#i get that its an attempt to rescue her trauma from the narrative and stuff but well. it just sounds much worse AND removes

[dreamspring]

also i think ive already said this but about people trying to make cassandra wayne a thing and its like. i GET it and i respect it but also im sorryyyy it sounds so much worse. ‘umm but cain links her to her abusive father’ well yeah. but have you considered that it sounds cool as fuck…

[hoidn]

walt, season 5, and the unconscious

(pretentious title? this thing has gotten so long it seemed to deserve it.)

it's been six? seven? years and i'm still tormented by questions about walt's behaviour towards vic in season 5. i've pretty much come to terms with season 4 (in that i still hate it but okay, fine, i get it); however, season 5 continues to plague me. it's a puzzle and my obsessive brain needs to solve it. so, here i am, writing my way through the season because, as flannery o'connor said, i don't know what i think until i read what i say.

reader, if you are brave enough to wade through this and you're not familiar with psychology (or you just want to watch me try to explain something and possibly do a terrible job), here is a note: psychological mechanisms and processes operate at an unconscious level; hence, most people go through life without having much idea about the complex underpinnings of their own psyches or how they translate into behaviours. no judgement; it just is. i mention it in this context because any discussion of said stuff assumes everybody knows we're talking about motivations, beliefs, etc. over which someone has little to no control. usually they're not even aware of them. sometimes they're sort of aware of them but then develop coping mechanisms to shield them from that awareness because the 'self' is a fragile little gremlin primarily concerned with protecting its own construct, even when what it's protecting itself from is itself. does that make sense? no. but also yes. (study psychology! it's great! not at all murky or baffling!) anyway, if you've made it this far and are now more, not less, confused, just assume everything i'm talking about is happening on a subconscious or unconscious level in walt's thick skull unless otherwise specified.

all right, here i go.

5x01 - 5x02

it's a given that walt's head trauma and gunshot injury are major mitigators of the bulk of his behaviour in these episodes. then there's the previously established issue of transference, which comes into play when the enormous sense of guilt he still carries about martha's murder finds a convenient focus in the search for donna. i think his motivation here is a belief that in rescuing donna he'll be atoning for (what he perceives as) failing martha; i.e. he has to save donna because he couldn't save martha. saving donna will balance the scales, in effect. this sort of 'cosmic tally' framing is very on-brand for walt: cf his belief that cady's accident was some kind of punishment for him having sex with lizzie, thus requiring him to perform whatever ritual it is i can't remember to even up the score.

all of this then piles atop his fixation on maintaining control. the more walt feels he's losing that control, the more threatened his sense of self becomes, leading to a kind of existential panic. his psyche copes with this by creating a less threatening reality, one he can control: inventing feelings for donna as part of a grand narrative in which he's the intended target of the attack. he then proceeds to ignore or lash out against anything (vic, evidence, logic) that doesn't forward or fit within his chosen narrative in order to preserve his artificial sense of control (due to defence mechanisms themselves requiring constant defending from the intrusions of reality). this leads him into a paradoxical spiral wherein the more he tries to exert control, the more out of control he becomes. the moral of the story is that attempts to control reality via a personal narrative always fail because reality gives zero fucks about your psychological constructs.

meanwhile, vic bears the brunt of all his shit, as well as taking care of him, and solving the fucking case, and saving his stupid ass from drowning, and giving tamar CPR to save her life. does vic get any credit? maybe a quick thank you? a brief but heartfelt apology? no she does not. am i bitter about it to this day? yes i most certainly am. however, as i said, getting shot + head trauma + pain + medication = heavy mitigation for assholery. that doesn't mean he just gets a pass, though, especially not for his particular cruelty in 5x02. those few seconds when he allows vic to believe that the jane doe in the morgue is donna are inexcusable. he can see how devastated she is and he knows that she's devastated for him. it is an entirely deliberate setup on his part and... just... what the actual fuck, walt?? it reads like punishment to me, but i don't understand where the desire to hurt her is coming from at that point. is it because he knows she's right about donna being the target but doesn't want to admit it? is it because his grand narrative is collapsing and he needs someone to blame for this whole clusterfuck? is it just a "my life is shitty and i feel like being a dick" move? i cannot account for it and that bugs me because this calculated viciousness isn't something walt has ever displayed towards her before.

5x03

it's a few(?) days later and, as usual, walt's injuries appear to be magically healed. now it's as if his constructed grand narrative never existed. he doesn't seem terribly upset that donna is avoiding him; he's got an air of sad defeat about him, but he's neither heartbroken nor making any real effort to change her mind. the latter could be read as him being respectful of her perceived wishes, but i'm not convinced by that. he didn't respect her expressed wishes when she first turned him down; instead, he continued to pursue her in his own waltish way. additionally, she's just been through a traumatic experience and, if he had any real feelings for her, he wouldn't hesitate to force the issue with his special brand of aggressive caretaking (which is what he does with vic).

since he's a perceptive man (when he's not being wilfully obtuse, anyway), it can't have escaped his attention that tamar's obsession was a mirror to his own. that might also be a factor in his anaemic response — it's gotta be an uncomfortable realisation, if nothing else — but given his overall personality i think it unlikely his ego would allow anything other than complete denial about the possibility that he could go as far as she did down the same path. despite (very! recent!) evidence to the contrary, and maybe even more than most people, he believes there's a point at which his conscious mind can overrule his unconscious. cool story, bro, but that's not how it works. the unconscious mind is the undertow beneath even the most placid surface. it's incredibly powerful and, if you get caught in it, it's almost impossible to escape without intervention.

so, in typical walt fashion, he chooses to ignore the problem rather than engage in some self-examination about the way he's been behaving. it's disappointing but completely unsurprising. what is surprising is something new that manifests in both this episode and in 5x07. there are several instances where we've seen him lash out defensively when feeling jealous or threatened, but always in reaction to an immediate situation. this isn't that; i don't know precisely how to define it, because it's not a single specific behaviour common to both circumstances. yet they're such markedly uncharacteristic incidents that they must stem from a common motivation, particularly given how deliberate and conscious his actions are. and although his intent is clearly to hurt vic, it's not to the level of cruelty in 5x02. these are small, petty hurts, like little jabs meant to sting but not inflict real damage. why, though? now that he's no longer shielded from the discomforts of emotional reality by his grand narrative, he's obviously extremely conflicted. his attempt at escapism hasn't done anything to resolve the turmoil going on in his psychological landscape; in fact, it's likely made things worse. that's the only explanation i can come up with for the very abrupt swerves he begins to take.

in this episode, the "it's work-related" phone call he makes to donna is very clearly performative. there is absolutely no reason why walt couldn't make that call in the privacy of his own office. instead, he deliberately walks out to use ruby's phone when vic is the only one there. his nervousness and dithering are probably real to a certain extent because there's precedent (cf him calling cady in 2x02), but i'd be surprised if some of it isn't solely for vic's benefit. his awareness of her presence is hardly subtle: he glances back at her after he dials; he glances back when he hears her footsteps; he looks at her when she's at the printer; he turns to look again when she walks away.

his behaviour makes it clear that he not only wants her to know he's making the call, but also wants her to hear whatever conversation eventuates; he sets it up that way. and it's confounding because it's so unlike him. this is like a foray into teenage levels of emotional maturity, whereas walt usually fluctuates between the two extremes of mature adult and cranky toddler. viewed from one direction he's regressing, but viewed from the other he's maturing. IDEK. i genuinely can't determine if he does it to get her attention and provoke a reaction (like pulling her pigtails?) or to punish her because he can't handle what he feels and the only way he can cope is by making it her fault. possibly it's a combination of both? added to this he continues to be perplexing by otherwise treating her with much more respect and consideration professionally than he has done in quite a while.

5x04

speaking of abrupt swerves, i submit this scene:

What Work Conversations Look Like According to Walt and Vic

as a scholar of the many expressions (or lack thereof) of walt longmire, i can state with authority that he has never looked at any of his other deputies in this manner. he's never even looked at either of his girlfriends in this manner. but there he is in the middle of his office (with dave milgrom standing off to the side), listening to vic report on a lead, and looking at her *waves hands wildly at screen* like that.

5x06

there's nothing relevant in 5x05 so we move on. here in 5x06 we just skip right over the part where dave should be petitioning a higher level court to get the judge on the case to recuse himself due to his personal relationship with the plaintiff's lawyer (*sigh*) and discover that vic's being called to be deposed as a witness for said plaintiff.

dave: but you said you had a good relationship. she likes you, right? happy employee? vic on the answering machine: damn it, walt, pick up! it's me, vic. walt's face: ... dave's face: oh, shit.

apart from enjoying the comedic excellence of this scene, i am fascinated by the news that walt has categorised his relationship with vic as "good" at this point. so many questions arise! i'm very curious to know walt longmire's definition of a good relationship because it appears to be quite different from mine. and considering that dave wasn't even introduced until two episodes ago, when was this statement made? was walt drunk at the time? damn it, i want answers!

next up is the absolutely excruciating awkwardness of vic's deposition, in which the ~revelation~ of the kiss in 5x01 wins first place in some kind of mortification championship. walt is even more than usually inscrutable in this scene, which i don't entirely know how to interpret, but i suspect it's because he's ruthlessly suppressing a fervent desire to punch and/or murder tucker baggett. for my purposes, the scene itself is only noteworthy in that it serves as a catalyst for the conversation between walt and vic that follows on the drive back to the office.

one of my favourite undergrad professors once described an epiphany as "an intellectual orgasm. in a can!" an idea that has continued to delight me immensely ever since. it pops into my head on those occasions when i have a breakthrough in understanding or a moment of significant insight about something, such as the one i had about the post-deposition conversation that turned out to be in complete opposition to the big chunk of words i'd already written about it. my intellectual orgasm in a can was so powerful that it untwisted my perspective of that scene and led me to an entirely new understanding that made so much more sense. it was pretty awesome, albeit humbling to learn i'd originally gotten it so wrong. but the good thing about being wrong is that i then get to figure out what's right, which for me is often more fun than just being right in the first place, because i am A Nerd. it turns out that where i'd been going wrong was in making a judgement based on an erroneous comparison. in the context of season 5 (and the entirety of season 4 as well), walt's been very closed off to vic; however, instead of comparing the walt in this scene with that closed-off walt, i'd been comparing him to early seasons walt, who's much more open (on the walt longmire scale of openness, anyway). it's such poor character analysis on my part that i'm kind of appalled at myself, and my only excuse is that the back half of season 4 and most of season 5 really mess me up. i'd never had an actual character trigger me until donna, but she does, and it's severe enough that i'm unable to untangle the character in the narrative from the trauma she represents, which is likely why this season is the hardest for me to analyse. olol thanks i hate it, etc.

back to walt, though. he's such a private person that he must be feeling a certain level of discomfort about the kiss being public knowledge. in spite of that, when vic brings up the topic, he actually talks to her about it rather than ignoring her or brushing her off. i used to think that walt referring to the kiss as "a moment" was an example of his favourite coping mechanism, aka denial. i thought he was too afraid to say the actual word because it would be an acknowledgement of what had happened. but actually this scene represents his first tentative effort to reach out to vic after a season and a half of nothing. he's not trying to diminish what happened between them; rather, he's redefining it, without reference to anyone but the two of them. by calling it "a moment", walt is reframing it not just as a single act but as a shared experience that was so much more than simply a kiss. that scene, that shared experience, is all about intimacy, vulnerability, and tenderness between the two of them. so here walt is saying "it doesn't matter how tucker baggett, or anyone else, misconstrues it, you and i know what it was and what it meant." apart from the romantic aspect, this 'us vs them' element of their relationship got lost (or, on days when i'm feeling particularly mad at walt, destroyed) in season 4. now he's taking the first small step towards reestablishing that sense of unity with vic and i am here for it.

in the final part of this scene, he tells her, "if you were unhireable, i wouldn't have hired you." it's a statement i'd always interpreted as meant to correct the logical fallacy (i.e. he hired her ergo she wasn't unhireable), and a bit of a jeer at tucker; given the expression on vic's face after he says it, that's how i think she herself takes it. but thanks to my intellectual orgasm in a can, i realised his intention is more personal. kind of like the scene in 4x01 in which vic tells him, "don't you touch me," what's important in this sentence isn't the verb; it's the pronoun. in the same way that his use of "a moment" excludes everyone but the two of them in regards to the kiss, this statement also serves to bind them together in a shared experience. he, walt, hired her, vic, and whatever tucker baggett or anyone else thinks about the matter has no bearing on them. they are now, and have always been, in this together. it's an affirmation of what's clearly spelled out in 2x12:

walt: why didn't you tell me this when you applied for the job? vic: 'cause i didn't think you'd hire me. walt: because you'd done the right thing at your last job?

he hired her when he didn't know the truth; he would've hired her even had he known the truth. she was never, and could never be, unhireable to him, regardless of whether or not she was unhireable to anyone else.

