#but not enough to be present for the central conflicts?

[hwnglx]

felix's real personality behind the scenes

based on tarot. i do not know these idols personally. energies are always changing. what i say is NOT straight fact. pls take it with a grain of salt!

+ so the central theme for the first part of the reading, was the word “healing”. this is sweet actually, since i do think a lot of his public image is also tied to that, and it does appear to be a genuine part of his personality.

felix is a person who can have a profound impact on people, in a way where he just soothes them quite naturally. his presence alone can have that calming effect. there's a lot of gentleness to his energy. he's someone people would want to seek out when there's chaos and stress in their life, and they need a source of comfort and positivity. he enjoys giving that to people, and being that type of existence for them. it fulfills him, and can make him feel better about himself.

the stray kids member is the type of person who, instead of being relentlessly competitive and drama-prone, chooses to connect to people in a close manner. he's someone who truly doesn't enjoy drama and conflict.

felix wants to put himself into other people's shoes, genuinely empathize with them, make them feel validated and understood. he usually isn't a person who feels the need to selfishly put himself above anyone in order to lift himself up, or sees people as competition somehow. he just isn't the type who'll consciously choose to fight you, if he can befriend you instead. definitely an “everybody's darling” type of energy.

however, what's definitely worthy to note.. his softness does not equal weakness. on the contrary; felix is someone who's much more masculine and bold than some people might think. he isn't an easy target or pushover, and is in possession of his strong opinions he won't budge away from. if he feels strongly about something, he will not be the type to surrender that easily. in fact, he's very passionate in his autonomy.

i kept getting this feeling, that he's just amazing at wisely picking his battles, and acting with clear intention. although i do see him having his explosive moments, that definitely might catch some people off guard sometimes, considering the duality that's present here.. i don't really see him being a person who allows himself to let loose at the wrong time. i don't see him being someone so overly impulsive that he steps on people's toes, or crosses lines he shouldn't cross.

he's still got a tight enough grip on his emotions, that he's capable of staying conscious of when to let them bubble to the surface. if it's justified and he clearly feels like he's in the right though; you're likely to see a different side to felix, that's much more opinionated and dominant than you think.

this man just has amazing tact, and knows when to let out different sides of himself. he knows who to be more submissive towards, and who he can be more commanding with. he knows how to behave according to what benefits him the most, and which behavior will be to his biggest advantage. some people could look at this as selfish, and see it as more of a yellow flag. the lines are a little blurred here.

felix will be the sweetest and most generous person in the world, if he feels like you can help him out in some manner.

if there's someone who knows how to network in this business, it's him. i wouldn't be surprised if a good amount of his deals are a result of people just genuinely liking him as a person, and almost feeling this desire to return his kindness. (i'm not downplaying his talents! but he just gives the industry's darling too, which i saw in my jyp reading as well)

i can see him doing things like giving gifts, and being of service, or just extra nice to some people in power, who can give him the opportunities or attention/clout he wishes for.

he definitely can have his materialistic and opportunistic tendencies, which again, is likely to be more blurred in terms of “green and red flags”

he's just very clever and strategic, as well as more calculated than what meets the eye. he knows exactly what he's doing when sweetly smiling at you; he knows what effect he has on you. he's someone who charms people like it's the easiest thing in the world, and knows how to make use of his appeal.

- so, emphasizing this again; felix isn't stupid, he's very smart. he isn't a fool, he isn't the naive and innocent angel that he might portray himself as at times.

he's good at detaching himself from people.. the type that makes you feel like you're close to him, when you probably only know like 15% of who he actually is.

he's great at hiding away several parts of himself, especially the more “negative” ones. meaning, he usually disguises e.g. his negative opinions on people behind an agreeable smile, holds grudges deep down he probably won't tell you about, if he feels like it'd ruin the image you have of him. if felix openly and straight up tells you he doesn't like you, it's probably because he doesn't really see any use in being nice to you.

in addition, i can see him weaponizing his kindness at times. going back to the insights for the green flags, he is someone who's genuinely sweet towards many people.. however, some of that does come from him wanting to earn something and benefit from those acts of service.

if you end up in an argument with him, it's likely for felix to throw those acts of kindness into your face, and guilt-trip you for being so ungrateful. he's amazing at making you feel like an awful person. he was being so nice to you, and you're doing him wrong like that? felix is definitely someone who's great at manipulating narratives to his own advantage, and making himself look like the good guy in most scenarios.

he's for sure another idol, who i'd add to the list of “i suggest not fighting him” unless you wanna see a completely different side to him.

it's highly likely for a colder and less considerate side to come out, once you manage to rile felix up, and he feels done wrong by you. he can get very defensive, and quite ruthless and harsh, especially verbally. more cut-throat than he usually is.

i do think a lot of this comes from “i will hurt you before you can hurt me.” deep down, felix seems to have some unhealed wounds, especially in terms of his self worth.. this can lead to him becoming extra defensive if he feels like you could potentially rip off the bandaid, since he's still trying to heal.

note; this is lowkey making me sad, since.. many of his green flags were about healing and helping others, making them feel validated. it's almost like, he wants to heal others, because he can struggle healing himself.

i have to add, i do believe he cares more than he'd like to admit to himself, especially about people's opinion on him. again, i just don't think he wants to, since it can consume him a lot.

felix is someone who needs validation, and wants to feel like he's some sort of use to people in order for him to feel worthy.

the stray kids member is the type to overcompensate because he can quickly feel inadequate for people; especially when it comes to his work. i can see him being obsessive about his craft, his public image, his reputation. he seems to struggle finding real satisfaction, and can often pour way too much of himself into his work out of this fear that he isn't enough.

he's the type of person who's better at recognizing the things he lacks, rather than acknowledging his abilities, or the high place he's at. it's like.. something's always lacking, it's never truly enough. he can get very thirsty in terms of his career.

i do think a large part of this, comes from a lack of genuine and substantial self-love, without all the glamour and fame. he sees himself at his most lovable in work- and idol-mode, and can quickly feel like he's of much less value outside of that.

i can also sense him easily feeling like he doesn't have much to offer, outside of his more superficial qualities. like people wouldn't like him the way they do, if he wasn't in possession of his good looks, his money, his status. this can result in him getting pretty obsessive over keeping those things in check.

this is something i've seen in a few idols now. it's almost like fame can turn into this.. type of drug almost, that gives you this high, which you always end up chasing. a lot of idols realize, especially later on in their careers, that so much of that is just empty. it's a shallow type of “fulfillment” that looks nicer on the outside than it actually is. but once you're there, it can quickly turn into something you still can't get enough of.

[ofswordsandpens]

I could see Katara recusing herself from the trial because of her personal connection to bloodbending. Is it fair that she serve as judge and jury on a trial for breaking a law that she wrote? But if that was the logic behind her exclusion, I would have appreciated a throwaway line to that effect. Otherwise it just looks like sexism…

Probably should have been more clear in my tags - I didn't want her to "lead" Yakone's trial in the sense that she's the judge and jury, but more in the sense that she's shown as a fellow figurehead... just like Sokka, Toph, and Aang were in the flashbacks. Toph actively hunted Yakone down and is present at the trial. Aang takes time away from his duties that he "typically wouldn't" to help Toph hunt him down and is present at the trial. Sokka is at the trial as a councilman and literally gives the verdict of the council.

Meanwhile Katara, the person who fought to get blood bending banned in the first place, the near single political recognition we're given of hers in TLOK, is just.... somewhere else? Had no interest in helping Toph track him down? And even if she wasn't present at the trial as a proponent or activist of some sorts, she could have been in the audience. Like you don't think she wouldn't have some bearing of interest in this case? On the outcome? Even if she hadn't said a single word, the animators could have literally just drawn her in the empty chair next to Aang in the court and that would have had far better mileage (not perfect, but better) than her simply being nonexistent in every one of those flashbacks imo.

But this is just one example. Katara's character (amongst the others) after the original series just... doesn't hit the mark for me. Sure, TLOK and other post-ATLA material will tell me she's a fighter, a healer, an activist as an adult etc but when it comes to actually showing it, such as how they did for Aang, Toph, and Sokka in TLOK... well, they don't. Katara simply doesn't get the same relevance as they did. And it leaves such a bad taste in my mouth.

[literaryvein-reblogs]

A 3-Part Book Editing Checklist

PART 1: The "Big Picture"

Identify and fix macro problems relating to plot, character development, narrative arc, and theme.

THEME & IDEA

Is a compelling dramatic question present throughout the book?

Is there a clear theme? Is it well-developed and engaging?

Can you recap your story or argument in this single sentence? “[Character] must [do something] to achieve [goal] or [reason why the audience should care]”

Is there a clear central conflict? Is it resolved by the end of the book?

STRUCTURE Fiction & Memoir; Nonfiction

Fiction & Memoir

Is there a strong beginning, middle, end?

Does your exposition effectively set the story? Introduce the cast of characters? Impart backstory?

Is your rising action triggered by a compelling inciting incident? Does it escalate the conflict and raise the tension?

Is the pace of each act in the narrative arc appropriate?

Does the plot maintain forward movement in each chapter? Do subplots support that momentum?

Are all major plot threads and subplots resolved by the denouement?

Do the plot points sync with the narrative arc and theme that you want to convey?

Do the plot twists make sense? Are there plot holes in the story?

Nonfiction

Does the first chapter of your book introduce your central question and explain why it’s important to answer?

Does your exposition adequately introduce readers to your topic? Does it provide enough context for them to understand your main argument?

Does each chapter or section build on the information that comes beforehand?

Is the length and pace of each chapter appropriate?

Does each chapter contain an appropriate mixture of fact and anecdote?

Is your structure engaging and easy to follow?

Does your book contain any extra information that distracts or detracts from the main argument?

Are there any holes or gaps in your argument?

CHARACTERS Protagonist; Antagonist; Supporting Cast; Setting

Protagonist

Does the protagonist have strengths and weaknesses? Do these interact with the story appropriately?

Does the protagonist grow and change?

Does the protagonist have defining mannerisms? Clear character traits?

Does the protagonist have external and internal goals? Are they visible throughout the story?

Does the protagonist act believably in each scene? Is the protagonist’s behavior consistent? Chart the protagonist’s character arc over the course of the story. Is it clearly and compellingly conveyed in the story?

Antagonist

Does the antagonist have story motivation?

Does the antagonist have a believable backstory?

Is the relationship between the protagonist and the antagonist clearly defined?

Supporting Cast

Is the supporting cast fleshed out?

Do the secondary characters have a reason to be there? Do they:

Reveal key details?

Advance the plot?

Motivate the protagonist?

Help define the setting?

Are interactions between the secondary character and the protagonist believable and well-placed?

Do the secondary characters have distinguishing characteristics or mannerisms?

Setting

Does the setting make sense for the purposes of the story? Does it matter to the plot?

Are descriptions of the setting rendered effectively and appropriately?

Does each scene convey a clear sense of place and time?

Is the worldbuilding fully realized? Logically consistent?

Fact-check each scene in relation to the setting. Are objects, props, mannerisms, and behaviors native to the time and place of the story?

PART 2: The "Scene" Level

Strengthen specific elements within individual scenes

SCENES & CHAPTERS

Is the opening scene effective?

Does it start in the right place?

Does it have a hook? Is the hook immediately gripping?

Are the scenes appropriately paced to grab the readers’ attention? Are the chapter lengths effective?

Does each scene serve a purpose in the story?

Is each scene oriented in terms of time and place?

Are scene transitions smooth?

DIALOGUE

Does the dialogue serve a purpose in each scene? Does it:

Provide information?

Advance the plot?

Help the pace?

Does each character have a distinct voice?

Is the dialogue believable for the time and place of the story? Is the word choice reflective of the time period?

Does the dialogue use action beats to control the pace of the scene?

