#most people have just been discussing the characters and analysing themes which genuinely are not spoilers in my eyes

[kyeterna]

breaking my silence

but you see the desire to fit in is bigger than the desire to not get spoiled so it's mostly been just

[ahatersguidetoatla]

S1E1: "The Boy In The Iceberg"

You might be wondering why I want to write about a show I don't like.

Back in 2007 - when I was sixteen years old - there was a lot of buzz about a show called Avatar: The Last Airbender. Many held it up to be the greatest animated series ever made, a stunning example of the sophisticated stories animation could tell and a rebuke to the idea that children's entertainment was necessarily childish. I put on the first episode, then turned it off in about ten or fifteen minutes because I found it boring and childish.

Over the next decade and a half, the show remained a spectre over my media discussion. A lot of people I liked and respected (as well as quite a few I didn't) still spoke of it as a favourite, dissecting its themes and qualities; in particular, Zuko's character arc, considered by many to be the greatest redemption arc ever written.

At the same time, my writing in media grew more sophisticated; I have written at length about my favourite works and studied storytelling across a variety of mediums and genres. I've written in-depth, episode-by-episode analyses of some of my favourite shows and found the experience very rewarding; learning not just about how they worked, the storytelling techniques they used and the philosophies they conveyed, but my own values and aesthetic tastes.

A couple of years ago, I decided to give Avatar another shot and find out not only what people saw in it, but unique insights I could pull out of it. To my great shock, I fucking hated it. In fact, not only did I find it mostly tedious, I found parts of it morally vile. Most of the show has the same naivete as almost every other piece of children's media ever made, but parts of it struck me as terrible lessons to teach children about trying to do good in this world.

So why write about it now, here, in this format? Generally I don't go in for making snark or roasts or whatever you want to call it. I was a big fan of reading it early in my media literacy studies - I treasure a Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows snark blog I read over a decade ago that has sadly been wiped from the internet - but for the most part I've found it more rewarding to discuss things I like, if only because I would like to imitate what they do.

But I also believe in exposing myself to new ideas, even ones I might find offensive; some of my favourite works have been ones I initially thought looked abhorrent but gave a shot based on recommendations. I have also learned from things I disliked and found things to imitate. Aside from both its spectacular aesthetic and its belief in faithfully depicting POC cultures in a genre that was overwhelmingly white and Western, Avatar: The Last Airbender is so drastically different from my own storytelling and moral values that I figure it's worth a deep dive to see how it ticks.

As for why I share this publicly? I genuinely don't want to hurt anybody's feelings over a children's cartoon. If me criticising A:TLA upsets you, block me - I won't be offended. But I'm obviously going to get pushback, which is exactly what I want; I want to know how my ideas sound outside my head, particularly to someone who doesn't share my values. I want to interrogate this show, and I want to interrogate responses to my criticisms.

Anyway, this episode.

I think this does work pretty effectively at introducing us to the premise - Katara wakes Aang up, he's been in the ice for a hundred years, Zuko is after him, Aang wants to Katara to be trained in waterbending (I also think the iconic opening sequence is admittedly pretty cool and sets up the overall world well). It's a bit slow for my tastes, but I read James Ellroy novels, so I usually have to find myself tolerating slowness.

But we're already presented with a few recurring annoyances that will carry us across the series. The first: Sokka isn't funny. He's annoying, he's very very annoying. This almost works for me in his very first scene, because it serves a very particular purpose: conveying that Katara is a talented but inexpert waterbender whose talents aren't properly recognised or understood.

It's the way it's presented with a complete lack of nuance that bothers me. I don't mean moral nuance - I'm okay with completely disagreeing with Sokka in this moment - I mean a lack of comedic nuance. Sokka's sexism is presented so broadly and so generically that it's hard for me to find it funny.

I invite you to compare jokes about his sexism to similarly themed jokes in Futurama (finishing its iconic first run roughly two years before A:TLA began), in which the predictability of the jokes was compensated for by both the originality of their imagery and the speed of the jokes - setup, punchline, boom, move onto the next joke. That particular sequence ends up saying a lot about how men can be more caught up in flash than substance - social commentary rooted in the characters.

You can also compare it to the jokes about sexism in It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia (which would begin its first season shortly before A:TLA), where I would argue they're equally as broad but contextualised by absurdist farce plots; the characters immediately escalate things with one another and push a scene from basic sexism to somewhere particularly absurd.

Neither of these things are present in the humour of A:TLA, and you get a lot of comedy scenes - even within this one episode - that are shallow enough to be predictable and slow enough for that to be excruciating. Jack De Sana's voice acting makes it even worse for me - he's so hammy that he comes off less like an idiot and more like a guy who desperately wants you to think he's an idiot.

For a positive example of what he's going for where that approach works, think of Rik Mayall on The Young Ones; not only does his flailing, desperate approach fit the desperate, needy character, he's supported by writing rooted in a very specific time and place, where Rick's neediness comes partially from him growing up in middle-class Britain and projecting anarchist causes onto childish concerns. Sokka's humour, despite the beautiful specifics of Inuit culture in the animation, is much more generic. The fact that he's dumb says nothing.

There are a few things I like in "The Boy In The Ice". This kicks off the fact that Zuko is miles more interesting than everyone else; I actually like Katara and Aang in theory, because both of them have the broad goals of being good people and very different, specific ways of trying to achieve that. But Zuko marries a broad goal - being the strongest guy in the room - married with a very clear, specific goal of Catching The Avatar.

Good storytelling is the easiest thing in the world: somebody wants something, they act to get it, consequences come down upon them for their actions. We actually get a very simple, elegant example of that at the end of the episode - Aang wants to find out what happened to the world, he goes into a forbidden Fire Nation wrecked ship to find out, he succeeds at his goal but sets off a flare that alerts Zuko.

Zuko very quickly establishes himself as brash and loud; the ironic thing about this show's pretentions towards pacifism is that it best expressed its characters through violence. Here we see Zuko with a simple goal - defeat the enemies in training - and putting all the power he has into every shot he takes; from a storytelling perspective, it's a bit redundant; actually, if I were editing this, I'd cut things down so it was the first we see of him, and he sees Aang escape the ice while that happens.

For a show with very blunt characterisation and plot turns, it can often have very inefficient overall storytelling structure. An example where this works a little better is Aang's penguin sledding; it's not strictly necessary to the plot, but it does tell us that a) Katara isn't completely humourless, b) Aang's joy is sincere and thoughtless, and c) Aang, in fact, brings out a sense of joy in her. The penguin sledding is the most joyful part of the episode and lays the groundwork for later characterisation.

On the other hand, we have a fundamental storytelling flaw that will plague Avatar: The Last Airbender all the way to the bitter end: there is only one correct direction for the plot to go, one character knows this and we are simply waiting for things to inevitably go their way. In this case, we have Katara being the only one to believe Aang can teach her waterbending and her grandmother telling her not to get her hopes up.

Now it doesn't seem like much in the grand scheme of things, but it's the start of a recurring pattern of everyone else being Dumb and Wrong, sometimes because the deck is very obviously stacked in their favour - like here, where Aang has very obviously been subjected to some kind of supernatural influence, as well as the fact that he's very obviously the Avatar to any viewer even slightly paying attention at this point - or based on sheer intuition.

On one level, it bothers me because it says that bad things happen because everyone is dumber than you are, which is a terrible and arrogant attitude that makes the world worse and destroys empathy. More importantly, it saps all the tension and excitement for the story; we are effectively told what's about to happen before it happens. Where's the fun in that?

In fact, you can kind of tie these two things - obvious humour and predictable plotting - into one problem: it exists to tell the audience how smart they already are, and worse, the audience doesn't actually have to be that smart to get it. I don't watch television to be told how smart I already am. I don't need TV to flatter or condescend to me.

SCATTERED NOTES

In terms of humour, we've also got the start of one of the weirder elements in a show about trying to do good: Sokka being humiliated, constantly, for no reason. Again, you can compare it to Futurama, which has Zoidberg serve a similar purpose, and in fact suffers above and beyond what he really deserves. Futurama, of course, is a dirtbag show about dirtbags (and I love it for that), so there's no weird hypocrisy there. Here it's apparently heroic to continuously bully a guy to the point that the universe itself does it.

The animation is undeniably gorgeous. The blend of different cultures into a specific and fictional cultural context is the most effective element of the show. Ships marooned on land are inherently cool, and I always loved Aang's tattoos. There's a specificity here that's lacking in the actual story.

I'll be putting these up every Saturday.

[captlok]

Pacifism Isn’t A Character Trait

Or: MLK Day is Upon Us so Let Me Do You a Learn

Or: As An Aang Stan I Got a Bit Over-Zealous But Lemme Explain Why For A Hot Minute

Plus some History and Tumblr commentary that even non-ATLA fans can chew on

And by ‘hot minute’ I do mean this is going to be a long meta, so strap in.  For those of you who just might be tuning into this debacle, I, a person who has not used Tumblr, much at all, except for the last half year, ran into some trouble. 

If you wanna skip the whole TLDNR interpersonal stuffs and get straight to Why Aang is the Best Thing Since Sliced Bread, I will embolden the relevant parts, and italicize the crit of Korra, if you want that alongside.

I was excited that ATLA was seeing a resurgence due to the Netflix remake. I wasn’t even trying to apply any steep expectations for it. (learned not to do that the hard way with the last live action adaption, and to a much lesser extent, ATLOK, since it had good . . . elements, *ba dum tsshh*) 

So, these are a couple aspects of the issue: (1) Even on the internet, I am extremely introverted and until recently mostly came for content, not socializing. My main online interactions thus far have been in forums and artist-to-artist on DA. Tumblr is still very strange to me because it splits up its ‘threads’ so you can’t see all the replies if a certain pattern of users responds in their own space. I’m not even 100% sure it’s in chronological order, and replies are not nested next to each other so you can look in the comments and someone will be replying to something you can’t see in that window. And also since it is a bizarre hybrid of a blogging system, posts are somehow considered ‘owned by’ or an ‘extension of’ OP in a way forum threads are not. (2) ATLOK was good in a cinematic and musical way, to be sure. It also had some good concepts. I can go into it just appreciating it for the worldbuilding and be somewhat satisfied. But the execution was terrible. I was on AvatarSpirit.Net for years, and If I had maintained my presence on ASN to current day and had gotten around to downloading their archive now that the forum is dead, I would include some links to other peoples’ detailed analyses on just how flawed both the plotting and Korra’s frustratingly flat learning curve was especially in the first two seasons. But, that is a task for another day, and only if people are interested. 

No, what I’m addressing today, on the issue of Korra as a writing exercise, is how Mike and Bryan said specifically they wanted to make her ‘as opposite to Aang as possible’ and in so doing, muddied the central theme of the original ATLA series.

Now, again, I was mainly an art consumer for my first major round of ATLA fandom. Tumblr is an alien beast to me. But, after I write my first major Aang meta, talking about how amazing it is that he has the attitude he does, and how being content in the face of this overwhelming pain and suffering is an ONGOING PROCESS and an INTENTIONAL DECISION and not a simple PERSONALITY TRAIT, I start hearing that Aang gets a lot of hate from the fandom. Now this would be bad enough if it were merely people not liking his crowning moment of pacifism because they don’t understand the potential utility (I’ll elaborate on that in another post) or the ethics involved.

Aang is easily the most adult member of the Gaang. But he apparently gets hate for his few moments where he actually acts his age, a preteen, and maybe kisses a girl in a historical timeframe in which ‘consent’ discussions were probably nonexistent. Even in the present day, we are still practically drowned in movies that reinforce this kissing without asking trope. And even some female bodied people complain that asking kills the mood! But somehow he is responsible and reprehensible for this, even though the first time she kissed him back. I’m only going to get into the pacifism discussion today, but that was just another layer of annoyance bouncing around in the back of my head.  Other peoples’ crit of Korra that was stewing in my subconscious, plus this Aang bashing, which thankfully I had not directly read much of, made up the backdrop of gasoline for the match that set it off.  Even that seems a pretty melodramatic way to phrase what I actually said, which was: Aang, on the other hand, lost dozens of father figures and was being steamrolled by Ozai who was gloating about genocide TO HIS FACE, yet he still reigned in all that quote, ‘unbelievable rage and pain’ (The Southern Raiders). We Stan Aang, the Superior Avatar. No I did not f**king stutter. #AangSupremacy In another meta, someone complained that I was too defensive of Aang as a character and didn’t apply literary analysis enough, which I quickly rectified.

What set this off? Someone was kind of indirectly praising the line from Korra,  “When I get out of here, none of you will survive” To them it was emotionally resonant or whatever, and I have to point out that no, it was a martial artist not having control of their state of mind, as is the bedrock of the practice. It was never addressed by the narrative, which is a severe oversight.  I had a conversation with someone in the chats, making this distinction between Korra’s character traits and life philosophy. If she were to kill people while enraged and she was fine with that, that’s one thing. But if she regretted it, that’s a whole other kettle of fish. People argue that she comes from a warrior culture, unlike Aang.

Never mind that warrior monks are a thing. That’s what Shaolin monks are. You can be a pacifist and skilled at fighting. Those things are not mutually exclusive, which is the whole point of Bagua, Aang’s style.  And also, Katara’s style. 

That’s one reason I like Kataang so much- their congruent styles. Both of their real world martial arts are dedicated to pacifism, even though ATLA specifically doesn’t spell that out for Katara and her learning arc. 

There was a meta where someone briefly tried to argue that knowing “martial arts” is against pacifism. No. Quite the opposite. I’d argue that you are not a true pacifist unless you know exactly how to handle yourself if someone attacks you.  If you are not in a position to make conscious decisions about how much force to use, rather than merely operating on survival instincts, that is not pacifism. Or at least, not any energy or effort towards pacifism as a practical everyday tool.  I’ve made a few attempts to learn some tai chi and aikido, and it’s improved my physical and mental health, but some other things have gotten in the way. #lifegoals

I’m not going to tag the unfortunate soul whom I was replying to, because they’re probably tired of all this, but I’ll be sending them a PM to say that I’ve made this into a different post, because as I mentioned before, threads are somehow considered “owned” by OP, so it’s been pointed out to me that I should separate it.  I also said, I have basically ZERO respect for Korra uttering violent threats when the writers already minted a far more emotionally devastated and yet still resilient and centered character earlier in their franchise. People always try to excuse away people who genuinely like Aang more.  As if it’s just nostalgia or whatever. For me, no, it’s absolutely not. It is respect for a character who stands toe to toe with real people who are kind in the face of overwhelming injustice. (I have another meta on that). 

Both OP and people in the chats try to make excuses that she wasn’t raised as a pacifist, and that would be fine if they had addressed it with Tenzin and she had stated outright that she was rejecting pacifism and mind training. As it is, we are left with this nebulous affair where the lines between ideology and personality traits are blurred. 

We are told she “has trouble with spirituality” but what does that even mean? Does she have trouble with focus? Does she have trouble relating to the canonically real spirits? And pacifism specifically nor inner peace that it flows from is never even talked about as an extension of spirituality, which is canonically tied to airbending.

“Aang didn't have to deal once with the loss of his autonomy in atla” OP claims.

This was after I had noted that Aang was getting kicked around by Ozai and was most likely going to die.  Similarly, someone in the chat rejected the idea that a 12 year old trapped in a stone sphere that is heating up under a cyclone-sized blowtorch feels powerless. 

Sorry but that’s flat out ridiculous.

No one wants to admit that both of these people were faced with similar situations, and when push came to shove, one showed his LIFE PHILOSOPHY through conscious effort, and the other was abandoning the basis of martial arts, which is, no matter what the situation, keep thinking. Hold the panic at bay. Non-attachment would have served her well in this situation. Tenzin should have told her this. Before, or afterwards. It should have been addressed in the writing.  

People see this as “bashing” Korra, and oh well, can’t help that. If I think the writers didn’t follow through on their themes, that is my concern.  OP said I was “offended.” No, not really. 

I wasn’t offended by the post itself, or its commentary. Thought I made that pretty clear.

This is not dramatics. Let me be blunt.

As a ideological pacifist, and an actual practitioner of meditation, based on Buddhism, NOT just the fan of some show, I am for calling out writers who write one way from the survivor of genocide, and then stray from that ‘thoughtless aggression is immoral no matter HOW hurt I am’ to ‘let’s not address this character’s aggression in the narrative whatsoever.’ OP attempted to derail by accusing me of being racist or sexist against Korra. Also ridiculous. It honestly should have set me off more, but it didn’t. 

Meditation is about reigning in your emotions. Managing your anger when it gets out of hand, and digging down to the roots of it. Being responsible for your own behavoir. Acknowledging ownership of your own actions. Not blaming anything YOU DO on anyone else or any circumstances in your life. Like an adult, or should I say, an enlightened adult.

Or at the very least, that is the ideal ypu strive towards while being imperfect in the present.

. . .

Now.

I’m going to quote a passage in a Google Doc of mine, even though I’d really prefer if you asked to read the whole thing, with context.

“What do humans do when it is necessary to, or greed makes a nation want to recruit?

They go to the army to get trained, right?

Granted, having someone scream and get spittle on your face is, in the grand scheme of things, poor preparation for having bullets whiz past your chest and grenades shatter your ears. And, what do you do to prepare you for the pain of getting your leg blown off? Hopefully, nothing. Like taking a test where you only got half the study guide. But, it’s about the most ethical way to go about it, right?

Not everyone even sees action. So any more more extensive mental preparation for physical pain than that, and you’d have people definitely protesting.

Well, as it turns out, pacifistic protestors themselves, if they were in the right time and place, also very intentionally do this type of mind training. Except, when they did it, they actually did sit still and took turns roughly grabbing each other and throwing each other down and in some cases, even kicking and bruising each other.

Turns out, those pacifists are, in some ways, more hardcore than the army.

Why is this?

Because a pacifist’s aim, unlike a unit, who wants to gain the upper hand in a situation, is to grit their teeth and grind their way through all those survival instincts, and totally submit.

In this, they aim to get the sympathy of the public, who clearly sees they are not aggressive, or a danger, no matter how much the footage is manipulated or suppressed.

In this, they hope to appeal to their attacker’s better nature.

Make them stop and think, wait a second, are these people a threat like we’re told they are? I’m attacking someone who’s letting me beat them up. Or a bunch of people. All forming a line, and letting us peel them off. Or sitting, and bowing their heads. If I’m on the ‘right’ side of things, the law, why am I doing this?

It’s not like a bully, who’s just a kid.” They’re more self-aware.

And might I add the situation influences a pacifist’s actions too. There’s no reason to let a single or a few random attackers beat you up if you can evade or disable without permanent damage.

Pacifism is a dynamic set of responsive actions informed by values. Not a proscribed set or a checklist.

But in terms of organizing against state power, and recording wrongdoing, which unlike during the Civil Rights can happen from all angles from smart phones nowadays, these are the motivations.

“So, the pacifist knows this, and that’s why they go through all that trouble of training themselves to, not only submit, but not turn tail and run, either.”

See, a character trait is something like being a morning person, or ways of handing information, or a given set of emotions a character feels. Once you cross over into actions, you must make the distinction of whether an impulsive character agrees with their own uncontrolled actions, or is embarrassed or remorseful. Those are life philosophy. Now sure, one type of person or character may be more likely to subscribe to pacifism, but there is no gatekeeping on what you have to feel or how you look at things. You can be easygoing, or feel all the rage in the world, but as long as you at least attempt to have a handle on those desires and feelings to where they do not cross into actions, you are still doing the work of metacognition, which is what martial arts and its accompanying mind training are for.

It’s what we see Aang do.

He’s informed us, during the Southern Raiders, on how much rage and pain he feels.

Pain points, TRIGGERS, that were directly struck at when Ozai gloated over him.

He joins with all the past Avatars for several moments, and just like every other time he is in the Avatar State, he is enraged. He wants to exact revenge on the unrepentant grandson of a baby murderer.

We see it when he turns his head away, face still screwed up in anger.

For another example, I could cite my difficulties in being aware and reining in my tongue sometimes. I know the roots of these issues and I seek to let them go.

It’s just that process takes way longer than Guru Pathik would have us assume.

In fact, I would even say that Aang’s portrayal throughout the three seasons is not strictly a realistic representation of at least the sad side of grief. I addressed that a little when I talked about real life figures. But what it IS, is a metaphor that cuts very deep to the heart of pacifism. As I showed in that Doc . . . There is no limit of suffering a pacifist is willing to go through, internal or external, for the preservation of peace.

This was demonstrated during the Civil Rights, and with Gandhi and all his followers beforehand, inspiring them. The pacifists’ method of swaying hearts is probably the reason BLM exists in such numbers as it does today. Will the types of narratives that correspond with their full stories of the way they collectively planned and trained for and approached conflict make it into fantasy media? I’d say, probably not. For a host of reasons.

It could be hoped for, I guess.

But we DO have Aang.

As for myself, whether speaking sharply is an “action,” per se is up for debate- certainly it doesn’t seem to violate the non-aggression principle put forth by the vision of a “stateless society.”

For another example, let’s take my explanation at the beginning. I am examining how circumstances affected my actions, and now am attempting to fix it, if indeed it needs to be fixed. 

