#shitting on harm reduction is the big death that literally kills people because harm reduction = killing fewer people

[salmalin]

"Never does a thing to stop it."

LOL she does. She literally does.

There's five arcs dedicated to it. But if that isn't obvious enough for you, how about you get reborn as a five year old disabled girl, become a politician's intern at seven years old, and dismantle our industrial prison complex, which forces people to work and charges them for the pleasure?

Big ask, right? It's almost like life—and this series—is more complicated than a surface-level power fantasy.

There are at least five arcs involving Myne using what little influence she has to provide them with the tools to feed themselves, the skills to protect themselves, and directly giving them the right to consent to work and sex. This involved preventing priests—people with much more power and influence than her—from taking literal children from the orphanage to be—for lack of a better word—fuck toys. Myne takes people who have no ability to survive in the world and makes sure they will be able to live comfortably long after she is gone. including informing them of and enforcing their right to consent.

What's more, saying "slavery is bad" is easy to do. But to go into detail about why is harder. And the series decides to do the hard thing and goes into explicit detail about why slavery is bad on a fundamental level, as well as its place in society. In detail. Repeatedly. I literally cannot believe you missed this. It's one thing to say "ooh, slavery is bad, we should end it," and it's another entirely to explore in detail the extensive damage done to the people in the system. It also explores that sudden extreme change has severe consequences on large quantities of people, and suddenly freeing dozens of people who have been starving for years, have no ability to provide food for themselves, have no concept of how the real world works, and have been raised in a culture free of violence that is literally incompatible with any place outside their small realm of control is not exactly a good idea. Why? Because ignorance is the default, and enforced ignorance is a bitch.

Bookworm doesn't just have chattel slavery.

Bookworm has slavery in a cult. A cult that controls, on a mass scale, what people can do, where they can go, and what they're allowed to know.

If the people in the church were released all at once when she gains control of the temple, they would very likely die of starvation in a few days. This is literally canon. This is how their society is built. And it's how our society is built, too, when you think of it. If you throw a child in a basement, never teaching them to read, do math, or even do basic cooking, feeding them chicken nuggets their whole life, and then release them into capitalism at eighteen, there is no social safety net to catch them. They will not know about homeless shelters. They will not know how to buy food. They will likely die on the street, lost, confused, and scared. This is why we have mandatory education systems, which is the exact thing this series is a love letter to. Education is an equalizer. It is necessary not just to protect ourselves, but literally just to function.

The only thing that protects Myne from the world she's in when she first arrived was her family, who provided her with context and a chance to understand the world around her.

The grey priests do not have families.

Myne is told over and over not to fuck with the status quo. But she knows knowledge is power, so the first thing she does is arm these people however she can under the radar. Because if other pay too much attention, she will no longer be able to help them. Even Ferdinand, canonically, wants to help them, but is unable to follow through so he doesn't do it. He brings who he can under his protection, but the whole point of his character is that he's running away. He has no hope for the future, no hope for his safety, so he hides.

But Myne isn't like him. She can see a future. She knows things can be different. She knows things can change.

She she tries to make that change. And Myne nearly bankrupts herself. She goes nearly broke several times, canonically, giving them what they need so they can survive without her. From a business, to learning skills, to giving them the power to make demands regarding their own living situation. She also gives them money for their work.

Her giving whatever power she can to enslaved people is so important to the story that it is literally the inciting incident that gets her slapped with the label of "saint" and affects everything that happens after. These events are massive, and it's more than a little silly to say "slavery exists and she didn't abolish it, so the series is bad." Bruh, it took her like five novels to make one book. I have no idea why you think a five year old disabled girl who barely understands printing can dismantle a country-wide system of forced labor involving a cult when she can barely walk for ten minutes. But if this is so easy, you should go out and end forced labor in the prison industrial complex. It's not like it's linked to the police and how people are arrested, and the people who fight this system end up dead or anything. It's not like this has been going on for hundreds of years and you're just one person who isn't part of the group in charge of it. How hard could it be?

I'm sorry, but you may want to stay away from Bookworm meta if you have fundamentally no idea what happens in the series, how the world works, or even what's happening right in front of you.

I'd just like to take a moment to appreciate that in Ascendance of a Bookworm (spoilers obv), Myne does not descend upon Ehrenfest and the country at large with the intent of changing it. At first she wants to change things, and she tries. However, she quickly finds that she needs to do so while following the rules of the world around her. Even as the story goes on, as she rises in the ranks of the world, she does so in the context of that world. Yes, she brings technologies from Earth, but they are all modified to suit needs not being met in that world, and to suit the people there. Even more, even with the printing Industry, she quickly learns that there's no way to bring Earth stories to this new world because they're so incompatible, socially.

