#play analysis

[blooms-in-april]

Controversial take I guess, but I feel that Cyrano's giant nose (or giant nose equivalent ) is an important part of the storyline.

The entire Cyrano story revolves around him believing he is too ugly to be loved. And he has a reason for believing this! A rather big reason!As wrong as it is, people DO judge others based on appearance. Not fitting the socially accepted standard of beauty DOES impact how people treat you! Cyrano isn't simply building up his insecurities out of nowhere. He's not just a man with poor self esteem and anxiety. He's a man who does not and cannot fit societal beauty standards and it affects his life, specifically his romantic relationships.

When you take away the nose (or nose equivalent) you take away the conversation about how people who look different are treated differently. People argue that the nose is unrealistic- but the giant nose is just a rather on the nose theatrical example. People who don't fit the social standard of beauty do exist. And they do face struggles and rejections because of their appearance. And when you take away Cyrano's nose, Cyrano's REASON, I feel you take away a big part of the story's heart and power.

[waateeystein]

Analyzing Nick Dear's Frankenstein (and why we should move on to better play adaptations)

Alrighty y'all, its the long-awaited Nick Dear Frankenstein analysis post! This post is focusing specifically on Dear's characterization of the Creature, and why it negatively affects the play overall (plus some adaption theory added in for funsies). For additional context, I am an MFA candidate studying theatre, and I did this research and the accompanying slides for a project in my graduate-level theatrical criticism class. Basically this post is the text version of that presentation, with some of the slides included, and the fluff trimmed. There is a fair bit of academic jargon in here, but I tried to make it as accessible as possible!

And with all of that out of the way, the Nick Dear Frankenstein deep dive is under the cut! (And citations at the end.)

CW: Discussions of violence and SA.

Before I get into the script itself (which if you are interested in reading it, a PDF version is easily found on google), I want to introduce a fun adaptation theory which is specific to studying Frankenstein, called "Frankenstein Complex Theory." This theory comes from Dennis R. Cutchins and Dennis R. Perry in the introduction section to "Adapting Frankenstein: The Monster's Eternal Lives in Popular Culture." (A fantastic read that I recommend to anyone if your school or local library has it in circulation.) This introduction introduces the "complex" theory, as well as some really awesome ideas that get used and referenced by all of the authors included in the book.

Basically Cutchins and Perry assert that traditional adaptation theory is simple not enough to properly study Frankenstein and it's innumerable adaptations. One might also assert that Frankenstein itself is an adaptation, Mary Shelley published multiple editions of her story, and one could argue that the original story is an adaptation of other stories like "Paradise Lost." Linda Hutcheon, another academic in the field of adaptation studies who also wrote a fantastic book (cited at the end), talks about this idea of "palimpsestuous Intertextuality." I want to first argue here that the original text of Frankenstein and its adaptations (the "myth" of Frankenstein) are palimpsestuous.

And when I say the "myth" of Frankenstein is "palimpsestuous," its basically just saying that the "myth" (tall green guy with bolts in his neck who is mostly non-verbal, going around killing people mostly without rhyme or reason) is the predominate cultural narrative of Frankenstein's monster, rather than how he actually is in the book. All of the cultural ideas of what Frankenstein's monster is are this giant network which interweaves with itself, references and builds off itself, and constantly creates new things from these connections. The book and it's adaptations are not in hierarchy, one is not implicitly better or more important than another, they all work together to create our cultural narrative of Frankenstein's monster. Thus, palimpsestuous Intertextuality.

But what is this "Complex" theory I mentioned earlier, and what does it have to do with Nick Dear? Well, here is a helpful diagram!

Essentially, every piece of Frankenstein media every created, including Mary Shelley's original novel, are all part of the "Frankenstein Network." The complex, however, is personal, it includes anything from that network that you have personally consumed. Some people have a wider complex than others, but nonetheless, most of us have some kind of Frankenstein Complex (if you're this far in the post I'm assuming you have one lol.) I think Cutchins and Perry really popped off when they created this theory, its a fantastic way of studying/teaching adaptation.

But onto Nick Dear. Why did I just spend so much time covering adaptation theory and teaching you all a bunch of academic jargon? Well firstly, I spent a lot of time on that research for class and I wanted to share. But secondly and more importantly, my thesis for this entire post is that Nick Dear, whose goal with his play was to create an adaptation which humanized the Creature and sticks very close to the novel, created something that was unintentionally more a product of his personal complex and the palimpsestuous "myth" of Frankenstein's monster. He wrote a play that deeply mischaracterizes the Creature, and in turn uses violence and SA for shock value rather than substance.

And maybe this is a bold claim, but I think comparing the plot of the novel (from the creature's point of view) and the plot of Dear's play is a good place to start. And for your visual reference, I created a plot diagram for both so that we can compare the two side-by-side. (Thanks Freytag lol.)

The first thing we can notice about comparing the overall plot structure is that they are indeed, very similar. And this tends to be most people's reactions to seeing this play. That compared to most other Frankenstein media, it is super faithful to the book in terms of setting and characters and hitting important plot points. And I too want to praise Dear for that. I think he was extremely smart about what characters he chose to cut or combine, and the plot points he chose to include. I also personally love that despite the cutting of Walton's character, Victor and the Creature still visit the arctic at the end of the play. Dear made so many great choices with his play, but ends up squandering it his mischaracterization of the Creature.