5x07

strap in kids, because here comes the longest part of this hybrid essay/conversation with myself. 5x07 is an episode i don't know very well; the case itself doesn't interest me and there's just too much donna in it for me to watch more than vic's scenes when i rewatch it at all. so, of course, because there just isn't enough irony in my life already, it would have to turn out that this deceptively non-relationship episode—in which a character positioned as walt's love interest has more screen-time than in any other episode!—is actually the most significant walt/vic relationship episode of the season. this discovery came in bits and pieces while i worked through other episodes, but as i wrote through everything that came up, its shape seemed to fall into four interwoven strands. none of them exist independently of the others so it's difficult to tease them apart, but they're roughly as follows.

strand 1: the title of the episode as an overarching theme. 'from this day forward' is an allusion to marriage vows. using that particular phrase to represent/encompass the episode is an interesting choice, given the number of other possible options from the same text, because this clause serves to define a temporal placement. grammatically speaking, 'from this day' positions us at a point in time that is 'now', while 'forward' indicates onward motion, i.e. 'beyond now'. there is no 'before now' within the parameters set by this subordinate clause. in a sense it severs the past from whatever meaning is made by the main clause to which it's attached. it marks the border where change takes place.

strand 2: walt's lack of interest in sexy times with donna. full disclosure: i've never actually watched the first four minutes of the episode. everything i know about it is secondhand, so there may be details that i'm missing. that said, walt certainly doesn't appear particularly bothered by ultimately not having sex that night/morning. in fact, he seems to give up on the idea quite easily. this impression is reinforced in a later scene with donna when he tells her he and his wife waited to have sex until they were married, then asks, "will you be all right if we just watch a movie tonight?" while the walt longmire lexicon can at times be very complicated to translate, in this case i really can't fathom what it could mean other than "i don't want to have sex with you".

strand 3: the very specific and unprovoked jab walt takes at vic on the first morning of the episode. in 5x06 walt tells dave he wants to settle the lawsuit because "it's about negotiating lies. i don't know how to play that game. [...] i care about being able to get back to doing my job. this lawsuit is a restraining order to keep me from being effective. these people did not elect me to protect myself, dave. i'm here to protect them." yet here in 5x07, when vic expresses her concern that he didn't sleep well because he's worried about the lawsuit, he mentions none of that noble reasoning. instead, he insinuates that his motivation was her deposition.

You okay?

when taken out of the context of their history, the words themselves might seem innocent; they might even seem to be meant as reassurance. in context, though, it's clear they're meant to sting. they imply that her deposition revealed something so shameful he's choosing to settle the lawsuit in order to keep it hidden. he's deliberately trying to make her feel small and guilty and responsible. this would be a dick move at any time, but given their post-deposition conversation in 5x06 it's particularly spiteful. the only motivation i can find for this abrupt swerve is that some kind of connection was made in walt's mind between vic and what happened (or rather didn't happen) with donna earlier that morning. not that vic in any way prompted his lack of, um, fervour with donna, but we certainly have canonical evidence that if walt really wants to get it on, he will get it on, physical discomfort notwithstanding. so what seems to be happening is that, rather than accepting and admitting to himself that he really isn't into donna, somewhere in the depths of his psyche, where all his confusing romantic and sexual vic-related feelings live, walt turns it around to become vic's fault that he didn't care enough to go to more effort to have sex with someone else.

strand 4: marriage as metaphor and symbolism. while marriage as a plot element is hardly unusual or noteworthy in the show, this episode features the concept of marriage as a recurring motif. for starters, there's the obvious parallel between tizz and walt: they're two people whose spouses were murdered. ordinarily this would be an inconsequential detail—walt deals with a lot of spouses of murder victims—but what's interesting here is that both of them are somewhat distanced from their marriages. by that i mean that martha was murdered several years ago and tizz hasn't seen her husband for two or three years. both of them are separated from marriage not only by death but also by time, which connects back to the overarching thesis of 'from this day forward'.

then there's the conversation at the end of the episode that i'm just going to refer to as the "let's not have sex" scene from now on. in it walt uses his marriage to establish what amounts to a barrier between himself and donna. he obviously feels he needs to justify or excuse his new reluctance to have sex with her, but instead of being direct about why, i.e. "it turns out i'm actually not into you", he references his history with martha. this abrupt swerve is probably the only situation in which i feel any compassion for donna. it's got to be confusing, even a little insulting; after all, it's a rejection. despite my belief that she deserves what she gets in every other circumstance, i make an exception here because, consciously or not, walt is being dishonest. by invoking his marriage in this context, he's implying something that's simply not true. to begin with, we know, and obviously walt knows, that he had sex with lizzie ambrose at least once when they were "not really dating", and at no point did he bring up waiting until marriage with her. then of course there's donna's own experience with him: that he was apparently quite willing to bone down when they were basically strangers, perhaps slightly less willing but not opposed to it a few days ago, and on neither occasion did he even hint about waiting. so while his sweet story of What Happened In My Marriage itself is true, what it implies isn't. it's merely a convenient shield for him to hide behind.

and that leads to what's at the heart of this, which is if marriage is the framework then what's inside it? something had to occur for walt to make his 180° spin from attempting sexy times with donna at least twice in the opening scene to basically telling her it's not going to happen at all only days later. i'd never been able to determine what it was because there just didn't seem to be anything that could qualify. of course, the underlying emotional reasoning has been evolving in his unconscious for a long time and we've seen what a messy struggle it's been because even within himself walt is a stubborn bastard. yet, in spite of his sometimes contradictory behaviour, when you take season 5 as a whole, there is an obvious linear progression towards a resolution. those apparent contradictions in behaviour are external indicators of the inner struggle between what he actually wants and what he thinks he should want, etc. which is all fine and dandy but the movement from struggle to resolution to action requires a trigger and i! could! not! find! it!

the problem is that causal relationships in psychology aren't always obvious. sometimes you have to make an inference based on the evidence and then work backwards to prove or disprove it by process of elimination. to that end consider, first, that walt's jab at vic early in the episode serves as the final external evidence of his emotional struggle; second, that the "let's not have sex" scene serves as the initial evidence of said struggle having been resolved. logically, then, the impetus for that resolution must be found at a point occurring chronologically between those two scenes. it also has to contain some kind of personal resonance for walt. now consider the scene in the middle of the episode in which tizz tells walt, "when you love someone as much as i loved tony, even when they're gone you can't help thinking they're gonna walk through the door. at least now i know he can't."

hat, rabbit, ta da!

no, really. that's it. anticlimactic as it seems, this quiet, unassuming moment is the something i could never find. this is the catalyst that enables walt's psyche to finally reconcile the conflicting parts of himself. is there direct textual evidence that this is the moment? nope. there's also no convenient light bulb going off over walt's head; nor is there one of those close-ups used to signify a character's mental breakthrough. yet it's the only plausible answer fitting all the parameters required by the question. additionally, if we examine the structure of the narrative, even the scene's placement—in the middle of the case and of the episode itself—implies its function as some sort of pivot, so that both temporally and thematically it's quite literally central.

but why? it seems like a total non sequitur in relation to what walt is/has been going through. that's why i said causality can be hard to determine. it's like trying to explain the train of thought that begins with a conversation about tying shoelaces and ends with you blurting out something about the donner party. your thoughts make the journey from A to B via logic determined by your individual neural connections and conceptual associations; however, anyone outside your head is going to look at you and say, "where the actual fuck did that come from?" possibly while backing away to a safe distance. (no this has never happened to me why do you ask?) the unconscious functions in a similar way: it obeys its own logic, but that logic is largely inaccessible by direct means. this is why ending up at B, even if you do know the location of A, can appear entirely random and without reason.

so, here's me teasing out the logic of walt's unconscious. to begin with, although tizz only mentions love, she's specifically talking about her husband, and walt is going to comprehend her words within the context of marriage. while (romantic) love and marriage aren't necessarily synonymous to everyone, for him they absolutely are. to walt, that kind of love is inextricably linked to the idea of marriage because his foundational experience took that path. in effect, his relationship with martha is the reference manual by which he navigates romantic love both conceptually and in praxis. that's actually the main reason why i always overlooked this scene: i'd supposed that whatever feelings he was feeling here had to do with martha. after all, walt + marriage = martha in the shorthand of the show. the problem with assuming that association here, though, is that it's lazy thinking. the narrative hasn't referenced or reminded us of martha in quite a while. in fact, the presence of her absence ceased to be an overt theme in walt's life mid-season 4. added to that, tizz isn't talking about her husband's murder; she's talking about the pain of years spent believing that he'd left her and being unable to find closure. her experience has nothing in common with walt's beyond grief and that's such a broad category it's essentially meaningless.

with neither martha nor a direct parallel to act as anchors for this analysis, we need to shift away from boolean-style thinking. ('cause lbr the unconscious is far more quantum than binary anyway.) embracing a more oblique approach, what i find is that walt's unconscious responds to tizz's statement by, in essence, posing its own real life 'compare and contrast' essay question. it asks him/itself, "in the contexts of love, marriage, and the prospective pain of being left, who do you love as much as tizz loved tony?" and since there's no way to consider that question honestly without confronting the pretence walt's been using as a defence mechanism since 4x07, the path he takes to arrive at an answer necessarily addresses and ultimately resolves his inner conflict at the same time. like many things we try to hide from ourselves for protection, what he's forced to admit is ultimately quite simple: the answer to the question is not donna. arriving at that admission is akin to reaching a destination, or the end of the quest, if you will. there's always a bit of an interlude before the next quest begins, and in this case it's taken up by the passage from unconscious to conscious mind. sometimes that sort of thing seems to happen suddenly and all at once, but i believe this is more of a gradual trickle situation. possibly because he's maintained his defences so staunchly and for so long that he needs to ease himself into the truth, though it's equally possible that it's simply the normal processing pace of walt's emotional insights. that would actually explain a lot. either way, by the end of the episode his conscious mind has received enough information to spur him to act on it, and obviously that action takes the form of the "let's not have sex" scene. so although he and donna don't officially "break up" until 5x10, any possibility of a romantic relationship between them effectively ends here.

bam! *mic drop* (idk i've just always wanted to do that)

frēonds, it seems you can take the girl out of academia, but you can't take academia out of the girl, 'cause i've got an itch in the back of my brain saying there's got to be a conclusion to wrap everything up. except conclusions and i have never really seen eye to metaphorical eye and this is not an academic paper, self. instead i'm going cheerfully rogue by introducing a new topic only tangentially related to my central thesis. because of reasons, that's why. and, weirdly enough, it's about donna. i know, right? but, see, the thing i've come to understand in the >3 months and >12K words it's taken me to get all this out is that donna's obvious role as a plot device isn't the excursion into horribly lazy writing i've always taken it for. i'm simultaneously grateful for that realisation and pissed off about it as evidence of how much she messes me up because i have degrees in this shit and i should be able to spot something that blatant at a distance even without my glasses on.

but the point is that donna's arc is heavy-handed by design because she's intended as a blunt instrument of dramatic irony. that's her whole purpose. her defining characteristic is being undefined not because the writers couldn't be bothered fleshing her out but by necessity. she's not a creature of the narrative, merely a tool in service to it, and her function is as a vessel, a blank canvas, a metaphor. she has to be explicitly unknowable in order to serve as the embodiment of fantasy, lies, and secrets; and as the manifestation of the familiar comforts of guilt and denial; the demands of the past; the tyranny of should*. as such, there's no means by which she could be more an agent of the unconscious unless she were an outright hallucination. i mean, come on, walt's impetus to pursue a relationship with her in the first place is due to a fucking dream.

in the conscious world, i seriously doubt he gives donna a moment's thought after the case in 4x05 is closed. having been confronted by the prospect of losing vic again, he's still suffering from jealousy and its consequences. the rift between them continues to increase largely due to him punishing both vic and himself: withdrawing from her like a wounded animal retreating to its den, except in this case he retreats into himself. it's confusing and hurtful for vic, but it's maybe even more damaging to walt himself since he's already done a fantastic job of alienating/disconnecting from his other sources of emotional support. but while he's not ready to acknowledge his feelings, let alone address them, withdrawing into himself doesn't allow him to escape them, either. then suddenly his unconscious mind provides him with a convenient avenue for that escape: donna. he can't allow himself to feel what he feels for vic, but he can shift the focus of those feelings by pouring them into the empty vessel of a stranger (transference leading to the grand narrative in 5x01-02). when that fails (quite spectacularly, i must say), he shifts to (an attempt at) recreating the past. post-5x03 he and donna are just somehow in a relationship despite having no history beyond a few conversations, one attempt at sex, and a traumatic assault. it's like he's taken "fake it 'til you make it" as relationship advice. donna, still being a complete unknown, poses no emotional threat or danger of contradiction, and for as long as she remains that way, walt can fill all the empty space with whatever he wants her, and them, to be. on the surface, it looks the way he believes a relationship should.

of course, in reality it's impossible to actually have a relationship with a complete unknown, with a construct, a metaphor, a blank canvas, a dream. and since that's all donna is, in reality it's impossible to have a relationship with her. we're practically hit over the head with it in 5x01-02 as walt's grand narrative plays out and crumbles right in front of us. what this reveals is that the story arc between walt and donna is never about walt and donna; it's only ever about walt. the narrative is showing us an external representation of the internal journey he's undertaking and the choice he ultimately has to make. it's like a live demonstration of the processes that usually stay mostly inside our heads, but here it plays out in a very literal way, so that the conceptual choice between whether to remain within the safe and stable confines of the construct or to embrace the frightening and uncertain fluctuations of reality is made manifest in a choice between two women.

is it really a choice, though? when i initially began to really think about the idea, i remembered the scene in 3x05 in which vic expresses being conflicted regarding her concerns about branch's behaviour. the situation is eerily reminiscent of her experience with bobby donellato and causes her to doubt both her past actions and her instincts in the present. she asks walt what he thinks she should've done in philly, if maybe she should've kept her mouth shut instead of reporting what she knew.

walt: doesn't matter. vic: it doesn't matter. why not? walt: 'cause i don't think you had a choice. looking the other way and keeping quiet, that's not who you are.

i kept coming back to that's not who you are. this is the same episode that begins with the heraclitus quote "character is fate", the idea that who you are determines what you do. so walt's argument is that, although ostensibly faced with a choice between two actions, vic's decision was predetermined because, being who she is, she could not have chosen otherwise. in that light, what seems like choice is, in fact, a process of the conscious mind catching up to what the unconscious mind already knows, and the presence of options to choose between is for all intents and purposes an illusion, or perhaps a disguise. it's like a magic trick the unconscious has to perform to allow the conscious mind a sense of having control over its actions, when all the time it's really just following the path already laid to a foregone conclusion. if walt was much younger i might describe his journey as a bildungsroman; or maybe it qualifies as an allegory, though it's neither strictly moral nor spiritual. either way, the outcome of his "choice" was inevitable because that's who he is. he was always going to choose reality over fantasy. he was always going to choose vic.

