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rachelbethhines · 4 years ago

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Tangled Salt Marathon - You're Kidding Me

So we’ve finally come to the last of season two’s filler episodes. Let’s see if we can knock this one out real quick.

Summary: The front door of the mysterious seashell estate vanishes, trapping the group. They try to find another way out but find a spinning top whose magic regresses Cassandra and Lance into toddlers and Shorty into a baby. They’ve only have an hour to find the top and reverse the effects or the changes become permanent. Unfortunately neither of Rapunzel’s or Eugene’s parenting methods keep their now childish friends on task.

So Why Did No One Stand Watch Last Night?

They were all sleeping right next to the entrance, and after the run in with the mirror monsters, you would think that they would have taken turns standing watch.

But nope, the front door vanishes when no one was looking cause they don't have any foresight.

A Low Budget Doesn’t Excuse Filler

Like most of season two, this is yet another episode that adds very little to the overall story. It’s slightly better than the Return of Quaid or Curses, but not by much. I put it on the same level as The Forest of No Return, as I do like the mains’ development, but there’s really no reason why such episodes exist to begin with.

The meta reason for staying in certain places for three episodes, instead of only one or two, is because of budgetary reasons. The crew have to build new sets and models for every new location or person the cast comes across. This costs money to make, so the higher ups wanted to reuse assets. Which is understandable, but not an excuse for utilizing them poorly.

If you need to stay in one area or have characters reappear, then you need to give story reasons for that. Ones that tie back to the overall narrative and/or the mains’ character arcs.

The shell house and Matthews should be more important than what they are as they both have connections to the ultimate big bad of the series.Adria shouldn’t be wasted for a whole episode when she’s the only one driving the plot in season two and has limited appearances. Vardaros and its people shouldn’t be a one and done thing if you’re going to spend so much time setting them up. And there’s still one off episodes, locations, and characters who aren’t brought back and add nothing

Not only does this make for a weaker story, it also undermines the cost saving measures that you tried to implement to begin with.

This Isn’t Representation!

Get it?!

She’s a top!

She’s totally gay, but like not really, cause this can also be interpreted as a dominatrix joke, and there’s no other real indication of her orientation outside her like smiling at her best friend/crush/sister sometimes and keeping that rose her creepy ex-boyfriend gave her.

And don't give me any bullshit excuses about Disney not letting the crew make Cassandra canonly gay/bi.

The Owl House aired just this year, the same year as Tangled’s final season. Also Globby and Carl from Big Hero Six were both confirmed to be a couple on screen a month after this episode came out. Both shows would have been in development at the same time as Tangled was. Both would have been subject to the same regulations and restrictions while writing their stories.

It isn’t “Disney” that stopped the storyboard artists from having Cass be a confirmed lesbian, it’s Chris and Ben, the head writers themselves, who failed to write it into the story properly, if at all.

Chris is the one who made Raps and Cass “sisters”. Chris is the one who wouldn’t tell the crew about his ‘twists’. Chris is the one who had Cass crush on Andrew, even after he tried to kill her. Chris is the one who made Cassandra ‘straight’ and has since used gay baiting to keep her fanbase in his pocket.

Like I am really damn sick and tired of Casspunzel stans defending Chris on twitter, when he’s the very one who sunk thier ship to begin with. I’m also really fed up with certain fans trying to bully others for not accepting their “Cass is a lesbian” headcanons as fact because what the storyboarders say on twitter after the show is over with isn’t gospel and isn’t real rep.

I don’t care if you ship Cass with Raps or headcanon her as being gay. Ships and headcanons are great and can be a lot of fun. But fuck you if you ever try to shame people for not sharing your ships/headcanons. Not only is it biophobic and acephobic to insist that there’s only ever a binary option when it comes to orientation and shipping, but it also reinforces harmful stereotypes and tropes about people in the queer community.

Like, yes, I personally may be an introverted angry bitch who’s an LBGTQA member and activist, but that doesn’t mean that every introverted bitchy woman in media is a lesbian. What kind of message does that send people when that’s the only character archetype that’s given representation or is loudly proclaimed as ‘gay’ by the wider audience? Fuck that noise!

I Know Humor is Subjective but...WHY?

Why did we give the baby a beard? How does that logically work? Did anyone outside of the crew actually find this funny?

TTS has like this one out of touch dude throwing out jokes that don’t really land with the target audience. Fans have called it ‘boomer humor’ but it’s actually ‘Gen-X’ humor. Not only because Chris and Ben are Gen Xers but because this is the type of crap my older brother would find hilarious.

Gen Xers are between Boomers and Millennials and so their humor is this weird blend of gross out shock humor, ironic nihilism, and out of date stereotypes that are only mildly better than those of the previous generation before them. They’re the generation who gave us Beavis and Butthead, South Park, and Clerks.

That’s not a criticism of Gen X as a generation, but rather just an acknowledgment that they’re worlds away from the neo-dada absurdism, more socially conscious, and globalized humor of Gen Z.

So Why Is the Bad Guy Telling the Heroes How to Foil His Plans?

Like he not only tells them how to fix their problem and how long they got in order to do so, but he also informs them how it happened in the first place. This goes directly against his plans. Had he simply said nothing and stayed out sight, then Raps and Eugene would have been lost for the full hour and most likely not have saved everyone on time.

I like to headcanon that Mathews is just “that asshole” that loves to taunt and tease but in a that manner that gives him plausible deniability. He also may just be bored, since he’s a ghost trapped in one place all the time. Yet that still doesn’t change the fact that he shot himself in the foot here.

Raps and Young Cass’s Relationship Is the Same as Raps and Adult Cass’s, and That Is a Problem.

Condescending, manipulative, hypocritical, and bossy is the way Rapunzel treats everyone. She doesn’t understand the actual difference between a child and an adult. She only understands who she who she can and can’t boss around. And those people that she can’t place under her thumb are labeled antagonists by the show.

Nor does she actually care about what either kid Lance or kid Cass has to say. She’s just being proformative, and young Cass can see through that BS, which why her methods do not work. It’s not because she’s not ‘strict’ enough; it’s because she’s not being honest.

Meanwhile Child Cassandra is just as combative, rude, bullying, and entitled as Adult Cassandra. In season three she regresses even further and becomes more violent than before.

Unlike Rapunzel, Cassandra wasn’t trapped in a tower for 18 years with zero human contact outside of her abuser. She escaped that fate and was raised in a loving home. That doesn’t mean that there won't be scars, but I still expect her to be more mature than her seven year old self. Just because she’s whining about not being special enough at 24 instead of screaming about the floor being lava doesn’t mean that she’s still not throwing a temper tantrum.

Like I should not be seeing a replay/foreshadowing of their main conflict here. They aren’t children. They’re dynamic isn’t that of a mother and child. It’s not even a big sister looking out for a little sister type relationship. Its two immature women dragging innocent victims into their bitchy cat fight for dominance over the other.

If you want me to take their issues seriously then give them real stakes to disagree over, mature behavior that I can root for, and a resolvement that doesn’t reverse any potential development that they could have had.

Matthews Plan Makes Zero Sense

For starters, half the group being kids isn’t enough of a reason for Rapunzel to stay at the shell house. Even if the effects of the time top became permanent, then Raps and Eugene could just leave and take the kids with them. Either to finish the road trip, or go straight back to Corona. Not that there’s any real reason to get the Dark Kingdom anyways, nor is there a ticking clock stopping Raps from trying again later if she chose to.

Rapunzel also is not obligated to become anyone’s mother. If she took them back to Corona than Cap would undoubtedly raise Cassandra all over again, and Lance and Shorty could be adopted by someone else. Any of the pub thugs might take them or even perhaps the King and Queen since they missed out on raising their actual daughter. Though for my money I’d get Monty or Xavier to take them in. They seem the most mature and both are shown to be good with kids.

Then again Rapunzel has been shown twice now to not give a damn about abandoning orphans, so even the ‘dump them at an orphanage’ or ‘leave them alone in the woods to fend for themselves’ isn’t entirely off the table either. I wish I was joking, but I’m not. Sadly, only Eugene’s love for Lance might be the one thing to stop her from doing just so, and even that’s iffy.

As for the missing door from earlier, if that was all that was stopping them from leaving then the time top shenanigans were fully unnecessary altogether.

I Actually Like Eugene and Rapunzel’s Conflict Here; I Just Wish It Was In a Better Episode.

Each of their viewpoints stem from their upbringing.

Rapunzel is unique in that she was simultaneously emotionally abused and neglected while being physically spoiled. Especially once she found out that she was princess, where she was then handed nearly anything and everything she wanted. She doesn’t recognize that getting your every possible whim come true can be damaging. Nor does she have any comprehension of what living in poverty is like and how this many toys is wasteful to someone like Eugene who had so very little and stole to survive.

She does however associate limits, boundaries, and orders with abusive behavior because she’s been denied autonomy and respect her whole life. She’s never seen what healthy parenting looks like and how rules can be applied correctly.

To Rapunzel no orders is ‘freeing’ and ‘validation’ is all that is needed to get a child to listen to you. Which doesn’t work for her because she doesn’t understand that real communication is more than just giving a compliment now and then.

Meanwhile Eugene lacked any sort of anchor at all. He was left to his own devices at a young age and had no one to rely on for emotional needs and, after leaving the orphanage, no one to provide physical needs either.

It’s telling that he and Lance latched onto Quaid as the only authority figure in their life, despite Quaid never out right adopting them. He was the only sense of stability that they had who they could trust wouldn’t hurt them, despite being strict with them.

And now that Eugene has gotten older and is reformed, he can probably understand why Quaid was so harsh on him and Lance. Quaid probably did more to try and help them turn from a life crime than even Rapunzel did. Like meeting Rapunzel was the inciting incident that inspired Eugene to make that leap, but the groundwork was already laid out for him to do so elsewhere. Things like his good communication skills, respect and empathy of others, and understanding of boundaries had to be learned from somewhere, and if not from the Sheriff of Vardaros than who?

