#or is this just deconstructed lawful?

[joseline-woodhouse]

I always use the fourth save slot

Obviously referring to games where you're allowed to make manual saves

Reblog for more data etc

[magicalgirlmindcrank]

Okay fine here’s a list of well regarded deconstructions from people to held nothing but hatred and contempt for the genre and audience

Marshal Law

The Punisher Kills the Marvel Universe

The first addition of warhammer 40k

Starship troopers the movie

DEFCON

Spec ops the line

The original godzilla

Dune

Ohhhh, this explains a lot. Thank you so much for demonstrating that you don't know what a deconstruction is <3

[box-dwelling]

As someone who went to Germany and spent like 70% of the time in churches, Von karma sibling growing up Christian head canons is so fucking personal to me

[vancalox]

💯 🧐 🤍 for elspeth!

💯 HUNDRED POINTS SYMBOL — share three random facts about your oc that others may not know.

elspeth grew up on the coast and is very enamored with the sea, so its a point of great disappointment to her that she actually doesnt like sailing that much lol, solely bc she gets super seasick!!! her family used to tease her relentlessly bc they KNOW its a weak spot in her usually infallible sense of cousland pride, but alas. she makes up for it by being an avid swimmer and spending a lot of her nights drinking with ferelden/marcher sailors lmao (prior to howe's attack)

she excels at sword combat more than anything (she's wielded dual long swords in dao since i first designed her character, but for consistency's sake i recently changed her to a great sword girly since warriors cant dual wield in later titles) . that being said fun fact she's also very adept with a crossbow. varric would be proud tbh. this came about naturally as a result of years and years of hunting expeditions with her father and loghain, usually on horseback. she's not a rapid fire archer and her skills with a bow are pretty abysmal so she wouldnt last long against multiple enemies, but against single targets she can do a LOT of precision damage with a little time, half decent aim, and a few very large bolts lol

prior to dao, elspeth had never traveled anywhere outside of ferelden except for ostwick once when she was about 7 or 8 for the famous free marches grand tourney - which of course inspired her love for the tradition/sport of it. since they take place once every 3 years and move locations each time, she never had an opportunity to revist the event (which sort of suited her well because A. seasickness lol, and B. she's a homebody and feels pretty content to live and die in ferelden) but she HAD planned to fight in the tourney until the highever massacre soured the idea of it forever. now she tries to attend the event in between her grey warden travels and off-duty brooding, but she's more content to watch and appreciate the spectacle of it.

🤍 WHITE HEART — what are three of your oc's neutral/questionable traits?

i think she does kind of outgrow this but at the start of dao she is. ridiculously, comically naive. she had such a strong sense of good and evil, right and wrong, law and chaos, etc. and honestly also a bit of a superiority complex bc she truly believed she would turn out to be an unshakeable, unquestionably heroic figure that nobody could ever speak a bad word abt lol. then the blight happened and she joined the wardens and hey, turns out being a "hero" actually means making a LOT of shitty choices which usually end up hurting people, and youre rarely ever going to get recognition or thanks or appreciation for the pain youve endured (or inflicted). its a really hard reality check for her, but a necessary one i think.

she's a monarchist through and through, and she places a LOT of unnecessary value on bloodlines and lineage. it stems from just being a noble and having her whole world revolve around family names and heritage and land and titles and entitlement lol. also growing up with romanticized stories of her family and the other ferelden nobility fighting to end the occupation. so for that reason she DEEPLY believes a theirin needs to sit on the denerim throne (i mean, people in her family straight up DIED to get moira and later maric on the throne a few decades prior) and inevitably pushes alistair to become king at the end of dao. she also moves to make baelen king in orzammar despite disliking him SO much and finding him SO repellent lol, because her conviction and belief in monarchical systems outweighs her own doubts when push comes to shove

also her martyr complex :/ elspeth wants to be a hero. she wants to be good, and dutiful and honorable and strong. and i think the trauma and grief she's carried since the blight has caused her to always fall just short of those feelings, and so she uses self sacrifice as a crutch in a way to cope with that. she honestly views suffering as a sort of catharsis during and after the blight, as if it atones for all the difficult choices shes made and the horrible things she couldnt prevent. she deliberately self sabotages good things in her life because she believes she doesnt deserve them, or usually because she thinks shes doing the "honorable" thing in one way or another. again as an example, making alistair king. outside of the monarchist viewpoint, she also does it because she truly believes she's protecting him from dying in the grey wardens. even though thats not her choice to make, she throws away a happy normal life with him because even the possibility of losing him scares her so much

🧐 FACE WITH MONOCLE — is your oc more logical or emotional?

this is a hard one! honestly, i think both sides of the coin have their pros and cons and i think its better to be strictly on one side or the other bc at least then your motives are consistent. the problem with elspeth is that shes too emotional to be considered logical, and too logical to be considered emotional. which leads her to making a lot of hypocritical choices and then developing a boatload of insecurity about her own flawed belief systems. eg: she's wary of magic and mages in general, and although she advocates for their rights and is firmly pro mage during the da2/dai conflict, she dislikes apostasy and detests blood magic. or at least WHEN OTHER PEOPLE DO IT lol. she allowed connor to die in redcliffe bc she didnt trust jowan to perform the ritual, which has obviously weighed on her conscience ever since. especially because, only a few months later, she allowed morrigan to perform god-knows-what kind of taboo, blood magic-esque ritual to save alistair from potentially dying via archdemon.

shes a very complicated person. shes someone who really wants to be good, but also really wants to be right. and as she's gotten older those words have lost their meaning but not their value, and so it usually just ends up with her making impossible calls based on outdated beliefs she stubbornly clings to, and then torturing herself about it forever. yay !!!

[fairuzfan]

AMAZING article about what it means to participate in anti-Zionism work both online and in person.

If your anti-zionism does not in any way acknowledge that it is a way of thought and practice led by and for Palestinians, then you need to reevaluate your "anti-zionism" label.

Some passages that felt especially relevant to tumblr:

If we accept, as those with even the most rudimentary understanding of history do, that zionism is an ongoing process of settler-colonialism, then the undoing of zionism requires anti-zionism, which should be understood as a process of decolonisation. Anti-zionism as a decolonial ideology then becomes rightly situated as an indigenous liberation movement. The resulting implication is two-fold. First, decolonial organising requires that we extract ourselves from the limitations of existing structures of power and knowledge and imagine a new, just world. Second, this understanding clarifies that the caretakers of anti-zionist thought are indigenous communities resisting colonial erasure, and it is from this analysis that the strategies, modes, and goals of decolonial praxis should flow. In simpler terms: Palestinians committed to decolonisation, not Western-based NGOs, are the primary authors of anti-zionist thought. We write this as a Palestinian and a Palestinian-American who live and work in Palestine, and have seen the impact of so-called ‘Western values’ and how the centring of the ‘human rights’ paradigm disrupts real decolonial efforts in Palestine and abroad. This is carried out in favour of maintaining the status quo and gaining proximity to power, using our slogans emptied of Palestinian historical analysis.

