#had a breakdown about Viren and Callum before writing this so you know how it is

[imminent-danger-came]

Shoutout to MK for immediately gathering his friends after Monkey King was sealed into the scroll! Even if it was dangerous, he called them and didn‘t try to do everything himself!

CHARACTER DEVELOPEMENT /pos

let‘s see how long that lasts. I‘m expecting some CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT /neg sometime in the future. I mean, sure, it looks like Wukong started his healing arc. but MK ? Not so much

Sure he had been hoping it would be something small. But he was lying to himself and knew it, the thing overpowered Wukong in 5 seconds flat after all.

But he still ended up being seperated from everyone.

Somehow it legitimately feels like a decent chunk of the season focused on how MK was different from his mentor but still ends up making similar choices… almost like he can‘t escape being like Wukong. Being worse than Wukong. Like it‘s desti- 💥get‘s shot💥

Both MK and Monkey want/ed things to stay as they are. Only MK wants to keep that by staying as he himself is now too, while Wukong wanted to become stronger to protect what he has.

But the world is going to mold MK into one of the most powerful beings to exist whether he wants to or not. It‘ll drag him down kicking and screaming if it has to.

Wukong leaving to get stronger vs. MK leaving because he‘s too strong and doesn’t want to hurt anyone.

Wukong leaving his friends behind by choice vs. MK‘s friends being taken from him, time and time again, even when he asks for help.

Young Wukong intentionally aggravating powerful beings and causing massive destruction vs. MK doing the exact same thing entirely on accident. When he‘s trying to help even.

FIGHT.

On one hand, MK leaning on his friends at the beginning of s4 seems like a good thing (and it partly is!), "we're stronger together" and all that. On the other, I can't help but feel part of MK's reliance on his friends—which alone isn't necessarily a bad thing—comes from a place of "I can't do anything on my own" (thank you trigram furnace scene). MK is this very interesting mixed bag, where he wants to be right by his friends sides yet in the same vein believes he should be able to do it without them.

MK leaving in 4x08 was out of the belief that "everything he does just makes things worse", and that if he had stayed he would eventually hurt the people he cares about. In ROTSQ MK went off on his own to procure the trigram furnace to try and prove that he could do it alone.

Mirror MK: "Listen, every time we get in trouble, we turn to Monkey King or our friends or SOMEONE. They tell us a story and we find that smidge of motivation we need. Well—now we're on our own. It's just you."

Ultimately, both of these decisions come from the same place: MK's lack of belief in himself. In s2 and s3 he's not strong enough, but in s4 when he finally has more power he's "too strong", he's "destined to cause nothing but pain and suffering".

I think back to the 3x14 "to pain" scene a lot, because holy fucking shit how can you not, but particularly this line-

MK: "You still think that the universe really wants anything, from any of us?" Lady Bone Demon: "Don't you?" MK: "I try not to think too hard." Lady Bone Demon: "So it would seem."

-in tandem with this line-

MK: "I don't know if all of this happened because it was destined too—but I have to believe that I found the staff so I could use it for good. To help people."

-along with MK's s4 arc, drives me INSANE. MK never thought himself destined for anything, he considered himself a "regular noodle delivery boy with the powers of the Monkey King." But in s4 that distinctly changes, and it does so in such an interesting way with how MK's foil with Wukong develops.

Watching MK go from believing he's not anything special (1x09 and 2x05 you bitches) to believing he is chaos incarnate has been a wild ride, and one that I expect to only continue to go down. Pair that with Wukong being forced to come face to face with the hurt he himself has caused (3x10 and 4x11), and boy are we sure in for a time!

The tragedy of both MK and Wukong is that they hurt people and cause pain when they're trying to exactly the opposite. Different paths, same inevitable end—except the student usually goes farther, don't they?