#here thats the whole tragic backstory meta

[charismastaticarchive]

ok here’s a BRIEF. brief meta about sephiroth vs ardyn izunia representing how the queercoding in final fantasy has changed between ff7 and ff15 and how the remake could ACTUALLY fix some problematic themeatic elements of sephiroth (markedly, anti-semitism and transphobia thru symbols like jenova & the death of aerith)

this is discourse. this is solely discourse. some people may read this and think i am reaching. this is genuinely what i believe tho. i do not hate anybody that disagrees with me. i do not hate anybody who likes ff7. i also like ff7. this is just how i feel given my understanding of cultural and themeatic analysis. please do not read this if u are going to yell at me or hate me lol. this is my blog tho and i’m going to put my opinions out there....

note: i dont actually go into the anti-semitism too much that’s not my area of expertise i’m more knowledgeable about queercoding.

okay to start with. sephiroth is literally the same character as psycho’s norman bates. an obsession with their mother (a being that the rest of the game refers to as non-gendered whose genitals are notably covered in a flex that is admittedly problematic all on its own), that culminates with his mother ‘taking over’ their mind & body and sephiroth trying become a god and MURDER a ‘cis woman’ who has become the most iconic symbol of final fantasy church girl prayer-hands purity and innocence. even more damningly, this biohacked false god / false woman sephiroth has the audacity to go against the lifestream / the symbol of womanhood and NATURE by ‘transitioning’ into a new body. and of course, they want to blow up the world in the process to appease their mother. basically this game is a very reactionary fear to the concept of ‘biohacking’. the only thing worse than the government experimenting on human beings? trans women transitioning---in the narrative of the game’s eyes, ‘experimenting on themselves and going against nature.’ by making sephiroth the big bad of the game instead of shinra, they say that the ultimate evil of unethical technology and a cyberpunk dystopia, is basically trans people.

add TO THAT that even just the name sephiroth is from jewish kabbala and sephiroth is portrayed as a manmade god that u are supposed to destroy instead of a true god... like it just. it’s not great. it’s not a great look.

in their defense. the original game came out in 1992.

the last numbered final fantasy game to come out (not including kingdom hearts which has its own brand of racism and queercoding that it has to work out lmfao) was final fantasy xv.

for all final fantasy xv’s faults, it ALSO had a queercoded villain dripping in religious symbolism. (they all do. its final fantasy lol.) but THIS time, despite ardyn still looking just as if not moreso predatory than sephiroth. ardyn is given a FULL DLC BACKSTORY.

the difference between sephiroth and ardyn is basically that. ardyn in the dlc, where he is meant to be portrayed sympathetically, starts out as a queercoded character. he has basically the same design, except his hair is now in a ponytail, and he wears all white. he starts out as a healer---not a stereotypically masculine role, like a soldier. his hair is still fuckin pink. he wants to heal the whole world, and he absorbs the plague. he thinks he is healing people---instead he is just taking on their illness. (and i have done whole metas about how the plague was viewed as a punishment against humanity for going against god and how that could ALSO be a metaphor for queerness. there’s also a queerness to taking on other people’s disease in my opinion that reads like a metaphor for penetration.) in his inability to actually heal the world (or his failure in a traditionally female role) and his inability to take a decision and excute people with the plague like his more masculine, violent short-haired armor-wearing brother, he is chosen by the gods to be the bearer of the plague, spread it all over the world, and renew the world when the plague dies with him when the chosen male heir of his brother’s long line of heterosexuals kills ardyn. ardyn is rejected from heterosexual maleness by the gods in his own minds if he tries to go against this fate, his girlfriend literally pushing him out of heaven.

but he’s viewed as sympathetic. tortured. unlike sephiroth, who is portrayed as mostly just insane, ardyn is coded not just as monstrous, violent and predatory, but because of the plague metaphor, he is basically explicitly deemed ‘sick.’ and ardyn gets time shown where he is ‘holy’. notably, the game uses christian imagery to describe a kind of ‘sacrifice’ of his brother trying to imprison him in a tomb because he cannot die, and then ardyn waking up from the cusp of death to. technically bring salvation to the people of eos (by first infecting them with plague and bringing about eternal night, but hey, the rapture only comes after the world is destroyed, right).

there is something to be said about the sympathetic christian imagery and ‘holiness’ / ‘goodness’ of ardyn’s sacrifice and pain vs the antisemitism of sephiroth as a false god. but ardyn’s queercoding starts at the very beginning of his story. meanwhile---we don’t really get to SEE the beginning of sephiroth’s story. we get to see cloud’s story. and zack’s. and we kind of get like a whole story about like lol vincent for some reason lmfao

but we never get to see sephiroth experience signs of lgbt-ness at The Start Of His Story, where he is still viewed as sympathetic and wholly good and wholly tragic at the same time.

