#and it's not so much that she's being....punished by the narrative for thinking/dealing with things in that way

[velaris-fic-repository]

Wicked Witch

@sjmxreaderweek May 7th Prompt: Villain/Hero

Slight Rhysand x Vanserra!Reader, Rhys is barely in this, ANGST, very little to no comfort, major character death, death of a mentor, Beron is a warning all his own

Inspired in part by the TV show Agatha All Along and the narrative podcast Old Gods of Appalachia. Both are very good, you should check ‘em out!

Summary: You were born cursed to wither every living thing you’ve ever touched. You’re convinced that you are a monster.

A/N: This ended up being more world building and character study than I originally intended, but I think it works! May make this a series, may not, I’ll have to think about it, enjoy!

You were a monster.

At least, that’s what your father had always made you believe.

High Lord of Autumn’s only daughter, cursed to wither everything she touched to ash and dust. Useless to your court, useless to your society. What marriage alliance could possibly be made when any suitor would be scared - literally - to death to touch you?

You were older than most of your siblings, second only to Eris. Most of your brothers however, gave you the widest berths they could when you were allowed out of your rooms. Lucien and Eris were the only ones who deigned to interact with you outside of appearance only events. Your court, and you supposed Prythian, thought you were simply ill. Frail. The fawn with a broken leg. The one thing the notoriously ruthless Autumn Court wanted to preserve.

You loved your closest brothers dearly, lamenting the hands the three of you were dealt. It hurt you endlessly that even they wouldn’t touch you. Eris, thanks to having watched the powers you felt cursed with, Lucien, from instruction. You didn’t blame them, you were terrified of yourself as well. There was nothing for it.

When you were younger, in the beginnings of dealing with your affliction, your mother told you a friend of hers had scoured his libraries to find some answer to this curse. He’d apparently found none.

You’d looked for answers on your own, only for Beron to find you and punish you for stepping out of the suffocating box of isolation he’d painted for you. You’d studied in secret for near three hundred years, hoping to cure yourself and become the useful female heir he’d wanted you to be. For once to gain the love or at least the respect he’d denied you.

That punishment was not pretty. No need to spare the face or skin when no suitors would come calling.

Something had died in you that day. Burned to a crisp and crumbled to soot. In the same manner your youngest brother would one day do, you fled the Forest House. You’d left a note for Lucien and some handmade toys for Eris’s hounds - he’d know who they were from, they were the only way you could interact with the creatures you loved so much. After, you were gone, traipsing through Prythian with no one else the wiser. No one expected a High Lord’s daughter to bear such scorch marks.

The official story was the frail princess of Autumn had succumbed to her illness. Maybe she had.

Consumed by your anger and pain you withered an entire forest at the edge of Autumn’s border with Winter. The incident explained away by the proximity of the seasons. The symptoms of your powers were no different than a natural autumnal rot anyway.

You found yourself in The Middle in your wandering. The place seemed perfect for you. The dumping ground for dangerous, unwanted fae.

You had been content to lie there, waiting for whatever horrid creature haunted your nightmares as a child to come and find you.

Something eventually did.

The moon was full that night when you heard a crunch in the under brush. Thank the Mother for your brothers giving you clandestine hunting lessons. Those tracking and observation skills were the only reason you’d managed to survive.

Your favorite hunting knife clutched in a vice grip, you stalked behind a tree, careful not to touch its living bark.

“I know you’re here, Withering One. I mean you no harm, little fawn.”

You watched an elderly female limp into your camp, towards your fire. She made herself at home there, sitting on a log, leaning on her walking stick and warming her hands. Something stirred in you watching her, a living being warmed by something you created. The aide you’d wanted to provide your family, someone, anyone, realized here.

“Will the princess be joining me out here? Or is she content to hide behind a tree all night?”

You poked your head around the tree, a fussy pout on your face.

“There she is. Come, child. Sit with me. And change your face, it could freeze that way.”

A fawn gaining her legs, you tentatively crept over to the fire, sitting far away from her, your knife still clutched in your hand.

“Put the claw down, child. Look at me, I’m too old to pose any real threat to you.”

“Appearances can always be deceiving,” you said, eyes narrowed.

The old female laughed, a crow’s laugh, “And you know more about that than most. This I know, girl.”

“And you know so much about me, why?”

She held up a slip of paper, “the cards told me, dear.”

You frowned at it, the painted image on the card meaning very little to you.

The card vanished with a flip of her surprisingly nimble fingers. “There are magics far more varied than those your father keeps, girl. I can teach you, if you’d like, and help you master those gifts of yours.”

“Gifts,” you spat.

“Yes, gifts. Your father is a fool for keeping you caged. You are dangerous only in your ignorance, child.”

You lowered your knife, keeping it in your lap.

“Master your gift and it won’t hurt you anymore,” she said, “you could see your brothers again, hug them. You could love freely, unafraid of what you would do to those you hold dear, just like you’ve always wanted.”

She extended her hand, obviously not for you to shake it, but an offering to match her words. You looked between it and her elderly face. Steel lined your expression.

“What would I have to do?”

You were her apprentice witch for decades. Studying the various crafts, tapping into other sources of magic while you struggled to grapple with your own.

Divination and tarot reading was your strongest suit, warding places following after. Practical magic, with herbs and roots, was out of the cards for you. Every ingredient shriveling in your hands.

You never seemed to improve on that front, so fearful of the effect that you hesitated to even try touching anything alive.

Frustrated by your lack of progress after a particularly bad night, in a particularly bad week of a particularly bad month and so on, you turned to your cards, hoping to find answers there.

First card, Eight of Swords, wonderful… A card of helplessness and fatality. Hard times ahead. But, that’s where you’ve been. The next two could show better things in your future.

Second card, Death. “Seriously!” You whined. Death as a card, you had learned often did not mean a literal one. More an ending or separation. A phase of life concluding.

Third and final card, Knight of Swords. Something sudden, violent, and dangerous. A fight one will need courage for.

You were tired of fighting, tired of trying. You were tired of losing and losing and losing no matter what you did.

In a fit of exhausted frustration you screamed out, slamming your palms to the ground and just let your power consume the ground around you. A circle formed around you of withered, dead grass. The decay oozed around you in a ring. Twigs snapped, aged and splintered to pieces. A nearby tree groaned as rot set into one of its roots. The sounds of insects ceased as birds and other woodland creatures ran like hell away from your clearing. Those who weren’t fast enough were bones in seconds.

Those sounds of the forest dying in that little circle around you caused a new kind of grief to settle in your chest. The land you loved so much decimated because of you. All those wonderful sounds, gone. It was a horror you had tried with everything in you to ignore, but the facts were here. Ugly, unpleasant and in your face as you grappled with the destructive nature of yourself.

That silence also gave way to new terror as you heard a familiar three pronged crunch in the grass just beyond the clearing. Two feet and a stick.

“Little fawn, we really ought t-“

Her words were cut off before you could call out, scream, beg her to stop at the edge of the clearing.

You looked up in silent shock and horror to see her just within the circle you’d thoughtlessly created.

All was quiet until a sickening cough came from her throat. One of effort and hurt as she stood bolt upright, looking for all the world like the fae equivalent of a lightning struck tree.

