#so it makes sense why if I were subject to some sort of rigid discipline etc. then I could finally fucking relax

[dykeredhood]

I was idly playing with the ends of my hair this evening and remembered the one and a half times I had done that in front of my parents when I was younger and how I had ended up getting yelled at (or at least harangued for fidgeting or) doing something so innocuous

It was electric, once I recalled that, I enjoyed* a flood of emotions and immediately put my hands back down at my sides

[lethesomething]

Ghost of Tsushima and the Hands of Fate

I see we're still trying to prove that games are an art form by making everyone feel bad.

For the record, Ghost of Tsushima is one of my favourite games in a very long time. It is extremely pretty, the aesthetic and general … polish is *cheff's kiss*. You can pet foxes and backstab people. The fighting mechanic is decent and there are just So Many Hats.

But also, it has the kind of story that pulls you in to the point where you have to drop the controller to hide behind your fingers going 'ohgodno'.

It is an absolute bastard of a game, is what i'm saying.

So let's talk about that, and specifically about Straw Hat Ryuzo and how I feel bad for him.

I am, by the way, going to be talking about the narrative structure of a video game about medieval samurai, so expect like, a bunch of spoilers.

The narrative is one of the big draws in Ghost of Tsushima. Like yes, it's an open world rpg with fighting and flower picking and all the important stuff, and also yes, some of the bits are sloppily written (looking at you, specifically, 'Ending to Norio's Arc'), but the game definitely sets out to Tell a Story.

And because this is a Serious Game that openly bases itself on samurai movies like Kurosawa's, it is a Drama.

In many ways it is an utterly brutal Bildungsroman, a narrative in which a young man finds his identity.

I have joked with friends about the clear intent for this game to make Important Stories, in that it actually tries to tick all the boxes of hotbutton subjects: childhood trauma? Obviously. Gay relationships?  Yup. Survivor's guilt and PTSD? Oh yes. Domestic abuse? Several. Suggested pedophilia? Damn, even that.

The foxes are there to soothe the soul

It's interesting to note that from a writing point of view, this bildungsroman is even Very Classically Structured. It goes so far as to be a three acter, with a pretty standard build-up.

 Jin Sakai, traumatized man that he is, spends the first act slowly getting to grips with the bit where you don't fight an army by yourself by  just walking up to them and challenging them With Honour, like he has been taught his entire life. Instead of getting stabbed repeatedly in the chest and set on fire, he  discovers guerilla warfare and creates this persona of the Ghost, a literal vengeful spirit seeking justice for the island of Tsushima.

It gets him some big wins and in the second act he slowly embraces this identity until things get to a head where he clashes with his entire old life. The third act starts at the hero's lowest point and is utterly gut wrenching (i am Still Not Over the horse, game), forcing him to pull himself together for an ending that is, well…fitting for the narrative. It's an ending that is needed, but perhaps not what Jin deserves.

 But anyway, this is about Ryuzo, and how until that ending, I was very upset about his role.

You see, this story is told in part through the lives of Important Npc's, who contribute to Jin's journey of self-discovery. This is pretty obvious with someone like Yuna, who is the one to introduce him to the Stealth Life and who is a driving force behind the marketing of the Ghost.

Someone like Masako, meanwhile, portrays vengeance and self discipline, but Jin also kinda tries to make her fill the mother-shaped hole in his heart.

Lord Shimura, meanwhile, is an Obvious Father figure but also stands for Jin's past. He's rigid and ineffective, which pushes Jin to further look for alternatives.

Ishikawa, that other mentor figure, is more moderate and flexible, but he also represents a possible unwanted future. He literally warns Jin at one point not to become like him.

Norio, then, is as mentioned not the best written, but he too is a person that searches for his destiny and tries to become like his hero, while only barely holding on to his sanity. 

Kenji, I'm sorry, I love you but you're just comic relief, that's all you do. It's an imporant job in the story, because god does it need it, but you're not teaching Jin anything other than how to make different 'resigned sigh' noises.

So what about Ryuzo? From the very beginning, Ryuzo's story didn't really sit right with me. There's the obvious class issue: he's one of the few important npc's that are poor, and he's an Antagonist.

It has always rubbed me the wrong way that his original intentions were good, depending on how you read it. He's trying to feed his men. He essentially made the decision that this one man's life (even if it is an old friend) is worth the price for the lives of his band of ronin.

It's a lot more complex than that, of course. Ryuzo partly blames Jin for his predicament in life, and he also knows that samurai treat their soldiers as chattel, which the game goes out of its way to show you they DO.

