#but who am i going to deep dive into silly teen karate soap operas with

[youandthemountains]

I love this, and appreciate the discussion! I don't even know where I land on a lot of this myself, but I've just been thinking about it a lot (probably more than a Karate Soap Opera deserves but nevertheless...)

To be clear, I do totally agree with the repression and trauma theory. I'm fully on board with this and I think it makes a lot of sense both with canon we have and with where the writers have said inspired the show and where they'd like to take future seasons. I just think the effects of how he grew up & his reversal in fortunes are an additional element to how he's changed that often gets overlooked.

I also agree on the awfulness of him weaponizing his newfound wealth - the rent hike was particularly egregious there. I think it is actually fairly in character and actually especially so if we add the repression & kk3 trauma - if seeing a Cobra Kai storefront reverts him to scrawny-teen-without-options-&-now-without-protector tunnel vision, it's not surprising he goes into a survival mode "nip that in the bud by any means necessary" - which is an instinct that his time with Cobra Kai helped sharpen into him using in an effectively deadly way. I think the show would have (and maybe still could) benefited from showing him recognizing that he reverted to an instinct he hated in that moment, especially because again he personally knows how devastating evictions and losses of livelihoods are.

The one thing I'm still on the fence about is the thing with the bonsais and the buttons. I appreciate your perspective on why people have an issue with them because I'll be honest, I was kind of like. If wearing buttons is him being an awful boss, I'd love to work under this definition of terrible bosses. I guess I was actually charmed by the bonsais - to me it read as him wanting to hold onto Miyagi in his life. I mean, in KK3 they started a business selling bonsais together because it was Miyagi's dream. It seemed like a nice touch, that even if selling trees wasn't financially sustainable, he could hold on to an element of it. I can see the argument that, with Mr. Miyagi now gone, it could be argued to be appropriative. I just don't know how I feel about it yet.

I do think I overall have a knee-jerk negative reaction to the concept that caring about his finances has made him a worse person. I am - skeptical about the... motives of this narrative that trying to escape your class requires you to sell your soul and inherently corrupts you. I can see the argument and I think there are other and better ways to live, but it's also very convenient that the virtuous path is one where people accept their lot in life or follow prescribed paths to a slightly less painful position (paths that require either again, money, or exceptionalism).

ok this is going to get very wrong and rambly because I'm still not sure exactly what I believe or how to express it but -

This is kind of getting away from the subject of Daniel specifically - but a thing about the narrative of this show is. There is a particular narrative that a red-hatted segment of our population buys into in which. As we have better outcomes for people of color and queer people and women, as those populations start to carry higher percentages of college degrees and finally appear in more powerful positions (although not nearly as much as they should, and they still don't earn commensurately, and it only took this long because we're finally very very slowly starting to address some of the many barriers in place), a segment of the population becomes resentful as they surpass or equal their financial status and decides it's better to burn everything down than it is to let these people that they consider lesser than them have anything.

And I think the show sometimes subtly portrays this mindset well in a way that makes me uncomfortable lol - Kreese and Sid and sometimes Johnny are racist and sexist but they're also surrounded by people that belie what they're saying. For all their vitriol, their lives are run by the competent professional black and brown men and women around them (Sid's nurse, the woman at the homeless shelter, Carmen and Miguel and the woman at the rehab and the nurses). It's a nice trick to highlight how dumb they are but also - the show could really use an actual main character of color to humanize this instead of having them as bystanders in this insane obscure war.

There is an element of the show that's very much about this - white men clinging to a world that made sense to them because it was when they had unchecked power. And I think it's within that narrative that I get kind of eye-rolly at the ~class traitor~ remarks because yes obviously, factually, Daniel's just another old white man but with so much of the original film narrative being focused on him being targeted for not looking like he belonged there, finding kinship with an man who was targeted for similar reasons who teaches him how to live through that and how to survive and thrive in spite of everyone, being motivated to defend him after racial slurs get thrown even when he's too scared and overwhelmed to defend himself in kk3 - it makes me overly defensive of the implication that it was foolish or somehow a symbol of his corruption that he found security for himself and his family.

being a daniel larusso fan really does entail actively headcanoning that the reason he went from this: 

to this:

has gotta be trauma and/or repressed queerness