#give her a better plotline for her death

[cozy-the-overlord]

I don’t think I’ve ever been as violently irritated with the choice to kill off a character as I was with that of Ilsa Faust in Dead Reckoning

[noperopesaredope]

Me: Ooooo, I wonder what this "Mouthwashing" thing is that everyone's been obsessed with lately. I should check some of it out.

Me, 30 minutes later: I would kill myself for you, Anya.

[fieryncbles]

Gosh, I'm so in love with Castle (the show & the man) but the fact that sometimes I make up better endings for cases than the writers is beginning to frustrate me

[thenationofzaun]

Arcane Season 2: Episode 7 rant

"Arcane Season 2 may have been rushed but episode 7 was the best of the series!" "Arcane 2x7 was so beautiful and the closest to Season 1's vibes!" "Episode 7 was the only good part of Season 2!"

Anyway, Episode 7 was terrible and here's why:

- Multiverses are a sign of creative bankruptcy. Leave shit like that for fanfiction. Or at the very least, non-canon supplementary material. Highjacking an entire episode of the FINAL act for an AU "what if?" in an already rushed and overstuffed season was an idiotic choice. They essentially left only 2 episodes for Act 3 to resolve a multitude of different plotlines, character arcs, and relationships. All for "alternate timeline" drivel that caters to the lowest common denominator.

- The Piltover/Zaun conflict resolution shown in this episode is incredibly insulting. The way a show writer explains it (1:49:00), Vi's death and martyrdom makes people from both cities reevaluate their lives and come together to build a better future. This is implied by Marcus's devastated face when he finds Powder crying over Vi's dead body. This tragedy apparently made Piltover see the error of their ways and decide to turn over a new leaf. In this timeline, Silco also found the apology letter Vander wrote him and forgave Vander. Let's break down why this is insulting. The very first scene of the series shows enforcers brutally killing Zaunites on the bridge without any remorse, and in front of their children. When the kids blow up Jayce's lab, the enforcers chase them down and attempt to arrest them, despite them being kids. Later, Marcus and his enforcers ruthlessly abuse and threaten Zaunites while looking for the children, whom he refers to as "four sump rats". Piltover's Council have no problem with this, as every single one of them bar Heimerdinger urges the enforcers to "turn the Undercity upside down". Marcus later throws Vi into a horrible dark shithole of a prison where she is tortured for years while he lives a cushy life as Sheriff in Piltover. Yeah. So the idea that the death of one "sump rat" would make this 200-year old corrupt, classist, authoritarian and evil government who, up till now, have never given a single fuck about the children of Zaun, turn a new leaf is laughable. Remember when Aang suggested showing Firelord Ozai baby photos to make him good again and everyone rightfully laughed at him? How is a show for 7 year olds more mature than this so-called adult show? This isn't even touching how offensive it is that the lesbian kid's death makes the world a paradise. It was not intentionally homophobic as this plotline was the lesbian writer, Amanda Overton's idea (she said so in the video I linked). But lesbian writer or not, intentional or not, this shit is so sloppy and insulting. Embarrassing that she didn't realize how this would come across in the show.

- People like this episode for Ekko/Jinx shipping fanservice, but their relationship isn't even explored in the main story. This girl Ekko is making out with isn't Jinx. She has been stripped of everything unique about Jinx that actually make her who she is. This is Powder, who's somehow perfectly sane and normal, who has fuckall to do with the Jinx we actually know. Ekko's relationship with our Jinx has zero organic or believable development. He never reacts to her becoming a symbol for Zaun. He never reacts to his Firelight lieutenant's change of heart towards Jinx. He and all the Firelights just suddenly have no problem teaming up with Jinx despite her spending years murdering them and their friends. Jinx never even spared a single thought for Ekko throughout the entire show. She blows him up in 1x07, then never mentions nor thinks about him again until 2x09. If she thinks he's dead, she sure shows zero guilt about it. She doesn't seem to give a fuck about that boy lol. The writers did not have the talent to explore the complexities of this relationship within the main universe, so they crafted a convenient alternate universe where nothing went wrong and absolutely nothing too dark or complicated stands in the way of an Ekko/Jinx romance. Because who needs writing that actually grapples with the complexity of a broken friendship and two people who have hurt each other irreparably, when you can just make them kiss in an uncomplicated, unchallenging, unserious lighthearted AU? This is supposed to be the tragic romance everyone's raving about? "Ekko/Jinx would work so well if Jinx wasn't Jinx and was a completely different character😍" Lol.

- "Didn't he try to kill you?!" Who are you talking to Ekko? If you are talking to Silco, then this is a massive plot hole. Ekko shouldn't know that Vander tried to kill Silco. According to Season 1, that shit took place in the far past and Vander never told anyone about it, owing to the fact that the kids had no idea who Silco was. Season 2 retcons that and says that Vander tried to kill Silco after the bridge incident and the kids all knew Silco, which is a blatant plot hole that contradicts Season 1. If Ekko's talking to Vander and Silco just assumed he was talking to him, that makes a bit more sense. But it doesn't explain why none of the characters question why this kid who's known them for years is asking bizarre offensive questions that he should already know the answers to. Instead of "the greatest thing we can do in life is find the power to forgive" corny ass bullshit line, Silco should have said "Excuse me? We've been together for years and you've never had an issue before. Why bring up such a thing now? Is there something wrong, Ekko?" Same goes for Powder forgiving Ekko so quick after the horribly offensive shit he said to her for no reason, that he didn't give any explanation for ("Vi's dead? Was it you??!!!").

- Powder being revealed to still have the Hex crystals at the end of the episode. Let me get this straight: Powder accidentally drops a Hex crystal that explodes the building. This gets Vi killed. Enforcers arrive at the scene and find all the kids. Presumably, they know that the kids were there robbing the place. They never search the kids and confiscate the other crystals from Powder? What do they even think caused the explosion? Do they never investigate? Why are the remnants of the exploded crystal STILL embedded into the wall for Ekko to find? If the enforcers found it, they would surely have removed it right? You mean to tell me they either knowingly left that extremely dangerous shit there, or they never even found them in the first place? 100/10 logic.

- Powder being a perfectly healthy and sane girl despite growing up in Zaun, witnessing the death of her parents, and inadvertently causing the death of her beloved sister (remember, it was Powder who accidentally dropped the crystal which then exploded). This is a Powder who was already very insecure, already being belittled by Mylo, and already desperately attached to her sister. Powder who was already having hallucinations on the bridge as a toddler, and then in episode 3 when she's left alone in the Last Drop, before accidentally killing Mylo and Claggor. You're telling me this Powder accidentally kills HER SISTER VI, and she grows up fine with no guilt? Her guilt over killing Mylo and Claggor was crippling. You could argue that Mylo learned the error of his ways and comforted Powder, no one disparagingly called her a "jinx" ever again, and everyone raised her with love. Except...... Silco did all of those things in Season 1, and she still struggled with guilt and psychosis. Damn, I guess it really was The Big Bad Man at the root of all her mental health problems. Fuck complex gray writing I guess. Season 1 shows us that she already had hallucinations as a small child and in episode 3 before the deaths of Mylo and Claggor. But here in this AU she has none? I guess there really were anti-psychotic drugs and therapy in Piltover all along, which they generously shared with the sump rat who exploded a building instead of throwing her in jail like their pre-character assassination Season 1 selves would have done. And Vander, Silco, Mylo, and Claggor all somehow gained amazing skills at raising a traumatized mentally ill child riddled with guilt from accidentally killing her sister, and their combined efforts with the help of Piltovian Mental Health Awareness campaigns cured all of Powder's mental problems. Hurrah.

- Heimerdinger's pointless death that nobody ever mentions or cares about ever again. Jayce and Viktor never find out about it. He was their mentor for years. The character assassination of Heimerdinger in general was insane. In Season 1, he was staunchly against the Hexcore and wanted to destroy it, citing the devastating Rune Wars that he is a traumatized survivor of. Just seeing the Hexcore was enough to give him flashbacks. He pointed out the danger of the Hextech gemstone. He was booted off the Council by Jayce, which was a huge dramatic betrayal, and prompted him to travel to the Undercity and face the product of his failings as a ruler. And in Season 2? He never reacts to the Council's death who were bombed WITH THE HEXTECH GEMSTONE. Three of his colleagues fucking died and he's cracking shitty jokes. (Who even found it funny when Heimerdinger snuck into the lab then kept dropping shit and saying "ball sockets!" Who is this humour for? Three year olds?) He doesn't have any opinions on Jayce using the Hexcore, the thing he was so terrified of, to save Viktor's life. His reaction to Viktor now being fused with the Hexcore is non-existent. He and Jayce never discuss the betrayal nor the Council nor the current political situation between Piltover and Zaun. Viktor ascends to godhood and looks very reminiscent of the destructive mages in Heimer's flashbacks, but Heimer never reacts to this either. What a fucking waste. His death in episode 7 was contrived and meaningless.

- Mage Viktor letting Jayce suffer and go insane for weeks surviving off scraps, then walk for miles and climb up to the top of the Hexgate on a broken leg, all to meet Mage Viktor anyway. Why didn't this mf just immediately reveal himself to Jayce, tell him everything, help him up to the top of the Hexgate and show him all the petrified bodies, and give him the Mercury Hammer? He needed Jayce to do all that shit by himself because? I swear Mage Viktor's convoluted time-travelling plan makes less sense the more you think about it.

[arcane-temp-fandomblog]

The more I rethink Mel's arc which Amanda said was the best arc, the more I feel it encapsulates all the issues of Season 2.

Yes, I think Mel's arc is one of the most coherent with setup at end of Season 1 and end at Season 2. It's bittersweet but good.

But then I think how we got there and there are glaring problems:

- contrived way of being removed from the plot - the abduction by Black rose, Mel is now not a character influencing the plot, not even having opinion on the events of the plot - she will be in Black rose limbo until plot needs her to respawn in plot required place to get her 3 step resolution of the arc. This happens to Jayce, Ekko and Viktor too.

- over the top shocking cliffhanger that feels like something interesting is coming but in hindsight are just for cheap tension - so when Mel is abducted, it spawns speculation of what are Black Rose's intentions, I thought it was building towards something BUT it just segways into clips of exposition of her powers, of the Doomsday coming to piltover and of her mother's history. They abduct this poor woman for months on end to give us exposition. The same happens with Jayce shooting Viktor. We do not understand these actions, they just seem soo final and shocking and leading into something great. I would like to compare it to finale of S1 which is more shocking with Jinx's rocket yet we understand everything about it.

- making things emotional but in hindsight in a cheap way - so, remember when Black Rose kills Elora, Mel's friend? The emotions! The shock, right? BUT Why do they do it? Please, why would an organization that wants Mel to join them kill off her friend? What's the point of it aside for Mel to be sad? Elora actually got off well, she at least has a dialogue about her death unlike Isha or Vander or Jinx or Vander 2.0. If you compare these deaths to how logical deaths of Marcus or Finn were.

- inefficient storytelling - we get black rose scenes but they're just exposition that never flows into the main story. Never influences it. Contrary it makes the whole story worse, because now Black rose abducted Mel for months to tell her she needs to figure out how to avert the Doomsday. So months on end this organization just waited for her to solve the wall puzzle instead of trying to locate and assassinate the threat in Viktor, or influence Piltover politics to throw out Ambessa. This is cartoon logic.

- impossible to resolve conflicts - this is more on Ambessa' writing, because in ep. 8 she goes like this: Mel, it's not enough you'd join me to avenge Kino, we now have this weapon in you and this nice old chemist is lending me a hand making more weapons BUT it's impossible for me to change plans, because to stick it to Black Rose and mages in noxus as magic is unfair, I'm making this new army with the help of this nice mage I just found in the rubble. This army is also exclusively puppeteer by him. This is cartoon logic of a bad guy, not a human.

- keeping conflicts simple by keeping characters apart until 2 scenes before finale - this is hypothetical so please friends be nice, what if instead of Black rose abduction plotline the whole exposition part of it went like this: Black rose possesed Amara asks Mel to help her get introduction to her mother. Mel and Amara meet Ambessa, where Black rose reveals herself like in original scene and delivers the exposition about Mel's origins and Kino's fate. All the while changing faces between Amara, the Ionia princess and Kino to the horror of all involved. Then Mel's powers awaken like in the puzzle wall scene. Idk if that'd be better but it'd be more efficient and would keep Mel in Piltover. One scene instead of several, leaving Mel and Ambessa more time for an arc build up. Also Elora lives. Anyway, that's my stab at it while chilling and listening to 60 y/o lady showing off her spoon collection in an asmr. It's a very nice asmr.

- symbolism as character development - so when Black Rose gives Mel the Ionian processes necklace I felt really good, it felt as if Mel is finally carving her identity as Medarda from Medarda family history. But then it hit me, we don't know what she thinks of it, we don't know why she goes back to noxus on the ship, we know nothing of ot in her words. It's symbolism. Not as bad as Jayce having his whole character development this season conveyed in symbolism by role playing as Bear Grylls in Apocalypse survivor man, but it feels cheap anyway to not write character just use symbolism.

Anyway, those are my gripes and apparently this is the best arc of this show.

[zettaireido-emotion]

Camus character analysis: games VS anime

If you finished the Uta no Prince-sama anime and your opinion of this man is "wow, he's kinda terrible," I don't blame you. in fact I've seen a lot of people say this

In this post, I want to talk about his characterization in the games and give my two cents on what the anime was trying to do with him, especially in his single focus episode Saintly Territory (S3E6).

Disclaimer: I wrote this on a whim because I'm sick and stuck at home so if anyone reads this, sorry I might go all over the place

Spoilers for all of the games!

The "be my slave" thing

Starting with Anime Camus's most egregious crime: treating Haruka like a servant/slave (however you want to translate it)

Basically in his focus episode, Haruka is tasked with writing a song for Camus. She wants to learn more about him in order to write it, but Camus will only let her follow him if she acts as his servant. She accepts without complaining, Cecil is rightfully angry, Haruka continues anyway and the song gets completed.

Now, am I about to say that Game Camus would never do this? No because he literally does lmao.

The anime doesn't pull this "servant" plotline out of nowhere, here's the context in his route:

Haruka accidentally overhears Camus talking about a plot to assassinate Saotome on the phone. When he notices that she heard everything, he basically tells her that he has to kill her now. But if she served him, he'd be able to keep an eye on her, make sure she doesn't leak anything, so she could escape death.

Okay uh "work under me or DIE" isn't exactly better, nor is it a good start to a love story, but I'm not finished!!

(A side note: I have to add that the anime made him look like an even bigger asshole and borderline dumb when it came to the things he made her do. Like he expected her to know that snapping your fingers means you want coffee without prior explanation. bro

^This might have been for comedic effect but I promise he can be actually funny and endearing.)

What the anime couldn't cover

The Camus episode wraps up with Haruka pulling through and writing a song that makes Camus "sincere," he says it's cool at the very end and that's the episode. I think the problem is that we technically didn't see him being sincere or what that even means to him, besides when he was singing (banger song btw)

It's a shame because in a 20-minute episode you really can't show the game experience of slowly piecing together what this man's problem is.

First of all, in Debut and AS you'll be quick to notice that he always has homeland and duty on the mind, constantly reminding himself that he's in Shining Agency/Japan for a reason, and it's NOT to have fun or make friends

The truth is, he slowly starts to appreciate the banter with his colleagues, music, and working there in general.

But because of his initial mindset, he has to rationalize & justify every connection he forms, like "it's just for work" or worse: "actually it was ALL A LIE and I NEVER ENJOYED A SECOND OF THE TIME WE SPENT TOGETHER, I'm such a great actor haha"

He uses that to fool himself and to push the other person away so it doesn't happen again. This scene is probably the best example:

(I'll be using google lens because it's faster but I checked that the tls were okay)

He also does this in the Non-Fiction drama, which may or may not have actually happened, but I think it's still a pretty good reflection of what could happen in reality because he tells Ranmaru their bond was a lie, then mopes around in his guilt thinking about the good times and wondering why he's sad, and THEN later doubles down on the "it was a lie, I don't care about you" because he just can't let himself get attached to anything.

Basically, he's terrified at the thought of forming actual bonds because he genuinely thinks he's nothing if he stops being a cold weapon:

At one point he does admit he sucks (as a love interest)-

-which is pretty huge by utapri standards. I love these games, but the amount of times where a male lead does something icky, and everyone, including Haruka, acts like it's normal or like it's Haruka's fault is ehhh but I digress

Upbringing

Of course he's very proud of his homeland and status, but sometimes it's to the point of thinking he can't be anything other than his title. So why is he like this?

We got to hear about his childhood from Camus himself a few times, and it often ended with Haruka thinking "wait? that's kinda messed up?" and Camus insisting it's nothing/it's normal so yeah that's something...

His parents were in an unhappy arranged marriage, and his mother was forced to birth an heir which traumatized her so much that she can't see Camus without falling ill. Overall it's a pretty tragic situation since what happened to her was horrible, though not Camus's fault either. Even now she refuses to see him, and I wouldn't say that makes him sad because he never really met her, but simply knowing of her sacrifice probably adds a lot of pressure. As in, he only exists for this one purpose (inheriting his father's title and serving the country), so if he doesn't play his part correctly, it would have all been for nothing.

