#the end of the episode was very chaotic with a lot of info being dumped at once but why mention this name in specific matthew

[thevalleyisjolly]

What's the likelihood that the "Toriz" Keyleth asked Bells Hells to say hi to when sending them off to the Shattered Teeth is going to be a guest PC?

[marjansmarwani]

hi i know it’s early and we don’t have a lot of informations but i love your blog and your takes so i was just wondering. where would you want next episode to go? like what would you like to see happening based on the few bits of information we have? :)

Hi Anon! Thank you for sending this, theorizing about the episodes is one of my favorite hobbies. I'm hoping to make this as coherent as possible but I apologize in advance for the fact that it will likely not be very coherent at all. I am also planning a spec fic so a lot of this will also be in my fic which I'm hoping to have done by this weekend (aka a lot of this came right from my outline). So consider this a sneak preview to that, if you want.

Anyways, here it goes. I hope you wanted a chaotic info dump because that’s all I’m capable of on this day.

I'm pretty sure it will pick up almost immediately after the end of 3x07, probably the next day as they are leaving for New York. I am agreeing with this post by @doublel27 in the fact that Carlos will be going, but isn't able to go right away. My guess is that they did book seats but that maybe Owen got bumped from the flight and Carlos insists Owen take his seat, that he'll follow on the next available flight. The promo makes it looks like he is in the airport and I think this makes the most sense. (I do have specific thoughts on the fact that he is on the phone and who he is talking to while watching, but I will save those for my fic. They're probably not right but they're fun.)

I see flashbacks happening throughout the episode. I would love to see one from the start, when the plane takes off. And TK getting up to go to the bathroom to get a moment to gather himself (which is where he is when the emergency starts). I think that they will mirror the action in the episode, but that isn’t exactly shocking. It seems like pretty standard procedure for this kind of thing.

The other thing I see and and pretty tied to is TK being the only one who can help. There is clearly at least medical emergency and if there is no doctor or nurse on board, a paramedic would absolutely be the next best thing. I’d like to see thing for a couple of reasons: to show TK being good at his job, to give him something to focus on, and to have Owen forced to play sidekick and just have to help TK as he saves the day in a way that Owen can’t.

I do think that they will make it to New York in the end (probably with the help of a time jump) and I wouldn’t be surprised if the episode ended on a scene of TK either at the funeral (maybe giving a eulogy? I need to do some research on Jewish funerals I don’t know if that’s even a thing) or right after, possibly with Jonah. I also wouldn’t be surprised if he decided to stay in New York for a while at the end of an episode, and that he might not even be in the next episode.

You also asked what I would like to see, so here’s a list:

Good Dad Owen. He is my favorite version of Owen and the relationship between TK and Owen is one of the things that first drew me into the show. We haven’t seen a lot of it (or hardly any, really) this season so I’m banking on this being an episode that contains a lot of it. I want to see TK handling the emergency and Owen assisting him, and being proud.

TK addressing his grief and along the way deciding that he is not going to fall into old habits and comping mechanisms (i.e. relapsing) because of something Gwyn said or because he wants to keep making her proud. I think this also makes sense because they have been very conscious about showing how he has grown since we met him in season 1 and this could be another way to show that.

Some sort of Tarlos reunion. Carlos not being there makes sense, but if we don’t get to see their reunion later I’m going to have some words with someone. I’m not sure who yet, but someone. We deserve it and so do they.

I don’t think a lot of time will be spent on this given everything, but worried firefam. The found family is still my absolute favorite part of the show and I want to see them grappling with this. Hopefully more than just one quick scene. They’ve all been through a lot and they deserve some time to address their emotions when facing another trauma.

Does this make any sense? I hope so.Thanks again for asking Anon and I hope this lived up to what you were hoping for!

[inspector-montoya-fox]

#13 - Menace from the North, eh!

