#people hate to see actual problematic horrible people work towards redemption

[boise-douglas]

The people who are replying with so much Cullen hate fundamentally don’t understand his character. Cullen is introduced in the same game that Alistair is, I doubt they were trying to make an Alistair 2.0 when they already had one.

But from the first interaction with Cullen at the circle in Fereldan, Alistair specifically says ‘oh poor guy, he is hatred of mages has overtaken him.’ It’s a direct acknowledgment that they are different, that Cullen has gone through different circumstances than Alistair and responded differently. Alisitair is a product of neglect and abuse, Cullen is a product of propaganda and fear mongering and addiction.

Cullen had a great childhood and grew up surrounded by templars who seemed like valiant heroes in their shiny armors. (The wording in this post makes it sound like he was abusive towards his older sister when they actually have a great relationship.) Obviously a young boy with nothing to his name would want to aspire to be like them. Imagine you grew up poor and were surrounded by soldiers in dress uniform who regaled stories of heroics to you all day. You’d want to be like them too. He steadfastly wants to be a Templar, throughout all the horrors of it, because it’s what’s been fed to him as a glorious profession. He hasn’t traveled or been around mages enough to understand the abusive dynamics at play here yet.

Also, he doesn’t just hate the mages out of nowhere. He has a pretty traumatic experience at the circle in fereldan with the desire and sloth demons. He’s the last of his group to remain sane and is trapped in a prison being mentally tortured for what is probably days in the game. How could that not manifest into resentment.

He then is sent to Kirkwall, away from family members or any support system besides the templars and the chantry, where he is directly under a fanatic. Yes he follows her willingly, because what else would he reasonably do? I’m not excusing his actions by any means, I’m just saying that someone who is so heavily indoctrinated, so heavily scared and resentful of mages, and so utterly alone would not realistically say “let me remove myself emotionally from this and look critically at the situation.”

As for the retcon point, no you can’t really condemn cullen because he admits he was wrong. He feels extreme guilt towards it. If you console him and say it was alright, he forcibly says no, it wasn’t alright. I killed innocent people and followed a lunatic. The other games he simply is not a companion like Alistair is, so you can’t get on him as intimately as you can Alistair. Not to say Inquisition is particularly good at allowing disagreements with people (especially as a dalish elf hoo boy).

The example the OP used for dialogue is also not a good example. Imagine someone saying “Oh you were in a prison once, right?” and you respond “Yes and I bet you wish I was still locked up there too huh” like what?? You can’t confront Cullen about his past directly yet (an oversight for inquisition for sure) but you’re obviously not really trying to argue with him or confront him now, the dialogue option is pretty cut and dry ‘asshole’ response. Cullen doesn’t directly respond to what you say because who would? He just says “I’m sorry, it was a bad choice of conversation.” All the other normal dialogue options he expresses that it must have been hard to live there or that it must be refreshing to be somewhere else.

Also, Cullen is undergoing withdrawal from lyrium and trying to command the inquisition without falling to lyrium madness. He’s not funny because the guy is in agony (though he is pretty funny if he walks in on you and Iron Bull, and obviously has some sense of humor if he hangs out with Dorian). And as a separate point, you can’t fault the guy for being devote to his faith. He believes as strongly as Lelianna or Cassandra, but as a soldier he didn’t have the same perception of the chantry as they did.

Lastly, I feel like inquisition tried to show that Cullen has progressed and grown past his mindset in multiple ways. He plays chess with Dorian and if you romance him as a mage you can have multiple conversations about his thoughts on your magic. They don’t ignore his old mindset (in the beginning at haven he talks about the mages there and that he has been keeping a close eye on them and he doesn’t trust them), but they do let him move on from his past. It’s a realistic portrayal of how someone responds to years of propaganda and trauma.

Alistair vs. Cullen

It really annoys me when people act like Alistair and Cullen are the same character, when they are very different.

Alistair grew up with child neglect. When visiting Denerim, Eamon kept him in the kennels. At Redcliffe, he slept in the stables on a pile of hay. Alistair also recounts a time when he was locked in the dungeons for a day before someone came to get him out. And of course he also talks about how Isolde despised him, and “made sure the castle wasn't a home.” But is still convinced that Eamon is a good person and he deserved all that. Cullen had a very fortunate upbringing with a loving family who supported him and what he wanted in life.

Alistair never wanted to be a Templar; he was forced into joining the Order by Eamon. He is vocal about how much he despised this, and considers Duncan recruiting him for the Wardens as “saving” him from them. The only thing he says he enjoyed about Templar training was the educational component, which he did not receive previously. Alistair was a poor recruit because he frankly did not want to be there, and therefore did not take it very seriously. He saw practices like the Harrowing as horrifying, and deepened his dislike of being a Templar further. And as time goes on, he becomes even less of a supporter of the Order; he outright says Meredith is the biggest threat to Kirkwall in Dragon Age II, if made king of Ferelden. It was always Cullen’s dream to be a Templar, and would even force his younger sister to “play the apostate” for his “training” before being recruited. Cullen was an enthusiastic recruit who considered Templar training “all that he had imagined”, and “did not hesitate” in taking his vows. Even the Harrowing did not waver his devotion to the Order, which by Dragon Age II becomes downright fanatical and tyrannical, practically worshipping Meredith. (Though this was later attempted to be retconned in Dragon Age: Inquisition… just as poorly as all the other retcons in that game, taking the path of “just pretend he never said and did all those things!”)

There is a lot of dialogue from Alistair about how much he dislikes the Chantry. Cullen, on the other hand, is extremely faithful and the only criticism he ever has about the Chantry is that they don’t treat the Templars well enough.

Alistair has a good sense of humour—in fact, it’s one of his biggest coping mechanisms. Cullen wouldn’t know a joke if it hit him in the face.

The player can disagree with Alistair on every turn. He is presented as sometimes being right, and sometimes being wrong, like most people. (Side note: more than that, you can be downright verbally, emotionally, and physically abusive to Alistair. Holy shit, I didn’t even realize how bad it can get until reading through the dialogue in the toolset, because I’ve never picked those options in game. I was honest to god flabbergasted and very uncomfortable through much of it.) The player rarely has the chance to even mildly disagree with Cullen. On the rare occasion you do, the dialogue is painted as if the player is being an unreasonable asshole, and he never even addresses what they say. (Example.)

The only reason I think people are capable of mistaking them for another is because fandom likes to donate Alistair’s personality onto Cullen. That and the the ever-frequent whitewashing of Alistair doesn’t help matters. But I’m not even a Cullen fan and I think it’s a disservice to both of them to act like they’re just Alistair and Alistair 2.0, honestly.

[swanhookheart]

Angry Grishaverse book review time!

After watching and LOVING s1 of Shadow and Bone, I read the trilogy! I was not impressed. 

Spoilers incoming for Grishaverse stuff, so if you don’t want those, don’t read on!

Watching Shadow and Bone this past weekend, I was hooked : Darklina, the lore behind the amplifiers, the Aleksander backstory… I was really impressed and hoped that this was it--that at last, I’d found a fantasy series that was going somewhere big, something I could really, thoroughly sink my teeth into. 