THE END (finally!)

*'the tyranny of should' is a quote from https://enneasite.com/trifix/. it's associated with tritype 126, whereas walt is a 146, but i do think the particular descriptor fits here. if you don't know or care about the enneagram then this will mean nothing to you but don't worry. it doesn't actually matter; i just think attribution is important.

[diloph]

Pardon me, but it seemed from some of your posts on KOTM that you didn't like Mark Russell that much. I know he was a cliche everyman type, but what exactly made him any worse than others in these movies?

I apologise if this isn’t my most coherent answer. I’m a little bit stressed at the moment, trying to finish the next chapter of IIID and create relevant, if poorly assembled memes before the Invader Zim movie is released.

To be honest, some of it is a bit tongue-in cheek. Making fun of the most visible character in the film, considering that he hates Godzilla with a burning passion, is just a little bit of fun. It’s like how I refer to Rick Stanton with disdain sheerly because he’s somewhat based on Rick Sanchez, who I don’t dislike either.

The film isn’t about Mark: King of the Fathers anyway, so if I completely despised him, I could just zone out during his scenes, or skip them when the DVD comes out.

But… some of it wasn’t so jokey. He’s still an okayish protagonist, I’ve got nothing against the actor himself and his acting is fine. Still, Mark was loud, abrasive and hated Godzilla; you know, things that grate on my nerves when it comes to a 2+ hour Godzilla movie and that made the character… trying.

We’ve had them before, but Godzilla was generally more villainous and obviously, we feel sympathy and camaraderie with him as the title character and we are here to see him do cool things. Having a human protagonist who hates our cool monster protagonist makes sense in universe, but ultimately, it’s not what we’re here for. We can tune that out.

As for what makes me dislike Mark… for starters, he’s kind of a prick. I once saw somebody describe him as the type of guy who thinks that if he speaks loudly enough, shouts enough, he’ll get his way. I can’t say I blame them, in that first meeting with MONARCH, he’s downright hostile.

He’s also, for whatever reason, the guy that everybody turns to in the crisis. He might have a background in bioacoustics like his ex-wife and animal behaviour besides, but apparently nobody else at MONARCH is capable of doing things without the express instructions or approval of everyman Indiana Jones. Military procedures, common sense, the desperate plan to revive Godzilla; everybody seems to defer to him really quickly.

It took me out of the movie. I understand that he’s meant to be our relatable protagonist, but it’s a little bit jarring and it happens multiple times. Mark is either issuing instructions or is along where he shouldn’t be, given control of a situation where by all rights he shouldn’t have any other than spur of the moment hero stuff.

It’s like he believes that nobody has any common sense and frustratingly, a couple of times the narrative agrees with him or at least proves his actions right. For example, when Colonel Foster tries to brief MONARCH on the actions of Jonah and the terrorists, he shoots down her theory and proceeds to go on a rant as to why we should Destroy All Monsters.

He’s right, as Jonah wants to free King Ghidorah, but he has this frustrating “protagonist only” habit of noticing threads that other characters really should (nobody seems to notice that the Titans are attacking capital cities or at least very densely populated areas until he points it out), then speaks about it like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

Which when MONARCH is meant to be staffed with scientists of multiple disciplines veers back into the incredulous. I can suspend disbelief when it comes to giant monsters, I don’t excuse people not seeing what’s in front of them.

And as for the moments where he really shouldn’t be issuing instructions, take a look at when Rodan is freed by Emma Russell. Serizawa instantly defers to him (I think that Mark might have been his senior before he left MONARCH and BOY do I want to talk about that plan later on) to cook up a plan instead of… himself (Director of MONARCH, or at least I assume so) or again, Foster, who controls the planes and men he wants to send at the giant pterodactyl that just shrugged off a molten lava flow.

Given his characterisation as an angry, driven father who is desperately looking out for his family after being bereaved by monsters and is butting heads with the scientists at MONARCH, I think it was an attempt by Legendary to recreate Joe Brody. Bryan Cranston’s character in the previous film was killed off too early and was featured in a lot of the trailers, giving a wonderful performance. When he died to be replaced by his son, Ford, it caused a backlash as a result.

Mark being that angry, snarky character definitely shares some similarities. But while Joe was a crusader for the truth and more than a little bit obsessive, he was trying to pierce the veil as to why his wife died, without realising that it drove his son away from him. He was trying to reveal this great coverup to the world and spent the rest of his life doing so with such conviction that he appeared crazy.

Mark… doesn’t have this driving force. He lives in a post-San Francisco universe. Monsters Exist and everybody knows it.

Now, that’s not to say he doesn’t have reasons for acting as he did. He lost his son and has driven a wedge in between his family via his drinking problem (but let’s face it, compared to unleashing the Titans by starting off with Space Dragon Satan, he’s taken it comparatively well) but he acts as if he’s the only person who has ever lost something to Godzilla and the rest of the monsters.

Even when that happens to characters in the film, Mark still acts like that and it doesn’t make him look like the grim, determined hero, it just makes him look like an obnoxious dick. It isn’t his way of coping with the trauma of loss, he just… does it.

Part of me does get why he’s annoyed and angry with MONARCH’s attitude towards the Titans. He’s correct that they’ve been keeping secrets, dangerous ones at that, but equally the kaiju are living things. They’re dangerous and unpredictable, yes, but MONARCH have been taking precautions; killswitches are present in even the supposedly benevolent Titan’s chambers like Mothra and as far as they know, all of the Titans bar Godzilla are dormant and those that aren’t are kept in check by him. Had the Ghidorah Crisis never arose, we may never have seen any other Titans for the rest of human history.

But he treats everybody around him like an idiot with little to no prompting. Mark is brought on as a consultant and he then proceeds to dominate the scene, either through his decisions in universe or the part written for him out of it. He gets the last word, the last say on a plan or a witty remark or whatever.

And some of that costs lives. Actually, no, a LOT of it costs lives.

So, to start off, when the operation in Antarctica goes tits up, Mark grabs a handgun and goes into Outpost 32 by himself (though what he and the central nervous system of MONARCH were doing on the ground and not supervising from the Argo remains to be seen, but I digress). He stops Jonah and the terrorists on the walkway… screwing up Foster’s attempt to take down Jonah, forcing her to snipe his henchman in order to save Mark’s life.

This leads to King Ghidorah waking up. Not going to extend him a great deal of blame for this one, as with a sniper present, Emma or Madison would have been forced (or “forced” in the former’s case) to retrieve the detonator and the Six-Eyed, Six-Horned, Flying-Golden-People-Eater would have gotten loose regardless. Hell, I spotted clues that he was gearing up to wake up without Emma Russell’s help.

In a narrative sense, its his character that also sets up Vivienne Graham’s death. If he hadn’t been stuck in the tangle of wires and metal aboard the Osprey, she would never have needed to stay behind to help and subsequently got singled out by King Ghidorah.

I’d definitely agree that this is more of a personal thing on my part, as I’d wanted to see more of Vivienne’s character thanks to her actress’, Sally Hawkins’ work in The Shape Of Water and that in the previous film. But in a way, he is still sort of responsible for her being written out and replaced with the vastly less interesting replacement characters of Rick and Mor- erm, Sam.

That said, I know that Ghidorah is 100% to blame in universe. He killed her because he was a bastard and I wanted to him to be a bastard, so the monkey’s paw curled a finger there, so that’s egg on my face. It certainly did wonders for establishing him as a monstrous villain who we love to hate.

I’m not wholly unsympathetic to Mark. Like I said before, the pain of loss over the 2014 attacks hurt him badly and the film doesn’t shy away from this. Mark’s descent into alcoholism is noted by both himself and his family as a rough time for all involved, part of the reason he left MONARCH in the first place. Having his daughter and ex-wife seemingly kidnapped by dangerous ecoterrorists who plan to unleash giant monsters to mass-cull humanity also wears his patience thin, as you might expect it.

But he keeps this… horrible attitude throughout the movie. The world is literally going to shit, another monster is about to be unleashed and he asks if MONARCH have had enough common sense to evacuate the town of Isla Del Mara and if Rodan has had a cutesy name all picked out from mythology for him ahead of time.

Fuck me, if I was Serizawa, having just lost my protégé and quite a few well-meaning soldiers who were trying to rescue somebody who turned out to be a massive ecoterrorist nutjob, I would have floored him. There is a time and a place for snarky comments and it is not after at least twenty people you worked with are dead and BILLIONS MORE MAY FOLLOW.

But now, one of the points that really got me disliking Mark Russell follows here. The scenes that start at Isla Del Mara and the luring of Rodan to King Ghidorah, all the way up until the detonation of the Oxygen Destroyer.

Rodan emerges from the volcano and asides from spreading his wings and roaring, doesn’t do much. He spots the incoming Argo and its entourage and narrows his eyes. Uh oh! Surely, at this point, the dastardly destruction god would leap from his perch in an attempt to chase this challenger from his territory?

Um… no. No, actually, he stays put.

Now, I get that Rodan might not have stayed that way for very long. From the ensuing chase scene, I can gather that the Monsterverse’s version of Rodan is a bit of a dick, but he still didn’t start the fight.

Instead, what happens is that Serizawa asks Mark what they should do and Mark comes up with the plan to get Rodan to fight King Ghidorah in the hopes that one will kill the other and that would at least solve one of their problems.

Sound in theory, yes, but it is not sound in execution. At all.

So, that little town that Mark kicked up quite a fuss about? As you might have noticed, it’s lying between Rodan and the Argo and is part of the reason that the big ol’ bird should be lured away, to complete the evacuation.

Mark’s brilliant plan has the jets surrounding the Argo to blast Rodan and 180 the superplane in order to get him to chase… without factoring in THE TOWN BETWEEN THEM AT ALL.

I get King Ghidorah was closing in. I get that Rodan is a wild, unpredictable animal who could go off the chain at any moment. But there was absolutely no time to get the ARGO to move a little ways around the island before beginning the attack? At worst, Rodan would make a dive for them anyway, but that’s what the jets are sent in to distract him are for. To grab his attention and then lure him to the Argo, which would then take him to Tricephalopathic Terror Town anyway.

As a result, Rodan utterly OBLITERATES Isla Del Mara simply by passing over it and so many of the people they were trying to evacuate die a horribly pointless death. It never once passes his mind (or let’s not beat him down solely) or that of anybody aboard the Argo that a creature with wings that size that can fly would generate an unbelievable amount of force simply by flapping once to create lift? He’s also dripping lava, so even if the hurricane level winds that follow him weren’t an issue, having something with that amount of residual molten rock passing overhead doesn’t seem like a healthy thing to expose Isla Del Mara to.

Further dislike ensues when one of the miraculously surviving Ospreys issues a mayday during the Rodan/Ghidorah fight and the cargo doors are jammed. Mark the Hero leaps up with gritted teeth and desire to get things done, asking the way to the hangar. After all, he’s had miraculous problem solving abilities so far, why not?

“Which way to the hangar?” he asks.

Sam, a character who I’m even less fond of, stands up and offers to show him the way. Fairly brave, considering that the Argo is rattling like a leaf in a thunderstorm as two daikaiju battle nearby. I found the character annoying and sort of… pointless, but I admire that bit of bravery.

“Anybody else?” Mark asks, making a face.

Dude. The man just offered to help you and people need that help. Get off your high horse, swallow your pride and just go without comment. God knows how many people your stupid plan just got killed.

The two run to the hangar and a crewman explains the door is jammed. Mark decides to drop a hanging Osprey onto the doors to get them off… without suggesting it to the crewman. He just fucking goes for the buttons, expecting his usual “my plan will work” attitude to succeed.

At last, one of Mark’s harebrained schemes is met with reasonable resistance for the first time and the crewman attempts to wrestle him off, before Mark Is Proven Right Again. But even suggesting it, getting a refusal and then doing it is more heroic than just going for the damn buttons like a lunatic.

He would have looked damn stupid if the weight of the Osprey wasn’t enough to open the doors and it instead just blocked them. The falling aircraft also almost hits the airborne one with its civilian payload as it also wasn’t warned, so again, he took an unnecessary risk that came off lucky because he couldn’t find the time to say “I have an idea”.

To round out the trifecta of what makes me dislike Mark in these scenes is what happens when the rest of the scene plays out:

Gravity Beams spew from Ghidorah’s mouth and blast Rodan into the ocean, defeated. Not satisfied with just this victory, the Golden Demise locks his terrible gaze on the Argo and with a sickening, gleeful cackle, closes in on the plane and its freshly arrived civilians.

All are stunned into a horrified silence. Even Mark, who has been having Unreasonable Protagonist Luck up until this point, bricks it.

“Oh, God.” he pleads.

God answers and he erupts from the ocean.

With a deafening roar, the mighty form of Godzilla slams into King Ghidorah with the force of a collapsing mountain. His dynamic, mid-air leap is enough to drag the foul hydra into the depths of the ocean and Godzilla proceeds to hold him there.

Ghidorah attempts to resurface and fly away, or at least lash out at the Argo in spite, but there Godzilla is again, yanking the head back underwater, biting and rolling like some mountainous crocodile, pinning the alien dragon under his weight.

Unbeknownst to our hero (Godzilla, obviously), the military has deployed the terrible Oxygen Destroyer in an attempt to Destroy All Monsters, giving only a cursory warning to the Argo to get out of there and fast. Mark makes his way onto the bridge and is informed of the decision.

“But he… he just saved us!” says Mark.

No, wait, he didn’t say that. Hold on…

“They… they didn’t even let us get clear?” says Mark.

Uh, no, sorry, trying again.

“Well, it’s not the worst idea.” he says.

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUCK. YOU.

