#it's really just some meta lite (tm) motivated by a hint of fandom salt

[maliro-t]

I am purposefully keeping my vm posting as salt and nit-pick free as possible (mainly because I have almost zero to offer, and no investment in offering it. the show is so good) but lol it’s weird how specific pet peeves of mine can still rear their heads.

Like, this is very specific, but I’ve seen probably over 10 different posts across twit and tumblr w ppl yelling about Percy’s shadow having his gun to his head when asked about the sixth barrel which. yeah very cool and dramatic, and I have no real qualms with it as a directional choice. I do however have a longstanding resentment for the implication that the sixth barrel is for him though lmfao and it’s weird to see it leaned into so hard by fandom again. Like, there’s a metaphorical interpretation of that aspect of the pact that I can accept, but...that’s just literally not what it is, and the actual answer is far more interesting imo! The sixth barrel is an acknowledgment that the list won’t ever actually end; that the new brand of violence and destruction wrought by this technology will never go away; that more names will always be waiting around the corner. It’s a very dark aspect of Percy’s larger feelings about legacy and Whitestone, and fittingly enhanced by the fact that Ripley’s is the only original name that never gets crossed off, given that she’s the eventual catalyst for the spreading of firearm technology. 

And Percy says this pretty plainly when asked in game, before they even get to Whitestone iirc. I’ve always found it so odd that people just kind of...ignored that?? and went ‘WELL but actually it’s still probably for him, guess we’ll never know!!’, to the point where in the campaign wrap-up when Taliesin was asked again who it was for and gave exactly the same answer, it was taken as new information. Only so much weight on word of god and all, so every interpretation is valid, especially given that he never says this in the animated series, and I know there are a lot of people experiencing the story for the first time here. So go wild I guess! It’s just a weird sticking point of mine. Percy as a character reads to me as being largely about legacy, both as something sacred, and as a source of anxiety, and I love the way that’s sewn into every aspect of him at the root, including his fucked-up revenge quest.