#the showrunners have stated that they don't follow the sets when it comes to the stories they tell

[redysetdare]

Hi, do you have any theories about Rumble and Savage? How do you think they could appear on the show? I personally like the idea of ​​Rumble and Savage looking for Macaque to get back at him for abandoning them.

but I would love to hear your theories/ideas on Rumble and savage

I'm guessing you're talking about the characters who only appeared in the toy sets. I think they were just supposed to be stand in's for macaque's shadow clones tbh i don't think there's actually anything all that important about them outside of the toy sets. They don't appear in the show and so they aren't canon to it. I don't see a reason to theorize about characters that don't actually exist and thus don't have any evidence to use to build a theory on anyways.

Though maybe the word you were looking for is headcanon? That seems a bit more fitting than theories.

[mejcinta]

Here's some not so coincidental moments in Dick and Kory's scenes this season that I found pretty interesting given that Greg Walker has said Dick and Kory are Mom and Dad of the Titans (team leads) and the romantic endgame of the show.

1. The Rude Awakening.

When the conflict for both characters unravels in season 1 they're both rudely awakened from their state of rest (sleep for Dick and consciousness for Kory) to realize that they have a problem on their hands: Bruce giving up Gotham and Blackfire getting to Kory. What's even more interesting is that these two scenes follow each other.

2. The Flying Graysons.

This was a deliberate scene. The Flying Graysons is a symbol for Dick Grayson's heart and soul. His innocence, his desire for family and his desire to be better. Dick gazes at this picture with longing and nostalgia when he returns to Gotham. Kory as well gazes at Dick's picture (heart and soul) with fascination, with a desire to know him and understand him better. This is also a moment of shared loss as both Dick and Kory have lost their parents, but from the way they look at the picture you can tell there's a need to build what was broken and take back the belief in family and love that was so rudely snatched from them. 😭😭😭

3. Leaving and Coming In.

VERY interesting that the writers chose to follow up the scene of Dick leaving Barbara's office with Kory entering his room, eh? I believe there's more to this picture than what it seems, especially because of the timing.

Barbara still is an embodiment of Dick's past no matter how you look at it and this season is about Dick rising above his past. Like I said before, the bedroom is like a symbol of Dick's vulnerability and his heart; the part he keeps secret.

But Kory is out here among his things, taking a closer look at what makes him tick, gazing at his Flying Graysons picture...while Barbara and Dick reserve their interactions to strictly professional as she deliberately blocks him from her heart. They're setting up Kory as being the more emotionally open one to Dick which is a sharp contrast to how Babs is locking him out. It's all very telling and very obvious at this point. All Dick and Kory need are more scenes together and we'll see. 😉

4. Parents.

When it comes to teaming up, Dick will take Kory with him despite of knowing about the friction between Hank and Dawn. Many people poked good fun at how they looked like parents in this shot but something else that needs your attention is that framed picture of a parent and his seemingly inter-racial son. Could it be a hint for Mar'i and Jake being on their way when Dickkory build a life together in the future when Rachel and Gar are a grown and off on their own?? 🥺🥺🥺 This is really quite something and it makes sense that it's a clue because the showrunners have said Dickkory are endgame.

It feels like a sneaky way of saying Dick and Kory are each other's futures and a new beginning; a new family. I'm honestly so stoked, and it'll be great if this is indeed a Mar'i and Jake Grayson reference. 💓💕

Nothing is a coincidence in media messaging, you mark my words. These are all very delightful clues to spot.

Don't be impatient with the pacing of the show. Slowburns take time. And you need time for characters to develop individually and emotionally, so that their getting together will feel earned, legitimate and appropriate.

[spiftynifty]

How come it seems like lm and jds can talk more candidly about their intentions regarding other ships like allurance and even k/l but not sheith? I don't understand why they can clarify things like allurance and how it was there from the beginning or flat out state that they never intended for k/l to be a thing, but when it comes to the topic of shiro and keith they won't just clarify what they did or did not intend/want their relationship to be? I'm confused by it. :(

Ooof this is an excellent question and I suspect a complicated one. 

First off, they can be candid about Allurance because 1) it’s a hetero couple (and therefore “acceptable” to executives and conservative parents) and 2) it was strongly implied and built up for almost the entirety of the series before they officially, canonically, became a couple. There’s no ambiguity there. They can be candid about kl because Allurance technically “kills” the ship by virtue of existing, but more importantly kl is the fanship that they have been directly asked about on more than one occasion and probably straight up badgered about it more times than we’re aware of. When your production studio gets blackmailed in the hopes of making k/l canon, that ship is being brought to your attention. 