He was raised by his father not as a child or son but as the heir, always treated and judged as an adult (even during physical training apparently, make of that what you will)

When Haruka asks about childhood memories he has a very hard time finding something that doesn't have to do with his duties or the nation. And then admits he didn't truly have a "childhood" since he was never treated like a child

As for the queen, I think his love for her is sincere: she taught him a lot of things growing up, and according to him, she's also a victim trapped by her duties so he wants to ease the burden.

So hypothetically, if he found things or people that made him happy in Japan, he would feel obligated to lock them away because that happiness is incompatible with his life: he'll have to leave when his mission ends, he shouldn't be spending time on things that aren't "useful" as he doesn't have the free will to pursue them

In his mind he's completely tied down by the fact that he was born and raised for a single reason, and the fact that he does want to serve the queen.

(This is Saotome describing him btw)

Also it might sound ridiculous to bring his self-worth into question because of how pretentious he is, but I've counted a few situations where he seemed to have complete disregard for his own life, only worrying about Haruka and Cecil's safety in scenes when they were present. And he thinks wanting to be loved unconditionally is a childish thought he shouldn't have.

"Double Face" was a lie. There's like at least 10 layers

On the surface he does have two personas, his perfect polite butler act for the media, and his cold bitchy attitude off camera. But honestly, even when he's not acting as a butler, he's often putting up a front to hide any form of vulnerability (from himself as well)

His main struggle is finding who he is outside of what he's being told to do. Before, he never actually stopped to think about what he WANTS because it just never occurs to him, or if it does he ignores it.

That's why realizing that he has his own desires is essential to his character development, and him staying with Quartet Night (and Haruka in his routes) is so important. It's why Reiji feels the need to reach out and when he does, Camus either freezes up or tears up;

This all makes him the opposite of Ranmaru (being true to yourself and sincere), and similar to Ai (gradually learning to view the world in a less cold and logical way), but I kind of want to save that for another post lmao

He is especially hard on Cecil because Cecil says & does whatever he wants, and everything still works out for him, which is a way of life that Camus can't imagine for himself at all (despite maybe wanting it?)

That he can realize this and eventually admit out loud, despite all his pride, is also one of my favorite things about him

Season 2 does hint at something, so that's pretty cool!

Side note, I really love that his theme in the new Oracle series is "Change," the melting of ice.

So what was the anime supposed to do??

Of course there's no way to show all this in a single episode or even during the runtime of the anime, and I never expected them to because the story is very surface-level (that goes for all characters).

It's just unfortunate since the anime is the most accessible and well-known utapri media in the western fandom, and the character's main episode is bound to leave the biggest impression.

I understand the choice of being laser-focused on the servant plotline, it's supposed to be funny (?) and waters him down to a trope that's easy to understand at first glance (the step-on-me guy I guess)

Still, I can't help but compare it to Ranmaru's episode, who was also hard to work with in the games but was chill in S3E7 and got to pet cats. Anime onlys will never know how much Camus loves to dote on his dog smh.....

[butterflydm]

Wheel of Time 3x06 Deep Dive (show spoilers)

Spoilers through 3x06 of the show -- show spoilers only.

Liandrin's cold open; 95 years ago, so now we know how old Aludran was when he died. He did look pretty old.

I am torn. I honestly do feel like (given how limited our time is during a season) that some of this Liandrin backstory expansion could have been cut to give time to other characters and plotlines. I like that we got some of this but I'm not sure we needed all of it.

Of the various Liandrin backstory expansions, this cold open does seem like one of the most useful, as it shows us Ishamael's recruiting process and we get to see young Liandrin being so vulnerable, and reminding us of how dangerous deals in dreams can be, and showing us the statue of the Shackled Man.

And it is telling to see how young she was when Ishamael found her, especially since we've had some conversations about how unbreakable the Dark Oaths are -- so Ishy gets them young and then traps them in it for life.

Moghedien (3x01): "You know what happens if we break our Dark Oaths, right?" ... "We lose our souls. A true death."

Now... is it true that a darkfriend who breaks their oaths loses their soul? We don't actually know. It might be a lie, told either by the Forsaken to the more minor darkfriends, or told by the Dark One to the Forsaken.

Lanfear implies that it would take the destruction of the Dark One in order for her to be able to break her own Dark Oaths, but I am relatively sure that entire conversation with Rand was her manipulating him, so I don't trust anything she was saying there.

Ishy is so comforting in this scene with Liandrin. Ishamael coming across as thoughtful and gentle is exactly what makes him so dangerous and what made him so good at recruiting for the Dark One -- he sympathizes with your troubles and offers you a hand out of "the dirt you were born in", as Dana put it. And the price-tag doesn't show up until later, after he's had a chance to walk with you into the darkness. And so Ishamael takes Liandrin's very understandable pain and rage and he channels it into a weapon that he can use.

Another benefit of this cold open is us seeing Liandrin spontaneously channel, and fairly powerfully, because it backs up us seeing the strength of Mat's sisters and their instinctive ability to heal Alanna later in this episode. We have seen that when people are originally sparking, they will sometimes have these spurts of strong bits of channeling that doesn't need to be carefully trained into a weave but comes out more instinctively -- Rand breaking down the door to escape Dana, Rand protecting Egwene & Co in the Ways, Nynaeve's story about Egwene 'getting better' from the fever that should have killed her (after Nynaeve sat with her all night) seems like another example (and is confirmed as one in the books).

Strong channelers often have these early instinctive bursts of the ability, and how it comes out is based on what they need. Liandrin needed to escape a dangerous situation, so she gave herself a weapon, without needing to think about the details of creating the weapon.

So this cold open in particular is doing a lot of work in a relatively short amount of time, so this isn't what I would have cut from Liandrin's screentime (if I were the one making the choices). It probably would have been something in 3x03, because I think that Egwene needed something more in that episode. I'll talk about it when we get to Egwene.

It also leads directly into Liandrin's scene with Lanfear, where we learn a lot about both of them and where they're at -- Liandrin misses the White Tower (I mean, she did go back to the place she probably hates the most in the world) and her ambitions in the Tower.

We learn that Lanfear has lost control of Liandrin and her cabal. Maybe because she's been too focused on Rand & Egwene. She doesn't know why Liandrin is in Tanchico -- now, before we got all this Shackled Man backstory and etc. in Tanchico, I did assume that Lanfear was behind the plan with Rand. It makes Liandrin more interesting that it's something that she came up with on her own, and it shows us that Lanfear's manipulation has failed already when it comes to Liandrin -- in retrospect, Lanfear did kill the only man that Liandrin ever cared about and then expected Liandrin's loyalty afterwards.

Miscalculations due to her 'casual cruelty' slipping out and ruining her plans -- Lanfear's mistakes with Liandrin echo the mistake that she's been making with Egwene and Rand.

"I stayed in the Tower as long as I could," is a very interesting line from Liandrin, because it puts a different on her "I tried" from 3x01. It was Lanfear who wanted Liandrin to stay put in the White Tower, and the cold open was actually Lanfear's plan failing as Team Light made a move that made it impossible for the Black Ajah to stay as hidden as they'd always been when Ishy was in charge.

So what 3x06 is revealing to us are all the ways that Lanfear has ruined her own plans -- first, by believing that she'd successfully snagged Liandrin from Ishamael by 'mercy-killing' Aludran in s2. Ishamael, presumably, protected Liandrin and her son until they could get to a place of safety in Tar Valon, so that Liandrin could become an Aes Sedai. I'm assuming he did this via getting other darkfriends to help her along the way, through talking to them in their dreams. He invested in Liandrin because he could tell she was powerful and that she was vulnerable to his pitch.

Liandrin could have tried harder not to blow her own cover in the White Tower. She wanted that fight. She wanted to leave (so that she could do the appropriate funeral rites for her son). She was not content to obey Lanfear. After working for Ishamael for 95 years, it takes her roughly a month to break free from Lanfear's orders.

(this also implies to me that Liandrin was probably acting outside of Lanfear's orders when she tried to have Moiraine killed in s2, as Lanfear has found Moiraine to be a very useful ally/tool, and probably saw her as more valuable as leverage against Rand than if she were dead)

Lanfear says to Liandrin - "[You] miss feeling like you're important?"

We learn later in the episode that Liandrin's plans here are about making herself one of the new Chosen (again, I have to wonder if this is a bug that Ishy planted in her ear, because Dana also talked up the idea that being the one to deliver the Dragon to the Dark One would lead to her being raised up above everyone else), so she definitely does want to feel important, though Lanfear doesn't catch on to how Liandrin plans to do that.

"Are you working for him? ... Rahvin?"

Lanfear leaps to the assumption that Liandrin must be working for another one of the Chosen now that Ishamael is dead. We see a lot of Lanfear guessing incorrectly about people's plans and motivations in this episode.

"All of us were loyal to Ishamael. But he's dead now, I hear." Because Ishy invested the time into building up relationships with each one of the BA sisters, I bet. From what we saw, Ishy didn't issue threats -- he solved problems and he made promises. And now Ishamael is dead, and while Lanfear might assume that loyalty should automatically transfer over either to herself or another one of the Chosen, Liandrin makes it clear during her actions over the rest of the episode that her loyalty is now only to herself (just like the Forsaken are all only loyal to themselves!). It was Ishamael who was holding everyone tightly together and, without Ishy, everyone has fallen into selfishness and chaos. Instead of one vision of how to be a darkfriend, we have a fractured multitude of visions.

(I'm thinking of how Jaichaim protested to Moghedien in 3x01 that he had been loyal and hadn't broken his oaths -- I suspect that's the truth; it's just that he was still trying to follow Ishamael's game plan, which is not Moghedien's)

So all this scene does is give Liandrin suspicions that some of her colleagues might not be loyal to her, which leads directly to Nyomi's death. "My cabal is loyal to me, and I am loyal to you," except that Liandrin is not loyal to Lanfear, and Lanfear's threats don't scare her the way that Lanfear believes that they do. They do motivate her and give her a deadline on rooting out her potential spy.

We get a quick glimpse of servant!Moggy, spitting into the cabal's food before she delivers it.

When Liandrin is awake, we can see that the first person she casts a suspicious glance at is Nyomi, and then towards Jeaine. She reveals to them all that she knows more about what they're searching for -- that she's connected the dots of the old Tanchico folktale about the Shackled Man with the way that the Seanchan a'dam works, and that the rest of the pieces that they need to capture the Dragon are almost certainly somewhere here in Tanchico. And she couches it as "something the Chosen would prefer you didn't see".

I'm also guessing that Moghedien placed a subtle Compulsion on the group so that they wouldn't note that a servant is being awfully nosy about listening in on their conversation.

So... one part of three: one bracer in Liandrin & co's possession (but Moghedien could claim it whenever), one bracer found via Mat (but now in Moghedien's possession), and the collar (which we discover later in the episode is in the Panarch's Palace).

"I need the collar and the second bracelet tomorrow, or our master will be displeased." So... has Liandrin not told any of the rest of the Black Ajah that Ishamael is dead? Or is she alluding to the Dark One here? If she is talking about Ishy, then this might have been bait to see if any of the other sisters gave away that they know he's dead and that they're talking to another one of the Chosen.

And, once again, it's Nyomi that she looks over to after she says this. Liandrin has already decided who she thinks the spy is.

As Nynaeve and Elayne get dressed for their investigations, we learn that Elayne knows who all the Black Ajah Sisters are, but Nynaeve doesn't think any of them are important except Liandrin. Another bit of emphasis on the relationship between Liandrin and Nynaeve, which I definitely feel like will be coming into play in 3x08.

Elayne has prepped so hard for her undercover investigation, I'm so proud of her. <3

It is hilarious how Mat snags the "I'm highly-priced" veil away from Nynaeve so that he can wear it himself. Oh, Mat. We actually see the process of him taking it away, then playing with it throughout the rest of the scene, before emerging wearing it.

It is a very fun scene, especially since it sets up some neat reversals -- Mat does talk to people, Min does use her visions, but Elayne and Nynaeve are anything but subtle.

For the record -- Mat's veil is the biggest, then Elayne's, then Min's, and finally Nynaeve's.

We shift over to Egwene's situation now -- instead of going to Rand and talking to him about what she saw in the dream and telling him that she's being stalked by one of the Forsaken, she went to the Wise Ones for more lessons. This was the first point in the episode where I got frustrated, because the way the promo was cut made me expect/hope that we would be getting the Randgwene confrontation right off the bat, so that we could move forward past their break-up, but instead the show edged me with it until the end of the episode, which was very frustrating for me. I just... I honestly think that choosing to drag out the Randgwene break-up only damaged Rand's character in viewers' eyes and we didn't get much of value out of it, so I wish they'd just cut the cord early on in the season. Maybe we'll get something in 3x08 that will make the prolonged Randgwene feel like the only choice they could have made but right now... I wish they'd broken up in 3x01.

In technical terms, Egwene only holds back from talking to Rand for a single day, but in narrative terms, it felt like forever (plus it meant that she heard Lanfear's side of the story before she heard Rand's, which did not help matters).

The Wise Ones seem... frustrated by Egwene, but agree that her situation is dangerous enough that they will continue to teach her, despite her revealing that she's been lying to them, and they tell her that though she likely can't defeat Lanfear in TAR proper, she is the one who has the power in her own dreams.

From one dream to another -- after checking in on Liandrin, Lanfear goes to check in on Moiraine (who is curled up like a little spoon missing her big spoon, so I can guess how her dream with Siuan potentially ended).

Given that the rest of Lanfear's plans are failing in this episode due to her own missteps, I feel like Moiraine's apparent submission to her must be a plan-within-a-plan, some narrow way that she is trying to walk due to what she saw in her visions in the rings. I can't figure out precisely what it might be.

I suppose Moiraine's plan will come to light in 3x08. It definitely involves the sa'angreal but, yeah... idk. Sneaky sucker-punch of some kind, because Lanfear won't expect it of her?

I do wish that Moiraine's time in Rhuidean had led to her being honest with Rand about her deal with Lanfear, but maybe she saw that revealing it would be a disaster. Still, it makes me sad that the one thing that Rand most wishes he could get from Moiraine is the one thing that it feels like she's unwilling or unable to give. He wants to trust her so much and she's hiding so much from him!

But Moiraine's behavior is firmly rooted in what we know about her as a person, and the places she grew up, and the twenty years she spent on the road. Moiraine keeps secrets and keeps her own council. It's what she does.

Half-truths and lies of omission... Moiraine has used them her whole life. She spent twenty years only able to trust two people, and even those two people she cut out of the information loop in s2 when she was worried that her non-channeling state might make them try to take her mission away from her. Not telling people things is Moiraine's default way of life.

Given that we learn later this episode how wildly Lanfear was misreading Liandrin, I will take that same approach to her scene with Moiraine -- is she reading Moiraine correctly?

Because, on rewatch (and I noticed this in a gifset that I saw last night), Moiraine doesn't look scared to me, like Lanfear says. She looks angry (and yeah, there's some fear in there, but I think there's more anger, a fury that is being tightly suppressed so that Lanfear doesn't catch on).

"You've been hiding from me. You're afraid of me now." This is Lanfear's deduction of Moiraine's emotional state but... yeah, look at Moiraine's face. Girlfriend is angry. Lanfear is making an assumption based on Moiraine's behavior. It also sounds like Moiraine may have been keeping herself awake with the One Power since Rhuidean, until she went to Egwene last episode and asked for a dreamwalking session.

Much like Rand keeps not answering Lanfear's questions, Moiraine avoids answering them as well. Lanfear demands to know what Moiraine saw in Rhuidean and Moiraine responds with a question.

It sounds like Lanfear has been harassing Moiraine in her dreams, much like she's been harassing Rand & Egwene -- Moiraine was 'supposed' to keep Egwene away from Rand, but Moiraine says that trying to force Egwene away will only make her cling more tightly out of stubbornness (we had so much this season of other people saying what Egwene was doing while Egwene maintained that she was doing something else, and I don't think we got enough hints that the other people were the correct ones and Egwene was in denial all season -- I think she came across as being sincere for the most part, which is going to influence people when it comes to the big Randgwene blow-out later this episode).

So Lanfear gives her warning to Moiraine about a "surprise" for Rand, and Moiraine does not warn Rand about it, as requested by Lanfear. Moiraine looks very frustrated at the end of this scene.

"I was looking for Egwene" - something else that I feel like was potentially easily missed is that Rand tries to find and talk to Egwene this episode but they are kept separated because Egwene is spending time with the Wise Ones instead. Rand knows that he needs to talk to Egwene after what happened last night, even without knowing that Egwene already found out about Lanfear, and then he's kept from doing it by other people.

But we do get this adorable scene with Rand and Alsera, where we see Rand genuinely engaging with Aiel culture and the Aiel people, and we see that Aviendha is continuing to warm up to him, despite her own desire to keep being annoyed at him. Her assumptions about Rand -- that he doesn't care about the Aiel people or culture -- keep being upended by his behavior.

Obviously, it's building up to Alsera's death at the end of the episode, but it does so much more as well, in terms of embedding Rand more deeply with the Aiel, and giving Aviendha more reason to soften towards him.

