incredible storytelling feat of obstacles, both internal and external, romance tropes, mirroring, foreshadowing, and visual cadence/emotion, enhancing SPN’s already character-driven main plot in that Dean and Cas try to make it back to one another; like Penelope, their love holds true despite everything. If Destiel were an M/F couple, we all know their love story would be absolutely undeniable to the GA.

I do understand the bitterness S14’s fostered in some viewers, though. I do understand that Dean and Cas seem distant (and yeah, it’s a noticeable difference compared to S12/S13), but I believe the Destiel subtext is still heavy and holds steady.

Right now, at this point, there remains multiple personal issues for the characters to solve, you know? Dean and Cas aren’t talking properly; their love languages stay mistranslated, although we’re persistently shown that they still understand each other on a certain level that no one else can, and the visual narrative keeps framing them as on-the-nose solid counterparts: a domestic-spousal romantic unit independent of Sam.

Originally posted by incatastrophicmind

They want to be there for the other. They need to quash the final remnants of their respective internal loathing (Dean’s self-worthiness, Cas’ self-expendability) before they’re able to give the other 100% of their time, efforts, attention, and love (as flawed and complicated but compellingly beautiful as it can possibly be). During the times Dean and Cas do try to talk shit out, extraneous issues continue to get between them.

As other friends/meta pals discussed with me, S14 is like S10 in that it’s confusing the cast/audiences. And exactly: S8, besides S11/S12/early S13, also belongs in the close-to-canon serious Destiel narrative transition! I can discuss the showrunning/writer problem of SBL (Singer + Bucklemming; @occamshipper hits the nail on the head) that tugs subtext – especially subtext linked to Destiel – back and forth, sometimes in the weirdest nonsensical ways, but I won’t go too far into it here. I agree, however, with the recent idea that Jensen does seem a bit confused as to where he should bring Dean emotionally this season (don’t get me wrong, I do NOT believe Dean is OOC; OOC is a completely different concept vs expected character behaviour). And if Dean’s consistently romance-coded past interactions with Cas are any indication, Jensen would also — in the same vein as all of us — want Dean and Cas to start getting their shit together. Long-running fictional characters like Dean and Cas, conceived over 10 years, are so well-written to the point where you, the author, can predict what they’ll do even if you just plop both of them inside a room and give them no direction, and I personally feel that nowadays Jensen is prevented from achieving Dean’s further internal growth/unsure how to act in the moment because of some dumb SBL scripts saying one thing while his character’s heart says another. Wank aside—

Season 15 should hopefully convey a much more logical subtextual perspective e.g. unbelievably amazingly cohesive Season Destiel 11 that aired after choppy S10. Not all hope is lost!! I also want to clarify that I personally LOVED Season 14 in general. It’s been mostly Emotion-centric constant, with Yockey, Berens, Perez, and Dabb usually making my top-rank SPN writer list.

Currently the narrative’s still allowing pretty significant (imho) wiggle room for the lovers to fracture apart and get back together, where their miscommunication comes to a dramatic head. We just saw Dean and Cas argue over Jack’s well-being in 14x18 and 19. Dean — besides putting Cas at the top of his You’re-Dead-to-Me-Because-You-Lied-but-I-Still-Love-You-Goddammit hitlist (for clear spousal-coded reasons) and taking Cas’ actions to heart (he’s the person he trusted the most who lied to him) — no doubt blamed himself for what happened, and Sam was, like I said, the mouthpiece of truth. TFW were all culpable. They all failed Jack in some way, shape, or form.

I’m not expecting anything for 14x20, but I’m nervous either way! Thanks for sticking with my long answer

[kinetic-elaboration]

February 24: Thoughts on 4x04 and Clarke’s List

I tried to write something short and then it turned into 2.5k+ of ramble and now it’s 1 am. Forget Clarke it is I who am, in fact, The Worst.

tl;dr: Obviously Monty should have been on the list but I’m not that angry; I enjoyed the story line regardless. I’m glad we’re back to moral debates that don’t revolve around war and I think this latest complication to an old S1 debate about leadership provides a worthy twist. The fandom’s reaction to the list, at least as I saw it, was particularly interesting to me. The reactions of the Arkadians were reasonable but so, unfortunately, is the list. The list is still in existence and thus still (potentially) in play. I love Jaha.