At least one person said that it not so much what I said, but how and when I said it. I don’t actually think I’ve said anything “wrong” per se. So I have to figure it out. 

[I’m considering splitting up this next part into a second post, as it only slightly relates to pacifism itself and is just kinda some more commentary on Tumblr itself- Tumblr discourse, as it were]

[I’ll put more brackets when I’m done in case you want to skip this part as well]

An interesting social difference between Tumblr and other places is this command you often get, “don’t chat/reblog/message me back.”

This is interesting for several reasons. For chats and reblogs, other people may be following the “conversation,” so it’s actually pretty rude and presumptuous to tell a person not to respond to whatever you said, because other people watching still may be interested in your take.

In a forum setting, if someone involved in a conversation doesn’t have anything left to say, usually they just don’t respond.

This method would work perfectly fine for Tumblr, but for some reason, maybe its super odd format, probably due to the “ownership”/“extension of self” I mentioned at the beginning of the essay, people don’t tend to do this.

Now, in comment sections, sometimes you’ll run across an amusing sort of “mutually assured destruction” where two people both say this to each other. You’d better stop responding. Omg just give up. Why are you still arguing. Etc.

But see, no matter where this behavoir pops up, and no matter who starts in on it, those who do this usually want to have the last say on the matter.

Instead of merely not replying, they want to assert verbal control over the conversation.

Tumblr, in its weirdness, is also sort of like a mutant comments section. You can post comment section threads as your own post.

Which is one reason why I’m puzzled when people say ‘don’t read the comment sections’ when Tumblr is so popular.

I’m an oddball in that I browse comment sections for fun.

Probably due to alexithymia, I didn’t really comprehend the emotional toll it takes on many people, so the warnings to “stay out of comment sections” read to me like “hey don’t eat that dessert.” After I’m done with the ‘meal’ of an article or art, I like to see what lots of different people have to say about it. The fluff. Anything vitriolic I either blip over, or extract anything useful, or if I judge the person is reasonable enough, I might engage.

Sometimes I mis-judge on how reasonable someone is, and I shrug and move on after being cussed out or whatever.

In this, I suppose I succeed much of the time in being a verbal pacifist.

[But let’s get back to the more serious stuff.]

We’re talking about what is done in life or death situations, here.

For myself, I may in the near future be working more with dangerously mentally ill people. I’ve had a little exposure to it through various means. Nurses are obligated not to retaliate against patients, and those who have, have been fired in some situations. Again oddly, this is not primarily what triggers my anxiety. Unfortunately enough, this requirement has also resulted in nurses getting seriously injured and violated. I hope to influence whether “no harm” techniques such as tai chi and aikido and arm locks may be allowed. The voluntary philosophy I was luckily already on board with is enforced by bureauacracy, directly relevant to my potential profession.

Were someone to get involved in a dangerous profession, such as a police officer, their moral duty would also be to own up to any spur of the moment anger or fear they acted on. 

It’s just that their bureaucracy acts differently, in excusing their actions.

Ideally, they would be taking steps far in advance, to avoid this often-cited fear of death reaction. As training pacifists like Aang do. 

And yes, army people are trained differently than police officers because the army, often, even when threatened, is supposed to avoid engagement or deploy deterrents that are non-lethal almost all costs, unless ordered otherwise. Whereas American police are given pretty much complete discretion and often not taught de-escalation techniques. Even police from other nations are better trained in that regard.

Enter the ironically named @avatarfandompolice whose account description should really speak for itself. Combative, dismissive, and their attention-hungry bread and butter is to find people they think it’s acceptable to ridicule.  They basically tried to say trauma was a valid excuse to take out your anger on other people, and in this situation, potentially kill. 

Now, does this hold up in the real world? Yeah, sometimes. Especially if some law breaker or law keeper has not been given the anger management tools, they perhaps could be excused, or better yet, rehabilitated.

But especially if anyone finds themselves in dangerous situations, or intends to put themselves in such, it falls to them to do this preparation.

As an aphant, I am at a bit of a disadvantage, compared to an average martial artist, being unable to visualize an attacker. But I still attempt it.

As the main “police officer” of the world- the coincidentally blue clad figurehead that is supposed to keep order, it is apparently fine for Korra to not do the work Aang did to keep level. To blow it off as too much trouble: clearing the First Chakra of fear. For herself or others. And its resultant anger. Had she had access to the Avatar State, the authority figure pretty much would have killed people.  This is what the “fandom police” and a certain chat goer ultimately support. Maybe they didn’t understand it that way, and since the second had blocked me, they will also never see this explanation. Unless I were to share it in Google Doc form I suppose.

So, I responded. “Remember kids, you are not responsible for your own behavior if you have the excuse that someone else did something bad to you.” A frighteningly common sentiment on this site.

When it’s low stakes like CAPSLOCKING or internet fights, that’s not such a big deal. But what happens if this attitude leaks into the real world? This isn’t even about Korra or Aang anymore, it’s about toxic mindsets. I didn’t know fans taking pro-Korra posts as anti-Aang was a common in the fandom. I’ll say again I’ve only just gotten really active on Tumblr like the past few months. This is about pacifism itself. MLK and his hardworking, training followers (yes some of them sixteen and POC and not super-powered like Korra) facing down firehoses and staging sit-ins long trained for would shake their heads at this defense of reactionism. 

Pacifism is not a Personality Trait.

It is deliberate actions and preparation taken over a period of time.

Then the “fandom police” tried more of this, and these two conversations ensued, the comments with another user resulting in the title and main thesis of this essay:

https://captlok.tumblr.com/post/638777472806273024/avatarfandompolice-response-to-my-independent

https://captlok.tumblr.com/post/638806142933467136/the-plight-was-not-what-i-was-getting-at-it-was

[uservillanelle]

Killing Eve ― 3x03 (Review)

Alriiight clowns, who’s ready for some 3x03 discussion? I don’t even remember how many times I’ve seen the episode already, but there are still some points I’d like to point out/talk about. So let’s get started!

Andalusia

As bad as it sounds, I enjoy seeing Villanelle do her job. It’s exactly where the show can show off some really incredible places in the world and of course explore different, creative ways of killing someone. However, this time in particular I don’t think it was realistic enough the way they did it. I mean, what kind of strength does Villanelle need to have in order to throw the tuning fork like that and instantly kill a person? You’d think it would take a lot more effort to have the tuning fork pierce human skull. No? 

Anyways, another thing is the nanny that Villanelle also killed. I believe only the pianist was her target, since she appeared to be rather taken aback by hearing the baby’s cries through the baby monitor. She didn’t expect anyone else to be in the house. She could’ve easily left without anyone seeing her, but she didn’t. “You really like that baby, huh? It’s not even yours.” So this kind of explains why she killed the nanny, since the baby wasn’t hers? But then again... I think this scene was needed for her to be able to take the baby and eventually this thing would escalate into her need to find her family. 

The Bathroom

Carolyn and Mo are analysing the circumstances of Kenny’s death. And what’s better way to do it than in a bathtub? Classic Carolyn. This reminds me of Villanelle’s “I have a thing for bathrooms, actually.” One of the recurring themes that the show expresses in such a natural way. 

The fact that the head of MPS still claims that it was suicide despite the lack of note or motivation. Makes me wonder just how many more cases like these are marked as ‘suicide’ when in reality there’s a lot more to the story to uncover. KE is really into all this shady stuff, hm?

Eve is SO done with Carolyn this season. She deserves it though, after betraying Eve but it is just so satisfying for me, at least, to watch them interact with this new formed dynamic. It’s refreshing that Eve was in a way replaced by Mo, who now is basically Carolyn’s assistent and not Eve. She did make her point for not wanting to work for Carolyn anymore, so she found someone else, while Eve is still active and in the game, just in her own way. Gotta love independent Eve Polastri.

Meetings Have Biscuits

Eve is really taking charge this season, not gonna lie. She basically set up this whole meeting, invited Jamie (whose name I constantly keep forgetting) and even ordered everybody on what they should be doing since neither Carolyn nor Jamie showed the initiative to work with one another. “You can have a biscuit when you tell me what the point of you is.” GOLDEN LINE!! I don’t usually agree with Carolyn, but YES! I’m not really sure what is Jamie’s role here. You can have Bear, who already helped to solve the rubbik cube’s puzzle while Jamie did what, exactly? I have a bad feeling about him but I’m not going to say it just yet... in case I’m wrong and do I hope I am.

Young mother with baby and grandma

I absolutely ADORED this scene in all ways. We got to see Villanelle interact with an actual baby without her doing any harm to him! That’s a rare gem we might not get to see again, so let’s appreciate it! Not only that but we got to see A BABY interact with A BABY. Villanelle’s a literal child and I love her to pieces. 

Ever since Villanelle found out that Eve’s alive she’s been back on her BS just like Dasha said and apparently it’s been DAYS. “What got into you?” So.. Dasha doesn’t know that Villanelle knows about Eve. Meaning Dasha is not communicating with Konstantin and probably doesn’t know about Eve. Then again, last episode she and Villanelle did have a talk about how she can’t go down the same road again. So is Dasha pretending not to know what’s going on or she truly isn’t aware?

Villanelle gets her next postcard. It’s London. She freaks out and we all know exactly why. Yeah, it’s like, WE also should be freaking out about it because Villanelle will be going to London in episode 3. Eve and Villanelle usually got her first reunion in episode 5 in previous seasons. So it does feel too soon and that’s exactly what Villanelle says next. “I’m not ready! How about that?” Of course she needs to prepare first. She’s extra like that. Not only she says it but she is actually nervous and her body language is TOO loud about it. 

This brings me to my next point... Dasha sees just how much of a mess Villanelle is and proceeds to “encourage” her once she hears that she’s not ready. “All you need is anorak and a face like cheese”. Okay, hear me out. Last episode Dasha and Villanelle were having a conversation about Felix and how Villanelle will have to “guide” him, encourage him and make him believe that he “can be good”. This is exactly what she’s doing with Villanelle now, or am I seeing things? Last time Villanelle picked up on that, this time she doesn’t because she’s too invested in thinking about Eve and preparation. Then she agrees with Dasha and we see her give this sort of satisfying look which only indicates just how twisted she is. I mean she can’t be that stupid to not realize why Villanelle is the way she is... and STILL encourage her to go to London. Like.. I’m sure The Twelve has many more assassins up their sleeve so why not send someone else to London instead? No. It has to be Villanelle for the show’s sake. It has to be Villanelle because EVE is there and the idea of the Twelve possibly wanting to recruit Eve keeps appealing to me more and more... this might not be the case at all but why would both sides keep setting Eve and Villanelle up even after they seemed to be “over” one another?

On a lighter note, Dasha placing the baby in the trash bin is the most hilarious thing I’ve seen. INCLUDING Villanelle’s reaction. Sooo damn good, but it didn’t seem like anyone saw Dasha do it at first. It’s only later when someone heard the baby crying, people showed up. This show man.. there’s nothing else like KE in television and it’s a fact.

Eve

Let me just start with “But before I go on, you have to understand that once I tell you about them, your lives are in danger.” “Then don’t tell us.” “They’re called The Twelve.” Eve’s really not giving a shit about anything as it seems LMAO! I mean, at least she gave them a warning beforehand? This is yet another recurring trait of Eve’s. She doesn’t care about other’s needs except her own. It happened plenty of times back in S2 and it happened in this season. For example when she called Kenny and asked about the drinks and as soon as she got the answer she needed from him, she hung up not giving a chance for Kenny to say anything. Then now, and the way she treated Mo once she asked if he could trace the Geneva account for them. This reminds me of a scene in S2 where Eve basically ordered Kenny to help her find Villanelle by saying “you work for me.” This is exactly what she’s doing with Mo now. “Did you take this job thinking it would be easier? If you did. quit now. Cause it’s only getting tougher.” This is her own way of manipulation and getting what SHE wants. She even did it with Villanelle back in 2x05 when she asked for her help while interrogating the ghost. She did it and basically had to ASK Eve for a ‘thank you’ which wasn’t even genuine from Eve’s part. It’s not the best thing to have or do... yet I’m not sure if Eve is even aware of what she’s doing or when she does it. Hopefully it won’t cause major trouble further into the story. Hopefully.

The time has finally come. Eve is finally beginning to realize and hopefully accept her feelings for Villanelle. I’m not saying she was in denial before, but more like avoiding the topic in general. Until this episode. I mean the sexual tension between her and Villanelle whenever they meet and especially in this episode was WAY too strong for her to handle and she went for it. She went for the kiss which, can mean a million things, like Sandra mentioned in one recent interview. It can mean she went for it to catch Villanelle off guard, it can mean that she simply gave into the temptation... and accepted the fact that yes, she IS attracted to the assassin and this way unlocked this very personal character journey we are about to see. After meeting Villanelle she still went to the office and all she said was “I don’t want to talk about it.” Clearly it all was too much for her, as it was FOR US, so it’s understandable. But when she came back home and got instantly paranoid, thinking Villanelle was there just got me thinking of just how big of an effect does Villanelle have on Eve. She definitely caught Villanelle’s strong scent there... and then the recording. Sure, she was scared and angry and at first turned it off ASAP. But something changed soon afterwards... something that made her turn the recording back on and bring it to her ear... and close her eyes while taking in Villanelle’s voice. She IS admitting and she DOES wish Villanelle was there. This was a moment where she had time to process everything on her own without anyone else around her. She needed this... and the reveal is just so delicious. I’m sure we all know how the episode really ended, huh?

Now that the reunion happened and Eve found out that Niko apparently discharged himself from the fascility and moved back to Poland, I’m very intrigued to see just how much will Eve and Niko’s dynamic change. Will she still try to get Niko to come back? Try to convince him that there is still a chance for the two of them? Or is she only going to visit him to tie the loose ends and be done with the guy? I do think that the kiss and the meeting itself changed things for her so I cannot wait to see just how her and Niko’s relationship will escalate/end. Niko, on the other hand, is still pretty much UNSTABLE and he’ll cause trouble. I’m telling right now. This is no good so I hope Eve will leave him as soon as she comes and be done with him since she DOES deserve better than him, too.

The Accountant

First, I’m actually glad Suzanne decided to dive deeper into the core of The Twelve. Last season we didn’t really get enough of information about them and this one seems to be way more focused on it. Meaning the story is moving forward. And by story I mean the actual plot. 

Sergei Korchmarev. AKA Charles Kruger. As far as I understood he was the one to stole 6 million euros from the Twelve WHILE working for them? He did that and then asked Konstantin to get him the money to “buy him some time” to find the “scoundrel”. So 6 million wasn’t enough for him, hm? Why do I have a feeling he’s been stealing the money for something bigger than his own greed? It has to be for something “bigger” but then again, guess we won’t be able to find out as Villanelle blew his brains out. 

Again, both Konstantin and Carolyn knew him so that makes me even more suspicious. They seem to be working on different sides now but who knows really? This whole thing just keeps me on my toes, as it should but I want to know a bit more of this whole situation. We are left in the dark and we’ve been there for the past two seasons.

Villanelle

Villanelle in the perfume shop is the definition of a drama queen. Period. The way she described the custom scent she’d like was so captivating and telling. Like, she knew exactly what she wanted and that’s power. Smelling like Roman centurion means smelling like power. “I want to make people gag with it.” It has to be THAT strong, she wants people to know just how much strength she’s carrying, but most importantly Eve. “Well, we have some lovely floral fragrances for ladies over here.” “Maybe I should describe to you what I’m thinking.” OF COURSE he had to suggest some “lovely floral fragnance for LADIES” which is the complete opposite of what Villanelle describes next. So the overly too big suit that she chose to dress to meet Eve should have that very scent sshe was talking about. After all, she does see herself as a warrior.

I wonder if them throwing a baby in this episode is the only reason for Villanelle to have this need to find her family. Sure, Konstantin hinted last season that some members of her family are still alive and right now he doesn’t seem too keen on helping Villanelle find them. Though, knowing that she will be going to Russia in 3x05 means that Konstantin, or someone else, will find out about the location of her family memebers in next episode. It should really be interesting because we haven’t seen Villanelle interact with ANY family members before. Plus... I have a feeling they will force for OKSANA to come to the surface yet again and I am here for it. 

I can’t help but point out, yet again, that after receiving the postcard, Villanelle went to London to buy perfume in preparation for the reunion with Eve, then went to the toy’s shop where she bought a talking bear and a very adorable bear shirt for herself and THEN went to meet Eve. Only afterwards all that she actually went after her target, which should be the main reason why she was in London in the first place. Love comes first for Villanelle. Job after. That’s ironic, because the previous two seasons everything was about JOB for Eve. She let her marriage fall into pieces but she didn’t stop working and obsessing over Villanelle.

Can we just appreciate Villanelle in police officer’s uniform? I mean... she can kill whoever the hell she wants if she will be wearing that. Almost makes me want to be arrested by a cop lmao!!

The bus scene

It’s been over 4 days since the episode came out and I STILL cannot believe we got a villaneve reunion AND A KISS!! Like... I was worried the scene would be too random and I didn’t want that. It was random. That’s why it was so surprising for all of us, because we couldn’t expect them to meet so soon and on a bus. There were no indications we will see them meet and that worked really well.

At the same time I feel like if we cut out the bus scene from the episode, the main plot wouldn’t be affected. This scene could easily be replaced with another one while this one could be thrown in next episode or have them meet in second episode if they found out about each other during the premiere. That’s why I don’t like that aspect... I wish the scene was there because it was NEEDED to be in that episode at that time, you know? It’s only about the placement. I wonder why they decided to include it in this particular episode. 

Other than that the scene itself was PERFECT!! I made a separate in depth post/anaylsis of the scene HERE in case you haven’t read it yet! 

Carolyn

I’m soo glad that we’re finally seeing more of Carolyn investigating things openly for us, viewers. The previous two seasons we barely saw anything she did because she was THAT private and had so many secrets we could only wonder what the hell she’s thinking or doing. Now, though... we can see she’s working on Kenny’s case and is actually trying to solve this mystery surrounding his death. That includes her setting up the meeting with one of her former lovers, Henrik, to find out about the Geneva account. 

Now, I was soo sure Villanelle would go after her so I kind of was prepared to lose Carolyn or have her escape somehow. None of that happened, though they did make us worry for a minute or two during which Carolyn wasn’t moving and had blood/bruises on one side of her head. Again, Villanelle is THAT extra to go through the trouble to nearly shoot Carolyn only to get to the accountant. And we actually got to see Carolyn fearing for her life despite having met Villanelle several times. She knew what Villanelle was capable of so the aftermath of this helped us see that she indeed had feelings but often decided to ignore/avoid them and this way stay in denial. “I’m fine” says a woman who looks like a mess and is shaking at the same time. It’s okay to admit things, Carolyn. 

Overall Thoughts

The first two episodes were there to set the entire plot up, including Eve and Villanelle find out about one another and now that they know... shit’s going down and this episode was definitely the strongest one this season so far. This is very promising since the episode was written by Laura Neal, who will be the showrunner for S4! 

We got to see plenty of action, funny moments, AT LEAST 6 different Villanelle outfits and we got a moment with her and actual baby. PLUS VILLANEVE KISS!! What else could we want?! 

As always, if any of you guys have any predictions/thoughts on previous or future episodes don’t hesitate to ask/message me about them so we could chat and discuss our favorite show together! Thank you guys for reading and see during the review for 3x04 next week!!!

[bellablue42]

Myself as a writer and Death of the Author

I’m trying to write a novel, and it’s really hard. I feel like I’m not getting anywhere, I’m on my fifth draft and trying to create a lengthy enough narrative that doesn’t feel like filler. It is difficult, to say the least, and I really admire people with the ability to write quickly and well. 

But there’s a lot about She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named going around again, and it made me think. We all know that she’s not the best person, but she is a writer, and she is a creator, and her works are widespread. And that... causes problems.

Is it ok to consume her work? How much do her opinions reflect in her work, and can we spot it? I have no idea, but here’s my best shot, as an aspiring writer and a high-school literature student.

Please be warned I have no experience, and I’m kind of making this up as I go along, but here we go.

Last year, at the start of the school year, in Literature, my class watched Midnight in Paris. The movie was written and directed by Woody Allen, who is... well-known for all the wrong reasons, namely allegedly assulting seven-year-old Dylan Farrow. One of the girls in my class pointed out this fact, and my teacher nodded and said that we were discussing Death of the Author.

Death of the Author is an interesting topic. It holds that an author’s intentions and background should have no impact on interpreting a text. It is interesting, and it is really bloody hard to do.

Keep in mind that if you pick up a book by a relatively famous author, you will know something about them. If you take Mrs Dalloway, for example, if you’ve ever heard of Virginia Woolf, you will doubtless know that she was a writer and that she committed suicide, even if you know nothing else. The fact that she did commit suicide will influence the way you read Mrs Dalloway.

If you read Lady Lazarus by Sylvia Plath, for example, you will probably know that Plath was not mentally healthy and committed suicide by sticking her head in an oven. And that will influence the way you read Lady Lazarus. If you read any of Lovecraft’s work, you will come to the conclusion that he is a racist. It’s not hard to figure out.

Death of the Author means separating these facts from the way you interpret a work. It is really hard, trust me.