*Sigh* 

Then I read the books.

The reader / viewer enters the Grishaverse associating darkness with pure evil. The Fold, described early on, is shown to be this bleak, awful, ruinous place where people go to be eaten alive by volcra and hope goes to die. We therefore, naturally, associate the Darkling--who possesses the power of shadow--with that evil from the off. I’m speaking as someone who only got into the Grishaverse last Saturday. My initial thoughts were, “oh, he’s being set up to be viewed as dark and scary; this is the expectation Bardugo wants us to have so that we’ll be blown away by some great twist later. Count me in!”

But that twist never came. He was set up as evil, and he stayed evil. Surprise, he’s the Black Heretic! Surprise, he’s an abomination effectively created by Morezova’s greed! Surprise, he’s ruthless and horrible and does cruel things! Except none of those things are actually surprising, given he was SET UP from the beginning to be viewed that way. He did bad things, walked a bad walk, and talked a bad talk. I kept thinking “ah, so he’s gonna get a sweeeet redemption arc,” and then he just never did. That element of the story was predictable to a nauseating degree, and that predictability made the entire universe feel a bit flat. If the reader saw more of his backstory, had more real, logical, sound justification for why he does the things he does (like in the show, where they at least tried to paint his actions as borne of some misplaced sense of servitude / protection for the Grisha or where we saw him actively struggling at points to grapple with the darkness inside him), then maybe the trilogy wouldn’t have been such a letdown. And yes, I know about his sacrifice or whatever later on. It’s not enough.

In villains, I and probably plenty of others like to see humanity. We want to empathize with our villains to a certain extent--to understand them just a little bit--so we can fully commit to hating them when they violate our trust. The Darkling didn’t have that human, redeeming quality, though--at least, not in the books. In the books, he was just a power-hungry jackass who simultaneously didn’t want to be alone and kept trying to kill his only opportunity not to be alone. His single-mindedness, his lack of human empathy, the simplicity with which he pursued this made him seem almost stupid to me as a reader. For someone who’s lived hundreds of years, he’s kind of an idiot when it comes to other people--which, itself, almost seems incongruous with his having lived for so long. If he’d maybe had more backstory or more in his story to justify his actions, maybe he’d feel like a better villain. But atm, all I’m doing is rolling my eyes with him. I couldn’t love him because he didn’t put in any work toward being a better person. Even in the end, he doesn’t actually do the work or repent. But I also can’t hate him because the source material hasn’t given me enough actual human qualities to hate or to feel betrayed. His character just… missed the mark for me. 

As did Mal’s. Fucking MAL, oh my GOD! This dude’s literal only personality trait was loving Alina. Cool, he could track--for Alina, mostly. He could fight--for Alina. “I am become a blade”? Sir, you got a whole-ass tattoo announcing that you’re an object in this woman’s service? No WAP is worth that, and I’m speaking as a very bisexual woman. My dude, it’s weird, it’s extra, it’s just too much. I’ll go back to the Darkling for two seconds to say that, ofc, his actions were painted as problematic and misogynistic and gross. But, like, the possessiveness Mal displays with Alina kinda feels on that same level? Why are we pretending he’s better when he actively tries to keep her low, keep her powerless, and keep her his? Again, dude got a tattoo of her sigil. He was fully prepared to be the leader of her guard even if she married Nikolai just for the opportunity for some sexytimes. I know that YA is about really intense emotion, the fire of teenage hormones and stuff, but that all just felt a bit toxic. The way that his entire life revolved around her while she tried to balance the role of saint, hero, orphan, and all the things she was just felt goofy and like a wildly unhealthy dynamic. 

Their whole relationship also felt really obvious, as I guess the Darkling being revealed as the trilogy’s big bad did. It was predictable, set up to be that way from the start. There were no surprises. It was Mal, and then it was still Mal, and in the end, it was also Mal. We weren’t really shown any of what made them so drawn to each other, we were just kind of told and expected to be fine with the intensity of it. But it read as being way too much for me, and god, it kept getting worse. Again, this one felt like low-hanging fruit--low effort, lazy writing. Nothing about it actually read to me as romantic, just as too much. They didn’t so much as fall in love as just start out that way, and reading that was somewhere between boring and uncomfortable. At least with the Darkling or hell--even Nikolai--we saw some of that chemistry unfold on the page. We were shown some of what made them work the way they did. There was something underpinning their relationship, and not just “oh, they’re supposed to be together”. I mean, after all JKR’s bullshit, I feel totally fine saying fuck authorial intent. If you can’t even be bothered to actually put your shit on the page, don’t ask me to blindly accept your version canon as gospel truth. 

We could have had Deckerstar vibes, Beauty and the Beast vibes, seen light and dark come together and surprise us by actually working well together. But no, we saw a special girl lose everything that made her special and settle for some mediocre fuckboy from her hometown. We get characters that actually have the potential to be dynamic and make for a good story, but she still ends up with this bland, vanilla, trick-ass bitch? It’s a major letdown when you’ve actually been exposed to decent fictional couples, tbh.

OOF! And the ending? Oh jesus fuck, that ending. Darkling just… dies. Just like that. I read three whole books for that? I know he comes back and dies again and all, but the whole trilogy felt like it was building up to something more, something deeper and greater and more profound. He was horrible for the things he did, sure, and he deserved defeat as long as he refused to waver from his power-hungry, destructive path. But his death brought about no closure. He and Alina never actually had the fight they needed to or reached an understanding with each other. Everything is left undone, unsaid, unexplored. The ending just felt super anticlimactic on the page, and so, the trilogy as a whole fell completely short of any mark I hoped it might hit.

Did I hope Darklina would be endgame? Sure. But I’d also have been A-okay with a tragic ending if it had been done right. Did I think it would have been a lot more interesting to see a redemption arc for Darkling than just… more of the same? Or maybe Mal develop a personality outside of Alina? Absolutely. There was so much potential, and it really feels like Bardugo squandered all of it. And for what? This was nearly as disappointing as the eighth season of Game of Thrones. I probably won’t be watching future seasons if they follow the books, but I guess I’m glad for the day or so of fleeting pleasure I got when I still had hope for a properly told story. 

[hello-yue-here]

For the ask game:

tyzula

zukka

and that’s all I can think of now.

