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slingbats · 7 months ago

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do I dare ask what they cut out in the bathtub scene?

OH it's not what was cut from the bathtub scene, it's like um... it's more like that bathtub scene in s1 in particular (the later bathtub scene in s2 is just a continuation of their Clockwork Orange reference) is a product of a plot thread/theme/implication that seems to have ultimately been cut from the version of the show that we were given

in other words the footage that we're shown is completely fine, so I wouldn't worry too much, but I've seen some kind of dark hints in early interviews

um, i'll put this stuff in the cut, in the end none of this is important because it didn't make it into the final version of the show, but just a heads up, I will be discussing implications of CSA and incest

it's not really a secret that there's a lot of plot threads/teasers for potential future ideas especially in the early seasons of Gotham that didn't make it in. Dent is in a handful of episodes but is never really discussed or followed up on, Montoya (a longtime franchise darling) appears in early episodes of s1 and then exits the show entirely, the Dollmaker is just??? never dealt with at all despite being foreshadowed in like... episode 2 or 3? and all the cast interview material aired in advertising leading up to the finale being how he's one of the most terrifying character they've used so far in the show

in s2 Strange teases the next arc involving the Mad Hatter but it doesn't come to fruition until season 3 and Strange is much less involved than he's foreshadowed to be

in s3 Fish Mooney walks into the woods to be put into cold storage if ever Jada Pinkett Smith entered their budget again, but was ultimately shelved, and Ivy is constantly weaving in and out of the story while the writers struggled to find a place for her leaving us with a clumsy mess in the final product

Um, this is a lot based on vibes and subtext so it might be nothing, but... initially when I watched the couple of episodes of Gotham when they first aired, I ended up dropping it due to just not really being interested in cop dramas, but I did pick up on something pretty quickly which is that Gertrud initially gives off like... really weird vibes? right?

that ultimately are harmless because the show genuinely doesn't imply anything weird - and I will admit that I personally, as an individual, and speaking only from the perspective of a white USAmerican, am not really that close to my parents? Certainly not close enough to have a conversation with my mother in the room while I'm in the tub.

I am not implying there's anything weird about this scene as it exists, because I know without concrete evidence this does sound like I'm reading too much into it, but when I first saw it/the way she speaks to him early on I thought there were going to be much darker themes surrounding Gertrud and her relationship to Oswald than there ended up being

I know in other cultures stuff like that is more normal, families bathe together and it's not strange at all, but that isn't the culture I was raised in or really the one the story was created in - so when I saw this scene I got vibes of like... Gertrud having a weird amount of control over his life

this is only tangentially related but Gertrud's presence in this show reminds me of notes on BTAS for the original concept of the Penguin, before the showrunners had to mold Penguin and Catwoman around the Returns depictions. The scan is pretty poor quality so I apologize but I do not own a copy of this very expensive book (Batman Animated, 1998)

The text is small so I'll transcribe the important parts.

"...In the early stages of development, we started thinking of the Penguin more of a cerebral villain who relied on his wits rather than his fists to combat the Dark Knight. One funny notion briefly considered was to turn him into a bird-loving Norman Bates-style mama's boy always under the thumb of his overly protective but never seen mother. Batman would have even gone so far as to mockingly call Penguin 'mama's boy' to his face, another blow to the proud bird's easily ruffled feathers."

This was never used in the final concept as the character morphed into a more sophisticated depiction of Danny Devito's portrayal in Returns, but I think it's interesting that it... sounds a little bit like what we've seen in other versions of the character, and with Oswald in Gotham. There's nothing nasty implied in the description of this early concept, but I keep wondering if this wasn't something they considered while reviewing the mountain of material they were given to develop the cast of Gotham.

To be very fair, Gertrud as a character is implied to be flighty and has a darker past than they often discuss, with her story of how she sold out a classmate she thought poorly of to the secret police to sort of illustrate where Oswald might have learned to be the way that he is, that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, but.

She's also, at least initially when Oswald returns home for the first time, shown to be overbearing and protective, especially over his romantic life, which she discourages him from pursuing to say the least (though this is not an uncommon trope anyway, both with protective dads over their daughters and overbearing mothers over their sons)

I swear I've seen this come up more than once in interview materials - but I don't really scour those and wasn't part of the fandom when the show was airing, and didn't watch the show as it aired, but this specific article has a few weird implications? (link to the wayback machine, I swear I saw it somewhere else but I could only find it in archived format this time)

To explain a little, in the interview once the questions turn to the actual characters, Carol Kane seems to speak as Gertrud to the interviewer rather than answering as an outsider with her own opinions of the script, and she is an actor portraying a character, not a writer or showrunner or producer.

So what does Gertrude think about Oswald's lifestyle? Kane: It's worrisome because he works in the restaurant business and his hours are horrible. He doesn't get enough sleep. I'm assuming he eats OK because they probably feed him there, but I think it's a very stressful business, and I don't understand why. And I want him to be very careful in his choice of women, and I fear that he might not be. Why is Gertrude worried about other women? Does she feel they would take Oswald away from her? Kane: I can't tell you why. That's private between me and him. [Laughs]

I don't know, I can't find the other article where I got an odd feeling from it, but I've seen this a few times, this vague implication that they have a "special" and "private" relationship, and I'm very aware of the tendency for like, especially in writing, maternal characters to speak this way about their kids, to imply that mothers have some sort of psychic bond with their children, but something about the phrasing always seemed off to me.

And if nothing else it seemed like he was going to be more "under her thumb" as the excerpt from the BTAS art book described, based on a question a little further down the line.

So, Gertrude doesn't have a dark streak? Kane: Well, I'm quite strict as well. I don't put up with bad behavior or fooling around. So, I will not necessarily always be sympathetic because it's my role to keep [Oswald] on the straight and narrow.

It's just... vague and odd.

From other pieces I've seen while doing a minimal amount of digging for research a while back, the implication to me just felt... Like they probably would never outright say it, that it was never meant to be outright stated by the show, and never that it was meant to be portrayed as good, but that she would be a darker, potentially more abusive character - and we see so little of her it's possible that she isn't as innocent as she appears, a lot of her dialogue that wasn't necessarily directly about Oswald always implied that a little bit to me anyway, but they seem to have ultimately decided not to go with the idea of her being abusive towards him at least.

Again I can't state enough that she's only an actor and that an actor's views may not align with that of the writers, and this interview is only from around when the second or third episode of the entire show would have aired, so the plan may have changed and scenes may have been cut to avoid this implication, as the final show does not depict this at all, but...

just from external materials the exact phrasing that's used around the subject keeps setting off little alarms to me

the contents of the conversation had during the bathtub scene are important, they show how Oswald shares with his mother, that they're very close, and how he views Jim with as much sincerity as he can have with her, behind closed doors, and so I don't think it was strange to keep the scene in the show, but I think the framing of the setting, the reason that it's in a bathtub and not while they're sitting on the couch having tea, for example, is because there were initially darker implications about their relationship that are no longer there

I don't believe they would have handled the topic delicately anyway. I think it could be interesting to explore a story about an abuse victim, but I don't think that's the one they wanted to tell - a lot of times characters who are "mama's boys" in this way are usually done so in the style of Norman Bates, as mentioned before, to make the "mama's boy" in question feel like a creepier character, but. um

I mean, looking at the way the show just kind of. casually drops "the previous police commissioner is keeping his intellectually disabled daughter in the attic of some random couple's house outside the city and they will kill to keep this a secret" and then just never mentions it again even while Loeb as a character is still present in the show, as if they're begging you not to think about what they wrote, I think making the decision not to include it was probably the right one

TL;DR the implications are from external media and are ONLY implications, but the show as it's presented to us doesn't have any of this content so it's fine

#csa mention #incest mention #abuse mention #sorry for the essay #asks

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umichenginabroad · 2 years ago

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Week 2: The trek to NZ

Hi everyone. Very excited to show you what I have in store from this past week.

I spent Tuesday and Wednesday doing some more exploring, making some new friends, and relaxing. I found a new favorite cafe nearby, an essential to my morning routine to begin my day and get some work done. On Tuesday night, I went to a bar located right next to the Sydney Opera house on the harbor with some mates.

During the day on Wednesday, I journeyed to the coast with my book, determined to find the best possible reading spot (maybe in the world). Here's what I settled with:

Not too shabby! However, on Thursday morning, dreams began to turn into reality. Three friends and I had been planning a trip to New Zealand during January for quite a while now (to take advantage of the nice weather and single online class we all are taking). At 3:30am on Thursday, these dreams finally began to come to fruition, and we set off to the airport for our 6:00am flight to the city of Christchurch in the South Island of New Zealand.

Upon landing, the combination of the early wakeup and melancholy weather left us pretty exhausted as we began the trip from Christchurch to our first stop, Lake Tekapo. However, once we were about 15 minutes from our hostel, one of the most memorable moments of the trip thus far occurred: The clouds began to part and the sun peeked through in an almost heavenly fashion, foreshadowing the beginning of a great trip to come. We finally arrived at around 8:00pm, and the sun was still shining as if it was four in the afternoon back in Michigan! The tiny town of Lake Tekapo has a population of under 600 people and is the only town situated on the lake, leaving the rest to natural beauty.

On Friday, we eagerly hopped out of bed, made some breakfast, and set out to conquer our first hike: Mount John. At the top, we were provided with some of the most stunning views I have ever seen of Lake Tekapo and the surrounding mountains.

After completing the hike and making some sandwiches for lunch, we spent the afternoon kayaking. Never before have I seen such glistening, turquoise water!

After this, I took my first online quiz (no I didn't forget about school). Got a 90%! (read that again mom).

We finished the day off with a bonfire, smores, and stargazing at the lake. Great vibes all around!

Saturday began with an early wakeup and a quick drive over to Mount Cook National Park along the stunning Lake Pukaki. Mount Cook's contrasting colors, snow-capped glaciers, and overall interesting topography made for some awesome hikes and pictures.

We then continued our journey in the afternoon to our next stop: Wanaka. Wanaka is a much larger, populated town with some fun stores and restaurants located on Lake Wanaka. We spent the evening just chilling out, making dinner, and soaking in the new scenery. We were also preparing for the earliest wake-up of the trip, as we planned to hike the infamous Roy's Peak for the sunrise the following morning. At 3:00am on Sunday, we strapped on our headlamps and embarked on what would be a quite grueling journey to the top. To put it in perspective, the All Trails app claims that roundtrip, the hike should take the average person 6 hours, meaning that getting to the top should take around 4 hours (since it's all uphill one way). We did it in under 2.

A friend we made along the way took this picture of us on the top!

Here are some more photos. Truly one of, if not the most insane thing I have ever seen.

Last but certainly not least, we jumped out of a plane. Enough said.

As I wrap this up, I would like to leave you with two thoughts: First of all, everyone who is able should visit New Zealand at some point in their life. I could not encourage it more. It is truly a spectacle of the world, and the untouched natural beauty is second to none anywhere. Secondly, and on a similar note, recently I have felt that being surrounded by such beauty has strengthened my connection and appreciation of nature. Taking the time to step outside and get some fresh air whenever you can is important to your health. We must care for the earth so it will continue to care for us and provide us with such spectacles to explore.

Thanks for reading, Go Blue, and see you next week!

Sam Goldman

Industrial and Operations Engineering

UNSW Sydney

#UmichEnginAbroad #IPEUNSW #SamGoldman #IPEWinter23

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cgspirl · 2 years ago

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Regarding Antlers (Spoilers for NOPE [2022])

Working on a video essay for 'Nope' and I ended up ranting on Discord about Antlers, so I'm gonna post it here, unedited for the Full Effect™️ of the brain damage Mr. Jordan Peele has inflicted on my churning little brain:

ALSO. antlers. antlers is such an interesting character because he comes off as like. the apathetic, jaded remains of someone who is a hollywood legend, who never wanted to be a hollywood legend, who just. now has to live with that because that's just how it is.

and on the surface? yeah! that's antlers holst. but frankly there's more to him than just. grizzled jaded cinematographer who was going to fuck everything up for everyone because he's a selfish artistic prick.

to make a long comparison short he's like o.j. down to earth (heh), no-nonsense, straightfoward type of guy who knows what to do within his field of expertise and only wants to do his job and be left alone to do that job

unfortunately, because he is someone that can be commodified by hollywood (cinematographer), unlike o.j. who can't (animal-wrangler), he's stuck in the claws of the fame machine even though he doesn't want to be.

a big thing i noticed on my rewatch was the purple people eater scene. at first, it comes off as threatening and ominous, like a warning; and then you put it in perspective of who the fuck he's actually talking to. these 'kids' (grown adults but antlers is old n therefore probably refers to anyone younger than him as 'kids') have already been through the worst of it. all that's left to do it pull it off. think about it in perspective of the lyrics, specifically the verse he chose to recite:

'tree' of course. not being an obvious tree but rather being a reference to the mountains jj resides in; but the specific one is the "i wouldn't eat you / 'cause you're too tough" because. because they're quite literally the protagonists. they are too tough to eat because of plot armor. this was quite literally antlers' strange artistic way of saying how much he believes in them because he sees them as 'too tough' for jean jacket to eat. they'll outsmart it. they'll outpace it. n by god they'll get the impossible shot.

also extremely important to me that antlers a) predicts his own death and b) always stands away from the group, which can symbolize both him being an outsider AND his foreshadowed death. i also think it's very important to mention (because so many people have been so quick to write it off as 'selfish' or 'stupid') how antlers dies.

if you watch the scene before the run, antlers takes. some sort of cocktail of medication while angel watches both vaguely concerned and confused but ultimately chooses not to say anything because frankly. well frankly it's none of his business whatever they've got shit to do.

now they get the shot! they get the shot, everyone's celebrating, overjoyed they got it! except antlers. antlers comments on the light, how it's going to be magic soon.

remember he joined this operation late; to him, he hadn't done enough to fully like. constitute his contribution (despite bringing the equipment that actually allowed this come to fruition but to him that isn't enough. it's not enough. he has to get the impossible shot. the shot that will finally, finally prove to himself that he is, in fact, the artistic genius hollywood claims he is. but instead of getting it right there, with angel and the equipment near by, he chooses to walk away, to distance himself from angel, the equipment, and essentially the rest of the group. why? he didn't want to put them in danger.

what he was about to do was essentially suicide! fuck he even leaves angel with a warning before he goes: "Don't worry Angel, it's gonna be alright. We don't deserve the impossible."

|now a lot of people have imposed this 'we' as antlers referring to the group, but frankly? i 100% he was talking about himself and hollywood as a whole. they don't deserve the impossible; they'd just squander it. these kids? these kids do. these kids have put their asses on the line far more than any big wig hollywood anybody has in his lifetime; they deserve the impossible.

granted, if he'd been less cryptic, angel's stupid ass probably wouldn't have followed him up and nearly gotten himself killed by that's neither here nor there at this point tbh THE POINT IS. antlers knew exactly what he was doing (give or take on account of The Meds:tm:) and wasn't going to let those kids get hurt for him to do so because, at the end of the day, it wasn't them who had anything to prove to hollywood; it was him.

tl;dr antlers is a weird cryptic old man who might've been on a lot of drugs but his heart was (kinda) in the right place

#nope #nope movie #nope 2022 #antlers holst #o.j. haywood #em haywood #character analysis #he's MY shitty old man and I get to analyze the fuck outta him #i love him so much #artist to artist communication (literally)#like. i get it! 100%#my weird old artist man #i love him #nope spoilers #jordan peele #jordan peele nope #jordan peele movies

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kentochronicles · 4 years ago

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***SPOILERS FOR EPISODE 5 OF WANDAVISION***

HOLY SHITE MY MIND IS BLOWN

TOMMY AND BILLY CRYING

“Do you want me to take that again?” “Take it from the top?”