What I’m getting at is that, while Rapunzel rejects her parents methods but then fails to break her learned habits from them anyways, Eugene is the reverse. He’s come to embrace his mentor’s teachings, but he fails to implement them correctly because he’s not Quaid. Being authoritative isn’t his strong suit. It goes against his usual nature as the easy going person that he is and so any attempts to come across as forceful fail as they’re hollow.

Kids know authenticity and genuineness when they see it. The children reject Rapunzel because she’s not being real with them, yet they also reject Eugene cause he’s not being honest with himself.

It’s a complex and mature conflict. Neither person is fully right nor wrong, and only by learning from each other and adopting both methods can they achieve their goal.

TTS can be deep when it wants to be. There’s a good foundation here for mature themes and complex characterization. It’s just the series doesn’t ever commit to it.

Whatever personal drama going on here about two young adults trying to cope with their past traumas and how that affects their current life and future goals is completely lost in the magical goofy antics and low stakes situation. Even the stuff about Eugene and his relationship with Quaid is reduced to nothing but a one off joke rather than being genuinely explored as a point of development.

Imagine how much more powerful things would have been if Angry and Red were brought along on the trip. If this argument was over them and whether or not they should adopt the two girls themselves or consider other options. That would be something with real weight. Something with a choice that had actual consequences attached to it. Something that would permanently affect all involved parties. Something that wouldn’t make the two leads look like outright dicks for abandoning two children for a second damn time in a row.

You Have 70 Feet of Magical, Indestructible Hair! Why Are You Afraid of a Bunch of Dogs!?

You’ve fought off giant monsters, killer robots, and supernatural beings with magical powers. What do you mean you can’t hold off a pack of guard dogs while busting down a stuck door? Why is Eugene the shield for everyone and not the actual unbreakable hair that you use as a shield all the damn time? And Why did we have to rely on Shorty again to be the deus ex machina of the episode?

At this point the writers should have just made him Demantius instead of the monkey.

What Happened To This New Dream? Where Did It Go In Season Three?

Most fans who do enjoy season two happen to be big New Dream fans as this is by far and away the best season for them. I’ll admit that the series, up to this point, had me actively liking them together, despite being originally lukewarm to the pairing in the movie.

Their conflicts were for the the most part mature and real. They learned from one another equally and had open communication when it didn't involve ‘marriage is a trap’ BS. Things, like compromising on differentiating future goals, honesty and communication, and making time for one another and extending effort into a relationship while being true to yourself are all relatable issues.

Even today's episode featured the topic of having kids and parenting. Which is a discussion you absolutely need to have with your prospective spouse before entering into any long term commitments and signing any legal contracts. For real, I’ve seen marriages fall apart because they didn’t agree on whether or not they wanted children.

I don’t know what went down between writing season two and season three, but things quickly took a sharp turn away from this dynamic and nosedived into a pit of uncomfortable bullying and gross sexist implications here after.

Matthews Plan Goes Against Zhan Tiri’s Plan

Yeah so Matthews is one of Zhan Tiri’s disciples, but he apparently doesn’t know of her goals/plans, cause she needs Rapunzel and company to reach the moonstone, not stay stuck here.

The meta reason for this that the Zhan Tiri’s story was altered at the last minute and the writers failed to make sure there was any sort of consistency between what they already set up and where they actually wound to actually taking the plot.

The in universe reason is that Zhan Tiri is an impotent moron, but that’s not what the writers were going for so it’s a fail.

Conclusion

I like the New Dream stuff, and Matthews is at least entertaining despite being incompetent. Everything else about the episode is ‘meh’ tho.

#tangled #rapunzel's tangled adventure #tangled the series #anti-tangled #anti-rapunzel #anti-cassandra #eugene

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soveryanon · 6 years ago

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Reviewing time for MAG135 /o/

- Fun fact! The verb “extinguish” has appeared as a word in all three of the Daedalus statements, in relation to the three different powers involved:

(MAG057, Carter Chilcott) “There’s nothing, nothing but empty, uncaring void lacing dead worlds and dead stars all-together like a tapestry of lonely meaninglessness. Humans have existed for the smallest sliver of a fraction of a moment in the existence of the universe, and we will be extinguished just as quickly. And when we are at last gone forever, into the quiet emptiness of death, there will be nothing left but the cold universe. And nothing shall mark our passing because there is nothing to do so.”

(MAG106, Jan Kilbride) “Most people can’t even properly appreciate the size of our own planet, seeing it only in crudely rendered diagrams or maps; but compared to us… the planet is immense. More than large enough for the swell of humanity to grow and… ultimately extinguish itself. [SCOFF] Yet compared to the wider universe… it isn’t even a noticeable speck.”

(MAG135) ELIAS: I don’t know the details. Ny-Ålesund is a stronghold of The Dark, meaning I can’t see inside. I… believe they call it “The Extinguished Sun”, though that’s as much as I know.

- I love how The Dark still feels like… that one fear which should be super stereotypical (Cult Of Darkness.) and yet always manages to get under your skin anyway, and is that one thing that we’re apparently never managing to get rid of. Julia and Trevor butchered Darvish in Summer 2010? No problem. Things happened in March-to-May 2015 at the Hither Green Dissenters Chapel, apparently derailing or temporarily neutralising The Dark’s activities? Ahaha, we’ll manage. Maxwell Rayner was killed by Section 31 officers on Elias’s Personal Tip in February 2017? IT’S FINE. WE CAN STILL DO SOMETHING. I had Questions about how The Dark was connected with Gertrude’s death, I’m delighted that we’ll be digging into their activities again, since Jon isn’t sure what happened – isn’t even sure whether Gertrude had managed to neutralise them! I wonder if the matter of March/May 2015 as the date of Gertrude’s death will be explained, or if I should finally put that to rest as a simple mistake.

… Interestingly, following the pattern of solar eclipses: the total solar eclipse over Ny-Ålesund that Basira had pinned down actually took place on 20th March 2015, which is… neither when Mark Bilham went into the Hither Green Dissenters Chapel (March 11th), neither when Gertrude officially died (March 15th or May 15th), but is around the time she should have died according to Oliver’s dreams. In real life, the next solar eclipse (partial) in Ny-Ålesund happened on August 11th 2018, so that could be the planned date for the upcoming half-baked new ritual attempt indeed… but the date is a bit weird for the overall pacing of season 4. We’re in… beginning of April? 2018, and usually getting a statement a week (more or less). So that doesn’t easily coincide with a midseason finale, nor with the season finale? Unless Team Archive hurries to get to Svalbard very soon, in the hope of neutralising The Dark before August 2018. (Funny bit: there was a partial solar eclipse in South America on February 15th 2018… the day Oliver visited Jon and he woke up from his “coma”.)

I have no idea: there are so many things to keep track of, currently (Peter’s own plans? The Extinction’s threat? Elias’s intentions regarding The Watcher’s Crown? The Web’s schemes and intentions for Jon? Now, The Dark’s activities?) – I… do like that it indeed gives us a feeling that, outside of pure narrative… all the Fears have their own agenda, they’re not just queuing up for the Archives team to take care of them? They’re not dependant on them, they carry on Doing Their Things and bringing their own terrors? And it’s… very bittersweet to think that it will probably always be like this.

- I’m so mad about the fact that Manuela’s story makes… so much sense with how Jan had described her:

(MAG106, Jan Kilbride) “Manuela Dominguez was quite a big name in certain areas of the physics community. Or at least she had been; I hadn’t heard of any work she’d done for a good few years and, as I said I’m more on the engineering side of things so… it wasn’t really something I kept up with in detail. While she was happy to talk, Manuela apparently didn’t like to discuss her professional life on Earth, or the specifics of the research she was doing on the Daedalus. Like Chilcott, her research was kept entirely separate from mine, and while we spent plenty of time together, I never did figure out exactly what it was. Something to do with lasers, I think.”

I never ever thought for one second that it might have been “it’s because she’s part of the cult, Cass, and has been for the past years” aND YET IT MAKES SO MUCH SENSE AND SEEMS SO OBVIOUS IN RETROSPECT… I’m so mad, I love this series and it keeps making me feel like a Fool. (But with love. Cackling at my face, but with love.) Another thing that gets a bit… “funny” in retrospect:

(MAG106, Jan Kilbride) “It was the sense of a presence, of there being something out there… something that wasn’t the Earth, and it was getting closer… When it started, I tried to talk to Manuela about it, but she seemed to think I was talking about aliens and quickly changed the subject. […] And that cry came again; so loud, and long, and deep that I couldn’t not be the sound of a living thing – so vast and so ancient that thinking about it made me weep. And I screamed in turn. My hands touched the rail at the exact moment that Manuela came to check on me. I was moving again. She asked if I was alright, though she… clearly had no interest in the answer. She said she’d felt the station shake, bu–ut when I pressed, she… claimed she hadn’t heard anything. Her eyes were red and I noticed for the first time that the tips of her fingers were burned. I… don’t know why I asked her, really. I knew then that she hadn’t heard it – that she would never hear it. And I felt completely alone. I remember I almost envied Chilcott, because at least he had known what he was signing up for.”

…………………… She probably assumed that Jan had heard her “battery” screaming, uh, hence the quick denial.