Because we look for links, everywhere we look for these links. We know that Sylvia Plath committed suicide, so when you read Lady Lazarus, you make connections. Go read Lady Lazarus now, go read it knowing that Plath committed suicide, and keep that fact in mind. Here’s the link: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/49000/lady-lazarus

Now read it again, and try to forget it, all the connections you made knowing that Plath stuck her head in an oven. It is really hard to do, because you know, and you remember. Death of the Author is forgetting the context of the author, forgetting their impact on the text.

Here’s a thing, I write a lot. Like, a lot. Not published, obviously, but I write about as much as I read, and that is a lot. And I believe, that when you write, you put a bit of yourself into it. It doesn’t have to be obvious, maybe just the way you connect to a character, or your views on a topic. I can’t say I don’t do this - my main character is an asexual lesbian who panics a lot and loves her girlfriend. Her competence doesn’t come from me, but the gender, the sexuality, the panic? All of that is inspired by, you know, me. My experiences, my opinions. I am conscious in my word choices, I’m trying not to use gendered language for the soldiers, because they are men, women, non-binary, genderfluid and others, all together, so my main character can’t call them her men, they are her soldiers. It’s hard. I’m aware that I have biases, and my reading experiences are usually texts that ... do not do this. 

Sorry, I’m rambling, and no-one wants to know. 

But I as a writer, put a bit of myself in my work. And I think that’s what makes Death of the Author so hard to do, so hard to remember. 

And now onto HER. I can’t remember what brought my attention to her in the first place, maybe a post about a Harry Potter tv show?

The problem about JK Rowling is that she wrote Harry Potter. And Harry Potter is... huge. The problem is that we grew up on Harry Potter. 

Looking back, there are big problems with the series; plot holes bigger than my fist, a lack of original plot lines, and little creativity. Harry Potter is a mishmash of already well-established genres and archetypes, and it... doesn’t fit together particularly well. 

(Take Dumbledore, at once the mentor archetype from the fantasy genre and the authority figure in the boarding school genre. The problem is that being both causes a bit of dissonance. He mimics the typical ‘wise old mentor wizard’ from fantasy, like Gandalf, but he is also a school headmaster. He is a grandfatherly teacher who takes an interest in the son of two of his past students, nothing particularly new, but at the same time, he’s a figure out of legend, an incredibly powerful man, both magically and politically. It is hard for my brain to fit them together well because they are two different archetypes and they don’t mesh. They belong in different genres, because the way he is written can’t seem to decide which one he is. I might write more on this later if anyone’s interested)

But Rowling’s a TERF. And she’s been on Twitter and said all sorts of bizarre things about the odd mish-mash of genres she’s created. I’m not really a fan of Harry Potter anymore, I grew up with it. I have seven books in a shoebox under my bed. I have read far better books, I have read many, many books with more interesting stories, better internal consistency and characters with actual depth, who don’t need fandom to be interesting. 

And yet I still have all seven books in a shoebox under my bed. It’s hard. I genuinely liked the books - when I was twelve. I’d sooner recommend the Discworld books by the late great Sir Terry Pratchett than Harry Potter, and not just because of HER. They’re better books. Harry Potter is average. 

But we loved them. 

And Rowling’s a TERF. Her views on trans people are... not okay, by any measure. I don’t have words for ... how great the cognitive dissonance is. She wrote a series, a seven-book, eight-movie series, about the power of unconditional love. Over a million words, just under 20 hours about acceptance and tolerance. And yet she doesn’t believe that trans women are women. 

The problem is that it is hard to apply Death of the Author. Once you know that JK discriminates against transgender people, it is hard to read Harry Potter without remembering that. 

Then you get into other issues about how all of the endgame couples are straight. And Dumbledore’s only gay when the series is ended. And there’s a lack of diversity in the books and the movies. And once you start reading into it, it gets ... iffy. Because it’s not meant to be read into, not meant to be analysed. It’s a children’s series. But it’s problematic, not for the things it says, but fo the things it doesn’t say.

The thing is that SHE is impressive. As a writer, at least, not as a person. Because it is hard to write, and she managed an extensive, relatively-coherent storyline across seven books, released over ten years. But her first book got rejected, again and again. 

Her net worth is somewhere between 650 million and 1.2 billion. And she earns all that money off a book series whose main themes are friendship and love. And she’s a TERF.

I can’t say I hate her - I don’t know her. She might be a genuinely nice person, but she’s a TERF. She doesn’t believe that trans people are the gender that they say they are. I cannot understand how you can believe that, but. She does, apparently. She wrote so much about love conquering all evil, and friendship saving the day, but she doesn’t think that trans women should be allowed into female bathrooms.

I hate her ideology. 

Go read Discworld instead. Think about Death of the Author, then read Night Watch. It’s a great book. Or go read Good Omens, because Pratchett co-wrote that. 

The thing about Discworld is that you can tell what Pratchett thinks is worth paying attention to. Small Gods is primarily about religion, about belief, and about people. The last one is the most important, because Pratchett believed that the greatest thing you can be is human and kind, and he’s right. The witches on the Discworld are... perhaps not nice, but they are decent, and they are fundamentally people. They are human, and they are kind, and that is what makes them good people. 

The thing about Harry Potter is that “Muggle” sounds like a slur. There’s all this attention paid to the whole “mudblood” thing that people forget that behind all the blood purity nonsense - which sounds a lot like eugenics - the purebloods, the rich entitled kids, believe that non-magical people are less than animals. The Wizarding world is stuck in the Middle Ages, not even the bloody Renaissance. Human history has passed them by. It is so hard now to read Harry Potter without finding problems, like how all the magicals are fundamentally stupid, how a literal one-year-old is praised for supposedly killing an extremely powerful mass-murdering psycopath. A one-year-old. The Wizarding World is not a functional society, and it’s not meant to be. It’s not meant to hold up to scrutiny.

Look, Harry Potter is average, at best. Ask me for good kids books and I will point you in a dozen different directions, and I will point you in a dozen different directions - but not there. 

Because Death of the Author is hard. Not taking the creator’s intentions and background into account when interpreting a work is hard. You can know that an author is queer, or a person of colour, or of a certain religion, but once you know it, it is hard to not see it. 

You see, all the main characters in Harry Potter are white. They’re also all straight. Everyone not Harry Potter is flat. There is very little depth to anyone in those books, because they don’t matter. Hermione is defined by her relationship with Ron because her relationship is the most debated part of her character. Ron - in the movies at least - is seen as stupid because he is written stupid, he is written as comic relief. Book-verse Ron is a strategist, but that’s only really shown in the first two books. They’re not written with depth, they don’t need it. Harry’s the protagonist, Hermione’s the smart one, Ron’s the dumb-but-loyal comic-relief best friend. Ginny is the love interest, Luna’s the crazy one, the twins are comic-relief pranksters. Draco is the racist antagonist, Voldemort is a more extreme mass-murdering version. There are exactly zero trust-worth adults in a whole seven-book series, there are three? characters with depth in the whole series, everyone else is defined by a role and a single characteristic.

It is so hard to look critically at Harry Potter and not see everything that relates to Rowling. It is problematic as a series, and problematic as content created by a TERF. It is problematic as literature in the first place. It’s written as a kids book, but for all its ‘adult’ themes, it can’t stand up to scrutiny.

This got long - I got a bit carried away. Sorry.

Tell me what you think, tell me your opinion. I’d love to discuss this with you because it so hard to write about. Argue with me, tell me I’m wrong. Tell me I’m right if you think I am. Have I said anything problematic? Please lets start talking about this because it’s interesting and a difficult topic, and I think we need to start looking closer at authors and content creators. 

[the-desolated-quill]

It’s Summer And We’re Running Out Of Ice - Watchmen (TV Series) blog

(SPOILER WARNING: The following is an in-depth critical analysis. if you haven’t seen this episode yet, you may want to before reading this review)

I’m not going to lie. I was incredibly sceptical going into this. This isn’t the first TV adaptation of a classic novel to go beyond the source material and try to continue the story, and they nearly always suck (see The Handmaid’s Tale and The Man In The High Castle). There’s a reason why books end where they’re supposed to end. If the author intended to carry the story on, they would have done so. This is why I get angry when the TV industry arrogantly oversteps the mark and try to continue a plot that has already come to a satisfactory conclusion. Doing a sequel to Watchmen, a story that hinges on the ambiguity of its ending, is just utter madness to me, and allowing Damon Lindelof to write that sequel borders on moronic at first glance. This is the man behind the TV series Lost, a show that ran out of steam within the first couple of episodes due to the fact that the plot was complete and total bollocks and the fact that nobody could be bothered to come up with satisfying answers for these ludicrous mysteries and series arcs beforehand. They were just making that shit up as he went along. Now you’re handing Lindelof the keys to one of the most intricate and detailed comic book properties of all time?! Fuck, why don’t you just let JJ Abrams direct the next Star Wars mo- Oh yeah, I forgot, he already did that.

Thankfully, judging by this first episode anyway, HBO’s Watchmen is nowhere near as bad as Lost. It’s certainly far more engaging and coherent. Does that mean I’m looking forward to the rest of this season? Well... I don’t know if I’d go that far. I’m definitely intrigued though.

HBO’s Watchmen is a sequel to the graphic novel (Lindelof called it a remix, but come on. Grow a pair and call it what it is. A sequel). Superheroes are still illegal, Robert Redford is now the President, Rorschach’s death has inspired a white supremacist cult, and it’s raining squid.

Yeah, the raining squid thing feels like the only egregious bit of fanwank in here, to be fair. Maybe they’re going somewhere with this, but I have my doubts. Are we supposed to assume that Ozymandias has been making squid rain for the past thirty odd years in order to keep up the whole alien invasion ruse? Why squid rain? And why is everyone so nonchalant about it? Shouldn’t people be just a bit concerned by this, considering what happened in New York?

Speaking of Ozymandias, we see him riding a horse and writing plays for his butler and maid in some fancy mansion. Quite what the significance of The Watchmaker’s Son is, I don’t know. All I do know is I’m not going to be able to sleep at night without thinking about Jeremy Irons’ thighs from now on, so thanks for that.

Putting my cynicism aside for a moment, I do like what Lindelof is trying to do here. He’s not merely cashing in on the Watchmen brand. There is a genuine effort to do something fresh and different with this material, and I commend that. Watchmen’s central theme has always been about power, but whereas the source material focused mainly on its relation to sex (Comedian’s hedonism, Nite Owl’s impotence, Rorschach’s mummy issues and the sexual objectification of Silk Spectre), the TV series seems to be zeroing in on race as a topic. This I applaud. Expanding on certain areas that the graphic novel only ever really touched upon is a great idea. This doesn’t feel like a repeat of the graphic novel, but rather a clarification of it, exploring areas and themes that Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons may have overlooked. This helps set this series apart from the outset. 

The opening scenes where we see the Tulsa Massacre of 1921 is a pretty harrowing way to start. I’m ashamed to say I had no idea about the Tulsa Massacre prior to this, and we could have a whole other discussion about why schools seem to have been avoiding teaching specific topics like this in favour of the broad strokes of the Jim Crow era, but now is not the time. The fact that it’s depicted here sets the stage for what’s to come. Some have criticised the show for the length of time the opening focuses on Tulsa, claiming that it sensationalises the pain of black people at that time. I personally don’t think it does. It’s not overly graphic or gratuitous, at least in my opinion, but it is a very shocking way to open a series. Some might say even upsetting, but I think it’s important that we saw this because it’s relevant in setting the tone for the episode and indeed the season as a whole, as well as letting the audience know that this show isn’t going to fuck around or shy away from more sensitive topics, and I can respect that. Unlike Zack Snyder’s overly stylised adaptation from 2009, Watchmen the HBO series is grounded very firmly in reality.

Let’s discuss characters. This episode mostly focuses on Angela Abar, also known as Sister Night. Regina King has given some terrific performances in the past and this is no exception. She’s simply phenomenal. The way she switches from light-hearted wife and baker to violent, no nonsense vigilante cop. The shift is noticeable and yet both personas feel like they’re aspects of the same character. It’s exceptionally good. It also helps that the character herself makes for a great protagonist. Having survived the ‘White Night’ four years prior, where the Seventh Kavalry attacked the families of forty Tulsa police officers in response to the government giving special reparations to the victims of racial injustice, Angela has become cynical and battle hardened. She has no sympathy for Kavlary members and is willing to skip due process by beating one of them to a pulp and bundling him in the back of her car. She’s angry and in pain, and yet retains the audience's sympathy. I’m interested to see what happens to her over the course of the season.

I also really liked her friendship with Don Johnson’s character Judd Crawford. Johnson is a charismatic performer and Crawford is a charismatic character. He really dives into the olde western sheriff persona and seems to be having a lot of fun with it. Crawford is the only other character, besides Angela, who stayed on as a police officer after the White Night, and the two characters seem to have a great relationship. They laugh and joke around and there’s clearly a mutual respect between the two. I genuinely like this character, which is what makes his murder at the end so much more heartbreaking. Not to mention all the little details that force us to realise he may not be what he seems. We see him sniff cocaine in private and there’s a photo on his desk featuring the kid from school who aggressively asked Angela why black people deserve reparations. It doesn’t necessarily mean that Crawford himself is racist, but there’s clearly more going on with him that we don’t know about.

The final character of interest at the moment is Tim Blake Nelson’s character Wade Tillman, aka Looking Glass. We don’t know anything about him yet other than he’s a human lie detector, which I find very intriguing and I hope will be explored further as the show goes on. There’s a lot to play around with there, and the moral implications are tantalising. A conviction based not on physical evidence, but rather on the observations of one man. Even Sherlock Holmes has to back his deductions up with evidence, and yet Looking Glass clearly doesn’t need to. That just raises so many ethical questions. What if he has a particular bias towards someone? What about burden of proof? What if forensic evidence contradicts him? If Looking Glass is supposedly that accurate, does that mean the police will side with him regardless? It’s a great premise for a character and I really like Nelson’s performance, giving him a cold and detached personality that contrasts beautifully with Angela’s.

The characters and ideas are solid, however where I feel the show is lacking is with the consistency of its world building. Let’s analyse. This is an alternate history where Nixon used superheroes to extend his term limits, but after the New York attack at the end of the graphic novel, he’s been kicked out in favour of Robert Redford (nice nod to the source material there by the way. lol). As a result, black people got reparations for the racial injustices their ancestors went through and police are now unable to openly carry firearms without special permission from Panda (literally a cop wearing a panda costume). However, after the events of White Night, the government agrees to allow cops to wear masks to protect their identities, hence why quote/unquote ‘superheroes’ like Sister Night and Looking Glass are around despite the existence of the Keene Act. These are, in effect, legal vigilantes. Except already there’s a problem with conflicting messages. I like the idea of masked cops. In the current age of Black Lives Matter and police accountability, it makes sense and could be interesting to explore. However this is hindered by the whole ‘no guns’ stuff. Again, not a bad idea. America’s current gun laws are, to put it mildly, woefully inadequate. What if we went the other way? What if not only was it near impossible to own a gun, cops couldn’t even use a taser without special permission. Both ideas could work... but not at the same time.

Cops being allowed to wear masks creates the effect of empowering them through anonymity, and runs the risk of officers overstepping the mark and normal citizens being unable to hold them to account. But on the other hand, we’ve also got cops whose lives are constantly at risk and who are hindered in their duties by an overprotective nanny state, which effectively depowers them. So... which is it? It can’t be both. I like the scene where Panda reads the law about how the use of firearms can only be permitted in extreme circumstances, and everyone just angrily shouts him down because it tells us how the police feel about this new system. The fact that they’ve made one cop the sole arbiter of these new restrictions and forced him to dress like some ridiculous furry demonstrates the sheer amount of disdain they have towards this policy. But having said that, with the masks on, they have the power and freedom to break into people’s caravans and basically kidnap and assault them without consequence anyway. So what the fuck are they complaining about? It just doesn’t gel together. Either have it that the rules and regulations of the police are the same as our world except that cops can wear masks now, which has led to an increasing problem of police brutality and corruption, or have it that the police are being too heavily restricted and so a few have chosen to turn toward more ‘unorthodox’ methods of crime fighting out of frustration. Pick one and go with it.

Then there’s the Seventh Kavalry. Again, not a bad idea. In fact I love it. A white supremacist cult that’s taken Rorschach’s journal as gospel and have banded together out of a fear of being sidelined in a more liberal world. Very relevant and very interesting. Except... well... there’s not an awful lot to it, is there? In the original graphic novel, there was no clear bad guy. Ozymandias believed he was doing the ultimate good by killing millions of people to save the world, and everyone reluctantly went along with it. It was morally complicated. This, not so much. They’re unambiguously evil. The end. So what? What is there to discuss? It just feels lacking compared to the graphic novel and it runs the risk of creating a conflict that’s too clear cut. Obviously we’re going to end up siding with the cops, regardless of what they do, because the alternative is objectively bad. Hopefully Lindelof is going somewhere with this, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t say I was slightly concerned.

So on the whole, would I say I enjoyed this first episode? Well... I’d say I did, but with reservations. There’s some good characters and ideas that could be interesting to explore and develop, but its execution feels a little shaky in places. Hopefully the episodes to come will offer further clarity.

[ailuronymy]

Book Club: Tallstar’s Revenge, chpt. 1-9 overview.

Thoughts on the new Windclan, courtesy of famed Erin Hunter impersonators: 

“DIRT BOYS!! LET'S MAKE THEM ALL DIRT BOYS!” -- K. 

"I understand we've stressed extensively that ALL Windclan love running and are skinny binches and need to be under the sky or they're sad, BUT half the clan has always been buff as fuck and live like moles :) :) we just didn't mention it before because it wasn't important to Harry's journey :) :) :)” -- S.

For this first share, we’ll keep to the questions posted earlier in the week so that there’s some kind of structure to what we’re doing! Please feel welcome to do the same and @ailuronymy + use the tag #ailuronymy writing challenge. Happy reading and I’m looking forward to seeing your feelings about this book. 

1. First impressions? 

S. better than Bluestar's Prophecy.   K.  Not as bad as BP but also hoo boy, you peel back the onion and it only gets uglier the more you think about it huh K.  Me, reading the book initially: Wow I actually kind of enjoyed this! Me now: I See. I See The Truth.

2. How did you feel reading this section?

S.  mostly the usual amount of exasperation! But it was also fun and I like Tallpaw K.  About the same! Not as bored as BP, and I do like Tallpaw, so that's a blessing in disguise.

3. What chapter did you find most interesting/moving/effective, and why?

S. probably the one where Heatherstar causes a ruckus and acknowledges Tallpaw's best interests. There was genuinely tension and it was refreshing to have a character in authority actually act reasonably towards Tallpaw.  K.  I agree, that one had me really excited to read.

4. What chapter did you find least interesting/effective/most frustrating, and why?

S.  I honestly struggled with chapter eight. If I have to read too much action being described, I black out. I just find it so boring. That's not actually a criticism at Erin Hunter. I just have a short attention span for people Doing Things that aren't talking, sword-fights, having big emotions, sex, or any combination. And even then, the sword-fights and/or sex still have to keep to a reasonable word limit or I wander away. I'm the worst. I'm literally like a child who only wants to eat sweets, but in written form.  S. I forgot basically all of chapter eight for the above reason of being terrible, so that's on me.

K. I have nothing written at all about Chapter 7. I liked seeing the apprentice training being like, at least marginally different than Thunderclan's but also It Sucked Bad Chapter Moving On.

5. Is there a passage that stuck in your mind–for good, or not-so-good reasons? What is it, and why did it stand out? Try breaking it down and analysing what this passage does and how.

S. I actually had a nice time reading about Plumclaw and Tallkit interacting. She was talking him through having his first mouse, I think, and it was genuinely sweet and moving in a way that Erin Hunter's writing almost never is. There was a legit connection and for a moment, I actually believed in these characters as people who lived together and actually have relationships and care. That’s really what I’m about, so it was a pleasant surprise to find in this book. 

K. I have two brief passages for different reasons:  “He’s my son,” Sandgorse snarled. “I’ll decide his future.” Heatherstar  stiffened.  “I decide  the  future  of my warriors.” LOVE Heatherstar showing the fuck up. Absolute legend. K. “Tallkit heard worry in her mew. “Is that why we tunnel under the moor?” he asked. “To hide from the dead warriors in other Clans?” — First tunnelling mention! The idea of Windclan taking shelter from/expertly evading the ghosts of their enemies because of their speed is honestly pretty fun, but I don’t trust the Erins with it one bit. K. This kind of legend is something I think I'd much prefer in like, a Watership Down style myth or story? K. But not if Erin's touching it. S. I was like, "oh this is the sickest thing you've ever--no no no no no" K. (oh, and just for fun, one of my other fave quotes was Dawnstripe saying "We guard the edge of the world." That felt cool.)

6. What themes did you notice in these chapters? What motifs or repeated symbolism/description appeared to you?

K.  Love is a big one, obvs. K.  Also, lots of stories and storytelling? Which feels just like Erin slapping more bullshit in here but like, that feels kinda relevant.

S. I struggled to find cohesive themes in this chunk, except I think division? The division between the tunnellers and moor runners, between Tallpaw and his mum, between Heatherstar and her clan. That's really what popped for me.

K.  Oh, and like... expectations. The clan's expectations of Heatherstar, Sandgorse's of Tallpaw, Tallpaw's expectations for himself.

