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unordinary-analysis · 5 years ago

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Episode 173

Honorable Mentions:

PSA (I keep repeating in every recent post sorry) this greatly relies upon things I’ve said in previous episode analyses especially for episode 167 where I go most in depth about John and his inner battles (his fake personality vs. his old one). (seach “#episode 167” on my page). My recent post “John��s “fake” self,” though kind of extreme, is good too but please read the reprise I just posted on that.

Finally I’ve been able to create a concept that holds up both in my mind and in the story and that I find myself sticking to, and then this whole issue of having to explain it every post appears…

This comes off as annoying self-promotion and I’m aware of that, but I just really value reader comprehension uishiuskjh

When I refer to John’s “fake” self/side, I don’t mean it’s actually completely false, it’s just easier to differentiate his two sides that way. One side is John’s dominant nature, his “evil” side (I call this “dark, evil, and true” side) and the other side is John’s “good” side (I call this “fake, false, fabricated” to emphasize the idea that it’s “borrowed” in a way/not really ‘from John himself.’ I explain this a lot in the actual post though lmao im kinda redundant

Do new people even read my posts? I feel like they’re too bulky for a new follower to commit to reading… lmao. If so, this post really isn’t helping

John asking Sera why she didn't take him for a drink or on a walk to talk to him like they haven’t been avoiding each other for like a month sends. When even is the last time you got drinks with Sera, John.

Sera keeps bringing up stuff for the first time in the comic and its great

How thick are these school’s walls istg it’s like every other episode that one of the characters is yelling at another in one of these classrooms smh

I recently had the thought to go back to watch the progression of the ratio of John’s text bubbles changing from white to black in each episode as a sort of scale/timeline of how John’s dark side is overpowering his good one. But then I didn’t…

I want to talk about Sera’s mention of UnOrdinary the book so much, but this is too long and I don’t know what I would say

Word choice is hard :(

Lot of redundancy in this one that's what I get for going in chronological order

Favorite words of the day apparently: “obviously, “we’ll get to that later”, and further”

This doesn’t have a title because instead of breaking this into multiple sections like I normally would, this episode is only one scene plus the things I want to talk about are kind of intertwined. So you get this mega post.

I actually wasn’t too keen on the confrontation being limited to a single episode because usually I feel, it seems very crammed to read and just usually doesn’t resonate, but I thought this episode was actually amazing. I was so well entertained throughout and the conversation didn’t just “happen” you know? That was probably because the episode was a little longer than it normally would be, at least I think it was. It felt like it.

Anyways, this is still in chronological order, so let’s start at the beginning.

The first thing I want to talk about is how this episode starts off. John and Seraphina are alone in a room together, and John has on his wide, innocent (, fake) smile. And I know that was kind of expected due to him still trying to sell the whole harmless cripple thing to Seraphina, but it really struck me right off the bat because of much it stood out to me (love the repetition). John’s fake personality has been in use less and less in the comic recently because he hasn’t been interacting with Sera as much who really is the last person that he puts it on for anymore. This absence of John’s false innocence has dissolved my immunity to it and for the first time in a long time, I feel like I’m recognizing just how different the two sides of John are. When I would see it every chapter, I got used to it and became numb to the constant switches back and forth by John, but the heavy focus put on his more darker side recently has changed that.

This can also be taken into the context of that slow progression from the fake John to the old John that I’ve been talking about since my analysis for episode 161. Like I said, before I was used to both of John’s faces, and the fact that we have seen so little of his fake persona recently alludes to the thought that, just like it reflects on screen, there is less and less of that side to John left. Brief disclaimer: this sounds kind of dumb if you don’t understand my context. I have been in this continuous explanation of John’s two sides (fake personality that I just talked about and true personality shown recently by Joker and previously by New Bostin John) being in an ongoing battle with one another, a battle that is very much so one-sided as it is already established that the real John will win because John’s anchors to his fake side are slowly disappearing. That probably made some sense if you’ve never read one of my posts before, but if you don’t understand me even a little, please look at the honorable mentions. It is important to everything I talk about in this episode.

