#so much wasted potential in this season

[thenationofzaun]

Arcane and Ideological Clashes

Tags by @coolseabird

I'm glad I'm not the only one who feels this way. One of season 1's themes I loved was the philosophical and ideological debate between Silco and Vander (and then Jinx and Vi). I adore the personal character-driven aspects too, but the thing is, they don't have to be mutually exclusive. Ideologies can be extremely personally informed/motivated, and in the case of these characters, they were. Every part of their worldviews were shaped by their circumstances, their lives, experiences, and relationships with other characters. For example, Silco surviving the murder attempt by Vander and how this very personal betrayal motivated him politically, to be unrelentingly extremist in his methods. Or Vander feeling personally guilty for all the deaths on the Day of Ash, leading to him forming a political deal with Grayson to subdue the undercity from ever stepping out of line "for their own good". Because when you live in these kinds of dire conditions, there really is no way to separate the personal from the political.

Though season 1 didn't explore these themes with the sisters as deeply as I would have liked, the crumbs were there! Especially for Jinx. Yeah, she's selfish and personally-motivated, but her actions are nonetheless political. When it comes to her political opinions, the first season itself only gave us crumbs ("We kicked the enforcers butts, imagine what the whole of the Lanes could do!" as a kid, and then later Silco tells her that the children of Zaun deserve more and she seems to listen pensively, but never comments on it). Every act of political violence by her in the first season was given a personal motivation (she wants Silco to think she's strong, she wants to confront Caitvi on the bridge, she wants to avenge Silco). But writers comments outside the show gave us more - one of them said online that while Jinx understands Vander, she disagrees with his worldview and aligns with Silco's views on fighting topside. So that confirmed that Jinx does have an ideology and it aligns with Silco's, even if she was mostly preoccupied with personal matters in S1.

Vi on the other hand was completely neglected by season 1. All of her thought process and political opinions post Act 1 were left entirely subtextual. Act 3 was the worst offender because it's there that she makes her most controversial decisions (betraying Jinx to the Council and attacking the Shimmer factory with enforcers). However, again there were crumbs that one could string together to form interpretations. In S1E2, Vander basically convinces her that rebellion against topside is futile as it would likely lead to the deaths of her loved ones. She then decides to give up her desire to fight them and turns herself in to the enforcers. What follows is 7-8 years of being beaten and abused and downtrodden by topsiders in prison. Yeah, I can definitely see how this experience would only confirm Vander's words, that Piltover's might is too much to overcome, not without heavy casualties on their side. That rebellion is futile and the best thing to do is to keep your head down and don't invoke their wrath.

However, it was a fellow undercity citizen who murdered Vander and took her sister. And when she returns years later, she finds that he is still in power, has significant influence and a large number of followers in the Lanes, and no one has overthrown him. One line that really stood out to me was one she said to the brothel madam Babette in S1E5 - "From the looks of it no one down here lifted a finger to stop Silco". How juicy is that! She feels resentful towards her fellow Zaunites for not avenging Vander and taking down Silco in her absence. She feels betrayed, abandoned, left behind by her own neighbours. Her sister changed under Silco, her home changed under Silco. And everyone moved on without her. Expanding on this could have been such a natural way to justify her class treason by joining the enforcers. She thinks Piltover is too strong for Zaunites to beat so there's no use rebelling against them anyway. So why not use their might against her Zaunite enemies? Zaunites themselves "won't lift a finger" to stop violent gang leaders so why not use topside's power to do it? "What loyalty should I have to my class, if the people from my class abandoned me like this?" I could even see how being wronged by Zaunites could hurt more than being wronged by Piltovians - she could see it as the latter owing her nothing while the Zaunites are supposed to be her family and neighbours, who owe her more.

Again, season 1 itself did jack shit to delve into these feelings nor her trauma from prison. But the crumbs were there. I happily used them to form my own interpretation to justify her bizarre decisions and was satisfied. But then season 2 rolls around. They had the blueprint and chose not to use any of this rich material. How do they justify her joining the enforcers? Do they explore any of the complex feelings of resentment Vi may have for her home and class? Nope, she joins after hearing how her crush talked her up to colleagues. How do they justify her fully turning on Jinx and disowning her sister? Do they explore Vi's loyalty to her foster father Vander, and her acceptance that Jinx chose to betray him and side with his murderer, then try to murder Ekko for years? Nope. In fact, she forgets about Ekko and never mentions him again lmao. Rather she seems to turn on Jinx because she attacked the Council??? That seems to be the turning point for Vi, the thing that makes Vi view Jinx as a monster. "She killed the tyrants who oppressed me all my life, how dare she😤" ???? It would make sense for Vi to view the attack as stupid and reckless, again just like Vander said - fighting topside only brings more wrath to the undercity. But they don't even do that. They never explore Vi's political opinions and how she agrees with Vander's "compliance for our own good" stance. They never touch on her time in prison and how it may have compounded Vander's views. Instead they make it so Vi seems to sympathize with the Councilors and condemns Jinx's bombing because of some generic "violence bad" moral.

