#but also yeah i love delving into the psyches of characters its my favorite part of writing and dev | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

sk1fanfiction · 4 years ago

Text

the many faces of tom riddle, part 5

- more myth than man... or not? the mortality of tom riddle and the anatomy of a villain-

That leaves us with Ralph Fiennes’ portrayal of adult Tom Riddle/Lord Voldemort in movies 4-8.

I generally find adult Tom Riddle disappointing, even in the books, in terms of character depth. Instead of delving into his motivations and the inner psychology of a villain, we get... slight body horror? And in the movies, it’s even more egregious.

If a story is as good as its villain, adult Tom Riddle is a bit of a let-down, especially on-screen.

“I was ripped from my body, I was less than spirit, less than the meanest ghost . . . but still, I was alive.”

Perhaps the very first time I watched it, I found this scary, but I must confess that nowadays, Voldemort’s resurrection is more funny to me than anything else. The forked tongue and the nose slits, yes, are supposed to allude to Tom Riddle’s loss of humanity, but I don’t think it...worked out that way in practice.

I know that’s how it is in the books, but ugly equals evil (and vice versa) is a tired trope. not only that, but under the CGI, Lord Voldemort is so difficult to relate to, so inhuman, that it’s hard to (1) see his true depravity (2) connect with him emotionally (3) at least for me, not laugh at him flapping around the graveyard in GOF like an oversized crow.

Now, the reason I’m going on about this is not (just) me being petty. Lord Voldemort is the Boggart for most of the characters in the HP universe, meaning their greatest fear is Lord Voldemort. He represents Fear; as such, he should be utterly terrifying. Now, I don’t mean horrifying in that sense, but Voldemort’s grand entrance should at least feel somewhat unsettling, have some sort of a Gothic atmosphere...

"But then, through the mist in front of him, he saw, with an icy surge of terror, the dark outline of a man, tall and skeletally thin, rising slowly from inside the cauldron."

Visually, this looks great. But it’s not scary. And I’m not a purist by any means, but the words are scarier than the book. Darkness induces fear.

“The lack of any kind of visual stimuli increases anxiety, uncertainty, and tension.”

So, having Voldemort’s pale body materialize isn’t as scary as it could be.

Furthermore, I think Fiennes’ overexaggerated expressions would actually come across as properly horrifying/threatening rather than funny if they just left his face alone. Yes, Fiennes does manage to emote the fear and the anger through the CGI, but it’s like he’s too alien to be scary, at least to me. The amount of memes with Voldemort suggest I’m not the only one this way inclined.

I think there’s probably a problem going on with the uncanny valley. (Images from the Mori essay linked).

[When things are still]

[Creepy things are creepier when moving]

Now, I assume Voldemort is meant to be zombie-creepy, or at least that how Harry describes him in the books.

"The thin man stepped out of the cauldron, staring at Harry...and Harry stared back into the face that had haunted his nightmares for three years. Whiter than a skull, with wide, livid scarlet eyes and a nose that was flat as a snake's but with slits for nostrils...."

Now, we can’t get Harry’s experience of being haunted by Voldemort in his dreams, because what I think makes Voldemort’s countenance so truly frightening to the other characters isn’t his snake-like nose or his red eyes, but the potential. Voldemort is, in essence, the Grim Reaper. You are at his mercy, and you’re probably going to be dead.

“This time, I shall enter the fray myself, Harry Potter, and I shall find you, and I shall punish every last man, woman, and child who has tried to conceal you from me. One hour.“

And yes, Voldemort can be quite funny and witty, but..

“I will allow you to perform an essential task for me, one that many of my followers will give their right hands to perform.” (To Peter Pettigrew)

...it’s still incredibly dark, sadistic humour. Whereas the teenage Tom Riddle we’ve been discussing has just barely dipped his toes into evil, Voldemort is, well... swimming in it. At this point, he think he undeniably enjoys causing pain.

And much of what makes Voldemort scary is subtle.

For example, what I personally consider haunting is the fact that he’s got a cave full of Inferi. A cave full of reanimated dead bodies.

Either he dug them up, which is unlikely... or perhaps, a twenty-seven-or-so-year-old Tom Riddle would lie in wait like a bird of prey, very quietly and patiently, perhaps reading a book, waiting for an unsuspecting Muggle to wander past. Maybe killing is a game to him at this point, when it’s not so personal as killing Harry Potter. Maybe it’s a whispered Avada Kedavra, and then he carries the dead body away to his cave. Maybe he Imperiuses them to walk off the cliff. Maybe he tortures them first.

Shudder.

And I don’t think you can show that kind of horror through any CGI or make-up, so...

You know what is terrifying? Revolting? True crime; real-life people who do unspeakably horrible things. And I think a lot was missed out on, in stripping Tom Riddle physically of his humanity. Yes, Riddle is a monster...

But, as we’ve seen, he’s a human monster, not some eldritch horror from the seventh level of hell or something.

I just think it would be interesting to have this perfectly normal-looking human do all the horrific things Voldemort does. I want to see that sick joy in a human face and feel disgusted. I want to see fear make his bottom lip tremble, and feel a misplaced sense of empathy. (Think President Snow from the Hunger Games -- now, that’s a sick, twisted villain who we can relate to as a human being, but still love to hate -- or what about The Joker?).

And out of everything they chose to CGI, why on earth did they not make his eyes scarlet? That might have made him look at least somewhat menacing, rather than a failed lab experiment.

(Don’t even get me started on his and Bellatrix’s death scenes in the movies-)

Here’s President Snow. He’s got a cute little granddaughter, he sends kiddies to kill each other Battle Royale-style every year, and he poisons all his political opponents. He’s also a master manipulator and has a penchant for white roses. They cover up the smell of the sores in his mouth from eating the poison too, to conceal his treachery.