- WHY DO WE KEEP GETTING OPPORTUNITIES TO GET SAD ABOUT JAN KILBRIDE??? There was already something very… sensitive and heart-wrenching in his statement from MAG106, in his thought and overall tone (I’m apparently very weak to characters pulling the ~I would have liked to still be able to think that ignorance meant safety~ shtick ;;), even more with Melanie’s narration – she was absolutely perfect for that one, with her voice slightly cracking and the overall impression of throat tightening… And I was already sad for him with that statement alone! Even sadder when thinking he was probably the man with beautiful eyes seen with Gertrude during The Buried’s ritual! And season 4 keeps making me sad about him, godsdamnit, first with Jon mentioning how he ended, and now with:

(MAG135, Manuela Dominguez) “Either way, it was clear my two fellow astronauts were patsies, sent up there to suffer. I almost felt bad for them, but it was in most ways a relief to know I wouldn’t need to worry about them interfering with my own project. […] the closest I ever came to discovery was when Kilbride expressed confusion at the rate that our supplies were diminishing. It was really only the two of us anyway, with Chilcott sealed away, having his own little breakdown. And Jan was always a bit of an idiot, so ready to believe anyone’s lies… But I suppose I don’t need to tell you that – do I, Gertrude?”

(The insidiousness was creepy, sure, but come on, Dark people, we’re so used to Voyeurs all the time, you spilling that You Know What Gertrude Did With Jan doesn’t feel mind-blowingly threatening compared to the others <3)

I wonder if we’ll hear again about the Daedalus. Melanie had noticed that Jan’s statement felt like it ended abruptly (presumably, Gertrude was told he was here and interrupted him to have a chat?) – so there could be another half lying around, or a live-statement with Gertrude, or… I don’t know. But now that we know that there was a 4th person on the station (WHICH WAS A “HOLY ARCEUS” MOMENT), and given that Manuela mentioned that she wasn’t sure of the Lukases&the Fairchilds’ own motives + that… the person who had taken care of the calculation must have been aware of the extra body, but she didn’t say it was Rayner’s team taking care of that aspect, it still feels like there might have been another story against the Currently Official Story (once again):

(MAG135, Manuela Dominguez) “I don’t know how he convinced Fairchild and the Lukases to help finance the project – a life as long as his is evidently very good for one’s finances, but even so, space exploration is a whole other magnitude of expenditure. I don’t entirely know if they were working on rituals of their own, or simply pushing the boundaries of their own fears, their masters. […] Exactly how the launch was arranged, I couldn’t tell you, but I assume the calculations must have been done by one of ours. Otherwise, well… weight is very important when planning a launch, and it could hardly have escaped their notice that there were four people in that rocket.”

I’m very appreciative of the way the Daedalus had been handled in the canon, slowly taking “shape”. We first had Carter Chilcott’s testimony, who… couldn’t tell us a lot about the life aboard, except for his own experience, since he was precisely isolated; we then had Jan, who was more in control but still unaware of what was at work there; and now, we’re getting Manuela, who turned out to have been totally aware of the aim of the mission. This could be the end of the story, or there could be yet more to put things into perspective (ha), we’ll see!

- I don’t know which shade of queer Manuela was/is but: definitely queer (“Anything they did not understand became unnatural and I found myself crossing that line from an early age. Although strangely, out of everything I was, it was always my desire to pursue a scientific career that they railed against with the most energy.”). AND SO AWFUL HOLY HECK… I’m glad that Daisy wasn’t in the room with Jon because his tone was so into it that… he might have freaked her out a bit? It was terrifying, so… deceptively sweet while digging the knife deep into your flesh…

- One thing that gets me a lot (in a “HHHHHhhHHHH” way) is when… avatars talk about their patrons? The reverence, the worship in their words? And Manuela was especially “HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH” is that regard: yes, absolutely terrible, and did you hear that drive and that passion? (It’s hot/aesthetically pleasing, is what I want to say.)

I still have… the impression, in a way, that the Daedalus never actually happened in the TMA universe; Melanie had mentioned that feeling in MAG106, though she pointed out the existence of pictures of the crew’s return to Earth, but somehow… I can’t help but feel like indeed, it was too out of our realm to truly have happened, and that it was all staged by another entity/by the Lukases&the Fairchilds, to pretend it had happened when actually the staff had stayed on Earth all along, and that they organised the press releases about it? But it’s also awfully fitting that yes, Fears experiments sound so impossible that it can’t have been happening. If there is no twist, it seems like avatars are drawing powers from their patrons proportionally to the faith they have in them?

(MAG135, Manuela Dominguez) “Scientifically, it was nonsense of course. Dark energy and the like don’t work like that, not even remotely. But that wasn’t important. What mattered was that it felt like science, and that was all I needed. To do my work, to create the Black Star would need a parody, an aping mockery of science. But it would also need the deepest of darknesses. When I told Maxwell what I actually needed, he told me such a thing was impossible, but I insisted. And so he began his work on the Daedalus.

[…] My experiments continued largely uninterrupted, pushing the boundaries of light, darkness and fear. It was dangerous work and more than once, I got too close to the light and it almost destroyed me. But it didn’t. I could regale you with the technical terms or scientific disciplines I played with and rendered meaningless, but in the end all you actually need to know is that I succeeded. A tiny, terrible sun of the pitchest black, shining beautiful Darkness all around it.”

Like a twisted “believe in fairies” – things getting the power you give them, similarly to symbols? Sarah had, back in the days, said the Trophy Room Taxidermy Shop got its powers from people’s interactions with it (MAG096: “What is the significance of this place?” “Nothing, except what people give it. But they give it a lot, make it a place of power for us.”)

If the experiment did indeed happen in space: there had been hypotheses that the “falling satellite debris” which killed Oliver had been the Daedalus, and I had dismissed it because the dates didn’t match at all… but I’m a stupid potato and: of course the crew returned to Earth through a shuttle, and this was explicitly stated by Manuela. So it could still have been the Daedalus going full-on Icarus.

… But on the other hand: while the name “Daedalus” finally takes a bit more meaning with this episode (the story about ~getting too close to the sun~), Daedalus was actually the prudent one, who remained wary of the sun and was clever enough to always escape the murder attempts. Icarus went too close to the sun (and drowned in the sea, leaving Daedalus alone). Daedalus… gave his name to the maze, and brings corridors to minds. (But the “Daedalus project” was an actual, historical one, which never got completed in our world… Rah, I don’t know! The fact that we learned that Manuela had actually been full-on avatar in the space station, and not an innocent scientist victim of The Dark, makes me paranoid about another… twist regarding the station x’))

We’ve had another reference to Icarus in the canon, though: “George Icarus” was the name under which Leitner was buried, as Tim discovered in MAG114. Paid by the Institute. It fits Leitner very well but… given the ties between “Daedalus” and “Icarus”, it feels like a very weird coincidence – so did you get involved in the space project in one way or another, Elias… *squints*)

- Regarding the 4th person on the Daedalus, I’ve been grabbing my face a lot and screaming in silence about the sheer HORROR of suddenly learning that… there was someone else aboard, with Manuela very casually dehumanizing him at every possible turn (“one unlucky nyctophobe”, “I never learned his name, never needed to; he was simply a battery”, “The final experiment had left my battery in such a state that no amount of sound-proofing could dampen the screams, and I was glad of the peace and quiet.”). I wonder if it’s someone we’ve already seen mentioned somewhere…? The only potential one (in my mind) would be Peter “Pete” Gordo, who worked at the Wakefield Prison in MAG052 – Exceptional Risk, and had touched the Dark creature when it came to butcher Robert Montauk. Both the (awful) statement-giver and Jon had highlighted that he had vanished shortly after, in 2002, so he was probably a “half-finished meal” too…

Since Manuela… didn’t mention killing him but implied that she had left him behind (alone) in the station when she went back to Earth with the other two, I wonder if he might have turned into Something Else, or if he plainly died of exhaustion / lack of oxygen / starvation / Fear (alone, in the dark empty infinite space). Conceptually, it could be a good tie-in if he had somehow become an avatar of Extinction, but I don’t know how that could fit with his primal fear and what happened to him. One thing I have in mind, though: Daedalus was the inventor who helped Pasiphae copulate with the bull, in the myth, and the Minotaur wouldn’t have been conceived without it. So… Daedalus contributed to Creating The Monster (before working to contain it). Not sure it could be relevant, but just in case… there is that.

(- Extra-funny thing about Icarus/Daedalus……………… remember how Peter had called Jon in MAG134? A “bull-headed Archivist”. Congrats, Jon! It might have been involuntary (IS IT.) but you’re officially the Monster In The Labyrinth, right now, according to the Lonely creepy boat captain.)

(And again: considering that it turned out Martin was the one who gave Jon the connection to the outside that helped pull him out of the coffin, does that make Martin an Ariadne.)

- So, we got a new name for a ritual (The Dark is ~The Extinguished Sun~) but we also got the notion of a “stronghold” mentioned by Elias:

(MAG135) ELIAS: I don’t know the details. Ny-Ålesund is a stronghold of The Dark, meaning I can’t see inside.

=> Breekon had described the Institute as “The Eye’s Pedestal” (MAG128, “That was the first time we saw what would become this place, The Eye’s Pedestal.”), too. The question is still pending for Point Nemo (a Vast one? An End one?) and Hill Top Road (neutral ground or Web? Desolation? Spiral?). For the Lonely, Carter Chilcott had very specific dreams reminiscent of the graveyard from Naomi’s statement and of the Tundra’s journeys:

(MAG057, Carter Chilcott) “The hallucination stopped. I did not even get the comfort of company in my delusions, though at some point, the line between dreaming and reality seemed to blur. I’d be sleeping, strapped into my bed in the middle of the void, or at the same time floating through ancient graveyards or the open, empty sea. They weren’t hallucinations though, they were dreams – even if the cold seem to seep out of them, and into the bones of me.”

And there were the places where ritual attempts took place – the Wax Museum for The Stranger (though the Taxidermy Shop was also “a place of power” for them), that Elias claimed to be unable to access (and Jon did feel weird with no conception of time there); the town of Bucoda, for The Buried; Sannikov Land, for The Spiral; the Gnostic church near Istanbul for The Flesh (and potentially the Hither Green Dissenters Chapel for The Dark). Given how these places got… severely destroyed after their rituals got thwarted, it sounds like they were only been temporary places to build up power? Ny-Ålesund and the plain… sea are a bit more permanent than those punctual places, though? (Please, Team Archive, don’t go bombing the whole of Ny-Ålesund.)

