#cassian john wick

[r1-jw-lover]

This little post I made on Akira and John exploded more than I expected, so I shall offer more interesting observations that I noticed about lighting choices/colour symbolism in the John Wick movies. Before we get into it, I would like to recommend these analysis [1, 2] by @evren-sadwrn on Marquis de Gramont, John Wick and Helen Wick talking about the same topic as I am below.

Charon

Most of Charon's scenes throughout the franchise were otherwise dark backdrops only brightened up by the lamps/light sources around him, which exemplifies the fact that he is the most reliable, dependable and trustworthy character, ally and friend in this dark criminal underworld, fitting for someone named after the ferryman of the underworld in Greek mythology.

The only scene where Charon notably breaks this pattern was his final scene when the Marquis shot him when he and Winston and everyone else were drenched in the Marquis' harsh golden lighting, which was heartbreaking to say the least.

Marcus

Similarly, Marcus' scenes in the first film had mostly grey backdrops, representing the stability, monotony, and lack of transformation of his life, in contrast to John who just lost his wife at the time.

The two exceptions happened during the two most important points of his character arc, the first one being darkly-lit when Marcus decided to not shoot a resting John from the Continental's window and warned him instead, and the second one being brightly-lit when Marcus got beaten up and then killed by Viggo in his home for helping John. These two scenes were also backdropped by yellow lighting as opposed to the blueish hues from his previous scenes.

Cassian & Ares, Gianna & Santino

I'm putting these four characters together in the same section because they share a common theme in terms of lighting choice, especially during their last scenes. Both Cassian's and Ares' final fight with John ended in brightly-lit settings with white lights. On the other hand, both Gianna's and Santino's death scenes took place in darkly-lit settings. The parallels, man, the parallels!

Caine

The lighting choice for Caine was kinda hard to pin down, and I think it's because it's meant to represent the emotional conflict Caine faces throughout Chapter 4. The fluctuation between light and dark, neon and natural lights reflects his dilemma very well, with his darkest lit scene arguably being his duel with Koji, where it's also the only scene he took down his sunglasses, thus signifying his lowest point in the movie.

But I think it's also worth noting that despite being the obvious second main character after John in the fourth film, Caine was merely a side actor basking in other people's spotlights, whether that be the Marquis' harsh golden lights, Koji's neon lights, or John's (more accurately Helen's) yellow candlelights/sunlight. Caine was a supporting role up until the post-credit when he gets to reunite with his daughter. That's when he gets his own spotlight and arguably the brightest scene he's ever appeared in.

Okay, that's all I could find as of now. There are definitely more characters to dissect and study but I will stop here. If you want more analysis like this, please reblog.

[kavalyera]

loser squad

[r1-jw-lover]

Let's not forget the best friend/ally anyone could have in the John Wick universe.

Happy black history month to all my fellow brothers, sisters, and siblings

Especially to the black folks of the John wick Universe <3

[bluelolblue]

The way Gianna looked at Cassian's ass

[wickblr]

Poll for the best bodyguard?

Kirill : Iosef Tarasov and Viggo Tarasov’s bodyguard

Ares : Santino D’Antonio’s bodyguard

Cassian : Gianna D’Antonio’s bodyguard

Chidi : Marquis de Gramont’s bodyguard

M/N: This is such a hard ass poll :(

[thewhumpcaretaker]

HALLOOOO wjat are some heartbreaking/or just upsetting headcanons you have on john wick characters? (the amount depends, it could be one or more!!)

Take a seat. This gets DARK.

TW: murder, suicidal ideation, animal death, childhood trauma, BDSM, dead dove do not eat

John

John was suicidal after Helen's death (this is nearly canon).

John has complex-PTSD and a trauma-bonded sort of relationship to The Director due to the way he was raised. He can't let go of his familial feelings towards her, despite the fact that she brought him into the assassin world and forced him to do terrible things. But he hates her for it at the same time.

John was forced to kill animals as practice before he began killing people. This started quite young.