Anti-zionist organising is not a new notion, but until now the use of the term in organising circles has been mired with misunderstandings, vague definitions, or minimised outright. Some have incorrectly described anti-zionism as amounting to activities or thought limited to critiques of the present Israeli government – this is a dangerous misrepresentation. Understanding anti-zionism as decolonisation requires the articulation of a political movement with material, articulated goals: the restitution of ancestral territories and upholding the inviolable principle of indigenous repatriation and through the right of return, coupled with the deconstruction of zionist structures and the reconstitution of governing frameworks that are conceived, directed, and implemented by Palestinians.  Anti-zionism illuminates the necessity to return power to the indigenous community and the need for frameworks of justice and accountability for the settler communities that have waged a bloody, unrelenting hundred-year war on the people of Palestine. It means that anti-zionism is much more than a slogan. 

[...]

While our collective imaginations have not fully articulated what a liberated and decolonised Palestine looks like, the rough contours have been laid out repeatedly. Ask any Palestinian refugee displaced from Haifa, the lands of Sheikh Muwannis, or Deir Yassin – they will tell that a decolonised Palestine is, at a minimum, the right of Palestinians’ return to an autonomous political unit from the river to the sea. When self-proclaimed ‘anti-zionists’ use rhetoric like ‘Israel-Palestine’ – or worse, ‘Palestine-Israel’ – we wonder: where do you think ‘Israel’ exists? On which land does it lay, if not Palestine? This is nothing more than an attempt to legitimise a colonial state; the name you are looking for is Palestine – no hyphen required. At a minimum, anti-zionist formations should cut out language that forces upon Palestinians and non-Palestinian allies the violence of colonial theft. 

[...]

The common choice to centre the Oslo Accords, international humanitarian law, and the human rights paradigm over socio-historical Palestinian realities not only limits our analysis and political interventions; it restricts our imagination of what kind of future Palestinians deserve, sidelining questions of decolonization to convince us that it is the new, bad settlers in the West Bank who are the source of violence. Legitimate settlers, who reside within the bounds of Palestinian geographies stolen in 1948 like Tel Aviv and West Jerusalem, are different within this narrative. Like Breaking the Silence, they can be enlightened by learning the error of colonial violence carried out in service of the bad settlers. They can supposedly even be our solidarity partners – all without having to sacrifice a crumb of colonial privilege or denounce pre-1967 zionist violence in any of its cruel manifestations. As a result of this course of thought, solidarity organisations often showcase particular Israelis – those who renounce state violence in service of the bad settlers and their ongoing colonisation of the West Bank – in roles as professionals and peacemakers, positioning them on an equal intellectual, moral, or class footing with Palestinians. There is no recognition of the inherent imbalance of power between these Israelis and the Palestinians they purport to be in solidarity with – stripping away their settler status. The settler is taken out of the historical-political context which afforded them privileged status on stolen land, and is given the power to delineate the Palestinian experience. This is part of the historical occlusion of the zionist narrative, overlooking the context of settler-colonialism to read the settler as an individual, and omitting their class status as a settler. 

It is essential to note that Palestinians have never rejected Jewish indigeneity in Palestine. However, the liberation movement has differentiated between zionist settlers and Jewish natives. Palestinians have established a clear and rational framework for this distinction, like in the Thawabet, the National Charter of Palestine from 1968. Article 6 states, ‘The Jews who had normally resided in Palestine until the beginning of the Zionist invasion will be considered Palestinians.’ When individuals misread ‘decolonisation’ as ‘the mass killing or expulsion of Jews,’ it is often a reflection of their own entanglement in colonialism or a result of zionist propaganda. Perpetuating this rhetoric is a deliberate misinterpretation of Palestinian thought, which has maintained this position over a century of indigenous organising.  Even after 100 years of enduring ethnic cleansing, whole communities bombed and entire family lines erased, Palestinians have never, as a collective, called for the mass killing of Jews or Israelis. Anti-zionism cannot shy away from employing the historical-political definitions of ‘settler’ and ‘indigenous’ in their discourse to confront ahistorical readings of Palestinian decolonial thought and zionist propaganda. 

[...]

In the context of the United States, the most threatening zionist institutions are the entrenched political parties which function to maintain the status quo of the American empire, not Hillel groups on university campuses or even Christian zionist churches. While the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) engage in forms of violence that suppress Palestinian liberation and must not be minimised, it is crucial to recognise that the most consequential institutions in the context of settler-colonialism are not exclusively Jewish in their orientation or representation: the Republican and Democratic Party in the United States do arguably more to manufacture public consent for the slaughtering of Palestinians than the ADL and AIPAC combined. Even the Progressive Caucus and the majority of ‘The Squad’ are guilty of this.

Leila Shomali and Lara Kilani

[dfortrafalgar]

In Between

Law discovers that your thighs are the warmest part of your body and exploits that information.

Law x Fem Reader

Warnings: slightly suggestive, really just lots of fluff, reader is written to be chubbier but anyone can read this

Also posted on AO3

Law’s teeth were chattering violently as he stomped down the steel hallways of the Polar Tang.  Light barely made it through the portholes with how deep below the surface of the ocean they were, his shadow only existing thanks to the few fluorescent lights that lined the hallways.  He turned a corner near the stern of the ship and pulled open the door to the engine room with an unmatched fury.

“Why the hell is it so damn cold in here?” he hollered, gravely annoyed.

Ikkaku and Penguin were on the floor in front of the ship’s main boiler system responsible for regulating the temperature within the submarine.  The sound of their captain’s voice made them jump and rapidly turn their attention toward him.

“Sorry, Captain, the electrical system for the boiler’s shot.  We’re working on getting it fixed but it might take a few days.”  Penguin waved his hand in front of the mess of the deconstructed boiler on the floor.

“Are there any extra blankets in the bunkhouse closet?” Ikkaku asked, turning her head back to her work.

Law grumbled.  Of course he had already checked.  Every single blanket that existed on the Polar Tang was currently being used by the other 19 members of the crew, huddled in a giant human ball in the common room with Bepo in the center.  They looked like a flock of penguins in a blizzard, with the only difference being the human chatter amongst the group.

With a brief, and quite blunt, goodbye, Law closed the engine room door and held tighter onto Kikoku who held her permanent place perched on his shoulder.  There was only one person he hadn’t seen in regards to the heating issue, or lack thereof.  And he knew exactly where to find her.