Setting part 1: i mean......... whatever, right? at this point, India got 2 levels and Prague got 2 levels so i’m like ok, let’s get this over with. and i genuinely believe this and Anatomy for Disaster are the game’s two weakest episodes, despite the great conclusion. look, SP... they fucking delivered. they served absolute excellence with episodes 2-4, but it’s getting redundant and Menace from the North, eh! is just Menace from the North, meh? (please forgive me Lord). the game takes a weird environmentalist turn, which i fully appreciate but am ultimately confused by, seeing as He Who Tames The Iron Horse had absolutely nothing to do with Jean Bison’s pollution aspect. it feels weird to return to a Canadian outing after the gang had such a successful run in the previous episode, which felt like a conclusion even with the absence of a bossfight. like, SP could have easily inserted a Bison bossfight at the end of He Who Tames The Iron Horse in order to add another Klaww Gang member for an extra episode or maybe replace Menace from the North, eh! with the lost Monaco episode. it sounds like i’m bitching a lot, and i actually am. what really takes me aback every single time i play this game is that after you complete the Rajan/Contessa saga, it all becomes so anticlimactic. and i can’t comprehend why. by the end of this episode, the stakes are so high but the drive just isn’t there. and it’s not because the gang is demotivated. Sly has been having so much fun throughout the game, even with Neyla’s backstab being a huge obstacle. so getting down, dirty and serious is a much needed mood change. but i feel like i speak for all of us when i say that episodes 5-7 are overshadowed by episodes 2-4. with a few alterations to the order of the episodes and some changes to the script, i really think we could have had an awesome Contessa vs Clock-La final showdown episode and have Bison come right after Dimitri. because, honestly, Canada feels like ‘second episode’ material.

Setting part 2: i’m splitting it up because i don’t want my rant above to spoil the actual writing. the gang sticks around for another Canadian caper after some kooky stuff goes down with the environment and, mainly, the Northern Lights, which as we’ll soon find out, play a rather unexpectedly significant role in the grand scheme of things. and we’re treated to a log-chopping area, an off-the-maps secretive camp which really ups the ante, because Jean Bison is being such a jerk to nature. we’ve got deforestation, we’ve got melting ice, exploitation of wild animals, and Bison getting a raging red boner by literally destroying the environment in order to flex in the Lumberjack Games..... both the player and the gang have had enough of this dude, and i think SP used the fact that his only traits are being an angry idiot and a bigot to their advantage. instead of providing the necessary character development as they did with the Contessa and Rajan, Bison and his actions (especially his communication with the mYsTeRiOuS Arpeggio) are used as a prelude to Anatomy for Disaster. there’s not really a lot of dialogue apart from the final mission and bossfight, because the overall Klaww Gang plot begins to unravel, and particularly so by the time we find out about the lighthouse and its technological contents. in fact, if you think about it, Anatomy for Disaster starts with Clock-La’s shitshow and an info-dump at the beginning, which, if you’ve been paying enough attention to the details (i know that until i turned 12 and replayed the game as a young teen i hadn’t been paying attention to shit so it was all gasp!), is just the connecting of the dots. Menace from the North, eh! is essentially the last piece of the puzzle, before it’s all given to us in full detail by Arpeggio. i mean, apart from Dimitri serving dishes with drugs in them (i still can’t get over that at the age of 21), the rest is all things the player could pick up. and that’s this episode’s main focus. trying to prevent the inevitable under countdown, before Arpeggio’s blimp arrives to collect the Northern Lights energy. so it feels very anticlimactic and strange to put in all this effort without purpose. if you’ve played it before, you know it’s all for nothing since all the parts will be gone by the end of the episode. and it’s even more anticlimactic (although hilarious in tonal shift) to see how the gang scrambles under the pressure of preventing the Klaww Gang’s doomsday by hacking boats and having all these grandiose plans involving the lighthouse, just to then resort to taking part in the Lumberjack Games, without even a clever scheme but actually just cheating, and finally have Bison, an idiot, foil their plans by finding out where they’ve been hiding. and the bossfight is fine, but again, meh... i mean, woohoo Bentley! or whatever the fuck.

