#the thoughts are PERCOLATING

[valiantvillain]

Knowing that Manfred will be like a son to Emmrich is gonna make for some interesting fic fuel given that Hadil has two daughters of her own. Just recognizing all the parental cues (and maybe feeling a twinge of jealousy if she perceives he might be better at it than her at times).

[wri0thesley]

arranged marriage jing yuan.....

[vaguely-concerned]

illario 'am I my cousin's keeper' dellamorte. you bash your brother's head in with a rock and now he's sitting across from you at the family dinner table asking you to pass the bread basket like nothing happened, blood running from your hands and down his face as you hand it to him and between you the tablecloth is slowly going from white to arterial red. still everyone keeps eating their lamb stew and talking around you. you killed abel and he just got back up again with a glare of mild annoyance and reproach and the only real curse laid upon you at the end of it all, after everything you did, is of the despite everything it's still you (derogatory) variety. you committed the indelible sin of kinslaying and the furies didn't even check their fucking phones over it because no one has ever taken you seriously a day in their lives before and they're certainly never going to start now with the absolute clown show you just put on lmao. this guy is living a his face all red situation entirely of his own creation except it's somehow also an absurdist comedy at the same time. it's what he deserves (affectionate). but hey I guess in this life we don't get what we deserve we get what we get. you're sheltered and contained by your brother's love whether you want it or not: the guy. ("he's ours". yeah you are you little shit. you're not getting off that easy.) the horror of being forgiven, and with that forgiveness, once more completely drearily irrelevant. the maddening helplessness of mercy. he grew that beard you both joked about. it kind of suits him. you still don't know if it's really him, but the ghost speaks with his voice. hey cousin can you reach the olives from there. yeah. thanks.

[blackjackkent]

Jaheira is Not a Deadbeat

I am, as always, deeply in love with the kids' ambient dialogue while waiting for Jaheira to come inside. And it's time for me to have Opinions.

FIG: I saw her! I swear! RION: Are you sure? Maybe it was just a laborer holding a shaggy grey mop! FIG: Be serious, Rion! Who puts braids on a mop?

FIG: She'll be here any second. Maybe she's sneaking! RION: Doubtful. We'd hear her knees cracking.

And of course my favorite:

RION: Enough, Fig. There's no point getting your hopes up. She'll be back when she's back. FIG: You don't think she will! RION: I know she will. But we'll wait a little longer, if you like.

😭😭😭😭

Rion absolutely knew perfectly well what she was supposed to do from Jaheira's instructions. She just didn't want to. She's been hanging on to the desperate belief that Jaheira was going to walk through the door and make it unnecessary - and, as it turned out, she was right.

OK, fuck it, I'm doing a post about this now. :P

Despite what the Tumblr BG3 fandom would have you believe, Jaheira is not a "deadbeat mom." Is she a parent with emotional constipation issues and way too much time at work? Sure. But so are plenty of other parents on both Toril and Earth. It's SUPER clear from the way all the kids (including Rion) talk to and about her that they LOVE her and she has been an enduring presence in their lives, and that her recent disappearance was both unusual and devastating. 

There are books she reads the kids up in the bedroom! Fig is so excited to announce she's back, indicating that the absence is not a normal occurrence! Jhessem has convinced herself they share a bloodline! Jord got to go to the market with her as a boy! These are not the circumstances of children who do not give a shit about their parent or vice versa!

The devnotes about Jord’s conversation in particular do not show a picture of a man with ill-will towards a mother who felt it customary to abandon him:

JORD: I tended to it. I just let it... thrive in its own independence. You know, same way you raised us. (Devnote: Well meant potshot at his mother, no malice in it) JAHEIRA: I raised you to be a sweet and kind boy. What happened? JORD: I watched what you did instead of listening to what you said. (Devnote: Amused, gently mocking his mother) JORD: This house has taken in a lot of children over the years. Mother dear was sometimes more commander than, well... mother dear. (Devnote: Smiling, explaining why he and Jaheira trade barbs. No criticism, just understated affection)

It is, perhaps, worth noting at this point as well that Jord - and Rion, and Fig, and even Jhessem - speak with that teasing, mocking tone towards Jaheira… but so does she - towards the people she cares most about, including you as the player. The kids are acting as they have learned, and words like this can and should easily be read as gestures of affection. And they clearly trust Jaheira enough to bring this playful rudeness to the fore without fear of it being misconstrued or turning into hostility.

And if they are like Jaheira in this way, they’re also not going to be comfortable showing the real depth of their feelings in front of you, the player character - who is fundamentally a stranger who has just walked into their house. Why would they? Jaheira clearly doesn’t; indeed, even her more serious conversation with Rion only takes place outside where even the other children aren’t listening. 