John can't bring himself to do anything that even seems like hurting his partner in the bedroom, because it reminds him too much of the very real assassinations he's carried out (I know this is contradictory to the yandare/dominant John that we usually see but this is soft-John).

Helen

Helen is an orphan. This would give her and John something to initially bond over.

Helen is also no-contact with her adoptive family because she grew up in some form of severe dysfunction. Notice that no one is talking to John at her funeral, and none of her family members are ever mentioned. John would definitely try to support her relatives after her death if she were close to them, and vice versa, but we never see anything like that. So they can't have been close, in my opinion.

The thing that caused the rift between Helen and her family was really severe, perhaps even a homicide. This would give Helen a reason to want to understand and accept John despite the fact that he is an actual murderer. She has spent a long time trying to understand why people kill, how they get involved in organized crime, etc. Just trying to understand why.

Helen has a phobia of needles and IVs. Her illness was very difficult for her because she needed transfusions, and John donated blood to her because she felt a bit better about the process if the blood was coming from him. They have matching blood types.

Gianna/Cassian

Cassian was in love with Gianna, and she felt the same way, but she hadn't yet accepted her feelings for him. Shortly before her assassination, he asked her to run away with him, but she was too attached to her position in the High Table.

The Marquis Vincent Bisset de Gramont

All of your headcanons are now my headcanons - look what you did to me evren.

Also s/he has panic attacks.

[reppyy]

[blairwick]

Hallo!!!! Was just wondering abt your fav john wick ships!! :D

Evren!! Thank you so much for the ask haha I was offline for quite a few days due to a lot of stuff happening haha

5. John Wick x The Marquis - I really liked reading Beyond Judgement although I never really had the time to continue it further. I liked how it portrayed how John and Vincent would actually be in a relationship with Vincent’s anger and all towards the High Table. I think they would make a great enemies to lovers🤍

4. Gianna D’Antonio x Cassian - I love what they had and the implications of their relationship transcending beyond just the relationship of a boss and her bodyguard. The subtle intimacy between them during Gianna’s party was enough to make me see them as a couple, and only cemented when I saw Cassian’s reaction to Gianna’s dead body and his level of devotion to the point he actively hunts down John Wick long after Gianna is dead.

3. Mia x Akira Shimazu - I just saw this around while scrolling through tumblr and I really loved the idea. I don’t have much to say other than I enjoy it!☺️

2. Caine x John - I always loved Donnie Yen as an actor and seeing him in the fourth installment of my favorite movie series since it came out back in 2014 just made me love Caine immediately. He’s John Wick’s mirror, the only one who can reflect the sheer amount of power and strength that John possesses. Both John and Caine are both fighting for love, for John it’s Helen and for Caine, it’s his daughter Mia. The way that Caine didn’t know what John was going to pull at the duel yet trusted him because John could have immediately just shot Caine right in between the eyes but no, he still had trust for John.

1.Helen Wick x John Wick - The fandom’s parents🙌  I love them and Helen continues to haunt the narrative. Her death leading to so much destruction and the entirety of the movies.

Bonus! Iosef and me because I liked Alfie Allen in GOT

[marquisedegramont]

What are canon x canon ships you write for?

-🧸

To make this interesting, I’m going to put the ship along with the amount of (explicit) WIPs & Drabbles they have

𝐉𝐎𝐇𝐍 𝐖𝐈𝐂𝐊 / 𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐐𝐔𝐈𝐒 𝐃𝐄 𝐆𝐑𝐀𝐌𝐎𝐍𝐓 ( 𝙘𝙝𝙪𝙧𝙘𝙝𝙙𝙪𝙚𝙡 )

━╋ 3 WIPs , 1 Drabble

𝐆𝐈𝐀𝐍𝐍𝐀 𝐃’𝐀𝐍𝐓𝐎𝐍𝐈𝐎 / 𝐂𝐀𝐒𝐒𝐈𝐀𝐍 ( 𝙗𝙤𝙪𝙣𝙙𝙥𝙧𝙤𝙢𝙞𝙨𝙚 )