COMPOSITION Voice & Point of View; Prose

Voice & Point of View

Is the narrator’s voice consistent?

Is the voice appropriate given the context of the book and its story or argument?

Is foreshadowing used effectively, if applicable? Metaphors? Similes?

Is the viewpoint character always clear? Is it consistent between scenes?

Is the point of view suitable for each scene? Is there a better alternative for a viewpoint character in any given scene?

Prose

Is the backstory of the world or characters efficiently woven into the story?

Does each sentence contribute something to the story?

Do you “show, don’t tell” with your dialogue, characters, and setting?

QUOTES & REFERENCES

Are quotes and references used to support the argument?

Are all of your sources reliable?

Do quotes help aid the narrative progression, or do they interrupt it?

Have you paraphrased where possible?

Are there appropriate transitions before and after references?

Are all quotations accurate?

Have you chosen a citation style?

Have you cited all references according to that style?

PART 3: The "Line" Edit

Ensure the text is objectively correct. This covers everything from typos and grammar to continuity and syntax.

PUNCTUATION & DIALOGUE

Limit the use of adverbs in your dialogue tags. (Show, don’t tell!)

✗ “Why did you eat my turkey sandwich?” said Harry angrily. ✓ Harry upended the table. “Why did you eat my turkey sandwich?”

Check for the use of other dialogue tags and replace them with “said” and “asked,” unless other emphasis is absolutely necessary.

✗ “Did you just stab me with this thimble?” queried Amber. ✓ “Did you just stab me with this thimble?” asked Amber.

Check that all of the dialogue is formatted correctly.

✗ “I love you.” Said Pam. ✓ “I love you,” said Pam.

VOICE

Limit the use of weak verbs and adverbs in general.

✗ Leonard ran quickly to school. ✓ Leonard sprinted to school.

Replace all “hidden” verbs.

✗ Offer an explanation ✓ Explain

Check for the use of passive voice and replace with active voice, whenever appropriate.

✗ The ball was kicked. ✓ She kicked the ball.

Use “telling” words such as “felt,” “saw,” “knew,” and “seemed” sparingly.

✗ His head felt awful. ✓ His head throbbed.

LANGUAGE

Delete vague and subjective words.

✗ Could, might, maybe, more, poor, good, excellent, bad, some, multiple, really, literally, suddenly, simply, just, a little, almost, etc

Delete all instances of cliches in the text.

✗ It was a dark and stormy night.

Check for excessive repetition in the text.

✗ Go to [do something]

Check for instances of overly complicated language.

✗ In close proximity ✓ Near

Source ⚜ More: Writing Worksheets & Templates Writing References: Plot ⚜ Character ⚜ Worldbuilding

More Notes: On Editing

[clevercorvidae]

my issue with caitvi is honestly...i dont understand what its there for. what does it MEAN, what is the central theme of their story? Like, you look at timebomb and jayvik in comparison and they have so much MEANING.

Jinx and Ekko's story is one that heavily props up both of their characters. For Ekko, him giving up on Jinx and believing that Powder is gone for good, shutting down his care for her reflects his loss of faith in zaun, his paranoia and his close guarding of the tree and the firelights. But through his journey to the Good End universe he learned that Powder is still within Jinx, that she has beautiful qualities as Jinx and that in his world she has so much power and ability to change things. Him seeing Jinx for who she is, for her endless potential inspires him to go back to his reality and help fix it, to take the leap, to have hope for Zaun and for a better future. And in doing so he brings Jinx back to earth while at her lowest, after she's lost everything and puts that same hope for change into her. Their relationship, their story, is one about hope.

Jayce and Viktor's story is about control and perfectionism. Viktor loathes sm about himself. He thinks he is something that needs fixing, that he isnt enough. Jayce meanwhile wants to bring magic into the world, but he's naive and easily manipulated. Both of these mindsets leads them to attempting to progress with hextech in a dangerous fashion, in the pursuit of More. Viktor gets a kick in the ass with his terminal diagnosis and attempts to "fix" himself no matter the consequences, no matter his loss of humanity. When he is revived by the hexcore it only gets more intense, he leaves Jayce and all his connections in pursuit of "perfecting" everything else in existence. He believes flaws and imperfections and individuality only cause pain because he could only look ahead and see a dark future. Jayce meanwhile gets swept into politics and in his own way loses himself to his pursuit of their dream. it takes him getting sent to the Bad End universe, having to stew in the consequences of their hubris and, more importantly, in his own thoughts, that he achieves clarity. When Jayce is in the void with Viktor and he tells him he was never broken, that his imperfections were what made him who he was, and that he just wants to be with him again over any ambitions he previously held, he proves this by showing Viktor his memories of their relationship. He brings Viktor back to himself and they choose to stay together as the rune collapses everything, because what they truly needed wasnt perfection or progress, it was to appreciate each other in the present flaws and all. Their story is about appreciating what you have, about being in the moment.

But caitvi...I just dont get it. At first I thought their relationship was meant to be a reflection of Zaun and Piltover. But it just gets so messy the more I look at it. I suppose it makes sense considering the zaun vs piltover plot was handled messily as well. if my originally interpretation is correct then it makes sense that both plots would rely on the other working to make sense. Vi loses so much of her depth and she is hardly explored whereas Cait becomes very unlikeable. And then all of their conflict is simply brushed aside in the end. Its a mess. Please if you understand them and you got meaning from theur story please explain it to me. i want to like them, but i just cant make sense of it

[berriesandcherry]

House of the Dragon did not understand Team Black

Hi! This is a follow up post I made about the characterization of the team green Targaryens and now I want to continue the idea explaining how the showrunners did not understand Team Black, or— speaking frankly– Fire and Blood and ASOIAF.

It’s well known that HBO wants to sell ASOIAF as a magical realism series (a literary or artistic genre in which realistic narrative and naturalistic technique are combined with surreal elements of dream or fantasy.) for grown ups, because obviously fantasy is made only for children (side eye). Clearly, that is not what ASOIAF, or in this case Fire and Blood, is. Sure, Fire and Blood may be written like a history book, but that doesn’t mean it’s intended to reflect simple realism. The style is immersive, designed to make readers feel like they’re stepping into the world of Westeros, as if they’re reading the same histories that characters like Jon Snow or Robb Stark might study or to say “This is the book Arianne Martell read and that’s why she compares herself to Rhaenyra!” The narrative is designed to deepen the experience, not to be treated as a purely factual, realistic recounting of events.

House of the Dragon presents itself as a gritty drama, it’s based on Fire and Blood, which is fundamentally a story about Daenerys Targaryen’s legacy and what made her different from the rest of her family. The show’s treatment of Rhaenyra and Alicent, in particular, seems to miss the mark. The show implies that the animosity between Rhaenyra and Alicent was entirely fabricated by the men around them, reducing the complex political and emotional dynamics at play to a simple misunderstanding. But in the books, we don’t need a Renly chapter to know he didn’t view war like Stannis did. We don’t need a Lysa Arryn chapter to know how deeply it affected her to have her child aborted. Their actions speak. You know the lyric from Taylor Swift “You are what you did”? Well, that really applies here.

Daemon, for example. The show’s decision to portray him as someone who ignores or mistreats his wives—especially with the murder of Rhea—is a significant change from the character in Fire and Blood. We don’t need to see him committing such extreme acts for him to remain morally ambiguous; his decisions and actions throughout the story are enough to paint him as a complex figure. We didn’t need to hear how he needed to realize he was not meant to be king. Over and over again, we needed to see him play the game.

The portrayal of Team Black, in general, is a big problem. Yes, they’re flawed—nobody in Westeros is perfect—but they’re also a family united by love and loyalty. The Targaryen family in Fire and Blood was often fractured, but Team Black showed a different side of the Targaryen legacy: a family that, despite their flaws, stood together—it was quite obvious the GRRM wanted to make them the “more Targaryen” team. And as I mentioned in my earlier post, Rhaenyra’s claim to the throne was legally solid–she was made heir by her father, oaths were made, she had the most dragons, the most heirs, more family members on her side and four out of eight great families were on her side (just to clarify, Aegon had two, Baratheon and Lannister).  The narrative of Fire and Blood is about a woman who, despite being the woman for the job, faces an uphill battle for the throne due to the misogyny of her time.

Team Black is the “right side” in the Dance of the Dragons, not necessarily the good side, but the rightful side. Their cause is legitimate, and yet House of the Dragon asks us to sympathize with everyone—Rhaenyra, Alicent, Aegon, Aemond, and the rest. This doesn’t work in a narrative like Fire and Blood, where the characters’ motivations are clear-cut, even if they’re morally complex. In House of the Dragon, the show seems to want us to feel empathy for every character, which ultimately dilutes the central conflict. If everyone’s equally tragic or flawed, what makes Team Black’s struggle so important? This is not ASOAIF where we have multiple characters that are good opposing one another in some way or another. For example, Ned is seen as a good guy, and so is Daenerys, but she doesn’t like him, and that doesn’t make her a bad guy. 

Team Black Characters are the heroes of the story, Rhaenyra is the hero of the Dance.

When one talks about heroes, one thinks of Superman or Naruto, good guys. But ASOIAF is famous because every character is flawed, even the heroes. In fact, a hero is not equal to a good person.

“As a literary device, a hero can be defined as the principal character of a literary work. The term hero has been applied, not only in the classical sense, but also in modern literature, as the principal character of a story, play or novel.” (Hero - Examples and Definition (literarydevices.net)) 

Rhaenyra is the hero of the story, Aegon is the villain. That is literally the story.

That doesn’t mean the story is plain or boring. They are humans. That’s what GRRM does best, and while I already talked about Aegon, let’s go with Rhaenyra.

From the beginning we know who she is. 

“At the center of the merriment, cherished and adored by all, was their only surviving child, Princess Rhaenyra, the little girl the court singers dubbed “the Realm’s Delight.” Though only six when her father came to the Iron Throne, Rhaenyra Targaryen was a precocious child, bright and bold and beautiful as only one of dragon’s blood can be beautiful. At seven, she became a dragonrider, taking to the sky on the young dragon she named Syrax, after a goddess of old Valyria. At eight, the princess was placed into service as a cupbearer…but for her own father, the king." 

"She was very proud and stubborn, and there was a certain petulance to her small mouth."

"Though Rhaenyra could be charming, she was quick to anger and never forgot a slight."

She is a typical princess, like Viserra or Alyssa before her, Rhaenyra knows her position well and is not scared of using her influence and power in her favor. She was raised in comfort and security, cherished by all. Later on we get to know she might have taken a few lovers, some hinted, some are theories, this is not about shipping (like Harwin Strong, Daemon, Laena) there was nothing anyone could do except for the king. And that is not wrong. Laenor and her might have been in an agreement that his parents didn’t mind, and neither did the king. The Velaryon boys were more than likely his. If the king didn’t mind, no one else should. That includes the queen. The show seems to want to make a bigger deal of the “bastard” issue, particularly with Alicent calling Rhaenyra’s children bastards. This, too, is a distortion of the story. In a monarchy, the legitimacy of heirs is decided by the king, and in this case, King Viserys recognized Rhaenyra’s children as his own.

In The Crown, Prince Philipp says “Currently I’m outranked by my 8 year old son” and Queen Elizabeth answers with “Yes, of course, he is the heir to the throne”.

Even in real life, it doesn’t matter how powerful a consort is. The heir outranks them every time. Alicent should have been shown as a smarter queen because Rhaenyra could have had her tongue for that. Rhaenyra’s children are not bastards. It’s ambiguous in the book because them being bastards were rumors from court, like the one Littlefinger made up about sleeping with Catelyn or Cersei’s about Margaery’s lovers; they were made by the opposing faction. But they were recognized by the crown, the king, the father, and the realm. So no, Rhaenyra’s claim was not sullied by her children. And no, she was not a bad person if her children were bastards. And no, it was not the same as Cersei. Rhaenyra is queen, so her line is the one that matters. The children from her second marriage are also heirs because of her. Alyssa Velaryon’s children from Rogar, despite being Jaehaerys' half-siblings, were not heirs because Alyssa is not the ruling queen. She is a consort, like Cersei.

