#he forged himself into a malewife through fire

[death-rebirth-senshi]

I know it's just a meme but Kratos born to be a malewife.........

[wither-rose-circus]

I think one of the most unique things about 3rd Life was that the bad guys won

People like the Hobbits and the Crastle folk may have been intimidated by the Red King’s army, but it was forged as a direct response to Scar’s terrorizing of Dogwarts, a place many had previously defended from him

They were never truly villains

The Red Army was founded on mutual trust and respect, with (mostly) loyal members, structured plans to defend each other should the need arise, and a clear goal of taking out the person who threatened them: Scar

The Crastle was a bit more stable but never had any true goals, only existing as more of a personal safe haven for those involved, all of whom eventually getting dragged into the war by Scar

The Red Desert, however, was a mess of odds and ends with no defined relationships, really only existing on the terms of “the enemy of my enemy”

In fact, I can only think of a single instance in which the Red Army killed unprovoked

They killed Scott, Grian, and Jimmy in the desert fight which the Red Desert intentionally provoked as a death trap, killed Cleo and Tango during that same fight after the Crastle backed up the Red Desert by firing on the Red Army from afar, permakilled Cleo after she rushed and attempted to kill Ren, then killed Scott and permakilled Joel after they ambushed and attempted to corner Ren and Martyn

The only time in which they killed relatively unprovoked was when Scott returned for Joel’s things after they had already killed him once

Which Ren immediately apologizes for and laments as senseless violence, reminding the viewer that Ren never wanted violence, only to be able to actively defend himself and his home

“The kingdom of Dogwarts is tired of being run over, and we have decided that we’re taking things into our own hands. The best way that we can defend our lands is by having a red on the team, and I’ve taken one for the team.”

(And I suppose you could also include Pizza in this as it was certainly unnecessary, but even that was in retaliation for Scar threatening Skizz and refusing to return the banner, which would have resolved the fight and was something even Grian urged him to do)

However, the point is that Dogwarts may not have been the good guys, Skizz was bloodthirsty and killed unnecessarily, Etho was a wild card and often threatened others for the fun of it, Ren and Martyn were incredibly polarizing with their “you’re with us or you’re against us” mentality, and they all had a very “fight first, ask questions later” mentality

But they weren’t the bad guys either, not like Scar was

There was not a single POV in which Grian and Scar were not painted as “the bad guys”

Not even their own

Sure, Ren and Martyn had tense music playing whenever Scar arrived but Grian and Scar never pretended like they weren’t terrorizing the server, either

Even in his final moments, Scar took advantage of and backstabbed people

The seeds of doubt he sewed to get his team to mistrust Impulse, culminating in him using the clock to bribe Bdubs into killing him

Sicking Bdubs on BigB as a loophole to get out of the no kill pass he gave him several episodes back, proving Grian right about his bits of paper ultimately being meaningless

Using the friend pass to turn Grian and Bdubs against each other because either one of them could have easily taken him out on their own, let alone together

And the fact that Scar didn’t attack Bdubs until Grian arrived and began attacking both of them, thus only attacking him when there was both that safety net of it not being a 1v1 and as a way to regain Grian’s trust through a display

Scar rarely, if ever, expressed remorse for his actions

He knew what he was doing and he embraced his status as the server’s villain, using it to his advantage, manipulating, mansplaining, and dare I say malewifing all the way to the top

The most humanizing aspect of Scar we saw was him offering his life to Grian as repayment for all the things Grian had done to keep him alive, given he surely wouldn’t have made it that far without him

But even then, despite the final battle egged on by the ghosts, Grian and Scar declared it a mutual victory

“Scar, I think no matter what happens, I think we can claim this as a double victory, right?”

“Yes, we’re good, we’re good.”

The bad guys won