But what's most impressive is that, as time goes on, the focus stops being about bringing Earth technologies into their world. Instead, she spends a lot more time focusing on reviving the culture already present. She learns a dead language, translates it, and proceeds to make that knowledge more readily available than it's been in generations. Not to mention... *Points to everything in part 5.*

Myne enters the world isolated and alone, desperate for her own culture. She wants to beat Earth into everything she sees. She ends it by bringing the parts of the world dying around her back to life, for the betterment of everyone around her.

[aimmyarrowshigh]

I'm down with Rey experiencing temptation and making tough choices, even wrong choices- and learning from them. As long as she doesn't choose the side of genocide and fascism and/or double down at every chance she gets to correct her path in order to continue to pursue power at great cost to others. Kylo being tempted by the Dark Side or "making tough choices" isn't why he's reviled in the way of villains. It's because he's a fucking villain. (Who mind rapes people.)

Exactly. We’ve SEEN Rey make tough choices already, and we’ve seen her tempted by the Dark side! But being tempted and choosing not to give in is what makes her Rey. It is the essential difference that is what Star Wars is ABOUT. 

I feel like one of the big schisms in SW fannish interpretation comes down to whether you think Star Wars is “ultimately about” redemption or choice. I think it’s about choice. I might disagree with the idea that Vader was redeemed in the moments before his death – and that disagreement is shared by every character except Luke, js, which I think is canonical evidence supporting the idea that even in canon the idea of “redemption” is about interpretation – but he absolutely made a CHOICE in those moments, and that choice affected his destiny.

Choice is the through-line of all of the big narrative-changing/“galaxy-changing” storylines in SW. Luke chooses to return to Bespin rather than stay on Dagobah. Han chooses to return to the Battle of Yavin. Leia chooses to trust Lando to devise the plot to save Han. Ben Solo chose to turn his back on the ideals of the Light, and he chose to become Kylo Ren, and he chose every action he’s taken as Kylo Ren – including the massacre at Tuanul, the forced and painful penetrations of Poe and Rey, and the murder of Han Solo. Will he make different choices in TLJ? I mean, yeah, given that it’s a sequel and his storyline is ongoing. But if they want to make it believable that he’s choosing the side of the Light again, they’re going to have to work HARD. And I still will fight tooth-and-nail for Rey, Poe, Leia, Chewie, and Finn to have the dignity of being allowed NOT to forgive him.

We’ve seen Rey wrestle with choices, both before and after she was aware of the Force. Like, TFA wouldn’t even have happened if she had made the choice to put herself and her own well-being above BB-8 when Plutt offered her a month’s worth of food. Especially since we know in her backstory from BtA that she’s having a particularly lean time at the moment since the closest thing she’d ever had to a friend just swindled her out of 10,000 portions and fled Jakku, leaving Rey with no portions and out several weeks’ worth of salvage! It would have been SO much more beneficial to Rey, in the immediate moment, to trade in BB-8 and take the portions.

But the Light guided Rey. That’s one interpretation. Another is that Rey made the choice to trust her own skill – she’d find more salvage and be able to earn some portions, even if it took a while again – and have mercy on this little being that was left behind on Jakku. It was important to her to give someone else what she never got, and that was more core to who she was than the temptation to be selfish and have something come easy.

Now: I absolutely can see how that same reading of her personality could lead to the idea that she’ll have mercy for Kylo Ren/Ben Solo. If that’s how the filmmakers go with it, then it’s not out of the blue, or anything, and I can rationally understand the argument that it would be logical. I just think that it would be boring as fuck reductive storytelling to once again make the female lead character have to put herself aside for the benefit of the male villain, even at the expense of herself, and I think it would be… Frankly, I think that showing narrative empathy for the First Order, in the climate that we live in in 2017, is insulting and dangerous and would be an unforgivable, for me, choice for Lucasfilm as a company to make. Not that that means I don’t think they MIGHT, because like, lbr, Disney has always been antisemitic as fuck and racist as shit, but. 

Here’s what I was thinking about last week: the entire neo-Nazi crowd at Charlottesville? They see themselves as Kylo Ren. They see themselves the way he sees himself, as the lone warrior strong enough to see through the lies of the Jedi and the New Republic, to turn his back on the teachings of Luke Skywalker and Leia Organa, to find a wiser teacher in the deification of a long-dead fascist who sought to kill all of those who would challenge him. And they also see themselves as Kylo Ren, the white male major character who by Rights and Logic deserves to win in the end and get the girl and defeat his enemies and be proven to be the Most Human Of All and definitely, definitely get his due over anything that the Black or Latinx or Asian main characters could ever earn. If Star Wars’ Sequel Trilogy does give Kylo Ren forgiveness, redemption, a win over Finn or Poe or Rose, the trophy of having Rey love him? Lucasfilm and Disney are giving those neo-Nazis their stamp of approval. They’re saying, yeah, you’re right, we let Black and Latinx people and antifascism have one movie, but in the end, it’s all about you. You get to win, again. You are the chosen ones.

And I think that’s literally nauseating to consider.