But how is he mischaracterizing the Creature? Well first, lets look at how Shelley characterizes him in the book, specifically in terms of violence. I argue, that anytime the Creature kills someone in the book, it is a mostly equal/proportionate reaction to the violence done against him. His first murder his killing William, and the subsequent execution of Justine after he frames her for William's murder. All of this comes after Victor's initial rejection of the Creature, and rejection by multiple villages, the DeLacey's and the young drowning girl and her father. Killing William and Justine was his first retribution after all of the rejection and violence against him, which was initiated by Victor creating him and rejecting him in the first place. And this is his only planned revenge at that point, his next move was demanding that Victor create a female creature for him, with the plan to flee and live a peaceful life in South America (whether he actually meant what he said is up to interpretation.) His next murders only come after Victor destroys the unfished female creature. This is when the Creature kills Henry and then Elizabeth. Elizabeth (and arguably Henry) are Victor's partners, and the people he most personally loves. Killing them is direct retribution for Victor destroying the female Creature, who was supposed to be (at least from the Creature's perspective) the Creature's romantic partner. All of the Creature's direct murders are direct mirrors to Victor's transgressions against the Creature. William is killed for the initial rejection and subsequent exiling from society, Henry and Elizabeth are killed for the destruction of his future romantic partner.

Dear takes a different approach in adapting these murders. In his play, the Creature's first murder is not William, but is actually the DeLacey's. After being personally tutored by Father DeLacey for a significant amount of time, the eventual and fated meeting with Felix and Agatha arrives and the creature is rejected by them. Instead of going straight to Geneva, as he does in the novel, he first sets fire to the DeLacey's cabin, killing the entire family inside. To me, this feels like the first instance of spectacle and shock over actual substance. In both Shelley's novel and Dear's play, as the creature learns about humanity and war, he clearly has a distaste for violence and killing. And because of this, I don't understand why the Creature has such an extreme reaction to the DeLacey's, especially in this version where Father DeLacey shows him so much direct kindness, and it is Felix and Agatha specifically who reject him. Why would the Creature decide to kill them all? If Dear wanted to add additional deaths, why not just kill Felix and Agatha and spare Father DeLacey because of his previous kindness? This violence, to me, feels undeserved and does not mirror the violence done against him by this family. From a staging perspective, the visual of the house burning is actually a very impressive collaboration between the set and lighting designers on the giant stage of the National Theatre. But I question why this moment needs to be here, when the rest of the play and it's staging in the premier production already has so much beauty and shock and spectacle. This is also the first moment where I find the Creature unsympathetic, because this action seems overly extreme as a response.

After this moment, the murder of William is different but not too dissimilar in tone to the novel. At it's heart, it is still the Creature's first direct revenge against Victor. After this, our next big departure from the novel is when the female creature is fully brought to life, different to the novel where she is never fully given life. Victor killing her after she has been able to briefly live is a more extreme measure on Victor's part too, which by my own argument, may warrant a more extreme reaction from the Creature. And to be absolutely clear, Victor simply kills/dismantles her, and nothing more. As for the creature's reaction, Henry is a cut character in this adaptation, so we obviously don't see his death. Instead, the Creature kills Elizabeth, but in this version, not only does the creature kill her, he also r*pes her. This is my biggest point of contention with the play. To me, the subtext in Dear's version is that the Creature views both Elizabeth and the Female Creature as some kind of property, and when his property (the female Creature) is taken away by Victor, he takes Victor's property (Elizabeth) away too. Right before her death in the play, the Creature and Elizabeth actually have a really touching conversation, and they seem to genuinely bond. And so when the Creature eventually kills her afterwards, him r*ping her comes completely out of left field. The only explanation to me, is that despite empathizing with her, the Creature ultimately still views her as Victor's property, and needed to take her away from Victor in a way that was more than just taking her life from him. And honestly, it's a really gross interpretation of these characters. And I want to be very clear that I know depiction is not endorsement, and that I also believe there is a time and a place for depicting SA on stage, but this play was not the time nor the place. The creature simply killing Elizabeth is enough to get the point across, the SA seems to have been added for pure shock value, and again, spectacle. One could argue that this action done by the creature is part of his sexual awakening, just as he learns about other aspects of humanity. But again I believe this is not justified by the text of the play, and is written for pure shock value at the expense of another character, specifically a woman. I would call this misogynistic.

And these extreme reactions from the Creature in Dear's play seem to create this hyper-masculinized version of the character and the story. And I think that is a shame considering the original story was written by a woman, and Mary Shelley did a fantastic job of writing a story where the men can exist across a spectrum of masculinity, without needing to be this stereotyped version of hypermasculinity with a desire for sexual vengeance. I mean, Victor creating the Creature is a pretty clear metaphor for motherhood/parenthood, especially considering Shelley's experience with motherhood and the loss of her children and her own mother. And not to say that a cis man isn't capable of writing an authentic adaptation of a woman's story, but here, I think Nick Dear missed the mark, especially in regards to Elizabeth's death and his depiction of Creature/masculinity.

And I don't want to boil this down to, "Nick Dear is a man and therefore his adaption is automatically bad." Because I don't think that's the case, and I think that's an unfair assumption to make. What I do think, is that despite trying to make an adaptation that strove to humanize the Creature better than most other adaptations, Dear instead created an adaptation that fell into the overly-violent monster tropes of the greater Frankenstein Network of adaptations. In essence, Dear may have unintentionally become a product of his own "complex." And unfortunately, that subconscious influence may be partially why we get this interpretation of the Creature, and the unnecessary shock factors added into the story.

