#apparently its a series??? with a storyline??? | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

romnianistan · 3 months ago

Text

@joannerowling

[Introduction]

While many articles have been written about Harry Potter and the school board genre or its relationship to fantasy, very few people have looked into the influence of the Gothic in Harry Potter (or in JKR's works in general). Part of it I think is due to the depreciation of Harry Potter by the cultural bourgeoisie, who only regard it as mere children's books that don't hold any actual literary value and that aren't worth to be studied seriously. Yet many tropes, storylines and plot devices used by JKR draw inspiration from the Gothic genre, bringing to it a modern twist by both adverting and subverting Gothic clichés. This inspiration is apparent in JKR's focus on broken families stuck into a cycle of poverty and violence involving incest and alcoholism or in the settings of many of the most iconic scenes of her book (to me the situation of Merope Gaunt, the way she's treated by her male relatives and the description of her house clearly allude to that of Catherine Linton at Wuthering Heights). In another (badly written) post, I tried to argue that one example of such a subversion in JKR's works was her use of the Gypsy theme -- Romani people as the embodiement of marginality, social and sexual danger as well as oriental mysticism --, a trope of Gothic literature most notably used by Emily Brontë in Wuthering Heights and Victor Hugo in the Hunchback of Notre-Dame, and that's been studied by Ken Lee in his article on Gypsylorism. But while JKR never once mentions Romani people in the Harry Potter series (an omission that is very interesting in itself; she's leaving out of her series the ethnic group that's been associated the most with witchcraft in folk tales for centuries, even though she's drawing inspiration from European folklore), she does mention them a bit in The Casual Vacancy and a lot in Cormoran Strike. However, as opposed to Wuthering Heights and HoND, Romani people aren't actually associated with paganism in JKR's books (they would have if she had been racist); their mention serves a Gothic aesthetic purpose as the non-Romani pov character starts thinking about Gypsy witchcraft and wandering, but that romanticising is quickly destroyed once the narrative brings up the actual reality of what it means to be Romani(-adjacent) in the UK: poverty and social exclusion. (In my opinion, this is a subtle commentary on how rich people idealize wanderness and poverty despite their being trauma-inducing experiences for the people who experience them.)

In my opinion, another influence of the Gothic is also the character dynamic she builds around Harry and Voldemort. In three different ways, the Harry/Voldemort dynamic parallels that of Dracula and Mina Harker in Bram Stoker's Dracula: first, the in-narrative construction of that dynamic; second, the way that character dynamic is used as a plot device by both Stoker and JKR in their respective works; third, the significance/symbolism of that character dynamic.

1. The narrative build up

In both Dracula and HP, the psychic bond that unites Mina/Harry and Dracula/Voldemort is created in spite of Dracula and Voldemort. In Dracula, that bond is an inevitable consequence/side effect of the repeated blood sucking Dracula does on Mina. In HP, that bond is created despite the knowledge of Voldemort and as a consequence of Voldemort's murder attempt.

In both stories, that bond was created/reinforced by blood mixing. In Dracula, blood mixing allows Dracula to link his mind directly with Mina's. In HP, that bond becomes much stronger after the graveyard scene, when Voldemort also uses Harry's blood to regain life. In both cases, we have blood magic and DNA mixing involved, resulting in an identity crisis on the part of Harry/Mina (their sense of self is eroded after the distinction between their body and that of Dracula/Voldemort got blurred and as the emotions/thoughts of the other start influencing theirs).

Dracula forms a psychic bond with Mina Harker as a step towards mind control. He wants to read, manipulate and control her mind and her thoughts, and in particular, he wants to use it to spy on his enemies (Jonathan and Van Helsing). However, he is forced to block the link when he realizes that, if he can spy on the heroes through Mina, Mina can spy on him as well by being put into a hypnotic trance that allows her to sense Dracula and his surroundings and can feel how far away or how close he is to them. This is what eventually leads the heroes to Dracula and allows them to catch him.

In Harry Potter as well, Dumbledore fears that psychic link would be used by Voldemort to spy on the Order of the Phoenix through Harry. This is why Dumbledore ignores and isolates Harry for an entire year and this is also what prompted Dumbledore to get Snape to teach Occlumency to Harry -- to block Voldemort's thoughts. But Voldemort doesn't actually use the link to spy. afaik he only uses it twice: once to deceive Harry and get him to come to the Ministry of Magic, and once at the very end of OotP when he briefly takes control of Harry's body. But Harry (just like Mina) realizes he can use that link to his own advantage and spy back on Voldemort (he repeatedly does so in DH): just like Mina, Harry is able to feel what he feels, to hear his thoughts and to sense how far or how close he is.

So we have a similar process following the same steps: evil blood magic on the part of an unwilling villain first, blurring of identity second. In both stories, the psychic link serves as a war strategy playing out over a deep identity crisis. The difference is that this process spans 4 books and 13 years in Harry Potter, with many more smaller steps in between, but overall it's still the same structure.

2. The Harry/Voldemort (Mina/Dracula) dynamic as a plot device

Because everyone uses the psychic link to spy on the other, it becomes a power play for the two characters involved, symbolically representing the struggle between life and death (love and hatred). But it also serves a narrative purpose: both stories are written from the perspective of the heroes. By introducing the psychic link as a plot device, the reader can get some insight into the pov of the villain of the series. The psychic link then becomes a way to drive the action: after each discovery, the character (be it Mina, Harry, Dracula or Voldemort) takes action. They plan a fight/battle, they track each other or they fly from each other. With the psychic link, the writer (Stoker/Rowling) is able to write very cool descriptive scenes from a totally different perspective, taking place in a totally different setting we don't normally see otherwise (think of the description of the Riddle House at the beginning of GoF -- an apparition that is justified in-narrative by its being shown to Harry in a dream). In both Dracula and HP, the psychic link also allows the writer to write dialogues that have more to do with the mystery genre than the fantasy genre (what's the villain doing? are we sure that information is legit? who is he talking to?) Finally, and even if we have to wait a few chapters for it, it leads to the introduction of battle scenes.

So both Dracula and HP use the psychic link as a plot device in a similar way: 1. it drives the action by justifying the writing of descriptive scenes, action scenes and dialogues, 2. it makes the story even more compelling for the reader who gets to hear the exclusive thoughts of the villain in a setting we are not used to (the villain's lair!) so those scenes feel special and cool, 3. it allows the writer to diverisfy the genre of their book by introducing new elements taken from the mystery genre.

3. The symbolic of that relationship

Voldemort, just like Dracula, is an undead being, a living dead. While Voldemort himself isn't a zombie (an "inferi"), a ghost or a vampire, he does surround himself with them and his physical description is very much akin to that of the undead. Two of his most significant features are his paleness (also a recurrent adjective to describe ghosts) and his long, spidery fingers, which together can be used to describe both Voldemort and Nosferatu:

(book!voldemort literally looks like this bad guy over there ^ but without a nose and with red eyes -- and this is why he haunts my sleep sometimes!! that character design fucks)

Symbolically as well, Voldemort is an undead being, a living dead, as it says in his very name ("fleeing death", "flight from/of death"). In his backstory as well, Voldemort became twice a living dead. First, by spiritually killing himself and rendering his soul to the dark arts in pursuit of immortality (in much the same way vampires render their soul to the devil). Second, by falling victim to his own Avada Kedavra spell in Godric's Hollow. (Harry is an example of how one survives the Avada Kedavra; I wouldn't say Voldemort survived it considering all the (physical, if not spiritual) remnants of his past humanity were completely destroyed by it.)

More specifically, Voldemort is a vampire: in his very first apparition in the series, he is seen drinking the lifeblood of a living creature (a unicorn). All throughout the series, Voldemort is the undead that needs to feast on others to survive, by exploiting his followers (in the years following Godric's Hollow, he only survives by drawing on the life force of Quirrell and by living as a parasite with Pettigrew), by living on the terror he inspires to other people, and by turning other living beings (Nagini and Harry) into horcruxes (the same way a vampire would turn the human he drinks the blood of into another vampire). Of course, the number 1 inspo for Voldemort is the boogeyman: everyone in the wizarding world is scared to say his name in case he might literally materialize out of thin air. But he is not described (narratively, physically) as any boogeyman, he is specifically the vampire.

Just as Voldemort is Dracula, Harry is Mina Harker: a human being who represents life. Both Harry and Mina carry a part of Voldemort/Dracula's inside of them, and both of them are scared of eventually becoming like them. Both Harry and Mina survived their confrontations with Voldemort/Dracula thanks to the help of their friends (love and friendship trumping death). Both of them are also common human beings who have been involuntarily turned into something so much more unique by the very assault they survived. The way they responded to it (opposing hatred with love and bravery) turned them into something so much more important than mere human beings: they became symbols inspiring strength to others around them. And all throughout the story, both Mina and Harry retain that common-ness, it is repeatedly stated by both Stoker and JKR, in-narrative, that the only thing that sets them apart from others is Mina/Harry's ability to feel empathy and to draw strength from the love of others.

In the novel, Mina openly feels pity for Dracula - not for the monster that he is but for his soul, explicitly questioning whether it might want to find peace. In the last two books of the HP series, Harry also takes on a similar stance with regards to Voldemort. Dumbledore's last teaching was that Voldemort was someone to be pitied (don't feel pity for the dead but for those who live without love), and even though pity doesn't excuse evil, it gives us the moral ground to be better people and create a better world. This was also Dumbledore's most important teaching, the one Harry only fully understands by the end of Deathly Hallows, when he confronts Voldemort and says the only thing that sets him apart from others and that makes him stronger than Voldemort is the love he feels (only understanding this after spending the entire book trying to figure out why hadn't Dumbledore left a strong weapon, like the elder wand, for him in his will).

So in both their moral complexity wrt to the villain and in the ideals they represent, Harry and Mina are very similar. I would finally add that both of them represent vulnerable groups of people (children and women) who are victims of male/patriarchal violence: Harry (a 14yo boy) is abducted and tortured by Voldemort (an adult male) in Goblet of Fire, while Mina is metaphorically raped by Dracula. It's a bit tangential but I think it's another interesting parallel between these two; in all of her books, JKRowling often associates the harm men do to women to the harm fathers(/male authority figures) do to children and the way Voldemort repeatedly tortured, abducted and tried to kill Harry from age 0 to age 17 could also be one of the ways she builds on that social commentary.

[Conclusion]

=> So narratively, I would say JKR drew inspiration from Dracula when designing the Harry/Voldemort bond. In Dracula and HP, that link is established in pretty much the same way: through blood magic, DNA mixing and resort to the dark arts. It is repeatedly reinforced throughout the story following the encounters of Mina/Harry and Dracula/Voldemort, and it serves as a war strategy between the two of them as everyone involved realizes they can use it to spy on the other, leading to the ultimate demise of the villain. When it comes to character growth, the psychic link also works in the same way: it leads to emotional/mental/psychological distress for Harry/Mina who is scared to become evil too. Structurally as well, JKR used a plot device identical to that developed by Stoker in Dracula to create the Harry/Voldemort dynamic. The psychic link introduces a POV-shift in a book series that's otherwise almost exclusively written from the good guy's pov, drives the action by leading to descriptive/action scenes and dialogues, and makes the story more entertaining for the reader. Thematically, I would also say JKR drew inspiration from Dracula when creating Voldemort and Harry as characters. In the books, Voldemort represents a vampiric living dead boogeyman who rendered his soul in search of immortality (just like Dracula), while Harry represents the hidden force of life and love that lies inside the most common of people (like Mina).

#i accidentally wrote it as a dissertation i didn't even do it on purpose my brain has just been permanently rewired by school sadly #jkrowling #rowlingblr #hp meta #harry potter #gothic

85 notes · View notes

winterarmyy · 1 year ago

Text

Until Then

A series of random Bucky Drabbles that I can't let go but don't have the brain to make the whole complete plot of.

Summary: A mission back in time brought Y/N to an unexpected encounter with the man she fell in love with.

Words: 2.3k++

Pairing: 40s!bucky / avenger!bucky x female!reader

Warnings: melancholy-ish plot line with fluffy ending

Inspiration: "You still would've turn my head, even if we'd met on a crowded street in 1944 and you were heading off to fight in the war" – Timeless (From the Vault) by Taylor Swift

Read my other works here: Masterlist

It was supposed to be a quick in and out mission. Y/N and Tony were sent back in time to 1944; one day before Captain America and the Howling Commandos deployed to their next mission at the Austrian Alps, in Europe.

The duo were supposed to retrieve some lost files regarding Hydra's hidden bunks and labs back in the days. After the fight with Thanos, there were rumours of the re-creation of Project Winter Soldier lead by an organization that once associated with Hydra. So, they need all the information they could get their hands on; including the ones that are lost decades ago.

Unfortunately for them SHIELD used to be shitty at storing physical files back in the days. To be fair they still do, especially now that technology had advanced. Every single information were at the tip of their fingers; from typical criminal records to the name of every single doctor and nurses who were present when the person was born.

They literally have everything. And nothing at the same time.

And honestly, the mission was quick as they predicted. Tony managed to scanned the needed files and some others that he thought would be important. He's extra like that too, which was a plus.

However quick the mission supposed to be, they barely make it though, especially when the guards were suspicious of Tony's apparently "hippie" beard. It was such a shame. So much for dressing up in 40's style. They kind of nailed the outfit and aesthetics, according to Steve anyway.

However, thankfully by the time they got out of the facility they managed fit right in with crowd. The wave of people lead the duo along its current, more and more people joined in to the point that they weren't able to find any quiet place to activate their time device.

"I thought we're still in WWII? Why is there fucking a parade in the middle of the day?" Tony being unapologetically sarcastic as always.

