#the revenger's tragedy

[dessa-banks]

Happy birthday, Christopher Eccleston! (16 February 1964) Some of my favourite roles of his <3

[weepylucifer]

god this vindice guy is so annoying with his constant ramblings about chastity. won't someone corrupt him already 🙄

[pumpkinrootbeer]

Maybe the most devastating element of the prequels

[shutupcrime]

Love the darth plagueis reveal because it’s 100% giving the energy of your roommate has a date over and you’re peeking out of your room to see if it’s safe to use the kitchen yet

[tokyo-daaaamn-ji-gang]

It's a shame that we never got to see more of Mikey with this hair

Especially him fighting with it

[bietrofastimoff23]

and only when his firstborn is killed, Aegon will realize how little time he spent with his children. but instead of spending time with the living, he will give himself completely to the war, because he wants revenge for dead one. and when will he part with his children during the escape for their own safety, he may think that he has a whole life ahead of him to make up for lost time with them, to fix what he can never do with Jaehaerys, but he couldn't know for sure that he would never see his children again.

[blooming-periwxnkle]

It's kinda crazy when you think about how Ming Yi is basically the less ghastly version of He Xuan. And he was there by Shi Qingxuan's side for centuries, and yet Shi Wudu never found out. He never recognized him.

Imagine being in He Xuan's shoes - like this guy pretty much ruined his life and is indirectly responsible for the deaths of everybody who was dear to him. Shi Wudu rarely descends. But on the eve of Hanlu, he went down to check if he really died or not. He Xuan remembered his face. It probably haunted him during his times at Mt Tonglu, but when he finally meets this person, there is nothing on his face, no shock or horror.

He forgot him, forgot the face of the boy whose life he ruined.

He never bothered to remember. As if he never had a life.

It kind of reminds me of this scene from a manga called Yona of the Dawn. The protagonist is a princess who's on the run. She had lived a sheltered life and was trying her best to adjust to her new life. One day, she had to hunt a fawn for food, and one of her friends asked her if she would be okay with watching it, and she replied that she isn't. It's still hard for her. But she said that in the palace, thousands of animals were slaughtered every day to feed the royal family, and she never paid attention to it. But now, if she averts her eyes, it would be like refusing to acknowledge that the poor creature had a life.

Shi Wudu ruined his life for the sake of his brother, but let alone remorse, he even forgot what he looked like. He was there by his brother's side for centuries, and yet it never struck him, not until the moment his survival was on the line. If he was guilty, would it have changed anything? Would it bring He Xuan's family and the life he lost back? No, but at least it would ensure that his life meant something, anything.

And even after he recognizes him, his first reaction still is not guilt, not remorse. But a question, "You're alive?", perhaps an indirect way of saying, 'did I make a mistake that day?' Or 'did I fail to clear such an important evidence of my crime?'

The person whose life and afterlife is a consequence of his crime, the first thing he says to him is that.

"Noble people really are forgetful'', and He Xuan really meant it. He experienced it himself. For centuries.

[theriverbeyond]

is anyone gonna match my freak (i think John Gaius should smoke a bowl with the traitor Baru Cormerant)

[nat-20s]

I think the reason that Jonmartin works so well as a romantic subplot is because in his heart of hearts Jon is an Austenian main male love interest that falls for the poor poet and probably spends too much time thinking about the intimacy of hand holding and Martin is aware that he's in a horror but DESPERATELY trying to change his genre to romcom as much as he can. They're perfect for each other.

[biboomerangboi]

Beefleaf are great because they have the potential to be every kind of Shakespeare play at the same time.

[ifyourereadingthisblinktwice]

just finished the poppy war trilogy what the FUCK WAS THATTTT

[mhaynoot]

the poetics of sp's involvement in 1863rd is just ... there's no words to capture the how retrospectively tragic it is. sp is the oldest being in the story. his tragedy has stopped being told but the story was still continuing off the page, years and years and even more unending years of being trapped without resolution, blocked behind the wall. he wants to die but cannot.

hsy's plan was to make 1863 yjh sleep forever. while it is not true death obviously, it will have been the closest to death any yjh has ever gotten (besides 0th who still turned away from it). not death, not regression, but sleep. it is only the domain of the dreams that will let him escape the cruel reality of his unreality and the silent god who will continue to watch over him forever so long as it was this man, yjh.

an important recurring symbol/motif in orv is dreams and there are several important themes linked to dreams i want to discuss.

first one is pretty obvious: dreams as escapism, as a way to desperately wish for a better life, wanting desperately to be saved from a ruined world. ala 1863rd yjh's wish for death and the oldest dream's wish for the characters to become real, to save him. as such, dreams represent a desperate plea for salvation.

and this might be a reach but i would still like to argue that it is the character's belief of their own hopelessness that lead to dreams but also perpetuates an unending cycle. wanting to be saved but also not being able to believe that you're worthy of being saved, that nothing / no one would / should save you. this duality is what leads me to the second theme: in their endless cycle being trapped and neither dead nor living, dreams are but another form of regression.

kdj becomes the oldest dream, the willing lonely god who could only ever dream of everyone's happiness but his own. he had seperated himself from ever reaching out and watching 1864th worldline where all his loved ones are and where he knows he would have been tempted to return. so symbolically, he interferes with 0th yjh and, as his stardusts falls away, he watches all the regressions and yjh. always yjh. his dream. in the end, the train that traps him is himself.

but a final point i want to touch on is this:

it is only when they get off the train and reach their epilogue, does sp finally achieve liberation, does the oldest dream finally end (become free). the dream has ended and into the waking cruel world, they become characters no longer having found each other at last. this was sp's ■■. and that's what i meant by the poetics of it all. the happiest, gentlest of epilogues: the ending of the oldest dream.

[queenoftheimps]

Idle thought, but watching The Terror and reading all the analyses of its themes around hubris/colonialism/greed and how it leads to desperation under tragedy makes me think someone could probably make a pretty fascinating series about the Donner Party

[tokyo-daaaamn-ji-gang]

*bangs fist on table* WE COULD'VE HAD HIM WEARING A CAT MASK!????

[weregonnabecoolbeans]

I haven’t said this enough recently but I’d like to take a moment to remind everyone…or idk…whoever sees this post…

That I love Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Thank you.

[orphiclovers]

The amount of influence that random unfindable fanfictions I read years ago have on the way I look at fiction in general is INSANE