So where do we go from here? Chances are, if you see a theatre company putting on a production of Frankenstein, it's probably the Nick Dear version. This was the case for me last October when I accidentally attended a production of this script at a professional theatre company back home in Florida. My hope is that one day we can move on from this script, and find a Frankenstein play adaptation that humanizes the Creature in a way that most audiences (who probably have not read the book) are unfamiliar with, while also not resorting to shock value that dehumanizes the women in the story. My homework for myself beyond this research project, is to read more Frankenstein play adaptations, and specifically ones that are not written by cis men. I think the experiences of women, trans people and disabled people (or obviously any intersection of these communities and identities) could really lend themselves to new and exciting interpretations of the script that bring broader perspectives into context. If you have any suggestions of Frankenstein plays or playwrights who have written Frankenstein plays, I would love to check them out! I also suggest giving the National Theatre world premier pro-shot of Nick Dear's Frankenstein a watch, purely just for the design of the show. Costumes, set, sound and lighting are all really spectacular, and I would love to do an analysis of that aspect of the show one day.

Obviously there was a lot about this show I didn't cover (Cumberbatch, I know), I just wanted to cover the characterization of the Creature at a textual level, because to me that is the most glaring issue with this play. Please let me know your thoughts, and thanks for reading if you got this far!

Citations (I didn't do a great job of referencing these in-text, but all of these sources are great and I highly recommend checking them out!)

Cutchins, Dennis R, and Dennis R Perry. “Introduction- The Frankenstein Complex: When the text is more than a text.” Adapting Frankenstein: The Monster’s Eternal Lives in Popular Culture, Manchester University Press, Manchester, 2018, pp. 1–19.

Dear, Nick, and Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley. Frankenstein: Based on the Novel by Mary Shelley. Faber and Faber, 2011.

Hutcheon, Linda. “Beginning to Theorize Adaptation: What? Who? Why? How? Where? When?” A Theory of Adaptation, Routledge, New York, New York, 2006, pp. 1–32.

Jones, Kelly. “Adaptations of ‘liveness’ in theatrical representations of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.” Adapting Frankenstein: The Monster’s Eternal Lives in Popular Culture, Manchester University Press, Manchester, 2018, pp. 316–334.

Pfeiffer, Lee. “Frankenstein: Film by Whale [1931].” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, inc., 24 Nov. 2023, www.britannica.com/topic/Frankenstein-film-by-Whale.

Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. 1818.

Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. 1831.

[consultingfujoshi]

some thoughts wrt the two established "romances" in severance so far (burt/irving and helly/mark) inspired by @figmentof who pointed out how irving had to find out mark and helly kissed from the corporate video in s2 e1 and how he must have felt seeing his co-workers' love affair like portrayed like that, and how it ties into the queer narrative at play here which uses workplace dynamics and policies as very clear analogues for real-life prejudice against queer couples. I mean, just look at this:

it's not just documented, but celebrated. used as propaganda for how the conditions on the severance floor have improved. proof that the severed workers are happy. and how even though he is unaware of the sociopolitical meaning of all this, lumon is very not-subtly telling him that what he had with burt is inherently lower and less valuable than this.

irving doesn't even know homophobia exists and yet he is still affected by it, it still seeps into every corner of the way his and burt's romance progresses. burt is positioned as an unacceptable love interest from the jump. irv is actively discouraged at every turn from pursuing it. their friendship is viewed with disgust and apprehension from their coworkers. burt working in a different department that's hated by MDR. dylan himself not being homophobic in the sense he opposes their relationship because they're both men but his attempts to keep them apart still has a parallel sort of prejudice behind it and still ultimately has the same effect as if it WERE driven by homophobia. irving is made to feel perverse for wanting contact with burt. he's told this is for his own good.

and then, just as they manage to overcome that immediate resistance from their peers and escape to a place where they can explore this blossoming romance on their own terms, burt retires. for all it matters to irv, he's dead. and then irving is given the option to live the rest of his life with grief that will never heal, or kill himself too, because there is no reality where they get to be together. that's just the way things are. of course they wouldn't get to be together. he was unreasonable and childish for ever hoping that could happen. this is just the way it goes for innies. he's told to get ahold of himself and not make a scene.

but the thing is, the standards are not the same for all. a heterosexual romance gets upheld as the shining example of success and fulfilment for the severed employees, whilst a homosexual romance is ridiculed and invalidated, and written off as something that was simply never meant to be. and even more importantly to irving, a heterosexual romance is APPROVED OF by lumon, and by extension, by kier. irv held back from allowing himself to even call his and burt's relationship a romance, because his god had told him it was wrong, he followed the handbook, thinking this was what kier wanted, and then finding out after suffering the worst heartbreak imaginable because of it, that this WASN'T EVEN TRUE. it's simply just that someone like HIM doesn't get to have something like this. his love is not the kind of love god wants. he does not approve of irv's love. cynical and manipulative though that approval may be (even within the context of the corporate video, the helly/mark romance is only being celebrated to further the narrative that lumon care for their workers, but the point still remains that it was THEIR romance specifically used to suit this end), when your entire life has been in pursuit of that approval, it must be devastating to learn it was never on the cards for you.

he and burt even used the fact kier met and fell in love with his wife in the same circumstances as them to justify this to each other - and they were RIGHT, god does approve of falling in love with your coworkers - this simply just doesn't apply to them specifically. and if irving needed any more proof that he no longer has a place at lumon, that he's better off not existing at all than existing with this pain that cannot be remedied, pain that won't even be acknowledged for what it is, a symptom of a sickness which plagues the entire severance system, pain that he is simply expected to choke down and get over - this is that proof.