Heath Ledger as the Joker in Dark Knight (2008), who is, according to NYT (which I totally agree with), the best Joker. Now this is a villain done right, with many Voldemort-like traits. On a scale of one-to-ten, he’s absolutely terrifying. Why? He’s (unlike Voldemort in the movies) incredibly intelligent, shows young-Tom-Riddle-like skills for charm and manipulation, plays with humans like they’re his own personal psychology experiment (and to hell with the Institutional Review Board), and has one, single, very clear goal -- chaos. Like Voldemort, he wears an inhuman mask that’s not horrifying in its own right; but unlike Voldemort, the human is all there -- terrifying, real, and with a bottomless, obsessive desire to destroy. His disordered thinking is all out there for the audience to see. The Joker’s motivation is to enjoy himself; whereas Voldemort seems to lack drive. Why does he want to take over the world -- who knows, with Voldemort? The Joker wants to see it burn.

Let’s try to do the same with Lord Voldemort:

[SLIGHT FLASH WARNING]

I had to go with this because Voldemort isn’t legitimately terrifying in many scenes. And yes, this unrefined anger somewhat speaks to Tom’s immaturity

By this point, seventy-one year old Tom Riddle is a hollowed-out shell of a human being. After decades of building his power, he was defeated by a one-year-old, and ended up slumming it as a spirit for a decade, got defeated again, was a shrivelled-up baby for a year, then finally got his body back.

He’s angry, okay! And Fiennes does a great job of portraying the sheer, destructive, unbridled rage of this character.

The body language. again, since his face is inhuman, this is super important. and Fiennes’ body language is great. Voldemort/Riddle commits to his actions. He is very emotionally-driven.

But yet, he doesn’t feel capable, in the way that the Joker or President Snow do. Yeah, we know anecdotally that he’s incredibly evil, sadistic, and second only to Dumbledore in terms of power, but he loses to a baby, and then that same baby as a teenager. So, we really could have done with seeing Voldemort’s power, cruelty, and evil firsthand a lot more often.

Voldemort is not well-characterized. I don’t understand his motives, and the ones that I do understand are not compelling.

Not to die? Well, he’s already made several Horcruxes. Why not sit back and relax? Why start a war and risk himself?

JKR said that Voldemort’s great desire was to become all-powerful and eternal. But that’s... boring! It does little to tell us about Voldemort, other than that he’s a villain and a wannabe dictator.

Furthermore, the charm, manipulation, and cunning that are hallmarks of younger Tom Riddle’s personality are gone.

Is Voldemort (to return to Jungian terms) all shadow? An empty creature of simple creation and destruction, perhaps? We’ll discuss this further down...

And this isn’t a problem of having a fantastical world with magic and the like. Grindelwald’s quiet, self-possessed, almost coy “So you think you can hold me?” was infinitely scarier than anything that has ever come out of Voldemort’s mouth. It was chilling.

OOTP is my favorite book, and the Ministry sequence is one of my favourite in the films.

This scene where he psyches out Harry, talking so quietly that he could just be a little voice inside his head (and again, during the possession scene)? Absolute perfection.

Why? Because this showcases what’s truly scary about him. Voldemort can get into your head. He can make you do things. And perhaps, if we had seen that more often, we’d understand how scary he is.

I wish this had been his grand entrance, and not whatever that scene in GOF was. Somehow, him screeching “I WANT TO SEE THE LIGHT LEAVE YOUR EYES!” is not menacing. At all.

But, I can’t help but think how much greater the emotional affect would be if he had more human features (think the burned-and-blurred, waxy features from Dumbledore’s memory).

Just imagine these scenes if Voldemort looked human, and spoke as quietly as he did in this one.

Because of the reason that I have little to go on in terms of characterization that I haven’t already covered, we’ll discuss the myth and legend of Lord Voldemort.

I can’t decide if the statue in the films is supposed to be the Angel of Death or the Grim Reaper. He has a skeleton and carries a scythe, but he also has wings. There are so many different interpretations, attitudes towards, and personifications of Death across the world that I don’t want to draw any one conclusion. But I must wonder if Lord Voldemort, with his yew-and-phoenix wand (which carries heavy symbolism of immortality and rebirth) and almost deified figure is meant to be a personification of Death himself? His name, Lord Voldemort, is a shade close to Lord Death.

For years, it has stumped me that wizards and witches are afraid to utter Voldemort’s name, especially since we only see the Taboo in the middle of the last book. It didn’t make sense just based on fear; in the real world, we don’t circumvent Hitler’s name, for example.

Perhaps this may have been obvious to others, but it wasn’t to me.

Here’s a counterargument to myself; why Voldemort shouldn’t look human.

Voldemort, in the Wizarding World, is seen as a literal deity.

I promised to attempt to answer this question in Part 3:

And so, I can’t help but wonder if the opposite is true… if Tom Riddle creates Horcruxes, would that grant him additional magic powers?

In Part 3, I likened Tom Riddle to a sorcerer in Russian folklore, Koschei the Deathless, also famous for sequestering his soul in objects. This source suggests that Koschei was considered not an ordinary magician, but a representative of the ‘other’ world, the world of death.

So, what if... creating Horcruxes makes you... more than human? Now, I could definitely see god-like status being appealing to sixteen-year-old Tom Riddle. Perhaps, even appealing enough to kill for. Now, his proclivity for Avada Kedavra makes sense. We know it’s an incredibly sinister spell, but at the same time, it’s a very humane way to kill. Why might it be so horrifying?

Here’s a weird theory.

To the best of my knowledge, no one but Voldemort is seen using the Killing Curse more than once or twice.

Perhaps, ordinary mortals can only cast Avada Kedavra a few times, but Tom, having split his soul and having become in some way a non-human instrument of Death, can cast it however many times as he likes, and that is part of what serves to make him so terrifying.

This makes the idea of Voldemort tossing around Avada Kedavras actually incredibly terrifying, if you take into account what that might mean.

The collective cultural fear of speaking Voldemort’s name supports this theory.

Take the chthonic (underworld) deities of Greek mythology; most notably, Hades and Persephone, the king and queen of the underworld.

