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popculturebuffet · 1 year ago

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It's Not the Years, It's the Mileage Finale: Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (Comission for WeirdKev27)

Hello all you happy archelogists and welcome to the final installment of my Indiana Jones Retrospective, It's Not the Years, It's the Milleage. For those just joining us for the epic conculsion, i've covered all four previous Indy films over the past few months, from the good with great action set pieces, iconic lines, and deft character work, to the bad with the uncomfortable amount of brown face, temple of dooms theme park version of india and support of colonolisim, and Crystal Skulls sterotpyical 'savage tribesman", to the just plain weird with aborted ideas such as a haunting in scottland, a chess game to the death, sun wukong vs indiana jones, and an out and out alien invasion which Indy makes out during suprising no one.

IT's been one long, LONG journey and today.. it ends, as does the film franchise. With Dial of Destiny. Dial is the main reason we did this: a fresh fim with ford, with a fresh director in Logan maestro James Mangold, a final chapter for the ages.. and it has been recived with a resounding

Yeah while there was some hype for this film from Fans of Mangold or Indy (Of which i'm now both) it's now gotten to the point Wikipedia has out and out labeled it a box office bomb and Naturally the failure of this film has been taken with grace and restraint by the internet

It hasn't helped that Indy has come out in a summer with plummeting box office from usual money makers, so people are only more on their "Why aren't people seeing these films" kick. When really the reasons aren't new. We have "Doing the same shit a diffrent day instead of going with what was new and working " (Transformers rise of the beasts), "Another film outboxing it" (Elemental), "The company behind it simply not promoting it at all" (Ruby Gilman, which I intend to review at some point), " or "Oopsie we hired a pedophile as our leading actor, have no idea where we were taking this franchise when we started this film, and our company is ran by an evil overlord no one likes whose actively made the media landscape worse ever since he took over, better hope our promotoinal tactics work..."

The issues aren't new, their simply finding hitting people over the head.. and that's what happened here. Indy had an uphill battle: I was only invested at first because James Mangold was directing it and Logan is still one of the best superhero movies ever made. I got more invested thanks to this retrospective. Given Disney's slipshod treamant of star wars and terrible treatment of last jedi as well as the mcu being a mess right now, it's not a huge leap that many audiences really didn't want to gamble on ANOTHER disney live action movie that just looked okay, no matter how much Phoebe Waller Bridge or Antonio Bandareas it had. While it's sad as I honestly don't think the film deserved THIS much of a bomb.. I can't blame audiences for waiting for Disney Plus. We simply live in an era now where most people have tons of streamers or will get one for a month to watch one movie and anything else they've caught up on. We're simply entering an era where having a big brand name isn't a guarantee and in this case can be a curse if that name is disney. Big franchises can work, see Spider-Verse and Scream VI making great money, but you have to have something to offer.

So come with me under the cut as we see if Indy has just that or is best left in the past

MASSIVE SPOILERS AHOYHOY

When I'm Gone, He's Gone

As you'd expect, Lucas still wanted to make a 5th film after Skull, with Speilberg and Ford on board as always. This time though..

Lucas himself went to the press saying he wanted to do something new and Speilberg was stuck in the past... which I translate as Lucas once again went kinda nuts on the premise while , much like after Temple of Doom, Speilberg wanted something a tad more grounded to avoid making the same mistake twice. It comes off as the two just could never quite agree on what to do and eventually.. decided to let the franchise move on without him, selling it and the rest of Lucasfilm to Disney. Disney naturally wanted an indy film right away and after getting the distribution rights one year later in 2023.. it took them a decade.

Yeahhh while we got the sequel trilogy pretty fast in hollywood time it took a good decade for Indy to put his hat on. At first there were rumors floated about about recasting, then it was settled on ford, then Speilberg was set to direct and the film proceded to go through a ton of writers, from Crystal Skull's david koepp

And even Dan Fogelman of This is Us royalty was floated as one of the writers. The film also got delayed thanks to Speilbergs work on Ready Player One and the Post, before he eventually stepped off all together. He claimed it was to pass it on to a fresh director, but it really feels like his heart wasn't in it anymore, and it was best someone whose heart was took the lead.

Enter James Mangold, director of The Wolverine, Logan and Kicker of ass. Mangold was a solid choice and my book and along with his usual co-writers Jez and John Henry Butterworth, who I assure you are real people but cannot assure you aren't old timey prospectors sent forward in time, hashed out the script.

Casting went smoothly, as did filiming, with the only hiccup being production's start being delayed because of COVID. They shot in morocco, england, ireland and spain, along with the us as you'd expect. Speilberg wasn't entirely detached as he still advised and watched dalies, ultimately loving the final product. So now we can actually look at that product let's start with how it writes Indy himself. The Mileage Adds Up

One of the things that made me not really enjoy Doom or Crystal.. was a lack of character work. Indy was about the same as when he started the adventure in contrast to Raiders and Last Crusade taking him on a wonderful character journey, in the former getting his passion back and in the later reconcliing with his dad. Dial of Destiny dosen't reach those highs, but I still think it does a decent job. The opening.. is okay detailing Indy having an adventures in the last day sof the third reich, setting up both Helna's Dad and our big bad, as well as Archimedes Dial, basied on the real life Antyhkiera Mechanism. I really do love the dial as a plot device as it's a departure, being the only one of the five to not involve a god of some sort, and yes the alien counts. It's just a time machine a famous philospher made. It's still fucking neat, I mean IT'S A TIME MACHINE A FAMOUS PHILSOPHER MADE, but it's a bit more grounded while still being pretty damn nifty.