She grit her teeth as you watched the lines of her aged face deepen, her skin thinning and stretching over her bones. “It’s alright, child.”

Liar. She was dying.

You were frozen, unable to do anything but weep as your greatest fear of nearly five hundred years finally came to fruition.

“I… I’ll be alright… child,” every word of hers was a struggle, you could hear it. Every pause sending a crack through your heart. She was your mentor. Your sister in the craft.

She was your friend.

“I’ve lived a… long time, Princess. These bones could use… the rest.”

You fell to your knees and sobbed, the decay winding along the woman’s arms “I’m so sorry.”

“Remember… remember what I’ve taught you… dear. Your power… does not have to be your enemy…” Tears welled in her eyes as the final moments came, and you found yourself by her side as she sank to the ground. You couldn’t stop it now, you didn’t know how. Touching her now wouldn’t make a difference. So you held her, clutched her to your chest and wept over her as she smiled painfully up at you.

“It was my honor… to teach you, dear…”

Then she was gone, crumbled into dust before you had the chance to say anything back.

You wept in that clearing for a good long while.

A monster, that’s what you were. Of that you were sure. There was nothing you could do to stop the power that haunted you. So, you put it to the only use you could think of. You traveled Prythian after that, decaying those who would leave unjust bodies behind. You were not a feeble little fawn, but a diseased and deadly vixen. A monster to kill other monsters.

Those next years passed in a fugue state. You didn’t care where you went, only that the task you assigned yourself was complete.

When the warriors caught you, you didn’t struggle. You didn’t fight. You didn’t touch anyone. You let yourself be pulled, corralled and brought before whoever had ordered your capture. Whoever it was could do as they wished.

You were done. Empty. Rotted away from the inside.

You hadn’t talked when they brought you in. Azriel had warned him as much. You had hardly reacted to anything he’d said the entire time his men had you in custody. You hadn’t eaten either.

Rhysand didn’t need his brother to tell him that last part. He had eyes.

He’d tried to rouse you from your stupor but couldn’t, so he played the only card he had left. He’d entered your mind, viewing every terrible memory of yours as you replayed them in your mind, a horrible echo chamber of the worst parts of your life, your greatest fear, and your deepest senses of loneliness and despair.

He pulled himself out of your mind, seemingly pulling your consciousness up with him as you began to look more lucid.

“You’re Beron’s daughter,” he said after a beat.

“And I’m in the Night Court,” you responded, resigned.

“You’re supposed to be dead,” he mused.

You said nothing.

Rhysand caught a thought of yours as it passed and it was not a pleasant one. The assumption that what you assumed the Night Court to be would be a fitting end for someone like you. Prythian’s villains would know how best to deal with one such as you and all you’d done.

But Rhysand thought better than that. He’d seen in the bits and pieces of your history that you had been so close to figuring it out. You weren’t cursed. Autumn had always been a season of death, a season to harvest what could be and purge that which could no longer stand. A season not of cruel and harsh ends, but of making room for what was to come and kindly laying the earth down to rest. Your mentor, though beloved by you, was old, amenable to rest and making room in the world for something new. That’s what she’d tried to tell you but your fear and grief refused to let you hear it.

“Please,” you said, a sob breaking up your speech, “I don’t want to hurt anyone anymore.”

Rhys nodded, “We can help you.”

“Why?”

Rhys’s eyes shared the pain in yours as he responded, “because I never wanted to be a villain either.”

[wisteria-lodge]

I'm weeks behind on the dobbie argument but I'll be the first to admit that I skated past the cultural implications when I first read about them (at about 10-11?) just the way the narrative wants you to bc i knew the house elves were supposed to be brownies. I had read plenty of books where they put fairy-tale creatures into the modern world and they didn't exactly jive w that (like spiderwick and fablehaven) so the other house elves being mostly happy seems to imply that the dobby and winky situations were out of the norm.

But I will also say that now as someone old enough to have experience with close reading, the way the elves seem to happily mindlessly serve wizards while having different (possibly more powerful?) magic, and being part of the old ministry fountain all point to a lot of undealt with pieces that reflect how JKR just doesn't have to and herself isn't interested in dealing with some complex things in her writing, which honestly fits with what we see about her politic. This is not a lady deals with complexity or spectrum well.

That said! The house elf issue is complex enough to be it's own book (as evidenced by creature issue focused books like spiderwick and fablehaven) but if you don't want to focus on it for a whole book, then there really should have been more kinds of hints about why elves chose to serve wizards. Like... there's not much to like about it seems like, but jkr also has an issue with over-anthropomorphizing her magical creatures i think, or at least implying wizards do (like the centaurs don't want to be treated like humans. They want whatever they consider respect in their own culture and to have the barest modicum of how humans treat other presumably equally intelligent humans). And elves also have some thing about generational contacts w families that seems a little more like a downton style perception of household staff bc they serve rich and well connected people? But don't want gold so what do the wizards give them to hire them if they don't have a generational contract?

Even if we approach the topic on its own grounds it just opens more questions. Was dobby a new hire or did he have predecessors? The self-punishment is meant to be comic book violence but is actually really awful, did no one stop him bc it was acceptable or again bc dobby an outlier among his own kind? Is it possible to tie up elves in magical contracts? I don't even think it's terrible to have the elves as a whole be kind of "innocent" but again there are implications with treating creatures like that when you're also giving them and treating them according to Wizarding morals and not their own social rules...

I also missed the implications of all the house-elf stuff when I was like... nine or ten. Like, for years I was under the impression that Dobby's self-harm was a sort of compulsion magic that came from being bound to the Malfoys. But on a re-read, it's absolutely not. That's just Dobby's... maladaptive coping mechanism. What a weird way to introduce the concept of self-harm into your kids' book.

The films also don't engage with any house elves except for Dobby. Which gives the impression that - it's only Lucius Malfoy who has/wants a house elf, and that's bad, but he's a villain so whatever. And then Dobby is freed anyway. (I know kreacher is there for like, a minute, but he doesn't do anything important.)

I really do think that a lot of the weird framing around house elves is there to make the mystery in Book 4 work. (something else the films didn't bother with. Barty Crouch Jr. did it. How did he escape custody? Doesn't matter.)

Like - look at this bit:

Winky the house-elf was fighting her way out of a clump of bushes nearby. She was moving in a most peculiar fashion, apparently with great difficulty; it was as though someone invisible were trying to hold her back.

(we learn later that this is very literally what is happening)

“What’s up with her?” said Ron, looking curiously after Winky. “Why can’t she run properly?” “Bet she didn’t ask permission to hide,” said Harry. He was thinking of Dobby: Every time he had tried to do something the Malfoys wouldn’t like, the house-elf had been forced to start beating himself up.

Later in the book, we learn that Harry is actually completely wrong about this. Dobby wasn't forced to beat himself up by the Malfoys, since he's still doing it in the Hogwarts kitchens. And as a clue, this is really clever. A reader could put two-and-two together, go back to this moment with Winky, and realize that something else must be going on, which of course it is.