Just as Aegon IV’s legitimization of his bastards went unchallenged because it was the king’s will, Rhaenyra’s status as heir should have been final.

The Dance is meant to have a hero who is flawed and a villain that has a reason.

But in House of the Dragon, we’re left to wonder who we’re supposed to root for. The show’s insistence on moral ambiguity and “grayness” across the board makes it harder to connect with Rhaenyra as the story’s central figure. There’s no room for her to be angry, to take action, to show that she’s not just a pawn in a larger game—she’s a woman fighting for her right to rule. She should have been shown as a more assertive and strong-willed character, capable of standing up for herself in a world that constantly undermines her. She should have moments where we disagree with her, but ultimately, the show wants us to empathize with everyone, but the show is missing the point. Rhaenyra is the tragic hero of this story—her flaws, her ambition, and her fight for power should be central to the narrative. The show seems to misunderstand her complexity, as well as the larger political context that defines her struggle. The Dance of the Dragons isn’t about a bunch of characters fighting for the throne; it’s about the consequences of a society that refuses to allow a woman to sit on the Iron Throne, no matter how capable she is.

Team Black Characterization

Let’s go back to Daemon. Daemon was loved as he was hated, so yes, he can be the internet boyfriend. He is GRRM's favorite character!

Said by the producer: 

"Daemon would have let his brother fall flat on his face. In other words, aren’t all of Daemon’s moments, even the seemingly benevolent ones, ultimately self-serving?"

Hess replied: “I agree with you. He’s become Internet Boyfriend in a way that baffles me."

That was an obvious incorrect interpretation of his character, wherever you see it, but what baffles me is in contrast, the show doesn’t seem to hold Aegon accountable for his more heinous actions, like rape.

Before the marriage to Laena, Daemon’s passion for Rhaenyra was undeniable. Yes, their relationship was controversial, but like the romance between Lyanna Stark and Rhaegar Targaryen, it’s framed as a love story. Daemon loved Rhaenyra, and when he couldn’t have her, he "moved on." Just to be clear, their love story is a very important factor in each other's life, his marriage with Laena, him loving her, does not change it. Anyway! He married Laena, killed a man to be with her, and raised his children with her—Rhaena and Baela—who were cherished regardless of their gender or lack of dragon (in Rhaena’s case). For a time, Daemon raised his daughters alone after Laena’s death. After his marriage with Nyra, surely they had a time when they relied solely on him. He never sent one away. He kept them close. In fact! During the Driftmark incident, the girls were never there. He was the only adult who didn’t have any of his children involved.

Joffrey had run to get his brothers when Aemond took to the sky, and both Jace and Luke had come to his call. The Velaryon princelings were younger than Aemond—Jace was six, Luke five, Joff only three— but there were three of them, and they had armed themselves with wooden swords from the training yard. Now they fell on him with a fury. Aemond fought back, breaking Luke’s nose with a punch, then wrenching the sword from Joff’s hands and cracking it across the back of Jace’s head, driving him to his knees. As the younger boys scrambled back away from him, bloody and bruised, the prince began to mock them, laughing and calling them “the Strongs.” Jace at least was old enough to grasp the insult. He flew at Aemond once again, but the older boy began pummeling him savagely…until Luke, coming to the rescue of his brother, drew his dagger and slashed Aemond across the face, taking out his right eye. By the time the stableboys finally arrived to pull apart the combatants, the prince was writhing on the ground, howling in pain, and Vhagar was roaring as well.

Rhaena was sent to live in luxury during the war, and he never allowed them to get hurt or punished. The storyline with Laena and his twins are not a waste of paper, they are meant to show how much Daemon changed, we are meant to compare his treatment of Rhea (arranged by his grandmother) and Laena (marriage of love) and Rhaenyra (marriage of love and also the person he loved the most) He was charismatic and loyal, he loved his brother, we can assume he was on good terms with Rhaenys. Daemon evolved from a wild, impulsive youth into a family man and a strategic military leader, ultimately giving his life to protect his wife and demonstrate his loyalty.

As for Jace, he was never sidelined or ignored—Rhaenyra understood his role as her heir and supported him. Jace, full of youthful energy, was not just an heir but a skilled strategist in his own right, much like Margaery Tyrell, knowing how to play the game. He loved his family and fought fiercely for them until his last breath. Baela and Rhaena, Daemon’s daughters, were brave and intelligent. Baela had a dragon, but if Rhaena had one, she too would have fought alongside her siblings. The twins were clever and courageous, as we see in the post-Dance regency when they were still teenagers. Luke, too, was a strong character—great with a sword and a worthy heir to Driftmark. His death haunted his family until they all died, his death is the Ned Stark moment of the Dance. Joffrey was older, he was rougher than his brothers, and the most like Daemon, the three Velaryon boys were loved by Corlys AND RHAENYS. Aegon III was older too, and more than likely, he was Daemon’s pride as he had already lost one son, and it was his first with the woman he had fallen in love with years ago. Viserys should’ve had moments of childishness to show and establish his character since he is the ancestor of Daenerys.

Rhaenys’ character, in particular, was wasted in House of the Dragon. Rhaenys knew the game as well,if not better, than Otto. She was fiercely protective of her family and cherished all of her grandchildren. Her death should’ve reflected that! She should be shown having that arrogance and lack of patience the Baratheons had and show her as THE adult against the greens before Rhaenyra came of age.

Corlys Velaryon’s character was another missed opportunity. He should have been shown as a more morally complex figure—an ambitious man with his own secrets, including affairs, showing more why he was called a snake, show why he was intimidated by Rhaenys, show his love for his grandchildren but more than that, how much he loved all the power they would get. Explore how his wealth is influential, that was leverage, like Olenna held the power of Highgarden over Tywin’s head.

These characters are not just “good” or “bad”—they are complex individuals, each with their own motivations, flaws, and growth arcs. The show missed an opportunity to dive deeper into their relationships, their ambitions, and their internal struggles. The mischaracterization was painful to watch, how they handled Daemon/Rhaenyra, how they handled Daemon/Laena, how they failed to show Rhaenyra's most beloved friend and the reason why Jace, Luke and the twins were betrothed. And all of that happened because they tried to be "realistic" even if all that happened was honestly a parody of GRRM work.

Heroes should be well defined

Defining your hero and making it clear why they deserve the audience's loyalty is the foundation of any good story. A strong show knows its protagonist and ensures the audience is invested in their journey. Game of Thrones did this well, even with limited episodes. They introduced heroes and villains, built complex storylines, and made sure we understood who to root for, despite their characters’ flaws. House of the Dragon, however, faltered by trying to make everything morally ambiguous, blurring the lines of who the audience should support. By not clearly defining Team Black as the protagonists, the show undermined the emotional investment of the audience, making it hard to care about the central conflict. Instead of embracing the complexity that made Game of Thrones compelling, House of the Dragon failed to commit, leaving the audience uncertain of who to root for.

[legendary-lunatic]

Okay, So I just finished binge watching all four Despicable Mes in one day, and I gotta say that I did not care for the fourth movie.

It was disappointing… which is a shame, because Maxime Le Mal is awesome.

The concept of a cockroach villain, is epic. He had a great character design, a fun personality, and he had past conflict with Gru.

The problem with the fourth movie is that it is not plot driven enough and instead keeps splicing screen time for family fluff moments and side characters like Poppy.

Poppy, as much as I thought she was a fun presence, was NOT needed in the movie, and neither was all of that Safe House Country Club shit. Why would they go out of their way to say ‘Hey Gru? Let’s stop acting like the grumpy protagonist we love and instead behave completely out of character so you can pretend you like playing tennis.’ It was unnecessary and not what we needed from a character we have grown to find charming because of the way he can be both kind and a grumpy asshole. (Like Shrek.) Shrek does not belong at a country club, and neither does Gru.

We introduce a villain school that Gru went to only to not only completely avoid talking about him or the school in that context, but bring it up again solely for an irrelevant character who overall contributes nothing the the story at hand.

All of the other films in some way had a proactivity to them that kept the main antagonist in mind, and this film does not work because they keep shoving Maxime to the side. They should have completely scrapped all the minion fantastic four hero parody crap and stayed focused on the overall narrative and developing the new central antagonist.

It would have been fantastic if we had gotten more background on the conflict between Gru and Maxime. Apparently they had a little rivalry or just generally were jerks to each other in school as we find out that not only did Gru steal his song, Maxime pantsd him in front of the school, not to mention how they interacted in the beginning of the film, so clearly there is bad blood. This is the first villain that had conflict with Gru specifically, and it would have been an excellent central plot point to focus on his early life, or a great way to develop a villain that’s built out of personal grudge rather than inherently destructive ambition like the others.

And instead that was SQUANDERED by this absolutely directionless travesty. Maxime’s girlfriend, first of all, was useless and distracting. All the little cutaway moments and side stories were unnecessary, and overall it was incredibly disappointing to have a guy that can CONTROL COCKROACHES do absolutely nothing with them. He could be strong and invulnerable, He could have been mutating more people, controlling swarms, he could have been going after Gru more intensely and talking about how they bullied each other and that could have been very interesting.

But no. This is the only film in which the main antagonist takes such a back seat that he can effectively be cut from the film and it would hardly impact a thing. Maxime had potential and stage presence, and they did nothing with it in favor of fluff.

And Listen, LISTEN, fluff isn’t bad, I love their family- but it should not comprise 98% of the film!!! It should be wedged into little moments between plot points. Even Despicable Me 3, which had a bizarre out of left field twin plot, handled their villain with more respect and managed to tie in the two narratives in a way that culminated in a final act that was satisfying to all the characters.

Brat had charisma and was a genuine threat and was present enough in the story that he was still necessary to the story overall because he and his diamond were the reason Gru lost his job and he and his brother did the heist to retrieve it. By the end of the first half of the film we knew that Brat was a washed up star that peaked in his childhood and was trapped in his nostalgia, and he had a fully fleshed out motivation and draw to him despite being rather simple that allowed us to indulge in his quirks. His pathetic nostalgic personality CARRIES that film because it’s funny and endearing and believable because we’ve all met someone like that.

But Maxime is not such a simple character by design because his motivations are relationship focused- and in this film they spend most of the time running away from Maxime, which is counter intuitive and lets us understand absolutely nothing about the guy. Because they didn’t delve deeper, Le Mal’s motivations were weak, and thus the overall STORY was weak. We don’t even know why he has such an intense hyper fixation on cockroaches that he would literally roachify himself and make that his central theme!!!

Why didn’t Lucy and the kids go to the safe house and Gru could stay to deal with his rival? It doesn’t make sense!!! And the AVL was doing nothing about the threat at all and instead was being ridiculous by giving the minions super powers? Ineptitude to the point of absurdity. What is the point of going to a safe house if they aren’t trying to resolve the issue and then Gru does it anyway?!!!!

Brain dead. Disappointing. On every level.

They didn’t even resolve the personal conflicts the girls were having, what with Margo having trouble at school and Agnes not liking telling lies! What was the point?!

The animation may have been pretty, but the plot was weak. The character motivations were weak because they didn’t expand on them. There were thousands of directions they could have gone with this film and they chose to go NOWHERE.