Agnes knows ! Tiger - Ralph

“Dark liquor” Vision being concerned

Billy and Tommy aged up?!

I DO NOT TRUST HAYWARD

SCARLET WITCH - TALKING ABOUT HOW WANDA DOESN’T HAVE A CODENAME

SIS STRAIGHT UP TOOK VISIONS CORPSE

HEX — HER POWERS GET REFERRED TO AS HEX POWERS SOMETIMES IN THE COMICS

CAPTAIN MARVEL REFERENCE

NORM SAYING NONE OF IT IS REAL

SPARKY THE DOG - VISION HAD A STAND ALONE AND STOLE A DOG

HER ACCENT

LAGOS

SHE DOESNT KNOW HOW ANY OF THIS STARTED IN THE FIRST PLACE

EVAN PETERS AS QUICKSILVER

DARCY GOING “SHE RECAST PIETRO?” MOOOD

X-MEN, START TO THE MULTIVERSE?!

WANDA CAN’T BE THE ONLY ONE CONTROLLING IT

IS MONICA MAD AT CAROL???

MONICA X DARCY?! WHAT A POWER COUPLE THAT WOULD BE

SIS REALLY ENDGAME - ENDGAME ENDED WITH TONY’S FUNERAL AND WANDA PROBS WENT STRAIGHT FROM THERE AND STOLE HER DEAD BF’S CORPSE (can’t really blame her, it looked like they were trying to experiment on Vis and could it be Hayward behind it?)

WHO WAS THAT ENGINEER THAT MONICA WAS GOING TO CONTACT?

BABY VISION

AND AGNES DEFINITELY KNOWS SOMETHING

DARCY FINALLY GOT HER COFFEE

SO VIS SAID THAT WANDA COULD’VE MADE EVERYTHING SUBCONSCIOUSLY AND THAT OVER TIME SHE BECAME AWARE OF IT, AND SIS DEFO HAS SOME CONTROL BUT IT’S NOT ALL HER. I THINK AGNES IS AGATHA HARKNESS AND EITHER MEPHISTO IS BEHIND IT OR IT’S NIGHTMARE AND THEY’VE MAYBE POWERED UP NIGHTMARE

***FURTHER UPDATES AND EASTER EGGS***

Auntie Agnes and Agnes saying she has a few tricks up her sleeve - we should definitely take note of that seeing as Agnes definitely has something to do with the whole situation

Wanda and Vision’s house changed again, being inspired by Family Ties, possibly Full House and Growing Pains

“Do you want me to take it from the top?” It seems as though when someone, this time Vision, steers away from the script, things either reset themselves or people become aware to some capacity, although Agnes probably already knows

Speaking of Growing Pains - It had a spin off called “Just the 10 of Us” in which the director for Wandavision, Matt Shakman, was apart of the cast - and seemingly also inspired the theme song for this week

We should definitely keep an eye on Monica and her potential for powers. With Maria last episode revealed to have gone by the name ‘Photon’ (which is a name that Monica uses as one of her aliases in the comics) and could inspire Monica’s name as she develops her powers - those scans didn’t look 100% normal. Monica has also used the Captain Marvel monicker in the comics

Wanda’s energy field and such being referred to as “Hex” short for Hexagon, could be a little nod to the comics where Wanda’s powers are sometimes called Hex powers

She’s never been referred to as the Scarlet Witch on the big screen - and it seems as though she soon may earn that code name

So we now know that Wanda stole Vision’s corpse from S.W.O.R.D, but did she actually re animate him fully? He’s still got the gem in the centre of his forehead, but the last time he had it was in Infinity War where it promptly got ripped out by Thanos - so has Wanda found her own way of reanimating him and he’s alive or is he dead and just a trick of the mind - though from other trailers/previews, Vis is seen trying to and looks successful at leaving Wanda’s barrier

They had a little call back to Captain America: Civil War with the Sokovia Accords, which were targeting the Avengers in general but were created when Wanda lost control of her powers and killed civilians

A little joke towards Vis as playing “Father Knows Best” in their little suburbia - Which was a sitcom that ran for 200 episodes in the 50’s

Sparky ! A little nod to the little green dog from the Walta and King comics run for Vision and unfortunately soon meets the same fate 💔

A little nod to Endgame when we hear from Monica that Wanda definitely could’ve taken down Thanos by herself had Thanos not rained fire - and Jimmy arguing that Captain Marvel could’ve just as easily done it - which leaves Monica with an angry look on her face

Good ol’ dial up internet

Can Vis “save” the residents of Westview? He can still seemingly interact with people’s minds, with or without the mind stone - Norm soon comes out of his trance as Vis snaps him out of it and asks to call his sister and that he has to save them all from “her” - now this “her” could be Wanda...but it could also be Agnes and then Vis shuts him down soon enough again and Norm goes back to his sit com self

Billy and Tommy are fully aware, or at least suspect Wanda’s abilities - after asking her to bring back Sparky from the dead and speaking of Billy and Tommy - could they be semi permanent fixtures in the MCU, it would help to introduce the Young Avengers eventually. They'll do Young Avengers at some point since Kang is supposed to be a thing in the third Ant-Man.

Teddy, unfortunately, I don't think will be here for a bit (I really hope he is though!). I think the guy they hired that everyone is rumoring to be Teddy might just be an episode about Billy coming to terms with his sexuality and Wanda and Vis learning to accept it in the way that era of tv they're in would go about with that kind of episode and the dude is just a dude - but again, I really hope it’s Teddy 😭

Wanda leaves the hex after a mini missile/plane tries to shoot at her - and she’s in her Scarlet Witch costume and is seemingly mostly back to her “normal self”, which includes her accent !

Lagos brand paper towels - “For when you make a mess you didn’t mean to” - a nod to Civil War again in which Wanda accidentally blew up a building in Lagos and caused the Sokovian accords to come to fruition

The mail man again - I also think he was in the commercial but anywho - “Your mom won’t let him go far” similar to “Much like she won’t let anyone leave” a potential nod to Wanda or Agnes not letting anyone leave?

“We can’t reverse death” and yet she brought Vision back - keeping in mind that he’s an android but still a little foreshadow to what happened at the end of the ep? Better yet, could Pietro coming back be a distraction for Wanda? Agnes or whoever introducing someone that Wanda lives in hopes that she won’t go full on breakdown superpowers or just to give her an attachment to Westview even more and make her not want to leave at all

“She recasted Pietro” EVAN ! I’m so pumped for this - it seems this could turn into the X-Men making their debut earlier than expected possibly? In any case, it’s a nice little Easter Egg to the previous Fox franchise of X-Men movies where Evan played Peter Maximoff “Quicksilver” alongside James McAvoy as Prof X, Hugh Jackman as Wolverine and so many others - and with Deadpool being confirmed as Disney’s first R rated film, it seems Mutants are definitely on their way to the MCU

Agnes is definitely Agatha or a gender bent Nightmare

The way Billy shed himself and Tommy up was scary - definitely a little nod to his powers coming in

Multiple different perspectives of Wanda saying that Monica left

Red Hex dialled up to around light sources (computer, window, etc.)

Vision mentions reading Charles Darwin’s The Descent of Man - which could refer to Mutants entering the MCU, Mutants being superior to humans

Agnes calls herself Auntie Agnes - in episode 2 during the title sequence in the grocery store there’s a product called ‘Auntie A’s Kitty Litter’

Agnes refers to herself as a Tiger and in the episode, there’s a Tiger on the dining table in the kitchen - could that be a listening device, her eyes and ears?

There are no other children in Westview - Billy and Tommy are immune because they have no prior trauma

Elizabeth Olsen’s photos are real and slightly altered with Sokovian flags in the background

In the birthday shot of Billy and Tommy, they have ‘1,2,3,4,5’ candles all on one cake

In the holiday photos, Vision goes from Turkey to Easter Bunny, to Santa and progressively gets more unhappy - realising he no longer wants to play along in Wanda’s Hex

During Monica’s callbacks to seeing Wanda’s pain inside her head, we see a new shot of Wanda crying - it looks like it’s around the time she stole Vision’s corpse, as the outfit she’s wearing is very similar, if not the same - could this be an after shot of when she’s trying to bring Vision back?

During the scene where we see the footage of Wanda stealing Vision’s corpse, the S.W.O.R.D logo that appears on the table has 8 stars around the rim of the logo but then has a 9th one in the middle - could this be a little Easter Egg to the nine realms of the Cosmos? And there’s also a map showing Cape Canaveral, could that be where S.W.O.R.D’s headquarters are?

Wanda and Pietro were born in 1989 to Irina and Oleg Maximoff - who were killed in an air raid when the twins were 10. In the comics, Wanda and Pietro were raised by Django and Maria Maximoff, before their true parentage was revealed as being the children of Magneto, however, in the comics this has been retconned so that Wanda and Pietro are no longer Mutants and the High Evolutionary had just disguised them as Mutants (something I think they should undo tbh - MARVEL, PLEASE MAKE WANDA AND PIETRO MUTANTS AGAIN!!!)

Speaking of the air raid, that was also referenced in Age of Ultron by Pietro and Wanda - “We were 10 years old, having dinner the four of us. And the first shell hits 2 floors below, makes a hole in the floor” - was the beeping Stark toaster be what that was referring to?

WHIH reappears for a brief cameo as the news service in the MCU - and Hayward cuts off Jimmy as he was trying to defend Wanda’s reputation, in which Jimmy then turns to Darcy and says “I try not to speak ill of people” Darcy then follows up with “Then allow me, Hayward’s a-“ and then she’s cut off by a shot back to Hayward saying the word “Terrorist” which would make sense as it seems with Vision’s corpse, he may have been trying to make sentient weapons and by subverting Vision’s will and blaming Wanda of doing the same. In the footage shown of Wanda stealing Vision’s remains, we see Vision broken up into parts and S.W.O.R.D seems to be experimenting on him and this seems to be the robotics/nanotech project that Hayward was referring to. Monica asks Hayward about the footage saying “When was this?” to which Hayward replies saying “9 days ago. Maximoff stormed our facility, stole Vision’s body and resurrected him” - this would mean that Wanda took Vision 2 weeks after the events of Endgame, about a week before Monica returned to S.W.O.R.D and Hayward didn’t tell her any of this and when he sent her in there, he knew exactly what he was doing - with her reputation after Civil War, this makes it easier for Hayward to paint her as the villain.

Back in Westview, Tommy wears red and Billy wears green - which are the colours that Wiccan and Speed wear in the comics, respectively. And it’s also the colours that Wanda and Vision are known for and appears quite a lot in their wardrobes

More in regards to Sparky, he was the synthezoid dog in Tom King’s run of Vision - the story being that he was originally a dog named Zeke who unfortunately passed away after digging up the Grim Reaper’s corpse and getting zapped. The Grim Reaper’s helmet appears during the title sequence of Episode 2 in the floorboards. Could Sparky have been trying to dig up a similar thing when he was caught by Agnes and consequently killed?

Monica mentions that she knows this aerospace engineer, they’re never shown but she is seen texting them. Could it be Reed Richards a.k.a Mr Fantastic? Hayward did mention that some astronauts used to work for S.W.O.R.D before a mission went haywire - though it seems a bit lacklustre to introduce such highly anticipated characters this way. Could it instead be the Skrull daughter of Talos that Monica befriended at the end of Captain Marvel? She mentioned that they had extraterrestrial allies in episode 4 working with her and Fury as apart of S.W.O.R.D - in the Spanish subtitles they use the feminine articles for this engineer - so I think it’s more likely to be Talos’s daughter

The board that we saw in Episode 4 now includes the mailman, drivers license and all - could he be Jimmy’s missing witness?

The tension in the room after Jimmy references Carol is similarly seen when in Spider-Man: Far From Home, where Peter asks Skrull Fury/Talos “How about Captain Marvel?” To which Talos replies “Don’t involve her name”. Fury, Monica and Talos were all on the side of the Skrulls by then end of Captain Marvel and the space station that Fury was on maybe apart of S.W.O.R.D. So did Carol betray them?

A slight reference to Captain America: The First Avenger is made when Monica pulls a Peggy Carter and shoots at something to see if it’s bulletproof, in Peggy’s case it was the iconic Captain America shield and in the case of Monica, it was her clothes that she was wearing after Wanda threw her out of the Hex

Abilash (Norm) never states that Wanda is the one that Vision has to save them from, it’s just “her” - could this instead be Agnes?

When Billy is training Sparky to sit, he puts the treat by his ear up to his temple - a future reference that Billy will one day share the same powers as his mum?

During the scene in which Wanda leaves the Hex briefly, she turns the guns onto Hayward but none are trained on Monica - she may still trust Monica slightly, whereas with Hayward, she slightly more pissed off because of what he was doing to Vision’s remains. And turning a bunch of guns on the people you don’t trust? Like father, like daughter as Magneto pulls a similar move in one of the X-Men films - Hopefully, the big cameo they keep teasing will be Ian McKellan as Magneto or the Magnus of this House of M adaptation

During when Agnes “found” Sparky, she says he died from eating too many leaves from her plants - in the Tom King Vision run, one of Vision’s kids ends up killing Sparky and sees inside his stomach that there’s a plant that Agatha Harkness grows in her garden

All the names that appear during the credits that Wanda tries to run to end the show and to stop Vision from talking are names of people who work on the actual Wandavision show itself

When Evan Peter’s version of Quicksilver shows up, he says “Does a long lost bro get to squeeze his sister to death or what?” I DO NOT TRUST THIS PIETRO - Similar to Wandavision, the Fox X-Men movies moved up decade by decade - First Class was in the 1960s, Days of Future Past was in the 1970s, Apocalypse was in the 1980s and Dark Phoenix was in the 1990’s - which would make even more sense as MCU! Pietro wasn’t born until 1989, whereas Peter was active during the 1980s. I reckon that this Pietro is Jimmy’s missing witness, Agnes’s husband Ralph and is disguising itself as a comforting presence to Wanda as Vision no longer brings comfort and is trying to bring Wanda back to reality - and when he shows up, the mirror in the background behind Wanda is slightly distorted but his hand looks red and in the shot as well, there seems to be a grey arm reaching towards Pietro - in the shot itself behind and in front of Wanda, there’s nothing there but in the mirror, there is! Either way, I do not trust this Pietro and it’s just an entity trying to give Wanda the last thing that could make her happy - but it won’t last, as everything is already breaking down around her.