---

Being the Captain’s beloved girlfriend came with many responsibilities, but also a great many perks.  Your favorite being your new home in his private quarters.  His bed was so soft and bouncy, and you got a great amount of sleep in it considering your boyfriend rarely did.  He had a decently large space equipped with a small desk and bookshelf where he stored a few of his personal possessions, now shared with some of yours.  Your favorite part, though, was knowing that Law would always return to this very room at the end of each day, and you were always in there waiting.

You were busying yourself with a small broom, brushing away a small pile of dirt, sand, and stray hairs that had accumulated on the metal flooring.  Staying in motion was the best way to stay warm, and you were so warm, in fact, that you had tied the sleeves of your boiler suit around your waist, existing in the t-shirt you wore underneath.  You crouched down with a dustpan to scoop the pile of dirt up and away from the floor when the door to the room was pushed open with urgency, making you yelp in surprise.  You didn’t even hear him coming, but you giggled almost as soon as you saw the man in the doorway.

Law’s usually stoic face was dusted with a deep red along his nose and cheeks, and his teeth were clenched together.  The fingers that were curled around his sword were also bright red.  He didn’t look particularly pissed, more just uncomfortable.

“It’s cold,” was all he said.  When he took note of your boiler suit being halfway off leaving your forearms and neck exposed, mild shock coated his features.  “How are you not freezing without that suit on?”

You smiled as you finished brushing away the pile into the dustpan and dropping it into a nearby receptacle Law kept by his desk.  “I’ve been doing chores all day, so I got kind of warm.  It is a bit chilly though.”

“‘A bit’,” he responded, light-heartedly mocking your nonchalant attitude.  He trudged into his room, closing the heavy door behind him and gently placing his sword against the wall before flopping onto his bed, hat rolling off of his head with the force of his movement.  He immediately curled into a little ball, hands clutched towards his mouth in feeble attempts to keep them warm, which wasn’t working as planned considering even the breath leaving his lungs was tinged with frost.

You pulled your boiler suit back up, buttoning it halfway leaving it open where your chest was.  You laid on the bed next to him, pulling him into your body as best you could with his current ball form.

“I thought you were from the North Blue, you should be used to the cold,” you chided, running your fingers through his mop of black hair.  It was slightly greasy by the roots, he was due for a nice warm shower when the boiler was fixed.

“I have low blood circulation,” he muttered into your neck.  “I get cold easily if I’m not bundled up to the nines.”  Neither of you needed to say it out loud, it was common knowledge.  Law was super lean and a tad scrawny in areas, it made sense why he would get cold more easily.

A smile graced your lips at the mental image of Law as a kid, wrapped in a multitude of warm layers to keep him warm, that grouchy expression lingering for the duration.  He must have been so adorable like that.

“Well, you have me, I can be your personal space heater,” you responded, voice heavy with affection.

Law had to admit, he did feel like he was warming up already.  He uncurled his hands and placed them on your chest to roll you more onto your back so he was on top of you, resting on you with his full body weight.  His leg nestled in between yours and his nose was pressed into your neck, scruffy facial hair tickling your skin.  His hands, following a growing path of warmth that radiated from your body, trailed down your sides to your hips, before dipping in between your bodies towards your crotch.  In the divots of your hip joints, his hands were instantly filled with an almost scorching warmth that rapidly replaced the biting cold in his fingertips.

“Oh my god,” he muttered without even thinking.

You laughed, though your sound came out a bit breathy as his whole body rested atop your chest.  “Warm down there?” 

Law shuffled, rolling off of you slightly to weasel his tattooed hands between your plump thighs.  You were so unbelievably warm in this one specific spot.  He never noticed it until this very moment.  A tiny voice in the back of his head made him wish the boiler could stay broken for longer just so he could keep his frigid hands locked between your flesh.

Breathless, he uttered, “How are you so warm right here?”

Your hands trailed up his own body to play with the wispy black baby hairs behind his neck.  “I don’t know, I’ve always been pretty warm right there.  Sometimes when my hands get too cold I sit on them to warm up.”  You laughed.  It sounded quite stupid when you said it out loud, but it wasn’t like you could deny it.  If you’ve got personal warmth, you use it to your advantage.

And in this case, you let your popsicle of a boyfriend use it to his advantage.

Law was growing uncomfortable in this position, and with a few quick motions, he had you turned so your back was against his torso, becoming the little spoon as his long legs curled around you, one arm encircling your hips to once again dip his fingers into the warmth between your pelvis.  His other arm rested below you, flush between your body and the bed, absorbing all the warmth it could.  You were much more comfortable in this position too, curling your neck back slightly so his nose ruffled your hair.  He took a long, deep inhale, fully relaxing into the moment.

“What time is it?” he lazily asked.

“Can’t be past 2 o’clock yet,” you responded.

The captain sighed.  There was still so much daytime left and now he found himself in the position where all he wanted to do was warm himself with your soft body.  He inwardly accepted the reality that he might be doing this for the duration of the boiler’s maintenance.  Who was he kidding, he’d be doing this for the rest of his life, until you got sick of him, of course.  But with the way you were completely nestled into him, your own hands held close to your chest, he didn’t think you had any complaints.

His previous grouchiness had all but melted away.  He blissfully closed his eyes with his nose in your hair, planting a chaste kiss on the back of your head.

[dragonseeds]

love and light to everyone but if i see one more post that’s like “the point of asoiaf is that feudalism is BAD” i’m going to rip out my hair and start eating dirt and worms. like yes, it is bad. yes, monarchies are bad. yes so true it’s annoying when people ignore all of that and focus on who they think deserves the throne more. but that’s not the point—that is the premise? it’s the beginning of the exploration and deconstruction. functionally this system is rigid (specifically in terms of gender and class) and horrifically violent: so what it’s really like to live in it? to try to be a hero, a knight, to be a lady in a world where your body belongs to your family, your lord, your order? is it possible to be a good person in a hierarchal world like this, with such vast power imbalances woven throughout it and every relationship and interaction that you have informed by that? how do you navigate that imbalance in order to have meaningful relationships—can you every truly do it? and who decides what is good? how do you know if it’s truly right or it just felt right because it’s what you wanted to do? what about the people who have no name, no family, no order: what happens to them? don’t they matter? what if in a lifetime of looking the other way or actively causing others harm, you do a few things—maybe one thing—that’s objectively good: does it mean anything? does it matter, even if no one ever knows? what if the best thing you ever did broke every vow you made, every law that governs your society? how do you live with that dissonance?

what’s it like to be a ruler, to be a king or queen—is it possible to be a good one in such an unequal system? to wield power justly? who decides what is just? who decides who should rule? at which point does the amount of power someone can have cross the line into too much? is it when you stop trying to figure out how to use it correctly and worry only about how to keep it? if holding onto it costs you everything, your family and all your relationships, is it still worth it? what if having that much power available is necessary to the survival of your people, maybe even your world, but when it’s misused the carnage left behind is beyond articulation—is it still worth it? are the lives it saves worth the lives it took? how do you measure that? who carries the weight of that choice and how? how do you live with it? how do you go on living in a world that can be harsh and cruel and unfair, a world where your good intentions and your personhood seem to matter very little in the face of someone else’s greed or when compared to the yoke of your duty? and the questions never stop and the answers when and if they come are rarely easy, but the point is that you keep asking and keep trying because that’s what it means to be alive lol

[victoriadallonfan]

Lets Talk: The Predator Franchise

About two months ago, I put my thoughts into my feelings on the Alien Franchise, and why I felt that they've been faltering so much.