So while the intro is mostly.. eh for me, what it does really well... is contrast the indy we know.. with where he is in 1969: Unlike Crystal Skull, which glossed over the massive amount of time passed, here were with an indy who feels both his age.. and that he's been left behind by the world. That time has taken everything from him: his friends, his father, his marriage.. and his son. He's left to yell at the neighbors, go to a class that dosen't pay attention and have a retirment party he clearly dosen't want. Granted his retirment does feel like a missed opportunity as wikipedia mentioned it pre-release as being forced out due to speaking out against operation paper clip, something that I either missed.. or more likely simply ISN'T in the film. It's a real shame, the idea is great it's just not present. This creates a really intriguing Parallel: Indy at the start of the last adventure of his we'll see is a broken down man whose years of adventuering have left a mark on him, who is estranged from Marion, has not a ton to live for, and is clearly only loosely holding it together. And the Indy we met in Raiders.. is a broken down man whose years of adventuring left a mark on him, is estranged from marion, has not a ton to live for and is clearly only loosely holding it together. The diffrence is how tired Indy is. In his late 30's he's beaten a bit and reduced to graverobbing.. but the minute he gets a real assignemnt int he grail, he jumps to it. He has his job, he has his friendship with marcus, and he's able to fix things with marion. He's not completely gone, he's just lost. Indy in Dial... has watched all his friends and his son, more on that in a minute, die, his marriage fall apart, and his job slip out under him. Without his job.. he's a man without a purpose.

This also ironically creates another Scrooge McDuck parallel, another bit of symmetry and one I didn't plan on till I started writing this and thought of the story: Indy reminds me a lot of Scrooge in the final part of Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck. Both are seasoned adventueres who have either pushed away anyone they have left or lost them and feel they just have nothing left but to slowly rot away.

And like Scrooge it takes a bolt of inspiration from the new generation after him to get Indy back in the game. In this case it's the highlight of the film, Helena Shaw, played by the wonderful, funderful fleabag, Phoebe Waller-Bridge. WB likely dosen't need any introduction but just in case she was showrunner of the successful and inventive stage show turned amazon prime show fleabag, showran killing eve and in general is pretty delightful. So it's no huge suprise she's great as Helena Shaw, daughter of Marcus Indy's sidekick for the intro who became obessed with our titular macguffin, Archemedis Dial, which can travel through time some time, though not to the end of all man kind. Helena is a neat character in that they managed to make her distinct while still giving her enough similarties to indy to serve well as his shadow, his ghost of sins past, him in his prime. She's also a brilliant archelogist, has a kid sidekick like indy did in temple of doom with Teddy Kumar (Ethann Isidoore), sells priceless artifacts for a profit, has a messy love life, kicks plenty of ass, and tries to command every room she's in. What helps seperate them is their demeanor: Indy is gruff, snarky and surly. While Helena can snark with the best of them, she's fast talking, fast thinking, and tends to use charm as much as the old Indy Guile both heroes posses. The main diffrence is rather than sell to museums, she sells to private collectors...

Okay the REAL difference is that she's only in it for the money while Indy at least, on some level, cared about the history even at his lowest. Helena just sees all her father could do and all she learned from being around him before his passing as a way to get. Once again like Indy.. she had a father who cared more about some big treasure than her child.. and a godfather who cared more about what was going on in his life than ever checking up on her. She's a person whose been left to her own devices and feels she's doing just fine.. but honestly could be putting her talents to better use. Maybe not in a school like indy, but she could help return artifacts to their countries... probably still for a pretty penny, but not just to some random asshole to sit in his den.

You can tell dealing with her just makes Indy feel even more tired, which is somehow possible after all he's been through. He's once again seeing a ghost of his past and this time can't seem to get it through her head. When she celebrates shortly after his friend Renaldo dies, he has to sharply remind her. Nothing seems to get through to her.. till we get to THAT scene. Probably the best scene of the film. The climax is awesome.. but it's this one moment. On a boat at night, Helena asks Indy what he'd do with the dial, clearly thinking some grand adventure.. instead Indy: I'd stop my son from enlisting Helena: And how would you do that? Indy: I would tell him that he would die, that his mother would be overcome with a grief so intense that his father would be unable to console her, and that it would end their marriage. The sheer PAIN Ford conveys during that monologue.. may be the finest acting he's ever done. You can just FEEL Indy's loss; his son is gone, his marriage is torn, and he blames himself for both. It gives a horrible pathos to why he's so broken down. Both developments.. coudl've been really cheap. With how much everyone but me seems to hate mutt, and how rightly no one can stand shia suprise these days, most were expecting..

Instead Mutt's death is used as the catalyst for Indy's slow spiral into dispair. He would've been happy in retirment.. but he lost his son, his wife.. he's a man truly with nothing left he feels. And while he gets some old spark back unlike Scrooge.. he's fighting it every step. He dosen't want an adventure, he dose'nt want anything but his son back, and he knows damn well that even if the dial could... the sad truth is it likely has some horrible cost to it. The grail gave eternal life but bound you to a spot. The Skull gave you the knowledge of an unknowable alien god, but drove you mad. The arc killed anyone who looked. If the Dial even works... he knows it can't bring his son back, and he's only going after it because it's better in a museum than in the hands of Nazis. We also see a change in Helena. She goes from following Indy's lead out of nececity, to seeing his point, to seeing the beauty of the world instead of just the dollar signs. She still wants the money.. but she starts to see the beauty in history instead of the dollar. I also like that this isn't easy on Teddy, who sees her postive changes as coming between him and his surrogate mom, when really she fully intends to stick with Teddy no matter what and shows nothing but loyalty.. and in the end.. they dont' really finish that arc

I like Teddy a lot, and I wish this had more of a bow on it, though we do get him taking down a nazi and trapping him to drown and later getting into a dogfight. Teddy slaps is what i'ms aying> He dosen't have a ton of deep character to explore, but he's fucking great.