I seriously seriously love this show so much 💙

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devaneiosinfinitos · 4 years ago

Text

My thoughts on ACOSF

!!!!MAJOR SPOILERS!!!!

I was really looking forward to this book and Nesta and Cassian’s story and I really wanted to love it, but it fell really short. If I were to define ACOSF, I'd say: Wasted potential.

After finishing it and rereading some parts, my conclusion is: there are some pretty cool scenes, but that's not reflected in the rest of the book. I was disappointed and frustrated with several things. I was angry with others and found that many points in the plot were not really developed.

Here are some things that really bothered me (and this will be long):

ENDING RUSHED

I thought the ending was rushed. There were many things happening at the same time and none of them got a proper conclusion. For example, the Blood Rite and the birth. At one point we’re reading about the Blood Rite and how Nesta was fighting the other Illyrians so Emerie and Gwyn could win. Then, Queen Briallyn and Cass arrive, Nesta destroys her and gets the crown and then Azriel and Mor arrive and take them to Feyre. And that’s it. All that build-up for what? For a few paragraphs of Nesta meeting Gwyn and Emerie after the birth and briefly discussing it. And then of Nesta reminiscing of when she told Cass and Az the details of it and they pointed out what needed to be corrected. SERIOUSLY? The birth scene totally took the focus out of Nesta’s at Ramiel and the end of the Blood Rite and the AMAZING victory of Gwyn and Emerie and how well they did on the rite. There were chapters and chapters building up to the conclusion of the Blood Rite and what could come of it and then it was just over. So anticlimactic. Why spend so much time on it and then not even having one character acknowledging how incredible they were? That not only they survived it but Emerie and Gwyn won it and Nesta got so far and pulled an Enalius at the end? So few Illyrians have ever gotten that far and it has always felt like such a great accomplishment that Cass, Az and Rhys completed it, and then here we have women kicking the ass out of the challenge which has been unheard of and we don’t even get Cassian saying how proud he was? There was a lot missing at the end of that narrative. I wanted Cass, Az, and Rhys making a big deal out of their accomplishment. I wanted the Illyrians reactions about their victory and performance and what that could mean moving forward. I wanted more of how Emerie and Gwyn felt winning it and what it meant for them and Nesta to have accomplished that together. What a waste.

Not to mention, how rushed the entire thing with Briallyn and the crown was. One moment Nesta is destroying her and there lies the crown. And then, there’s Nesta using all three artefacts to stop time and help Feyre. They didn’t even discuss the fact that Briallyn was gone and that now they had the 3 artefacts. I mean, some people in that room didn’t even get to see the crown (Did they even know they managed to get it in the Blood rite?), let alone discuss the significance of it. One of the main plots of the book was the search for the trove, and then when they have all 3 artefacts, that’s just completely brushed over. Again, SERIOUSLY? All these plots and none with a development/conclusion to match the build up.

NESTA’S POWERS

I don’t even know where to start with this one. Every time I remember that Nesta gave up her powers I get pissed all over again.

Nesta’s powers have been hyped up for a long time. A LONG TIME. Now, we finally have her book where we delve into her journey and where her powers are supposed to be fully explored and WE NEVER GET THAT. Thank you for nothing, Sarah. Her powers are not even fully explored and then she gives them up. We never really get to fully understand her powers and get to see her really using them. THERE WAS SO MUCH POTENTIAL. I wanted to see her wreak havoc and fully embrace her powers and become one of the most powerful and deadly characters in Prythian. I wanted to see more of her being in control of her abilities and being her badass self taking a hoard of bad guys out. I wanted to understand the extension of her powers. But nope, just as she’s starting to learn about them, she loses them. SO ANTI-CLIMATIC (it doesn’t matter that apparently there’s a bit left, that’s not the point). When she was engulfed in silver fire in her room and Rhys came running? That’s what I wanted to read about. Nesta never really used her silver flames and we never got to really understand what they meant. Ok, they were cold rather than hot. WHAT ELSE? Why is the book even called A Court of Silver Flames? Isn’t that supposed to indicate that said silver flames will be significant? The most significant thing about them other than the bedroom scene are the silver flames that appear in her eyes, and that was not even fully developed either. Is it only when she’s about to lose control? Or angry? Or emotional? When the silver flames appear in her eyes it’s always highlighted that “nothing Fae looks through them” (this was pointed out more than once) and Cass even says at one point that that’s the being the Bone Carver whispered about and exalted and feared. We had the Bone Carver, a creature of thousands of years, calling Nesta a queen and saying she was as "ancient as the sea" and we have Lucien saying that maybe some things should not be awoken and "mother spare you all" when he sees Nesta training and I feel like all that foreshadowing never really came to fruition. LOOK AT ALL THIS BUILD UP.

Nesta’s been hyped up as this powerful Death Queen or as this being with great powers and the culmination of her journey in this book resulted in her giving it all up to save Feyre, Rhys and the baby. Rhys, that up until that point hadn’t really done anything that made him worthy of her calling him brother. Since Sarah came up with this death in childbirth plot (I could’ve gone without this one, seriously), yay for Nesta saving them because it’s not like I wanted them to die (I hope they learnt the lesson with that stupid bargain though). But this entire plot could’ve been addressed differently. AND BETTER. In the end, it undermined Nesta's powers narrative. Why build this plot up so much and include so many things that could be considered foreshadowing if you’re not going to fully develop it in the character’s main book?

IC’S BULLSHIT

Ever since ACOFAS, I was waiting for someone (preferably Nesta) to call the IC on their bullshit and their self-righteous hypocrisy. But it never happened. We had that God awful intervention scene and Mor saying bad things and Amren being gratuitously cruel and Rhys insulting Nesta and Feyre taking her freedom away and none of that is ever addressed again. Ok, I get they were trying to help her with their intervention, but they could have approached that very differently and much better. I felt really bad reading that, and they all got away easily with their behaviour towards her. Sometimes it felt like they were kicking a dog who was already down. Especially Amren. She called Nesta a waste of life and Nesta bloody knelt to apologise to her, holy shit, I can’t get over that. And Amren never apologised. I feel like there was a lot of apologising coming from Nesta, but not enough coming from others. The IC were disrespectful towards her many times (and not only in this book), and that’s it. All swept under the rug.

Later on in the book, Rhys says that Nesta always has a choice at the Night Court. REALLY, RHYS? Are you not tired of contradicting yourself? Because it sure as hell didn’t feel like she did. They even try to use Elain as a way to manipulate Nesta to do what they want. Not to mention that it feels as they are really pressuring Nesta to get better soon and fast (with the exception of Cass, who says she can take however long she wants), but the IC should look at themselves. Mor and Az are still dealing with their traumas after hundreds of years. Cass himself says that it took him years to get over what happened to his mom and what he did (and he still deals with the fact that he often feels inferior for being a bastard). And they want Nesta to be a happy healthy version of herself so soon? Please. I think a scene where their behaviour is addressed would’ve felt earned. I’m pissed that we didn’t get that. And that Nesta didn’t get that. And that because the IC are never called out on their often toxic behaviour (it happens towards Lucien as well), they don’t learn.

Also, Rhys and the rest of the IC hiding from Feyre what it meant that the baby had wings was a really infuriating move. So so wrong. That type of thing should not be hidden from the person carrying the baby. It’s her life and her body. To be honest, I didn’t like how the pregnancy plot was written at all. I was already expecting that Feyre would get pregnant, but I hoped it would be later in the series for a myriad of reasons. The way it was done here didn’t really work for me, and I think many things didn’t make any sense such as how the birth would (or wouldn’t) work. I mean, Cassian had his guts hanging out of his stomach and lived, but a C-section is not possible? Come on.

RELATIONSHIPS

I think that by the end of the book there were some key things missing in some of the relationships. For example, the relationship between the sisters. It all appears well in the last scene, but I missed a scene where all three of them ACTUALLY talked and discussed things - their relationship and their parents and their past. You know, a decent conversation where they could explain things and ask for forgiveness or also say thank you where it was due.

I also would’ve really liked if Cassian had said “I love you” to Nesta. I don’t doubt his love for her and I know he has loved her for a long time and he has shown that love with attitudes on several occasions, but I think with Nesta, who had never really said “I love you” to anyone (she said it to Feyre for the 1st time in the birth scene), it would’ve meant something to her to hear those words, especially after thinking so little of herself for so long and not feeling worthy of affection and thinking everyone hated her. I think it would’ve felt nice to close that part of her journey with him saying it as well. Also, I kind of missed soft/tender moments between Nessian thoroughout the book. Yeah, they have an angsty relationship and Nesta was in a healing journey and the smut was great, but I think there could’ve been more sweet moments in the middle, you know? Because they only truly recognise the bond at the end, so the fluffiness is mostly focused in the last pages, and I wanted a bit more of that here and there. Not a lot that would change the dynamics of the relationship, but just a bit more that would balance the smut and angst a bit and make me sigh. Sometimes I thought there were too much smut and angst and not enough relationship growth through conversation and softness.

HIGH KING

I really dislike the High King idea and I have a feeling that’s exactly what Sarah might do. Not long ago, the IC was shitting on Vallahan for wanting to conquer other territories and then there’s Amren saying Rhys should become High King and rule over the entirety of Prythian. Where did that even come from? That entire conversation and everything Amren said was just mindboggling. Not to mention that according to what she said, Rhys would become High King using the weapons that Nesta created. Same weapons that Amren said nobody should use (but it’s ok if it’s Rhys, right? *Eye roll*) and that no one should tell Nesta she could create. Not to mention that the entire idea of all the courts submitting to one ruler/court (in this case, to Rhys) sounds very imperialistic. They should all be aiming to coexist peacefully and harmonically and find ways to work towards that, not using this High King idea as a solution.

Plus, Rhys cannot even unite all of his own court (There’s rebellion building with the Illyrians, there’s the Court of Nightmares and all the problems there…), and Amren wants him to rule over Prythian? Also, something about the Court of Nightmares that I often wonder about. Is Mor the only decent person to be born there? Because I have a hard time believing that there is not another single decent soul in that place. Maybe someone that dreams of going to Velaris and escaping the Court of Nightmares but that just finds themselves trapped there because it’s not like Rhys and the IC give anybody a chance to get away. Do they even look for people that might be suffering there without deserving to? I mean, Mor came from there. Don’t they think there might be others? Even with the agreement they have with Keir in ACOWAR, it’s not like they are open to the idea. And it’s completely fine to want to protect Velaris from the evil and cruelty that exists in the Court of Nightmares, but again, that shouldn’t mean they shouldn’t even contemplate the chance that there might be people there worth of being in Velaris. That doesn’t earn Rhys any points towards the High King thing.

Moreover, that stupid bargain Rhys and Feyre made also doesn’t get him any points. Since learning the baby had wings, Rhys knew the chances of Feyre dying were very high. If she died, he’d die as well. You’d think a responsible ruler would make plans in case that really happened. You know, like talking to the IC and making plans about their next moves and discussing how they should proceed and just analysing the options after his and Feyre’s powers go to who knows who (If it went to Keir… Shouldn’t they prepare for that?). I mean, imagine the chaos that would ensue should Rhys and Feyre die, and it’s never even addressed that Rhys is considering these things. He didn’t even tell Amren, his second in command. Honestly, what a mess. I’m glad Rhys was categorically against it and that it doesn’t seem like he wants that, but it sounds just like Sarah to come up with a plot that the High King title would just fall on Rhys’s lap or be the only way out of a situation and that by becoming High King he’d be saving Prythian of something worse. I’m rolling my eyes just thinking about it.

So… These are just some of the things that bothered me. It doesn’t mean that there aren’t nice things in the book. Like I said in the beginning, there are some cool scenes and specific things that I really liked (such as Nesta, Gwyn and Emerie’s friendship, for example. They are just wonderful. And Nesta and the House of Wind. And Nesta and Azriel (I wanted more of this relationship). And Cassian’s support. And the Valkyries inspiration), but the book in itself? More potential than any other thing. It was a let down.

#ACOSF #A Court of Silver Flames #ACOSF Spoilers #Spoilers ACOSF #Nesta #Nesta Archeron #Cassian #Nessian

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chalkrevelations · 4 years ago

Text

And finally, here we are, Episode 36 of Word of Honor, and I have some FEELINGS. Let me show you them.

There also will be Episode 37 here, btw, because I’m not gonna do a separate reaction for a three-minute episode, no matter how grateful I am that we got it.

(Spoilers, so if that’s not what you want right now, scroll on by and come back after you’ve watched it. Them.)

Let’s get to the meat of the episode right away: THE HAIRPIN. And Wen Kexing knowing Zhou Zishu would have it, because he’d definitely take it with him if he was going on a suicide mission! Y’all. I really have to yell about this for a minute: That’s how secure WKX has become in his knowledge of what he means to ZZS! After all that time angsting and hiding the truth of his identity and worrying that he’s not worthy of ZZS and that he’d be rejected if ZZS knew the truth about him! But now, WKX has finally reached a point where he understands and knows (zhiji, the one I know) he’s so important to ZZS that ZZS would never ever go off to die without taking his most precious possession, the hairpin that his husband gave him! I can’t. My heart. This is like a declaration, after all that time saying they were zhiji, that WKX finally is able to truly see ZZS as that, to know him in his bones, and all of this is also delivered in the middle of WKX in a strop, irritably chastising his husband as an evil brat for running away from home to get himself killed, with Gong Jun’s little >:( face in full effect, and I am so filled with love for this show and this couple at this point that I have to pause Youtube just so I can roll around on the sofa, clutching at my chest and scaring the cats with my inarticulate noises. This is so good, y’all. It’s everything I’ve ever wanted. Also, now you know how it feels, WKX, you asshole. Which I suppose is why you even confess that it will would be more painful for the one who survives when if the other dies. And you were prepared to do that to him a second time? I cannot believe you, you asshole. You get to sleep on the ice couch for a month.