It felt only fitting that I do the same for the Predator franchise, but I ran into a very curious thing... there's only one bad Predator movie.

A shocking statement, I know, but I'm not counting the AVP movie series (that's it's own separate thing). The Predator (film) is easily the only bad film in the entire series, but I'll get to that later.

First things first: lets talk about Predator (1987).

It's an all time classic, a great deconstruction of the 80's action film, with insanely quotable dialogue and memorable characters - not just the Predator itself, but all the human characters are easily recognizable.

Unlike the Alien (1979) and Aliens (1986), Predator is not predominantly a horror film, nor is it emphasizing a tough topic such as sexual assault. It does HAVE horror aspects (the first time they find the skinned corpses is intensely unnerving, especially when they realize that this group of marines apparently lost all self-control and fired in all directions), and it does touch a bit on how the US government is using its own soldiers as cannon fodder to destabilize third-world countries.

But it's not really built to scare the viewer so much as to present a simple idea: what if these action heroes met a bigger, stronger, more advanced version of themselves? And the result is a near total party wipe.

Watching the original film, you realize that the Predator is depicted as incredibly unfair. The majority of its kills are it sniping someone from afar, rushing them when they aren't even looking (while cloaked), and doing a combination of the above. It would have killed Arnold while his back was turned, if the net trap hadn't been set in place.

Hell, it even kills a wounded soldier that Arnold is carrying, after Billy's "last stand" (that lasted mere moments at best, implying the Predator didn't give him the time of day).

(Also, speaking of Billy... he's psychic? Apparently?)

But yeah, the Predator depicted is not the honor clad warrior that some fans may stan (and some writers believe) but more like the equivalent of Counter-Strike hacker. The fact that it takes Arnold untold amounts of traps, ingenuity, and willpower for the Predator to finally face him man to man, no tech, no weapons is meant to be a testament to how impressive Arnold is.

Likewise, the Predator decides to blow himself the fuck up while cackling manically like a supervillain as he tries to finally kill Dutch, also opens him to showing that as alien as it is, it's remarkably human. A spite filled asshole of a human, but humanish nonetheless (amplified by him copying human speech on prior occasions).

It's a really great film about how alien life, if more advanced than our own, might see us as lesser people or outright livestock to hunt (keep a pin in that).

Predator 2 (1990) is often divided amongst fans.

Some hate the fact that it takes place in the "modern day" LA, instead of sticking to the blazing heat of the jungle (as the lore of the first movie implies that the Predator or a Predator visits at the hottest time of the season to create the local bogeyman figure), but this film does a fine job justifying the LA heatwave and honestly... the idea of keeping the Predator to one type of biome is pretty limiting. So I don't mind that.

As one can tell already, I don't think this movie is bad. As good as the first? No, it rehashes a bit too much for that. But it's still a fun and good movie.

And, notably, scarier.

But for context, Predator 2 is set in the far future of... uh, 1997 LA, where there has been open warfare between the LAPD and the Jamaican and Colombian Cartels. Like, not drug busts or stings, but actual warfare with armies of gangs and shit.

The late 80's and early 90's loved to depict LA as a dystopian hellscape where "law and order" was the only defense from total anarchy (as anyone who has ever lived in LA can tell you, racial tensions, especially between the public and police have not been good to say the least).

This entire setup is like a D.A.R.E nightmare or wet dream depending on who's asking.

(Also the Jamaican drug leader, King Willy, might also be psychic? This is the last time it's brought up, but man, I sort of wish we could see future plot lines where people are randomly psychic in these films.)

Anyways, the situation is certainly perfect for this Predator (named City Hunter to differentiate between Jungle Hunter), who takes to the city with a gusto. The difference in how the Predator is portrayed is fascinating, because the bare bones remain the same: he hunts people who are deemed as sport with alien technology.

Fitting with the ultra-violent theme of this film however, this Predator feels like a legitimately horror movie monster. Unlike the Jungle Hunter, City Hunter doesn't prefer to attack from afar, but rather ripping and tearing in close quarters combat, and when he does use ranged weaponry, it's stuff like spears, bladed discs, and nets that shred people into bloody messes.

And he's 110% a bigger asshole that Jungle Hunter: when the City Hunter decides to focus on our lead man, Danny Glover, he doesn't just hunt the man but psychologically torture him. He murders his partner - who is probably the least threatening human in the entire series - just so he can taunt Glover with his necklace at his own grave. He then copies the innocent words of a child just so he can use it as a creepy catchphrase when he decides to hunt Glover's other partners.

The iconic subway massacre perfectly exemplifies both aspects of the City Hunter. He interrupts a massive stand-off between armed civilians, gang members, and the police, just wading in and killing everyone indiscriminately as people frantically scream and claw over each other trying to escape.

(Speaking of, this film does have a LOT of fun having the Predator on modern sets. The above subway scene, City Hunter investigating a meat locker, and him performing emergency surgery in an apartment bathroom are all really cool).

Also, for being so divisive, this film creates a lot of Predator lore: the Predator won't kill (unarmed) children, he won't kill pregnant women, and he WILL kill the elderly if they are packing heat.

And this includes the trophy wall (with xenomorph skull - actually funny because we never see a Predator collect a xenomorph skull in the AVP films) and that the Predator tribe will honor and respect those who defeat their kind with a reward.

It does include that the government is aware of the Predator existence and tries to capture them, but this won't be a major plot line again until The Predator (2018) though it gets some tongue in cheek reference in Predators (2010).

Anyways solid film, lots of cheesey scenes and very tropey stuff that hasn't aged well (or aged in a way that makes it amusing). It's also that last movie that actually tries to be true horror, in my opinion. The rest of the films stick to Action with Gore, but Predator 2 is truly the last film where you feel like this was written to be a horror film.

Also, this film will be the last to really play into the world as being an overly dramatic action movie earth. It's all realism from here.

And then the film franchise will go quiet until 2004 and 2008 for the AVP films (that I won't cover here).