And granted: TLJ was written and filmed before the election, but not before all of this shit was brewing. I absolutely don’t think that any media creator is BEHOLDEN to be morally and socially responsible, because media creators are human and as long as there are repugnant people, there will be repugnant ideals in media. But I do think that Star Wars, so far, as a franchise, has been clear that they don’t side with the Empire. I don’t think they’ll give the First Order any quarter of empathy or forgiveness or “redemption” that they didn’t give the Empire. But, I also think that there’s absolutely the chance that they’ll execute the story in a way where they try to make Kylo Ren some kind of outlier who can earn his way back into the Light. I don’t personally think he can; I think he’s too far gone. But I do, in a lot of ways, expect for them to try. Some of that, too, I think is because of the prominence of shitty-ass neo-Nazis in Star Wars’ viewing audience: either they’ll be trying to say, it’s not too late for you (sorry fuckos, it is) or they’ll be trying to say, just keep reaching out and maybe they’ll listen (they won’t; they’re fuckos). But, again, I think that execution would be irresponsible at best, actively harmful at worst. 

I want Kylo Ren to go unredeemed because I’m absolutely sick of the coddling of men who make the active, agential choice to harm people and are told they can come back from that choice. 

Kylo’s victims can’t come back from what he did to them. So neither should he.

Anyway, what was I talking about? Oh, right, Rey’s other moments of choice and Dark side temptation in TFA. There’s the obvious one, which I see most commonly as the one that Reylo shippers use as evidence that they’re connected more deeply than Heroine and Villain, which is the moment Rey chose not to kill him. 

I feel like it shouldn’t NEED to be explained why the hero chooses not to kill, morally/ethically speaking?

But the other is one that I haven’t seen a lot of people talk about as being a moment of Dark side temptation, and that I think is up there with the BB-8 choice as being one that’s particularly interesting: her choice to flee on Takodana. First off, you wanna talk mirroring, that’s her mirroring moment with Finn. Both of them are trying to get away from Takodana, away from their destiny, away from the Force itself, even if they don’t necessarily know it yet. 

Rey succumbs to the temptation, on Takodana. That’s her Moment of Refusal when it comes to her Hero’s Journey, and in Star Wars, that’s classically because of temptation by the Dark. If you want to look at it in terms of “the Force creates Rey’s destiny,” she has to succumb in that moment so that she’ll be taken to Starkiller Base and be able to witness the murder of Han, get the lightsaber in the snow, be able to open herself up to the Light to defeat Kylo Ren. But I think that reading of the choice strips Rey of her agency. (As does the whole “the Force is in charge of all choices” in general, but whatever.) 

In choosing to flee, Rey CHOOSES the Dark. She chooses selfishness. She chooses her own needs above those of the Galaxy. She chooses, maybe, in that moment, Finn, running through the forest to try to find the ship he’s leaving on. She chooses fear. Fear, passion, selfishness, the self above others – it’s a classic, perfect Dark side choice. And again, BB-8 brings her back. She stops running to give BB-8 cover to make it back to Han and the Resistance. She is again brought back to the Light by BB-8, and her empathy for this little being who trusts her. The key to Rey’s moral compass is compassion. That is a Jedi belief, not one of the Dark. (And I think it’s interesting that two of the three major choices she makes wrt Dark temptation in TFA, she chooses the Light because of BB-8. BB-8 is shaped like a friend.)

So when it comes to TLJ? I absolutely expect to see Rey wrestle with the Dark side. Just like Luke did. Just like Leia does. But that doesn’t mean that I think Rey will choose it in a way that READS as Dark, per se – her flight on Takodana IS Dark, but doesn’t Read as Dark, yk? You wouldn’t look at it and think, “evil.” I don’t think that it serves Rey’s character to make her choose EVIL even if, and when, she chooses Dark. I don’t think she’ll be willing to give up her selfhood, and I really hope, more than anything else in TLJ, that the writing team gave her enough respect to allow her that continued selfhood. I absolutely expect for Rey to be tempted by selfishness; I think that as far as the Dark side goes, that’s kind of her achilles’ heel – Rey getting to have something and not wanting to give it up would be very in-character, IMO, and I totally expect to see that. I also expect for her to be tempted to give into her very real anger and confusion at the death of Han Solo and how she (selfishly!) wanted to keep him and be kept by him. Same with Finn; she wants to keep him, dammit, he came back for her and the First Order cannot have him back. I’m anticipating her being tempted by her hatred of Kylo Ren, too, and to be tempted by the Dark whispering that she should have killed him in the snow. I don’t think that Rey is the Perfect Encapsulation of the Light insofar as being only compassionate and selfless, because that wouldn’t allow her the breadth of agency and selfhood that she deserves. And that she’s already shown.

