#moral of the story: if they want a s4 they need to kick some people to the mf curb and get back to what made the original so fun and special

[puthyflapps]

Not them dying to bring Sarah back and absolutely hating their characters current plotlines 🫣🫢🤭

Carmen De La Pica Morales stans rise!

[5five5five5five5five5five]

the sad thing about s4 and THAT is for as much of it is OOC af and a complete character assassination to both characters i can see how its SOMEWHAT ic for Five. on a level where "IF THIS PLOT WAS ABOUT ANYTHING ELSE, IT BE MORE IC"

i would have LOVED a story for five full of - hopelessness selfishness being so tired of it all (WITCH THEY DID IC IN S3. I LOVE 'i don't give a FUCK anymore' s3 five)

fearing the worst and having to decide his own comfort or the lifes of his family. people can go "HE WOULD NEVER" to allll of it but i truly think he would second guess his own family or his comfort. we have to accept that five isn't a hero and is rather egotistical and very much cares more about HIS WAY then any others way. in s3, he uses soft voice, false supportive fear tactics on viktor, man like, people really need to stop seeing him as this goodie good, hes not and i would have LOVED TO SEE THIS DONE IN ANY OTHER WAY THAT WASN'T THAT.

like for as much as he loves his family, god does he do some SHIT to his family like - can we say that without nulling the love he has? hes a garbage boy AND a not horrid brother. he can still be a lil shit to his family well still loving them. its when the shit OVERLAPS the love. five was a balance between leaving diego in that ward, butting heads with viktor and not listening to luther bc of the psychosis and kicking him the nuts WELL STILL risking his morals and sanity to save them almost every time.

let him be fucking done.

let him be selfish, let him be greedy, let him have a BREAK.....JUST NOT THAT PLS GOD WHY!! just bc i SEE IT does not mean I WANTED TO OR THAT ITS IN CHARACTER FULLY. its still VERY MUCH NOT.

i just cling to the SCRAPS of character i can see from it and wish for better.

[sarabethsilver]

I just want to say that I love your posts about the whole Luke/Jess dynamic!! In my opinion, you are spot on everything.👏

Because yes, Luke was a good father to April and a good father figure to Rory but that doesn't mean that he was that to Jess too…in fact I will say that most of the time he was a complete jerk to Jess by often yelling and being angry at him (there are very few episodes where Luke speaks with a normal tone to him), treating him like a criminal, never showing him any love and comfort, being occasionally physical abusive to him, stealing his car, kicking him out when he actually needed him the most and caring more about him (not) graduating than his feelings about meeting his father, sending him back to NY knowing that Liz “is a wack job”, not caring that “he travelled” aka was homeless for months and had to sleep in a car-and he cared more about Rory than about his nephew in that situation, not listening to him the few times he actually is open to speak about how he feels. On top of that, ignoring that, HE kicked Jess out.

And then blaming, yelling, and insulting him because he didn't want to go to his abuser’s fourth wedding.

Like, I’m not saying that Luke didn't love Jess, because yes, he did, but he wasn't good at showing it. And I understand that he also had traumatic experiences, and didn’t know how to handle a teenager, but in the end, he was just one more adult that rejected Jess. That’s why I don’t understand when people say: “Luke was the only one that was always there for Jess” or “Jess has to be thankful for Luke” like NO just because he let him live in an apartment where he had zero privacy doesn't mean that “he was always there for him,“ especially when he remembered Jess that he can only live there if he graduates. Even without the Walmart job, there is no guarantee that a traumatized teenager will graduate. I really hate how the writers want us to believe that Luke was such a hero here. And yes, I like that “hug scene,“ but Jess deserved and needed that hug so much sooner, and he never got it.

With that being said, I still enjoy their dynamic when I need a good laugh, seeing them both ranting, annoyed with people, being sarcastic. There are many good moments, and when I remember that these are all fictional characters😅 but if we are overanalyzing everything, I have to say that the older I get, the more I struggle with the character of Luke in his behavior towards Jess. 

Thank you! I appreciate this feedback, since I'm always trying (and failing) to tread lightly when I critically examine their relationship. Luke is beloved here, and I get it! I love him too! I enjoy Luke and Jess' relationship on a superficial level. I laugh at their funny moments, and my heart swells at their tender moments. But as soon as I look a little deeper, their relationship looks pretty fractured to me.

I get it, Luke was thrust into an impossible scenario when Jess showed up. I don't fault him for making mistakes along the way. But forget the complexities of "how do you build trust with a teenager who has never been able to trust adults"... Luke never even gets there. What about the basics? Jess needed kindness, safety, and stability. And he just doesn't get that from Luke. Constantly yelling, pushing Jess around, repeatedly mocking, threatening eviction, and then actually kicking Jess out isn't kind, safe, or secure. And those behaviors aren't the outliers - that's Luke's baseline behavior toward Jess. The moments of kindness are the rarities, and those moments are often surrounded with mocking or rejection.

S4 is, by far, the worst. Because at that point, Jess is no longer living with Luke. He's not disrupting Luke's daily life. He's not asking Luke for ANYTHING. But for some reason, Luke goes out of his way to be unkind to Jess... and for what? What's the moral of that story? Because it's CERTAINLY not to have us examine Luke's mistakes with Jess, the writers never go there. Am I meant to believe that Jess needed abandonment, heaps of anger, and continual mocking to... grow, or something? And this is the season I'm supposed to melt at the "reconciliation" between Luke and Jess?

Maybe we're both overanalyzing! Because, like I said, I enjoy their relationship at a superficial level. But also... Luke and Jess are not superficial characters. We see painful, vulnerable moments between them. Jess' arc is serious and evocative, and he's treated like an important character even when he returns as a guest star. So I can't just look at Jess and Luke's relationship on a superficial level. The writers wanted me to see Luke as the "hero" who saved Jess, and they gave me all these moments to supposedly demonstrate that, so I'm sure as hell gonna examine those moments!

EDITED because I'll add that I don't ever view Luke as abusive to Jess. And I think they DO have moments of kindness and comforting. Those are real, and that's what the audience is responding to when we fall in love with them. But imo the moments of kindness are few and far between, and they are not enough to balance out the baseline of irritability Luke puts out there.

[immaturityofthomasastruc]

The Chloe-Saga

Regarding the whole Chloe-situation: I don’t get it. Just what exactly makes Astruc not only hate a character of his creation to this extent but also makes him not stop giving her more and more prominence in the actual show? Like, in S1 she was the quintessential high school bully. Hates the main character, has the same love interest, causes a lot of “problems/villain of the week”. And guess what? That’s perfectly fine as an archetype. She fulfilled her purpose and it was fun whenever she got put down a notch. That some fans latched onto her and her being redeemed? That’s what a fandom does. It takes characters and gives them a new spin – that does not mean they like what a character in canon does, it means they want to explore those characters outside their bubble. With the identity-shenanigans going on, there even was a pre-build reason for why Chloe might question herself. In S2 we then got the full package of explanations for why Chloe’s Chloe. And while some of them were a bit much and Chloe still did a lot of bad things that might even exceed the “justifications”, Chloe became more than an archetype and more like a character with a clearer background and needs and wishes. What did Astruc expect? Even when we don’t buy her background AND think she went far beyond moral boundaries, there still is a lot more to latch onto. And in S3 and in S4 she got more focus and excuses. Fought of an Akuma. Was explicitly targeted by the big bad and more than once hurt by her idol. Got more family drama and focus on how her family affects people. If we are truly meant to hate Chloe and see not one bit of goodness (which Astruc tells us too) just why are we getting all that focus and excuses? As a one-dimensional schoolyard bully it would have been a lot easier to simply hate her. But that role is apparently Lila’s turf now… The way I see her character and development: One of her traits from the very beginning was how much she liked Ladybug and how much it hurt her whenever LB rejected or renounced her in a way she could not wave aside. She even literally dressed up as Ladybug! In S2 when her mother was introduced, what was one of the first things Chloe did? She sat besides her and mimicked every single movement. For me these were the defining moments of Chloe’s potential to be good. A girl who just really craves the attention of powerful female role models that she can model herself after. A girl who is way more insecure than her bratty face lets on. A girl who has not yet really found herself. Audrey’s entire character essentially is a grown-up Chloe. Petty and nasty and kicking down at every opportunity. Seeing how Chloe reacted to her, mimicked her, and just wanted to be recognized by her, I see most of Chloe’s character essentially as her modelling herself after her. Which is not helped by her father essentially being a rubberstamp with authority, Sabrina being an extended arm, and the butler…being a butler. Ladybug was the counter-weight. It was obvious Chloe cared about her and her opinion of her. She was still flawed and at times outright cruel but there was a hint of progress. Be it her later appearances as Queen Bee where she was either willing to listen (Maledictator) or act as part of the team (Heroe’s Day) or the entire “rejected an Akuma”-saga complete with shielding Sabrina without anything to gain from it. For me the most hurtful moment was when Marinette in her endless goodness reconciled mother and daughter. Because ultimately that was part of what made Chloe continue to model herself after Audrey and what made her stop questioning if Audrey truly is a woman to be emulated. Double hurtful because with Ladybug off her pedestal she was back as the sole role model and because this is yet another thing that can be construed as ultimately being Marinette’s fault (which I don’t believe in and absolutely hate!). We had all these things. Neglectful mother she wanted to emulate in the hopes to be recognized. Secondary role model that cast her out for reasons pertaining to her sins of the past and even before often rejected her for reasons Chloe couldn’t know about. A lot of enablers who either can’t or won’t tell her ‘no’ or 'stop that’ [and we know Chloe at least listens when the few people she cares about tell her]. This is not a condemnation story, that is a tragedy! Which is another thing I am weirded out about. How can Chloe be an irredeemable demon who has not a semblance of goodness in her and yet we are expected to feel stabbed in the heart by the S3-finale? Either she had the potential to be good and it was a tragedy it was not meant to be, or she is an obvious devil who nobody should feel for or with. We can’t have both! Should I feel betrayed or should I feel like that was just Chloe upping her Chloeness?

---------------------------------------------------------------

According to what Astruc said, we were all supposed to feel betrayed by the Season 3 finale.

Chloe’s relationship with her mother is a real missed opportunity, as she was set up as a completely despicable person everyone hates, and of course, she reconciles with her while the writers never acknowledge the abuse. Seriously, Astruc doesn’t think Chloe being emotionally neglected by her mother for years to the point where she can’t even get her name right and developing a slight inferiority complex as a result counts as abuse.

THIS IS WHAT THOMAS ASTRUC ACTUALLY BELIEVES

Like you said, there have been plenty of plenty of irredeemable villains the audience still felt bad for when they were defeated because of how tragic their stories were.

Tai Lung from the original Kung Fu Panda is a good example. He was trained by Master Shifu, someone he saw as a father, and his skills grew, so did his desire for power. He saw not being granted the title of the Dragon Warrior as if he was denied something that was rightfully his. There’s also the fact that his desire to become the Dragon Warrior stemmed from his desire to make his father proud of him by achieving the greatest honor in Kung Fu.

Tai Lung: All I ever did, I did to make you PROUD! Tell me how proud you are, Shifu! Tell me! TELL ME! 

Shifu: (quietly) I have always been proud of you. From the first moment, I've been... proud of you. And it was my pride that blinded me. I loved you too much to see what you were becoming... what I was turning you into. I'm s... I'm sorry. 

Tai Lung: (hesitates for a moment before grabbing the injured Shifu) I don’t want your apology. I want my scroll!

Even though he stops for a second, Tai Lung still wants his power, ultimately shooting down the last chance he had at reconciling with his father. Both him and Shifu had problems that led to Tai Lung’s descent into villainy, but while one recognized his part, the other simply couldn’t comprehend he did anything wrong in the first place. THAT is how you do a tragic villain, not what we got with Chloe.

If Astruc wanted Chloe to be an irredeemable monster, he needed to show her meaner moments weren’t something to laugh at (something the show Kevin Can F**k Himself is doing a great job at in regards to the titular character by deconstructing sitcom cliches), and have the audience take her seriously as a threat, not a joke villain like in “Queen Banana”. If Chloe actually was a “deep character” like what Astruc obviously planned from the start, she should have been more than comic relief after betraying Ladybug.

[norahastuff]

Another thing about 5x16 that I didn’t mention in the last post, is the romanticisation of Mary. S12 does a lot of work in tearing down the perfect sainted mother image, but the seeds of that are there in this episode. I mean the ideal of Mary hasn’t been torn down yet (though finding out she was a hunter who made a demon deal did put a dent in it) but one thing that is addressed is the myth that John and Mary were this perfect, perpetually happy couple. 

SAM: Dad always said they had the perfect marriage.

DEAN: It wasn’t perfect until after she died

And neither was Mary. The things Dean thinks he knew about her, how much of that was his own unreliable memories and how much was John painting a sanitised picture of the woman that she was? I mean finding Mary’s killer became John’s crusade so it’s no wonder that he turned her into a saint, which she really wasn’t. Believing that was part of what messed up Dean’s perceptions of relationships and what he expected of the people he loved, lest we forget that one leviathan pretending to be Dean’s astute observation that he “doesn't have relationships. No, he has applications for sainthood.”

This was in s7, and was a big part of why the most recent tragedy he’s just gone through, Cas/Godstiel/Leviathans, has shaken him so much. Sure losing Cas hurt, but it’s also the guilt at not being able to see what was really going on with him and not being able to save him that’s eating away at him. And why couldn’t he see that? Because Cas occupied a certain role in his mind. Despite their fighting and feeling like he was being abandoned by Cas throughout s6, ultimately Cas was still the larger than life badass hero who turned his back on heaven and everything he believed in to fight by Dean’s side and help save the world, and when Cas was knocked off that pedestal Dean had him on, it shook his worldview so profoundly but was ultimately a good thing, because it laid the foundation for Dean being able to see Cas a person. A flawed real person who was just trying to do his best, and that was what led to them being able to develop a very different kind of relationship, one that was on much more equal footing than what they’d had before. 