Hades, the god of the dead, was feared.

So feared that the word ‘Hades’ (”the unseen one”) was so frightening, that people came up with all sorts of euphemisms to circumvent actually saying it and he was rarely even depicted in art. For example, they would refer to him as Pluto (”the rich one”), Clymenus ("notorious"), Polydegmon ("who receives many"), and perhaps Eubuleus ("good counsel" or "well-intentioned"), amongst many other names.

However, he was not seen as evil; just stern, cruel, and fair. Like most Greek gods, he had an associated cult (the Death Eaters, anyone?)

Another interesting connection between Hades and Voldemort is that Hades was associated with snakes.

Persephone (suggested to have a pre-Greek origin and probably pre-dates Hades), who was also a vegetation/fertility/spring goddess, similarly, was referred to as Despoina (”the mistress”), Kore (”the maiden”), etc, because as the terrible Queen of the Dead, it was considered unsafe to speak her name aloud. In mythology and literature, she is sometimes referred to as ‘dread Persephone.’

--Just like how Lord Voldemort is referred to as The Dark Lord, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, You-Know-Who... (and if you’re Dumbledore, ‘Tom’.)

Her central myth served as the context for the secret rites of regeneration at Eleusis (which was basically a mystery cult devoted to her and her mother, Demeter), which promised immortality to initiates.

We don’t know for certain what exactly went on, because, mystery cult -- the members were sworn to secrecy -- but it revolved around immortality and rebirth and possibly psychoactive drugs.

Perhaps ironically, in comparison to the Death Eaters, anyone could join, as long as they could speak Greek and had never committed murder.

And that concludes my assessment!

#tom riddle #the many faces of #tom marvolo riddle #character analysis #lord voldemort #character study #tw: murder #the body horror was 1/10 #don't make your character design hilarious if you want him to be scary #i'm not saying voldemort is a vegetation deity #but i'm not-not saying it either

53 notes · View notes

livlepretre · 4 years ago

Note

As someone's who never seen Buffy, some of the gif sets you post are nutty to me. There was one a few days of ago of some weird alien hatching out of an egg and I was like wtf is this showwwww? I thought it was about a high school girl who kills vampires. XD

A high school girl who fights “vampires, demons, and the forces of darkness” to be exact!

But also, oh my God, you’ve never seen Buffy. I am begging you to watch this show. It’s my all time favorite, have watched each episode literally innumerable times, ultimate comfort show but also the show that feeds me better than any other show ever has? On so many levels? If our tastes collide anywhere, give it a shot.

I’ve pitched this show before here, but lemme give it another try.

What you will find in this show: a really wacky premise that somehow manages to be sometimes light and funny and sometimes completely operatic and sublime in its ability to delve the darkest parts of the psyche. Found family and a solid cast of characters who grow in tremendous ways- it’s not just a show about high school, it’s a show about growing up, so the show follows them from high school students all the way into adulthood. One of the really interesting beats that I love about the show is that the monsters themselves are all pretty widely known to be metaphors (sometimes very thinly veiled but whatever it’s part of this show’s off the charts charm) for the trials and tribulations of growing up. But what’s really interesting about this is that the monsters of the week tend to be significantly scarier-- like straight up more horrifying-- in the early seasons, when the characters are young, and as they grow older they shift into being often way less immediately scary in a monstrous sense and into being often weirdly comedic (like, there’s literally a demon in season 6 who’s a “loan shark” and it’s literally a dude in a suit with a shark head). I love this, because it’s one of the many ways the show demonstrates how when you grow up, the issues that are frightening and larger than life blur into this gray area, just like the monsters do, and it’s so often things like paying the bills that become the issues,,,,, oh and also the various ways human beings themselves can be monsters.

As a lover of the supernatural genre, particularly vampires, this show gets it. And the vampires can get it. (I’m equally Team Angel and Team Spike, honestly, the Fanged Four. Most iconic vampire coven to ever grace any screen ever.)

I love the central character of Buffy so much. I love her emotional arc, I love that the main plot of the show isn’t really the monsters but the way that the relationships between all the characters build and how all of their experiences and emotions make them relate to each other in increasingly complicated and often hurtful ways... but the show is all about friendship and family and finding ways to heal as well. I love that this show was brave enough to have the main character go through depression. Not just for an episode or two as though depression is some sort of “plot arc” that can be cured by a single revelation, but as a slow progression toward her healing that took place over the last two seasons of the show. I love how this show digs into psychology first and foremost. That the show is funny as often as it’s angsty.

And the ships.

The ships.

I literally ship every canon ship on this show and am so content with what I was given that I don’t actually have any particular yearning for what I wasn’t given. That’s. Beyond rare.

This show actually understands enemies to lovers. If you like that trope at all, you will be better fed by this show than literally any other show ever ever ever. I’m often amazed by the number of these quiet, small, beautiful moments the show is so amazing at serving up. I still can’t believe that the show handled all of the ships so well as it did. (I know they say people died in the Angel vs. Spike conflict, but listen, if you can find it in your heart to be a multishipper, you will be very very very happy.)

And oh yeah. The 90s clothes and music and just general aesthetic are iconic. Go watch this show!

#anonymous #btvs #okay but bad eggs is a GOOD episode!!!

18 notes · View notes

what-you-dont-surrender · 6 years ago

Text

Killing Eve 2x07 Analysis

At V’s: Reflections reflections…with a camera pan to V and Eve that has to turn away from the sight. She’s almost there, but not quite.

“Do you want to talk about it? You’ll feel better if you do.” This is coming from the woman who’s heard people beg for mercy, who’s heard people tell her they have kids who depend on them, who never ever cares. Yet this time she wants to listen, she’ll encourage someone to speak, so long as that person is Eve. Sympathy, which in V’s case could be a progression to empathy, seeing as she already feels a connection with Eve strong enough to use the term “us”. For once, Villanelle doesn’t care about whether or not this is a fun activity, whether or not she’ll be bored listening to Eve, what she cares about is Eve being “ok”.