*

I wanted to write up my thoughts on 4x04 but I’m tired and I want to sleep and I have a feeling that it would get very rambly very fast so… I’m going to try to restrain myself and just talk about the Arkadia plot.

So I didn’t hate it, like I feel a lot of other people did? I thought it was interesting, I liked (actually really loved) a lot of the individual scenes that made up the plot, including every millisecond Jasper and Monty were on screen because you know I have my biases too. Also, even though I fully admit there was some lazy artificial-drama-creating fuckery, the underlying issues in the plot were meaningful to me and I think there were an equal number of subtleties there to offset, for me at least, the lazy bits.

It’s obviously very lazy to keep Monty off the list. It was clearly done to spur along the plot, to give these particular characters very immediate motives to do very dramatic things, and no, that’s not usually a writing method I’m going to praise. Not that I’m praising it here, I’m just being (uncharacteristically?) forgiving. I guess my general policy is that I’ll forgive plot holes if I feel like the bigger picture is compelling, entertaining, and generally well done (like the wonky faux-science in the Mt. Weather story line or, to use an example from another show, the reveal of the Big Bad in S2 of Dollhouse). The Monty plot hole here falls into that category for me. I just can’t get worked up about it even though it falls apart at the slightest inspection and immediately draws one out of the story.

Because it was clearly a plot hole. I think KS did a decent enough job explaining why he was off the list, but it’s not quite enough because, quite frankly, nothing will be. The Monty omission is jarring initially because he’s a member of The 100 but that’s not why it’s a plot hole. Harper not being on the list is also jarring and if Kane and Miller aren’t on it (and I kinda doubt they are, because I think Kane would be high enough on the list to have been read off by Monty if he were there and Miller…it’s just a feeling I have?), then that is jarring too. But it’s not hard to understand when you consider that Clarke’s in-universe view of the situation is VERY different from ours as audience members. We could easily list off every single still-living named Arkadian character and still not be anywhere near 100 names. Lol, we could probably save all the corpses too and still have room for some Grounders. And it’s always going to seem more important to the viewer to save the knowns than the unknowns (this is also the basis of my theory as to why Bellamy/Harper/Bryan’s decision to save the slaves in 4x02 was met with so much resistance—because we literally have never seen these enslaved characters before so it’s hard to care about them as individuals). But within the universe, from Clarke’s POV, mere allegiance to former delinquents, mere personal preference for her friends, isn’t going to be enough, nor really should it be.

(Another aside because this is a major sticking point for me with me right now: the insistence of prioritizing a few named Arkadians over everyone else is really working against the show right now imo. It’s very hard to get a handle on the larger community when it’s filled almost entirely by extras. There’s no sense of proportion. Why do the Arcadians accept Clarke as a leader when she has no moral authority whatsoever? Who are all of these names Monty is reading out and why are they important? How much information do the people actually have and what do they think is going on here? Everything we know about the Sky People comes from elites like Abby or Kane, or delinquents, whose experiences in this society are not representative at all given their incarceration and the events of the first two season. The show is desperately lacking a “grunt worker” perspective, a character like Gina or even Bryan, to balance this out. But they’re too busy introducing new Grounders every other day so I guess that won’t ever happen.)

Anyway, my point is that it’s easy enough to understand why Clarke would cut Harper, for example. (Even without the sick-Dad revelation, I still don’t really see what skill set she has that makes her high priority tbh…she barely has a personality imo. Sorry to abuse these parentheticals I have a lot of thoughts.) And I think, like I said, that a valiant effort was made to explain why Monty wasn’t on the list. But it absolutely doesn’t hold up. Yeah, he’s an apprentice engineer, but has Clarke forgotten everything he’s already accomplished, even with barely any training, even at 15, even after uncounted months spent in lock up instead of learning new skills? Boy’s a genius. He pretty much single-handedly took down Mt. Weather. He came up with the idea to use the Ark in the first place. He’s from Farm Station—a trait Clarke herself emphasized all the way back in 1x02—which is even more important now than it was before considering we have possibly as few as three Farm Station survivors and at least one of the others isn’t on the list either. I mean there’s literally no way around the nonsense of this omission so believe me I am 100% with people who are calling bullshit on this.