and that's the POINT. they're TELLING us that this is unjust, and there's a double standard. they're using the ways the innies experience romance and the difference in lumon's reaction (lumon being the collective of all the management we've seen, lumon as a singular entity) to burt/irving vs helly/mark to comment on how queer people are not afforded the same level of respect or validation IN REAL LIFE, for their attachments, their love, their pain, their suffering. it is NOT just incidental that irving's romance is with a man. it would not WORK if his love interest was a woman. the POINT is that they are both men and how that puts them at a disadvantage, even if they aren't aware of the prejudices of the outside world, even if they don't TECHNICALLY apply on the severance floor, there are very clear analogues which still end up oppressing them in equivalent ways that they would be suffering if this were a normal workplace in the outside world.

it genuinely sickens me to my stomach that even in a world so divorced from reality and the sensibilities of regular society, a queer couple is still made to suffer and feel inferior in a way that perfectly mirrors their real-life counterparts. how they will never, EVER be allowed to exist in a world where their love could thrive freely and uninhibited - they never get to taste the joy our world has to offer people like them, but they are still somehow subjected to all the pain it has to offer them regardless. it's such horrifically devastating writing. it makes my skin crawl. I can't stop thinking about it

[bread-that-draws]

Flowey’s so funny and has me so fucked up like he’s a talking flower. He tries to kill you upon your first interaction. He is ten years old. He is damaged beyond repair. He’s a flower named Flowey. He’s become friends with every single character. He’s killed all of them countless times. He knows everything about everyone. He doesn’t care anymore. He takes care of his mom when she can’t take care of herself. He’s killed her before. He doesn’t care if you kill her. He thinks she’s trying to replace him. He just wants to be himself again. He wants to destroy everything. He hates you. You’re the only one who understands him. He wants his best friend back. He’s terrified of them. He believes in kill or be killed because he died by giving mercy to the wrong person. He believes himself to be the wrong person. He doesn’t understand when you show him that kindness he showed others, even when you know he could kill you for it. He’s tried every route. He asks you if you have anything better to do when you try to do the same. He’s a direct reflection of the player. He’s a fucking talking flower named flowey and his only voice line is by Ronald McDonald and his officially licensed plush does a little dance for you

[a-confused-spoon]

⚠️SPOILERS FOR ARCANE SEASON 2 ACT 1!⚠️

I'm absolutely convinced someone has already pointed this out, but this parallel between 01x08 and 02x03 is haunting me:

"This is how things are, how they've always been- I was so stupid to think they could change!"

Do you see how in the "break up" scene of season 1 the camera frames both Caitlyn and Vi at eye level, therefore at the same height, because the leading cause of the split is the powerlessness of two equal individuals to change a system that is bigger than them?

"I keep telling myself that you're different, but you're not! It's her blood in your veins!"

...and how the break-up in season 2 takes the pov of the two characters (Vi looking up at the topsider that just hurt her after pointing out how her actions are being part of the problem, and Caitlyn looking down at the zaunite she hurt blinded by her own anger and refusing to see her own faults), making it a representation of the bigger class/system issue at hand?

[minart-was-taken]

As a wise man once said...

[dekusleftsock]

I think about this sometimes but I personally love that Horikoshi took the Yandere trope, split it in two, and gave one half to Izuku and Himiko.

Like it’s so fascinating how you can just SEE how purposeful Himiko was as a character in hindsight standing next to him.

Himiko is a really interesting subversion of her trope for two reasons:

She hurts people because she loves them, not for isolation or destruction of the competition (gore/blood is love to her, not necessarily a means to love someone)

She’s not possessive. Like at all.

I’ve seen that hc a few times and it always bothers me. Ochako is for sure a possessive character (we saw that with Hatsume around Izuku way back at the sports festival arc), but Himiko? Really?

You mean the girl who had a crush on a boy AND the girl who also had a crush on the same boy? Her?

You mean the girl who doesn’t hurt people who love who she loves, rather actively encouraging it in the first place? That one? Really?

Like it’s such an integral part to her subversion too. It’s what makes her such a weird and fascinating character. Possessiveness is supposed to be whats ugly about love itself, yet her love remains ugly without it. She is ugly because the fundamental ways in which she sees and feels about the world are considered “wrong”, “dangerous”, and “deviant”.

But Izuku… ohhhh Izuku…

He holds this trait like a badge melted to his skin. My man cannot escape these allegations. It’s to the point where it’s honestly a fundamental to his narrative. Izuku does not act nor feel the same without it.

Izuku holds a cutesy nickname that literally every other childhood friend of Katsuki’s has long left behind, saying his real name instead (this is honestly why I’m also uninterested in a scene where Izuku calls him “Katsuki” instead of “Kacchan”, Katsuki doesn’t represent the same things the name Izuku does, imo at least), izuku “give him back to me” midoriya, holds his dead body to his chest on a cover, freaked out on someone either hurting/offending Kacchan.. 3 times(?), keeping big boy ofa secrets…. The list goes on.

So it’s this main reason that I think their characters are just so. Fucking. Intertwined. I’m glad this has become a more common interpretation because there’s just so much that aligns between them.

Both of them call their “special people” with -chan endings, both by their first names, both deemed deviants/irrelevant by society. It’s no wonder Ochako fell in love with Izuku, just like she did toga, they’re fucking freaks. They’re interesting. They’re weird. They’re overly friendly and socially inept and a little beaten down by the world yet have too much passion to stay on the ground. They’re envious of the ones they love (Ochako of her freedom to be a normal girl, Katsuki for his raw power and harnessed skill), and I guess I just wanted to make this post because I adore how it’s all done.