I get that you’re mad with Godzilla. I get that as the title character with a long history, we root for the kaiju more than anybody else. I get that he took your son from you, but twice… TWICE NOW, he has saved you and the people around you with PERFECTLY TIMED ENTRANCES. Even if it was just a coincidence, I’d be at least slightly more forgiving of the lion that killed my brother by accident if it jumped in front of a tiger that was slaughtering people left and right before it leapt at me.

Twice.

There’s not even a hesitant “oh, but he did help us”. Not even a shocked disbelief that the military has a weapon that they think will kill not just one, but two (because I’m willing to bet he thought Rodan was dead) Titans, much less them firing it without warning right on top of their position. Just a “well, fuck ‘em” shrug.

Godzilla nearly dies, Ghidorah seizes control of the Titans and sets about starting the apocalypse. Finally, Serizawa says what I’ve been thinking for quite a while and says “Well, it looks like you got your wish, Mark.” with a mixture of anger, sadness and disgust.

I could go on; the Titans are rampaging and Mark goes to leave Castle Bravo to strike out on his own and rescue Madison, despite the fact that he knows that Emma will probably try to keep her safe in whatever secure hidey hole she and the Kaiju Cultists have holed up in. In the novel, he’s outright going to steal one (also his first instinct when confronted by an alpha wolf in the novel, is to blow it away with a sidearm, before realising that’s absolutely callous and horrible and tries submissive behaviour tactics instead. So hey, Movie Mark is a slightly better person than Book Mark).

Mark suggests the nuke plan and goes down with Serizawa, Chen and Rick Sanch- Stanton. Everything goes sideways and he doesn’t even fucking blink when Serizawa decides that somebody’s gotta do it manually.

Back aboard the Argo? How does he break the news to Sam, the only member of the MONARCH team that wasn’t there? Shoving Serizawa’s notebook into his chest, saying that they better not screw this up and not even fucking pausing to tell him what happened.

Mark’s self-centred attitude keeps coming back and it gets people killed. My second time viewing this film, during the two confrontation scenes with Godzilla, I wasn’t getting the “There is a massive threat in my territory!” vibe from the King of the Monsters, I was getting a “Who the hell is this asshole and why does he hate me so much?” feeling from Our Glorious Boy.

It’s a recurring theme too. Mark experiences loss, but he feels as if his loss is the only one that matters. Both he and Emma do this to Madison and it makes me mad that in trying to cope with their own loss, they shunned the one remaining child they had left. By the time they realise that, the world is literally about to end and they’re still bickering at one another.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m very vocally critical of Mark and Emma’s treatment of Madison. Both she and Mark decide to put their own ways of coping with their son’s death (constructing a device to allow for the orchestration of mass human death and convincing oneself that it’s the correct course of action/drinking booze) above Madison’s own well being.

When the chips are down, of course, they care for her and ultimately risk their lives to save her, but… congratulations for the bare minimum parenting, guys? Physically, they want her out of harm, but mentally she should either fall into line with Emma’s thinking or be there for Mark.

Godzilla and Mothra feel more like her bloody parents in this film (Godzilla saving her life when she was facing down the literal fucking devil and Mothra’s gentle interaction at the temple and reviving her from death when she appeared to have died in the novel) than the other Russells do. Both fill the archetypes of “Father” (tough, stern, but ultimately your protector) and “Mother” (gentle, nurturing and wonderful) better than the people do.

…yeah, alright, that one is a stretch, but I had that idea a while ago and I wanted to put it to paper.

In short, I’m mad at Sad Mad Dad because his character shoves the waaaaaaaay more interesting, compelling and sympathetic characters of Serizawa, Graham and his own daughter (and the actual goddamned non-monster hero of the movie), Madison out of the way of main character-ness, just so we can have somebody who is about as pleasant to interact with as a cactus.

King of the Monsters is a film that has a lot of sacrifice in it, good and bad. Emma wants to sacrifice most of humanity to save the planet. Serizawa sacrifices himself to save Godzilla and thus, the planet. Mothra sacrifices her own life to save Godzilla from King Ghidorah and so does Emma, to save her family and as redemption for her sins.

Even Madison was also ready to at least risk her own life to distract the Titans and King Ghidorah if it would even slightly disrupt his efforts to conquer the planet. She goes against terrorists, her own mother and a demonic, nigh-omnipotent being of malicious intent and faces him down with a defiant roar of her own when it looks like the end.

But Mark doesn’t sacrifice. He wants his daughter back, but he never takes a hit. Other people die for him, as a result of him and he doesn’t even recognise it. The world is at stake and he keeps his focus on his own desires, ignorant to the people around him because only his loss matters.

He might not be the genocidal monster in the film that Emma was, that Jonah and of course, Ghidorah certainly were. But he has a very narrow and dispassionate world-view and outside of certain cartoons with comedic circumstances, I don’t care much for that at all.

TL;DR: Madison should have been the central protagonist, because I like her more.

[iturbide]

Also please publish a list of your aus to whip up the rest of your fans into a frenzy 😉

pfffff okay to try and keep this at least marginally reasonable I’m going to limit descriptions to one/two lines

Crown of Shadows/Shrouded Throne: A split-path narrative where, to stop the civil war raging in Plegia, Robin comes to Ylisse to beg aid from Exalt Emmeryn.    After getting drafted by accident into the Shepherds, the Plegian and the Ylissean prince become fast friends – and very soon, something more.

Cursed Fate: Following Robin’s death, Chrom takes his body back to Plegia for burial; when a disembodied whisper confirms that there may be a chance to restore Robin’s life, Chrom goes on a quest through the Grimleal nation to bring together Grima’s remains.

Affectionately Yours: Accepting Plegia’s invitation to visit in his sister’s stead, Chrom rapidly comes to realize that everything he thought he knew about the halidom’s neighbor is at best a wild exaggeration thanks to the guidance of Plegia’s sovereign, Robin.

Accursed Divine: Robin is trapped in a curse that transforms her by day into a fell beast.  Once the curse is broken, the ensuing political drama follows Robin and Chrom uniting their countries after Robin’s ascension to the Plegian throne. 

Sigh No More: Arranged marriage AU where Chrom is married to Robin, who due to Validar’s ritual in her early life bears several Grima-esque features (including wings, tail, horns, etc). 

The Future Built Upon the Past: A look at the events of the doomed timeline and how it led to the course of events that eventually led Lucina to alter the course of fate. 

Butterfly: A split-path narrative where, after ascending to the Plegian throne, Robin reaches out to Emmeryn in an attempt to forge diplomatic ties that have long been neglected.  Initially distrustful of the Plegian emissary, Chrom is forced to come to terms with his own prejudices (and eventually his deeper feelings). 

Beyond Twilight’s Veil: When Risen begin appearing in Ylisse, Chrom ventures into Plegia on Emmeryn’s behalf to try to find a joint solution, meeting and readily befriending Robin along the way.  When things go wrong, leaving Robin half-transformed and Validar dead, the Shepherds are forced to flee Gangrel’s pursuit; two years later, Robin claims the Plegian throne and reaches out to Ylisse in an attempt to rebuild lost friendships. 

Pride and Joy: Raised in Plegia under Mustafa’s care, Robin is drafted into Validar’s assassination attempt on Emmeryn – but decides that the orders should not be fulfilled and defects, saving the Exalt’s life.  In the trials to follow, Robin tries to keep the Ylisseans safe from Gangrel’s forces without exposing her own wavering loyalties. 

Speaker for the Dead: Raised under Validar’s cruel abuse, Robin exists as little more than a hollow shell, surviving each day on the battlefield.  When Chrom reaches out to him on the battlefield and offers a glimpse of something better than the threat of death, Robin cautiously accepts and gradually begins to recover from the traumas of Validar’s upbringing. 

Prisoner of War: The Exalt’s war has left Plegia in ruins, its citizens scattered and the remnants of the army using guerrilla tactics to oppose the crusade.  When his father calls him to the front, Chrom is captured by the Plegian resistance, and rapidly discovers that everything he thought he knew about Plegia (and the Heart of Grima who took him captive) is wrong. 

Twist of Fate: A role reversal AU where Chrom awakens in Plegia with no memory and Robin finds him.  With the Exalt mounting a new push in his crusade, Chrom struggles with the questions about who he might have been before – and with his growing feelings for the Plegian who took him in. 

Manwearer: After becoming separated from his mother, Robin is raised by the taguel of Panne’s warren.  On hearing about a threat to the Exalt’s life, the warren mobilizes to her aid, and Robin and Panne ally with the Shepherds to uncover the deeper mystery behind the attack. 

As You Are: Robin comes to Ylisse on a diplomatic mission, hoping to warn the Exalt of a potential threat.  When an attack leaves the Plegian blind, Chrom confesses his feelings – only to be rebuffed as Robin believes that the feelings are born of guilt, leaving Chrom to grapple with what he fears are unrequited feelings.

Hard Reset: A bad-end Heroes AU where Muspell invades Askr and wipes out the Order of Heroes – but before Surtr can kill Kiran, they fire Breidablik, which somehow transports them to another Zenith.  Taken in by the Emblians, Kiran sets about trying to prevent the ruin that befell the world they were first summoned to. 

Kintsugi: A Golden Deer-based Three Houses fix-it AU, where Claude decides from the outset of his reunion with Byleth they’re going to save as many lives as possible.  

BONUS

Smoke and Mirrors: Pokemon AU where Robin and her Zoroark Reflet (who prefers a human guise that passes for her brother) join with Chrom, a Pokemon Ranger branching out into competitive training; and his sister Lissa, an aspiring pokemon medic.   This brings them into conflict with the Grimleal who are hunting for the Legendary Pokemon Giratina – a pokemon that Robin and Reflet have a very curious connection to. 

Design Defect: A modern AU where Robin is the son of the head of the Grimleal mafia who enters Ylisstol University and meets Chrom, son of Exalt Corp’s CEO and the heir to the family company.  While Robin might have some ulterior motives for getting close to Chrom at first, he quickly gets in over his head. 

Second Chances: After Chrom is summoned to Askr and finds the tactician he lost in the conflict with Grima, the two are finally free to have the relationship they were so long denied during their life in Ylisse. 

A House Divided: A speculative AU exploring what might have been had Alm and Celica not attacked Grima in the Thabes Labyrinth and instead took the dragon in.  He eventually befriends Tiki, and the two eventually come into conflict with Naga, who wants to destroy the abomination she fears is corrupting her daughter (and in so doing destroys her relationship with Tiki).

Heroes Canon: The constantly evolving situation in Zenith, which includes the dragon creche and the curious cases of villains truly going Hero. 

Pre-Timeskip Fix-It: A Black Eagles-based Three Houses fix-it AU where Byleth gets to shut down Edelgard’s alarming rhetoric every time she opens her mouth, and the Imperial princess stumbles her way through the process of becoming a better person. 

Spire Project: A Three Houses canon-divergent AU where the question of “what would have happened if Edelgard had hired Miklan to kill Claude and Dimitri at the start of the year?” snowballs into madness (when the summary is 17.5k words and 30 pages long, you know it’s gonna be a monster). 

Daycare AU (collab with AcquaSole): When single father Chrom switches his young daughter into Robin’s daycare center, he quickly finds himself getting close to the soft-spoken Plegian that Lucina has gotten so attached to. 

Feles Regem Aspeciat (collab with citadelity): Naga has possessed Chrom and taken over rule in the halidom.  Robin volunteers to become the inside man for the resistance in the hopes of finding a means to free Chrom from the divine’s control.

War Crimes (collab with anankos): The Exalt of Ylisse becomes willing host to Naga’s power in a bid to wipe Plegia off the map, but the Fell Dragon’s return puts the war in a deadlock.  Chrom is kidnapped and brought to Plegia in a desperate bid to open diplomatic channels, but when that fails he ends up as as a guest and becomes unlikely friends with Robin, the son of a Plegian tactician (who has more than a few secrets).

Assassin’s Creed: Awakening: The result of me playing too much Assassin’s Creed.  When Emmeryn is kidnapped and slated to become a Grimleal sacrifice, Chrom and the Shepherds rush to save her – only her rescue comes at Plegian hands, instead.  Defying his crusading father, Chrom chooses to stand by Robin and ends up embroiled in a millennia-old conflict between secret forces. 

Sibling AU: Grima as Robin’s protective older sibling.  When Emmeryn invites the recently-crowned king of Plegia to Ylisse for diplomatic discussions, Grima sneaks his younger brother along to show him the world he’s been missing, and both unexpectedly find new friends in what they long believed were enemy lands.  (Also woe betide poor Chrom when it comes to dating.)

Promare AU: I saw Promare.  It was great!  So much so that my brain folded Awakening’s setting and characters up all nice and neat and shoved them into Promare’s narrative arc.  And also it’s Chrobin because that’s who I am as a person.

Cardcaptor Lissa: Rewatching Cardcaptor Sakura blindsided me with the realization that Lissa would make a perfect Cardcaptor and things spiraled from there.

Vampire AU: Robin is a charming young man hired on to be Chrom’s manservant and bodyguard; unbeknownst to anyone, he hides a secret (vampiric) affliction. 