━╋ 1 WIP

𝐀𝐊𝐈𝐑𝐀 𝐒𝐇𝐈𝐌𝐀𝐙𝐔 / 𝐌𝐈𝐀 ( 𝙖𝙧𝙘𝙝𝙚𝙧𝙨𝙚𝙧𝙚𝙣𝙖𝙙𝙚 )

━╋ 2 WIPs

𝐂𝐇𝐈𝐃𝐈 / 𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐐𝐔𝐈𝐒 𝐃𝐄 𝐆𝐑𝐀𝐌𝐎𝐍𝐓 ( 𝙝𝙤𝙥𝙚𝙡𝙚𝙨𝙨𝙡𝙮𝙙𝙚𝙫𝙤𝙩𝙚𝙙 )

━╋ 5 WIPs, 3 Drabbles

𝐓𝐎𝐓𝐀𝐋: WIPs - 11 ♰ Drabbles - 4

[r1-jw-lover]

Caine as John Wick's Mirror: A Somewhat Coherent Analysis

What is even a 'mirror' exactly, narratively-speaking?

A mirror character is someone who reflects the hero, usually by highlighting similarities, and is therefore used to help enhance the themes being explored in the story. They can share personality traits, values, skillsets, even goals and narrative arcs, but how the pair of characters differ in their approach to these commonalities is what makes this literary device so interesting.

Caine as a character in the John Wick universe is so fascinating to me (not many people are able to go toe-to-toe against the Baba Yaga himself) and while a lot of my fascination and enjoyment can be attributed to Donnie Yen's performance and his chemistry with Keanu Reeves, what I want to talk about is the writing of his character, and how well Caine served as a mirror to John Wick, the protagonist.

I think to analyse Caine as a character, we need to first look back at another character who most closely served a similar function as Caine towards John Wick: Cassian.

Cassian and Caine are the only two people in the John Wick movies who fought John Wick squarely in a one-to-one match as equals, and got a gracious send off by John in return. Neither of them wanted to or asked to be made an enemy of John Wick (in fact, it was John's actions that caused both men to pit against the Baba Yaga), but each of them took up their role within the story with much dignity and fairness, and in the end were rewarded with John sparing their lives.

Cassian provides lovely contrast to John in Chapter 2. He is the first to show us a character on the same playing field as John Wick who could sit next to the legendary Baba Yaga and share a drink and enjoy a conversation before Caine or anyone else did.

Cassian and John respected each other, knew each other's preferred drink and promised to make the other's death quick, but it seems that's all there is to their relationship, and the moment they stepped out of the Rome Continental all bets are off.

Their motivations are widely different at this point in the story, and Cassian as a character feels more like an obstacle in John's way that John had to face eventually.

Speaking within the confines of the individual movies that they first appeared in, I will argue Cassian from Chapter 2 aligns more closely with the Tracker/Mr. Nobody from Chapter 4 when it comes to his place in the overall narrative, and it is Santino who's on the same level as Caine, because Santino had history with John, asked John about his wife, knew John personally and was the reason John broke Continental rules and would eventually go up against the High Table.

To add onto this, Cassian more importantly serves as a greater parallel to Ares being bodyguards of the D'Antonio siblings with the way John left his opponent's knife in Cassian's chest and kept him alive because John respected Cassian vs John pulling Ares' knife out of her chest and letting her die because John couldn't respect Ares.

At the end of the day, John and Cassian are both men who were ultimately bound by their loyalties to Santino and Gianna respectively, whether that be out of a Blood Marker or out of a sense of duty.

On the other hand, the relationship between John and Caine is the literal heart of Chapter 4.

Yes, Caine has parallels with other characters too. He and Koji were fathers trying to protect their daughter if it meant throwing away their shared brotherhood, he and Mr. Nobody were pawns under the Marquis' thumb tasked with hunting John Wick, but these parallels take a backstage to the parallels between John and Caine.