I LOVE how the yandere trope is used as societal commentary here. Not necessarily as a way to make the main love interest jealous and feel she must protect the main character, nor for some kinky reason surrounding her character, but because the trope is built off of real, ugly feelings that can and do happen. That love can and is considered truly beautiful in all its forms, especially those of queer people.

So I especially love it because it isn’t just limited to Himiko, but Izuku as well. He may never hurt the ones he loves, but he would hurt for them.

A perfect narrative foil on queer and deviant forms of love. Big fan Horikoshi.

[kacievvbbbb]

Something about Vegapunk using the dna and blood of a caged and experimented on child to create more caged child experiments and the cycles we perpetuate.

Because what does it mean that all that King has left as proof, that the lunarians were real, that they existed as a tribe, as a people, are seven manufactured children he doesn’t even know about, enslaved as weapons to the government that wiped out the culture they’ll never get to be a part of, and Alber himself another enslaved child lost to something he’ll never fully know.

And what of the warlords? Already young once and hurt by their government, young again and slaves to it. Boa looking at a version of her practically pulled out of time stuck in her worst nightmare or Jimbei looking at a version of himself living out a past he escaped by the skin of his teeth but so many he loved didn’t, even Doffy once again at the mercy of the people that already abandoned him, has Kuma not suffered enough? Given enough, is this child version of him doomed to repeat the same path he already could not escape from . Property of the world government, beholden to the celestial dragons, this version of me that cannot go free?

It’s interesting that Vegapunk joined the government so that he could do the most good, but look at the long line of people right infront of him that he’s hurt with his own hands.

[beargregor]

wait i'm curious, what makes you say that gregor doesn't like everyone else (if i read that post right)? just curious since i've never seen anyone else say that

i don't necessarily think gregor dislikes everyone else at lcb but i do think that gregor is an incredibly petty person that isn't nearly as close to the rest of the sinners and even outright dislikes some of them cough cough rodya cough cough which a lot of people just Refuse to see because he's as much of a doormat as he is. there's several examples i could get into to try and prove my point however i'll just focus on what i personally think to be the biggest ones.

additionally, this is going to be kind of long, so i'm adding a read more. read more! read it. sorry for being so wordy. i have several diseases.

Pt1. gregor is the type to try and get along at least decently with everyone, especially if he gets a good first impression from them.

this is less a point in favor of gregor's distance w/ the rest of the sinners and more just a contributing factor to it. once again there's several examples i could point to here but i think the most in your face one happened in canto I with yuri, as several people have pointed out. even before gregor comes clean about growing attached to her as quickly as he did because she reminds him of his sister, we get this interaction.

i'll go ahead and make the disclaimer now that i don't necessarily think gregor is the most reliable of narrators, especially when it comes to his feelings and interactions with most people, but from the way he acts when the topic of yuri comes up (and the way we still see him act even all the way up to c7, nearly a whole year after yuri's death) i don't see reason to question his sentiment here. gregor immediately got that aya and yuri were close, potentially even taking note of their traded belts, and went out of his way to get something nice for yuri despite hardly knowing her.

i feel like a lot of people have forgotten as much, especially since it's been so long since c1, but gregor actually spent a good bit of season 1 doing the exact same thing with the other sinners! gregor reads a connection between him and ishmael pretty quickly despite getting off to a rocky start

mostly because gregor can tell that ishmael is pretty sardonic in a very similar way to him. there's been multiple instances where ishmael and gregor have essentially expressed the same sentiment at different moments, most notably gregor's little argument after ishmael got shot with a decay ampule in c4

and ishmael's response to pilot talking about self-sacrifice in c5

i could go ahead and pull up more examples, but in general pm has gone out of their way to show us that gregor and ishmael are pretty similar, so it makes sense for gregor to assume that they're friends, right?

this will be pushpin 1. keep note of this for Later.

ishmael's only the first sinner we see gregor trying to do this with in s1, we also see him try it out with heathcliff, sinclair, and ryoushuu

he's tried to get along with charon, being one of very few sinners that we've seen actually try to establish a connection with her at all

even rodya, despite my insistence that gregor doesn't like her nearly as much as the fandom thinks he does

all of these seem pretty fine and dandy, right? sure it frequently leans towards self-degradation, micromanaging, and commiseration, but gregor can at least be pretty chummy with most of the sinners, can't he?

Pt2. hell's chicken was more than just comic relief guys please

i'm fully aware that this is quite the hot take, but i think hell's chicken deserves a lot more credit for character writing than the fandom gives it. hell's chicken gave us foreshadowing for several events, such as the donqui bloodfiend reveal

heathcliff's distortion in c6 (as well as hong lu's highly speculated distortion at some point in the future)

and ryoushuu and sinclair's continued connection by making him the odd one out on her team

which, hey! that implies something about gregor's odd one out, don quixote, too, doesn't it? yes. yes it does. that's pushpin 2. keep note of that for later.

speaking of pushpins, hey! that's pushpin 1!

splitting into teams is one of the major events in hell's chicken, and most of the sinner's choices are either motivated by very little, backhanded, or motivated primarily by not wanting to be on the opposite leader's side. i didn't include all of the picks, just because i feel like including most of them already gets this across, but i think gregor took one major thing from this: most of the sinners, when push comes to shove, will only side with gregor when they refuse to or can't take his opponent's side.