7. How do you feel about the characters, their motivation, their choices?

K.  They're like. Not the worst? Lots of them fucking suck, as usual. But I'm at least very happy that I actually want to see Tallpaw succeed and grow. Also Heatherstar and Dawnstripe and Barkpaw are great.

S. I like Tallpaw! That's a lot of projection on my part, but I've found him a lot less grating than Bluepaw (who I also wanted to love). S. One of my first major aggravations in the early chapters is Shrewpaw. He's unbearable, and what makes him so is the one-note bullying. It's the equivalent of reading someone go, "I'm not touching you," in an annoying voice for nine chapters, which I feel is another example of Erin Hunter's habit of repetition.  There was less of that in this book than BP, but I still counted a few instances of cats having the same conversation a few times. S. The other cat I can't stand is Sandgorse. My god. That moment when he tells his literal infant son to go cheer up his depressed mother made me just about scream. S. “Go cheer up your mother, child” GO CHEER UP YOUR WIFE, HUSBAND

K.  This is where it's gonna get interesting, because I think my fucking senses were dulled by how much Erin fucked up dads last time, because I didn't hate him off the hop!

S. To me, he smacks of a lowkey toxic masculinity. And the kind of emotional manipulation he does makes me [narrow eyes]. S. (I didn't take very good notes about this bit, because I forgot. I only have "Sandgorse is such a loser" but I trust past me's judgement).

K.  I strongly do think that my impression of Sandgorse is different if only because I think I was so tired at seeing all the non-existent dads in Bluestar's Prophecy that the fact that he actually has conversations with his son and wife for more than like, a sentence, made me go "Oh thank god" And maybe this too is a bit of a projection, but I sort of initially saw him as like... that well-meaning dad who tries to be nice but still manages to fuck up and not actually listen to what people need at all. Like, the classic stupid dad in a bad TV movie who has A Dream for his kid. Where he doesn't mean to be an asshole, he just thinks he's right and that his kid agrees with him because Why Wouldn't He. So I think I took a lot of his dialogue and actions to be a bit more well-meaning-but-still-not-great rather than fully toxic. Obviously it doesn't end well for anyone, but I guess I've just seen too many father figures go around with nice intentions who have absolutely Zero ability at reading a room let alone their kids

S. I think for me, that is the problem. And I think I am less forgiving towards it.

K. Stormtail [Bluestar’s father, Bluestar’s Prophecy] feels like more of the asshole dad, to me, but like. They're both different brands of Not Good.

S. Stormtail is super just a complete prick, no doubt. I think Sandgorse is more engaged with his kid, for sure. But I think it's a very hollow engagement, because he denies everything about Tallpaw's actual personality and desires and just sees him as an extension of himself to control. Which is sort of parental abuse 101.

K. Oh, and while we're discussing them: Palebird huh. Again, Erins, can't write a woman, but like. I don't know, I think that like... she felt like a neat character for the first chapter and now they're doing their Bad Things with her by making her boring and Just Sad and kind of useless in the background for them to mess with and probably kill off later. Like, she doesn't have a whole lot of personality, but she could. S. I think I'd like all the characters more if I spent less time with them. Like, I think for me, the pace is too slow, the dialogue is too long, and because of that, I get bored and annoyed with the characters. Whereas I think if it was only a couple of chapters, forcing the dialogue to be more punchy and illuminating of their character, and less mired in sadness (Palebird) or digging stupid holes (Sandgorse) or bullying (Shrewpaw), I'd have a lot more fun. But as it stands, Palebird starts talking and I start zoning out because they've really done her so dirty in this.

8. If you could ask any character in this section a question, what question would you ask them?

K. Heatherstar: How does it feel to be the baddest bitch in the room at any given moment K. Palebird: Why the FUCK are you with this bastard K. Sandgorse: WHY are you LIKE THAT ALL THE TIME

S. Barkpaw: what is it about learning medicine that you love? Or.... Barkpaw: how did you decide to give up your future with others, for a future in medicine? What was that decision like?

K.  A more serious question from me, hehe: Tallpaw - If no one was watching, what would make you happiest to do or say? K.  Shrewpaw: What about yourself do you feel most inadequate about? What part of that drives you to act towards others like you do?

S. Shrewpaw: what's your fucking damage, buddy?

9. In your opinion, what is “world-building” and how important is it to you as a reader (or writer)? How do you feel about the world-building of these chapters so far? If you could, would you change anything, and what would you change?

S. Oh, I hate it. S.  What's hilarious is that for maybe the first time ever Erin Hunter is putting effort in. You can see how hard they're working to make tunnelling sound "cool" or relevant, how they're describing all these tunnel-related skills and techniques the way they do with fighting or whatever. S. And the irony is it's such a wasted effort because personally? Could not care less. This world-building enraptures me none amount and I spend the whole time scoffing like, sure Jan. 

K. One of my notes off the hop is: "I know that Erin’s trying to like… make Windclan look unique by adding these new positions, but just labelling some warriors as “moor runners” doesn’t cut it. Their job is: “hunting and patrolling the borders”. That’s just? An average warrior thing to do? It’s not special, and naming it something fancy doesn’t make me feel like you’re actually adding anything to Windclan’s mythology here." Which is really just tunnel adjacent, but it's still relevant.

K.  Other choice tunneling notes:  "...Listen, I get it, inter-clan conflict is wonderful. But WHY do the moor runners and tunnellers hate each other? If the tunnels are so important to Windclan’s way of life, SURELY the above-ground warriors would feel respect for them? And if Windclan holds such value in their tunnels (Palebird literally just said that the tunnels mean they’re “stronger and cleverer” than the other clans), then WHY would Windclan cats hate them for it?? To have this weird seemingly generational distrust between the two castes is just. Fucking bananas." k. "Hey Erin: Why introduce the tunnellers at all if you keep putting them down and saying how much worse it would be to be one. What’s the point."

S. “I'm still not over the fact they're [Erin Hunter] like... "what can we do to make Windclan, the clan who famous won't even build nests because they like to live under the stars, special and different from the rest... oh I fucking know."

K. "Why is no one in charge in this clan that’s been a tunneller?? Heatherstar and Reedfeather just… fully don’t understand tunnelling and tunnellers needs?? If I were making this system, I’d have it be mandatory that the leader and deputy have to be one from either caste." S. Why not just ban it already. S. I mean, the book tries so hard to convince us tunnelling is useful. I believe none of it.

K. ALSO why don't the tunnelers b a t h e K. "They're permanently soiled with dirt and soot" DO THEY BATHE??? DO THEY?? WHY DO YOU HATE THIS NEW CASTE THAT YOU SEEM TO LOVE? K. Erin Hunter: look at my cool new worldbuilding set! I'm going to shit on it for an entire book

K.  Like. I'm having a hard time pinpointing what I would do better, but like...  I think I want it to feel 1) more cohesive and believable. 2) It needs to be useful and cement this clan as a group of living, working people. It has to make some kind of sense (to an extent) but also have a purpose! 3) sometimes worldbuilding doesn't need to be "uhh they need more jobs" sometimes it can be "we have this myth about running faster than the ghosts of our enemies" and that's just as successful if you do it right. Like, Erin thought you needed to entirely overhaul Windclan and make them Different to make them better. Instead of working with what's already there!

S. I personally feel it doesn't take much to make the clans really different from each other, and it's more the subtle things that make huge differences, not--like you said--more jobs or anything.  Really don't want to blow my own horn, but like, to use the chapter I just wrote as an example: just by making elders vote to make major decisions alters the clan significantly. That's just one thing, that's putting different emphasis and a new swing on a preexisting facet of every clan.  But immediately you get the effect and it has run-on effects too, which is what good world-building should do. It should be hard to remove any one piece without the whole castle crashing down. And this book is basically about how removing one “major” piece (tunnelling) effectively didn’t change anything, really.  K.  It just doesn't feel right to me! It's too big a change to feel natural, let alone how fucking bad it is.

K. And like, honestly, the Erins even did okay with just highlighting the territory and environmental differences! I've read all the different fucking ways they can write a forest after 30 books and they really have written them all. Even just making THAT a focal point helped to make this book feel somewhat distinct and fresh! 

S. One of my long-standing gripes with Erin Hunter is that their environments are boring and basic and they need way more close detail on plants and whatnot but that is a personal preference, and not actually a flaw. Although admittedly, if you do spend time making an environment interesting, it turns out that becomes a reason to read and a pleasure, instead of something you have to trudge through to get to the Actually Good Bits. But that's not what they're about and I can acknowledge that, if not respect it. 

Extra notes:

S. [Sandgorse’s] basically the dad equivalent of a pageant mum? K. Yeah! K. Sports Dads are just Pageant Mom Regional Variants. S. Oh my god. 

K. The story isn't about [Palebird] and at this point it just feels kind of sad to have her onscreen. S. Yeah, I get the feeling she exists to make Tallstar feels unloved, basically. K. Which sucks! S. "Your mum likes your dead sibling more" is uhh a brutal way to tell a story, Erin.

K. For one: Barkpaw is... the best cat S. YES S. My boy.  K. The Erins only know three medicine cats: Softe, Don't Fucking Touch Me, or The Only Reasonable Gay

K.  1) “Tallpaw swallowed a purr. “No racing, I promise. No having fun whatsoever on the dawn patrol.” I Love Him. 2) Dawnstripe seems nice and I think she and Stonepelt need to be friends. 3) I loved Tallpaw's little chase sequence and how clever he is :>

S. I just can't get over how much it breaks my suspension of disbelief to imagine cats digging. S. Of all things.  S. I can tolerate the bullshit fighting better than I can believe cats digging with any efficiency whatsoever. K. They remind me of the Meerkats from Lion King 1/2. K. And I. K. Despise. K. That film. S. Windclan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U76zyUFg3Xo K. PLEASE END MY SUFFERING

K. I think what pisses me off about [Shrewpaw] the most, sidebar, is that he's like this from the start. Who is teaching him this??? Who is raising this little monster boy???? Who in Windclan is just? rearing xenophobes???? S. Like, he's newly born and walking around being a little fascist. S. And no-one is doing anything about it! All the adults are like, "huh, yeah, kids, am I right?" K. He isn't even as cool as Thistleclaw! He's just a little mean weasel boy! S. Sandgorse is literally like, "yeah that little weak moor runner punk child, what a coward, scared of getting sand in his eyes." Like, that's not the right response At All. K. EVERYONE IS SO RACIST ALL THE TIME SEND TWEET S. And none of the moor runners are being like, "hey stop calling him wormcat, his name is Tallpaw and he's your clanmate." S. Additional sidebar: Shrewpaw calling Tallpaw "wormcat" is my favourite thing in the book. S. It's like if I walked up to a nerd I didn't like and was just like, "lol wormboy." S. Devastating. K. RIGHT S. It's so funny. I was literally there like, "okay this is bad behaviour, Shrewpaw, that's not the right way to act, but also? fucking hilarious." K. It was funny at the start and now that it's his Thing it's even more funny. Like you can't think of anything better to say that you keep invoking the "Wouldn't you like to know, weather boy?" goof at all hours. S. It kind of reminded me of the time I was teaching and I had to put a ban on the word "Elmo" because the kids kept basically making it a slur on each other, but it was also the funniest thing and it was SO HARD not to fucking lose it. S. Me, being a good teacher: "All right, that's enough, no-one is allowed to call anyone else 'Elmo' anymore." S. Me on the inside: [dying]

[hellzyeahwebwieldingreviews]

Untold Tales of Spider-Man 02: After the First Death… – by Tom DeFalco

A story that has me debating the nature of these stories.

A soggy Spidey swings through rainy Manhattan looking for crime shots for the Daily Bugle. He comes upon Kent and Wayne Weisinger on the roof of Stockbridge Jewelers, planning to rob it. Confident that he can end the fight anytime he wants to, Spidey stretches it out so that his automatic camera can take as many photos as possible. Kent and Wayne have a longstanding sibling rivalry marked by Kent's resentment of being the "muscle" to Wayne's "brains" along with feeling that his brother always cheats him. During the fight, Kent appears to charge at Spidey but when the web-slinger leaps out of the way, Kent doesn't stop, charging into Wayne and knocking him off the roof. Wayne falls five stories to his death and all the by-standers think Spidey did it. Guiltily, Spidey flees, forgetting about Kent altogether.

So, Kent goes to Wayne's estranged wife Jeannette to tell her the news. "Solid ice," Jeannette could care less about Wayne's death except that she's lost her meal ticket. When Kent blames the death on Spider-Man, Jeannette gets an idea on how to cash in.

In fact, Peter Parker seems to be the only one emotionally affected by Wayne's death. He has a sleepless night, trying to cope with the situation. Unguarded, he admits to J. Jonah Jameson that he has photos of the incident. His resolve to not sell the photos is beaten down by Jameson's arm-twisting and his own need for money. He sells the pictures and is then introduced to Jeannette, now the grieving widow of Wayne, who has come to JJJ for help in instituting a civil suit against Spider-Man. At school, Peter's conscience makes him counter Flash Thompson's avowal that "Spidey's no murderer" with "Maybe the wall-crawler didn't actually kill the man... but that doesn't mean he shouldn't be held accountable for what happened." Back in action, Spidey hesitates over stopping a purse-snatcher, fearful that he may cause another tragedy. Back home, Peter doesn't know what to do. He recalls that Uncle Ben's death made him swear, "that no innocent person would ever again be made to suffer because Spider-Man had failed to act. It had never occurred to him that anyone would suffer because of Spider-Man's acts." And while Wayne wasn't exactly innocent, "he had suffered because Peter had acted irresponsibly." He ends up having one of those vague discussions with Aunt May where he can't tell her any details because she doesn't know he's Spider-Man, yet she manages to hit the nail on the head, telling him in this case, "Everybody makes mistakes, Peter. You just try to learn from your failures as best you can, and you move on. You'll always get another chance to do better as long as you keep at it."

Meanwhile, Jeannette decides to kick Kent out of the deal and keep any anticipated profits for herself. So even as Spidey sucks it up and gets back into action, proving himself a hero, Kent decides he's not going to be kicked around anymore, buttonholes a TV reporter and gives an interview in which he reveals "that he deliberately pushed his elder brother off the roof of Stockbridge Jewelers because of numerous past frustrations." At Midtown High, Flash crows over Spidey's exoneration but Peter won't let the web-slinger off so easily. "A real hero would have found a way to save Wayne Weisinger" he says, "He would have acted smarter, reacted quicker, or behaved more responsibly... And that's something Spider-Man will have to live with for the rest of his life."

Because these are untold tales, prose stories and utilize the comic book continuity you can analyse them from several different angles and their worth changes depending upon those angles.

 Chiefly this boils down to whether I judge this as a story unto itself or within the context of comic book continuity as it existed back then? What about the fact that I’m here in 2020 evaluating a prose book written in 1990 that’s trying to synch up with comic book stories written in the 1960.

 It boggles the mind. All I can do is write about how I feel.

 I liked this story unto itself and within the context of this book. I think, kind of like the last story, that it doesn’t really integrate into Spider-Man’s comic book history.

 The emotional journey of Peter in this story involves learning that he needs to be careful about how he acts. In this regard it’s rather similar to his lesson from Gwen’s death, which is kind of my problem. This story’s title implies this is in fact the very first time Spider-Man has experienced death ‘on the job’ as it were.

Surely such a thing would weigh on his mind more, surely it’d crop up when he dwells on the list of people he’s seen die or feels guilty about dying. Or at least he’d be reminded of Wayne’s death when Gwen dies.

In the comics of course Wayne has never ever been mentioned. Duh, because he didn’t exist until DeFalco invented him for this story. Of course we could draw comparisons with Sally Avril, a character from AF #15 who died in the comic book version of Untold Tales but whose death went unacknowledged in stories from the 60s-90s.

I think the critical difference there is that (IIRC) Peter wasn’t particularly responsible for her death whereas in the case of Wayne, whilst he didn’t push him off the building, his arrogance really did directly contribute to his death. Plus seeing a man die in such a horrible way, especially if it is the first time he’s ever seen a dead body, would likely leave a bigger impression upon Peter than the nature of Sally’s death, although I must admit it’s been a long time since I read that issue so perhaps I am wrong.

From a continuity stand point this is the minefield you always walk, but at the same time it’d be difficult to generate drama if you didn’t step on those mines occasionally.

I feel DeFalco here wanted to tell a dramatic story that had Peter grapple with a genuinely emotional situation and also took advantage of the nature of this story as a flashback tale.

And frankly he succeeded. If you view this either out of continuity or essentially within an incredibly generalized canon of Spider-Man (i.e. Gwen Stacy died, whether Peter did or didn’t think about Wayne is ambiguous though) the story very much works. I doubt DeFalco or anyone else was honestly feeling any of these stories were going to strictly be canon anyway. However for the record this story happens at some point after ASM #9 because when we get a list of Spider-Man’s opponents they all appeared up to that issue.

 Looking at the story itself its flaws are incredibly minor.

 Some of the dialogue feels old fashioned, but I argue that is likely by design since this is set in an older time period. We go over exposition related to Peter’s origin again, which is more the editor’s fault since we got those details in the first story of the anthology. In fairness revisiting it does serve a greater purpose here because the story is directly ruminating upon the nature of responsibility. In that sense it would’ve been more logical to open the book up with this than the Ant-Man story and I see little reason as to why this couldn’t have in theory happened at an earlier point chronologically. Yeah the Ant-Man story claims Spider-Man’s a new figure on the scene but the passage of time in the first 10 issues of ASM is so vague it’s really not unbelievable that even by issue #9 Spidey might still be considered ‘new’.

 Not only does the story explore (and successfully at that) the theme of responsibility, approaching it from the opposite direction from the lesson Ben’s death imparted, but it also features the supporting cast more. Flash, Aunt May, Jameson, the Bugle and public distrust of Spider-Man are all given notable roles to play in the story, again proving that THIS should’ve opened the book.

 To go back to the theme of responsibility for a moment, perhaps the most nuanced bit of writing in the story is when Peter is on the phone to Jameson. Peter has a really great ethical dilemma. Would it be irresponsible to profit off of Wayne’s death or would it be irresponsible to not profit off of it and use the money to support his Aunt May?

 DeFalco more than any other writer GETS Spider-Man and his depiction of Peter’s internal debate, whilst short, rings utterly true. What gets me is that most of the time whenever I’ve seen this sort of thing done with Peter he’s actually made a different decision, but here DeFalco recognizes that in actuality Peter WOULD consider his responsibilities as the bread winner outweigh what boils down to him merely feeling bad about profiting off a man’s death. It’s not all that different to when he faked photos of Electro to help Aunt May. Yes it’s unethical, but there was a higher responsibility, a greater good at stake.*

 Kent and Jeanette’s subplot, whilst arguably wrapped up unsatisfactorily, does a neat job of evoking something of a daytime drama or even noir story, and in that light fits wonderfully into the brand of stories Lee and Ditko churned out way back at the start.

 In fact of the two opening stories this one more successfully captured that era and by extension the approach of the comic book version of UToSM. Whilst the Ant-Man story was fun, it was the prose equivalent of a typical MTU super hero yarn complete with dodgy pseudo science.

 This story though? Now this is a Spider-Man  story. It has a singular main character (Kent is ultimately a supporting player) and whether he’s in or out of the costume the story is driven by the emotional and human problems faced by the character, not the fantastical super human issues. In classic Spidey manner those two halves of his life bleed over into one another and lack a clear cut divide.

 Really in the Ant-Man story Peter’s personal life would’ve gone mostly unaffected whether he had gotten involved or not. It wasn’t about Peter Parker, it was about Spider-Man. This story is about both.

 Peter needs money to look after himself, his home and Aunt May. So he looks for trouble as Spider-Man and pads out a fight. That gets someone killed which haunts Peter and makes him hesitate to BE Spider-Man, even whilst he reluctantly profits off it as Peter Parker which in turn contributes to his being falsely accused as Spider-Man and kids as school hating on him because he will not defend Spider-Man from these accusations.

 Wham, Bam, DeFalco is the Man. THAT’S a fucking Spidey story right there!

 The only thing for me which really and truly did let this story down wasn’t the fault of the book, but the audio production.

 I’m hoping DeSantos was just off his game for this story, but between this and his prior efforts I think he’s achingly miscast as the narrator of this title. He worked better narrating Stan Lee and Busiek’s forwards than the actual stories. As Aunt May, Kent and Jeanette he wasn’t that bad (actually pretty good as Kent), but his Peter/Spider-Man fails. He can’t even sell the emotion of the non-dialogue bits. He’s not a bad narrator, but not right for this book.

 Over all taken strictly within comics canon there are a lot of contradictions. But taken as it’s own thing or (I suspect) within the context of this one book, this is a knock out story.

 *By the way DeFalco also seamlessly blends humour and tragedy in the scene. Peter’s internal debate and horror at the prospect of profiting off of Wayne’s death leaves him in silence which in turn is misinterpreted by Jameson causing him to raise his offer which in turn causes Peter more internal strife. Just brilliant!

[kokkuri3]

Hello! Which books/arcticles/etc can you recommend If I am interested in writing character`s analyses as good as you?