There are a lot of clues around Winky specifically - she is "saving a seat" in the Top Box for someone who never shows up, she takes Harry's wand away from Barty and is therefore caught with it, Barty Senior's decision to fire her for what seems to be (but isn't) a minor transgression doesn't make any sense... her story doesn't add up, and that's a major clue.

But in order for this to work, a couple of things have to be true.

Winky can't snitch on Crouch even after she's freed. (the way I'm sure Dobby would have snitched on Lucius.) So, therefore she needs to be loyal to her master in a way Dobby isn't.

Barty Crouch Sr. can't be like... evil, because that makes him too obvious a suspect, and the mystery won't be satisfying. JKR pulls the same trick she did in Book 3, where she makes Harry mentally compare Peter to Neville (so the reader will think of him as harmless/innocent/pathetic) and compares Barty Senior multiple times to Percy. Kind of a stick in a mud and overly concerned with rules, but not evil.

It can't seem WEIRD that Winky is loyal to her master, or else that will make that particular clue stand out too much.

So, we're left with a scenario where - most house-elves are loyal to their masters, and owning a house elf doesn't make you a *bad person* in the eyes of the narrative. But that has massive worldbuilding implications that JKR didn't consider, and here we are.

If it were me... I would have made it so that Barty Senior oblivated Winky. (As it is, the implication is sort of that memory charms don't work on house elves? I'd get rid of that.) The reader wouldn't *know* what happened to her of course, and you could actually have clues around that and let it be part of the mystery. Maybe when we meet her in the kitchens Winky is weirdly, suspiciously forgetful (kinda like Bertha Jorkins, who Barty Senior ALSO memory charmed... which links those two mysteries together in a nice way.) But we don't realize what the problem is at first. Dobby feels bad for her and is lying/blaming himself for her mistakes in order to cover for her, and/or we attribute her behavior to the butterbeer (when it's really the memory charm.) That keeps the mystery intact, but it also doesn't open up this huge can of worms that JKR just... doesn't seem all that interested in.

[yikesy]

Now that I think about it, if we go of the idea that gods are influenced by belief, wouldn’t that mean modern day interpretations would have influence them to some degree? I imagine Ares and Hades going about the business and suddenly realizing they feel more violent than usual and being very disturbed. Pop culture must annoy some gods a lot since they can actively feel themselves being reduced.

I imagine Apollo has bashed his head on rocks over various mediums actively RESTRICTING his intelligence and messing up his (not actually that tragic) love life. Don’t get me started on the Lore Olympus mess. Persephone likely couldn’t look him in the eye if they’ve interacted since then.

YES!! the belief based power system of the rrverse is SO cool and disturbing and insidious and it really deserves to be highlighted more!! I really love taking advantage of how meta it gets

I think ares has always been kinda hated and demonized so his treatment would be pretty par for the course but especially heartbreaking and demoralizing after all the admiration and respect and love he received as mars. it's like,, things were finally getting better!!! and then bam! don't forget you're here forever except now it's worse because now you're not really a god with disparate specialized cults dedicated to you anymore, now you're a character in the sitcom that is your pantheon, and when weighed against them?? homogenizing all the opinions for just one result??? he was never going to win

now hades must have been disturbing, the (literal) demonization. I wonder at his relationship with christianity (especially considering maria di angelo's... everything) I can imagine persephone being especially,, perceptive? on tune?? to the changes happening around her. since she doesn't really,, stay in one place?? socially i mean, she has abrupt social circle changes, so the changes are not gradual to her. and she cannot really stop them, or help with them or remind them. because again she's absent for half the year. and if she weren't she wouldn't notice in the first place. ugh

and now DEMETER seems to have been especially affected even though by all means she shouldn't be this much. she must have been especially vulnerable

I see it as a competition of wills of sort, ALL beliefs count, even, and even especially your owns about yourself. that's how self actualization and faith in yourself is like, literally unironically, the most powerful things in this universe. and considering all that, you can really see in what a precarious and dangerous situation apollo has been, like, existentially. and I can see the way zeus' punishment was a blessing in disguise and I know why the fates pushed for it

just,, godhood is soo 👌👌👌 how much of yourself is youself and, does it even matter?? this is their nature they're already wired to deal with it

bc it makes sense right?? how they're so easy to take offense for slights we as humans perceive as random and petty and below them, to them it's a literal existencial attack!! how they demand worship as their due and are so reputation focused, these are their literal survival instincts. this is their livelihood

of course people who see themselves as metaphors and experience the world through a narrative and literary lens would be weird and alien about relationships and consent

like, when I say that they should not be held to mortal standards I don't mean it in a "they're inherently superior" way!! I mean it in a "these energy tulpa beings are a literal different species" way!!! they literally cannot and should not be held to the same standards as humans and I just love playing with that culture clash

[utilitycaster]

to me i feel like the hells were meant for a campaign more like cr2, which i feel like that's been discussed before even on your blog? like idk orym and braius were the only characters who actually fit this campaign, maybe imogen for obvious reasons. but laudna, fearne, ashton, chetney all felt like they belonged in a lower stakes, more personal campaign

Yes, I have talked about this extensively: honestly, either a Campaign 1 or Campaign 2 structure would have served them better. For what it's worth I feel like everyone other than Laudna managed to make something of it - Fearne and Chetney frankly did a lot of work to explore their concepts, it was just never rewarded or frankly in many cases revisited in any way (again, consequences do not mean punishment; they quite literally just mean that one's actions lead to results that follow from said actions), and while I ended up not caring much for Ashton as a character, I actually think Taliesin played them with a strong logical throughline. But it is true that the plot really, in the end, served none of them, not even Orym or Imogen (Braius it kind of did, but he was developed so late in the game that he was designed around its flaws). There was just never space to really explore the dark fairytale Ashley talked about early on; Tuyen and that other toymaker back in Marquet were never revisited nor was Ruidus's impact on Chetney nor was there an appearance of Doreo, and even Drixlich and the offers to the pirates vanished (side note but Travis is perhaps actual play's best plot thread generator and I think it's telling that he kind of gave up on that eventually because it never fucking went anywhere, after two campaigns where it consistently did). When it comes to Imogen I am reminded of the possibly apocryphal theater review for King Lear that went "the lead actor played the king as though he momentarily expected someone to play the ace;" she was a great concept but at no point inhabited her decisions meaningfully on the rare occasions she made them. Orym was never really given the opportunities Caleb had to explore grief and while I personally am okay with his deal with Morri being canceled, it plus the whole Vax thing really feel like a thumbing of the nose at Liam's RP choices across the decade. Ashton's temporary growth and then regression honestly feel very real, just deeply unsympathetic, though the ending of the story where nothing about the All Minds Burn or his talk with Shady Sally or the titans or the Hishari came up and the genuinely great moment of sacrifice turned into another "and then Essek fixes it for you" was narratively empty. But the more I think about it, the more this was largely a failure of Matt to tell a different kind of story with any measure of success. I think this campaign in many ways played hard to Matt, Marisha, and Laura's weaknesses in particular (and a little bit of Liam's if I'm being honest in the end) whereas the others embraced their strengths, and this is what happened; the rest of the cast kind of made the most of it.