This all really cumulates in the climax.. which is so great i'd rather save it for after we cover one last major character, our antagonist. Our big bad is Mads Mikkelsen as Jurgen Voller, a thereoticain who wants the dial. At first Indy assumes, as most of the audience would that Voller simply wants the dial, which he's shown to obess over to win the war for hitler. Turns out Voller's plan is more complex. We see in the intro how Voller is the ONLY one who both sees the dial's value among the nazi's and the writing on the wall: Hitler is almost gone, he fucked them over. It's over. And thus the horror of Voller isn't like with Thot , at the giant horrifying nazi machine and all their power, and more at evil allowed to hide in plain sight. At a society who forgives horrible people because their useful. Voller got a free pass thanks to operation paperclip.. and the film shows while that idea got us tons of advances including space flight.. it came at the cost of giving horrible people real power and influence. The president is outright giving voller a MEDAL. And he hasn't changed: a truly chilling bit has him talking to a black bellhop delivering meal and asking where he came from.. and dismissing him saying he came from america. Voller is every bit the white supremacist monster he ever was, he's completely loyal to the idea of the nazi's. .just not to hitler. Voller's whole plan isn't to help hitler.. but to take him out, replace him and have someone compitent win. And he only gets as fara s he does because the goverment willingly works with him, gives him agents, goes after Helena and the dial. They know what he his but fully aid and abet him. Sure they eventually realize he's gone rogue, that his pet agent is entirely in his pocket.. but they don't turn on him till far too late and with one of their great agents dead. Concidentaly I feel Agent Mason is wasted: she's the calm rational agent.. but she's also the only major black character in the film and gets killed by a nazi. That's.. entirely fucked up and while I suspect inteitonally fucked up it just dosen't work for me.

Voller is also once again, much like with Belloc, an evil mirror of indy: Both are geniuses who adore history.. but one's a good person despite being gruff while one seems harmless when we first meat him but is actually a total monster. Mads does a great job showing just how evil the guy is without going over the top. Voller is determind to change history... and he does.. just not how he wanted to.

This Ain't 1933!

The climax.. is fucking awesome. Like Crystal Skull it goes beyond what the series had done before, if not more so. It's arguably even MORE over the top. But it works. For those who haven't seen the film... INDY GOES BACK IN TIME. The dial DOES indeed work.... but it's set up to ONLY go back to this point. Helena points out the idea of "loaded decks' earlier.. and realizes the dial is one. Archimedes only left it behind to create a stable time loop.

Indy going back into actual history is nuts, entirely and my jaw dropped at it.. but it's so damn fun. Our heroes not only have to escape the plain and get the dial back after it drops onto the coast, but survive the Siege of Syracuse, the roman invasion that eventaully resulted in Archimedes end. So we have two planes flying overhead, arrows everywhere and nazis versus romans. It's over the top but not in a way that really undermines the franchise, and frankly as what's intended to be the final act of indy ever, it's a fitting finale: the man whose explored history in the present.. gets to LITERALLY go to the past for his final adventure. I do get how not everyone will agree, and it won't work for everybody, this may be a bit tooo over the top, but I love it and feel it nicely ties up everyone's character arcs.

For Voller he gets to join history.. but instead of "fixing" it like he wanted he dies horribly and is forgotten to history only the "dragon" (his palne" is left.. and cleverly foreshadowed earlier when Teddy watches a puppet show. His nazi's all die and it's glorious to watch nazi after nazi go down from arrows or our two heroes escaping the plane while teddy takes the rest down with the help of a hapless pilot.

We then get the payoff for both Helena and Indy, as Indy gives the dial to archimedes.. and plans to stay. After all we established he's lost everything... why would he go back? He'll die soon.. but he's cconvinced he'll die soon back in the present. It's Helena who'se ultimately changed realizing both the value of history.. and ultimately the movie's moral: you can't change the past, but you can live for today. Helena can't change her awful upbringing or the things she's done.. but she can be better. And Indy can't save his son from death, save archimedes from death or be a better husband to marion during the greving process.. but he can be better to her and still live now. He still has so much to offer. He taught helena to love history and to try and be better. He gave his son a better life even if it was sadly cut short. He can be better. And when he can't be convinced the easy way she proves she's fully earned her way to being indy's succesor and just clubs him and takes him back (the dial has to go back with them as archimedes needs to make his own). The end scene also mostly works for me: Indy is back at his apartment.. but finds he's not alone as when he woke up there last time: Not only has Helena forgiven him, having realized much like Indy himself that warts and all, he's family, but Sallah, who I haven't gotten to talk about is here. Sallah is great in this film, not only helping Indy when he needs to lay low but enocuraging his friend it's not over. It's also nice to see Indy helped him and his family immigrate and that he's teaching his grand kids egyptian. It's also a nice way to still have davies play the roll.. but have him get a bit more depth and make up for a white guy playing the roll.

And last but not least.. Marion returns, and the two reconcile. I thought it was a bit easy when I frist saw it.. but I see now i'ts more the idea they have a long road ahead.. but both are willing to see it together.. Indy admits he was wrong and Marion is willing to give him another shot. For the third time but at least this time it's likely she just needed some psace to realize he wasn't being callous he just wasn't processing his grief.. and now he's ready to.. maybe they have a shot. It's a nice way to close out the films: Indy's life isn't over, he's got friends, he's got his wife.. and there's always another rainbow.