Finally, we get to Predators (2010), and obvious title call back to Aliens (1986) and I have to say, a pretty good trio of ideas: The human targets are actually kidnapped and dropped on a safari planet, there are multiple Predators with their own unique designs and gimmicks, and there is a internal war between the Bad Bloods (aka the Predators who break the "honor code") and the 'normal' Predator clans.

(It should be noted that Bad Bloods have been a thing for years in comics and books, but not really in the mainstream until this film introduced it to movie audiences)

I have to say, despite having a fondness for the film and loving the new ideas, this film is not as enjoyable as Predator or Predator 2. It unfortunately suffers from what I call 2010ism, where there's a lot of CGI blood/gore, a lot of lighting/shadows aren't natural in a horror sense, and the dialogue isn't memorable because it wanted to ditch the action movie dialogue.

The last part isn't necessarily too bad, and it even works with how Adrian Brody is portrayed as a cynical asshole who is purposely meant to be the opposite of Arnold in every way. But the most memorable dialogue is definitely from Walter Goggins (including his highly disturbing "bitch raping time" speech).

Also, it really wastes Topher Grace, Laurence Fishbourne, and Danny Trejo, along with the whole idea of a gang of multinational killers/soldiers/enforcers forced to work together. Not nearly enough time is given to them to bond as a team and have a moment where they show off how cool they are like Predator and Predator 2 did.

Coupled with the safari world being just... a jungle, it feels like a lot of good ideas with "safe" execution.

I don't mean to rag on the film, it's still very fun, and a lot of that is due to the Bad Bloods.

The idea of a particular group of Predators being so evil that they are even warring with their (smaller) counterparts is a great idea, imo, and these Bad Bloods are memorable for their gimmicks.

You had one who used drones as "falcons" to scan and scout out large tracks of terrain, another who employed alien "hounds" to harass humans like a fox hunt, and the leader who had a rapid-fire plasma caster that was overpowered as hell. They also employed other tech like alien bear traps, net traps, and voice decoys.

This movie definitely had the most advanced Predator tech seen on film at the time, making the Jungle Hunter and City Hunter look low tech by comparison, and I think also served to try and force the idea of the Bad Bloods being really "unfair" compared to others.

And of course, we get our first Predator vs Predator fight, which was suitably graphic and badass. Also, I liked that one Predator died by a human pulling a suicide vest attack. Idk, I thought it was pretty ironic considering that's what predators do when they are about to lose, and thought it was neat.

Ultimately, there isn't much else to say about Predators (2010), even though the film ends on a cliffhanger with more people (and aliens) being dropped on the planet. I enjoyed it, it had a lot of cool ideas, cool tech, and cool lore... but if the prior films could be compared to novels, this one felt more like a guidebook.

And now... eight years pass and we get The Predator (2018)

Where do I begin with this movie.

I guess I start with the obvious: it's bad. It's a genuinely awful movie with few redeeming qualities. I'd say it's on the tier of Alien: Resurrection, except this movie is actually offensive because of autism ableism (turns out that autism is actually the next step of human evolution and makes you naturally predisposed to using Predator technology).

And don't get me started on the sex offender controversy.

Sorry, I'm getting ahead of myself. It's just that this movie... jesus christ, I rewatched it for this post, and it feels like a fever dream.

The Predator (2018) ultimately, is a film that looked at everything that came before it and said, "What if we did it all on a grander scale? And make it bad?" The plot is that a Predator is being hunted by an even larger, more powerful Predator, because it plans on harvesting humanity. You see, in this movie, some Predators use the genes of animals they hunt to improve themselves. The Super Predator as he is called, is a massive 10 foot tall monster that has turned his body into a super weapon, with technology built directly into his biology.

The Good Predator arrives on Earth to warn humanity and deliver a "Predator Killer" suit of Iron Man armor that will help humanity defend the Earth from the oncoming invasion force. The Super Predator wants humanity harvested because... autism makes them super geniuses.... and he declares that a 12 year old boy with autism to be the greatest Predator he's ever met... just because he has autism...

Look, I don't know how the fuck I'm supposed to describe the plot of this movie. It's just bad. It's stupid. At one point they turn a Predator hound good by giving it a bullet lobotomy.

It feels like this movie hates everyone. It hates the Predators, literally killing off the Good Predator not even halfway through the film. It hates the cast, because all of them are forgettable except for Olivia Munn and Super Predator, and it kills the mystique of the Predators because it has Super Predator monologue like an actual supervillain.

The dialogue is genuinely awful, the actors have no chemistry, and the comedy (oh yes, this film acts like a comedy on several occasions) is the definition of cringe. I would call it "ChatGPT writes Predator" but honestly, ChatGPT could do it better.

Let it be known that my words do not do how awful this movie is justice. You can only understand how bad it is by watching it, but it's absolutely NOT worth the time.

Is there anything good about this movie? Besides the Holiday Special on home release?

The effects are pretty good. We see a lot of high tech Predator stuff and that's always cool. I think this had the highest budget of any of the films and it shows.

There's an action set-piece where Good Predator escapes from a government facility and uses an M4-Assault Rifle which is badass. One of the best action scenes in the movie and a neat tie-back to the government investigating them.

The Super Predator is a cool concept and I actually enjoyed him for a large part of the film. I liked that he could just pick up a human like a toy and gut him like a fish before tossing him aside. I love the idea of a Predator that isn't a hunter, but rather a soldier sent in to fuck shit up, showing off the different tech. Really gives the impression that their society has different roles and tech for Predators beyond hunting.

I wish they gave him a helmet and didn't let him monologue like a supervillain.

And that's it. That's the good stuff. Nothing else matters. It says a lot that I don't think Super Predator or the autism plot has been accepted into lore in comics or books.

It's even been argued that this film was deemed non-canon because of how abysmal the reception was.

Suffice to say, after this awful film, fans were pretty low spirit. Which made it all the more surprising when Prey (2022) was released 4 years later.

There was a lot of drama about this film: the franchise is dead, why is the film so woke for including woman and minorities, how can any human expect to beat a Predator with a bow?

This drama is stupid and should rightfully be mocked.

Prey (2022) was a breath of fresh air for the franchise and I'd argue the best film in terms of quality.

It quite literally goes back to the roots of the series and does something that really elevated the film: it made the Predator symbolise something!

This film takes place in the 18th century on the Great Plains, following Naru the Commanche healer who dreams of being a hunter. Meanwhile, a young Predator - known as the Feral Predator for his aggression - is dropped on the planet for his first ever hunt.

Obviously, you can see the parallels between the two as Naru learns to use tricks and tools to handle her weaknesses, while Feral uses brute-force and high tech equipment to slaughter the animals and humans of the planet. The Bear hunt scene, where Naru is forced to flee from a bear and helplessly watch Feral kill the creature with it's bare hands (haha), thus condemning her in his eyes as not a threat is perfect character foil.