"She's studying with the Wise Ones, learning about our people, as you should be," is something of a fascinating assumption from Aviendha, because that has absolutely not been the actual content of the Egwene & Wise Ones scenes. But Aviendha is definitely NOT a neutral observer and there's no sign that she knows what the Wise Ones are teaching Egwene, so she's just going off her assumptions about why the Wise Ones would have taken Egwene under their wings. But this also ties into Rand's assumptions about what Egwene has been doing when we get to the end of the episode -- for Rand, Egwene's time with the Wise Ones is being framed as a learning experience that Egwene is choosing to undertake, not as something that she's doing specifically to fight off someone real and alive in her dreams who is hurting her. If Egwene had mentioned that to Rand, then he might have been able to deduce that she was being hunted by one of the Forsaken aka Lanfear.

So, yeah, it's lack of communication that killed Randgwene, but I feel like the way it was contextualized in the season really put the weight/blame of that lack of communication on Rand, as opposed to on both of them, because the viewers know that Egwene is doing this for life and death reasons, not just because she wants to learn from the Wise Ones.

Rand incurs toh to Alsera here, and is not able to meet it before he accidentally causes her death at the end of the episode. Will we see Rand trying to meet his toh to Alsera in 3x08?

We also see Rand taking Alsera's upset at him seriously in this scene (when he accidentally does something that dishonors her in the eyes of Aiel culture), which is something that impresses Aviendha. He doesn't brush Alsera off or make any excuses, he just tells her that he has toh towards her and agrees to meet it the way that she requests.

Catching up on Perrin and Faile after what happened to them last episode! Perrin is hurt real bad and Faile is worried and concerned over him. Their relationship is a very sweet thread throughout this episode. We see that Bain & Chiad made it back safely, and learn that Alanna is also very hurt and we see Maksim fretting over her sickbed. I really liked them in this episode too.

"My father... he always said a leader can either take care of the living or weep for the dead. Not both."

And us getting into Faile's background and the way that she was raised was also very smooth and well-done by the show. It felt like her naturally wanting to share with Perrin, not like exposition.

We get the reveal here that Padan Fain is leading Trollocs and darkfriends into the Two Rivers, and we'll see him at the end in a bloody Whitecloak uniform, so I feel like the implication is that he and his followers killed off the Whitecloak reinforcements and stole their shit. And a whole army of Trollocs & darkfriends arrives at the end of the episode through the Ways. No sign of the dagger -- I do wonder if we'll get a single line at some point saying that it got punted off the side of the boat on the way to Tar Valon. We know the show still has the prop, because evil!Mat was wearing it during Moiraine's vision that all the kids had become the new Forsaken.

Undercover in Tanchico time! We can see how well Elayne's prep work has paid off! Technically, Elayne gets absolutely zero information out of all the chatting with men that she does here (it's Mat and his ta'veren pull on the threads of the Pattern -- which Thom mentions later when he shows up -- that ends up netting them the second bracelet) but I'm so proud of how into her undercover work that she is. <3

We don't see Mat playing any card games, but he is ~shopping~ and planting the seeds that he wants a pretty collar necklace for himself, and we see that one gentleman in particular is very taken with him, which pays off when that same fellow gives the second bracer to Mat later in the episode. Mat seems perfectly willing to do a little light flirtatious bargaining here, which is fun to see.

Then Mat hears Thom's voice and goes chasing after him! Again, I would call this a reflection of Mat being ta'veren -- he's pulling on Thom's thread, and Thom will probably end up being useful in some way in 3x08, I would expect.

I like how this kinda reflects the Cauthor reunion that we got back in 2x06 -- hearing the voice of someone that you'd thought you'd never see again. Haha, Thom's reaction isn't exactly as overwhelmed with tearful happiness as Mat and Rand were at seeing each other, but it's a fun reunion.

But from Thom's perspective, it must be so wild! He gets away from the Fade, and then basically goes as far away from where he met those boys as he possibly can, and runs into one of them again!

Aww, but I love how Thom is all "I don't want to be involved" but obviously still cares (that hand on Mat's neck) and ends up being very easily talked into coming back to the hall to hang out with Mat and hear the story.

We shift over to Min and Nynaeve, and those two had a fun little bonding session in this episode, with Min trying to get Nynaeve to trust her and to loosen up a bit, and succeeding in both. We also get Min lying about her visions as a way to get information out of someone, and later on Nynaeve accidentally using being ta'veren as a way to just happen to mention Liandrin in front of someone who recognizes the name.

I'm interested in where the show is going with the Min-Nynaeve bonding -- will it end up mostly being about the two of them potentially working together to help Mat in 3x08? Or does it have another purpose? I have some thoughts about it that I will expand on in my other post.

We get a closer look at Moghedien's behavior, which is definitely effective in filling out her characterization, as we learn that spitting into the cabal's food is the least of what she's been doing.

Egwene has spent all day with the Wise Ones, trying to teach herself how to force people out of her dreams. We saw her with the Wise Ones early in the morning (when Rand was looking for her), and now it's implied to be nighttime (Liandrin with the candles in the previous scene) and she's still with the Wise Ones.

After practicing all day, Egwene is finally able to push the Wise Ones out... only to get snagged by Lanfear (I'm guessing Lanfear just went to sleep for the night and noticed Egwene's dreams pop up in her alert window. Girl, please get a hobby that isn't centered around stalking your ex-boyfriend from three thousand years ago).

And it was at this point (Lanfear snatching Egwene into a nightmare), that I said out loud during my original viewing, "Wow, Egwene will do literally anything to avoid having a real conversation with Rand." Luckily, even Egwene, master avoider of uncomfortable conversations, realizes by the end of the episode that she needs to actually have a conversation with Rand. Probably would have gone better if she'd talked to him before letting Lanfear poison her mind with lies! But, you know, we take what we can get when it comes to Egwene and Rand and their terrible communication skills with each other.

Anyway, to the actual scene -- Lanfear fucks up so much in this scene. She does manage to plant seeds of poison into Egwene's mind about Rand potentially having already known about the nightly tortures but she really misjudged Egwene's character, because Egwene believing this about Rand means that she's willing to override her "cannot have awkward conversations with Rand" factory setting and instead leap into confrontation mode (because now she's worried that the corruption has taken him), which means that Lanfear's house of cards is able to tumble down (of course, Lanfear's real mistake was letting Egwene see her face in 3x05 -- we know that Lanfear can do fake faces in TAR. She could have made it so that Egwene thought Ishamael or Moghedien or anyone else was torturing her. But she wants to twist the knife, and so her own pettiness just lost her the campaign that she's been waging since Ishamael first released her in s2).

Lanfear confirms a bunch of things for Egwene -- firstly, that Lanfear is very aware of who she is. We get some signature Creepy Face Touching from one of the Forsaken. Lanfear mixes lies with the truth -- yes, Rand is aware that she's one of the Forsaken (though the implication that Lanfear gives is that he's been aware the entire time, which is definitely not true); yes, Rand is aware that Lanfear has been tormenting Egwene and doesn't care (this was a big mistake of a lie on Lanfear's part, because Egwene does know Rand well enough to know that he would never approve of that if he were in his right mind, so if he does know about Lanfear's torments of Egwene, it means he's gone mad and that she needs to confront him, so this lie may be what triggered Egwene to finally decide she needed to talk to Rand instead of trying to handle it all herself).

"Oh, he knows everything."

The funny thing is that... Lanfear should know better, you would think. Except she doesn't. Lews Therin saw the darkness that she'd been hiding from him and ran the fuck away and married someone else. But she has convinced herself that she can successfully get her do-over LTT to care about her so much that he doesn't care if she hurts the people he loves but, much like Ishamael said about Rand last season, "He's not ready. He won't choose us."

Lanfear has been able to do a lot to manipulate Rand this season but the final piece -- the thing that actually worked to get him to kiss her -- wasn't her manipulations at all (though they primed him for it) but him seeing Mierin in the columns of Rhuidean. Everything else, he could tell himself was a lie or a manipulation from Lanfear. But seeing Mierin made Rand hope that maybe Selene hadn't been a lie after all. Weeks of Lanfear working on him wasn't able to get him there. It was that moment of honesty that she had no control over that did it.

If she'd done things in a less petty way this season -- no torture of Egwene, for example, and no attack in 3x01 -- Lanfear might have gotten everything that she wanted. With Egwene's PTSD not being tripped every night, maybe she would have been more willing to talk to Rand about their relationship, and they would have broken things off naturally early in s3. Then, when Rand saw Mierin in Rhuidean, and kissed Lanfear in 3x05, there would be no big lie that she was hiding from him about how she was torturing Egwene in her sleep.

But that's not her. She's not that girl.

This is who Lanfear is -- petty and cruel.

That's why Lews Therin stopped loving her. We already know that from what Selene told Rand back in s2. It was because he caught a glimpse of who she really was and went, "um, no thanks, bye!"

And now Rand also has the chance to see who she really is, what's been hiding underneath the Soft Selene Illusion that she's been showing him all season. And it isn't pretty.

But even now, Egwene wants to get back to work on learning to consistently kick the Wise Ones out of her dreams before she goes to talk to Rand. I think I sighed in frustration here, in my original viewing, because all she's doing is letting her feelings and the lies that Lanfear told her stew in her brain.

Rand hasn't been able to talk to Egwene all day (they haven't talked since Rhuidean, Rand said in the last episode) and we learn here that Moiraine has also been avoiding him since Rhuidean (which we saw happening in the previous episode).

Moiraine and Rand's conversation... I wish she could be honest with him. It is so clear that Rand wants to connect with Moiraine here, and she is all vague one-word answers. They do manage to connect here to a certain extent, despite Moiraine being as transparent as a brick wall -- she tells Rand that she's been listening (instead of issuing orders), which makes him smile.

But whatever she saw in the rings, she doesn't want to share too much of it with anyone. Even Lan only got a small fraction of her fear and worry.

I do think Moiraine's "Sometimes" in response to Rand asking if he kills Egwene probably informs some of Rand's behavior in the break-up scene with Egwene later. Much as it frustrates me that I feel like the show set up Rand to look like "the bad guy" in the break-up, I don't think that Rand (the character) cares about being seen as "the bad guy" in the break-up and is much more invested in Egwene wanting to stop protecting him so that there's less of a chance that he'll kill her if he goes mad. If she hates him, that's fine. He can live with that more than if he killed her, or if she got killed because of her proximity to him.

Once again, it is Rand who reaches out to connect with Moiraine -- he tells her that he knows she has the Sakarnen (which I can only spell right because of the caption on the screen, lol). Which tells us several important things!

As much as he is coming to hope that Lanfear really does still have Selene | Mierin in her, he didn't tell her about Moiraine having the Sakarnen. He knew that Moiraine has this object that Lanfear desperately wants, but he didn't tell her about it.

He doesn't try to get the Sakarnen away from Moiraine. He doesn't want Moiraine to force his choices, but he's not going to try to force hers either. And he actually does know that it was placed into the tree for the Aes Sedai to reclaim later, so he might even feel that it's Moiraine's by rights, if she wants it. He may see her as Latra's rightful successor, much as his journey through the rings also transformed his view of Mierin | Lanfear.

Moiraine only asks Rand for help on using the Sakarnen after he's revealed that he already knows about it. She wasn't going to tell him.

She also doesn't tell him about the deals that she made with Lanfear. To stand aside while Lanfear allows him and the people that he cares about to be attacked. That she made that deal partly because she agreed with Lanfear's goals and motives -- isolate the Dragon Reborn from the people he cares about, and push him towards embracing his destiny and his power.

I really do worry about Rand finding out about that deal from Lanfear, and that potentially having a negative effect on events, but given how understanding Rand is about Moiraine's closed-mouthed nature here vs how he felt about it before Rhuidean... maybe it won't be so bad if he does find out from Lanfear. Is that one of the thousand-thousand futures that Moiraine saw?

We get a foreshadowing of Rand's power (and his lack of control over it) during this scene. Rand's issue isn't struggling to find the One Power or even in fearing it the way that Nynaeve fears hers, it's in resisting the urge to use it all the time and in trying to turn it off again once he's allowed it in.

But I do like that we do see Moiraine asking Rand's advice here, even if he basically had to set up the easiest goal in the world for her to be willing to go for it. And it's a good moment between them. But, yeah. I wish that Moiraine was more willing to be open with Rand. I will probably always feel that way.

I find Rand's perspective here really interesting -- that, in essence, the One Power has some base similarities and it doesn't matter if you're accessing saidin (the male half) or saidar (the female half).

"If the Aiel and the Forsaken have taught me anything, it's that the Aes Sedai don't know everything about it."

I am really curious if this is a change to how the One Power works on a fundamental level, or if Rand is mistaken here in what he believes. I saw some speculation that it may be a matter of power levels -- that once you reach a certain level of power, then you can't submit, regardless of if it's saidin or saidar, and that we may see that at play with Nynaeve in the future, which was a very interesting theory (was that @ace-and-ranty who said that? apologies if it was someone else!). That would be an interesting way to approach Nynaeve's block.

There are definitely whispers while Rand is getting lost in the Power, and if you close your eyes and listen hard... I do think you can hear a specific name that has not been said on the show before. I almost don't want to mention it here. I think I'll take my thoughts to the other post.

We get an interesting reveal at the end that Lan was listening in on all of that. How will that come into play in 3x08, I wonder.

Faile's backstory -- I like it! It makes her reasons for running away from Saldaea get a lot of pathos and depth. Let me try to get the exact timeline down:

Mom sits her down and confesses to being a Darkfriend and urges Faile to make her oaths too

Faile says something to buy herself some time

Tells her brother about it and then books it, signing up to be a Hunter for the Horn

Her brother confronts her mom and is killed

Faile finds out about it at some point

Did her dad find out the truth about his wife? We are not told that here.

As for the timing... I wonder if it was triggered by Ishamael trying to get all hands on deck while he was figuring out to reach Rand. She says it happened "last year". The timeline is a bit fuzzy in the show, I'm not certain where that would fall with the events of the previous seasons.

But overall, yeah, Faile having this background, one that goes this dark, helps Perrin to able to talk to her about what happened with Laila, which is incredibly important for the development of their relationship. Faile and Perrin, out here showing what can happen when you have honesty and connection in a relationship!

And Faile can bring Perrin a different way of thinking about Laila's death -- instead of focusing on her death, focus on her decision to stand up and fight against the Trollocs.

"There is so much darkness in this world, Faile, but when I look at you, all I see is light."

That's a great line. Very smooth and romantic. <3

Padan Fain and his fake reinforcements arrive in the Two Rivers. Dain is drunk and sitting near the body of the woman that he handed over to be tortured to death by Valda. I'm sure this will all go great.

Thom continues to protest that he doesn't want to get involved -- but he perks up when he hears Liandrin's name (a new member of the Liandrin Grudge Squad?) and when Elayne gets into trouble and needs back-up, he swings into action, giving her an alibi (he also recognizes her as the Daughter-Heir of Andor and mentions that he was once in Morgase's court).

And so we get the very delightful "Hills of Tanchico" scene, where Elayne realizes part of the way through the song that it's a bawdy tavern song about breasts, and not actually about the literal three hills of Tanchico City.

from wafflelovingbatgirl:

I wonder if the song is about the bracelet and collar actually. Ones not enough (to hold a man), three’s too many (he isnt an equal partner), two bring a man to his knees (and make him submit to their control)

I also think this makes a lot of sense as the origins of the song that then later became about breasts. I do think there's potentially another, meta-textual reason, but it has additional spoilers so I won't get into it here.

We didn't get any kind of personal chat between Mat and Elayne the way that we did between Min and Nynaeve, but it's really lovely to see the way that he reacts to her embracing doing this tavern song -- if he was thinking about her as a snobby princess who didn't want to get in the dirt with peasants (as he sniped last episode), this night out with her has shown him that he was wrong and Elayne is actually a lot of fun.

(I do think a lot of the sniping on the ship was meant to convey cabin fever more than actual dislike between Mat & Elayne, though, and I feel like that bears out in their interactions in this episode)

I don't have too much analysis for this scene -- it's a lot of fun and Ceara really throws herself into it, and I love how relieved and supportive Mat gets once he sees that Elayne can pull it off. And Thom's expressions first when Elayne offers up this song and then when he sees her realize what the song is actually about -- great fun. These three already have an enjoyable dynamic and I hope we get a bit more of it in 3x08.

Mat actually figures out what the song is about before Elayne does, and his reaction to that is also hilarious. I'm guessing that this song was in the guidebook that Elayne was pouring over on the boat. "Famous Tavern Song of Tanchico" or something like that, lol.

Meanwhile, Min and Nynaeve seem a bit drunk, so we can excuse how loudly Nynaeve mentions Liandrin's name. Though they do get information out of the man here, it looks this is also when Ispan spots them and then goes to inform Liandrin (and then Rahvin, presumably, who wants to find the girls so that he can discreetly kill Elayne).

Liandrin gets the information out of Nyomi that the collar is in the Panarch's Palace, and though Nyomi swears that she was planning to tell Liandrin, she gets a bullet-to-the-head weave. Was Nyomi going to tell Liandrin? Hard to say! But there were probably better ways of dealing with that than instant murder. Nyomi also says she has "powerful allies" and Liandrin assumes that it's the 'Chosen' but... that plural. None of the Forsaken are really working together, from what we've seen, so I'm not sure Nyomi was talking about them. There might be something more there.