Assorted Other Stuff: The action set pieces as usual are fucking great, my faviorites easily being the climax and the diving adventure. The latter reminded me a lot of Tin Tin, Red Rackam's Treasure. Antonio Banderas is great as Reynaldo and I only wihs he had a bigger part.. and survived. It's not a huge suprise, saying Antonio Banderas is great. While I LIKED the finale with Marion, I'm with Karen Allen. They could've used her more. She deserves better dammit. WHy is it with the sequels they just can NEVER get bringing her back right?

Last but not least.. ther'es this weird subplot only brought up in the first two acts where the government frames indy for Murder that just.. never gets resolved? Like they never adressed it and as far as I can tell there's no resolution. Now granted I still think Indy isn't going to be arrested: He's clearly been unconcious for a week and Helena did have to get him back into the US, so it's likely the goverment found out about voller, got a debrief from helena.. and agreed to clear her and indy's record and absolve him of murder in exchange for never talking about this to anyone, as a Nazi escaping and killing one of their agents , after they pardoned the guy wouldn't look good. But we needed a line. It's easily the most baffling decision in otherwise a really godo film.

So finally we're , like indy back where we started.. was the film that bad?

When writing the reviews for Crystal Skull and Temple, I honestly hated the films MORE the more I thought abotu them, the more I found wrong, the more I realized how little they did. With this film. it's the opposite. The more I examine dial, the more I find to like. The character arcs, the action, the payoff. It's not perfect, again Indy is still kinda wanted for murder among other little plot gaffes, but I do think Dial is a solid entry in the series and better than both temple and skull at capturing what made the series graet. It dosen't nail it perfectly.. but it's still a fun ride with some really good character work and phenominal performances. Really indy failed.. because no one cares outside of fans of the franchise. As my brother put it when talking about this very film recently, kids don't know indy. It's not the big hit with kids star wars was and is. Star Wars will likekly rebound someday because Kids still dig it and kids will grow up with the sequels the way I grew up with the prequels, warts and all. Disney just assumed Indy was enough to carry it and he wasn't. I'm sad at it because not only is this a good film, but I was hoping for more pulp adventure films. But i'm also happy at what we got and to have done this journey. I saw the good, and the bad. And I saw a franchise I ended up really loving. In the end I got what I needed out of this franchise

#Indiana jones and the dial of destiny #dial of destiny #phoebe waller bridge #harrison ford #indiana jones #helena shaw #marion ravenwood #jurgen voller #disney

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quillyfied · 8 months ago

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Hellaverse Theories: Hazbin Hotel S1E7

Welcome to Quilly’s Hellaverse Theories, where I overthink the entire Hellaverse! Had to take a break this week bc prep for my medical procedure today kicked my entire butt, but I’m back for the final two episodes! Wahoo!

Penultimately, Hazbin Hotel s1e7:

Hello, Alastor, my beloved creep. Gotta hand it to the man, he knows when to time his entrances. A consummate performer to the bone. But he’s also really cementing his skills as a deal-maker in this scene, which comes with a certain level of manipulation and understanding how people tick. Charlie wouldn’t have been open to making a deal with him until she was at the end of her rope, like she is now; as naïve and sweet as she is, she isn’t blind to who and what Alastor is. And right now, she isn’t even being sweet. She rightfully calls Alastor on his behavior, who is SOUNDING nice in tone but isn’t actually BEING nice in words, before giving in to Alastor’s prodding and unearthing the root of her issue, which is her own perceived failure and incompetence. (Side note to cackle at how Alastor creeps into the corner of the screen when Charlie mentions “the cruelest Overlord in Hell” like yes babe we all know it’s you now keep that ego in check.) She’s stressed, she’s overwhelmed, she’s been made brutally aware of the depths of her own hubris and how badly her overconfidence could backfire on everything and everyone she loves. In a word: she’s vulnerable. Vulnerable people in Hell make deals. Alastor couldn’t have picked a better moment if he’d designed it himself.

Putting himself forward as the mentor in this moment is another careful, deliberate form of pressure that Alastor as a deal-maker is using in this game. He’s been building that relationship all season, but actually utilizing himself in that role rather than indulging Charlie while sniping at the rest of the cast is new for him. In his way, I believe he’s being very genuine with Charlie when he’s teaching her about smiles. She wears her heart on her sleeve; she could stand to “talk less, smile more” (wrong musical oops), both for her own benefit but also for her utility as a tool in Alastor’s arsenal. He’s also being very careful—he’s touching her more, which as a touchy person Charlie is usually more receptive to (but notice she’s pushing him away every time he does it), he’s being playful, he’s frankly acting his ass off and working their connection like his life depends on it (it does let’s be real). They’re in a perfect sweet spot of Charlie being desperate and her trust in him, while not absolute, still being strong enough for her to be receptive to his advice. It’s a delicate moment; Charlie still requires convincing, reassurance. She’s still very aware of who Alastor is when she asks if he’s actually asking for her soul, when she tells him she won’t hurt anyone for him. But Alastor didn’t get to his position by being an amateur in the game. He wouldn’t ask if he didn’t have something of equal or greater value to offer, and the means to save her friends and stand up to Heaven is one of the bigger aces up his sleeves. Charlie doesn’t want or need personal power. She isn’t swayed by promises of greater influence, she doesn’t care about riches. She cares about people—HER people, the sinners that she’s determined to protect after her parents couldn’t (or wouldn’t, depending on which parent and which point in the story we’re at).