In a meaningful way, Rey has to be tempted by the Dark to NOT forgive Kylo Ren. Forgiving him would be being that Mary-Sue-perfect-Light that people accuse “antis” of seeing Rey as, because it would be putting him and his feelings and his needs above her own. I want Rey to be selfish as FUCK and say NO. He doesn’t get that Light and Good part of her. He doesn’t get her compassion. Rey owns herself. And she’s not giving that up.

Forgiving Kylo or Rey somehow putting Kylo Ren on a path to redemption would not show Rey’s compassion, it would be subsumption of her Self. It would say to the audience that he had a right to use her body, mind, and soul to gain his own personhood back, and that’s fucking disgusting.

[ganymedesclock]

I think you're too reductive in your defence of Iverson. You treat his lecture as an isolated incident. However it's pretty heavily implied, if not outright stated, that Lance getting shit for being Great Pilot Keith's replacement was something he had to deal with on the regular at the Garrison. Lance is sensitive, but he's not the type of person to develop a complex off of literally one incident. And as a pattern of behaviour, what Iverson did was totally uncalled for. (1/2)

(2/2) Do I think Iverson was a demon out to ruin precious baby Lance's life? No. He probably wasn't thinking at all, except that he was frustrated over losing his prodigies Shiro and Keith. But that doesn't make attacking someone like that productive. The Garrison is a school, not a boot camp, and a competent teacher would know his students' limits better than that.

And I would argue that you’re being quite reductive here, on many grounds: assuming that Lance’s insecurity, for example, is something he specifically developed from Iverson and nothing else in his life.

Lance comes from a big, loving, seemingly highly supportive family but especially if he’s a middle child it’s quite possible that Lance has felt outshined. That he needs to prove himself somehow. That love is sometimes something he has to reach for or try to get attention because his adoring parents who mean so much to him also have a lot of other kids making bids on their attention.

Spoken personally, as someone who sees a lot of myself in Lance, especially that sense of insecurity, that’s a strange weed that can sprout up even in wonderful family environments that you wouldn’t think would create something like that. Lance might’ve been a really talented and praised person as a child but now, older, feels like he’s lost that somewhere along the way. He might be quite intelligent but has been held back by things- we don’t know how and when he developed the ability to speak English and while he has impressive fluency now, he might not always have. 

He might have something like dyslexia or ADHD or, hell, both. With or without those factors, we know that he does slip words (“That’s one thousand plus ten” when he meant to say times, and s2e5 seemingly missing the word “hypothesis”) and tends to react defensively when called on it. If Lance has had any kind of academic struggles, especially if it’s something that might be considered obvious or easy- you have a perfect recipe for a thread of defensiveness and insecurity. Which he shows. 

I do think Iverson played a part in it, and, I do not think it was an isolated incident. Heck, I’d actually fight the insinuation that Iverson was just frustrated that his golden boys didn’t pan out- because he didn’t “lose” Shiro, as far as he knows Shiro went out in a catastrophic accident and they’re unable to retrieve his body. Consider how real-world astronaut deaths are often handled- how much they’re remembered. Remember Iverson was one of the people personally in the tent talking to Shiro trying to see how lucid he was.

I think that both Lance and Keith suffered, in part, because Iverson was driving people as hard as he possibly could as his own piece of unhealthy grief over Kerberos. Our first warning Pidge had an emotional tie to it was the way that she exploded when Iverson brought it up but, while Lance immediately distracted him- Iverson blew up right back. Heck, the fact that Lance immediately tried to derail that conversation would suggest that Kerberos isn’t just a sore topic for Pidge- but it’s a sore topic for Iverson even if he brings it up. 

Which would suggest kind of an interesting tangle of sentiments going on there- and, yeah, Iverson carries himself like someone who has military history. I would not be surprised at all if he has some warped ideas about strength and perfection and “tough love”. Clearly, he’s not right about everything and a perfectly justified authority figure- if he was, Keith would not have exploded in a way heavily implied to have been personal to Iverson.

See, Keith- we know him. Keith tends to explode either related to his trauma, or because of something he’s been stewing over for a long time. Losing Shiro alone would not turn Keith into a powder keg- someone had to have mashed his buttons first, and we don’t know it was Iverson, but Iverson’s kind of trying to deal with Kerberos by punching himself repeatedly in the wound and taking his students along for the ride. 

It feels like the attitude he’s taken is that Kerberos was a failure in discipline, but not that it was Shiro’s fault, but, his own, for not suitably drilling out those “mental mistakes” so now he doesn’t want to take anything but perfection- and if they crack under the pressure then, well, good thing he got them out of the program, that kind of thing would’ve gotten them killed out there.

My point was never that Iverson’s done no harm. My point was that Iverson is probably not exclusively responsible for ruining Lance’s life, and he is not Lance’s personal demon. If nothing else, Iverson does not plain have the personal time to single out one student out of a fairly large facility and decide he’s going to give them hell.