And then there’s some Six Cultivation Power mind-melding and what looks to be an INCREDIBLY STUPID and HEARTBREAKING ending that would leave us Burying One of Our Gays, so it’s a good thing Episode 37 (all three minutes of it) exists. It would be nice, though, if the connective tissue from 36 to 37 made any sense. Or existed whatsoever. Just, like, throw me a bone, here, show. Some kind of explicit hand-waviness that actually gets mentioned for why Ye Baiyi apparently was not as smart as he thought he was and didn’t really know what he was talking about when he was doomsaying about how one of the pair will surely, oh surely perish. None of this “Sooooo, they managed to figure out the technique and master it?” from some random shidi who never actually gets an answer. I mean, the door was left open for fanwankery on this one, with what looks to be a very last-minute conceit of all this being a story told by grown-up Chengling to his disciples, which begs the question of how much of what he’s telling them is totally accurate, given any number of issues, including the spottiness of human recall, the possibility (based on the fact they’re still on the mountain in Ep 37) that Chengling never actually saw either of them again to get the full story, and the way Gao Xiaolian basically calls bs on the whole thing. But this is still a gossamer-thin thread on which to hang Ep 37. Ep 37 basically functions as reassurance because of the mere fact of its existence, because they’re clearly both alive, right there in front of your face, regardless of the other fact that it doesn’t actually make any sense, based on Ep 36. It ultimately doesn’t matter if there is no Step 2, because Step 3: Profit! is … right there. In evidence. Happening. On your screen. No matter how vaguely unsatisfying the lack of Step 2 may be.

I do feel like there’s an interesting meta thing going on here, in that the entire show has been about – let’s be honest, it was never really about the plot - queer-coding this couple in ways that supposedly fly just enough under the radar that people can handwave them as Just Good Friends and Brothers (I mean, I guess) with a Bury Your Gays tragic ending (ugh) for good measure. And Chengling is telling a story in-universe that seems to conform to some of this same formula. And yet, we all know well and good that these guys were husbands. (I mean, barring anything else, they’re a couple in the original source material, so checkmate, censorship.) So, are we supposed to carry the same assurance out of the show, on a meta level, that what appears to be happening at the end of Ep 36 - what we discover we’re learning through Chengling’s story-telling - isn’t really the truth? Just, look: While we’re getting the Good Friends and Brothers push, there’s stuff like obvious voice-over work that doesn’t match the much more queer version of what the actors actually said, which is apparently blazingly clear to any viewers who know Mandarin and can manage to lip-read. The show has literally put de-queered words into these characters’ mouths. You can’t trust what you hear. But apparently the show has also made this obvious enough that, if you’re a good enough speaker of the language the show is being told in, and you have a good enough eye, you can see what is actually going on. Are we being taught to trust our eyes more than our ears, are we being told that what we’re being told - by the end of Ep 36 on a meta level, by Ye Baiyi-through-Chengling’s-story on an in-universe level, and by what we learn about what happened from Chengling’s story, itself, also on an in-universe level - is inherently untrustworthy, but that if we “speak the language” of this show well enough, and have a good enough eye, we can decode it and see what “actually” happened and is later made explicit in Ep 37? Is Ep 37 canon? Does it matter, when “what is canon” is already so slippery on this show, where you can apparently lip-read something that’s different than what you’re hearing, and it functions as canon because of the mere fact of its existence, because it’s clearly … right there. In evidence. Happening. On your screen.

Anyway, just some thoughts on all that, which I guess is my own fanwankery work to join up the end of Ep 36 with Ep 37, which was, of course, delightful. No matter how much I might bemoan the lack of Step 2, I had a stupid, dopey grin on my face all the way through Ep 37 and might have even teared up a tiny bit at the very end. You can’t prove anything. Lemme tell you, though, it’s a good idea to have 37 on hand when you run into the brick wall of the end of 36, because while WKX’s willingness to sacrifice himself for love is theoretically great, it is not something I actually want to see come to fruition, given the pall it would cast over the entire joyous experience that the ZZS/WKX relationship is throughout the rest of the show. Sure, there’s always fic, but there’s a heaviness that hangs over the Bury Your Gays trope, and it’s retroactively ruined shows for me before. So THANK YOU, to those of you who hooked me up so I could immediately move on to Ep 37.

What else? Other things:

OK, so, first, I have to get this out of the way: Did we actually already see all of those “flashbacks” we get in the first part of the ep, during the conversation between Zhou Zishu and Jing Beiyuan, when all the political stuff is supposed to be finally falling together to give us the big picture? I would have to go back and scrummage through those eps to be sure, and I’m not going to spend time doing that (yet) when I still need to do some keysmashing about Zhou Zishu and Wen Kexing OH MY GOD, but I do feel like some of this was new information, not just stuff that I’d glossed over because it didn’t seem important at the time? If so, not on, show. I will be keeping an eye out for that on re-watch. I am, however, perfectly willing to accept – if it turns out to be true – that you utterly distracted me with the failboats-in-love storyline, to the detriment of my focus on, you know, plot or whatever. It’s happened before. (It’s one of the reasons I need to go back and watch The Untamed again, at some point.)

OMG FAKE KEY! And as ZZS points out, this has been foreshadowed for us from early on, with WKX’s fake Glazed Armors plot. :bangs table with fist: YES. This show is going to reward re-watching SO MUCH.

Duan Pengju, oh my god, this asshole. The look on his face when the Armory didn’t open was so gratifying. Also, ha. I wondered when ZZS was finally going to be done with his shit. In fact, so much gratification in this whole scene. Xie Wang’s face when he realizes WKX double-crossed him – what, did you think you were the only tricksy one in that little alliance, Xie’er? And, holy shit – I cannot believe that Xie’er actually words this as WKX failing him, taking us back around to this theme one more time again. I would maybe feel a little worse for you if you hadn’t been a hairsbreadth away from killing him before ZZS stopped you in the last ep, Xie’er. Also if you hadn’t helped get A-Xiang killed. So I think the fail in this relationship is going both ways. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like you’re going to get the time WKX had to start untangling yourself from the ways your abuser has fucked you up and over.

It once again becomes blindingly clear why ZZS has been my ride-or-die during this whole thing: Under the grumpy, irritable, day-drinking yet somehow eminently practical exterior, he’s actually an idealistic do-gooder who just wants to make the world a better place for people and sacrifice himself for great justice. Never let it be said that I don’t have a type. Also, I mean. Zhang Zhehan’s FACE. Let’s don’t discount the power of that.

Final word: Don’t miss Ep 37. All three minutes of it. They are perhaps the most important three minutes of the entire show.

(I mean, not FINAL final word. I expect to be going back for a re-watch and posting more things, particularly on eps from before I started typing up 1000K-word reactions this first time around.)

#zhou zishu #wen kexing #zhang chengling #ye baiyi?#sure why not #ye baiyi #xie wang #duan pengju #word of honor #word of honor episode reax

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softpine · 4 years ago

Note

Did we see the vision where Asa is standing in front of the car come to fruition? Was that like foreshadowing to Asa seeing Aileen?

okay this is going to sound really confusing, so let me just make it clear that you don’t need to know any of this info to understand the story. it isn’t relevant! but for anyone curious:

that vision was unusual because it happened after aileen had already died. cara just saw a brief flash of him and then he was gone (and then moments later, danny called to tell them that asa was in the hospital for the first time). so it wasn’t foreshadowing, it was actually like.. the opposite of foreshadowing jfkjsd it was asa from the past. specifically, it was [this] asa. but he wasn’t really THERE, he was more like a visage: just the appearance of him, but not his full “being”, not his full spirit (hence the strange 3d effect & his blank stare). this probably makes no sense lmao but none of this really matters. all you need to know is that things were getting fucked up and complicated while asa was traveling through time & space!! and that caroline is still the only person who’s ever seen visions of him :)

#that anon still has me all self conscious....#anonymous #asks #saviorhide #brandi answers

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ichinoue · 5 years ago

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I've seen some people argue that Rukia was in love with Kaien and that this was Kubo's way of using symbolism and "ship teasing" in favor of IR because of how much Kaien looked like Ichigo (almost identical). How would you respond to this?

Omg...lol. The reason Kaien looks like Ichigo is because they’re related. It was revealed in the final arc that Isshin was actually at the head of the Shiba clan. Before leaving SS behind for the human world and taking on Masaki’s last name of Kurosaki, his name was Isshin Shiba. Meaning Ichigo is also related to the Shiba’s. Likely very closely related given how they all look quite similar---Ichigo looks like Kaien AND Kaien’s sister, Kukaku Shiba. And Kukaku looks a lot like Ichigo’s sister, Karin (who also looks like Ichigo). They’re all family.

Did IR’s just....never consider that? Like, lmao did that just fly right over their heads? That Kaien looks like Ichigo, not to foreshadow some non-existent romantic pairing that never happened...but to hint that it would eventually be revealed that Kaien and Ichigo were actually family....? But nah, everything revolves around IR, I guess. Forget the plot and interwoven storylines of this shounen series, IR was what took precedence at the forefront of Kubo’s mind lmao.

I know we always joke about how blinded they are by their IR-shipping goggles but my god, this just takes the cake.

The thing is, you could maybe make these arguments about how much Kubo was foreshadowing IR if it had actually happened...? But it didn’t. Not only that, but we know that he never even considered it. It’s not like he wrote a bunch of foreshadowing and hints for it and then just suddenly changed his mind at the last second. When Bleach ended, he revealed that he had the IH/RR marriages planned since chapter one, that he knew all along that the final chapter would result in Ichigo’s son meeting Rukia’s daughter...What room did that ever leave for IR? None. So what’s the point of continuing to argue that he was hinting at it.

Any hints or foreshadowing of IR---if they actually existed---would just be red-herrings, because none of it ever came to fruition in the end. IR never happened. So any “hints” for it would just be intentionally throwing the reader off and pointing them to a dead-end, as red-herrings do. In other words, even if Ichigo wasn’t related to the Shiba’s and he just *mysteriously* looked like Kaien and Rukia was in love with Kaien but IH/RR still happened in the end....Ichigo looking like Kaien still wouldn’t be foreshadowing IR, because IR still didn’t happen. Thus....it would just be a red-herring that IR’s fell for.

But to be clear, I don’t think Kubo was giving them red-herrings (he told them way back in 2008 that it wasn’t romantic. He was pretty straightforward with them, they just wouldn’t listen). Kaien looking like Ichigo wasn’t some “IR red-herring.” Kaien looking like Ichigo did in fact foreshadow something---not an IR romance, but the eventual reveal of Ichigo being related to the Shiba’s.

If Kubo was really out there the entire time he was writing Bleach, coming up with all of this “IR symbolism” and all of their theories of him “hinting/foreshadowing IR”....he would have made it canon. He would have had THAT planned out from the beginning, instead of their literal marriages and children to Orihime/Renji. There was nothing stopping him from writing an IR romance, other than the fact that he didn’t want to. He never intended on it. It was never in the cards. It’s really that simple.

It’s like, we IH shippers always theorized that Kubo was hinting at an IH romance using Tanabata symbolism for example, and there’s actual weight to support this because IH actually became canon in the end. So we can point out that he was hinting and foreshadowing it all along without looking like total fools, because....it actually happened! He really was hinting at it all along. IH being canon, along with Kubo’s statements, gives credence to that.

Also, this idea that Kubo would foreshadow Rukia falling in love with Ichigo because she used to be in love with his cousin is just.....??? I can’t imagine being with someone who was once in love with one of my family members that I look almost identical to. That just sounds so weird, like...some Jerry Springer “my husband slept with my twin sister” shit or something. No thanks. Keep it.

#anon #asks

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hamliet · 5 years ago

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The World is Cruel, Beautiful, and Chiastic

Or, because I see people talking about this and I wrote this during Tokyo Ghoul:re’s final arc (which ended up being accurate), I wanted to be a nerd and outline just what Shingeki no Kyojin’s chiastic structure is.

A chiastic structure is a narrative structure used for millennia in storytelling. It refers to a paralleling structure, wherein events or motifs parallel other events and motifs. If you chart it out, it forms a chiasm or a ring (depending on if you feel like charting a triangle or a circle. (It’s also referred to as ring structure if you go with the latter; hence “come full circle.”)

Chiastic structure has been used for ancient epics (the Iliad and Odyssey, Paradise Lost), religious texts (many narrative books of the Bible, including Ruth, Jonah, Samuel, Genesis, and the Synoptic Gospels use it), and modern classics in both literature and cinema like Harry Potter and Star Wars employ it. In anime/manga, Tokyo Ghoul used it, and Bungou Stray Dogs strongly appears to be using it (but it’s harder to say definitively or to chart it out because we seem to be in upwards end of the middle arc right about now).

So, what’s SnK’s chiastic structure?

A) Fall of Shiganshina: The World is Cruel (and beautiful)

B) Training Corps (yes, it belongs here): Cruelty to Children

A) Trost: Cruel Loss, Beautiful Hope

C) Female Titan: Cruel End to Friendship

ABC) Clash of the Titans: The World is Cruel and Beautiful

C) Uprising Arc: Beautiful Beginning to Friendship

A) Return to Shiganshina: Cruel Loss, Beautiful Hope

B) Marlay: Cruelty to Children

A) Final Arc: The World is Beautiful (and cruel)

Of note, this is not me saying that none of the other arcs parallel each other--they clearly do. This is just a look at the chiastic structure in particular.

A note about the AB pattern. Arcs that have A all have common elements even if they most directly parallel the arc they line up with. The central chiasm contains elements of all three.

Fall of Shiganshina Arc: The World is Cruel (and also beautiful)

I’m not sure I need to say much here lol. The story’s opening chapters are renowned for their horror and display of cruelty. Yet we see beauty too in the Jaeger family having taken in Mikasa, in Eren defending Armin from bullies.

And we see it in how Hannes saves Eren and Mikasa.

And there’s more cruelty in the vow Eren makes, which, of course, he’s now bringing to fruition:

The Training Corps Arc: Cruelty to Children

Yes, this one belongs here. I know that it technically occurs post-Trost in the manga, but it’s the only flashback arc in the entire story, and I think we’d all agree that pacing-wise it’s... not well placed post-Trost. The anime did a good by moving it to immediately follow the intro arc.

Basically, the main theme here is that innocent kids lose innocence. From the humorous to the cruel, we see it. The kids shouldn’t be joining the military; it’s awful that they are.

It introduces Sasha:

And makes sure to show us them just being kids:

Additionally, it shows us the determination Eren has to work hard and be the one to destroy the titans:

Eren’s determination leads to his success in his training, but as we’ll later see, his obsession is destroying him.

Trost Arc: Cruel Loss, Beautiful Hope

Or, the arc that contains one of my favorite moments, but also almost led to me stopping watching SnK when I first got into it.

The arc begins with our first rematch: humanity vs. the titans, round two. (Thus, it parallels the Fall of Shiganshina).

So let’s discuss that favorite moment of mine: when the 104th teams up to defeat the titans. Even Annie, who is later revealed to be an enemy, saves Connie.

Trost, of course, contains the first big “WTF” plot twist of the story: when Eren is “reborn” out of the belly of a titan. When a character is in an enclosed space in literature, especially one with liquid, viscera, and blood, it’s probably a symbolic rebirthing scene. From, at that point, Eren’s lowest moment of defeat, Eren realizes he has the powers to change things.