Also, Afterbuzz is run by kl fans who have anti-like tendencies. They angle kl questions in nearly every interview, and I was pretty miffed by the way in this interview they heavily, heavily implied that only Sheith fans hated s8 “because their ship didn’t become canon” and yet in the same breath talked about how Allurance wasn’t good and came out of nowhere (something JDS delightfully shut down). In the live chat for the recent interview, people from all ship alignments kept begging the hosts to ask about why SK’s friendship wasn’t included in the final season. In the saltiest tone you can imagine, one of the more vocal kl hosts decided to answer the question (”they helped each other grow and evolve and since they’ve done that, we don’t need to see their friendship anymore, it got lots of screentime in other seasons”) and never let the showrunners actually speak on it, instead moving swiftly to another topic that aligned more with the hosts’ own interests. It was almost like she was afraid of what the answer would be. Was she afraid they’d say “well actually, on the matter of that, Sheith was our intended endgame” or was she trying to save them from having to talk about something NDAs prevented them from talking about? 

So why CAN’T they talk Sheith? I have a few theories. This gets long and a little rambly, so I’ve thrown it under a cut. 

1) Don’t ask, don’t tell. Except for post-s7, the showrunners themselves have never been asked about Sheith’s relationship in an interview. I think most Sheiths were afraid of rocking the boat and potentially upending a SK endgame by drawing too much attention to it. We were/are definitely the quieter side of the primary vld ships and honestly most of us were not expecting our ship to be canon. 

But vld ships and the ship wars are notorious across geekdom for vitriol and death threats, and the creators didn’t want to add any fodder to either side. In the middle of production it would have benefited no one for the EPs to say, “yeah sheith is meant to be viewed romantically” or “no, we can’t go back and change the story to make that true”. Either one would have resulted in an uptick of harassment from antis towards them, towards other fans. And nevermind the production side where DW/WEP weren’t ready for even a hint of m/m until right before s7 dropped. It was only AFTER they got the greenlight on gay Shiro that showrunners could finally be vague and say “some people will interpret [sk] as brothers, others will say it’s 100% confirmed they’re in a relationship”. Which is, in my opinion, a pretty interesting way to respond to that question. But again, if that interviewer hadn’t been brave enough to ask it, I highly doubt it’s something that the showrunners themselves would have ever brought up.

2) Sheith was actually intended to be romantic, but was blocked. We know now that Adam being greenlit as Shiro’s boyfriend happened right before (like a week or less) before s7 dropped. This was a show that had been in production for almost 4 years by this point, and the showrunners stated they picked Shiro to be their rep early on in the process. When they planted that idea in executive’s heads is anyone’s guess, as is when the proper fight for it began. I suspect their immediate team of directors, writers, and in-house producers were well aware and supportive, but kicking that up the chain was another story. I also have a suspicion that it wasn’t until season 6 was complete that the matter was brought up because greenlighting everything we got in s6 knowing Shiro was gay the whole time puts a lot of eyes on Keith. 

And really, it was Keith who was the problem all along. 

In every version of Voltron, Keith is the main protagonist. He’s the leader of the team, the primary “image” of Voltron, and thus, certain things about him need to be maintained. I’m not sure if this is sheer coincidence or not, but he is the only person on the team who stayed visually the same to his OG counterpart. All of the other paladins have gone from white dudes (and a white lady) to POC, or have had a genderswap. There is much debate about Keith’s race with people creating their own headcanons but ultimately Keith can pass as white. While the handbook states Lance is Cuban, Hunk is half black-half Samoan, Shiro is Japanese and even Pidge gets “Italian”, Keith is just listed as... human. Which is a surefire way to not upset fans who have HC’d him as POC while also not-NOT saying he’s white. Everybody “wins”. 

In addition I’m confident a major stipulation of the OG Voltron owners (the “gatekeepers”, as a few of the VAs and the showrunners themselves have darkly alluded to) was that Keith could not be LGBT. We know now he was meant to end up with Acxa, a fact that was already obvious to many of us from their Weblum meetcute. But that relationship was never scripted. 