Perhaps most significantly, I truly don’t understand how anyone can interact with Tate for even a moment and think that Jaheira does not have a deep, if often unspoken, bond with the kids she raises:

JAHEIRA: I hope you were hibernating, little cub, I can’t think of another reason you wouldn’t come down to say hello. TATE: Jaheira! I d-didn’t… didn’t w-want to see if you were r-really dead. They said… JAHEIRA: Who said? TATE: Jord and Rion. They didn’t think I c-could hear… JAHEIRA: You little sneak-thief. Well, they were wrong. Look! Not dead! I just… had a few adventures.

She is so soft and gentle with him in a way that she is with no one else, a way that indicates that she knows him and how his personality is different from the others. And he in turn has clearly been utterly devastated by the idea that she might be gone.

Take, as well, the evidence provided by Minsc when he is present in these conversations! There’s plenty of evidence to indicate the degree to which Minsc is guided by Jaheira’s behavior - to the degree that a doppelganger wearing her face was the key ingredient to binding him temporarily into the Cult of the Absolute. And Minsc - far more comfortable with emotion than Jaheira, at least in some ways - is clearly very affectionate with the kids as well:

FIG: STAND ON YOUR LIVER! MINSC: It is stand and *deliver*, little Fig. Though I think I like yours better. You bellow like a true berserker!

JHESSEM: A fine day to you, saer. Are you known to this court PLAYER: Eh? JHESSEM: Ugh - play along, would you? MINSC: Lord Boo is most pleased to make your acquaintance, my lady! Word of your grace has spread far and wide among the hamster houses. (Devnote: Swooping in to preserve the child's make-believe after the player ruined it.) JHESSEM: Enchanted!

MINSC: Boo is also very well! And happy to see *you*, Rion. RION: And I him. Enough that I’ll let him keep his lumbering, sweaty steed inside.

Would Minsc have taken it upon himself to have such a comfortable relationship with these children if Jaheira did not? I doubt it. He’d be friendly, certainly, but this familiarity goes a great deal beyond that.

And as for Rion herself - it's definitely reasonable to assume that she's had a strained relationship with Jaheira as she's grown older. (I have a lot of headcanons about this for my specific worldstate canon, but even just sticking to the game canon, it definitely seems like that's the case.) But leaving aside that - can you blame her for being upset at this particular moment?

As far as Rion knows, her mom was recently emotionally devastated for an indeterminate reason. (Minsc's apparent death. None of the kids are surprised to see him arrive, so clearly none of them knew he was supposed to be dead - but also there's no way that Jaheira didn't look afterwards like someone hollowed her out from the inside.) Then, without further explanation, she disappeared for what appears to have been several months (again, clearly not standard procedure), and after weeks of no contact, sends a seven-word message indicating she is about to die.

How exactly is Rion supposed to feel at this moment? This is an incredibly emotionally fraught circumstance, and if it's precisely representative of her overall relationship with Jaheira I will eat my hat.

Also - much is made by the game, by Rion, and by the fandom about that seven-word message, but if you try to chastise Jaheira about it, she gives further context:

PLAYER: Only seven? That’s cold, Jaheira. JAHEIRA: The cleric who cast the Sending was wounded. Should I have sobbed on her shoulder?

Jaheira was caught in a no-win situation. Trapped in the Shadowlands, a terrifying ordeal all by itself, with a gaggle of Harpers she had to protect, many of whom had apparently been injured by their encounter with Ketheric Thorm. If the only cleric she had access to was wounded, this was before they reached Last Light and met Isobel. 

Jaheira had ZERO reason to hope at this point - but she also still felt her own inescapable responsibility towards the people under her command. To send a longer and more emotional message would have been to put strain on her injured comrade and also risk making it very clear that she felt the situation was hopeless. The Harpers very well might have broken and scattered, condemning themselves - and, frankly, many others, given their crucial contributions to the final Act 2 fight - to death.

And then she lives, against all her own expectations, and returns to the city. And her dialogue reflects her conflict over this fact as well: 

JAHEIRA: I have given you much reason to think that Harpers hoard secrets like precious stones. But I promise you, this was not some intrigue. Just, ah… plain and simple foolishness. As if by keeping clear of my family, I might keep them clear of the cult in turn. And if this fight were to go against us, well… they had already done their mourning. Why visit it on them twice?

She then goes on to discuss the city and her place in it - and relates it directly back to her kids as well.

JAHEIRA: I was wrong to think I could keep my children from this fight. They’re Baldurian born and bred - the only damned reason I root myself in this place. This city is a cesspit. An open sewer of the soul, that taints us with its filth and churns us out when all that is good has been stripped away. It also happens to be their home - and so it is mine. Ugh. That might be the first time I have said that out loud.