“Two AA meetings and suddenly you’re the expert on honesty?” “Yeah”

Thing is, she just might be. Let’s not forget that V is exceptionally intelligent, shall we? She may not understand the concept of honesty (which she’s self-aware about) but what she does understand now is that it is important to Eve. She’s so well-versed with honesty now, in fact, that she knows enough to be able to say the following lines: (“Do you mean it?”) “I don’t know” (“You don’t know if you’re telling the truth or not?”) “Not really.”

Add to this her facial expression:

Our murder baby is trying so hard to reach within herself to know because she knows that, to Eve, honesty is important. She’s learning the weight of her words, she’s learning that even if she doesn’t understand honesty, she needs to try to be as sure of what she says to Eve as she can be. There is even a mild sense of insecurity, perhaps? A worry that this is something that will turn Eve away from her? But by god, she will admit that she can’t tell the truth apart because it’s the least she can do. The next part, I’ve already written about so I won’t delve into so much, feel free to read it here.

What I do want to add is how utterly sure V is of her next sentence: (“You don’t feel anything?”) “I feel things when I’m with you.”

The smallest pause…

Absolute certainty…

Vulnerability, if she had a face.

That small pause in the first image, it was so brief, to be honest I don’t think V was thinking. I think she was feeling. She understood why that question mattered, she understood why Eve had to ask. She understood its implications, the way their dynamic hung in the balance by the answer to that question alone. But the second image, she doesn’t have to even think because she knows. Because there is a boy in a grave who knew that to Villanelle “Eve” was synonymous with the word “love”, because her first clean kill was titled “love in an elevator”, because the dance floor in an underground club knows, because the bathroom stall in which she almost choked a girl to death knows, because her hotel bed, her hotel bathroom, that damn mirror – all of Amsterdam knows. She doesn’t have to think twice before telling Eve: she feels things when she’s with her. And on that third image, that stare, that certainty. V is no expert at being vulnerable, but she will she try, if only with Eve, to make sure she gets just how honest and true she is being here. Honestly, I think watching a 3 second clip of this moment makes it more clear than still images but it’s the best I could do.

And then my favorite line: “I’m not with them when I’m with them.” I talk a bit about that on the link above as well.

Restaurant scene:

“It’s the best thing on the menu,” homeboy Aaron is obsessed with the concepts of best, perfect, exact, etc. And honestly he’d be worthy of a diagnosis if I was more interested in him as a character beyond his interactions/comparisons with V. For now lets just say he’s somewhat of a “social voyourist” per se; he likes to watch, to live vicariously through others, it’s so much safer. I love the way this interaction initiates because

Otherworldly pasta!

So much so, Sigh by Unloved starts playing in the background. This song, by the way, played during the Niko and Eve scene from 206. It implies arousal and carnal desire, lust, if you will. But this time it’s not V who’s aroused, it’s

homeboy Aaron

Also, notice how the moment this scene is initiated we get close ups; this implication of intimacy, along with Sigh playing in the background, but felt by Aaron instead of V. (thank the gods)

And then it begins to switch back and forth from them to

My sexual senses are tingling, must call my gf - I mean V. Sigh continues to play through this constant scenery switches, by the way.

We then get the wide pan as V and Aaron begin to talk about Amber, only for the camera to slowly begin zooming in as we get:

“I like buying things” “Go on,” “I like owning them…I like looking at them” “You’re a collector then?” “I guess so” “Of what?” “All kinds of things, things that make me feel something.”

One of the goals this episode set out to achieve was to create a parallel between Aaron and V, to show just how similar they can be. They are not reflections however, as we will see later on in the episode.

And here V reaches an understanding, she knows exactly what it is he wants. Whereas at first she had assumed he wanted to sleep with her, she now sees he just wants to observe, it is the only thing he craves.

“Lets go out and see something, that’s something we can do.”

And so, V begins to perform.

At V’s apartment:

“Cancel what I’ve been through and now I’m changing my world and now I’m changing my world…”

The song continues to play as V listens to Eve’s voicemails, smiling like the smitten dork that she is. And this is telling because V really is changing her world. She’s feeling for the first time, she is exhibiting behaviors she never has before, she feels compelled to do things for someone else, she is learning to control her impulses, she is trying to understand the concept of honesty…she is somewhere much different than where she was back in that opening scene, mimicking behavior before dropping ice cream on a little girl after having murdered an old man in Vienna without knowing why she was getting paid to do so.

And then:

Worried I’ve been murdered? Me? World’s deadliest assassin?

Yeah, really, worried, murdered, all of it. I see people saying this was funny cause, come on, Eve’s just being awkward. But no. I think this is very honest of Eve, she really does worry about V, we see this when she talks to Martin too. She might’ve gone along and spoken to Martin about herself, but she means it when she says she worries about V and her well-being. And this must be strange for both of them, I mean look at V’s face. No one’s worried for her before, hell, they pay her to put herself in these situations in the first place. She’s a weapon, its what she does. But here is Eve calling her 9 times, leaving 3 voice mails, sounding anxious and then forcefully collected, wondering if V is okay. Just wanting to hear her voice and be sure she’s safe. And though new and strange, well:

It’s also nice.

At Carolyn’s:

“You weren’t listening?” “Not this time, no.” And she says this with a straight back, head held high; someone’s proud.

“What’s her state of mind? “She is excited”

Konstantin cutting Eve off here, I’m sure Eve wouldn’t have said that to Carolyn if she had had the chance to answer, which he probably knew. “Have you been razzing her up, Eve?” “Razzing?” “I’m counting on you to keep her calm.” Interesting choice of word here, indeed. Have you been teasing her Eve? Teasing? Carolyn didn’t even have to think, it was her go to word here. And Eve is confused.