[pricechecktranslations]

Not sure if this was asked before, but what’s your favorite plot twist (or the one you think was the best written) in EC?

I've written about the Elluka-is-Levia twist before--genuinely I think that's the best one. I won't make another long essay about it but I think it added a ton of depth and really turned the series on its head.

Close second would be the Margarita-is-Eve twist. I adore it. I know a lot of fans come away from all this thinking the story unfairly maligns Eve but I really, really enjoy her as a villain. There was something so creepy about discovering that everything you knew about a character was wrong, that this part of the backstory which had up until this point been distant and far removed from the rest of the series was actually still relevant the whole time. It was Eve's debut in the novels, you know, not counting her other identities. Revealing that she had deceived not just Elluka but the reader as well.

It's true there are some parts of it that don't 100% work--I don't know what the deal was with Platonic, and she didn't sound particularly like Eve when speaking to Mikulia in her head--but there's so many elements that line up with it, I do truly think it was planned all the way back in the Daughter of Evil series, if not from the start. "Mikulia" being callous enough to murder her own child, the way the Sloth doll has been described as the "mother" of all sins, Irina carving it to look like Eve...It's one of those "the truth was staring you in the face all along" type reveals, but it just hadn't occurred to anyone as the kind of thing that could happen in-universe.

And it's one of those twists that's just. Not as easy to enjoy now that the cat's out of the bag, you know? Everyone takes for granted that Eve is the demon of Sloth, that most of the contracts in the series are unique in how they occur. But the twist completely changed how we (I, at least) viewed the series. The Seven Deadly Sins series frames itself as very formulaic with its first two books; contractor gets a demon vessel, makes contract, bad shit happens, they die and Elluka shows up too late to make any meaningful intervention or retrieve the vessel. The Sloth novel sets itself up as following this same formula. Only, we discover that there was never any demon and there was no contractor either. It was the spirit of a human mage instead, driven mad by living as a demon for centuries. It completely broke the formula.

And this also came at a time when the identities of the demons as a whole were largely unknown to us, so they were viewed as more monstrous beings (because all we knew was their corrupted animal forms). This made it stand out more that Eve was actually human, and thus not one of them. New fans of course know that the demons were all originally Second Period denizens, so Eve no longer feels like as much of an anomaly. I once had an anon ask what the line "false sin" meant in Crimes and Punishments because to their knowledge it was only "revealed" that Eve wasn't part of the original demon lineup in the OSS novels--No!!! it's referring to the twist of the Sloth novel! Argh!!!

Anyway, apologies for the long essay on that one. Another twist that I deeply enjoy and is absolutely ruined for all new fans forever is the reveal that Irina is the red cat, not the mage whose shoulder it perches on. The thing is that her (narratively) first host, Abyss IR, being an old woman gave her a semi-plausible reason to have history with the immortal Elluka, and it played into stereotypes about "evil old crones" besides (even Arkatoir talks smack about her for being old and creepy, which is doubly tragic in hindsight given that this was an innocent woman being controlled for who knows how long). And not knowing that it's actually the cat that's the problem creates a lot of mystery and tension with plot points like Elluka being "possessed" by Abyss, Mikina taking in the red cat later, etc. The beginning of the fourth novel starts with the heroes heading to Marlon to confront a great conspiracy that they believe Abyss IR is at the head of, and then when they get there they discover that she fucking died offscreen! Brilliant! Completely ruined by knowing the truth ahead of time!

[iamnmbr3]

Severus calling Lily a slur in a fit of rage and humiliation while being bullied - obviously very bad. James publicly sexually assaulting Severus - obviously much worse?!!! That was some serious sadism on display. Yet for some bizarro reason the narrative wants me to judge the words said in this scene more harshly than the deeds done, because at this point Lily - an author self-insert and the Holy Mother of this saga - cuts one off for their crime and falls in love with the other. I do not like that Lily’s romantic choice is treated as some sort of absolution, but it’s what JKR implied. Despite paralleling James’ actions with the Death Eaters ‘sick’ ’torture’ of the Muggles at the Quidditch World Cup! Idk, I was never satisfied with the lack of follow through on the implications of that scene, nor with the textual idea that Snape’s fixation on the Marauders is petty childishness, rather than a quite understandable trauma response.

Yeah. I have a huge issue with the way James is framed by the narrative. It's also weird because in-universe everything works fine. The problem comes when we look at the jarring disconnect between what was written and the way the audience is cued to react. James's characterization - and the characterization of the Marauders - is well done and consistent. They all act and react realistically given who they are. The problem comes when we look at how we the audience are supposed to react. Because we are supposed to see their actions as bad, but not THAT big of a deal. And uh...yikes.

The Snape's Worst Memory sequence is one of the most horrifying and sadistic moments in the series. I find it particularly visceral and upsetting because it feels real in a way that some of the more fantastical scenes just don't. It's so horrifying and personal in a way that Voldemort punishing his minions or a snake coming out of a lady just isn't. The way James and the others so obviously delight in tormenting and humiliating Snape is just horrific. And the fact that they do this out in the open and face little pushback and no consequences makes it even more awful.

Even worse, everything we see in the narrative suggests that what they did wasn't even that unusual for them. The behavior and dialogue we see from Snape and from the Marauders makes it very clear that doing this sort of thing to Snape is a regular pastime. The reason this is Snape's worst memory is because of the effect this particular incident ended up having on his relationship with Lily, not because of the horrible treatment he endured which was horrifyingly routine.

JK Rowling seems to like Snape. But at the same time I think she tends to have a view (common among TERFs btw) that discounts men as victims of assault. Because that's what this was. And I know if a woman had been stripped and exposed by a group of boys JKR would not have treated it as lightly. Yes she thinks what happened was bad, but not THAT bad. And listen I don't have a problem with the story depicting this and I think the way it is viewed subsequently by the Marauders, wizarding society and Snape all work in the story. My problem is with the framing and the way JKR has talked about James in interviews where it makes clear that she doesn't view this with the gravity it deserves.

James shows more of a natural inclination towards sadism and obvious enjoyment of cruelty and violence than young Tom Riddle does. And this is never dealt with. A lot of the real evil people of the world are more like James - people who aren't the way they are because of some dramatic backstory or because of trauma or whatever. They just aren't kind. James wasn't raised without love or forced to suffer privation in an orphanage or anything like that. He comes from a loving home with parents who spoil him rotten. He has a lot of privilege due to both his wealth and his blood status. And he is cruel and delights in tormenting someone weaker than him for sport. Not because Snape did something to him. Not because they quarreled and James went too far in retaliation. But rather because, as James himself puts it, he exists. Which is so typical of the bullies of the world.

I actually like the fact that Harry's father turns out to be this kind of person. It think it adds depth and complexity to the narrative. But I don't think JKR fully understood or intended what she wrote. She meant to show James as flawed, but not to the extent that she ended up doing I think. And I agree that has always bothered me too.