now, don't get me wrong, i'm fully aware that this is primarily intended to be comedic relief, but when gregor is being described as having his trust broken by ishmael or nearly crying because no one on his team properly sided with him for him, i feel like it's pretty fair to read into this.

something that i think is pretty important to remember in conjunction with this is that we know that gregor is the type to hold a grudge, both from his general attitude towards the G corp soldiers in c1 as well as his continued distaste for vergilius

even beyond the splitting into teams of hell's chicken, the sinners have given gregor plenty of reasons to feel bitter. i feel like this is something people have noticed but haven't really put a finger on, but it's kind of wild just how often the rest of the sinners make gregor the butt of the joke

and sure, we could argue that a fair few of these aren't really made with any ill intent. quite a bit of it could have been meant as harmless teasing, but with gregor being more sensitive than most, it coming from nearly all sides, and as often as it does? yeah, i think he's prone to taking it a bit personally.

Pt3. yes i do still think gregor was the third most important character in canto VII you guys gotta hear me out okay

of course, all of this leads up to the bit of the story i highlighted, doesn't it? c7? i totally get why people haven't really picked up on all the gregor things i did in it, seeing as they were mostly not *directly* said about him or by him.

personally, i think that gregor's distaste for talking about himself on any serious level and thus leading to him getting sort of "sidelined" narratively (which i take issue with that claim, but still. it's effective for getting what i mean across atm) is supposed to lead players to take a deeper look at the times gregor gets held up to other characters and compare and contrast what's being said about them by the matchup. as i showed earlier with his immediate latching onto ishmael, i think this is something gregor himself is at least partially aware of too.

so, that begs the question, who was gregor compared to in canto VII that makes me think it's one of the most critical pieces in understanding his character?

really, i'd like to avoid getting too lost in the analysis of this canto specifically, since i'd like to do a proper post about this later, but i figure i can bury the lede a little before doing it properly.

c7 features several characters being made to perform in sansón's play, acting out the relevant backstory for this segment of the plot. a lot of these characters have rather direct, degrading reasons for playing the roles they do.

outis, a character with an inflated ego who wants her journey to have a purpose, is made to play an aimlessly wandering villager with a single line.

hong lu and ryoushuu, two characters for whom families and the expectations placed upon them are likely going to play a major role, are made to play bloodfiends.

rodya, a character who resents her lot in life and is constantly shown to be eager to leave her destitution behind her and become someone special, is made to play a helpless villager that's too poor to even offer any money to the hero that saves her.

heathcliff, a character that has spent most of his life getting dehumanized by comparing him to beastly animals, is made to play a literal bear whose sole purpose in the plot is to get beat up and then quickly left by the wayside.

sinclair, a character that has two opposed parties essentially treating him as a macguffin to procure for their side, is made to play the character who was arguably the catalyst for this entire canto, not to mention playing a decently major role in ruina.

our star don quixote is made to play her father, the first kindred, but there's someone by their side the entire time, isn't there? don quixote's dear, steadfastly loyal companion. a character which don quixote has tasked themself with getting to come out of their shell?

hello again, pushpin 2.

gregor has been made to play our unreachable star, sancho. someone had to, of course. you can't really tell a story without it's main character, now can you?

now, i should once again give a disclaimer. i am not trying to say that i think adapting what happens to donqui/sancho in c7 to gregor is the road pm is going to take here, not only would that toe a bit past the line of foreshadowing, but it'd also just amount to rehashing that plotline again, which i don't think would make for a particularly exciting story.

what i DO think is that we can take a lot of the things that are said to either directly be the case for sancho and use them to inform how we see gregor.

and god, does playing sancho have some fucking implications for our favorite ossan archetype.

starting off, the earliest moment we get to see of sancho is quite literally her just waiting for death to take her in a pile of ashes.

which, i should remind everyone, is actually pretty damn close to what happens to gregor's literary counterpart at the end of the metamorphosis. gregor samsa experiences one final breaking point that pushes him over the edge and makes him decide to just wait for starvation to take him.

gregor and sancho both consider themselves to no longer be human, something which sancho goes out of her way to highlight repeatedly throughout the canto and gregor is quick to get defensive on her behalf for when outis starts really tearing into her

sancho spends quite a lot of this story denying herself the joys of community and friendship, despite knowing that, even with the rest of the sinners frequently making jokes at her expense and outright insulting her, they were things that she desperately craved.

and, while this is getting into my "outis is a red herring meant to distract us from gregor's eventual betrayal" theorizing, i also think it's worth noting for this discussion that sancho's fellow kindreds, her family, all seem to be under the impression that she dislikes them and ultimately her departure was an act of betrayal

and that, despite gregor being one of LCB's resident mood makers and attempted conflict de-escalators, one of the sinners that's most prone to making appeals to the bonds they've all forged together, only him and faust remained silent during everyone's speech

so yeah, i think there's quite a lot of little details and hints building up to the reveal that gregor's not quite as fond of everyone as he presents himself to be. i do think a lot of this ultimately comes down to gregor getting in the way of his own happiness, similarly to donqui, particularly because he's been frequently portrayed as something of a self fulfilling prophecy, especially by giving him as many christ allegories as they have by way of priest and garden of thorns. gregor is convinced that the rest of the sinners don't like him because he's not convinced anyone could like him, so he convinces himself that he hates them because why should he care if someone that he hates hates him too?