This was SUCH a flattering ask to receive and I'm glad you respect me enough to ask it!! I thought about this question for a while and my answer is this:

There are a few books and articles I can recommend. The Hero With a Thousand Faces and The Writer's Journey are both important works among literary analysis circles and their deconstructions of fundamental character archetypes are, in my opinion, very helpful to know. Articles on character analysis specifically are in my experience a little hard to come by, and most focus more on the writing of the essay more than the analysis itself. WriteAnyPapers has a not bad article on it.

The books and articles I linked all explain fundamental character archetypes, and how they fit into a larger work. Having an understanding of these groundworks is important to being able to interpret characters and literature as a whole, at least in my opinion. What you're actually looking for, however, probably isn't what's in those books. What you want to know is probably more along the lines of "how do you come to interpret characters like this." In which case, I think it's better if I just give some advice myself.

1. Consider the greater whole.

This is the most important advice I have. When I say "consider the greater whole," I mean that one must always put any event, line, or character into the context of the story or character as a whole. Everything a character does, says, or narrates is part of their larger characterization. To take it a step further, characters exist as part of a greater narrative, and are part of a larger context. It's important to understand these as a network of interacting elements, and not as singular, independent episodes.

How does this character behave differently from other characters? In what way do they behave the same? Who is important to them, and to who are they important to? Why do they matter to the story as a whole? For this last question, consider not only plot, but themes and symbolism.

Essentially: everything is connected, so you have to consider what one thing has to do with another. (Note: sometimes, this also means taking the cultural context of a character or work into consideration. I don't think that's always necessary for character analysis, though.)

2. Consider more than just what's text.

By which I mean: take into account not only stated or directly shown characterization, but more subtle instances, as well. Not every event in a character's life will be shown, nor will their every thought. Learn to interpret subtext, identify symbolism, and recognize double meaning.

Subtext is a very important part of a narrative, despite being often overlooked or regarded as non-canon. For some purposes, I understand why subtext is held as lesser than canon (for example, I wouldn't call a character who is never explicitly stated or shown to experience same gender attraction 'canonically gay'), but for character analysis, your purpose is already to come to a conclusion that's not immediately obvious. By throwing away subtext, one erases a genuine part of a character's writing, making what they reach a bad faith interpretation (meaning, one made with an agenda).

Symbolism is often used to communicate characterization in a subtextual manner. This symbolism can be associated with particular events, or attached to a character design. If you see a specific symbol recurring throughout a work, try to see if there is any connection between its appearances. Some symbols aren't recurring within a specific work, but are associated with certain qualities across multiple works. I don't do symbol analysis as often as I do character analysis, but here's an analysis that's more the former (on scissors, specifically) and here's one that's more the latter (on white dresses as a symbol of purity.) By learning to recognize and interpret symbolism, one is able to see more aspects of a character than they would have otherwise.

Essentially: Not everything about a character will be explicitly stated, so it's alright to interpret a character based on guesses or assumptions, so long as these are backed by canon.

3. Do not conflate a character and their archetype.

One thing that happens often, and which bugs me to hell and back, is when assumptions are made about a character based on an archetype they appear to be, even when these assumptions blatantly conflict with canon. This rule is less "how to write a good character analysis" and more "how to not write a bad one," but I see this done so often I had to include it.

Is this character actually stupid, or did you just assume they were because they have traits associated with stupid characters? Is this character actually competent, or did you just assume they were because they have traits associated with competent characters? Is this character actually flirtatious, or did you just... You get my point.

In many ways this is also about combating stereotypes. You should always check your analysis for traits that are potentially racist/misogynist/homophobic/etc., and make sure canon actually supports these traits.

Character archetypes aren't bad-- they, like all tropes, are tools. Having a framework for a character can be helpful in writing them, and by creating a character that can be easily associated with other, similar ones, one can essentially shorthand to the reader what their position in the narrative will be. But well written characters are always greater than their archetypes. Identify which archetypes you associate with a character, and try to figure out if there are any ways in which they avert, subvert, or otherwise go against traits typical of their archetype.

Essentially: Make sure you're thinking about the character you're analyzing, and not other, similar characters.

4. Don't let personal biases cloud your judgement.

Fictional characters are not your friends. Nor are they your enemies. Developing a personal attachment or relationship to characters is natural, and I certainly do it. When analyzing a character, however, you shouldn't let any emotions you have warp your perception of the text.

Simply because you like a character does not mean you should look over their flaws. Sometimes, analysis can lead you to the conclusion a character you thought was good was actually pretty terrible. That's alright, and you're not betraying anyone by pointing out a character's dubious actions or flaws. Similarly, you can't make up reasons a character you hate is a terrible person. By framing actions not originally written as malicious as though they are a crime, one creates a bad faith interpretation.

And, by extent, just because you find a particular subject difficult does not mean you should ignore it. Bad faith interpretations go both ways, and interpretations made having erased all traces of taboo subject matter are as much made on false pretenses as interpretations made while fetishizing these.

Essentially: Fictional characters aren't real, and thus won't be hurt by your analysis. You shouldn't feel guilty or vengeful in creating a disparaging analysis, nor should you feel supportive or shameful in creating a supportive one. And it's OK to have mixed feelings on a character-- I take it as a sign of good writing.

Otherwise, my advice is a lot more broad. Simply familiarizing yourself with literature and its analysis should help you. Try to learn from other people. In my opinion, being a writer myself and learning to develop my own characters has positively influenced my interpretation. TVTropes as a website... Isn't great, but it is a pretty good way to learn to identify patterns across media to help with analysis and is also pretty fun to scroll through (actually looking at TVTropes character analyses isn't recommended though they tend to be pretty terrible). Wikipedia explains a lot of important analytical terminology (I reference foils a lot, for example). Have discussions with other people familiar with what you're analyzing, and don't be afraid of being wrong. Interpretation of art is subjective, so what's true to you is as true as anything. :)

Good luck !!! If you want any more advice, please let me know-- and keep in mind, a lot is just practice! I've been on Tumblr for 5+ years, and only recently have I begun making any... Decent analysis posts. As you further engross yourself, you'll be more able to identify important aspects of character and other devices such as subtext and symbolism. Even if your interpretation doesn't get much attention, keep going!!

Hope I could help!!

[b0x]

i hate that post that's like “we would've gotten a better trilogy if they'd just let rian johnson write all three films than playing hot potato with jj” like i get the point it's trying to make but you're forgetting that rj was fighting tooth and nail for the tlj r*ylo narrative since day 1 so you do realise we would've just gotten the same trilogy as we got now.......

further Thoughts on the trilogy as a whole and a few troc spoilers under the cut

also you KNOW that even if jj COULD have had a hand in saving it... there’s no saving a screenplay written by the guy who did the justice league films

No Comment. No Thoughts. Head Empty. everything post tfa was doomed from the start

have you SEEN the screenwriters for tfa? THAT’S why that one was so good, THAT’S why tfa succeeded as an excellent reboot of a long-dormant franchise. kasdan and arndt and jj should've been on for ALL THREE, and if they couldn’t, then a hiatus was the way to fucking go. rian never should have Touched it, never should have even Looked in its direction.

tfa had the essence of sw BECAUSE the essence of sw wrote it! tlj and tros isn’t sw!!!! 

they rly just tried to make Anakin..... 2! with kylo... but somehow... even Worse. you can’t make an anakin story Without showing kylo’s motives and morals - oh, except, you Did show his motives and morals, and they were in no way redeeming whatsoever! anakin had a whole ARC of complexity that allows for endless discussion on morality and justifiability that led him to earn his redemption. all kylo had was a blood tie to han and leia, which!!!! if anything!!!!!! made his motives and morals WORSE, knowing that he had the most IDEAL most loving and perfect upbringing and he still chose the dark side. that makes any love received from han or leia or luka or even fucking rey completely insignificant because we ALREADY KNOW what it means to him. all of this shit was so worthless!!!!!!!! fuck!

and i have a lot to say about rian johnson because i Cannot for the life of me believe the guy behind BRICK (2005) was taken on for tlj, WHILE TFA WASN’T EVEN FINISHED YET. i really didn’t think this had to be said but that is just NOT how you make a Trilogy. that is how you make Three Separate Films and guess what! that is exactly what we got! and it honestly saddens me to think that the guy behind the beautiful 6 minute music video ‘oh baby’ by lcd sound system, inspired by some of his greatest work in looper (and even brick!), would then take the absolute worst of his worst and apply that to a star wars franchise that desperately needed his best. and there’s something hilarious about that too, that you have this huge sandbox FULL of belief-suspending ridiculousness and STILL somehow make it fail? make it atrocious? that takes skill. it’s like that one post that was like “you have to ACTUALLY put EFFORT into making something this bad” like it’s no longer silly mistakes or lacklustre energy, this was ACTIVE sabotage.

the fact rian Had the Understanding of the core concepts of star wars right in his hands, but somehow completely missed the entire point of them? if you look at the films he screened to his story group during the development of tlj... this handful of culturally and historically significant war films that just seem like he screened for aesthetic and reference purposes only instead of actually exploring and analysing the importance and criticism of the exonerating war propaganda and racist source materials and using these films to inspire the actual groundwork of some of the root themes of current climates and today’s culture in a sw universe... i bet big bucks on the fact that twelve o clock high was only screened to inspire the air battle on crait (red salt planet) and because of ‘VIII Bomber Command’ because ha ha hee hee tlj is episode VIII and hoo hoo hoo *you’ve been gnomed.mp4* 

the general rule is this: when reading ANY report on tlj and tros and something like “the characters came first” is mentioned, just exit out the window, it’s already a botched article/thinkpiece.

i’m also thinking a lot about how arndt translated his first draft for tfa into a script for eight months and said he needed 18 more, which disney and jj said no to, so he left, and IMMEDIATELY after jj kept saying how relieved he was that the release date was delayed and gave him more time that he also needed. like.. you had your lesson then and there. did they learn from it? *disney forcing rian to write tlj at the same time as tfa was still being made* No!

i am ALSO thinking about how they had considered fincher, brad bird, jon favreau, del toro, even getting development suggestions by spielberg.......... and rian johnson is who they called up for tlj.... my head is... empty.

just give the fucking thing to taika waititi he understands the nuances of the socio-political climates of sw’s narratives built around a guise of a fun sci-fi fantasy adventure-drama. he understands. that’s literally the very definition of his style of writing and directing. Makes You Think Why The Mandalorian Is A Hit.... they already gave him 2 mandalorian episodes just give him the whole franchise i cant take it anymore. 

AND NOW THEY’RE GIVING RIAN JOHNSON A WHOLE NEW TRILOGY? RIAN? RIAN JOHNSON? THEY’RE GIVING HIM A WHOLE NEW TRILOGY AFTER WHAT HAPPENED... HERE. SURE.. OKAY . ALRIGHT. IT’S HONESTLY MIND-BLOWING. THE THOUGHT PROCESS THAT GOES INTO CONSECUTIVE DECISIONS SUCH AS THIS. like i would LOVE to see footage of the board meeting for this. no sarcasm i am GENUINELY curious to hear what was said to greenlight this. i have GOT to know what post tros board meetings about this will be like. 

anyway! op of that post! i will be thinking about you when the new rj trilogy drops!

what’s worse about this whole trilogy is that.. they Had it. they had it in the bag with tfa. they HAD the original idea they HAD the power to make a sw trilogy set to current climates JUST LIKE THE PREVIOUS TRILOGIES DID, cos that’s what sw is all about! what it was ALWAYS about! a space opera reflective of current times and climates. but disney turned it into a Keeping Up With The Skywalkers reality tv show that’s nothing more than a sci-fi fantasy light show and vfx flex to keep the brand alive, and personally, i think that’s ultimately one of the reasons it’s so hated and why it failed (of course rampant misogyny/sexism, racism, homophobia under the guise of geek culture within the sw community and in the production itself is a whole other discussion and is another humongous part of why it’s hated and why it failed)

and it’s why hamill had every right to criticise tlj the way he did with rotj, why boyega and isaac and ridley had Every right to their commentary on their distaste of the second and third instalments. how the only reason they’d rescind what they said was due to their contracts. how their silence was necessary to squeeze every last dollar out of consumers because god forbid a potential boycott due to their own star’s “controversial” (Correct) judgements and disapprovals

they really had it in the bag..

a female protagonist who could be a chosen one regardless of her blood and family ties, a protagonist that reflected the importance and validity of found family, and the idea that Anyone can be a “Skywalker”, a symbol of hope and a fighter for justice and goodness and love in the world, especially in the darkest of times... a young woman being just as powerful, as Chosen, as essential as Luke and Anakin were... a narrative that couldve been commentary on the necessity of women needing to do double the work, make double the effort, to earn the same spot of her counterparts. and with the second and third instalments, especially NOW, with the growth and vocalisation of the MeToo movement, the narrative of strength to speak out against abusers, to fight back and to thrive, a symbol of justice, to teach that men such as kylo who refuse consequence, who actively and soberly choose violence and manipulation for the strengthening of the self, who will ignore and deny all opportunities to better the self, to know their guilt, to make up for their actions, are the ones who are irredeemable. that people like him are not owed any time or understanding or belief in, when that belief perpetuates the violent and oppressive nature they are indefinitely attracted to and make themselves defined by.

a black hero raised by violence and refusing to be defined by it and unlocking the force within as a symbol of that strength within over encompassing goodness, to have a hero that breaks that harmful narrative stereotype that black characters have had for decades and still continue to do so, to have a voice and a hero that fights with love and kindness, that is able to find family and support in a place beyond what he believes he is allowed to have, the significance of a hero being deemed a “traitor”, a term that holds weight in the shame of seeking your own independence and identity, versus the cathartic empowerment of thriving in the independence you make for yourself in the end. a black hero that defeats his oppressors, oppressors that belong to a policing fascist regime, a faction that has always from the very beginning been a depiction of nazis, of authoritarian nationalism. 

a canonical gay latino man freedom fighter, being the best in his career as a literal symbol of hope for the resistance, a literal symbol of the climates for lgbt folk in regards to resisting those same fascist nazi regimes, resisting laws against lgbt existence, lgbt employability, lgbt success. a man who grew into a legacy of heroism, surrounded by it, something that could have been powerful poignant commentary on the necessity to sacrifice lives so others like his didn’t have to, the very narrative to fight for a world that the innocents and the ones he loves could have peace in, could have a future in, could Exist in. poe fights in the skies because he knew damn well the effect of believing in someone that is human, like you, instead of a force that is bigger than anything you could ever know or believe in. poe brings humanity and realism to an otherwise fanatical universe of magic and religion and chaos of endless war that means nothing, that is based on nothing. poe is commentary on fighting a fight that you have no choice but to fight, that you are forced to fight from birth just for the very act of Existing. his humanity and realism is a significant grounding necessity for our two protagonist heroes and it is appalling that he’d just be discarded the way he was, shallowly played off as sideline comic relief, much like lgbt narratives and characters are expressed in pretty much ANY media today, so it comes as no surprise. 

the three most vital narratives that should have been told in this trilogy but no of course not (disney voice) gimme my Fackin MANEY. it’s the silence of marginalised voices cleverly disguised under hollow face-value representation.

honestly, even rey being blood-related to palpatine as his granddaughter was such a strong and perfect set-up for The Narrative That Could’ve Been TM, but instead they had palpatine make it a whole weird pseudo-marriage thing that was just so. backwards and unbelievably shocking that it was in a 2019 era star wars film.

wow marriage story and the rise of skywalker really is the same movie huh

yes we wanted a grey jedi protagonist hero that gets tempted by the dark side but this was the absolute worst way that could’ve been explored. like if they were just gonna recycle old characters and old storylines and make them worse they could’ve at least looked at darth maul or asajj ventress and the nightsisters

and NO WONDER oscar looked so DEFEATED every time finnpoe was mentioned cos he fought for that shit tooth and nail and they? ? ? they gave him a funny ha ha hee hee hoo hoo straight flirt scene? ? with like his ex or something, where they imply they get back together? COMPLETELY destroying the ENTIRE narrative of his character that was so lovingly built and developed in the Official Canon Comic Series About Him ? ? ? ? ? ? ?

NO WORDS. there are NO WORDS. head EMPTY. no not even empty there's NO HEAD at all i am BEHEADED

finn had NOTHING in this film. Nothing. how are you gonna make him a joint-protag with rey and give him Nothing? 

anyone with brain cells knows that what finn truly was trying to tell rey the entire film was that he was force sensitive, i will take this to my grave, and that should’ve built up to this grand reveal where they empower each other and take down palpatine and kylo as one, as the joint-protagonists they were Literally Fucking Written And Built Up To Be. they gave EVERY antagonist to REY. what was the POINT. rey had her significant clash with kylo across two films, hell, even in this one (before the Final one), tros was the penultimate film about her family, her bloodline, so her significant final battle should have been with palpatine a la rotj. the person who DESERVED to clash with and take down kylo once and for all was FINN, even a TODDLER would understand WHY. 

but considering everything, i would take the thing finn was trying to tell her the entire film being that he loves her ANY DAY if it meant whatever the fuck we got instead Never Happened.

finn got made general and not only was it a blink-and-you-miss bit but it adds NOTHING, yes it’s something to celebrate and of Course he deserves it, but it holds zero significance to him as a character. like i mentioned earlier, when han was made general, that never defined him. he was still han solo and it took a Dozen other significant scenarios and twists to make him a significant and vital memorable character. han solo isn’t known for “being a general”. he’s known for being han fucking solo, a critical puzzle piece in the taking down of the empire, a scamp-turned-deeply-loyal friend and lover, a man who not only got his own personal storyline concluded to the level it deserved to be (the repercussions of his bounty hunter life, the importance of the falcon, his relationships with lando, luke, and leia, his triumph over his captors even when it was luke and leia who freed him). 

side note, this was maybe the one thing that tfa screwed up, the entire point and development of the original trilogy, it sort of felt a bit moot with how they put a “twist” on han, leia and luke’s relationship, especially when it came to kylo. but i think there are some forgivable aspects to it for the sake of the new trio, and that’s why those executive decisions kind of Worked! this is, of course, for another discussion bc this is about the new trilogy.

leia IS known for being a general because part of her entire storyline revolves around it and the significance of it!!! which is why finn being made general just feels so... i don’t know! just completely disrespectful, to both him as a character, and to generals who are defined by this position (such as, hello!!!!! poe!!! poe fucking dameron!!!! a man raised by the resistance!!! a man who’s entire life and prior legacy was entirely dedicated to the resistance!!!! him being made general MEANT something). it’s like rubbing salt in the wound of the fact that finn has been discarded as the protagonist he was meant to be, the story, development and conclusion he never got, just to slap general on him and call it a day and then write about his actual development in a novel that 3/4ths of the ppl who watch the films will never read. 

and that's just the core story stuff!!! do NOT get me started on the general lore proposed in this shit. i’m talking about the force ghost nonsense and the convenience of some of the timing choices (rewriting the way death works in sw, claiming that rey “didn’t really die/wasn’t really dead” since she didn’t fade which in itself completely destroys the entire plot they were going for with the resurrection scene, the timing of the fades themselves bullshitted for “dramatic cinematic purposes”), the entire palpatine storyline, the bullshit with snoke and the lack of explanation, all these one-off characters that have the lore capacity of an overwatch character when instead they could have developed the ones that already existed and had the opportunity to be fleshed out and CARED about

the FACT that HUX (hux!!!!!!!!!) had a more interesting storyline in all three films with a total screentime of maybe 10 minutes than these one-offs whose only purpose is to stroke the cock of sw nostalgia seekers and lore aficionados. to make these characters so inaccessible that to fully appreciate them, fans have to dive into hundreds of different novels and comics and games and whatnot. like if you make it so that the Only way someone can experience a character’s full essence is by reading their wiki page then you’ve failed in creating them, in writing them, in including them, in using them, in whatever them. you’ve just failed as a creator.

and the ONLY reason hux got a reaction (a barebones reaction but a reaction nonetheless) out of me was because they essentially just turned him into phasma 2 which is SO telling of the climate of this trilogy.

it’s a recycled trilogy. that’s all it is. it’s a recycled series of films where tfa’s originality was completely entirely scrapped and ignored because rian wanted to write his personal fanfiction more than he wanted to continue the story he was given, and did everything he could to insert that whenever he could, and kennedy, of course, let him, because she realised giving herself indulging content other than fifty shades and radfem articles that she could jerk off to was more important than telling a critical story where its wonder and valuable, influential morals could’ve stayed in this generation’s minds for years to come.

if you want to watch tros just watch the prequel trilogy instead you'll get the same story except actually good.

[commentaryvorg]

Danganronpa V3 Commentary: Part 5.8

Be aware that this is not a blind playthrough! This will contain spoilers for the entire game, regardless of the part of the game I’m commenting on. A major focus of this commentary is to talk about all of the hints and foreshadowing of events that are going to happen and facts that are going to be revealed in the future of the story. It is emphatically not intended for someone experiencing the game for their first time.

Last time in chapter 5’s plotty part in which most of the plot is a lie, and the last time we see Kokichi alive outside of flashbacks, Kokichi did the literal direct opposite of what he would have hypothetically wanted out of the mercy kill plan, almost certainly did not need to have murdered two people to convince everyone he’s the mastermind, deflected his trust issues one last time for posterity, and him kidnapping Kaito was very definitely him making the stupid decision to use Kaito in his plan, because he can’t possibly think this is actually going to end anything at all. Meanwhile, everyone else despaired.