this is where the remake comes in.

i believe the remake can make sephiroth more than a predatory trans/queer coded character. i think they can fix this by making sure 1) sephiroth doesn’t kill aerith, thereby eliminating the trans woman vs nature AND trans woman vs poor defenseless cis girl narrative (i play aerith as trans and jewish but thats not technically canon even tho it should be lol) 

2) instead of sephiroth having an UNHEALTHY relationship with womanhood through an alien creature representing inhumanity, sephiroth has a healthy relationship with a jewish-coded goddess-like human woman that they COULD’VE GROWN UP WITH AND BEEN FRIENDS WITH AS A CHILD WHILE THEY WERE BOTH CAPTURED BY SHINRA, and through their friendship and relationship with her both as someone they experience the same trauma AND as someone who seems to understand time travel the same way as, we see their backstory and bond grow and sephiroth stops being obsessed with a canonly cishet man (cloud) and starts having a healthy loving relationship with their planet-protecting peers where sephiroth can start to represent a holy relationship with loving themself and the planet the same way aerith does. and it can be very jewish for bonus points bc i cannot get over the way that sephiroth is considered a false god / only a half angel and happens to be named that. that’s fucked up.

ok thanks for coming to my ted talk sorry for the discourse on main

[myhahnestopinion]

THE AARONS 2018 - Best TV Show

I stated last year that 2017 was the year Peak TV broke me, with too many shows spread across too many services, with many more on their way. 2018 was the year I learned to let go of the fact that I will never be able to watch every show, and to just be content with all the great shows I was able to catch. Here are the Aarons for Best TV Show:

#10. Barry (Season 1) – HBO

A simple premise that could initially be dismissed as prestige TV’s over-fascination with anti-heroes mixed with Hollywood’s over-fascination with itself, Bill Hader’s dark-comedy about a hitman who moves to LA to pursue an acting career quickly develops into a complex examination of post-war PTSD, a deconstruction of television tropes, and, simultaneously, just one of the funniest shows of the year. With veteran comedic talent like Henry Winkler and surprising break-outs like Anthony Carrigan to bolster a firing-on-all-cylinders Bill Hader as the titular character, Barry says “Yes, and…” to every opportunity to mix its hilarity with harrowing content to pitch-perfect results. While the premise, which feels dangerously close to slipping into Dexter territory by season’s end, may end up unsustainable at this level of quality, for now, Barry is a sure-fire hit, man.

#9. Dear White People (Season 2) – Netflix

More than weathering the backlash to its misnomer title, as well as the political climate that feeds into that backlash, Dear White People channels all that rage, frustration, misunderstanding, and fear into an oft-livid, oft-cathartic, and always witty season of television. Funny while never losing its firm focus, the most amusing aspect of Dear White People is perhaps the absolute joke it makes of the idea “diversity of thought” is mutually exclusive from “diversity of people” through the deft writing of its exceptional ensemble cast, who take turns shining in episodes that range from a groovy neo-noir mystery to an emotionally-eruptive bottle episode, culminating in an intriguing cliffhanger that suggests Dear White People has plenty left to address.

#8. Daredevil (Season 3) – Netflix

Just as Wilson Fisk clawed his way back up to being the King of Crime throughout the third season of the superhero drama, Daredevil clawed its way back up to the King of the Marvel-Netflix collaborations (and back onto this list following its nod all the way back in the 2015 Aarons) with a storyline based on the acclaimed “Born Again” comic-book run. While the show continues to have significant failings (including, most egregiously, the literal fridging of a female character in this latest batch of episodes), it’s easy for viewers to become blinded to them thanks to the chemistry of its main trio of friends, its renewed fixation on weighty thematic content, and, of course, its impressive fight sequences, including most notably the now-requisite one-take fight sequence that takes the form of an expansive prison riot this go-round. While the series has now been cancelled, solace can at least be found in the fact the show underwent such a creative rebirth before its untimely demise.

#7. American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace (Season 2) – FX

Ryan Murphy’s anthology series may have been working with less well-known true-crime material in its second outing, but the resulting exploration of the sinister systemic forces that influence such shocking stories is no less resonant. True-crime has several difficult hurdles to clear to not feel like cheap exploitation, and American Crime Story strikes the right balance to its appropriately disturbing portrayal of the heinous acts by framing them through the devastating impact they have, not only on the direct victims, but on the whole of a society more concerned with reinforcing homophobic power structures than with the pain and horror such structures produce. The season’s reverse-chronological structure not only makes for compelling storytelling, but seems perfectly suited for the way in which the series traces the sins of America’s modern day to the crimes of its past, creating impactful television.

