#i am just yelling and spewing thoughts and theories and headcanons

[brushstrokesapocalyptic]

it’s time for the “overanalyzing one-off lines” show!

so the very first thing magnus says when he sees pit in chapter 2 of kid icarus: uprising is as follows:

“Well, I didn’t expect to see an angel here. Hope this doesn’t mean I’ve kicked the bucket.”

now, i’m not sure if you’re aware, but that’s a really weird thing for someone to say, and it’s even more weird that no one comments on it. pit and palutena go on talking about unrelated things, as if that’s a totally normal and expected thing for magnus to say.

now, if you’re like me, you probably also didn’t really react to this line the first few times you saw it. it’s the second chapter, kiu has a lot of slightly-odd lines which turn out to be foreshadowing. me, personally? my first thought was “oh, i guess angels are probably associated with escorting the dead to the afterlife,“ and then i moved on.

they’re not, though. that’s what reapers do. and there’s no way humans have these two races mixed up. just fucking look at them.

do they look anything alike to you??? no. they don’t. which raises the question of why, exactly, magnus said that.

now, we don’t know a lot about angels as a whole. pit (and by extension dark pit) is emphatically not the gold standard of angeldom. we can assume he looks fairly ordinary for an angel, seeing as no one has trouble identifying him as such. beyond that, though, a lot of what we know about angels comes from what pit isn’t. for starters, he can’t fly. and there’s something else, too, but i’ll get to that later.

before that, though, i’m gonna go through the various unsubstantiated comments made by people with a dubious level of authority on the subject. (incidentally, i sourced these screenshots from the wiki— much more convenient than trying to dig through youtube for every single random conversation.)

without any further ado! let’s get into it!

Angels as Messengers

Gaol: Aw, Palutena’s little messenger boy. And Magnus, it’s always a pleasure. (src)

in the specific context of overanalyzing magnus’s first line, this is an important sentence to pick out. magnus and gaol are both humans, both with presumably a fairly similar history as mercenaries up until gaol got stuffed in a suit of armor. but while magnus makes a weird comment about death, gaol calls pit a messenger.

and pit agrees with her!

Viridi: I wish I had an angel to do my bidding. It’s like having an intern.

Pit: I’m not an intern. I’m a messenger of the gods!

Viridi: Poor Pit. Don't you know that the definition of angel is "errand spirit"? (src)

this particular conversation is the most insight we get into angels as a whole, i think. viridi thinks of angels as like divine interns, there to do little tasks for gods, and palutena doesn’t exactly disagree with her. pit says they’re specifically messengers, which lines up with biblical mythology. i could see the traditional role of angels in the world of KI being exactly that, showing up to tell the humans what the gods have to say because the gods themselves are too busy being petty jerks to do it themselves.

The Angel’s Code of Conduct

Magnus: You go in fully dressed? Don't you at least want to change into a...swimming tunic or something?

Pit: Oh, no no no! The angel's code of conduct says that we must always be ready for duty.

Magnus: I guess you wouldn't be an angel if you didn't do things by the book. (src)

Pit: Hey! You know the angel's code of conduct! I need to be prepared at all times! (src)

another random little thing is the angel’s code of conduct. without a larger sample size, we can’t know if it’s a real thing or just an excuse to save on laundry, but apparently it’s against the rules to not be on call at all times. in pit’s case, the duty he has to be ready for is doing palutena’s dirty work, but it can easily mean just about anything— including, of course, being a messenger.

No Warrior

Chariot Master: But you are no warrior, angel. Tell me, why do you fight?

Pit: I fight for Lady Palutena. And I fight for the people under her protection!

Chariot Master: That's not reason enough for an angel. (src)

remember how i said there was something else weird about pit? the chariot master seems to think angels aren’t very prone to battle— or perhaps even that they’re actively opposed to it. this lines up well with the idea that they’re supposed to be messengers, peaceful go-betweens for gods and mortals. this does not line up well with pit, the adorable weapon of mass destruction.

and it also does absolutely nothing to explain the question driving the whole existence of this post.

you know what does kinda lean towards an explanation?