“Villanelle? Sit still?” “She will, she just needs to think that she’s in charge” I mean, yes, which is something Konstantin hasn’t quite figured out how to manage in his years with her, but also, no. Did ya catch him looking at Eve when she says this? This would work if Eve wasn’t actually falling for our dear V, so while she’s right in theory she’s wrong in practice. V is a master manipulator, I don’t think she’s quite gotten that yet.

Its interesting to me how Eve is okay with the concept of a team up until Konstantin say he can “supervise”. She’s more than okay leading a group, but having someone above her? Not interested. Honestly, this plays into her own psyche, as she believes herself to be more capable than others.

“Don’t forget what she did to Anna.”

You mean, nothing? V thought she loved Anna, and while her courting method sucked, she never actually hurt the woman. Sure, she isolated and pursued her, hoping her fixation would be reciprocated but she didn’t pose an actual threat to her even after she was rejected. But the thing is, Eve has shown to respond to V’s courting: she’s thrilled by V’s kills, she gets a high from the little messages V leaves her, she becomes aroused by the adrenaline she feels when V imposes herself on her. And Carolyn knows this: “Well, maybe you do need a bag man, take Hugo.”

Storage unit:

“You’re a hoarder” / “You’re a collector, then?”

Eve has a type, with one huge difference: V likes to look at them, Niko just likes to keep them. “I like owning them…I like looking at them.” Niko only owns; he only keeps Eve. Sure, he claims to love her, but only the parts of her he deems appropriate. He likes to keep her, but he’s not an active participant in her life, barely even for sex. He likes to go to Bingo night, come home, have Indian food, and read a book before falling asleep with the certainty that Eve will be there to do it all over again tomorrow. But V? She wants Eve in every aspect of her life: she wants to come up with intricate kills that Eve can admire, she wants to leave little hints only Eve can decipher, she wants to buy gifts in every country she visits and surprise Eve while she’s away, she wants to pick outfits only Eve is worthy enough to see her in, she wants to learn how to do things that are innately difficult for her because they matter to Eve. She wants to look at her, yes, and interact with her too, as we’ll see later on in the episode.

Boy, do I love cocky Villanelle. Asking for a thank you, bless, rub it in his face some more. And then her face when she says “Eve likes it, so…” As if “my baby likes it so of course I’m going to hold you at knife point and demand you tell me how to make it cause, trust me, I’ve tried and it’s just not worthy of Eve at all. Oh, Worcester sauce? Of course!” I mean it’s such an “duh of course, absolutely” moment. Eve likes it. That’s all the reason she needs to be doing this. Eve.

At Carolyn’s:

“Any escalation? Increased attention-seeking, recklessness?” A chuckle and a no for V and then “How about you?” Sadly, we’re interrupted by Kenny, but we know the answer. For one, the answer for both is a resounding yes. I mean, as they’re speaking V is in a storage unit interrogating Niko and Gemma about Shepherd’s Pie, for god’s sake. But also, that very morning Eve was sitting on V’s bed, leaning into her, dancing around words, trying to figure out if V also feels something for her before storming out after finding out she slept with 2 other women.

She mustn’t kill anyone but ya know, there goes Gemma lol

Back at the storage unit:

“Do you love Eve?” Cue the trembling voice, because this is the question that matters. I know some may wonder why Niko didn’t lie but let’s be honest, V would’ve known and that would’ve been worse.

“Of course I’m sure, she’s my wife.” I HAVE A PROBLEM WITH THIS SENTENCE. Niko knows V knows Eve’s his wife, she’s still asking him if he’s sure, this response only serves to establish his territory. Being married to someone isn’t a guarantor of love. V doesn’t care so much that Eve is married as much as them being in love. It’s also a lazy answer, why are you sure Niko? There’re so many aspects you can’t stand about Eve, why are you so sure you love her? Cause of a paper you signed years ago? Do better.

“But Eve would never forgive me if I hurt you, Niko.”

Ugh, that delivery! The tremble at the “me” the emphasis on that “you”. V knows that as long as Niko chose Eve there would be a possibility of them getting back together, she was so willing to let them both go if he only said he loved Gemma, because Eve wouldn’t be able to forgive him loving someone else. But as long as he still loves her, as long as he feels comfortable enough calling her his wife, well, V feels like her place in Eve’s life is a fragile one.

“But Eve would never forgive me…” What is V’s concept of herself? What makes up her image of “me”? A murderer, a liar, a deceiver, someone who doesn’t understand the concept of honesty, someone who sleeps with other people to redirect her desire for her, someone who’s been impossible to love as far as she knows, someone who can’t settle and build a home, someone damaged. Her concept of “self” (or ego in psychology) is as fragile as her voice here. Why would she forgive her? Of course she wouldn’t.

“…if I hurt you, Niko.” You, her husband, the person she’s spent most of her life with, build a home with, someone who understands the concept of honesty to the point of risking their life when threatened by one of the deadliest assassins in the world, someone who she comes back to even though he drives her crazy sometimes, someone who makes her feel empty yet she still willingly shares a bed with.

Why would she forgive me if I took her concept of safety away? She wouldn’t.

And this level of self-awareness? It’s outstanding. Villanelle has gone from the overt narcissistic psychopathic murderer with APD to someone who questions her worth. V is a narcissist through and through and yet – AND YET – has now reached the ability to question her self-worth and her past decision-making. Talk about a character arc, my god, this is monumental. She could have very well killed Niko here, considering he poses a possible threat to her courtship of Eve, but making the decision to kill Gemma instead shows her ability to understand that that is not how people work. When she did this with Anna she though that by removing Max she would have what she wants, but now she refuses to make that same mistake even though she’d love to kill Niko. For one, she manages to frame him, punish him for straying from Eve (which, how dare he), and shows growth. I mean yes, is this a tactic to get to Eve? Sure, it lets Niko know that as long as he chooses Eve he will have to deal with V because she isn’t planning on going anywhere. But also, it shows how much she cares about Eve to place Eve’s feelings before her own urges. It is, perhaps, one of her biggest gestures of love so far.