NOW WERE COOKIN

tyzula

i like it. i do. i think that if its well written and actually acknowledges how problematic azula and ty lees friendship was in the show and actively works to overcome that and grow from that then i enjoy it. but if its just written as a toxic ship or doesnt address all the shitty things azula did then its a no from me. i dont like toxic ships and in canon their friendship is INCREDIBLY toxic and while i love azula, in order for me to like a fic with azula in it and shes being portrayed as a “good guy” then youve gotta acknowledge what she did to make her evil in the first place. i hate when people gloss over the fact that she was an imperialist and was super manipulative towards people who were supposed to be her friends. in canon she was a horrible person and yes she was abused and yes she was just a kid and yes she did not deserve to be abused but that doesnt change the fact that she was still not a good person. i feel like theres a good amount of tyzula content out there that does an incredible job of addressing this and making sure they craft a good redemption arc for azula and depicts the relationship in a healthy way. other than that ive never had any issues with tyzula shippers and i do say that i ship them myself. ive hardly heard about any drama among peoppe who say tyzula is their otp and ship it hardcore (i have heard some toxic stuff tho so it isnt perfect but its also very rare for that kinda stuff to pop up on my dash) so at least from my understanding its a good fanbase a majority of the time. on a much more positive note i really enjoy their dynamic. i like how azula can be rough around the edges and very regal and proper and still bitchy and then ty lee is there to be bubbly and creative and bring joy into azulas life. i think they balance each other out well and in canon we can see very clearly how much they admire each other (despite the toxicity in canon). azula wishes she were more like ty lee and ty lee thinks azula is amazing and gorgeous. i think theyre a good pairing when done correctly.

zukka.

MY LOVES. i adore zukka. i think they have so many parallels in canon such as being over shadowed by their prodigy younger sisters, their insecurities, their profficiency in weaponry, their anxiety about following in their fathers footsteps (in diff ways obviously). i think their personalities mesh well together. dramatic dickhead zuko. genius snarky bastard sokka. i love them. and the content we get from zukka creators is SO GOOD. the art the fics everything. i love it so much. i personally relate very much to zuko in the sense that he has lots of anger and is dramatic and i relate to sokka a lot too in the semse that im sarcastic and smart and hide my emotions a lot and sometimes feel second best to my friends. i see myself in both of them and when i see them together being happy it makes me feel happy.

zukka fans on the other hand. there are good zukka fans out there. there are wonderful funny amazing zukka fans out there. but holy fuck the number of zukkas out there who conpletely fetishize the ship and strip away all of their character traits so they can make them into a weak little baby boy zuko and a suave macho man sokka (which btw are both racist characatures. if you havent seen all the poc on this app who have called these characterizations out then please please please reevaluate how ur interacting w zukka because not only is it so out of characfer for both of them. it is literally racist). and while there are so many good fics and fanarts for zukka, there is an OVERWHELMINGS number of racist, transphobic, biphobic, homophobic, and all around problematic content everywhere. and some fans are so toxic that it makes me rlly dislike being a zukka sometimes. i will always love the ship but sometimes i feel a little embarassed to be associated with it. i know that i do my best to stay far away from the toxic fans but it gets so frustrating sometimes. i know not every zukka is like this, literally all of my zukka mutuals are wonderful and amazing. but the amount of toxic fans is turning so many people off of the ship and causing people who genuinely enjoyed it to be turned off by it and its giving the good zukkas a bad name. im very upset by the reputation zukka fans have gained on this website from the toxic fans who antagonize other ships (primarily zks. i love zk. just because zks ship zuko with katara doesnt mean that its awful. toxic zukkas plz leave zks alone. so many of them are so nice. i know theres always toxic fans in every fandom and for every ship but like,,, its just so much easier to stay in ur own lane yk?). with that being said i love zukka as a ship but the fans have made it hard for many people to enjoy so sometimes its frustrating. but i love zukka. i think they are a wonderful ship and they are my favorite one in atla.

[gffa]

Second question. I love love love Anakin to the moon and back. But, idk if it's this new tumblr's culture of "no problematic shit allowed", I have to admit a lot of people either bash him or Darth Vader in particular. Do you think how Anakin was characterizated in the prequels is a good portrayal of his feelings and actions? Is he an irredimable, pure, wondeful villain or we're allowed to be sympathetic towards him despite what he did? Do you think his eventual redemption arc is satysfing?

In my experience, the “no problematic shit allowed” has swung in the other direction for Anakin, in that his actions and choices are justified because he was sad about some stuff and clearly no one ever tried to help him ever, definitely no one ever repeatedly tried to talk to him about stuff and he definitely never consistently rebuffed them.  –I say with a genuine teasing tone!I think the canon (and word of god commentary) was pretty clear about how we’re meant to sympathize with Anakin to a degree, starting out with The Phantom Menace, where George Lucas says a lot of people were mad because they wanted Baby Vader to be this little demon kid and he wasn’t, he was a good boy who had too much power and didn’t want to learn the difference between compassionate love and possessive love.If we weren’t meant to be sympathetic to Anakin, we wouldn’t have scenes like him crying over his mother’s death, crying at Padme about what he’d done and collapsing into a heap, desperately hurting because he lost control of himself.  If we weren’t meant to be sympathetic to Anakin, we wouldn’t see him crying while trying to decide if he should stay back in the Temple or go help Palpatine because he wants to save Padme’s life, no matter the cost.  If we weren’t meant to be sympathetic to Anakin, we wouldn’t get so many scenes of him being charismatic, being adorable (the ENTIRE FIRST HALF HOUR OF ROTS is Anakin and Obi-Wan’s delightful banter, there’s SO MUCH of AOTC where Anakin may be a brat, but he’s a sweet brat).  If we weren’t meant to be sympathetic to Anakin, Obi-Wan would never have tried to save him throughout that entire fight on Mustafar.  Of course we’re meant to be sympathetic to Anakin, his anxieties and fears, rather than just having him be Baby Vader from the beginning.For contrast, one of the things that I found interesting about Krell is that Dave Filoni talks about why they wrote him the way they did, that he was very obviously a villain from the beginning, because he didn’t want kids to get invested in this hero, only to be devastated when he was actually bad, that we already get this with Anakin.  If Star Wars wanted us to hate Anakin, they would not have been subtle about it.But at the same time, we’re not meant to excuse Anakin’s actions because he’s sympathetic, either.  He makes monstrous choices and he absolutely had the wisdom to know better.  He has people who offer to talk to him–Obi-Wan does so repeatedly, Ahsoka also mentions how he doesn’t talk to her about his past ever–but he turns away from their help.  His fears aren’t the problem, they’ve never been the problem, but instead from the very moment he came to the Jedi, his choice to not face them, to not admit to them being there, to not be willing to work on them and let them go, has been the problem.  This is why I loved Dark Lord of the Sith so much, because it’s a 25 issue comic that illustrates all these other choices Anakin had (he could have left the Jedi, he could have returned to the light, he could have taken Palpatine out, he could have asked Obi-Wan for help, he could have done so many different things, and instead his answer to literally having these shoved into his brain is, “No. This is all there is.”) and this is why I love the short story Master and Apprentice from From a Certain Point of View.“Anakin became a Jedi Knight,” Obi-Wan interjects, a thread of steel in his voice. “He served valiantly in the Clone Wars. His fall to darkness was more his choice than anyone else’s failure. Yes, I bear some responsibility—and perhaps you do, too—but Anakin had the training and the wisdom to choose a better path. He did not.” (–Master and Apprentice, From a Certain Point of View, Claudia Gray)This is specifically why his return to Anakin Skywalker as a Force Ghost is so meaningful, in that he finally let go of all that rage, that hate, that fear.  It wouldn’t mean anything if he hadn’t spent his entire life holding onto those fears and anger and hate, just like the climactic fight on Mustafar wouldn’t mean anything if we weren’t heartbroken by it, which we wouldn’t be if we weren’t meant to love Anakin, just as much as we hate him for murdering children and stabbing the family that took him in in the backs.Anakin’s story is satisfying because it’s an illustration of how someone so bright can go so wrong, how the hurts we all deal with can eat away at us if we don’t actively face them and work through them.  How we can lose our way if we get too far into our own justifications because we’re afraid of things we don’t want to deal with and don’t want to face.  He doesn’t want to face that death is a part of life, that sometimes we have to let go of the feelings inside us because they’re eating away at our hearts, no matter how special those feelings make us feel.It’s important that he was a good person at one point in time, how he returned to that person by doing what he should have done a long time ago, how it’s not too late for him to find inner peace and redemption.  How being selfless is narratively rewarded.  How the truth of Darth Vader is, as George Lucas says, “He’s done a lot of horrible things in his life that he isn’t particularly proud of. Ultimately, he’s just a pathetic guy who’s had a very sad life.“Anakin Skywalker lived a sad life, because he made terrible choices and couldn’t let go of what was eating him, never really wanted to do the hard internal work for it.  There are few people who can’t relate to that on at least some level, being afraid to look at the worst things inside ourselves.  I mean, that’s why the Force is what it is, that George laid it out as the light is the good things within us, that the dark is the selfish and greedy things within us, that we have to face both, that discipline is the only way to turn back to the light, that we all have a choice, but the world works better if you’re on the side of good.Anakin’s story has impact and meaning because his story is the central story of Star Wars, the themes of Star Wars are the themes of Anakin Skywalker.  The prequels fill in this context brilliantly, to show us that he was both an incredible hero and an incredible villain.  That his good choices do not negate his villainy and his monstrous choices do not negate the good in him, they’re both an important part of the equation, just like the light and the dark are both important parts of the Force and it’s up to you to choose how to navigate them.  Whether to be good or to be evil, the potential for both is in all of us, and ultimately Star Wars is about choice.  And about breaking our hearts–which you can’t do, if you’re not meant to find even the second worst villain of the entire Saga to be sympathetic in many ways!