It's so stupid too, because they completely forget about Grayson. That's more PRIME material to justify Vi's enforcer arc. If Vander, her mentor, allied with Grayson, Caitlyn's mentor, then why shouldn't she ally with Caitlyn? She could easily use the Vander-Grayson peace deal to make herself feel better about her class treason. "He allied with enforcers to keep the undercity in check for their own good. So will I. Putting on the uniform is just the next logical step. I will take out the gang leaders and Silcos that Zaunites are too weak to stand up to. My parents were wrong to fight against topside, rebellion is futile. Jinx is wrong to fight against topside and will only get more Zaunites killed in the resulting retaliation. They can call me a traitor but I'm doing this for their own good."

All the pieces are there. Instead they never bring up the Vander-Grayson deal. Caitlyn and Vi have never even spoken about either of them in their entire relationship lmfaooo. They don't even know that their beloved mentors knew each other. They never speak about anything of substance. The only crumbs of an ideological clash we get in season 2 is the argument in S2E5. But it's all from Jinx's side - "I wish I was just seeing things when you decided to throw in with the Piltie goons who murdered mom and dad." But then Vi replies with some lame insult, then they're having a cheap slapstick comedy fight, and Vi never reckons with this. She never expresses what she thinks of her parents dying fighting topside. Then the Piltover vs Zaun war is completely abandoned and the plot focuses on Warwick/Hexcore/Noxus. And we don't get any more explorations of the ideological/philosophical clash that the sisters represent. Is it worth it to rebel against an oppressor if you lose yourself and all your loved ones to violence, but at least those in the future reap the benefits of your fight? Is it worth it to comply for the safety of yourself and your loved ones, if your people will eventually suffer a slow death and never have a future? What are you willing to sacrifice for your revolution? How far will you go? They handled this theme beautifully with season 1 Silco, then said "alright that's enough" and dropped all effort when it came to season 2. And from the trailers of Act 3, it looks like Vi will be convincing Jinx to fucking help Piltover against Noxus. Which is just gross lmao.

[gd-dollopole]

Have we taken into consideration that perhaps, the reason Merlin does not die, it’s because the Gods don’t want him to? They’ve been playing with him this entire time, and The Cailleach made it clear that even if Merlin wants to die, he can’t, and he cannot change the course of his life. Merlin does not say, “yes” willingly, but rather tests to see if the goddess in front of him knows about his destiny, and her answer proves him right. It’s not because she sees Lancelot going into the veil. It’s because she knows deep down Merlin cannot do anything now. Merlin is more powerful than Gods, and to prevent him to come to this knowledge, they constantly stop him from achieving his destiny.

[nocofamilyau]

not related to noco at all but what is katie and sadie’s relationship like now?

pretty good all things considered! while they're both married to two sweet guys and have separate families (none of their kids are other td characters, unfortunately...) they're still really close, and still live next to each other at that same beach town they grew up in, now both running that successful 80s themed ice cream business they've been dreaming of! its safe to say they probably suffered the least on Total Drama, only leaving with a couple of minor scars, good god were they lucky..

[plantsjustwannahavefun]

I used to think that the reason I wasn't satisfied with Izzy's death was because I was too attached to his perspective as a character and couldn't focus on the big picture of the season and the main Gentlebeard relationship enough. I mean, I was still convinced that his death and the way it was carried out was a shit writing decision, but everyone else outside the Izzy Canyon circles seemed fine with it, so I was starting to think that maybe they were right.

So I looked back on the rest of the season and rewatched the finale... And realised something that I'd been trying to ignore because it was too painful to admit. A huge part of why Izzy's death hit so hard (in a bad way, not that delicious masochistic pain of having a beloved character die a good, narratively satisfying death) was because throughout this season he was the only character who actually had a satisfying arc and development. Practically no one else did. I didn't actually care for Gentlebeard this season, not the way I cared in S1. From episode 1 to 8 and a half, Izzy's arc was crafted with more care, kindness, subtlety and narrative weight than the main Gentlebeard arc which, in comparison, felt like a string of choppy beads badly tied together in an approximate shape of an arc, but collapsed as soon as you looked at it too closely.