Is he a contributing factor? Oh hell yes, but what we have here is a largely reasonable person trying to do good with as little information as he has, and he’s pretty dang clearly not entirely wrong, because, again, one of the writers personally attached his surname onto this character. I doubt they’d do that for, say, Zarkon.

My point is, Iverson is no more evil than Allura turning a cold shoulder on Keith late in season 2. Feelings were hurt. I do not say that lightly- Iverson was an instructor with a clear position of authority and made himself someone Lance did not feel comfortable directly contradicting or leaving to chew out Pidge. Clearly, Lance’s relationship with Iverson as an authority figure is much worse than his relationship with, say, Shiro.

But deciding, with as relatively little as we know about Lance, that Iverson is singlehandedly responsible for Lance’s insecurity, is exactly the kind of thing I’m talking about. Because I’ll agree with you, I don’t think that came from an isolated incident, and I really, really doubt Lance has been at the Garrison long enough for Iverson to have a formative influence on his personality. I think the insecurity was there. I just think Iverson was bad for it.

If a character has a problem, especially if it’s their main problem, it probably does not have a singular root cause. Lance probably does not have deep-held personal insecurity because in space school one guy yelled at him a lot. Iverson’s not the only teacher, and in other areas, Lance is not particularly afraid to potentially draw his ire. Heck, Lance’s initial messing around in the simulator was done under Iverson’s eye.

This does not tell us Iverson is someone Lance dreads ever encountering.

It’s also quite a reach to assume that somehow despite not knowing 90% of Lance’s pre-Garrison life except that he’s from Cuba, has a big family, a good relationship with his mom, and seems to love water, clearly the only possible thing that could’ve made Lance insecure is Iverson. It had to be all his fault.

This is what I mean by scapegoating issues. Especially because, as I mention, I recognize a lot of Lance’s insecurity in myself, and, in my case? I never knew an Iverson for any long stretch of my life. Lance did, and it sure didn’t do his existing issues any favor, but- Iverson was a contributing factor, not the disease.

TL;DR: Iverson is a flawed person who was not a saint to Lance. He is allowed to be flawed without being personally responsible for Lance’s issues, because that narrative sets it up that Lance was a Defenseless Victim Of A Mean Person rather than... that Lance could possibly have elements of his situation and life that could shape him towards being the person he was at the beginning of the show.

[meow-meow-motherfckr]

The Ghost of Harrenhal

We open with Catelyn having a nice lunch with Renly. She tells him Robb doesn’t want the Iron Throne, and Renly says he can be King in the North--but only in name. She wants him to negotiate a peace with Stannis, which he says is a no can-do, and then he gets killed by Stannis and Mel’s smoke-demon-baby. Talk about timing. Just as she lowers his dead body to the floor, different Kingsguard come in, and ignore Catelyn and Brienne’s insistence that she didn’t kill Renly. This isn’t exactly unreasonable of them. Brienne fights her way out, and even kills a man, which I suppose is more dramatic than Catelyn coming up with an escape plan. Apparently nobody heard the mini battle in the King’s tent, so Brienne has time to cry over Renly before Cat gives her a little pep talk, and they leave because revenge.

Littlefinger’s spidey senses go off, and he goes to find Loras and Margaery. Loras is understandable upset over the death of his lover. Margaery wants to go home with their army. Loras wants revenge. Littlefinger pops up and has an idea to play the long con, and between Littlefinger and Margaery he calms down enough to storm out of the tent. Margaery and Petyr have a little moment, and we find out what Margaery wants is to be the Queen. It’s not a bad direction for them to go with her character, and Natalie does a really good job playing that angle, but the show does tend to neatly divide women into either sexual manipulator or strong badass warrior. At least the cool women.

Tyrion and Cersei discuss Renly’s death, and Stannis’ impending arrival. Cersei can’t be bothered, and Tyrion is mildly concerned. He and Cersei fight about Myrcella, and then Cersei informs him that Joffrey is heading up the war effort, and apparently he’s not telling. Good thing Lancel is there to tell Tyrion that it’s Wildfire. Tyrion threatens him until he gives more detailed plans. Lancel takes a face-plant outside Tyrion’s litter, and then relays his execution orders to Bronn. I feel for this guy.  Honestly, Lancel has more interesting character development than half of the people on the show. Cut to the Stormlands, where Davos is kind of concerned because of the whole demon baby thing, but Stannis is more concerned with bannerman than the fact that he just killed his brother. Davos brings up the moral implications, but gives up and talks about the Blackwater attack. He at least gets to give Stannis the truth, which is that people don’t like Melissandre and think Stannis is her puppet. So they leave for King’s Landing without Mel, because Stannis compares about PR now. But he’s still into killing dissenters. Baaby steps.

Tyrion has an exposition moment and explains that they’re basically screwed as he walks down the streets of King’s Landing, which apparently he does routinely now. He accidentally walks into a rabble, and apparently the people aren’t down with incest. Tyrion is ready to flame Joffrey, until the speaker drops “demon monkey” and Tyrion is, understandably, perturbed. He realizes people blame him for the shit-show that is King’s Landing, when he sees himself as the savior. I mean, he’s still propping up and illegitimate and sadistic tyrant, but he practices harm reduction, so we’re all good.