This is also when we get the tidbit that Liandrin aspires to be one of the Chosen herself.

Back to Alanna and Maksim, and she must be feeling really bad, because she offers to either block or release the bond here, which Maksim refuses, and this whole scene made me very emotional, thank you! There have been a couple of times when it's felt like we've gotten maybe a tiny bit too much Alanna & co, but most of the time I feel like she's brought a lot of value to the show and she's basically been a combination of several different Aes Sedai concepts and she's shown us a lot.

I love all the little pieces that come together on an emotional level in this scene -- in the cold open, we saw young!Liandrin invent the bullet-to-the-head weave, but here we have the contrast of the Cauthor twins, who work together to heal Alanna (and who were able to push Dain away in the last episode without hurting him, not that he appreciated it). The girls being able to pay back Alanna for helping to save them, and then Alanna is able to pay it forward by healing Perrin. It's lovely. I'm worried that some of them may die next episode, but this is a lovely moment for all four characters. We get to see Alanna's patience as a teacher and her choice to come to the Two Rivers is rewarded on a grand scale when she is able to help talk them through healing her.

I also find it very interesting the way that Bode & Eldrin seem to channel together, without needing to do a formal link. A twin thing?

Perrin telling Faile about being a wolfbrother! And Faile's reaction is so darling and precious. Back during s2, 'Selene' gave some great advice about letting someone love all of you, and we're seeing that in action here between Perrin and Faile.

And then we have the charming note of Perrin telling Faile about Mat blowing the Horn! Lovely! <3 <3 <3 <3

Perrin being the first one to make a move and kiss Faile also feels really perfect. It really does feel like a breath of fresh air, romance-wise. Would I have liked a little more build-up? I mean, sure, but they went through a pretty intense experience. Much like Lan & Nynaeve hooking up in 1x07, it feels like it makes sense.

Then we get our little reunion of the two investigating pairs in Tanchico, with Mat helping Elayne off her table, very cute. I can definitely see them being drinking buddies in the future, as long as it isn't in a cabin in the middle of the ocean, lol. Nynaeve and Min meet Thom! They do not get the s1 lore on Thom, just the recent events of him helping out Elayne.

Something really nice here is that Mat introduced Thom as a friend and everyone is straight-up willing to trust him and let him hear their secret plans. Min is also in the group based on Mat saying "yeah, you can trust her", so this is a continuation of that, but it's neat! Nynaeve and Elayne value Mat's opinion about who can be trusted! <3

Oh, hey, I do hear the Seanchan score while Mat's admirer is handing over the second bracelet to Mat. That's neat! Thom also knows about the Shackled Man lore of Tanchico, so all of this group is very aware of how dangerous all of this is to Rand.

Ispan goes to report in to her Forsaken phone-a-friend, but Moghedien is already there. Moggy gives us a bit of foreshadowing about Sammael's upcoming move, calling him "impatient." We don't actually find out here exactly who Ispan was going to report to, but I feel like Rahvin is probably more invested in the Wondergirls plotline, so I think it's probably him.

Ah, Nyomi WAS also working for Rahvin or Sammael, so Liandrin did guess correctly there, so it sounds like Nyomi and Ispan were in it together. Ispan also tells Moghedien about Liandrin's aspirations to become one of Forsaken. Hmm, saying that word in front of one of them might not have been the best move, as Moghedien kills Ispan, and we've lost another member of the Black Ajah. She also spills the beans about "two of the five" that the Dark One wants being in Tanchico. So that's a lot of information that Moghedien just got!

Then we get a very effectively done rendition of one of the creepiest scenes in the books, when Moghedien does her Compulsion-based interrogation of Elayne and Nynaeve. I was so creeped out when I originally watched and it's still creepy on the rewatch. The fake giggly smiles that Elayne and Nynaeve have when they answer Moghedien's questions! And the delicate precision of Moghedien's weaves.

And the way that Moghedien takes a particular interest in Nynaeve, first when she senses her power, and then when Nynaeve is able to almost resist her Compulsion and try not to give her the bracelet.

We also get some insight on Nynaeve's feelings about her relationship with the Power -- it frightens her and she even hates it. And we get the very very creepy hug.

The note about "beating it out of you" is very interesting because Moiraine actually told a story about that back in 1x08 -- she was having troubles, and an Aes Sedai came and beat her with the Power until she was able to channel to fight her off.

Luckily, since Rand didn't announce his plans to go to the Aiel Waste until after he'd separated from the group, they can't tell her where Rand is.

But she does get the bracelet from them.

This is also where we learn that she's lent Rahvin two Gray Men to kill Elayne but they've failed both times. And it is also really clear in this scene that Moghedien finds Nynaeve more interesting than Elayne. But she found them both useful, and tells them that she might come back for another visit, and she touched Nynaeve's face, calls her a 'good girl' and scratches her cheek. Which, given that she wants them to remember nothing of the conversation, seems like her letting her impulses get the better of her.

Elayne and Nynaeve's fogginess after the Compulsion is released is also very well-done and creepy. And they immediately go to check on the bracelet and find it missing.

I have a lot of mixed feelings about the Randgwene breakup scene.

a. I'm so relieved that it finally happened, after being needlessly dragged out all season. We can move on with our lives! And hopefully get a s4 and fun new dynamics for the characters! Fingers crossed for renewal!

b. I feel like the tone of the break-up was... not what the show actually wanted to deliver, based on the interview that Rafe & co give on the "inside the episode" extra on prime, where they barely even mention the Lanfear issue.

c. the actual break-up argument itself doesn't paint Rand as 'the bad guy', I don't think, but all of the context around the break-up does, which is unfortunate, because it sounds like that was not the intention. But the scene isn't by itself in a bubble, and the outside context colors how people read the scene.

d. I think a big key to this is that I don't feel like Egwene's season-long emotional conflict successfully came across on screen -- Maddy talked in a couple of interviews released after 3x05 about how Egwene is torn between wanting to protect Rand vs worrying that she'll have to stop him and that is... that is just not on the screen in the actual episodes. All we got in the actual episodes was Protective Egwene. Which means that when Rand 'calls Egwene out' on leaving him behind, it can come across as disingenuous and him trying to deflect the argument away from his own bad behavior rather than him accurately stating something that Egwene has been in denial about (which is what it seems like we were supposed to take from his part of the argument, based on what I've seen Rafe, Maddy, & Josha say in a couple of interviews). So I don't think that landed the way it was meant to.

So, overall, I'm still feeling like Randgwene should have officially broken up in 3x01, and this fight should have been purely about Lanfear, and Egwene worrying that Rand has fallen under Lanfear's sway. The two issues being separated from each other would have made each of them land better, imo.

At the very latest, I think they should have officially ended things before the show had Rand give in and kiss Lanfear. If their goal was to have a mutual breakup with "no bad guys".

Because the Randgwene relationship has been incredibly fragmented and lacking in emotional intimacy, but it was still lingering and the contrast between Egwene being fiercely protective about Rand while Rand is drifting away from her is going to contribute to the feeling that Rand is Doing Her Wrong, because Egwene is Doing The Work of the relationship and he's not. Rand mentions in 3x01 that he and Egwene haven't talked about their relationship, but they both act like they're in a relationship and that's how viewers will see them, and so Rand's statement about how they haven't talked is likely to just get dismissed. People will believe what they see over what they've been told.

We -- in the Faile & Perrin love story -- have also gotten such a striking contrast to Egwene & Rand, and I do believe it's intentional. In an episode where Egwene avoids Rand for most of the episode and then when they finally do talk, they talk past each other for most of the conversation... we contrast it against the sincerity and honesty of the Faile & Perrin conversations, and how it leads into them wanting physical intimacy after they've just shared so much emotional intimacy.

Even just the contrast between Faile insisting on being by Perrin's side going into the camp in the last episode vs Egwene wanting to handle everything on her own in this episode, only involving Rand when it becomes impossible to avoid the conversation.

And there's nothing wrong with Egwene wanting to handle things on her own, it simply illustrates that she doesn't think of herself and Rand as a team. Faile wants to be partners with Perrin -- not only lovers (she definitely wants that too) but equal partners.

Egwene wants to be strong to protect Rand, but not so that she can act as his partner. Instead, she seems to see herself as something more like his watchdog. She leapt to "he's gone mad" really quickly in this argument -- too quickly for it not to be something that's been on her mind for a while.

That is a place where I feel like we suffered by Egwene not having anyone to confide in emotionally, because it meant that she was basically locking all of this inside her own mind until it came out in 3x06. On the surface, Egwene was 100% Protective Girlfriend 24/7, but according to an interview of Maddy's that I saw, she's been thinking about the dangers of Rand going mad in the back of her mind during this period and... yeah, I don't feel like that came across on-screen. I think we needed a specific scene about it, somewhere around 3x03. The worry was introduced on-screen in 3x01 (the Accepted Test) but Egwene never reflects on it. She never talks to anyone about it, and then we don't get any kind of reinforcing scene in-between 3x01 and 3x06.

I was talking this over with @markantonys and she pointed out the perfect example of the kind of moment that I'm talking about -- when Mat tells Min that he's not worried about the drawing of him being hanged, but then the audience follows him to the hammock and we see the weight of it on his face and in his body language. We desperately needed a moment like that for Egwene before 3x06, imo. A moment where we see her lose her mask of being the Protective Girlfriend.

I've gone into the details of why I think Rand hasn't talked to Egwene about Lanfear in a previous deep dive -- essentially, he hasn't told her about Lanfear because he didn't know how to tell her about Selene. Caring about Selene was one of the things that helped Rand genuinely move on from his relationship with Egwene, and then he found out that she was a lie. And then he found out that while he was with Selene, Egwene was being kidnapped and was put into a horrible situation.

Now, between Lanfear's nightly manipulations and Rand seeing Mierin in the visions of Rhuidean, Rand has finally come to a place where he believed that it's possible that Selene had really existed -- that Selene was Lanfear showing him the Mierin side of herself, as opposed to Selene being an act.

And, like, I love the drama of that. I think it's great, because of how painful it is and how much it makes sense based on how Lanfear has been manipulating him. But I also think it would have played better if Rand and Egwene were already broken up when it happened. So much of the genuine tragedy of Rand coming to believe that Selene could have been a real person and not a lie that Lanfear made up, right before the rug gets pulled out from under him... I think that a lot of that tragedy gets lost because it gets lumped under Rand "being a cheater".

Young men being preyed on by older women is not taken anywhere near as seriously by general viewers as it should be, imo, and we also see the effects of that in some of the responses I've seen to the argument -- I think that Egwene "reads" as having been traumatized more easily than Rand does, because viewers easily understand that what happened to her in s2 was traumatizing, while a lot of Rand's trauma is dismissed by people going "oh, wow, a hot woman wanted to have sex with him? poor boy lol!" without her lies and manipulation being taken into account. And given that this is also an issue that comes up in the books (I won't go into the details here), I'm sad that it feels like Rafe & co didn't realize they would need to compensate more for the audience's potential lack of understanding on the issue.

I think the show is aware of how Rand has been manipulated by Lanfear and traumatized by her, but didn't fully take into account potential audience disconnect, and how doing this story while the audience still sees Randgwene as "together" also harms the Randfear storyline and makes people dismiss how traumatizing it's been to Rand, because Egwene's trauma is so much more 'in your face', especially with Lanfear spending most of the season triggering Egwene's PTSD over and over.

Because in a lot of ways, Rand is finally having the conversation with Egwene that he desperately needed to have directly after his emotional realization in 1x08 that allowed him to let go of his dream with Egwene and embrace reality (a lot of his arguments here tie directly back to s1 and his epiphany in 1x08).

But then he thought he'd succeeded against the Dark One and he left Egwene & all his friends behind to protect them from himself. And once he and Egwene did finally reunite, his guilt over abandoning everyone (but especially Egwene) meant that he felt like he couldn't have this conversation with Egwene, despite how much it is clearly the very first thing on the tip of his tongue.

If Rand has been both wanting and yet avoiding the "I know you don't actually want me as your partner" conversation with Egwene (because he doesn't think he has the right to be the one to start it), she's apparently been avoiding the "I think you're going mad and I'm worried I'll have to kill you to stop you from doing horrible things" conversation with Rand. But Egwene has had zero people to confide in, so she's basically been a closed box on this subject.

Which has been... unfortunate, imo. I think we needed insight into Egwene's emotional conflict. We caught a tiny glimpse of that conflict back in 3x01, but then she spends the entire season claiming that her only intentions are to Protect Rand and pushing back hard against any suggestion that she might fear him or the madness. And we haven't gotten any breaks in her mask to suggest that her emotional conflict is still going on underneath her brave front.

So, yeah, I really wish that the show had done more to bring out Egwene's emotional conflict this season, rather than the entirety of that weight being on Rand's shoulders, because I do think that Rand is the one who paid the price for it (in the eyes of viewers).

I'm thinking the show could have some minor incident around 3x03 or 3x04 that brings up a hint of fear/worry from Egwene that another character calls her out on? (Aviendha, maybe? You don't have to make them besties to give them a brief convo where Aviendha tries to figure out why Egwene has issues with the "destruction" part of the savior/destroyer figure that is Rand, or notes that Egwene is clearly afraid of Rand but trying to hide her fear and Egwene can brashly deny it but then we get a moment where she turns away from Aviendha and her face drops and it's clear to the audience that Aviendha was correct).

The most important part is that it's something that's directly shown in the episodes and not merely subtext that's meant to be gleaned from the acting. It doesn't need to be said, per se -- Mat didn't need to tell us he was more worried about the drawing than he was letting on -- but it needed to be focused on either via dialogue or camera work. I think the show maybe tried to do this via Egwene's incredibly firm denials and push-backs against Moiraine & Siuan early in the season (that she's protesting because she's in denial), but we didn't get the 'mask-dropping' moment and so she just comes across as being sincere in telling them that she has no interest in helping them 'control' Rand.

Even Lan has gotten more chances to be open about his emotional state and to be vulnerable than Egwene has in s3 (due to the presence of Melindhra and his moments with Nynaeve, Moiraine, & Rand).

I kinda feel like the show could have taken some of the backstory expansion time that we've spent on Liandrin this season and given it to letting Egwene have a moment where she lets the audience into her emotional conflict that is haunting her this entire season but that we only barely catch a glimpse of in 3x01.

I could look at this as the show reversing and foiling Rand's emotional conflict from s1 -- Rand spends all of season 1 dealing with a conflict that the audience doesn't learn about until 1x07, when we find out about his father's confession to him that he was a baby found in the snow during a battle. Now it's Egwene who has spent all season dealing with a conflict that the audience isn't let into until the last couple of episodes. And maybe when I go back and rewatch the season as a whole, I will see the moments where it feels like Egwene's mask is breaking and we're seeing her worry about Rand going mad.

The difference between the two for me, I guess, is that (as a book reader), I had already assumed, as I was watching s1, that Rand had gone through that conversation with Tam, and so getting that scene in 1x07 wasn't a surprise to me. I was glad to get it, but I wasn't surprised that the conflict existed for Rand, and I felt like I could see it in how Josha played Rand in the previous episodes. While with s3, I wasn't already in on Egwene's secret emotional conflict.

And, counterintuitively, I think the fact that we were let into Rand's emotional conflict this season but not into Egwene's led to the break-up feeling much more like it was 'about' Lanfear than it was supposed to be for either of the characters*, because after initially showing us Egwene's secret fears about Rand's madness in her Accepted Test in 3x01, we have had nothing from Egwene except the constant refrain of wanting to Protect Rand, with her not showing a hint of the "or stop him" that Siuan and Moiraine have both openly worried over - we only got strident push-back from her when Siuan and Moiraine brought it up as a possibility and... maybe it'll feel different on rewatch but, at the time, I didn't see any hint in Maddy's acting that some part of Egwene agreed with Siuan or Moiraine but was trying not to let it show (and I don't think I saw anyone else speculating on that idea either). We needed an actual Event somewhere in mid-season to bring that out of her.

(*basing this on the roundtable "inside episode six" extra that's on Prime, where the talk about the break-up wasn't really about Lanfear at all, but about nostalgia and clinging to your old life even though you know you can't really go back)

Egwene's emotional struggle this season (in retrospect) seems like it's supposed to mirror Moiraine's, but we've gotten Moiraine's struggle highlighted while Egwene's was hidden and all the on-screen focus was on her ptsd and on Lanfear torturing her.

So, that's my critique about the argument scene -- I feel like we needed more set-up on it from Egwene's side, to make it feel more naturally coming from Rand & Egwene's differing paths and less like it was about Lanfear. We couldn't just have other characters telling Egwene about herself -- it needed to be a moment that actually came from Egwene.

So, the emotional states of the characters going into the break-up talk:

Egwene -- already upset by what she saw in Rand's dream; has been primed by Lanfear to view Rand with even more suspicion, as Lanfear planted the thought in her that Rand may have known all about the nightly torture and was chill with it.

Rand -- has been putting on a brave face during the day but letting his exhaustion show when he's alone. Has been trying to find time to talk to Egwene but keeps being told she's off with the Wise Ones.

So, Egwene's opening remark is - "She's a Forsaken, Rand."

I'm guessing she was hoping for a response like "What are you talking about? Who is a Forsaken?"