The best part of the film is the end, and only because we got to see Maxime be relevant for three minutes and it implies that they’ve managed to wrap up their implied but borderline nonexistent rivalry. And we got two seconds of Brat dancing way too over sensually to ‘Rule the World’ because it’s an 80s song (the power of character consistency)

I don’t like hearing ‘ItS JuSt a KiDs FiLm’- NO. Pandering to children is not an excuse for bad writing in family media, and this franchise has been out long enough that it has an audience larger than just kids. Kids media and family media deserve better and should still have good narrative standards. Do not insult our intelligence by giving us content without purpose. It costs millions of dollars and months upon years to make a film nowadays, there is no excuse for not sitting down and coming up with a decent story direction and cohesive plan. A family film can be enjoyable for little ones and still have depth to it-

Family movies have been getting insanely messy lately with their story content because they think seeing characters we like regurgitated at us with good animation is enough to keep the company afloat and appease everyone, and it’s irritating. Dig deeper, have some respect for your craft. Keep our expectations high to keep us coming back!

I love the Despicable Me world and characters, but honestly this was such a disjointed film that it was almost hard to enjoy because I just kept waiting for something, anything to happen, and was utterly let down.

Maxime Le Mal deserved better as a villain, and this film deserved better. This franchise deserved better. Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.

[quill-and-whetstone]

“The Sniper Problem”

I have a favorite litmus test that I apply to just about everything I write: “Could this entire plotline be resolved by one sufficiently trained sniper?” The hypothetical sniper is there to evaluate the quality of the conflict I’ve set up. If they can resolve the whole thing by taking out their target then I… probably have some rethinking to do, because the test succinctly highlights a few key issues with any story that fails it.

First, the obvious: if the problem your protagonists are facing can be solved this way it’s probably just not as interesting as it could be. A conflict of “big bad evil dude does a big bad evil thing and our hero goes and mercs him about it” can make for a fun blockbuster action film, but the plot of those films are rarely–if ever–the point. Stories with a central villain stand to gain a lot of narrative depth from asking yourself what issues would linger if they were suddenly removed from the picture. What internal struggles might remain in your protagonists? How might the world around them still need to be changed or healed? Which elements or areas of the story just seem empty without the big bad to fill the narrative space, and how can we develop them?

The second facet of the sniper problem is an inverted Occam’s Razor, a call to ensure that there’s a good reason the protagonists aren’t just using a simple and direct route to solve their problems. It’s like how modern horror movies have to cripple the victims’ cell phones to justify everything else that happens, though ideally less contrived. When revising a story through this lens, it’s almost difficult not to improve it. It aids suspension of disbelief, lets your protagonists present as more competent, and gives them more to do outside of biffing people they don’t like which in turn showcases more of their personality.

A great example of all of this is Avatar: The Last Airbender. Throughout the show the bottom line is that our heroes are out to defeat the Firelord to stop the atrocities he’s committing against the rest of the world. So it stands to reason to ask, why not camp outside his house early on with an assassin good enough to score a quick or lucky kill? But the show answers this amply with just its concept, mostly without having to draw direct attention to it. If Firelord Ozai dropped dead in the pilot there would still be a whole Fire Nation pursuing his goals complete with other emotionally unstable royals and military officers. It wouldn’t actually… solve anything. “Defeat the Firelord” is just the mission that sets our heroes on the path they need to take to stop a war that’s destroying the world. The real solution is cultivating friendships across cultures, healing and maturing together, growing spiritually, protecting and empowering victims of generational violence, dismantling fascistic power structures, and ultimately even finding a relatively peaceful / humane solution to the problem of the Firelord. While they do call this out directly in one episode, they didn’t have to, because with the way they structured the narrative it was already evident. As a result of that good planning the characters got to do a lot of interesting, character driven, thematically resonant things and the show isn’t just one long and kind of dry martial arts training montage until they show up at the finale.

So keep the sniper problem in mind as you write! Or even as you read, watch, and analyze other media for what worked and what didn’t. I can’t promise it’ll be relevant to every story, but I can promise that it’s a quick and easy standard that’ll help you layer in a lot of nuance and flavor into your narrative.

[dragonzzilla]

Tears of the Kingdom's underwhelming narrative had rich potential

I'll preface this with a confession: I have not played Tears of the Kingdom. As a matter of fact, I haven't played any Legend of Zelda. I simply never had the opportunity while growing up, so my interest in the series has always been satellite. As such, I do not have the perspective of someone who has. My opinions are formulated entirely in what little I have seen or sought out. I'm coming at this with the perspective of an outsider looking in. But I'm not looking for a fight. My aim isn't to bash the new hotness out of jealous spite, or to convince people to feel bad about liking this game that, I've otherwise heard, is really fun. The reason I care, even though I'm not a part of the fandom, is that we all deserved better.

This is a much anticipated sequel to a smash hit from one of the biggest names in the industry, sold at a whopping $70—and having watched for free a YouTube compilation of all the cutscenes pertaining to Ganondorf, the much advertised central antagonist of TOTK, I felt robbed. This was my legitimate reaction:

Disregarding all my other feelings for a moment, I was dumbstruck to see a Nintendo game—released in our year of 2023—use what is essentially the same cutscene four times while explaining the backstory. I recognize TOTK has modular progression, allowing you to reach the Sages in whatever order you please. But once you've seen the first one, the other three will offer you no more valuable information. I'm willing to stretch my suspension of disbelief pretty far, yet even I recognized on first viewing how formulaic the Sage cutscenes are. It wrenched me out of the story.* Hearing different perspectives about the same events can and should be interesting, but the Sages relating these events barely qualify as characters—possessing neither names nor even faces, thanks to their uniform masks of Zonai design...

* I'll acknowledge: Within universe, there is reason enough for the Sages to repeat what is essentially the same story to their respective successors to apprise them of the situation. I can certainly see Link having to sit through the same spiel several times so everyone is on the same page. But it felt really unnecessary as a member of the audience. And unlike their BOTW counterparts, the Four Champions, the Sages don't stick around long enough to endear themselves any further, instead passing their abilities and function onto their successors.

… Which, I feel, represents the Ancient Past Storyline as a whole. Despite the number of bodies involved, no one felt alive. Queen Sonia—this continuity's founding mother of Hyrule, where divine power is explicitly matrilineal—amounts to nothing more than meat for the fridge to motivate the real star of the show, Rauru. Everyone else, including Zelda and the other Sages, are merely bit players in the conflict between him and Ganondorf. But it's a conflict without teeth. Ganondorf displays nothing but a mad, naked lust for power. Opposing him is Rauru, the quintessential Good King and benevolent god figure who would never abuse his power, but would sacrifice it all to seal away the evil invader who killed his beloved martyr-wife. There is no interrogation of the 'gentle' imperialism Rauru represents. His way is textually presented as the only righteous way. The world of this continuity revolves around his legacy and its preservation; anything else is not merely deviant, but indicative of evil. Only someone with the blackest of hearts would oppose this order. The narrative requires Ganondorf to be nothing less than the epitome of evil.

Which is… really disappointing, to say the least. Because I happen to like Ganondorf. His character and his place in the mythos have always been the forefront of my interest in the series; forget Link or Zelda. Naturally, I was drawn in by TOTK's marketing about Ganondorf's return as a human antagonist after a 17 year long hiatus. Given how much of a reinvention BOTW was for the series as a whole, I was disappointed back in 2017 to learn that Ganondorf existed only as a mindless force of primordial evil. "How lame," I thought, "but I guess it's not really Ganondorf." Calamity Ganon was just that: Ganon. And Ganon's always a full-blown monster, divorced from any nuance possessed by his OOT, WW, and TP selves. Then the first teaser for TOTK dropped, placing Ganondorf the man (if a little worse for wear) front and center. Intrigued, I enjoyed the explosion of enthusiastic fan art that followed, as well as the speculation regarding the role he would play. Surely, he would be more than a one-note villain! My expectations rose as Nintendo revealed more about him. His new design didn't immediately scream Dark Lord; and in his first speaking role, he draws attention to the fact that he has returned (within universe and meta-wise) and he has a vision for the world. I couldn't want to see the final product! Yet here we are.

It's a strange thing to fixate upon, when I don't have any skin in this game. But I'm passionate about storytelling. I enjoy rich narratives with nuanced characters, and I respect those that fully commit to the ideas they present... whereas stories that try to have their cake and eat it too, well, those pique my interest as well. Whenever I see untapped potential, my writer's mind cannot help but ponder the age-old question of "What if?" And I intend to do just that, in the cut below (this rant is long enough as it is).

Of course, no amount of brainstorming can change the reality of a product. A ship's structural flaws only become apparent once it's left port, but there's no recalling it then. Nonetheless, there is value in the discussion. We should always critically analyze what corporations give us, desiccating their products to discern the messages (whether intentional or not) contained within—especially when the product is aimed toward a young audience that might not have the cognitive tools to decipher those messages for themselves. Even if we cannot affect change in a monolithic company like Nintendo, we can still draw lessons from their missteps to improve our own writing.

If I have such grievances with TOTK's story, why bother with a rewrite? Because:

Playing within the limits of another's sandbox can help to build creative muscle.

I believe TOTK has all the right ingredients for a compelling story, if this new series wasn't so afraid to challenge its narrative roots the way it has its gameplay.

A few more things to note: I am not a professional writer, nor am I a veteran of the series. I'm working strictly with what TOTK brings to the table. I'll make no efforts to reconcile the continuity errors between BOTW and TOTK (though it deserves mentioning), or even attempt to fit this in a single cohesive timeline with the rest of the franchise. I am not that brave lol. What I propose below is simply how I would use these toys; YMMV. I hope this inspires discussion more so than congratulation or wordless agreement (though my ego will accept compliments all the same, especially since it took no small amount of spoons to organize my thoughts like this). As Ganondorf says:

A Modest Rewrite of TOTK's Ancient Past Storyline

Zelda is still flung to the past, but she awakens not to a picturesque golden age under the magnanimous rule of an infallible demigod. Instead, sadly reminiscent of her own age, the land lays in ruin, in the immediate aftermath of its own calamity. But this isn't the fault of Ganon. The blame lies solely with the Zonai.

The Zonai were understandably viewed as gods. A people who live up in the sky on floating islands, in possession of miraculous technology (including killer robots to protect their interests!), and magical artifacts that in the wrong hands can unleash cataclysmic power? A civilization as powerful as theirs doesn't suddenly end without a very good reason. Yet as far as I know, no explanation is provided as to why Rauru and Mineru are seemingly the last of the Zonai. No mention is made of a rival power that could've taken them down; certainly none of the terrestrial races. Remember, the Zonai were seen as gods. If you were to ask me? A civilization with that great of a power at their disposal, and apparently so much of it that Rauru has four more Stones (not including his own, Sonia's, or Mineru's) to pass out as he sees fit... can only destroy itself.*

* I know the Zonai are depicted in text as a purely enlightened and benevolent race... but as far back in the franchise as OOT (which TOTK draws a lot from), not even Hyrule—the standard by which all civilization in LOZ is judged—was above a civil war, orphaning Link. War Within LOZ clearly isn't waged solely against primal forces of evil that can, must, and should be destroyed. And that's good! A story is made richer when even the Designated Good Guys can fuck things up, when characters are allowed to contain multitudes—good and bad qualities!

Power does not defuse conflict. It only escalates the scope of destruction once it's unleashed. So, for whatever reasons the Zonai gave themselves then clung to, they started fighting each other. Using their flying machines and automatons, battles were fought upon and between their sky islands, the detritus of war raining down on the lands below—the inhabitants of which can do nothing but watch as a war rages in heaven—until finally the full power of the Stones is unleashed in an exchange that guarantees mutual destruction. The sky islands all plummet to the earth, wreaking mass destruction. This is the world Zelda finds herself in—where the land has been cracked wide open, the skies are choked with dust, and no one gets along... so unlike the world she knows.