Mermaid AU: Everyone’s mermaids what else do you want from me

Life Goes On: My friend wrote a thing and it made me want to write things for the thing it’s all anankos’ fault i’m writing promare stuff now

[bthump]

what are the things you like and dislike about the '97 anime and the films?

ty for asking, i’m just gonna write a few long lists lol

97 anime likes:

the animation, including the like, yk the more detailed stills they pan over in place of action or to punctuate important moments, i love it

the gorgeous backgrounds

most of the colour choices. red eclipse, femto’s blue eyes, casca’s skintone, griffith’s mauve clothes, etc.

how close it is to the manga. like, it’s a solid adaption just by virtue of making very few changes.

so like, most of it really, because i like the manga

special mention to the entire lead up to the eclipse from griffith’s reality break to the sacrifice tho, because i think that was all pretty damn perfect. it’s the most important scene and they did it right.

actually also shout out to casca’s flashback to griffith and the dead kid, gennon, the river scene, all that. another difficult v emotional sequence that they nailed imo.

griffith thinking about how he “loves” guts during the monologue

skipped most of the griffith/charlotte sex scene iirc which i approve of

the glimpse of black swordsman guts in ep 1. it’s not perfect but it’s way better than the ovas starting w/ 15 yr old guts

the opening and closing themes. fucking love both songs ngl

also the opening monologue. never get tired of hearing it

the score

the portrayal of griffith was honestly pretty solid imo. i have very few issues there. and lbr that’s important lol

97 anime dislikes:

not a big fan of griffith or guts’ character designs.

just about everything that isn’t identical to the manga is a change for the worse

turned griffith’s scratch marks into that giant unexplained scar

adding extra scenes where casca is secretly impressed with guts’ skills in battle in an attempt to build up their relationship better, which instead just made casca look unfair for still being a dick to him for 3 years and made guts stupidly gary stu-ish

obviously the straightforwardly romantic portrayal of guts and casca’s relationship

through several seemingly minor changes (eg, skipping guts’ night of self-doubt after he leaves, giving guts’ stay with godo its own half-episode, making guts inviting casca along super romantic rather than the incredibly casual and assholish way he does it in the manga, etc) it makes Guts’ dream seem legitimately noble and worthwhile, with none of the like… implicit critique the manga has. like honestly it completely fucks up what i consider one of the central themes of the story lol

the pre eclipse stuff also fails to sell guts’ sense of regret - through things like playing guts’ theme while judeau is telling guts to leave, not repeating guts’ statement of regret after casca tells him to leave again, the tone remains consistently in favour of guts’ dream. wrong and bad.

like it really reads like the suggested tragedy is that guts doesn’t get the chance to ditch griffith with judeau and take off with casca and the raiders lol

also fucks it up by never directly mentioning guts’ csa trauma

also fucks it up by losing guts’ self-destructive single-minded urge to fight monsters that we saw thru the wyald stuff. i’m not gonna say that losing wyald was a bad decision, but they should’ve at least moved erika suggesting that guts just wants to fight zodd again to the fucking waterfall scene in question, which they portrayed completely sans zodd discussion, completely sans implication of the self-destructiveness of guts’ dream

like in the manga he nearly gets killed by the falling logs and just laughs it off like a dumbass while erika is concerned and suggests that guts is driven by something irrational and not actually a ~noble~ dream, ie, wanting to fight zodd again (ie, going deeper, his csa trauma), while in the anime we get a 2nd scene where he successfully slices through the logs as a super basic symbol of growth and a narrative pat on guts’ back that shouldn’t be there!

honestly just fucking everything about the portrayal of guts’ dream lol it just takes it at face value in a way the manga consistently never did and always undermined and critiqued, and it bugs the hell out of me.

guts is just drawn in a way that makes him look angry way too often and he often feels ooc to me bc of it. like he lacks a lot of the warmth he has in the manga imo

showing that griffith is awake when guts says “i’ll stay too” even tho in the manga those words are placed over a panel of him asleep for a reason like, ffs

lots of other random nitpicky details that only i give a fuck about because my opinions and feelings about the story are too strong lol. like not showing griffith’s face when he asks if guts thinks he’s cruel

oh huge one: moving the scene where the torturer rips off griffith’s behelit from about a day after he was imprisoned to right before his rescue. completely trivializes griffith’s torture because it still looks like he’s been in there for a day at most

why on earth did it end where it ended????????????? who’s bright idea was that? the perfect ending is skull knight riding tf out with guts and casca and femto not killing them, but then they also cut out skull knight’s first appearance so idfk man.

oh some downplaying of griffguts, like i can’t complain too much about this because it was still p homoerotic, but things like omitting guts assuming griffith wants to fuck him right before their first duel. boo.

ultimately at the end of the day as much as i do genuinely like the anime, it’s not telling quite the same story the manga was - the story it’s telling is more boring and basic. but because it sticks so close to the manga the good story still shines through? it just means there’s inconsistent tone choices and stuff, like the aforementioned grievances.

it’s like, they kept casca’s diatribe at guts line for line while she’s screaming that griffith needed him and a man can’t live on dreams alone, but they don’t extend that train of thought to guts going off to pursue his dream, while the manga does.

anyway despite that giant list of dislikes i still think the anime is pretty fantastic overall. i just also like, blame it for a lot of wrong fandom takes lol.

movie likes:

character designs! honestly imo everyone looked pretty great.

they played up the homoeroticism and i appreciate that

illustrating griffith being torn between guts and his dream through that lovely moment when he catches guts when he nearly falls off the stairs right before he catches charlotte, and in a more romantically suggestive way

the whole scene where griffith shows up at charlotte’s window thoroughly improved on the manga, so hats off there. loved how completely out of it he was to the point where he barely realized where he was and immediately turned to leave when charlotte was like ‘woah dude wtf,’ love that charlotte was the one to ask him to stay and then physically move his hand back to her tit, love how emphatically griffith was thinking about guts during that sex scene, etc. like it’s still not perfect, but it is a vast improvement.

griffith showing up in person after the hundred man fight was a nice touch

it was cool that they got a lot of the same english vas from the anime dub back, and they all did a gr8 job. like it’s a pretty good dub imo.

i liked that they moved ‘the crystalization of your last tear shed’ to after guts’ post-eclipse breakdown

compared to the anime at least gtsca was more low-key and chill rather than dramatically romantic. still don’t want it there, and still not as… unromantic as the manga, but i’ll take what i can get

the animation during griffith’s transformation into femto, yk that whole sequence, was cool

slan’s english voice was super sexy

ummmmm i feel like they conveyed the whole dreams are stupid theme, and guts’ decision to leave being a mistake, better than the anime? like i got the sense that the ova ppl recognized that was a theme, at least. i’d have to watch them again to really be sure of that tho

movie dislikes:

GRIFFITH’S. NARRATIVE.

like holy fuck they completely destroyed his character lmao

i cannot believe

no backstory! no tombstone of flame! no ‘do you think i’m cruel?’ THAT WAS THE REASON HE MADE THE SACRIFICE FFS HOW DO YOU SKIP IT????

no dead kid angst, gennon only in vague implication, no self harm - oh no wait we saw self inflicted scratches, they were just completely contextless and meaningless to the point where we could assume charlotte’s nails made them

no torture chamber monologue

no guts monologue in the tavern either for that matter

no rooftop scene

again barely the implication of guts’ childhood trauma, both the sexual abuse and the general parental abuse. one vague flashbacky nightmare doesn’t cut it, it’s the cornerstone of the story

like i get it, it’s a movie trilogy, you have to cut some things, but goddamn, cut out gtsca. trim the hundred man fight. add 20 minutes to the first ova and take the insanely long rape scene out of the third. trim down the whole eclipse sequence. don’t cut out like… the story. like they cut out SO MANY emotionally relevant scenes and kept so many much less relevant scenes, idek.

and like let’s be real here, they turned griffith from an immensely interesting and complex character into a 1 dimensional dude who is torn between a vaguely evil ambition and being in vaguely evil love with guts, just for the sake of streamlining the least interesting aspects of the story

they don’t even try to pretend otherwise lol, look at his fucking hilarious evil smile here

also while i’m looking at it, in general i think they failed at the whole eclipse sequence. looks, lighting, colour, build up of tension… there are a few minor improvements here and there (eg casca’s point of view shot of femto, femto telekinesising guts back a la the black swordsman arc which emphasizes his failure to act when he escapes), but overall it doesn’t work for me at all. like imo the anime has the exact same highs and lows as the manga, but while the ova avoids some lows it never reaches those highs.

they also had griffith overhear guts saying he wants to stay. i really don’t get why this happened twice lol, like… ok his face is kind of shadowed here but he’s still very clearly asleep? this is an important detail, guts’ interrupted words are even on that very panel, so why would you go out of your way to show that he’s awake and listening at that point.

the pacing sucked. 3rd movie was too long, 1st was too short, and they skipped waaaaaay too many significant scenes that should’ve been there as emotional beats

honestly the movies are pretty, they’re nicely fanservicey in ways, they capture some good subtleties and nuances at times, but they’re a husk of the story

oh did i mention the music during the eclipse rape? incredible.

also i am actually generally positive about the movies too despite what it seems like here lmao. i’ve watched them all like, 3 or more times and i find them v enjoyable.

i just have a way easier time listing nitpicky flaws than positives honestly. the flaws stand out to me, the virtues pass me by because i’m just enjoying them and not dwelling on them

and lbr here at the end of the day no adaption will ever really satisfy me unless i somehow find several million dollars lying around and make my own lol. and that would probably be a flop anyway.

[halekingsourwolf]

hihi, in that post you just wrote you mentioned that Derek has a more personal stake in what's going on throughout the series than Scott does. Can you expand on that or was it just a hyperbole?

Hey there,

Oh, not at all. I don’t mean to say that Scott has no stake in what goes on, or that this is true in every instance. But overall, I think you could definitely make a case that, while Scott is the protagonist, Derek is the more central character to most of the conflicts. This is probably most apparent in seasons one and 3A, and I’d argue also four, and I’ll just run through them all roughly here.

Just a reminder that I haven’t actually watched most of the show in years so I apologize for any details I miss or get wrong. And yeah, I do focus more on Derek as a rule so maybe I’m forgetting some huge contributions by Scott; if so, please feel free to jump in and correct me. That said, I’m really not going to list out every detail from every season, just run roughly through the overall arcs and the way the characters impact them and vice versa. Obviously this just covers seasons 1-4, where Derek was a regular character. And ok, that’s enough disclaiming. Diving in:

Season one

While arguably the show starts with Scott being bitten, what really sets everything into motion is the murder of Derek’s sister. Laura’s death, the thing Derek needs to solve and avenge, is the launching point that pushes all the other show’s conflicts into motion. And while the show puts most of its focus on Scott and his personal dramas (whether the pretty new girl will like him, whether he’ll do well in lacrosse) most of the actual conflict is driven by Derek. He’s the one determined to figure out who the Alpha is (and who, it turns out, has a personal connection to him), he’s the one with a history and continuing conflict with the Argents, which turns out to be the whole motivation behind the Alpha’s actions. Scott’s conflicts are relatively small things: will he make co-captain? Will his bowling date go well? While Derek brings in most of the major conflicts: shot by Kate leading to revelations about the Argents, captured by Kate… Eventually, he (with Stiles’ help) is the one who discovers who the Alpha is and confronts him, and later he’s the one who kills him.

Despite Scott being the protagonist, this season is really a story about the Hales vs the Argents, Derek and Peter dealing with their trauma, and Derek avenging his sister.

Season two

This one is less Derek-centric, since the main villain/conflict for most of the season (Matt) has nothing to do with either him or Scott. However, most of Scott’s actions throughout the season are reactionary to Derek –– while Derek recruits betas and builds a pack, Scott shows up to try and convince the betas how terrible Derek is. Derek makes plans to try and stop the kanima, and Scott works to thwart him. When Derek rescues Scott and it leads to the death of Allison’s mother, Scott sends Allison after Derek. And while Scott is the apparent “hero” of the season, since his “master plan” is what ultimately defeats Gerard, he does so by using –– yep, guessed it –– Derek.

On another note: the entire kanima arc (really, the entire thing that set the season in motion) was a direct result of Derek’s actions. Derek bit Jackson at the end of season one, which turned him into the kanima, which allowed Matt and later Gerard to use him to their own ends. While Derek doesn’t realize this at the start of the season, he does have a much more personal stake in what’s going on than Scott does. His killing of Peter is also the driving force behind Lydia’s arc, and he’s the target used to resurrect him later on, so while the “master plan” is Scott’s… most of the major plot elements are set in motion or resolved in one way or another by Derek.

3A

Here’s a rough summary of the season: two of Derek’s betas are captured and he works to find them and save them. Derek’s long lost, thought-dead sister is rediscovered. Their captors are a group of Alphas who spend most of the season terrorizing the pack and killing two of Derek’s betas to try and recruit Derek to their side. Meanwhile, Derek strikes up a romance with a new teacher who turns out to be one of the season’s main villains, a dark druid who had been manipulating him for protection. Derek’s sister is hospitalized and he ends up having to give up his Alpha power to save her. One entire episode is focused on exploring Derek’s backstory and another tragedy in his life, which notably led to the awakening of the Nemeton and set everything happening this season into motion. …At the last minute, it turns out that Scott is actually a “True Alpha” and the Alpha pack had been after Scott all along (despite actively pursuing Derek to the point of kidnapping and murdering members of his pack). I’ll let you decide who the driving force of the season was.

3B

This season is definitely the weakest in terms of focusing on Derek, though notably it also had the least focus on Scott. Stiles (and the Nogitsune) was undeniably front and center and behind most of the action, with the rest of the characters scrambling to react to him.

Season four

The driving conflict at the start of season four is the kidnapping of Derek Hale. The first two episodes are almost entirely focused on this, with them first saving him from Kate and second dealing with the aftermath of that –– figuring out how to deal with de-aged Derek and Kate’s plans for him.

The Benefactor arc affects both characters equally at first as they (along with the other supernaturals) are being targeted, but spins back to focus on Derek when a bit of computer coding suggests that Derek is destined to die soon. Derek and Scott each have their individual arcs as well, with Derek slowly losing his powers and Scott trying to train newbie wolf Liam. However, the Liam arc isn’t particularly intrinsic to the story (it could be removed without the overall plot being affected) and, while Derek’s loss of powers is ultimately the same (it apparently has to do with his evolution… somehow. Don’t ask me. It still makes no real sense) it’s played as being part of some master plan by Kate. It’s the reason Derek hires Braeden, to find out where Kate is and what her plans are, and it’s repeatedly suggested to be part of the villain arc until the finale reveals it not to be. Therefore… again, while Scott and his beta troubles and his lacrosse games and his love life have the majority of the screentime and focus, these are all ultimately details. Minor plot points. Just like in season one, Derek’s story is more connected to the villain’s story and the overall arc of the season.