This time, more despair. And then maybe some hope… although calling it that will be debatable, really.

(I haven’t been putting content warnings on any of these posts because everyone reading should have seen the whole story and know what to expect, but this time I feel I should put a heads-up: there’s some pretty heavy suicidal thoughts coming up here, which I am going to be discussing at some length. Please take care of yourself if you need to. If you have to avoid it entirely, you can search for the words “Hope’s Peak” and just skip ahead to that part.)

Monokuma Theater has some philosophical musings about how people’s voices in telephone calls and flavours of shaved ice are technically fake.

Monokuma:  “Do you think these facts are lies? Do you deny that these facts are lies? Puhuhu. What would the world be like if all lies were denied outright? I bet it would be a very lonesome world. Lies are what make the world go ‘round.”

He sounds like Kokichi. But these are the kinds of lies that are essentially like fiction – as in, nobody is ever really trying to claim that they’re the truth, and even if you realise they’re lies then it doesn’t really matter because pretending they’re true makes things more convenient and/or fun anyway. Lies that are truly meant to deceive people are something of a different matter.

(Not that deliberately deceptive lies are necessarily always bad either; then there’s still the question of whether or not there’s any malice behind them, like Kaito talked about once before.)

Shuichi:  (There’s no reason… to keep living. There’s no reason to live. There’s no reason to live. There’s no reason to live. There’s no reason to live.)

Guh, Shuichi. This numb repetition really hammers home how broken he is. It’s heartbreaking but completely understandable that what he’s seen would make him start thinking this way.

Shuichi:  (This is an epilogue. All that’s left… is to take up time. …What a boring story.)

Yep, that’s there. I wonder if this is in-universely influenced, in that the characters were written in such a way that they’re slightly more liable to think of things in these terms, or if it’s just the out-universe writers dropping a hint even if it means making Shuichi think something he might not necessarily think. Or it could be a thing with Shuichi’s character in particular – his Likes in the report card are listed as “Novels”, so he’s apparently into fiction. That’s definitely something the out-universe writers gave him on purpose to be thematic, and it’ll be worth keeping in mind as we begin to approach the end here.

Shuichi:  (I wonder… what everyone else is doing…)

You’re still not quite alone, Shuichi! They’re a reason for you to live!

…But then his thoughts just drift back into hazy nothingness. The image of his room behind the text box is blurred out, suggesting that his eyes aren’t even properly focusing on anything.

“What everyone else is doing” probably amounts to much the same listless staring into space as he is. Well, at least for Himiko, and maybe Keebo too – you’d think Keebo’s inner voice would be yelling at him not to give up hope, but I guess that isn’t actually affecting him much right now. Maki is still being more proactive, though, and of course Tsumugi is fine and probably busy programming one bumper Flashback Light for tomorrow.

The next thing we get is the bell for nighttime again, which also really hammers home the fact that oh god, he’s just been lying there in despair all day. That’s pretty powerful.

At least, it’s powerful for us in the out-universe audience who simply realise that fact in a single moment without having actually sat through the whole day. However, the in-universe audience must have been really, really bored today. They supposedly love despair just as much as they love hope – and, sure, the moment when a character falls into despair makes a good story. But as it turns out, the despair itself, when that’s all there is and there’s no hope to fight against it and it’s not making anyone do anything worse because they don’t care anymore, is really kind of boring.

Shuichi:  (I wonder… what Kaito is doing…) “That’s right… I wonder if… Kaito is okay…? Is… he…?”

Shuichi’s vision comes back into focus as he has this thought, and it’s the only words he’s actually spoken all day. Worrying about Kaito is an important enough thought that it manages to spark some kind of life out of him! That’s also a reason to stay alive, Shuichi! Kaito might need you!

Shuichi:  (… It’s no use. My mind isn’t… working… And my body…)

…But this still isn’t enough. Depression will do that to you, making it difficult to get yourself to care about things you know you should care about. Shuichi isn’t usually depressed, just anxious, but it’s no wonder his brain’s messed up like this right now after what he saw yesterday.

(And it’d be hard for Shuichi to really latch onto the idea that Kaito could even need him in the first place. Kaito’s always fine, right? More fine than Shuichi, at least.)

Monokuma:  “Your life doesn’t need a meaning. It just needs a purpose. In other words, you just need something to live for.”

Here’s another Monokuma Theater quite relevant to the themes at hand. This is actually a philosophy I’ve always personally agreed with! Life has no inherent greater meaning, so you should just try to spend it doing whatever makes you happy (so long as it doesn’t make other people unhappy).

Monokuma:  “If you say Danganronpa is your reason to live, I couldn’t be happier.”

This is another nod to the in-universe audience and the idea that at least some of them, like the Makoto kid we’re going to see, really do see Danganronpa as their reason to live. It’s also still fairly relevant to me, since “whatever makes me happy” happens to include a lot of enjoying works of fiction that I’m into – hence this entire commentary. It won’t always be, but right now, Danganronpa V3 and the fun I’m having analysing it like this genuinely is one of the biggest things I’m living for.

Shuichi:  (I should… get up. Or I might not ever get up again. I… … I don’t care. If I… just kill my—)

*ding-dong!*

Maki’s visit is very well-timed. Hang in there, Shuichi. Not yet. There’s still things you can do.

This sprite of Shuichi’s is another thing that’s great for getting across how broken he is. Even though he did presumably get some sleep last night as well, he looks like he hasn’t slept in days. He also didn’t eat (or even drink?) anything yesterday, which can’t have helped.

Maki doesn’t bother telling him she found a Flashback Light; she just instructs him to take a shower and then come to the dining hall with everyone, and he does. Even in the depths of despair (or perhaps especially because he’s in despair), Shuichi is still the kind of person who’ll just do whatever someone tells him to do, if they tell him in an assertive enough way and he doesn’t have a reason not to.

On the way out of the dorms, if you examine Kaito’s door…

Shuichi:  (Is Kaito okay…?)

…Shuichi still manages to muster up a tiny bit of energy to worry about him. Aww.

Maki:  “…Everyone here looks terrible.”

Being the one who’s least in despair out of anyone here, Maki still has it in her to be concerned about how awfully everyone else is doing.

Tsumugi:  “What are we talking about?”

Himiko:  “We’re discussing how we wanna die, right?”

No, Himiko! Can’t you see the Flashback Light on the table? Maki did not call everyone here for a group suicide. It’s painful that that’s what her mind immediately goes to.

Himiko:  “I wanna go without suffering… Maki… can you do something about that?”

Maki:  “Sure… but before that, take a look at this.”

It’s also a bit much that Maki doesn’t even protest the request in and of itself, given that she isn’t suicidal right now. I have to assume that she’s only saying that because she’s imagining that whatever they see in the Flashback Light will change their minds, and so there’s no point arguing about it before they’ve seen it.

Himiko:  “Don’t stop me… I just wanna die. Tenko… probably wouldn’t be mad if I chose to die in this situation.”

It’s specifically Himiko who is this openly suicidal – the others also look equally down, and Shuichi was just about to think it earlier, but it seems none of them quite want to voice it out loud, except for Himiko. This makes a heartbreaking amount of sense when you consider that she was always depressed, and all of her efforts to fight back against that must seem so pointless right now. She’s even managed to convince herself that Tenko’s wish for her doesn’t apply any more… which, honestly, might be right, if this really were the truth.

Tsumugi:  “We don’t need to confirm anything… We saw… the outside world for ourselves…”

Tsumugi is apparently employing reverse psychology, since of course this is her Flashback Light and she very much wants them to see it.

Maki:  “Do you want to die… comfortably? I can help you, but…”

I love this turnaround of Maki’s catchphrase. Suddenly her specialisation in killing people painlessly is a way for her to help and be kind to her friends, at least if they do end up concluding that there’s nothing else to do but die.

Maki:  “If we’re going to die, then we might as well do anything we can. We’ll have no regrets that way.”

Yes, do anything we can, including watching this Flashback Light… and then also rescuing Kaito. Not doing that would definitely leave regrets.

Maki:  “Either way, there’s nothing for us to lose… We don’t have any hope left.”

We do. We have Kaito. If anyone could muster up optimism at a time like this and manage to find some kind of silver lining, some reason to keep going, it’d be him.

I can understand this not occurring to everyone else, because they’re so broken, but Maki is not in despair like the rest of them. She spent all of yesterday staking out the Exisal hangar and thinking of a way to rescue Kaito. I have to assume that she’s only not mentioning this because she’s hoping the Flashback Light will help everyone feel better first, and if that wasn’t going to work, then she would mention Kaito. Her words here have to be just an attempt to persuade everyone else that there’s no reason not to use the Flashback Light so that they’d do so.

Just… imagine if they did all commit suicide here, and then Kaito somehow managed to escape from the hangar on his own (or Kokichi let him go after realising that his plan was pointless now, good job Kokichi this would be almost entirely your fault), only for Kaito to come here and find all of his friends already dead. God, that would absolutely destroy him. You can’t do that to him, guys. You just can’t.

If the outside world really was as ruined as it looks and they really were the only people left alive, then group suicide would maybe be an understandable response to the apparent truth of their situation… but only if Kaito was there and agreed to it too. Like Kaito said, your life isn’t something you can decide to throw away on your own – it belongs to everyone who cares about you as well, which right now means the six of them. They cannot do this only as a group of five. Maki has to know this. I refuse to take an interpretation in which she is okay with putting Kaito through that pain.

Himiko:  “So when you kill me… will it be like I’m falling asleep?”

Himikooooo, don’t be so fixated on that! It probably would be (Maki is, after all, very good at her job), but you’ve got something else you need to do first!

Shuichi:  (Maki switched on the Flashback Light. And in that moment… The world— Flipped upside-down— Turned inside-out—)

This time, there’s a stronger description of how it feels than usual (usually he just says the world “warped” and that’s it). Fitting, since this is the biggest rewrite of their minds they’ve had other than the one which made them into who they are in the first place.

Finally there are different words in the background of the Flashback Light cutscene, about things such as Hope’s Peak, and the Tragedy. It would have been nice to have each chapter’s Flashback Light have different words appropriate to its content, but if they only had time to edit the scene once then this makes sense as the one they’d do it for.

Every time I get to this moment in the game where the Danganronpa 1 theme music starts playing, all I can think about is the fact that the anime adaptation’s version of that theme for its opening added some lyrics, the first two lines of which go: “Reality slips far away/Fiction comes alive, we start to play”. Which seems pretty damn appropriate right here. I get the sense that maybe the Danganronpa writers always kind of wanted to write a story like this.

So. All this Hope’s Peak stuff suddenly being part of the backstory when it was never even mentioned before is blatantly ridiculous. It’s pretty difficult to buy that they’d all forget something so major, but even if you accept that that’s possible with a mind-wipe, it still leaves us with the fact that everyone should have grown up in a post-apocalyptic, gradually-rebuilding society. They should at the very least remember that fact, since it would be integral to their backstories and upbringings that they still remember, even if they forget the exact reason for the apocalypse. Not one of them, not once at any point talking about their pasts, has given any kind of indication that they grew up in such a world.

So when I got to this part on my first time around, I raised an eyebrow or two. I basically accepted it anyway, with the thought that while this may be forced and arbitrary, if they really wanted this to suddenly be part of the Hope’s Peak universe as a big plot twist here then maybe there weren’t any better ways to do it, so sure, whatever, let’s go with this I guess. But no, turns out I was completely right to be sceptical and the forced arbitrariness of it is precisely the point.

Suddenly revealing a huge infodump about the backstory like this is honestly a pretty bad way to write a narrative. It can work, but only if all the details revealed really are intrinsically connected to parts of the story that the audience is already invested in, so that they now see those parts of the story in a new light. This is not that. Shuichi says they’re “connected”, but it’s actually a very tenuous connection. There was a whole other massive, interesting conflict that happened in the backstory… that really doesn’t matter at all because none of the characters who are part of this story took part in it, and then meteorites fell and everyone who was involved in that conflict is now dead for unrelated reasons. The only part properly connected to this story is that all of these students here were actually all part of the same school… but they were still in different classes and didn’t know each other, so that still doesn’t mean much. It only nominally matters because apparently this school is a rebuilt version of a school which was at the centre of that big backstory conflict… but, again, that big backstory conflict was something that these characters had no part in, so, so what?

This only works on any level because the audience of this story, both in-universe and out, is expected to be already invested in the events of the Hope’s Peak story and care about them for their own sake. But on the level of how relevant this is to these students here at the Ultimate Academy, this falls flat. Imagine if you played V3 while having not seen any other Danganronpa content at all. You’d be so bewildered, and probably really frustrated about why you were supposed to care about all this. This is making it seem like the Hope’s Peak story is suddenly more important and meant to matter more, even in the context of this story, than this story itself is. The in-universe writers are terrible at this, and the out-universe writers are doing this on purpose.

(If anyone who did play this game without knowing any other Danganronpa canon happens to be reading this, I’d be really, really interested to hear how you reacted to this part.)

I should also point out that, were this actually true, it would be the worst, most unfair way imaginable to treat the Hope’s Peak story. All those efforts the characters went to to finally get some vague semblance of a happy ending and a normal-ish life, and then suddenly rocks fall everybody dies? Everything ends in despair not because of some resurgence of the problems they had in the first place, but just by random chance? That is the most completely unsatisfying ending ever and anyone who cares about any of the surviving Hope’s Peak characters continuing to live on happily should not want this at all. It was a relief when I realised this was all a lie.

Shuichi:  (We were all attending the rebuilt Hope’s Peak Academy!)

Confession: I only watched some of the DR3 anime, losing interest halfway through when it clearly wasn’t going to deliver what I’d personally wanted from it. I didn’t see how things ended (and honestly don’t care enough to find out), but I gather that this part where Hope’s Peak was rebuilt is canon to how it ended. Which, to briefly make this a commentary about the Hope’s Peak story instead of about V3… is an extremely stupid decision? That whole messed-up culture – putting a handful of teenagers on a pedestal just because they happen to be talented in one particular area even though they are otherwise still flawed human beings, and in doing so implying that anyone who isn’t talented is worthless – is a big part of why the world ended in the first place. Why would anyone think it was a good idea to do that again?

Shuichi:  (We were the students that applied after learning Hope’s Peak was rebuilt. And the new Hope’s Peak was like the last, in that it accepted applications for talented students, and cultivated Ultimate talents…)

I assume that in the anime, it didn’t necessarily make it explicit whether the new Hope’s Peak still scouted people or not. Or it did, but V3 is nice enough to not assume that players have necessarily seen the anime. Because it somewhat sticks out how Shuichi goes out of his way here to say, oh by the way the original Hope’s Peak definitely also accepted applications, so that anyone who’s played DR1 (which is probably expected to be basically everyone playing this) will be able to realise that that’s off.

Shuichi:  (Hope’s Peak Academy was a large school, so we were all in separate classes…)

Really? Even accounting for them being spread between all three years, that’s at least six classes per year. Didn’t the original one only have one class of talented students per year? Seems a bit of a sudden increase in size, especially when it’s drawing from a significantly reduced post-apocalyptic population. It would have made more sense (and given a little more narrative meaning to this reveal) to have them remember that some of them were in the same classes and had known each other beforehand. Maybe Tsumugi didn’t do that because fake past interactions and friendships between these characters would take a lot of effort to write, and she was in a hurry.

Shuichi:  (But… we just happened to be immune to the virus…)

If they could find sixteen students (well, fourteen and a half, plus a robot) who were immune to the virus within the presumably only a few hundred students at the academy, that’s… actually a pretty high immunity rate. There should be several thousands, maybe even millions, more humans outside the academy who were also immune to the virus. And the Gofer Project just… left them behind because they weren’t talented? Geez.

In fact, that’d be enough humans that, if they all managed to band together and co-operate, which is precisely what humans do in dire times like this, they might have been able to put together some sort of underground shelter and air purifying system to protect themselves from the rest of the meteorites making the world uninhabitable. It’s entirely possible, even if what everyone saw outside were actually the truth, that there still could be some surviving remnants of humanity somewhere on the planet. The in-universe narrative never tries to suggest this, though. It’s not even one of the options for the Flashback Light about “the survivors” that Tsumugi would presumably have made next chapter if things had stayed on script.

Shuichi:  (That world… This world… It’s all connected!)

The way they’re talked about here as if they’re separate worlds should also raise eyebrows. That really is how the person who programmed the Flashback Light thinks of them, after all.

Here’s New World Order, that dramatic BGM piece from the Hope’s Peak games. This is actually not the first time it’s heard in V3 – for some reason they also put it in those bits that lead into the class trials starting. Which kind of dampens this moment a little, since it would be very appropriate if this here was the first time we’d heard it all game.

Tsumugi:  “Why… How could we forget something so important.”

I don’t know, Tsumugi, how could they have forgotten something which should be so central to their understanding of the world they grew up in?

Maki:  “Kokichi Oma… the mastermind behind this killing game… his organization’s real identity… They were the Remnants of Despair.”

Shuichi:  “That’s right. The cult organization out to destroy the Gofer Project. If Kokichi is the leader, that means he controls the Remnants of Despair.”

This part is inconveniently vague about whether or not they explicitly remember that Kokichi was a Remnant of Despair. Maki makes it sound more like she remembers that, wheras Shuichi makes it sound like he’s only deducing that based on what Kokichi claimed and the fact that they now know that organisation he talked about must have been the Remnants.

Later lines make it clearer that they are very much supposed to have remembered Kokichi being a Remnant of Despair. This then helps call into question the validity of their memories once it becomes clear Kokichi wasn’t actually the mastermind. But I’ve seen a lot of first time players remain under the impression that the characters didn’t explicitly remember that, meaning that once Kokichi’s lie is uncovered, they no longer think that him being a Remnant is still somehow supposed to be the “truth” and so don’t get that hint towards the truth being a lie.

Time for a brief complete tangent! While Himiko is narrating to us that this killing game is just like the previous ones, we see the shot of the V3 cast’s reactions to the announcement of the killing game at the beginning… except that this is the first time we see this shot without Monokuma and his cubs blocking most of it off. So, I didn’t talk about this way back at the beginning when it happened because you couldn’t see it then, but…

…look at this face Kaito was making. And his body language. In that moment right as everything began, before he had any time to think about putting up a façade and when everyone was focused on Monokuma and not paying attention to him anyway, Kaito looked freaking terrified. That’s always how he’s felt about this beneath the stubborn optimism and the encouraging grins.

Also of note is Maki’s fierceness. Such child caregiver right there.

…And I guess it is also relevant to mention that Kokichi looked pretty nervous and not remotely excited about this either.

Back to the present, Maki wonders why Kokichi gave up on this killing game if he’s such a fan of despair, and the others argue that he was copying Junko and just got bored of his plan like she often did.

Maki:  “…”

Shuichi:  “…What’s wrong, Maki?”

Maki:  “Nothing… I’m just not convinced… It’s probably… fine, though. It’s not a big deal.”

Since Maki isn’t convinced Kokichi will just end things this easily (but she is utterly convinced by now that he’s a dangerous evil mastermind who wants to hurt them), this is most likely the point at which she starts thinking about killing him, so that he won’t be able to continue this and keep hurting anyone. But she tells everyone it’s not a big deal to drop the subject because she knows they would try to talk her out of it.

Shuichi:  “…Are you sure?”

Tsumugi:  “We finally learned the truth, but we still can’t do anything…”

Shuichi still doesn’t seem convinced… but then Tsumugi is the one to just move the conversation on and ensure he disregards Maki’s suspicious behaviour. That may well be on purpose.

Himiko:  “Even if we get out of this academy, the outside world is still destroyed. There’s… no hope left for us.”

I’m glad that at least someone here is somewhat aware of this. This huge backstory dump is basically meaningless because it doesn’t change anything about the reason they’re in despair. Everyone is still dead. The fact that we now know a little bit more about everyone who died and what they all fought for does not change that fact. Nothing about what they just learned implied that there are any other survivors.

Keebo:  “No! We just need to become that hope!”

But of course, Keebo’s inner voice must be going nuts right about now with rampant genwunnerism. This Flashback Light is making it out like we’re suddenly supposed to care about the Hope’s Peak story more than this story right here… and apparently, most of the outside world does feel that way.

Keebo:  “After all, we’re students of Hope’s Peak Academy, aren’t we!? We’re all that’s left of the 16 who survived the battle between hope and despair! If we give up now, everyone who fought on the side of hope will have fought for nothing!”

They already did fight for nothing. Everyone is dead. The Gofer Project failed. The only way in which these kids can still salvage something good from this is if they somehow manage to restart the spaceship and make it to an inhabitable planet anyway to continue the human race, but that’s not what anyone ever talks about doing and therefore not what Keebo means by “hope” here.

Remember how I mentioned a few times before that Danganronpa usually likes to throw around the words “hope” and “despair” so much that it forgets their real meanings? This is the part in which Danganronpa V3 starts doing that too – but in this case, I at least like to think that, again, this is exactly the point.

Maki:  “Fought for… nothing…”

Noooo Keebo you’re making Maki feel like she has to murder Kokichi for the sake of a meaningless buzzword-y “hope”, which is exactly what the real mastermind wants!