The same is true for Dean and Mary in s12. That’s why Amara brings Mary back to life. In Dean’s eyes Mary has been this sainted figure, this martyr and yet also someone whose death took away his innocence and forced him to give up on his own needs and happiness because he had to step into her role after she died. So there was always this weird dichotomy of “she’s perfect and good and I will never live up to that kind of perfection” as well as “I’m angry at her for leaving me to pick up all the pieces and having to give up my sense of self” which undoubtedly led to even more confusion for Dean, because how do you resent a saint? Honestly Bobo did such a good job writing that Dean and Mary confrontation in 12x22, it was an arc that had to pay off years of character development and managed to do it so well, so kudos to him on that. 

Mary’s real and not perfect, and yet Dean loves her anyway. It means that unattainable goal of perfection Dean always hated himself for not being able to reach...well maybe he didn’t have to. Things weren’t black and white, people weren’t just saints or sinners.

Also the whole “Sam thinking Mary and John had the perfect marriage because of stories he’d heard” thing  brings up the of idea of preserving your kids innocence out of love. Sam has a lot of different stories and ideas about his childhood and history, some told by John and never corrected by Dean, because Dean wanted Sam to be a kid as long as he could and if he could protect Sam in any way, he would. 

It’s something that comes up over and over again, and not just with Sam and Dean. How about in 10x20 when Dean sees how hurt and upset Claire still is with Cas? Dean defends him and tells her because of her father’s sacrifice “Cas was able to save the world. The world.” That’s not the whole truth, Cas definitely helped but Dean made it sound like he did it alone, because that’s how he wanted Claire to see Cas, and to understand him (also the original line was that Cas helped save the world, but Jensen being Jensen knew Dean would talk Cas up more than that.) 

I was going to say Sam does it too with Jack, but that one is a little complicated. When he’s trying to bond with Jack by telling him about his own struggles with morality and demon blood, he talks about how his family, Dean and Cas, were there for him. I mean arguably that’s not true at all if you take s4 in to account, Cas was being brainwashed by heaven into actually encouraging Sam’s addiction and descent, but then he is there for Sam in s5. But Sam’s not about to tell Jack about how Cas was a flawed person with a complicated history. In fact at the start of s13, Cas is essentially in the s1 Mary role. He’s the perfect untouchable martyr, his death broke Dean (and also led to Dean whitewashing a lot of the reasons behind what actually caused Cas’ death) and left a profound hole in Jack’s life. 

But luckily this wasn’t s1. Cas didn’t stay the idealised martyr, he was brought back. 

Oh and Cas has done the “whitewash the truth for your son” thing multiple times the most significant is the one I remember a lot of people were angry about back when 14x02 aired, in which Cas tells Jack about when he was human  “I had Sam and Dean. But I had something else that was extremely helpful. I had myself. Just the basic me, as, uh...as Dean would say, without all the bells and whistles.”

Some people were annoyed that Cas said he had Sam and Dean, because Dean had kicked him out of the bunker and he was left to fend for himself. Thing is there were extenuating circumstances which Dean repeatedly apologised for and which Cas understood and forgave. Besides he did have them. Dean tried to protect him from the angels. He told him to go to the bunker. They saved him from the reaper. Dean saved him from the angel who tried to kill him. So sure, despite all that, Dean did leave him out on his own but again, Cas isn’t going to reveal all that messy hurtful history to Jack. He wants to protect him and for him to see the best in Dean. It’s what parents do.

Thing is, unlike John, Sam, Dean and Cas didn’t tell any of those somewhat edited truths in order to get Claire or Jack to join their revenge missions or enable their crusades, they did it because that’s what they knew was best for them in that moment and because it’s what they needed to hear. 

Anyway, the point is that Dark Side of the Moon is such a crucial episode for Sam, Dean and Cas and I love how much of the characters’ core traits and struggles it manages to address in such a nuanced way (see also Sam and Dean’s relationship as well as Dean and Cas’ individual relationships with faith as well as their joint relationship with it.)

[gondorosi]

The gradual separation of show!Jon from book!Jon - Part II

Magic

The showrunners deciding that magic is an unimportant part of the saga and to be relegated to the background is utter horseshit. There’s a bloody REASON direwolves and dragons reappeared in the world when they did, more or less at the same time. There’s a fucking reason why in Martin’s version Dany’s fireproof nature was a one-time thing, the dormant magic in her reawakening as needed BECAUSE dragons needed to be brought back into the world. Dany, Jon and Bran are the three most magic-sensitive characters in the whole story - and only one of them have anything to do with it in a significant manner (though significant might be stretching it). With Dany, her magical nature is only sporadically referred to (the dragons are the be all and end all) and Jon has nothing.

Show!Jon is a mortal man on every level, without a drop of magic in him. Book!Jon is no Bran, but there are three fundamental factors which show how deeply he is connected to the land.

Ghost: Removing Ghost's importance to Jon is akin to removing part of his soul. He isn't just 'big, white fluffy doggo'. Ghost is part of him, his familiar. Ghost is the physical personification of the magic running in Jon's blood, the proof of the Old Gods awareness running through Stark children's veins. Direwolves have a deeper, subtler and less apparent magic than dragons, but no less potent, and no less essential to Jon than her dragons are to Dany. Out of all the Stark siblings, Jon’s connection with Ghost and Bran’s connection with Summer seem to be the most symbiotic. All the siblings have strong bonds with their direwolves, molded to their own personality - Arya’s connection with Nymeria persists even across the sea in Essos, all legends of Robb in battle are accompanied by legends of Grey Wind and poor Rickon becomes so enmeshed in Shaggydog’s mind that there’s little to distinguish between boy and beast. However, perhaps due to the nature of their POVs and story arcs, none of the Starks save Bran and Jon have their journeys so closely aligned to their wolves. Which is why it’s nigh impossible to even consider Jon’s story moving forward without Ghost, especially post resurrection. The show omitted the obvious implication that Jon warged into Ghost before he died, had no role for him in the BoB, completely erased him in S7 and relegated him to a damn stray in S8. On the other hand, the show AMPED up the Dragon Queen part of Dany to the detriment of all other aspects of her character.

Warging: In a universe where Martin has tried his best to weave in strong magic with actual medieval politics, concentrating all Northern magic into one single character (whose surface they barely scratched) is utterly lazy storytelling. Jon's warging abilities are mighty and second perhaps only to Bran, though I hold the belief Arya is as powerful a warg. But unlike both of them, Jon seems to actively resist exploring his warging possibilities. Some of the resistance may be explained by his environment - with both the NW and the Freefolk considering warging to be something of a ‘black’ art or dark magic. Sure, the Free Folk are more open about it, with Varamyr envying Jon’s gift with Ghost in his thoughts:

“He had known what Snow was the moment he saw that great white direwolf stalking silent at his side. One skinchanger can always sense another. Mance should have let me take the direwolf. There would be a second life worthy of a king. He could have done it, he did not doubt. The gift was strong in Snow, but the youth was untaught, still fighting his nature when he should have gloried in it.”

The show makes NO mention of it. Jon being considered a warg is a major reason behind half the NW hating and fearing him. I don’t remember the show ever bringing up the fact that Jon was feared - they seemed to make Thorne and Slynt’s animosity out of sheer spite and disgust at his bastardy. 

The Lord Commander's Raven: This is a favourite obsession of mine. Old Mormont’s raven pops out at Jon at seemingly random moments, but for the reader bursting with conspiracy theories, the raven is just another nod to the fact that Jon has a far greater role to play in the story than is visible to the eye. There's a popular theory that Bloodraven wargs him from time to time, since Jon is the secondary piece on his chessboard. The raven has come to Jon’s aid atleast twice that I can remember:

When Mormont is attacked by the wight:

Jon tried to shout, but his voice was gone. Staggering to his feet, he kicked the arm away and snatched the lamp from the Old Bear's fingers. The flame flickered and almost died. "Burn!" the raven cawed. "Burn, burn, burn!"

Spinning, Jon saw the drapes he'd ripped from the window. He flung the lamp into the puddled cloth with both hands.

During the election for Lord Commander when Mormont’s raven flying to his shoulder is used as a sign by Sam to argue for Mormont’s approval of Jon as the choice.

Bastardy

Jon's entire sense of self is centered around two things:

Ned Stark is his father

He's a bastard

His entire character arc is trying live up to one of those and distance himself from the connotations of the other. His bastardy is the formative lodestone of his character and moral compass but in the EXACT opposite of how Catelyn and Westerosi society as a whole expect it to be.

However, there's a twist to that. Jon's inner desire is EXACTLY what Catelyn feared. He DOES want to be Lord of Winterfell. He DOES harbour resentment that Robb (seemingly) has everything handed to him while the best Jon can hope for is to die at his post, unknown and unsung. He DOES want glory and power and to exact some kind of revenge on a society which deemed him vile and detestable for no fault of his. All the elements for him to become the Starks' own Daemon Blackfyre is already present.

But there's one difference - Ned Stark is no Aegon the Unworthy. Even more than all of the above heart's desires, Jon wants to be like his father. He wants to do what is right. He wants his father to be proud of him. He wants to be nothing like the greedy, vengeful and lusty creature he's always been told he is. He wants to help people and stand up for the weak because that's who he is. At the very heart of it, he just wants to be loved by Ned as much as his trueborn sons. And thus he takes Tyrion's words to heart and wears his bastardy like impenetrable armour.

In show!Jon, ALL of this inner struggle is lost. Jon's bastardy is rarely affixed other than as a side. Show!Jon is a 'good' man. Yes, undoubtedly. But what makes book!Jon a great man is that he masters his baser desires to focus on what's more important. THAT'S what Jeor, Mance and Stannis all saw in him. That's why the Free Folk follow him. That's why half the NW will die for him (yes I know the other half will kill him).

When you have spent most of the show without anywhere referencing how vital the armour of bastardy, and being Ned Stark’s son is to Jon's psyche and sense of self, even the best directors will not be able to depict WHY the news of his parentage will have ripped out the ground from under him. Dany's quest for the throne is out there glaring at us thus atleast on paper making sense that having her undeniable right threatened will rattle her (I personally hate hate HATE the creative decision that Dany's immediate reaction to find out Jon's a Targaryen will be paranoia and concern for HER throne but I digress).

Intelligence, ability and cunning

Up until S4 and most of S5, show!Jon and book!Jon exhibited similar levels of intelligence and cunning. One of my favourite scenes is Sam trying to stop Jon from marching into Mance's camp to try and assassinate him. Jon gets in his face with his frustration and despair boiling and asks if he has any better ideas. At this point he's done a superb job commanding the defence of Castle Black but has also just lost Ygritte, Pyp and Grenn all in one night, a significant portion of the meagre Castle Black forces and is fully aware that they cannot survive another charge. He's beyond desperate and aware that his efforts are likely suicidal but he can't just retreat, lick his wounds and do nothing. 

The show labours under the popular delusion that truly good guys can't be really smart, as being smart means preserving yourself and truly good guys will always jump into danger first to protect other people. Politics is bad so if you're a good strategist then you can't be a good person. 

Both book and show characterizations of Jon have been criticized for being examples of the ‘Chosen One’ the ‘reluctant hero’ who turns out to be the right man for the job, and for painting ambition and the quest for power as negative pursuits. In the book however, Jon’s ambitions never really had a chance to form. He’s prideful enough in his abilities to believe he would be an immediate select into the elite Ranger ranks and is devastated when that doesn’t work out. By the time he’s come to terms with the fact that being Mormont’s steward means being groomed for command, the truth of the White Walkers is in front of him and that becomes his sole consideration.

To many readers, Jon’s election to Lord Commander was ‘contrived’ though I do believe Sam played the long political game as he believed his friend being in a position of power would lead to an easier path for him. However, Jon doesn’t crumple under the weight of the responsibility - his actions as Lord Commander are revolutionary enough to completely destabilize his support. The show entirely omits all the strategic parts of his negotiations with both Stannis and the Freefolk. Unlike show!Jon, book!Jon does not allow the Freefolk through the Wall only on the account of goodwill and the fear of a common enemy. He takes their children hostage to ensure compliance. He negotiates with the Iron Bank for a loan to stave off starvation come winter. He repopulates the Gift with Free Folk. He shelters, counsels and aids Stannis. He addresses almost every logistical and material issue he can think except for the most fundamental - his people. 

On the other hand, there’s no strategic and political angle to Show!Jon in S6 and S7, instead being posited only as warrior extraordinaire.

'The greatest swordsman in the North' - but too naive to not keep the sister who tricked him almost to his death at arm's length. Brave, loyal and courageous beyond belief - but completely befuddled by politicking. Immediately trusting a sister he’s never been close to and who has been Littlefinger’s pupil for a considerable time. 

Book!Jon's abilities as a leader are sorely underappreciated, especially considering that his tenure as Lord Commander saw the status quo of almost every aspect of NW life upended. The previous LC is killed in a mutiny. The Wildling army launch an attack. The Others finally rise. A King/King Claimant FINALLY takes the NW's warnings seriously. The Wildlings are brought south of the Wall.

Despite being a new beginning for all recruits, the Night's Watch is the one order in Westeros whose traditions and rules have not changed in millennia. Understaffed, under-resourced and facing a threat the likes of which people would struggle to comprehend, Jon does the best he can. His major mistake is one most young leaders make, and that is assume all of those under automatically understand his reasons for doing what he does. 

Relationships

Brother:

If there's one role Jon takes more seriously than 'Ned Stark's son, it's that of brother. Book!Jon is pretty much the pinnacle of brotherly love - Robb's right hand, Arya's champion and dutiful protector to both Bran and Rickon. There's a subtle tragedy in this too - despite how much his siblings love him, all of them, including Arya, have othered him. He's brother, but only half. Snow, not a Stark. The last in the list. 'The last brother left to me' - as felt by both Robb and Sansa.

Book!Jon and Show!Jon are both shown to be loving, dutiful brothers but once again the show is incapable of portraying more than one character at a time in a certain way. Thus all of Jon's brotherly love is concentrated on Sansa, the sibling he was least close to. Show!Jon never mentions Robb after his death mentions Arya not at all when book!Jon never stops thinking about the two of them.