Characters: let’s talk about Jean Bison and his mistreatment as a character. we first meet him at Rajan’s ball, where Bentley introduces him as a Canadian shipping baron and says that he owns half the trains in Canada. later on, during the introductory cutscene for He Who Tames The Iron Horse, we get his backstory and how he’s risen from being practically dead, frozen since his time, and back with a vengeance against the environment. in my previous #episodeproject entry i said: SP plays up Bison’s savagery and gruesome nature by spotlighting how his plans affect the environment and even going so far as to call his house ‘the lair of the beast’. this is all true but is never put into practice. like, Jean Bison is all tell and no show, y’know? even the cutscene that plays when Sly gets caught in Bison’s cabin during He Who Tames The Iron Horse’s first mission shows Bison getting angry, but hunty, that’s about it. apart from the Lumberjack Games and his bossfight, it’s all oh Bison will get angry and oh Bison will kill us with the talons. well, where is it? where’s the fucking Canadian shipping baron with a vengeance against the environment? my baby heart was legit quivering when we had to steal Rajan’s blueprints as Bentley, and the Contessa was such a grand sleazebag of a woman, like what a douchebag - and you see that, although i’m often flamboyant in my writing (!!!), the way i describe these moments with these villains is both effective and relatable, because they showed up and lived up to their descriptions. Bison was written to be a ferocious beast of a villain but never showed that. and that’s on SP. whatever... let’s talk about the gang. now, despite the gang looking seriously badass in the opening cutscene for this episode (image below), they’re actually in a pretty good headspace. they’re only missing the talons and whatever Clockwerk parts Arpeggio had before collecting all of them. so it’s only natural for them to feel a bit cocky, and that’s actually gonna be their demise. before that, i just wanna mention that almost all the missions here (as with He Who Tames The Iron Horse) are group missions: Sly and Murray infiltrate the moose club in RC Combat Club, all three of them work together in Lighthouse Break-In, Boat Hack, and Old Grizzle Face. what really stood out to me every time i played this episode, is how, at the end when they take down Bison and they rush to the battery, each member has a different way of entering it, which is a small detail but important nonetheless. this further reinforces how united the gang has become since the Contessa levels and how their bond has strengthened. now, lemme circle back to how they’re cocky. i mean, apart from Jean Bison, Menace from the North, eh! doesn’t present any immediate danger or like trouble, seeing as both Neyla and Carmelita are absent. without any interference, the gang had lots of breathing space to plan ahead, even under countdown before Arpeggio’s blimp arrived. and they kinda wasted the opportunity because, as i’ve already mentioned, the operation was an absolute train-wreck. there’s no plan b, or like something clever or whatever. and usually, the operations tend to get disrupted by third parties, such as Carmelita or Neyla, but here, it failed because it was never smart. and it’s only natural for them to fall hard (by losing all the Clockwerk parts) after feeling all cocky (maybe i’m being too harsh). and all this directly leads to some more Bentley character development.... again. look, i’m all for character development, but the turtle already faced his demons when he busted Sly and Murray out of jail. i know we got Murray vs Rajan, but i don’t know, Murray was always kinda just there throughout the game. the hippo had his ups and downs (face-off with Rajan, imprisonment, losing the van), but not a fully realised story arc. that’s why, when Sly 3 starts off with his enlightenment and return, that story arc is instantly so iconic. i could go on about how Bentley gains self-confidence after defeating Bison, but um, we’ve already done that sis.