No Other Angels

Pit: Do all gods have their own angels, like you have me?

Palutena: No, I don't think that's necessarily the case. (src)

i said before that the Intern Pit conversation had the most illuminating information on angels. this is what i was actually referring to. on its own, it’s pretty innocuous, but it’s just as weird as the magnus line. shouldn’t pit know about other angels, seeing as he is one himself? but he doesn’t know if there are other angels.

the only angels we ever see are him and his clone. no one ever directly references the existence of other angels, they only make general statements about what angels as a whole are like— statements which clearly don’t apply to pit, meaning they’re not just extrapolating based on the one angel that definitely does exist.

the one time someone does comment on the hypothetical existence of other angels, palutena gives a vague answer to the tune of “no,” the topic is changed, and no one brings it up again.

let’s go over everything i’ve established about angels up to this point. they can fly, they’re peaceful messengers of the gods, and pit is the only one that seems to exist as of the start of KIU.

it should be pretty obvious at this point what answer i’m dancing around, if it wasn’t obvious from the start. pit is the only angel around because all the other ones are dead. the reason why magnus said what he did is that his thought process went something like this:

See an angel.

Think “Aren’t angels extinct? Is that a ghost? Am I a ghost? I sure hope not.“

Make a quip about that.

Move on with his life, because he isn’t dead and evidently neither is this guy.

i’m not gonna pretend i went into this post with the intent of any other conclusion to that mystery. anyone who’s bothered glancing over a plot summary for the original kid icarus can draw that conclusion. it’s certainly what i did, reinforced by fics by people who had the same thought!

the truth, however, is that this was all a trick to get you to read my analysis of the theoretical nature of angels as a race. now that you’re invested, i’m going to dramatically throw aside my cape and reveal my TRUE FORM: telling people that fandom consensus is wrong, and my ideas are cooler and better than everyone else’s and you should all throw roses at my feet and bow before your king.

(or just, y’know, take it as the subjective analysis that it is. whatever floats your boat.)

Hot Takes

the original kid icarus does not actually tell you about angels going extinct. here’s the wiki article with the full text of the backstory, just for convenience, so you know what i’m on about for the rest of this post.

so, the part of the story that i think gets misinterpreted is this part about palutena’s army.

Medusa led a surprise attack on Palutena's army which could barely fend off the attack. Palutena's army suffered major losses and was heavily defeated in the final battle.

specifically, i think a lot of people interpret said army as having been made up at least partly of angels. sure, in the actual game it consists entirely of centurions, but you have to take old NES games with a grain of salt. i know i don’t buy for a second that pit was part of palutena’s guard before the original game (he was just too goddamn young), there’s nothing wrong with reinterpreting things.

recall everything i established about angels already, though. this is the hot official lore, from the game everyone knows and loves. angels are messengers, and if the chariot master is to be believed, never warriors. pit is an outlier. palutena’s army consists of centurions, not angels. if medusa wiped them out, it wasn’t because they were fighting for palutena.

(and honestly, i don’t think angels are necessarily associated with palutena exclusively. sure, she’s got the wing imagery, and she’s got the one known surviving angel working for her, at least up until pittoo is born. but angels are messengers of the gods, not messengers of palutena. again, pit is an outlier.)

which all brings us to the real question of this post.

what the FUCK happened to all the other angels? why is there only pit? why does magnus act surprised to see a messenger of the gods, and make a quip about being dead, if not because angels are otherwise extinct?! WHO KILLED THEM, AND WHY?!

thus concludes the “over analyzing one-off lines“ show. see you next, uh, maybe at some point if i feel like it!