[doubled-helix]

book thoughts: the hearts we sold (spoilers)

the hearts we sold, emily lloyd-jones

(disclaimer: all of this is my opinion because i decided it’s better for my own writing to reflect upon books i read (thanks college profs). in fact, i’m not even putting it in the main tags so no one should be reading this except future me anyways)

overarching conflict: all books should have one of these. usually it’s to defeat the big bad, which doesn’t quite fit this novel since there wasn’t one defined big bad. i mean, there were the burrowers, which were pretty creepy, but i’m personally fond of the classic puppetmaster villain, who pulls the strings and monologues and bemoans the state of the world or whatnot. think the mage in carry on or luke/kronos in the pjo series. call me old-fashioned. 

my prof told us that books, especially sci-fi/fantasy ones, should have a looming threat that’s constantly hanging over the heroes even as they defeat or are defeated by many smaller threats. like harry facing quirrel, tom riddle/the basilisk, the dementors/sirius black/peter pettigrew (the “one true baddie” was a bit more vague in thisone) - all the while knowing that voldemort’s the final boss. 

in this book, i guess you could say the final big void was the ultimate baddie, but considering neither our main gal nor us knew about this until three quarters of the way through the book, it wasn’t exactly a looming threat, even as the characters did close many smaller voids (the in-between threats books have - the ones between the exposition and climax). i say a bit more about this later, but i think the lack of a dominant big bad may be one of the reasons the book felt stagnant for a good portion of the first half. this, combined with the lack of strong motive dee had - well. it certainly slowed things down. 

things that didn’t work: 1. the “team”: i’m a sucker for a tight-knit group of people who’d kill to protect each other, who poke fun and laugh and joke around à la avatar the last airbender. i’m even more of a sucker for found families, also like avatar the last airbender. but this book’s “team” absolutely did not work for me, and the most probable cause i can think of is that the author just didn’t let us spend enough time with them. 

the main dude james had been with cal and cora for almost two years, and i got none of that from the way he talked about them. in fact, main gal dee actually says that she’s glad james and her have a closer bond than the other two - which, sure, romance, i get it, but if you want to make a dream team you can’t throw half of its members into the wind. 

when cal died, that evoked nothing in me as a reader because i cared about him as much as dee did, and she maybe shared 20 lines total with the guy. similarly, she barely interacted with cora, who was supposed to be the leader, but other than the author telling us that she was the “leader,” there was nothing showing her fulfilling that role. i absolutely hate saying this because it’s the most cliche advice one can offer but “show not tell.” if you want to show a fall from grace, from cool and collected cora to frantic and panicking cora, you gotta show us the grace first. 

riley: don’t get me wrong, i fucking love riley, but she didn’t show up until 70% of the way through the book. and there was a sort of insta-friendship between her, james, and dee. at one point towards the end, she says something like “if we die tonight, i’m glad i met you two” which would be very nice if they hadn’t met 20 pages ago. (i feel like i should note, a few weeks did pass world-wise, but that really doesn’t do much for the reader, who didn’t get to feel any of that time)

it would have been fantastic to have riley with us from the very beginning. her relationship with james and dee felt like it actually had the potential to blossom into that dream team/found family thing. cal and cora felt like they had their own separate lives, which is fantastic in reality because no one should spend all their time with a single group of people, but the thing about stories in my experience is that to be effective, everything - every interaction or desire or situation - should be Too Much. 

also, riley seemed a little too cool with everything that was happening. it took dee at least a few weeks to accept the whole voids and homunculus and world-ending thing, but riley was like “fantastic, let’s do this, i can blow things up” which was a bit sudden. 

cora: i mentioned already how she was the “leader” but didn’t really do anything to show that, but also - i felt like we were supposed to feel sorry for her, or at least understand her motives, but i got absolutely none of that. she killed cal, who i didn’t feel much for, but it was still fairly unforgivable, and she never had an act of redemption. i’ll talk about this later, but i feel like james’s sacrifice at the end should have been hers. she wanted “everyone to live,” that was her motive. sacrificing herself would have been the loop to close her character arc, instead of her just dropping out of the story completely. and speaking of motive...