Themes: He Who Tames The Iron Horse and Menace from the North, eh! should have been one episode and i truly believe that. they could have shared the same themes. for the former, i said there’s the speed theme, and that applies here too because the gang are under pressure. the countdown lights a fire under their asses and it’s all very destructive. again, there’s an antithesis between the calm Canadian atmosphere and the chaotic energy of the missions. but it’s not just speed theme anymore, it’s more like theme of ferocity. everyone’s kinda on edge??? Old Grizzle Face is a motherfucker and we get up close and personal with the eagles, lasers destroy huge ice pieces, there’s a mammoth, the destroyed oil manes create fiery air drafts... chaos. and it all results in the disastrous events and outcome of the Lumberjack Games, which make Menace from the North, eh! the straightest episode in the game. yuck. it only makes sense for the missions to become less sneaky and more destructive as the stakes get higher and the gang is in a hurry, and that kinda embodies the pollution motif/ environment motif. it’s less of a theme and more of a motif because it’s so story-centric, but that’s the other things the comes into contrast with the calm environment. saws, the buzzing, chopped-up logs flowing down the river, tree stumps spread across: these embody the pollution and the harm Jean Bison has been doing even though it’s a forced storyline in my opinion. and finally, size theme. it’s not major, but it feels like everything’s bigger in Canada... Sly feels so puny in this episode, like especially when climbing the lighthouse. the wild animals are huge, the structures are huge, Jean Bison’s house is huge. it’s just lots and lots of nothingness. if you took absolutely nothing and enlarged it by 10 times, you’d have this episode’s hub. and this is also seen in the bossfight when tiny Bentley takes on Jean Bison. so yea.

What I Like: gliding off the lighthouse and throwing fish onto already stinky guards before Old Grizzle Face rips them to shreds. also, those cute lil catfish-lookin viruses in Bentley’s hacking! they’re so adorable.

What I Don’t Like: erm... it’s not that i don’t like this episode, but i find it kinda boring? apart from interacting with the wild animals, the missions are meh. and i hate the Lumberjack Games...

Quote: Get too close and old Grizzle Face will be eating barbecued raccoon for dinner.

[piercebaron]

anime and manga differences: episode 12

Think of this as a sequel to this post, though there’s going to be less meta on adaptation and more chatting about what got cut. There are some allusions to spoilers from later in the manga (chapters 40 and 46, specifically!), so be warned.

I’m slowly working my way through the official English releases and was bemoaning earlier about how some of my favorite bits from the whole academy arc got cut. I also realized that a number of people following this blog have maybe only seen the anime, so! I wanted to dive into what was changed. 

Up until episode 12, which is the episode that kicks off the whole academy arc and really digs into the meat of the story, the anime didn’t really cut that much from the manga. Episode 7 was filler, with Hina and Lynn meeting for the first time and having their great cook-off, though that incorporates elements of Hina’s character that actually show up later in the manga. They also make some changes to Sonohara’s entrance, including showing the pilot of the chopper (which. I won’t spoil, if you’re not familiar, but it’s shocking to say the least). 

Episode 12 is where they really start to cut and make changes, subbing in some characters for others and folding arcs together. It covers chapter 13 up until halfway through chapter 15, so it has a lot of ground to cover.

Big change #1: Jail fights with Tokikaze, not Douan.

In the manga, Tokikaze encounters the group outside, just after they see Sonohara and Rihito walk inside. He and Jail get into it, and this spurs the rivalry they have throughout this arc. This is where Jail first realizes he can’t use his ballot.

The anime has Jail scuffle with Douan instead, and Tokikaze later intervenes. This honestly does wonders for Douan’s character, especially with how the anime has been structured where it’s ending with his big battle. We’re immediately introduced to Douan as an antagonistic force and his connection to Sonohara. Originally, the first time we see Douan is when he steals Sonohara’s stars in chapter 16.

This scene is in the anime! We get it in episode 13. But unlike the manga, it's just a continuation of Douan being a bully whereas in the original, it's our first real look at Douan. And instead of bumping into girls and picking fights with Jail, he's just straight up antagonizing Sonohara right out the gate. It's interesting! I feel like the anime allows us to have more time with Douan early on and builds up the emotional gut punch that is his relationship with Licht. 

(a small note: the anime does later have Douan be way more antagonistic, especially towards Sonohara, but that's scattered throughout the arc and as of writing this, I haven't gotten to those chapters in my review, so. you know.)

What we lose out on, though, is Tokikaze stuff. Jail and Tokikaze's rivalry is never really established beyond a brief bout of bickering before the enrollment ceremony in the anime, so his actions later on when it comes to giving his stars to him don't quite have the same punch.

In fairness though, their relationship hasn't really been a focal point since that arc ended, so uh. Maybe nothing was really lost? It was just nice seeing the nuances of these two characters as they bounced off of each other.