Keebo:  “Because as long as we’re alive, we still have the power to decide that meaning for ourselves… That’s what I believe hope is!”

Tsumugi:  “That’s what hope is… I see… Yeah, you’re right…”

No, it isn’t. Deciding there’s meaning in your life is connected to hope, because you generally need to feel hope to be able to do that, but that’s not what the word means.

Hope simply means the ability to believe that something you want to happen will happen even though it’s uncertain. It’s actually a pretty simple word that does not have all these deep loaded meanings that Danganronpa has insistently given it over the years.

Tsumugi:  “If we – the students of Hope’s Peak – give up, the world really will be plunged into despair!”

The world already has been plunged into despair! Everyone is still dead! Hope’s Peak worked as a “symbol of hope” (at least in theory) because all those talented kids inspired the rest of the world to feel like the things they want could happen, too. But the rest of the world is now dead. Dead people cannot hope. These seven surviving students can no longer inspire anyone else to feel anything. There’s no point in a luminary that has nothing to illuminate.

(Consider: the character in this story who is the single best epitome of the word “hope”, both in terms of always having it himself and in terms of being able to inspire others to have it too, is Kaito. And the game never uses the word “hope” to talk about him, not once. It doesn’t need to in order to get across how he is, and if it did, then the meaningless buzzword-y effect that that word has come to have in Danganronpa by now would probably lessen the impact Kaito is meant to have.)

Tsumugi:  “In the end, it’s all about willpower! I’m gonna live till the end and never give up!”

Never give up on what? “Hope” requires that there is a specific thing that you are believing will happen despite the odds. What exactly are you hoping for? Nothing! There is nothing to hope for!

Himiko:  “But making the impossible possible is what magic is all about!”

Believing you can make the impossible possible is absolutely an expression of hope (again, did I mention, Kaito) – but there still needs to be an actual supposedly-impossible thing you are trying to do! What are you even trying to make possible here?

Shuichi:  “…You’re right. Let’s do it. Let’s fight, together! Against despair!”

Let’s do what exactly???

“Despair” also does not have anywhere near as loaded a meaning as they’re giving it. It’s simply another type of thought – the belief that everything will always be terrible and nothing good will ever happen to you. They are clearly no longer thinking that way any more – so, congratulations! You’ve defeated despair already!

And they’ve defeated it by suddenly feeling this inexplicable arbitrary positivity out of nowhere, even though it’s not really hope because they’re not hoping for anything (other than no longer feeling despair any more, which is tautological). Their situation is exactly as dire as it was before they saw the Flashback Light – if anything, it’s slightly worse, because now they know that the things they’ve lost had even more weight to them. Nobody has any meaningful ideas on how to make this situation any better, things that would actually be something to hope for and would combat the reason they’re in despair. This Flashback Light has essentially just brainwashed them into feeling good again, in the most narratively boring way.

Tsumugi could have given them a Flashback Light which would actually organically give them hope – she could have made one about there being survivors, maybe hidden here in the Ark, maybe on another planet, maybe even somewhere on Earth, and that would give them something to work towards, some hope that they can find the survivors and not be alone. Honestly, she should have done that, as that would be a better-written story than this. I assume the reason she didn’t is that she was getting a lot of complaints from the in-universe audience about how boring things had just become, and to make up for it she wanted to do something which would pander to them, whether it was a good story or not. Or she’s just a bad writer and doesn’t even realise this is a terrible story and thought it totally was the best way to bring hope to everyone. That might well be it. She has not shown much of a track record of good writing so far.

See, I think the thing is that the in-universe audience doesn’t even realise that this is a bad story because they’re too busy geeking out over the callbacks to the past seasons. None of the actual blind LPers I’ve watched ever really picked up on this being bad writing either, because they were also generally pretty excited by this. Which is understandable, since they’re fans who loved the previous Danganronpas. It makes them feel happy and filled with the notion of “hope”, so it doesn’t quite cross their minds that it doesn’t make sense for the characters to be feeling the same way.

But to the characters in this story, what they’ve remembered isn't a beloved work of fiction; it’s just history. They shouldn’t be as affected by it as the audience are.

Shuichi: (The hope born in this academy, a tree of life with roots down deep… It was supporting each and every one of us.)

No matter how poetically he’s suddenly talking about hope (almost as if he’s been brainwashed into doing that too), it won’t change the fact that it’s not hope because they’re still not hoping for anything.

Himiko:  “Nyeeeh… Motivation is rushing through my entire body.”

Motivation! That might be the right word for what they’re actually feeling. They’ve definitely regained the motivation to do something with themselves, at least, even if they don’t know what that something is because there’s still nothing to hope for.

Keebo:  “Kokichi may have left that Flashback Light to make us give up… But if that was his plan, it failed.”

Shuichi:  (It’s true… it does seem as though Kokichi’s plan went wrong somewhere.)

Even Shuichi is completely oblivious to the fact that the sudden motivation they’re all feeling has no actual logical basis for it and therefore must be an emotional manipulation caused by the Flashback Light affecting their brains. It should be obvious to them that this was the intent of the person who gave them the Flashback Light, but, nope.

Himiko:  “We’ve gotta stop You-Know-Who, the Remnant of Despair, or this despair will never end.”

You’re already not feeling despair any more. You only need to stop him if there’s a chance he’s going to do something to make you feel it again, which he’s at least claiming he’s not doing. Kokichi is merely a person who is supposedly capable of making people feel despair – he is not actual despair itself. Despair cannot be a person. But because they seem to think it can, and because they’ve been brainwashed into this meaningless objective of “defeating” despair when that’s not how despair works, they’re feeling like it is necessary to take down Kokichi.

(And by “they”, I mostly mean Maki, which of course was the other point of this Flashback Light.)

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[Next post]

[tinkdw]

hi tink ^_^ was wondering if you think both endgame human!cas and endgame angel!cas are both valid interpretations? im genuinely interested as I can't see the whole human!cas being a thing, and I'm open to learn more if you think that's what is actually going to happen. idk his experience as a human was miserable, i feel like maybe im missing something?? :0 u dont have to answer this if u dont want, as it may cause wank. ty

Hi!

Here’s my “overall” Cas meta from a while ago, nothing’s changed and a few other meta writers added to it so it’s a good view I think as to the whole concept:

https://tinkdw.tumblr.com/post/165781313412/why-do-you-think-cas-should-becomechoose-to-be

It’s a really crappy topic for divisiveness, in my experience the people who have, relatively, as much as possible, objectively analysed the author intent in the show have come to a pretty solid conclusion within the meta community that Human!Cas appears to be endgame based not on his experience as a human but the outcome, his overall arc since season 4 and the Chekhovs gun style flamingly blatant reminders throughout the show such as the repeated asking him if he wouldn’t rather be human, his choosing to be an Angel to go into battle powerful enough to save the people he loves and putting what he wants to one side and his clearly not wanting to be a soldier anymore.

It’s kind of like saying endgame Dean is for him to be emancipated and being able to openly watch Oprah and Disney etc even though on the surface he says he doesn’t like that stuff. Because the pretty obvious sublimation is there.

With Cas the sublimation isn’t quite as clear but it’s really all there. Yes he suffered as a human but he literally came out of it and said he missed it, while previous to being human he was curious and wanted to try human things (eg kissing meg) and afterwards we’ve seen him actively choosing to act more human, smiting less and fist fighting instead, acting more human, I mean the big one for me was when Dean asked him “and you’re okay with that?!” When he told him he got grace back to be able to fight and he just totally brushed it off saying he needed it to fight:

https://tinkdw.tumblr.com/post/171244776157/kanayaks-tinkdw-cas-i-got-my-grace-back-i

He later takes more grace which he had been previously rejecting but only to save Dean and then took his own grace back when again it’s needed for a fight whilst telling us the quote that the craziest thing a man can do is die.

He’s literally saying he’s killing himself / his wants for the greater good.

He needs grace for the fight and to be a good useful soldier and to save his family but does he want it?

Want v Need.

One of the biggest themes of the show.

Cas needs his grace to be useful when times are hard but is that what he wants?

In my opinion the show has repeatedly emphasised that it isn’t. I also think it’s clear he doesn’t want to be a soldier anymore and these things go hand in hand.

Others may use canon to say they think it is. Both interpretations are totally valid as long as they are based on canon and actually analysing the canon in a consistent manner.

The issue I have is certain people cherry picking and projecting their stories into it and claiming it’s an overall Cas’ arc since inception meta. That’s just not how meta writing works.

You can absolutely write that stuff but you can’t claim it’s objective and fully inclusive of canon and logical when it is just picking parts that fit your own desire for the character. Like, I didn’t want Lucifer to be centre stage in s13 but I didn’t just ignore it when it was.

Cherry picking things ie the one time Cas said “I just wanna be an Angel” when he was depressed, distraught at Dean’s death and wanted to stop feeling things as proof it’s what he really wants isn’t what I’d call meta writing of the whole story. That’s like saying Sam really wants to be a hunter and tag along beside his brother in the impala on the road for the rest of his life because he was a depressed, vengeful mess after Jess’ death and said ok let’s go. Is it really what Sam wants for himself and the rest of his life though? No way! That’s been clear too.

Even worse when some people claim to be bullied or triggered by other view points. Someone even screenshotted a few sentences I wrote that if you took away the top and bottom sentence looked like I was making no sense and anti Cas (me anti Cas. Lmao) but in the context obviously made sense and decided to create a wank storm about it because they didn’t like human cas meta and wanted to make me look bad. People need to grow up. This isn’t a meta discussion about interpretation it’s being a dick and being unable to contemplate another interpretation.

It makes a discussion totally impossible which moots the entire point of blogging on tumblr in the first place.

Absolutely all interpretations are valid, it’s just a case of how you pitch your interpretation. If you want to state your interpretation of a character absolutely go for it! I used to be all up for Angel!Cas meta until a few utter assholes decided to be personal and ridiculous about it. Now I don’t touch it with a barge pole. Same as M*gstiel.

But that doesn’t invalidate anyone’s good, thought out, canon analysing endgame Angel!Cas meta.

For example my own interpretation of the siren episode is different to many other meta writers, we can discuss it and have polite and great conversations without getting triggered / defensive because we aim to discuss author intent, our own interpretations and do so in a civil manner. There’s one meta writer in particular I’ve had altercations with in the past over some differences of opinion on speculative things and ways of writing meta but who I get on well with, admire and like talking to because we are adults and literally get over it.

There’s also a few people who unfortunately though I agree meta wise about things on the show have been so nasty irl to myself and others that I’ve cut them off completely.

Interpretations are interpretations until they are canon, I’m lucky that most of mine have become so or are clearly on their way but I can also be wrong ie I thought Asmodeus would be more important to character exposition than he was, life moves on. I also didn’t realise quite what it would mean that he would be a Bucklemming own concept and not really used by anyone else, I thought perhaps he’d be used by others by the wasn’t, now I have that knowledge in my pocket meta on anything that sets up for Bucklemming use is kinda meh don’t bother analysing it much it’s probably not hugely important to the overall story being told by the showrunner, ie Nick.

All interpretations are valid is very true. Eg. I can interpret Cas’ story as a metaphor for a queer kid (and in particular trans) coming from a conservative family and emancipating themselves and someone else can interpret it as an immigrants story.

If the show starts changing this then I will change my meta, because my meta is an analysis of what the show is doing, not what I want. For example I never wanted Dean to be queer representation, I was totally heteronormative and would have been totally cool with him ending up alone or with a woman, it’s the show that made me want something different for him through consistent and repeated canon blatant hints at something else. Same as Cas, I was totally ready in season 4 to just like him as a cool character and for him to bog off back to Heaven after being useful but he was captivating as an ally and it grew from there. For ages I would totally have put to one side the hints at a romantic part of his story and loved for him to become the third brother, it’s the show that made me see more between him and Dean, I never would have imagined that myself, I was a boring heterormative adult more interested in the individual characters’ stories than shipping, I thought shipping was just maritime transferral of goods before I was like wtf and googled Destiel after 10x05 cos I’d finally found a name for what I’d been seeing evolve for 6 years.

Sam goes for Cas’ own individual arc and what he wants. I never had a clue what I wanted from him until the show told me what I should want by repeating something clearly over 10 years. If they suddenly change any part of the story then they change it (and I’ll be annoyed they changed something so entrenched but I’m not going to bitch @ tptb for it or whatever, it’s their choice, they’re the creator and once it’s changed I’ll meta that) but so far it’s been the same, clear story to me for 10 years.

An interpretation is an interpretation but it’s when you start, as I do and some others do, saying you believe this one is the authors intention that you have to be more careful about backing it up with canon and logic and not getting #triggered when someone disagrees.

If you’re going to pitch it as what you believe the author intent is then you have to leave your personal projections at the door and work solely based on the canon, the production, what the author may have said outside of canon etc. It has nothing to do with your own wants for the character or show.

It also means when someone has valid canon supported arguments to the contrary you can have a really interesting discussion and I love that.

[skygemspeaks]

submitted by @rosejen8675

So, I have a story idea for My Hero Academia that I’ve been wanting to bounce off of someone for a while now. You always seem pretty cool in asks and have a lot of fun AU’s, so I’d thought I’d ask you. 

Izuku has gotten pretty used to people dismissing his quirk ramblings by the time he’s a pre-teen. Then one day he comes across a video online of someone talking about a hero’s quirk and sort of picking it apart, just like he does every day. He sees that the video has gotten a good amount of views and positive feedback, and it bolsters him to know that people out there do like to talk about this stuff. He notices something a bit off about one of the observations the person makes though, and feels bold enough to leave a comment about it. The person messages him back saying that the Izuku actually had a really good point, and that maybe he should make a video about it himself. And Izuku becomes inspired to do just that.

His first videos aren’t great, mainly just recordings of his usual mutterings. Some comments are mean about it, but a few provide constructive criticism about how he could make the videos better and make his point better understood. Izuku starts putting more planning into the videos, doing a bit of research and actually writing out scripts for himself, and they start to get better. A couple episodes get recognized by older and more popular channels, and that causes Izuku’s channel to become more well known.

Izuku is thrilled to have people who actually approve of his hobby, even if he’s never actually met them. He starts to recognize certain regulars, especially ones that leave comments that lead to discussions among the viewers and himself. Some people leave mean comments of course, but they never really say anything worse than Kacchan already does. 

After his channel gains a certain amount of notoriety, people start to leave comments asking about his own quirk. He’s analyzed so many others, what does he have to say about his own? Izuku doesn’t want to tell them he is quirkless, because he’s afraid that they will take him less seriously or stop watching all together if they know, just like most everyone else has done. He doesn’t feel comfortable just ignoring it though. 

One day when he’s having lunch his glass does that thing where water condenses in just the right way at the base of a glass that it starts sliding on it’s own, and he gets an idea. He can make people think he has a quirk. He’s mentioned in previous videos what type of quirks his parents had, so people would believe he has some kind of telekinesis. He practices enough that he figures out how to get the glass to slide when he wants it to, and during his next video he sets it up to slide toward his hand part way through. He acts super casual about it, and lets people think what they will. 

People end up taking the bait. Izuku feels a bit guilty for the deception, but tells himself he’s not outright lying. One person comments it’s a shame he didn’t inherit his dad’s fire-based quirk, and suddenly Izuku is getting ideas. Could he find a way to make it look like he had? Would people believe it if he did? There’s only one way to find out. 

After some research into sleight of hand and stage magic, Izuku is able to make it look like’s he’s accidentally coughing up smoke in one of his videos. People start debating in the comments about which is his real quirk and whether or not he could have inherited both. From there it starts to escalate. Izuku becomes curious to see how far he can push this. He keeps coming up with new quirks he could have and different ways to imply he has them. People start getting really into it. Entire threads are created trying to piece together the mystery Izuku is presenting them with. Some argue that he has an analysis quirk that he’s been using the whole time, and that he’s doing this to tease them for not realizing it. Others say he definitely has one of those quirks, and he’s challenging them to figure out which one it is. Some say he has an illusion quirk. Only a very small number put out that he might be quirkless and messing with them all.

Even with all the fake quirk shenanigans, Izuku makes sure that his video’s analysis content is still top notch. Because of this, a few students at UA end up showing one of videos to their teachers. Then some of the teachers start watching episodes that sound relevant to the topic they covering, and telling the students about it. At one point Present Mic mentions a video of Izuku’s in response to a caller question, and Izuku proceeds to lose his mind over that endorsement for a week. 

In the grand scheme of things, this AU changes little. Izuku still ends up getting attacked by a sludge villain and meeting All Might. He still inherits One for All, and most of the events at school and with the League of Villains fold out in the same way. The difference is made in little things. Izuku becomes a bit more confident before UA, at least when it comes to his ability to analyze and make plans. Certain teachers recognize him during the entrance exam, and are delighted that they now know what Izuku’s ‘real’ quirk is. A number of the 1-A students recognize him, tell him how fun or useful they found his videos, and ask if he’ll give them advice later. Even some older students come up and tell him that such and such episode gave them new ideas on how to use their quirks in combat.

At the end of the day it’s not a huge difference, but all of them combined make a world of difference to Izuku. 

So what do you think? I’d really like to get a more polished version down at some point, because I like the idea a lot. I do kind of worry about the whole ‘pretending to have different quirks in his videos’ part. Do you think that’s too out of character for Izuku?

I’d appreciate any feedback you could give. Thank you!

AhhhH????? I would read 100k of this!! It’s super interesting, and I do like the idea of him teasing his viewers about what quirk he has. It’s a fun, harmless little thing, and if I know the internet, it would ABSOLUTELY help bring in the views lmao.

I’m super interested to see how this would affect canon though, in small but noticeable ways, how the people in his life see him.

All Might, who’s seen a couple of his vids (because at this point, who HASN’T?) despite being technologically illiterate. He’s always had a fondness for the boy who does such great quirk analyses, at the easy confidence he seems to portray in his audience, the kindness that shines through, the mischievousness, the resourcefulness in making it seem like he has all these different quirks. And then he meets Izuku, and he feels his heart break for him, and he’s amazed that even with the online fame, this boy is so genuinely modest.

There’s Aizawa, who watches all of Izuku’s videos, because having in depth knowledge of all kinds of quirks is especially important for a hero who doesn’t have a physical enhancement quirk of his own, a hero whose true strength lies in his mind. When Izuku is put into his class, Aizawa doesn’t immediately dismiss him. He knows the kid has the brains to be a truly amazing hero, and maybe now is the time for Aizawa to repay him for all the help he’s received from his videos in the past.

Imagine the sports festival - the name of his channel trending on twitter as people freak out about how the winner of the obstacle race is actually this famous youtube personality? Imagine the chaos, especially if he didn’t tell any of them that he entered UA. Or maybe he told them he entered, but didn’t specify which department 

(because that seems to be Izuku’s theme these days. Now in addition to what quirk he has, people are arguing over whether or not he’s in the hero department.

“Of course he’s in heroics! He’s mentioned before how much he’s wanted to be in a hero since he was a child, you morons.”

“Just because he wants to be one doesn’t mean it’s possible for him though. He obviously has an analysis type quirk, so he’s gotta be in support or management.”)

Imagine people finally getting CLOSURE as they find out what his quirk actually is, and isn’t it so cheeky of him that the quirk he was “born with” was the one quirk he never teased in any of his videos.

He makes a sheepish apology video afterwards for nearly scaring his audience to death in his match against Todoroki, and he quietly makes his disapproval known when his fans start commenting about how that Bakugou kid is so villainous and shouldn’t have won the tournament.

Dear god, imagine the Stain incident! People seeing our boy almost carried off by a Noumu.

And once people know he’s in heroics, imagine his fans begging him to upload vlogs, the day in the life of a ua hero student. At first he refuses to, because he thinks his teachers would disapprove, but after UA’s reputation takes a hit with all the villain attacks, Izuku suggests the idea to Nedzu, to help show people that UA really is doing its all to help.

Imagine him giving a tour of class a’s dorm building, and getting ready for the cultural festival!

Imagine him meeting Gentle, and La Brava is lowkey salty about how many more views he has than them, but Gentle is quietly freaking out because he’s been a fan of Izuku’s channel since forever now???

Ahh, sorry for getting so carried away my dear, but this idea is just too good for me to leave alone!! I would definitely love to read this if you decide to continue it. And if you want to talk to me about it more, please feel free. It’s such a fun verse to play in and I’d love to help contribute to it :)

[booksbookandmorebooks]

Homecoming - The Cinematography.

Hello my lovelies I’m back with my first post of the new year! i thought id start it off with something a little different. When looking at how much I upload and how sporadic my posts seem to be lately I started thinking about what else I do with my time (besides reading) and well, honestly my only other hobby is that I tend to binge watch a lot of shows. In the past month I have binged watched Alias Grace, The OA and shamefully quite a few more including the show I’m here to talk about today, homecoming. So, I thought why not incorporate my passion into my blog. So, from here on out this blog will not only be dedicated to books that I love it will also include my reviews on the recent shows I have been watching. I really hope you enjoy this little change up and enjoy my reviews.

So without further ado let’s get started!