Also, he's such a piece of shit, cheating the moment he feels like his prey has the better of him. But in a good way that makes sense for his character.

But on the grander scale, the Predator represents colonialism. A secondary antagonist of the film are the French fur trappers, who have been skinning wild buffalo and depriving the commanche of their food source, openly compared to the Predator skinning animals/humans for trophies instead of resources.

It's actually a lesson Naru has to learn from her brother and mother, that to become a true hunter is about doing so to support a community, not just for ego and idolization.

Its no accident that the Fur Trapper leader dies when Naru sabotages his gun and Feral dies when Naru does the same to his gun as well, with both of them trapped and crippled without any means of escaping their demise.

This film finally moves to make the Predators feel like evil villains who are supremely selfish, much like the first 2 films emphasized (and the third film did to a lesser extent).

But talk of how amazing Naru is as a protagonist and how great the Feral predator is as an antagonist, the film is just good. The cinematography is gorgeous, the actors are great, the Predator effects and costume are terrifying, and lore wise, it does a lot to show that the Predator society is not stagnant.

They evolve over the years and it shows.

And my god are the action scenes incredible. The Predator vs Fur Trapper fight is probably one of the most iconic scenes in the entire franchise now, and for good reason.

Or Naru's knife fight massacre

All in all, this film really shows that the Predator films can be more that action films and... whatever the fuck The Predator (2018) was trying to be.

These films can be used to explore the history of humanity and symbolize concepts that deal with oppression, bigotry, and dehumanization.

The title of Prey - the focus on making the protagonists human - versus the Predator title is incredibly fitting.

While a sequel is left up in the air, we do have confirmation that a new standalone film - titled merely Badlands - is set to come out soon.

I can only hope they learned the right lessons from Prey and we can leave the horrid past of The Predator (2018) behind us for good.

[lilyliveredlittlerichboy]

Lmao.

I am a science graduate and science enjoyer and have never more than dabbled in any sort of organised religion.

Anon, I recommend reading "A Brief History of Time" by Stephen Hawking. In which he explains quite clearly that if the charge of an electron was off by a miniscule percentage, life as we know it wouldn't be possible at all. If gravity was off by a little bit - stars wouldn't be possible, even. Our existence depends on the very laws of physics being calibrated extremely carefully to allow atoms, molecules to form, to allow stars and planets and any form of life.

That's barely the tip of the iceberg though. Do you know how many things can go wrong in human embryological development? The answer, you may have guessed, is A Lot. a metric fuck tonne of simple things that can go wrong very easily and suddenly your embryo is no longer viable, it dies and gets aborted by the body before the person even knows they're pregnant. This happens more often than you think. It's practically a miracle that humans ever make it from a sperm and egg to a fully developed person, and yet it happens all the time, to the point where we have so many billions of us.

Like yeah evolution is a thing and astrophysics is a thing but if you think they "prove" anything then you simply just don't know how science and research works. Science exists to describe the world around us, first and foremost. To make observations and identify causal relationships. To speculate about what might be happening, to create working theories, and to test those theories and abandon them if they don't work anymore at describing the world around us, to create new theories that describe the world a bit better.

Science doesn't disprove the existence of a god. In fact, science has brought me closer to believing in god than any religion ever has. God isn't just "sky daddy" god is defined different by every person and every culture and it could just be a force that sets the laws of physics so life is viable, and makes a million billion coincidences happen so that creatures can survive on this earth (and elsewhere). I saw it said once that "God's job isn't to make life easy, it is to make life possible." And that really resonated with me.

Anon, please broaden your definition of God and also Science and do some learning. It'll do you good.

Science can 100% disprove God. It can even disprove that something approximating a good could exist or even be possible. Claiming that God can exist, or any magical mythical deity, is literally impossible. Every facet of science and demonstrable reality disproves yours and anyone else's belief in a mythical magical sky father who is somehow omnipotent and omnipresent, but has never done anything.

Sad that your identity is so mixed up with literal desert fairytales.

hmmmmmm i wonder who this is

[historicity-was-already-taken]

What I'm actually furious about, isn't just the anti-Semitism I've dealt with here.

What I'm furious at is the Israeli government and military. I am furious that they have the nerve to perpetrate war crimes while appropriating the memory of the 6 million. It makes me sick. It feels me with rage. It fills me with feelings of betrayal (those are complex and require deconstruction, discussed briefly below). How dare they massacre children, civilians, and fucking hospital patients; and how dare they do so while using the 6 million as a rhetorical shield?

The edgelord who left me a snide remark comparing the situation in Gaza to the Warsaw Ghetto wasn't the first person to make that comparison to me. It was actually the Palestinian woman who translated two major sources from Hebrew into English for me.

She was translating a biography of Tossia Altman when her three nephews and sister-in-law were murdered during the IDF action in Gaza. I asked her if she wanted to stop working on the project (with no impact on her fee for the project, of course; that's where about $4000 of the money y'all helped me raise went, fyi). The brand of Zionism practiced by Tossia and her comrades is very very different from the version embodied in Netanyahu, and it was those schools of Zionism which mostly died in the Holocaust (I said), but I would completely understand if the material was too triggering for her.

She said "I’m not sure about this triggering me, I think holocaust survivors and Gazans are on the same boat to tell you the truth. It could be an opportunity for me to actually fathom the full picture, in a way." And I haven't stopped thinking about it since.

I'm not going to post the rest of our conversation here, for what I hope are obvious reasons. And for concerned parties, this woman has been living away from Gaza for a very long time.

But this is why I'm so angry and emotional.

And I'm over here having these, frankly, very painful, personal feelings (if my posts over the last 4 months haven't made it clear, I spent my teen years in an extremely manipulative right wing Israel "education" program, and was raised surrounded by first and secondhand Holocaust trauma which inevitably impacted how my elders educated me about The Conflict none of which I was fully able to deconstruct until I became a Holocaust Historian in grad school). Especially with my knowledge of how SHITTILY Holocaust survivors were treated when they got to Palestine in the mid-1940s; of how fucking disgracefully Yad Vashem treated Rachel Auerbach and Yitzhak Zuckerman. Of the way the Jewish fighters actually died in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. I became a Holocaust historian because I am the great/granddaughter of survivors and I do this work because it's a fucking calling, not something that brings me joy. And the goddamn Israeli government, the government of a nation which likes to say it exists for all Jews (when it barely even represents the Jews who live there but that's a different conversation); the way that government manipulates and misuses that history to excuse their actions in Gaza make me fucking sick. And, as demonstrated by some of you actual fucking pieces of shit, puts Diasporic Jews in danger. (side thought: Does Netanyahu WANT to put Diasporic Jews in danger?? He knows how this fucking shit works, and I wouldn't be surprised if he WANTED Jews to feel deeply unsafe and respond to that by fleeing to Israel).