Y/N looked around as she observed, there was couple of people animatedly, albeit, excitedly exclaimed to the streak of success of Captain America and the Howling Commandos in the war.

A little to the right of them, were a group of children who were semi-cosplaying as Captain America and his dream team, passionately play-fighting with the enemies as if they were in a theater performance.

"I guess they're celebrating small wins. Steve and his team did have several successful raids since the battle at Azzano." It was in fact true; what Y/N speculated was exactly the very reason of the current occasion.

Tony simply shrugged as he stretched his neck higher to hopefully find the end the crowd, "Sure, just keep your eyes open for a place to time jump. I don't want to be stuck in the middle of another war." Y/N nodded as she looked around the sides, wondering if there's an empty alleyway that they could use.

The more sketchy looking it was, the better.

The crowd was chaotic with different mix of conversations and cheers; voices intertwining with one another, each sentences criss and crosses into indecipherable storyline. But even then, Y/N could recognized that breathy, slightly giggly laughter anywhere.

Especially when he brushed right by her.

Y/N was well aware of how madly in love she was with Bucky even with the coy cat-and-mouse game they were playing for months. She knew exactly the hold he had on her soul that at some point, she was conviced that he still would've turn her head in any lifetime.

But that idea was only supposed to be one of the secrets in her mind; the thoughts of a hopeless romantic that she was. Certainly, she didn't dreamt of the vision for it come true. But there she was, frozen on her spot when the time stood still on the crowded street in 1944; fortuitously crossing path with man she fell in love with.

There weren't any suitable explanation for this other than it was fate. In that short milliseconds, Y/N saw the resemblance of the sight to a memory of hers in the crowded room a few short years ago; his left arm slung around Steve's neck, letting his weight leaned on his super soldier friend as he let out a hearty laughter.

There were only slight difference from what she saw before and what she currently seeing; Bucky wore an all black suit at that party, now he's wearing his military uniform in a parade. Bucky was dead drunk on Asguardian mead that night, now he's as sober as a soldier deprived of liquor. Bucky's left hand was adorned with high-tech vibranium metal, now that very hand was still made of flesh and blood, still alive.

During that brief moment of revelation, she truly believed that they were supposed to find this.

Whatever this is supposed to be; Fate? Love? Both? She was not sure either.

She was so stuck on holding her gaze on his back as the young soldier walked a few steps away from her that she didn't notice how the people in the surge glared at her unmoving state or how she had been astray from Tony.

Well, at least it only lasted until someone bumped into her and she staggered backwards, inevitably fell on the ground.

Y/N groaned but quickly patted her pockets to find her time device was still there. I mean, she can never be sure if it was just an accident that she fell or someone intended to distract her while pick-pocketing her belongings.

Though other people would probably already stood on their feet but Y/N was still on the dusty road, as she was busy recollecting her mental state rather than her physical.

That was when a calloused hand reached out to her, offering a kind help.

She didn't think twice to take his hand, let alone looking up at his face when she gripped it tight enough to make a solid foundation to push herself against the gravity, "Oh dear me! Thank you so much, sir. I really..." She lost her momentum when she met the pale blue of his eyes, "...appreciate it." She ended the sentence breathlessly.

It's Bucky. Her brain tried to let her process the thought. It was not her Bucky but still... it's Bucky. Her eyes then fell to where their skin touched. Warm and gentle. His left hand felt the exact same as his right. It made her to cave in the urge to hold it a little longer, to savour the memory of what it could've been; not that she weren't fond of his vibranium arm but curiosity can be such a fickle thing.

Bucky smiled, "Glad to help, my lady." And oh dear does he smiled effortlessly, freely; as if he knew he deserved to feel joy in his life.

Even if she didn't want to, she had to let go of his hand after a few seconds too long of holding it when she was already up and ready to go. She returned his smile though her heart was barely tough enough to stop the spreading of its cracks, "Really, I can't thank you enough."

In reality, it was probably unnecessary to thank him that much for helping her to get back on her feet, but Y/N wasn't really thanking him just for that.

Unbeknownst to him, she was thanking him for not holding back a smile, for not overthinking about the things he might have done to draw a conclusion that he was undeserving have the luxury to smile, for unapologetically just living the life he supposed to have.

She thanked him for it.

Bucky chuckled amusingly as he slightly titled his head to the side. A charming pull on the corner of his lips revealed a smile that could swoon anyone on sight, especially her.

"Well, we're having a little party tonight before deploying to Europe tomorrow. So, maybe you can thank me by letting me bring you to the dance? How about that, doll?" She almost forgot that Steve was there next to him, until Bucky references the word "we".

And especially when his words might just pulled Y/N's heartstrings in ways that she could never thought someone could do. It was awfully slow, almost too delicate of a pull, but each inches of it pained her deeply.

If it was up to her, she would've said yes a million times over but she knew she can't. And the voice in her earpiece reminded her of it, "Y/N, we gotta go." Tony urged as he watched her from the corner of the street.

Y/N tried her best not let her facial expression flatter, "Unfortunately, I can't. I'm going back to my hometown today." It wasn't exactly a lie when she made that excuse.

"Ohh, I see. You're not from here, huh?" Bucky was very honest as his reaction clearly showed his disappointment. Though not at her, just at the situation.

Her brows briefly crunch into an apologizing plead before she boldly grabbed him by the collar of his uniform, slightly pulled him down to her level, while the other hand cupped one side of his face.

She tiptoed herself upwards as she pressed a firm yet sweet kiss on the smooth skin of his cheek and whispered against it, "But, I hope this would do."

Lost for words, heck, Bucky was lost for thoughts. What was left was his own heart thumping hard and loud that he bet Steve can hear it from where he was standing. His cheeks became warmer by the second and the redness spreads even to the tip of his ears.

Of course he had his cheek kissed before, but not like this. None of them felt like this. They were always too fast, too hasty.

Hers was different. It lingered a little longer, gently leaving her imprint on him. He can feel her grip on his collar, the stroke of her thumb on his cheek and of course the soft pressure of her lips on the other side of his face. He could everything so particularly.

Bucky was rendered speechless even after she pulled her lips away; it was too soon for his comfort. Eyes wide open, his lips slightly parted as he let himself lost in the pleasant surprise.

He thought she would parted herself and ran away feeling embarrassed, but she did the very opposite. Y/N lead his forehead to lean on hers, tip of their nose grazed, and her lips hovered above his.

So close, yet refused to merge with one another.

Y/N whispered quietly, as if she was talking to herself, "You'll be fine, James. You'll find home in the future. I promise."

Her voice trembled as Bucky just noticed how wet her eyes were becoming. With that amount of tears in them, he wondered if her sight were all blurry now.

Y/N took in a shaky breath before continuing, "You just need to survive the winter and trust me at the end of that season, you'll reach the sun again." Her thumbs softly traces his cheeks as she spoke.

Bucky didn't quite understand what she was saying but if he loosely translate it, it would mean that 'she believed that he'll be back soon after the war'. But then again, he felt like there were some major things that was missing from the context that he came up with.

Y/N's earpiece send another transmission of Tony's voice, "Okay, seriously. Come on, Juliette. Your other Romeo is waiting for you." She couldn't help but to smile as she closed her eyes, letting the excess tears fall down to her cheeks.

She didn't want to say goodbye, as she knew that this was not where their story ends, at least not his; that's for sure. So, she simply smiled up at him with a reassuring look in her eyes before stepping back. She then, briefly turned her attention to the dumbfounded Steve, gracing him with a similar smile before walking away.

It was just a few steps away when her hand was caught in between someone's, "Hey!" Y/N looked over her shoulder to see Bucky; wide eye, blinking in disbelief and blushing red, all at the same time, "WiIl... Will I see you again?" He asked, though hesitant; wondering if he was being rude.

Compared to what she had done to him, he was just being too polite.

Y/N chuckled dearly, "Of course." Then she replied confidently, "I owe you a dance after all." Her lips parted into a cheeky grin.

Bucky let out a sharp relieved sigh as his lips mimic hers, "I'll look forward to it, doll." He slightly bowed as his hand pulled hers closer to his lips, "Until then." He placed a soft kiss on the back of her hand as his gaze remained on hers.

Apparently, it was Y/N's turn to blush to his antics. She stepped back shyly as her cheeks brightens before scurring away. Maybe, Bucky was right with his prediction prior. She did ran away feeling embarrassed after all.

She jogged towards the next corner of the street, meeting up with Tony. The older might have eyeing her in a teasing manner, but his smirk was the biggest giveaway. Y/N simply rolled her eyes, even if her lips maintained its shape from the aftermath of her encounter with Bucky.

As they entered deeper into the alleyway, Tony spoke, "I gotta admit, young terminator was a hottie. Not hotter than me, of course." he claimed.

Y/N frowned, letting out a scoff, "What do you mean "was"? He still is." Call it bias, but at least she was telling the truth.

Tony shrugged, "Meh. Would argue to differ. But, whatever that floats your boat, I guess?" Tony sassed as they clicked on the time device at the same time, revealing a swirlling portal, in front of them.

Y/N quirked her brow, her hands on her hips, "You're just jealous that he aged like a fine fucking wine and you don't." She purposely challenged his ego.

Tony dramatically rolled his eyes, "Please. He wishes." He walked into portal with an attitude, making Y/N laughed at his childish acts.

She looked back at the alleyway one last time and reminisce the last moments of a past that she never belong in. As she walked into the portal, she thought that maybe, it's time to pay her debt to Bucky.

End.

Read my other works here: Masterlist

A/N: The start of bucky drabbles because why not. This is considered a drabble for me because i feel like there's lack of story building. But, you tell me. And did you enjoy it?

#bucky x reader #bucky x you #bucky barnes au #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes x you #40s!bucky #avenger!bucky #bucky drabbles

927 notes · View notes

tyrantisterror · 8 months ago

Text

I think one of the things that gets lost in the big, endless internet conversation about whether or not heroes should kill their villains is the fact that killing villains off robs you of a lot of story-telling potential. The Joker died at the end of his debut story in Batman - imagine what Batman would be if he stayed dead. No Joker in Batman 66, no The Killing Joke which means no Barbara Gordon as Oracle and no The Dark Knight, no Mark Hamill Joker episodes of BTAS (so many of them were based on his comic appearances, after all - the laughing fish is a direct adaptation of a comic), which means no Harley Quinn and no Return of the Joker, on and on it goes.

Like, you can argue the morality of heroes sparing their villains till you turn blue - god knows this site does it at least a thousand times a day - but on a purely pragmatic story-telling level, the minute you kill ANY character, you kill all the story potential they had. And yeah, it's fiction, you can bring them back from the dead if you really need them, but that's a pretty hard story beat to pull off without hurting your story. You don't want to fill your tale with "Somehow, Palpatine has returned" moments.

And you can just make new villains, sure, but again you have a problem with that - a new villain has to establish themselves and has to stand out from who came before, which means you can't go directly to the storylines you could have had with a villain who stuck around AFTER their introduction. A recurring villain is capable of doing things that one-off villains can't.

youtube

I'm going to illustrate this with a character from a fandom I'm not even a part of - I never played the Ratchet and Clank series and am only vaguely aware of it, but one day I saw a supercut of scenes starring one of its recurring villains, Dr. Nefarious, on twitter, and I was like "Oh shit, that's the guy who plays Quark on Deep Space Nine, isn't? This guys a hoot, let's see if we can find more clips on youtube." Which brought me to this hefty video here from one of the more recent games in the series.

And, like, as a person who "doesn't even go here," it's obvious this goofy little fucker has a history. His opening scenes have him ranting about how much it sucks to lose repeatedly - a lampshade on the "flaw" of a recurring villain, i.e. that their threat diminishes the more they come back because, by the nature of their role in the story, it means they've suffered a lot of losses. So how cool is it that as this supercut chugs along you can clearly see this is a theme of the game - that this is a story about the virtue of losing, a story that is enriched by having an antagonist who fans of the series know has lost a LOT?

The true antagonist is an alternate version of Dr. Nefarious who's won every fight in his life so far, apparently with little effort, and I love how they differ on a design aspect. They're both technically mad scientists, but notably, Emperor Nefarious, the winner, has a more imposing and "heroic" build, but a smaller brain-dome for his robot brains. Because winning may make him look strong, but if a mad scientist's real power is their mind, well, which Nefarious is really the strong one here then?

Dr. Nefarious gets this juicy arc about realizing the virtue in his repeated failures that corresponds with the heroic characters struggling to find a way to win against a seemingly invincible opponent, as well as contrasts the true villain, Dr. Nefarious's explicit counterpart and foil Emperor Nefarious, who has never once lost and is a total piece of shit for it. Again, not my fandom, I don't go here, not an expert on Ratchet and Clank, but even as a relative stranger to it who's just watching a big supercut, I fucking love this. This is an excellent story.

And it's one you can only tell with a recurring villain. Without Dr. Nefarious, this story works significantly less. You need a villain with a history the audience has seen to really sell this.

Anyway, I made this post because, ironically enough, I saw another tweet talking about how some fans think Dr. Nefarious should have been killed off in his first appearance, and, like... that's just fucking baffling to me, as a person outside this fandom looking in. Recurring villains deserve more love, man, they give us so much.

#Youtube

222 notes · View notes

darlynn-dindjarin · 1 month ago

Text

How "Jurassic World: Chaos Theory" Succeeds In Portraying Real-World Themes.

The narrative of Darius and Brooklynn in "Jurassic World: Chaos Theory" is a poignant and complex one, reflecting the intricate dynamics of relationships set against the backdrop of thrilling dinosaur adventures. The series takes a dramatic turn with the apparent demise of Brooklynn, a key character, at the jaws of an Allosaurus. This event sets off a chain of investigations by Darius and the crew, who are also grappling with being targeted for unknown reasons.