If Jaheira wanted to disappear and leave her kids to handle themselves, she would have done it a long time ago. It wouldn’t be hard; she is fully capable of vanishing into the wilderness never to be seen again - and in truth, there’s every reason to believe she would be considerably happier to do so… except that it would mean leaving her children behind. They “root” her in Baldur’s Gate despite all of her previous inclinations and everything that comes naturally to her, and everything she does is guided ultimately by the need to protect the city because it is their home.

And that, my friends, is love, a love that she shows even if she does not know how to voice it.

TLDR: Jaheira's absence in the Shadowlands was definitely not a normal occurrence, and her kids clearly love her deeply and were devastated by her apparent disappearance. That she is a woman who keeps herself far too busy with work and has no idea how to express her own strong feelings does not, has not, and never will make her a "deadbeat."

[linka-from-captain-planet]

"[Celene accepting Duke Remache's proposal of marriage, which would likely eliminate Gaspard's challenge to her rule] is worth considering," Briala said, interrupting Celene's thoughts. Celene glanced over to see that Briala was refilling her teacup, her eyes still downcast. "It is not." Celene took the elven woman by the shoulder and gently tilted up Briala's chin until those beautiful eyes met hers. "If I tie myself to some lord, it will be for more than good hunting grounds in the Deauvin Flats." Perhaps it was selfish. Perhaps it was a mistake in the Game, even. But Celene had lost enough of her own life to the Empire of Orlais already... as had Briala. Briala's gaze softened. "Majesty."

A favorite moment from The Masked Empire, encapsulating a lot of what I find so compelling about them, particularly the drive-by interruption by Celene's guilty conscience and how much of a colossal understatement "perhaps it was a mistake in the Game" turns out to be

[charlesemersonwinchesteriii]

if Crozier had a nickel for every time someone close to him kept a mortal wound secret from him he'd have two nickels which isn't a lot but it's definitely enough to give him some very specific trauma for the rest of his life

[queenlucythevaliant]

Just to clarify my thoughts (since I've had a number of people ask me about it) re: Job and cursing God. There's a big difference between cursing God as used in Scripture and how we generally would think of cursing at God today.

Cursing someone, in the Bible, has a lot of depth to it. It's not just saying "screw you " in anger, it's got a sense of forsakenness to it. It's the opposite of a blessing, a removal of blessing. If the blessing is presence, your face shining on the person you're blessing, then a curse is absence. In some translations, Job's wife tells him to "renounce God and die," which I honestly think makes a lot more sense to modern ears.

Job says a lot of unpleasant things to and about God in his anger and grief. So do the Psalmists. A number of the Prophets. So can we. God can take it if we come to him with honest expressions of our emotion, including those not-so-nice ones directed at him. I don't think there's anything wrong with getting mad at God and saying, "How dare you, you bastard" when you suffer unjustly. You can say much worse, I think, without sinning, though I don't feel particularly inclined to give examples. But as long as it's an honest expression of your heart, I think you're doing exactly what prayer is for. You're presenting him your heart with an open hand. He can use that. Opposite of love is not hate but indifference, etc.

Job doesn't renounce God. Neither should we. But I think when you're truly suffering, you're gonna have those feelings toward God either way. He'd rather you address them with him directly than try to avoid them. Cursing at God in the modern sense is actually a great way to keep the relationship strong and not end up cursing/renouncing him in the Biblical sense.

[firelxdykatara]

sorry not sorry but i'm actually completely fine with getting a version of katara where she wasn't parentified at eight years old (something that was lampshaded but never actually unpacked or presented as something she shouldn't have gone through, it was in fact not part of her arc to work through this in the original show and the proof of that is in the fact that she was shoved into an endgame 'romance' with someone for whom she'd expressed no romantic interest, even when prompted, and whom she spent a large portion of the show mothering). a katara who still had to deal with the trauma of her mother's death, but without having to become her own mother and her brother's mother on top of it in her place. katara whose struggle with waterbending is rooted in trauma, because her power is what her mother was killed for, her mother who died protecting her. katara who struggles to be taken seriously not because she's a silly girl with magic water but because her brother still sees her as his baby sister who needs him to be strong and she desperately wants him to lean on and trust her because that's what she needs to be able to grow.

and i like getting to see sokka actually behaving like a big brother! sokka whose responsibilities to his people and to his sister are treated seriously, rather than as fodder for jokes. sokka who is still a dork and a goofball and a pragmatist but underneath it all is that fear that he isn't actually good enough--that his family and his village don't actually need him, and who is he if his own sister is grown and doesn't need him anymore either? (sokka who is terrified of katara learning to bend not because he doesn't take her power seriously but because that's exactly what got their mother killed, and it's so, so obvious they've had that fight many times before.)

are they the exact same characters we got in the original cartoon? no, but i never expected them to be and frankly i didn't want them to be. something that every fanfic writer doing an AU or canon divergence has to grapple with is how would having these different experiences change the way this character behaves and interacts with and perceives the world. do i think the live action did it perfectly? no, but then the original show was far from perfect to begin with and i never expected perfection in this adaptation.

what i do think, though, is that i can see where certain creative decisions were made and the resulting ripple effect, i can understand the logic behind them--and i can enjoy the end result, because a lot of it is stuff i've rolled around in my brain in the past anyway. and what i really want to see is where things are headed in the future.