Maybe, maybe if the show had bothered to flesh out Jon Snow's emotional attachment to his home and siblings, his dilemma between his family and Dany wouldn't have been so shoddy.

Friend:

Book!Jon, despite his aloof demeanour attracts fast friends. His staunchest supporters in the NW are those who he befriended when he first stepped within the gates. He's the only one to ever have stood up for many of them. And it's his NW friends who do become truly brothers, as they see and stand beside him during his rise to leadership.

Show!Jon is no different - he's got his loyal friends but there was no apparent discord after him being elected LC. Which is surprising considering that this is the moment that Jon effectively decides to ‘Kill the boy.’ The Gilly baby switch storyline is completely done away with, probably because it is the one decision that very clearly paints Jon as grey. The book Sam struggles to understand this decision - in his mind his best friend would never have done that. Maester Aemon is the one who sets him straight - Jon is no longer just a brother of the Watch, he’s the Lord Commander now. He can no longer be taking decisions just as Sam’s friend.

The show never really dwelt on the chasm Jon’s position as a leader would have created with his brothers who till them were his equals. Book!Jon knowingly starts distancing himself and this is a flaw that comes back to stab him in the chest - again a misstep in one raised to leadership at a young age.

Lover:

This part will be a bit of a cop-out since at this point the only common love interest between the books and the show is Ygritte. The show axed Val, who’s one of my favourite secondary characters and my main preference for a Jon pairing pre-Dany. And of course, there’s far too much plot to cover before Jon and Dany even meet in the book (if they’re ever finished).

There are factions of the fandom who don’t think the Jon and Dany romance in S7 was set up convincingly. Admittedly that’s going to be hard for me to judge fairly as I’ve been in the Jonerys camp ever since ADWD made it clear how Jon was growing as a leader and as a magical touchstone in direct parallels to Dany. It definitely helped that Kit’s portrayal of Jon had FINALLY started to appeal to me once The Watchers of the Wall aired. I’d been one of the many fans who had been waiting for these two to meet on the show - and though I personally found the Jon-Dany relationship progression to be one of the few good things about S7, I can perhaps get why many neutral fans (i.e not commited to any rival ships for either Jon or Dany) think its out of character for them to be so involved so soon.

There are plenty of popular assumptions perpetuated by the show which have no backup in the original material - one of them is ‘dumb, lovable idiot’ Jon paired with the ‘awkward and oblivious as fuck with women’ Jon. Now, I’ll not deny that the latter portrayal works QUITE well with show!Jon (Kit’s face is the perfect cast for this characterization) but I just don’t see it working with book!Jon. The boy isn’t seeking out women but its not like he’s not around them. Alys Karstark was quite obviously taken with him, and I doubt Jon missed it, but there were far greater things of import to consider for both of them - I saw no awkwardness in the text. Jon dislikes Selyse and manages to be both cordial and deferential as required. Melisandre makes no secret of her fascination with him - there’s no bumbling awkwardness there either. And Val - he’s quite smitten and there’s some awkwardness there, sure but its hardly the bumbling variety.

As for Dany - considering that at this point the 7 seasons of the show is all we will ever have, I somehow think the softer show!Jon makes a much better pairing with the more hardened show!Dany. Its as if certain aspects of their personalities were flipped in the show - book!Dany is definitely much softer and gentle without her power and strength being diminished, whereas book!Jon is far more calculated and ruthless without compromising on his honour and integrity. 

[sparkwhorunswithwolves]

Teen Wolf and the issue of the hero saves the day

I've got the same(ish) submission for the 3rd time now, so I'm making my own post. Also, ableist terms. Please.

I've said this before, a lot, but just because Scott is the main character, doesn't mean he does better or more than everyone else, or that everyone else's character arcs are about/because of him.

Or at least it should be, but because of that pesky protagonist issue, most character development is kept off screen unless it directly affects Scott.

Was Derek a shitty person? Absolutely, I don't think we have to argue that canon-wise. Did he get a lot of positive character development, and stopped doing those shitty things? Also, absolutely.

But why? Teen Wolf is Scott's story, so you'd assume that he was responsible for that. Invalidate a few teens' trauma, violate Derek, and just be a general nuisance, and congratulations, you have one (1) fully redeemed werewolf. /sarcasm

It has nothing to do with Boyd and Erica leaving and having to reevaluate his alpha-ness while looking for them for 3 (4?) months, or with actually working with Isaac, Peter and Stiles for that, or getting Cora back while loosing Erica and Boyd, or working with Chris, Braeden, etc. /more sarcasm

All of this is canon, but because we only see Scott berating Derek for everything (which goes from don't kill anyone to let me date the people who want me dead fuck you) Scott is the one who gets credit for everything.

And fandom pushes that even further, saying that Derek needed only Scott to be forced to become a better person. Or a whole person apparently, which what?

Though I imagine that if Teen Wolf did actually use Scott as everyone's morality chain we'd then fight about whether or not Scott only exists to fix people through the Power of Abuse Compassion.

That's why so many redemption stories on Teen Wolf just don't work; the show thinks that having Scott forgive people redeemed them, and that everyone who goes against him deserves to be used or tortured.

Let's take Peter for example. (I'm working under the assumption that the deadpool is a mess and that thoughts don't equal actions so it's mostly just Kate) His redemption never revolved around Scott, it's about his family and Lydia. On that aspect, it works.

He helps Derek and Cora, he tries to have some kind of relationship with Malia, Lydia (rightfully) hates him, but they're working on it. As of 3b, he might not be one of the good guys, but he's definitely not a villain anymore.

And then s4, he gets blamed for the deadpool (which, seriously, if ranting about wanting someone dead makes you guilty, Scott has just as much blood on his hands), I still can't see him working with Kate as anything but Scott being useless when it comes to saving Derek, and wanting the alpha spark to kill Kate permanently or heal Derek.

His worst crime is trying to kill Scott. So naturally he deserves to be tortured if not killed at Eichen. /sarcasm

Deucalion and Co killed a few dozen people off screen, kidnapped 3 teens for months, killed 2 of them, but he gets kicked out of town with a slap on the wrist because he can totally do better now. (again, seriously what was that about? Also /sarcasm ) Then he goads Theo into killing a few more teens but it's totally cool, he's working with Scott now. /sarcasm (While everyone Deuc really hurt is conveniently absent or, you know, dead.)

Same with—okay Gerard doesn't get a redemption arc, but the point is still that Scott and Chris decide to cure him (because, again, pain and suffering is a totally humane punishment as long as no one's killing anyone /sarcasm) because now he's useful again; Lydia has no personal feelings about him, the Hale pack is conveniently not there or dead, there's zero evidence that so much as hints that Stiles knows.

It's Scott doesn't need a redemption arc for wanting/trying/failing to kill Stiles, Jackson, Derek, for constantly lying to Allison, and they shouldn't have any issues with him because Werewolves, while turning around and blaming Liam for killing him (because it's only Werewolves if it benefits Scott /sarcasm) and Stiles for idk, seeing Scott's distrust of him and returning the favor I guess (because not wanting to talk about nearly being killed is only acceptable if it's Scott /sarcasm)

Scott on himself did very little, everyone else did just as much if not more, to actually stop the villains/help people. Which isn't a bad thing. Teamwork™ and all that. But celebrating Scott for whatever he helped with, more often than not also means accepting that at least one of the horrible people that need Scott to not just kill half the town (/sarcasm) also had a hand in it, willingly or not.

Which brings us, not really, nicely back around to the double standards. In both fanon and canon.

A lot of my issues with Liam and Scott's handling of that, mirrors Derek's and Peter's behavior perfectly. And things we rightfully got either mad at because you can't just fucking kidnap/stalk/abuse people, or didn't care about because Werewolves™, now have the exact opposite reaction. Scott is just overwhelmed and is Trying His Best, Scott has just been killed by Liam of course he doesn't want him near him.

Of course Scott not wanting to deal with the supernatural and his obsession with having a normal life is a normal trauma response (/not actually sarcasm), but Stiles' obsession with the supernatural is annoying and reckless. /sarcasm

Both are Valid just as much as they're reckless and dangerous.

No matter what Scott does, he is always Right and should not be questioned except for when he has a convenient excuse for why he fucked up and should not be held accountable; while everyone else gets demonized for the same things, while Scott gets the I made them not as much of a jerk as they could have been award.

[prince-toffee]

I don’t care if the character is good. I care if the character is interesting. I don’t know where the morality police came from, I don’t know why people try to justify actions of villains, I don’t know why all characters need to be good. I don’t care if they’re justified, or right. ‘Do I care when they’re on screen?’ is the right question. The character can be a pure saint, but what does it matter if they’re pure good if they’re boring to watch? I love villains, love, love, love villains, but if a villain is just... boring, then what the hell is the point of even showing them on screen?!

For me spop is a prime example of this. I’m sorry, I really am, but I don’t care about... anything in that show, except for Hordak, Entrapta, and maybe Shadow Weaver. The Princesses do nothing for me. This one’s the sassy one, this one’s the hippie one, this one’s the blue one, again. I don’t care. I’m sorry. We learn nothing about them! We have no flashbacks, no lore, nothing! Show me Mermista’s father. The Whispering Woods are apparently sentient, can Perfuma talk to it? Show me how Frosta’s parents died, and give her a consistent personality. In her bio it says Netossa doesn’t have a kingdom, why? Show us Spinerella’s kingdom. Show me Entrapta’s backstory, her parents, her childhood, explore her kingdom! I’m interested, show me more! Show me The First Ones, they’re evil or something right? That was the plot twist, right? I think? Why weren’t we shown a satisfying and fulfilling climax where Adora kicks their asses? Show me George’s past battling against the Horde. Angella is immortal according to her bio, maybe. Show me that!

This show is bone dry! No meat! This show somehow manages to be empty and slow and drag while also going at break neck speeds. The only character I can’t complain about, who is my favourite Princess is Glimmer. Glimmer is great, I love Glimmer. Not s1-3 Glimmer, s4 Glimmer. Compromised Glimmer. For three seasons Glimmer was just another Princess, Adora’s best friend. But after Angella dies, then it gets fascinating. Glimmer has the responsibilities of Queen thrust apon her, and all those lines spoken in season 3 are paid off, Glimmer slowly becomes her mother even though she doesn’t want to be, she doesn’t want to be a coward, she wants to be at the frontlines helping her friends. And that pressure forces her to consult Shadow Weaver and go down a darker path. Her rise to power paralleling Catra that season, and then her descent catalysed by desire for power paralleling Shadow Weaver who forges the same relationship with her as with Micah, it’s all great. Glimmer wants to, is responsible for, protecting her kingdom, the whole world and as the Horde grows in power she feels the need to use increasingly more drastic measures to protect everyone.

Glimmer isn’t at her best in this season, but she is the most interesting at this point. And then in s5 she likes Bow I guess. The Mara Razz stuff is also pretty interesting, but that was in s4 and by that point I was just turning off my brain. I kinda feel like s4 was a filler season.

And then, when I’m given so little, we get to Hordak. And he, I cannot stress this enough how much this means to me even though it is the bare minimum, he has a flashback, an artistic, stylised flashback! With a thematic colour palette. With a tease that will be paid off, of our endgame bad guy. A flashback that tells us about the character’s backstory, about the lore of the universe, about themes that are relevant to the whole meaning behind the character and to the conversation he and Entrapta are having in that moment. We see the world from his perspective, we don’t agree with him, but we understand him. And guess what? That scene wasn’t even originally meant to be apart of the episode! Because of course it wasn’t! Because spop is the definition of white bread!

Fuck! Shadow Weaver does it even better! She has an entire episode dedicated to her, and it’s all a flashback, it’s amazing, we see her younger, we see what makes her go down a darker path, we see a meaningful relationship between her and Micah, we see LORE, LORE, LORE, I LOVE LORE, it’s lore that makes no sense timeline-wise, and complicates everything even more without expanding or explaining anything, and not paying it off later, but at least it’s something. I love Shadow Weaver, from her design, which is perfection to her voice which is gorgeous to her actions and writing which is marvellous. I love this irredeemable pure evil disney stepmother because she’s interesting, she’s fascinating! She steals every scene she’s in! Shadow Weaver is the best character in this entire show. I can’t stress how amazing Weaver is, and we all slept on her. I swear she’s like the only competent character in this entire show. She’s refreshing.

And to show you that I’m not just an edgy loser that hates heroes because they’re dumb and villains rock, I’ll say this. Not even Horde Prime is as interesting as those two. He’s this universe conquering monster that is pure evil and that is right up my alley, I should love him.... but I don’t. He sucks. He’s nothing. I feel nothing. I’m not intrigued, not interested, not captured. You know why? Because he’s a reskinned Princess. He’s not important, he doesn’t matter, he’s a cardboard cut out. He alludes to somethings that may or may not have happened in the past, we never see any of it. He’s like a weird Catradora shipper for some reason? He’s this super powerful monster that destroyed planets, he conquered half the universe, he brainwashes half our main cast, and the planet, and yet... I feel nothing... because deep down you know... that this is the last season and the hero will win and there will be no lasting ramifications, and if there will be we won’t see it. Oh no he couldn’t trace them because the ship blah blah blah. Fuck you. Sucks. The heroes are untouchable, he’s not scary, he’s incompetent, oh so you can just mind control people? and you didn’t do that right away, why? He’s stupid. And yeah Hordak is stupid too, but Hordak has a backstory and a love interest and thematic meaning, unexplored, but it’s there. Prime has nothing. I don’t know who or what he is. He’s an after thought. And what contributes to me not giving a fuck is the fact that s5 as a whole is terrible and it rots my brain, and I turned off my brain as I skimmed that season, I blacked out.