Zelda still comes into the care of Rauru and Sonia, but Rauru is merely Sonia's consort—he holds no power as king. It's evident from the start that Sonia is steering the direction of Hyrule—a humble territory in this age—in this tumultuous time, although Rauru is backing her. It's thanks to Sonia that Rauru and Mineru survived the fall of their sky island, brought back from the brink of death. It was during this time that Rauru fell in love with her; and to repay her, Rauru revealed that, between himself and Mineru, they have three intact Stones (a small homage to the Triforce since it doesn't matter in this continuity) with which they can secure Hyrule's place in this brave new world. Importantly, this isn't portrayed as any more righteous than a nation acquiring a clear advantage over its rivals. Indeed, Zelda's thrown for a loop to learn that in this era, the other races like the Gorons and the Zora aren't merely independent from Hyrule but have a history of conflict—something she never learned in her history books. And tensions are only rising, as these rival nations find Stones of their own after much scavenging, shifting an already fraught balance of power. The gods are dead, their empire shattered—yet slivers of their strength remain, for those daring enough to claim them. By using one of these Stones, a tribe could secure its borders, reclaim ancestral land... or conquer new territory. This is where Ganondorf enters the picture.

This Ganondorf is still a villain, but there's room for nuance. He's ruthless and prideful, and certainly antagonistic toward Hyrule; but the narrative respects him as much as his fellow monarchs. He cares about the success of his people, because his entire identity is shaped around being their king. Remember that a male is born to the Gerudo only once in a hundred years. Ganondorf is but the latest in a lineage of kings, with the heavy burden of expectation that carries—he has a legacy to uphold or surpass if he can help it. And ever since he was a boy, he envied the easy lives and green lands of Hyrule, so as a man he has made it his personal ambition to conquer it... but at every turn, he has met his match in Sonia, who is every bit as skilled of a commander and a magician. The two of them have clashed so many times that they've become the most intimate of enemies, hard pressed to hate each other because they both know what's at stake. For years, they've been evenly matched... but the downfall of the Zonai changed everything. In spite of the Gerudo's best efforts, they haven't been able to find a single Stone to make up for the fact that the crash of their local sky islands kicked up terrible sandstorms and drove monsters from their usual habitats. The Gerudo are more desperate than ever. Then Ganondorf learns that his oldest enemy is housing two living Zonai underneath her roof, and has a total of four Stones at her disposal. He cannot battle Hyrule as before, lest he risk annihilation—if not by Sonia's hands, then another tribe that is more willing to coup de grâce a decimated competitor, or they might perish to monsters, or the desert might finally claim them, the dunes swallowing up their bones and burying their accomplishments. He could bend the knee—throw himself at Sonia's feet and hope for the best, sacrificing Gerudo independence to share in Hyrule's bounty. But his pride will never allow that.

He grew up in the shadow of detached gods, was raised on tales of how they were the ultimate arbiters of truth and value—almighty in their judgment and unassailable—and he saw for himself that they would only ever come down to earth to indulge their curiosity about the quaint groundfolk or harvest what their sky islands could not provide, most notably Zonaite (of course they named it after themselves...) to fuel their miraculous machines, the secrets of which they refused to share with anyone 'because they weren't ready' and would in fact use those same machines to keep the groundfolk from overreaching. Ganondorf is the first king in generations to glimpse a sky—and a future—uncontrolled by the Zonai. Though he was raised to be a king, the very definition of absolute power and privilege, only now is he truly beholden to no one. Finally, he is free to shape his own destiny. And he's not about to relinquish that freedom on account of his dearest enemy getting in bed with a fallen demigod—no, not a god... the Zonai's civil war proved they are not infallible. Without their technology, without their precious Stones, they're flesh and blood, the same as anyone else. Mortal. And what is a man to a king?

Despite the bad blood between them, and the generations of strife between their peoples, Ganondorf is able to convince Sonia that he is willing to bury the hatchet for the sake of his people, that his desire to enter the protective embrace of her kingdom, given the dangerous new world they find themselves in, is genuine. His true intentions are not so painfully transparent, but still Zelda does not trust him. She can't stop wondering how this man becomes the source of the Gloom in her era, even if the hateful creature she encountered in the depths below Hyrule Castle hardly seemed human at all. But she cannot act on a suspicion of duplicity due to future events. So for Ganondorf's entire stint in Sonia's court, Zelda tries to weasel out the truth—and in so doing, builds a relationship with the future Demon King. Once Ganondorf catches on to the fact that Zelda sees right through him, it becomes a game of 4D chess. Who is this girl, a member of Sonia's court that he has never heard before yet is trusted enough to bear a Stone, and why is she so certain of his true motives? He's smart enough to suss out that it isn't simple bigotry. It's a fine line Zelda must walk, because she has a secret of her own—she hasn't told anyone that she's from the future, out of a rational fear of disrupting the past and changing history (but at the same time, she can't abide doing nothing, and these interests war within her).

Despite Zelda's best efforts, Ganondorf succeeds in his plot. In a single stroke, he eliminates an old enemy, deprives her nation of its leader and a Stone, and finally secures a Stone for the Gerudo. But claiming the Stone doesn't immediately transform him into an Almighty Demon King. The surge of power is great, but not so much that he's willing to engage three other Stone bearers—two of which are Zonai who of course have experience using them—so he wisely retreats, though not before telling Rauru: "No point in crying over this one. She's not the first victim of your arrogance. And we both know she won't be the last." He's made powerful enemies, but it's a battle he can fight on another day, and at least now he's on equal footing with the other factions and can take their Stones until he can finally conquer Hyrule. But Ganondorf severely underestimates the lengths Rauru will go for revenge. In killing Sonia, before Rauru's very eyes no less, he has made another enemy for life (and beyond).

Understand that Rauru survived the destruction of his people and their way of life. That's traumatic enough. But now, the person who saved his life, and gave it new meaning, is dead. Murdered. By someone he had come to trust. Because he put a target around her neck. He should have seen this coming, he should have listened to Zelda, perhaps then he could have stopped this. But it's far too late now. Before, he was content to merely support and serve—a just penance, he believed, for his small part in breaking the world. Now, he has a new purpose: To secure Sonia's legacy by any means necessary. He binds his fate to Hyrule, which will never be safe so long as Ganondorf lives. This isn't a wise and beneficent King of Light opposing a terrible darkness, but a grieving widower—who's also a skyborn demigod that just lost his one earthly tie.

After taking command as regent, Rauru does not invite the other races to a grand alliance; he brings them to heel through force. It's not enough for Rauru to immediately counterattack Ganondorf. He wants to destroy him, and what better way than to turn the whole world against him? Additionally, by consolidating the power of the Stones onto his side, he denies Ganondorf the opportunity to pick them off one by one. Zelda is witnessing history, the birth of Hyrule as she knows it, but there's nothing noble about it. It's simple imperialism, and she has to grapple with the fact that she's a beneficiary of it. If the peoples of Hyrule were united through bloodshed, does this invalidate the friendships she's made among those peoples in her present? She's confronted with deep questions which possess no easy answers.

Meanwhile, Ganondorf hasn't been sitting on his laurels. He sees Rauru is stacking the deck against him, such that even the Stone's power won't be enough to win the coming war. The Gerudo are outnumbered and outgunned. So Ganondorf turns to darker magics, begins to press monsters into service, etc. His search for ever greater power takes him into the Depths, where he finds a dangerous substance called Gloom. According to legend, it is the ichor of a demon god who was struck down long ago and sealed away in the bowels of the earth. It drains the life-force of whoever touches it, that much is certain... but Ganondorf reckons it is possible to access this stolen vitality to perform feats of magic hitherto thought impossible. Through his mastery of dark magic, amplified by the Stone, he is able to harness the Gloom. First he tests it upon monsters... then dissidents, those reluctant to oppose Rauru's growing army. He makes examples of them, siphoning away their life-force to show those who will not fight will still serve their king. But this barbarous act only creates more dissent among the Gerudo. Tradition appointed Ganondorf as king, but that doesn't mean they have to stomach his tyranny. Even if he manages to win this war, this new power could allow him to reign forever, and he just demonstrated how little their individual lives mean to him. Worried for the future of their people, Ganondorf's second-in-command, Nabooru, sells him out in exchange for clemency, enabling Rauru and his Sages to capture him. Instead of slaying him on the spot, Rauru declares his intention to haul him back to Hyrule for a public execution in Sonia's name. Nabooru insists on coming along; if the King of the Gerudo is to die on foreign soil, then one of his own should observe his passing.

Ganondorf doesn't respond well to this betrayal. After everything he sacrificed, they would still rather roll over and show their bellies—surrender their freedom and pride—to a foreign lord. Who are these people, to abandon the courage of their ancestors? These are not his Gerudo. Ganondorf disowns them, swearing vengeance upon these cowards even as he is taken away in chains. The journey back to Hyrule gives him time to brood on his destiny. He was born to be a king, yet the place of his birth has forsaken him while the rest of the world wants him dead. Most people would crumble, succumb to despair. But his pride will never allow that. He will keep fighting, like he always has. He will crush any opposition, even if it's the people who gave him birth. He will rule, even if he must reign as king of the undesired. There's a saying: 'The brighter the light, the deeper the shadow.' And Rauru has blazed oh so fiercely. To oppose him, Ganondorf must become nothing less than the King of Shadow.

At the moment of his execution, he draws upon the Gloom to transcend his mortal limits, finally becoming the Demon King. In this form, he's able to battle all seven of the Sages, but he's still not almighty. In theory, Rauru is able to slay him... but he chooses not to. Imprisoning Ganondorf isn't done as a last resort; Rauru wants him to suffer. "Killing you would be far too kind. I will make you wish you could die. You won't. I will hold you here. We will build our kingdom over the lands you tried to burn and pillage. And you will rot here, trapped in this moment, long after you have faded from its memory." And he sincerely believes that he'll be able to contain Ganondorf for all time—because he was able to ascertain that Zelda is from the future, after examining her Stone (his Stone, as it turns out) and piecing together her strange accent and unusual notions, even though she has the pointed ears of a Hylian. He doesn't understand the power, but he does take it as proof positive that his victory is guaranteed and Hyrule exists well into the future... without ever learning the whole truth of it. Rauru is directly responsible for the cycle of Calamity Ganon, as Ganondorf's resent and hatred transformed the Gloom into Malice.

Rauru's pride is an actual flaw, one that is fully explored in the modern day. Just like Ganondorf says, thousands of years passed in the blink of an eye; Rauru hasn't had any time to process his rage. He only saves Link to make him a vehicle for his revenge; sticking around past the tutorial as Link's spectral companion, constantly pushing him to ignore all distractions to destroy Ganondorf ASAP, yet unable to control him directly. In staying with Link, Rauru learns of his legacy; that he created a lasting kingdom, but harmed future generations by inadvertently creating Calamity Ganon—Ganondorf's disembodied anguish and hate, nursed over thousands of years. His selfish decisions created more harm than Ganondorf could have in a single lifetime. Just as the Zonai destroyed the world once before, Rauru managed to destroy it again and again. Hyrule no longer even exists as a kingdom, destroyed by Calamity Ganon 100 years prior. Yet Link continues to fight—not for himself, but to protect and help those he cares about as well as perfect strangers. Rauru gives a touch of the divine to Link, and in return Link reintroduces Rauru to humanity.

In contrast: Ganondorf broods in the Depths, alone. Although he still has a corporeal form, he's just as much of a ghost as Rauru is. He's more isolated than ever, having awakened to a strange world where nothing is as he remembers it. The geography is different, the flora and fauna is different, the people are different. Especially the Gerudo. They don't remember him as ever having been a person at all, believing the monster of their legends merely adopted the form of a Gerudo. But that doesn't sting as much as how tame they've become in his absence. These Gerudo have no fangs; they're fully in bed with Hyrule in every sense of the word, and it disgusts him. Nothing in this world is right. Everyone has forgotten their pride and their history; no one remembers a time when Hyrule wasn't be-all and end-all. Unable to accept this future, he terraforms Hyrule in the image of what it used to be, so it might become a crucible once more. The strong will adapt and survive, while the weak rightfully perish. He will create a world that rewards might and daring above all else.