Setting aside the fact that the OG Voltron owners (WEP) didn’t want Keith to be LGBT, I’m sure executives at Dreamworks would have struggled with the idea as well. Shiro stans can come at me all they like about this but Keith was always meant to be the primary protagonist of the show, of every version of Voltron, and making the main, masculine hero of a well-trodden, oft-rebooted franchise gay/bi would have been an ENORMOUS move for animation. Making him end up with the other main, masculine hero would have honestly broken the internet and the minds of countless conservative executives, and been a major benchmark not just for cartoons, but ALL media. Animation often trails behind TV and movies in terms of social progress because something something “protect the chillllldrennn”. And right now I’m struggling to think of a popular live action TV show, or movie, with an older audience, where the main masculine hero is lgbt, and in a relationship with the other main masculine hero. Feel free to offer me examples in replies but the fact that I’m struggling to think of anything is pretty telling. In short, if this revolutionary move still isn’t happening for the live action 13+ audience, asking for it to happen on a cartoon with a 7-11yo boy demographic is like asking for the moon. Keith couldn’t be gay, because immediately it would have been obvious to anyone that he was already very much in love with the other LGBT character on the show. Hell, it’s already pretty obvious in canon that this is the case, and dodging the question about his sexuality is dodging the confirmation that he’s in love with Shiro. 

I’d like to believe that one of the solutions to the Adam Problem that was proposed was that KEITH ends up with Shiro, but they were laughed out of the office. The pair’s incredibly close bond aside, it would have been the absolute easiest fix production-wise. They already have their shared history doing most of the legwork, all that’d have to be changed is:

-adding Shiro to the L/K scene in 8x01, just sitting there as Keith encouraged Lance.-Re-recording a couple of Shiro’s lines in 8x05 to make him seem at least somewhat upset that Keith was kidnapped-Showing Keith and Shiro hanging out in the video episode. You could just use the shot of Keith and Pidge but replace Pidge with Shiro.

And the best part is, you could change just one or two of these and then do the wedding epilogue you always intended (but write something that doesn’t insist Shiro retired) but with Keith instead of Rando. Not to mention, there is a slight, slight possibility there was a S/K scene (or two) cut along the way. I strongly disagree with the theories that have floated around about the “massive edits” done to s8, but I think there could be truth to the idea that a Sheith scene was cut to make room for Crew Member, or an effort made to downplay the Sheith friendship that comes off way more intimate than any interaction Shiro has with [man]. It’s more likely that SK scenes never existed at all in this season as the showrunners had to cave to pressures to “have more action”, had no idea what to do with Shiro besides relegate him to a stiff cardboard general, and perhaps had to follow strict instructions about the kind of friendliness an out & proud gay man could show to the men he’d enjoyed good interactions with before. 

All this to say, the Sheith battle is messy. It’s fine for the showrunners to say “getting the greenlight for Shiro was a battle” because it’s a battle they won that makes everyone look pretty good. It makes Dreamworks look like they Learned Something and are going to be more open to LGBT content in future properties. It makes WEP look not-terrible because they can add “allowed a character who wasn’t really an OG Voltron character to be gay” to their list of “generous” things they allowed for this re-envisioning of their property. It’s self-congrats all around.

Blocking Sheith has the opposite effect. It reveals that WEP is homophobic because they could allow Pidge to be a girl and Allura to be black but making the hero a non-straight man? That’s TOO FAR. It reveals that Dreamworks higherups are homophobic because they weren’t ready for two LGBT protagonists, just one plus a background character with 3 lines who is literally never named. No one wins, and to be asked about Shiro and Keith and be honest about it could potentially be the showrunners saying, “god, we wanted to, but we were blocked at every single turn”. And thus DW and WEP are the outed villains of the story.

3) Shiro and Keith were never meant to be read as romantic. The showrunners don’t say anything because there’s simply nothing to say. Sometimes the most incredible ships are happy accidents. Sometimes people genuinely don’t realize what they’re doing. I felt a little disheartened watching the AB interview because the way they talked about wanting to include more [man], or how they “hoped viewers would read between the lines” re:Shiro/Curtains, was so casual and flippant it was like they genuinely thought most people would be fine with Shirando if only there had been more scenes between them, as though completely severing Shiro’s relationship with Keith and instead only showing scenes of Shiro bonding with a new character would come off as a good move rather than a baffling (and somewhat hurtful) one. 

I do believe that certain directors were absolutely fans of the pair and angled in what they could. Chris Palmer is behind the famous “shiro loves you baby” art and responsible for the eps that include Shiro’s gay panic, the Sheith hug, “As many times as it takes”, Shiro falling into Keith’s arms, and “We have to stop, Shiro’s out there!!” among others. Steve Ahn was the director behind 2x01, 3x01 with heavily grieving Keith, Blade of Marmora, and the episode where Keith screams Shiro’s name so loud he astral projects and then Shiro holds his hands over the controls. He also got really soft when he talked about the pair in an episode of Form Podcast (before JDS kinda hastily shut him down). And even Eugene Lee, he directed The Black Paladins which is an episode so Sheith I still can’t believe it’s real, and 7x01, the other episode so Sheith I can’t believe it’s real. All three of these guys were the original series directors, which is pretty inchresting. 