Anyway back to Hordak and Weaver. It’s strange when we get to them, because Hordak, in particular, is so unimportant and is so separated from the rest of the show, it feels like he’s in a completely different show from the rest of the cast. Even Weaver is important, she’s directly connected to Adora and more importantly Catra. Hordak? Sure his actions matter to the plot, his backstory and his lore matter to the plot, but he himself doesn’t matter. Sure the portal is the catalyst for the s3 finale and it calls Prime, the clone trauma is important to Catra’s arc in s5, but Hordak the person, is unimportant, Hordak the individual doesn’t matter. He’s less then a side character. He’s so disconnected from the entire show. He feels like he’s in a completely different show. Which strangely enough was welcoming for me. It felt like I could just like Hordak and Entrapta in that small corner of the fanon over there, away from all the drama. Hordak, from his design to his personality to his existing backstory, was so different and stood out from amongst the crowd.

At first it was wow this guy looks cool I’ll proceed to theorise what he’s about, and then when we actually got a story behind him at first I was disappointed, but I quickly began digging into the potential of it and you couldn’t stop me. An exiled and shunned clone with a genetic disease who wishes to prove himself to an uncaring god, his mental state is so fascinating to pick apart, don’t tell this isn’t the most interesting thing in this show... I don’t know what the conclusion of this cluster fuck is.

i hate wrong hordak

[lucidpantone]

Hey, lucid! Regarding your commentary on the kynicole’s YouTube video comments.

I have to say that after the massive car crush season 4 was (I am literally getting angry at Wtfock as I am typing this) there is at least one thing that i am glad for and it is the conversations that have happened and still happening regarding representation in the media, accountability of creators to the audience and also accountability of the audience to the pieces of media they choose to consume.

There was a lot of animosity in the way the fandom treated each other during that time and that was painful to see but saying that I am glad that finally voices that were shut down before, were heard. People came forward and spoke about the pain that comes with creation of such insulting content. And those voices reached the ears of white male board members who are used to make decisions behind closed doors with money as their only motivator. And they didn’t achieve their goal. And I glad for that. Because they didn’t get the level of financial gain they were expecting and they were forced to listen.

I only wish that the fandom didn’t start expressing that aggression towards each other but rather gather that energy and target the advertisers which are the soft spot of Wtfock. I wondered why no one ever reached out to them. Why no one just said hey what you are endorsing is creating a massive uproar and it hurts people. If there is a lesson for us as a fandom to learn is next time just reach the sponsors. I have been in a fandom before where that really worked. If you wanna make a production company pay for their insulting content hit them where it hurts and stop making the fandom a lions’ den where people are afraid to express opinions.

The fandom has to be a safe space where even wrong opinions are met with educational response and not a stone attack. Because no nothing changes with shooting. It is not about people who already know the truth to just discuss between each other, it is about those people educating, opening the eyes to the ones that choose or are too previleged to see.

Take the movie Fight Club for example. The solution to fighting an oppressive situations is not coming by becoming a rebellious aggressor who fights just for the sake of fighting.

Thoughts after the cut

Thanks for this anon it really hit home because it took me back to the beginning of s4. I think its been a long enough time where I feel I can talk about this and be frank. I think s4 really exposed some of the ugly truths that were happening in the wtFOCK fandom. I think before s4 they were definitely cliques. I remember a period of time where those quizzes would go around and it was the same top group of blogs that were in on the joke. That never really happens now and a lot of those people left the fandom. Those cliques felt very evident going into filming s4 and I blame wtfock for this.  Because most people that extra-d weren't going into filming thinking they would have to harbor this secret for wtfock that Moyo had been passed up for Kato. It also created this extremely weird vibe where all these extras that were mostly young white women stepped in to defend wtfock and their decision to cast Romi without actually knowing what the season would be about.I kinda of get it to ya know? Imagine you have a good friend and they make a questionable decision you tell your friend what you think but you also wish them well and hope for the best. So I get why so many mostly young white women felt the need to defend wtFOCK but there is defending a casting decision and asking your mutuals to give it a shot and then there is silencing the effected class of people that were offended. I also saw a lot of condescending attitudes concerning people that brought up why utilizing Kato as a vehicle to tell a story about racism was deeply tone deaf and in the current climate and that it felt like a slap in the face. Instead of listening people fought back saying “you can be white and still experience aspects of racism”. Yea we get that but that's not what people were saying. Perfect example Ava/Mailin storyline happening in Druck now.People were saying using whiteness as a vehicle to explore a topic that is deeply penetrating society and a campaign for change did not need “whiteness” to validate it. It was a story that should have been told via the eyes of a party member of the effected class. PERIOD. I just think people, particularly those who extra-d and hard core stans couldn't imagine that their fav remake would create something like this..... I really do believe they believe they thought that wtfock had a better moral compass then they actually did and so they followed them blindly down the path of self destruction and in turn paid a price. It was sad to see how prominent the divide between the defenders and the critics became and it got really ugly but I think it got really ugly because the defenders wouldn't listen they kept hope going for too long they got sucked into this vicious cycle. In the end a lot of people left the fandom, a lot of people took a hiatus off tumblr and honestly I dont blame them. I am not here to defend people that literally belittled the voices of poc who had valid critiques of the season but I saw some stuff that made me really sad. Like I was on twitter and one of the big players on there shamed someone via their government name and I was like really? and it got so bad I just felt like people wanted blood at no cost and I just thought like guys stop already. Stop kicking this person while they are down. Like their fucking name was everywhere on twitter, insta and here and its like I think they got the point. You wanted to bury them and you did. So just stop now. Like you said anon I dont want to be part of a space (virtual or not) that makes others feel unsafe and s4 made the fandom very unstable because of the divide it caused. I like you am also happy that wtFOCK paid the price mainly because if this season would have even been slightly good those white dudes would have never got the wake up call they deserved but it makes me sad for the cast (which were obviously upset) and certain crew members (that I heard spoke up and were ignored). I hate that those people had to be collateral damage so a bunch of white dudes could realized that maybe they do indeed still harbor racist tendencies and suffer from inflated egos and am sad that s4 basically tore the fandom apart but I will say this. I really like the vibe of the tag now. I think its funny other skam remake stans come into the tag talking trash about wtFOCK s4 and am like people we talk more shit about s4 then other remakes do like aint no one defending s4 in the tag. Most people get triggered even seeing Kato’s face in the tag and I also think everyone took their rose colored glasses off and sees wtfock for who they are versus who they hoped they would be. 

[sakuhai]

From the recent events of s3 of Castlevania and the extreme reactions of part of the current fandom I assume that most people are either unaware that this particular cartoon series version is rather a almost completely "interpretation as adaptation" case and not an accurate adaptation of the Castlevania series as it has been established in multiple video games,manga and novels since 1986.

Or they simply haven't looked so deep into the previous versions and what the story and the characters originally are about.

Alucard being a quite ambiguous character who has a completely different and very complicated long story and arc of his own in the particular arc Castlevania series is at this point his character was never a main character and his appearance was more like an "easter egg" and so the scriptwriters have taken many liberties on Alucards character making him almost completely different from what he was designed and composed by his original creator.

The original Alucard would probably not seem so appealing and wouldn't had become very sympathetic popular and relatable to the modern audience.Or would he?In my opinion he would but as mentioned before many liberties have been imposed to his character and storyline in the cartoon series which doesn't claim to be an accurate adaptation.

I think it would had been more interesting if they had kept his original traits and explored those more instead of writing his character almost from scratch.But I guess that's how it works with media in order to not have legal issues or sth like that?I'm not sure but the Castlevania adult cartoon series is free adaptation almost like a licensed fan fiction so having said that I will go to the real "purpose" of this post.

Cartoon Castlevania Alucard is not the "canon" one.Is just someone's interpretation and "take" on his character.And it doesn't go much beyond that at this point.

The original Alucard is a very strong assertive individual with extreme intelligence,very strong morals and beliefs,and a very sharp perception of himself,the environment and people.

He is not affected by others,he makes his own decisions,he's well balanced and grounded.He knows what he does and why.

Being so clever with a strong intuition but also he seems to have a square logic.He is aware of himself and that as a supernatural creature with the values of his time,and the fact that he is very mature and noble he feels the responsibility of defending humans as someone who isn't directly affected nor will he ever practically have the same problems as the mortals.

Alucard with his original character is someone who has established everything inside his mind and soul from a very young age and with his mothers love and words always in his heart and mind he goes forward.

He is not vulnerable at least not in the way he is in the cartoon.He doesn't need any guidance or advice by anyone.His judgment and actions are not affected by others.Because he is sharp and can see right through other individuals and situations.He seems to be more into spiritual and intellectual paths and he has complete control of his body and mind.He doesn't get distracted and his self control is adamant.

He doesn't seem to be ever affected by his natural urge of consuming human blood.He has expressed his thoughts and misgivings that if he ever tries it he would probably want more and he understands that with that the power inbalance between him and mortals would only be stronger.He is extremely powerful being a hybrid as it is,so he doesn't seem to want to explore what his abilities would be like if he consumed human blood.And Alucard is aware of everything.He knows what s*x is and he never seems interested in it.In the graphic novel I believe he has even been approached multiple times by a lot of people for that purpose but he was never interested.He knows when he received flirting from others,he knows when humans try to seduce him.Again he never reciprocated any of those.Even in the cartoon version he says "Gross" when he sees Trevor and Sypha kissing.He tells Trevor to f*ck off and he gives him a middle finger.

Alucard knows what's up.I get that,those were probably just for laughs but still it should mean that Alucard knows what it means when people kiss like that etc..So its not like he wasn't aware of what was happening when Taka and Sumi started kissing him...

So based on how Alucards original character was established through the years and people knowing that and accepting that,it should be understandable why some of us wouldn't take his character in the cartoon very seriously and make some rather sarcastic comments and humor about it,instead of being disturbed by it.

I hope that people will understand what I mean despite my probably awkward usage of the English language.

Its just that some fans know the original Alucard and this "alien" Alucard seems borderline a caricature or we would rather the producers had chosen other things from their unlimited choices for Alucard.

It did seem ooc for Alucard to be vulnerable and naive like that.His words towards Taka and Sumi that they shouldn't be like that because the world is not against them and that they still have other options and chances to better themselves and their lives,instead of seducing and killing people and supernatural creatures does sound like something the original Alucard would say but he would say it before the s*x and not afterwards.And the original Alucard would probably even kick them out for being "lewd" if they hadn't previously understood his lecture.Alucard even in his cartoon version had very clearly warned them that they should be careful because he is a vampire after all,so his reactions a few days later seem way too weird...

Alucard is sassy and he would had denied them and tell them off pretty intensely preaching them like an older sibling or even a father figure.

Also original Alucard is someone who knows who he is and what he is.He knows that great power comes with great responsibility.He knows his abilities and that his choices are unlimited compared to humans.Even if he would give in carnal pleasure he still wouldn't chose to slaughter humans for their weak bodies and minds.As a supernatural creature he has high standards for himself and like other cases he would avoid killing humans all the more so young desperate humans.He has many skills and abilities.Subduing them would had been a piece of cake for him.Alucard is someone who can even predict somebody's thoughts and moves before they make them.

Alucard's history of murders is in its majority reported in cases of direct battle and mostly he would kill other supernatural creatures and not humans.Alucard is very responsible and operates with logic but he also has empathy.

Like in the case with his father,he didn't only blame humans for losing their composure getting overwhelmed with terror and therefore taking rashed decisions which result to catastrophic events.Alucard also seems to think that his father also bares a huge responsibility for what happened to his mother.So ofcourse if Alucard ever committed such a mistake he would definitely take the entire blame and responsibility instead of turning evil and choosing to destroy everyone and everything as a copying mechanism.

So overall the character of Alucard originally doesn't have any obvious flaws or vulnerabilities.But still one way or another he would still be interesting and have his audience/fans.Its just that unfortunately or not the producers made that decision for Alucard's character in this version of the series.

As for his very personal life and romance or s*xuality,the original Alucard never engaged into any type of s*xual activity with anyone.And his relationship with Maria seems nice but I would say its up to interpretation.It's easier to say that Maria likes Alucard and sees him as a love interest.He doesn't seem to feel that way.He likes her and respects her and they work nicely together as partners in battle but other than that he never reciprocated her love signals.

But if the story of the cartoon Castlevania continues and catches that arc and since many fans of the revamped Alucard seem to consider him a baby who deserves everything good its quite possible that the creators will hook him up with a nice girl in the end.I predict that he will be considered "morally gray" and "worthy of redemption" in the end,though I'm not sure I would stan him if he turned evil in s4 even though Im pretty sure he will get "redemption" one way or another eventually.Unlike Taka and Sumi who seemed interesting and also could be considered "morally gray and worthy of redemption" but they weren't created for that purpose.That's very unfortunate in my opinion at least.

Despite that Castlevania has always been dark themed based on the most gruesome horror stories and creatures and things such as love and relationships are never truly touched upon.And that has never been the point or focus of the story.

In conclusion please don't get to flustered with people who are not so emotionally connected or invested to the 2020 cartoon version of Alucard.None of the things that happened to him in s3 have ever been in any of the games or visual novels.Some just may prefer his original character and original story line.And since this is only fiction and the situations during the introduction and conclusion of the TakaSumiAlucard fiasco are so ooc and uncalled for many people would approach it with skepticism or even sarcasm (because its way too ooc)and consider it just a move for shocking value and fanservice.It also should be understandable and tolerated that some people do not disregard the 2020 Alucard from his own fault and responsibility.All the skeptical comments and opinions on Alucard in s3 I don't think are more "toxic" or "nasty" and "disrespectful" than the comments and opinions saying that a good way to overcome a supposed trauma from a disastrous 3 way,would be engaging into another 3 way...

Thats my thoughts on the original character of Alucard based from what I gathered from the material I own and have experienced through the years with the series.Mostly video games and a few interviews of Ayami Kojima and Koji Igarashi who approved the "rewrite" of the story as he describes it.

[ganymedesclock]

Clockie unpacks: Team Sincline

Well, okay, here it is, it’s time to talk about it.

So, I went through a lot of emotions with season 8. Some of them were disappointment. Some of them were anger. Some of them were happiness, and, some of them were a kind of relief.