Anway, like I said, this is the first thing in this episode that points to this concept, and we’re only on like the third panel.

Something else that we get teased for in the beginning of the episode is John still putting effort into displaying this fake persona because in this episode, Seraphina does not even once smile back at him or display anything warmer than a deadpan expression (maybe later, but not right now). His immediate reaction is to still act so cheery and motivated. I will be honest though, this is only for a while though because he does start to show frustration and similar emotions while still trying to keep Seraphina believing in his created self, but more on that later. Anyway, the main idea this is hinting at is that John is clinging to his false personality as best he can and the easiest way to do that is through extremity. By showing more negative emotions, he is risking accidently slipping out of character, which would not only lose Sera (makes sense now, but will make more sense later), but also something else, which is why his go to with Sera is that over the top smile, that wouldn’t be naturally appropriate for a serious conversation that is obviously about to happen. More on that later too.

More recently, I made a post about what I refer to as John’s “fake” self, and I explain there how Seraphina is an anchor and draw of goodness for John. Him trying his best to put that goodness forward and project it onto her in not only this episode, but every episode, really shows how much he relies upon her because, as I said a bit ago, she is the only person he really does this for. When John is with Seraphina, he tries to get the most out of the person he’s forced to become.

This chronological order is already getting on my nerves, sorry about that. This might be a hard post to follow. Anyway, if you take two of the ideas I talked about in the previous paragraphs and put them together, they connect into the next thing I want to say. My statements “there is less and less of that[fake] side to John left” and “John is clinging to his false personality as best he can” lead into my next point, which is supported by the first outburst of the episode (there’s a lot). And I’ve also said this in previous posts. John doesn’t want to be overcome by his evil, past self. John doesn’t want to lose the person he created to hide behind, his fake self, because once that image of himself is shattered (haha get it) the only person left is John’s true, hidden self. All we will have left is the dark side of John. Obviously because John created this fake personality for himself, he doesn’t like the person he really is and attempted to overcome it, defeat it. But his attempt is experiencing exponential failure (for reasons I’ve kind of said before and will explain in this post) and his dark side is corrupting him again, slowly but surely taking over. Again, I repeat, John does not want this. John is scared of himself. This is one of the reasons why, whenever he can, John takes the opportunity to deny the progression being made by his evil side. This is why, when Seraphina tells him that she knows John is Joker and there’s basically nothing he can say to make her not believe that, John says, “How many times do I have to say it? I’m not Joker!” This internal refusal to accept that he is Joker (evil) is what I was referring to literally a second ago when I said that by slipping out of his fake personality, John would be losing Sera, but also something else (I swear I thought it would take me longer to get to this). That “something else” would be his belief that there is any good in him at all. Let me explain. Because dark John’s takeover is inevitable and we can recognize that he makes up most of John’s mind currently, if John switches to his dark side now, it would basically represent the defeat of his fabricated (“good”) self. A quote of mine from my analysis from episode 161 is, “By denying that Joker is himself, John is in part saying that Joker isn’t the only thing that makes up John.” The moment John stops denying that he is Joker to himself, he admits that he is wholly evil, and you’ll have to wait a second for a full explanation on this. In John’s mind, his two sides are very black and white: his past self (evilness) and his new one, (goodness). This is exemplified in his previous flashbacks to New Bostin and their contrast to his daily life. The colors used, the words used. Very good vs. evil, hero vs. villain. And it’s meant to be. It’s one or the other. Anyway, as long as John denies that he is fully old John, fully evil John, he is saying that there has to be some left of the other side (good) in him. (usually it isn’t this black and white but I hope I literally just explained how he sees it as so. For John, it really is one or the other).