Theon watches another ship sail away, and it upset by how small his own ship is. Rare pairs, am I right? Nobody follows his commands, and his second mate is ready to mutiny before they even get on board. Yara shows up to mock him, and brag about all her ships, while Theon’s crew sails off without him. SOme random guy comes to help Theon, and he is not quite suspicious enough about why this man wants to help him. He questions Theon’s masculinity, and primes Theon to disobey his father’s orders and go for Torrhen’s Square. Theon realizes the Starks would immediately take it back, leaving Winterfell vulnerable, and the music tells us this is going to be a big deal.

Tywin has a chat about how the Northern lords are discontent, because it’s war, but Tywin thinks they’ve underestimated Robb. He chucks his cousin out of the council/Harrenhall because he wanted a nap, and then he asks Arya where she’s from, and gets her to admit she’s a Northerner. Remember that part where Arya said that Sansa knew all the sigils and she didn’t? And how Sansa actually has practical skills that could assist her in surviving? Oh wait, Sansa’s not allowed to be good at anything. Back to the show, she talks about how great Robb is, and Tywin is super chill with it. Arya says that anyone can be killed, and we’re up to our eyeballs in foreshadowing. Arya wanders around, until Jaqen rolls up and they talk about gender for a hot second. She’s pissy because he works for the Lannisters, but to be fair, she does as well. He offers to take out three people for her, and she tells him to kill the tickler first. She doesn’t name Tywin for some reason despite the fact that he is right fucking there. Maybe she’s grown sympathetic to his harsh, yet grandfatherly manner. Who the fuck knows.

We go up to our Winter Wonderland the Fist of the First Men. The only thing Sam can talk about is Gilly, because his personality is chasing girls I guess. He does geek out for a while to exposit who the First Men are, and then Jon says something gloomy because he’s Jon. I guess they gave up on making Dolorous Ed actually dolorous and made Jon fill that role. Quorin Halfhalnd is introduced as basically the Bear Grylls of Westeros, and then we cut to Tyrion.

Tyrion promptly makes a dick joke, but the Pyromancers take him seriously. They have a shit ton of highly volatile substance, and Bronn points out that if somebody drops some wildfire during a battle it’s game over for King’s landing because that shit burns fucking everything. They also make a nice joke about Aerys and Wildfire, and I think it might even be original, so credit where credit is due. Tyrion takes the whole Wildfire operation from Cersei basically just by saying so, and the pyromancers are down with that because sexism I guess.

Across the Narrow Sea, Dany is teaching her dragons how to barbecue. Drogon is clearly the favorite child. Also I high-key ship Dany and Doreah, and I’m super mad that the writers decided to end Doreah’s storyline the way they did. Irri is bitter because she’s also low-key in love with Dany (who wouldn’t be tbh) but they get along by talking about Dany’s new clothes because that’s what women do. Dany casually brings up the fact that she wasn’t consensually married to her husband, and that he actually bought her, something the fandom collectively tends to forget. There’s this awkward moment where 1) Irri acts like Drogo is the best thing since sliced bread 2) Dany asks Doreah to prostitute herself to get information 3) Irri snaps at Doreah because Dany is getting to westernized, and then 4) Irri tries to cover it up by being nice to Dany, then storms out. It like, there’s actually a complex scene with multiple characters with different motivations and dynamics. The good old days, when the show could write dialogue.

Apparently the costume directors decided to ditch the one-boobie-hanging-out look since they presumably wanted the audience to absorb something from the next scene, which is in the courtyard in Qarth. Dany is networking. She then has to go and stop her Dothraki from stealing a gold peacock, which is supposed to be funny I guess, but in a white-woman-stops-clueless-brown-people-from-stealing sort of way. This isn’t GRRM’s strongpoint either, but the show does a pretty shit job at presenting this is different culture with different values surrounding ownership, and just makes all the Dothraki look uncultured and clueless. Pyat Pree rolls up with his trippy kaleidoscope and makes Dany see double, then tells her to come to his magic castle. Emilia Clarke succeeds at looking mildly confused. Jorah gets jealous when Dany talks to Xaro Xoan Daxos, because he gets jelous everytime she breathes the same air as another man, and then Quaithe rolls up and says something fake-deep. I do not think her makeup was successful, but admittedly, GRRM didn’t give them an easy task.

Cut to Catelyn and Brienne and their pretty horse. They talk about how they saw a shadow deamon kill someone, and they’re trying to play it cool. Cat says it just looked like a generic man, but Brienne is convinced it was Stannis (guess who’s right.) Cat decides to go to see Robb and then head home to see Bran and Rickon. That noise you hear is me bawling my eyes out. Brienne asks for permission to go kill Stannis once she takes Cat home, and Cat is literally the only person on this show who isn’t a revenge zombie. They do keep Brienne’s line about a woman’s kind of courage, which is really nice. They’re pretty much my brotp.