At V’s:

“Maybe we’re soulmates.” Okay, so I’m not interested in V’s little joke as much as her ability to use the concept adequately. The woman who’s struggling with the concept of honesty is able to understand and apply the concept of soulmates. This caught my attention because if she can understand what the implications of that word are and if she can apply it for comedic value, then she can do this in the privacy of her own heart and mind as well. So then, does she think Eve is her soulmate? She’s already used the term “us” with Eve before, is this also something she’s considered? Does she really consider Aaron her soulmate or is this really just a joke?

The little eye-roll when asked if she’s planning something, her smile at the concept of being alone with Eve, giddy like a schoolgirl. I think this concept of soulmates might be more real to V than we’re being shown just yet.

Martin’s:

“He could kill the shit out of me” Eve, you truly identify the best with those who aren’t psychologically stable, huh?

“Aren’t they already [out of hand], putting a psychopath, possibly two, in a high-risk situation, and just…hoping for the best?” This is LITERALLY a summary of Killing Eve, folks. That’s it, that’s the show, we can all go home.

“I want her to be safe.” “Sounds like she can take care of herself” “No, she can’t”

Eve is doing two things here: 1. Speaking of herself through V, which Martin notices, and we’ll go into in a sec 2. Being honest.

We’ll see more of this throughout the episode, Eve goes through great lengths to make sure she’s sure V will not be harmed. She really does want V to be ok and the only safety she can provide is physical safety. She has yet to figure out V’s emotions, which she only just learned this morning exist, so what she can do to care for V is to make sure she’s safe. Eve worries for one of the world’s deadliest assassins, how endearing.

Now, Martin dismisses this second point mostly because he’s ignorant to what we’re privy to as the audience, and he also ignores her dismissal at being here for a “work thing” and that’s when we get:

“How much of the day do you pend thinking about her? “Most of it” “Are you two in a relationship?” “Define relationship.” “Are you having sex?” “No” The mistake Eve and some of us as viewers might make here is assume that “are you having sex?” is a question used to clarify Eve’s “define relationship” when it isn’t, it’s its own question. If Martin is as good as we’re led to believe he will notice how telling it is that Eve’s answer to “are you two in a relationship?” is “define relationship.” If the dynamic Eve and V have now is so complex and intertwined that the boundaries that define what a relationship is have been blurred then it’s safe to say that yes, they are in fact in one. Whatever the terms of it might be have yet to be established but a mental health professional must recognize that once these concepts require situational specification then we’re in trouble. Martin uses Eve’s request for clarification as a way to find out how intimate and safe they feel with one another at this time, because having sex would require them both to finally let their guards down with each other completely.

However, this may also give Eve the false idea that as long as they don’t have sex she hasn’t fully surrendered herself to her attraction to V. To Eve, as long as she can say she hasn’t slept with her, then no one can say she’s in too deep, as long as she doesn’t sleep with her she can keep crossing every line there is. And that’s simply not true, of course. Villanelle knows this though, she knows that sex is something Eve will not simply allow nonchalantly, she knows it’s not something she can charm her way into. She can’t just flirt with Eve, arouse her, and lead her to her bed, because Eve doesn’t work like that. Eve needs to bring down her walls on her own, on her own terms, at her own time. So yeah, V is definitely playing her cards in just the right way to get closer to Eve, but ultimately Eve will be the one who has to cross that threshold. @lesbianmoonlobster and I have previously spoken about my theory of The Threshold, for lack of a better term. I’ve mentioned to them how, if PWB was still writing, I’d be skeptical of Eve’s capacity to kill someone until next season, but now with Emerald, it has become clear that we’re driving at a faster speed, turning this into a possibility. At the very least, I do believe that Eve will reach a threshold this season and that, regardless of what form it takes, it will cause Eve’s grey morality to get a shade or two darker. My point is here, that V is playing her role in slowly coaxing Eve into her bed. “How are things at home?” “My husband left me.” “Are you behaving differently, doing things you normally wouldn’t?” “Yes” A vocal tremble on that “yes” “Do you feel unsafe?” “Yeah” A whispered response. “How else do you feel right now?” “I feel…wide awake.” Cue teary eyes.

The way I observe this part? “behaving differently” = subway man, using Niko, etc “unsafe” = herself “wide awake” = a realization A lot of people have mentioned how “bitchy” or cold Eve has been acting with V despite V’s attempts at casual get-to-knows (for lack of a better term) but part of this, I’m sure, has to do with Eve realizing that yeah, she’s very much like V. She’s scared of herself, of the things that she does, of how much she enjoys them and how much more she wants to do. But boy, does she feel revitalized – does she feel more herself.

“I recommended that you be taken off this operation, I said you were too involved and too compromised, but my recommendation was ignored.”

Eve’s eyes search, her tears begin to gather, she ponders.

“I’m telling you for your own safety.”

She looks up, she leaves.

This part, to me, is her moment of confirmation. Hearing Martin reveal what he had observed in their previous meeting, a professional, and expert, affirming that yes, you’re at risk of plunging into the very thing you’re dreading, only serves to confirm Eve of her realization. Perhaps even encourages her to continue on that path.

At the restaurant:

Number of things going on here but one I’m leaving alone ‘til its culmination point later in the episode. For one: here’s Eve trying to keep V safe again, risking being seen and blowing their operation because the only way she can protect V is by making sure she’s listening in so, all be damned, she’s gonna get her a back-up mic if it’s the last thing she does.

Little bit of light teasing from Hugo before this but it does tie in nicely with the way V caresses Eve’s hand as she takes the bread:

Because V knows what this looks like, Aaron buying her things, taking her to Rome, dinner at an expensive restaurant. All things V could want without the need to kill anyone. All reasons she could be charmed by Aaron, so yeah, she’s going to reassure Eve. Also, such a cute little way of saying “the creation of Eve” considering V has been the catalyst, or god in this sense, which has spurred Eve’s change. Except their hands are touching, unlike in the painting, implying they’re equals, Eve becoming in V’s likeness.