As the story unfolds, it's revealed that Darius was the first to discover the aftermath of the attack, leaving him deeply traumatized. In his struggle to cope with the loss, he continues to send messages to Brooklynn's voicemail, a testament to his profound connection to her. The series also delves into the emotional layers of the characters, showcasing Darius's unreciprocated feelings for Brooklynn, adding depth to their interactions and the overall narrative.

"Jurassic World: Chaos Theory" not only explores the thrilling aspects of its prehistoric setting but also humanizes its characters by exposing their vulnerabilities and the complexities of their interpersonal relationships. The interplay between Darius and Brooklynn's storyline and the overarching mystery surrounding the dinosaurs creates a compelling and multifaceted tale that resonates with audiences beyond the action-packed scenes.

Darius's journey through grief and coping with Brooklynn's loss in "Jurassic World: Chaos Theory" is a deeply emotional and humanizing aspect of the series. The narrative does not shy away from the raw and often messy process of mourning. Darius, who had developed a strong bond with Brooklynn, finds himself grappling with a profound sense of loss that affects him both personally and within the group dynamic.

The series portrays Darius's coping mechanisms through various stages, reflecting the complexities of grief. Initially, he is seen in a state of denial, unable to accept Brooklynn's fate. This denial is depicted through his continued attempts to communicate with her via voicemail, hoping for a response. As the reality sets in, Darius experiences a range of emotions, from anger and bargaining to a deep sadness that seems to engulf him.

(We see Darius' Various Calls To Brooklynn, All From After She "Died") In an effort to process his grief, Darius immerses himself in the mission at hand, using the urgency of survival and the need to protect his friends as a way to channel his emotions. The series also shows him finding solace in the memories of Brooklynn, often reflecting on the moments they shared and the impact she had on his life.

The support of the group plays a crucial role in Darius's healing process. The collective grief and shared experiences with the dinosaurs create a bond that allows each character to find strength in one another. Through this support system, Darius begins to find a path toward acceptance, honoring Brooklynn's memory by continuing their shared mission and embracing the responsibilities she left behind.

"Jurassic World: Chaos Theory" presents a nuanced exploration of grief, demonstrating that coping with loss is a personal journey that can take many forms. It highlights the importance of community, remembrance, and resilience in the face of unimaginable loss, providing a poignant reminder of the enduring human spirit even amidst prehistoric chaos.

#dinostar #jwct spoilers #jwct #jwct theory #darilynn #jwcc #otp: noble dummy #analysis series #analysis #this is brainrot levels you'll never see again for this show i think but i had to get this out

62 notes · View notes

rawliverandgoronspice · 2 years ago

Text

THE GERUDO POST

(aka an attempt at a critique of how gerudos were handled in BotW and before)

Oh no. TOTK being right around the corner, it might finally be time for the Gerudo Post.

(aka half of the reason why I made a Zelda sideblog in the first place)

So I want to preface all of this by saying that, as you could probably tell already, I’ve always adored the gerudos. They have fascinated my small child brain when I was 7; then the obsession made its comeback when I was 14, and now, here we are, almost 28, and I’m still thinking about the gerudos. I think they might be among my favorite fictional cultures for their potential and their understated storyline. I guess growing up in a very Arabic neighborhood, coupled with being bi-culturally latinx (?? does Brazil count?? you tell me), also always made them feel like home to me –especially when I was very young and there was not a lot of cool female representation flying around that managed to involve fiercely independent PoC women, flaws and teeth included.

This whole weird-essay-thing tries to do two things. First: analyze the place gerudos have occupied in the series, their initial problematisms and their subtextual narrative arc during the Myth Era coupled with their relationship to Ganondorf. Second: tiptoe to Breath of the Wild and poke it with a stick to see what happens –and in doing that, explain why I believe a lot of their characterization was defanged in service of smoothing their past with the hylians instead of deepening the culture on its own terms, and why I’m a little apprehensive about what that might mean for TotK even though I adore seeing the best girls at it again.

Those are the uhh terms of service??

And now, we must go back to 1998.

OCARINA OF TIME ERA

There’s so many things about the gerudos that are noteworthy and rich, and they’ve made for a complex piece of Zelda lore ever since their introduction –and when I say complex, I don’t 100% mean it as praise. The very racially charged decisions made about their inclusion have been discussed at length by the fandom, especially when it comes to orientalist and Islamophobic tropes being deployed pretty thoughtlessly in Ocarina of Time (their sigil being literally a crescent moon and star originally, the parallels are pretty obviously there).

We’re talking about a band of amazon-like, big-nosed brown women from the desert ruled by a single Scary Evil Man born once every hundred years hellbent on conquering Hyrule who they apparently worship like a god, characterized primarily as thieves, decked in jewelry and orientalist-inspired harem/belly-dancing clothing, hostile to the white good guys of Hyrule (especially men), unblessed by the Goddesses and so deprived of elongated ears (this is true for OoT –we’ll come back to that), also known as a demon tribe with their deity straight-out described as evil-looking by Navi (on my way to cancel you on twitter Navi you watch out), and secretly led by evil twin witches who can turn into a single seductress and, as two mothers, raised their Scary Evil Guy king who happens to basically be the devil.

In so few words, gerudos are the future that liberals want.

It’s worth notice, also, that Ganondorf’s characterization in this game is… kind of relentlessly uncomfortable to play through, especially before the 7 year skip. The utter assumption of depraved and evil intents from every character surrounded by dialogue that does little to hide its biases in spite of having generally very little proof to back them up –even though, in the game’s context, every character is correct to call his eyes evil and the darkness of his skin a moral judgment in on itself. The scene where Zelda demands that we believe her conclusion that the sole and only brown guy in the entire kingdom is evil and will do harm, and the game straight out refuses to progress until we concede that her dreams are prophetic and that this man must be stopped at any cost even though she has no more proof than her discomfort… hits different on replay.

I’m restating all of this not to pretend I’m making a novel and thought-provoking point, but to bounce back on a tumblr post I saw a while back (that I can’t find anymore!! I’ll link it if I find it again) –and so express what it is that gripped me with the gerudos in spite of their pretty damning depiction… and actually maybe thanks to it.

There’s a surprising amount of texture to Ocarina of Time’s worldbuilding that exists folded within the things introduced and left hanging, or in its subtext –and whether on purpose or not, I believe it is why people keep coming back to this iteration of Hyrule.

What was that about the king of Hyrule unifying a war-torn country? Why did the gerudos break the bridge connecting them to the rest of the kingdom during the 7 year timeskip while still worshiping Ganondorf, and why are the carpenters trying to rebuild it against their apparent wishes? What was that about gerudos imprisoning hylian men trying to force entry into their lands? What was that about the secret death torture chambers right next to the Royal Family’s tomb and connected to the race of people who were, apparently, born to serve them?

Nothing? Oh okay… okay… okay….

The same can be said about this strange depiction of this hostile tribe, consistently described as wicked yet suddenly friendly once you prove you deserve their respect once you... defeat them, so you now have joined them? Ocarina of Time isn’t very consistent when it comes to characterizing them as their occupation (thieves) or as a proper culture, with a king and a strange system of rulership that seem to involve at least 5 people: Ganondorf, the Twinrova, Nabooru and the unnamed random woman who decides you’re now part of the gerudos because you slashed enough of them with your sword and hookshot, which, uhh ok.

They’re but a ragtag and negligible group when discussed next to gorons and zoras and hylians, but they also clearly have their own religion and at least a 400-hundred years old history (probably far longer than this) and hints of a written language of their own. I’m not sure the game itself knows what it wants them to be, beyond: intimidating and hot and cool, but also wicked and, because of Ganondorf and the way you barge in their forbidden fortress (heh) with the explicit intent to dismantle their king, in apparent need to be saved from themselves.

Speaking of rulership and the Spirit Temple, let’s have a quick tangent about Nabooru: I always found her characterization when meeting with Child Link pretty strange. I refuse to mention the promised reward, which feeds into everything orientalist mentioned above, but I always found her moral compass so extremely convoluted for someone coming from gerudo culture. Nabooru says that, despite being a cool thief herself, she resents Ganondorf for killing people as well as stealing from women and children. Stealing... from women. Nabooru. Why are you this pressed that he steals from women!!! This feels so out of place, that the only girl of that hostile culture that betrays her king and befriends you, is the one that upholds moral values that only a hylian could possibly hold.

Either way: the strange unquestioned contempt of the game for them as a culture, mixed with the occasional bouts of heart, friendliness and badassery, makes it hard not to consider their depiction as pretty biased in favor of the hylians finding them at once exotic, scary and exciting, and could hide a more complex reality you might only get one side of –especially when you know there were originally plans for Ganondorf’s character to be more gray and motivated than what the campy final version ended up being. To be blunt: even in the context of a game for children, and maybe because of that fact, it all reads like a reductionist and imperialist/colonialist reading of a more complex situation.

This might seem like A Lot coming from a game where the actual game writing can be this overall flimsy and simplistic due to the standards of the time (it’s rough, it's so rough). But I would have never dwelt on that thought about a little children’s game if not for the mainline entries that came soon after, because... ooo boy.

The sense you’re not getting the whole story was certainly not helped by the introduction of Wind Waker Ganondorf, and the chilling emptiness of Gerudo Desert in Twilight Princess.

AFTER THE TIMELINE SPLIT

(I’m skipping Majora’s Mask, not because I dislike them in the game or think they’re not worth talking about, but because it’s a parallel universe and they’re never even called gerudos and their reality seems extremely different from their sisters in Hyrule so I think it’s okay to call them tangential and not dive too deep in this particular depiction)

Here’s something I want to highlight about gerudos and how they were characterized before BotW came along: their absence. Not only their physical absence, the lack of any gerudo character that calls themselves gerudo, but their absence from the text itself.

It’s not that Wind Waker and Twilight Princess retroactively scratch them off existence: we can clearly see Nabooru’s stained glass art in WW as well as recognize them being mentioned in Ganondorf’s final boss soliloquy, and WELL there’s quite a lot to say about their imprint over the world of TP. They are there –or at least they... were there. But nobody ever talks about what happened.

In Wind Waker, there was the deluge. It’s assumed lots of people died then, and those who survived scattered across the Great Sea. Are they sealed under the waves? Have they drowned? Is Jolene, Linebeck’s ex-girlfriend in Phantom Hourglass, a distant relative of one of the rare survivors? It’s unclear, beyond the fact that Ganondorf is the only living gerudo we see in this entire branch of the Timeline split.

In Twilight Princess, the desert which bares their name is empty. The hylians never mention that it used to be the name of a tribe: they’re not even named when Ganondorf is introduced for the first time, reduced once again to a mere band of thieves. We learn his plans to steal the Triforce in OoT were foiled, and that he may have turned to war. Then he lost the war, and was executed in Arbiter’s Ground: a strange structure in the desert, a mixture between a temple, a prison and a coliseum. What looks like gerudo writing coexists with hylian symbols, which often look much fresher. This dungeon is the Shadow Temple of TP: a prison hosting the worst criminals the kingdom has ever known, now haunted and cursed. Besides the locations, the only character that vaguely look gerudo in the entire game besides Ganondorf is Telma, a character with pointed ears that never seems to identify as anything but a hylian. What happened? Who’s to say. Nobody ever says anything. Not even Ganondorf bothers to mention them the way he did in WW –and though the game’s story is quite focused on another exiled tribe seeking revenge and dominion over Hyrule as retribution, the parallel is never explicitly drawn. So who’s to say what happened there. Who’s to say.

And in A Link to the Past and the games forward? The only mention of other gerudo characters are Koume and Kotake, resurrecting their son in the Oracles games through their own sacrifice and failing to bring anything back but a monstrosity incapable of making conscious decisions. Granted, most games in that extremely weird Fallen Timeline predate OoT and therefore had yet to make gerudos up at all. Still: canonically, between the gap of OoT and ALLTP, whatever it may be, gerudos disappeared here as well.

I think there’s something subtle and a little heartbreaking about the fact that no matter what Ganondorf does, the gerudos always end up dying out. His yearning for Hyrule, its gentler wind and the Triforce blessing its lands always costs him the kingdom that he does have already.

Now, does he care? A lot of people would argue that he doesn’t, that he used them like pawns for his own ambition and saw them as servants more-so than sisters, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it was Nintendo’s official opinion, but… One very powerful thing about most of Ganondorf’s incarnations (focusing on the human ones) is that he never seems to reject his cultural heritage. They could have gone for him wearing more kingly hylian stuff given the whole underlying theme of envy and pride surrounding his character, but never once does he try to look more hylian, beyond the ear situation that seems to be tied to the Triforce of Power? Either way: he is gerudo. Several of his outfits reference his mothers, as well as general gerudo patterning and jewelry. His heritage is something he proudly displays, even hundred of years in the future when there is no one left to remember what it means but him. I think it’s a very potent piece of characterization, an arc that crosses over multiple game and says something pretty intense about this character’s fate and his inherent destructiveness over the things he touches –starting with the Triforce, all the way up to his very own body and mind. His mental breakdown by the end of Wind Waker, when the king of Hyrule himself forces him to give up on the thing he sacrificed everything for, takes a new kind of weight with the whole picture taken into account.

(not to excuse genocide or general egomania-fueled madness and violence, but one thing doesn’t mean the other isn’t also relevant)

Regardless of whether this is a tragedy for Ganondorf as their uhh complete failure of a king, honestly, it is undeniably a tragedy for the gerudos themselves: a once-in-a-lifetime joyful event turned into a never-ending nightmare from which there seems to be no escape, their legacy now condemned to fade to black, leaving nothing behind but a demon boar forever laying ruin upon the world.