But Eren is not the only one who comes to an important realization this arc. Like the Fall of Shiganshina, Return to Shiganshina, and the final arc, there is EMA focus. Mikasa makes a decision to live on despite loss:

And Armin receives affirmation of his self-worth and realizes that even if fighting isn’t his skill, strategizing is just as valuable:

This arc also contains Marco’s death, marking the first time the 104th have to cope with the loss of one of their own.

The arc’s final fight is concluded with Levi Heichou shows up to save the day.

And, of course, the concept of blocking the hole in the wall is first brought up (this time with a boulder), and the military needs to make a choice about whether to use Eren or exterminate him; Armin is able to convince them to trust Eren.

The Female Titan Arc: A Cruel End to a Friendship

The arc contains a notable moment of Eren deciding to trust his colleagues--Levi’s squad--only to lose them all.

Additionally, Eren’s relationship with Annie ends poorly (obviously. Should Annie be in the paths right now, as she likely is, I don’t think she’ll respond well to Eren either and is more likely to help take him down). Like Eren taught Mikasa to fight and to live, Annie taught Eren how to fight as her father taught her.

What’s notable about this is that Annie’s relationship with her father is cruel and beautiful--he clearly wanted nothing more than for Annie to survive and he’s still waiting for her. Annie embodies this dichotomy as well: Armin notes that she is exceptionally kind, yet the world doesn’t give her a choice. She is so kind that she spares Armin and goes along with his plan to capture her despite knowing it is a trap, because she does not want to hurt friends, because she wants to be a good person. Annie wears a cold mask, but she is truly kind.

The Female Titan Arc concludes when Eren accepts the monstrous part of himself, using everything he has to fight Annie. It’s not a coincidence that the arc ends with Annie ripping off part of the wall, revealing the titans within. This symbolizes that the structures that ostensibly were erected to protect society are built around the monstrous, and thus sets up the Uprising Arc.

Clash of the Titans Arc: The World is Cruel and Also Beautiful

My favorite arc.

It contains several important elements: it’s where Ymir hints at the true enemy of the story, and it’s where we start to see that the Survey Corps might be capable of cruelty as well.

Erwin sacrifices his arm, foreshadowing his later sacrifice of his life, Ymir and Historia assure each other of their love (almost like love, connection, and humanity are braided themes)...

It’s also where Eren is revealed as the Coordinate, and where the central relationship of the story as @linkspooky writes (and theorizes) about here develops in a moment that is truly beautiful and cruel. Mikasa declares her love for Eren, but Eren pulls away because he needs to fight titans to keep living.

It also foreshadows and acts as an inverse to Eren’s tragic current choice: he chose to fight instead of to accept love, but he had little choice then and was acting heroically. He had choices now.

Additionally of note, since this arc is the central chiasm of the story, it contains elements from both the A and B parallels. Such as, for example, Sasha receiving development and the focus on the suffering of children, from Sasha saving Kaya (beauty) to Nanaba and the others dying to protect the 104th:

Also, the Hannes storyline reaches its conclusion with Hannes’ death, proving for once and for all that Hannes is no coward:

The death of Hannes is symbolic of the EMA trio moving from a child stage to an adolescent stage in their metaphorical development. It parallels Carla’s death, and Levi’s (the final mentor figure for EMA) current near-death experience (I don’t think Levi needs to die nor do I think he will at this point, because he seems to have survived the parallel incident).

The Uprising Arc: A Beautiful Beginning to a Friendship

There are quite a few parallels here with the Female Titan Arc. We have two parallels with Annie’s complex relationship with her father: Historia and Levi (with Kenny for Levi). Like with Annie’s father, Kenny is not a great father figure, but he did want Levi to survive and gives him a life-saving tool right before he dies (the titan serum). Historia has the direct opposite relationship with her father as Annie: Annie’s father loves her but treats her harshly to teach her to protect herself; Historia’s father appears to treat her kindly, claiming he’s always wanted a relationship with her, but he actually does not care about her at all.

Historia and Eren’s relationship also foils Annie and Eren’s: if Annie and Eren’s relationship leads to Eren accepting the monstrous/titan part of himself, Historia and Eren’s relationship leads to Eren accepting the weak, unspecial part of himself.

Additionally, this arc focuses on the new Squad Levi, replacing Petra, Oruo, and the others--and this time, Squad Levi really does come in clutch, saving Eren and Historia. These scenes are deliberately paralleled--as in, there is a literal flashback in the Uprising Arc to Eren having to make a decision re: Squad Levi. When Eren acts on his own instincts this time, he saves them.

Return to Shiganshina: Cruel Loss, Beautiful Hope

Like the Trost Arc, it contains a rematch between humanity and their enemies; this time, however, it is not mindless titans who are the real enemies, but Bertolt and Reiner (and Zeke), demonstrating how personal this fight has been (going from a journey of strange monsters-->friends-->your own internal heart in the current arc). It also, on a more basic level, contains the goal of plugging up a hole in the wall, this time with Eren’s hardened shell.

It also contains the 104th teaming up to take down an enemy. Only, this time, instead of Annie and Mikasa dealing the killing blows to titans about to kill Sasha and Connie, they are teaming up to kill Reiner, a former friend.

Like in Trost, when Eren was “reborn” out of the belly of a titan, Eren experiences a moment of awakening here. He realizes he is not the hero of this story: Armin is.

And likewise, Mikasa makes a decision to accept loss and live on.

And Armin receives affirmation of his self-worth and his strategizing doesn’t just save Eren this time, but potentially humanity:

This arc also contains the flashback to Marco’s death and, of course, Bertolt’s death, which heavily, heavily parallels Marco’s. Like with Marco, Bertolt’s once-friends are watching and weeping, but they choose not to help him for the sake of their mission (again: you become the monster; this is however NOT a commentary on the morality of such decisions, but instead is an observation. Bertolt’s death, even if you choose not to blame the Survey Corps, is horrific and agonizing and cruel).

And of course, guess who saves the day and determines the future of the story? Levi Heichou. However, again, in keeping with the motif of conflicts getting more personal, Levi does not have to kill a monster titan (in fact, he fails to kill Zeke, though he does take him down). Instead, he has to choose to let his best friend die. Like in Trost, where the military needed to make a choice about whether to listen to Eren, Levi chooses to save Armin (though not because of Eren’s please necessarily, but because of his own care for Erwin).

The battle of Shiganshina, like how the Battle of Trost ends with Eren emerging as humanity’s hope, ends with a revelation to change the story forever. Humanity is not extinct.

The Marlay Arc:: Cruelty to Children 2.0

Innocent kids lose innocent in both the past and present in this arc. The arc sets up copious Reiner and Eren parallels, showing how they both worked hard in training to become heroes.

Additionally, we see that being perpetuated to the next generation in Gabi and Falco, Zophia and Udo. They are just children, but they are killed horrifically and fight in wars as part of their training (it’s even worse than the Paradis military):

Like all other B parallel arcs, it also contains focus for Sasha. She chooses not to kill a child, providing a beautiful counter from the cruelty of Eren’s actions. Yet, she pays the price for this beauty, as she is cruelly murdered. Sasha may not be a child herself anymore, but she is still a person, and the focus on food for her in the moment of her death reinforces this.

We also see that our grown-up children are losing innocence as well. Eren becomes the monster he swore to destroy, becoming a titan to murder innocents.

Final Arc: The World is Beautiful (and cruel)

I know the emphasis right now is on cruelty and I don’t mean to minimize it. From Historia to how Eren treats his friends, to what Eren’s currently now doing, it’s painful.

It contains a return to Shiganshina, like the Fall of and Return to Shiganshina arcs. And like the first arc, it irrevocably changes the world. On this day, humanity has received not a grim reminder, not a choice.

Instead of Mikasa and Armin receiving help from an adult to save Eren (Hannes), they are the adults this time. It is up to them to save Eren from himself, which likely is not going to be kind enough to spare Eren’s life this time. That said, I do think/expect a moment of Eren remembering his humanity in the end. And we already know it ends with life and freedom.

#snk meta #chiastic structure #aot meta #shingeki no kyojin meta #attack on titan meta #snk 123 #eren jaeger #mikasa ackerman #armin arlert #ema #levi ackerman #yumihisu #historia reiss #annie leonhart #sasha blouse #reiner braun #marco bodt #bertolt hoover

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fedonciadale · 5 years ago

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How to treat a hero - Or why the endgame doesn’t make sense - Part V

So, here it is finally. My take on how to explain the endgame of Jon Snow, after I did Bran, Tyrion, Arya and Sansa. I am not going to do Daenerys, because her endgame was prepared in show and books and DarkDany was about the only thing that made sense about season 8.

So, how does one treat a hero? And in a way Jon Snow is the closest thing we get to a hero in GoT and ASOIAF both.

The hero either ends up dead, the king or in exile. That is the rule. So, you could say, that Jon’s ending does make sense, since he ends up in (self-imposed?) exile. The question is, if the way how he ends up there is meaningful and understandable.

It would even work as a subversion of tropes. There he is the hidden heir, who fights for the good side (the living), who learns how to lead. And then he just doesn’t become king.

He is not crucial in the clear fight of Good and Bad against the Others. Despite fighting heroically what he does is of little consequence and he is denied his chance at a heroic death for the common good.

His learning to be a leader is superfluous because he a) failed as a ruler because he gave up the independence his people wanted (regardless of where you stand about Political Jon, the disappointement of the Northern Lords as voiced by Lyanna Mormont was palpatable) and he b) is not recognized as the next king because of his hidden heritage. So, neither his heritage nor his skills that seem to point towards him becoming king actually lead to him becoming king.

Now, Jon not becoming king would mean that all the king hints in Jon’s chapters are not a hint about RLJ or him becoming king of Westeros but just for his short time as King in the North. This is is something of a let down. I mean the raven caws for Jon to be King, only for him to become King for what? Half a year?

The thing is that although there is so much King foreshadowing in Jon’s arc, the RLJ hints are not that obvious. Before it became canon in the show, it was a pretty popular theory, but it was not uncontested, and since the hidden hints (like to Hodor’s death and the Red Wedding) are usually more important for the story, one would expect RLJ to have an impact on the story. And yet is has none. All of this could have happened in the same way, if Jon was just Ned’s bastard as he has thought for so long.

Why hide RLJ so well and then do nothing with it? What even is Jon’s secret parentage for? It isn’t meant to bring Jon on the throne, it isn’t meant to make him eligible for Sansa, it is just meant to separate him from Daenerys? You could achieve this in another way (for example by people putting Jon forward as someone who would be eligible as a king=.

I mean the trope of accidental incest is a strong trope and the twist could just be this: while we think that it is the fact that they are aunt and nephew will tear them apart it is in reality Jon’s claim? That probably could count as a subversion of tropes.

There are hints in the books that Jon’s real family is the watch and that he will be a servant to Dolorous Edd as the next Lord Commander. It is quite possible that he will become the 1000th Lord Commander after all. He was the 998th, Edd probably will be the 999th and then Jon will be the 1000th. Nevertheless, I do think that the hints are far fewer than the hints for Jon as king. So, foreshadowing in an enormous amount for Jon as king that will only come to fruition for half a year and only the occasional hint to Jon as member of the Night’s watch and Lord Commander.

The Aragorn character is not crucial in defeating the Others, but he is also not the hidden heir? Aragorn did not defeat Sauron, but he had an important role in deflecting Sauron’s attention and we later learn how the Hobbits indeed escaped detection because Aragorn and the others decided to march on Sauron. If we judge by the show, Jon’s role might be nothing more than collecting the people who fight against the Others. That would be honourable in itself, but it is never acknowledged, not in the show anyway.

If the events in the books play out in about the same way as the books, then Jon who was confronted with the threat to humanity in the first book, is not destined to fight this fight, but to fight in a war that is far less clear-cut: in Daenerys’ war to win the Iron Throne. And the man who is set up as the hidden heir and leader who learned is denied a heroic deed and instead does something very grey, which is nevertheless necessary: He kills his woman, who has become a tyrant, a deed that it necessary and yet a deed that condemns him as an oathbreaker, traitor and kinslayer.

The man who wanted to keep a bastard’s honour is forced even to abandon that. He does the right thing, like Jaime did once and he is punished even harder.

In addition to all this, Jon doesn’t get anything he wants. He wanted Winterfell, he wanted children, he wanted a nice lady wife, he wanted to be a Stark. He gets none of his wishes. What he gets is a ‘family’ at the wall (that murdered him), a task that makes no longer sense and is separated from the people he loves, from the family he loved so much, that he killed Daenerys for them and from his best friend.

Then there is the question if Jon is punished or if he goes into exile voluntarily. If he gets punished, we have to ask for what? For breaking the oath he presumably swore to Daenerys? For killing his queen? For killing his lover? For killing his aunt?

Then why is Jaime pardoned for killing Aerys? Why are there no consequences for Tyrion for killing Shae and his father (kinslaying and loverkilling)? You could argue that Jaime was pardoned by another king, but Tyrion’s crimes happened in the timeline of ASOIAF not before. Why is he not accused and sentenced if Jon is?

If Jon goes into exile of his own free will, why does he do it? Because he was forced to kill his lover? Because he is weary of everything? Because he feels guilty for being part of the war crime that was the burning of King’s Landing? Because he failed to act sooner on the suspicion that Daenerys might not be a good ruler? To be quite honest, any of these motives would be feasible. If only we had seen them on screen. But while some of these reasons were hinted at, nothing was made explicit - and though I thought I’d see Jon incredibly burdened by the knowledge of his and the Northerners part in the destruction of King’s Landing, that motive was retconned to promote Jon’s killing of Dany as Jon’s most prominent reason for being depressed. It sort of marginalises the victims in King’s Landing and I really wish they would have been explicit.

To me it makes much more sense, that Jon exiles himself, because if he is punished by King Bran, we have to wonder if Bran lost all affection for his cousin? If he is not pardoned by Sansa after Greyworm left we have to ask, if the Queen in the North forgot that he killed Daenerys for her? Why does Arya not whisk him away to share in her adventures? If he killed for the Starks why do they not acknowledge this? A self-imposed exile at least solves some of these questions, but it would also mean that Jon has a particular deep feeling of self-loathing as is proved by his going to a place that has not further meaning after the defeat of the Night King....

Now, this could all work as a subversion: The hero who doesn’t do a heroic act but a morally right act that condemns him nonetheless. The hidden heir who just stays hidden, the underdog who goes back to being an underdog, the man who tried but failed, the man who gets none of his wishes. The man whose acts have filled him with so much self-loathing that he chooses a life of meaningless service. It would be quite depressing to say the least....

It would also mean, that GRRM denies Sansa, Arya and Jon, members of the family that is supposedly at the heart of the story, the things they wanted. Arya her home, Sansa a happy marriage and children, and Jon a home, a wife and children. It is hard to say what Bran might want at the end of the series. It would mean that GRRM punishes the main family.