2. the motive: oh boy, i don’t even think i have authority to talk about this because “motive” is a biggie. they have entire writing courses dedicated to character motives. i read a post a while back that said something to the like of “every character should want something and should want it to the point of obsession.” 

going on my avatar the last airbender comparison (that show’s story is literally my baseline for everything else i read or watch), every character in that show wants something desperately. aang’s is easy - he wants to learn the other three elements and save the world. katara, at least in the first season, is completely focused on mastering waterbending. zuko - capture the avatar, regain his honor (and this one’s definitely an obsession). my point is, if your characters don’t want something desperately, there is no story.

now applying that to this story is a bit tricky because the premise is that these people did want something strongly, strong enough to sell their hearts for it. dee wanted money for boarding school, wanted to get out of her awful home situation. and the daemon gives it to her - the first thing, at least. and then for at least 100 pages, it was like she was just being pulled along with anything that happened, without any intense desire of her own. i felt this most strongly when she was out collecting rocks with james. i understand it was a bonding scene, etc. but goddamn. rocks? it just felt a bit shoehorned in, like there needed to be a good reason for the two to start hanging out that was at least semi-work related.

for a moment, i thought dee’s motive would become trying to break out of the deal, to join cora and end it all - it certainly seemed like she was freaked out enough to do it. but something magical healing romance-esque happened and afterwards, she seemed cool with accepting that she had no other choice. i understand she wasn’t a voluntary hero, but it still feels a bit stale when the savior of humankind is doing it not even to save her own skin or that of her friends, but out of sheer obligation. (however, i will give it to her, there was a nice little scene on the bus towards the end where dee was people-watching, and the part at the very end where she said that she did believe that people were inherently good, what a great development from beginning of the book dee)

things that kinda worked 1. the romance: okay, i understand that “kinda worked” doesn’t sound like the most glowing review for a romance, but from me, it’s practically a declaration of adoration. more often than not, romance in young adult novels just do not work for me, whether because it’s instalove or some love triangle’s at play or the  premise is just problematic. but this one? ehhh, i can’t say i hate it.

james, thank god, is not the dark, angsty, “why are you even speaking to me” male love interest (four, i’m describing four from divergent) that i feel like i see too much. he’s funny, a bit dorky, super big on consent, and basically a sweetheart. the author obviously took some care in building up their relationship a bit before taking it to a romance - though in the process, i think she had to give up a lot of development dee could have had with cora and cal. 

their little fairy tale research road trip was actually one of my favorite parts of the book (i’ll talk about this more later). i did, however, groan every time dee became hyperfocused about the oh-so-scandalous fact of being in a car with a boy, sleeping in the same hotel room as a boy, blah blah with a boy. and i facepalmed quite a bit at the extended hesitancy dee had about calling james her boyfriend. i understand why she hesitated (trust issues, negative body image), but it doesn’t mean i have to like it. which leads me to this next thing.

2. character’s response to abuse: let me preface this by saying that i absolutely despise child abuse as a plot device. this is a personal opinion,  i’m not going to get on any high horse and preach about moral quandaries. 90% of the time, i just don’t like it. a lot of this is because i feel most of the time, the character never gets to confront their abuse - never gets the chance to recognize “oh, what happened to me wasn’t right, and a lot of the negative thoughts i have about myself stem from this abuse, and i should not let it define me.” and more often than i like in ya novels, especially for female victims of child abuse, it’s their male love interest who runs in and beats up their abuser/yells at them about how they were a horrible person, which really doesn’t grant the victim any catharsis at all, and i hate how often that is portrayed as “romantic” or a good way to deal with abusers. 

this book, well. let me just say that dee finally standing up to her father about his alcoholism and telling her parents that when THEY finally decided to change, they knew where to find her - that was some good shit. there was a bit when james came running in that i covered my face and went “oh no, here it goes” but to my pleasant surprise, all he did was support dee and didn’t try to insert himself into the situation at all, which was, you know, fantastic. and gremma casually pulling a fire ax out of her purse in front of dee’s parents? lesbian solidarity.

the thing i disliked the most would have to be dee’s image of herself due to the abuse. i understand you don’t need to overcome trauma solo, but i do wish that she could have realized that she didn’t need to be thin or that she wasn’t broken without james telling her so. also, there was that one line where she tried to minimize her abuse - which i know is a common thing for victims of abuse but once again, i don’t have to like it - and james had to talk her out of it that made me groan. i just generally dont think dealing with the effects of abuse should be anywhere near romance, let alone hand in hand like so many books like to treat it. 

3. the sacrifice: i pride myself on not being easily surprised by books anymore, but i did not expect james to die. and i definitely felt something when that package of harry potter books and dee’s picture and the ct scan of the brain tumor arrived in the penultimate chapter. and i hate to be that person, but...

james got his heart back before the final void opened. he could have not been there, like cora. which means the daemon would have still needed him. why didn’t he just sell his heart once more in exchange for the daemon removing his tumor? sure, this way, i have no idea how they would have gotten out of the manual timer thing - then again, who knows if they would have been so targeted if james had not been carrying the heart into the void in the first place, but i still think the sacrifice should have belonged to cora, who definitely required some sort of redemption act if we wanted her to matter to the story in any way. it could’ve been a nice scene -  a “i couldn’t save cal but hell if i’m going to let you two die” act of closure. really, i keep going back to my grievance over how utterly insignifigant cal and cora felt to the story, especially compared to riley, who only jumped in near the end. 

things that worked 1. diversity: can i get a fucking hell yeah?? i’m so goddamn happy that more and more ya novels are recognizing that the world isn’t full of beautiful white straight people. our main gal dee is half-latino, we have a badass lesbian lady who carries axes in her purse, a fucking awesome trans girl who blows shit up (the fact that she doesn’t show up until near the end is a travesty), and our latter two ladies have a cute as hell romance that i wish we saw more of. side character romance is always more awesome because it doesn’t have the kind of baggage that really kills the vibe of main character romances. 

just - diversity.

2. the research road trip scenes: okay, this is very specific. but i’ve watched far too much supernatural for it to be healthy, and james and dee’s little road trip where they ate bad diner food and spent time at the library reading about old fairy tales and old gods and speculated about angels - i just got such a strong supernatural feeling from it. more specifically, the parts where they have no idea what monster they’re hunting and are flipping through old books to figure it out. it had some really calming good vibes, i loved all the speculation and discussion of how people in the past processed magic. no fancy analysis here, it just really resonated with me. 

final rating: 3 out of 5 stars 

note: it would have been 2.5, but the ending surprising me and making me Feel Things really bumped it up. also, writing this ridiculously long review made me feel more invested and charitable. 

[sockparade]

make it make sense

This essay might be a little too inside baseball for some. But I also recognize that a lot of the people who read what I write have some kind of orientation to the Christian faith so I think it’s worth taking the time to write this all out.

The 2020 elections are still several months away and yet it’s already unearthing all kinds of feelings for me. Politically, Christians in the U.S. are kind of all over the place. I should note here that white evangelicals as a subset of Christian voters tend to be pretty... consistent. *cringe emoji* I imagine the lack of cohesion can be frustrating to those outside of this particular faith tradition but let me tell you, it is also highly upsetting to those who live inside of it. 

I think the inconsistency can sometimes make people conclude that Christians are just being manipulative. The assumption is that Christians weaponize religion to protect their political power and their personal interests. And sure, that’s certainly the case in some places. But also, I think for many Christians like me, who never went to seminary and who have no political aspirations, the inconsistency in politics is quite understandable given how our theology tends to be all over the place. There is a lot of variation in what someone means when they say they are Christian. This is true not only because it’s the culturally dominant religion of this country and not only because of the differences in interpretation of an ancient text, but also because the tenants of the Christian faith exist largely in a complicated collection of paradoxical beliefs. Lately I just keep reminding myself that Christianity is a weird ass Eastern world religion and I can’t keep shoving it into a Western mindset.