[spade-riddles]

Anonymous said:

Gosh I have so much to say about this, but first I think it’s instructive to look at the masters heist timeline of 2019:

June 15: Taylor’s surprise Stonewall performance. June 17: Taylor releases the YNTCD video, further increasing speculation about a coming out. June 20: BMR shareholders, including Scott Swift, are told there will be an official shareholders meeting on June 25. June 24: the Joshlie second wedding occurs in Wyoming. Scooter and Yael attend, while Taylor does NOT show up to the party. This fuels continued speculation that she and Karlie are feuding. It’s important to note here that at this point, Scooter Braun already knows he is purchasing Taylor’s masters. June 25: BMR informs its shareholders of the impending sale of the label and its assets to Ithaca holdings. They have 3 days to go over the details and decide their votes. June 28: Karlie posts *sips tea* and Taylor posts “Friday calm,” insinuating that the coming out is still on. On the same day, BMR shareholders vote to confirm the label’s sale to Ithaca Holdings. June 29: Taylor receives a message from Scott Borchetta informing her of the sale of her masters. This happens while she’s flying home to NYC (presumably for pride). June 30: Tay skips pride and chooses violence. (We gather here, we line up weeping in a sunlit room, and if I’m on fire you’ll be made of ashes too —> her team deciding to drop the CO and go to war for her masters) July 3: Ash Avignon (and later Clare Winter) likes a Perez Hilton tweet claiming Taylor and Karlie are feuding is bc Karlie was telling things about Taylor’s life and career to Scooter. (I talk shit with my friends, it’s like I’m wasting your honor) July 22: a blind item is released saying Yael Braun publicly called Taylor a c*nt and a d*ke at a presidential fundraiser (lock broken, slur spoken, wound open, game token, I didn’t know you were keeping count).

During July, Karlie was also making some posts insinuating Kaylor was struggling but still very much in touch (boxing gloves, out of the blue, wearing a cold shoulder top, randomly taking a rare social media break in late July/early Aug).

Looking at this timeline, it makes one wonder if Scott and Scooter planned the masters heist for the specific purpose of keeping Taylor in the closet, believing that her coming out would tank the value of Taylor’s masters. They assumed (rightly) that she’d pivot her plans when her life’s work was threatened.

Re: the Kaylor feud, depending on how you interpret these events and the lyrics Taylor has written about The Great War, you could think one of two diff scenarios happened:

1) Taylor really did think Karlie betrayed her for a time, even though that wasn’t the case (got the *sense* I’d been betrayed // telling me to punish you for things you never did). The reality is, even if Karlie knew nothing about the masters heist, she was partying with Scooter and Yael the very same weekend he already knew he’d made a deal with Scott Borchetta for Taylor’s masters. This increased Taylor’s sense of distrust and perhaps put a temporary rift between them (you knew it still hurts underneath my scars from when they pulled me apart, but what you did was just as dark.) 2) Taylor and Karlie were mostly fine but constructed the feud narrative (tore your banners down, took the battle underground) to keep the public’s eyes off of them while Taylor created a battle plan on the masters.

Either way, we know Ash and Claire were used to push the Kaylor feud narrative. Being non-celebrities, they are often used to sell the “real” story to Swifties. Them liking the Perez tweet was the first time anyone on Team Taylor had confirmed a rift between Kaylor.

We know from Taylor’s lyrics that Karlie never actually betrayed her:

-telling me to punish you for things you never did

-looked up at me with honor and truth

-my hand was the one you reached for all throughout the great war

-it’s like I’m wasting your honor

-your integrity makes me seem small

-put you in jail for something you didn’t do

-hey it’s all me in my head, I’m the one who burned us down

-I wounded the good and I trusted the wicked

-I can’t make it go away by making you the villain

-you would break your back to make me break a smile

-dreams of your hair and your stare and your sense of belief in the good in the world, you once believed in me

-dark side, I search for your dark side

I think we can glean from these lyrics that Taylor perhaps regrets her rash decision to paint Karlie as the bad guy. Yet it also stands that the feud has given them cover to live their life under the radar.

Karlie coming to Eras tour was a really interesting shift in the narrative. But even more notably, Taylor herself has never acknowledged it. We can conclude that leaving it open ended is serving Taylor in some way. Perhaps allowing her to have her cake and eat it too (Karlie being there to support Taylor for the Eras movie filming and the announcement of 1989TV, but Taylor still not acknowledging Karlie publicly).

[butterflydm]

more thoughts on 3x05 & the 3x06 sneak peek

I have a messy collection of thoughts about Moiraine after seeing the sneak peek. I'm going to stop cleaning them up and just let them be messy.

While I do understand Moiraine needed a night off her duties to grieve for herself... the narrative is really going to punish her for it.

For twenty years, she's chosen duty over everything. For this one night, she chooses her personal life instead, and that happens to be the same night when Lanfear's manipulations are able to tip Rand over far enough to kiss her -- in part because of the truths that Moiraine has withheld from Rand about how far Lanfear (and Moiraine) was willing to go to try to force Rand to follow the path that Lanfear (and Moiraine) wanted him to follow.

In the sneak peek, Lanfear says that Moiraine has been avoiding her since Rhuidean (keeping herself awake with the One Power, maybe?) and pokes Moiraine about how she is failing to keep their deal, because Moiraine is meant to help keep Egwene away from Rand.

That puts Moiraine's concern over Egwene's bruises in 3x02 in a different light. Even at the time, it seemed a bit strange that even as she was urging Rand to channel, she was telling Egwene how the OP was going to make Rand dangerous and warning her about watching out for the signs of his madness -- now, it seems that she was following Lanfear's playbook. It's nothing untrue, because Moiraine can't lie, but leaning on the fact of channeling leading to madness now seems like a clear attempt to try to urge Egwene away from Rand, as requested by Lanfear.

This appears to be an additional deal that Moiraine and Lanfear have made, beyond what we saw them make in 3x01. They've had more conversations since then. Conversations, perhaps, that Moiraine left Lan out of. Deals made in dreams.

And what Lanfear does here is meant both to further implicate Moiraine in Lanfear's actions against Rand, and also as a test to see if Moiraine will dare to act against her and tell Rand (I'm guessing).

So... in 3x01, Moiraine allowed Rand and his friends to be attacked by Lanfear (which almost resulted in Nynaeve's death), but I think Moiraine likely believed that her deal with Lanfear was successful in splitting up the group (because she wasn't privy to their private discussions). She thinks it worked.

Now, Lanfear has given Moiraine notice of another "surprise" for Rand. And Moiraine has to make a choice. Does she tell Rand or does she allow Lanfear free rein?

The thing that Moiraine has never been willing to understand about Rand is that being honest and open with him would have gotten her so much further than all this manipulation and deception. Say it plain, so that I know it's true. That's what Rand wants, and he has told her that very clearly. But manipulation is what Moiraine understands, and it's what she genuinely believes works (I think the events of 3x01 only made her believe more strongly that manipulation was the path with Rand, unfortunately).

She's already lost one chance to be honest with Rand post-Rhuidean, prioritizing her personal goodbye with Siuan over revealing the truth about Lanfear. If she'd told Rand about what she saw in the rings -- and if she'd told Rand that Lanfear was behind the attack in the inn, that Lanfear was the reason that Egwene, Perrin, and Nynaeve were all gravely injured and needed healing... he would not have kissed Lanfear in his dream that night. Zero percent chance.