And WHILE I'm experiencing all of this and trying to keep it all together while writing the what may be the most important thing I've ever written in my career, you fucking [word I don't use out loud or in writing] come in here and to throw your anti-Semitic bullshit at me when I ask you to please not spew it at me via my (year old) fucking Holocaust Remembrance Day posts, and when I ask you to be fucking mindful of it in your political speech.

So let me make it fucking clear, as far as I am concerned there are 4 separate conversations at play rn.

1) October 7 was horrific, genocidal, and traumatizing for Jews on a global basis.

2) Israel is committing heinous war crimes in Gaza right now which, if its own military's statements are anything to go by, are actively genocidal.

3) You shouldn’t harass random Jewish people because you’re disgusted with Israeli governmental and military decisions and actions.

4) The Israeli government’s appropriation of Holocaust memory within its larger state building project doesn’t give you [collective: non-Jews] the right to abuse Jews for discussing and generally having feelings about the Holocaust.

And FRANKLY I think all those conversations are accurate and valid. I also don't think I'm obligated to tear my heart open give you all my intimate feelings because a bunch of pieces of shit on this site can't grasp points 3 and 4.

So fuck that right wing program I belonged to as a teen, fuck you fucking left wing anti-Semites who can's grasp that you're touting the ideologies of people who would have wanted you dead, and fuck the Israeli government for committing war crimes. fuck them for their ongoing abuse of palestinian civil and human rights, and fuck them for invoking the memory of the 6million while doing it.

I've fucking had it with that fucking State, I've had it with you goddamn Jew-haters, and I've had it with the Jewish ppl who might want to destroy my career upon seeing this post.

I am mad as HELL.

I'm not even saying my mental health break is over. I've just had a moment of clarity, my period is over, and I'm pissed as hell. i'm tired of policing myself to make the gentiles who hate me comfortable; and I'm tired of policing myself to make my coreligionists who'd destroy me for having these thoughts comfortable. and there are 122,000 if you, so i don't care if you're so fucking fragile that this post makes you hit the unfollow button.

tl;dr:

[visenyaism]

Do you agree that, to at least some extent, the notion of valyrian/targaryen superiority exists in the texts?

Objection, leading question, but I will take this seriously why not. I think it depends on what you mean when you say Targaryen/Valyrian superiority. If by superiority you mean that they are like literally superior on the face of it I’m just gonna say hard no. the whole point of the entire thing to me is really deconstruct that idea.

If you mean there’s like a social construct that elevates Targaryens and by extension other Valyrians over other groups in Westeros, kind of. The Targaryens definitely believe that they are superior to everyone else because of their bloodline, but every single character who says and believes that is clearly portrayed as like haunted and desperately conjuring up a vision of their family and their history that is more myth than reality because they are fundamentally unhappy with their own lives. Viserys III. Aerys II. Aerion Brightflame. Daemon. Maegor. Visenya. etc etc. The people who believe it are miserable and wrong, but they do enact their beliefs with the power that they have by all being royals so in that sense they do make it real.

I think most of their power is not tied to being Valyrian as like a culture or an ethnicity, especially by the end where they don’t have a real connection to Valyria other just sort of larping. Their power comes from the throne, and the throne comes from the dragons. It is might makes right. Jaehaerys gets it codified into the law that Targaryens are exceptional and better than everyone else and thus allowed to marry their siblings because he has a dragon pointed at the faith and also control of the throne. None of the other Valyrian houses get included in this. I would argue that the power of the Velaryons is not because they’re Valyrian, but because they’re really wealthy and intermarried with the Targaryens who have the dragons. If there was any kind of social construct of Valyrian supremacy, then the Celtigars would be relevant. 

TLDR I think the material reality of the situation is that any construct of Targaryen superiority comes from their political influence and former position of power with the dragons. However the tendency of that family to self-mythologize means that they don’t see it like that. To them, the power they have doesn’t come from the throne and the dragons, but rather the throne and the dragons are extensions of their superior heritage and mythologized history and connection to old valyria.

[txttletale]

can you elaborate on the reasons ? what criticisms do you disagree with?

criticisms i disagree with:

"they character assassinated jane" amiguita there was no character to assisnate.

"they character assassinated dirk" dirk is at his most interesting and likeable ever and is just about the only redeeming thing about these

"they were just written to spite the fans" if true tht would have been Epic, and Based. but they very obviously werent

"its too violent and sexual for cheap shock humour" did you. read homestuck, the web comic? what were you Expecting... also like it or not the sexual content isnt just random or gratuitous it is obviously trying to be a conclusion to the whoel coming-of-age theme of homestuck as a work.

"so-and-so is out of character" homestuck characters are malleable little dolls that can be rearranged to suit the narrative at a whim. this is true about all fictional characters ofc but it is like explicitly textually metaphysically true in homestuck

my criticisms:

the heavy-handed political messaging is fucking tedious and awful and so profoundly of its time in a bad way. its clearly a reaction to trump but it doesnt have anything interesting to say about him or fascism or racism or anything, really, except, um. Cheeto in the white house?. the whole Evil Jane plot is too stupid and contrived for the sake of the satire to take seriously but also its awful satire written by liberals who think fascism as invented in 2016 by the orange man

god can we fucking talk about how fucking embarassing the obama shit is. jesus fucking christ. for a start it's a callback to a running jhoke in homestuck that is straight up just super racist. and they decide to pivot from the joke being 'its funny that theres a black president', which is good, but they pivot it to 'obama seems so heroic and magical now that we're stuck with the Orange Man', which, admittedly, is better than Being Racist, but also sucks shit. he killed people amiguitas.

'post-canon' is cheap bullshit. like, the work makes a big deal about tryng to talk about What Canon Is, without ever acknowledging the concept of, like, IP law. claiming to just be a non-canon continuation like any other when it's made by people with the Official Exclusive Legal Rights just feels hollow and detooths any liberatory/deconstructive potential there. unironically my opinion of it would go up like tenfold if it had been actually published in AO3 instead of just joking about it.

in general i think that all of the attempt to deconstruct fiction or storytelling is rooted in a really weird and flawed model of storytelling. a lot of it seems to be taking an extremely long route to writing something bad on purpose and then saying 'see, if you wrote something like this, it would be bad'. Okay. i like deconstructive collapsing narrative shit in e.g. if on a winter's night a traveller because i think calvino has trenchant and interesting insights about literature and storytelling. i do think hussie also has those but they essentially dropped and explored all of them in homestuck and the epilogues just seem like an attempt to connect ohomstuck's disparate and contradictory approaches to Narrative into one overarching schemata and then crtiique that schemata, which i think is a doomed project that results in little of interest to me.