One may say I’m taking on the bleakest explication for the gerudos’ absence when there could be others. It’s true! Perhaps the gerudos are just chilling off-screen, completely fine, not interested in whatever is happening in the kingdom nearby and their disaster child having yet another temper tantrum about not being the Goddesses’ favorite boy. It’s possible! But regardless, what little elements we do possess as players doesn’t seem to support this, even if it remains possible –and regardless of actual gerudo lives, gerudo culture is definitively a goner in every single timeline.

Even if they did survive... Hyrule still won its unification war.

(I won’t mention Skyward Sword as they are not really a thing there, except for a butterfly that seems to suggest the Gerudo Province was a thing before the gerudo people –I don’t know what to do with this honestly– and the whole Groose situation, which, I’m not sure what to make of either beyond the fact that he may have gotten cursed by opposing Demise? And then went on to start the gerudo tribe, which ended up being an all-women group for some reason? Maybe? It’s not confirmed? I feel like it’s more of a fun tidbit than a central piece of the gerudo puzzle, so I’ll leave it there like I would a cool rock I brought back from a walk and that I don’t know where to put in my house)

Then, Breath of the Wild happened and changed things.

BREATH OF THE WILD

(Additional short note, but: while I won’t mention Four Swords Adventure, since it’s a weird one that almost nobody has played and severely messes with the Timeline, we kind of see the beginnings of what is about to happen in Breath of the Wild in this game –gerudos coming back without much explanation, then distancing themselves from Ganondorf to become friends with hylians because he was too hungry for power and now they are nice and have good reputation because they are our friendsss)

I was actually so happy to learn gerudos were making a comeback in a mainline Zelda game, and this got me more excited about Breath of the Wild than basically anything else the game involved. And getting to explore the Desert once again, meeting this new batch of impossibly tall buff girls, getting more about their language and their culture, Riju and the rest of the little girls are adorable, the grandmas are so cool, the sand seals??? sign me the fuck up??? And above it all, hanging around Gerudo Town at night and feeling as warm and cozy as little me liked to imagine how freeing it would feel, to stay there and watch the desert behind the safety of their walls in OoT… This was great. I loved it.

It was a huge compensation for the criticism I’m about to make, but did leave me with… questions regarding how their culture was going to be handled moving forward.

I’ll start with something small yet deeply revelatory, then work my way from there.

So... gerudos’ ears are pointy now.

This is pretty significant. Lore-wise, it’s been said that the elongated ears of hylians are there so they can better hear the voices of the gods. It’s considered a sign of holiness in-universe. There's a bunch of really thoughtful analysis on tumblr over that whole Ganondorf ear situation, which is a mess but also very interesting, but the short answer is: I think the absence of pointy ears was a clear design choice to originally signify them as Less Good. Even when Ganondorf gets pointier ears, they never get as long as hylians’. Worth noting: not every non-gerudo character has pointy ears: gorons, zoras and ritos (among others) do not possess this trait, and there are even some humans that have regular rounded ears in the series –though they always seem to be of lesser relevance, if not downright peasants in Twilight Princess. Pointy ears always tended to implied a strict hierarchy in the series: basically, the more pointy, the more Protagonist you become.

(also their eyes becoming green instead of the traditional yellow/golden, which looks more wicked and demonic --and cooler also tbh)

The pointy ears imply two things. From within the game, this could be interpreted in two ways: either that gerudos… converted, for a lack of a better term, and are now considered holy through their worship of the Golden Goddesses and/or Hylia, or that their mingling with hylians through tens of thousands of years had them acquiring this trait out of sheer genetic override (though they have kept their mostly-women birth rates, their big nose, darker skin –for the most part– and red hair). Probably a healthy mixture of both. Design-wise, it signifies something quite simple to the player: they are on hylians’ side now. They are good guys. We can trust them, even if they still have a little spice in them. They aligned themselves with us and against Ganon in all of its manifestations (even if he’s but an angry ghastly pig being parasitic to everything it touches in this iteration). They are on the side of Good, definitively, and will fight evil by our side.

On that note, I think it’s worth bringing out another major change from their initial iteration, which is their overt friendship with Hyrule as a whole, and with the Royal Family in particular. Despite not allowing any voe inside their walls (we’ll come back to this), their relationship with hylians is pretty neat. They have booming trade roads, travel and meet with the rest of the cultures, and are fierce enemies with the Yiga clan, who are renowned for being huge Calamity Ganon supporters. The tables certainly have turned. I want to bring out, in particular, Urbosa’s friendship with the queen and her role as the cool aunt taking care of Zelda and protecting her from evil (to be noted: I am not familiar with Age of Calamity so if I’m mischaracterizing her in any way, please let me know). The gerudo sense of sisterhood has been extended to the royals they used to fight against. I would go on and say the cultures peacefully coexist, but I think that what we’re looking at here is a case of vassal behavior, just like we used to have from zoras (in the non-Fallen Timelines) and gorons. This is a huge departure from gerudos being openly rejecting of Hylian culture in their initial iteration, and something that is worth returning to later.

Okay. Now it’s time to mention the weird obsession BotW gerudos have with romance. I didn’t take notice of my issues with their writing until I realized how prevalent of a theme that was. Now, the reason given for gerudos to refuse entry to males (of every race) has much more to do with preventing young gerudos to make mistakes than anything else, and is actively being put into question by the younger generations –which would make sense. But the amount of NPCs that either lament their lack of match, talk about their husbands (because they marry now apparently) or are invested in romance, and a very limited understanding of romance at that (heterosexual, closed, etc), makes for much more of the population that I initially expected. There’s no mention of what’s going on with their males, if there are new males being born and either exiled or abandoned, or if Ganondorf being technically still alive have have cut them off male heirs. Either way: no more kings, only girlbosses chiefs.

To have the gerudos so interconnected with Hyrule, not only through trade but through extremely coded romance where they have to make themselves palatable to a future male partner and enforce fidelity, was… a choice. The extremely brief and skippable mention of gerudos sometimes going to Castle Town in search for boyfriends in OoT became half of their personality traits in this game. We went from a race that was fiercely independent and mocking of the unworthy men who tried to mingle with them, to… this. Now I’m not saying some of the sidequests aren’t cute, or that I didn’t like the wedding, or that the grandma near the abandoned statue of Hylia (so she was worshipped at some point) clocking us and talking about her love life wasn’t one of my favorite gerudo conversations. I’m saying that the vibes have definitively changed. For the better? I’m not sure.

I once stumbled upon an article that said that Breath of the Wild gerudos were a huge improvement compared to their original introduction, because they were no longer presented as evil and hostile thieves groveling at the boot of a single man, but as a full culture allied with the protagonist and actively involved in the story, while still getting their Cool Girl Badass moment (again can’t find it anymore, I’ll link it if I stumble upon it again). I see where this comes from, but I honestly can’t help but consider it a reading that assumes something pretty major (though through no fault of their own, as the games tend to hammer this down as hard as they can), and that being hylians as the unquestioned anchor of Good.

Which, in spite of what the games want me to believe, I… feel uncomfortable taking at face value.

To me, regarding how gerudos are being incorporated in that goodie narrative, this is kind of a case of surface-level feminism trumping over colonialist/imperialist concerns. It becomes more important to perform the aesthetics of being cool and friendly and independent than scratching at any deeper problem that would risk making people uncomfortable. This is kind of Green Skin Ganon all over again: oh wait, isn’t it a little icky to have the evil bad guy being brown while faced by the most aryan-looking ass heroes of all time? Okay, then let’s take the brown guy and make his skin green so we don’t have to feel bad anymore that the conflict has racial undertones!! Solved!! There’s nothing questionable about changing a PoC's features to make it more monstrous and less human, right?

To me, it’s kind of the coward option: instead of accepting the messy reality those initial choices created (and their interesting nuances if taken at face value), let’s just… rewrite the PoC culture’s history to make it feel less uncomfortable for the white heroes. In many ways, it is an extension of what hylians have always done: scrubbing the weird and messy things about the past and shoving them deep down into the spooky well and far into the desert prison and away in alternate hellish dimensions, and then make up a very simple story where they get to feel good about themselves –except this time, it’s the fabric of the games, the literal reality, bending backward to make it happen. Which, in my opinion, makes it much worse than before. Now, there’s no conversation. The fabric of reality is changing their own history so that there is nothing to discuss anymore. Ganondorf was always evil incarnate. He never had any point. It was always 100% his own fault, his own hubris, his own fated wickedness. He was always demonic (and green, very important –having a flashback to people on twitter accusing artists restoring the TotK green skin to the original brown of wanting to make Ganondorf black, and like….. how do I put it gently…..)

And, above all else: gerudo are to distance themselves from his legacy so they can stay in the club of the Good and Just and Holy.

Because here’s the messy thing: as much as I love seeing the gerudos again in Breath of the Wild and as much I love for them to have survived the Era of Myth (??? somehow ???), this… kind of changes Ganondorf’s character arc. No longer do we have the story of a king who wanted more, either for his people, for himself or both, and led his culture to its destruction in his search for absolute Power, while remaining ironically incapable of maintaining what little he already had. This starts from him kneeling to the king of Hyrule in OoT and leads to the deluge, Arbiter’s Ground, his own mothers dying for the sake of his failed resurrection. Breath of the Wild changes this: now, the gerudo were apparently fine without him? They apparently did their own thing and became suddenly and inexplicably disconnected from his actions? I know it’s kind of implied they side with hylians at the end of OoT, but it’s honestly never really explored why they would cheer for the death of their king while never seeming to resent him before except for Nabooru –there are mentions of brainwashing for those who resist him (as well as “other groups in the desert”, tho they are never mentioned again), but it’s hardly a proper plot point for the majority of the tribe, aaaand they still die by Wind Waker in the Adult Timeline, in spite of their potential alliegance…

(again, this shift towards submitting to Hyrule actually started with Four Swords Adventure, getting crisper with each iteration)

There used to be this polite blur regarding Ganondorf’s relationship to them, how much he used them and how much he acted in their name (with arguments for both sides), and I think this messy and debatable question mark was one of the most compelling aspects of his character. Gerudos rejecting their relationship at a near-cosmic, reality-bending level, removes a huge layer of complexity to both parties… all for the benefit of making hylians come out cleaner out of this whole exchange, their moral grayness barely a whisper in the distance.

I’ll kind of go on the record and say that I suspect the addition of Demise to the canon to serve a similar purpose (at least in part): if Ganondorf becomes but the manifestation of a demonic curse, and is no longer an extremely messy character brimming with agency and drive, forcing the heavens to reckon with said agency in a way he was never meant to access, born from a complex set of circumstances from which we clearly get only a limited and biased perspective, then it becomes extremely clear that he’s a Bad in a way that isn’t worth exploring further. Even if he does have some points, he is a Bad. It’s what matters most. Not to say I even hate what this angle can bring to the table or that I want him to become Good (I don’t –I’ll talk more about why I dislike most takes on him being a helpless victim to the curse), but once again, who benefits from adding another Unquestionned Baddie to the equation to rest upon? Not him, and not the gerudos, that’s for sure.

So. Why did I, me, personally, like the gerudos in the first place?

Beyond the inherent coolness factor of their culture and the fascinating mysteries of what is merely suggested, I think… I think I loved gerudos because we were obvious outsiders. Because their rejection of Hylian culture was so sharp and extreme, their value system so different, and their writing, their religion, their relationship to power and hierarchy and worth wanted nothing to do with hylians. They didn’t need hylians, beyond them having potential resources to steal. In fact, the threat of hylians influencing their culture was such that the entry to the Fortress was forbidden to everyone (I don’t think men were ever singled out, by the way, even though they are mocked relentlessly). I think there was something inherently hopeful about this semi-matriarchy resisting the outside world, and especially its notions of what girls were meant to be –it was 1998, and every other girl character in OoT, besides Impa and Sheik that?? is another can of worms entirely, is either helpless or someone to save. For them to reject this narrow vision of femininity was, in my opinion, much more radical than what we got in BotW. Less nuanced, more problematic perhaps? But also much more powerful. Gerudo Valley is home, not to a town, but a Fortress.

Hylians were worth being resisted.

In Breath of the Wild, their refusal to let men enter their town is kind of boiled down to a fading tradition over-focused on romance, a meek little game of chase. Their entire goal seems to be finding a hylian to settle down with. Say what you will about the single man and the many girls (never explored and completely open-ended in its implications, btw), but at least it wasn’t… that. At least it opened the way for different ways for people to exist and imagine culture and civilization, outside of the heterosexual couple, the christian-infused patriarchy and its trickling down implications. What I want to say is: let my girls tell hylians they ain’t shit!! That they aren’t the end all be all of reality! This is what made gerudos so compelling in the first place! Where is that bite now? Where is that self-definition?

It’s gone, because hylians need to be Good. So we tee-hee at the creep running laps around the town, we disguise ourselves to breach their trust and infiltrate their town (though there is nuance to be had there, gender be complicated etc), we watch them pine after shitty dudes and take classes to become the perfect approachable woman and make love soups with ?? strange ingredients honestly, and we witness them get very friendly with the Royal Family they used to conspire against, dying to protect the princess against the manifestation of their ancient king reduced to a raving puddle of Bad Boar.

Hyrule, unified against him.

TEARS OF THE KINGDOM

For posterity’s sake: this post was made before the game was released. I’ll probably update my thoughts on a separate thing later on.

