#pt critical

[anghraine]

sea-salted-wolverine replied to this post:

Wdym Anakin mind tricking padme isn't real? You could chalk it up to bad writing from Lucas who isn't quite sure that women are people, but its pretty clear that by ep III that her grip on reality is toast. Whether or not it is a conscious effect on Anakins part is up for debate, but it is definitely a thing that happened

Not really the main point of my post, but no, that fan theory is not "real" in the sense of being remotely canonical for the films. It's nothing more than a popular headcanon nowhere even slightly stated to be happening in the actual films as written and produced. There's no reason in Lucas's films to suppose that the Anakin/Padmé relationship was coerced through a mind trick, that Padmé specifically would be susceptible to a mind trick, that she does not genuinely love Anakin or have any insight into his character, that her grip on reality is ever "toast," or that the mind trick (previously depicted as temporary and resistible) would work that way at all. Padmé is underwritten in ROTS in the way that cool girl heroines invented by men are often underwritten as grown adult women and especially as mothers, but that is not attributable to any character in the story.

Yes, Padmé is tired in ROTS and misses a lot of what's going on psychologically with her young secret husband who is in a cloistered order of warrior monks fighting a long-term war far away from her, but she sees the threat of Palpatine and recognizes exactly what his accession as emperor means. Her mind is fine. And in Lucas's films, also, Anakin is never shown using the mind trick on anyone. It's not really his style—it's a sneaky short-term solution whereas he's smart and resourceful enough most of the time, but mainly reliant on overwhelming power and skill. His signature "trick" is the Force-choke, not the mind trick, and it's the Force-choke that he ultimately uses against her—not because he's been using his powers against her the whole time (including when he's not even there, I guess?), but as a mark of how far he has fallen by that point. That's lost if it's not a drastic change from their previous relationship. Padmé's own choices also lose all meaning if she was mind-controlled by Anakin the whole time, and her arc becomes deeply boring.

Tl;dr - it is very far from "definitely a thing that happened." It is a headcanon that doesn't reflect anything the movies are trying to do (whether they fail or succeed at doing those things!) and is, IMO, a pretty terrible headcanon as well in terms of the overall coherence of the story and characters and how their world is shown to work.

[midnightcrows]

Emhira my love

[likeappletrees]

essek watching bells hells sit down to watch ludinus' villainous powerpoint

[azurechicken]

It is a good thing that the BG3 team is attentive and we get updates all the time, but where does it end? If they are going to continue changing stuff about the game per request, what will be there left of what they envisioned in the first place? Especially for character traits and dialogue, like making them kinder and more likeable, just because there were two more people asking for it and they happened to see it. I just don't want to see characters shift into generic ones just because of a need to respond to everyone's ideas

[comebackali]

HE BURNS LIKE THE SUN INSIDE!! I WOULD BEAR YOUR BURDENS FOR YOU IF I COULD!!

[foxx-queen]

so about the choice in act 3. I feel like the writers wanted to do the suicide mission from me2 AND the companion choice from me1. which clashes at its core because the whole point of the me2 mission was that if you did all the companion quests and worked for it, you could keep everyone alive. and I get wanting the shock of having one of the companions die no matter what, but at this point in the game after the obvious set up, it just feels like one of those haHA surprise! moments

then there's the fact that it's between davrin and harding. the black man and the fan favourite from dai. like it feels so stacked against davrin at that point.

I picked davrin first, and then I went back and picked harding, thinking maybe that was the right choice to keep her alive. and here's where the whole choice gets even worse for me, because harding, instead of using her stone magic, the actual thing that would give her an advantage against ghilan'nain, she climbs up to the exact same spot as davrin, and uses her bow. she tries to use arrows against a giant multi-limbed blight enhanced being. it's stupid! of course she dies!

I had expected that if you picked harding, she would use her stone magic, which would distract ghilan'nain because of the history with the titans, giving lucanis enough time to act. it would have worked really well as a continuation of her character arc, and it would tie into her personal quest in a way that would make it clear that the effort we put into doing that was what makes the difference.

but by not doing that and having her die no matter what, it instead feels like it doesn't make sense. davrin, at least, is just a man with a sword. his death here makes sense because he's against impossible odds.

which brings it back to feeling really bad that the choice was between him and harding. because for this sacrifice / loss to make sense, it feels it should be davrin. for this narrative beat to make sense, it should be davrin dying.

it feels like the writers are saying: the correct choice here is davrin. he's the only companion who should die no matter what. to signpost this at the moment you make this choice, we will have the other choice be the fan favourite from dai. because no one will want to risk her potentially dying.

it feels bad. it feels racist. davrin deserved better.

[communistkenobi]

not sure if this was intentional or not but nemik saying in his manifesto “Remember this: Try.” is an interesting sentiment given that “do or do not, there is no try” is like one of the more famous lines from the original trilogy

[mirrorofliterature]

me when people act like the prequel order was completely perfect and innocent and never did anything wrong, ever: *twitches with barely concealed rage*

like.

- the clones

- leaving Anakin's mum in slavery

- how they handled anakin

- letting Palpatine have unrestricted access to a child

- their moral absolutism

like. the prequels and original trilogy explicitly portray the Jedi order as flawed like I'm concerned for people's media literacy.

[pocketgalaxies]

i quite miss imogen temult and laudna nolastname

[lionbearfox]

just read all of csm in one day and im not ready to start unpacking that emotionally so here is a meme

[anghraine]

I decided to watch Rings of Power and I still like it! General thoughts on the first episode:

This episode does a lot of heavy lifting to introduce everything in a somewhat rough and often disconnected, but engaging enough way.