There’s an old cliché about love making people weak that’s paradoxically both true and false. Loving others does open us up to having more vulnerable spots, more weak points that could be exploited by evil forces. But it also makes us stronger and more willing to go above and beyond for our communities. The Hellaverse loves this interplay—Helluva Boss is making a right old meal out of it, but it’s also the core of Hazbin Hotel. Charlie’s power comes from her love for the unlovable. It’s also her greatest weakness, even moreso than her relentless determination to believe in the best in people. Idealists tend to be easy to manipulate, but they’re also most likely to pull an unlikely win out of absolutely nowhere. Alastor never really explicitly says how he feels about Charlie—because why would we ever get anything genuine out of him—but reading between the lines presents such an interesting setup. He’s not working with Charlie because he believes in her or her vision; his only stated reason for being there is “entertainment.” And yet, he dismisses Mimzy because she causes problems for him, he pulled in two souls he owns to work there too, he’s putting his powers towards fixing the place up and protecting it when needed, he’s there every single day. The hotel itself probably means nothing to him, but Charlie herself is who he’s attaching himself to. More insight on this later in the episode because I keep trying to get ahead of myself when there’s real, actual meat in front of me to chew on.

SO. THE DEAL. The deal with Charlie. The deal specifically struck with Charlie to help Charlie, Charlie’s deal.

First interesting tidbit: Charlie HAS a soul. Which. Hmm. She’s Hellborn, in that she was born in Hell, but her father is a fallen angel and her mother is a sinner (or at least a human who defied Heaven) turned something Else. What this means for Charlie taxonomically is unclear, but she at least believes she has a soul—though, again, whether as mechanic or metaphor is not specified yet. Hellborn don’t really have souls (and presumably neither do Heavenborn), according to the wiki; when they die, they become part of the landscape of Hell. But souls in HH have utility. They’re a resource. They imply movement up and down the Heaven/Hell divide and power in interpersonal dealings. Charlie might have an actual soul courtesy of Lilith, but what she actually has courtesy of both of her parents is power, power that she herself doesn’t wield much and hasn’t developed fully yet.

Next interesting tidbit: Alastor has been shown making deals for things that are not souls—favors, mostly, but we can also guess from his freaky skill set that even if he doesn’t gain a soul from a deal, he does still gain some sort of power from the exchange. He isn’t stupid enough to go after Charlie’s soul directly, but a favor—a very broadly-worded favor, in fact, which I’ll get to in a minute—a favor from a member of the royal family of Hell is enough to give Alastor a palpable, worrisome boost. Vox was right to be worried about this happening—and he and the Vees were also absolutely right in giving up on trying to stop it and focusing their endeavors on their continued mass takeover of Hell (see the ways in which I shout incoherently about Velvette manipulating an entire room of Overlords into leaving themselves even more scattered and vulnerable for the bonus Extermination back in my Episode 3 analysis).

Next tidbit: the wording. “One favor at a time of my choosing where you harm no one.” Deal-making is a slippery business, and the wording of this is both ominous and vague. “Favor” could mean anything, especially in Hell, where magic is a thing. “At a time of my choosing” so holding onto the power pretty tightly as well as not locking either of them into anything specific (because Alastor could very easily choose to never cash in. He won’t, but he could, and it’s that complacency that lulls people into a false sense of security, especially the longer the bill takes to come due). “Where you harm no one” but notice how that doesn’t mean the same thing as no one getting hurt. My theory: the favor is going to involve letting Alastor harm someone without Charlie’s interference, though who is beyond me right now. Overall, it’s vague, and it’s almost comforting in that vagueness. Charlie can imagine whatever she wants into that promise, and while she’s right to be cautious, she still doesn’t let it stop her from making the deal, because Alastor’s knowledge is more important to her.

And this is how Alastor becomes powerful enough to even give Adam a run for his money, but I’ll talk more about that next episode.

The Egg Bois being unreliable empty-headed little darlings might be the funniest possible way to sidestep “we had this information months ago” problem, actually. And it also puts the gravity of the knowledge into perspective, if Carmilla’s power ballad didn’t ram that point home hard enough. Angels being killable is nonsense on par with outlandish conspiracy theories. And it’s about to be common knowledge real soon.

(To those folks who look at Rosie and think she’s a fallen angel because she has a feathered neck: I beg of you to look up 1910s American fancy dress for women. That’s the collar of her dress, folks. They went up that high.)

Alastor’s connections with Mimzy and Rosie paint some interesting shades onto the portrait of who he is. Backstory from the wiki indicates he trusts and gets along better with women over men (insofar as he trusts anyone), but tossing that to the curb, they’re the only two people he seems to have any kind of positive bond with from his past. Mimzy’s attachment is probably one more of familiarity, since he’s the one bailing her out of trouble over and over, but Rosie is not just an equal, but older than him and someone he trusts enough to both ask outrageous favors from and accept leads on business deals. He allows Rosie to touch him far more than he allows Mimzy (and thus WAY more than anyone else), and he treats her with not just courtesy but directness. He doesn’t double-speak or insinuate his way around her; he doesn’t give her false pleasantries. How Alastor treats Rosie speaks of mutual trust and if not friendship, then as close to it as he gets. And Rosie returns that investment, which, as the most emotionally intelligent character on the show and certainly the one who may understand Alastor most, may show hints of how far Alastor’s true loyalty to another person can go when the relationship is mutually beneficial. I have no doubt that there is still a limit to that trust, but the threshold being so high is impressive for not just sinners, but Overlords. Once again, highlighting that the Vees’ alliance, while formidable, isn’t built to last, because the Vees themselves don’t trust each other.