- If we’re going to be digging a bit more into Dark-related activities… will we get a confirmation of what the fuck was happening re:Maxwell Rayner? Did he just have a remarkably long lifetime thanks to “feeding” his god, like Simon Fairchild, since we know that he was already around in the XIXth century and Manuela herself made a reference to the fact he had been around for very long (MAG135: “a life as long as his is evidently very good for one’s finances”)? I know the favourite fantheory on this one is that he’d been body-hopping but I’ve never been convinced since we didn’t really have descriptions of him changing, except that he was often Kind Of Old. There… has indeed been a suspicious trend of him targeting or getting a child around him: an unnamed one in 1864 (MAG098, Doctor Algernon Moss: “He is led around by a young Arabian lad of ten or eleven, though the ease with which he carries himself makes me suspect this assistance is an affectation rather than necessity.”); in 1995, Julia was attacked by the creature when she was 12; Basira and the other officers were sent against Rayner after he had kidnapped Callum Brodie, twelve years old, in January 2017 (MAG073, Basira: “Yeah. Callum Brodie. Twelve… twelve years old. Disappeared from his home in Dalston three weeks ago.”) – but it’s not necessarily to get a new body…? I always had the impression that it could plainly be because… well, the fear of the Dark is more prominent in children? So they could perhaps feed Dark-people better?

- I mostly wonder if (/hope that) we will get a bit more information about the relationship between Robert Montauk and Maxwell Rayner, in the process! Because… honestly, except for the fact that Robert’s wife apparently belonged to the People’s Church of the Divine Host (since she had the pendant) and that Robert killed around 40 people between 1990 and 1995 that may or may not have all been related to the cult, there are a loooot of things I’m still uncertain about? And Jon still had Questions about it too:

(MAG052) ARCHIVIST: So what is this thing that seems to have stalked Robert Montauk through so much of his life? And what’s its connection to Rayner? Were they summoning it, containing it, worshipping it? Whatever the case, it seems as though Montauk earned its anger. I feel it might be worthwhile getting a few more torches for the Archive.

(MAG074) ARCHIVIST: Well, that seems to close the book on Maxwell Rayner. Maybe the whole People’s Church of the Divine Host. I can’t help but feel I’ve got the last chapter of a story and I don’t even know the title. At least I hope it’s the last chapter. I still can’t find much about the company Outer Bay Shipping. Looks like a shell corporation, but tracking corporate ownership is not something I’m skilled at.

* Was Julia’s mother a runaway from the cult, or an active participant? It sounded to be the latter since Julia mentioned that she used to have friends who… didn’t inquire on her disappearance (MAG009: “apparently no-one noticed she was gone, which was strange as I have vague memories of her having friends over a lot before she vanished.”) Had she left her pendant to trap Julia too? Did she disappear to protect Julia? Did she willingly get spirited away? Actually, Robert told Julia she was “gone” but since Robert’s last victim had disappeared from his previous life a few years before his murder (MAG009, Archivist: “Christopher Lorne was a member of the church and his family hadn’t heard from him in the six years prior to his murder.”)… could it be possible that Julia’s mother is actually… still alive… and very Invested in the cult…

* Robert apparently did these things in order to protect Julia from… the cult? The creature? Maxwell? Julia did highlight that protecting her was one of his concerns (MAG009: “He whispered to me then, when he thought I was asleep, promised to protect me, to make sure that ‘it wouldn’t get me too’.”), but she didn’t really come out of the story acknowledging that it was what he was trying to achieve, I felt – not even to renounce his methods or success. Even when we got her live-statement in MAG109, she presented his actions as unrelated to her. But what was Robert doing exactly, and why…?

* Julia highlighted that they didn’t get any money problems (MAG009: “it was only after his arrest that I discovered that had been the point he’d resigned his job on the police force. I don’t know where the money came from after that but we always seemed to have enough.”) sooo was Maxwell Rayner paying for Robert’s… services?

* Robert and Rayner apparently hated each other by the time of Robert’s imprisonment, when Rayner visited him in Wakefield Prison in late March 2002, a few months before getting butchered by The Dark’s creature (… or one of them):

(MAG052, Phillip Brown) “It was an older guy, I’d guess late 50s, wearing a well-tailored black suit and an expression of disgust. When I brought Montauk in, his face fell, and he went very pale. I’d helped folks beat Robert Montauk a dozen times or more, but I had never seen him look scared. He sat down opposite the old man, and they looked each other in the eye through the thick glass. I think the visitor might have been blind. His eyes were cloudy, but he had no cane or dog. And it didn’t seem to affect how he looked at Montauk. Neither of them spoke. The seconds turned into minutes and still they didn’t say a word. They just sat there staring. Given where I work, it’s really something to be able to say that I’ve never seen two people who hated each other as much as Robert Montauk and that old man.

[…] I was tense, ready to fight off Montauk if he decided to make a move, but instead, a soft voice came from out of the darkness. I didn’t recognise it, but I thought it sounded like it came from the old man, and I don’t think he was talking to me. [STATIC:] “You didn’t think you could kill it for long, did you?” [/STATIC] That’s what it said. Then Pete got the door open, and a shaft of light poured in from the corridor. I could once again see Montauk and the old man sat there, motionless. It didn’t seem like they’d moved an inch, though as I went to take Montauk back to his cell, I noticed that he was crying.”

But before that, Rayner had apparently sent Robert after his next targets (MAG009, Julia: “He asked me to tell my father that it was Detective Rayner on the line with a new case for him.”), so? Unless the last one was someone that Robert went after without Rayner’s approval? Christopher Lorne, Robert’s last victim, was the only identified one, and was confirmed to have belonged to the People’s Church of the Divine Host. Was he an exception, or were all the previous victims from the cult too? In that case, why the heck was Maxwell Rayner getting them killed…? Or were they typical sacrifices in the cult? What happened, for Rayner to have come to loathe Robert, although he previous appeared to be giving him instructions…?

* Unless… was the man who phoned the Montauk’s house and pretended to be “officer Rayner” actually Maxwell Rayner, or someone making fun of him? Julia mentioned that the voice was old (fitting Rayner, forever a bit old) but… that it had an accent (MAG009: “It was a breathy voice, like that of an old man, and at the time I decided he had a German accent, though, when I was young a lot of different nationalities and accents were lumped together in my mind under the label ‘German’.”). If we know one thing from Maxwell Rayner’s voice, at least during the XIXth century, it’s precisely… that it just sounded unremarkable in English (MAG098: “Both speak perfect English, with no accent I can recognise”) – though the statement also dealt with German folklore and Rayner Knew about it, so who knows. Same person, different perceptions? Body-hopping after all? “Maxwell Rayner” being a mantle and a role more than the same person/soul?

- tl;dr Given how The Dark has been a huge part of Julia’s story and there is still room for Questions regarding Robert Montauk… if the Archival staff is planning to go after the remnant of the cult, I really hope that it will be Julia’s cue to come back… Although it has been stated that she couldn’t handle the idea of travelling by boat for very long.

- Re: Manuela’s DRIVE, how fitting that this was also an episode in which Elias casually mentioned his own ~patron~ (I’m really glad that Peter and Elias are now using that word too! It had, so far, mostly been used by other people to refer to avatars’ gods, not avatars themselves presenting their gods this way). Elias rarely mentions The Eye unprompted, and there was something interesting in the way the plural “you” from Manuela’s statement, referring to Gertrude and Elias, became that implied “we” from Elias, referring to him and… Jon, nowadays.

(MAG135) ELIAS: Fine. Consider it a test – things are… coming, things that will need Jon to be far stronger and more willing to use his connection to our patron.

Not the first time Elias amalgamated Jon and himself in the same ~we~ (MAG092: “It doesn’t please your master?” “Our master, Jon.”) but it was especially noticeable since Manuela had totally reduced the relevant Eye agents to the Archivist and the Head of the Institute, too. I don’t know how to explain that but… I felt like there was a bit of an echo, between the fact that Manuela had her own “we” (“even with the loss of Darvish, we will still be victorious”) with clearly identified, more powerful figures (Maxwell, Darvish, Manuela herself), and the… Eye people. There is mostly Elias and Jon, they’re the ones with powers, and as Manuela is describing The Dark’s ritual coming closer at the time of her statement, I feel like the shadow of the Watcher’s Crown is silently looming in a corner?

- As usual: e v e r y t h i n g about Elias. It’s been twice in a row now that Peter appears in an episode only for Elias to do the same in the very next episode and it feels like a competition between the Two Bastards to claim the Throne. Or a friendly competition between Alasdair Stuart and Ben Meredith to see who will manage to make people laughscream the most.

Anyway, non-exhaustive bullet list of Elias being… Elias:

* Do you think he will manage to give ONE GOOD PERFORMANCE REVIEW ONE DAY. I mean, how did he handle Melanie, who worked the hardest of all the assistants in the beginning of season 3, who read the most statements after Martin, who was given work by Jon, and all despite the lack of Archival training&direction (as she called Elias out on)?

(MAG106) ELIAS: And… how are you finding it? MELANIE: Is that a joke? ELIAS: Aside from the obvious, I mean. MELANIE: Oh well, I… I suppose it’s been… unstructured. Without Jon around, and with you being sat up here lurking, there’s not been a lot of useful direction. ELIAS: I see. MELANIE: I mean, you pick out a statement occasionally, and Jon might phone in to ask after some… scrap of information, but to be honest, no one’s even really told me what an “archival assistant” is actually supposed to do.

[A FEW EVIL SPEECHES AND PSYCHOLOGICAL TORTURE SESSIONS LATER]

MELANIE: [BROKEN SOBS] ELIAS: Anyway. Aside from all of that, I’d say your performance has been… satisfactory.