The first is the realization that I’ve been kind of putting the show on an idealized pedestal. At first, that was easy- a lot of its issues were minor and easily overlooked in the face of what was overwhelmingly a lot of good. And even in its ending, it did a lot of good.

But it also did some not so good, and some genuinely frustrating.

And that’s okay. I think ultimately, the verdict is I still like Legendary Defender. It’s been the kicking-off point to get me heavily into the other Voltron continuities and I think out of the continuities I’ve encountered it’s still by far leader of the pack. It did its job getting me to care heavily about all of these characters and a total clown show with no redeeming qualities would not have done that.

That said, it definitely has lobbed the ball right into that particular intense alley where with enough to make me love it, it also has enough to frustrate me and get my little rewriting goblin fingers trembling up a storm, which is about what I’ve been doing in private with my friends since s8 dropped- lots and lots and lots of AUs.

I’m going to be titling and tagging all of these “Clockie Unpacks S8″- specifically referring to me unpacking my thoughts and emotions on the show. This is obviously not meant to be taken as an unbiased judgment from on high, just a dude in his kitty pjs and at some point, other clothes, blogging about cartoons. Also, fair warning, this is gonna have some undertones of bitterness to it; again, I still love the show, but there’s quite a few things they did I am really not wild about.

With that introduction, let’s kick things off. The first topic I’m picking is really, really predictable, because it’s my favorite goshdang characters.

Team Sincline: Ezor, Axca, Lotor, Narti, and Zethrid. Admittedly, this is going to be looking at them from s3 to the end of the show, so, it’s gonna have a lot more than just s8 in it, but, with the show concluding, I want to talk about what I loved and what I didn’t.

The frustrating thing about Team Sincline is that I can go back all the way to s3 and tell that these guys were not intended to make it.

The Lack of Curiosity

Even when we were clearly given the screentime and focus to relate to them, to want them to win, to want them to do well, a certain amount of onscreen attention is not given to how they’re obviously struggling. We know they’re struggling. Their entire thing is they’re a group of disenfranchised minorities within the empire. They act like people who are all quietly used to being desperate, to making cutthroat decisions, from Acxa stonefaced gunning down Lotor (which, sorry, that, was not an act,) to Lotor ultimately getting frustrated at the paladins because he knows it was bad to hurt the colony Alteans, the morality of the action is besides the point, the point is if you didn’t want the cutthroat solution to the problem you shouldn’t have left him in charge, and don’t you show up passing judgment with all of your better resources and actual support after he’s already done the hard work the brutal way-

But as long as they’re Sincline, we just see them in sharp uniforms. We never see Lotor outside of his nice uniform, actually, except when he’s a child.

Lotor has a crew besides the generals, but, we never hear who they are. We just assume a significant part of the empire followed him into exile, even when in practice, we can assume the two fleets Acxa dismissively sets up to be bait for Voltron in s3e3 weren’t any of theirs. Are these more half-galra? Why would they wear standard imperial uniforms? There’s so many questions about how Lotor got half the resources he did, and where he got them, considering he was so obviously cut off from support and holding colonies. If he did obtain other territories for fiscal support, why didn’t he or the generals run to any of them when things went downhill?

The generals themselves have no backstory. Sure, there are implications- all the parallels drawn between Acxa and Keith-

(though Krolia’s comment in s6e2 that Keith was the most important thing to her would seem a bit condemning to the idea she had another child, unless she somehow assumes her daughter is dead, and is thus excluding her on those grounds, much like she would exclude her husband who she knows is dead- likewise, Keith never sees a second child, unless Acxa was born afterwards, meaning Krolia was pregnant when she left and was unaware, which might explain why she didn’t return to Earth to leave Acxa behind, if her pregnancy was only discovered once she was already undercover and there wasn’t an easy way to make the baby disappear back to Earth where she’d be safe)

-there’s Kythra which is brought up as a setting and Te-Osh openly shoved in our faces so we can see how obvious it is Zethrid is galra-kythran, a connection that never appears to go anywhere, not with Te-Osh, and not with Kythra as a planet. We don’t even seem to have any more Kythrans in the coalition even though they help Pidge in her search in s4e2.

There’s Ranveig’s superweapon, which, especially in the technopathy it manifests, strongly resembles Narti and makes it pretty likely where she came from.

And there’s one of the pirates in s7 and s8 who’s seemingly the same galra-unknown that Ezor is, possibly a relative of hers.

But these stories aren’t explored. I’m not saying we needed full backstory episodes from all of them- runtime is limited (although, frankly, why would you introduce these characters and never go into who they are)- but we needed something. Hell, if nothing else, it would’ve been nice to mention and acknowledge Narti’s existence sometime after s4. She became something to condemn Lotor over, and, then, everyone forgot about her, evidently; the paladins never ask about that one with no eyes that gave them so much trouble, they never even have to face or deal with her incredible power.

And especially when we discover Kova was basically Lotor’s only childhood friend, this should have massively recontextualized his relationship with Narti that he would give Kova to her as her attendant. It should’ve meant something serious and concerning that he would just leave Kova behind without a second thought even if we somehow have assumed that Lotor wouldn’t grieve Narti.

Frankly, it should have meant something serious that he’d cut Narti down in the first place, but we have so little answers on how Haggar was able to affect Narti. Yes, we can speculate, especially about the riftbugs and Ranveig’s superweapon, but the thing is, this plot hole shouldn’t be here where we as an audience need to fill it. Did Lotor assume Narti was a willing traitor? Has Haggar done this to him before? Could she have killed Narti on her own?

These questions aren’t answered. And, as a result, the dissolution of Team Sincline feels kind of contrived.

Why did they fall apart?

In s3, it’s clear the Generals are completely trusting of Lotor. Even when that’s called into question, they clearly miss him and want him back. Before s4e3, it seems like nothing’s taboo or uncomfortable for them; and four for four, these are cautious, smart, calculating people. They do not trust blindly. As far as VLD’s own rules about solidarity, trust, and open emotional exchange, Team Sincline does everything right in its first season.

Lotor is emotionally transparent to the generals. Not just in the sense of which plans he tells them about in detail and involves them in the formation of (the majority of them) but that he makes his entire thought process clear to them, to the point that in many ways, they’re comfortable and confident in their ability to read Lotor.

The times that they’re unable to read him, and are shocked by his behavior, frankly doesn’t even work as a contrast to this- because when Lotor surprises them, it’s because these sentiments genuinely are coming out of left field.

The Lotor that screams he’s going to get rid of all of the galra is not talking about a long-term plan, and this is pretty obvious given how earlier in the exact same season, he pulls this face when Allura talks about how they need to protect occupied galra planets. Keep in mind this is Allura- someone who Lotor unambiguously admires and adores.

Keep in mind Allura’s heroic and compassionate nature is pretty clearly one of the things Lotor admires about her. 

This is a guilty reaction. This is someone who’s agreeing with Allura’s assessment that they morally have to respond to the Omega Shield- whose objection against it was not that he didn’t want to, but that he suspected it was a trap.

If Lotor’s endgame goal was to make the Alteans into an army and use them to kill the galra, none of his behavior makes any sense. However, if that was never Lotor’s endgame goal but something he landed on in a combination of desperation and power high because he’s been kicked so many times in his ability to trust that frankly the idea that just getting rid of everyone so he can finally, finally stop feeling personally betrayed by everything he gets close to starts to look like an appealing option- makes total sense to his behavior.

And I can’t fault Ezor for being scared of that side of him once it rears its head. Lotor’s breakdown at the end of s6 is not pretty at all, and after Narti’s fate, the generals are all unsure whether or not the Lotor they know is real (though we as an audience have all the evidence it is) or if he’s just been a very successful conman. They’re all, as much as he is, vulnerable people in a bad bargaining position. They’re all going to be anxiously hypervigilant that they weren’t just suckered by someone they felt like they could trust for years.

I can’t blame Acxa and Allura for talking about him the way they do.

I can blame the narrative, however, for giving them those words, for giving them those situations, that response, and never challenging it.

In s8, we do a lot of mooning over Lotor’s fate. In s8 we’re given the most sympathetic flashbacks to Lotor’s lifetime of abuse, neglect, and how many times his legs were basically cut out from under him, how many times he lost everything and had to start over from scratch at Zarkon’s whim, and all the scar tissue that built up psychologically for him.

However, all that s8 mooning is exclusively for Honerva’s benefit. Lotor’s long gone, and they went out of their way to show us, grotesquely, exactly how far gone and not coming back he is. The generals aren’t there. The main time Lotor talks is as a puppet for the riftbug playing on Allura’s lingering guilt and lost love.

This is pretty significant considering Sincline- the symbol of this team, the unity of what they could accomplish together- is stolen by Honerva, puppeted, and then assimilated into her machine.

The feeling is these people were conceived in s3 specifically to be disposed of. They were born to die. Their downfall was planned from the start, and that is the explanation for the lack of curiosity.

I’ve seen the argument raised that they’re supposed to contrast Voltron in terms of their dissolution but if you want to explore a failed team in contrast to our heroes... we already have that, perfectly tailored to the role in a way that Sincline is not remotely. A team whose failure is written in the stars from the moment we clap eyes on them, and whose downfall moves enormous pieces of the plot:

The paladins of old.

If we really wanted to write a drama about the dissolution of Team Voltron, they were right there. We know before we meet Gyrgan, Trigel, and Blaytz that all of these people are dead. We even get to see them in the finale. And they’re, of the three groups of paladins we see, the ones who aren’t underdogs. They were sovereigns of occupied planets. They were confident, bold, enthusiastic about the future and they had very little to fear.

There’s stories to tell there, but, ultimately, they’re the least compelling- what makes them interesting is that sense of a forgotten golden age, the way they were lost to time, and lost to Zarkon’s ambition.

Conversely, Team Sincline is basically a group of vulnerable minorities holding onto each other in the dark. Even when they’re introduced confidently and dramatically...

...We see them stealing around central command like thieves. When they move publicly, they move together; when they talk, it’s lurking around in darkened corners, privately discussing how their duplicity of the larger empire is going well.

These are vulnerable people. Even at the top of their game, they cannot afford making their sentiments open publicly. And even in public, Lotor’s speech to the empire is all about its maltreatment of minorities. It’s all about the underside of their boot, and the people ground into dust beneath it, because it’s a defining characteristic of Lotor, and of the generals, that they are the people who’ve been under the empire’s boot this entire time. They contrast the paladins and Allura as people who’ve been heavily affected by the empire’s cruelty, but largely, distantly, or in ways that did not define their life from the cradle. Even Shiro, who was actually brought into the empire’s hierarchy, only endured that hell for a single year before Ulaz rescued him and got him out of there, and he had a stable childhood and supportive environment to get him through it.

Team Sincline has nothing but each other. And then, starting with s4e3, we see them lose that. Peeled away, layer by layer by layer, as they get more miserable, more desperate, and continue stealing, continue bartering, losing more and more as they keep trying to find some way to make it work because these are people who’ve learned a long time ago their tears are meaningless and the only comfort they have is what they can find in the cracks.

There’s really nothing interesting about their downfall. It’s just sad. And frankly the reason why I was so sure this was going to turn around was the sense that they can’t just leave it like this. They wouldn’t just kill Narti with no saving grace and leave her body there in a way that doesn’t affect the plot at all, even to the end that they want it to- that she could easily have just been there with the other generals and parted ways with Lotor when they did. They wouldn’t just have Lotor lose all his friends one more time. They wouldn’t just take all of this amazing room to grow and explore these characters and flush it down the toilet to achieve basically nothing.

And? If I’m honest? They did.

3/5ths of a happy afterthought

I initially thought people were kidding when they said The Grudge looked like they planned for Ezor to have died in s7e3 and Zethrid perish in an attempt at revenge but oh boy howdy. Sure there could be innocent reasons they didn’t have Kimiko Glenn there in s8- it’s not like all the times they’ve changed Acxa’s VA mean they were planning to off her- but everything about that episode makes what I dismissed as a conspiracy theory sound a lot more plausible.

Zethrid is not a vengeful person. We see from as early as her first appearance that she has a soft spot for small animals and children. She can be talked down from killing people very easily, she likes to fight but talks up fighting worthy opponents- she’s happiest cutting her teeth against something big and strong like her that can hold its own.

Her motivation is also, overwhelmingly, that of a Yellow Paladin. There’s a reason she’s so clearly Hunk’s counterpart. “I will always protect you, Ezor.” We can actively see in s7e3 that when the blast goes off, Zethrid tries to shield Ezor with her own body. 

The heartbroken Zethrid we see in The Grudge, not quite taking care of herself, full of anger and bitterness and down to just wanting to make someone else hurt as much as she is- really could only have happened logically if Ezor had died. If Zethrid had felt like she’d failed as a protector for the last time, and was hitting a similar wall to Lotor himself- where after so many people dying or otherwise being lost she just couldn’t take it any more and gave up on trying.

In her post- grudge negotiations with the team, Zethrid is levelheaded and calm. Before being reunited with Ezor, she just looks empty and tired.

The person who’s always been the vindictive one is Ezor, and I don’t say that to demonize Ezor and depict Zethrid as saintly.

Ezor has an obvious edge to her, and, out of Team Sincline, she’s also the one who voices the most doubts and fears. She talks about the fun in torturing someone, and, behind the scenes, she also talks about being personally terrified that they’re going to be hunted down. She’s the one basically panicking as soon as Narti’s body hits the floor, she’s the one who’s anxious at Acxa shooting Haggar (“did you kill her?”)

Ezor is a brittle person- a lot of broken edges and anxiety. This is why The Grudge seems like an odd reversal in roles. If anyone would get overly preoccupied with getting even to the point of losing sight of themselves, it’d be Ezor. If anyone would be the person willing to bargain with enemies because this has gone too far and they’re scared of something going wrong and happening to hurt the other person, it’d be Zethrid. Zethrid who’s always defined herself as Ezor’s protector.