A very important aspect of this whole thing, this whole denial, however, is actually in who he’s with. Seraphina’s presence in this scene is very influential, as I’m trying to stress. Her image, to John, is a symbol of his goodness, which I’ve said earlier in this post (briefly), but first in my analysis for episode 161, and even more so in my recent post “John’s “Fake” Self.” John draws his “good” (what I refer to as “fake”) side Seraphina because he doesn’t want to risk trying to get it from himself (because he’s scared of himself). Anyway, I said in the beginning of this post that by showing his evil side to Seraphina, he would lose her. And beyond the obvious, which is that she would hate him for it and leave, there’s also the reason that because Sera is where John tends to get his goodness from, by showing her his evil self, by admitting he is joker (what I talked about more recently), John would be exposing himself as completely evil (already explained this line of thinking). This would mean he doesn’t have any goodness (aka Sera) in him, or that Sera would have somehow lost her own goodness as well, which is something that I just thought of, so I’m not sure if I’ll expand. I’m still thinking. Anyway, John doesn’t want to fully be evil, or at least doesn’t want Sera to know, which is why this all has a more symbolic meaning. And why this episode is so polarizing for John. This is a confrontation between what he considers his goodness and what he considers his evilness.

Next in the episode, when John says a second later, “Hello? It’s me, John! I’m a cripple! I don’t have an ability! I like going out for drinks, and hanging out on the roof, and exercising, and playing games! Sure, I act like a smart-ass and it gets me in trouble sometimes…! But have you seen the kind of shit Joker has done? That’s not me,” this supports my statements that John is clinging to his fake self, that he does view his Joker side as his “evil” side (old statement, but confirmation is nice), and that he will keep denying himself as Joker to not become him fully.

Anyway, the next thing really shown in this episode is when John grabs Seraphina and begs for her to believe him. Specifically he says, “Everyone else can think I’m shit. But you have to believe in me! PLEASE!” Another nod to his obsession with Seraphina and my concept of her as the source of his good. This is just kind of repeating what I’ve already said, just in a very extreme and eye-catching way so I wanted to say something about it.

This back and forth that the chronological order is putting me in is not it.

Now we get to the part where Seraphina validates me :). John finishes his plea to her with, “I’m not Joker. I’m not a monster, okay?” To which Sera responds (in her head), “”Monster”? Why is he acting like this? Is he really still trying to convince me? Or… Is he trying to convince himself?” This is the first time an UnOrdinary character has brought this idea up. Sera is probably the only character to have been in such a situation with John, though. Anyway, the concept that John is trying to convince himself of his own goodness has largely only been used in my own episode analyses rather than the actual comic (lol). I’ve already talked about it in this post, but it’s been a common theme for me throughout my last 10 posts or so. Seraphina thinking this same thing herself confirms the importance of the idea. John’s denial of himself as Joker is just as much for his sake as it is for Sera’s, likely even more. I said all of this up above when I talked specifically about his denial of himself as Joker, but the direct confirmation from the comic made me happy.

When Seraphina tells John that she knows about what happened at New Bostin, it’s significance is more grounded than these mind games I’ve been talking about up until now, thank god. I can never tell when I go too far… This can still be taken into that context, but I want to talk about a different aspect, because I would just be repeating myself from earlier if we talked about all that again. Anyway, when Seraphina says, “John, I already know everything… New Bostin, your expulsion, how you’re secretly a high-tier... “ John has a very extreme reaction, instantly throwing himself back into those flashbacks to New Bostin. He sees himself as the monster he was then now paired with the knowledge that Seraphina knows all about it too.

The aspect of the story I want to talk about is one of my favorites :D. Parallels! The parallels between John’s past and his present are absolutely phenomenal and I love them. And they’ve been growing a lot more ‘in your face’ as of the more recent episodes. Some examples are when John and Seraphina fought off that fake joker in the hall that one time and also that one scene between Cecile and John where John got all pissed off at Seraphina. That probably made no sense to you, but I talk about it a lot in my analyses for episodes 161 and 167 so….. I don’t know what to tell you lol. Anyways, with my analyses, I’ve been pushing the concept that John is becoming more and more unable to differentiate both events and people from his past and his present. My main evidence for this is that John’s flashbacks have been pairing up with details from the current storylines. In my analysis for episode 167, I say, “John’s flashbacks are making it so that John cannot separate the present from the past. He cannot exist at Wellston without his subconscious relating everything that is happening to what happened to John at New Bostin.” I also talk about what this means for his relationships with the other characters who go to school with him currently, especially Seraphina. Here are two quotes that are, again, both from my analysis of episode 167: “This episode’s flashbacks to Claire and situations revolving around her and the comparison to current events revolving around Seraphina, and especially the outburst by John at her; they all suggest that John doesn’t see Seraphina as her own person anymore, maybe that he never has.”... “It’s become clear that John is, currently at least, viewing Seraphina as another Claire.” My whole support of this is because of Seraphina resembling Claire in the events of episode 161 cueing John’s flashbacks of her, but more importantly (at the moment): how John, when told about Sera and Arlo meeting behind his back, has automatic flashbacks to Claire’s betrayal and seemingly takes his anger at Claire out at Seraphina.