The voice-over exposition at the beginning is obviously echoing the PJ FOTR one, but it's more awkward and sort of generically high fantasy. I still like it better because a) no Númenóreans were harmed in the making of this voice-over, b) retaining the Finrod-Galadriel age gap while simultaneously leaning into their sibling bond is really cute, c) Finrod using a heavy-handed metaphor in which the greatness of SHIPS figures largely seems entirely in character and also very Telerin (Eärwen's son!!!), and d) the overall story of how Valinorean Elves ended up in Middle-earth is so highly editorialized that it feels like the self-serving Noldor version of the story, which amuses me.

I enjoyed the introduction of present-day Galadriel. She's clearly the most impressive and competent person in the company she's leading while also being kind of unhinged, which I appreciate in a female protagonist. Good for her.

And I like that she's clearly this ancient being and her fixation on FIGHTING EVIL FOREVER is, in part, a product of being old and immortal and stuck in a singular mode of being. However, she's also right and the comparatively young people around her are being condescending assholes (like Gil-galad, but especially that one guy who semi-mutinied against her and is prodding her on the ship).

(Oh, and she has great hair. I actually don't care if the entire wig budget went to her specifically.)

The only one who seems to really feel bad about their dismissive treatment of her is Elrond, which tracks. The hints that he isn't seen as quite an equal ("Elf-lords only") feels silly, but it's not a huge deal for me. And I like that he and Galadriel are bros alongside the tension in her relationships with basically everyone. S2 Celebrían plssss

I still think the complaints about costuming/hair, and incessant comparisons to costuming in PJ!LOTR/WOT/whatever are largely pretty absurd. I particularly liked Arondir's armor and how dissimilar it is from the aesthetic of the Lindon Elves, everything Galadriel wears, and the weirdness of the ritualistic armor removal as they approach Valinor. The Elves spontaneously bursting into unsettling song was odd but extremely on-brand for Tolkien, so it was fun to see it actually done onscreen.

I also think the show is quite beautiful in general and a pleasure to simply look at (no, not only because of the budget).

I don't like how heavily and visibly made-up the main female characters are, however, especially Bronwyn (who also has my least favorite costuming of any of the mains tbh). It reminds me a bit of how Padmé Amidala's heavy and perfect make-up in her death scene in Revenge of the Sith always distracts me from the pathos of the scene. God forbid she wasn't hot as she died, you know? I don't care about middle-aged and older men being cast as Elves, but I'd like to see more older actresses, too!

The Harfoot stuff has an interesting mixture of cuteness and underlying menace. It doesn't interest me as much as what's going on with Galadriel, Elrond, and Arondir/Bronwyn, but I like Nori quite a bit and the whole aesthetic they have going, so I don't mind spending time with them, even though it's kind of detached from what's going on everywhere else.

Speaking of Arondir, the Southlands stuff is interesting because there's so little to work with in terms of canon (even if they had rights to everything) and the canon that does exist wrt them is super racist. So having the textual racism towards Southrons actually be brought up in-story, and rejected by an Elf protagonist who is being played by a Black man, is like ... there's a lot going on there and other people are probably better equipped to talk about it.

Personally, I would have liked to see Arondir fall in love with Bronwyn rather than being presented with it as an established thing, especially with the conversation about how this almost never happens etc. His actor does a great job with what he's given, though, and I laughed at the other Elf who is like "do you know how rarely romances between Men and Elves ever happen? do you know they always END TRAGICALLY?!"

Arondir: mmhmm

Other Elf: THEY DIED, ARONDIR

Arondir gives off big "distracted by drawing hearts around Bronwyn's name in his Trapper Keeper" vibes in that conversation and, idk, it was just really entertaining to me.

Bronwyn herself is all right thus far. I did really like the moment when she's talking about how she's from the allegedly creepy village and the people there are her relatives and friends. By and large she seems the most normal person in the cast, honestly.

I also enjoyed how deeply ominous the "approaching Valinor" music was, lmao. A bit overkill by the end, but I rather like the idea of Valinor being scary if you're not supposed to be there.

ETA: cutting between the different plots via the Middle-earth map is a bit silly as well, but functional enough. Interesting to see Calenardhon on the map before Gondor even exists!

[predictablesloth]

You made us to be good.

"You made us to fight! It was supposed to be right. Sealing the betrayers, putting them in the shadows again- I have slain devils for a century, thinking it was right and then one day I am told to sheathe my sword. And Acastriel comes to those of us who wonder why, and says do you know what they are doing. Do you know what they are doing? It’s a war to us, to them, it is a squabble. Why did you make us? Why did you make all of this? When you knew that you were hurting this world why didn’t you just leave?"

"Look. I must say, that you are caught in something that obviously is difficult. It’s completely incomprehensible for you. I see your pain. I feel it, and you know, sometimes I even ask myself, why are we doing this? This fighting, constant bickering. It’s endless. But sometimes, there’s a beauty in not understanding, if you use play by the rules… ignorance can be bliss. Now, hear me, and hear me very, very carefully. This threat, this thing that threatens us, will soon threaten you, and there will be no end. At least with us, there is some form of control. It’s just the way things are! So please, humor us. What do you know of your time being here? Of this… thing that threatens the very existence of us. And I promise you, we will give you purpose back, for you are our children, after all."

"With deference to the hands that move creation, if you wanted to make us to serve the gods, you should not have made us good."

[skibasyndrome]

why do fics get harder to write the longer I give myself time to write them 😭

[aq2003]

tlovm s3 was a hate crime against aro people everywhere

[madhighlows]

"But, too often we neglect that part of ourselves in favor of others. And by the time we realize just how important it is, we find ourselves with fewer folks around to practice with."

[astrid-beck]

"the war of ash and light" sounds like one of those terrible romantasy books. I was going to try and come up with a joke here about what the plot would be but halfway through I realized that it would just be heterosexual shadowgast. and nothing I could say would beat that