Now, again, being fair, it really does seem like they were backing off from a version of The Grudge that featured a dead Ezor and Zethrid either going to die or simply give up and remain in custody afterwards. But again, it comes back to this sense that Team Sincline suffers a huge amount in a way that doesn’t seem to narratively accomplish much or be particularly meaningful.

When the timeskip happens, Acxa and Matt grow their hair out. Earth builds its way up to a superpower on the footing with other planets and fights Sendak for survival.

Zethrid loses an eye and Ezor an entire leg, which s8 chases with a disfiguring scar for Zethrid and a missing eye for Ezor, too.

Now, I’m all for disability representation. Thing is, if that’s the angle they were going for, they could have started Team Sincline out with these grievous injuries. Hell, you could argue there’s potential evidence Ezor’s had a prosthetic leg all along- after all, in s5e2, she’s able to parry Shiro’s laser prosthetic with her leg and it would contextualize a lot of her fearful attitude and that she’s both romantically and in other ways drawn to Zethrid, who’s probably the warmest and most protective person out of Team Sincline.

As far as an “afterthought”.... Acxa sort of fades into the background in many ways after she starts working with the paladins. Someone who has been incredibly driven, who most clearly seems to follow Lotor out of a sense of higher purpose and something to believe in became a drifter who shows up to help the paladins and then wanders off to the coalition. She doesn’t even accompany them to Earth to help with the journey.

And then there’s their scene in the aftermath. Ultimately, the three surviving members of Team Sincline take their scars and injuries and join the Blade. They become Keith’s subordinates. Is this satisfying for them? Unsatisfying? Hard to say, since we know very little about their past and motivations. Zethrid probably likes taking care of people, but, is this the way she’d want to do that?

Narti stays dead. Maybe she somehow picked herself up, made an Altean suit, cut her tail off and became Matt’s helmeted girlfriend, but, considering how much of a ridiculous speculative long shot that is, I’m not going to cite that to canon’s credit.

Lotor stays dead, and, much like Narti’s death- so much of what led up to Lotor’s demise is rather poorly explained. We don’t know why Lotor harvested the colony, or what his intentions were, or if he planned to heal the podded Alteans, or even how Bandor escaped. With so many unknowns on the table, and so many things left open, we’re left feeling unsatisfied- like, maybe this whole thing could have been avoided, maybe the response was reasonable, we just get the shock- either of Lotor killing Narti or the sight of the lab- and then we’re urgently bustled forwards without analyzing the situation.

Not only that, but his afterlife ghost passed up Allura- his love- and Alfor- his personal hero- to have a loving heart to heart with both of his abusers.

Here’s the thing. Honerva never apologized. She said ‘he deserved better’ after having spent centuries watching him suffer and not just sitting on her hands but actively making it worse. Honerva, the one who has so much to say about her own suffering, has no possible way she could’ve been unaware of Lotor’s misery and the effect she was having on it. No matter what Being Haggar did to her, which seems largely a factor of disorientation and amnesia, you shouldn’t need to remember that baby came out of your body before you care at all that the person it grew up into has just lost everything while you sit there and watch, having more than enough power to stop this.

Zarkon never apologized to Lotor.

Neither of them made amends. Neither of them did anything that warranted Lotor being kind to them.

Neither of them even needed him for their happy ending. He was frankly just a possession to them. Honerva only ever even seems to consider Lotor’s own feelings at a point when Allura forcibly shows them to her. If we wanted Honerva to be welcomed warmly when she steps into the light, you could easily have had Zarkon waiting for her- because Zarkon loved her, because it would give her life a cyclic sense of closure from how we see in s3e7, that Zarkon and Haggar began what happened to them hand in hand, together, and they could end the same way.

We know for a fact Zarkon would be happy to see her. This is even further vindicated in the “happy family” alternate reality- Zarkon’s the one who’s ready to take this woman in as his lost wife with open arms, while Lotor is the one holding back, wary, anxious, “that’s not my mother.”

The only reason that’s unacceptable to Honerva is because Honerva doesn’t want to respect Lotor’s feelings, she wants Lotor to flatter hers. She has major entitlement problems to Lotor, and the finale makes him a prop for her welfare.

That ‘walk into the light’ scene could have been a lot more palatable if they’d simply put Lotor on Alfor’s other side, and had Zarkon alone doing the sweet hand clasp with Haggar.

But that’s our last note on Lotor- the idea that he’s going to be spending whatever afterlife they have here with his abusers. Lotor didn’t get anything he wanted. 

And Narti? We don’t even know what she wanted, just that she trusted Lotor, and that somehow, when Team Sincline does trust, it leads to their total dissolution. Sincline itself is gone, having never once actualized. Lotor’s dead, Narti’s dead, and Haggar went ahead and murdered Kova.

The three survivors firmly set that chapter of their life behind them, discarded the Sincline uniforms, became Blades, and, evidently, spent the rest of their lives handing out relief packages to war-torn planets.

I don’t want to take a dump on relief workers here. Humanitarian work is beautiful and important and heroic. But in practice, how they framed it in that show is an afterthought. They’re not suffering but what they’re doing doesn’t really have a sense it’s personally meaningful to them.

I might be unsatisfied with some of the endings VLD did for its main characters, but at least they’re recognized as heroes and get to stay together, or, in the one area that’s not the case, say goodbye and be remembered fondly. But I think Team Sincline absolutely got the rawest deal here, and that’s on a list that includes Alfor, Gyrgan, Trigel, and Blaytz being frozen as corrupted mindscape ghosts for ten thousand years.

Additional Notes: Sincline-Adjacent Figures

I mentioned Lotor’s crew earlier, and, the thing is, there’s a perfect answer within canon for who Lotor’s crew beneath the generals could have been.

What highly diverse group of people,

(because Lotor would put his money where his mouth is in more ways than just with the generals)

Would Lotor logically find at the edge of the universe,

(because he had to have built these forces in exile and without imperial support, since he has them at his disposal at the beginning of s3)

Who would be immediately ready and willing to double-cross and otherwise raise merry hell on the empire, to the point of building rift gates and comet ships behind their back,

(because a single person willing to barter what they knew for a pardon could have fucked up Lotor’s entire operation spectacularly)

Who would also be a pool of talent untapped by the empire so Lotor feasibly could get at least some of the best pickings,

(because you don’t want an uneducated clown putting your interreality gate together)

Who would be an interesting and colorful cast of characters to play off of, and loud and rambunctious because they’re not career soldiers, even if they are career fighters-

(thematically contrasting the regimented and heavily classist, stratified empire)

Who would also thematically lend themselves very well to Lotor’s hit-and-run, evasive, deceptive, adaptive underdog tactics?

A group of people who have traditionally been the enemies of the entrenched government and who have often been minorities?

Pirates.

Pirates exactly like the ones who without any explanation for where they came from, were working for Ezor and Zethrid after the timeskip. Pirates who had their own custom uniforms as if they had some reason to have a sense of decorum. Pirates who are already full of interesting and memorable characters like the nosering pirate, Blofar, the armored giant Coran faced, and the smart-aleck Olkari technician.

Lotor literally talks about desegregating the imperial fleet and recruiting people based on the merit of their skills and not how galra they are back in s3e1. And yes, as a half-galra himself employing four other half-galra, it’s not like he’s a hypocrite about that- but it feels like a serious oversight to just give him the standard imperial-armored subordinates and drones.

The pirates should have been Lotor’s crew. They should have been there from the start playing off the generals and off of Lotor, and that would have helped us flesh out Lotor and the generals so much more. Yes, you’d have to make some adjustments to scenes like s3e2′s fighter ship battle to make it clear they were drones and not imply the paladins just massacred a likable bunch of rag-tag pirate antiheroes but all that would take is some acknowledgement that Sincline, like the empire, uses drone-piloted fighter ships.

Hell, it’d give a sense in s3 besides Zethrid’s offhanded reference of pilots going into the rift in s3e4 (presumably also drones since Lotor has no reason to waste manpower and try loyalties making them throw themselves fatally at a rift) that Lotor and the Generals aren’t just doing what they do in an empty ship.

And you know who else could’ve been there?

Ven’tar.

Sure, her people were massacred and her planet burnt to pieces by Zarkon and that was significant to Lotor character-wise- it marked the decisive, keening death of his intention to appease his parents and try to work with them- but Ven’tar could’ve also have taken significance and motivation from that going forwards. it’s her planet, her people, and, it would make it feel a lot less dismissively killed off.

There was someone Lotor trusted leading the “secret team” constructing the inter reality gate. Someone who’d know things about Quintessence, who would again have a grudge on the empire.

I’m saying, rather than a lost lenore, you could make Ven’tar Lotor’s bitter chief engineer. Sure you’d need some explanation for how she’s still alive but this setting has been basically handing out immortality like candy to a bunch of its secondary cast but I feel like they could narratively find a reason for Ven’tar to be alive.

While we’re at it, you could also have had Dayak there (the one from s6, not the slightly inexplicable other one from s8 given the entire way Lotor introduces s6 Dayak never once implies that the word “Dayak” is not a name, which, the best explanation I’ve heard for that one is that “Dayak” is a surname and the s8 one is the s6 one’s sister) since she’s so obviously enthusiastic about Lotor taking the throne and standing by him, there’s not really a reason she’d hide out until it was safe and then fair-weather return to Lotor’s side when she’s such an aggressive and forwards person about her opinions and what she stands for.

There’s so much to work with, here. We could have explored so much of this. They put this tantalizing information on the table, and, then, just sort of pushed it to the floor without considering it.

[mosylufanfic]

Me and My Shadow

I was digging around in my files, as I am wont to do, and I found this story from last season, about 95% finished. Remember when they basically had no scenes at all together? And we were all starving for any little bit of Killervibe we could get? This is something of what I wanted to see after S4′s mid-season finale.

Just as a refresher, this takes place toward the end of the episode where Amunet Black kidnapped Caitlin, locked dampening cuffs on her. Before that happened, however, Caitlin discovered that Cisco, Harry, and Ralph all had private jokes and funny stories about hanging out with Killer Frost.

This story isn’t overtly romantic but it is about Cisco and Caitlin’s relationship at that point in the show. Title from the 1927 song, sung by oh so many people.

Me and My Shadow

Cisco peered at the power dampener Amunet Black had fastened around Caitlin's wrist. "Who designed this, the Incredible Hulk?" He tapped it. "Could it get any bigger and clunkier? Ugh. I'm so offended."

"Me, too, considering it held me prisoner," Caitlin said dryly. She waved her wrist a little, inviting him to look at the catch. It was a heavy-duty metal latch with wires woven over it in some way he couldn't quite follow. "Can we remove this, please?"

"Oh, yeah." He opened the toolkit he'd brought upstairs from his lab and pulled out some wire snips and an electric saw.

"Careful!" she said.

He paused. "It's not gonna blow up if I don't snip the right wire, is it?"

She angled her wrist. "No, but it's got spikes on the inside. It's part of the function somehow."

Now he could see them, thin metal needles piercing her flesh. A few dots of blood smeared her skin.

"Shit!" He yanked his hand away. All his poking and prodding must have been digging them in even further. Why the hell hadn't she said anything before this?

Probably the same reason she'd waited to ask him to remove it until after Dominic Lanse had been taken to a hospital and thoroughly checked over. Caitlin putting herself last again.

Another thought occurred. "Oh, fuck, it's not stabbing your veins or anything, is it?"

She touched the inside of her wrist. "No, it's just the top and sides."

"Well, that was nice of her," he said sarcastically, and got to work on the catch. The design might offend every aesthetic bone in his body, but it was doing the job very well. He could feel his own powers going a little fuzzy and wobbly, this close to it. And it also seemed to have solved the power issue he'd struggled with so much. He was going to have a look at this when he got it off her wrist.

She was quiet while he worked, and while he normally would have chattered and joked, all his lightness seemed like it was trapped underneath a boulder in the pit of his stomach.

Yelling at Ralph had helped some, but he still felt like a turd. Sure, Caitlin, the nasty, mean alter ego that you never wanted is our favorite new buddy. Yeah, we have a great time with her! We have inside jokes and everything!

He knew she knew he hadn't meant it like that. But just because he hadn't meant it didn't mean it hadn't hurt her. He remembered the look in her eyes.

And Harry had gone to apologize first. Harry! When Harry I-Can-Only-Relate-to-Other-Versions-of-Myself Wells was doing better at friending than you, that was kind of a bad sign.

He'd come for her. He'd rescued her from Amunet Black. She had to know he valued her more than Killer Frost. Right?

Yeah, he'd come for her, but so had fucking Ralph.

He glanced up, wondering how to start saying he was sorry, and found her staring off into space, looking thoughtful.

"Hey," he said, and her eyes came back around. They looked like root beer in this light, the way he liked them best. He smiled at her. "What's churning your butter, cup?"

"Just thinking how nice it was to handle something on my own for once, instead of having to depend on my mean roommate."

His stomach dropped. "Caitlin - "

She looked at her wrist. "Maybe you should leave this on."

"Leave on the spiky hurty ugly accessory? That's a hard no," he said, and snipped one last wire. "Lay your hand down and keep vewwy vewwy still," he added in his best Elmer Fudd imitation.

She smiled absently and flattened her palm to her lab table. He turned on the circular saw and started cutting through the lock. It was tough stuff, and he had to stop a couple of times to switch out the blade. Finally, the bracelet cracked in two, and he switched off the saw before it brushed her skin.

She pulled the cuff open, wincing as the spikes tugged out of her flesh, and let it clatter to the table. Now she wore a cuff of tiny pinpricks, welling with blood. It wasn't a good look, in Cisco's opinion.

"Mmm," she said, grimacing at the injuries. "I'd better get this cleaned up and bandaged." She rummaged in some drawers.

"Frost up," he suggested before he thought, and felt his stomach drop again. God. He'd stepped in it again. "Just - just to get rid of that," he added quickly. "Let her hypermetabolism take care of it."

"It's fine," she said, not looking at him as she wiped each pinprick down with a sterile wipe. "It's good. You should get along with people who are fighting alongside you." She tossed a used one, pink with blood, into the biohazard bin and pulled another one from the dispenser.