Yes, we all know this season suffered for being 2 episodes too short, but I don't think that's all there is to it. This is starting to feel like GoT season 8 all over again. Would it have been better if it wasn't so rushed? Maybe. Or maybe it would have been even worse because this season just didn't seem to know what to do with itself or the characters. The themes and symbolism are all over the place and completely inconsistent. Ed and Stede's characters are practically back at the same place they left in S1. All they did was bounce off the walls back and forth with no real growth. As soon as they took a step towards fixing their relationship or growing as people, they either tool three steps back or it just got dropped. Stede letting fame get to his head? Interesting and realistic development. And how was it resolved? It wasn't. Stede and Ed being whim prone? I'm glad they brought it up. And then they just fell for another whim and it was presented as a satisfying ending.

Ed went from the Kraken, to taking the first steps towards being Ed, then suddenly all the way to being Ed by way of a Night of Magical Healing Sex that he he didn't actually want to happen because he wasn't ready. And then all of a sudden he pivoted to abandoning Stede and piracy and becoming a fisherman... for 5 min. And then back to Blackbeard again because two fishermen were mean to him for 5 minutes. And then abandoning it again to open an inn. How was any of this even remotely coherent or satisfying? They didn't even have a single conversation about any of it. Ed had more proper closure and communication with Izzy during his dying scene than with Stede and the rest of the crew put together. Izzy's arc got sacrificed to do the heavy lifting for Ed's arc and became nothing more than a shortcut to speed run his character growth. Except it didn't even lead anywhere. "Ed, they're your family, they love you" no they don't, he didn't even have a single positive conversation with any of them except Fang. Of course this could have been the point, and Ed could have seen Izzy's death, his own discovery of found family and his dying words as a pretext to repair his relationship with the crew. But he just left them and stayed with Stede instead.

Sure, you could say this was only the second act of the story, and S3 will resolve everything. But the second act is still meant to move the story and the characters forward in some way. Yes, of course if we get S3, I imagine Stede and Ed's life as innkeepers won't exactly be idyllic. But the problem is that the conflicts they'd have will only be a rehash and repeat of the same conflicts they've already have, or were supposed to have, this season. Multiple times, even. We already know that Ed is simply unable to live with himself no matter what life he chooses. The title of S1 was literally "wherever you go, there you are". We already know Stede's love isn't enough to fix him. We already know their goals in life are completely opposite. Maybe they could have shown Stede realising, after his humiliating in S7, that piracy wasn't all it was cracked up to be or he isn't suited for it, and that's why he chose to leave it behind and open an inn, but that's not the explanation we were given. It was just another whim. They literally didn't learn anything this season. They had two baby conversations in E4 and E5 and didn't take anything from it, just kept doing the complete opposite of anything. "We're both prone to whims, let's take things slow" became "let's take things extremely fast by moving in together permanently and becoming entrepreneurs". They never talked about the actual, deepseated, longstanding trauma issues they needed to resolve before they could even begin to have a proper relationship. They literally got a heavy-handed glimpse in what their life would become if they just stuck together without addressing their own personal issues, and chose to do that very thing. It that's what S3 is going to address, then why were Anne and Mary part of this season instead of the next one?

I remember everyone saying they wanted Ed and Stede to reunite as quickly as possible in S2, and I get why. They have great chemistry together. The season is about them. But for it to work, spending more time apart is exactly what they needed. They needed to learn how to live with themselves and others, first. Romantic love alone can't fix you as a person. You have to fix yourself first. Community can help (as with Izzy's case), but you still have to put in the work. In retrospect, I'm glad that Izzy didn't get a love interest this season - because he wasn't ready yet, and had to learn how to have normal relationships and friendships with other people before attempting an intimate romantic relationship, lest he ended up falling head first unit another toxic mutually dependent relationship. That's what Stede and Ed should have tried too. Instead the show just ended up using Izzy's death as a quick surgical fix, robbing Ed of his agency and having to do the hard work repairing himself and his relationships with other people. There's a sad irony in getting exactly one character's arc just this, and then using it as a sacrificial lamb to patch over the main character's arc.

[jodielandons]

I just think that The Umbrella Academy writers just didn’t know what to do with Allison which is a shame bc she had so much potential! But no they made her lose her daughter, dropped her in 1960s Texas where she dealt with traumatic racism that was never addressed, lost the man she loved, was characterized as a villain for snapping after everything she went through, made a deal with the devil to get everything back, got the man she loved back for TWO SECONDS bc the writers said jk (: All of this for what? There was no point.