Big change #2: When we first really see Rihito.

Here's my big confession: I'm really not into the ecchi parts of Plunderer. I joke a lot about how horny Minazuki is and how GeekToys are even more so, but also it detracts from what is a genuinely compelling story with a lot of heart and some really, really great characters. It's just not my cuppa! I try not to critique that part too much because it's very much an opinion thing, but.

But hoo boy does it factor in here.

This is when we first really meet Rihito Sakai in the anime! And he's . . . staring up Hina's skirt. This is a parallel to the first chapter / episode, yes, where our first introduction to Licht is him looking up Hina's skirt. Full circle storytelling-wise and whatnot!

It plays out differently in the manga. We don't see Rihito again until he interrupts the chaotic enrollment ceremony, holding Schmerman "hostage." And it's one hell of an entrance, especially with how Minazuki lays out his panels. I'm going to paste the rest here, because words don't really do it justice.

How can someone so efficiently reintroduce their main character in just a few pages? Rihito is immediately endearing and foolhardy while still being the same dolt we know and love at heart. This is the first time we really see him, so it's the first taste we get of Rihito's good nature, despite the fact that he's, well, a perverted moron.

My own personal eyerolling aside, you don't get quite the same "oomph" from the anime's introduction.

Big change #3: Pele.

look, you all knew I was gonna be biased as hell in writing this.

Sonohara's introduction is the first glimpse we get of Pele maybe not exactly being who he says he is, what with him instantly reacting to the Secret Service agents about to shoot Lynn. Throughout the academy arc, he starts stepping up more and, in the process, there are more subtle hints that he knows more than he says he knows. A lot of his stuff got cut/streamlined for time.

In the anime, he does some off-screen investigating and then leads Jail and the others to a computer where he does a brief info dump. In the manga, this plays out a bit differently in that he appeals directly to Alan, immediately feeding him a story about the four of them being from the boonies and gosh, where could they get some more information?

and then this leads to what is the funniest exchange and what sold me on this manga entirely.

Pele controls the computer from then on -- he's reading through a computer how-to book in that last panel above, for the record. And he's pretty careful, all in all! It really does seem like he's learning along with the rest of them and doesn't know a thing. But this is really when we start getting blatant hints that there's something up with Pele.

Some of that makes it in, like his brief exchange with Tokikaze in episode 13 asking him who he'll steal stars from. There's something darker about it in the manga, though.

. . . though I really do love this scene in the english dub, especially with how his voice darkens at that line. 

Most of Pele’s stuff from this arc gets cut for time, though. Later, after Jail leaves young!Nana’s room, he doesn’t run into Alan. Instead, he reconvenes with Hina, Lynn, and Pele and the four of them watch Nana’s video together -- at which point Alan busts in and holds them all at gunpoint.

And he’s ultimately foiled by Pele.

This then leads to the Jail-Alan confrontation that is seen in the anime. This is really why Lynn, Hina, and Pele are with Jail, though! After all, they were in the room with him and Alan marched off with all four of them. 

But it’s later revealed that Pele didn’t delete the files on Nana’s drive; they were different files entirely, and Pele bet on Alan not even bothering to check. How Nana’s video plays out is another essay entirely, though.

Chapters 13 through 15 are the first real hints we get that maybe there’s more to Lynn’s subordinate than meets the eye, and maybe his little stunt with disarming the Secret Service wasn’t just a fluke. Minazuki is very good at laying seeds for things to come, which is also why I’m hesitant to write off the Jail-Tokikaze relationship / rivalry just yet.

also the animation quality in episode 12 is, uh. It’s not good, my dudes.

. . . okay, okay, I feel like I’m picking on the anime a little bit (reminder that animators work under a lot of pressure and aren’t given a lot of time and resources to produce quality!), but the animation is really noticeable in this episode. 

Anyway, if you enjoyed the anime, please support the official releases in your country and read the manga! It’s interesting to see all the little shifts and tweaks that were done to the story in the process of taking it from page to screen.