They are retired hitmen who were forced back into their old life and pitted against each other in a duel to the death through circumstances out of their control. Neither of them had any love for the High Table, and neither of them wanted to hurt or kill the other either. They have the physical evidence to show of their past/present servitude to the High Table (John's ring finger and Caine's eyes), and in contrary to the Marquis' own evaluation of their character, both men had someone to live for, die for, and kill for.

Where they differ is that, one is driven by a sense of loss to remember his dead wife, and the other is driven by a sense of protection to keep his daughter alive. (It's interesting to note that Helen's death had nothing to do with the High Table at all whereas Mia was only alive thanks to the High Table's grace.)

This dilemma of choosing between their loved one and their past friendship is key to Chapter 4's theme of what it truly costs to obtain freedom. It reminds us that John isn't a perfect martyr for rebelling against the High Table with how much trouble and pain he caused to those around him, including Caine. But it also doesn't absolve Caine from the bloodshed he's responsible for despite his hands being tied by the Marquis, or the fact that killing his friend is wrong.

Caine: We are damned, you and I. John: On that, we agree.

I think that Chapter 4 introducing Caine early on in the movie, definitely much earlier than Cassian in Chapter 2, tells us how important Caine's role is to John's goal of achieving freedom and peace. (The most notable example is Caine helping John up the stairs of Sacre-Coeur after he got kicked down these very same steps by Chidi.) In the same vein, Caine wouldn't have gotten his happy ending if John hadn't made the ultimate sacrifice of saving his last bullet to shoot the Marquis.

Not only that, Chapter 4 also shows us several instances of genuine camaraderie and companionship between John and Caine underneath their antagonism, not just how well they worked together and understood each other when they had a common enemy in sight (first in the Berlin nightclub with Killa, and eventually during the sunrise duel with Marquis de Gramont) but also how much they cared for each other deep down.

John and Cassian are colleagues, but John and Caine are close friends. And I think that's why Caine makes for such a good mirror to John Wick, and is the one most deserving to send off John Wick for good in the final chapter of the franchise, that is until John Wick 5 comes along. :(

Tagging @evren-sadwrn, @chaoticgardenbread and @jotunvali02 <3 <3

[kavalyera]

i do not care they tried to kill a man. smash.

[tobytheeggo]

i rlly like stealing headcanons from yu/silly anyways do u have john wick headcanons no pressure ofc mootie patootie

riccardo scamarcio going through an existential crisis for the soul

I will always forever love this photo, it’s in my favorites album in my gallery 💕

Silly John wick headcanons here we go‼️

John likes to stand in front of the tv like how little kids do (inspired by this image from destination wedding 💀)

Viggo is on level 7163 of Candy Crush

^Whenever he’s not in a meeting or doing business, that’s what he’s doing

Iosef complains about it too; saying if he can’t play COD, he can’t play his ‘stupid puzzle games’ (he’s just salty he got his Xbox taken away)

If Gianna did spontaneously take Santi with her to go out, she would force him to take her instagram photos whenever the sun was shining perfectly and the wind was blowing through her hair

^it left Santino in tears

Gianna watches my little pony when she’s extremely bored (especially the rarity episodes)

The D’Antonio siblings always take pictures of the other sleeping and it’s become a joke to a routine now

Ares and Chidi have a sibling bond; whenever Santino and Vincent are too busy arguing, they just mess around

^Chidi likes to give her piggy back rides around the halls cause Ares basically weighs nothing to him

Cassian is also like a brother to Ares

The bodyguards having a sibling-like relationship <3

Tracker and his Daisy love to people watch

^ he’s one of those dog owners that give their dogs 5 course meals

Akira really likes popsicles; she would be eating one any time of day or weather

Winston is a crossword puzzle grandpa

[nimuetheseawitch]

I see two men grappling while rolling down some stairs in Rome and immediately wonder if anyone ships them.

[pitch-and-moan]

The Passenger

The first spinoff of the John Wick films. It's all about Cassian, played by Common, who is ostensibly trapped on a subway car with a knife in his chest, unable to move without dying. The plot moves around him, as people get on and off the train, and their stories oddly mirror Cassian's life. We see the parallels in flashbacks of Cassian's training and work.

[reppyy]