But that doesn’t mean the showrunners were necessarily onboard. Maybe it was really important to them to show a positive male friendship since that never happens in media, just as they felt having Allura sacrifice herself was a powerful feminist move. However the thing I keep circling back to is JDS’ early interview about The Winter Soldier and how if he ever got the chance to do that, he hoped it would be in the future when things could be more progressive, hinting that he wanted to throw more overt romantic undertones if he himself ever got a fight like that to write or direct. It’s pretty interesting that he wrote the Black Paladins, which mirrors the Stucky fight in Winter Soldier so much that it actually rotoscopes one of Bucky’s moves. I’d also point out that JDS’ favorite characters are Shiro and Keith, and I find it impossible to be a fan of both and not also be a fan of how much they love each other, and how much that love straddles the line between romantic love and friendship.

This got long, but I hope it was helpful. The likely final-ever showrunner interview will be on Let’s Voltron sometime this month, and I do hope that now that the series is over someone is brave enough to ask them, “so... what was going on between Shiro and Keith? In a perfect world, what would have happened there?”. In a way it doesn’t matter though. There is always the risk of them saying “nothing was going on there” and us agonizing over whether that was a lie to protect their careers or bald-faced honesty in the face of an NDA or fucks-given that might have expired with their contracts. 

But I think the best we can hope for is the same situation that happened with the Avatar creators and that live action movie: 3 years from now when the NDAs are well and truly expired, JDS & LM may come out and say, “SO, on the matter of Shiro and Keith, it’s time to come clean.”

[effervescentluminescence]

This isn’t really an engagement in the discourse on my part (i'm white and don't feel qualified to claim whether or not something is antiblack)—I just think OP brings up a few interesting points that speak to the state of media in general, i.e. for anything set between 1619 and pre-abolition in the west, chattel slavery will exist in that world, and wealth will certainly have ties to enslaving people and there’s really no elegant/fully acceptable way to get around that.

I do have thoughts related to this statement:

“I think the choice to not explicitly depict the relationship between piracy and the transatlantic slave trade—especially in regards to Stede and Blackbeard—made sense for their tone, but ended up being an oversight in their worldbuilding. If the showrunners continue into s2, they should bring in Black/Afro-caribbean consultants to give insight on what those depictions might be, if addressed.”

I know that there are at least two Black writers in the room, and John Mahone, who is Afro-Puerto Rican, wrote “The Best Revenge is Dressing Well,” which is probably why this episode is so…perfect. Somewhere someone expanded more on the demographics in the writers room, but I can't find it, and David Jenkins did tweet all their twitter accts, so anyway, I’ll claim that it's pretty obvious that no one was hired for purposes of tokenism. Based on various interviews, Jenkins seems to actually give all the writers space to contribute in a meaningful way (which isn’t always the case even if the writers room was just white guys). Basically, I doubt that the issue was never brought up and addressed, and I think that vague-ing around the slave trade was a conscious decision on the part of the writers as a group.

I think this excerpt from the Verge interview with David Jenkins supports my thinking:

Making this choice comes with some complicated side effects, which I'm not going to address here since they have been elsewhere, but one benefit that I haven’t seen anyone talking about is that, if we get hand-wavy around the existence of chattel slavery in this pirate fantasy world, we can ignore all those really gross power dynamics that should exist in many of the show's relationships, and then the Black actors and writers can engage as much or as little with this history as they want when they are creating character backstories and informing motivations. I think we as consumers forget or have no idea that acting is actually really hard and emotionally taxing work, and, if you're going to be doing a swashbuckler romantic comedy that draws from the aesthetics of the 18th and 19th centuries but keeps to largely modern sensibilities, why not let the BIPOC actors in on the fun, so they can think about that history an amount that doesn't deviate that much from whatever their baseline is (or maybe even is less than usual).

I have thought a lot about other solutions besides "never look directly at the thing" regarding the show's treatment of the history of the transatlantic slave trade, but everything I've come up with would change the spirit of OFMD enough that I don't think it would be recognizable. I do think a version of this show (same heart, different set dressing) could have been done in space or in pre-history or in another universe or whatever and been successful, since the issues they highlight (toxic masculinity, succumbing to societal pressure over following your heart, overcoming self-doubt as a means of personal growth) are pretty universal and could probably be presented without too much exposition/worldbuilding, which is a comedy-killer. The nice thing about using a genre like the swashbuckler is that since it has ties to the real world, you don't have to do so much worldbuilding and there are tropes and expectations of the genre that you can either use or subvert, but like OP says, there are a lot of problems with the pirate-swashbuckler genre, but everyone really likes pirates, do we need to cancel pirates? Aaaaaahhhhhhh

Anyway, I think this whole thing is pretty interesting from an artistic standpoint, because when we're creating, we are constantly making choices as to what to include and what to omit and thinking about what unseen forces are at work. This illustrates that it's irresponsible to omit things that are problematic (ugh I don't wanna use that word here bc it feels like i'm describing the transatlantic slave trade as "problematic" what an understatement but you know what I mean) without any rationale as to why that decision was made.