Meanwhile, Jon, who managed to snap out of the chaos that was The Unknowing, saw through Nikola, managed to compel Tim back to awareness enough for Tim to use the detonator…

(MAG135) ELIAS: Consider it a test – things are… coming, things that will need Jon to be far stronger and more willing to use his connection to our patron. His performance during The Unknowing was… disappointing.

… was “disappointing”. THAT’S NOT WHAT YOU SAID IN MAG120, THOUGH, YOU JERK:

(MAG120) ELIAS: You’re doing well, Jon. I only hope you can continue your growth without my guidance.

Insert the “My job here is done.” “But you didn’t do anything…?” meme here.

Elias, just face it: you’re a shit boss, a shit manager, a shit leader, absolutely terrible when it comes to actually giving direction, they’re not responsible for this!! :w

* Well, at the same time, calm your Jon!boner Elias:

(MAG135) BASIRA: Then you messed up. Way he tells it, he doesn’t know how he got out of there. ELIAS: But he did. And his powers were no small part of it. Even if he required some assistance, they were what saved him. And he’s still achieved what no one – mortal, monster, or anything in-between – has ever been able to. He climbed out of The Buried. […] If Gertrude had a plan for this one, I haven’t found it, which is why Jon needs to be closer to The Eye. If anyone can stop what’s happening, he can. See through the darkness, etcetera.

I had wondered whether Jon wasn’t beginning to get a biiit more powerful than was to Elias’s taste (since he mentioned to Basira that he has given instructions to prevent Jon from visiting him if Jon was inclined to it in MAG127, and Jon demonstrated in MAG128 how he’s now able to… extract statements from unwilling subjects, plus the overall droplets of knowledge), but it sounds like it’s actually going according to plan. Elias had already mentioned that Jon was… supposed to grow his own powers and be the one to take care of The Unknowing, back in MAG102, but here, Elias came across as especially powerless compared to Jon (“I don’t know the details. Ny-Ålesund is a stronghold of The Dark, meaning I can’t see inside.”) and… not even trying to pretend anymore that He Has An Important Role On His Own. Jon is the Archivist, we knooow, we’ve been told, but what is Elias’s function in this mess, then…?

* I’m not sure that there is anything more behind the “detective” title he’s giving to Basira since, as mentioned another time… it was something Georgie initially used (MAG122: “You’re the detective.”) and Elias uses it precisely because Basira pointed out that it wasn’t her title?

(MAG135) ELIAS: Nice to see you again, detective. BASIRA: Still not a detective. Never was. ELIAS: Oh, but everyone else seems to be getting a title these days, why shouldn’t you– BASIRA: [SLAMS HANDS ON THE TABLE] Cut the shit! […] ELIAS: I rather feel the real shame would be letting the entire world fall into Darkness because of a single person’s wounded pride. Detective. The stakes are far too high for that kind of… indulgence. […] ELIAS: Good luck. Detective.

It sounds mostly, to me, like a cat staring you RIGHT IN THE EYES while slowly pushing your favourite mug off the table? Doing it just to piss her off? Elias never used “Archivist” with Jon either (except in statement-mode in MAG120, but he went back to “Jon” when addressing him directly through the tape right after the static had faded), so I’m not sure there is particular… substance to it. On the one hand, it would sound like the perfect title for a Hunter-Beholding activity (tailing someone or something and learning about their privacy, potentially cumulating both fears of being hunted and exposed). On the other hand, I can’t help but feel like it could be another jab at Martin, who had mentioned his own lack of special pet name:

(MAG092) ELIAS: You think you’re the only police officer eager to do violence and call it justice? No, there are plenty of other rabid dogs out there, mad with the Hunt.

(MAG116) ELIAS: Oh, and, Jon, technically, I can’t stop you, but I would heavily advise against bringing any… rogue… elements. MARTIN: You can just say Tim.

(MAG118) MARTIN: Oh. That’s it, isn’t it! Martin’s just acting out! I mean, Daisy’s a rabid dog, and Melanie’s a potential killer; Tim’s a… a, a rogue element, but Martin? Oh, Martin’s just, just acting out! He’ll have a cry, and a lie-down, and feel much better!

(And once again: Elias did mention that Jon had received ~assistance~ to get out of the coffin… but managed to not name Martin directly, pfftttr.)

* Even more rattling chain sounds every time Elias opens his mouth => he’s using his hands a l o t when talking, uh. Gesturing person. VERY dramatic person. Is it a prerequisite for working at the Institute, was that the reason Elias chose Jon as the next Archivist.

* Oooh, Elias.

(MAG135) BASIRA: [SLAMS HANDS ON THE TABLE] Cut the shit! What are you playing at? ELIAS: I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.

When you’re playing at too many things at the same time that you can honestly not answer that question.

* Overall: I LIVE FOR ALL THE ELIAS-BASIRA EXCHANGES THIS SEASON… In season 1 and 2, they probably would have had very civil and cordial discussions but… beginning season 3, yes, Elias had begun to Let It Out way more (was it costing him that much to hold off and to appear proper and respectable? … or did the role just become Free Ben Estate.) and it’s even worse now. He’s so bratty and petty, and Basira had always been so straight-to-the-point and no-bullshit (except when it comes to office gossip) that it’s delightful and feels like she has to handle a spoiled brat while not being paid enough for this.

(MAG135) BASIRA: If you’re lying about this– ELIAS: You’ll kill me? [HUFF] I can hardly wait. [STEPS DEPARTING]

eLIAS, THAT’S LOW (the thing about kill-me-and-you’re-all-dying still stands, that’s precisely why they chose to get him arrested) AND YOU HAVE NO PRIDE YOURSELF.

* Though I am also very mad that Elias confirmed that His Plan regarding Basira’s investigations… was to get her out, because she’s Jon’s impulse-control.

(MAG135) ELIAS: Would you simply believe I wanted you and Daisy reunited? BASIRA: No. ELIAS: Fine.

I LOVE BASIRA SO M U C H…

Elias… called Basira out on her “pride” (“I rather feel the real shame would be letting the entire world fall into Darkness because of a single person’s wounded pride. Detective.”), and I’m worried that he might be spot-on on this one, like he was with Melanie and Tim. Though he’s currently nurturing Basira’s frustrations – sending her all over the globe before basically admitting that she couldn’t have done anything relevant herself? Now talking her down? Insisting that Jon is their best chance, apparently not taking her into consideration at all except as a potential messenger? Offering an “idea” that turned out to have been manipulation, and now giving new instructions while highlighting that she’s in no position to refuse? Either he’s still awfully bad when it comes to hurting people and not expecting them to get back at you, either he’s Compensating Hard for the prison time, either he’s trying to foster harsh reactions from Basira (and it won’t help her to warm up to Jon if Elias keeps presenting Jon as their most reliable chance ;;).

- I am HYSTERICAL over the fact that we’re finally getting another bit of something related to Elias’s backstory and that it’s that he was apparently acquainted with MAXWELL RAYNER:

(MAG135, Manuela Dominguez) “I come to you with a warning. And an offer. When you read this, I would consider it a great favour if you could share my words with the Head of your Institute. Tell him that Maxwell Rayner sends his regards and offers… sanctuary. A time of holy Darkness is at hand, when The Eye will close forever, and in the spirit of the friendship they once shared, he offers an opportunity – to surrender. Forsake the Ceaseless Watcher; abandon your position, and you shall be spared in the Blind World to come. In the spirit of reconciliation, and to convince you of our sincerity… I offer my story. Much as it may pain me to feed the sick voyeur that lurks in this place.

[…] That’s all I really came here to say! To let you know we had succeeded. And to make your boss an offer on behalf of Maxwell. […] So by all means, do your worst. Or prostrate yourself, both of you, before the Forever Blind – and perhaps you might be spared. Maxwell and I await your decision, with keen interest.”

ELIAS……………………

And nothing says more than “(ex)friendship” than confirming that you gave a tip to Section 31 to ensure they would go after and get rid of your old ~~friend~~, uh:

(MAG073) ARCHIVIST: […] Oddly enough, all I can think about is how did the police know where Rayner was keeping the boy? Basira didn’t seem to know, and the Church clearly wasn’t expecting the police to arrive. With a few exceptions, Rayner managed to stay off the grid for two decades. How did they find him now? Someone must have known what was happening and tipped them off. And I don’t think it was anyone inside that building.

(MAG135) ELIAS: You thought the final death of Maxwell Rayner might have sufficiently derailed them? Yes, that was my hope too, but alas it would seem not. BASIRA: Maxwell… You… You called in that tip, sent us out to their warehouse. ELIAS: And now I’m sending you out again.

(I’m so glad that it was confirmed!)

Until now, almost everything we had about Elias’s… life outside of the Institute was the Infamous Bits about His Official Backstory (which directly contradicted the small mention from MAG029 that he was a filing clerk at the Institute in 1972 – or at least, highlighted that uhoh, something doesn’t match here and that’s a twenty-years difference, the staff should have noticed):

(MAG049) ARCHIVIST: Supplemental. Elias Bouchard is a difficult man to pin down, certainly since he became head of the Institute in 1996 […]. It was a remarkably fast climb to the top, as from what I can find, it looks like he only joined the Institute five years before, in 1991, working in the Artefact Storage. […] And yet, everything I found out about his life before the Institute seems… an ill fit with the austere man I know. He apparently graduated with a Third from Christ Church’s College in PPE, and I found an old gossip column in the student newspaper that – sure well – that mentioned him. If I’m not reading too much into it, the implication seems to be that he was… something of a… pothead [CHUCKLES]. Was he… like that when he first came to work here…?