[killianxswan]

ouat writers really could not have been more serious about the crystal used in robin's sacrifice. they made it very clear that the victim will be dead. gone. obliterated. forever.

meanwhile killian defies all odds, walks out of hell, meets the god of all gods who is a certified captain swan shipmate™️, and is home in time for the post funeral pot luck at granny's.

[kingtuna]

now that tbb is ending its time

🕯 . 🕯

🕯 . 🕯

🕯 Rex show 🕯

🕯 . 🕯

🕯 . 🕯

[edwinas]

why did malakai and amerie go almost a whole season without talking??? they're both on their journeys but there was no reason for them to cut each other off like that, given how much they've always cared for each other (them drinking at "never have i ever had sex with someone i love," amerie saying “which is a journey of self-discovery that your girlfriend would’ve been more than happy to support”...)

we had to wait until ep6-7 for them to really talk then malakai goes back to not talking the finale. he doesn't even tell amerie to her face he's leaving. yearning is their thing but for the season to end like that, even if we do get a season 3 (which is not guaranteed) how will malakai and amerie happen? he's across the world indefinitely??

[from-here-from-me]

the fact that we did not get Richie or Carmy calling each other cousin even ONCE in season 3 is all you really need to know. not a single instance of the word cousin even found in the present day of the entire season, The Bear showrunners when I catch you!!!!!

[raccoons-in-a-trenchcoat]

I know a lot of people want to rewrite the entirety of Ninjago (understandably so), BUT if you could pick one (1) season to rewrite, what would you pick? I’m curious.

[kismetconstellations]

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in my heart) x.

[bean-spring]

Not to mention Voltron and Klance/Allurance in our year 2024 but I find it very telling how they didn't have anything planned for the ending and how they made Lance choose Keith on "The Feud!" by saying "He's our leader, plus he's half-galra so he's like, the future" when a season later he refers to Allura as "the best thing that has ever happened to him".

And yes, you can love somebody to death and yet think somebody else should get to be the one to live, logically thinking, but Lance is pretty much the most emotional out of all the paladins. He's loverboy Lance. He speaks and acts with his heart all the damn time and thinks about the people he loves first and foremost. And I am not saying this is "wooahhh Klance proof!" because we are pretty over that. Just saying it feels like they didn't have shit planned for the last season because Lance (a Lance who is in love with Allura, in theory, from the start) would have never, even if it's logically speaking, let another person that wasn't her get out of there alive. And even if he wasn't in love with her, he has said multiple times how much potential, strength, and importance he sees in her role.

So it is just stupid to make him vote for Keith and say something extremely damn endearing like "he's the future" instead of saying it about his romantic interest.

Not to mention that they could have easily fixed this if they wanted Allurance to be canon. They could've made the bond and conflict Allura has with Keith deeper by making her vote for Keith and saying he is the future for being half-galra (something that is personal to Allura and it would've made more sense for her to say and eat her pride and hatred towards the galra. Character development who?). Then it's just easy to make Lance vote for Allura and make him go "She's our princess and her strength is what the world needs and the universe would be lost without her" or some bullshit like that. And then make Keith vote for Lance because the joke was actually perfect and I have nothing against it and it's pretty in character for him to say "I don't wanna be stuck with him" instead of saying that he truly believes Lance is crucial for the future. And idk, make Pidge and Hunk vote for each other because they are best friends and it makes sense to reaffirm their bond (although I do find really cute and in character their original votes).

I am just saying what we already knew and is that Allurance was so not planned and they could've written a way better build-up. And look, it would've still been shitty and forced and awful but at least it would've been written thoughtfully. Kind of. Instead, we got... Deeper bonding between Lance and Keith? And I am the first one to say that they barely have scenes together with the amount of drama people make about their canon relationship but... Why give these two this moment (plus the other two only emotional and well-written scenes of season 8) that could've been great to build up another romantic relationship?

[jinxini]

ZERO TIMEBOMB INTERACTIONS IN ACTS 1 AND 2 I AM BOO BOO THE FOOL

[bentacled]

it's been one day and im still pissed when will this end. season 4 had some neat assassination scenes but none of them shined as bright as the writers assassinating the characters like go off monarchs

[calm-shy-social]

I can’t believe they ruined Umbrella Academy

[snootchie-bootchies]

Random Stranger Things thought this morning:

Why wasn't Kali ever brought back?