That said, it’s a reasonable price for me to pay for an entertaining and thought-provoking plot so I’m not that upset about it.

There are three things I really liked about this story line. Well, four, but the fourth is all of the opportunities to shine that Jasper and Monty had but that’s not a point of ~analysis.

The first is the parallel to the situation on the Ark in S1, which is obviously an ongoing one that became all the more obvious here, with Jasper and Monty taking on the roles of the Griffins in spreading the information. What I think is fascinating about this is that in S1, Jake, and later Abby’s, position was clearly portrayed as the morally right one. Jaha/Kane and their desire to keep things quiet was seen as the villainous position, and when Abby ultimately let everyone know just what was happening, the best of humanity immediately came forward in a tear-jerking moment of self-sacrifice that still makes me feel misty-eyed now, long after I first saw it.

But I don’t think the situation is as clear this time around. Yes, the narrative does push you to have an initial gut reaction that Jasper and Monty are right and Clarke is wrong, and that is generally the reaction I’ve seen among the fandom. It’s not that simple, though, because while no one rioted, man, they were pretty close. There is no way Clarke would have been able to hold back a rebellion against her illegitimate power if Jaha hadn’t stepped up when he did. I don’t think anyone would have sacrificed themselves; I think they would have destroyed each other. That doesn’t mean she was right to hide the information; maybe the problem isn’t even centered in the list, it’s centered in the secrecy. That’s a valid possibility. (It’s Monty’s position in fact: “Do you really think that’s what I’m mad about?) And, too, this isn’t the first time when the reckless sharing of information with the rabble has caused harm or potential harm: 1x04 Murphy’s Law happened, after all.

What I’m saying, or trying to say, is that this is another example of the leadership-problem ‘what information do I share, and what do I keep’ that I personally find interesting, a moral dilemma of the sort I initially fell in love with the show for, and which was pushed aside as the episodes went on in favor of story line after story line after story line about war. So I’m glad to be getting back to these debates about leadership/government/civic structure because this is my Area of Interest to the nth degree.

The second thing I liked about this story line is actually more about the fandom/viewer reaction I’ve seen in the last 24 hours. I think how people watching the show reacted to Clarke and her list was really interesting: suddenly it’s The Worst thing and she’s a Bad Person for writing it and oh gosh it was So Obvious this was Capital-B-Bad and it was inevitable that it was going to blow up in her face and we’re all in agreement it’s Morally Unconscionable to Play God and choose who lives and dies I mean wow Clarke the Fucking Nerve on you. Correct me if I’m missing something but I saw absolutely zero outrage about the list last week—you know, when she actually wrote it? I saw absolutely no anger toward Raven last week when she not only first mentioned the list but hounded Clarke about it, all but forcing her to write it (Clarke basically bargained for Raven’s blessing to go on the Jaha trip, promising to write the list if the mission didn’t pan out). In fact, I STILL don’t see anyone getting on Raven’s back about the list even though she was the one who, incredibly pragmatically and logically, insisted it would be a good idea. Not a single peep until we see the consequences of it, which, if they were so obvious, probably should have been foreseen. Similarly, Bellamy probably had some hand in writing it and while I know today would be a bad time to be outraged at Bellamy, given that both he as a person in-universe and he as a character were totally shafted this week, but he hasn’t exactly been the recipient of any flak either.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m not necessarily defending Clarke here. She is pretty much The Worst at PR and this episode really showed off her most obnoxious character trait: her frankly astounding arrogance, which has always been the hardest Clarke trait for me to stomach personally. (Pride is the worst sin for a reason you know.) From a writing perspective, it’s good that Clarke continues to struggle with her more negative traits, but from a personal-investment-in-the-universe standard, yeah, it’s frustrating to watch. Jasper, Monty, and the rest of the Arkadians definitely have a reasonable reaction to the revelation of the list and I don’t fault them for it at all, nor do I fault viewers for revolting too. I just think it’s really interesting how the list looked so logical and unobjectionable a mere week ago, and now it’s becoming more real, all the emotions are welling up, and Clarke isn’t just doing something hard to stomach, she’s doing something Inarguably Morally Wrong.