Now, this could all happen obviously, because GRRM does not give his characters what they want and he rarely give the readers what they want, safe with a twist. In this, the endgame of Sansa, Arya and Jon even are depicted in the same way. None of them get what they want at the beginning, without ever reaching a point where they realize that they didn’t want it at all as it can happen in stories (and happens quite often). If there is any sign for Arya not wanting home, for Sansa not wanting a nice husband and children, for Jon not wanting both it is not in the books already published. So, it is not about finding out what they really want or need, it is about all of them not getting what they want. This is probably all very subversive and realistic and .... to be honest it is just depressing... Why would the author let us invest in this family only to have them all at a point at the end where they never wanted to be? What did the Starks suffer for then? Just for being alive?

Still, looking at all of these endgames, I still reach a point where I think that the different endgames of the key characters simply do not fit into the same kind of tale. Because how does Tyrion fit into this depressing and subversive ending for the Starks? How is he not punished? How does he get what he wants? And if it is all about subversion of tropes, why does the most magical person become king? If Sansa, Arya and Jon are subverted how is Bran subverted? Is it because he doesn’t want anything and then he becomes king? But, what is a subversion about the most magical person becoming king?

I always reach the same conclusion: The individual endgames could be reached with the set-up from the books as they stand now. It would not be easy or smooth in every case, but it would be possible. It would mean that GRRM aims for a nihilistic ending for Sansa, Arya and Jon, it would mean that much of the foreshadowing for Sansa, Arya and Jon was just superfluous and wasted - was it all just a red herring? And what about the hints that are really hard to decipher? It would mean that Jon, Sansa and Arya would not get what they want (in this they would actually mirror Dany who didn’t get the throne she wanted). It would mean, that the ending would be mostly bitter. I cannot see anything sweet in it. All of this, might happen and it might be prepared in the books far better than in the show for each individual character. I still think that there is no way though how Bran as king, and Tyrion as hand, and the endgame of Sansa, Arya and Jon can work within the same universe. Either Westeros becomes a magical world where Bran can be king or it becomes a semi-’realistic’ state that allows for ruthless politicians to end at the top i.e. Tyrion as Hand. Either the mains don’t get punished (in-world as judgement or in a poetic justice) or they do. Either the crippled underdog becomes king or the tropes are subverted.

As the ending stands now, the trajectories of the main key character end in a way that contradicts a) the world-building and b) the kind of story that is told. It can’t be both. I can’t be a world where magic and wisdom is respected and that still has realistic politicians be rewarded. It can’t be a tale that subverts tropes only for some of the main characters and have them reinforced for others.

I just can’t wrap my head about it. I can’t see how the endgames can work simultaneously. GRRM might prove me wrong, but I honestly doubt it.

The only thing how all these individual endgames might work together, is if Bran is possessed by Bloodraven. And this has nothing bittersweet about it, is is just creepy.

#Jon Snow #GoT ending #Why it doesn't make sense #ASoIaF #ASoiaf meta #ASOIAF vs GoT #Bittersweet?#Not really #Nihilistic #either non sensical #or creepy #still not over it #Endgame musings

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thelawyerthatwaspromised · 6 years ago

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But What Does Cersei Want? [some spoiler content]

I have some tinfoil-y finale season speculation based on SOME unconfirmed spoilers but I’ll tag spoilers anyway...but the gist of this is:

What does Cersei want and why might that matter immensely?

Ok here’s the summary before I get to every detail...because I doubt every detail comes to fruition exactly anyway. The overall idea is more important.

I think Cersei will cooperate with Tyrion in a kidnapping plot against Sansa to 1) secure the North through marriage between Sansa and Tyrion; and 2) secure Cersei’s claim to the Throne through a forced marriage between herself and Jon.

Admittedly that’s kinda wild. Here’s a rundown on why I think this could really actually happen. Some of this is based on spoiler content, MUCH on the foreshadowing in the series:

1) Cersei has a loose grip on power;

2) Cersei wants to fulfill Tywin’s mission of a Lannister dynasty;

3) Tyrion wants power and a stable position of power;

4) The Sansa/Tyrion marriage was referenced in a strange way;

5) Tyrion is on the outs with Daenerys so his influence is waning;

6) RLJ super duper matters;

7) There’s a [LEAK ALERT] rumor that Bronn has been sent to kill Tyrion;

8) There have been rumors for more than a year of a Sansa kidnapping;

9) There’s a strong rumor of Tyrion on trial in one of the last episodes;

10) There’s the Tyrion “love triangle” from the OG outline;

11) It explicitly places Sansa as the YMBQ

Ok I have to stop. There are so many reasons. Here’s what I think happens (Any part of this based on a spoiler is marked [SPOILER] because it’s just not yet determined to be true or not but it fits with the theory so well):

Dany’s Fragmented Alliance

Just how badly things go for Dany in the North is yet to be determined however the early outlook is, at best, cloudy with a chance of meatballs. We already have seen her relationship with Tyrion deteriorate to the point where one of the most common predictions is that Tyrion will almost certainly betray Dany in some way.

This isn’t unique to the Dany/Tyrion dynamic, though. Multiple parties are shown to be combative with Dany early in the season according to [SPOILERS]. Assuming that there’s fragmented relations between Tyrion and Dany, it’s highly plausible that Tyrion will see his position of authority severely hampered by the darneded Northern Fool Jon Snow.

Tyrion maybe looking for greener pastures.

Meanwhile Back at Cersei Headquarters

[SPOILERS] It’s rumored that Bronn is sent by Cersei to kill both Tyrion and Jaime. Pretty much makes sense. Plausible enough that I have no real reason to doubt that it very much could be true. In fact it would be kind of weird if Cersei WEREN’T trying to do this.

Assume, also, that Cersei is very interested in a face to face meeting with Sansa Stark...whom she still believes had a part in killing Joffrey. There’s a revenge factor for Cersei when it comes to Sansa that just really isn’t there for for anyone other than Tyrion and MAYBE Jaime.

Cersei may want Tyrion dead and Sansa brought back to her or dead as well.

The “Twist”

Assuming Bronn is sent to kill Tyrion and successfully infiltrates wherever Tyrion happens to be located...what do you think Tyrion would do?

Bargain. Plead. Negotiate.

It’s what he does. It’s what he always does. Think back to how Bronn came into his service in the first place. Think back to how Tyrion acquired the Hill Tribesmen when they wanted to kill Tyrion. He always has a plan (based on his name) to get himself out of trouble.

Even if his show counterpart is more angelic than his book version, this is something that’s consistent with the portrayal of Tyrion. He doesn’t use a sword, he uses his mind.

So how can Tyrion talk Bronn out of killing him when refusal could have big consequences for Bronn? By dangling something that would improve Bronn’s station AND something that Cersei would very likely be interested: control of the North. Through Sansa. His “wife”.

Tyrion reasons with Bronn. “Don’t kill me. Because I can make your situation much better. How would you like to be the man to offer Cersei something she covets: the North.”

The Logistics

Tyrion will have been up there at least long enough to see Sansa’s importance. She’s always been referred to as the “key to the North”, after all. But now he gets to see her really proving it. The Lords of the North showed quite a bit of loyalty to Sansa in S7 so the audience already has knowledge of their faith in the Lady of Winterfell. Tyrion sees this and might recall to himself the fact that his marriage to Sansa wasn’t ever quite “resolved”. In fact, her marital status has been quite the subject of conversation from multiple parties the last few seasons. So this fits her storyline pretty logically.

So Tyrion, facing the prospects of death, offers Bronn a plan to take Sansa and himself back to Cersei. Tyrion gets to stay alive and keep his head. Bronn gets to deliver two traitors “to Cersei’s door” (ala the Dragonpit entry conversation).

Tyrion gets a twisted revenge on Catelyn Stark for his kidnapping/arrest in Season 1 at the Inn at the Crossroads. Tyrion has something to offer Cersei: spare my life, renew my marriage with Sansa, you will gain the North.

Bam.

Is that it? No...there’s more.

R+L=J

So who here thinks RLJ is kept secret from the world for S8? Those few of you in the back can see yourselves out. The new is going to spread. And I think Tyrion will know it.

So imagine. You’re Tyrion. You have this great proposal for Cersei that would keep you alive because it would benefit Cersei (which is the only reason Cersei would do anything). You’re in a good situation now. You also have another bit of info that would probably interest the current Queen of Westeros: the beloved half-brother-turned-cousin of Sansa Stark is ACTUALLY the heir to Rhaegar Targaryen...none other than Jon Snow.

Now flip to Cersei’s perspective. Cersei wants power and longevity. She wants to have a Tywin-like impact. She has Tyrion and Sansa to secure the North. What other leverage could she gain? Control of the line of succession for herself. She could get Jon Snow.

If we assume Jon very much cares for Sansa...we have a scenario where Cersei can threaten something very dear to Jon’s heart unless he cooperates. Jon becomes a target to Dany (because his claim exceeds hers) and an object of desire for Cersei (because Cersei’s claim is strengthened by ‘acquiring’ Jon’s AND she could be in possession of Sansa - a very good reason for Jon to comply).

So Cersei tosses this proposal at Jon:

- Lay down your arms - Accept Tyrion’s marriage to Sansa - Accept me as your Queen and marry me;

- or-

- I will kill Sansa.

Now, THAT is leverage. It would guarantee a mini-Lannister dynasty. It would cause the North, the Vale, and very likely the Riverlands to yield.

Why wouldn’t they just toss Sansa aside and allow maybe Arya or Bran to takeover once again? BECAUSE THE STARKS ARE A PACK.

None of Jon, Arya, or Bran would ever allow for Sansa to be disregarded. It goes against the whole narrative of the family. It goes against Robb’s response to Ned’s imprisonment and execution. It goes against Jon and Sansa’s mission to reclaim Winterfell and their unsuccessful effort to save Rickon.

The Lone Wolf Dies But the Pack Survives.

Except it’s used against them here...for a time.

What Does This Look Like in the End?

Full disclosure, I don’t have it worked out exactly how they overcome this very tough situation. Maybe I’ll add a part two before the season starts. But I think this has a very strong possibility of happening.

Here’s what I think would eventually happen:

1) Jon and his allies foil the plan;

2) Jon and Sansa rule Westeros;

3) Tyrion is put on trial for his role

4) KL ends up getting blown up by Dany so they don’t even rule from KL in the end

But Why Does This Work Symbolically?

There are SO many plot threads this ties together:

1) Tywin held a grudge for Aerys’ refusal to accept his idea for a Cersei/Rhaegar betrothal;

2) Tyrion is a villain in the OG outline and involved in a deadly feud with Jon over his Stark sister-turned-not sister;

3) Sansa would actually BE the YMBQ if a temporary betrothal to Cersei were accepted by Jon only to be foiled later and result in a Jon/Sansa marriage;

4) Tyrion offered Bronn lands and titles in the North before his trial by combat but Bronn turned it down because Tyrion didn’t know where Sansa was;

5) Jon riding to KL to stop Sansa from being married to a Lannister would show him saving her from a marriage in a way that Robb was unable to do for Sansa;

6) Jon going with a plan would show him learning from the mistakes of his REAL father and brother;

7) It fits Tyrion wanting the North and having a reasonable-ish reason for staking his claim to the North (”Cersei would have killed us both otherwise!”) but finally paying for all he’s done........like murdering Shae in cold blood.

8) It illustrates the importance of Sansa as the Key to the North.

9) Sansa in the books always longed for her hero to ride to save her from the tower. Here she’s grown and become wiser and yet women in Westeros really STILL are vulnerable...and Sansa would get to learn first hand that someone does exist who will put her first and do whatever it takes to keep her safe.

I could go into the million reasons why this works with regard to the dynamics between Jon and Daenerys but I feel like I need to get the basis of this theory out first and then maybe I can expand upon it.

Honestly, I got so excited about the possibilities of this theory that my first post hear is probably sloppy and a little disjointed, and in dire need of refinement but I had to get it out there.

Don’t be surprised if I come out with additions in the near future.

#jonsa #jon x sansa #political jon theory #political!jon #anti targaryen restoration #tltwp meta #spoilers #s8 spoilers

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dailyaudiobible · 5 years ago

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11/07/2019 DAB Transcript

Ezekiel 16:42-17:24, Hebrews 8:1-13, Psalms 106:13-31, Proverbs 27:7-9

Today is the 7th day of November. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I am Brian. It's great to be here with you as we continue the journey through our week. And the trail leads us back into the prophetic book of Ezekiel today. We’re reading from the Contemporary English Version this week. And today Ezekiel chapter 16 verse 42 through 17 verse 24.

Commentary:

Okay. If what we were reading in the book of Hebrews, especially the last part of what we were reading in Hebrews sounded vaguely or even very familiar, that’s because we’re reading Hebrews, quoting extensively from the book of Jeremiah. In fact, this is the longest Old Testament quotation found in the New Testament, it’s in Hebrews 8. So, to begin understand why a very lengthy quotation from Jeremiah chapter 31 is found in the book of Hebrews then we need to refocus on what is right before us the, name of this book or letter, Hebrews. Hebrews was written for Hebrews. So, the Hebrew or Jewish sensibilities, the entire worldview and context is foundational, is irreplaceable in this book. So, most of us are Gentile and most of us…well not most of us…all of us are several thousand years removed from the writing of this letter. But most of us are not a natural born Hebrew person. And yet all of the things that are being discussed are from a Hebrew perspective in Hebrews and for that matter for most of the Bible. And, so, we've grown accustomed to certain ways that things were done. Whether we understand them or not we kinda have a little bit of an overview of the Hebrew culture, at least biblically. So, imagine if there wasn't anything called the Old Testament, the Torah. What if there weren't the law and the prophets? What if they didn't exist? Then what we’re reading in Hebrews wouldn’t make any sense at all because it's coming completely from a Hebrew context as it relates to what we now call the Old Testament. So, we have to have our minds pretty clear here that the entire…like the whole premise for the book of Hebrews is to systematically provide evidence and theological statements about a new covenant and a new high priest and why that matters. And if any evidence could not be found, like from previous times in this culture then this would be like a newfangled invention that would be very hard for people to swallow. In fact, even with the evidence it was pretty hard for people to swallow. But the writer of Hebrews quoted Jeremiah at length because the prophecy found in Jeremiah foretold a coming new covenant. So, when Hebrews was written Jeremiah’s prophecy was already centuries old, but it wasn't something that…that had fallen into obscurity. It was part of the Hebrew Scriptures, was part of the prophets. So, it was known. And people who were devout in their faith, they would've known what was being talked about here. So, the author of Hebrews is basically saying, “this isn’t surprising…like this isn't surprising news. We've been waiting for this. This was foretold. This is what we've been looking for.” So, people who had begun to follow Jesus weren’t attempting to like to invent a new religion, make completely new inventions inside the faith. They were simply…they were announcing that what had been promised had come, and there was a new covenant. So…so the writer of Hebrews is like, “if the first covenant had no faults there would be no need for a second covenant to replace it. So, in this first covenant, priests represented the people and they fulfilled the sacrifices and rituals and customs and holidays, holy days, that they understood were the obligations of the law. But according to Hebrews, all of that effort, as good as it was and is, is only a copy, a foreshadowing of…of what's really going on in heaven. So, kind of following the train of thought, if there were a new covenant that had been foretold a long time ago, and as the writer of Hebrews is pointing out that is the case because it's found in the book of Jeremiah. If a new covenant actually did become valid and it had been instituted by the Lord God the most high, himself, then there would be a need for a new high priest to preside over that agreement. And that's what the author of Hebrews is getting at. We have a high priest who sat down in the place of honor beside the throne of the majestic God in heaven, where He ministers in the heavenly tabernacle. So, let’s just zoom back here to our modern times understanding that we’re mostly Gentile people. And, so, we can read this, and we can even understand it. If we’ve spent any time in the Old Testament, we can understand what's happening here. But it’s pretty complicated and highly theological. And, so, we can…we can pretty much zone out and just be like, “it's like…it's in the Bible…I accept it. I don't understand how the tediousness of this.” But if we had been in the first century and we had been a Hebrew and we had been devout in our faith, what is being said here is so profoundly revolutionary that most…most people didn't embrace the idea that God actually was doing something new in the world through a Messiah as spoken in Jeremiah. Like, they believed that was gonna happen, but very, very complicated. Like, they would've expected it to be more obvious. The thing about Hebrews is that it's intention wasn't to convince a Hebrew person to…to renounce their religious convictions and move to a different religion called Christianity. None of that was formed yet. Like, just the idea of people who believe in Jesus being called Christians was brand-new. So, nobody was trying to talk anybody out of their faith. It was actually the opposite. It was to reveal Jesus to the Jewish or Hebrew people as the foretold expected next step in their faith. So, Hebrews was unveiling the ongoing Hebrew story within the context of what God was inviting His people into, this new covenant. The shadow of the old covenant was being replaced by an unbroken and unblemished new covenant, presided over by a sinless high priest in heaven. So, for a Hebrew in the first century who’s devout hearing this, it would have indeed been monumentally good news if it were true, because it would mean that the final sacrifice had been made and that…that sin wasn't an issue anymore. The law was fulfilled, which was just a bridge too far for most people. But at the same time, as Hebrews is pointing out, this has been foretold. Like, this isn't new news. It's old news that is now coming to fruition. And it’s not the only thing that Jeremiah foretold. “The time will come” according Jeremiah here. “I the Lord will write my laws on their minds and hearts. I will be their God and they will be my people. Not one of them will have to teach another to know me their Lord. All of them will know me no matter who they are. I will treat them with kindness, even though they are wicked. I will forget their sins.”

Prayer:

Father, we thank You for Your word. We thank You for all of the different ways that it that it stretches us. We thank You for the book of Hebrews and allowing us to understand the good news through the lens of the Jewish context and experience. And we thank You that You foretold what was going to happen all the way back in the book of Jeremiah. And then we have this interpretation in the book of Hebrews to contextualize it into the first century and we have been doing ever since, which brings us to today with a great high priest, presiding over a new covenant that tells us that we have been adopted into the family of God, Your family. We are Your family and that is news that is so good it's almost impossible to comprehend. So, Holy Spirit we ask that You make it a reality in our lives so that we live accordingly, revealing Your kingdom at work in this world. Come Holy Spirit we pray. Into all of this we ask in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is the website and that makes it home base. That’s where you find out what's going on around here.

That is where the Prayer Wall lives. That's in the Community section, where continual prayer for and asking…giving and receiving of prayers are happening on a continual basis there. So, be familiar with that. That's always a place to reach out to. In that same section, the Community section of the website, you’ll find all of the different links to the different social media channels that we are on. So, that is also a good thing to be aware of if you're on social media.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, you can do that at dailyaudiobible.com as well. There is a link and it's on the homepage. It just lives there. And I thank you profoundly and with all humility for those of you who have clicked that link over the years. If you're using the Daily Audio Bible app, you can press the Give button in the upper right-hand corner of the app or, if you prefer, the mailing address is PO Box 1996 Spring Hill Tennessee 37174.

And, as always, if you have a prayer request or comment 877-942-4253 is the number to dial.

And that is it for today. I’m Brian I love you and I'll be waiting for you here tomorrow.

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nineteensixtieschikadee · 6 years ago

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Debunking Arya Stark being Azor Ahai and the Princess That Was Promised. (S8 E3)

(Let’s get one thing straight before I write this whole post. I LOVE Arya Stark. That girl is my baby. She’s my favorite character, not only in the show, but also very importantly, in the books. And I LOVED that she was the one to kill the Night King. So this post isn’t in any way going to a post about me complaining about the final 10 minutes of Episode 3 of S8. Instead, this will be me CRITICALLY ANALYZING that moment, and how it fit’s and doesn’t fit into the lore, and the books. Afterall, I am a book reader first and foremost, and a show-watcher 2nd.)

Before I say anything else, I’ll give you guys my rundown opinion of that scene. This morning I was on twitter and Tumblr, and I started losing my freaking marbles because everyone was labeling Arya Stark, Azor Ahai Reborn, and TPTWP. And I wasn’t the only one. Everyone on the asoiaf forums were equally disappointed at how everything about e3 was handled. And I, unfortunately, am one of those people. But here’s the thing, and let’s make this clear. Ask any book reader, NONE OF US ARE MAD THAT ARYA KILLED THE NK. In fact, a lot of us expected something like that, because we know that Arya in the books will have a VERY IMPORTANT role for the upcoming war for the Dawn. There are lots of hints and foreshadow about her doing something remarkable in the books, however, this is not one of them. So let’s analyze and debunk this moment:

Yes, Arya killing the Night King was hella bad-ass. Hell, I even cheered for her. Although when it got to the final credits, I was literally so lost, and confused, and overall disappointed. I was lowkey quiet for the first 10 minutes after, because I couldn’t believe what actually happened. Here’s the thing that is irking everyone about Arya being AA or TPTWP: her killing the NK, so easily AND ALONE is what ruined the plot arcs of some of those characters whose plot actually revolves around the Others. Yes, the moment was EMPOWERING. Being a women who stopped the damn apocalypse. I was inspired. And it was very poetic that Arya killed the ULTIMATE representation of DEATH. But the BUILDUP to her killing the NK? Where was it? A simple foreshadow from Mel about eye colors? The fact that Arya used a sparring move against Brienne in S7? A moment when Bran gives her Catspaw? When she meets Jon, and Jon says, “How did you sneak up on me?”?

Here, the reason why Arya SIMPLY killing the NK so easily doesn’t work, is because it INVALIDATES EVERYTHING about the books and it’s morals, and the text. Arya killing the NK with one stab, while Dany couldn’t even injure him with fire, fucks up the lore and the history so badly, that it all feels so worthless. Pointless. What? Was everything that happened in the books a BIG RED HERRING?? You spend so many years BUILDING up to this war, and Arya simply killing him without any problems or consequences is what wins the war? What about Daenerys? What about Jon? WHAT WAS THE POINT? WHY WAS HE WAS BROUGHT BACK? Just to be King? Huh? And BRAN.

Yes GOT is about the Throne. And it would make sense that the show ends where it started, with the throne. But the whole point of A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE is about ICE AND FIRE. The balance between life and death. The balance between good and bad. The balance between magic and reality. The whole point of the battle between ice and fire, is that none of the things involving the throne matters. Bc there is an even more powerful danger lurking on both sides. Dany being a danger from the south (fire) and the Others from the north (Ice). There has to be a balance between those two things, and that is not the Iron Throne.

Let’s go back to the AA prophecy quickly. People on twitter were lowkey confused because apparently no one knows who Azor Ahai is, and now everyone immediately thinks it’s Arya cause she killed the NK. Here’s a small rundown: Azor Ahai, or The Prince/Princess who was promised was a prophized figure who fought against the Others (White Walkers), bringing forth a summer after a generation of winter and darkness. This prophecy is to come back into fruition once more, now that winter is coming. And HIS is the SONG OF ICE AND FIRE, who will be reborn amidst salt and smoke, and is prophisized to save the world AGAIN from eternal darkness. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3o2LqFZcGU Click the link for more info. This one is my favorite video analysis about AA. (IN SHORT, AA IS BASICALLY JESUS, LOL)

Now I know prophecy should always be taken with a grain of salt. It shouldn’t be taken too lightly, or too figuratively. BUT! AA is NOT just anyone. There are REQUIREMENTS to be this prophesied savior. (See video above.) Those requirements do NOT FIT ARYA. I really tried. No this fandom tried. We tried making even the slightest connection, even metaphorically that Arya could somehow be the PTWP. But the only thing we could find that actually made sense, was that she felt “reborn” when she saw the red comet (bleeding star) back in ACOK (S2). Not even metaphorically does she fit this prophecy. Now here’s the next counter argument: What if prophecy is just bullshit, and none of it is real, and we’re all just wasting our time? Yes, all of that is plausible. HOWEVER, you spend all this time, 8 seasons, 5 books, with SO SO SO MUCH foreshadow and hints, and LEGITIMATE EVIDENCE, that it doesn’t properly pay off? GRRM is NOT like that. There are characters in the books that predict ACCURATE prophecies and foreshadows. In fact, there is a character who is known to accurately predict prophecy. And she does for Arya. Guess who it is? *Bingo bingo!* The GHOST OF HIGHHEART. (Jenny’s Song. S8 E2)

“I see you. I see you, wolf child. Blood child. I thought it was the lord who smelled of death ... You are cruel to come to my hill, cruel. I gorged on grief at Summerhall, I need none of yours. Begone from here, dark heart. Begone!” (ASOS, pg 593)

Prophecy may not be accurate at times. But they DO pay off. This prophecy here is literally the equivalent of Melisandre giving the “Colored eyes” prophecy in the show. Because in the books, Mel doesn’t even meet Arya and there is no colored eye foreshadow, or any sort of foreshadow that she is TPTWP. There is however, other ways you can interpret this prophecy above. (You decide.)

Prophecy is a BIG THING about the books. Yes, it may not be accurate, but they HOLD MEANING. THE AZOR AHAI PROPHECY IS THE BACKBONE OF THE WHOLE WHITE WALKER STORYLINE. By ignoring this prophecy, you are essentially taking away the PURPOSE and the real motives of these characters who are INTERTWINED with this prophecy. The reason why Arya killing the NK so easily and ALONE is a problem with us, is because it invalidates this prophecy, and therefore makes everything, all the buildup absolutely POINTLESS. The characters that have been involved from Day 1 with this prophecy, have been reduced to nothing more than a side story. A myth.

Let’s look at all the characters whose building story arc have become irrelevant because of the writer’s decision to pull that plot twist:

Jon Snow:

Wow. This one literally couldn’t hurt any more than it already does... From his first chapter, to his first scene in the show, we are led to believe that this character is literally nothing more than Ned Stark’s bastard. A side character. It is made clear that he IS A BASTARD. He IS AN OUTSIDER. Both him and Arya have parallel arcs. They intertwine beautifully. This is why people think Arya will also have a role to play with the Others in the later books. Because she and Jon share the same story, just she is dealing with a different kind of death. GRRM from the book emphasizes Jon’s bastard title, and his mother. And he isn’t really made out to be an important character until MUCH LATER in the book series. The fact that there’s so much emphasis on his title, and R+L=J is IMPORTANT. Bc the whole AA prophecy states that AA will be reborn out of Jaehaerys line. Not anyone from the Starks. Also the line, “You know nothing Jon Snow,” is even more relevant because it’s full of irony. You have the guy who’s known to know nothing, but he actually KNOWS MORE than anyone realizes. Jon’s whole arc is about the Others. Which would have made his fight with them MUCH MORE PERSONAL because his storyline is physically and emotionally connected to them. The fact that he joins the Night’s Watch is important too. Because no, they don’t just fight wildlings in the books. Their purpose was to protect the realm from the Others. I am the sword in the darkness. I am the watcher on the walls. I am the fire that burns against the cold, the light that brings the dawn, the horn that wakes the sleepers, the shield that guards the realms of men. This is so relevant because Jon becoming king, would make it MUCH MORE meaningful. A king that PROTECTED the realm. Assuming he even becomes king, would make his whole arc come full circle and would be so much more rewarding. You have this dude resurrected from the dead, and what? Was his purpose just to unite the people and become king? You have this character foreshadowed to have a standoff with the ultimate bad guy, and he does nothing but run around screaming at an undead dragon...Yes, it’s cliche. BUT IT’S STILL GOOD STORY TELLING BECAUSE IT’S BEEN BUILT UP PROPERLY.

Bran Stark:

I don’t even have words for this one... You have Brandon Stark literally the most OP person in all of the seven kingdoms and YOU. DONT. USE. HIM. Okay I agree, GRRM says Bran is the hardest character to write in the books, but that shouldn’t be an excuse for him to just warg into ravens and do what? Scout? That’s it? This kid was literally pushed off a tower that ended up triggering his journey to become the 3-eyed raven a.k.a THE MOST POWERFUL MAN IN THE UNIVERSE, and he does absolutely nothing but sit around predicting other peoples future, and being weird, and warging into ravens. Lol what’s worse is that he’s just there in the show to serve the other character’s plot line. By “TRIGGERING” these events that the characters will eventually get into. Bloodraven in the books is SCARY AS HELL. No one really knows his motive and yet he can do so much more than what Bran does in the show. Bloodraven is the definition of MIND BLOWING. Bran AND JON ARE THE TWO PEOPLE WHO ARE THE MOST PHYSICALLY AND EMOTIONALLY CONNECTED TO THE OTHERS, AND BY THE END, THEIR WHOLE ARCS WERE THROWN IN THE TRASH. They don’t have a big face off, or any sort of payoff. Just staring and staring and staring. And BAM. Welp Night King’s dead. Oops guess we were just here for absolutely no other purpose than to trigger events and bring all these dumb people together. (Sorry, this one lowkey triggered the hell out of me. The 3 eyed Raven, Hodor, Meera and Jojen DID NOT DIE just for Bran to not be used to his full potential...)

Daenerys Targaryen:

This one is soo annoying. Daenerys Targaryen, fits literally ALMOST ALL the signs of the prophecy that it almost seems too obvious if she was AA. But welp, none of that matters now because she didn’t really do anything to kill the Night King. SHE DID DO MORE THAN JON though, I’ll give her that. Yeah she’s a conqueror going for the Iron Throne. But she’s also a direct descendant of King Jaehaerys’ line. Part of her whole arc is fire and blood. But it is also about her fight for her birthright, and if she would give up her birthright to fulfill something greater. We as fans, we root for her to get the throne. But we also root for her to do something MORE. But more IMPORTANTLY, her arc is also in parallel with the Others. And no, I don’t mean that she’s a mad queen. But the title of the series is called A Song of Ice and Fire. Daenerys is a THREAT from the south. (Fire.) And the Others are a threat from the north. (Ice) There has to be a balance between them. In the show she loses a dragon, one of her children. And the fact that her choice of weapon doesn’t do ANY damage to the ultimate villain, but a simple stabbing does? I don’t even like Daenerys much after s6, but wow. This was underwelming to the core. Dragon chick who’s literally a level 1K going against another level 1K final boss and can’t do shit to him??