This is sea shanty discourse all over again.

There's been some posts saying that Our Flag Means Death is antiblack for being ahistorical. But a fair amount don't sit well with me, a black person. So I'm gonna pull an ADHD and go on several tangents about it. Also, marginalized people aren't a monolith and when I see "listen to black people" from nonblack people, I get sus about who is doing the loudest talking and how, why, etc.

Also this is mostly about the show textually. Taika had a lot of creative influence on OFMD (and he directed the pilot episode) but he is not the creator of the show. David Jenkins is the main show runner, producer, and writer. That said, I'm gonna read more on both of their track records because I did see some important points that were made by others, so bear with me.

Anyway, this post will have heavy spoilers!

TL;DR Personally, I don't think this specific comedy/romance show is antiblack for choosing to not highlight the transatlantic slave trade in relation to their reimagined protagonists. However, OFMD feeds into the swashbuckler genre and I definitely think we should deconstruct that as a whole. Also I wish more people would put their righteous anger into substantially supporting Black creators.

The MEAT

OFMD doesn't shy away from depicting white people as racist: the British Navy refer to Stede's BIPOC crew members as "savages" when aboard Stede's ship. The show acknowledges the atrocities committed against the Native populations of the Caribbean and American mainlands. The tribesman who guards Stede literally says, "you [white people] keep killing us." Nor does it shy away from colonizers exoticizing people from lands that are now former victims of imperialism. Oluwande and Frenchie's scam of being an African prince relies on of the ignorance of the foppish, rich white people that they swindle.

But OFMD is not a documentary, it is a comedy/adventure show with a romantic subplot. It genre bends quite frequently, occasionally dropping the comedy to have serious moments. But the main characters are a white englishman and a white barbadian being played by a white new zealander and a maori new zealander. The conceit is that none of this is supposed to be taken seriously. No one's accent is the same. A man gets weird with some seagulls on more than one occasion. We are having fun in muppet treasure island. There are dummy mechanics in use. This is not a place of honor.

I went into watching OMFD with mental blinders fully up, because I knew pirates + caribbean = oh potential yikes. But as it progressed through S1, the fear that slavery would be depicted in an upsetting way slowly dissipated. And then it just wasn't there really. I think the choice to not explicitly depict the relationship between piracy and the transatlantic slave trade—especially in regards to Stede and Blackbeard—made sense for their tone, but ended up being an oversight in their worldbuilding. If the showrunners continue into s2, they should bring in Black/Afro-caribbean consultants to give insight on what those depictions might be, if addressed.

The swashbuckling genre is distinctive due to 1) shenanigans on a boat 2.) romance. A lot of OFMD is about the romanticization of pirate life, but it also challenges those romantic notions directly. Add two historical figures with radically opposing methods of piracy and THERE WAS ONLY ONE BOAT. That's not true, there was a max of three boats. And you end up with an untapped hotbed of creative potential. The Gentleman Pirate was a narrative figure in Stede's own lifetime and Blackbeard is a goddamn legend. There's only so much influence you can draw before people claim you're blatantly ripping something off.

Slavery is a pretty hard sell, generally. Like, commit a whole episode and tread lightly from there, hard sell. But I wouldn't be surprised if there were efforts to address it in media rez, that just didn't make it to the final cut (but this is me speculating.) TV shows are not made in vacuums, hundreds of people were involved in this production. My point is that sometimes media is not here to trick you into believing that real-life terrible people were actually good and admirable. (Sometimes it is.)

But I feel strongly that OMFD expects you to be on the side of the characters of color from the jump. Catch the implicit, "Can you believe these white people?" in the way they roll their eyes and sigh and give each other looks. The way Oluwende and Frenchie include the African servants(?) into their scheme in Ep. 5. The way the Elder pities Stede when he has a breakdown, but at the same couples Stede with every other white person who's attacked the tribe. I think OFMD seeks to depower the image we have of colonizers as inhuman forces of nature, when they were all very painfully human.

Why did fans not background check this show?

I knew the history of Stede Bonnet prior to watching OFMD, which I'm guessing was not the majority experience (?) I was interested in watching the show when I first heard about it, mainly because the costumes looked nice.