a lot of this ultimately ties back to my personal interpretation of what happens in the metamorphosis as well as my own theories regarding all the times gregor has made weird callbacks and references to lobcorp and ruina, but yeah. i think about this guy and his deeper characterization a fairly normal amount, i think.

to end this off i'll highlight one of my favorite little "gregor is fucking seething and trying so hard to keep it cool" moments, in the credits CG for c7 we see rodya teasing him by drawing a little horse on his window and actively pointing and laughing at it, which gregor really doesn't seem all too pleased about.

i personally think this ties into the other cruel part of sansón forcing gregor to play rocinante, which is the more literal "he's actually just straight up playing rocinante" side of things. gregor was quite literally made to play something less than human, less than even animal really, as he was reduced to nothing more than the shoes don quixote wore as she got to play the leading role. sansón directly makes jokes about gregor being nothing more than shoes in the play twice, which adds to this reading, i think.

this, imo, really plays into the adaptation of the metamorphosis! i've seen a lot of readings for the book that posit that, despite being the protagonist, gregor samsa can't really be considered the main character due to nearly everything he experiences in it being used to further his family's character development at his expense, which i think fits nicely with limbus gregor seemingly having the most said about him through indirect means by holding him up to other characters. also it's rodya carelessly making fun of His Big Major Insecurities™ again like she did in c1 which i always find fun. rodya i love you but god you're the worst.

[morphean42]

I’ve finally figured out why I really dislike Twink Whizzer!

So, in ‘This Had Better Come To A Stop’ Marvin sings the line “that’s what pretty boys should do”, and I’ve always interpreted this as another example of Marvin thrusting Whizzer into an unrealistic role. We all know Marvin treats Whizzer like the woman of the relationship, expecting him to cook, clean, serve him, and be generally feminine. However, Marvin also puts Whizzer in the category of ‘pretty boy’ in addition to ‘woman’.

Whizzer is, in many ways, more traditionally masculine than Marvin. He knows more about and is good at sports, he’s tall, he’s what one might call a ‘player’. Especially how Stephen Bogardus plays Whizzer in the OBC, he is not a stereotypically gay man. This, obviously, is not okay in Marvin’s eyes. He sees his own failings of masculinity through Whizzer’s performance of it, and this makes him incredibly insecure, so he forces Whizzer to be ‘the feminine one’. The gay one. The pretty boy. The twink.

So, when Marvin calls Whizzer a pretty boy, that is a slight against him, that’s Marvin trying to force this idea of a ‘small, feminine, non-athletic lover’ onto him because it makes him ‘the man’ in the relationship. Nearly everything Marvin does that hurts those around him is not done because he hates them, but because he hates himself (that’s a whole other point but anyway). So, Marvin calls Whizzer a pretty boy because it’s everything Whizzer isn’t and Marvin can never accept being the less masculine of the pair.

This analysis is running on a correlation between the terms ‘pretty boy’ and ‘twink’ but I think my point stands even without that.

Whizzer isn’t a twink because just like Marvin is trying to force him into being ‘the woman’ he’s making him take on an effeminate, not traditionally masculine role.

Oh and one more point! Unrelated to all this! The term twink refers to a gay man traditionally between the ages of 18-25, or at least appearing young like that! Whizzer is balding! Whizzer is not twenty years old! If I see one more person make Whizzer like twenty-four and Marvin like thirty-seven I will lose my goshdamned mind!

[binomech]

i think what gets me so riled up about the goat-adjacent theorising part of the severance fandom is that it's always about what the goats do for lumon, instead of what the goats mean to the employees.

and they never even think oh, the goats sound like crying babies. the mammalians worker was so worried were being taken before they'd even finished nursing. oh, the goats are a herd and mammalians department acts like a herd and they feel each loss as a group. oh, we're just animals. oh, masturbation and homosexuality are punished because like the goats we're just here to make more goats. oh, the goats are alive and used as produce. oh, helly is scared she might be sending them to the slaughterhouse. am i livestock?

it's never about that. it's always about cloning. it's always about pip's food. it's always about the company. it's never about the worker. it's always about the use. it's never about the body.

it's always "what is lumon doing?" and not "who the fuck cares what their motivation is when the show is literally relentlessly just saying REGARDLESS OF MOTIVATION, THIS IS ABUSE. REGARDLESS OF HOW MUCH YOU THINK YOU KNOW BETTER, THESE ARE PEOPLE." they don't think about the innies as children, about expectation, about the trauma of reproduction, about being a body being dismissed in favor of using a body.

lots of "wow cobel is a freak MILF" and jorjorwell but you can't even look at her clutching a respirator after tearing apart a literal altar to a pharmaceutical that just fired her and her knowing how to help a baby latch. you can't fucking sit with why she's spying and fucking with a widower to see what happens when he sees his dead wife at work after a lobotomy and why it still feels uncomfortable and invasive as hell.

[koifishhies]

holy shit richard ii is the reverse macbeth

an unsympathetic tyrant king gets deposed and turns into a sympathetic tragic hero; his inevitable death goes from something you anticipate to something you dread and grieve

vs a sympathetic hero becomes king and turns into an unsympathetic tyrant; his inevitable death goes from something you dread to something you anticipate and celebrate

both normal men corrupted by power. macbeth loses self awareness, richard gains it when it’s too late. macbeth comes to see himself as something beyond man, beyond death; richard comes to see himself as horrible, tragically human after all. neither epiphany could have saved them from their deaths. perhaps that’s the real tragedy.

[thhestia]

I think we should talk more about Cassandra and Caitlyn, so i hope you don't mind my yapping :D

Cassandra deeply cared about Caitlyn and her opinions. She loved her daughter so dearly but didn't know how to show it.