I also think it’s notable that Scott’s attempts to win over Liam are basically just Scott parroting Derek’s dialogue from season one. So a driving force behind all of Scott’s interactions with Liam is… again, Derek. (This isn’t even really shown as character growth –– Scott never goes to Derek to commiserate over new betas or apologize for his early behavior, recognizing how hard it must have been for Derek. It’s played for laughs and then Liam ends up idolizing Scott anyway…. this isn’t really on topic but it’s just frustrating.)

Now, I don’t want to ignore the second villain arc in this season –– Peter, and his attempt to steal Scott’s powers. And as I said at the start, I don’t mean to say that Scott was not important to the plot in any season. He was the main character and, yeah, he did stuff. In most seasons, he was the one who struck the final blow and saved the day. But, as far as I recall, Peter’s plan to kill Scott only became a major plot element in the final two episodes (and that whole plan… and Peter’s motivations were muddled to all hell). The major villain of s4 –– the one whose arc carried over, who started and ended the season –– wasn’t Peter, wasn’t even the Benefactor. It was Kate. The driving question was what is Kate up to? The person who was wronged at the start of s4 was Derek, and the one who overcame that and emerged triumphant was Derek. In a very real way, the season was about Derek overcoming his traumas caused by Kate, with the story taking us through him being young and naive and manipulated by her, to the trauma of that aftermath (shown here by physical weakness and inability to fight back), to his evolution and her defeat, with him standing over her, triumphant. Scott doesn’t have anywhere near that strong and coherent an arc in s4.

God, this was not brief at all. But yeah, I’d definitely argue that, for most of the seasons Derek was in, he was more deeply entrenched in the narratives and in pushing the story forward than Scott was. Scott may have been the POV character but very often he was just pulled along by the plot or focused on more trivial matters. Derek was the core character and the driving force in much more of the major, relevant action.

[the-organizing-principle]

‘Twin Peaks as Fugue’ Theory, Part 2: What is the Black Lodge?

In the second part of my analysis I explore the concept of the Black Lodge as Dale/Richard’s preconscious zone—a place he retreats to in his mind to reset his ‘reality’ when his delusions become too unstable—and I’ll compare the lodge’s inhabitants to the Id, Ego and Superego. I’ll also offer a potential explanation for the significance of the number “430.″

*If you haven’t seen my previous posts yet, you can find my theory summarized here, and Part 1 (about The Log Lady) here.

Continuing with the theory that all of Twin Peaks takes place in Dale/Richard’s mind after suffering a trauma-induced fugue state, I’d like to explore what the Black Lodge could mean in this context. I think one of the biggest clues to understanding this ‘place’ is found by looking at what happens whenever Dale/Richard enters and leaves it: aside from his dreams, we see him first ‘enter’ the lodge in the second season finale, in an attempt to rescue Annie. At this point in the narrative, ‘Dale’ was losing control to Windom Earle and was struggling to save a woman he loved. Windom lures ‘Dale’ into the lodge, and then we get the distinct sense that something bad is about to happen (cue Jimmy Scott!). I’ll get to what happens inside the lodge in a moment, but first, look at what results: ‘the good Dale’ is left ‘trapped’ inside, while his ‘evil doppelganger’ escapes into the ‘outside’ world.

If the fugue theory is true, then this would mean that Dale/Richard’s identity has fragmented into two versions of himself while he was in the Black Lodge. He now divides his conscious thinking into two separate personas, sometimes wandering the ‘outside world’ getting into all manner of dark shenanigans as his doppelganger, ‘Mr. C’; sometimes wandering the lonely hall(s) of the Black Lodge amongst its strange, semi-backward speaking/moving inhabitants, or ostensibly sitting quietly in an art deco armchair and contemplating his mistakes. Who knows what, exactly, goes on when he is ‘in the lodge,’ but suffice it to say that this is a kind of mental purgatory for him.

In psychoanalysis, the “preconscious” mind exists between the conscious and the unconscious mind; preconscious thoughts are those that have been repressed or that originate in the unconscious, but have become available for recall and can be made conscious. It’s a liminal state of awareness, just as the Black Lodge is a liminal space between the world of Twin Peaks and the ‘spirit world’; the void of non-existence; the ‘real world,’ etc., depending on where we are in the narrative.

Later, when Mr. C is confronted with the prospect of returning to the lodge, he takes great pains to stay ‘out.’ If the lodge represents Dale/Richard’s preconscious awareness, then it would make sense that Mr. C would want to avoid it because this is where integration would take place. Mr. C is a product of Dale/Richard’s unconscious; his ‘shadow self’ made conscious. One must always have a shadow self to occupy the unconscious, though, so if Mr. C is ‘out,’ then who is ‘in’? The ‘good Dale’ is in the lodge, i.e. the preconscious zone, so he has virtually been subducted into the unconscious for the duration of Mr. C’s takeover. But the ‘good Dale’ is not fully unconscious, either; I believe the ‘true’ persona (Richard?) has become the shadow self, now.

When ‘Dale’ gets violently ejected from the lodge by The Arm’s doppelganger (this is a tricky one, but I think “The Arm” / the Man From Another Place might be a kind of personification of aspects of Dale/Richard’s Ego in conjunction with the one-armed man—they are the “moderators”—while the Giant/Fireman is the Superego and BOB is the Id... more later!), he ends up falling through a void before being briefly suspended in Mr. C’s monitoring device, then lands on the patio of a structure on some kind of interdimensional island where some weird stuff happens before he travels back into the ‘real world’ through an electrical socket.

I’m not even going to attempt to unravel all of this, but I will mention that the scene in this strange, interdimensional space seems to be a kind of representation of the innermost workings of the ‘hydraulic mind,’ a concept that Freud adopted which seems to recur throughout several of Lynch’s works (Mulholland Drive, Lost Highway, Inland Empire, aka the “blurred identity trilogy”). The hydraulic mind concept views the psychic apparatus in mechanical terms, wherein pressures (from various stressors) build up within the psyche and are subsequently absorbed or discharged. In the interdimensional scene, we see Dale/Richard and Naido reacting to a banging on a door, causing her her climb up onto the top of a TARDIS-like structure and pull a lever, thus seemingly releasing the pressure in a burst of electrical energy that ultimately zaps her into the void. I’ll discuss Naido/Diane in part three, but for now let’s view this scene as a descent into a post-lodge, sub-preconconscious zone, ostensibly taking place in the actual unconscious realm. The ‘sea’ that Dale looks out on from the balcony of the structure is significant, as ocean imagery is commonly associated with the unconscious. 

Recall that this sequence precedes ‘good Dale’s’ transformation into ‘Dougie.’ Something forced ‘good Dale’ out of the preconscious zone / lodge before he was ready: I believe this may have been something occurring in the REAL ‘real world,’ e.g. a new treatment being administered by his doctors, possibly shock treatment given the importance of electricity in this transition. Medication might also produce a ‘shock’ to Dale/Richard’s system, simulating electrical impulses as his brain activity changes. This is pure speculation, but not entirely unsubstantiated.

So now we see ‘Dougie’ inhabiting a new world: ostensibly the same Twin Peaks universe, just 25 years later. This becomes his new ‘reality,’ but it still isn’t real. It’s just a new narrative he’s living out after exiting the lodge. He hasn’t lost touch with the lodge, though: he still experiences visions of the lodge and the one-armed man throughout his ‘Dougie’ arc. This is important, because if he did go through shock treatment or something similar, a moderating aspect of his ego is attempting to break through to him from his preconscious awareness. He needs to “wake up” from the deep dream that is Dougie Jones—from his post-treatment stupor—and recall his ‘good Dale’ persona, who still has unfinished business. Before Dale/Richard can ever become fully conscious, he needs to integrate all of his fractured personas into a single, multidimensional self and this can’t be accomplished until each have been deconstructed.

Without straying too far off topic, let’s briefly consider that the world that Dougie and Mr. C inhabit are meant to be one and the same, but when we follow their specific arcs, we can observe distinct differences in tone between Dougie’s world and that of Mr. C. The former is somewhat kitsch (think: the Lucky 7 Insurance Agency, the Silver Mustang Casino, even the local police station), whereas the latter is much darker (Buella’s house, Yankton prison, The Farm). We can assume that the environment and ‘interpersonal’ interactions that Dougie and Mr. C (as ‘alters’ of Dale/Richard) experience are influenced by and structured around each persona’s unique worldview. When these worlds collide—when Hutch and Chantal arrive on Lancelot Court along with the Mitchum Brothers’ troupe (and don’t forget the FBI stakeout, representing the hovering Dale persona)—chaos ensues.

I can’t claim the ability to diagnose a fictional character or anyone else, but I should note that Dissociative Identity Disorder doesn’t seem to be Dale/Richard’s only problem. He’s probably also suffering from psychotic depression with symptoms of depersonalization and derealization. If this is the case, and if he has been hospitalized as a result of his psychosis, he probably would have spent a lot of time lying in hospital beds while being dosed with all manner of medications; and if this was also true, he would have overheard a lot of medical talk as doctors checked on him and discussed his treatment with family, staff, etc.—whether he was conscious of it, or not—and do you know what medical term he might have heard repeatedly throughout this process? “DRG-430.”

The DRG (diagnoses-related group) is a system hospitals/physicians/insurance companies use to classify a disorder and establish a treatment protocol. DRG-430 is code for a patient suffering from psychoses. If my theory holds up, it would be highly likely that Dale/Richard would be classified under DRG-430. When the Giant/Fireman tells him to remember the number 430, I believe that the Giant/Fireman—as an agent of truth (recall my discussion of “fire” and “truth” in Part 1) and as a personification of the Superego—was trying to remind Dale/Richard of who he really was (Richard, probably) and what he was supposed to do (integrate). More on this later.

A quick note about parallels to other works by Lynch: I mentioned the “blurred identity trilogy” earlier, and should point out that these films all include scenes wherein characters who are experiencing identity crises (e.g. fugue states resulting from the unconscious trauma of unrequited love) encounter mysterious but revealing clues about their true selves after passing through/entering a space involving red curtains. We see these prominently featured in Fred’s home in Lost Highway, and in one scene he’s seen disappearing into a darkened space with a red-curtained background as he goes deeper into the mystery (read: his preconscious mind). We see them again when Betty and Rita enter the red-curtained Club Silencio in Mulholland Drive, and Betty finds a significant clue in the blue box. Then in Inland Empire, we see Sue pass through a red-curtained hallway before she enters into a convoluted, increasingly dreamlike sequence of events before the “valley girls” give her a clue about what will happen in the future, when she wakes from a kind of sleep. All of these scenes can ostensibly be linked to these characters’ preconscious awareness of their true identities. 

Let’s look at the lodge scene in TP:FWWM, now: this is after Leland kills Laura, when we see him standing in the lodge’s “red room” in front of the one-armed man, who is seated beside the Man From Another Place. BOB appears beside Leland after his body moves around strangely, then floats up and remains suspended in the air at an odd angle. The MFAP then places his hand on the O-AM’s shoulder and seems to speak through and with him in unison, saying: “BOB... I want all my garmonbozia (pain and sorrow).” BOB angrily complies, pulling a bloody wound out of an unresponsive Leland’s belly and depositing it in a splatter on the lodge floor, which the MFAP then seems to absorb and covert into creamed corn, which he proceeds to consume.

This exchange seems to support the idea that the MFAP and the O-AM represent aspects of Dale/Richard’s Ego, in that they share a kind of moderating role in the lodge, and have some degree of control over BOB (as Dale/Richard’s Id). Freud has said of these concepts: “The ego is that part of the id which has been modified by the direct influence of the external world. ...The ego represents what may be called reason and common sense, in contrast to the id, which contains the passions...in its relation to the id it is like a man on horseback, who has to hold in check the superior strength of the horse.” Its main concern is with the individual's safety and allows some of the id's desires to be expressed, but only when consequences of these actions are marginal. "Thus the ego, driven by the id, confined by the super-ego, repulsed by reality, struggles...[in] bringing about harmony among the forces and influences working in and upon it," and readily "breaks out in anxiety—realistic anxiety regarding the external world, moral anxiety regarding the super-ego, and neurotic anxiety regarding the strength of the passions in the id.” (x).

I don’t want to go too deep into an examination of how these psychoanalytical roles are mirrored in each of the four characters discussed above; hopefully their relationship to Freud’s concept is not so far-fetched when viewed in this light. We can interpret the lodge scene with Leland as a kind of preconscious integration of this character’s emotional trauma, without speculating on who Leland represents in Dale/Richard’s dreamworld (yet). This process is happening without Dale/Richard’s conscious awareness, but it is preconscious rather than unconscious, because he is present enough for us to hear his voice as the word “Judy” is whispered when the monkey’s face appears onscreen. I discussed the significance of this transition already, but to briefly reiterate: “garmonbozia”/pain and sorrow is synonymous with trauma, and though the garmonbozia seems to be the trauma surrounding Laura’s murder in this scene, Judy’s whispered name in this moment strongly supports the theory that the real, underlying trauma involves something that happened between Judy and Dale/Richard.