The third reason I liked this story line is because the list isn’t wrong. It is, at most, ambiguous. IMO the best way to describe it is using Clarke’s response to the Arkadians: “It’s not fair, it’s logical.” I’ve seen some responses along the lines of ‘well everyone should have a say in who’s on the list,’ to which I can only say ‘lol are you for real?’ Everyone’s going to vote for themselves first, their friends second, and the list will never actually be written. Have you ever seen that Parks and Rec episode with the time capsule? It will be like that except instead of Twilight and pictures of people’s pets it will be real humans. If the list is to be made it has to be made by a few people alone (I will concede that maybe putting it on one or two people is a mistake—both because their biases might come through too much and because it’s unfair to put that pressure on even two individuals alone). It HAS to be top-down and it HAS to be secret.

And if the list doesn’t exist at all, what are your other options? With no system at all, it will be a free for all. Not only does that run the risk of a ship without doctors or engineers or fertile women, it also runs the risk of a ship without even a hundred people, because everyone just killed each other on the way in. The lottery system is possible but as Clarke points out, you’re not going to get a logical bunch. You could get a surplus of men or not enough farmers or whatever. If your interest is in using cold hard logic to give humanity as a whole the best chance of survival, the list as Clarke made it, dispassionate and practical and focused on the big picture, is absolutely your best bet and the fact that this startlingly unfair and even cruel to the people as individuals doesn’t really matter. Because no matter how you slice it 500 people are going to work together to save 100; there’s no fairness here.

Also as an aside: guess what other governmental structure was specifically created to save the human race as a whole even at the expense of imposing outrageously cruel and unfair conditions on individuals? That would be the Ark in case we’ve all forgotten.

Again, if I were Jasper or Monty or Harper or Riley I would be ready to depose Clarke too. Jaha’s statements to Clarke were 100% right: you can’t run this situation with logic; you need to understand the emotion at play.

But what I find absolutely the most interesting about the whole thing is Jaha’s solution and the subsequent exchange with Clarke. He saved her from being deposed, essentially, and he kept the camp going and he appeared to use transparency to do it but really that’s not what happened at all. The illusion of transparency was itself a trick. The list is still in play. I only watched the episode once but I caught a few very interesting phrases from Jaha. For example, when he takes the list from Clarke he tells the Arcadians to “consider it shredded” but he doesn’t shred it. Then he gives it back to her during their conversation. He doesn’t argue with her about the lottery being risky. He talks exclusively in terms of what the people need to believe and how a leader handles people. Jaha’s plan I am 100% certain is to pretend transparency while continuing to lie for the greater good: everyone will believe in the lottery, which (Jaha’s so fucking smart and pragmatic I love him) not only gives them a reason not to riot but an actual positive incentive to work, and hopefully a different solution is found in the meantime but if it’s not, when the time comes to close those doors, the option remains to pull Clarke’s 100 inside and leave all those other expendables out. Because what will they be able to do about it then?

I don’t mean this as an insult at all but Jaha was the same person who could give a speech about unity and working together one minute and in the next say ‘oh btw we don’t have space for all of you on the exodus ship whoops’ under his breath so no one can hear it. He is intensely pragmatic and a great liar with a really spot on sense of people and an excellent persuasive tone. If the lottery isn’t the best idea, and I think he knows it’s not, it’s not going into operation. It’s a tool, not an endgame.

…Not that I think the list is actually going to determine the end of the season. There is absolutely no way that any named character is going to be left outside whatever shelter/ship/machine/etc. ends up representing safety at the end of the season unless (1) that character is already dead or (2) it’s a cliffhanger situation along the lines of 1x13 and there’s at least some chance that the outside character(s) will be back next season.

Tl;dr: Clarke should have hid that list better.