From the number of "Here's the TRUTH about Stede Bonnet" posts circulating, it's clear he's a relatively un-talked about figure. Honestly, that's fine. It happens to be that we will not learn about everything about everyone in human history. But the history of piracy + the slave trade—THAT should've been more widely known. When there's a widespread deficit in knowledge, that's a systematic issue more than an individual one.

That said, if you do not currently connect piracy with slavery, hello, here's your wake up call.

You should be able to infer that Stede, being landed gentry in Barbados, gained his wealth from slave labor. That these characters were inspired by real people who existed in and benefited from a slave labor economy. That chattel slavery ballooned during this time period. The show does not go out its way to acknowledge this. And because it didn't, where does that leave us? Filling in the gaps? Doing our own research?

(The answer is yes.)

It's Just Hamilton 2.0

I didn't make this connection like others did, and at first I was annoyed by it but now I'm kind of like. Yah.

25 year old me understands that the problems at the root of Hamilton extend deep into the entertainment industry: the way white historical figures continue to be romanticized, who we let spearhead big productions, and the histories of actual Black historical figures that were completely excluded from the narrative.

19 year old me thought, "Omg, Black people in major broadway roles! Songs that I and other Black theater kids can perform! An accessible way for me to learn more about American history!" I was in a black theatrical ensemble in college. We had that play m e m o r i z e d.

25 year old me looks at OFMD right now and thinks, "Omg, a show that shows a smart Black woman in a compelling role, a fat, Black man as a compelling love interest, and show that openly says White imperialism was fueled by greed and ignorance. Also!! Good LGBT+ rep!! HOLY SHIT!" 25 year old me also understands that we cannot scrub away the scars left by colonialism. Not even in silly Blorbo show. All media will become problematic with time, and we will never be able to get ahead of it.

But for now I would love for folks to take a step back and touch grass because fanon woobifies historical figures waaaay worse than canon does. Lin did not curse us with Miku Binder Jefferson. Y'all did that yourselves and I mine eyes will never be scrubbed of the memory. Also the lack of love towards dark skinned characters does not go unnoticed don't think I don't see y'all sleeping on spanish jackie.

If you don't want to consume OMFD, cool! Please seek out and endorse media actually helmed by Black people. If someone wants to present a counter-argument to this that isn't an angry stream of consciousness and has paragraph breaks, I will weep for joy.

[faithfelled-blog]

                PLEASE  NOTE  :     this  post  deals  more  with  the  medical     &&     firearm  side  of  things     &&     touches  very  little  on  fan theories     (     such  as  :     bethfoot,  beth  as  the  cure     /     being  bitten,   dawn  not  being  the  shooter     )     ,  missing  scenes     (     such  as  the  scene  caught  being  filmed  of  beth  driving  away  from  grady or  whatever  was  shot  in  the  white  houses     )      parallels  between  characters,  illusions, the  cagey  actions  of  cast     &&     crew     &&     is  not  meant  to  attempt  to  force  anyone  into  believing  that  beth  is  still  alive     &&     return  to  the  show.  if  you  think  she  is  completely  dead,  that  is  100%  okay.  the  main  purpose  of  this  post  is  to  basically  show  i'm  not  attempting  to  make  an  impossible  thing  possible  with  my  portrayal.  everything  covered  in  this  post  comes  from  people  in  the  healthcare  field     &&     people  knowledgeable  in  firearms  as  well  as  my  own  research.

                LOCATION  :     contrary  to  popular  belief,  head  shots  are  not  automatic  kills.  depending  on  the  angle  of  the  shot     (     something  no  one  is s ure  of  due  to  the  use  of  dutch  angles     &&     theories  that  dawn  is  not  the  shooter     )     it  is  entirely  possible  that  the  bullet  curved  along  her  skull     &&     missed  her  brain  entirely.  in  fact,  the  location  of  the  entry  wound  is  where,  should  you  be  shot  in  the  head,  you  would  want  to  be  hit  as  the  chance  at  survival     &&     even  minimum  complications  is  high.  even  if  the  bullet  did  not  curve,  the  parts  of  the  brain  potentially  hit  are  not  life  threatening  or  even  incredibly  important  compared  to  other  areas     &&     as  the  brain  is  remarkably  elastic     &&     able  to  heal  itself,  it's  possible  surgery  would  not  even  be  required.

                       if  it  was,  indeed,  dawn  who  pulled  the  trigger,  it  almost  completely  proves  that  the  bullet  curved  at  some  point.  given  the  low  level  of  the  gun,  the  bullet  would  have  exited  at  the  top  of  her  head  as  opposed  to  the  back.  it  is  surprising,  alone,  that  she  managed  to  hit  beth  in  the  forehead  instead  of  under  the  chin  which,  almost  always,  would  lead  to  an  instant  kill  shot.