If this information is accurate: the time of Elias’s studies and his starting at the Institute would match the time-period during which the People’s Church of the Divine Host were officially active (MAG009: “a small cult that grew around the defrocked Pentecostal minister Maxwell Rayner in London during the late eighties and early nineties. […] Mr. Rayner himself disappeared from public view sometime in 1994 and the group fragmented shortly afterwards.”). How the heck did Elias apparently meet him, though? And mostly: … how could Rayner even have The Audacity to offer for them to just… resign? Manuela mentioned that she supposed “there is also an element of provocation here as well” and YOU DON’T SAY…

Wild hypotheses about the Rayner-Elias relationship, not in any particular order of Seriousness:

* Since Manuela only referred to “the Head of the Institute”, without naming Elias, and she referred to the fact that Rayner had been around for very long (we have a statement mentioning him from 1864): it’s an Old Thing, whether or not “Elias” is actually Jonah Magnus. (At the same time… given The Show that Elias is currently putting on, he really doesn’t read to me as being potentially 200+y old? He sounds way too immature and petty and frustrated to be this old?)

* Okay, so amongst the Eye-folks, there seems to be a trend of “x all the Entities”. Gertrude: thwarting all the Entities’ rituals. Jon: getting whumped by all the Entities and having scars to Show. Martin, man of 16 Fears: being courted by all the Entities. Elias: bedding all the Entities??

* Elias was a member of the cult during his Wild Days, before swinging another way when it began to crumble and/or before getting a Revelation at the Institute?

- … It’s also possible that the things about “friendship” were actually awfully sarcastic and cruel in their own ways. We have had the example of Mike Crew who was pursued by an entity and managed to escape it by giving himself fully to another, it… could have been something like that with Elias, too? Escaping the Dark by throwing himself into Beholding?

One thing I find striking is that, quite often, when we learned about the Spooky backstory of people who are currently tied to the Institute, Beholding wasn’t exactly the main Fear that they had encountered – mostly, they witnessed someone around them getting taken by a Fear, and were spectators who didn’t try (or manage) to stop it and… pressed on to know what was happening:

(MAG081) ARCHIVIST: And of course, in my heart, I knew that no-one else could have possibly seen anything as horrible as I had. Well, maybe I could have named one person, but… I watched him disappear forever. […] I had no idea what was going on, not really, but I was somehow desperate to get that book back. He was much bigger than me, though, so all I could do was follow as he walked down alleys and side streets. […] A strange conviction that, if I had been able to face that thing myself, maybe I could have saved him. Stopped it. Ridiculous, of course, I was eight.

(MAG101) MICHAEL: When he was in school, [Michael Shelley] lost a friend to something like me. His friend was named Ryan, but those in power simply called him schizophrenic. I don’t know if he was, but it doesn’t matter. He was so dreadfully afraid his world wasn’t real that to make it so was almost nothing. Michael was there when he was taken; he never got over what he saw. Or didn’t see. After much searching and despair, it drove him into the waiting arms of the Institute, where he met Gertrude Robinson.

(MAG104) TIM: I always tell myself there was some force there. Something that held me in place and meant that all I could do was watch. But sometimes when I think back, I remember how my legs shook, and maybe I could move. … Maybe I’m just a coward.

(Tim was literally a SPECTATOR in a theatre… Plus, add Basira who witnessed one colleague be taken by Diego Molina during her first Section 31’d case, and another colleague get killed by Natalie Ennis; Daisy who saw her colleague be taken by the coffin during her first Section 31’d case; Melanie… who didn’t lose anyone close to her in the process but still witnessed the strange things happening to “Sarah”, and a ghost getting butchered in the train.)

Survivor’s bias, but still noticeable – does Beholding put a claim on almost everyone who survived a Spooky encounter, maybe?

So I don’t know, really, but somethingsomething could the Dark actually have been the experience that originally pushed Elias towards the Institute…? (Jon had assumed, and seemed to have been validated in that regard, that Elias had trouble Watching in the tunnels, which are notoriously very dark. Perhaps the best way to insure Elias would shut the heck up would be to… plainly put a blindfold on him, and he would turn catatonic.)

- Meanwhile: Peter was mentioned for the first time in MAG033, appeared for the first time in episode MAG100. He has had a speaking presence in five episodes since then. He has been an absolute chatterbox when it comes to Elias – there has been no episode in which he didn’t mention him. Elias has been around since MAG017, has had a speaking presence in… eight? episodes since Peter appeared. And still. Has made. No mention. Whatsoever. Of. Any. “Peter Lukas”. Elias………………

(- Assuming that they do know each other, given that Elias said that:

(MAG135) ELIAS: Have you ever seen the Aurora borealis? It’s lovely this time of year. It would be a shame to lose them.

… Did he see them while on The Tundra? Romantikku.)

- Elias managed to not even mention Martin when describing that Jon had ~received help~ to get out of the coffin, and I want to believe that he’s still bitter about his arrest. Though… I really got the feeling, with MAG134 and how Martin described it, that it was The Web and… interestingly, Elias didn’t seem as wary of what happened as Peter.

So either it was actually Beholding guiding Martin there, either it gives some credentials to the idea that Elias had been collaborating or tolerating The Web at the Institute for a long while? There is also that strange connection between Jon and Martin: the fact that Martin just knew that Jon was alive (MAG088, Martin: “It’s the not knowing, you know? I mean, Jon’s still alive. Not sure why, but I’m sure of that. But Sasha, I…”) + the “DIG” from the same episode’s statement, read by Martin, creeping into Jon’s dreams (MAG120). So still no certainties about it but… there is something.

- I… am… very… wary… of the way Elias is OH SO VERY CONVENIENTLY pushing in the direction of Jon’s own uncertainty.

(MAG135) ARCHIVIST: I mean, the Sun’s still there so I assume they failed. Unless they’re still… waiting to attempt it. That’s not the sort of statement you give… four years before you try to actually… ! … Or is it… The timeframes on these, er, “attempts”, the–these rituals, well… they seem variable, to say the least. When I try to think about it, uh– […] [SIGH] I’ll keep digging. If there is another ritual upcoming, I’ll need all the information I can get on it. I can’t believe Gertrude didn’t have a plan for it. I hope I’m just being over-cautious, that it’s already long since dealt with, but… we’ll see. […] I can’t afford to be just living one day at a time, I need… a plan. But I don’t even know what I’m trying to achieve… And no one… no one wants to tell me. Hm. [SIGH] End recording.

(MAG135) ELIAS: I have been observing a recent increase in people and supplies being moved to the small town of Ny-Ålesund, in Svalbard. An increase which I believe may be linked to a rather desperate attempt, by the People’s Church of the Divine Host, to perform a crude ritual of their own. To bring their… “Mr. Pitch”… into the world. […] I don’t know the details. Ny-Ålesund is a stronghold of The Dark, meaning I can’t see inside. I… believe they call it “The Extinguished Sun”, though that’s as much as I know. If Gertrude had a plan for this one, I haven’t found it, which is why Jon needs to be closer to The Eye. If anyone can stop what’s happening, he can. See through the darkness, etcetera. […] Feel free to do your own research to confirm what I’m telling you. Just don’t take too long.

It… it sounds way too much like throwing Jon a bone to ensure that he will get a Dark scar/experience, since Jon had been unable to Know whether Gertrude had managed to stop them or not. It doesn’t feel like Elias is taking this threat too seriously (compare it to the way he had handled The Unknowing?!), but more that he’s pretty confident that they won’t manage anyway and that he can… totally afford to be totally shitty about it since, anyway, he knows that Jon and the others will get worried and will get invested because they can’t afford to risk allowing another ritual to succeed? I find it hard to believe that The Dark is currently any threat but I totally understand that just in case, yes, the Archive Team would feel like they must intervene.

… and with The Lonely (and The Extinction), the only physical scars/marks that Jon is still missing? Are from The Dark. He’s never experienced it directly either and… catapulting him over to Svalbard sounds like the IDEAL opportunity for it, uh. Elias didn’t explicitly say that stopping The Dark was why he needed Jon to get stronger – there were two separate things, he implied causality but… didn’t explicitly say that it was the case so. Suspicious. Of course he would need Jon stronger for The Eye’s ritual, ultimately, after all…?

… But another thing that makes me flip out? IS THAT ELIAS IS NOW FACTORING IN THAT JON CARES FOR THE EXTENDED ARCHIVE TEAM:

(MAG092) ELIAS: You may believe yourself to have friends, to have confidantes, but in the end, all they are, is something for you to watch, to know, and ultimately to discard.

(MAG135) ELIAS: […] His performance during The Unknowing was… disappointing. I needed a way to force him to harness his ability more acutely than he had before. The coffin was a useful tool; Daisy an adequate bait.

………………… and yes, Jon will probably get a new injury on the way: he’ll get mauled by one of the Dark creatures in best case scenario, he could lose his eyes at worst (… does he even need them nowadays. I mean, YES it would be heart-breaking but. It sounds like One Of These Things very likely to happen to him.)… but I’m more worried about Basira.

Because if Elias is now factoring in that to push Jon further, you have to use the fact that he cares, Ny-Ålesund sounds like a Big Danger for BASIRA.

She was there when Maxwell Rayner was killed.

The only other witnesses were police officers (all Section 31’d nowadays). She didn’t kill Rayner herself but. But. I do not trust Elias one second to not spread (or have already spread) misleading rumours letting Dark cultists think that Basira had been the one to kill Maxwell Rayner. Jon had noticed people wearing the People’s Church pendants outside (MAG123) and we still don’t know why they’re hanging around so close to the Institute but really… I can’t help but feel like if they’re targeting someone, it’s Basira, and not Jon.

- About Jon’s feeling regarding the way the other staff members look at him…

(MAG135) ARCHIVIST: I don’t… like interacting with the rest of the Institute these days. The way they look at me, I– … I don’t know. I don’t know what they’ve heard, what the rumours going around are, but… they have definitely heard something…! [SIGH] And they can’t wait until they don’t have to talk to me anymore. Can’t honestly say I blame them, none of this is easy. Everyone’s just trying to get through as best they can. Living one day at a time.