Rhaegar Targaryen:

This I think is the one that ANNOYS ME THE MOST. Like holy shit, they could not have possibly damaged this whole wretched storyline even more than they already did. But somehow the show writers managed to go and give it one final blow. Rhaegar Targayen. The one arguably responsible for ALL the shit we have in Game of Thrones. The one whose actions triggered nearly every single arc into motion in this whole goddamn series. The man who is arguably considered the REAL MAIN CHARACTER in ASOIAF. HIS WHOLE COMPLEX CHARACTER ARC AND STORYLINE FLUSHED DOWN THE TOILET. I love Rhaegar’s character in the books, cause he’s well, not exactly a good guy. He’s in that perfect morally grey area, which is what I love about characters. He’s not suppose to be likeable. He’s suppose to be complex. But the show not only managed to make him the MOST UNLIKEABLE character in this series, but they also managed to ruin all of his complexities in favor of making him a love-sick puppy thinking with his dick. This was lowkey the biggest fuck you they could give to his character, the characters surrounding him, (*cough* Elia) and to the lore and history of the books. Rhaegar’s whole arc and storyline revolved around this stupid prophecy and that’s literally THE reason why everything went down the way it did in the books. Elia was also INTO the prophecy too, so it’s not like she wasn’t aware of anything! Elia was even helping Rhaegar fullfill this prophecy, it just so happens that she was too sick, to do anything more. The fact that the show chose to ignore this whole thing and disregard the lore surrounding it is literally is the biggest fuck you to Elia and her children. It means that Rhaegar truly was a mad man who left his wife and disowned his children because he was thinking with his dick. When in fact it wasn’t really like that. Rhaegar really did try to protect Elia and their children when he left them. And that too gets thrown in the trash because of this dumb prophecy. And that sucks because Elia played an important role with this prophecy, and she knew and understood it too. And in the end, none of their actions became worth it... By not having the proper payoff from all of this buildup, Elia and her children literally died for NOTHING.

Other characters who’s arc were ruined by the mess in e3:

Samwell Tarly: Was the first character to discover that WW can be killed with dragonglass. He was studying at the citadel to learn more about them, and find info on how to beat them. Not only did this NOT happen, but he didn’t even contribute to anything for the end of the world. Literally just went back to being the scared little puppy he was back in S1/book1. His role then had no relevancy because NK was killed so easily, and he didn’t even learn a single thing about him or how to kill him, other than him wanting to “erase memories.” His whole arc was about him being more than what he believed in. Being smarter than what his father thought he was. And they did not utilize that. He coward back again! Like what was the point of him going to the citadel and stuff if literally the EASIEST way to kill the NK was a simple stab with a special steel?

This episode had so many problems. But Arya Stark killing the NK WASN’T the main problem. You can have the most beautiful shot television series with so much time and effort put in it. But all of that means nothing when the writing is not consistent. The fact that the show did a 360 and practically ignored literally EVERYTHING about the lore and the text, is what’s frustrating everyone. Because while Arya killing the NK and saving the realm BY HERSELF was yes, poetic and SERVED WELL TIEING UP HER ARC, in doing so, it had managed to UNTIE literally YEARS and years of plot threads and buildup from most of the other CRUCIAL characters, that in the end, it feels so empty. Arya should not have killed the NK ALONE. Bran should’ve been a part of it. Jon should’ve helped Arya kill the NK. Now that would’ve been a good payoff for both their arcs. Jon, Bran, Arya, Daenerys and Tyrion are considered by GRRM to be the CORE 5 of the story. And in the end, in this supposedly world ending apocalypse, only Arya really played a KEY role. Bran didn’t do anything powerful to stop the NK. He only triggered events and was bait. Daenerys was getting slaughtered out there, and even her most prized weapon could help her fully. Jon... Let’s be honest, no one knows what in the world Jon was doing this ep. Tyrion was down in the crypts, when this little man literally could have contributed to WAR TACTICS. All these characters are connected with the Others emotionally, physically and/or metaphorically, that the fact that only one of them became crucial to the endgame, makes the story so POINTLESS. What was the point of bringing Jon back from the dead if he was only going to unite people and become king? What was the point of Bran venturing far north to become the most powerful human being, if all he’s going to do is trigger events and warg into ravens? etc.

Arya killing the NK alone hurts because while she is foreshadowed to play a crucial role against the Others in the books, SHE IS THE MOST DISTANT FROM THEM IN TERMS OF STORYLINE. It doesn’t pay off well in the show, because until a couple of weeks ago, she didn’t even know the Others existed. Up until last night’s battle, she’s never seen a white walker. That’s why it didn’t feel right for her to do the kill alone. Her arc did not intertwine with the Others, physically or emotionally. Unlike Jon or Bran whose literal whole arc has been with the Others, and is about the Others. That’s why it feels so empty. It didn’t feel rewarding. It was undeserving. Because up until last night, she’s had no interaction with a single Other, whatsoever. The buildup was actually weak, and because of it, it didn’t feel as good as it should’ve.

Arya’s plotline is more than just hyping up to kill the Others. Like the other core members, she has a complex story arc. Arya’s storyline is about her heart in conflict with itself. It’s about her identity. Part of the reason why she struggles in AFFC & ADWD in her Faceless Man arc, is because she CAN’T become a faceless man. Her heart won’t let her forget her identity. That’s also why she’s had so many other identities in the books. Her different identities are about survival as well. They’ve helped her survive. It’s not really about revenge, and killing, and white walkers. But it’s about her, having so many identities and finding her way back to her true identity. Finding her way back to being a Stark.

So yeah. Arya killing the NK so SIMPLY when there should’ve been more, is like a big fuck you to the books and what it stands for. It invalidates the books. The fact that the books hype up this war for the dawn and prophecy and the Others, and then it just ends after 1 episode? Like that’s it? The NK being killed so easily? The payoff was weak, and it hurts not only the book fans but the book and it’s characters in general. No Arya is not Azor Ahai reborn, or any prophisized savior. She is an assassin and the slayer of the Night King. But to make it even more utterly pointless, the NK doesn’t even exist in the books.

The episode was fun, tense and good! Arya killing the NK was hella badass. But... it just wasn’t A Song of Ice and Fire.

(Congrats if you made it to the end of my very, very, long essay! As always, debates are up and open! Feel free to counter-argue!) :)

#game of thrones #got #got spoilers #Arya Stark #jon snow #daenerys targaryen #bran stark #azor ahai #the prince that was promised #house stark #a song of ice and fire #asoiaf #the battle of winterfell #the long night #this whole post made me sad lol

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mst3kproject · 7 years ago

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1105: The Beast of Hollow Mountain

I have a personal fucking grudge against this movie. When I was… I dunno, maybe six or seven, I went to an event at the city zoo that featured a talk by paleontologist Robert Bakker (I still have the Ornithomimus he drew for me) and a screening of an absolutely, non-ironically fantastic movie about cowboys and dinosaurs in Mexico. Since I was a child, I never bothered to remember the title of this film and so years later when I fondly remembered it, of course I couldn’t find it to watch it again. Until one day, flipping through banged-up VHS tapes at a flea market I happened across The Beast of Hollow Mountain… cowboys and dinosaurs in Mexico? This had to be it!

I was wrong. I was so, so wrong. This movie has been on my Episodes that Never Were radar since the inception of this blog, and I was delighted that Season Eleven actually used it at the same time as being slightly annoyed that they used it first. No matter. It richly deserves everything Jonah and the bots threw at it.

There are these two guys, Jimmy and Felipe, who own a ranch. Jimmy keeps flirting with a woman named Sarita. She’s supposed to be marrying this other guy called Enrique, who doesn’t like Jimmy and tries to undermine his ranching business so he’ll be forced to return to Texas, but of course Sarita secretly likes the smiling white guy better than the grumpy Latino. There’s also a comic relief drunk, Pancho, who might be funny if it weren’t for the fact that he’s a grieving widower raising a very young child, which kind of undercuts the joke. We watch these people go about their lives for at least seventeen hours in which nothing much happens, and then suddenly holy shit motherfucking dinosaur out of nowhere.

The weird masked people in that one scene are chinelos dancers, which is interesting in that it gives us an exact location for this story: the little Mexican state of Morelos. This area is rather far south of the US-Mexico border and known more for its sugar cane than its cattle ranching, but it does appear to have mountains, so we’re on firmer geographical ground here than in Beginning of the End. The masks and robes the dancers wear were originally designed to make fun of Europeans, so it’s kind of fitting that the whole display reduces Jonah, Kinga, and Max to terrified weeping.

If you only look at the first three quarters of the movie, The Beast of Hollow Mountain is an unremarkable, laid-back little western about an upstart rancher competing with the local cattle baron in both economics and love. There are probably a lot of movies that have this as their only plot, and they do just fine for people who like westerns, I guess. In this particular movie, however, it’s all just killing time. When I reviewed Avalanche a few weeks back I complained that all the effort getting us to invest in the characters is ultimately pointless because none of those stories will be resolved. Beast of Hollow Mountain is slightly better, in that it does resolve the problems it has set up for the characters, but it does so via tyrannosaurus [r]ex machina.

The movie does make some attempt to hint at the existence of the dinosaur, but it’s pathetically ineffective. There are superstitions that the mountain is haunted, and cattle are disappearing – but we see that Enrique is encouraging the rumors and possibly stealing the cows as he tries to force Jimmy to leave town. Occam’s razor tells us that a jealous rival is a much more likely explanation than a dinosaur. Actual evidence of the monster, such as footprints, cow bones in places cows could not possibly go, or never-believed eyewitness accounts from the local drunks, is completely lacking.

It’s pretty obvious that the reason the dinosaur never appears until the last few minutes of the film is because animation is expensive and that’s all they could afford. That’s fine, but a lack of budget shouldn’t have gotten in the way of the foreshadowing! You can make a respectable dinosaur footprint with a shovel and an eye for artistic detail. Have a couple of prop guys drape a fake cow skeleton over a tree branch, and presto, instant mystery! And if you need unlikely eyewitness accounts, you’ve already got a town drunk who could be laughed at for it, in the form of Pancho! You could even do that stupid joke, as seen in god only knows how many other movies, where seeing the dinosaur makes him throw a bottle away and swear to never touch another drop!

It seems so obvious that a movie called The Beast of Hollow Mountain would want to include some clues to the nature of the titular beast before we actually see it, I can’t imagine why they didn’t. Maybe they figured they were building suspense? If so, all they actually accomplish is, as Jonah and the bots repeatedly note, making us doubt that there will be any beast in this movie at all. By the time we get to its appearance, it seems completely wrong that there would suddenly be a dinosaur in what has so far been a story with no fantastical elements.

The other problem with only pulling the dinosaur out at the end of the movie is that, as I mentioned above, it’s a deus ex machina, an easy solution to the characters’ problems that doesn’t feel like part of the same world. After we’ve watched the rivalry between Jimmy and Enrique for an hour, the satisfying way to end this story would be to have them resolve their differences, perhaps out of mutual love of Sarita and a desire to make her happy. You could even include the dinosaur in this, by having Enrique forgive Jimmy out of gratitude for saving his life. Instead, the dinosaur kills Enrique, leaving Jimmy free to do whatever he likes without having to address his own problems! It’s as lazy as having him wake up at the end and discover that Enrique was only a bad dream.

When you refuse to foreshadow, you also leave the audience wondering why there is apparently one dinosaur wandering around in Mexico somewhere. You can’t just pull one dinosaur out of the movie’s ass and not have some kind of explanation! Eegah! had one caveman in the deserts outside Palm Springs but offered the backstory that he was the last of a clan whose lives had been greatly lengthened by the sulfur springs. Other movies give us dinosaurs that come out of lost valleys or the centre of the earth or something. Is that what ‘Hollow Mountain’ is supposed to be? A portal to a lost land? If so, I think that deserved at least a few seconds of screen time!

Outside of its lazy storytelling, I guess The Beast of Hollow Mountain really isn’t badly-made. The costumes, including those on the extras, are gorgeous, and between those and the chinelos dancers I suspect the film-makers just went to a town in Morelos and said, “who wants to be in a movie?” The characters are all pretty one-note but the actors do their best. Mario Navarro as Panchito isn’t nearly as annoying as he was in The Black Scorpion, and Patricia Medina as Sarita does manage to seem like she’s struggling between her commitment to Enrique and her crush on Jimmy. The worst performance in the movie is probably given by Jimmy himself, played by Guy Madison. He does ‘smiling mellow cowpoke’ in every single scene, including those that really would have benefitted from some gravitas.

The dinosaur itself is… eh, it’s not that bad. I feel like I’ve probably waited longer for worse dinosaurs (Lost Continent comes to mind). I do like stop motion in general and I respect the effort that goes into creating it. The problem in The Beast of Hollow Mountain isn’t so much the animation itself as what they chose to animate – why the emphasis on the dinosaur’s flailing tongue? They also failed entirely to make it look as if the dinosaur is occupying the same space as the humans. Either the puppet or the actors is always horribly out of focus, which might be an attempt to suggest depth. If so, it doesn’t work.

Then for the closeups, they have dinosaur puppet arms and feet. These are simply terrible. They don’t match the stop-motion creature in anatomy, movement, or implied size.

It’s pretty obvious what went wrong with this movie. Somebody came up with a really cool idea for a popcorn flick – cowboys and dinosaurs, you guys! Everybody else loved it, but as they tried to bring it to fruition, they realized it was also a really expensive idea, and tried to lower the cost by increasing the cowboy-to-dinosaur ratio. By the time they got to something they could afford, there were only five minutes of dinosaur left. As I observed in my review of Future War, sometimes movie-makers really need to just step back and say, “no, guys, this is just not gonna work.”

In this case, the ‘somebody’ with the great idea was stop motion pioneer Willis O’Brien, who wrote a script he called The Valley of Mists. I’ve never read it but I know for a fact that The Beast of Hollow Mountain didn’t come anywhere near doing it justice – because thirteen years later, O’Brien’s protégé Ray Harryhausen did the animation for the remake, The Valley of Gwangi. You guessed it, that's the fucking awesome cowboys-and-dinosaurs movie I remembered from my youth! If you were disappointed by The Beast of Hollow Mountain, I highly recommend giving The Valley of Gwangi a look. It’s got action, adventure, romance, special effects so groundbreaking that the Jurassic Park franchise has actually paid homage to them more than once, and is the guaranteed cure for all your Beast-of-Hollow-Mountain-related blues!

#mst3k #reviews #the beast of hollow mountain #50s #dinosaurs make everything better #allow me to recommend a better movie #cryptid cinema

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