So, basically, Claire was John’s best friend, but then she went behind his back because of his evil actions to secretly recruit their other classmates to defeat him. I know anyone reading this post should know that, but I wanted to mention it because of how startlingly similar this is to how John is viewing his current situation with Seraphina. Sera was John’s best friend, yet she’s been drifting away from him, and according to Cecile, she has even met with Arlo behind John’s back. I’ve talked about all of this before (I think? I don’t really remember lol). Anyway, the developments that this episode adds to this parallel, this comparison, are quite substantial. Both Seraphina telling John that she knows he is Joker and that she knows about the events of New Bostin further push this concept of her and Claire’s similarity, which in turn encourages John’s mental association of the two characters and his inability to differentiate between the past and the present.

Seraphina telling John that she knows he is Joker is adding to the similarity between the storyline at New Bostin and the storylines at Wellston. As I described in my brief summary of Claire’s buildup and betrayal, Claire turned against John because she realized how horrible he’d become. This is why we have the infamous one-liner, “monster,” from Claire. Claire’s entire motivation for turning against and leaving John was that she saw how corrupted and twisted he was becoming and wanted to put her other classmates’ suffering to an end. Now, there’s a bit of bias here on John’s part, as I do not believe he truly grasps that Claire only wanted him put out of power/authority (which was what corrupted him in the first place). I think John just thinks that Claire couldn’t stand the person he was and what he was doing, and that attempting to defeat him was purely a retaliation without an end goal and less of the logical decision and mission it was (to dethrone him). I think Keon’s classes really pushed this into John’s head, actually, because they were so focused on enforcing the fact that John was a monster. He became overwhelmed with that idea of himself as a monster and assumed everyone else was too. (The last few sentences have awful word choice and consequently worse comprehensiveness, but it is what it is). Anway, back on track, because John thinks that when people discover what a “monster” he is, they go behind his back and plan attacks. Now, because Sera has admitted knowing of John’s past/his identity of Joker, which are the most obvious examples of the “monster” in John paired with her having recently gone behind his back to talk to Arlo about John, her actions are obviously mirroring the buildup at New Bostin for John. Something else that’s big in this episode, is the later panel of Seraphina and Claire overlapping each other says, “monster.” This is both a support for what I’ve been saying and its own separate addition. With Seraphina now playing Claire’s part, this is going to further John’s association and muddlement of his past and his present.

There will be a lot more of this later in this post though, so stay tuned.

I do realize that without the confusing explanation of John’s difference in view regarding the events of New Bostin in comparison to Claire’s was kind of useless, I just included that because it really emphasized the comparison to this episode particularly, which is what this post is about lol.

Next in the episode, we get the creepiest panel of John drawn ever. You know the one. I first saw that and was stunned. Anway, normally that would go in honorable mentions, but come on.

Moving on, we have finally reached the turning point for this post, for this episode, and for the entire comic of UnOrdinary lmao. Early on in this post I said, “John doesn’t want to lose the person he created to hide behind, his fake self, because once that image of himself is shattered (haha get it) the only person left is John’s true, hidden self.” And, besides me still laughing because of that, it really helps me explain what’s happening here.

Currently, we are at the panels of the episode where John is seeing an image of his created self, aka L for loser John, aka hair gel John, splintering and shattering like glass. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what this means. Everything I’ve been talking about for a while. Not only this post, but for many posts in the past, is finally completely itself.