Instead, she gets Rand nodded in acknowledgement and saying, "I should've told you." He apologizes, and she gets more upset, asking if he's apologizing for lying to her or for betraying her trust.

And then things get ugly. Egwene calls Rand a fool for "sleeping with a Forsaken", which seems like the quickest way to put someone on the defensive. But from Egwene's perspective, Rand has just validated one of the things that Lanfear told her, which is going to make her worry that the other thing Lanfear told her (that Rand knew about the torture) was also true.

But Rand was pretty apologetic and quiet up to this point, and it's only after Egwene calls him a fool for sleeping with Lanfear (which, yeah, I'm sure Rand has called his s2 self a fool in his head so many times for not seeing the truth about Selene) that Rand pulls away from being apologetic and leans a bit on the excuses that Lanfear keeps giving him (Egwene will never understand you, only I will understand you).

Rand doesn't ask her how she knows about Lanfear. At this point, I think he's decided that it doesn't matter how she knows -- this is an end-of-the-relationship conversation, and that's what he's forging ahead with.

Egwene throws another claim at Rand that he could dispute -- "this whole time, every night, you're with her" -- Lanfear enters his dreams without needing his permission. He did not tell Lanfear about his plans to go to the Waste.

He does not try to tell Egwene this and I think it's because he's decided to take the hits so that he can end this between them and if it ends with Egwene hating him, then that's fine. At least he won't kill her when/if he goes mad. Rand doesn't defend himself against any of Egwene's accusations against him here -- because he doesn't want to sound like he's making excuses, or because he doesn't want to open the door up to a potential reconciliation?

The first thing that Rand actually disputes is when Egwene says, "I came here for you." And I think that's because it hits on his s1 insecurities about his relationship with Egwene.

He knows that she doesn't want him like that, so why does she keep pretending that she does? But much like how Egwene had incorrect information from Lanfear, Rand has incorrect information from Aviendha. But it's really kinda unfair to Rand that the show did this, I think. Because the audience knows better. The audience knows that Aviendha was talking out of her ass when she said that Egwene was hanging out with the Wise Ones to learn Aiel culture, and that it was actually about protecting her dreams from Lanfear.

Both Rand and Egwene have some true information and some false information, but 'true information' about Rand (that he kissed Lanfear knowing that she was a Forsaken) is much more recent than the 'true information' about Egwene (that she doesn't want Rand if she has an option that she views as superior). That's season one information, and it's unfair to expect a casual viewer to remember it off the top of their heads. But for Rand, it feels much more present because it feels like she's doing the same thing with the Wise Ones.

But, yeah, when the audience has been watching Protective Girlfriend Egwene all season, it can be difficult for them to believe Rand when he says that Egwene doesn't actually want him. So it feels like the show weighted the deck against Rand in this break-up, and that's somewhat frustrating.

But notice that Egwene doesn't argue this point. She doesn't try to say that's not what she does. She just transitions to asking Rand if he loves Lanfear.

Rand doesn't answer, which Egwene assumes is a 'yes'. I... do not. Because Rand also didn't answer when 'Selene' back in s2 asked him to confirm that she loved him. Because Rand didn't say it back when Lanfear said it to him only last episode.

But Egwene does assume that silence means 'yes', because she assumes if the answer were 'no', then Rand would just tell her that.

But I also think this is Rand trying to retreat back to stoicly taking the hits and letting Egwene break up with him the way that she wants -- he only lashed out with that one line because it hit on his specific insecurities, I think.

And then we get Egwene assuming that Rand has gone mad already and Rand is... I mean, I think he's given up on the conversation at this point, honestly? He basically just tells her to believe whatever she wants to believe, and tells her that he knows he isn't enough for her, and that he respects for that, and I think that was the end of it for him, and it's okay with him if Egwene hates him for it.

"We both know the truth, Egwene. You don't want me. Even back in the Two Rivers, there was always something you wanted more."

And this is where I really think we needed some earlier hints that Egwene was in denial in the season. Because this isn't an attack (and Egwene doesn't take it that way). It's supposed to actually be the truth about their relationship this season, but I think it does not play that way to a lot of people because Egwene's Protective Girlfriend Mask never falters thoroughout s3. We got that tiny glimpse of her fears in 3x01 and then nothing but Protect Rand afterwards.

"I'm not enough for you. And I'll always respect that about you."

Because, again, Egwene doesn't deny what Rand says here. But because she has been so fiercely protective of Rand over the course of the season, I think it makes it harder for people to believe that Rand is calling her out on a truth here, as opposed to him making up excuses so that he can hook up with another girl.

Egwene honestly seems genuinely touched at this part of Rand's speech to her, tbh, until she remembers the other thing that Lanfear told her, and she hits Rand with that now, to find out whether or not he knew that Lanfear was the person hurting her.

And Rand gets to have his 2x04 realization all over again but he's learned since last time -- note that he doesn't ever deny what Egwene tells him about Lanfear.

"I didn't know" is what he says. Not "She wouldn't do that." Not "I don't believe you." Back in 2x04, he denies what Moiraine tries to tell him about 'Selene', until Moiraine reminds him that she can't lie.

Rand does believe Egwene, which is part of what makes this so devastating for him, because he had only (the night before) begun to believe that maybe he could reach Lanfear. Maybe he could save her. Maybe he could make something good happen. Maybe he isn't only destruction.

So, overall, I do think this conversation itself is fairly nuanced and honest to the characters, but I feel like the context around the conversation weights it against Rand really heavily, and that part sucks.

And the ground starts to shake as Rand tries to process this information from Egwene, even before Sammael & co show up.

But then we get a Sammael interruption! He's been itching to attack Rand - he's found out where Rand is, and he's going in for the kill.

From what we see here, it looks like Sammael is working with the Shaido (and I have to admit that I assumed that the reason no one else has rushed to help Rand is here is because more Shaido also had attacked, outside the building, and so the rest of the Taardad were busy. and probably some budget constraints).

It seems likely that this is the "surprise" that Lanfear told Moiraine about.

Egwene uses weaves that she learned during her time as a damane to fend off the Shaido, while Aviendha bursts in and creates spears of fire and attacks Sammael when he's going in for a hammer blow on Rand, probably saving his life.

Rand yells at everyone to get out of the building as the attack continues and then, when Sammael comes for him again, we get Rand blocking with an effortless, enormous shield, and then taking Sammael down with lightning strikes (I have to admit, I assumed during my original viewing that Sammael wasn't 'for real' dead and I'm a bit surprised that some people assumed that he was, though I guess we'll find out for sure in 3x08).

We do get to see a really nice taste of how overwhelming Rand's potential power can be, and then we see the tragedy that using that kind of power without fine control can be afterwards, when we learn that Alsera didn't make it out of the building, and got crushed by the crumbling stone.

This scene is pretty powerful, and we see Rand's strength as well as his desperation, and his grief over Alsera, and... and how helpless he can be sometimes. Being the Dragon Reborn isn't always enough.

I like what Aviendha tells Rand here -- sharing the Aiel philosophy about death, "Life is a dream from which we all must wake". Though Rand is not ready to hear it.

Moiraine shows up after the fight but before Rand tries reviving Alsera and she reaches out to Rand to get him to stop trying to bring her back.

Another nice moment that would be nicer if I didn't have to worry about Rand's potential reaction to learning that Moiraine knew something would happen this night, and she let it happen without warning him. Same as she did in 3x01. But she does reach out to stop him and bring him back to himself, which perhaps Lanfear would not have wanted her to do. I'm torn.

I definitely continue to have my issues about the decision to drag out the Randgwene relationship for so long -- I feel like it's a choice that made Rand look worse while not bringing any great advantages to the table, but I do feel like the conversation that they had has nuance (some of which is likely to be lost on anyone who didn't rewatch s1 before they started watching s3, unfortunately), and the scene afterwards with Rand defeating Sammael and trying to bring back Alsera is very powerful.

One of the themes of this episode is how Team Shadow is screwing up their own and each other's plans because of their character flaws and lack of trust. Team Light is also having issues because of their character flaws and lack of trust but... not as bad as Team Shadow.

Let's break down the Known Plans, starting with Moghedien, who got a pretty big win this episode:

Moghedien -- she snuck off to try to figure out what Lanfear's plans were. Discovered Liandrin's cabal (likely through TAR), discovered the Wondergirls, got one of the bracers that can be used to control Rand. So presumably her next plan is to get the second bracer and the collar. Out of all of the Forsaken & darkfriends, she's probably making out the best currently, and we will likely see her making a move for the second bracer (with Liandrin) and the collar (in the Panarch's Palace) in 3x08. otoh, we've seen that Moghedien has some impulse-control issues, and she left evidence behind when she scratched Nynaeve's face, so that may come back to bite her. And Elayne & Nynaeve did realize right away that the bracer was missing.

Sammael -- wanted to make a strike against Lews Therin and was impatient by Lanfear's affection for 'Rand al'Thor'. It looks like he may have gone in with some Shaido warriors, so there are darkfriends among the Shaido that he's working with. We saw that Rand was able to fight against him pretty easily, and he is currently unconscious or 'dead' (in the same way that Lanfear was briefly dead at the end of 2x04). He was brash and rushed in, and paid the price.

Since Rand potentially knows how to create a shield (in 2x07, he saw the one that Ishamael put on Moiraine but he didn't see it being made), Sammael may end up shielded by Rand in 3x08. We will see! Given Lanfear's 'warning' to Moiraine (which I think was mostly a test to see if Moiraine would still obey her post-Rhuidean, to which the answer appears to be 'yes'), Lanfear likely helped set up this attack, trusting that Rand had enough instinctive control to protect himself, and fine with any collateral damage that might happen as a result (in fact, she probably figured any collateral damage would create yet more guilt in Rand that she could ~soothe~).

Rahvin -- apparently has been borrowing Moghedien's Gray Man to try to kill Elayne (I thought it looked like Elayne was the target of that Gray Man in the White Tower!) and they keep whiffing on him, which Moghedien mostly seems to find amusing. Mostly set-up for future plotlines, I expect (which I very much hope we will get to see). So, Moghedien says that Elayne was the target of "two" of her Gray Men. We've seen three. Obviously the one in the middle was sent after Elayne, but I wonder if Jaichaim was also supposed to kill Elayne but got foiled because of her disappearance from the Tower, and then hung around to kill the Black Ajah Sisters, or if the Gray Man from 3x01 was meant to try to go for Elayne but got the wrong woman because Elayne was up on the roof with Aviendha?

Lanfear -- looks ascendant right now, but her pettiness has screwed her over when it comes to her actual goal ("forever isolated happiness with do-over LTT"). Her pettiness has, perhaps, been screwing her over the entire season - it seems possible that part of what has been making Egwene cling so hard to Rand was finding his familiarity comforting in the wake of her Lanfear-induced nightmares. Is it possible that Egwene would have been willing to break up with Rand sooner if Lanfear hadn't been constantly tripping her PTSD?

And then we have Lanfear needing to have Egwene see her face and see that Lanfear has 'won' Rand. Petty, petty. And that all leads to Egwene being able to tell Rand about the situation, and now Rand gets to re-live the moment of realization that Lanfear implied Lews Therin also had back in the day. That he looked too long and saw the darkness that she was carefully hiding away from him (2x04).

Lanfear was banking on being able to hide all her cruelty away from Rand and that worked for most of the season (since Moiraine was willing to conspire with her), but she let the mask slip just far enough with Egwene that it led to Egwene revealing the truth to Rand.

(I have to admit, it kinda feels like the continued Randgwene relationship was serving Lanfear's story more than it served either Rand's or Egwene's but I will try to stop rehashing all that at some point!)

Lanfear's fallibility comes across in another place too -- we learn that she's lost control of Liandrin & her cabal and doesn't know why they're in Tanchico.

I also suspect that Moiraine will turn the tables on Lanfear in 3x08, because she looked more angry than afraid in that scene early on in the episode.

Semirhage & Graendal -- they exist. Theoretically, they have an alliance with Rahvin but given what we've seen so far, I'm sure that they are making their own plans behind his back.

Eighth Forsaken -- ????

Ishamael -- okay, yes, he's dead, but I want to point out that he had his plans on lock-down. Even our brief glimpse of him here in the cold open shows that he was an expert at finding vulnerable and powerful people to recruit to his cause, and he's likely the reason that the Black Ajah are organized into hearts for secrecy, and the reason they remained undiscovered for so long because, wow, the second he's dead, everyone starts falling into chaos and in-fighting. You understand why the Dark One might still be moping over his death (as Lanfear implies in 3x03) and doesn't want to talk to any of the rest of his Chosen. Ishamael was the organized and thoughtful one.

Back in s2, Ishamael was the one who had the long-game plan (that got ruined when Lanfear fast-traveled Rand to Falme), and tbh his only mistake was waking up Lanfear. Likely out of loneliness, from what we saw in 2x08. I suspect that it was talking to Rand at the end of s1 that made Ishamael crack enough that he wanted to wake up Lanfear, because LTT was the thing that he and Lanfear had in common and he wanted to share the emotional weight.

Liandrin -- oh, Liandrin. Wanting to be one of the Chosen. I... do you have the power to back that up, Liandrin? She might be assuming that the Dark One can boost her power (or assumes she'll get access to the power that let Lanfear resurrect herself after Moiraine slit her throat and stabbed her in 2x04). It does seem like Ishy made some pretty big promises to the darkfriends working under him -- Dana also thought that she would be richly rewarded for capturing the Dragon for Ishamael back in s1. In fact, now that we know that Lanfear isn't involved in Liandrin's plan, I wonder if Ishamael is where Liandrin got her inspiration from -- though, of course, hailing from Tanchico is definitely part of it (the story about the Shackled Man is a show-only thing, I believe, so we couldn't really know that Liandrin had ways to know about the collar and bracers on her own until that was revealed in this episode).

So there were 12 total Black Ajah Sisters that were working together in 3x01 (per what Verin, Siuan, & Leane have figured out). One of them is unknown and suspected to still be in the Tower and, as of this episode, three of them are alive in Falme (Liandrin, Chesmal, and Jeaine). Over half of them have managed to get killed in less than a season (and three of them were killed by their own side).

Will any of them make it out of the season alive?

[tragicallycrispygirl]

One of the things that I think is probably the most interesting part about Bedman is his whole persona that he presents to the world of being a logically driven person largely ungoverned by emotion, and what really makes that interesting is that he's *terrible* at that.

I don't mean that he's not logical or not intelligent but he hides the fact that basically every decision he makes is motivated purely by emotion, mostly his love for Delilah.

Most of his win quotes involve him saying something smart about IQ or statistics or the skilled and unskilled, being that overly cold and logical "mask", but in the story, he only chooses to help Ariels because it would give him a way for him and Delilah to live like normal people. He's so driven by this idea that he doesn't ever seem to question if Ariels can actually be trusted, which eventually leads to his death.

This is further shown with his attempt at rational detachment from the killing of people, he justifies it to himself by remembering their names so he can bring them back - he isn't really killing them. Contrasting that with Ramlethal, however, one of the first if not the only person he was going to truly consciously decide to end the life of, the instant she's even slightly humanized in his eyes he flies into a rage, deciding to teach her about uniqueness and then going back and yelling at Ariels.

In his last moments, the first thing he thinks of when he learns Ariels was lying to him is "How could you betray me...? Do you have any idea how many people I've killed!?" before beginning to cry. It's not anything logical in the slightest, that moment from him (as well as his subsequent creation of a small Absolute World and using the last of his power on a hail mary attempt to bring Delilah back) is purely being overcome with emotion at the realization that he has done *horrible* things.

I think that, really, the most interesting part is that he treats that supposed logically driven mind as though it's a superpower, as though he's better than everyone else because his choices are derived from tangible evidence.

"You would challenge me...? Trying to become a hero? But, you see, humans have idolized heroes as those who can turn the odds when all is against them. Well, I say the ideal scenario is to prepare and execute, so one never finds themselves against such odds. An ideal world would need no such thing as "heroes," I would not place too much faith in heroes, who've outlived their... heroism."

"Humans have created words as a means of communications, and have proven their supremacy as a species. Nevertheless, I believe truly intelligent creatures have at least some degree of mastery over nonverbal communication, which, I would argue, allows them to minimize miscommunication. To put it another way- -because with you, I have to- -I don't think you've evolved. In fact, it seems as though you're moving backwards down the chain of evolution. Lining up your words, pretending that they mean something, when in fact you're spouting meaningless gibberish. Yes, hah, I'm talking to you."

"I do not understand humans who are motivated by love. a person is born, lives for a number of years, and interacts with up to eight billion people. What proof is there of something they can't even define?"

"An intriguing concept, innocence. In many ways it seems to be used to define an "acceptable" level of harm—in the sense that some of a child's behavior can be protected by an "innocence" defense, but eventually a threshold is reached after which they are judged as harshly as any other. Oh, I don't expect you to understand. The only way to avoid harm is to remove the thing that creates it, after all." (this is insane btw romeo you are a child too have you reached that threshold holy FUCK)

I think it's interesting to compare him to Ramlethal in that sense. While they don't interact much in the story, their plotlines are connected and he does push Ram over into accepting herself as a person. I think it's interesting that they both perceive themselves as higher beings of a sort (Ramlethal calling humans redundancies, Bedman just generally thinks he's better than everyone) but also that Bedman's response to being emotionless is to treat it like an ability that gives him strength and makes him fundamentally different from the average person, while Ramlethal views it as something that makes her fundamentally different and incapable of being a person.

