#s3e3 Prey

[thefortysecondolive]

It is weird that it’s happened twice, right?

[too-antigonish]

More Top Shaun Evans Acting Moments in Endeavour

When I posted Top 10 Shaun Evans Acting Moments in Endeavour a few weeks ago, I asked folks to let me know what I had missed.

This is a compilation of all of the replies I received...plus 3 more I couldn't resist adding myself.

The rooftop scene in S1E2: Fugue (~1h26m10s)

"Go home, put your best record on, loud as it'll play, and with every note, you remember... that's something that the darkness couldn't take from you." --suggested by @librawritesstuff

2. At the pub with Ms. Frazil in S2E2: Nocturne (21m08s)

"So subtle and impeccable timing of his simple but oh so potent lines."--suggested by @peeps-posts 

3. When Morse and Bixby have a drink after the party in S3E1: Ride (~44m01s)

"...the actors had such great chemistry!!" --suggested by @notholaenas 

4. "A date Ms. Frazil?" "I like to keep my hand in." from S3E2: Arcadia (~28m40s)

"The big moments are glorious I agree but it’s the little touches in small scenes that I love." and "Love the interactions between those two!" --suggested by @peeps-posts

5. Morse talks about his mother in S3E2: Arcadia (~1h01m50s)

"There's something about that scene... I don't even know how to explain it." --suggested by @thewatcher98

"The gentle memory and the sadness overwhelms me every time I watch it." --suggested by @oxfordlovesblog

6. "When if jumps, you run," and an honorable mention for the panic vomit from S3E3: Prey (~1h22m29s)

--suggested by @librawritesstuff and @alias71

7. Thursday thanks Morse for drawing fire away from Joan in S3E4: Coda (~1h22m10s)

"...and then they just look into each other's eyes and don't say a word. It's just... Chills up and down my spine honestly." --suggested by @thewatcher98

8. The scene where Morse is drugged in S4E2: Canticle (1h17m50s)

--suggested by @librawritesstuff, @sircolinmorgan, and @lanternheart

9. Morse talks to Caroline Bryce-Morgan in S4E3: Lazaretto (~1h13m20s)

--my addition

10. Scenes with Eve Thorne in S5E1: Muse (~1h15m38s)

--my addition

11. Claudine and Morse after sex in S5E4: Colours (~55m19s)

"How it changed from playful to serious to playful again..." --suggested by @oxfordlovesblog

12. Scene in S6E1: Pylon where Box tells Morse he’s messing up the crime scene (~16m40s)

"You can see Morse wants so badly to tell him to fuck off then he looks at Thursday and sees that Thursday is not going to defend him so he turns and walks away." --suggested by @wndr-wmn

13. Morse listening to the moon landing from his car in S6E2: Apollo (~1h27m16s)

--suggested by @librawritesstuff

14. The scene in S7E2: Raga where Violetta asks Morse if he believes in forgiveness (~56m38s)

--my addition

15. Morse has a breakdown at his desk after finding out who Joan is marrying in S9E1: Prelude (~1h14m03s)

--suggested by @morsesnotes

[amandrarist]

[2020.03.19 thu]

Today's achievements:

Read through 3 topics in my History book

Watched documentaries for Lit and History

Had a Meet History lesson

Sorted through 15 years of exams to find practice exercises🤦🏻‍♀️

Made that bujo spread☝🏻 (doodles are not mine)

Watched 3 movies plus a show ep (Pirate Fairy, Secret of Wings, Birds of Prey and S3E3 Peaky Blinders)

[ganymedesclock]

I know it's pretty shitty, but I couldn't help but laugh at absolutely no mention of Narti in your TvTropes rant. That's all too right.

Narti actually makes me mad because the more I study of her character, she’s subtly characterized but does have a clear personality. So I’m gonna tune this productively and make a post on my read of Narti.