So here’s the thing. If you find yourself on either pole of a key paradox, it means that you are essentially subscribing to a very different belief system than someone who leans towards the other pole. Over the last four years, so many Christian friends have scratched their heads at why a fellow Christian could support Trump or hold some other political view that feels abhorrent to them. But it’s actually quite predictable once you do the work of tracing their political views to the foundation of their beliefs.

About a decade ago, I realized that if Christianity was going to continue anchoring my worldview, I needed to take greater care in attending to what I actually believed. For many Christians, faith is something they point to as the bedrock of their lives and yet it often remains a big amorphous blob of thoughts and feelings (and random childhood Sunday School artifacts). It’s often not a set of clear values, intentions, and principles that we are committed to. I’m not advocating for more apologetics or more systematic theology here. But I do think clarity (distinct from certainty) is important. Given the ease in which people have historically interpreted the Christian Bible to suit their own opinions, the Christian faith can quickly become less of a meaningful lens or life compass and more of an extended experiment in propaganda and confirmation bias. That’s probably true of most religions. 

In taking a good hard look at Christianity, I have deconstructed a lot of things, relearned some things, and completely thrown out some things. There are some things I am still wrestling with and will continue to wrestle with -- probably for the rest of my life. And I’ve learned to find beauty and meaning in that unresolved, uncertain place. In the last year I’ve embraced the more mystical side of the Christian faith tradition and I have invested more of my time in contemplative prayer, meditation, and reflecting on God’s choice to be bodily present with us through the incarnation of Jesus. But even in my exploration of mysticism, I still maintain a firm belief that continuing the intellectual pursuit of truth and understanding is worthwhile.  

In this essay I want to identify just a few of the key paradoxes within Christianity and provide some reflection questions for the purpose of prompting you to examine how you’re doing in holding the tension of each paradox. When you review the questions, resist the urge to recall proof texts. This is a heart/gut check, not a bible quiz. 

To be clear, this isn’t a criticism of paradoxical beliefs. I’m starting to think that part of the challenge of being a Christian (or maybe just a mortal, sentient being) is learning how to exist in the discomfort of life’s many paradoxes. I mean, what is life but a series of fortunate and unfortunate opportunities to humbly acknowledge our limited understanding of how the world works and how the divine moves? Our westernized sensibilities make it difficult to hold paradoxes well. Instead, we rapidly cycle back and forth between the poles or more often than not, we end up repping just one of the poles. Every now and then I have to check myself and see if I’ve lost track of the paradox. While you’re here, It’s also a good idea to check if a pole is still valid for you or whether it’s something that you’ve just become acculturated to. I’ve personally let go or altered some poles in this process (e.g. I no longer believe in eternal conscious torment-- another essay for another day). 

If you are dreading political discourse with the variety of Christians in your life this Fall, consider digging underneath a hot topic and spend some time locating where the person lives on the spectrum of these paradoxical Christian beliefs. It might be illuminating. No less upsetting, but maybe less confusing.

For anyone that’s not Christian and reading this, I wonder if this walkthrough might shed some light as to why it’s so confusing to understand what Christians actually believe and why there seems to be such different Christians in your life. 

And lastly, I recognize that some of these questions are going to come across as blunt and possibly condescending. I have only written questions here that I have been asking myself over the years. So if you find any of them offensive, I hope you take some measure of comfort in knowing that they offended me too. I hope you don’t stay there. Also, I know I undoubtedly show my bias in writing these questions but I don’t think my goal here is to be unbiased. I’m very much revealing my bias in hopes that it’ll be helpful to you in identifying where you are.

Okay let’s go.

humans are inherently evil v. humans are inherently good

The creation poetry in the Bible says that God chose to make humans in their image and likeness (peep the gnarly “we/us” language in Genesis -- God’s triune nature really disrupts my tendency to rationalize my faith). God then declares that all of creation was very good. But then there’s a plot twist, humans become inherently evil. This is primarily through the story of Adam and Eve and the proverbial “fall of man” fruit-eating incident, but really, throughout the Bible, the theme of human depravity is consistent. People suck bigtime. So we get this basic setup that we are designed to be good and we’re also told that we come from a legacy of very ungrateful, selfish, and blatantly evil ways. The Bible’s pages are filled with anecdotes, advice, and self-flagellating poetry about fighting our sinful nature. And yet we also learn of a very curious arrangement where the God of the universe loves us and has chosen to partner with us super problematic beings to bring about redemption and a radical new way of flourishing for the created world.

Reflection Questions

When you think of peak human behavior, do you think of the best stories of people loving and helping one another or do you think of the worst stories of people hating and hurting each other? 

Do you mostly think about how people are doomed to be broken, selfish, and depraved on this side of heaven or do you think about how people are ultimately designed to be good, loving, and communal? (Note: I know the “answer” here is that with Jesus, a person could potentially live a life that is good, loving, and communal. But consider the impact of believing that all people outside of the Christian church are broken, selfish, and depraved. That would heavily skew any worldview and certainly feeds/fuels the fear-mongering rhetoric we often find in many political conversations.)

When you see a person doing something kind and good, do you see it as a rare exception in the horrible cesspool of humanity or do you see it as a person living closer to their original God-intended purpose?

When you imagine new ways for people to live together in society, do you get discouraged because you tend to think humans will inevitably destroy everything and are simply incapable of enduring goodness?

How does your belief about your inherent evil or your inherent goodness impact your ability to love, forgive, and take care of yourself? How does it support or hinder your ability to feel loved by others and by God?

everyone is created and loved equally vs. Christians are special

At times, the Bible makes Christianity seem like the most radically inclusive community. Particularly in the New Testament, there’s a recurring theme of all being welcome and loved. Jesus is witnessed spending much of his time with the outcasts of society and offering healing and acceptance seemingly without much of a prerequisite beyond a person’s vague belief that Jesus is divine. The account of Jesus asking God to forgive the Roman soldiers who were beating him and who ultimately murdered him can be a bit of a head scratcher because the soldiers do not ask for forgiveness, they do not change their ways, and they certainly don’t conform to any kind of Christian lifestyle as many churches might prescribe today. At other times, the Bible uses very exclusive language suggesting that those who are known by God are actually quite limited in number, there sometimes seems to be a “personal responsibility” theme, there’s talk of being part of a special, separate group, and perhaps most challenging, the out group is doomed to some kind of hell and separation from God. So all the language about God loving us and drawing near to us, is that just for Christians or is that for everyone? Your answer to this question might be something you want to reflect on as this country wrestles with figuring out how in the world we could have grown so comfortable to one group of people being more valuable than other groups of people in our country (read: white supremacy). Please don’t @ me about common grace. For the folks who subscribe to that theology, they’ll also be the first to admit that there are many of God’s promises that simply don’t apply through common grace to everyone, namely salvation. 