[sevensoulmates]

Buddie 7x07 "Ghost of a Second Chance" Meta

So sorry for the delay! This one took me a minute due to life/work stuff happening, but here it is! A doozy! This episode had a lot of parallels with the other characters storylines happening so bear with me here! This is mostly going to be about Eddie.

This episode deals a lot with past trauma, specifically bringing up stuff that some of the characters haven't dealt with in a while or seemingly had already dealt with in the past. Maddie with Doug's abduction, Bobby and the apartment fire, Eddie and Shannon. All of these are re-introduced in this episode, but it's important to note that they are NOT resolved, mostly Bobby and Eddie, and will likely continue into the rest of the season. Maddie reacts the most noticeably to her trauma being triggered, and of the three, she's the only one who has actually managed to work through that trauma from the past, so while it does affect her, it does not cause her to self-destruct like Eddie and most likely Bobby will.

As many of us predicted, we theorized that it was going to get much worse for Eddie before it would get better. And this episode has put Eddie on that path that will likely take him towards rock bottom if Ryan and Tim's interviews and teasers for his 7b arc are to be believed.

The first big parallel to Eddie's storyline is the woman and her baby being abducted by a man with mental health problems who allowed a past trauma with his ex-wife/child to reach a dangerous point. While Eddie's actions in this episode are not placing a woman's life in danger, it does parallel how in pursuit of soothing his own pain, Eddie and this man, are prioritizing their own feelings, over the feelings of a woman stranger (Kim) and an innocent kid.

I was already anticipating many many Shannon call-backs in this episode, but the writers dive in immediately by having Chimney intubate Catherine. This is the same heavy choice Chimeny had to make when Shannon was hit by a car, and Chimney was interim Captain. He had to make a choice to either intubate Shannon, effectively taking away her last chance to say dying words or to not intubate and allow Eddie and Shannon to exchange final words. With Shannon, Chimney does not intubate, but with Catherine, he does. This could possibly indicate the need for Eddie to make different decisions this time around if he wants to survive this new catastrophic plotline.

This was an interesting way for the writers to give us a kind of "speedrun" of introducing us to Marisol a bit more. I know that the ENTIRE fandom has been bugging over the fact that we "hardly know anything about Marisol other than DIY and Nunnery", and now they're giving us more information, but notably it's all very surface-level information. It makes the scene feel like Eddie's trying to get to know her for the first time instead of this being a woman he's been seeing for about six months at this point.

While 7x05 did indicate to us that Eddie is trying to get to know her all over again, it really does drive home how little effort Eddie has put into trying to build a relationship with her, which is then further proved by the rest of the episode. All of this demonstrated very clearly just how little investment Eddie has had in ANY of his relationships after Shannon's death. It's probably supposed to make us think "Oh, that's because he only ever truly loved Shannon!" but in reality, the Eddie-Shannon onscreen relationship was very tumultuous, and they spent most of their relationship (even during their time pre-military) away from each other. All in all, the topic of how well Eddie knows the women he's with, and how much effort/investment he puts into his relationships (including Shannon) are being pulled into question here. And I think it's being done to show the audience that Eddie has only ever dated and married women as a duty and not something he actually does because he wants to be with the women as people. Once again, this includes Shannon.

Before Marisol can even finish her two truths and a lie, Eddie interrupts, starting to dictate the conversation again, and Chris is the one who has to step in, reminding Eddie that this moment is about Marisol. Eddie has been the one to lead his relationships with both Ana and Marisol, almost to the point of steamrolling over them. A similar thing happened in his relationship with Shannon, where Shannon notes that Eddie is always making decisions for them without consulting her, including going to the military, or moving Chris to a new school, etc. and how that was always a giant issue in their relationship. While this moment is not Eddie purposely steamrolling over Marisol, it does show that again, Eddie has a myopic view of relationships with women, where he's constantly trying to steer them towards something that he wants without really letting the woman have any agency. Shannon had to physically leave him in order to get any agency of her own.

Additionally, the choice to have the get to know you game be "two truths and a lie", inherently implies dishonesty, or at least makes us think of lying. And considering that becomes a theme for Eddie this episode and likely in upcoming episodes, it's also indicative of the general theme of not knowing someone and not being honest with them. It could've been "twenty questions" or something not involving purposely lying, but instead it's two truths and lie, and Eddie is now about to be involved in a whole bunch of lies.

I've seen others point out that this line is clearly meant to compare Marisol and Shannon. Shannon, Chris and Eddie had a tradition involving smores, one that Chris and Eddie were trying to keep alive only last season when they visited Shannon's grave. This line is meant to show us that Marisol is not Shannon, and as Eddie actually gets to know her, this is more and more evident. It's no fault of Marisol's, but it's likely what is sticking in Eddie's head, right before he ends up meeting Kim. Eddie, once again dictating what he wants Marisol to be rather than accepting the truth of who Marisol is, exclaims that obviously Marisol has had smores because Shannon loved smores. But Marisol is not Shannon, and Eddie is always comparing his partners to Shannon in unhealthy ways.

While this line is clearly a joke, nothing is done without purpose in TVland, and this is another one of those times where even though Eddie's joking, it's actually telling of how he actually feels. He's already had one foot out the door with Marisol for the last 3-4 episodes, and now it's the smores that makes him say "we can still leave her" because who Marisol is, does not align with who Shannon was. But the thing is, I have a hard time believing that Shannon was even who Eddie truly wanted, at least not without expectation or pressure. Shannon is an Ideal, and no one, not even Shannon herself, can live up to it. No woman is supposed to or can reach this Ideal, because (in my opinion) a woman is not really what Eddie wants deep down in his most hidden of unconscious desires.

"You two aren't going anywhere". Oh, the dramatic irony is killing me here. Because not even a couple of minutes later, Marisol has lost Eddie for good when he sees Kim. The death bells have already been ringing from the very beginning, but this is the final death knell that has been rung. Even if Eddie stays with Marisol through most of this arc, their relationship will end, as will his relationship with Kim.

Eddie and Kim lock eyes and he's reminded of Shannon instantly. Because of that, this relationship is dead before it even begins. A moment later, Christopher calls out "Dad!" just like he did when Shannon and Eddie were on the beach, interrupting Eddie's thoughts.

Marisol notices Eddie acting weird, asks if he's alright, he says he's fine, and she calls him out, asking "is that the truth or a lie?" He promises he's fine, but we as an audience know that's a big ole lie. This has been the case for years, and it's interesting that it's coming at this point in the season. The early half of the season we saw Eddie the "happiest" he's ever been. And I can't help but wonder how much of that was true happiness, and how much of that was just putting off thinking about it. It's easier to lie and say he's fine, that his relationships are fine, that his relationship with Shannon was fine. It's harder to admit the truth, that he's not okay, that his relationships with Marisol and Ana were unhealthy and his relationship with Shannon was the unhealthiest of all. It's easier to place the blame on his unhappiness on missing Shannon, instead of admitting that it's his own choices that are making him unhappy.

Another theme of this episode is internalized biases and misunderstanding the current situation due to being blinded by the past. Maddie misses crucial details of her call with Catherine because she was looking at it with too much bias about her own situation with Doug. Eddie also misremembers his past with Shannon, but instead of recognizing his mistake like Maddie, and trying to look at it objectively, Eddie lets that bias from the past effect his current decisions, which is already resulting in a mistake by cheating with Kim and will likely result in more mistakes the rest of this season.

Maddie heard what she expected to hear. Eddie is seeing in Kim what he expects to see from Shannon. Both lead to really bad outcomes.

Eddie goes back to find Kim/Shannon, and they meet. She looks similar but not really the same (btw, kudos to the makeup team, wow). She has similar facial expressions (nose scrunches, giggles, etc.) and she asks him if he's looking for something specific. And the answer is yes, he's looking for Shannon in Kim, just as he was looking for Shannon in Marisol and Ana.

This is very obviously a sexual innuendo, which is interesting because their first real interaction is showing more of a "sexual" chemistry, than anything really romantic, or soul-connecting. It's a clear harkening back to how Eddie would use sex as a way to stop fights between himself and Shannon. It's also one of Eddie's biggest distancing tools. He used sex to distance himself from Shannon and from Marisol, as an excuse to not address problems, or just simply to not get to know them. And given that Eddie was having sexual dysfunction issues in his last major episode, this is meant to provide a juxtaposition to that. Sort of a "Hey look Eddie couldn't get it up for Marisol the Nun but he can get it up for the Shannon look-alike". On the surface, this might be to show us that Eddie really only has sexual chemistry with Shannon, but if you look below the surface even a little bit, you'll realize that his sexual relationship with Shannon was also deeply dysfunctional, but in its own way.

The answer is no. Eddie does not trust Kim because she's a stranger, but this line is meant to remind us that Eddie very much DID NOT trust Shannon for most of her arc in season 2 and even up until her death. It's a callback to the line in season 2 Merry Ex-Mas where Eddie says he "forgives Shannon but doesn't trust her" and Shannon says something along the lines of "Eddie trusting her enough to have sex with her, but not enough to let her see her own son". Kim is hitting all the lines that are meant to remind Eddie of rose colored "Good times" but are meant to remind us, the audience, of all the issues he had with Shannon.

This moment of Eddie and Shannon on the beach is meant to represent Eddie's "happiest" moment on-screen with Shannon when she was alive. Eddie remembers it that way, as kissing Shannon and finally having his family back together. But in actuality, it was the start of the end for them. Shannon thought she was pregnant, paralleling the time when they accidentally got pregnant as teens and both of them had to put their lives on hold and commit to a marriage that might not have been the ultimate right choice for them. If any of you remember, this is also the moment where Eddie and "signs" and the "universe" are connected for the first time. Eddie asks for a sign, and Shannon says she's pregnant. In my personal opinion, this was supposed to be a sign for Eddie to not get back together with her, given how traumatic it was the first time around, but he ignores it and tries to push down his feelings. "Life is like a vat of chocolate, it pulls you down but it's comfortable". And when Shannon very clearly stated she wanted a divorce, Eddie did not really seem to accept it...and the universe took Shannon away permanently. (Again, I want to reiterate this is all about fiction I'm talking about here not irl, okay? This does not apply to real life) The universe tried to warn Eddie, to bring him a sign, and when he ignored it, as he always does, the universe decided it needed to take Shannon away permanently.

And now here we are again, 6 years later, with Eddie ignoring ALL the signs over and over and over, and setting about down this path with Marisol that literally everyone knows will not make Eddie happy, and what does the universe do? It throws him the biggest wrench it could by bringing someone who looks/acts like Shannon back into his life. Kim was brought in by the universe (the writers) to show Eddie that his relationship with Shannon was not as wonderful and amazing as he remembers it....and he ignores all of the signs yet a-fucking-gain. I get the feeling that this arc with Kim is going to end VERY. VERY. badly for Eddie. I think we should all be preparing ourselves for that.

Eddie is making active duplicitous choices here. He's lying about being in a relationship with someone else, lying about being a single dad. And it's not the first time he's said something like this (see the "taken for now" line in 7x04), further demonstrating how he's always had one foot out the door with Marisol.

I also want to point out that Eddie lying and deceiving Kim and cheating on Marisol is not meant to be the show saying "this is good! this is who Eddie's supposed to end up with!" The writers know how most people feel about cheating. Most people are 100% aware that cheating is morally wrong, and by Eddie making these decisions, they're not supposed to show that Eddie is inherently a cheater or a bad guy. He's acting OOC on purpose. The writers want us to see Eddie lying and cheating and want us to clock that Something is Very Very Very Wrong and that has to do with Eddie's romantic relationships, Shannon, his perception of Shannon, his perception of his past marriage, and his expectations of himself.

We, as an audience, are not supposed to be enjoying this. We're meant to be uncomfortable.

911 is doing something really interesting lately with their pointed use of Full First Names vs. Nicknames. When I heard this my first thought was actually of Ana and how cringe it was to hear her calling Eddie Edmundo all the time. Shannon actually never once called Eddie by his full name. If anything, Eddie calling himself Edmundo here, introducing himself by it, is once again supposed to trigger the audience's "Something Is Wrong Here" mode. I was also going to mention how this is also something a lot of people have felt with Tommy's constant use of "Evan" instead of Buck. Some people like it, some people don't, but everyone can acknowledge that it's odd and unusual.

Even as he's flirting with Kim, talking more about "stimulation", Eddie is holding an "S" for Shannon. I think when Kim told Eddie her name, a sharp K, very far away from the soft S of Shannon, it was a slight shock to him. If her name was something similar like Sherri or Sheila or something, Eddie could've lived in the fantasy more. Her name being Kim momentarily broke the illusion, hence him looking down at the S for Shannon.

Eddie is remembering the first time he slept with Shannon after she came back into his life while he's sitting at the table with Marisol, completely ignoring her. But not only that, as many people have pointed out, he's misremembering. The walls in the background are recent, with the new teal color and his new bed. Shannon's hair is a cross between dark and light, almost like a mix of Kim and Shannon, and--and this one rocked my world--they had sex right side up.

Many have pointed out how it's odd that Eddie and Marisol's sex scene harkened so similarly back to his one sex scene with Shannon, where they both ended up at the tail end of the bed, upside down. People have often discussed Eddie and his upside-down sex as a metaphor for unhealthy sexual connection, for misconnection, and right side up sex to be healthy sex. To find that he is thinking of him and Shannon in his memory of being right side up has been pointed out by others to be yet another example of Eddie's rose-colored memories of his past with Shannon. In his memory, he views his relationship and sexual relationship with Shannon as this Amazing and One of a Kind thing, hence the right-side-up sex, but in reality, it was upside down, it wasn't healthy.

He's looking at his relationship with Shannon through a veil of the present, chock full of regrets, would've/could've/should've's, and two almost-failed relationships. Not to mention that he literally was just having extreme sexual dysfunction with Marisol not even two episodes ago it's very likely that his remembering this passionate, voracious, unquenchable thirst for Shannon is also brought on by the fact that he's having sexual issues with Marisol. It might also be him wanting to remember that he does and did have desire for sex with women...as long as they're Shannon or reminding him of Shannon. This is not at all supposed to be something that is represented as healthy for Eddie, and I don't believe the show is trying to put across that message.

Eddie remembers his sex with Shannon, and when he decided to "bring Shannon home for Christmas". Even in this scene, the focus is not on the two of them as a couple. He doesn't talk about how much he missed her, or how it feels good to be close to her again. He talks about how he wants to reunite her and Christopher. "Santa" in this present day and age is bringing "Shannon" home for Christmas, by bringing Kim into Eddie's life.

Bringing it back to Maddie's storyline, with the Big Bad Kidnapper of this episode. He was encouraged by his sister to move across the country for a fresh start after his wife and baby left him due to his own abusive actions (assumed, but the sister did say they were "afraid of him"). We don't know too much of the details of this man's story, but it does show a clear parallel to Eddie too, with his wife leaving him to move across the country too (though she left their son with Eddie because obviously, Eddie's not abusive like this man). But the man's sister was hoping that this move would mean he would "stop looking for them". Eddie ends up doing the same thing with Shannon metaphorically. He never stops looking for her in all of his romantic relationships, hurting other women like Ana and Marisol, in the process.

The man is so clearly a parallel to Eddie but in the worst most devolved way. Eddie has been seeking out a Mom for Chris for years, even when Shannon was alive. It was never about Shannon, wanting her, loving her, needing her because he's so deeply in love with her. No, it was, and still is, always about the mother she could be for Chris. It's the same thing he did with Ana, and with Marisol. I'm not sure if this thing he's doing with Kim will eventually lead there too, or if it won't make it that far before it gets blown up in his face. But Kim cannot be a new mother for Chris, even if she wants to be. Christopher would clock that she looks like Shannon, and might feel betrayed, like Eddie is actively trying to replace Shannon, which I doubt Christopher would take well. So what is Eddie's endgame here? In my honest opinion, I don't think he has one. I think he's acting on pure emotional hurt, and desperately seeking out a balm, and not considering the consequences of his actions.

Just like that man was hit dead on with the literal consequences with the police, I think Eddie's gonna be hit HARD as a result of these mistakes. I feel like it might be something really bad, possibly involving Christopher. If "isolation" is going to become the thing he might have to contend with Christopher being really really angry with him in whatever way that takes form, and the rest of the firefam not being happy with him either. I think Eddie's going to be going through another arc similar to where he was emotionally in season 3a with the streetfighting arc.

Just how like the man who abducted her was a parallel to Eddie, Catherine herself is also a parallel to Eddie. She's clearly in pain, but she refuses drugs that will make her feel better. She feels she has to stay awake and endure the pain as a comeuppance, similar to how Eddie felt he had to endure his pain like a man because he deserved it. She feels her husband will hate her, just like how Eddie feared Shannon would hate him for what he did. He fears Shannon would never forgive him, but just like Catherine, even worse is the fact that Eddie has yet to ever forgive himself. No matter how many times people tell her it's not her fault, no matter how many times people tell Eddie he's a good father or a good person, they will never believe it. That guilt still rocks them, and for Eddie, it's been the monkey on his back every day LOONNGGG before Shannon even passed. Likely he's been dealing with it from the second he found out he got her pregnant. Even though Catherine's daughter was returned to her, she will still likely feel guilty, just as Eddie's guilt has lingered and festered and turned to rot the longer it's gone unchecked.