Once again, this analytical tangent has already gone on much longer than I intended but I can’t bail out without mentioning the very important Black Lodge scene in the final act:

This time, Dale/Richard enters the lodge without any more fanfare than hearing a backwards rustling/scratching sound, then looking to the side toward a red glow. In the next moment he is seated in the red room again, and the one-armed man is asking him “Is it future... or is it past?” (we can liken this transition to a kind of “waking up” from the nightmare of losing Laura in the woods; Dale/Richard’s mind compensates for the trauma of this nightmare scenario by abruptly returning him to the preconscious zone for a veiled ‘reality check’). Soon he’s meeting the evolution of The Arm again, who asks him “Is it the story of the little girl who lived down the lane? Is it?” We’ve seen this before, just as we’ve seen the following scene where Dale/Richard is seated as Laura Palmer approaches to whisper something in his ear, causing him to gasp. I may be mistaken, but I believe this is the only time we see Dale/Richard moving in semi-reverse motion in the lodge just like the other lodge inhabitants, which would be significant (he moves with rather than counter to them, perhaps suggesting that he is closer to something in that moment than he has been at any other time). Also, if you compare Dale/Richard’s reaction to whatever Laura whispers to him in this scene to it’s nearly identical one in the beginning of the season, you’ll see that in the earlier scene, Dale reacts with a gasp of apparent horror whereas in this finale scene, the gasp has more of a confused/disturbed tone (more like a “huh??”). Whatever she communicated to him seems to have a profound effect, because after she screams and is ripped up and away by some unseen force again, we see a new persona emerge for the first time. For clarity’s sake, I’m going to just call him ‘Richard.’ Now we see the curtain part and a more ashen-faced, serious ‘Richard’ emerges, briefly encountering Leland again who tells him to “Find Laura.” Something has changed; ‘Richard’ even walks differently. With a wave of his hand the lodge’s curtain is manipulated into opening to reveal Glastonbury Grove, where Diane is waiting. She asks “Is it you? Is it really you?” and he confirms that it is, but somehow neither she—nor we—are entirely convinced, especially after what follows.

So what has happened? I think Dale/Richard came too close to the truth this time in the preconscious lodge zone when Laura whispered in his ear, but instead of retreating into another safe, Dougie-like persona, something got through to him and one of the false layers fell away, leaving a persona that was more true to his actual identity than any other we’ve seen before. This ‘Richard’ persona still goes through the motions of trying to fix the broken dream, just like ‘Dale’ would, but he is tiring of the pretense. He is losing control of his own narrative and can’t maintain it for much longer. He leaves the lodge having come close enough to its preconscious information for some of it to leak through to his conscious mind, and the effect of this leak plays out in the rest of the episode as the false ‘reality’ becomes increasingly unstable: ‘Richard’ wakes in a strange motel that is different from the one he arrived at to find Diane/’Linda’ gone and a different car parked in a different place. This happens after he and Diane pass through a point in the road that is apparently 430 miles from somewhere. I think this transition is actually the point at which real world Dale/’Richard’ agrees(?) to undergo some kind of new therapy that his therapist, Diane (Linda?) warns him could have negative side effects. The number 430 marks this point of transition because 430 is the code for the diagnoses-related group (DRG) that Dale/Richard, the patient, has been assigned (psychoses). It is a kind of subliminal clue from his subconscious mind, as well as from the remote Superego (Fireman). I’ll explore what happens next—along with an explanation for why Naido’s face became the Black Lodge for a moment before she transformed into Diane—in Part 3. Stay tuned!

[juspeczyk]

Do you have anything else to say about your "Harley+Jason" Arkham Knight AU? I thought it was pretty interesting and I wouldn't mind knowing a bit more about it.

THIS IS SO SO SO LATE AND I APOLOGIZE..................... i’ve been replaying the arkham games recently though and it has cleared a few things up/helped me solidify some stuff so here we go

jason wasn’t kept on arkham island until shortly before the events of arkham asylum. it’s stupid for him to be kept on arkham island. batman has a fucking cave on arkham island. of course he would find jason there. joker is stupid but he’s not that stupid. so he and harley kept jason somewhere in gotham, or maybe even in metropolis or bludhaven, possibly switching locations every once in a while so batman wouldn’t get wise. they eventually moved jason to arkham island for the titan party intending to pit him and batman against each other, but obviously, bats defeated joker and that never happened.

talia al ghul and the league of assassins found him and picked him up from arkham during the events of arkham asylum. if you go to the morgue during story mode you can find ra’s al ghul’s corpse, but if you go back to the morgue after completing story mode, ra’s corpse is gone; it follows that talia and a couple league ninjas came and got him so they could put him in a lazarus pit, and when talia ran into jason on the way, she picked him up with the intent to nurse him back to health (maybe as a sign of good will/peacemaking towards bruce). talia trained him and helped him build the militia for his activities as the arkham knight. she may not have agreed with him entirely, but she recognized that it was his thing to do, his closure to get, so she didn’t stop him.

harley loved jason. she saw him as a son. that doesn’t excuse the abuse she willingly watched and participated in, nor does it mean he owes her anything. she couldn’t handle the idea of hurting a child in cold blood, but she could handle the idea of giving a child “tough love” with the goal of breaking his ties with batman (which she saw as abusive and endangering) and making him into his own person who could stand up for himself. in her mind, she was helping jason to become a better, stronger version of himself, one who didn’t need batman telling him what to do or using him as a pawn. as such, when jason went missing and was presumed dead, it was a huge blow to harley. she was a complete mess during arkham city and most of it can be explained by shitty writing but it can also be explained by the amount of emotional trauma she had been through/was still going through at the time. to expand on this:

arnold wesker, the only friend she had who was interested in reforming and thus her only non-villain support network, had been released from arkham with a clean bill of health prior to the events of arkham asylum, and it’s almost certain that one of the conditions of his parole was that he couldn’t associate with criminals like harley. without him, she reverted to being a villain for the sake of villainy, leading her to justify extremely horrible actions-- like habitually torturing and brainwashing a child-- and robbing her of the only stable, rational, grounded person she could turn to for help or guidance throughout the entire game.

jonathan crane, who is implied in much of paul dini’s work (dcau + arkham asylum) to be a father figure to harley, is presumed dead after arkham asylum. she has now lost both of her father figures, scarecrow and ventriloquist, and thus has lost any option for unconditional support.

jason todd, her surrogate son, is presumed dead after arkham asylum. she was locked up for a large part of arkham asylum’s plotline. had she been free, maybe she would have found jason and kept him safe. for the entirety of arkham city and its prequel material she is living with the idea that she is responsible for her own son’s death. however subjective and flawed it is, it still eats her up.

during arkham city, every single one of her remaining friends and associates deserts her. just take a second and think about that. every villain that harley has a decent relationship with is in arkham city and not one of them is trying to help her. she is watching her family die, one by one, and she is trying to singlehandedly save the man she loves-- in her mind, the man who functions as the father of her child, jason-- and nobody is helping her. in fact, some people she probably thought she could trust are actively sabotaging her.

poison ivy refuses to get involved with anything.

catwoman has no intention of staying in arkham city longer than it takes to get her own things back from hugo strange.

scarecrow is presumed dead.

riddler is too preoccupied with his own plans (and possibly helping scarecrow make a comeback*).

killer croc is nowhere to be found.

sure, clayface is hanging around, but he’s not really trying to help joker get better. he’s just doing it so he can impersonate joker.

deadshot doesn’t give a rat’s ass what happens to joker.

penguin and mr. freeze both have good reasons to actively work against harley. so does two-face.

batman-- who harley is desperately counting on to save the day, even though his failure to rescue jason has put a massive dent in her faith in him-- lets joker die. yes, it’s joker’s fault for being a dumb-ass, but harley’s never gonna admit that. in her eyes, batman practically murdered joker. batman. the guy who’s supposed to save everyone. that fucked her up, yo.

penguin killed bud and lou? like? she doesn’t even have the simple basic comfort of her beloved pets? what the fuck? it was so unnecessary and i’m still upset

*in arkham city, one of riddler’s trap rooms has fear toxin in it. you can’t physically approach it, but you can zoom in and clearly see the upside-down batsymbol/jack-o’-lantern face painted on the canisters. this leads to two possibilities as far as harley is concerned: first, that nobody told her scarecrow is still alive and she’s been operating this whole time thinking he’s dead and mourning him, or second, that somebody did tell her, and she’s trying to help scarecrow make a comeback as well as save joker, which would make her even more frazzled. i’m leaning towards the first option because it makes more sense within this narrative, and i’ll talk more about that in a bit.

it’s possible that scarecrow and jason somehow met post-asylum and teamed up. in arkhamverse canon, this doesn’t work because jason was already the arkham knight when the events of arkham city happened, but that’s dumb and makes no sense given the timeline, so i’m scrapping it. however, canon did give scarecrow and the arkham knight a weirdly close relationship, one that went beyond simple business. (i’m not saying ~*~*~they were “close”~*~*~, i’m saying that they seemed to have a mutual personal investment in defeating batman that overruled their status as enemies. don’t make this gross. if you try to make it gross, i will come for you, and i will not be happy.) so maybe scarecrow and jason teamed up for survival in arkham city without realizing who exactly they were working with, and then once that revelation hit, they already felt somewhat indebted to each other. it’s also possible that they hadn’t met at all and that jason contacted scarecrow after becoming the arkham knight. idk. it’s a mystery so far.

talia is alive during the events of arkham knight. the league came and got her just like they came and got ra’s. there is literally no reason for her to still be dead given that we have the canon precedence-- three times over-- of ra’s being killed and then brought back. the concept that talia is dead in arkham knight is stupid and misogynistic and serves no purpose whatsoever other than to give bruce More Manpain(TM). it’s bad, and the writers should feel bad, and whoever approved that writing should feel bad, too.

it was scarecrow’s idea to bring harley into their plot. jason was just fine leaving her to die in arkham city or letting her rot in jail, but scarecrow has One Single Redeeming Quality, and that quality is his Good And Wholesome Platonic Love For Harleen Quinzel. he knew that he owed her big time for not being around in arkham city and he also recognized that she deserved to be a part of their plot to take out batman.

harley cried like a baby when she realized the arkham knight was jason. it was ugly. she was ugly. he was kind of uncomfortable and reeling from the sudden return of the person who (intentionally, by the way) caused him to develop stockholm syndrome. but they dealt with it and everybody came out kind of friendly.

the plot of arkham knight would not have happened without harley. she operated as a buffer between jason, who is fundamentally trying to do the Right Thing, and jonathan, who is fundamentally trying to do the Wrong Thing/His Own Thing And Screw Rightness. their infighting would have made the scheme collapse if harley hadn’t been there acting as the glue to hold it all together.

harley also kept the other rogues out of their way as best she could. it was super lowkey and the rogues probably never realized it was her. one would think she’d want revenge against them for deserting her in arkham city, but no-- by this point, she’s tired. she’s tired of fighting over meaningless things like territory and money and reputations. she doesn’t even have much of a will to live past exposing batman as a fraud who doesn’t save everyone and then killing him. so she’ll set up the people she cares about to be safe, even if they don’t necessarily care about her anymore. she arranged for selina to be taken by riddler before the arkham knight or scarecrow could get to her, because she knew selina would figure out a way to escape eventually. she conveniently forgot to mention that scarecrow’s fear toxin wouldn’t affect poison ivy. she also arranged for two-face’s bank robberies and hush’s attempted takeover of wayne enterprises to happen on the same night as the arkham knight takeover so that batman would be extra busy.

(note: she knows bruce wayne is batman. she has known since she and joker unmasked jason and figured out who he was. however, she keeps convincing herself that There’s No Way Bruce Wayne Is Batman, There’s Got To Be Something More To It Than That because knowing who batman is tips the scales in the bad guys’ favor, and that goes against everything she knows. the Good Guys are supposed to win! they’re supposed to save the day! that’s why they’re Good Guys! that’s why Bad Guys show up and do Bad Guy Stuff! that’s How It Works! except now batman has shown his true colors, and she wants everyone to know that he’s not really a Good Guy after all, because he didn’t save jason and he didn’t save joker, and he didn’t save scarecrow, and he didn’t save her. now that she sees him this way, she has no problem taking advantage of the knowledge of his secret identity.)

hush has been involved in the arkham plot from the very beginning. harley has a lot of practice patching people up, but she’s no doctor, so she eventually turned to tommy elliot in order to help her with jason’s more severe injuries. tommy was the one who operated on jason after joker shot him in the chest. (joker intended to kill jason, but what was left of the robin costume slowed the bullet enough that it didn’t kill him immediately; he would have bled out and died if harley hadn’t convinced joker to go get hush and save the kid.) he confirmed that bruce wayne is batman and later helped harley, scarecrow, and the arkham knight form a plan that struck at batman from every angle.

the events of batman: hush have taken place prior to the events of arkham asylum, but it makes no sense to me that batman, who goes to arkham all the time and has a batcave on arkham island and is supposed to be the world’s greatest detective, somehow didn’t know that one of his greatest enemies was working at arkham asylum and/or didn’t do anything about it, so i’m scrapping that and keeping the hush subplots from arkham city and arkham knight only.

speaking of hush’s subplot in arkham knight? HE ALREADY KNOWS BRUCE IS BATMAN? THAT WAS LITERALLY THE WHOLE POINT OF BATMAN: HUSH, WHICH HAS ALREADY HAPPENED BY THE TIME ARKHAM ASYLUM TAKES PLACE? IT’S LITERALLY MORE DIFFICULT TO JUSTIFY HIM NOT KNOWING BRUCE IS BATMAN THAN IT IS TO JUSTIFY HIM KNOWING AND USING IT TO HIS ADVANTAGE? hush tried to take over wayne enterprises and was going to hack the batcave and maybe become batman himself in order to run around doing dumb shit and smearing batman’s image or at least send all of bruce’s computer-operated machinery out against the city. none of this “whAT dO YOU MeAN BRUCE WaYNE IS bAtMAN?/1//1/!????!?!?!?!?1///!!!!??/?!?!1?” nonsense. not in my house

harley and what’shername who got infected with joker virus? christina bell? gay

but on a more serious note christina bell was literally harley’s last hope for happiness again and LOST CHRISTINA just like she lost EVERYONE ELSE

@DC/ROCKSTEADY: WHAT DO YOU HAVE AGAINST HARLEY QUINN BEING HAPPY AND LOVED

wayne manor didn’t blow up. that’s angsty. that’s way too angsty. or at least, if it did blow up, nobody was inside and there were already at least 3 different contingency plans for every batkid/bat-associate ensuring that they have nothing to worry about money-wise and that they have a place to live and plenty of school/career options

yes, every batkid. they’re all here except maybe damian. dc/rocksteady can get the fuck outta here with that 3 robins and 1 batgirl BULLSHIT

me? pulling the one good thing chris nolan gave us and sticking it in the arkhamverse, allowing bruce to fake his death and run away to france or italy or wherever with selina or talia and both of them living a quiet, relatively civilian life? more likely than you think!

there may not be a batman anymore but that just means more attention for all the batkids and various bat-associates that have popped up over the years and lemme tell you if you thought gothamite criminals were scared of one batperson running around just imagine how terrified they’d be to find out that there’s like 30 more who’ve just been waiting for a chance to step up their game

scarecrow never gets better. good. serves him right. i have no legitimate reason to believe that becky albright exists in the arkhamverse but you can’t tell me she doesn’t and that she isn’t sleeping like a baby after seeing scarecrow get dosed with his worst ever batch of fear toxin on live tv

idk what happens to harley. maybe she becomes the red hood’s partner in crime (fighting). maybe jason calls her out on her abuse and they never speak again on friendly terms. maybe she also runs off to italy or france or back to brooklyn. maybe christina bell never actually died and they get together as Clown Idiots 2.0. idk! it’s painful to try and imagine her in a post-arkham world! it’s painful to imagine a post-arkham world in general!

so yeah in short nothing is the same after the events of arkham knight but you know what. i’m sick of bat-stories that maim and kill and emotionally brutalize women and children for the sake of making bruce suffer and mask it under narrative progress. he’s suffered enough. they’ve suffered enough. you can make a plot happen without seriously hurting anyone. so how about instead we just let bruce retire and live the happiest life he can and let everyone who’s part of his legacy step up and shine and make him proud and make themselves proud!!!