Reflection Questions 

Do you truly believe all humans are made in the likeness of God? Think about all the marginalized groups in our country: Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Asian, incarcerated, undocumented, queer, trans, disabled, uneducated, etc. Do you affirm that everyone bears the image of God? 

Do you believe that some people are more special to God because of their faith? Do you believe that God loves people who aren’t Christian as much as he loves Christians? 

Do you believe God loves babies but as people grow older they accumulate a spiritual debt through their life choices? Do you think there’s an underlying debit/credit system that makes people more or less favored/loved/protected by God? Like, you can’t earn God’s love but maybe there are degrees to his love? 

Do you believe there are limits to a person’s worthiness and dignity? If someone commits particularly heinous crimes like murder, rape and pedophilia, do you think they deserve less dignity and should not be treated with the same care as other people? 

When you count your blessings from God and trust God to provide, how do you explain why some people face more tragedy, death, sickness, and poverty than others? Do you believe God has a reason for why he chooses to bless some people? 

When you read John 3:16, do you read it as God loving the world, or God loving the people who choose to believe in God?

The gospel is happening right now vs. The gospel is focused on the afterlife

It has been eye opening to see the white evangelical church squirm as our country is forced to reckon with its history of white supremacy and its continued oppression of specific groups of people. In the last 3 months, a confusing cacophony of sermons, articles and social media posts have cautioned Christians to proceed biblically in fighting for civil rights. Unfortunately there is little consensus. Should we just pray and trust God to bring justice to this world? Should we participate in advocating for social justice but not so much that we place too much hope in things actually changing? Was social justice just part of a broader ethic of love or was it mission critical in Jesus choosing to draw near to us and to suffering? Is focusing on social justice too humanist and not focused enough on eternal, heavenly things? What was the good news of the gospel to those suffering? That we need to wait for healing and justice on the other side of death? Or was this good news for our current existence? 

Reflection Questions

When you think about your Christian faith, do you mostly feel the comfort and security of eternal life or do you press into the difficulty and labor of bringing kingdom thinking/living to this world?

What do you mean when you say “sharing the gospel”? Is it explaining to people how they can get into heaven or is it explaining a way to live and move in the world?

When you say salvation, what are you being saved from? Some kind of hell afterlife? Or is hell an existence that is devoid of connection to divinity, spirituality, and interconnectedness with others?

What aspect of your faith do you treasure the most? Making the *right* choice in your beliefs? Your ticket to heaven after you die? Your personal relationship with God? Your faith community? Psychological comfort in hard times? A purpose for living? A sense of superiority?  

Do you think about Jesus’s mission mostly as sacrificing himself to solve a spiritual conundrum or as a reconciliatory model for how humans could live in the fullness of our intended purpose? To show how humans could be in communion with God and each other? If it’s mostly just to solve for the distance between God and humans and secure an afterlife in heaven, why do the authors of the Bible seem to insist that Jesus’s life’s work was so important to record and bear witness to?

God is love v. God is justice

This one is a doozy. Even the words “love” and “justice” have such different meanings to different people. I think the narrative arc of the Bible has compelled me to consider broader, more expansive definitions to these words that aren’t primarily based in the typical experience of human relationships. I mean the most obvious shift is the way God’s love is presented as unconditional. Unconditional doesn’t even quite capture it. God is described as a divine being that pursues connection with humans in the face of persistent rejection and pervasive spiritual death. This stands in sharp contrast to the way humans struggle mightily to remove the conditions in our love for others in ways that don’t result in unhealthy, abusive, or toxic relationships.  

God’s justice as described by the life of Jesus is also astonishingly merciful and unexpected. It rejects the idea that justice is a matter of fair exchanges of pain and it ruins our instinct for retribution. I’ve been studying the work in the Transformative Justice space this year and it has been so helpful for me in imagining what God’s justice might be like. Mia Mingus describes Transformative Justice as asking: “How can we respond to violence in ways that not only address the current incident of violence, but also help to transform the conditions that allowed for it to happen?” Isn’t that what Jesus did? Beyond absolving us from our brokenness, there’s evidence of a desire to transform who we are and how we live. Jesus loves us unconditionally AND he wants to change the conditions in which we are harming ourselves and harming one another. 

Reflection Questions

Do you think of God as more loving or more judging? Do you resonate with God’s power or do you resonate with God’s gentleness?

When you think about Christian values in society do you mostly think in terms of bans on certain behavior or do you mostly think in terms of upholding the fruit of the spirit (love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control)? 

When you think of the cross, do you focus on the idea that God’s wrath needed to be “satisfied” to uphold a retributive justice model (I no longer believe this) or do you focus on Jesus’s willingness to be human and endure suffering with us? 

When you think about the end of the world do you think about God’s vengeance against wrongdoing or do you think about God’s peace?

When you think about conflict and harm do you think mostly about how the victim might forgive and offer grace or do you mostly think about how the perpetrator of harm can make it up to the victim?

Do you feel your faith is motivated by wanting to “repay” God for the sacrifice on the cross or is it motivated by radical love and generosity? 

submission v. rebellion 

One more thing, this isn’t a paradox but it’s something that I’ve felt conflicted about for some time now because it’s a topic that is discussed so inconsistently among Christians. Would you say that Jesus’s life was marked by submission or rebellion? Many will use shorthand to say Jesus submitted to death on the cross but it often also gets muddled and then talked about in reference to our posture towards government, empire, and just everyday difficult circumstances! There is a sparkly, made-up Christian badge of honor that some folks associate with “suffering well” and it sometimes morphs into the glorification of suffering, overwork, and outright abuse. 

I think the story of Jesus is one that unmistakably says that God stands with the oppressed and rejects injustice, exploitation, and abuse, and yet in America, the evangelical church weaponizes this idea to excuse systemic injustice, saying things like, “Why fight oppression if it’s an honor to suffer in whatever circumstances you were born into?” 

How often have we heard references to this Martin Luther King, Jr. quote? 

If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michaelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, "Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.”

I understand the exhortation to live with excellence and joy but how far do we take that? What’s the takeaway for the unemployed individual who is unhoused? Beg for food so that heaven remarks at how excellent their begging was? Or should we fight for fair living wages and affordable housing? Beyond that, should we demand that those who can’t find employment should still have the dignity of food and shelter? Is Christianity just the means in which the oppressed can supernaturally endure horrible things like slavery, apartheid, incarceration, rape, poverty, trafficking, etc.? 

Finally, just a clarification. I would not characterize Jesus as submitting to the Roman Empire. Like sure, he didn’t strike them down with lightning bolts. But to me, submission would have been admitting that he wasn’t divine. Jesus was killed because he refused to deny who he was and what he stood for. Jesus was killed because he threatened the hierarchy of power and religion. So yes, Jesus was a model of submission, but that submission was specifically to his own character of radical love and radical justice (or God’s will, if you prefer). He did not submit to the government in his willingness to die. And even then, if you believe the story, he also rejected and rebelled against death. 