Cut to Eve’s hotel room:

“She’s having a great time.” Someone’s jealous. Someone’s doubtful. Despite V’s reassurance, the possibility of V finding someone else who watches her (“do you like to watch her or do you like being watch?”) scares Eve.

“I knew she wouldn’t let me down.” Oh boy, Eve. Development of trust, that’s a biggie (understatement of the year, worthy of a complete essay). Eve believes in V, she trusts her, she counts on her. The woman she professed she’d find what she loves and destroy it, the woman she stabbed, all of a sudden is worthy of her trust.

Also, V choosing One Way or Another? Subtle V, real subtle.

With Aaron:

“You’ll be bored stiff” “I’ll be fine” “You’ll be bored” “Ok, I’ll be bored” “Good”

Remember how I said Aaron would be worthy of a diagnosis if I cared enough about his character beyond his relation to V? We’ve reached that point. The beautiful thing that the show has been trying to do this entire episode is reaching it’s culmination point.

Aaron doesn’t only function as a parallel but also helps create a spectrum for the viewers. It is no longer just grey morality, it’s no longer just a psychopath, a dysfunctional MI6 agent with failed marriages, and a possible sociopath. Now it’s a spectrum because now we have that absolute black, or, as Aaron describes later, that “void”. Now we can line them all up.

Does that stare look familiar?

The very thing Aaron wants to see in V is what she once was, what he is: devoid of expression, devoid of her ability to interact with others in the manner she has now achieved.

“They’re both cold-blooded psychopaths…” “She’s just doing her job”

Well Hugo is right about one thing, as far as we’re shown, and as far as the show wants us to believe, they are both candidates for an Antisocial Personality Disorder diagnosis, albeit they fall in different categories. And Eve, though she may be basing her answer on her feelings, is right about her observation. Ultimately, V and Aaron would not function well together as they both have different needs and different understandings of the world, which we’ll see later on.

Russian meeting:

“…all this information is yours.”

“Language is information and information is everything.”

Look at V’s smile, she likes the sound of having access to all of this. Can’t blame her, really, it’s what she’s been lead to believe ever since The Twelve broke her out of prison, it’s the only way of life that’s really worked for her.

After:

I…love this scene.

“I told you you’d be bored”

Oh, but she wasn’t Aaron, she was thrilled.

What follows is, similarly to Eve, V’s own revelation.

“You’re the only person in the world I know nothing about. Nothing real. A void.” “That’s me” “I thought so, me too.”

But let’s look at V’s response:

She says it with so much certainty, the only thing she’s ever been really sure of. Everywhere she goes it’s all anyone perceives her as:

“You should never tell a psychopath they’re a psychopath, it upsets them.”

All she’s ever been told is how unstable, how cold, how different she is from everyone around her. So yeah, she sees herself as a void, we’ve established that V has gained a sense of self-awareness this season.

But Aaron is not privy to her development, he does not know that much of where V’s statement is coming from is no longer sound, and so he misidentifies himself with her.

And I say misidentifies because:

“Do you ever get lonely?” “Never” Because V does! V gets lonely, she gets bored, she craves attention and gratification. Loneliness, in particular, is something she mostly feels when away from the object of her fixation, now affection, such as Anna, Nadia, and now Eve. “You don’t want to…talk to them…touch them, sleep with them? “God, no.” “Do you?” “Yeah! I do, all the time.” She is so animated here, so surprised. Consciously or not, V seems to have formed this idea that she and Aaron were the same side of the same coin. “Soulmates” if you will. Cut of the same threat, both loving money, loving items, loving to watch. Both willing to discard people when they’re bored, both doing anything to pass the time, both valuing information, seeing those around them as less than. But here, this monumental difference. This desire to create connections and relationships with others, to not only watch but to engage in what we refer to as play in psychology. This is V’s revelation: they are not the same, she is capable of so much more than she’s allowed herself to believe.

Look at that smile!

What the show achieves here is the establishment of a spectrum for all of their characters. Something that shows who wish to portray psychopaths often do is create this robot-like person who is most often a sadist who lies and cheats and is the epitome of all things immoral and evil. Psychopathy is just a symptom of people who fall in cluster B personality disorders, often a mix of APD with a few others. Something I’ve mentioned before is how some psychologists have theorized that APD patients can actually feel emotions but often struggle with actively feeling them or identifying them because they feel them much more fleetingly or to a much lesser degree than most people. There is no exact depiction of a psychopath or APD patient because there is no one way in which this disorder presents itself, it is a spectrum. And here we see this established, we see Aaron as the one who can only function through I-it relationships, whereas for V there is an I-you, however mild and chaotic. And this revelation to her is a doorway; it opens up so many possibilities that she may now have the strength to aim for, particularly Eve because, all of a sudden, there is validity in her desire for their connection.

And who knows that now?

THAT scene:

It was sexy, I know. I won’t take the sexy away but I do want to point out a few things here:

1. Eve making sure her girl – I mean V – is safe, again. She’s ready and willing to listen all night if she has to. Whether it’s because the last time she left her alone V slept with 2 chicks or because extreme-end-of-the-spectrum-psychopath Aaron is around, Eve is making absolutely certain she’s there should V need her.

2. Remember that relationship/sex question from Martin? The way Eve deflected by asking him to define “relationship”? Remember how I said she might fool herself into thinking that as long as she doesn’t sleep with V they’re not together, she hasn’t gone too far? Eve is so close to crossing her own blurred line. V is more than aware of just how far she can push Eve, just how to inch her closer little by little over that line. Notice the progression here: Eve’s sexual drive revived with the arrival of V in her life, of course, but notice the way it has escalated over time. At first it was the excitement of her new job, the gifts V sent her, the thrill of danger, the flowers at her doorstep, Niko angered by V’s presence, and now V pleasuring herself. It began by situations, then items, then their dynamic, V’s show of affection, V vicariously through Niko, and now its her on own voice. She’s been easing her way into Eve’s bed, slowly fixing herself as the object of Eve’s desire. Eve has begun to embrace this longing; she did not put up a fight the moment she realized V was ready and willing to spend the night with her through Hugo’s body. Eve understood that she too has been with others without being with them. And does she care?