I'm not saying that Cassandra was perfect, because she was not. She was as imperfect as any other character in Arcane. But she was not a bad mother.

Cassandra sheltered Cailtyn because she didn't want her to get hurt, she prevented her from seeing the real world by being overprotective. She did that knowing that it would strain their relationship, she even took the risk of her own daughter resenting her. But Cassandra's sheltering made Caitlyn do rebellious acts that her mother wouldn't have approved.

Caitlyn had never realized how much she wanted her mother's approval untill she died, so she did things that she thought that Cassandra would have approved of; like dating Maddie but all Cassandra wanted was her daughter's safety.

Cassandra was actually trying to protect Caitlyn from all the things that she suffered the whole series. Mothers have a "sixth sense".

A mother always knows.

And we see this in Cassandra's last moment with Caitlyn. Cassandra sensed that Vi was important to Caitlyn, she nodded her head, when Vi left the council room, signaling Caitlyn to follow after her; she knew that Vi was important to her daughter. In their last interaction what Cassandra did was to give Caitlyn her approval to go after Vi. She was one of the very few people who saw through Caitlyn.

The last thing Cassandra did, her final choice in the meeting wasn't just for the benefit of the two cities, it was also for Caitlyn.

All Cassandra cared was her daughter's safety but everything that she made to protect her daughter did nothing but strain their mother-daughter relationship and at the end, Caitlyn got hurt more than Cassandra could've imagined.

Do you guys think that Caitlyn sometimes thinks "my mother was right"?

also, i know i never post about Arcane but i really wanted to talk about them.

sorry if some sentences make no sense, i wrote this at 4 am

[hanafubukki]

Thinking about Malleus crying and how he stopped crying/throwing tantrums because of expectations placed on him as the future king.

And loosing that way of expressing himself added onto his loneliness and gave the misconception that he’s “grown” now to not only himself but to others.

Even as an egg, one of the ways Malleus expressed himself was through crying and tantrums, as all children do.

He stopped absorbing his grandmother’s magic because he wanted Lilia (a part of me believes he imprinted on Lilia as an egg, a father figure to him).

When he had enough waiting, he refused magic until Lilia came. That’s when he started holding on and when he actively started to respond to someone again.

It was even stated that Malleus shouldn’t have lasted this long, but Lilia’s constant visits gave him a reason to hang on. His constant presence and love.

Until it wasn’t enough anymore, he was lonely so he cried out and threw a tantrum. Which only Lilia heard and no one else. And Lilia understood then, that Malleus was lonely and wanted to be with him. Malleus was able to hatch because of Lilia.

We later hear stories about how Malleus used to throw tantrums because he was lonely, even on birthdays and special events. We know Lilia visited the castle and brought him gifts so that appeased him.

But, Malleus was young and he was able to express himself and let his feelings known.

But as time went on, he wasn’t allowed to do that anymore, even at a young age. For fear of what his great powers might do to others and because Lilia told him what could happen. And he took that to heart. So he stopped throwing tantrums and crying out, and this is what eventually added into his loneliness.

Lilia was able to comfort him because Malleus cried out and threw tantrums. He was able to go to him when Malleus was in distress.

But then he stopped, because Malleus thought it was ‘childish’ and it can cause others harm. Lilia even said in his beach ssr that Malleus hasn’t done it in a while.

This eventually led to the mentality that Malleus has grown up, when he hasn’t. He thinks he has and he has a role to play as the future king.

He wasn’t allowed to be a child anymore but a potential ruler. Even Lilia, at one point, points out how the heir of Briar Valleys shouldn’t zone out.

This shows how well Malleus hid his emotions didn’t it? How lonely he must have been because he kept it all in. To the point that Lilia, who always heard his cries, believes that he’s grown and matured now to an adult even though he knows Malleus is young.

But that what happens doesn’t it? When you act older than your age? People take you for granted and believe you’re mature and you don’t need to act like a child anymore.

Malleus even fooled himself. It was when others pointed out his sadness and loneliness that he understood, but he didn’t take action for himself only. No, he took action because another precious family member was crying.

Someone who can express his tears when Malleus couldn’t, who can cry the tears Malleus can’t anymore. And Malleus knows the importance of crying, he tells Silver that all children cry as if Malleus isn’t a child anymore but we know that’s not true.

Until, that is, when we got to that scene where Lilia was asking him why he was doing this. And Malleus, finally to a degree, let his emotions out again after so long, so he wouldn’t loose Lilia.

And you can tell that shocked Lilia, made him maybe realize too late, that Malleus is still a child. A child who loves his family and doesn’t want to loose them, loose him, but it was too late. He doesn’t have the magic to stop him or his UM.

It’s heartbreaking when you think about it. Malleus has to grow to the point that couldn’t express himself anymore from a young age. No one could hear his cries of loneliness anymore, not even the one who hatched him. Because he was forced to grow up and act beyond his age for a role he was born/‘blessed’ into. 😔😭

[superkirbylover]

peppino and noise character studies

in this essay i will explain why i am the only one to understand these characters

[charbroiledchicken]

'ekko's hair accessory' this, 'timebomb painting on each others clothes that', why has nobody noticed that the lyrics in paint the town blue - "crush got a crush" - are basically ekko's voice lines from the game.

don't tell me those lyrics aren't a reference to "i had a crush, until you started talking to the gun".

anyways i'm placing good money on paint the town blue being the timebomb collab's theme song.