Up north Rickon is smashing wax while being forced to do LordThings, which is honestly #relatablecontent. One of the commoners is talking about how he can’t keep watch of his sheep because everyone went to war, and Bran does the correct LordThing, and sends him some orphans, as one does. Then he scolds Rickon for smashing wax, which is probably this kid’s only source of fun. Ser Rodrick comes in with his funny facial hair and says that Torrhen’s square is under attack, and Bran falls for Theon’s trap, sends 200 men. Maester lewin is a bit iffy about it, but he goes along with it, but allows Bran to be noble and shit. Bran asks Osha about the three-eyed raven, and she isn’t a dream dictionary, which irritates him. He describes his prophetic dream of the sea flooding Winterfell, which honestly... people should listen to Bran more often. Osha mentions that they “say all sorts of crazy things north of the wal” and then the camera cuts... North of the Wall!

It looks cold. Like, yikes. Quorin sees a fire. Sam can’t see it because his eyes are good, so hey, there’s some continuity. He brings the news that all the Wildlings have joined Mance Rayder in an army, and says the wildlings are going to adapt to their habits, so they need to adapt to be more like the wildlings. Quorin wants to start by killing some lookouts, and gathers a team. Jon feels left out, and asks to go with. Sam steps i to take up Jon’s duties because he’s the real MVP, and Jon gets to go on the field trip.

Dany and Zaro have a talk about Jorah and the Friend Zone because what else would anybody else care about in Dany’s storyline? They talk about conquering and what they want, and dragons. He shows her his door to his treasure chamber, though if she were really serious about anything she would ask to see it. He asks for marriage, so she can get enough wealth to take over the seven kingdoms, and he gets a dragon. He also tells her Robert is dead, so she goes off to argue with Jorah. He advocates for a grassroots campaign, and she tells him not to talk down to her, finally. He compliments her a bit which apparently makes things better. He tells her to “make her won way” which is pretty iffy coming from the guy who’s constantly trying to control her but he promises a ship. One. Ship.

Back in Harrenhall, Arya checks out Gendry’s hot bod and gives him fighting tips, and then somebody dies. It’s the tickler, so she makes meaningful eye contact with Jaqen. And she is officially the ghost of Harrenhal.

[serenagaywaterford]

19) what else. I think it irritates people that such a smart, skillful woman is so vile in some many other ways." But I mean, isn't this what makes her such a multi-layered and realistic antagonist? A lot of us have met RL women like her at some point. Which is kinda disturbing when you notice the similarities. n) "Rationally, I’m pretty sure she’s aware [that Nicole isn't hers] "Oh, she definitely does. But admitting that would mean admitting so much more: that she went to all of that trouble

20) "I really have no idea about Horace. I would guess he was a Guardian? What else can you be promoted from? Eye?" Maybe an Angel. Although they haven't mentioned those in the series yet. p) "I don’t totally doubt that they see Serena as more valuable as a source of intel/propaganda than to hold her accountable" This is within the realm of possibilities and a pretty good take. (Btw, it reminds me of 'Netgirl_y2k''s fic, heh.) r) "Of course there would be viewers praising a mob if they kill

21) Serena" Of this I have no doubt. -_- s) "Personally speaking, I don’t want Serena killed. Other characters, I hope die in painful ways. *coughfredcough*" i don't want her to die either! Tbh, if they actually gave her a violent death, it would feel like a punch in the gut, bc I'm too attached to her character already, lol. Personally, I want her to live and atone for her crimes. And maybe get a life imprisonment? (@Anon 2, I agree with you on this.) I'm still a bit cautious, bc I wanna see

22) where they're going with her arc first. As for Fred? I don't really care what happens to him, lol. t) In a way I actually feel sorry for Serena, even if she did get herself into this disaster, and she’s perpetuated it in the worse possible way she could. Like, her growing desperation and loneliness and need for connection as Gilead goes on is actually… sad?" I feel the same way about her and I mean, wasn't this the point of her arc in the last half of S2?

------

Yeah. Meeting those sorts of people IRL is a bit terrifying? Like, there are even some conservative politicians (Canadian) that I can think of that bother me cos for the most part, I feel their ideology to be despicable. But there are other things about them that are good? Like, yes, I hate you for most of your existence but I can’t say you’re totally evil cos those other things you do/say are actually really solid. It’s such a conflict. Like there was one Tory that was an EXCELLENT speaker, so fucking smart, really amazing woman--if she hadn’t had her priorities all ass-backwards. Like, GIRL, you could be doing SO MUCH GOOD for us, but you’re taking that dumbass, repressive route instead. And, I’ll have to admit, a few of the policies/bills or whatever she put forth were good for women (x) (x). It’s just....A MESS. Like... look at that POTENTIAL. But no, you have to be not nice instead (anti-abortion/anti-choice, anti-social finding, pro-capitalist, anti-environment, pro-big business, anti-harm reduction, anti-marijuana, etc).