I don’t think gerudos allying with the hylians and burying their own legends about Ganondorf as deeply underground as they can until it blows up in their face is a bad setup at all. It’s actually pretty juicy, and there’s a ton of fascinating stuff that could happen here –even some involving gerudos taking a firm stand against him while still reconnecting with their past and the choices they made once. This is my hope with the title of the game: Tears of the Kingdoms. Let’s examine them all, account for the damage, and decide how we move forward from there with the full knowledge of where we come from.

What I am afraid of (and I already made posts about that) is the scenario where gerudos rallying against Ganondorf, which I expect will forcefully try to take back his place as their king, is used for cheap feminist points that completely fail to examine, well. Everything mentioned above. Where reality bends itself out of the way of the Goddesses, and hylians’ responsibility in any of this mess, so that everything bad is 100% Ganon’s fault and so he must be cast aside and torn away from the Cool Gerudo Girls and this is 100% justified and deserved because we are Independent Women Who Take No Shit from No Men (unless they are the king of Hyrule or any random hylian they wish to marry apparently).

I’ll say this here because it’s been burning my mouth every time I see discourse about Ganondorf and the gerudo: gerudos declared him as their king. To make a really bad comparison that I dislike: he didn’t run around to assemble girls and make a cult around himself, he was born with the cult already formed around him (and it’s not a cult, it’s just a different mode of governance –hylians also revere the Royal Family like gods, don’t they?). This heavily changes the dynamics at play. Not to remove any agency from him to do a little invasion about it, but chances are the ancestors to BotW’s gerudos fully expected him to behave in this way, at least to a degree –in OoT you see very plainly that they value physical prowess, feats of thievery, witchcraft and general violence. It’s more complicated than him being a Bad and making the poor helpless women go along with the plan uwu –even taking the brainwashing into account, AND Koume and Kotake counting as gerudos too, even if they might not be not fully innocent in shaping the culture and the man himself. If manipulation and forced servitude is the explanation given, I’ll be genuinely mad –because, once more, all the nuance and messiness would be flattened for the sake of making Ganondorf Bad and the gerudo Good (= on hylians’ side).

It bears to be said: I think feminism stances that require, not to criticize (which is fair), but to fully dehumanize and bestialize men of color to make any sense are uhhh bad, and it's worth questionning who they end up serving in the end.

The flip side of this would be to make Ganondorf a poor little meow meow that was secretly controlled by the evil Demise all along, and... I’ll be real. I really don’t think it solves our problem at all. It might even make it worse.

My problem with how gerudos have been handled thus far, being mostly connected to how they behave in relation to hylians Good, is that they’ve been systematically defanged not to threaten the status quo as much as they used to. I think it’s pretty clear why I’m not a fan of Ganondorf being a mere victim of cosmic circumstances; I have a post that goes more in depth about this, but to simplify: my man has legitimate grievances. To make him a mere puppet to Evil Incarnate would, to me, be just another attempt to erase the despotism of the Goddesses, the unjust hierarchy of the world, what hylians have historically done to the races they were in conflict with (looking at the Yiga for the most recent example…)

I’m not saying his fight is clean or even legitimate, that he isn't driven by his own sense of self-importance above anything else, or that he should win (he has no plan beyond domination and victory, that's not a future). But I think there’s something really important about having someone being willing to fully consume himself and everything around him for the simple fact that someone should resist the order of the world. Even if that makes him a heartless, cruel, and egomaniac demon-pig. Even if there’s no Hyrule left to rule. Even if his own people despise him, or are long gone and forgotten.

Is it a little heart-wrenching? Uhh yes to me yes most definitively. This is why Wind Waker Ganondorf hits so hard, and remains (I think) his favorite entry in the series so far. But… I still find this fate of eternal resistance more resonant and empowered, and far less grim, than if Hyrule’s lore absorbs his hatred and rage, gives it to another entity that would be Badder (= more opposed to hylians and the goddesses), and scrubs it off anything icky and uncomfortable, rendering it completely domesticated and non-threatening to hylian domination; rubbed of his skin color, of his complexity, of his own emotions, even made... kind of sexy now, in the same way his sisters have been made before him? I am very, very afraid of him being turned from furious and an unapologetic subject in his own legend to a "redeemed" (according to whom??) and palatable object in somebody else’s, that you now end up having to… save from himself.

Again, I want to trust that Tears of the Kingdom can walk that line and preserve everything sharp and contrasting and profound and thrilling about this fascinating setup. I don’t expect a philosophy course, this is a game for children –but it doesn’t mean Nintendo didn’t do an astounding job with similar setups in the past. Again, I’ll invoke the Wind Waker conflict, but Twilight Princess did a lot of great things as well (Zant’s speech, if you can get past the weird stretches and stumping and NNHYAAAs, is pretty fantastic) –and the subtle writing of Majora’s Mask is also proof enough this series can be complex without being impermeable.

So this is where my hope lies. Not really with BotW’s writing, which, I’m sorry to say, but I found to be below what the series has done in the past (I have no problem with the setup and how the story is explored, I think it was a great idea, but wasn’t ever sold on the actual writing the way I may have been with previous titles –it felt… very tropey to me overall, with a couple of highlights). But Nintendo has shown to know how to write compelling stories for children that know where to sprinkle its darkness and how to preserve its hope, and this is this side I’m relying on for this delicate storyline moving forward.

And now? Now… I suppose we wait and see.

(thank you for reading my impossibly long essay what the actual hell, at least I got it all out of my system, see you in part 2 for when TotK comes out I suppose aaa)

932 notes · View notes

thechekhov · 11 months ago

Note

Since you've covered a pretty big bit of the manga so far, can I ask what are your opinions on it? Deeper than just the quick reactions you've shared with us so far.

What are your opinions about the manga's characters? Its pacing? The mystery element? The magic system? What areas do you think it succeeds, and what areas do you think could be better?

I understand if you're reversing judgment until you finish, but you've also read quite a bit of the story so far. Idk, I'm just curious!

Especially seeing as you're a writer yourself, so I imagine you have a different perspective on how the story functions as, well, a story!

Oh, hmmm... that's an interesting question.

As of right now I'm on chapter 35-36 so I'm about a third through the story. The first major arc (find dragon, yoink falin out of its body, etc) has kinda happened, and we're hitting some larger world arcs.

As you mentioned, I DO want to withold judgement but for now... But I will say what I think thus far, with full awareness that my mind might be changed later depending on circumstances.

Comment 1: The manga is finished! Actually, just knowing that makes me feel like it's a more cohesive storyline.

Maybe I'm boring, but I'm not a huge fan of neverending storylines in general. Naruto, Bleach, etc. They have their place in the forever-young-monster-of-the-week genre, and I know why so many manga just keep... on... publishing....... but I feel like there's a lot of merit to being able to just wrap up a story and say 'there, that's how it ends'.

Comment 2: Laios is very well developed, even at this point of the story. Senshi remains a mystery. Marcille... speedran her arc?

I think this is the closest thing I have to a criticism. While I think Laios' character is well-paced in its revelations throughout the series (the slow ramp-up from 'oh this guy is weird' to 'oh, this guy is a freak club card carrying member' to 'oh, this guy is the freak club president' was great!) Marcille is.... a little more of a mystery to me.

Now, perhaps my memory is bad. But I did find her turnaround at the end of the Red Dragon arc a bit... out of the blue?

Don't get me wrong. I think it's entirely believable. But I wish there had been more hints - or rather, more visible progress of her studies of ancient magic. I know it's been mentioned, and there WAS that chapter of her and Falin during their school years... but watching episode 2 of the show on netflix when she goes 'I feel useless, my magic doesn't help anyone :(' and then reading the manga and seeing her straight up go from 0 to 100 as she decides "we're gonna rearrange falin's bones and then I'mma raise her using this ancient technique I've been studying all along that I didn't tell you about because it was sus" is... a little bit of a turn?

Maybe it's on purpose! Maybe, when I read further about her personal journey, the pieces will fall into place more neatly. But compared to the rest of the characters, which seem relatively steady in their reveals (Laios, Chillchuck, Senshi) Marcille took a bit of a turn.

Which, again, isn't bad! It just seems contrasted to the rest of the team.

Comment 3: The magic system is more like a magic ecology.

Actually, in the beginning, I found the magic system Marcille used very vague. It was just a 'do what needs to be done' type of power with very few apparent limits or power balances aside from 'sometimes you run out of mana'. But I think at this point, I'm beginning to assume that the details of the magic are closer to the functions of an ecosystem or an organism, and therefore WHAT the magic does is kind of moot point. Marcille is just a little bacteria inside of the great intestine labyrinth of the dungeon, and she is using its energy to survive, like a sort of microfauna.

Comment 4: Man, the worldbuilding is cool. It's so cool.

I don't think I've seen another story that goes so deeply into dungeon ecosystems before this one. Not only are the people who live there fleshed out in terms of individual cultures and traditions and norms, there are also monsters that serve as a natural fauna that inhabits the halls of what OUGHT to be a mindless 'turn left and fall into a trap' setting!

There's sticking monsters into your world, and then there's 'digging out a trench 1 meter deep, pre-soaking the soil, inserting monster's roots lovingly into the spot, and then covering it with fertilizer and spritzing the leaves'. I don't doubt that there ARE other works that go into this level of detail, but the dedication and the ideas Kui-san has for this very much makes the dungeon a living part of this entire tale. :)

I'll probably have more to say later but for now.. that's about it!

#chekhov answers #dungeon meshi #delicious in dungeon #chekhov reads dungeon meshi

178 notes · View notes

demaparbat-hp · 4 months ago

Note

I used to just think Zutara was cool because Zuko and Katara had that whole fire-water duality, had more chemistry with each other than their canon love interests, Kataang gave me this sexist pseudo-incestuous vibe while Mai was just way too under-developed to interest me (Zuko gets the most character development out of all the characters but they pair him off with the most boring character in the series?).

Now when I actually think about it more deeply, Zutara genuinely made more sense for the narrative and characters too. Aang was told he had to let go of Katara so he could become a fully realized Avatar but then he just gets a deus ex machina so he doesn't have to. They dropped an entire arc just for Kataang to get together and made it happen in the most stupid way. The lion turtle deus ex machina was already badly done but at least it sorta made sense with the lore. The rock was just beyond ridiculous. Aang solved his problems by randomly hitting a rock even though they already established how Aang had this unhealthy attachment to Katara because she was his coping mechanism for his lost people. Instead of letting her go, Aang keeps that attachment and becomes even more possessive of her. He never learns to prioritize the world over Katara even though it is his duty as the Avatar! He didn't have to sacrifice or learn anything to achieve his goals and the way he became a fully realized Avatar NEVER made any sense. Katara and Aand were not always intended to end up together if you look at the IP Bible. Katara goes back to the SWT to help rebuild it while Aang goes looking for the hidden Air Nomads. There's hints early on in Book 1 that the Air Nomads are still alive (like how Aang was able to get a bison whistle from some merchants but they never explain where they got it from).

Meanwhile the whole Maiko relationship seemed like it was a metaphor to represent Zuko's false destiny and dissatisfaction with his life since Mai encouraged him to sink into his bad habits and ignore everything else, and Azula actively encouraged them to get together so she could control Zuko easier and keep him in the Fire Nation. Zuko leaving Mai behind felt like him embracing his true destiny. This entire thing falls apart when they get back together though, and them being so toxic in the comics is just further proving how dysfunctional they are (like, do they think this is going to sell us on the ship?). I also thought it was strange that apparently Zuko and Mai liked each other since they were kids but Mai never bothered to write him his entire banishment, Zuko never thought about her, Iroh never mentions her, Zuko was totally fine with going on a date with Jin (which Iroh also encouraged), and Iroh thought Zuko and Katara would make a good couple as soon as he saw them interacting as friends. It makes me think Bryke just created Mai and put her with Zuko as a way to discourage Zutara shippers but then forgot to develop her properly. Zuko doesn't even think about Mai after she risked his life to save him lol.

I'm about to make this a long answer, sorry about that :)

I love narrative, and I love to analyze how it is built. Narrative is the way a story is shaped to express its themes. Narrative is using the events within the story to build metaphors. Narrative is the smart foreshadowing, the parallels, the foils. Narrative is intentional, until it isn't.

I am not a professional. I do not have a college degree on this subject. I just like to think about what can make writing be great or lacking. I am merely expressing my personal opinion on this show and these characters, not stating an universal truth.

ATLA is such a well-written show. It treats its themes maturely and builds the story and characters masterfully. Of course, it isn't perfect, as nothing made by human hands is meant to be. ATLA has issues with its storyline and characters and, ultimately, with the narrative itself.

Aang's character arc is different to Zuko's in that, while Zuko's is focused on change, Aang's ultimately ends with him standing his ground. (And isn't that poetic? That in order to grow they need to embrace the philosophy of their opposite element?)

Zuko was forced to change in order to survive from a very young age. He learned to suppress his true, compassionate nature, to become The Perfect Prince—that which Azula embodies. When Zuko fails to do this, he is burnt and tossed away and forced to change once more. He has been hurt and thus is the farthest he has ever been from his true self—Zuko almost forgets who he is.

Zuko's arc, in that way, is similar to Aang's. It's about staying true to himself, but also about learning, about opening his eyes to the horror and using that same passion he has always had to do the right thing. Zuko changes, not into the person he was, but into someone who could, in the future, turn into the better version of himself.

Aang is different. Aang is a child born into peace, who does not have the personal, terrible experience of his people's genocide or the hundred years of war that have left the world wrecked. Aang's arc is about changing and learning and adapting to this new reality, about accepting his role as the Avatar. But it's also about standing firm and saying, "This is who I am, this is where I come from—pain will not break me".