It'll only be once Eddie can let go of that guilt, let go of Shannon, and forgive himself, will he ever be able to actually start healing, and making the right choices for himself.

Many people have pointed out how this parallels the scene in 3x03 with Christopher and Eddie coming to Buck's house after the tsunami. That was a moment where Buck was feeling "lost at sea" and Eddie and Chris came in to be his "life raft that gets you home." And now Eddie's the one lost at sea. He thinks he has to find Shannon when really all he really needs is here with Buck and Chris. Eddie and Chris are "late", but eventually, they will find their way home to Buck.

Have y'all ever heard the phrase "where there's smoke, there's fire"? It means that if there's a rumor or something being said about a topic, there must be some back story/truth in it. It's what I point out every time the show "jokes" about Eddie's sexuality or lack thereof to women, Eddie ready to leave Marisol, etc. They're in the script because there's a kernel of truth to them, even if it's still nebulous (or smoky) at the moment.

Additionally, Buck is making a new lasagna recipe (a metaphor for his new found bisexuality and MM relationship with Tommy) and something about it is not working. In the same way that I've been theorizing that there is misalingment in his relationship with Tommy, we're now seeing that lasagna (like in 6x01 where the couch theory was introduced) is yet another metaphor for Buck's relationships. He had 3 at that point in time (as well as 3 failed attempts at lasagna) and now he's here in a new relationship, and something about it isn't working, he just doesn't know what. I'll reiterate, it's not the bisexuality, but rather the person he's in a relationship with. This being told once again to Eddie, in Buck's kitchen, with Chris present, is driving home the point once again.

Eddie, on the other hand, is aligned with Buck. He knew ahead of time to order a pizza for them. This isn't usual, given that Buck's a good cook, and has cooked for Chris and Eddie many times. Eddie being attuned to Buck right now is meant to show that he can sense these things about Buck, even when it's not conscious.

"To be seen… to be found… isn't that what we're all searching for?"

Buck assumes Eddie's meeting with Marisol, and Eddie does not correct him. I've seen other people mention how this feels like Eddie is cheating on Buck, and not really on Marisol, and in my opinion, that all comes down to who is Eddie more emotionally intimate with. He already feels super disconnected to Marisol, even more so in this episode, but we've spent the first half of this season establishing how Buck and Eddie are closer than ever. So Eddie lying to Buck feels like the real cheating here, because Eddie has only ever given himself fully to Buck, in all his messed up glory. He's never given that to Marisol, or Ana. And he most definitely never gave that to Shannon.

Side note, I loved the cologne line because it implies that Buck knows how Eddie smells, and that smelling him now is something Buck is enjoying. Him saying they won't wait up for Eddie further cements the domesticity of the scene. Buck has a full relationship with Chris outside of Eddie, but they also have a strongly established bond all three of them. In an episode where Eddie assumes Marisol must love smores despite her never having tried one, Eddie inherently knows that Buck's struggling with lasagna and needs to order a pizza.

Eddie and Buck's flirting--because that's what it is-- feels natural. More so than the flirting with Marisol in the beginning of the episode, and more so than with Kim-Not-Shannon that was moored down by the reality that Eddie is severely projecting all of his major issues onto her. Buck and Eddie have an easy rapport filled with mutual support, inside jokes, gentle ribbing, synchronicity and above all, friendship and trust. THAT is why the betrayal of Eddie with Kim only a few moments later feels so stark and like a huge blow to the audience.

Eddie sees Kim, and all he sees is Shannon's face, but I have to give MASSIVE kudos to the hair, costume, and makeup department here because they couldn't make Kim look ANY more starkly different from Shannon. In the scenes at the store, Kim is dressed more professionally, in lighter more inviting colors. And then here, when Kim can take off the customer service mask, and be fully herself, we see that she dresses in darker clothing, pants, and jackets with her hair up in almost an alternative-punk style. It's a MASSIVE contrast to Shannon who was almost always dressed in lighter, warmer colors, in shades of orange, yellow, and warm pinks, with minimal makeup and long flowy dresses or soft sweaters. Shannon's hair was almost always down and flowing around her face with her bangs. Kim's hair is completely up, totally out of her face in a severe bun look, without any bangs. She could not look father from Shannon if she tried. And yet, Eddie is not seeing Kim, he's not seeing the individual woman who's probably really lovely, the woman he's inherently hurting by using her to be reminded of his dead wife. No, all he sees is Shannon, and he's 100% willing to tank his whole life just to get a bit of that feeling back.

Eddie is on his way towards rock bottom, and this episode is only getting started. The glass is going to shatter extremely hard, and I worry for what the consequences will be for Eddie for all this, because there's no way he's escaping this without deep cuts. He will likely lose Marisol and Kim in one fell swoop. As for Buck, Chris and the rest of the 118, that's yet to be seen. But we know Eddie's parents show back up later on, so they could be coming in with the steel chair, likely to hit Eddie harder when he's already down. After all, the originator of "Don't drag him down with you, Eddie" is none other than Helena Diaz. This season is giving very strong season 3/4 vibes, and if that's the case, it's possible Helena and Ramon are going to pose a problem by the end of the season like they might've done in season 4 if things had gone as originally planned.

I'm worried, scared and excited to see how this ends up for Eddie. But I'm also hopeful. I see a light at the end of this tunnel. After all, it's always darkest just before dawn.

Thanks for reading my meta!

[thewertsearch]

Anonymous asked: You: "Wow Homestuck is my favorite comic ever! Kanaya is the best :)" Hussie: "LOL, LMAO" @morganwick asked: (Try not to think about the idea that the conversation future Jade alluded to where Kanaya got the password was the one with past Jade that immediately followed that conversation, and that Jade is waiting for a password from Kanaya that'll never come…) @bladekindeyewear asked: [...] regarding the password Jade said earlier she had been patiently waiting for… unfortunately, I think we saw Jade give her said password just before the walkaround… and in hindsight, it’s quite a regrettable one. “GG: the password is…………… GG: CROOOOOOOOOOOAK”

I had the same chilling thought over the weekend.

Yes, it's very possible that Kanaya closed her password loop in her very next conversation, which means the timeline doesn't actually require her to be resurrected. This removes the main piece of evidence I had that she's coming back - but even so, I still don't think she's gone for good.

What it boils down to, basically, is that Kanaya still has a lot to do.

First of all, her arc surrounding the survival of her race is still unresolved. Sure, someone like Karkat or fellow Space girl Jade could pick up the baton, but this arc isn't theirs. Jade has no personal investment in it, and Karkat, while obviously motivated to save his species, isn't connected to the Matriorb or Mother Grub the way Kanaya is. This revival plotline is hers, and right now, it's dangling like a loose thread.

If that was the only narrative issue, I could look past it - but it's not.

Guys, this was her last conversation with Rose. And I'm sorry, but I just don't believe that one of the longest-running ships in the comic would end here. Kanaya's romantic arc with Rose is really just getting started, and their last conversation really doesn't scan as a goodbye, even in retrospect.

Like, sure, these last words would be kind of ironic, but is this really how you close the door on one of the most kickass compelling relationships we have? Rosemary deserves a better death than this.

Speaking of which...

This is how we're disposing of Kanaya? With an (admittedly kind of funny) SBaHJ reference?

Bro, a significantly less important character, gets a dramatic death pose, framed by one of Karkat's best lines, and Kanaya - Kanaya Fucking Maryam - gets a sparkly Hope wand and a meme? I'm calling bullshit.

Now, Homestuck is more than happy to give its characters undignified deaths. Tavros certainly got one - but Tavros also died at the end of an intense, dramatic flash animation, and his murder served as the culmination of the Vriska/Tavros arc we've been following since early Hivebent. Tavros died without dignity, but the narrative weight of his death was enormous.

Kanaya died in the middle of multiple character arcs, in a manner that lacked dignity or narrative weight. She was essentially collateral damage to an unrelated feud between Eridan and Feferi. She died like a secondary character, and she's not.

I'm self-aware enough to admit that this is partially wishful thinking. It's not like I'm an unbiased observer - Kanaya is my favorite character, and I dug deep into the comic for evidence that her death doesn't make sense. But, that said - her death doesn't make sense. My narrative instincts are telling me that Kanaya is coming back - I just don't know how.

[hyperions-light]

hey I was planning another post today but instead let’s talk about how much I love that there’s not really a ‘good’ ending to the companion plotlines in Veilguard. It reminds me of Leliana and Alistair’s plotlines in DAO in that what you choose says more about the player/protagonist than anything

I just finished Isana Negat a second time, and I did the other ending and I thought it was just as good. Like, yeah, Harding does deserve to be angry! They did fucking get everything taken away from them! It’s so painful and horrific; yes you can, and should, be mad! But also Harding prioritizing her very real love for and compassion towards other people is not wrong. It’s just different! It’s just Rook’s friend/lover asking them for advice, and Rook giving it! You know, like in real life except with huge magical rock giants

And okay I’m never going to kill Illario because I think it would make Luca really sad and he has enough problems, Whoops I misremembered this, I don’t think you can kill Illario actually. I love that for Luca <3 But yk, I’m probably still not going to imprison him. but I can see it! Because the cycle has to end, right? The violence and infighting of the Crows endlessly attacking each other over power is part of what allowed the Antaam to get a foothold in Antiva, because there was like a double agent or something (if I’m remembering right from Tev Nights). Some kind of ending needs to be made to this endless violence. And I suppose it depends on how retributive Rook is, which is a great question to ask of the player (one that is asked repeatedly throughout the game). It’s not like Illario didn’t do anything, you know! He probably deserves punishment. But Rook, as they always can at various points, can be merciful, can choose absolution. Wow no, I’m glad I was wrong I love it more like this.

And oh boy, I LOVED the ending of Emmrich’s quest, don’t even get me started! Like!! I thought it was going to be ‘well obviously we HAVE to save Manfred’, but how Emmrich talks about accepting his death and his sacrifice convinced me! I was like alright man, this is a real choice! I actually did make him a lich last time (made a lot of sense from a Watcher perspective, imo) and not only was the cutscene sick as hell, but the follow-up was so funny and I got some really sad Spite dialogue which fucking wrecked me. It was great— seriously, his plotline is one of my favorites in the whole game.

And Davrin’s! I’ve already expounded at length about how much I like his quest line and how it ties into the Grey Wardens, but I really think both of his options for the griffons are so workable, because you know the Grey Wardens, especially under Antione and Evka, aren’t going to hurt those little guys again! But also the scenes with Eldrin are so endearing, and Davrin’s hope for a brighter future for them is so sweet and genuine. It’s hard to pick! It’s about Rook's perspective!

Neve's I'll admit I don't vibe with as much just because of the like 'trust the authorities' angle, but i haven't tried saving Minrathous yet and I think it would be sooooo involving as a Shadow Dragon especially. Because that's what they're fighting for, right? That better Minrathous where they CAN be sure that if they send the insane cultist lady to prison she’s going to stay there? But there’s always the practical consideration of people’s lives being at stake NOW, of Neve needing her friends safe NOW. And just killing Aelia ensures she will never be an issue again. So I can see both angles for sure

And Taash ;-; oh, Taash. I haven’t posted about them that much yet because they make me very emotional and it’s hard to organize thoughts like that. But I really love their quest, and their struggle to define themselves. And look, I know people wanted the option to tell them they could be both, but like as a person who has lived a similar experience, it really feels sometimes like the world is making you choose. It can feel like you’re not enough of either thing for anyone. And there are parts of your identity that you will have to make a choice on, and I think it’s trying to speak to that. I did the Rivaini one, and it’s like… well, they’re embracing the culture of Rivain, but it’s not like anyone is ever going to look at them and NOT see a Qunari. You can’t get away from that. What you choose to do in response is a real dilemma and I think that if you engage with the text genuinely you can see what Trick was doing. Also, there is a really great dialogue from Rook that I think gives more context to the discussion; they can say that they have been many things, and it’s important to take what works from each experience and make it part of yourself. So I don’t think Taash’s plot is trying to make them throw away any of themselves, just defining priorities. (Sorry, that got long. Feelings, opinions about that one)

And I don’t think Bellara’s is obvious, either, especially with how they involve the Nadas Dirthalen in her personal plot. This is a thing that is really emotionally and culturally significant to her, but at the same time it is part of what hurt her brother and ultimately took him away from her. She’s really preoccupied with not causing harm by her actions; she spends the whole game worried about it! And even though Rook doesn’t see the dangerous elements of the repository, that doesn’t mean they’re not there. The puzzle quest you can find in Arlathan proves that other people besides Cyrian were taken in by Anaris. And also, there’s the plot thread they briefly touched on in the last game which is that the culture the Dalish have built, that they have RIGHT NOW, is not wrong. But it’s also important to remember history, even if it’s unpleasant or could be dangerous, which is another thing you can discuss with Bellara during the game. So there’s no wrong choice! It’s just about Rook and Bellara and what’s important from their perspectives.

Anyway it was super refreshing to have these kinds of choices! It reminds me of the best character choices in DAI and DAO, especially, and I’m so happy they carried those things forward and improved on them.

[kurigohan0909]

Rewatching Link Click: Easter eggs in your noodle soup?

So I've just finished watching both seasons of Link Click/Shíguāng Dàilǐ-rén, which means that obviously I'm watching it all over again. What did you expect me to do, sit around waiting for Bridon arc while the Bilibili official account taunts us with replays??

Besides, Link Click is one of those dishes that is best served twice. The early episodes are packed with hints and foreshadowing that only become clear once you've gotten up to date, so I've made it my mission to catch 'em all.

You don't say.

It's well known that certain early mini-arcs (for instance Chen Xiao's basketball match, and Doudou's kidnapping) have implications for the larger plotline or at least contain important exposition/character insights that the story would not feel complete without. There are also several that get written off as filler, or are generally considered to not have any purpose beyond familiarising the audience with the characters and setup, and lulling you into a false sense of comfort before everything goes to shit. Episode 2: Secret Recipe, AKA the Noodle Lesbians episode, beloved as it is, tends to fall into the second category.

Or does it?

On a rewatch, I still don't think it does anything to advance the main plot. We don't even really know where it fits into the timeline, because we're never told what day it is and Lu Guang's watch is never shown on screen (I'll get around to a longer analysis of this another day). However, I'm instead inclined to believe that it's one of the most important episodes in the show - if not THE most important - because it's essentially an allegory for the story of Cheng Xiaoshi and Lu Guang, and gives you a bird's eye view of how the relationship between them is going to develop - which, as you know, is what the show is all about. And the fact that it's not situated in a specific time, in a show that cares heavily about timeline construction, makes it better.

The episode starts with this quote from German photographer August Sander, who believed that, through photography, he could reveal the characteristic traits of people. "The portrait is your mirror. It's you." It's pretty explicit, when you think about it. This episode is a mirror of the entire series, specifically of its protagonists.

Moving on. The episode's storyline is quite simple: two college "roommates" start a noodle shop together, and as time passes, they drift apart and eventually fall out as their priorities change. Yu Xia, the business-oriented one between them, wants to get hold of the secret ingredient used by Lin Zhen, to whose cooking the shop attributes its success. Does Yu Xia really want to steal the secret recipe? Or is it just one of the many things that the quieter Lin Zhen keeps hidden from her that she desperately wants to know, along with everything that went wrong between them? Your guess is as good as mine. Either way, there are lots of indirect parallels between Xialin of the noodle shop and Shiguang of the photo studio, even if for now they're very distinct individuals with their own personalities and struggles. It does, however, give some indication of what's to come.

This question isn't purely rhetorical, as we find out in the very next arc, where Cheng Xiaoshi has a fight with Lu Guang over letting his client's loved ones perish in the Wenchuan earthquake. Even if they eventually come to a consensus, they have fundamentally different life philosophies and approach their missions in very different ways. Cheng Xiaoshi is a hyperempathetic idealist who keeps trying to use his forays back into the past to fix his clients' personal problems, while Lu Guang remains utterly indifferent and staunchly against interfering, even in life-or-death situations. Which turns out to be a facade, because we later learn that he's just as much of a meddler as Cheng Xiaoshi - except he's focused on a singular, selfish goal, which is to keep Cheng Xiaoshi alive at any cost.

Let's go back to the noodle shop. After ten years of running the business together, it becomes clear that the ladies' aspirations are no longer compatible. Yu Xia has big plans for the shop. She wants to broaden their customer base - for profit, of course, but also so that more people can be made happy by the chance to taste their noodles. Lin Zhen's dreams, however, are on a smaller scale - perhaps only on a personal scale. Throughout the episode, it seems that she only really cares about making noodles for one person.

Sound familiar?

At the risk of digressing, it needs to be said that Yu Xia and Lin Zhen are absolutely very much a WLW couple. This isn't bait, it's elegant and really quite unsubtle queercoding that says 'to hell with censorship' loud and clear. Honeymoon jokes, the taxi driver assuming Lin Zhen had fought with her husband, and Lin Zhen's very bold attempts at flirting... we see you.