This is the final takeover of the dark side of John. I’ve always talked about this gradual battle between good and evil within John where the evil side is going to inevitably win and this is that. Most of this episode has been me saying stuff like ‘if this happens, it will mean that John has truly lost himself and is completely evil.’ And that’s where we’re at now. All of that has happened, okay? It’s time to abandon everything I’ve been saying recently because it’s in the past now.

Which is why, we see that completion of Seraphina and Claire becoming mirrors of each other in John’s mind. Throughout the rest of the episode there is obvious molding of the two, more so than ever before. So much so that I can’t really call my ideas on this topic an idea because they’re proved correct. John is blatantly viewing Sera as Claire now, and it’s meant to be understood by the reader because of the constant switches between the two from frame to frame. The concept of John’s anger at Claire being targeted and associated with Seraphina also makes a comeback. I am confident enough now to say that it is confirmed in the comic that John cannot fully differentiate Seraphina and Claire’s characters from one another.

Even the whole idea that John cannot fully differentiate his past and present as wholes gets extreme support, though not exactly enough for me personally to say that it is confirmed. After the “shattering”(I like that, might keep that), John instantly attacks Seraphina with accusations of going behind his back and why even when Seraphina kept telling him that she was in no way taking sides, only collecting the facts, John repeatedly told her that she was abandoning “his side.” These are obviously things that happened at New Bostin, and though it fits into the more set in stone Sera vs. Claire comparison, I am using it to support this more overall idea of present vs. past. But the best support for that past vs present thing is in this episode when Seraphina says, “You’re repeating everything you did at New Bostin!” That line is very self-explanatory, I feel. Also, the fact that it’s one of the characters saying this, makes me pretty confident that this is true.

I have now decided to call this turning point in UnOrdinary “The Shattering” because of both John’s and Seraphina’s uses of the concept. So, that’s fun. And it also leads into the next thing in the episode: Seraphina’s personal shattering.

Seraphina is always a more grounded character than John and it’s kind of refreshing turning my analysis onto her because she makes more logical sense. In this episode, Seraphina really lets loose at John about everything she’s been through because of him and even uses the phrase, “My whole world shattered.” She expresses how she feels like she’s been lied to about everything for such a long time (which she obviously has) and how to figure out what parts of both her relationship with John and even her own personality are true. It’s a very passionate and straightforward moment and I do feel like I tend to overlook Seraphina in analysis when it comes to focus, probably because there’s more to analyze with John, but I do feel like while reading this episode, my focus was really split between the characters.

Seraphina has completely changed as a person since she met John. Mostly, in fact, because she met John. Upon learning that he isn’t who he says he is, she’s met with this inevitable question of ‘how much of my personality, of myself, is also built upon lies.’ John largely influenced the changes in Seraphina and if that wasn’t true, what does that mean for her.

I’ve talked about this before in my analysis for episode 162, so I don’t really have much to say because unlike John, I pretty much have the same feeling for Sera as I did then.

The real development in this episode, however, was obviously that, “Sera you’re just a cripple,” from John. That completely broke Seraphina. I know that she knew that he was faking his whole personality before, or at least most of it, but I think this is when she really takes that in fully. Before John said that, Sera even said, “This isn’t you, John. Something happened at New Bostin that you haven’t opened up about.” This really conveys the message that Sera still believes in part that John didn’t completely fake himself, or even that she’s in denial, but when John harshly mocked her for being a cripple, which is probably the thing most opposite what Sera could imagine the John she knew doing, she completely just collapsed into herself. Like she said, her whole world was shattered. We get this whole flashback collection of John that Seraphina knew and it’s almost like he’s died in a way and been replaced by this fake, but it’s even worse because that’s who he was this entire time.

So then she hits him at the end so i'm kind of really wanting to read the next episode now so I’m putting this up now, over an hour after the new episode came out. ;-; r.i.p..

#i apologize to the people that actual read these things #its too bulky #unordinary #webtoon #uru-chan #uno #official #episode 173 #unordinary webtoon

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