Aang's struggle to control the Avatar State was all about that. The Avatar State meant that Aang lost control. It meant the pain and the hurt had turned him into a thing of anger (righteous as it was) and instinct and awe. Aang needed to be at peace with himself in order to control the Avatar State.

That tiny rock at the final battle felt like an easy way out. It felt like taking from the sheer terror of watching yourself almost kill a man as if from afar. The real moment of triumph for Aang in the finale happened when he stopped. It happened when he took control back and ended the Avatar State, stopping himself from betraying what he believed in.

Was not killing Ozai truly the best choice? I won't get into that debate. I know where I stand on it, but it's not really the point I'm trying to make here.

Aang's triumph, character-wise, happens when he stands his ground and refuses to abandon who he is and what he believes in. And for someone whose flight or fight response almost always turns to flight, this is a huge deal.

Now, where do Katara and Mai stand on this?

It has always been clear to me (even as a Maiko shipper) that Mai was always supposed to be a narrative device. Her relationship with Zuko is supposed to give us, the viewers, and him, another reason to see that this isn't the life he wants, that everything isn't perfect even when it should be on paper.

Zuko goes back home. Zuko is welcomed by his nation with open arms. He is revered. Loved. His father tells him he is proud of him. Zuko has a doting girlfriend—a beautiful, noble girl who can kick his ass and is everything a Fire Prince could wish for. She is adequate and things with her are easy, untroubled. Zuko has everything he could wish for.

And yet he is not happy.

Mai and Zuko have issues that should not be pinned fully on either of them. They had trouble comunicating. They wanted different things in life. They had different ways to look at the world. Different ways to look at each other. Different ways to cope. Different ways to express themselves. Different expectations.

And that's okay. It's possible to make a relationship like that work. Nobody is perfect and no relationship is flawless. Opposites attract and it's possible to find a middle ground in which they can both be happy.

Except they never truly did.

Mai and Zuko's relationship was a plot device. One that did its job damn well... Until it didn't.

If your relationship with the girl is supposed to symbolize the lowest point in your life, and going back into being someone you don't like anymore, then why get back to her when the story is over?

As for Katara, well...

Many things have been said about the abandoned Letting Go Of Katara arc. I'd like to avoid that discussion right now, if that's okay.

I think Zuko and Katara's relationship would have made a lot of sense both narratively and thematically, but also (and most importantly) it would have made sense character-wise.

Give them a few years, let them explore the beautiful friendship they had at the end of the series. Let them find themselves and grow into their roles in this different, exciting new world. Let them reconnect.

If they fall in love in the process? Well, maybe it was a long time coming.

#dema answers #This isn't really anti Maiko or anti Kataang. Maiko was my OTP for the longest time and I thought Kataang was cute on my first watch #There's no reason to be upset with canon. It is what it is. We have the chance to explore it and wonder how it could have been even better #That's the beauty of fanwork

104 notes · View notes

leikeliscomet · 5 days ago

Text

Im just gonna say it: the exact same argument about series 11 having a woman playing the Doctor but w/ inconsistent politic & fake activism applies to series 14 & a lil of RTD2 in general but in Black. Respectability politics & flimsy anti racism all over the shop

It thinks futuristic racism corrects racism "being a thing of the past" but then actively erases said racism of Britain's past. Twice. Not only that but it glorifies the 60s & regency period. Does "powerful" white supremacy commentary then slaps a regency wig on 15's head 😭

It should go without saying that 1960s & 1800s Britain wasnt some post racial utopia. The show would rather make these periods more progressive than they really were instead of telling the stories of the POC living there or hell, show us history outside of 'the West'

It treats the dehumanisation of Black people as an inevitable part of future society. Fifteen has to be a perfect non violent victim of racism but can fridge the goblin king & the chuldur easy. Racism can/must exist but fighting back or having any reaction to ur oppressor can't.

The gag is RTD understands racial oppression when it affects *him* tho. The oppression of the Welsh is acknowledged in present day Earth bc it's a real part of history. Its addressed again in 2046 bc it's still relevent in the future. & did Ruby save Roger? No she got him gone!

It sanitises its own history. The Doctor has called out racial supremacy, human or not since day. And no they didn't always save *everyone*. Against the establishment to begging it & partying with it too apparently. Rosa has issues but at least it was hopeful...

It treats Fifteen as a white character made Black which has weird implications for a non human being from a "post racial" society. Thirteen wasn't a "human woman" but she still had the agency to call out every misogynist she met. Lawd forbid she cried over Jack Robertson 😭

Despite having a Black Doctor they're written for a white audience. 'It's not about Black people, its about white people' sealed the deal. It treats their Blackness as circumstantial & not something they'll have to deal with regardless of time period playing it safe & palatable

This 1 should be self explanatory. If Donna's seen the Doctor's mind then she knows Fugitive Doctor exists so yes the Doctor comes in a range of different colours 🤪🤪 And again if he's not a human Black man but an alien then why is it a surprise that he can change race? Ugh...

Isaac Newton wasn't that deep bc he's only there for the mavity gag but it opened a fuck ton of racism towards Nathaniel Curtis & antiblackness bc the racists camping the tag thought he was Black. 'Owning the right 🤪' at the expense of POC in the show & fandom. Great job there..

RTD made the point of the Toymaker being racist then keeps him anyway? Takes a jab about cultural appropriation in Pyramids of Mars then based the finale on it anyway w/ Sutekh? Not even entertaining the Black Guardian ting. Like what's the point of any of this? It feels so fake.

Carla's not as egregious as the previous but apart from RTD copying & posting her name from Clyde's mum in SJA, she doesn't get a lot to do outside supporting Ruby's storyline. S14 then ends with Ruby calling her bio mum her "real" mum so her serving role didn't mean much anyway

The Giggle was the 1st flag bc it conflated all political related anger as bad bc it's anger instead of love 😫✊🏻without *single* look at why the current political climate is the way that it is. Pandemic, genocides, climate change & govt corruption yh ppl will be angry Russell 🥴

Series 11 at least gets to gas itself up for having women write for the 1st female Doctor and having Black and South Asian writers for the first time in the show's history (which isn't a great achievement but ah well)

Series 14 doesn't have that to its credit.

Black woman who only exists to boost white characters stories, racism stories that don't give their Black characters full agency & 0 follow up of their experiences only this time w/ no Black writers. Same tings different font. What improvement was made exactly?

Tl;Dr - We have the 1st Black Doctor in the main lineup but this series handles race and racism poorly. There's barely any improvement from how race was handled in RTD1 and his handling of Black characters in Years & Years and It's a Sin hasn't been brought over. 🥴

#doctor who #fandom racism #fandom antiblackness #antiblackness #racism #show analysis #doctor who analysis #rtd2 era #rtd2 #rtd critical #anti rtd #rtd #chibnall era #performative activism #wild blue yonder #73 yards #the giggle #dot and bubble #rogue

51 notes · View notes

meimi-haneoka · 7 months ago

Text

Clear Card Trivia 3 ~ Sakura's journey of growth and self-understanding throughout Cardcaptor Sakura Clear Card

Hello and welcome back to my "Clear Card Trivia" series, a collection of informative posts where I delve into certain aspects of the story of Cardcaptor Sakura Clear Card! ✨

The topic I will talk about today has been on my "to-do list" for long time. It's something I felt the need to talk about, and I won't hide the reason why: the desire to fully eviscerate this topic grew particularly after reading around certain criticism of Clear Card Arc. But also after listening to CLAMP's Twitter Spaces, particularly the ones towards the end of the story.

It's something that, setting aside my obvious love for the new characters, will always make me think that Clear Card Arc has been a very welcome addition to the series.

This post will delve into Sakura's growth throughout Clear Card Arc.

Sakura grew up considerably during the story, and had a character development that sadly not many people truly realized.

I'm not talking about an evolution of the character design which, despite changing and evolving throughout the story (as it's expected for a long-running serialization), kept depicting Sakura consistently with quite young looks...no, I'm talking about her mental growth, in relation to her self-knowledge and her relationship with her magic powers.

A journey that might almost feel "frustrating", because it is full of "up and downs", and Sakura sometimes seems to be taking one step forward and two back. Aside from the obvious practical reasons (the plot had to develop several other storylines simultaneously), it very much reflects the realistic growth of a pre-teen, which is never a straight line but is made of improvements and relapses.

Along the journey, I couldn't really avoid mentioning some bits of the development of Sakura's relationship with Syaoran, which will get its own deep and detailed post another day.

There's also an extra about the significance of the Clear Cards in the story, at the end.

I have to be honest, the post is very long, but I tried to insert visual elements to make it easier on the eye. If you're curious to know how the hell I found so much to talk about for this specific topic, follow me under the cut and dive into Sakura's journey throughout Clear Card (it's also a good way to review the story)! ✨

A Disconnected Beginning

Clear Card Arc starts in a very "festive" and happy way: everything is peaceful, a new exciting chapter of Sakura's educational life is starting with the beginning of middle school, Syaoran is back to Tomoeda, this time to stay forever with his beloved girl...everything seems so perfect. And precisely in chapter 1, before everything takes an unexpected turn, we have this scene here, which I consider the "true" beginning of everything:

Sakura says "I haven't been using this lately...well, that's for the better".

At the beginning of Clear Card Arc, Sakura seems to be feeling disconnected from her natural gift.

Despite she had to go on a quest to collect all the Clow Cards, which later she gave a new life to by changing them into Sakura Cards, we have to remember that Sakura was born with magic powers. They weren't bestowed on her by Kero-chan, nor by the contract with the Clow Book: she always had magic in her blood, and it apparently "woke up" on that fateful day she found the Clow Book in the library of her father.

At the beginning of this arc, Sakura seems to think that the purpose, the meaning of this natural gift which is literally part of herself, has been fulfilled by transforming all the Cards, and splitting Eriol's power as he had requested. Her words here seem to be suggesting a general idea of "if I have to use this key (therefore, my magic powers), it means something troublesome is happening, so it's better if I'm not using it because it means everything is okay".

And although we can't really deny that what happened afterwards is far from being able to be considered "peaceful", this scene here always left a bad taste in my mouth because there's almost a negative vibe attached to the idea of her magic, transpiring from Sakura's words. It's almost as if she's politely rejecting it.

Precisely after she places her Star Key in her jewelry box, probably hoping to never have to use it again, she has her first premonitory dream of the events that will shake her life afterwards. Almost as if her powers were trying to tell her "no my dear, this is you and you'd better come to terms with it as soon as possible".

Then, as we all know, the Cards turn blank. Sakura produces a new key while having another dream and a quest to fight and "secure" some strange phenomena happening around her begins, leaving her in a state of increasing confusion.

This is the beginning of the part of the story that I quite literally call "Sakura loses sight of herself".

At this very early stage of the story, she still doesn't know that she started losing control over her increasing magical power, and it is definitely not a coincidence that all of this began when she thought of shutting her main magic tool away in a box, hoping to ignore it forever. For plot reasons, this also happens simultaneously to Syaoran taking the spirits of the Sakura Cards away from her (because in the beginning, you had to be tricked into thinking he was up to something shady and was the real mastermind behind all the incidents).

Syaoran expected for Sakura to lose control over her powers, as his mother predicted a general period of trouble for her that could lead her to unhappiness, albeit without any clear indication of what could happen: Syaoran came to Japan knowing something was bound to happen to his girl and her powers, and that something was going to lead her to grief, but he had no idea about all the rest. So his uncertain and reckless approach, which ended up in some cases worsening the situation, is also somewhat understandable. He was acting like a worried, overprotective boyfriend at his wit's end.

The strange events, which Sakura materializes into a new set of Cards, surely leave her distraught and confused, not to mention the situation with the Sakura Cards and Eriol's missing replies, but I feel that what really destabilizes her core are the constant dreams she gets, sometimes even in the middle of her waking hours, making her faint on the spot wherever she is.

Premonitory dreams are a part of her natural gift that she began to express ever since the OG manga, but she never seemed to really understand them or take them seriously.

This time around, she keeps seeing this cloaked figure and this terrifying dragon, no one speaks a word despite her relentless questions and the cloaked figure seems to be wanting to take her newly made key away (Lilie!!! what were you trying to do!! *facepalm* she probably tried to pull her closer so she could talk to her), so it's just normal that all of that leaves her increasingly stressed and anxious, even though initially you never see her openly and verbally stating that, due to her overall positive nature ("I'll manage it, somehow" is part of her "everything will be alright" invincible spell, and this is indeed what she keeps telling herself in the beginning of the arc, even though in some occasions it turned out to be a double-edged sword, as sometimes it looked more like sweeping her fears under the carpet, to me).

"Something Is Not Right"

Dream after dream, Card after Card, Sakura begins to have these general feelings of discomfort and of "something is not right, here", as she openly states to Syaoran in this scene of volume 4, chapter 14. There's something about this situation that is pricking her sixth sense, and makes her uneasy, but she can't quite put her finger on it yet. All she can do is to keep "fighting" these phenomena happening around her, hoping to find out more along the way. She reiterates the same feeling of uneasiness at the end of chapter 15, after what I consider one of the most concerning side-effects of her poor control over her powers: Sakura seems almost "in trance" while she leads her guardians to the exit of the maze, and acts in a very uncharacteristic, cold way by shoving her bag in front of Yue to make him hold it for her. It's almost as if her magical sixth sense worked too strongly and warped her personality in that moment: an effect that has been mentioned several times in relation to powerful magicians like Clow, Eriol and later Kaito too, so it's not farfetched at all to attribute this one-off occurrence to her loss of control over her strong powers, which ended up affecting her personality too. Luckily, it didn't happen again in the rest of the story and the capture of this Card was completely changed in the anime (a wise decision imho, since the JP fandom is particularly fussy about the integrity of Sakura's character, and she needed to stay "Sakura" in order to do what she did at the end).

