#anyways I'm so normal about the way the castle arc affected and continues to affect Zam to this day

[deliciousobservationbird]

Not to go on about the S4 Castle Arc again but

Transcript and more below!

Zam: You can- you can hide all you want, you can do whatever you want, it doesn't really change anything because, regardless, eventually they will catch up to you. They will find a time where you are off-guard and they will kill you — and I feel like that's just something you have to accept- Woogie: Yeah but I hope that them doing that is less just because I'm not so stood with people that hate them. Zam: -Yeah you can do anything you want to lessen it, to make it happen less, but yeah it- it's just kind of like something that will happen. I know one day Mane and Flame are going to kill me. I know one day, basically everyone on the server is going to kill me but, I don't know. I'm just kind of at peace with that so therefore I'm able to be, I don't know just doing-

THIS IS THE CASTLE ARC! Zam is giving Woogie advice on how to be a pacifist (read: not get killed by Manepear) but it's so interesting to consider this advice in light of the Castle Arc. Zam views these negative consequences as an inevitability and doesn't see a future where people don't turn on him. His advice to Woogie is that no matter what actions Woogie takes (eg. leaving mice) he's going to be killed and hunted down by them. Even despite his own good terms with Flame and Mane he doesn't consider them fully capable of restraint.

AND THEN we get this which is crazy and probably some key facet of C!PrinceZam or whatever

Zam: -doing I don't even have gapples on me, I don't have cobwebs- Woogie: I have one gap, I have eight cobwebs. I don't have resources to ever fight someone. Zam: I'm just, I don't know I'm just always ready to die. It's whatever not a big deal. Woogie: I don't know… Zam: Cause, like again, any interaction could be, like, the last one for that day and that's- that's okay with me. I'm okay with that. Yeah, I don't know I've just been able to, what's it called- Woogie: It's just- it's just,

LIKE???

idk there's just something about his acceptance of a completely constructed inevitability that's clearly influenced by his previous seasons on Lifesteal and the ways in which he presents his experience and this artificial inescapable fate to Woogie. His advice to Woogie is that no amount of appeasement (or anything else for that matter) will ever be enough to take Woogie off of the path he's on, the one-way road to getting kerb-stomped by Flame and Mane 😭