Not one bit. Not as long as she gets to wake up hearing Villanelle’s voice, it seems.

Good for them.

#killing eve #villanelle #eve polastri #villaneve #this is really really really long i know i'm so sorry #thanks to all the encouraging folks who kept me company while writing this #shout out to lesbianmoonlobster as well for being awesome

305 notes · View notes

theironweasel · 8 years ago

Text

Jormungand Review: How to ruin an amazing twist.

Spoilers!

*SSSSSSSSSIIIIIIIIIIIGGGGGGGHHHHHH*

I really wanted to like this show.

After watching 4 different anime series I’ve realized that there is a vast ocean of difference between having a good premise and using that premise to it’s fullest potential. Jormungand has one of the most interesting premises I’ve seen in an anime let alone a tv show: A Child Soldier is hired on to be a bodyguard to an eccentric arms dealer who believes in world peace. However, even more than Black Lagoon, this show fails to take advantage of its premise.

To start with, despite the fact that Jonah and Koko are obviously the most interesting characters down to their design, and while they get more development than any of the other characters, the other characters combined get more development than they do even though they are basically pointless by the end of the show. And there are WAY too many to be able to develop most of them well.

Second, The characters backstories are not presented in a compelling way. Something I will totally give Trigun is that it understood that you need to define your characters well before delving into their backstories, leave a series of clues leading up to the reveal so that it isn’t explaining who this person is but explaining WHY they are that way. Jormungand seems to think that characters are their backstory such as: the explosives guy, the former spy, the leader who got her soldier’s killed etc. And for the most part we only really get to know a character once we get to their episode and often we don’t really see much of them afterward. Even Jonah is subject to this as we only see how he came to become a part of the team and not how he became a child soldier and his life before which could have made him even more interesting.

Third, a more minor note, the humor is pretty hit and miss. Some things are funny like Koko’s many antics such as rolling around on a table or trying to silly/cute her way out of a deal. However, there’s also things like the jokes about Jonah’s math skills which come off as wildly insensitive given the fact he’s ya know A CHILD SOLDIER!

Ok so despite all of this I was still relatively engaged going into the last 5 episodes. Then to my surprise in the 3 part episode New World, we started to see the hints about Koko come to fruition, and while I wish there had been more of them and spaced better throughout the story, when I got to the antepenultimate episode’s ending I was psyched! The Main Character of the story, not the protagonist Jonah, turns out to have also been the villain the entire time! While movies have done this, I have never even heard of a show doing this let alone one 24 episodes long. And it’s pretty damn believable given everything we’ve seen about Koko. This could have been one of the best twists I’ve ever seen if the build up and execution had been better, but as I’ve laid out the build up was rather lacking and the execution is even worse.

First, it is rather bizarre that aside from Jonah only one other member of the crew has ANY reservations about killing probably over 1 Million people if you include those who would be killed by falling aircraft. And he is acting more like he’s voicing his concerns that a friend of his has been drinking too much lately and gives into the peer pressure of the enablers around them.

Second, the ending... WHAT THE FUCK!? Jonah decides to rejoin the crew and the whole thing comes across like this is supposed to be a touching reunion for the prodigal son returning to his loving family, yeah like if the Manson Familly went pro. I don’t know if this is supposed to be about Jonah ultimately failing to overcome the cycle of violence given how he’s given a new gun at the very end, but that wasn’t really set up well and if this is supposed to be the face value morale it gives it is morally repugnant.

The Saddest thing is this ending could have easily been fixed! In fact, there are two different endings that could have been done with minimal changes that would have been much better. First, the straight tragic ending. Everything happens the same but after Jonah is given the gun, everyone starts to leave and Jonah guns them down by catching them by surprise. Only Koko is left alive who furiously reminds him that even if she dies, the plan will go into effect. Jonah simply says he knows and as Koko presses the button he kills her. He then walk across the road, throws down his gun and sits on the curb looking out into the distance. The camera pans up and we see a plane in the distance plummeting to the ground as we hear the horrified reactions of people all over the world and the screen goes to black. This would have been a complete arc for Jonah, allowing him to finally give up violence after ensuring that even if Koko succeeds, she won’t be able to become the dictator she is rapidly turning into and that even if this horrible thing is going to befall humanity, it will be their decision on how to react and not Koko’s. The other ending is the Ironic ending. Jonah returns and finally manages to get through to some of the crew and the two sides start killing each other. Koko engages the plan and begins ranting as everyone is dying around her as we hear a faint roar that grows louder until a shadow is cast over Koko, she turns and looks up to see a plane about to crash right down on them, cut to black. This would have also been a good ending, emphasizing how Koko is really no different from any dictator or psychopath who believes they are wise enough to decide the fate of humanity and that her hubris ultimately destroys her.

In either case, these endings would have been far better than what we got. The most obvious sign of how bad the ending was and how underdeveloped the lead up was, comes in the penultimate episode when Koko justifies the people she is going to kill as “collateral damage.” this is galling given the fact that Jonah and his family ARE collateral damage. The fact the show didn’t address this let alone hinge the entire ending on it is absurd given how obvious this is.

Jormungand is an okay show with some good action but it sadly lets down an amazing premise with sloppy execution that makes me say that it is not worth watching because any decent build up the series has is wasted on an ending that makes the whole thing feel pointless and in some way I think the show was almost aware of this as Kasper’s final speech seems to imply. Kasper is 100% absolutely right, human beings are not going to stop killing each other because of a horrific act of violence or the loss of aerial transportation. That’s not how humanity works and it makes his speech one of my favorite moments in the show as he elegantly states how wrong Koko is. “There is ALWAYS a bigger stick.”

#jormungand #koko hekmatyar #jonah

3 notes · View notes