At the culmination of a "mini arc" (the visit to great-grandpa Masaki) characterized by uncontrolled visions of Nadeshiko, another frightening dream (one that ended up dragging even Akiho in, due to the synchronization) and Sakura for the first time ever confronting Syaoran about the things he's been hiding from her, we reach the following scene of volume 5, chapter 23.

"I Wish I Had A Mirror"

I always considered this scene extremely important, because for the first time Sakura spells out clearly the inner turmoil that's been gnawing at her soul ever since this ordeal with the new Cards started.

"The truth is...I'm the worst at understanding myself. And that is probably causing lots of concern to everyone." "I wish I had a mirror. A mirror that could reflect the real me. Then, I would probably understand how to not make everyone worry"

Here, Sakura clearly spells out the frustration of knowing, feeling in her bones that there's something wrong with her, something that she's not understanding about herself, and that something is causing problems, but most importantly, is causing her loved ones to worry about her. Let's not forget that not only Syaoran, but also Yukito, Touya, Fujitaka, Tomoyo, Eriol & his family have all been watching her situation in apprehension, each of them making decisions and moving discretely in a direction they felt was right (and admittedly, not all instances were so).

Sakura can somehow feel all of that, she can feel that it's related to something she still hasn't realized about herself. This tends to be forgotten because it happens in a relatively early part of the plot, but notice how this is the same problem Kaito suffers from. A quite stunted ability to understand oneself. Sakura and Kaito definitely have lots in common, when it comes to this specific part of themselves. Keep this in mind, because it'll be relevant later.

And then, the situation worsens.

Sakura's dreams start to terrify her, because they begin to show Syaoran's face under the cloak of the mysterious figure who's scaring her in her dreams. An apparent truth she cannot accept, she won't accept, even though she's still unsure about what exactly these dreams she's having are. Despite her boyfriend has been acting shady for long time, she decides to trust him and wait for him to talk to her about all the stuff he's holding inside, instead of putting him through the wringer. This also means, though, that Sakura will keep all her fears to herself, eventually bottling up.

Furthermore, Kaito starts to rewind time to fix a situation without a way out (in chapter 28, Akiho was on the verge of going berserk completely and unleash the artifact), creating an additional sense of confusion when Sakura can feel that her finger is numb due to strain, but she can't understand why (she had fought Kaito's time magic unconsciously). Whenever Kaito will rewind time, even later on, Sakura's magical sixth sense will try to wake her consciousness up more and more, giving her these vibes of "deja vu" or making her act in an apparently inexplicable way.

In the first part of Clear Card, Sakura sometimes literally looks like a soul wandering about in confusion, dragged by the events.

I wish to point out that this is not a flaw in the characterization, it is a precise design by CLAMP. Sakura IS, in this part of the story, confused and lost, overwhelmed by the events. She has no idea how to approach this matter other than "treating the symptoms" as they come. This happens because she's still, surprisingly, quite reluctant to embrace a fundamental part of herself: her innate magic power, which expresses itself mainly through her intuition. But we'll gradually get there.

Around chapter 30, before the big realization, Sakura's situation reached a point where:

- her Sakura Cards unexpectedly became blank; - almost everyday (sometimes multiple times a day) there's a new incident that she secures into new transparent Cards; - she constantly sees ominous dreams (in scattered order) with a cloaked figure acting in a questionable way and a scary dragon, and at some point she starts seeing her boyfriend under that cloak; - her boyfriend acts shady, Eriol doesn't reply to her messages; - there's a general feeling of "something is not right" with her magic and some stuff starts to not make sense to her (because Kaito rewinds time)

It is at this point that Sakura finally moves one (giant) step forward and connects all the "puzzle pieces" she collected (particularly, how much more "obvious" the creation of a Card became) and understands that she's been the one causing subconsciously each and every single incident that lead to the creation of a new transparent Card.

"I'm Angry At Myself"

And with Syaoran finally coming clean with her (because at that point he had no reason to keep things hidden anymore, as the thing he was trying to delay ultimately happened - and believe me, I'm sure he partly felt relieved to not need to lie anymore, as that took quite a toll on him too), Sakura can at last give an explanation to at least a part of the things that are happening. And she finally realizes that the doubt that was tormenting her was true: she DID, in fact, not understand something very important about herself, she didn't realize that it was her own power going out of control and that all the incidents that happened bore "her magic signature", so to speak. She failed to "tune in" with her magic.

For the first time ever, Sakura expresses anger at herself.

She will direct that anger (to a lesser extent) to Syaoran too, but I'll tackle that in a separate post.

This is a moment of deep reflection and regrets for Sakura: the poor understanding of herself, the poor "communication" between her heart and her magic powers brought to a situation where her most beloved person was putting himself in danger in order to protect her, while trying to not make things escalate. This is a very sensitive, beautiful and important moment, steeped in conflicting and complex feelings (and remember, Sakura is just a pre-teen. It is normal for a pre-teen like her to not understand herself, but there's just one tiny detail: she's not a common pre-teen, due to her natural gift, and she needs to take that into account). Eventually Sakura calms down, and after creating Rewind, her resolute face while hugging tightly Syaoran suggests that from now on she'll face this matter from another, more courageous and determined perspective.

Or at least, these were her good intentions. Because unfortunately, insecurities are hard to eradicate and in the central part of the story it's shocking to realize how far longer Sakura will insist in shutting away her emotions and refusing to listen to her heart (and intuition) fully.

"It's Just My Imagination"

Part of Sakura's anxiety might have been sedated with the revelation that the Clear Cards are produced by the girl herself, but unfortunately the true core of her problems was not solved at all and will only surface more clearly in the next 20 chapters.

Sakura actively starts having "premonitory bad feelings" when she sees Akiho in volume 7 chapter 34, a bad feeling that she does check with Syaoran, but quickly dismisses as "well, it's just my imagination". This will basically be one of the major problems preventing her from reaching the complete control of her magic. Sakura, knowing her magic potential, should've given way more credit to her sixth sense, but her anxiety, her insecurity and her crippled connection to her innate gift still pushes her to dismiss these "signs" as nothing really important or true. Timely as hell, a few hours later something bad will indeed happen to Akiho, where she completely loses consciousness for the first time and the clan/Association actively starts to absorb Sakura's power through the artifact implanted in Akiho. All of this was caused by the high concentration of magic that "triggered" Akiho's artifact (and here I have to sarcastically "applaud" Kaito, just like Syaoran he's another one who does stuff before thinking through, ultimately worsening the problem).

Once trapped in Akiho's artifact, thanks to her power Sakura can see the most horrifying glimpse of Akiho's past, when she was turned into a magic artifact, by living it on her own skin. And even though Kaito is forced to rewind time once again to save the situation, erasing these memories from Sakura's head, her heart (which is tightly connected to her magical sixth sense - I'd daresay her heart is straight up the source of her magic) DOES REMEMBER, pushing Sakura to act in an apparently irrational way, crying and hugging Akiho tight in empathy. Sakura is particularly shaken by this feeling, still in pain even hours later, but once again she doesn't understand where it comes from. However, she does express with Syaoran an intention to talk to him about it once she's able to put it into words, and in the meantime do her best with all the rest. At least, there's an intention to understand better this part of herself, but it's still soon to see actual results.

Aaand CLAMP really seem to be wanting to test Sakura in this arc, because at this point of the plot, they add the electrocution spell. 😅 No one seems to understand who caused it (it's not Sakura, nor Kaito, but now we know it was none other than Yelan!!) and Sakura's anxiety increases once again. The fact only Syaoran gets affected by it inevitably reignites the doubts in her mind, unwittingly reminded of that terrifying dream of Cloaked Syaoran she keeps seeing...but she stubbornly keeps telling herself "no, it's not like that, it's just a dream". It's undeniable that this situation where she cannot understand her foretelling dreams yet, and the way they show her scattered hints because her power is out of control, has surely contributed to Sakura's insecurity when it comes to trust her own intuition.

Her power is so out of control at this point, that even when Kaito shrinks her and throws her in a hole carved into a tree (landing in a "world" created with magic where he hopes she'll create the right Card) her dreams take over again (it's apparent by the "shaaan" sound and how everything turns suddenly pitch black, a common background of her dreams), showing her Akiho in the dress she was wearing when she was turned into an artifact and, inevitably, Sakura's biggest fear, "Cloaked Syaoran". Pay attention because these visions she's getting here thanks to her power match what will happen later on: what the talking flowers tell her here will turn out to be the beginning of the lyrics of the main theme of the "Alice in Clockland" play. This vision of Cloaked Syaoran seemingly "about to do something" to Akiho horrifies Sakura to the point of screaming in terror and creating one of the most unsettling Cards, "Break". It is after this very scary moment that Sakura starts to wonder very specifically for what purpose she is creating all these Cards. The purpose is actually more than one, but she definitely posed herself THE RIGHT question, as this brings her one step closer to the core of the problem and eventually embracing her own magic abilities.

Then, between chapters 43 and 45 we finally start to see some changes in Sakura: surprisingly, she begins to listen more to her sixth sense, first catching Yukito red-handed while activating a newly acquired magic, and then wondering about a strange painful feeling in her chest when her father tells her that lately she and Akiho became even more similar. We were all lead to believe that this was the foreshadowing of Akiho taking her place (cause everything in the plot at this point deceivingly hints at Kaito wanting to switch them), but she actually was getting foreshadowings of the "rewritten world", where Sakura would genuinely feel wrecked to know that someone important to Akiho was missing, precisely when Akiho would've become part of her family as her twin. In fact, in chapter 45, before falling completely asleep, she hears again the ominous "you won't be able to come back" (the Association's threat to Kaito), wondering WHO wouldn't be able to come back - somehow, Sakura knows that it's not directed at her.

"Just Tell me Honestly How You Feel"

And then, we reach another moment that I consider pivotal for Sakura's growth during this Clear Card Arc. The moment when she's on the verge of breaking down and finally lets all her feelings out.

Her anxiety over the dream with the Cloaked Figure reached the highest peak, so much that she finally manifests a Card, Mirage, that challenges her precisely with that appearance. While Sakura battles that Card (which at the moment she still believes it's an actual person), she seems resoluted to get to the bottom of this story, and to pull down that hood to know the truth. You can really feel that she's so done with all this psychological torture. The fact the real Syaoran appears right at that moment and she finds out the person she saw was just a Card is partly a relief for her, but also throws Sakura again in despair because who the hell is that person in the dream, then??

Syaoran, as the good and attentive boyfriend he is, can just feel that Sakura is stressing over something, so he brings her to his home to help her calming down. And to her umpteenth attempt at sweeping her negative emotions under the carpet, beating around the bush commenting over the tea with a fake smile, he cuts immediately her bullshit and just tells her : "You don't need to force yourself. Just tell me how you feel right now". When she hears that she's allowed to speak out her emotions with honesty, Sakura wears on her face one of the most heartbreaking expressions of the entire manga. She's literally about to break down in tears of exhaustion, as you can see it above. ☝️ Listening to her, gradually, Syaoran encourages Sakura to get out all that's been torturing her lately, particularly about the dream with the Cloaked Figure. It is a very difficult moment for her, because she has to relive the dream, and expose in front of him all the fears and doubts that were trying to tamper with her trust in him. Courageously, she goes through with it, even though her denial ("it's just a dream!") is so strong that she ends up creating another Card: "Dreaming". Sakura at first seems relieved to see the Card, in the hope that everything she saw was indeed a mere messed up dream and nothing else (see? she's again self-sabotaging her relationship with her magic) but Syaoran with his frankness is quick to bring her feet on the ground: the kanji on the Card show "yumemi", and the word can also indicate a "foretelling dream".

Although Sakura seems disheartened at first, her next dream with the Cloaked Figure is much more relaxed, so much that even the dragon doesn't particularly scare her anymore: our girl's intuition makes her correctly feel a sense of loneliness in this dream, which she attributes to the hooded figure, not realizing that it was more likely coming from the dragon itself (aka, Kaito). After all, in chapter 72, Lilie will confirm that her presence ended up distracting her from the one "character" she should've paid all of her attention to. Her intuition, despite being misattributed, ended up having a positive effect through the synchronization with Akiho: the girl will wake up with the same feeling of discomfort of her friend, and as if guided by hitsuzen, she will head to the garden where she'll find a sickly Kaito staring at the moon - most likely feeling the loneliness Sakura perceived in her dream. I like to think that in this scene of chapter 48, Sakura subconsciously helped Akiho comforting Kaito, by waking her up with the unresting feeling, precisely when Kaito needed it the most. Still not completely embraced her magical sixth sense yet, but a significant improvement.

The road between chapter 48 and chapter 52 is paved with lots of struggles, as the Mirror Sakura Card gets stolen by Kaito, Sakura runs the risk of being absorbed into Akiho's artifact again, she meets Momo for the first time and she's even given a hint about Kaito's plan (or what Momo thought was his plan, as he had benignly lied to her about that), but almost all of that gets rewound and erased when Kaito intervenes. Moreover, despite not remembering anything consciously, Sakura is left with a sense of unhappiness when she looks at her home, a remnant of her brief journey in the world of Momo's book which straight up threw her into despair, showing her what her life would be if everyone forgot about her. She also finds once again a Card produced out of nowhere, "Time": I'm convinced she produced this Card because her conscience was awake while Momo and Kaito talked in stopped time, and their conversation triggered her sixth sense to produce Time as a result. Needless to say, all of this worsens her state of mind once again, which leads to the other pivotal, and finally resolutive, scene of chapter 52.