[wildwoodgoddess]

The Problem Finale: Thoughts on Sherlock “The Final Problem”

This is probably going to get long, but I don’t really want to split it into two posts, so just brace yourselves.

I’m planning to cover the following:

1) What TFP Got Right (in my opinion) 2) What TFP Got Wrong (also imo) 3) About Johnlock 4) Some personal thoughts on #3 and the series as a whole

You won’t find wank or hate in this post. Quite the opposite. And I’m hoping it will be accessible and interesting regardless of your opinions on Item 3.  

I’ll do my best to respond to any asks, but I am headed into a writing deadline of my own and need to switch my attention to that for the next several weeks, so I might be a little slow on replying. Please feel free to get in touch, though. Would love to hear from you.

So here we go…under the cut:

What TFP Got Right:

The entire show, as stated in ASiP, was aimed at showing Sherlock’s progression from a “great” man to a “good” one. In the context of the show, this meant becoming more socially aware and embracing emotions as good and healthy, allowing himself to love, to have a family.  

And it did that. I thought it was key in TFP that Sherlock flat out insists that John remain during Mycroft’s explanation of Eurus because John IS FAMILY. Compare that to ASiP where Sherlock is barely willing to acknowledge Mycroft as his brother.  

TFP makes it very clear that emotions, especially love (of all kinds) are the key to solving the final problem. Without understanding emotions, Sherlock wouldn’t have been able to avoid shooting Mycroft or John. It was his insight into Eurus’ own emotions that made him realize that threatening to shoot himself was the only way to get her to stop. And it was his own ability to show her compassion that allowed him to be able to save John.

That message is pretty hamfisted, in my opinion, especially in how Mycroft speaks, compared to how Sherlock reacts. But it’s there, and Sherlock’s ability to show Eurus compassion and grace is the culmination of that transformation.  

I did like that they had Sherlock “rewrite” his memories of his childhood friend because he couldn’t deal with the murder.  

And I really liked that the writers have said that these 4 series turned into a sort of origin story for how “our” Sherlock went from a cold-blooded faux-sociopath to a truly loving, caring human being that would be—if the show goes forward—more like the mature, good-hearted person in the ACD stories. I can get on board with that, and I think the 4 series did well with that progression.  

Other small things I liked: Eurus giving Sherlock violin lessons, Mycroft being disguised as the old man (paralleled TEH where John thinks his elderly patient with the porn videos is Sherlock), Sherlock playing with Rosie at the end, the fact that Mycroft had such a weak stomach when it came to shooting someone himself, Mycroft trying to goad Sherlock into shooting him by insulting John, Sherlock spotting that immediately, and making Mycroft sit in the client chair.

What TFP Got Wrong:

Where do I begin? *sigh*

A lot of people are talking about plot holes and implausibility. And in spite of the larger-than-life nature of the show itself, I think a lot of stuff in this episode does strain credulity, basically, because Eurus is—as another article said—almost comic-book super villain. The rocky island prison was practically Azkaban, and her abilities were nearly magic. I believe that the writers definitely intended it to be taken as in-world fact, but it did seem to be a bit much.  

I would have been able to accept it as plausible in this story world if Eurus had been a looming presence in some form over the course of all 4 series. The attempt to tie in Moriarty to her seemed a bit forced. Moriarty was set up from episode 1 as the arch-nemesis, and I felt all along that killing him at the end of series 2 didn’t make a lot of narrative sense. Eurus felt to me like an attempt to fill in that gap, but it would have been much more effective if there had clearly been a shadow presence even beyond Moriarty from the very start. The audience didn’t have any emotional connection to Eurus because she really only showed up for like 30 seconds at the end of TLD and then for TFP.  

And the analysis I read (and reblogged) about Eurus being treated like a Victorian woman put into an asylum because she was too clever was very insightful. I really like SO much of Moffat’s style of storytelling, but it’s pretty hard to defend him against all the charges of misogyny when he keeps stepping in it over and over.  

Because of the lack of build up to the Eurus reveal, the emotional arc of the episode felt rushed. Too much plot, not enough space for reactions. The fact that John was saved by being thrown a rope, and somehow the chain disappeared, and the immediate aftermath of that rescue wasn’t shown—not only were these plot holes, it was supposed to be the climax of the episode and it lacked strength and emotional resonance because it was rushed.

I am constantly telling my editing clients that they have to show the emotional response of their characters. It’s one of the most common writing mistakes that I encounter. And this episode made the exact same mistake—which is painfully ironic considering that the importance of emotions was the theme of the entire story.

But because the story needed so much flashback and exposition and plot, the emotional journey of the characters was glossed over, rushed. That’s another reason why it felt implausible. I strongly suspect that if the characters had been allowed enough space in the story to react, to respond to the plot, the plot itself would have felt more plausible, even if the plot holes remained. That’s how story works—if the story can show the characters’ emotions well enough, you will connect with them on that emotional level, and you won’t mind the plot holes so much. I think the story failed on that point because it chose to center plot over character.  

That may have been the fault of the writers, or it may have been the fault of the director/editor. Just keep that in mind—an editor can change the entire tone of a story just by removing space between lines or choosing one shot instead of another.  

I could probably nit-pick more, but I’ll stop there. I really wanted to like this episode, and I did to an extent, but I could have been completely transported by it, and I’m sad that I wasn’t.

About Johnlock:

I find myself in the truly wonderful position of having a lot of new followers in the past few weeks. And some of them don’t ship at all, others ship John and Sherlock, and others prefer other pairs. I love that I have such a variety—thank you to all of you for giving me a try.

With that in mind, I want to address the Johnlock people and then the not-Johnlock people.

First, Johnlock people and TJLC’ers: 

You weren’t wrong. You weren’t seeing things that weren’t there. I thought some of the subtext analysis was a stretch, but not all. Not by a long shot.  

I ended up joining Tumbler after TEH aired. It was the first episode I saw, and then I went back and watched all of S1 and S2. But what I saw in the flashback of the Fall made me think “are they putting John and Sherlock together romantically?” And that started me Googling, and that led me to Tumblr Sherlock meta, and here I am three years later.

I have repeatedly said that John and Sherlock’s relationship follows a classic romantic story arc. But I’ve also said that this formula can also be used for platonic friendships (The King’s Speech is my favorite example of that). It’s just not as common.

In this case, I think it was perfectly reasonable to suspect and predict that they’d get together. And I was disappointed from a story-telling standpoint because I think it would have made much more sense for them to go ahead with a romance.

First, they have explicitly demonstrated that neither John or Sherlock can have a romantic relationship with someone else because the two of them together just isn’t compatible with a trio. There won’t be anyone else for either of them.

Second, they’ve never given any good, compelling reason why they wouldn’t get together, other than John’s protestations that he isn’t gay (which, hello bisexuality) and Sherlock’s belief that he can’t have relationships because of The Work, which has been effectively destroyed.  

Instead, we are being presented with the suggestion that Sherlock and John live forevermore together in domestic 221B, totally platonic bliss, raising their daughter together.

That would work, I suppose, if Sherlock was portrayed as completely asexual as just his natural orientation. But he’s not. He’s shown as someone who suppressed emotions for the sake of reason (and now, because of the trauma he experienced at the hand of Eurus). But he’s changed now, and the show has gone out of its way several times to point out that romance is a lack in Sherlock’s life. Whether or not John is right that romance would complete him is debatable. And maybe even after Sherlock’s inner transformation, he simply doesn’t have sexual or romantic desires. But that idea rests completely on speculation. It isn’t addressed one way or another in the show itself.

So keeping them from being a couple does seem to be an unnecessary contortion.  

The only defense I can make of it is that I believe the show’s in-world truth is that John loved Mary in a flawed but real way. And TFP takes place not so very long after Mary was killed. John may not have been emotionally ready to begin a new romance, no matter how much he truly loves Sherlock.  

But it’s a pretty weak defense, and it just seems to me that since they clearly aren’t going to do another trio by giving either of them another partner, there really isn’t any good story-telling reason to NOT do a romance. I’ll let others speculate about why they chose not to, but I think it was a poor creative choice.

However, they DO end up together and happy—even if it’s in a way that feels a bit like a story-telling cheat.  

So for people who are sad, disappointed, angry, and feeling betrayed by this creative choice, please know that you weren’t totally imagining things.  

I also want to encourage you, as others have already done, to channel those emotions into positive and productive energy. Create the stories you are asking for—whether books, film, or other media.

If you can’t create, then find ways to support people who can. And not just Sherlock fan creations. There are web series worth supporting on crowd-fund sites, there are authors who would appreciate if you spent a couple bucks on their books. If you don’t even have a couple dollars, at least offer encouragement. Offer to beta read. Volunteer as a personal assistant to an author or artist who needs some administrative help. Be the loudest megaphone to help promote these works so that others who can afford to fund will do so.

To Non-Johnlock people: 

Be considerate. Please. I haven’t seen anyone on my dash being rude or mean or even gloating. That’s lovely. Keep it up. Understand and remember that a lot of people looked to the show to offer a positive reflection of themselves. A lot of people need to hear that not only are they ok, they are heroes. And if that is what you are longing to hear and have been getting hints of, to have that taken away is really hard. Have compassion.

Personal Thoughts:

Stories are important, stories are life changing. Even without John and Sherlock becoming a romantic couple, this show has changed my way of viewing stories. It’s made me more empathetic. Not so much because of the show itself, but because of the analysis and historical context I’ve gained from Johnlock people.  

No matter who we would like to see together, we ALL need more empathy and to understand different perspectives.  

And yet, at the same time, it is ONLY a story. It shouldn’t be your identity. It shouldn’t be what you live for. And it shouldn’t be something that ruins your relationships with other people—even ones on a blog site.  

Live for something that you can create for yourself—your own life, your relationships, your career, your passion. Enjoy the creations of others, but don’t let that be your foundation. Create—and live—your own story.

Don’t put creators on pedestals. But don’t be mean to them either. They are fallible human beings, just like the rest of us. Believe me, I know. We have things we don’t understand. We have biases. We sometimes fail to communicate clearly. We can be assholes. I really don’t think that anyone involved with the show intended to hurt or disappoint anyone. Why would they? There’s no incentive in that. They may have screwed up or disappointed you, but they aren’t evil.

I just want to say a big thank you to the Sherlock fandom—you’ve inspired me, challenged me, and taught me so much. You’ve helped me see areas in my own writing that I need to grow in—as far as representation, getting out of my own comfort zone, being more aware of the impact that the way I tell my story can have on my readers.  

And going forward, no matter what the Sherlock creators plan to do next, I can tell you what I’m going to do:  

I’m going to do a better job at representation in my books. I’ve been wanting to, especially with LGBTQ+ characters, for some time, but I knew there was a lot I needed to learn and understand first because I really want to get it right and my upbringing and younger experiences didn’t prepare me at all for that. I’m getting there, and you all are helping so much with that, and I’m very grateful.  

I’m going to keep learning, and I’m going to continue trying to find and then promote stories that offer the representation we all need to have. Marginalized people need to be represented. But I also need them to be represented, whether the diversity represents me or not. I need to have those stories normalized. I need it because I need to get rid of my own biases and misunderstandings. I need it because I need more empathy. I need a broader perspective.

This is what story is supposed to do—provide validation, challenge ideas, help people grow, inspire them, give them hope. Bring about greater justice and compassion and empathy.  

Time will tell whether or not Sherlock accomplished any of this, or even meant to.  

But I think we all can take away a few lessons from it that ought to be applied to real life as well as the fandom:

Compassion, not cleverness, matters in the end.  

Love—in all its forms—is more important than being right. 

Emotions, connection, relationships are life-saving, not a liability.

Forgiveness is healing.

Hugs and love to you all! I’ll be a bit quiet after this because of my writing project, but I’m not going away entirely, and I’m looking forward to where the conversation heads from here.