"Look, don't pretend we didn't hurt your feelings."

"They're my feelings," she said. "I'll handle them."

"Yeah, that's a skill you excel at."

She gave him a withering look. "I had a bad evening. I got over it."

"Okay, then how about letting me apologize?"

"You have nothing to apologize for. You can have friends other than me. You do have friends other than me. It's selfish and self-centered to be jealous of that."

She recited it as if it was something she'd said to herself over and over again.

"It's human to feel left out," he said. "And I was part of making you feel left out, and I'm really sorry for that."

"Yes, and I handled it." She bowed her head over her wrist, dabbing antiseptic cream on the marks. "Thanks for getting that cuff off me. You should probably clean it." She handed him a container of Q-tips and a bottle of ethanol.

He took them back to the table where the cuff still sat, dark and powerless now. He started cleaning the spikes, watching the white cotton soak up pink blood. He found he was gritting his teeth.

Why wouldn't she smile and accept his apology?

Why wouldn't she just let him feel better about seeming to prefer her darker side?

Why couldn't he just go back to thinking that she'd made peace with Killer Frost, now that she wasn't one of the bad guys, and didn't have any feelings about her divided self whatsoever?

Just like he was perfectly fine with the thought of Reverb, or any of his other evil doppelgangers that infested the multiverse. Oh yeah. No misgivings there at all.

He let out his breath and tossed the Q-tip down.

"You know," he said, "eight months ago, you never would have convinced me that there could be anything I liked about Killer Frost, but I do."

Caitlin looked up, but didn't say anything. She just watched him, silent, her face flat and expressionless.

"She's tough. A survivor. A fighter. She sees what needs to be done and gets it done. She's smart and she thinks on her feet. Every time she throws down, I swear she has three or four nifty new tricks that never even crossed my mind."

"Okay," she said. "I get it. You don't have to keep singing her praises."

He went to her and took her tight shoulders in his. "And you know what? Everything I like best about her is something she gets from you."

Her eyes met his. They were darker now.

"Tough. Smart. Creative. Gets the job done. Sound familiar?"

"A fighter, though?"

"Yeah."

"I'm not a fighter. I run and I hide," she said bitterly. "Just like Harry told me to do at Jitters. I didn't even try and bring her out until I was cornered, and that didn't work."

"Have you ever once run and hid when someone needed medical help?"

"That's different."

"I dunno if it is. That's your wheelhouse. Kicking ass is Frost's. Use the right tool for the right purpose. Killer Frost isn't always the right choice for what needs to get done."

She was quiet for a long moment. "Amunet Black said something like that."

He recoiled. "She did?"

Caitlin shrugged. "She wanted me to get the job done. She probably could have threatened me some more, but she took the logic route and pointed out why she needed me, not Frost. It worked. I got the job done."

Okay. He officially sucked as a friend. Amunet Black had figured out what Caitlin needed to hear before he had. That she, Caitlin, was valuable and valued, that her skills weren't lesser, that she was strong and effective in her own way.

He tried to make his voice light. "Much as I hate to agree with someone with that dated of a hairstyle, she had a point. We couldn't do what we do without you."

Her eyes searched his and then she sighed. Not a resigned sigh or an unhappy one. There was relief in it. As if she was letting out a breath she'd held for too long.

Then she hugged him, hard and quick. "Thank you," she said.

"Anytime," he said. "Really, I mean it. Anytime you're feeling conflicted over your morally ambiguous doppelganger, talk to me."

"It's not her state of evil or good," she said thoughtfully. "I mean, obviously I would rather she's fighting against the bad guys rather than alongside them. But it's - " She rubbed her wrists again. "It was easier when she was the bad one and I was the good one, and I had good things - like friends - and she didn't."

"I don't think either of you are that simple," he said. "I don't think anything's that simple."

She toyed with the q-tips. "The thing is," she said, brows drawn together, "I've spent my entire life trying not to show it when I'm scared, or angry, or upset, or even just sad."

"That's not news," he pointed out. He still remembered nearly a year of her flat, expressionless face after the explosion.

"Because nobody has time for that," she went on. "You know? Nobody wants to put up with that. People like a cheerful, helpful, smart little girl. Nobody likes a crybaby who can't do anything."

One day, Cisco reflected, he really was going to go find Mama Snow and punch her in the mouth. He didn't like hitting women, even the ones that hit him first, but boy, could he make an exception.

"So I tried to be cheerful and helpful and smart, and if I couldn't manage to fake any of those, I could at least push down all the bad feelings and show nothing. Until last year. I stopped being able to push things down. And in a way, it made sense that when I lost control of all my rage and my fear, that I lost you. All of you. Because that's what you get. Nobody wants you if you're like that."

He opened his mouth.

She aimed him a look. "And yes, Cisco, I know that I lost all of you because she joined forces with Savitar and was instrumental in H.R.s death and Iris's attempted murder. I understand that. I'm not stupid."

He had been going to say, she'd lost them because she'd left, but that was a fair point, too. "As long as you get there's a difference."

"I do," she said. "On a logical level. But when I realized that she was coming back, I tried to run, because I couldn't bear to lose you all again like that."

He refrained from pointing out that she would have lost them anyway.

"And then I didn't," she said. "And then I realized that you actually liked her. You have jokes together, you like fighting alongside her, Ralph thinks she's sexy. "

"Ralph tried to hit on a lamppost the other day," he pointed out. "Just saying."

"And in that case, what's the point? What's my reward for fighting down the worst parts of myself, if it isn't to keep my friends?"

"Look," he said, taking her hands. "You're going to have to figure that out yourself. I think the past year has shown that no outside influence is going to work to get a handle on Killer Frost. Power-dampening cuffs, solar necklaces, whatever it was that Black gave you - none of that, on its own, is ever going to be a permanent solution. You've got to get a handle on her yourself, for yourself, because it's the best thing for you. But while you're doing that, here's something I think you should keep in mind."

"What?"

"We like you," he said. "We like you when you're being smart and cheerful and helpful, yeah. But we also like you when you're snarly and mean, or sad, or upset. I like you. You don’t have be perfect to be our friend. You just have to be you." He waved at her up and down, trying to encompass her entirety. "Everything you are."

She swallowed hard. "Thank you."

"Anytime," he said, starting to go back to the dampener cuff. He paused. "By the way, your mom is wrong."

She looked up. "My mom?"

"Yeah. When she told you all that stuff about how nobody likes little girls who aren't sweet and nice all the time."

"Oh, Cisco, My mom didn't tell me that."

He blinked. "Who did, then?"

She shook her head, smiling at him a little. "Nobody had to tell me. All little girls know that."

"Well, they're wrong," he said.

She tilted her head. The smile got sharper; colder. "Are they?"

FINIS

[thegloriouscollectorlady]

S7 finale thoughts/Storytelling

So it took me quite a while to formulate my first thoughts about the finale. I haven’t even had a chance to watch a second time yet because life has been pretty hectic but I do have a lot of thoughts from just the first viewing. Most of them revolve more around the beauty of the overall story arc and those implications for the story at large and less around the greatness of one single episode because what I am beginning to see about Gimple’s story telling is that you can’t take each individual episode and rate it on its overall quality. Gimple’s story telling is a much more complex thing that weaves together multiple story lines over many seasons and the overall story itself is satisfying as a whole even if individual episodes along the way are less than gratifying. I also think this has some really interesting implications for Daryl’s story which to me is the most unresolved story arc so far.

               The first thing I want to touch on is Rick’s response to Negan in the second line up because it was perfect. It was Rick the leader who has found his purpose and is no longer afraid as I talked about in a previous post about closing story arcs. He recognizes that what he’s doing as a leader is the greater good. He’s found the type of balance that allows him to stand firm even in the face of unimaginable loss. Even when he thinks he’s lost Michonne, even when he thinks he might lose Carl, he isn’t shaken. He stands firm in his beliefs and this time it isn’t arrogance or bravado it’s because he believes in what he is fighting for and its purpose in the world. Rick has truly become a powerful leader and a force to be reckoned with even if it’s taken three seasons for him to get to this point.

               Secondly Sasha’s story was just heartbreakingly satisfying when you think back over the last several seasons. Each of the most important people in her life played a role in where her story ended and that is beautiful. Each of these people was woven together to create a complex story about how people can impact each other in extreme and meaningful ways. When we first meet Bob he is alone. He’s alone after having lost two different groups of people and he’s existing while drinking to numb the pain. I think we can assume that the drinking started as a way to avoid facing the reality of his life. Then Daryl and Glenn find him and without question he goes with them because to him anything is better than the life he is currently living and I use living pretty loosely because mainly he is existing. Bob is so wrapped up in his issues that his problem with drinking can arguably be the reason for Zach’s death and of course he almost loses the medicine later on as well so his actions almost negatively impact even more people. That’s when Daryl loses it and has a hard talk with Bob. I also think that’s the turning point for Bob where we see him realize what his life has become. Or at least it’s the starting point because the prison attack happens right on the heels of that and he final faces the fact that he is trying to avoid facing his fears. This is where his self-awareness is a beautiful thing line is born. He himself was not self-aware until he faces why he was drinking and what he was running away from. When he finally does that he finds it very freeing and because of what he’s lived through he recognizes the behavior in Sasha.

               Bob becomes important to Sasha during S4 as she is fighting with her desire to go it alone. We see after the fall of the prison that she is trying to convince Bob and Maggie to give up on everyone else. She thinks trying to find them will get them all killed and that the safest thing to do would be to find a safe place to stay. When Maggie and Bob disagree with this idea Sasha is seemingly even willing to try going it completely alone. It’s around this time that Bob tells Sasha that self-awareness (self-examination) is a beautiful thing. Upon doing that Sasha realizes that she can’t be alone and rejoins first Maggie and later Bob. Sasha and Bob also play a game at the beginning of S5 something along the lines of the good in the bad and when Bob dies the last thing Sasha says to him is something like tell me what good can come from this? The good that came from Bob was that Sasha learned about being self-aware and she also learned that they are stronger as a group. That she couldn’t go it alone. At this point in the story I am not sure she accepted those things completely but she witnessed what those things meant to Bob and we see with him a man that dies without regrets. He’s learned a very important lesson and it’s that nightmares end and they don’t have to end who you are. Be true to yourself.

               Sasha is visibly distraught after Bob’s death but she still has Tyrese and he tries to help her to cope with her loss. He tells her about his own experience with Karen and about how he moved beyond the grief. He also offers sibling support and love at a time that Sasha very much needs it. Tyrese was a selfless man that had strong ideals about morality and the world. The weight of the things he had lived through and the decision he’d made became a weight he could not move beyond. WHAWGO was a heartbreaking send off for Tyrese because it showed a man who lived by his own code and who also chose when to let go. Tyrese could have allowed Noah’s walker brother to finish him off if he really wanted to but he fought back until Noah could come to his aid. When he finally let go it was his choice to do so. He recognized that for him the fight was over and that was okay and he was ready for that. He made peace with himself and the things that had haunted him about the choices he’d made and he moved on. It was narratively a beautifully told story.

               After Tyrese’s death Sasha becomes even more isolated and angry. She actively follows in Tyrese’s footsteps and does some very similar things to what he did after losing Karen. Michonne attempts to help her by calling her on what she is doing. Her behavior is so extreme and dangerous that she is actually working against the group and almost gets people hurt. We see in “Them” an interesting dynamic because Daryl and Maggie gravitate to each other because of their shared loss. Daryl’s lost his person and Maggie her sister so they each understand what Sasha is going through yet she chooses to isolate herself from them. It’s Maggie who finally goes to Sasha and tries to help her. It’s beautiful that this is the point where Maggie and Sasha sit and watch the sunrise. They are joined by their shared experiences and time together after the fall of the prison and their joint loss of siblings and they sit together and watch the sun rise. This is the beginning of Sasha’s final arc and even though she doesn’t respond right away we begin to see her moving towards it. Narratively it’s beautiful because in the finale we see the sun setting on Sasha’s life while she sits with Maggie during a recreation of the scene from “Them”  It’s also around this time that Abe whose also suffering his own loss begins to take notice of Sasha. Abe has lost people but most recently at that point in time he’s lost his purpose and he sees a bit of what he’s going through in Sasha and that piques his interest.

               When they arrive at Alexandria Sasha suffers the same readjustment issues as several other folks including Daryl. Sasha is clearly suffering from all her loses and I think it’s interesting that during her flashbacks at the party she sees Beth. Sasha was never particularly close to Beth but I think she like most of team family suffered from her loss after their failed rescue attempt. It was horribly demoralizing for the group as a whole but Beth’s loss also reminded Sasha about losing both Bob and then later Tyrese because of the obvious connections to Daryl and Maggie. So Sasha is focusing here on how great their losses have been as a group and she is struggling to understand how and why she should go on. Sasha is suffering from a lack of purpose. Her loses are overwhelming her desire to live because she is not sure what she is living for much like we saw with Tyrese and at one point Tyrese even tells Sasha that she is just like him.

               Then Abe really begins to enter the picture for Sasha and we see a change as they begin to help each other. At the beginning of S6 we see these two people who are both suffering from a lack of purpose come together to support each other. They see mirrors of themselves in each other and Sasha even uses Bob’s line about self-awareness with Abe when they are trapped at the insurance business. This is the episode where he confronts all the things he’s been running from and begins to contemplate his future. This leads to him later asking Daryl at the Hilltop if he’s ever thought about settling down. For the first time since losing his family Abe is facing himself because for Abe the D.C. cure was a diversion. Bob drank to avoid facing himself and Abe focused on his mission to avoid facing himself. It wasn’t until those things were taken away and they were forced to face what they had been running from that they found self-awareness.