An understandable decision on Moiraine's part. She's been selfless for so long. It's very understandable that she wanted one night to be selfish.

But it has already had consequences.

I hope Moiraine takes the chance to be honest with Rand before it's too late, and before Rand finds out the truth from someone else. Before more people get hurt because of Lanfear, and because Moiraine stood aside and allowed Lanfear to act.

[pensbridge]

Sometimes I see too many stupid takes that I think it's sad that people misunderstand Colin and Penelope so much...

that they still think Colin would cheat even with deleted scene proof showing it was always exactly the opposite..

that they think Penelope would ask for an annulment for her own benefit as if this girl has not shown time and time again that she cares about Colin's happiness and would put her own + security up in the air..

that Colin is his own character and outside of the Penelope romance arc he has his own journey that you, a real person, need not be insecure about when the fictional character (Penelope) is not at all..

that Colin not sleeping with Penelope on the night of their wedding is not a direct reflection of him being mad at her that he is "punishing" her, but that it is a direct reflection of who he is as a character that could not bring himself to indulge in his truest desires as he's been shutting her out (and that's better than having a passionate night and leaving her alone emotionally after the fact until he can get his mind to catch up with his heart)..

that Penelope and Colin are in love and nearly every critique someone brings up circles back to a misunderstanding of this story and the entire narrative of how they choose each other..

that they are not bad people, but people working overtime to hate on the 2 individuals conveniently have nothing to criticize when you could make a claim for each and every character. how Anthony is a rake who chose to lead along a young woman, who just so happened to be his future wife's sister, all the way to the altar & pivoted away from his wife after a moment to propose to, said, sister in public, causing potential issues of shame at a later date to deal with. how Eloise can be selfish and tunnel-visioned. and how Kate was dishonest, like Lady Whistledown, (except) to her own sister, hiding her personal feelings as she was to be stuck in a marriage where her husband never wanted her.

...so sad that they are still talking about matters that have been confirmed and debunked time and time again...and then I see the unexpected bright side: that polin is so popular that they can't keep their name out of their mouth and are so mad they are still fighting about things that made those of us who understood where this story was going for monthsss happy, and that plots they find time to whine about will inevitably never be changed. Yay for us!

[raayllum]

What do you think is the narrative, thematic and symbolic relevance of Claudia's amputation and prosthesis?

There's a few, I think, both in how the actual amputation happened, and then how the show handles things with her actual prosthetic.

The amputation:

Claudia is drinking and using a spell that uses her own blood. In arc 2, she increasingly takes on more animalistic forms with her dark magic (snake spell, wings, the tentacles). This mirrors how she's increasingly cannibalizing herself and treating herself as spell parts, as well as themes of fragmentation ("How are we going to move it?" "In pieces" / "We're all that's left of our family, and I'm not going to let anything break us apart" / "Our family was shattered forever"). She may not realize that's what she's doing with herself - dark magic is an extension of herself and her power - but that is what she's doing, hence having a 'dark magic leg' cut off but with real lasting consequences.

There's also the element of Rayla and her brutality that comes into play. Rayla nearly lost a hand in trying to save Zym and usher in peace, which is why she got to - narratively and literally - keep it. Meanwhile Claudia is going down an increasingly dark path, so she loses it, just as her assault on Ibis led her to injure her leg with her dark magic flask. That's not to say becoming disabled is a narrative punishment, but it does showcase how she's putting herself in 1) increasingly dangerous situations for 2) increasingly dangerous people and 3) always by herself. This is contrasted by how the trio wins because they have each other VS Terry (+ Claudia's support system) being regulated to the shore.

Rayla in arc 2 is walking her usual razor's edge of on the one hand being increasingly open and empathetic / letting her compassion shine through - which is a good thing - while being hands down more violent than she was in arc 1. She left to hunt down Viren and recognized it'd gotten twisted into revenge, much like her first mission, and gave this one up without a dragon's egg to change her; she held Terry hostage (although whether she would've hurt him is unknown, but the threat was there!), abandons the drake when Soren doesn't, and cuts off Claudia's leg, etc. We even see this with her actually agreeing to kill Callum if he's possessed again (6x03). All this is, I think, there to create room for the possession plot line to take centre stage in S7 as her own 'dark path' as an assassin will be challenged and likely, finally, put entirely to rest. (Arc 2 opening with her failing to kill a high mage and it's a bad thing vs closing with her failing/refusing to kill a high mage and it's a good thing, probably?) And Claudia represents like the middle road of Viren and Callum in some ways, just as Callum is a middle road between Viren and Claudia -- but meta for another day maybe

On a plot level: it's much harder for Claudia to stop and keep up with Viren if she can't fully walk, and it represents how she's continually sacrificed herself and her body for her family's survival (which dark magic is deeply interested in the idea of "bodies as sites of trauma" but again, meta for another day maybe / adjacent metas in my 'dark magic' tag).

As for her prosthetic:

Claudia has always used magic as a crutch, specifically dark magic. She doesn't have to deal with the big scary feelings permanent consequences or 'brokenness' can bring if she can fix it with dark magic. She can "cure" Soren and bring her dad back from the dead, and she expresses confusion or mistrust when those experiences of being paralyzed or dead undoubtedly affect them and change them, especially when it changes in ways that take them away from her. Because if they're not okay, or not here, then she's not okay. Her using her corrupted Sunforge staff, which at this point just represents dark magic in her life tbh, as a literal crutch is what she's been doing emotionally for a while now, which is also why she takes it with her when she leaves Terry. (The fact that it, much like Claudia, is a corrupted light is just the symbolic cherry on top.)

This isn't too dissimilar in terms of framing of how Callum uses magic as a crutch to distract from / avoid his emotions in S4, and how he drops the staff in order to pick up Rayla's sword to embrace those feelings and embrace her. And why Claudia has a moment of likewise dropping her staff to embrace Terry as well; even if he isn't as critical of dark magic as he arguably could/should be, he is still one of Claudia's guiding lights and wants what's best for her.

The prosthetic, then, represents learning to lean on Terry rather than dark magic (which Terry saving her in 6x04 and her staving off dark magic use also reflects) again, quite literally in 6x03. The prosthetic is the literal creation and metaphorical embodiment of Terry's love and faith for her and his connection to nature/primal magic, all things she sorely needs in her life.

TLDR:

The fact that paths and "every step forward is a choice" and "Daddy look I'm following in your footstep" are continually emphasized, I think Claudia losing a leg made a lot of sense symbolically. I think her prosthetic is also very strong symbolically if very straightforward. S6 honestly gave a lot of signals that she's going to be redeemed and this was one of the biggest to me; I'd expect that prosthetic as a symbol of Terry's love for her will either maintain that hope, or help bring it home (making her remember him if they diverge paths or something) and that we'd only be in a big trouble if it got burned to a crisp tbh

[sir-adamus]

One thing I love about RWBY is how it manages to thread that needle of, "That's a person" & "They have a reason for being this fucked up" without forgetting or failing to convey, "Doesn't mean they aren't still being bastard!"