Ganondorf is none too pleased to learn Link is running around with the arm of the man who sealed him for millennia, and assumes that he has become Rauru's puppet (even more hand symbolism)... but that's a key difference between Ganondorf and Rauru. Link essentially drags Rauru through character development, rekindling a sense of humanity within him. Ganondorf has no one to break him out of his rut. His only company down in the Depths are monsters and the Yiga Clan, who revere him as the source of Calamity Ganon—for his power and opposition of Hyrulian supremacy—but do not see him as person, a king in need of counsel. Ganondorf is more alone than ever, but he refuses to address this. To despair is to admit that the world has power over you, and he is the single strongest being in the world. Gods do not weep. And in that final confrontation, Rauru addresses Ganondorf: They're both ghosts of the past, stubbornly trying to shape the future to their liking; but the present belongs to the living. They both need to let go. But Ganondorf's pride will never allow that. To admit defeat is to admit someone has power over him, and he cannot allow it. It becomes clear to him that the only option left to him is to not play at all.

He swallows his Stone and becomes a dragon, but this doesn't lead to another boss fight (to compensate, the third phase would be a more classical Ganon fight; a friend suggested the name of "Scourge of Hyrule—Apocalypse Ganon"). Instead, in line with what was established earlier—that to become a dragon is to lose yourself to the process—Ganondorf ascends to the sky... and bears no more malice toward Link or Hyrule. He becomes the ultimate in power—immortal and at last truly divine—at the cost of his ego. He's still dangerous since he radiates Gloom, but he doesn't attack, just like the other dragons: an idiot god. He returns to the Depths out of instinctual comfort, but will occasionally surface and usher in a Blood Moon. And like the other dragons, you can harvest rare materials from him to make the best Gloom weapons or whatever. + Leaving Ganondorf in this state leaves a door open for fanatics to try and restore him in a sequel.

So, that's all I got

There's a lot of things I didn't address. Like whether the line of succession was broken with Sonia's death (so is Zelda descended from a relative of hers?), what sort of characters the Sages should be, or what Zelda does after Ganondorf is sealed away by Rauru (I'm personally not comfortable with her waltzing up to the Sages and in a stable time loop binding all the races to Hyrule), how weird the Draconification plot point is (and how Zelda is restored to her human form by Good Ending ghost magic), how Zelda is restored in this version (sequel hook same with Ganon?), how disconnected I feel Link is to the Ancient Past storyline as a whole, whether my version of Ganondorf actually ever learned about him, I didn't really dive into the aforementioned imperialist message in TOTK (others have already done so better than I), etc. Thing is, I'm not a professional writer. I do it for the love of it, and that's what this is. A messy labor of misplaced love for a franchise I've never played, all because I was upset they didn't treat my blorbo the way I like. You know how it goes. My brain didn't know when to let go, but at least now it's out there and not rattling around solely in my noggin, making an awful racket. Maybe now I can work on other things. If you've made it this far, cheers.

[la-pheacienne]

grrm* kills off sansa’s direwolf in the first half of book one, gives her her mother’s tully looks, has her being referred toas “little bird”, has her follow the seven instead of old gods, has her marry a lannister, disinherits her from winterfell, has her learning SOUTHERN + politics with LF, doesnt make her warg*

stansas: the red wolf is MY queen in the north because it happened in that abomination of a season.

Ahm. I might be in the minority in this side of the fandom because i don't actually believe grrm killing Sansa's direwolf in agot was meant to be a symbol of her being cut off from the north as opposed to her siblings, idk. Like if you want to see it that way you can of course, but this angle does feel simplistic and kind of boring to me.

The reason Sansa is highly unlikely to end up as QINT is not that she's not "northern enough", or that she's "too southern" imo (what does that mean anyway, these are pretty vague and slightly ontological statements which don't really fit into grrm's vision of Westeros imo). It's not even that she's not "magical enough". The reason is that she doesn't have a ruling arc. That's not to say that she doesn't have a political arc, she does, specifically that of a courtier, a political advisor if you will. I would really like to see Sansa in control of her life and an active player exerting actual political influence. But a savvy and cunning political advisor is not a ruler, because while the arc of a political advisor is primarily inspired by the themes of political power as a means of survival and influence (very individual-centered) a ruler needs to have a broader (collective) scope, a vision and a mission which exceeds both their personal interests and the pragmatic limitations of their rule. It's not that the characters who have a ruling arc in asoiaf are never confronted with these pragmatic limitations, on the contrary, the conflict between the ruler's vision/mission and the practical limitations they face is at the heart of the "ruling is hard" premise, which is so central in asoiaf. But you do need the larger visionary aspects to be present if you want a ruling arc to feel meaningful and substantial for the reader of a high fantasy narrative such as this, aka you need someone who 1) has somehow been chosen by their people (yes even in a pseudo-medieval setting a ruler can be chosen), 2) based on specific attributes this person has (their particular skill, disposition, character, determination, bravery and most importantly their vision), 3) in order to face a specific task at hand that is particularly challenging. As I said, the originality of this work is precisely the fact that these characters who would be textbook one-note heroes in any other high fantasy narrative, are really struggling in their role here, face conflicting situations and sometimes fuck up because they can't align their abstract ideals with their reality. Ruling is hard, we get to see every aspect of this in a story that values realism and internal conflict ("a human heart in conflict with itself"). But we shouldn't get side-tracked by the pragmatic elements of the story and confuse an arc centered around survival and individual ascension to power with a ruling arc. A ruling arc in that context is not just about the specific character's survival or well-being or growth (unlike what fandom often believes), because ruling is not a reward for individual struggle, it is not a prize, it is not a token. A fulfilling ruling arc is about what the characters can do for others, what they do for the world around them, what they want that world to be, how they try to implement their ideals and contribute to a structural collective change. "We must fight the good fight". This is high fantasy with strong romantic traits, it's not Succession and it is not Magnificent Century. It is definitely not Game of Thrones, a show that treats its characters as mere players in a fight for survival and domination, while completely erasing the progressive, even revolutionary political aspects of some arcs in the book. In Game of Thrones, it's only fitting that it is in fact Sansa who becomes QINT. She struggled, she suffered, she won, great. It's all about her. There is no large, collective scope to be found here. The characters that had that scope were shown to be delusional and got punished for it.

But in the book, these core elements of a ruling art are just not present in Sansa's arc and I don't see them being present in the future books if we ever get them. And that is why she's not going to become QINT, not because of her dead direwolf or the color of her hair.

Last observation: I am talking about a fulfilling ruling arc (fulfilling for the reader), and this might raise some questions. Yes, in a story that values realism and internal conflict, characters don't always get "what they deserve" in universe, and their arcs can't necessarily be considered "fulfilling" from an extradiegetic perspective either. There is nothing particularly "fulfilling" about Rob and Cat's fate from the outside, and they definitely don't "deserve" what they got in universe. So it is true that character progression doesn't necessarily need to be "fulfilling" in the sense of "satisfying". It does need to be meaningful and coherent though, and it does have to serve as a vehicle for a broader message. That's what I personally qualify as "fulfilling", "earned" or ""deserved". There was a reason why Cat and Rob had to die, this didn't happen randomly just for shock value. In the ruling question, yes, characters will not end up as rulers in the end just because they "deserve" it for being decent and brave people (ruling is not a reward). That is true, things don't work that way. But the one that ends up as a ruler will not just get there randomly, while the characters that were preparing themselves for that role in universe end up dead, just because "realism" or "subversion". Their role and final position needs to hold meaning, it needs to feel truthful and substantial and make sense. This is a fictional world, things don't just happen just because. The author didn't spend thousands of pages showing us characters struggling to rule at a very high personal cost just to cast them aside in the end because "nobody gets what they deserve oops sorry". That's just a cheap Game of Thrones cop-out.

tl;dr: yes Sansa is not going to become QINT but not for the reasons you mention.

[somuchforsnakes]

Leo's character design is one of my favorites from The Next Chapter's main cast, as it accurately reflects his character and the new series in an appealing way. Let's analyze it.

Starting with the colors, the design's most prominent ones are tan, green, and pink, loosely following a split complementary color scheme. Tan is a versatile ingredient here: it conveys Leo's kindness and dependability, its association with the outdoors reflect his athletic hobbies, and it's visual shorthand for him being Latino (if you're concerned about all Latinx Friends characters looking like this, Leo's little sister and abuelita have diverse skin tones and hair colors). The green on his shirt reinforces his kindness and connection to nature while introducing a positive, lively color to the mix. It all comes together with a generous helping of watermelon pink, tying into his overshirt's motif alongside the green. It associates Leo with lighthearted summertime fun and all but yells at the viewer that Leo has a sweet personality. Already, this color scheme is giving us solid and informative visual design.

It also hints at how the rest of Leo's design plays with traditional gender expression. While an overshirt and cargo shorts typically read as men's clothes, the colors on said clothes say otherwise. His hair is just long enough on the sides and back that you could put it on a female minidoll and pass it off as a messy bob cut, and he's the only male Friends character with visible eyelashes. This balance of masculine vs. feminine is Leo's core conceit.

His key art, one of the first things a child would see on a Friends box, conveys one of Leo's central conflicts though his body language. While he might be smiling here, notice how Leo keeps his legs close to each other and arms inside his silhouette:

It suggests apprehension despite Leo's friendly demeanor, like he's keeping something to himself. Sure enough, that's exactly what's happening: Leo is hesitant to share his baking talents in the cartoon's pilot, and in some episodes, he learns to be more open about his thoughts and feelings.

Having a distinct personality is crucial for characters in Friends; character interaction is part of its appeal, and not everyone will watch the cartoon or read the magazine for further context. Yet through Leo's design alone, a child with no prior knowledge could get the gist of who he is, what he might do in a set, and what conflicts could arise between him and the other minidolls.

That's all fine and dandy, but what does Leo's design say about The Next Chapter?

In an interview with Brickset, the Friends design team explained how the relaunch represented all kinds of young builders. This included boys who wanted to try Friends' relationship-based play but might have felt alienated by the original run's presentation.

Leo's design fulfills two of The Next Chapter's objectives in a single minidoll: representing diverse ethnicities (he's the first Latino main character) and representing boys in the main cast (alongside his comrades Zac and Olly). While the trio explore masculinity and femininity in their own ways, Leo strikes me as the perfect middle ground: his design has more masculine elements than Olly while being more outwardly feminine than Zac.

This balance makes Leo an excellent choice to sell Friends to a new demographic while staying true to the theme's feminine foundation, and if you don't believe me, believe the marketing. When the whole octet isn't needed but a boy is, Leo is often the series' rep. LEGO Channel's old Roku icon deserves a shout-out, as it juxtaposes him with Captain America and Spider-Man in front of a neon electricity backdrop; he's the only Friends rep in this mostly masculine image.

While I'm past the age range of The Next Chapter's core demographic and can't speak from firsthand experience, I'd be shocked if Leo wasn't resonating with boys at all. With how well the character design's fundamentals convey his personality while reflecting masculine and feminine traits, I'd say his place in marketing alongside the relaunch's actual mascot, Aliya, is warranted.

Friends sets are fantastic. If Leo helps more people build and play with the sets, even better.

Author's Note: Thanks for reading my first character design analysis! Friends is one of my favorite themes to dissect because of all the details and emphasis on characters, plus it's great that more people are being represented through the minidolls. Making this essay was a journey and I've learned a lot so far, and I can't wait to learn more.

Comments, critiques, and requests are all appreciated. The next analysis probably won't be about the same theme for variety's sake, but I'll certainly talk about Friends in the future.