This show is about a young woman known as Heidi (Julia Roberts) who we initially see harassed by a department of defence official. Who is extremely interested in the time she spent employed and head of the project formerly known as home coming. A facility described and branded as a a type of institute focused on helping former soldiers transition back to civilian life after their service and help them adjust. While jumping between the present day and a series of flashbacks we see our characters realise that not only have they been lying to the people around them they have also been lying to themselves and now is the time to face up to the truth and the repercussions of some very questionable choices.

Stats:

Title: Homecoming

Genre: Psychological thriller / Drama

Release date: 02.11.2018

No. of episodes / seasons: 1 Season – 10 Episodes

Episode duration: 25-30 minutes.

Main cast: Julia Roberts, Bobby Cannavale, Stephan James.

Rotten tomatoes rating: 98%

 So to start off with this show is not exactly your normal stero-typical show. If anything, the first half of episode one I was unsure if this was something I would actually enjoy. It all seemed a little too out there but I pushed through and once I had finished episode one I was hooked. The main issue I can see people having with it would be the odd shots and the odd pacing. These are one of a few topics I will be discussing and analysing below. While these factors can be a little daunting and seem a little pretentious, when you really look at them, they become so interesting to watch unfold. You can really let your imagination run with this series, it feels more like an art form in some senses than just a show. Instead of it being a throw away show that is trying to appear edgy, it genuinely provides the audience with this feeling of uneasy and eeriness throughout. This series not only stuck with me for the storyline and the shocking twists but also because of the intensity of emotions you feel when watching. When talking about this with a friend I realised that this show is more addictive due to the anticipation of what experimental shot or method we would experience next, more than overall enjoyment of the show.

 In this post I will mainly be talking about the methods ,themes and the many approaches the director and producers have used to create this show and how they in turn, translated to me personally.

One of the most common shots we see for the first half of the show are these downward angle shots, now im not massively into my media studies so there are most probably a fast amount of terminologies I am missing but bare with me. These shots tend to make you feel like you are watching an animal in a maze. You get to see the characters from a bird’s eye view and watch them wind their way around their surroundings. When watching this I couldn’t help but feel the characters, any characters involved in this method were puppets being watching and manipulated, Even the bigger characters who we initially believe to have power and control are being used. Almost like animals in a testing lab. This is confirmed for me when in the episode the camera pans out to reveal the design of the building our series mainly takes place in. It is a big building with huge celling to floor walls of glass. Almost like an observatory, furthering my theory of observation through testing, a theme we know towards the end of the series is very important to the story development.

Another very important feature in this series is the change in aspect ratio and how its used to differentiate the two time periods that the show is set in. (past and present) the use of this method while a little jarring at first (it had me checking the tv and the app when I watched it) is so clever because when jumping between two different time periods it is so easy to confuse the audience and risk the chance of the storylines becoming messy and convoluted but with this it was almost impossible not to follow. We see the present depicted with two black sections of either side of the screen and the past in full screen view. Now as I mentioned, this method while clever isn’t something that you would necessarily deem as clever. You may see it like I did at first, something there that has no real meaning, it is just to further the weird feeling this show creates, that is until episode eight. Contained in one scene that I won’t spoil for you; a particular character has a huge revelation and the director not only shows the severity and shocking nature of this through the use of facial expressions and music but the aspect ratio we have been used to seeing in the present is used to demonstrate the character being bought into the light. We see that in her moment the camera shot widens and the present is left in full screen mode. To symbolise that her character is no longer in the dark and she can finally see the bigger picture. Something that when it happened I had to take a minute to appreciate it. It blew my mind that how such a simple change can really impact the feeling that you have when watching a show like this.

While on the subject of time differences I want to also mention a more common method but one that proved just as effective. In the shots of the past the colours are all desaturated and have this sad melancholy feel to them which really do help show the vast dullness of our main characters present life. Especially when compared to the flashbacks. The bright lights, the white walls and open nature of the building our main character is working in, the fake over the top smiles everyone sports, the over helpfulness of Heidi when compared to the reclusive and reluctant (almost isolated) whisper of a person we now see. Simple yet, very very effective.

Now as I mentioned, after to talking to some friends that have watched this show the biggest problem most people seemed to share was the pacing. I often heard it referred to as an issue and while I can understand it from their point of view I have to very strongly disagree. This was not an issue for me, this show was not meant to be rushed. It was supposed to burn slowly and gradually to help you grow as a viewer alongside the characters. If this show was rushed the audience would most definitely feel robbed. A piece of art like this is not something to be watched flippantly in one sitting and be disregarded upon a pile of throw away trash tv. This is really something.

I feel the shows pacing is intentionally slow because it mirrors the story and the story telling method. The relationships are gradually built through therapy sessions, a method of help that is used to slowly help the victim. All those subtle sighs, glances and twitches that help define a character are lost if not handled with care and time. You’re not only watching these people, you’re growing with them. It’s a way to engage the audience without them knowing it. Hooking and drawing you in. it captivates you and on reflection once I finished this show, I was fascinated by how it managed to do such an amazing job at that.

Not only that, but at this pace you are provided with enough time to form your own opinions and feelings towards these people, their choices and their pasts, instead of being provided with a set narrative. This way your feelings are not dictated to you, you’re not presented with the black and white ideal of good and bad, in fact this show often tends to blur those lines. Making peoples seemingly bad decisions almost justifiable. We are provided with on numerous occasions scenarios that show not only the redeeming qualities of a person but their flaws and we are able to form our own views on them in our own time. Something that wouldn’t be possible without a slow burner.

I really could continue analysing this show because there are just so many amazing factors. From music to the close-up face shots or the intensity of the volume that changes so frequently but I will stop, I have to at some point. All my friends are bored of me talking this show up, so I suggest you go and watch it yourself. You can only learn so much from a review after all. But if you are looking for something that will leave you speechless and stay with you for weeks after, I can’t recommend this highly enough, if that’s not enough the amazing talent of Julia Roberts should at least tempt you a little. I really hope you enjoy the show and can start looking for your own explanations and feelings towards this alien methodology! Until next time have a great week!

[danyelle756games]

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[daresplaining]

Luke Cage Review

    We’re quickly (well... slowly?) learning that we are terrible at putting together reviews. With this in mind, we’re considering switching to doing audio analyses directly after the shows, as we did with Daredevil Season 2 (so stay tuned for an Iron Fist geek-out video in the next few days!). But for now, at long last, here are our collected thoughts on Luke Cage Season 1! 

    Luke Cage is fun. It’s brutal, and emotional, and intense, but after the low-lit grittiness of the two seasons of Daredevil and the psychological horror of Jessica Jones, Luke Cage stands out as a loud, strong, unabashed ode to the power of fighting for what’s right. While not perfect (after all, what is?) this show is a fitting adaptation of a landmark Marvel character whose moment in the live action spotlight was long overdue.         

Characters

Luke Cage

    Luke has the benefit of having been introduced in Jessica Jones, but it’s a whole other experience to see him star in his own show. Mike Colter does a fantastic job with the character, bringing emotion and charisma to Luke’s story. This version of Luke is quite different than his 616 counterpart. He’s a bit quieter and more thoughtful, more hesitant about his destiny, and lacking much of comics Luke’s characteristic aggressiveness. But this doesn’t detract from his story, and he's still recognizable as Luke Cage. His struggle to reinvent himself in the face of how society wants to present him and how his powers have impacted his life has always been at the core of Luke’s story. His journey from disgraced ex-con to superhero and the champion of a neighborhood is compellingly told and powerfully acted. 

    Like all of the other Netflix shows thus far, Luke’s backstory is significantly different than that of his comic book counterpart. Specifically, Luke is specified as having formerly been a cop and a Marine prior to his imprisonment. This adds a level of intrigue surrounding Luke’s origins that captures the curiousity of even well-versed comic-book fans. However, given the small amount of discussion that these differences were given in the show, and the huge impact they have on Luke as a character, it seems like they were added in just to add this intrigue and to set up for character development in a pending Season 2. While mysteries are fun, we still found the conspicuous hole in his backstory distracting, especially since the plot of the show focuses on his backstory so much. But these are minor complaints in the grand scheme of the show.   

    While we were sad about Luke’s return to jail, we also found it to be a nice piece of character development that was appropriate for the ending of Luke’s show. After what were potentially years of running, he finally must face his past. 

   A surprising, yet ultimately insubstantial plot point is Luke’s brief fling with Misty Knight. This is not the first time these shows have paired up characters without romantic history in the source material, and there is nothing wrong with doing so, but for a key meeting between two important characters, this choice has an odd lack of follow-through. There is no further development of this romance– it’s over almost as soon as it begins. It hints at Misty’s undercover work and skills at subterfuge, it generates some semi-humorous awkwardness between Luke and Misty when they next run into each other, but beyond that, it’s tough to see how their dynamic would have progressed any differently if they hadn’t met this way.

Misty Knight

   Despite our feelings about Luke’s brief fling with Misty, we are absolutely thrilled with her. Unlike Luke, she serves as a character who truly knows who she is and what she stands for---until she doesn’t. 616 Misty′s characterization as a dedicated cop with nerves of steel has been perfectly translated into the MCU. She represents the best intentions of the law, through which she fights to protect her neighborhood. Her strength throughout the beginning of the show makes her fall later on that much more powerful. The strength and nuance of Misty’s arc comes from the sudden revelation that she is not as fearless and unbreakable as she had seemed. Her presence as a good cop helps to complicate and examine the police-focused narrative of the show. In addition, her character arc both serves to strengthen Luke’s, and, potentially, to set her up for future appearances in The Defenders, and possibly other MCU appearances. 

    On a more petty note, we spent the entire show waiting for her arm to come off, only to be teased for it. Dang it! 

Claire Temple

    Claire, the perpetual crossover character, is back yet again, and as usual she adds a nice element of grounded humanity to all of the superheroics. Her character development over the course of these shows has, we feel, been handled really well, and her presence in Luke Cage adds some extra nuance to her continuing story. For the first time we learn a bit about her background. Knowing about Claire’s family (with the appearance of her mother, who was much less plot relevant than we had guessed) and the neighborhood where she grew up helps establish her as own character, rather than than an audience stand-in or Phil Coulson style obligatory cross-over character. Claire’s character development here is the strongest it’s ever been. Not only does she explicitly endorse superheroics for the first time in this show, she does so at risk of being arrested as Luke’s accomplice. Included, as well, is the fact that her experiences with superheroes have moved her to begin contemplating working with, as the show would say, “people with abilities” as a new career. Her future is still in question, but this adds fuel to the possibility that she may officially become the Night Nurse, thus placing her as a permanent fixture within the MCU with all kinds of continued crossover potential.

   However, we will say that bringing Stan Lee in to write this one line for her was a mistake:

    (Sheesh...)

Cottonmouth

   Cottonmouth embodies one of the show’s key underlying themes-- the impact of crime and inner-city violence on the children who grow up there. On the surface, he appears to be a typical gunrunner, pleased and confident with his life and his choices, and unwilling to listen to his cousin’s protestations about the dangers of living on the wrong side of the law. But his character is complicated by the glimpses into his past-- of a talented musician with big dreams who was dragged into a life of crime by his family. But at the same time, unlike Diamondback, he seeks control of Harlem because he genuinely loves the neighborhood and feels ownership of it. He sees crime as a necessary means to an end, and acknowledges that to stay afloat and to gain the power he needs to maintain a presence in his neighborhood, lines have to be crossed. As the show progresses and his complexities are revealed, he becomes less and less threatening of a villain. His insecurities and regrets and lack of foresight cause his world to crumble, until he is succeeded-- as it were-- by the much more capable Mariah.

    His relationship with Mariah is one of the most intriguing relationships of the show. They are both, objectively, antagonists, and their goals are the same, but their clashes over how to achieve those goals present an exploration of the complexity of life in the MCU’s Harlem. They care for each other as family members, and as two people who escaped a traumatic home life, and they are loyal to each other to a certain degree, but they both drag each other down as they attempt to negotiate their own paths toward making their mark on the neighborhood. 

Mariah Dillard

    Mariah feels new, taking on the unusual role of reluctant villain to mirror Luke’s journey as a reluctant hero. This makes her, in some ways, even more compelling than Cottonmouth. While Cornell has largely come to terms with the crime inherent in his life, Mariah fights it every step of the way, while simultaneously proving to be naturally suited to it. We root for her in her quest to find legitimate ways of enacting change and solving her problems, while enjoying her growth into a powerful force within Harlem’s underworld. By the end of the show she has morphed in a truly despicable person– and a worthy adversary for Luke all on her own, with a much more dangerous presence than  was ever attained by her comics counterpart.

Shades   

   Showrunner Cheo Hodari Coker has referred to this show as a “hip-hop Western”, and like most Westerns, it follows a clear, classic exploration of the hero’s journey. And there are some characters who are just plain archetypal. The most obvious example is Shades, who is transformed here from a typical low-level criminal (as he is in the comics) into a smooth-talking trickster figure who slides through the story with captivating, almost supernatural ease. His charisma and subtle power throughout the narrative make him fascinating to watch, and we can’t wait to see where he goes from here.

Diamondback

    While we’d assumed that Willis Stryker would be showing up, since he is such an integral character in 616 Luke’s origin story, we were not at all expecting him to be the formidable villain he is in this show. Next to Mariah’s reluctant villainy and Cottonmouth’s overconfident recklessness, Stryker is truly terrifying– someone whose ruthlessness and poise make him a believable threat for Luke, despite his lack of superpowers. He is one villain who benefits from a lack of moral complexity and reasonable motives, because his hate-driven violence and utter disregard for the life of anyone who stands in his way just serve to make him more frightening. The revelation that he is Luke’s half brother, and of all of the messy family politics tied into his and Luke’s past, is an inspired deviation from the source material, but we thought this particular plot point could have used more time and development. 

    While it’s always wonderful to see costumes from comics adapted into live action, Diamondback’s final look actually works against him. He is so terrifying previously that putting him in a costume actually makes him less scary. This wouldn’t have been as much of a problem if the outfit change didn’t happen right before his big, climactic fight with Luke. If anything, that’s moment when he should seem the most formidable. As it stands, the look of the costume directly counteracts the power boost it provides. The scene is particularly difficult to read because the actual characters poke fun at the costume too. Maybe it’s supposed to look a little goofy-- but this is not completely clear. 

    From a purely design perspective, however, it’s a great adaptation of the traditional Diamondback costume. It just isn’t integrated into the show particularly well. 

Stilt-Man

   Stilt-Man does not appear in this show. Where is Stilt-Man?

Pacing

    Luke Cage suffers from the typical problems present in the rest of the Netflix Marvel shows. It is very difficult to pace something that is essentially a thirteen-hour movie. As in the previous shows, this format results in slow periods in the middle, which lack enough momentum to carry the narrative tension forward. However, this show handles these pitfalls with noticeable finesse, with a very strong opening and a rapid-fire ending that manages to tie off a lot of loose ends without feeling too frenetic or jumbled. 

Writing/Tone

    All of these shows have done a phenomenal job of taking the source material, synthesizing the main components, and producing stories that still have the soul of the comics and yet go in very different directions. Luke Cage’s origin story is so rooted in the era in which it was written that it is a particularly impressive feat to see it adapted to suit a modern audience. The story is fresh and new and up-to-date, but it still has the tone and spirit of the early Luke Cage: Hero for Hire issues. (Despite the fact that, in this universe, Luke has no interest in being hired for his heroics.) It balances a loud, vibrant, often brutal narrative of a superhero finding his feet with the complexity of in-depth characterization and catchy writing.    

    What stands out far more than the writing, however, is the soundtrack. In fact, it’s practically its own character. This show’s musical team chose to craft music that not only works to enhance the tone of the scenes-- as soundtracks usually do-- but that also occasionally jumps out in front of the action. It is unsubtle and in-your-face, which makes it both highly memorable and also occasionally distracting. But it enhances the campy, retro, action-y feel of the show in a way that we feel, overall, works well alongside the tone of the narrative. 

    The succession of cameos by real-world musicians is a brilliant touch. This show is, alongside everything else, a love letter to African American history and the Harlem legacy, and highlighting a range of musical icons not only contributed to the show’s excellent soundtrack, but added a sense of authenticity to the world of the narrative. Method Man’s tribute, “Bulletproof Love,” is a particular highlight, in that it encompasses not only Marvel’s Harlem and the show itself, but also reaches out and connects this superhero narrative to current events and the real black community. It’s also just a really good song...

    This show is a celebration of Harlem, and of how the neighborhood both shapes and is shaped by the people who live there. Most of the major players in this show claim Harlem as their own-- even Luke, who in this universe is a newcomer to NYC. He embodies the neighborhood’s legacy of power and spirit, and takes on the role of its protector-- operating not from the shadows or rooftops, but out on the streets, shoulder-to-shoulder with the people he is protecting. With this in mind, his final fight with Willis Stryker is a perfect climax to the show. Luke, the hero of Harlem, battles Diamondback, the violent and opportunistic outsider, with the whole neighborhood watching. It is a personal victory for Luke, the end (for now) of his lifelong journey with Willis, but the most powerful aspect of the fight is its place within the context of the Harlem narrative as developed throughout show. It is a victory for the whole neighborhood, with everyone taking part in holding Luke up and empowering him as he has empowered them. 

    Power is, in fact, a main theme-- a nice callback to 616′s Luke’s superhero moniker. As “Power Man,” Luke is not only physically formidable, but the power of his convictions and his outsider perspective as well allow him to create key changes within Harlem. At the same time, he is someone searching for power-- an ex-con seeking to escape from his past, and trying to wrest power over his life back from the forces that have thrown it into turmoil. Pops is power transformed-- a former petty criminal who used physical force to get his way, who has since realized that the real power to influence the world comes from forming emotional connections. Mariah and Cottonmouth argue over how to gain true power over Harlem. Eventually, Mariah and Diamondback team up to sell power in the form of the Judas bullets. Misty’s big moment of personal upheaval comes from a loss of power. It’s a theme that works to stitch the narrative and characters together, without feeling forced or overly emphasized.   

   The show’s biggest weakness, in our opinion, comes from the introduction of the Judas bullets. This type of development was not a surprise; when you have a superhero protagonist with bulletproof skin, they still need to face some kind of personal threat to make their journey adequately dangerous. However, the writers may have raised the stakes a bit too high too soon. The first time Luke is shot with a Judas bullet, he ends up in critical condition, with a scattering of shrapnel lodged under his skin. This makes this new threat seem very, very dangerous indeed. If just one bullet caused so much damage, it hardly seems like he could survive a second. Diamondback even says so right before, indeed,  shooting Luke a second time.

  Yet somehow Luke survives. In fact, his condition does not seem to worsen at all after these additional deadly injuries. Despite the huge ordeal required for Claire and Burstein to pull the shrapnel out, it somehow feels too easy, given the level of danger and panic that came with the first bullet wound. 

Context

    As we already know, Luke Cage is meant to take place alongside the rest of the Netflix shows. As such, it’s only expected that it would have some crossover with them.

       Most obviously, we see this in Claire. While we've known since Daredevil Season 1 that Claire would be the token crossover in these series, it’s still always fun to guess when she’s going to pop up, and in what capacity.

   Turk continues to be a star player of the Netflix shows. His classic characterization as the goofy yet bewilderingly competent low-level bad guy has remained spot-on, and his new role as a cross-series character just adds to his entertainment value. His writing in Luke Cage is pitch-perfect: a threat to the interests of our heroes one minute, a tactless punching bag the next, while always maintaining that self-assured swagger that makes him the Turk Barrett we know and love.  

    With the revelation of how sketchy Dr. Burnstein (and Reva) were in the show, we are still confident that the IGH plotline from Jessica Jones is linked to Luke Cage, and will be  extended into The Defenders. The experiment that gave Luke his powers seems to have been, at least in part, connected to the creation of super soldiers-- with Reva as another key player. The narrative manages to add this in naturally, while continuing to pique our interest about it.      

    We also appreciate the occasional references that Mariah and Cottonmouth make to Wilson Fisk. It is easy to see hints of his influence everywhere, and while Cornell and Mariah sidestep any sense of being in cahoots with Fisk (which was a wise choice-- they need to be depicted as serious forces on their own) it makes sense that they would be hyper-aware of Fisk’s high-profile criminal empire having been dismantled. Because of the small scale of the setting (Harlem is, relatively speaking, not that far from Hell’s Kitchen), it only makes sense for all of the major players to be aware of each other. 

    Claire’s repeated insistences that she knows a great lawyer who can help Luke out of his legal difficulties is a great Daredevil callback. Time (and The Defenders) will tell whether she was referring to Matt or Foggy...

    While this show includes many references to the events of Jessica Jones, Luke’s traumatic experience with Kilgrave’s mind control is never explored.  While it is understandable that in Luke’s show, the focus would be on Luke’s current problems (thus not requiring viewers to have watched Jessica Jones) from a character perspective it seems like something he should still be working through and recovering from. But it’s not a discrepancy that really bothered us. 

     The Hammertech, Chitauri metal-based Judas bullets are an intriguing (if poorly handled, see above) addition to the Marvel universe as a whole. For one, they suggest that Hammertech has started to get its act together since Iron Man 2, and may become a valid threat once more. The Judas bullets are certainly going to be, in a post-Civil War MCU in which superheroes are starting to be seen as legitimate threats to public safety.