See Adam, Ironwood, Salem, Mercury, hell even Jac got some of that treatment, as much as his narrative role needed and more than someone like him would usually be given.

In that regard though, it does always leave me vexed and confounded that people act like the Brothers will be some big exception. As though their issue is just that they are a little confused and don't understand some things, but once its explained and or they go home, it'll all be chill.

Like, sorry but if the woman they tortured for potentially millions of years still gets the "She's still being a bastard" treatment I cannot envision why the Brothers genocide would avoid being framed or treated as such.

yeah it's kind of weird how people have a blindspot for the gods being petty, arrogant assholes in the backstory; like it's been a weirdly common trend to see people making posts claiming it's fine for the gods to be assholes because they're gods (and therefore shouldn't be held to any kind of moral standard whatsoever), or thinking that post-volume 9, now the goal of the show is RWBY reuniting the relics to summon the gods because "the world is united" and the gods will deal with Salem.

like, the terms of Salem's immortality are made very clear, and these jackasses aren't gonna rescind on their punishment of her (which i need to point out was immensely disproportionate even before the mass genocide. "you need to learn a lesson, so now you can't die until you do" is fucked up) just because everyone else is on the same side.

and on top of that, the gods returning only means hanging a Sword of Damocles over humanity's head, because if they don't stay united, then it's just gonna lead to another disproportionate tantrum and Remnant getting the full scorched earth treatment. not to mention the gods dealing with Salem would ultimately prove her right and be immensely unsatisfying narratively (it would literally be a deus ex machina)

RWBY borrows heavily from Final Fantasy and other JRPGs, and a major recurring element in those sorts of games is that defeating the present big bad in the narrative is never the end of the story, there's always a greater scope threat that's usually either your dad or god or both. coupled with how Light and Dark are heavily influenced by mythological gods and how those are often petty, short-sighted and abusive bastards who cause more problems than they solve, and we've recently been outright told that the Brothers have completely misunderstood what 'balance' is and how that's factored into their conflicts and decision making, and how that then filters down to their treatment of Salem, demanding she understand something they don't and expecting her to learn it through the punishment they inflicted on her only ended up causing more damage

Salem's defeat has to be factored into ending her curse, and the end of volume 9 makes heavy implication that it's RWBY, not the Brothers, who are going to achieve that. but even with Salem then out of the picture, the Brothers are still a threat, they still wiped out the population of an entire planet for childish reasons and routinely abandon their creations; someone else could go for the relics to try and summon them, so there's the potential damage they could do to Remnant again, and who knows what same horrors and punishments the Brothers are inflicting on the worlds they've gone on to make and abandon since?

[harukapologist]

Yesterday I was having lots of 09 thoughts & mainly talked about him, so today I'll talk about why I think Haruka will not die before T3.

First off, what is the point of leaving such an engaging mystery unsolved?

If you think about it, Haruka's death would add two things in the story: drama factor to test the fans' feelings, and a chance to learn more about the extraction system. For the drama/emotional factor, it would be more useful if he stayed alive in critical condition; the fans' feelings will change and that will affect how these fans vote for Haruka and the other prisoners. In the scenario that he dies, the other prisoners' character developments will get somewhat of a push but Haruka's case will remain unsolved forever; if he stayed alive, I think that would help him and everyone develop further. e.g we would see more tension with Muu as she seems to be spending less time with him, we would see how Haruka struggles to cope with his verdict, how he interacts with the other prisoners etc it is much more compelling that way in my opinion

There is a possibility the extraction system could work on a dead body but 1. there would be no VD and VDs are important because they force the prisoner to think about and focus on their crime before extraction, 2. I don't see it being worth killing off a character, there are other more effective ways to get a reaction out of the audience and keep all of the prisoners' fates tied. And if it doesn't work, then wasn't Haruka's death pointless? It is just such a fruitless way to seal his case. Him being dead has only one outcome, which is...well, being dead. But surviving his attempt may have many outcomes: he might not attempt at all and remain unscathed, he might get in critical condition, he might be punished for attempting to escape milgram's boundaries by dying; who knows?

Not only narrative-wise is Haruka important, but also Haruka is a fan favorite, at least in JP fandom. He is well-loved, a lot of fans are intrigued by his case and killing him off without even getting close to solving his deal—which I see as one of if not the most ambiguous in the prison for many reasons—will leave a lot of fans disappointed and some may quit milgram, so the sales and audience etc will drop.

You have to keep in mind that Jackalope is biased, loves messing with us and sometimes says or implies things that are not true (e.g implying Haruka and Muu's dynamic to be romantic "lovey-dovey" when they are just friends) so you should not take anything he says—much like most of the info we are presented in milgram generally—at surface level.

Something else to be considered but which I wouldn't rely on as heavily, is that minigrams have foreshadowed things before (e.g system Amane), and Haruka has been really in the spotlight in nearly every recent minigram. I take this as a sign that he might not only survive but also play an important role in T3.

[mossy-green-aka-ferrythem]

Ok, so the Murder on WARP Express brings a lot of truly strong narrative points to the table I didn't expect. (I will spoil the entire Intervallo here.)

Also, there is something kind of horrifying about how the sinners have multiple ways to bypass the inter-dimensional horrors, while you see everyone else fall victim to an eternal kingdom...

Like. They are sponsored by WARP Corp, the reason why they can bypass the horrors is because WARP Corp sponsored them. There is a sort of uniquely fascinating thing about that. With how you can avoid the horror of eternity, the eons, if you are given the favor of W Corp.

Also, it's interesting seeing the fucking Dead Space type bullshit is happening to the passengers. Since you are sort of just passing through the WARP... something's sort of sad about how impartial you are to their plight. I mean. This is normal city dealings. This is how the city works.

Also. The way Bloodfiends interact with the WARP is fascinating. Here, instead of being held back, forced to sulk in the corners of the city, he is treated to an eternal banquet hall. The fact that the WARP Train isn't a punishment for someone like him, but much rather a pleasure, is fascinating...

Also of course we have the BIG SPOILER:

With how Don Quixote. Is a Bloodfiend.

(Not gonna lie this makes her even SEXIER to me like holy shit the fucking energy? The aura? That blood soaked darkness that enshrouds her? Something feels so erotic about it...)

Also, since their pass to the First Class broke, I knew for a fact that due to the Backdoor pretty much housing all these possibilities, like for example, a door to the outskirts. Of course they can bypass the horrors of the WARP, it only makes sense.

Also, it opens up a new interesting thing... with how when they're inside A Corp... they are greeted to nothing but a blinding sandstorm...

I think what may be the case is that the city has desolation right at the heart of it.

Also, Faust, my beloved, has a very interesting arc here!

We learn about how she's in a sort of strange communication with multiple Fausts, and without her ability to cross examine all Faust's perspectives and knowledge, she struggles immensely. Thus she is sort of forced to learn to sort of somewhat accept a sense of individuality, and uncertainty. Also her willingness to let others speak first here shows her sort of growing, socially speaking. Like. Realizing the reason why she has so much knowledge is because of others, and how the sinners have a lot of strong perspectives and strong points to give.

Really this Intervallo was far more narratively intriguing, and well written than I could have anticipated.