[horizon-verizon]

There is something very intresting about how the audience /mainly greens see Alicent + Viserys vs Helaena + Aegon, Alys + Aemond. A few days ago someone drew Alicent and Viserys (Alicent as some sort of playboy bunny --which yes, is in poor taste), BUT no one bats an eye when people draw Helaegon or Alysmond. No one cares when they even draw Helaena and Aegon having sex, Helaegon is not a ''fail marriage'' Helaena is a victim of marital rape in both canons. In Fire and Blood she was 13 years old, Aegon was 15-- BUT, we have 2 other men that had more sense than getting their 13-year-old wives pregnant - one of them being Jaehaerys I - who was also 15; so there is no excuse for what Aegon did. In the show it's clear as day she is a victim of rape, just like Alicent; Only that her situation is worse - she doesn't like to be touched much + Aegon comes drunk. Or even jokes how Aegon was ''jealous'' of her dancing with Jace and they were going to make Maelor that night.... the same with Alysmond - Alys' entire family was killed, people she knew, boys she could have nursed herself. She was taken to warm his bed. Her doing what she needs to survive=loving him. There is nothing romantic about it, I don't even know how people think that.

A 15 year old is not a "man"--neither in this world or in our real world reality, historically or presently. Still, Aegon was both the elder and socially more powerful of the 2, and unlike Dany-Irri, show!him never takes it on himself to make sure she's comfortable, her understanidng, establishing or gettign to know where her head's at, knoiwng boundaries or what-have-you, regardless of their ages. It was quite clear he just couldn't be bothered.

Aegon forces himself on Helaena, and there's a more subtle reason to think so than ages, I think, and perhaps a different "type" of "force" but not really: due to the pretext his his deliberate and consistent inebriation allows him. It's just a gesture of duty performance/getting his mother and grandfather off his back and his way of being defiant against them (I'll do this my way, half-assed), and a way to get even more feeling of control bc it forces Helaena to have to modify her behavior around his actions while he just gets to thrust and technically still do the "duty" that is being prioritized over safety here by the older adults. He may think he's suffering, but it's certainly more of a win for him than for Helaena, at the very least psychologically--he can get his kicks and sense of control over is sister-wife but not really have to see her as sex by itself is a prime way for men to practice their domination over women, esp with her being his sister and he possibly using sex to reemphasize the traditional chain of matrimony. I once mentioned that people ship incestually or like incest that wasn't graphic or terrifying at whatever point bc it's about having a strong bond or an attempt at one. Well, Aegon is maybe attempting a "strong bond" but not one of intimacy but control (dark side of the coin). Therefore, he's not ever going to be inclined to care about Helaena, apart from him being genuinely unatracted to her enough to essentially reverse paperbag her.

Perhaps Alicent has protested or tried to, or maybe she hasn't and maybe even both her and Otto had stank faces when they heard what Aegon usually does--they are most likely not going to really stop him or use paltry persuasion without getting to the root of the issue bc they don't really want to jeapordize their central goals. And/or in the case of Alicent, she's conflicted bc of the traditional morals surrounding marital property rights of a man over a woman vs she has never been respected by any of her kids or Otto for them to be persuaded much by her bc she is a woman and has done some weird shit to/about them (except maybe Aemond and Daeron) vs she does try to bring it up and castigate Aegon, but otto gets in her way or Aegon straight up ignores her or even Helaena interrupts wanting "peace".

I certainly this should be the logical implication of what was written in the show. God, what could have been writing wise...anyway.

[helenofblackthorns]

this is your invitation to talk about all your two theories :))) thoughts on janus? the role of the princes of hell? pleaseeee feed me

thank you for this opportunity anon, as it turns out I have far more to say on this than I thought (buckle up for a massive amount of yapping)

firstly, Janus. He's an interesting character given all we know about him, but he also feels very straightforward. At this point he is being presented as an antagonist, a very central one at that, but in the scheme of things he seems very minor. He is nowhere near the same level of threat as the other antagonistic forces that we know await us in TWP, which brings his role in things into question. Normally, a tsc antagonist has some connection to the main character(s) and there is a specific reason why they become entangled (eg. Valentine is Clary's father, Mortmain created Tessa, Malcolm needed the Blackthorns to raise Annabel etc etc). Janus as a villain however has no obvious connection to any of the twp mains, and it's the total opposite when it comes to Ash despite the fact his motivations are known. He is focused around Clary, Jace, and the other tmi mains and given what we know its hard to see why he would come into conflict with Kit, Dru or Ty. There is the parallels between him and Livvy, but this doesn't seem antagonistic to me, he just represents a possible future for her (as Magnus said in gotsm, if she does not do great things, she will do terrible things).

All this is to say I think Janus is a massive red herring and not the person we should be worrying about. I think his relevance as a antagonist is going to come from his alliance to the Seelie Queen, who's motivations we know nothing about. She has been entangling herself in matters ever since she requested their audience in City of Ashes and we do not know why. It's especially obvious she's up to something when you compare her relevance in the modern timeline to the historical one, where I don't think she mentioned at all. Some of her actions are also suspicious, such as how she went out of her way to ensure Meliorn was the faerie representative. It's a plot point that gets resolved with the reveal she's working with Sebastian, but Sebastian was dead when she did it and I doubt even she would have known Lilith was going to raise him from the dead. This implies she had different plans that she then abandoned to aid Sebastian, because he could give her something she wanted; Ash. Ash clearly holds more significance to her than simply being her child as the Seelie Queen has only ever had two children, Auraline and Ash, and they were born over 200 years apart. There is clearly intention behind this, there is something that both the Unseelie King and Sebastian have in common that the Seelie Queen wants her children to have. What her plans are, we probably won't know until twp, although there may be hints in the Better in Black short story.

Like the Seelie Queen, the Princes of Hell are also likely up to something big behind the scenes. The last time we've seen from any of them was in 2010 with tlbotw; they're entirely absent from tda. This is strange as it makes tda the only series where they do not make an appearance or play a role in the story (side note I do include Lilith as a Prince of Hell even though she's technically not). Which is extremely suspicious and it's very likely that not the case, and that it'll be revealed that they have been influencing things in twp. Thule especially is something I think they're involved in, for a number of reasons. We're told the thing that altered the timeline was a powerful demon giving Lilith the strength to kill Clary, and CC said on tumblr the demon is one who is associated with Lilith in mythology. At the time (2018) CC was very mysterious, but we know enough about the PoH now to make a very educated guess that it was Sammael. Also, it's always struck me as odd that there was such a massive passing of time between Annabel & Ash coming to Thule and Emma & Julian following them. Every other time someone has gone through the portal, time has passed more or less the same and if there was discrepancy it's very minor, nowhere near the years that Ash was in Thule for. I would not be surprised if someone (Belphegor?) manipulated the portal to ensure Ash was in Thule for a certain amount of time before Emma and Julian could interfere with anything. Why the PoH would want any of this I have no idea, except poor Ash is seemingly a pawn in their plans (again) (free him for all these evil plans hasn't he been through enough?)

There is also Lucifer, who is by far the most mysterious tsc character and we know next to nothing about him. However, in the PoH art series CJ did, it does say on Belial's page that a) he claims to have convinced Lucifer to rebel and b) he is sometimes called the "father of Lucifer." A lot of the information in these arts come from preexisting Jewish & Christian mythology and can be easily googled, but that doesn't seem to be the case here. Either it's more obscure or CC made it up herself which is slightly terrifying because what does that mean. is Nate losing the title of Tessa's worst brother 137 years after his death?? ig we'll find out in 2026

[teh-kittykat]

Tron: The Animated Series (1986-1989)

What do you mean you haven't seen Tron: The Animated Series? It was my favorite cartoon when I was a kid!

So this all started as an exercise in how to explain why Sam inexplicably had merch for a 2010 movie in his 1989 house. In-universe there would have probably been toys using the 1982 aesthetic since that was what the video game used (and Sam DOES have an 82 Tron figure in his house!) but why the Grid stuff?

Enter THE CARTOON.

It was the 1980s everybody who was everybody made cartoons to sell toys. Encom made home gaming consoles by this point, and they would have had peripherals like Nintendo did. They had licensed characters like Nintendo did. You see where I am going.

Encom wants to sell Encom Gaming Power Gauntlets. Kevin wants to introduce kids to the ideas about the Digital Frontier since he's a futurist and knows kids will be mentally flexible enough to digest the new zeitgeist if it's fun and animated!

Production of the cartoon ran from Kevin's official retirement as CEO until his disappearance. Three official seasons with a fourth in production. Season three's airing was cut short due to the furor surrounding Kevin's going missing, but the "lost" final episodes of S3 were restored when the DVDs were eventually released for an anniversary collection.

The cartoon was also successful in syndication through the 1990s and early 2000s since it successfully anticipated the Educational/Informative movement-- Tron: The Animated Series actually does teach kids some of the basics of computer science around the silly adventure stuff. Think Captain Planet meets Captain N the Game Master for the overall tone of the series. It's not realistic, but you get the general concepts and issues.

The cartoon's popularity among millennials keeps Tron alive in pop culture to the present day. The IP remains a perennial revenue stream for Encom, and every so often they'll throw the fanbase something to keep the money going. (This is an ordeal to the program himself, since he has to deal with hackers sent by groups named after him on the reg.)

What's it about?

Young video game enthusiast Jethro "Jet" Keene lands himself the after school internship of a lifetime getting to work at Encom in a special new program for teenagers with attitude run by Kevin Flynn (voiced by himself).

However, it's not all fun and video game testing with the sweet new Encom Power Gauntlet. Thanks to some cartoon physics hijinks, Jet finds himself transported into the Grid, the Boss's new experimental computer system!

Jet gets to work with Clu (they hired a voice-alike for him) and Tron (ditto) to find a way back home to the real world, solving problems and learning how to code along the way... and that was the pilot episode.

Because this is a cartoon for children, Jet is naturally the regular User of the Grid instead of Flynn, though Flynn makes occasional appearances to dispense Yoda-like wisdom and is revered by all the programs inside the system as the Creator.

There are also no lasers or anything like that-- Jet does a silly toku-like thing with the power gauntlet to commute into the system.

Clu is more likable than in real life. He's mostly benevolent, trying to make a more perfect system but the show's writers actually picked up on the idea that making a perfect system is kind of an impossible lift and made it central to his character development. He's a little obsessed with copying the User world, and there's an arc in S3 where a lot of the conflict revolves around why can't programs be programs about it.

Tron's not a mayhem goblin, which is a crime. He's portrayed as a little bit Optimus Prime, since Jet's the primary mayhem source, and Fighting for the Users is otherwise his defining personality trait. He gets a surprisingly deep fate/free will arc in S2, since naturally several episodes revolve around attempts to reprogram him since he's the Champion and all. Afterward, he's a bit more chill.

Jet's storyline parallel's Kevin's real-life one a little bit-- a lot of the episodes focused on him as a character revolve around him trying to balance his double life.The cartoon also does not mention the time dilation jetlag. Jet, unlike Kevin, does learn how to ask for help, especially as S3 decides to diversify a little more and adds a girl intern, Paige.

S3 in general has a lot of emphasis on diversity and tolerance of others and their differences. The ISO-Basic tensions were running high in the real Grid. It was on Kevin's mind a lot. He was also starting to make thinks on introducing the ISOs to the rest of the world at the time.

Like Reboot in the 1990s, Tron has a lot of episodes devoted to video games and playing games on the Game Grid is a frequent trope. (Hardcore Tron partisans accuse Reboot of stealing this.) Unlike in Reboot, there's no derezzing the losers if the User wins. Games are sometimes the entire plot and sometimes an obstacle or diversion from solving an episode's actual problem.

Since the Grid is open in Tron, there is a recurring cast of villains in the form of viruses and hackers from other systems in addition to technical problems that have to be solved through coding and computer science know-how.

The fourth season didn't get much past a few animatics for the S4 pilot, but what was there got a release for the fancy anniversary collections as special features. Design docs indicate that some new characters were about to be introduced-- Jalen and Radia. Kevin Flynn disappeared while voice actors were being cast for these roles.