Narti is very sure of herself as a fighter. In both s3e2, and in s3e6, she can be observed to startle or engage an opponent, and then sit back and “watch” them. On Puig, she even makes a very languid sort of movement with her tail before taking out the rooftop gunners. Having come up behind them, and with her striking speed, she could have easily attacked and defeated both of them before they knew she was there, but she does not- instead, she hangs back, lets them notice her, and only then moves in and incapacitates them.

In s3e6, she repeatedly swipes Pidge’s feet out from under her, but neglects to press the attack. At one point, she appears to throw a testing strike against Pidge’s shield, letting the paladin bring her shield up and then hitting it with her tail, even though she was in a position to strike before Pidge’s shield was up, and only started to move afterwards.

Also in that episode, we see that while Zethrid and Acxa were attacking Throk, Narti had soundlessly, calmly gotten into position above him, and is just hanging out waiting for a good opportunity to strike.

This implies both a very deep-seated self-confidence, and a kind of playful quality. She’s not purely pragmatic as a fighter the way that Acxa is- the brutal speed and efficiency in her actual attacks are contrasted by her propensity to take her leisurely time.

The fact that she’ll do so not only when an opponent hasn’t noticed her and she’s setting up an ambush, but also mid-battle, makes it feel pretty patronizing. Versus Pidge, and the Puigian rebels, she really doesn’t think of them as threats she needs to throw herself at as hard as possible. Because when Narti does apply herself in a fight, again- she tends to completely incapacitate opponents in a single strike.

However, Narti shows her confidence in other ways. Ezor makes a comment in s3e3 that Thayserix’s environment will blind the Lions- and then catches herself and says “No offense, Narti”. Narti reacts in a way that very much suggests none was taken, but, there’s also the fact that Ezor- who seems to be especially close to Narti- wanted to apologize in the first place. The implication is that Narti is proud of her blindness, or at least considers it a positive element of her identity.

It’s also worth noting that seemingly, Narti chooses to be silent. Yes, she is voiceless- that’s not a choice- but in an environment with a huge amount of technology and resources available at her fingertips, she doesn’t take advantage of that to make herself heard.

With her very self-assured manner in other areas of her life, my reading on that is that she seems so sure of herself that she believes, with very rare exception, everything she wants to convey is self-evident. Who she is as a person, and what she believes. This would seem to suggest that the main areas where she’d use alternatives to communicate would be writing or otherwise conveying reports on what transpired, and that she would probably do so without interjecting obvious thoughts into it, albeit seeded with observations by her nature as an ambusher who pays a lot of attention to her surroundings.

Which, she does. Her whole establishing moment in Puig gave away both her own ability to move silently, and her ability to, through Kova and her own senses, identify, locate, and get the drop on people who were hiding from her.

Honestly, that just makes me imagine Narti as someone who, rather than directly saying what she feels, would probably communicate largely in terms of observations- and raising implications on what she thinks and feels nested in very objective-seeming remarks.

The other thing about Narti that I think stands out a lot- and a main similarity between her and Pidge- is she’s really a total sweetheart, if you’re “her people”.

This scene is another big establishing moment for Narti- her cradling Kova in her arms and petting him while he purrs. While she makes use of his assistance in her day to day life, she doesn’t respond to him, or treat him, like a tool. (and more insinuation of her closeness to Ezor- the latter is clearly facing her and standing close to her before Lotor arrives, and they can often be seen standing together)

Kova is a fondly spoiled creature, one given treats and cuddles and a frequent position atop Narti’s shoulders. This is the position he took with Honerva back when he was a friendly kitten, implying that thousands of years later, he’s found someone who loves him like Honerva used to.

Ezor says that Narti trusted Lotor- and when he attacked her, we see that Narti didn’t defend herself at all. In all the times we’ve seen her hang back to regard an enemy or target, she never actually lets them hit her, so I doubt that was what she was doing- rather, it seems as if Ezor spoke the truth- Narti trusted Lotor, enough that she did not defend herself against him.