[sokkastyles]

Ok um, I need to rant about Katara for a second. This might sound incoherent, but hopefully it makes sense. When it comes to Katara's interests in romance or aspects of her life that aren't directly related to Aang, Bryke don't really always do a good job at treating her like an actual person. Legend of Korra is the biggest example of this of course, because I really don't think there is any way that Katara, being as righteous and morally courageous as she is, would ever choose to make decisions about her life that prioritize Aang more than herself (yes I know she wanted to fall in love and have a big family, but she would never give up her ambitions to do so). But ATLA also has a few egregious examples of this, such as not allowing Katara to have any complex emotions without demonizing her for it (I will never get over Katara being compared to Jet in TSR). I really feel like season 3 really indicates the gap in maturity between Katara and Aang when it comes to how they make decisions. Aang avoids facing his issues because he's scared, which makes sense as a character trait. But, the narrative never really addresses this as a detriment or a flaw that could have major consequences all the time. Katara on the other hand, by her own admission, "will never turn her back on people who need her" and is much more willing to reflect on her own emotions and internal conflicts. As shown in TSR, she's also not very likely to agree with Aang all the time, especially when matters are emotionally complicated. I wish the narrative had actually explored the implications of what this would mean for Katara and Aang's relationship, because they clearly probably wouldn't be able to deal with heavier, more complicated emotional problems together. This isn't a bad thing, it just means the characters probably shouldn't be a romantic pairing. But in order for the narrative to acknowledge this, Bryke would have to actually treat Katara like a person and not a wish fulfillment fantasy who has to end up with Aang no matter what and is bad for being interested in other guys. Even Zuko isn't treated this badly by Bryke for having briefly dated Jin and then dating Mai, and I don't think Bryke like him that much either. What do you think?

The joke about Mai getting angry at Zuko for briefly dating Jin is "girls are irrational bitches lol"

The joke about Katara maybe kinda sorta being attracted to Jet is "girls are irrational bitches lol"

Both come from the same misogynistic place. With a side of "Zuko has to put up with it as punishment for being the bad guy once" while Aang gets rewarded by getting Katara's affection for being the hero all along.

[kozachenko]

One very last thing: I definitely feel part of the moral greyness of this series is ZUN's writing style. On the one hand, he believes that it's easier to write selfish jerks than selfess people, because they don't need a reason to fight each other, and need to have a particular reason to help others. Yet, I also get the impression from all his comments that he admires all his creations in some way. He's never really "insulted" them in any way in the interviews I've seen. He's never stated that the world of Touhou would be better if a character was dead or didn't exist.

Honestly, that's something I really love about the series and it's writing. It's very rare to find someone who is 100% selfless in real life, and while yes fiction is fiction and shouldn't be tied to reality, I do think it's nice seeing some characters who are just unapologetic selfish assholes, because what's more fun? A nice goody two-shoes who's perfect in every single way and doesn't have a selfish bone in their body? Or an asshole who's selfish and highly flawed, but they are so unapologetically themself that it just loops back around to them being fun? It's something that really differentiates Touhou from most media where the series is willing to take risks with a character's personality even if they may come off as incredibly unlikeable. In Touhou, the likeablity of a character is second, and establishing who they are as a person takes precedent. The characters aren't made to please you, they're there for themselves and themselves alone, and there's something really fun about that (at least that's how I interpret a lot of the characters in this series).

With the second thing you brought up about how ZUN sees his characters, I appreciate how even though many Touhou characters aren't morally perfect, they aren't demeaned or seen as lesser than in the eyes of the narrative. Sure other characters may not like them at all, but the narrative itself isn't going to eternally punish them for just existing. Now that I think about it, there's never really been an interaction in Touhou where a character will outright bully and put down another one. Sure we've seen the characters harshly criticize each other, but they still don't really feel like bullying and the narrative doesn't make it a big deal. Most of the time it isn't even one sided and both parties have something snarky to say about the other one. The only character who ever really got close to bullying was Keiki oddly enough, that being her roasting the animal spirits in her pre-fight dialogue (still love that part by the way, it just gives her so much personality and I think that's one of the reasons that she stuck out to me in the first place). I definitely think that ZUN's level of respect for all of his characters comes through in the writing via the character interactions and relationships.

[o-uncle-newt]

Random Sayers thought-

I've seen people say that Gaudy Night is when Harriet becomes a co-detective with Wimsey, or even solo detective of her own mystery. I was always surprised by this, and the more I think about it the more I think that's not true. She's a co-detective with Wimsey in Have His Carcase, because she has to* and finds it interesting and (secretly, I think) wants to show Peter what she's made of and collaborate with him on equal terms- and just hang around him in general, just like he wants to hang around her.

*By "she has to," I mean that she needs to be in control of her fate. She's tied up in this case and can't stand by and let other people solve it and suspect her again (and can't let Peter seem to be just being the gallant knight-errant again, either, she's had enough of that). I've read stuff on Harriet and PTSD before but the world can always use more, hint hint...

But in Gaudy Night, not only does she not solve the mystery, she doesn't realize what Peter has until the very end. What she is able to do is be detail oriented, put together the dossier, place it in an order that Peter is able to follow and allow him to solve it. She's a writer; that's what she does. And she's a writer who doesn't want to become subsumed in Peter, who doesn't want him, or being with him, to define her. She doesn't need to solve the case- her association with him shouldn't have to be about solving cases. She just needs to write the book that's in her to write.

In the punt, she and Peter realize that she is almost blinded from being able to solve the case because of her own jaundiced view of the situation, her own personal struggles, and the narrative that she is internally composing. As a writer, her job isn't to interpret situations- it's to create them. She's not meant to be following someone else's clues and plainly observing facts, she's meant to be creating her own narrative. If she could put everything to the side to solve the case, she would be putting to the side the things that make her HER. Peter can solve it because a) that's HIS thing/way of dealing with things and b) he knows she wants it to be solved.

(Incidentally, he also knows that he might be "sawing off [his] own branch" in doing so, but that's fine, because the thing that they both have in common, that unites them despite their different functions in the world and different skill sets, is a dedication to truth.)

By Busman's Honeymoon, the pretense that Harriet is a co-detective is basically gone. She's there to shed her own light on the situation as a novelist and an observer of character, but Peter is the detective. And that's important because the books is so much about what happens when the two of them actually take a stab at the thing they've decided may actually work by the end of Gaudy Night- having Harriet join Peter without being subsumed in him. Having him be able to continue his life's work with her support and despite her growing realization of what it entails, and having him realize that the unique angles that she gives him are complementary but different to what he himself has.

It's also important because it's clear that they're with each other for who they are as people and not what they each do. In Gaudy Night, Peter says that he thinks Harriet hasn't written the book that she could if she tried- not that her current books aren't good but that she's better than them. In Busman's Honeymoon, Harriet fully realizes that Peter's work makes him suspect sympathetic people and ultimately leads to capital punishment (she obviously knew this, but as she notes, it's different when the same delicate hands that... you know... are also the ones that do THAT...). And for each of them, they're able to say "this is who you are and what you do and I believe in your right to, and ability to, do it- and hope that you will accept me as a part of your life as you do so."