Never Avert Your Eyes From Your Heart

We finally get to what I consider THE scene, the one that will definitively shake Sakura from her deadlock, from the anxiety that stunted her connection with her innate gift and her deepest emotions. And the one who helps her overcoming all her fears is, of course, the love of her life - with a honorable mention for none other than his mother Yelan!!

Chapter 52 got a very, very special place in my heart, because it's basically one giant parallel between SyaoSaku and YunaAki. The two pairings experience similar situations, but the response from one side of each pairing is quite different. Let's remind you for a moment of the part earlier in this post when I told you that Kaito and Sakura, for most of Clear Card, surprisingly have one thing in common: they don't seem to understand themselves well enough, and both have a tendency to look away from feelings that cause unrest to their hearts - anxiety for Sakura, love for Kaito.

Syaoran, always attentive and observant towards his girlfriend, notices immediately that Sakura is suffering, as soon as he sees her at school. Despite being unable to touch her to comfort her, he offers all of himself to support and listen to her concerns. Sakura is visibly and pleasantly surprised of how the boy could read behind her mask, that usual contrived smile with which she tries to dissimulate her emotions and not make him worry. A bad habit she's consolidated lately, but that Syaoran is gently determined to dismantle. After opening up with him (and this is where Sakura differs from Kaito - by having an established relationship made of love and trust with Syaoran, Sakura lowers her walls with him), she falls once again into the usual trap of "but maybe it's just my imagination" and I love to see how Syaoran is her anchor to the ground, making her see the concreteness of this situation: he straight up tells her "you produced a Card out of it, it cannot be 'just your imagination'. " And then, like a precious family gift, he passes on to her the priceless words of wisdom of his mother Yelan, an advice that not only Sakura, but also the other "lost soul" of the other paralleling pairing should listen to:

"People with magical power should never ignore the turmoil and stirring in their hearts, the so-called 'intuition'. And it’s not limited to people with magical powers. People should never avert their eyes from the changes in their heart."

This is a turning point for Sakura. These words seem to positively "break" something inside of her, showing her the correct path to follow. CLAMP beautifully portray this process of "embracing and assimilating" the words she's just heard, by making her place her hand over her heart. I love when they do that (they used the same visual when Akiho heard Kaito's true name, and 'wrote it' on the most important page of the book of her life). Sakura is truly grateful for the words Syaoran relayed to her, precisely what she needed to get out of her impasse with her feelings and magic. She knows she can always count on the support of her soulmate even in the darkest moments, and she's thankful for having him in her life.

From this moment onwards, Sakura will experience several instances where her magical premonitory senses give her signals through the "stirring" of her heart. Contrarily to before, she starts to actively take them seriously, listening, without dismissing them as the delirium of an anxious little girl. This allows her to activate the Siege Card in the fraction of a second, successfully shielding herself from Kaito's time magic, making her the first person ever who achieved that. This also leads her to effectively remember that she saw Kaito using magic, even when time was rewound by him, and contact immediately Syaoran to talk about it, planning how to move from that moment onwards. A little relapse on her bad habit is immediately dispelled by Syaoran, and our girl even goes as far as saying "there's something inside Akiho", even though she's not sure exactly why she's feeling that way. But it's an intuition she's having and she decides to not dismiss it anymore, with everyone trusting and supporting her in that direction. By listening more and better to what her heart tells her, Sakura also decides to not confront Akiho about Kaito and his magic, because she's well aware of the feelings Akiho got for Kaito and she doesn't want to potentially disrupt their relationship. So, she decides to wait for her friend to talk about it first.

Thanks to this better understanding of her own intuition, she also says in chapter 57 that she wants to meet the guardian of the book "Alice in Clockland" once more, despite not remembering if and when she's met her before. This also ultimately leads her to accept the role of Alice in the upcoming play scripted by her friend Naoko, because her sixth sense tells her that it's inevitable for her to do so. It's important to emphasize how the other characters support and encourage her to listen to her innate gift, at this point, without trampling over her self-determination like they did before.

It is a moment of big growth and character development for everyone.

The Ultimate Growth: Finding a Meaning and a Purpose

What happens afterwards is history: the fateful "Alice in Clockland" play unfolds, and Kaito completes his plan to push Sakura to create the Card he needs, exchanging his magic artifact (the watch) with Akiho's one (the book), in addition to activating the forbidden magic to rewrite the memories of everyone, to fit Akiho as part of Sakura's family.

Sakura's intuition will be crucial to wake her true self up while in Clockland, succeeding in beating Kaito's magic multiple times, till Syaoran comes in and gives the "final blow", cutting off the spell definitively.

And even when everything seems lost because Kaito successfully activated the fobidden magic, changing their memories and erasing himself from their existence, Sakura's magic and sixth sense keep making her say things she either already said or heard before in the "unrewritten world". Not only that, but even after meeting Lilie in a dream and forgetting her face (due to the strong influence of the forbidden spell), bit and pieces of that conversation keep coming back to her, and she listens dutifully to every single one of these "feelings". Kaito might have overridden part of their memories (only the ones concerning him, Akiho and the events connected to the creation of the Cards), but the experience, feelings and personal growth of each character were left untouched, that's why the chemistry between Sakura and Syaoran is the same as before the play started, but also Sakura's personal relationship with her magic is far better than before (an information that might have seemed random and unimportant is that now Sakura summons Mirror even just to chat, an indication of her completely changed perspective on her magic).

Now that Sakura finally embraced her magical power, all that's left for her is to find a true purpose for it.

A question echoes in my mind, "What am I creating these Cards for?". Sakura poses herself this question halfway through the story, and she finds the answer to it precisely at the end of the journey.

Her powerful magic intuition, combined with her immense empathy, leads her to realize that somebody is missing from their reality, and that person is the one Akiho loves. At this point Sakura is unstoppable: she wants to listen to the voice in her heart that's screaming "Go and help them!! Give the true happiness back to Akiho!", and everyone can only follow her lead as she assertively puts into practice what her heart is telling her to do.

Sakura in this final part of the story shines brighter than ever. She's more assertive and self-confident than ever. All of this is because there's something she strongly wants to do with her innate gift, as Eriol unequivocally says in chapter 75: her power grows exponentially again, but this time it's not out of her control - it is Sakura herself who's voluntarily boosting it, thanks to her strong wish. And that allows her to control it and use it exactly as she wants.

In chapter 79 her growth reaches the highest peak, by handling the resolution of Akiho and Kaito's personal problems in an admirable way (she steps aside for a moment to give Akiho all the agency she needed), but also finding herself in front of an uncomfortable dilemma, which leads her to an unavoidable reality: Sakura quickly understands that she cannot be on everyone's side and there are lines to be drawn at some point. She can't be a pure and oblivious girl forever. She needs to grow up. There are choices to be made, especially when dealing with real evil people.

And Sakura choses to go on with the people she loves, even if that means she has to "stain" her "moral record" a little bit.

Empowered by this strong wish to fix the situation, she literally gives life to a miracle, protecting her dear friend and her beloved from the grasp of their abusers, simultanously giving everyone their true memories back. The effort exerts her greatly, but what she achieved is by far the most important thing she's ever done with her magic power till now: she helped two dear people lost in a life-and-death situation. Her magical growth went along with her personal, mental one.

This is also the reason why the accusations of "the other magicians should've trained her" end up being in vain: Sakura's problem with her powers was mainly on a personal level, not on a technical one. This was a journey she had to mainly walk by herself, finding the right balance and confidence in her abilities, deep down in her heart.

No one could've done that for her.

Merely training the practical aspect of it would've just worsened the situation, because Sakura wouldn't have been truly "in it" with her heart and mind. She needed to go through this process of growth, before reaching this stage of self-awareness in relation to her magic powers. I truly feel this is the reason why CLAMP made certain choices inside this story. Again, as I always say, a good part of Cardcaptor Sakura does revolve around magic, but the main focus and linchpin of this story is and always will be the main character's heart, her growth and the interpersonal relationships with her loved ones.

This makes Clear Card Arc, in my opinion, a worthy sequel and a full-fledged part of the Cardcaptor Sakura series. I think those who decide to skip it or read it with a superficial approach miss a journey of tremendous growth for our beloved protagonist.

So much for those who kept saying "This is not Sakura's story".

How can all that ☝️ NOT be Sakura's story?

I'll let you judge. 😊

Extra: The Significance of the Clear Cards

I want to digress for a moment about a thorny topic: the significance of the Clear Cards in this story.

Sakura isn't always completely passive towards the events happening around her, but wonders several times during the story why all those Cards are manifesting like that. While the first and easiest answer is of course "because her powers are going out of control" (and this is something Momo herself questions Sakura about in chapter 50), it becomes apparent at some point that the more the story goes on, the more the Cards that are created by her are particularly relevant and connected to the events that will happen in the final part of the story.

I know this is a sore spot for many who complain about not understanding the purpose of the Clear cards. It's because people tend to compare this set of Cards with the ones Sakura captured previously. That's not the right way to look at them, because their origin and purpose are different and change throughout the story. Forget about the Sakura Cards, even though so many of these "Clear Cards" (which are never called so, not even once, in the story itself, but just "new cards" or "transparent cards") might look so similar in purpose to the previous ones.

First of all, the Clear Cards are an outlet for Sakura to vent in a healthy way her power in excess. Power that if kept inside, untapped and confined in her body, might have unpredictable harmful effects on her (<- probably the grief Yelan foresaw). God bless the Clear Cards for existing and allowing Sakura to vent out these bouts of uncontrolled power in a relatively safe way.

The Cards that Sakura produces in the beginning are sometimes reminiscing of the Sakura Cards, because her power manifests itself basing on Sakura's experiences, feelings, thoughts and wishes. The Sakura Cards are an important part of her life (before Syaoran took them, she literally acted like their "mom", keeping them alive with her power) so it's only normal that the first base for some of these new Cards would be a magic tool that she already knows. In this sense, it becomes easier to understand why many of the "captures" seem so easy, way too easy compared to what a reader would expect from a sequel: the goal of the capture here isn't to make her power and experience in capturing cards grow. She already had 2 arcs to do all of that. The capture of the Cards in this third arc becomes something new and unexpected: a "damage control" of a regrettable situation with Sakura's powers, while she learns to dominate them and enter into harmony with her supernatural abilities. The growth Sakura needs here is mainly a mental one. Performing her magical power aimlessly without having a true connection with it and a true understanding will only exacerbate the problem. This is the reason why, despite having a "capture" element, Clear Card derails from the previous arcs in the purpose of the capture. It's a pity that an element that should've brought freshness to the plot was in many cases received as an actual flaw.

In the beginning, as Sakura's power is completely out of her control, some Cards might look completely random too - they don't look based on Cards, thoughts or wishes (like Appear, Reflect, Action, etc.). But pay attention, because the more the story goes on, the more the Cards begin to become particularly specific to something that shook Sakura's heart in that moment, or referencing events/feelings that will become pivotal to the events Sakura will experience later. Especially regarding Kaito's plan. Many of the later Cards Sakura produces are a direct reflection of the feelings and wishes that Kaito infused in the activation of the forbidden magic, with the creation of "the story for Akiho", the one he wanted to absolutely have a happy ending for. Cards like Repair, Promise, Choice, Kindness, True and False, Synchronization, Rewind....many of them didn't even get to express their magical abilities in a "conventional way" (everyone expected to see Sakura literally activating them like she does with all the others), but it's just because at that point the Cards Sakura is producing are born following her premonitory intuition: thanks to the hints/speeches that those Cards give her in Clockland, Sakura little by little regains consciousness of her true self (it's a pity that many English readers will never realize all the times Sakura was about to "wake up" in Clockland, because the translation didn't respect the change in fonts of the JP text). Sakura wasn't supposed to "use" them in a conventional way (how do you "use" Kindness? You force people to be "kind"? 🤨 and what about Choice??), she was supposed to listen to them and let them guide her towards the truth. This is also the reason why all of these Cards bear the face of her loved ones. Think of them as tarots. Which is, incidentally, another use of the original Clow/Sakura Cards. I am basically sure of this interpretation because the kanji of some of those Cards I mentioned above are brought up during the climax: particularly when Akiho talks to Kaito in chapter 78, she uses two specific verbs, referring to Kindness (慈愛 - a kind of gentle and tender love) when she describes the love and support her family gives her in this rewritten world, and to Choice (選択) when she questions Kaito about his choice to disappear completely from her life. So to summarize, the last Cards Sakura produced "accidentally" weren't accidental at all, but were actually specifically produced by her power in reference to Kaito's plan, to help her finding the way out to a dire situation. This represents a very important indicator in the plot: at that stage of the story, Sakura started to listen more and more to her intuition and her sixth sense, finally quitting her bad habit of downplaying it ("maybe it's just me") but actually giving it credit and taking it seriously, trusting her instinct to lead her in the right direction. And this was, of course, all thanks to the speech Syaoran gave her back in chapter 52. It is also the case of the Rewind Card, which Sakura will ultimately understand the purpose of on her own, at the very end of the series. That's the moment where everything will become clear and make sense to her: "This Card, too...I created it precisely for this moment". The Clear Cards ultimately became the embodiment of her foretelling powers. Which then led to the birth of the first two consciously created Cards, Blank & Remind, which will become so important in the climax.

If we ever get a new arc in the next years, we'll certainly deal with a more mature Sakura, who's more in sync with her magical powers 🩷.

#card captor sakura #cardcaptor sakura #clear card arc #ccsakura #sakura card captor #clamp #sakura kinomoto #syaosaku #clear card trivia #I hope this post will make you look at Clear Card from another perspective #I'm sorry for the length but I really wanted to make a deep dive

112 notes · View notes