These days, I am asking myself: 

How am I following Jesus’s model of rebellion? 

How do I sometimes confuse the idea of submission to God’s way of collective human flourishing with submission to capitalism, racial hierarchy, comfort, and fear?

What questions are you asking yourself as a Christian?

[serenagaywaterford]

Have you seen Amanda Brugel's last instagram post? I'm beginning to worry Serena doesn't survive the season

HEY ANON! SERIOUS QUESTION: ARE YOU TRYING TO GIVE ME A HEART ATTACK LOL?! Now, cue me frantically pouring over the post!

I’m curious. What makes you think that it’s ominous? It could be my wishful thinking, but nothing screamed out at me from it? Am I blind, lol? I mean, of course, there’s Ever waxing all FOMO over it, but that’s expected cos she’s not in the show all that much as it is. And the photo, if I’m reading Amanda right, is from S1. Is that why?

Maybe it’s wishful thinking but I don’t think they’ll kill off Serena–yet. Mainly, she’s one of the central characters, and certainly the central (human) antagonist to June specifically. (We all know the real villain is Gilead and male power. Fred is a secondary antagonist imo, and more like a stand-in for Gilead itself to make it easier to see the true evil.) There is a great deal of focus on her thus far, to develop her and weave her into a story that, if we’re all being real, the Waterfords should have been gone from already and certainly by the end of S2 but we know there’s going to be even more about both of them. And there is quite QUITE a lot of potential to move Serena across the “villainy spectrum” towards neutral or even true anti-hero without it being a deus ex machina/jump the shark sort of thing. And that sort of story is pure gold for a writer. It can be milked for a long time and works easily with drama, and the feminist themes of the show. I don’t want to say “redemption arc” cos that would require A LOT of work and I think most viewers are still stuck on 210 (once again–that was a HORRIBLE MISSTEP FOR THE CREATIVE TEAM the way it was written. I’ll say that forever because so many, many people missed the underlying point about it), but movement is possible.

Also, Miller seems to really enjoy the character/actress, and Yvonne’s got a LOT of hype on social media/critics circles. I think even if you hate Serena, you recognise how stellar Yvonne’s doing. Like, that’s why Serena is so hated (other than people not understanding Serena)–Yvonne plays her so exceptionally well.

I have NO idea what the contract situation is like, but I’d suspect she has a 5-year deal, like most. Quite frankly, the only reason I can see for killing Serena off is that Yvonne wants out, to be with her new baby. It must be dreadful to have a newborn and be working 6 months on such a dark, cold show about the oppression of women and horrible things about children. But she is a professional so we’ll see.

Or, I suppose, if they want SHOCK VALUE. Cos, who really expects Serena to die? I know a lot of vocal idiots online cream themselves over her dying a painful death and wish her horrible death constantly, but those are just loud online idiots – and if I’ve learnt anything from decades of fandom, it’s that showrunners rarely give a shit about those fans or take them seriously. They’ll pander to a degree, but they deep down don’t care. (Obvs there are exceptions but most showrunners and writers have a goal and view and it doesn’t change based on the whims of rabid fans on Twitter and Tumblr. There was a time in my life that I believed they cared. They do not, lol.)

But hey, this is complete wishful thinking cos she’s my babe and I don’t want THT without her. So I live in denial that they’ll kill her off. She’s honestly the most complex and second most developed character in the entire series. It would seem short-sighted to dump a character like that.

Honestly? I think it’s far more likely that Rita will leave the show than Serena, if we’re looking at Amanda & Yvonne. Which is a shame too cos she’s the only Canadian in the main cast and a good character. It all depends I suppose on the direction they go with the Resistance/Mayday and the Waterfords. Rita and Serena could BOTH go by the end of the season.

I’m gonna rant now about the characters that SHOULD go…

In terms of characters that have run their course, I vote for the main males. Both Fred and Nick are totally redundant to me now–and this has nothing to do with my dislike of Nick, I swear. Just on a narrative level, he no longer serves much purpose if we’re supposed to be watching a show about women fighting back against a repressive patriarchal fascist regime. (I don’t need some cutsey romance subplot, thanks. And I don’t think June requires it either, not when she’s on a mission to get HANNAH back and make to Canada to reunite with her HUSBAND and bff, all whilst saving ALL the children and women of Gilead. She’s got quite enough going on. The story is supposed to be less depressing this season so the argument that the N/J thing brings “lightness” and “hope” to a bleak story is also outdated too.) He’s just redundant. Served his purpose, and it was an important purpose, don’t get me wrong! I understand his very integral role especially in S1 but it’s just run its course, imo. I think even Nick stans seem to recognise this on some level cos they’re always terrified he’s going to be killed off almost every episode lol.

I may not care for Luke either, but he actually will remain important to the story, I think and I can’t see any good reason to get rid of him. He needs to remain alive. I think it would kill June to find out he’s dead.

Fred is just… a cartoon now and needs to go. How many more Evil TM things can he do? Yawn. We don’t need the personification of Gilead anymore I don’t think. We get it. Both Nick and Fred have dodged certain death now and it’s just like, OKAY, with June I get it cos she’s the protag, but them? Give me a break. Lazy. The only reason I don’t think they’ll kill off Nick is pure fanservice. I can’t see any rational reason other than that. Those LOUD fangirls will have a fucking meltdown. (I’ll say that when I speak to non-fandom people offline about the show, the vast majority don’t really care about the N*ck/June storyline nearly as much. Most people I’ve spoken with care much more about the larger issues–and it was crazy cos I was talking to a friend that I hadn’t seen in like 4 months about THT, and I know isn’t a fan of THT–like she watches it but isn’t in fandom. Just casual. And I brought up Serena (of course I did) but I was very critical of her, and she (who knows ZERO about my true feelings for Serena lol) was defensive of the character. It blew my mind cos she’s really not the type to defend problematic characters or villains. (I honestly thought she’d be a Nick fan, N/J fan, and Serena hater. But she’s a JUNE fan first and foremost, doesn’t really care for N/J but thought it was cute at the time, and doesn’t hate Serena.) She even brought up points that we Serena fans say, completely unprompted by me. So, I think in terms of casual fans, they’re a little more perceptive than the vocal majority of N*ck/June fangirls that dominate fandom. God, it’s such a relief to talk to offline people sometimes. By and large, they seem far more reasonable when it comes to this show and where the focus should be. (I should probably mention that almost all of the people I’ve spoken to about THT have been over the age of 25 (many over 30), which probably has something to do with it tbh.)

Both Fred and Nick are props for the female characters, and I think June and Serena are developed enough at this point to stand on their own without the need for either of those dudes. I don’t need men to help tell a story about women, thanks.

But again, I’m just some online voice. The producers and showrunners don’t give a shit what I think. They don’t even know I exist. And that’s probably a good thing (considering my obsession with having June/Serena fuck, lol. I’m gonna wager they don’t wanna see that.).

I’m just gonna pretend I am not now freaking out about Serena being killed off in S3. As much as I think it may be a terrible idea, I honestly don’t put it past this show…