  Essentially, he's a complicated character who makes bad decisions for arguably good reasons.

Ryuzo did everything he could to save the lives of the people he cared about. He went so far as to abandon his honor and his childhood friends, to try to make this happen.

Does that ring any bells?

It kinda clicked for me at the very end of the game.

Jin, being the protag in an assassin game, does a lot of killing. But some of these deaths are given more meaning than others. Some of them are there to make you feel like shit (the Horse Again, but you lose several friends along the way), others serve a more defining purpose.

You see, there's a fair amount of what i'd like to call 'intimate violence' in Ghost of Tsushima. It's an old trope. The 'if someone was gonna kill me, it had to be you' kinda scene that hails from a worldview in which some deaths are better than others, sure, but some deaths are better even than living. It's a worldview in which life itself is less valuable than your legacy. You die for your place in history. For your clan, for your family, for your honor.

Bushido is full of that sort of thing, so it makes sense that a game building on that worldview, would use the heck out of that trope.

  The first is Ryuzo's death. You fight him in a duel, in which he tries to plead for some resolution. You could let him go, come up with some story. But Ryuzo is a traitor, so Jin ultimately defeats him and sends him off in what would be a touching moment of bro friendship if it wasn't for the blood and my 21st century sensibilities.

You grant him a warrior's death, is what I'm saying.

  It happens again with Shimura. The game actually gives you a choice here, but if you go through with it, the scene almost perfectly mirrors Ryuzo's.

You fight in a duel, and Jin tries to get his uncle to just let him go, come to some kind of resolution. But Jin has been branded a traitor, and the only way for Shimura to restore his honour and clan, is to take his life;

This being a game in which you have the power of bamboo strikes and also save games behind you, Jin ultimately wins the duel, and has the option of granting Shimura a warrior's death.

It is utterly heart wrenching and that whole scene has no business being as pretty as it is. The swelling music? The fucking strings? The anguished yell?

Fuck.

  But anyway.

That's about where it clicked with me, that Jin never had a choice.

Ryuzo's whole role wasn't fair, but this is one of those stories where life itself is just not fair at all.

Both him and Shimura are there to show us Jin's path.

  What if, the game says, Jin had listened? What if he'd taken one of several offers the Khan made and surrendered?

What if he'd cooperated?

Well, we see in Graphic Detail what would happen. He would get pushed into doing horrific things. He gets manipulated, again and again, until there is no way out anymore. At some point it becomes clear to him that he's on the wrong side but whenever he tries to devise some plan to turn things around, things go Badly. He's firmly stuck in Khotun's web and the only way out is death.

But what if, the game says, Jin had stayed true to his honour? What if he had listened to his uncle, not defied him, if he had dropped the Ghost before it was too late?  If he'd gone full bushido and repented for the shogun and done all the groveling and the proper stuff.

Samuraihood is just another straightjacket, says Shimura's fate. The tenets are so rigorous you would take your loved ones life, while fucking bawling your eyes out. Shimura knows damn well it's unfair but he also has no way to leave this path. It's a ride he cannot, and will not, get off alive.

  Jin never had a choice.

There was only ever one way for him to go.

Like let's be real: pretty much everyone in this story was dealt a bad hand. It's a narrative about resilience in the face of utter horror, of reinventing yourself and giving up entire structures of faith. People like Masako, Yuna, Norio are finding peace in dealing with huge levels of trauma and regret.

The goal isn't to start a family and live happily ever after, it's to Survive.

Submitting to the mongols would have killed Jin's spirit. Standing tall and rigid as he was taught to do would have, ultimately, killed him as well.

  "I've given up everything to save these people", he says near the end. "And I would do it again."

That's someone who has no regrets.

Jin never could have taken another path and he knows it.

And this is why Ryuzo needed a fate as shitty as his. He fell, so Jin could walk.

I'm sorry, it's still not fair.

This game needs some comfort fic.

[aavengerendgame]

Avengers Endgame movie review: An epic conclusion to Marvel’s Infinity Saga; it’s a triumphant tear-jerker

With Avengers: Endgame, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has arrived at its long-awaited ‘conclusion’, offering fans an old-fashioned mix of grand spectacle and undiluted emotion. To say that it is a success would be too simple an observation; what it deserves instead, is a eulogy.

Like a series finale of a television show you’ve loved for years, it crosses all the Ts and dots all the Is - some more neatly than others - and ends not so much with a feeling of rigid resolution, but a sense of freeing possibility. For new doors to open, Marvel seems to be saying, old ones must first be closed. It’s a film that will compel even the Frost Giants in the audience to whoop and weep.