NGL I am extremely mad this wasn't a real cartoon.

[literary-illuminati]

2024 Book Review #4 – War in Human Civilization by Azar Gat

This is my first big history book of the year, and one I’ve been rather looking forward to getting to for some time now. Its claimed subject matter – the whole scope of war and violent conflict across the history of humanity – is ambitious enough to be intriguing, and it was cited and recommended by Bret Devereaux, whose writing I’m generally a huge fan of. Of course, he recommended The Bright Ages too, and that was one of my worst reads of last year – apparently something I should have learned my lesson from. This is, bluntly, not a good book – the first half is bad but at least interesting, while the remainder is only really worth reading as a time capsule of early 2000s academic writing and hegemonic politics.

The book purports to be a survey of warfare from the evolution of homo sapiens sapiens through to the (then) present, drawing together studies from several different fields to draw new conclusions and a novel synthesis that none of the authors being drawn from had ever had the context to see – which in retrospect really should have been a big enough collection of dramatically waving red flags to make me put it down then and there. It starts with a lengthy consideration of conflict in humanity’s ‘evolutionary state of nature’ – the long myriads between the evolution of the modern species and the neolithic revolution – which he holds is the environment where the habits, drives and instincts of ‘human nature’ were set and have yet to significantly diverge from. He does this by comparing conflict in other social megafauna (mostly but not entirely primates), archaeology, and analogizing from the anthropological accounts we have of fairly isolated/’untainted’ hunter gatherers in the historical record.

From there, he goes on through the different stages of human development – he takes a bit of pain at one point to disavow believing in ‘stagism’ or modernization theory, but then he discusses things entirely in terms of ‘relative time’ and makes the idea that Haida in 17th century PNW North America are pretty much comparable to pre-agriculture inhabitants of Mesopotamia, so I’m not entirely sure what he’s actually trying to disavow – and how warfare evolved in each. His central thesis is that the fundamental causes of war are essentially the same as they were for hunter-gatherer bands on the savanna, only appearing to have changed because of how they have been warped and filtered by cultural and technological evolution. This is followed with a lengthy discussion of the 19th and 20th centuries that mostly boils down to trying to defend that contention and to argue that, contrary to what the world wars would have you believe, modernity is in fact significantly more peaceful than any epoch to precede it. The book then concludes with a discussion of terrorism and WMDs that mostly serves to remind you it was written right after 9/11.

So, lets start with the good. The book’s discussion of rates of violence in the random grab-bag of premodern societies used as case studies and the archaeological evidence gathered makes a very convincing case that murder and war are hardly specific ills of civilization, and that per capita feuds and raids in non-state societies were as- or more- deadly than interstate warfare averaged out over similar periods of time (though Gat gets clumsy and takes the point rather too far at times). The description of different systems of warfare that ten to reoccur across history in similar social and technological conditions is likewise very interesting and analytically useful, even if you’re skeptical of his causal explanations for why.

If you’re interested in academic inside baseball, a fairly large chunk of the book is also just shadowboxing against unnamed interlocutors and advancing bold positions like ‘engaging in warfare can absolutely be a rational choice that does you and yours significant good, for example Genghis Khan-’, an argument which there are apparently people on the other side of.

Of course all that value requires taking Gat at his word, which leads to the book’s largest and most overwhelming problem – he’s sloppy. Reading through the book, you notice all manner of little incidental facts he’s gotten wrong or oversimplified to the point where it’s basically the same thing – my favourites are listing early modern Poland as a coherent national state, and characterizing US interventions in early 20th century Central America as attempts to impose democracy. To a degree, this is probably inevitable in a book with such a massive subject matter, but the number I (a total amateur with an undergraduate education) noticed on a casual read - and more damningly the fact that every one of them made things easier or simpler for him to fit within his thesis - means that I really can’t be sure how much to trust anything he writes.

I mentioned above that I got this off a recommendation from Bret Devereaux’s blog. Specifically, I got it from his series on the ‘Fremen Mirage’ – his term for the enduring cultural trope about the military supremacy of hard, deprived and abusive societies. Which honestly makes it really funny that this entire book indulges in that very same trope continuously. There are whole chapters devoted to thesis that ‘primitive’ and ‘barbarian’ societies possess superior military ferocity and fighting spirit to more civilized and ‘domesticated’ ones, and how this is one of the great engines of history up to the turn of the modern age. It’s not even argued for, really, just taken as a given and then used to expand on his general theories.

Speaking of – it is absolutely core to the book’s thesis that war (and interpersonal violence generally) are driven by (fundamentally) either material or reproductive concerns. ‘Reproductive’ here meaning ‘allowing men to secure access to women’, with an accompanying chapter-length aside about how war is a (possibly the most) fundamentally male activity, and any female contributions to it across the span of history are so marginal as to not require explanation or analysis in his comprehensive survey. Women thus appear purely as objects – things to be fought over and fucked – with the closest to any individual or collective agency on their part shown is a consideration that maybe the sexual revolution made western society less violent because it gave young men a way to get laid besides marriage or rape.

Speaking of – as the book moves forward in time, it goes from being deeply flawed but interesting to just, total dreck (though this also might just me being a bit more familiar with what Gat’s talking about in these sections). Given the Orientalism that just about suffuses the book it’s not, exactly, surprising that Gat takes so much more care to characterize the Soviet Union as especially brutal and inhumane that he does Nazi Germany but it is, at least, interesting. And even the section of World War 2 is more worthwhile than the chapters on decolonization and democratic peace theory that follow it.

Fundamentally this is just a book better consumed secondhand, I think – there are some interesting points, but they do not come anywhere near justifying slogging through the whole thing.

[thevindicativevordan]

I don't think I've seen you talk about him but what are your thoughts on Captain America (Steve Rodgers)? Seems for all of Marvel's various Superman expies, he's the one most fans from what I've seen will say is Marvel's equivalent to Superman.

Spider-Man is the real Marvel equivalent while Hulk is the real Marvel contrast, which is probably why I've never been too enamored with Cap. He's a fine enough character but never one I've considered myself a devoted fan of.

Don't get me wrong, Cap has loads of excellent comics, including the oft cited Brubaker run. No doubt in my mind he has a much higher stack of quality comics than Iron Man does. Other than wearing a red and blue costume and being seen as the moral paragon however, he and Superman don't have much in common. Superman is a superpowered alien whose heritage is foundational to who he is. Cap is a superpowered human whose immigrant heritage is frankly little more than a footnote. You could easily make Steve the descendant of Pilgrims and it wouldn't change much. All that matters is that Steve Rogers was a weak, sickly kid who was pure of heart and embodied the best of America's ideals, with the Serum giving him the body to match his spirit. Defining what those ideals actually are is totally subjective and arbitrary because America itself is an inconsistent bag of hypocrisy.

Another feature of Cap's character is that at heart, he is a war comics protagonist. Even when his "wars" are set in the present, they always tie back to the events of the 20th century. If Superman is about the hopes and fears of the future, as befitting the Man of Tomorrow, Cap is about the sins of the past returning to haunt us, as befitting the Man Out Of Time. His greatest foe is fascism's counter-icon, the Red Skull. America's 20th century conflicts with Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia form the ideological foundation for most of the foes Cap fights against. Lex Luthor might have fascist elements, but he is not an outspoken proponent of fascism in the way that Skull is. There's no avoiding that America as a nation and a concept is central to Steve in a way it isn't for Clark. Steve's relationship with America - including it's past and present actions good and bad - is the central component of his character, whereas for Superman it's his relationship or lack thereof with Krypton.

Even as a contrast I don't think Supes is the best DC character to pair with Cap. Oddly enough, Batman is the better choice:

Steve and Bruce were both orphaned at a young age, but Bruce had money whereas Steve grew up in poverty. Bruce is a WASP whose roots stretch back to America's founding, whereas Steve is the son of Irish Catholic immigrants. Batman is the dark and cynical one who never kills, where Captain America is the bright and optimistic one who sometimes does. They both lost partners who returned as antagonists. They both are master tacticians, fighters, and leaders who transformed themselves into the peak of human perfection in order to win a war. Tellingly it's Batman with whom Steve shares a moment of empathy in the JLA/Avengers crossover, and I believe there's more to be mined from comparing and contrasting these two.

Short version? Interesting enough character, not one of my favs.

[bitimdrake]

pssssst hey quick question on the dl - who is helena bartinelli??

i cannot answer anon questions on the dl, so answer on the up-high, which she deserves:

HUNTRESS

a.k.a. Helena Bertinelli, a.k.a. Gotham's coolest and most notable antihero, crossbow-wielder, and purple bat-associated vigilante.

Helena was born to an Italian mob family, but spent her childhood blissfully unaware of the family business--until her entire family was slaughtered in front of her when she was eight. She stayed with family overseas for the rest of her childhood, learning how to fight and protect herself.

She came back to Gotham for both vengeance and justice, and became one of Gotham's many vigilantes. Though her focus is on the mob, she'll step in to stop any crime.

She's also a schoolteacher! Good for her.

She is discerning in who she chooses to kill, but she does kill. As you can imagine, this put her at odds with Batman for a long time. Helena is pretty much the premiere example of Bruce trying to claim control over every vigilante in Gotham, no matter how little right he has. The argument on killing/ethics is valid, but his default was basically "do exactly what I say and fall in line under my command, or stop completely," which is why he's an asshole control freak and why I'm constantly mad about how she was treated 👍

She was an absolute mainstay of the Batfamily before Flashpoint (2011) and it is personally hurtful to me that people don't know her. (Like, to be frank? She had far more of a presence than Damian or (living) Jason in the post-crisis era.)

You could count on seeing her in any major Batfamily crossover, from Cataclysm to Battle for the Cowl.

She was central to the biggest Batfamily crossover ever, No Man's Land, where Gotham was locked off from the rest of the country and turned into a lawless wasteland. Bruce left to sulk for the first couple of months and in absence of any other vigilantes in the field (only Oracle having remained in the city), Helena donned the mantle of the Bat for herself to protect the city. And when Batman came back, in return for all she'd done, she got...yelled at, assigned impossible tasks and criticized for not achieving them, her costume stolen and given to someone else, lied to, abandoned in the face of impossible odds, and shot multiple times protecting kids. Absolute fucking hero, honestly.

She also was on the Justice League for a while, though admittedly I have barely touched that run. To my understanding, despite nominating her for the position, Bruce was also the one to revoke her membership there.

Fortunately! things improved!!

In the early/mid 2000s, Helena joined the Birds of Prey, Oracle's team, and found legit friendships and support there with teammates like Dinah Lance/Black Canary. She finally got more respect in the community, and had a much better time.

Additional relationships include:

A big sister/annoying little brother type thing with Tim, who may disapprove of her killing but simply likes making friends too much :)

A great relationship with Vic Sage/the Question

One single issue where she met Steph that presented SUCH interesting potential that I desperately wish had been followed up on

On and off romantic/sexual tension with Dick, depending on the writer, which culminated in a single hook up that apparently most people around here would rather pretend didn't happen, though I really don't think it's that bad

A complicated relationship with Barbara, partially due to clashing personalities and conflicting morals (with Babs being nearly as much of a control freak as Bruce), and partially due to a shared history with Dick because DC loves making women be catty

Surely others from her first solo or time on the JLA that I don't know well enough to list!

She's rad and determined and takes no shit but cares a lot, and I love her. We deserve more stories tying her teaching day job into her night work. We also deserve more stories with her in general.

If you would like additional Helena beyond just cruising my tag, I recommend:

Batman/Huntress: Cry for Blood - far more Huntress than Batman, this is a great 6-issue miniseries about Helena reckoning with her past, ft the Question.

Batman: No Man's Land - if you have the time for it, a big storyline but worth it.

Birds of Prey vol 1 (1999) - Helena starts to appear around issue #57 and becomes a central character from there.