(But then, ofc, there are women that I just flat out can’t stand or simply terrify/disgust me with their ideas. I just do not understand how they exist at all. Like what planet do they inhabit? Which is why I read Andrea Dworkin’s “Right Wing Women” and I gotta say, it makes A LOT of sense about getting into these sorts of women’s heads. And deffo gives a perspective without asking anybody to sympathise or agree with them. Cos, Dworkin is very much NOT right-wing and can’t stand them either.)

Re: Horace. I’d really like them to address Angels as such. Like, I guess they’re there but they’ve never been referred to as such. Again, it seems like THT doesn’t really want to get into the nitty gritty details.

I think... yeah. Tuello’s whole thing was implying that Serena would not be punished much, if at all, for her participation in Gilead. Which could mean either a) she’s far more valuable as a tool, or, b) the US is unaware of her role in the bombing. (Hell, we’re not even clear on her role other than she and Fred fantasised about it. And FRED suggested it to the SOJ.) OR, he could just have been lying. 

I’m sure the US has no idea what Serena’s actually been up to in Gilead, and they’re not really going to go after her for suggesting Fred attack those kids who shot at her, assaulting people or kidnapping or baby stealing--cos really... they can’t? They wouldn’t know any of that other than the babystealing cos that’s just part of the society down there. They likely know she’s a co-conspirator cos obvs she’s Fred Waterford’s outspoken, anti-feminist, riot-causing wife. She’s not some shrinking violet. 

I think a lot of people want her punished for EVERYTHING. But legally, I don’t see how she can be. The majority of those terrible things we see her do, nobody knows about other than her, June, Rita, Fred and Nick. The US/Canadian govt certainly doesn’t. Nobody knows about the execution of the kids, except Fred and those dudes that were with him. And again, her crime technically was only insinuating Fred should do something. She can’t really be put on trial for creating Gilead, because she didn’t? That was all the SOJ. Sure, she “helped write the laws”, whatever the fuck that means, lol. Not exactly a solid foundation for a war criminal charge.

The standard for war crimes is actually really high, with a big burden of proof. As much as WE may know that Serena may fit the bill here, for a democratic nation they may not have the evidence to charge her with it. (I was just watching some Nazi documentary lol). If they can prove she was behind blowing up Congress, then that is something they could use for sure.

And pretty sure the US can’t charge her with any of the things she’s done IN Gilead. You can’t just take someone from another country and charge them with like domestic abuse in yours for something they did in theirs where it’s not illegal -- unless it’s an international crime or war crime. The US, when it comes down to it, doesn’t seem to have A LOT to go on so it seems like she’d be more valuable as propaganda and intelligence, rather than making an example of her. It’s like racketeering for the mob. To them, likely Serena is a little (or more like medium) fish when they want to catch the BIG fish (aka bring down Gilead).

Non-judicial “justice” is likely the only option for Serena being punished for the things she’s done within Gilead. My personal thought is to have her suffer similarly. Like have her experience some of the things she’s done to others, via some means. Is that fair/just? Likely not technically. I mean, it gets so complicated.

But I mean, it all depends what comes out in coming seasons about Serena’s exact involvement in things she did against the law IN the USA, when it was still that.

(Yes, I mean, I feel that fic is basically the sort of thing Tuello was hinting at. And it’s really not unheard of for the first defectors to get all sorts of plea deals and such, especially if they’re valuable in other ways. The sheer number of Nazi war criminals who went on to live perfectly fine lives in the US, UK, etc is actually shocking to me. And then I think of the sorts of disgusting plea deals they make with serial killers here. Karla Homolka, I’m looking at you, you disgusting creature. She’s out there living her life all free and shit, even though she is a literal monster.)

“Tbh, if they actually gave her a violent death, it would feel like a punch in the gut, bc I'm too attached to her character already, lol. Personally, I want her to live and atone for her crimes.“

Same, same, same. I think a violent death for her would... just be so... incoherent with the show’s main themes in a way? Despite the vocal viewership’s bloodlust for her. But hey, that’s me. And like you say, a lot of this is pretty premature because we have no idea what they’re doing with her arc. My opinions could all change with more info, and depending what she does/experiences in the meantime. Who knows! What a ride lol.

“As for Fred? I don't really care what happens to him, lol.“

EXACTLY. Honestly? I don’t care about him much at all. I hate him. But as long as he doesn’t get off scott-free, I don’t really care. This story isn’t about him.

Lol, I’d like to think that was the point of her late-S2 arc... but apparently we’re in the minority for seeing that lol. Though from interviews, I believe that is what the showrunners were going for. Seems obvious to me, haha!