[sevenhundred721]

I don't read Shen Yuan's fascination with Bingge as attraction. The joy in pretty much every SY relationship dynamic (for me at least lol) is that he read PIDW as was intended and insists that's not the case. He was projecting onto Bingge. He read PIDW as the power fantasy it is meant to be, but because he is gay and doesn't realize it, the sexual conquest power fantasy actively annoys him whenever it is used as more than an aside to bolster Bingge's image. SY is invested in the image of heterosexuality and the implications of sexual conquest, sure. But there's a pretty big gap between the allure of traditional masculinity and the fulfillment one actually gets from embodying it. A gap that is apparent in both Bingge's dissatisfaction despite being the pinnacle of masculinity and in SY being dissatisfied with what is ultimately a standard male power fantasy that he reads as somebody who sees himself in the protagonist. Transmigrating as SQQ is crucial for his development because it allows him to deconstruct his view of Binghe, and by extension, of traditional masculinity. I'd argue that the biggest reason SQQ acts so fucking dense is because traditionally masculine ideals are an immutable law of the universe to him. Which is a worldview that is not easy to break out of. It took him over a decade and he still won't even admit he's gay. He's just married to a man and has gay sex frequently.

[traegorn]

Have you ever had any evidence that magic is real and not just play pretend?

There was a time long ago I read "the secret" and I tried the whole law of attraction thing, mentalize and visualize what you want to attract and I always felt silly doing

And for what I'm seeing a lot of spells are also about mentalizing and visualizing what you want, with the difference that in the spells there's also rituals and stuff you use like herbs, candles etc. So it's like I love the aesthetic and I guess I would like to try but I also feel like I'm gonna feel silly

Let's just rephrase this real quick: You're asking me to prove my faith is real.

Have I seen and experienced things that make me believe that magic is real? Yes. Do I believe it's enough to use as proof to a third party? Nope.

And, like, my conception of metaphysics isn't simple. What makes something "magic" is a complicated question to begin with. Like I just did twenty minutes trying to explain the basic ideas behind this last month.

If a spell triggers the placebo effect in my body... the spell worked. If the herbs involved in a ritual caused a chemical reaction in someone's body to get the desired result... the spell worked.

Do I also believe in weird energy stuff? Yes. And while I have experienced things that make me believe it's real, I do not have independently verifiable evidence to prove it. So, like, I'm not out here trying to convince anyone that what I believe in is real -- because I wouldn't take it as proof from someone else.

And also, cringe is dead. Feeling silly about doing stuff is something you gotta deconstruct all on your own.

[anneangel]

Javert is as tragic as the title of the book suggests, a miserable.

He may even be the main antagonist, in the sense of opposing the centric character (Jean Valjean), but he is certainly not a villain.

He is obsessed with fulfilling his duty and in a tireless pursuit of justice. He does not believe in Jean Valjean's redemption and his obsession with persecuting him is related to his rigid worldview based on his personal experience and inflexible principles, related to his past, where he was born into a dysfunctional family. He firmly believes in the idea that a bad person is bad forever. He sees his role as Inspector as a fight against crime and injustice.

He doesn't pursue Jean Valjean because he's a villain, he pursues him because he believes Jean is a criminal, who violated his parole, and therefore deserves to be sent back to the prison system.

He was just a man who believed he was doing the right thing, following the law. He believed that people chose to be miserable and that they got what they deserved for choosing to be "vagabonds." He looked at himself and took pleasure in thinking; I came from a dysfunctional home and I still do what is right, so if others don't do it, it's because they don't want to and will never change.

But then he finds himself at a crossroads after Jean Valjean spares his life: "the law says I must arrest this man. But my conscience says I owe him a life debt."

For the first time he contemplates that "law" and "justice" do not always go together. It would be "legal under the law" to arrest Jean, but it would not be "morally just". It's a conflict between legality versus morality.

So poor Javert still faces the deconstruction of his beliefs: “he thought that good and evil were very different things and that an ex-convict could only be bad while a police officer could only be good”, when he realizes that reality not obeys that extreme and that a prisoner can be good (or that it is possible to change and become good), just as a law enforcement officer can become corrupt.

Faced with so many things that he firmly believed falling apart, showing erroneous beliefs of live, he chooses to kill himself rather than live with such unrest. So, basically he commits suicide because he was saved by Jean Valjean, and he couldn't stand that fact.

It really must have been scary to discover that he has spent his life following beliefs that suddenly deteriorate in front of him. It's sad that in the face of this "scare" he chose to kill himself.

The character promotes a very pertinent reflection, and leads us to reconsider the way we look at people who are typically stigmatized by society. Victor Hugo is never trying to say that bad people are good deep down, nothing like that; After all, there is the character Mr. Thénardier to prove this. What he is saying is that we cannot make it an absolute rule that all people who commit crimes were and will be bad forever. Because by establishing that they are, a stigma is created that can be unfair for those who, like Jean, tried to change their lives.

It is also necessary to remember that at no point does Hugo say that Jean Valjen was right in stealing the bread, but rather that the penalty imposed on him was disproportionate to the crime committed. In the end, we read that Javert kills himself because he cannot bear the idea that Jean, an ex-prisoner, can go from darkness to light. While he, by following the law, committed an injustice.

He thinks that Jean, even though he was a former prisoner, managed to go to a place above him morally, while he, who was such an inflexible agent of the law, saw himself as someone tough who didn't understand the factor of redemption as an element capable of rescue the soul of someone who once made a mistake.

Honestly, I like the character and understand the powerful reflection he brings to us. But at the same time, I'm sad that he killed himself. He could have chosen other paths, but ultimately he was so desolate that he saw no other options.

[aspiringwarriorlibrarian]

What I really like about the ending of The Last of Us is how it deconstructs the “the ends justify the means” ideology of many apocalyptic stories.

See, a lot of “the ends justify the means” stories treat the bad thing they’re doing as something final. They get what they want and that’s it. It was sad and it didn’t feel good, but we had to do it so that’s okay. If there’s any consequences for doing the bad thing, it’s ultimately outweighed by the good accomplished. It treats the emotional toll of such decisions as the major loss. It’s the logic Marlene is working from: yes, killing Ellie will hurt, but we’ll get so much good in the end.

And it blows up in her face. Horrifically and finally. Because at the end of the day, those laws and rules aren’t just there to protect us from feeling bad, they’re to keep us safe and functioning as a society. And violating them has serious, material consequences. We don’t just avoid killing little girls because it’s wrong. What “wrong” is can easily be twisted by agenda or justification. We avoid killing little girls because their dads will come back for them and ensure they can’t be taken again.

This isn’t a discussion about whether Joel or Marlene was in the right, by the way. That’s a whole other topic. It’s just a simple observation that “the ends justify the means” is not as easy or as final as many stories make it out to be. Because nothing really ends. And so all you have are means, and means, and means.