So the image this paints is again, much like Pidge. Narti has a very cold shoulder she turns on a lot of people- as a stealthy ambusher, she quietly waits, watches her prey, and then takes them down. Even, sometimes, to the extent of taunting or toying with them- which might explain her closeness with Ezor, if they have similar senses of humor.

However, this also is juxtaposed by a warm, caring side that she opens up to others. The independent, arrogant Narti who drops her guard around enemies because she’s so certain they can’t even hurt her, and rarely communicates because she’s so assured of her sense of self, versus the Narti who is driven, more than loyalty or pragmatism, but genuine trust and affection for her team, for Lotor, to the point that she wouldn’t defend herself from Lotor’s sword possibly because she was that assured he would never hurt her.

The underlying thread here seems to be certainty. Narti is a very certain person. She’s certain about her objectives, she’s certain about her capabilities, she’s certain about what her environment is telling her. She observes, she compiles information, and then, confidently, she moves forwards and acts.

Which is interesting. It makes me wonder how Narti would behave in an uncertain, ambiguous sort of context, or when faced with evidence in her environment that challenges her sense of self. I’d expect her to have a pretty impressive temper, but also one that takes a lot of provoking to flare to the surface.

[ganymedesclock]

Ongoing thoughts re: Lotor and cervine imagery because I have received a mild amount of positive approval and now I’m unstoppable:

First: this would make s3e3 complete foreshadowing for this if Lotor’s animal motif is a prey creature- because the episode title, The Hunted, evokes what Hunk later spells out explicitly: “The hunter becomes the hunted,” a line which Lance has mentioned before.

If we have a pride of lions hunting a solitary deer, this is a very straightforward setup. That stag is in deep trouble. And that’s exactly what we see in the setup: we have five large, powerful predators, and one person in a tiny, zippy little ship that can’t possibly outmatch them.

But Lotor flips that entire situation on its head using the dangerous environment of Thayserix and his own maneuverability- he quite literally scatters and hunts down his larger enemies. He even does so by charging the paladins several times. 

Second: With Lotor’s striking hair color- a trait he doesn’t seem to share, genetically, with either of his parents, suggesting some form of albinism, possibly magically induced- this would evoke some of the imagery of the white stag. Often a creature hunted by kings seeking to prove themselves, since, y’know, in the good old days the main relationship humans had with deer was as a food source, and a striking white deer was given a sense of importance, even mysticism, and bringing it down would clearly be a grand accomplishment.

In the animal kingdom, outside of arctic regions, albinism is often rare because especially for prey creatures, it makes it hard for them to hide- they stand out.

Zarkon coming after Lotor in season 4 could easily be likened to a stag hunt- the divide in Team Sincline means that Lotor is alone, on the run, and the first thing Zarkon does is marshal his court so that there are a massive number of people all going after Lotor at once.

It both evokes Lotor’s narrative importance and highlights how precarious his situation is, by likening him to a creature that lives or dies based on how well it can run and hide, with a natural quality that makes it hard to do so.

This would also set up more of a contrast to prior versions of the character- because while other versions of Lotor have had or harnessed something comparable to Voltron, Fleet Of Doom’s Lo-Tron contained mostly powerful, “dangerous”-seeming creatures: a rhino, a scorpion, a giant stag beetle, and a heavy-armored beast resembling an armadillo- and Force included the very aptly-named Predator Robeast that was five predatory or mythological beasts (shark, snake, dragon, wolf, minotaur) that combined into a knockoff Voltron.

But other versions of Lotor have been overwhelmingly, full-force antagonists who never broke with the empire anywhere near as completely as VLD Lotor who pretty much wasn’t on anybody’s side but Sincline’s from the start.

And lastly- it’d highlight an interesting disparity in the comets’ arrivals and behavior.

Voltron’s comet struck the rift directly, actively seeking out its first generation of paladins, basically going headfirst to where it was needed. While we don’t know where the second comet landed, it doesn’t seem attached to a second rift- and not only did Alfor try to hide it, the comet appears to have acted up itself to further guarantee no one would get to it until its destined pilots (Team Sincline) sought it out themselves.