123movies avengers endgame

For films like Avengers: Endgame to succeed, piled as they are with unfathomably large expectations, a well-oiled system is required to be in place. There needs to be a discipline in the writing, a crispness to the editing, and a generosity in the performances. True ambition in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, more often than not, is born out of a strict adherence to rules. And there are perhaps no two filmmakers better at working within studio sandboxes than Anthony and Joe Russo - at least not on this unprecedented scale.

Avengers: Endgame is a terrific example of that epic intimacy that Marvel does so well - alternating between glorious action and subtle character moments. Watching it almost feels like taking a wistful walk down memory lane, flanked on either side by a Russo brother, our hands held firmly in theirs. It’s an odd feeling that I can’t quite describe; a mixture of déjà vu and nostalgia, of melancholy and euphoria.

It’s a delicate balance to strike, but not nearly as difficult as having to write a review without revealing potential spoilers, whose definition, it seems, is as subjective as the idea of Iron Man 3’s Mandarin being a good villain.

Robert Downey Jr and Chris Evans in a still from Avengers: Endgame. Robert Downey Jr and Chris Evans in a still from Avengers: Endgame. But there won’t be any spoilers here, at least not beyond what we’ve seen in the trailers. The marketing campaign that Marvel put together for Endgame is a work of art in itself - I can confirm that most of the footage we’ve seen is pre-opening credits stuff. There are, however, parallels to the scientific methods trailer companies employ and the Russos’ keen understanding of blockbuster storytelling. Despite being the longest superhero film in history, and the longest film in the MCU, Avengers: Endgame is paced like Quicksilver on crack cocaine. Not a single moment feels unnecessary, but there are scenes - especially in the first act - that feel slightly rushed.

It’s their own fault, really. Over the years, we’ve come to develop certain expectations from our Marvel movies, as well as a patience for their indulgences. This makes the ‘getting the band back together’ scenes in Endgame rather tedious. We know what needs to happen, so why dilly-dally?

Avengers assemble for their final stand against Thanos in Avengers: Endgame. Avengers assemble for their final stand against Thanos in Avengers: Endgame. The fatal flaw with Avengers: Infinity War, I feel, was that at no point did the Decimation feel like it would be irreversible. It was a scene - a very good scene - built entirely on shock value that dissipated almost as swiftly as one of ‘the fallen’. And after all, they say that no movie death should be believed unless you see a trickle of blood escaping from the corner of the character’s mouth.

It was a similar situation with Captain America: Civil War. Steve Rogers and Tony Stark’s differences felt more like a momentary tiff than an ideological confrontation; in other words, of course they were going to get back together.

Avengers: Endgame isn’t like that, and that’s what elevates its credibility, and injects unexpected drama to its already weighty themes. There’s a sense of finality to it that feels wholly unprecedented in the MCU. The Russos are probably operating at their most mature here, examining themes of parenthood and patriarchy, loss and legacy - and of power; how it switches forms as it moves from one hand to another (literally). The only way to confront radical terrorism, the film asserts - and Thanos is a radical terrorist, make no mistake about that - is through unity and bravery.

Robert Downey Jr as Tony Stark/Iron Man in a still from Avengers: Endgame. Robert Downey Jr as Tony Stark/Iron Man in a still from Avengers: Endgame. This isn’t to say that Endgame is a dour film - the trailers have certainly sold it that way; like an unholy love child between Back to the Future and The Leftovers. But I was surprised by how funny it was, and when it needed to be, how purely entertaining.

One scene in particular - I won’t say a word more - will extract the same sort of response from audiences’ as Thor’s entry did in Infinity War.

Also read: Avengers Infinity War movie review: Marvel has made an epic tragedy of Godlike proportions

But regardless of what they say, Endgame is very much Infinity War - Part 2, in that it directly addresses the fallout of the Snap. Certain scenes feel like they’ve been there since the earliest drafts of the script, while others genuinely feel like they were added post the release of Infinity War - the Russos have always had a finger on the audiences’ pulse, so it would make sense for them to have done that.

They’re insisting that this is the end, but it’s like Tony choosing pizza over cheeseburgers - we all know that’s never going to happen. The more movies they keep making, the more they’re going to dilute the impact of Endgame, But for fans who’ve been there from day one, it will be the satisfying conclusion they’ve been waiting for, and a love letter to the franchise they adore. The MCU, in this moment, has given us a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Cherish it. Hold it dear. Whatever it takes.