               I think the beauty of the flashbacks in the finale was that it filled in all the missing holes in regards to what led Abe to make the decision that he did during the Negan line up. In his own words during the flashback he says to Sasha that they are the people that kick shit and eat snakes for others. They are the fighters and the first line of defense. He recognizes that not everyone can be that person and he also recognizes that what they are defending is important.  Their family is important and Maggie and her baby are the future of that family. Abe has once more found a purpose worth fighting for and that purpose is family. Abe’s sacrifice in the lineup is important because it illustrates for Sasha a roadmap that she herself will eventually follow. Abe doesn’t allow Negan to willy nilly choose a victim. He challenges the man until it becomes inevitable that Negan will choose him. He takes the power away from Negan by forcing him to choose him as the victim. He literally sacrifices himself and he goes out on his own terms. This is very powerful narratively.

               Sasha goes on to help Maggie to get to the Hilltop because it’s what Abe would have wanted her to do and it’s her way of honoring him. There is also the deep bond that they forged back in season 4 that also plays into this decision for Sasha but I think it’s important to recognize that Sasha is not okay at this point no matter how strong she pretends to be. Abe’s loss sends Sasha into much the same spiral as we saw with Tyrese after Karen and then the girls. She is once more suicidal and that shows in her actions. She doesn’t see her purpose anymore or her value to the group which is why she sends Rosita away at the Sanctuary. She sees Rosita’s value to the group even as she can’t see her own. She is blinded by her desire to kill Negan and by her need for revenge and she can no longer discern her purpose.

That’s the beauty of what the finale does. It brings Sasha right back around so that she has to face what she’s done and consider her purpose. Sasha has put herself in an untenable situation. I personally don’t think she actually wanted to die. She was willing to die to take out Negan but I don’t think she truly wanted to die. But her rash actions put her in a position where she had two choices either join with Negan or refuse to be a weapon against her family. Sasha makes the choice to turn herself into a weapon against Negan and as heartbreaking as that is you can see a great deal of peace in the decision for her. She is letting go and she accepts that she is willing to give her life to protect her family. Sasha literally goes from the woman willing to go it alone in S4 because she doesn’t want to die to the woman who gives her life to protect her family in S7 and her journey is comes full circle beautifully.

Bob teaches Sasha about facing herself and about seeing the good even in the bad. Sasha must face the position she’s put herself in during the finale and then she must consider what good can come from the decisions she’s made. Tyrese teaches Sasha that it’s okay to let go. That it’s okay to make peace with your loss and to recognize that you don’t always have to keep fighting. That sometimes and for some people the fight becomes too much. He tells her that she is just like him and she argues that she’s not anymore because she’s changed but I think in the finale that we see that Sasha is very much like her brother in that she goes out on her own terms. Finally Abe teaches Sasha that the greatest purpose she can have is family. That no one can make it alone and that being a protector is a worthy reason to give one’s life.  Abe is willing to lay his life down to protect the ones that he loves and Sasha follows in his footsteps. Her sacrifice gives her family a chance in a situation that could have gone very differently. Like Abe Sasha was a true warrior and protector.

Narratively Sasha’s arc which incidentally is also Bob, Tye, and Abe’s arc follows the narrative of the overall story since S4 began. S4 and the first half of S5 were about facing one’s self and making connections with people who have a great influence over you. In each group in S4 someone wanted to forgo looking for the rest of their family. In Rick’s group Michonne contemplates walking off even though she sees a clear trail to follow to Rick and Carl. She almost doesn’t go after them though. With Beth and Daryl Beth has to keep prompting Daryl to look for their family. He seems convinced they are dead and even suggests that they stay at the funeral home where he is clearly happy instead of looking for them. In Maggie’s group Sasha wants to put their own survival ahead of finding the others. There is a clear theme here of going it alone versus needing other people. When Daryl loses Beth he even falls in with the Claimer’s for a while so that he doesn’t have to be alone. Even recognizing them for what they are he chooses not to be alone. Then in S5B through the end of S7 we see the theme of family. Glenn is the most vocal about it in early 5B when he continually says to everyone that they can make it but only together and only as a group. He says this in particular to Daryl but it is clearly the theme. Not only do you need people but these people must become your family. They need each other and they need to be willing to die for each other. These people, this family, have to become your purpose above and beyond anything else. Your family can give you strength and hope and love and all the things you need to fight for and keep fighting for. It’s the only thing worth fighting for in the hellscape in which they live.

I personally think it’s beautiful how they wove this story together and to me the finale proved that Gimple has always had an end goal in mind for how this would play out. It’s the only way all these pieces could have slotted together as cleanly as they did. So the question then is what does this have to do with TD and why is my faith even stronger after watching the finale. First off for me the show is amazing. Things like this arc and like Rick’s arc this season are why I will continue to watch the show no matter what. I enjoy all the characters and watching what Gimple does with their stories is fascinating but beyond that it’s satisfying. Looking back over the last several seasons it is so clear what Bob, Tye, Abe’s, and Sasha’s stories were intended to be. How they all interlock to create this beautiful narrative. Much the same can be said of Glenn’s. Maggie’ monologue at the end of the finale pulls all of those pieces together as well. It shows the impact Glenn had on the story and why it was important and also how it’s influenced the story moving forward. With that in mind I can say that it’s been very satisfying to see two of the four main arcs of season 4 come to a close. I also think the third main arc we saw with C@rol is coming together rather quickly. The pieces are all there for the final bits to be pulled together. Also the reverberations of Abe/Sasha’s arc will play out in the upcoming seasons through Rosita and Eugene who Sasha and Abe influenced greatly. The pieces for that were clearly laid in the finale. So that is why I am still TD.

Because at the end of the day so much of Daryl’s story is still open ended and unclear. We have seen other characters that have influenced his story for example Denise but the driving force behind Daryl’s arc still continues to be Beth. The parallels between Dwight/Sherry and Daryl/Beth are clear and unmistakable and going into S8 we are going to see this play out. While in my mind Daryl’s arc is still wide open you can start to identify some of the major players and some of the major events that have been set into motion. Beth’s influence on Daryl in S4 for example is what prompted him to try to help Dwight in S6’s “Always Accountable” which led to all these other things that have begun to play out. At the end of the day as a viewer I can’t look at this incredible arc that Gimple wove together for Sasha and think anything other than that Daryl will get the same and that Beth will have a great part in that. Gimple is a master at giving closure. We saw that with the finale. Abe got closure, Glenn got closure, Sasha got closure, and while Bob and Tye had gotten micro closures within their own arcs that got even greater closure and their stories even more purpose through the closure of Sasha’s arc.

One of the biggest reasons that I remain TD is because of the lack of closure to Beth and Daryl’s story. To this day it is still unclear what the heck Gimple was trying to say through Beth’s “death”. Critics and viewers alike saw her actions as senseless and even worse than that out of character and dangerous. After all the buildup and hype about a Daryl/Beth reunion they never even utter a word to each other in that Grady hallway. We never see Beth’s funeral and even more importantly than that she is never mentioned by name within the show. Whereas this season was about memorializing lost characters Beth was very conspicuously absent for the narrative even in places where she could and should have been mentioned. There have been numerous ways to bring closure to her story and arc and it simply hasn’t happened. Gimple is a master at telling stories and this is a story he has yet to address. We’ve seen Daryl acting in a lot of ways that tell us a lot of things much like what we saw with Sasha this season but still we have no actual explanation for why. I would continue watching the show no matter what because I love the show and the entire cast and I really enjoy a lot about how Gimple tells stories but I have to say that I still very firmly believe that Gimple still has a lot of story to tell about Daryl and by extension Beth and I plan to stick around for that too. There are still way too many questions there that have yet to be answered and that’s just not Gimple’s story telling style. He doesn’t set up huge arcs linking characters together and then cut them off right in the middle with no resolution or satisfying end. I don’t want to hear about how sometimes people die in tragic and unforeseeable ways because this isn’t real life. This is fiction. This is storytelling and the only reason people die in tragic and unforeseeable ways in storytelling is if there is a resolution to that tragic and unforeseeable death. In real life sometimes people do die tragically and there is no resolution because real life works that way but that doesn’t happen in fiction. In fiction, in storytelling, there is always a resolution even if that resolution is that another character evolves because of that tragic and unforeseeable death. For that to be the case with Beth than someone would have to have had an arc where Beth’s death advanced their story. That would of course imply that the viewers would have to understand that Beth was directly influencing that characters story and why her death did that. Of course if you wanted to make this argument then the most likely character for Beth to influence would have been Daryl.  So until we see some kind of resolution for Daryl in regards to Beth I am going to stay firmly on the Bethyl train and wait and see what happens. Because for me the finale confirmed if I’d ever doubted it that Gimple’s stories always have a resolution and we still haven’t seen that for Beth and Daryl. So until we do I am going to stick around and see what happens because I think the pieces are all there they just haven’t been put into motion yet.

[marta-bee]

Let‘s Talk About Mary

Doing a bit of world-building, and I’d appreciate some second opinions on how you  “read” Mary’s character, canonically. I’m not asking whether you like her or not, more about whether this lines up with how you think Mary actually “is” at the end of TST.

Canonically:

Mary is intelligent. She’s skilled not just as an assassin but a code-breaker, and she picks up Mummy Holmes’s book on a lark at Christmas dinner.

She’s clearly a crack shot. Sherlock pegs her as “better” than John, and he’s no amateur in this department.

Most likely place to acquire these skills is some sort of military experience, or with a quasi-military intelligence agency like the CIA. Dishonorable discharge is plausible (and nice connection with the Doyle-canon Moran), but equally plausible is falling in with some sort of “private security” outfit and taking jobs more and more toward the fringe of legal/moral.

She’s extremely clear-headed in a crisis, even one where she’s not in control (Bonfire Night, finding out Maj. Sholto’s room at the wedding, etc.)

She’s very dispassionate on a mission - to a fault. If John faulted Sherlock in TGG for not thinking too much about the lives at stake, Mary seems even further along that spectrum than he is

She’s not shy about hurting or even killing bystanders “for the greater good.” And this is equally true where her personal interests are at stake. Assaulting Janine and shooting Sherlock in order to intimidate Magnussen could arguably put her in either category, though to be fair the show doesn’t give us any reason not to put all that in the second category.

None of this necessarily makes her immoral, even amoral. If you’re naturally a dispassionate person, choosing this kind of career could be a way to turn all that into a good. But we don’t really get a strong distinction between “moral” actions and what Mary’s doing for her own purposes. Some of her more questionable actions are really hard to put in that camp. (I’m thinking more about her intimidating Sherlock after the shooting in HLV, than the shooting itself, which could fall under some larger plan/mission.)

Worth pointing out: it’s Sherlock who says AGRA works for the highest bidder. The story Mary tells about Tbilisi is actually one of the most morally defensible scenarios I could imagine.

She’s not much of a nurturer. For a nurse, she’s very brusque with how she wraps up Bill Wiggins’s wrist.

She’s a decent mother, so far as we can see, but the show doesn’t emphasize it. She likens her child to the antichrist, and she leaves John behind to find a sitter.

In the empty-house scene, Sherlock goads her about how the doctor’s-wife role must be chafing by then.

OTOH, they did have that nice reference to “Twisted Lip,” where “folks who were in grief came to [Mary] like birds to a light-house,” when Kate Whitney came to her particularly when she didn’t know where else to turn.

The show seems to be going out of its way to de-feminize her. Or at least take her out of the traditionally feminine role of bride, nursemaid, mother-with-child. She’s all of those things, but they’re not exactly emphasized, and when they’re there Mary does seem a little out of place in those roles.

Sherlock perceives her as a danger to John. That reality is weighty enough to pull him back from death’s door.

But something seems to change his mind. He pushes the Watsons to reconcile, then essentially abandons John to her by going after Magnussen. Absent some larger plan, this only makes sense if he actually thinks she can be trusted with John’s wellbeing.

Posthumously at least, we see she knew him well, and how she cared for him back in TRF/TEH gap. Again, making no judgments about why that was needed, but clearly the intent is to show us what drove this relationship.

At the same time: she’s shown as lying to John even after the Christmas reveal, and this pushing John to his own infidelity.

I think the writers are aiming for some kind of healthy relationship with John, but one that’s inevitably frustrated by all the secrets and an inability or unwillingness to wrestle with the past. How meta.

This is very different than I would have imagined at the end of HLV; I thought Mary was more in love with the role John allowed her (doctor’s wife, baker of bread, etc.), and that John similarly was clinging to the civilian nature of married life she opened up for him. That it was more about mutual use than actual love. Now I’m much less committed to that, but I do think it’s a doomed love because of the lies and John’s unwillingness to confront them.

I will admit I’m struggling --hard-- to reconcile S3 Mary and S4 Mary. In S3 she seems so much more self-motivated to me, and so much more divorced from her feelings (even more than Sherlock was); the way she is in S4 seems to come quite a bit out of nowhere.

I’m also struggling with the morality of her past, and specifically the way she relates to it. As I said, I don’t think it’s necessarily immoral to work as an intelligence operative. I’ll even buy sometimes those folks have to hurt or kill people who don’t deserve it, even civilians. For the greater good, etc. Where I get hung up is how Mary is apparently so careless with her attachments. She wasn’t honest with John at all, which trust issues aside, left him exposed to anyone who’d want to attack her. Essentially she’s fighting a private war and shanghaied him into it. (The Magnussen situation dramatizes this wonderfully IMO.) Then on top of that she gives her child her super-secret name in a way that paints a target on her. That lack of responsibility really bothers me, somehow, and makes it hard to see her as a good partner to someone with trust issues like John.

But I can more or less buy that there’s some kind of morality in Mary’s actions as an assassin/spy/whatever, and that she cared deeply about John and was fiercely protective of him, which is the role Sherlock seemed to be handing over to her. The real difficulty is how long she can keep this selfless thing going, because when that slips, I think she’d always find her past at odds with John’s future. That’s where I think the interesting story lies, and the one I’m so sorry this show didn’t seem interested in telling.

(I also can’t for one second buy she’d so easily sacrifice herself for Sherlock, when she’d been ready to kill him to protect John back in HLV. She liked him, maybe even loved him in her own way, but even when she’s being selfless, her main focus is clearly on John. As it should be.)

Curious what people make of all this. Does this match up with where you think her character stood at the end of S4? Do you read things alternately? Feel free to kick any and all tires.