I’m not sure of what is happening, so:

* Is there indeed something noticeable in Jon nowadays? A gaze a bit too intense, an overall aura, something that makes you think “he’s spooky” without being able to pinpoint how? Too many eyes? Daisy was in the room when he read MAG133’s statement, I still feel like if anyone would be able to tell… it would be her.

* Alternatively, it… could also be an effect of the Lonely, again, since Jon had mentioned feeling isolated/lonely and… he’s very prone to feeling this as soon as he’s physically alone. It could just be that Jon feels like he can’t connect and that nobody wants to talk to him, while people are just… behaving towards him normally, but the Lonely is warping his perception.

* Alternatively: did Peter spread rumours on him through memos.

* Alternatively… oh, Jon… there could be so many reasons for people to not want to get involved with you Just In Case… Objectively: the Archives were attacked by Prentiss’s worms in Summer 2016. Jon was a mess for the following six months, before a body was discovered in the Archives and Sasha disappeared; Jon was on the run and the prime suspect. He came back and was on and off for a few months… before Tim died in an explosion in the Wax Museum alongside him, and Jon was hospitalised. And now he’s back. He means trouble, he means danger and, yes, people thought that Tim was having a breakdown when he was ranting about what was actually happening (as Martin told Jon in MAG102) but… Tim was popular. Tim used to be social, chatting with students and acting as relay between them and Jon (when they noticed errors in MAG033)… and Tim died.

Even Tim aside, there was the matter of Elias’s arrest and… Elias looked like he was actually well-liked by the staff? He was invested in the Institute’s life:

(MAG098) MELANIE: Uh, Martin? Have you seen Elias? MARTIN: Oh, uh… no. But Tuesday lunch he normally meets with the Library staff, I think?

And Rosie was chill with him (you don’t go “Yep, will do” at a boss you fear…). It’s possible that people resented Jon for Elias’s arrest and/or thought that Jon had framed him (which. to be honest.)? There are so many reasons for people to just… be wary of him, indeed…

- Jon’s voice was… something, at the beginning of MAG135. Sulky, tired, crushed? He reminded me of how he had introduced MAG129’s statement right after his encounter with Martin (clearly… unwell and plain sad); could have been caused by what he recounted regarding his interactions with the rest of the Institute, or by the content of the statement itself (it… wasn’t great news and Jon had no certainty about a possible positive outcome), but I wonder if it mightn’t be that reading statements left by Avatars is more taxing, since they’re more involved with the Fears? Does it feed Beholding a bit too much? He was very tired after Jane Prentiss’s; he collapsed after Breekon’s; he was clearly not fine with Manuela’s here. The only exception I can think of is MAG074 – Fatigue, which left him exhausted despite not apparently being (as far as we know) from an avatar?

- Raise your hand if Jon keeps slowly breaking your heart into small pieces when he has to tell himself, again and again, that he has to focus and that he can’t save everyone…

(MAG132) ARCHIVIST: I… heard someone. He was begging for me to save him. Said he couldn’t breathe. … I can barely breathe. I couldn’t find him. But I am… n–not here for him. I don’t even know him.

(MAG135) ARCHIVIST: At least, the coffin’s gone. I gave Artefact Storage some very specific instructions, and they’ve got it solidly sealed away. … Is locking it up the right thing to do? There are other people in there. And Daisy and I got out, but– … No, I, uh… I can’t think about that. Even if I could somehow be sure of recreating our escape, I–I can’t save everyone that’s been taken. I–It’s not my job to try, I– And I can’t spend another three days in there, I just… I need to let it go.

(But I’m still worried that this could be… how Gertrude started out, too. At first focusing on people around her and on the missions ahead, before gradually coming to thinking that the others were necessarily sacrifices for the Greater Good. Though in Jon’s case: he’s been… very consistently upset and sad for victims overall. So right now, he’s encouragingly… totally unlike Gertrude. Caring so much.)

- Bring as many torches as you can, once again. And your Web lighter, Jon? What happened to that one since the end of season 3 ;;

(… They don’t even need to go to Svalbard, actually, since there was still the matter of St. Paul’s Church in West Hackney, from MAG063, though Jon hadn’t managed to find any connection with the People’s Church of the Divine Host but… it was clearly a Dark creature lurking there? And the statement was from 2014.)

- If Team Archive goes to Norway in a group expedition trip… I’m picturing the door of the Archives, closed. Jon having left a note warning people that they’ll be away for a week or two, the Archives will be closed during that time. Scribble from Daisy underneath: “If we don’t die.” (Helen having added “Of fun!”, before adding something else about this door being closed, but people can still knock if they need a door, she’d do her bestest.) Melanie put a message encouraging to NOT take a job here if they happen to hire new staff after their disappearances in ~dark conditions~. Basira tried to salvage the memo with a mention about contacting the police with a mention of Section 31 if they failed. Martin passing by, one day, and losing it because pETER, WHAT DID YOU ALLOW TO HAPPEN AGAIN, YOU SAID THEY WOULD BE SAFE–

- Elias said the words “SVALBARD” and “AURORA BOREALIS” in an episode about “DARK MATTER”, so my heart is screaming and seeing this as His Dark Materials representation. Come on, the Archives crew are millennials, they have read the trilogy, right right right? :w

… Well, maybe not Jon, who probably didn’t manage to finish the first volume and/or gave up on the second one when he realized that Will’s cat wouldn’t be the main protagonist. (Maybe he secretly stanned Lyra a bit for her tendency to just run away from the College. And also panserbjørne. He would stan The Bears.) Sasha’s first dream job was to be a witch because Serafina was DANG COOL, with becoming an aeronaut coming in close second; cue Heated Bi Debates with Tim, because his tiny bi heart had been awakened through other options (Lord Asriel? Terrible, but hot!! Marisa Coulter? Terrible but hella hot!!). Basira got her lesbian awakening with Mary – smart clever scientist who went Fuck Injustice? Sign her up. Melanie loved Will, loved WILL’S KNIFE, and also loved to read about bears savagely murdering each other (oh no, sheer horror if she ever finds out she had that in common with Jon!). Helen might need to have the story told to her but she goes “!! I can open doors and Windows too! :D”. Georgie loved the technology and the Gallivespians communicating through Lodestone resonators (… actually, Jon probably made her think about the Gallivespians. A lot). … Aza mentioned to me that “ahah, Martin must have projected so hard on Will” and I hate her, it was supposed to be all fun headcanons but oh no now it’s awfully sad (=> Will’s mother being sick and needing his help! Not being reliable, but it doesn’t matter, she loves him! And turns out that Will’s dad had never abandoned them, not exactly, and that he had always loved them all very much!) (YEAH NOW IT’S SUPER SAD WHEN THINKING ABOUT MARTIN PROJECTING.)

(Let’s compensate the Sad by thinking about Jon and the assistants going on a boat trip to Norway, and NOTHING BAD HAPPENING, they’ll manage to neutralise the Dark’s feeble attempt and nobody will die or be gravely injured or traumatised by anything :| So they get to enjoy the trip, even if it’s probably on the Tundra and Jon is seething because still no sign of Peter Lukas anywhere, Martin is there though mostly inaccessible (… all alone on the boat to fuel it?), but Jon still managed to grab him at some point to have Meaningful Discussions in the cold of the deck, at night, when they’re undignifiedly bundled up in layers and layers of down jackets, Martin being especially starry-eyed at the starry sky because as he had mentioned in MAG113, he never got to travel much, and he’s getting Something Nice for once even if it’s when on their way to probably die a dark death – but they don’t and it stays something nice :[)

(What do you mean, I slept 2h30 last night and worked overtime today and I’m surviving thanks to my 7th coffee.)

MAG136’s title is out and AAAAAAAAAAAAH???? WEB??? WEB??? I want to think that a twist could be at work here (The Corruption and The Desolation ought to be offended, tfw still no episode almost halfway into season 4 :w) but it screams WEB, it screams especially strongly SHE, SHE, THE WIFE… Though Annabelle was “the story-spinner” and this is another title altogether. On the one hand, Jon has been repeatedly lamenting over his overall lack of direction, so it could be Her Cue to go see him in person or send him someone who survived her… but on the other hand mmmm, too soon for that maybe? Could also be something about Raymond Fielding, perhaps? (Or twist and it’s not Web.) (… second-meaning could be about so many people… Peter? Elias (ha, he wished.)? Annabelle?)

#mag135 #long post/#tma liveblog #the magnus archives #tma season 4

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tespuco · 5 years ago

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PotC Liveblog: Dead Man’s Chest

I’d been looking forward to rewatching DMC for some time. It was the movie that canonized my OTP and inspired so many amazing Sparrabeth fics. I fondly recalled seeing it in theaters with my family, my eyes and shipper heart growing bigger and wider with every subtext-laden appearance of Jack’s compass. I remembered feeling personally betrayed by Elizabeth’s death-kiss, like the writers had deliberately buoyed my hopes only to ruthlessly crush them. Unlike CotBP, I had only seen DMC once before, and I couldn’t wait to appreciate the complicated Jack/Elizabeth dynamic with more mature eyes.

Boy, was I disappointed. Not by the Sparrabeth, thank the gods, but by literally everything else.

Is it just me or was this movie composed of a bunch of standalone scenes and set pieces strung together? Did they bring in Tim Burton just to direct the visuals of the interrupted wedding scene? Why does the Turkish prison sequence look like the opening cutscene to a high fantasy RPG videogame with the brightness setting turned down to zero?

OK I laughed at Jack popping out of the coffin and using a femur as a paddle, but I’m confused about everything else

Oh look, the crew’s on the verge of mutiny again, and this time it is Jack’s fault

Listen, I have Ted Elliott’s compass meta tattooed on my heart, but in retrospect the “Why is all the rum gone?” scene was probably too subtle. The audience doesn’t even know at this point how the compass is supposed to work. Maybe if they had the balls to actually include the deleted Sparrabeth scenes in CotBP, Jack’s emotional turmoil wouldn’t have seemed so opaque!