                   THE  BULLET  :     dawns  weapon  is  a  9mm,  one  of  the  smallest   shown  on  the  show.  small  bullet  means  small  entrance  wound  means  small  exit  would.  typically  head  shots  on  the  show  are  a  lot  bloodier  but  they  are  often  done  with  ricks  gun  which  is  a  fucking  monster.  the  smaller  caliber  also  means  smaller  damage  done.  contrary  to  what  a  lot  of  people  say,  there  is  no  brain  matter  when  beth  is  shot.  what  you  see  if  blood     &&     likely  bone  from  her  skull.  dawn,  on  the  other  hand,  is  turned  into  a  mess.  the  caliber  of  daryls  gun  is  larger  so  the  wound  is  larger     (     it  is  also  possible  that  given  what  happened  a  moment  or  two  before,  his  aim  was  a  little  off,  his  hand  a  little  unsteady  which  would  also  cause  great  damage.     )

                    the  fact  that  there  is  an  exit  wound  is  a  good  thing,  though  it  might  not  seem  that  way.  it  means  that  the  bullet  is  not  ricocheting  around  her  skull,  working  to  turn  her  brain  to  mush.  that,  certainly,  would  have  killed  her.

                HERAPIN  :     beth  was  given  at  least  one  large  dose  of  herapin  at  grady  :     when  she  wakes,  there  is  a  1,000  ml/cc  bag  attached  to  her  iv  stand.  herapin  is  an  anticoagulant,  a  blood  thinner     &&     truthfully,  there  is  no  reason  from  what  we  have  been  given  in  terms  of  information  for  her  to  receive  it.  while  it  could  potentially  be  used  to  prevent  blood  clots  after  a  bone  break,  such  breaks  are  typically  found  in  the  legs     &&     while  you  could  argue  it  is  used  for  her  arm,  the  type  of  cast  used                    soft,  padded,  removable     &&     replaced  throughout  her  time  at  grady                    suggests  that  the  injury  on  her  arm  is  not  that  bad.  even  a  fracture,  as  it  is  said  to  be,  would  require  a  different  sort  of  cast  as  opposed  to  one  designed  for  mobility.

                  the  bag  used  is  also  suspect  as  it  is  abnormally  large.  while  there  are  bags  that  large,  they  are  typically  used  for  accute  stroke  victims.  beths  fractured  wrist     &&     "  superficial  head  wound  "     would  not  warrant  such  a  large  dose,  especially  since  grady  is  all  about  conserving  precious  resources.  this  fact  helped  cement  the  theory  that  beth  had  been  bit     &&     was  grady's  attempt  to  find  a  cute  that  doesn't involve  amputation.

                  the  use  of herapin  is  also  possibly  the  reason  her  facial  injuries  were  so  heavily  stitched.

               BLOOD  :     regardless  of  the  herapin,  there  was  very  little  blood  for  the  type  of  injury  sustained     (     one  theory  is  that  it  is  not  beths  blood  at  all,  but  rather  dawns     )     which  backs  up  the  curved  trajectory  theory.  head  wounds  are  notorious  for  heavy  blood  flow,  even  a  simply  cut  has  the  capability  of  making  you  look  like  a  murderer  or  murder  victim.  however,  the  bleeding  shown  appears  to  be  minimal  which  suggests  clotting.  in  the  handful  of  moments  from  the  gun  shot  to  seeing  a  glimpse  of  the  body,  the  flow  has  slowed.  by  the     (     odd,  contorted     )     positioning  of  beth  post  fall,  we  can  see  that  the  pool  of  blood  is  not  that  large  at  all.

                  this  is  further  backed  up  by  the  view  we  get  when  daryl  carries  her  out  as  well  as  bts  footage.  she  is  not  soaked  in  blood  as  one  would  assume  of  a  head  shot.  rather,  there  is  blood  on  her  forehad,  the  back  of  her  head     &&     very  little  on  her  clothes.  for  a  show  that  seems  to  have  attended  the  school  of  '  MORE  BLOOD  IS  BETTER  '     this  seems  odd.

                  the  slow  of  blood  flow  suggests  clotting  which,  in  turn  suggests  that  she,  at  least  at  that  point,  is  still  alive.  you  do  not  clot  when  you  are  dead.