Alright, Vaggie and Carmilla detour! First things first: Vaggie’s a soldier. Her being a former Exorcist (though…that’s me, putting “former” in there. No other character does. She’s an Exorcist. Which implies more and more that Exorcists are themselves a class of angel rather than an occupation, but still, don’t know if they’re Heavenborn or recruited winners) makes more and more sense in hindsight. And my Hellaverse friend was very gleeful in telling me how validating it was to hear Carmilla Carmine lay out the reasons, because it echoes all the angel!Vaggie theories going around about her before the show dropped, which is fair, because it took me by surprise on my first watchthrough and hearing it explained so deadpan made me feel sheepish. BUT. GETTING AHEAD OF MYSELF AGAIN. The point: Vaggie attempting to wield Charlie’s power really drives home two things: one, that Vaggie falls back on the rigid structure of army life when uncomfortable (which we saw already in e3); and two, that Hell does not give two solitary rugged shits about the royal family. Which is fair for Pride; why would the prideful care about authority above their own, especially when it hides away making ducks or disappears entirely or opens delusional hotels and doesn’t actually do any significant ruling at all?

But it’s important that Vaggie herself gets a stark slap in the face on that front, because she doesn’t understand Hell and its sinners any more than Charlie does; her encouragement to Charlie to “command a little more authority” in e4 only causes Angel to get more hurt, because neither of them truly understood both the situation and the general way souls and soul contracts seem to work. They aren’t sinners, and it’s now very debatable if Vaggie was ever human, either. So her tutelage under Carmilla Carmine (very neatly mirroring Charlie and Alastor’s relationship, by the way) is less about teaching Vaggie how to kill angels and more about teaching Vaggie how to survive in Hell in general. They had a solid parallel in e3 that’s now paying off, and there may also be something to be said about real-world Latina woman generational solidarity that I am nowhere near equipped or qualified to discuss, but the point is this: Vaggie is now getting her grow-up moment the same as Charlie, and putting them side by side while Charlie and Vaggie aren’t glued to each other’s sides is damn good storytelling, actually.

So. Carmilla is destroying all of Vaggie’s arguments as to why she should help. What she’s doing is the same as what she does when she starts actively fighting Vaggie: she’s stripping Vaggie of her posturing (stiff and formal), her reliance on empty structures (Charlie’s social standing), and even her anger (fear, helplessness, shame, self-hatred) to get to the real reason of why Vaggie really needs Carmilla’s help, because it’s that reason that Vaggie needs to harness. And that reason, put forth in a musical number that still gives me chills every time? Love. Real, hard, messy, excruciating, liberating love. Vaggie has been filling the hole that Heaven left in her life with Charlie, and it’s been working for her, but all the other things, most significantly her anger—she doesn’t need them anymore. She doesn’t need to swap Adam and Heaven with Princess Charlie and Hell, she needs to swap them with Charlie her girlfriend and the sinners she cares about.

(Side note to talk about how at first, Carmilla’s hair is up while she’s fighting Vaggie, until Vaggie complains about not being used to fighting with long hair. Next frame, Carmilla’s hair is down. I feel robbed for not getting that animation of the hair coming down, but I’ll live somehow. Because the fact that they did it in the first place is such a small but cool detail and I love it.)

NOW BACK TO CHARLIE: her journey from shattered confidence to enthusiastic leader is multilayered and handled beautifully, really; with Alastor and Rosie standing in as parental/mentor figures she hasn’t had in a long time, their confidence in her is one thing, but it’s the support that drives home once again that community and bonds matter. And not only that, the fact that Charlie has been trying all season (and all pilot too, non-canon as it is now) to sing-and-dance her way through her problems and NOW of all times when it should actually WORK is when she CAN’T, because her heart and head are both all scrambled, is delicious. And another support to the theme that self-improvement AND being true to yourself aren’t mutually exclusive things but instead mutually beneficial—I’d go so far as to say mutually vital. Living in a violent, chaotic, meaningless, hurtful world changes the people living in it, to the point where they become something unrecognizable to even themselves just to survive. Hazbin Hotel has a very literal way of showing that (see everyone’s demon forms). It also spends a lot of time on very carefully building the theme that even at rock-bottom, change for the better is not only possible, but a good thing, even if it makes life harder and messier in a lot of ways. It also improves it, to the point where this ragtag group of assholes are ready to fight and die for each other by the end of the season. Charlie never needed to change her core personality; she just needed to grow up a little, to see the nuance in the world around her. She’s still getting there, but she’s TRYING. My goodness is she trying.

Alright, flashing back to Vaggie and Carmilla for a bit: the explanation Carmilla gives for angelic steel’s abilities against angels and demons alike makes sense, but it does still itch at my brain with ‘BUT HOW LONG HAVE THE EXTERMINATIONS BEEN GOING ON THO’ questions. However, I’ll pull myself away from that corkboard of madness to shriek about another question: where does angelic steel even come from? And how could it be that with an entire army of angels training with angelic steel, nobody got cut or hurt with it before? Or did they just assume it could hurt but not kill? Listen I think I’m digging into the cracks of the writing and not actually chasing a rational thread here but I said I was getting Weird about this show and I meant it, I’m gnawing on a marrowless bone here and desperately hoping it still yields sustenance. XD

ANYWAY.