(also another thought i had but couldn’t find room to fit it in properly: the gods don’t really act like angels are all extinct, but i feel like that can be explained through the sheer scale of a god’s lifespan. if we assume they were wiped out sometime around the original kid icarus (even if not as palutena’s army) then that’s a whole twenty-five years. that’s a long time for us humans, but for a god, that might as well be last tuesday. “yeah, i know what angels are like. sure wish i could have one. too bad palutena’s got a monopoly on the one single angel that medusa didn’t manage to wreck.”)

[scarletrebel]

Puppet Week, March 7th

Day 5: Appreciation day. For the amount of time and effort Jack, Robin, and Signe do to bring Anti to life for us to enjoy- and (on this side) to everyone in this community for fanart, theories, edits, gifs- all of which makes this experience so much fun to watch and participate in!

oh man, this could be a long one.

to jack, robin and signe, there are no words for the amount of appreciation i have. the dedication that you all put in to making anti a terrifying reality is inspiring and amazing. ive touched upon this a little bit throughout the week but the creative genius behind not only anti but all the characters on this channel is outstanding and has really got my creative gears turning, ever since killjacksepticeye. so thank you from the bottom of my heart for fueling that inspiration and keeping me afloat during writers blocks and times when my anxiety tries to tell me things i know arent true. from the way anti is edited to the way he’s acted it all comes together so beautifully, and i am so excited to see whats coming next.

i also want to thank you personally jack for taking anti as seriously as we do. minus the whole glitch bitch thing, but hey, when you make a character as terrifying as that we’ve got to cope with it somehow aha. without getting too much into it, ive come from fandoms where the creators cherry pick what they want to hear from their audience. ive had really bad moments of feeling like i didnt matter as long as i watched a video and kept my mouth shut afterwards unless it was to spew positive praise. now, of course, i know realistically you cant listen to all of us or get to all of us, etc, but you try your damn hardest and i love that about you, and this community is overwhelmingly positive because of it.

in regards to anti and your characters its so, so refreshing to see you be so open and honest about them. when you mentioned anti at the end of the simulacra videos and how you felt like taking a break from him was better, i totally agreed. you answer asks on tumblr about him and schneep and chase dont hurt my boy please with such grace because you know how much we’ve gravitated towards these characters, creating stories around them and headcanons and comics and such. i appreciate the fact that you appreciate it, and are so outspoken about it and work with us rather than against us to make something totally unique and cool. you’re a ‘gaming youtuber’ with a handful of characters that your fans have taken on as creative muses, you don’t find that everywhere, and you certainly don’t find a creator who embraces it and his community in such a lovely and thoughtful way.

on the tumblr side of things, i firstly have to say a big thanks to @markired​ and @lum1natrix​ for being the first jse/markiplier blogs i followed due to your amazing gif editing skills and just general loveliness. right before i dived head first into all the anti stuff, i used to check your blogs on the daily, your content is wonderful, and it’s made me low key want to learn how to make gifs.

@no-strings-puppet​, @fear-is-nameless​, @booperdoopcr​, and all the other theorists who’s posts ive reblogged, screaming in the tags, thank you for helping me work up the courage to theorise again. it doesnt really matter to me who sees it or how popular one might get, but a couple have sparked interesting conversations with people and that’s all ive ever wanted. you guys all write wonderfully and your enthusiasm is palpable. (and nora? you’re crazy and i love you. anti anon is my fave tbh.)

@greerroseimagines​ your writing is beautiful and again, has inspired me to take the leap of writing and posting anti fic. i draw a lot of inspiration from you tbh and i cant wait to see what more you write and which characters for.

@archivefullofyoutubers​ you are an overwhelmingly positive influence on this site and again, one of the first jse blogs i ever followed. thank you so much for just being wonderful.

and to anyone who reads this, every single person who reblogs, screams, yells, messages people and comes up with their own theories, you’re all to blame for getting me here aha. this community is a wonderful thing, filled with so many creative people.

#puppetweek #jsepuppetweek