               GRADY  :     when  someone  asks  someone  else  with  a  knowledge  of  firearms  or  medicine  their  thoughts  of  this  event,  their  first  reaction  tends  to  be  that  the  injury  is  survivable     &&     their  second  tends  to  be  that  even  if  it  wasn't,  she  was  shot  in  the  best  possible  place                    a  miraculously  operational  hospital.  while  we  don't  know  the  extent  of  their  abilities     &&     just  how  operational  grady  really  is,  we  know  there  is  medicine  as  well  as  a  doctor,  one  who  might  feel  so  inclined  to  provide  aid  as     a  )     beth  is  not  a  threat  to  his  position     &&     b  )     despite  their  problems,  it  seems  as  he  was,  to  some  degree,  fond  of  her.  at  the  very  least,  it  is  possible  they  might  feel  guilt  over  what  happened.

                with  an  injury  such  as  hers                    already  clotted,  likely  minimal  to  no  swelling,  an  exit  would  meaning  there  is  not  chunk  of  metal  chilling  in  her  brain  nor  is  there  irreparable  damage                    the  most  important  things  would  be  to  clean  the  site     &&     ensure  there  is  no  development  of  infection.  all  things  that  are  capable  of  being  done  in  even  a  minimally  resourced  hospital  as  long  as  there  is  someone  with  medical  training.

                it's  highly  likely  that,  due  to  it  being  a  head  wound,  no  one  thought  to  check  for  a  pulse.  it's  common,  it  happens.  emotions  are  high,  instincts  tell  you  a  wound  like  that  is  fatal,  you've  spent  who  knows  how  long  protecting  yourself     &&     others  with  the  same  sort  of  attack.  we  know  she  was  removed  from  the  hospital  but  after  is  a  mystery.  immediately  after,  they  skip  ahead,  set  out  with  the  intention  of  having  us  believe  tyreese's  funeral  is  beths,  something  stated  on  live  television.

               there  was  word  of  a  large  herd  in  coda,  nicotero  himself  stating  that  around  500  walkers  were  used.  there's  several  walkers  deliberately  made  up  to  reference  beth     (     as  well  as  tweets  from  grady  actors  about  how  they  might  be  back,  suspicious  wording     &&     actions  from  showrunners     &&     other  actors     )     sparking  a  belief  that  she  might  have  been  left  behind                    possibly  in  a  car  trunk  judging  by  maggies  reaction  to  finding  a  walker  in  the  trunk  of  a  car.  while  it  is  not  ideal,  it  is  not  a  death  sentence.  bodies  are  remarkably  resilient  when  faced  with  trauma.  if  her  head  had  truly  clotted,  it  is  entirely  possible  that  her  body  would  shut  down  to  protect  itself  until  help  arrives  so  long  as  it  does  not  take  forever,

                if  there  had  indeed  been  a  herd,  it's  possible  they  would  have  moved  to  follow  the  group.  likely,  an  officer  or  two  would  have  come  to  dispatch  stragglers  in  order  to  keep  the  area  open  as  it's  not  near  the  elevator  well  where  they're  shown  to  to  use  as  a  dump.  should  they  have  stumbled  across  her  or  even  known  she  had  been  hidden     &&     found  a  pulse  they  would  have  brought  her  inside  for  aid  should  it  be  possible.  despite  the  things  that  went  on  within  the  hospital,  there  were  people  who  seemed  to  genuinely  care  about  helping  others  in  need.

                EFFECTS  OF  INJURY  :     depending  on  how  the  bullet  moved  inside  of  her  skull,  beth  could  face  little  to  no  brain  related  problems  afterward.  there  would  be  no  loss  of  motor  skills,  no  loss  of  verbalization  or  ability  to  read  or  write.  however,  it  is  important  to  note  that  this  is  a  traumatic  injury     &&     the  brain  will  work  to  protect  itself,  which  may  manifest  in  different  ways  :     amnesia  of  differing  degrees,  the  switch  from  primarily  verbal  communication  to  write  or  physical,  an  increase  in  anger  or  violence,  faulty  facial  recognition,  etc.  how  long  effects  such  as  these  last  is  never  certain     &&     may  come     &&     go  demanding  on  the  quality  of  life                    meaning  being  alone  on  the  road  would  likely  be  worse  than  settling  down  with  others  who  can  aid  her.

                       ideally,  finding  the  group  would  be  best  toward  further  healing  as  the  brain  would  recognize  them     &&     work  to  fill  in  the  gaps,  however  it  could  also  hurt     &&     hinder  depending  on  the  reception  given.  aggravating  her     &&     attempting  to  force  things  could  easily  backfire.  likely,  the  most  effective  way  is  to  allow  her  her  space  to  work  through  things  on  her  own  while  ensuring  that  she  has  someone  watching  her  without  applying  pressure.