I fully missed Vaggie getting her wings ripped out the first several times I watched HH (I blame my squeamish nature; probably looked away too long from the eyeball thing), but her getting her wings BACK is certainly hard to miss. And they’re different from her original wings, too, which really solidifies that she’s left Heaven behind and is fully committed to being here in Hell with Charlie. Not just Heaven, but the hurt and the rage her casting out left her with, too, the mistrust, the baggage. She’ll still be dealing with it, but she’s starting to move on from it, to embrace who she is now, to hate herself less. Folks who say the wing scene is meaningless are missing the point—it isn’t about the wings. It’s about Vaggie and her outlook on life. That’s what the whole song was about, redirecting herself from a vengeance-based view to a love-based view and using that as her foundation to fight on. This show has such good storytelling it makes me feral.

Also lol miss “no more weapons” turning a full 180 to “we’re gonna need more weapons.”

Just gonna tuck the significance of Rosie, one of Alastor’s closest allies, being the one to say, “Words are cheap, but actions, they speak the truth.” Just gonna. Just gonna hold onto that one. Just gonna hold that close and use that as the measuring stick against which I measure the Radio Demon in upcoming seasons. Like it’s a major show theme too but also specifically for the morally dubious cannibalistic deer man, I’m gonna be keeping my eye on him with that tidbit in mind.

I said it before in a very rambly way but let me be more concise: Charlie learning to trust in herself and it actually working out the way she wants it to for once is probably why this episode makes me so teary upon multiple viewings. Like. Vaggie learning to ditch her baggage that was holding her back also makes me cry a little too but Charlie learning that she’s always been enough is. I need a minute. Go watch some cannibals tap dance for a bit.

Very interesting wording, before we get to the obvious Alastor plotting undertones: “I guess I’ve always known my destiny could never be postponed.” Charlie is full of such interesting contradictions. She’s born to be a leader, wants to help and serve by leading, and yet she doesn’t like wielding any kind of authority or power over other people. Which frankly is what makes a good leader half the time, the humility to remember that you aren’t better than the people you’re guiding, but I am so desperately curious to know more about Lilith so we can compare Charlie’s style to hers. I’ve seen so many—SO MANY—interpretations of Lilith at this point, and all of them valid, and we know that Charlie looks up to her mother and wants to make her proud and cares about Hell because Lilith did, but keep in mind that Charlie very much wears rose-tinted glasses when it comes to the people around her. Interpretations where Lilith is a proto-Charlie who cared so much about Hell and helping its people are intriguing (especially against all the interpretations where Lilith is just evil, like come on folks have some nuance and originality here, because if we’re gonna demonize (lol) Lilith for running off to Heaven for seven years, you had BEST NOT be giving Lucifer a break for his THOUSANDS of years of possible negligence to his kingdom just because he’s apocalyptically depressed. They’re both entitled to a bad decisions due to burnout and trauma, but check your internalized misogyny; just because Lucifer’s depression is front and center and actively joked about doesn’t mean Lilith isn’t struggling with something too) (I am talking to myself too, folks, don’t worry, I know what I’ve said in past posts has slanted more Lucifer-friendly than Lilith-friendly but again…we just DON’T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT LILITH. WE KNOW NOTHING. NOBODY BUT ADAM AND CHARLIE EVER TALKS ABOUT HER. EXCUSE ME I NEED TO FROTH FOR A SECOND), but Charlie and Lilith being carbon copies of each other is probably not the truth. The Hellaverse likes to deal with the complexities of messy relationships, and I would bet money on Charlie and Lilith’s relationship being MESSY. And if it wasn’t before, it sure is about to be.

Where was I? Right. Charlie. Coming to accept her responsibilities as the upcoming leader of Hell, rather than putting off her title and her authority because using them to get things feels mean and wrong to her. Yeah, they absolutely can be mean and wrong when used improperly, but Charlie has been learning so much about leading this season. And the fact that she’s admitting that there was a part of her that didn’t want the position is so fascinating. Because she knows from both of her parents that there is bureaucracy and unpleasant tasks and sometimes being not-so-nice involved in being a leader, especially a leader of a chaotic, violent, traumatized, emotionally unstable place like Hell. And she’s ACCEPTING IT. SHE’S ACCEPTING IT INSTEAD OF THINKING SHE CAN AVOID IT BY FIXING EVERYONE ELSE’S PROBLEMS. DO YOU GET THAT.

Which leads me to Alastor’s surprisingly revealing (for him) comment in the song: “She’s filled with potential that I could guide.” Like. Yeah, dude. This is the sticking point, for me, against the theory of Lilith making a deal with Alastor and ordering him to look after Charlie (for success or failure, take your pick): while I believe he could still make this comment if this were true, it rings far more true to me that Alastor latched onto Charlie as a way to circumvent his deal rather than fulfill it. Charlie is practically a non-entity in Hell, but at least more approachable and far easier to manipulate than Lucifer would be (and present, which rules out Lilith). She underestimates herself, but she has undeniable power even if she doesn’t realize it or is uncomfortable with it—which makes her prime pickings for Alastor, not even counting the abandonment issues, the desperate need for validation, the need to fix everything around her and Alastor being a walking bag of Nope…and then for Rosie to follow that up with “I concur!” just in case anyone forgot she is also an Overlord, albeit a strangely genuine one. And then the joint line: “Stick with her, you’ll be on the winning side.” Definitely more of a follower-type line than a shadow-leader-type line, but I’ll let Alastor have it; his actions, after all, speak to a dedication to Charlie that perhaps he isn’t quite prepared to deal with. But next episode.

Small moment to also feel emotional that the boys all stayed; and not only that, that they were preparing to stay even if Charlie, Vaggie, and Alastor didn’t come back. They CARE ABOUT EACH OTHER DAMMIT.