Still, a character being Vexed about their affections/feelings and doing a poor job of managing that vexation is my idea of high romance

(and both Jack and Elizabeth are quite vexed with each other indeed)

I CANNOT believe I had to sit through an uninterrupted half hour of racist filler that does absolutely fuck-all to advance the plot while ticking at least four boxes on my postcolonial bingo card what the fucking fuck

Let’s tally the cinematic sins: unfunny physical comedy in a style that would’ve been more suited to animation; indigenous cannibals speaking in unrealistic, buffoonish gibberish; said cannibals worshiping our hero (and later a dog) as a deity; and worst of all--

All the brown men that Gibbs hired as extras additional crew for the Black Pearl in DMC were put into a separate cage from the recurring white characters from CotBP (btw Anamaria is absent without even a throwaway line of explanation) because apparently even barbaric islanders know and practice segregation

And so segregated, the crew enters the stupidest, most contrived rat race up a cliffside with each other that ends with the brown people’s cage falling into the ravine THEREBY GETTING RID OF ALL THE CHARACTERS OF COLOR IN ONE FELL SWOOP

Also egregious racism aside, I’m put off by the film’s rather cavalier attitude towards gratuitous loss of life? Idk I feel like in the midst of all the action and adventure CotBP knew how to handle death and violence with the appropriate modicum of gravity and horror

Meanwhile on the island Gibbs is just like “oiya we’re standing in cages built from the bones of our former shipmates ha ha”

As for Jack - Jack has yet to save a cat or anything else besides his own skin, so he’s rapidly losing the goodwill he accumulated in the first film

holy shit yet another Elizabeth Swann-related realization about my sexual awakening: her look as a cross-dressing stowaway - pretty, delicate features in a boyish, flat-chested, slender form - is literally my sexuality

She’s literally pulling the strings of all the men on that ship! What a puppet-master queen

Tia Dalma’s interest in Will and the “touch of destiny” line is an interesting bit of foreshadowing that doesn’t get any payoff in this film. DMC and AWE have been criticized for being impossible to watch as standalone films, but I think there’s something to be said for a universe that strives for internal continuity and demands more than a casual investment in its proceedings (a related but distinct model from the MCU)

If you gave me half a reason to I would ship Jack Sparrow with anybody and everybody. Look at the flirtatious lines and looks he exchanges with Tia Dalma!! Give me that story! (Actually, artaxastra did, twice: once in her standalone Creole!Jack origin story, And All of Them True, and once again in Gods and Heroes, a Jack/Calypso interlude in her Outlaws and Inlaws ‘verse)

Tia Dalma’s acceptance (and release) of Jack’s payment for her services tells me two things about her that I really like: (1) she’s like a magpie that collects interesting miscellany (witty tricksters, cunning pirate lords, undead monkeys). and (2) she’s not interested in caging creatures (the foreshadowing!!)

FINALLY WE GET SOME JACK/ELIZABETH INTERACTION

God bless Keira’s face and acting choices!! The chemistry!! All the little smiles and smirks they share!!

How doth she look at thee? Let me count all the ways: her amused, tentatively credulous smile at Jack’s storytelling and posturing over a magical compass and chest, while Norrington scoffs disbelievingly in the background; her having to bite her lips and walk away before Jack notices her giddiness because she literally cannot handle their flirting; her little laugh as he gently rebuffs the idea that he’s a good man

Also “I have faith in you. Both of you,” were her parting words to Will and here she gets a chance to tell Jack in person yay

Their little dance of “persuasion” is hot and all (Jack literally looks like he has to bite back a groan and whimper), but I’m really here for the banter (“Friendly?” / “Decidedly not.”); they get each other, and, under the right conditions, can communicate so effortlessly

“Why doesn’t your compass work?” - alright so ofc I love the legendary “curiosity” exchange, but I’m so confused by the abrupt transition in their conversation here? Like why didn’t she follow through and tug on that line of inquiry?? The “Because you and I are alike” line that follows makes no logical sense in context (ETA: I guess it could suggest that Elizabeth already knows why the compass doesn't work for him, because he's torn between doing the right thing and the selfish thing... But at this point she doesn't suspect him of lying to her, so...idek)

“You’d never put me in a position that would compromise my honor” - my god what a TEASE my queer heart

Oh, Norrington, what’s happened to you?? What happened to serving others, not just himself?? :(( It kinda confuses me that he goes on about the “dark side of ambition” and the “promise of redemption” when he’s the one who voluntarily resigned from his post...

Norrington carrying both shovels while Jack just poses prettily though lol

JACK’S COMPASS FINALLY WORKS FOR HIM BECAUSE THE TWO THINGS HE WANTS MOST IN THE WORLD--THE CHEST AND ELIZABETH--ARE IN THE SAME PLACE AND HE KNOWS IT

idk I guess some people find the three-way swordfighting scene hilarious but I’m with Elizabeth on this one: men are stupid

ugh this script makes no sense

I’m so fucking confused by the narrative logic here: if Jones is dead, there’s no one to call off the Kraken?? But isn’t Jones the one calling the Kraken in the first place, to settle Jack’s debt? So if they killed Jones, wouldn’t the debt be null and void? NO JONES, NO KRAKEN, DUUUH.

OK but Jack is really unlikable in this film, last-minute “heroic” acts notwithstanding. Give me fix-it fics please

I mean it’s rather telling that by the time Jack returns to the Pearl there are only enough survivors to fill a single longboat. Oh yes he “saved them all” - the few that were left!!

This script has more holes in it than the Pearl does right now: everyone unquestioningly follows Will’s orders like he’s the captain (what happened to the dork who shouted, “Aye! Avast!”?? And there’s no evidence that since his engagement post-CotBP he’s practiced any sailing)

I mean it’s like no one but Elizabeth even noticed Jack was gone; the moment he comes back Gibbs chirps, “Captain, orders?” as if he never left. This coward just abandoned you all!!!

“It’s only a ship, mate.” - This is actually just the saddest line, and I’m glad Elizabeth was there to witness it because if there’s one thing she took away from their fireside conversation in CotBP it’s that the Black Pearl is more than a ship to Jack; what it really is is freedom, and here Jack’s set to lose both

And that’s what Elizabeth--not the Kraken--definitively takes from Jack: his freedom. Not just his ability to run away from his fate, but also the chance to take a stand and face it. (I like to think that, more than the murderous act itself, is what he finds so hard to forgive post-DMC. The darker Jack in salr323′s oneshot, Perfidy, written post-AWE, articulates this eloquently: “You know nothing of my debt, love, nor of my payment. But had you allowed me a nobler death, my account might have been lighter.”) His last act of defiance entails reclaiming what choice he has left: slipping slickly out of his shackles, hat on, “hello beastie,” into the monster’s maw.

Ugh they could have given Jack’s whole arc with Davy Jones such PATHOS instead of waiting until the very end--he struck a deal with the devil in all his youth and despair and hubris; now the bell is tolling and he realizes 13 years is nothing, no time at all, and he’s not ready to die; not today, not ever--yes it’s selfish and dishonorable (Will’s willing to square the debt of a father he hardly ever knew; he wouldn’t have blinked at paying his own) but how human is that? to fight and run even as the flames lick your heels?

omg Jack is the jackrabbit

The irony of that eulogy still gives me feelings tho: “Guess that honest streak finally won out.” Elizabeth wrested away Jack’s control over his own story, so now she has to write it for him. When she toasts, “He was a good man,” it’s in both unearned homage and recompense.

“And the world is a little less bright.” - OK but that’s too much. Moving words from Gibbs, but here it’s like he’s speaking directly to/for the audience, and not in a good way. It’s too obviously meta, and especially out of place in a film where Jack did not shine very bright at all

In-universe, it’s not very believable that two pirates like Pintel and Ragetti--who mutinied against Jack before, without a hint of remorse!--would now risk their lives to save him

Honestly if Disney wanted to include familiar faces/fan favorites in the supporting cast for AWE, they could’ve easily written a more realistic line like, “what the hell do we have to lose?” or some more selfish motive, none of these panegyrics

btw who are the native people standing in the swampwater? holding candles with mournful tears in their eyes?? no seriously who are they??? (I dearly hope such a striking tableau was meant to hint at Jack’s history with Tia Dalma and the residents of this bayou, but the more cynical part of me thinks: “Now hiring: extras of color, to play the part of human candlesticks lit in exaltation of an ambiguously white man” The writers get no benefit of the doubt from me after forcing me to sit through that cannibal island act)

It sounds sadistic of me but seeing how anguished Elizabeth is after claiming she’s not sorry gives me life

She keeps crying, and can’t even bring herself to drink Tia Dalma’s concoction against cold and sorrow! She just fakes a sip, which is such a great little character beat, because it shows she doesn’t think she deserves the remedy! She’ll just have to live with it...

That is, until Will decides he can’t stand the sight of her grief, and opens up Pandora’s box for her despite just catching her passionately kissing another man: “If there was anything to be done to bring him back, Elizabeth...” He really is too good for this world

And Elizabeth MUST know there’s a price, that she’d be staking not just her own life and happiness but her betrothed’s, and yet selfishly, always selfish, she says, “Yes”

BARBOSSA!!! Still the most epic character reveal ever. I still remember the theater bursting into gasps and applause, good times

#i've had this in my drafts folder for too long along with a whole bunch of dmc reblogs #it's time to air them out they're starting to stink #tl;dr i could've watched the youtube videos compiling the 12 minutes of jack/elizabeth interaction instead of the entirety of dmc #and i don't think i would've missed out on much #t-recs #the long and short of the meta #pirates of the caribbean

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