More to the point of this post, I think it's important to point out that Lin Zhen does not actually care for too many people other than Yu Xia. She's all worn out from making noodles for customers, but she forgets all about that when it's time to make a bowl for Yu Xia. She also keeps her special ingredient - which is one of the secrets she shares with Yu Xia, as we find out - highly guarded. She's never going to let these pesky reporters in on something so intimate.

Why is this important? Because, as it turns out, the episode's storyline - and Lin Zhen's motives - are all about saving Yu Xia.

We learn that the secret ingredient is a local specialty from Yu Xia's hometown. Lin Zhen has been using it for years, keeping the taste of home alive while Yu Xia's drifted further and further from home to the point where she can no longer remember where the ingredient came from. At the end of it all, when Yu Xia returns home, she finds Lin Zhen there waiting for her. Lin Zhen, mind you, does not hail from the same town. The girls met in college. It's home to her simply because it's Yu Xia's home.

This comes directly after a pilot episode that establishes the contrast between urban isolation and rural/familial warmth, through Emma's eyes, and in a show that continually reinforces the concept of longing for home and loved ones. By forcing Yu Xia to reevaluate her priorities, Lin Zhen manages to bring her back home - which is a place that includes herself.

Perhaps it's too early to say. But to me, it's a pretty neat thematic parallel of Lu Guang's solo quest to save Cheng Xiaoshi from death; which is intertwined with a greater goal of giving Cheng Xiaoshi a home, one that is safe and secure and surrounds him with those that love him and are there to stay.

But in the process of achieving this, one of his biggest obstacles is Cheng Xiaoshi himself - his insistence on interfering with the timeline so that Lu Guang can't predict events with certainty, his objections to the way Lu Guang does things, and the definite resistance Lu Guang will come up against if Cheng Xiaoshi learns about his plan. Pretty much every minor mission they undertake is a rehash of the same argument; Cheng Xiaoshi wants to use their combined powers to make a difference to other people's lives, and Lu Guang just has one goal in mind which means that he's going to ignore absolutely everyone else.

Notice how Yu Xia's looking to the future, while Lin Zhen's dream is to go back to a point in the past? Neat.

And when they finally part ways because it's clear Yu Xia is not going to support Lin Zhen's goal? Yu Xia asks her where she's going to go after they part ways, and Lin Zhen says:

I wonder where we've heard that before.

And if you need any more proof that this episode is in fact intended to be a mirror, do consider:

Their seating positions are mirrored too. Yeeeeaaaaaahhhh.

In conclusion: if this allegory is to be believed, then trust that Lu Guang will eventually succeed in his mission and Cheng Xiaoshi will find his way home to him. It'll happen, guys. In the meantime, at least our beloved noodle ladies will be living a peaceful life out in the countryside.

Since I don't know how to shut up and this website seems to be giving me infinite space to yap, let me include some more details about this episode that I found cool. There are so many.

Lin Zhen and Lu Guang are both shown while this line is being said. What with all that the fragrant flowers represent, it makes you think about what these characters' best memories might be and how much they treasure them.

This is such a tiny detail that you'd almost definitely miss it on the first watch, and it seems insignificant - until it isn't. When Cheng Xiaoshi hops into the girls' picture taken during their college days, he screws up and suggests they'd be better off dabbling in tech stuff like apps or intelligent management than running a noodle shop. Lu Guang makes him quickly eat his words, but they seem to have still struck a chord with Yu Xia - because later we see that she works over years to integrate an intelligent supply chain management system into their business. In fact, one of the reasons for Lin Zhen to alienate herself from the business is because she feels like it's gotten too techy and lost its human touch. Not really fair considering it was her own idea, is it?

I mean. This is probably a stretch. Digitization is pretty inevitable for big businesses nowadays, so Yu Xia, being as enterprising as she is, might have gone for it whether Lin Zhen suggested it or not. But it's interesting to think that it might be Cheng Xiaoshi's tiny alteration of the past that unfurled outwards like a hurricane from the beating of a butterfly's wing and catalysed their falling out. Especially because these kinds of bootstrap phenomena very much occur in later episodes and are a core feature of Link Click's time travel model.

Some suspicious behaviour on Lu Guang's part. He's quite certain there are no useful clues in the last picture Yu Xia and Lin Zhen took in front of their shop, despite it being the only one taken by Lin Zhen (seriously! you could go to her house, look through her phone, the possibilities are endless!) and the fact that this is the photo Cheng Xiaoshi did end up solving the mystery in, thanks to the ticket stubs he found in her purse (see?) Secondly, they outright miss a picture in the envelope - the most important picture of all which would have given them the answer right away, since this was when the fragrant flowers were first used. Not your best work, Lu Guang.

...or is it? Lu Guang is pretty meticulous, and it's unlike him to slip up in such obvious ways. He's also skilled at slipping things back into envelopes when he doesn't want them to be seen, as we know. Could it be that he didn't want Cheng Xiaoshi to solve the mystery? But why? Maybe it's metaphorical, like so much else of this episode: he doesn't want Cheng Xiaoshi to uncover his true intentions. The fact that all this is ultimately for his sake.

Interestingly, Lu Guang was very dejected at the idea of them seemingly being out of luck - they'd tried so many times and failed to fulfill the mission. Was he, perhaps, thinking about another mission he'd hate to fail? Anyway, it falls to Cheng Xiaoshi to cheer him up and give him hope for another try, which he accepts, with a small but genuine smile. My heart.

If you've scrolled this far, I'm glad you enjoyed my ramblings! I must say I don't know much about how Tumblr works so apologies if I mess up on formatting or tags, but I'll probably get the hang of it soon enough. I'll also probably end up enjoying Tumblr more than Twitter since it allows me unfettered yap space and won't feed my writing to the machine (yet). It's late and I should probably stop stop thinking bout it around now... but look forward to more random ramblings and thank you for reading!

[zephyr-rat]

Arcane Season 2 Act 2 Thoughts: Shockingly Cheap

The more I think about Arcane season 2, act 2, the more cracks I see in the story. To me, it's definitely the weakest of the 5 acts of Arcane we have seen. I do have my complaints with the general canon and direction, but I don't believe such criticisms are that helpful. I'll make another post concerning what canon Green Giant Saga ends up following (My Zac/Twitch fanfic series) that will have those complaints.

Instead, I'll just focus on my biggest problems with act 2

Characters Exist as Plot Devices for other Characters

There just seems to be a lot of characters that just act as props. Isha, a small non-verbal child with death flags everywhere, just exists to force Jinx to turn a new leaf. Warwick just exists to provide a potential happy ending for the Warwick/Vi/Jinx family so that the writers can take it away in emotional gut punches. Orianna (I think), a dead kid in a capsule, just exists to make Singed more sympathetic. That whole warden squad with Maddie, fish-guy, and big-guy? Maddie just exists to be Caitlyn's conscious for a scene and Big-guy just exists to show how much Vi deteriorates after the events of Act 1.

This in of itself doesn't need to be a bad thing. If you want to look at it in a very utilitarian, doylist perspective, all characters exist to tell a cohesive story with a clear theme. Not all characters will get the spotlight and must simply exist to support other characters, especially in a story with only 9 episodes, but it's getting very annoying how seemingly important these characters are to the plot when they're given little depth.

Isha and Warwick, to me, are the worse offenders. Isha who plays a significant role in redeeming Jinx, is a non-verbal kid with little backstory and interiority other than she wants Jinx to be Zaun's hero. She just exists to be so innocent and cute that even Jinx sympathizes with her, but with so little depth, she might as well just be a teddy bear. (I'd also point out that this does a disservice to Sevika who should've been more in Jinx's corner but just disappears from act 2 after episode 4... ugh..)

Warwick feels more like they revived Vander's corpse for more tragedy points. They really hammer home how much Vander wanted to take care of Jinx and Vi as kids with 2 big music video sequences. Vi even thinks about living in Viktor's cult town as a happy family, a happy scenario that exists so that the writers can gut punch us with the tragedy that's about to come. Season 1 had the sappy dad too, but what made it work for me was that it's combined with his reluctance to advocate for change in the undercity and his struggles of being a parent in grimdark capitalism as he tries to guide Vi to be a better leader. But now, with all of his rank and the context stripped down from him, he's just the sad dad character that gives the character fake hope.

So when Isha goes to blow Warwick and the attacking Noxians up with an overloaded gun, destroying the hopes of the main characters, I didn't feel emotional or sad or anything, because ultimately they just felt more like props to me instead of actual characters, and this is a big issue for act 2. If act 1 belongs to Caitlyn, then act 2 belongs to the Jinx/Vi/Warwick family and those 2 characters are extremely important to that plotline. Them being props, flattens the impact dramatically and makes it cheap.

If you felt very emotional during that scene, good for you! I'm happy you were able to be that invested. I'm just not one of you.

Less Political Intrigue

Part of what made Arcane really cool was that it highlighted the politics of Piltover-Zaun in a way that made the setting one of the main characters. You totally understand why Zaun acts the way they do and why Piltover acts the way they do and seeing the characters get entangled by that setting is deeply fascinating. It's part of the reason why Arcane is a great introduction to the Piltover-Zaun region. I'm also just a big fan of the setting and the political discussions you can have with it. (Green Giant Saga ends up doing this a lot)

And season 2 does continue that with act 1 and even episode 4. Ambessa making Caitlyn a dictator by exploiting her grief? Great! Mel trying desperately to do political damage control to avoid a war? Cool! Making Jinx a political figure to unite Zaun around even if she doesn't feel comfortable with it? Awesome!

But then with episode 5 and episode 6, the role of the setting diminishes. We start focusing more on the Warwick problem separate from the setting. Most of episode 5 takes place in a mine and most of episode 6 takes place in Viktor's cult town in the sumps, an isolated bubble away from Piltover-Zaun. Mel, the main figure leading that political aspect, got teleported away by the Black Rose. There are specs of it there like Singed agreeing to track down Warwick and make weapons for Noxus, but it doesn't play as large of a role like in previous acts, and it just can't. Not when we need to bring Warwick in since the act belongs to him. However, I already mentioned why he felt cheap, and the lack of integration with the setting, especially compared to previous acts, makes it feel all the more cheaper.

Now I will still say, Arcane season 2, act 2 is still good. It never bored me and it did keep me hooked on the screen. I just wouldn't call it great like I did the others acts of Arcane and the more I look at act 2, the more cheap it feels.

[agentrouka-blog]

Hey!

I’m not sure if this topic has already been talked to death (since it’s a show related question and I wasn’t in the fandom back then), but what was the point of Jon being King in the North if not for Jonsa?

I was thinking about writing a show-canon fic without the Ramsay/Sansa plotline—ended up giving up on it—but I can’t stop thinking about the show.

Jon being King mainly creates conflict/tension between him and Sansa. Okay, maybe only is a bit of a stretch, but the conflict between him and Dany could have been resolved so easily there is almost no point to it, imo. It would be sooooooo boring, and the writers knew that. That is why the show only brings up the possibility of marriage between them after he’s already bent the knee (not like almost every other alliance made in this fucking show wasn't forged trough marriage, like, at least bring it up!)

What I'm trying to say is that, imo, every single struggle in the Jon/Dany relationship feels forced and unnatural, specifically because Jon is King, because them being together would have been the easiest thing in the world if they truly wanted an alliance.

If the show really wanted Jon/Dany, they would’ve made Sansa Queen in the North, leaving Jon as just the bastard brother of the Queen, too insignificant for Dany to consider as a political match, giving them the so needed human heart in conflict with itself.

Which makes me think that this Jon/dany realatioship was written atop jonsa. Like, we could see the foundations they had laid for them but someone made the decision that Jon/Dany falling in love in two seasons and him killing her in the end would be a better story (I'm ignoring the possibility of poljon because I don't think that would ever be a tactic that Jon would use).

A bit rambly, I know. I'm sorry.

I don't think that's necessarily true.

The main conflict between the North and Dany (and the Iron Throne) was always going to center around Northern Independence. Robb's turn as king in the North exists primarily to underscore how ingrained the desire for independence from the Iron Throne is in the North (and even the Riverlands), and it makes sense for the Northern lords to crown an available Stark the moment they have the capacity to do it again.

This conflict is ultimately why Jon in the show ends up killing Dany. He knows that Sansa will never submit to Dany, especially not after what she did in King's Landing. And Dany will never stop demanding submission from everyone.

The showrunners were always going to crown their preferred rugged hero to carry that conflict during the actual run of the show, and then use the crowning at the very end to be the culmination of Sansa's arc. She credibly and consistently carries the cause of independence. That's her role, while Jon's circles around (his abject failures to protect the people from) the ice and fire threats.

Because otherwise - if they had crowned pro-independence Sansa in Season Six - the show would have been about a political conflict between two women (three if you count Cersei drinking wine in windows) with the male main characters all beholden as subjects and advisers to their will and decisions. The Long Night would have been subject to the political considerations of both women.

It was never ever going to happen. Look at HOTD. The story is actually centered around two women in conflict, and still they can't bring themselves to actually tell it.

So, regardless what their intentions were with jonsa or jonerys (i happen to agree with you there, though), Jon was always going to be crowned king by them because otherwise he's not at the center of the ice and fire construct, and they would never have allowed that.

[bibibbon]

Do you ever feel like the women of MHA barely matters in the story? Especially the heroes.

Short answer: yes! And this is a problem with a lot of shonen series MHA included which definitely ticks me off.

The thing is there are a lot of female characters yet nothing meaningful or strikingly iconic is done with them. In my opinion the most iconic and well written female character we have in the story is toga himiko (whose also a villain so that goes and adds a bit more to your point) and even with that her character arc is still flawed.

There's so many female characters and so much you could do with them. Class 1A has approximately 6 characters each of them can have interesting character arcs that never get developed. You also have very interesting female villains who don't get much attention compared to their male counterparts. Toga himiko the main female villain has a lot of her character time shared with ochako (which isn't like shigaraki or Dabi) and other female villains don't get much focus on like curious (I miss her) or lady nagant (she had a decent arc flawed but really good) oh and magne gets killed off before we know anything about her!

Heck horikoshi could even focus on the female parents like inko and Rei and give them their independent arcs where they find an identity and become better parents (get a redemption arc).

What about the female heroes who don't get much focus and are there to do one bad ass girl boss thing and leave instead of adding meaning to the story. This happens with star and stripes (the worst plot device character I have ever seen) or miriko. Heck it seems like horikoshi forgets a lot about midnight and she doesn't matter when it comes to the oboro plotline. In the end her death is meaningless and there for cheap tension, Mt lady doesn't get enough focus for her arc to truly hit and I honestly can't name any other female heroes.

Oh wait we have recovery girl whose actions are made a gag and not called out, or we have bubble girl who yikes (poor girl deserves better) or nejire who compared to Mirio and tamaki is an almost nothing character!!

Heck don't get me started on how horikoshi does some very questionable things with his female characters like what was that thing with toruu and drawing her naked?!?! Or having toga running around without clothes in the manga (like hello thats a child!!!) what about the endless mineta gags (its worse since horikoshi admitted to liking mineta and being a bit of a perv) heck we dont even talk about the explicit gore thats used with injured female characters like miriko.

In the end there's definitely more I have missed but gosh this is enough to show that horikoshi hasn't done a good job with the female characters (toga and lady nagant are decent) which is a shame since there was sooo much potential.

(Gosh I would add pictures but honestly I physically can't bring myself to post or search for them)

[lemotmo]

I don't think I believe it either. Feels way too theatrical.

Q. Do you think he's really dead?

A. I don't. At least that's how I feel right now. I have genuine issues with some of Tim's decision making. Valid criticism over certain things. But the one thing he has never been guilty of doing is killing off characters willy nilly. He's literally never done it. First of all that interview he did was embarrassing on every level so if it's not a fake out ABC is in trouble because they're about to give this man a second show to play with. He basically said it was written for Ravi to die, but he decided last minute ON HIS OWN, to kill off Bobby instead. You don't go from the killing of a secondary character whose death would make perfect sense show wise, to killing off your main character on a whim all by yourself without talking it over with anyone else who has decision making power. Peter Krause and Angela Bassett are both executive producers. Not producers but executive producers. They have decision making power. Tim, Peter and Angela all basically said Tim decided on his own it would be Bobby and no one else had a say. Show runner or not something like that doesn't just happen with no one else getting any kind of veto power. That basically means he fired Peter and no one else involved with the show had any kind of say. Bullshit. I will say everyone is trying to sell it appropriately but even the cast goodbyes don't feel like genuine goodbyes. Callum (Brad) got more heartfelt goodbyes than Peter is getting. Also it was just a genuinely ridiculous plot to kill a main off with. That virus is not an airborne virus. And I have the most basic elementary level knowledge of that virus. And Chimney choosing to take the rat home at the end was laughable. I know it's the little wee woo show and we laugh and make fun but this is a level of ridiculous that this show is better than and something they avoid doing. I do believe killing off a character like that opens up the show for some new direction and potential, which maybe ABC wanted, we don't know, but I cannot believe the abysmal, unprofessional way it's been executed is real. And I don't for one minute believe Peter and Angela got no say whatsoever. Tim not being aware anyone would notice them filming in downtown L.A in the middle of the freaking day? Openly admitting he just decided to do it randomly? It's too ridiculous. And the plotline for these two episodes is just really, really bad when examined. So no as of this writing I'm not buying it.

Thank you Nonny!

Yeah, pretty much this. ☝️☝️☝️

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