Alright, I’m off to make dinner and then! The finale! And final thoughts that I’ve been dragging out over the entire season!!

#quilly's hellaverse theories #hazbin hotel #quilly writing

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floorpancakes · 1 year ago

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can you post what all the results to the quiz are & what charas they have? im just curious to see the answers to what i didn't get!

ok so ill probably add to this slowly but time for some stats and answers and stuff! obviously dont check this out if you dont wanna be spoiled (thread)

first, here's the actual amounts of each results people have been getting:

when i say i had NO IDEA we'd get so many chuunis....watching the numbers go up the first few days felt like a fever dream haha

but its comforting to know that everyone is cringe and free! i for one welcome our new gothy overlords!

i was also really surprised that gimmick idols got some of the lowest scores 😭 the space that spans is so wide so i was expecting way more people to get that result since i figured it'd catch a lot of people, but i guess you guys are rare!

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now its time to look at the archetype list:

this was pretty tricky, especially cause i was working on the quiz for funsies at silly o clock in the morning for two nights while i was dealing with some sickness induced exhaustion lol. i wanted to include more (a few like the princely type nearly made the cut), but I found there was

1. a lot of crossover between archetypes (this even happened with some of the idols i chose for the results image!!! hanayo being average idoltwt user AND a harapeko type or minori being average idoltwt user AND fake it til you make it for example)

2. some archetypes that were only based on visuals or not on personality at all

3. kind of lowkey paradoxical (eg. someone might really fit the princely type, but often in idol shows they make it so that trait is pushed on them, but they secretly wanted to be feminine all along, which like, ok but then if someone actually fits the princely vibe I'd be slightly struggling for examples and we'd get all tied in knots unfortunately)

4. the amount of answers was already getting so long that if i added any more it'd start getting difficult to come up with more answers for some of the more concrete questions (like what you'd do post graduation etc)

...so I had to kind of draw the line somewhere. especially cause i thought like 3 of my idoltwt mutuals would take it and that's it 😭 maybe I'll make a part 2 or a more extensive quiz later who knows (guess who just remembered the 'rock is life' type idols and screamed into a pillow for only just remembering...)

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so the idol archetype categories themselves are DEFINITELY things I've picked up on in multiple series, altho they may require a lil bit of explaining so I'll quickly summarise each one when we go thru the characters. i should probably mention that some of these (like the chuunibyou) are word for word archetypes that people use all the time, while some were just me trying to put words to the character types so the wording was just a descriptor (fake it til you make it queen), altho i hope they were useful! ive seen a few people online using these terms after taking the quiz which is super cute...🙇 let's take a look at these categories shall we?

(note: i have varying levels of familiarity w these characters, i wanted to make it reasonably varied and recognisable but some of them i kind of just knew what category they fit and that's it)

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THE CHUUNIBYOU

to those who don't know, the chuunibyou is a pretty popular archetype beyond just idols, and tends to refer to people who are stuck in or going through their 'edgy phase'; chuu-ni being short for second year of middle school syndrome (think like, 13 or 14 year olds), but the general vibe tends to be associated with emo or goth phases, claiming to have an evil eye, being or being a servant of Satan, hiding a secret shy or self conscious side with edge, yaknow. average tween behaviour. it's not limited by age tho especially in anime media! one of the examples i used is a 26 year old grown man with a job. never too late!

Like with a lot of the other categories it was really hard to narrow down the results page characters, but from left to right:

1. Todo Yurika from Aikatsu!

Yurika takes being a lifestyle lolita to the next level, being a gothic lolita and punk idol with the chuuni character of a vicious vampire, which she desperately tries to keep up as part of her career, only letting people see her quiet nerdy self once in a blue moon. She has a secret soft spot for garlic ramen and sings some of the best songs in the entire series (which is an achievement cause aikatsus songs are god tier).

music rec (won't do this for everyone, only ones i know well, but pls feel free to fill in the blanks in the comments/reblogs!): check out Glass Doll, Onegai Venus and Eternally Flickering Flame! She has two singing voices over the series, both of which are incredible.

2. Asselin BB II (Asselin Beelzebub the Second) from The Idolm@ster SideM!

Asselin is a genius chef in his mid-twenties that ended up on the streets being kicked from countless jobs because of his ....quirks. He's a chuuni through and through, and its something a lot of the people around him didn't know how to handle, but when he gets taken in by Cafe Parade (both an idol group AND a real life dining establishment) to be their chef, he finally finds a place where he belongs. He's goofy and crazy while simultaneously being an introverted and nervous personality, and claims to be a servant of Satan, which just happens to be an adorable plushie that he carries around for comfort and finds difficult to be without, who gets painstakingly dressed up in matching outfits whenever he's included in a card! Don't be fooled by his softness though, this servant of satan has PIPES. You may recognise his voice, as he's played by well-known seiyuu Furukawa Makoto.

music rec: check out Waga Konton no Sabbath Marriage to immediately ascend, or Reversed Masquerade for a taste of the full CafePa experience.

3. Tsushima Yohane from Love Live Sunshine!!

Probably the most famous on the list so I'll keep it brief! She's been at this chuuni business since she was a little girl, so she encountered a lot of loneliness before joining Aqours, but she's got a cute and clumsy personality and has a tendency to yell about being a fallen angel. She's an absolute sweetheart, despite claiming that she's angered God himself, and is always there at the scene to deliver an edgy pose or stunning vocals.

music rec: check out Kowareyasuki and Strawberry Trapper for peak Yohane vocals, honestly Guilty Kiss in general should be mandatory listening homework

#idol quiz #idol archetype quiz #stats and info and stuff ahead!#thread

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