#6. Supergirl (Season 3b-4a) – CW

Supergirl’s continually-increasing confidence and complexity has sent the series soaring to new heights with its pointed fourth season, which distills its obvious real-world political influences into an effectively universal rumination on the insidious nature of bigotry, the trials of public perceptions, and the necessity of hope. It remains to be seen whether Supergirl can stick the landing with its lofty ambitions, which deserve appreciation regardless, but grounding its dynamic superhero storytelling in the inspirational performance of lead Melissa Benoist, as well as a further push for inclusivity with the introduction of television’s first transgender superhero Dreamer, makes for television that is quite super, girl.

Hey, it’s my awards show. Let me pun.

#5. Better Call Saul (Season 4) – AMC

Better Call Saul’s fourth season appeared to reach a breaking point in regard to its overlap in cast, stories, and timeline with its parent show, it’s an aspect that could be read as a significant flaw or as the greatest strength of a great season. It’s easy to lament the loss of the quirky lawyer comedy the show was in its earlier episodes, but this mourning is perhaps reflective of the soul-wrenching moral descent of Jimmy McGill, spiraling harder and faster in wake of last season’s tragic ending. It’s painful in all the right ways watching the excellent cast lead their characters to fates both known and unknown, making for a momentous (and still endearingly offbeat) season of television that recalls the finest moments of Breaking Bad, but just might be arguably better.

#4. BoJack Horseman (Season 5) – Netflix

In a series renowned for its gut-punches, the underlying message of BoJack Horseman’s fifth season might be the most difficult to grapple with: No amount of regret, good intentions, or tragic backstories excuses BoJack or entitles him to a happy ending. But that’s no reason not to continue to seek healing. Netflix’s animated adventures of anthropomorphic animals continues to be one of the most important and affecting examinations of toxic relationships, mental illness, and the cycles of abuse in art. The fifth season’s added meta-narrative allows the show to deconstruct the uncomfortability of its own representations, and the toxicity in its own fanbase. At a time when questions of abuse and reconciliation not just in Hollywood, but everywhere, rage in our cultural consciousness, BoJack Horseman provides a powerful way to grapple with these issues… and make them digestible through its quick-witted wordplay, visual gags, and general horsing around, as always. 

#3. Legends of Tomorrow (Season 3b-4a) – CW

If you were to travel back in time to just a few years ago, it would feel unbelievable how big the CW’s interconnected superhero universe has become... and that DC’s Legends of Tomorrow would lead the pack in quality. However, the once middling show really went the extra mile in spicing things up. Sending a talking, telepathic gorilla back in time to kidnap a young Barrack Obama? Combining elemental energies to form an enlarged Tickle-Me-Elmo rip-off named Beebo to take down a Time Demon? Having your Time Demon played by classical actor John Noble, and then having an episode in which the characters travel back in time to the set of the Lord of the Rings movies to record the voice of John Noble, playing Denathor, playing himself in order to trick a character into believing that John Noble’s John Noble voice is in fact the voice of John Noble’s Time Demon character?? It’s hard to believe that these episodes exist in any show, let alone all of them (and so much more) in one. This zany energy, accentuated by a game cast and an embrace of its misfit nature, reflected in the character’s diversity in both backgrounds and powers, have allowed the show to finally rightfully claim the title of legendary. 

#2. Atlanta (Season 2) – FX

Much like the last entry on this list, it’s impossible to know what to expect when one sits down to watch the latest episode of Donald Glover’s uncanny comedy Atlanta, which, when it first appeared on this list two years ago, was aptly described as like a never-ending Christmas. Whether banding together its group of rising comedic talent (including Zazie Beetz, Brian Tyree Henry, and Lakeith Stanfield) or spinning them off into their own madcap adventures, Atlanta continued to surprise and stupefy in style in its sophomore outing. Once again weaving insightful socio-economic commentary into sitcom premises cranked up to ten and funneled through an idiosyncratic vision, Atlanta’s quality remained as lush and bold as evergreen lantana.

That one’s not really a pun, but, again, this is my awards show, so no one can stop me.

AND THE BEST TV SHOW OF 2018 IS...

#1. The Good Place (Season 3) – NBC

When The Good Place began, it was met with a caution concerning its long term sustainability, but in its now third season, the show’s penchant for blowing up its own premise at every opportunity can be clearly seen as the confident strokes of a long-gestating story. Even within its absurd afterlife of bizarre predilections and oddball characters, the show never loses sight of its stirring humanistic core, which found new resonance in an inspirational third season premise that provides hope and happiness in the seemingly most dire of circumstances. While, as of this writing, it remains to be seen in what ways the show might again radically alter its make-up heading into the confirmed fourth season, but, based on the bonzer quality of the entire show thus far, it might be time to start considering that we’ve all been in the Good Place this whole time.

NEXT UP: THE 2018 AARONS FOR BEST TV EPISODE!