[gnomeniche]

i am a eurylochus (from epic the musical) defender forever.

yes, he made deadly mistakes, but get this: so did odysseus. eurylochus is literally Just A Man, even moreso than odysseus. he doesn’t have the benefits of being a king with a capital-h Heroic fate and connections to the divine. he is trying his best to ensure the crew sees their home again while mediating their dissatisfaction and fear (getting into more interpretive territory but that could be a motive for opening the wind bag: to assuage the crew’s suspicion). eurylochus had all the reason in the world to be suspicious of odysseus’s decisions (many of them have unintended consequences!), and as a second-in-command, it is his Job to ask questions to ensure the leader knows what he is doing before the orders are executed.

and i think a lot of people miss that he has his own character arc implied in the background. he is just as affected by all the tragedy as odysseus. his changes of heart aren’t a sign of him being a hypocrite. he’s changing from everything the crew has been through, trying to learn from his horrible mistake with opening the wind bag by putting more trust in his captain. and the trust gets shattered when the king and captain decides to use his power to destroy his own people. he, odysseus, and rest of the crew ALL saw people die. they all went to the underworld. they all have people waiting at home for them. if you went into ANY of their heads, you would hear the “all i hear are screams / any time i dare to close my eyes” refrain. you need to remember this.

one thing about me is that i will always love a character who is a companion of a very powerful/significant Hero who is a) just an ordinary person caught up in the affairs of Gods and Kings and Monsters and Heroes, b) aware and wary of how much more power the Hero has compared to their less powerful comrades, and c) someone who chooses to put their trust in the Hero regardless but has their faith tested, possibly leading to a myriad of painful outcomes and betrayals depending on how careful/not the Hero is with their regard for their companions. it is an excellent character type. it reminds us that, as much as we put ourselves in the shoes of Mythic Heroes like odysseus, we would more likely be one of the ordinary people helping them and caught in the crossfire.

so, i adore how much epic the musical humanizes the crew and emphasizes their pain and desperation. i’ve read adaptations of the odyssey that make the crew out to be a bunch of idiots who ruined everything because they couldn’t just listen to their ruler. and i feel that type of adaptational decision buys too much into narratives of A King’s Rightful Power and Staying In One’s Place. odysseus can call the crew friends and brothers, and i believe epic’s version of him does see them as that, but he is the king and the captain. there is a power differential no matter what. so i love that i never get the feeling of “ugh what idiots these stupid underlings are” from epic. there are valid reasons why people lose trust in their leader, especially after a horrific war and on a difficult journey where people are dropping like flies. odysseus is still sympathetic, of course, but so are the rest of the men. i feel for all of them, and i think the musical is great for giving odysseus and the crew such a compelling relationship. and i love eurylochus because he embodies that relationship.

[stagefoureddiediaz]

Thinking many thoughts about Buck on a motorbike - especially as the only other time we’ve seen him on one he was being stunt rider Buck in Buck begins and it led to his escape from PA!

Something something about motorbikes representing risk taking but the beginning of new journeys for Buck

[astriiformes]

Guess who signed up for Bad Things Happen Bingo (finally) and will fairly imminently have time to write over Winter Break? This guy!

I don't think I'm planning on taking full-on prompts, and am a little too BttF-brained to write for any other fandoms at the moment, but if there's one of these you'd especially like to see from me, you should definitely let me know.

[macchiatosdumptruck]

Something something Terry owing John a life debt and John never letting him forget it puts Terry beneath him vs Chozen owing Daniel a life debt and using the opportunity to turn his life around for the better

[jamtartandsunshine]

It starts small, inconsequential really. But Roy, he knows the signs, this isn't his first rodeo, as Ted would say. That thought makes him curse beneath his breath. Sounds like something fucking Lasso would say. It makes Roy's blood boil a little. He hates that the fucking cowboy coach has gotten into his head. But the point is, Roy notices. It's small but its there. Roy notices the way Jamie tips back the protein shaker, as he stands in the locker room laughing with the boys, but the liquid inside doesn't actually seem to go down. He notices the way Jamie's hands sometimes tremble as he picks up his water bottle in the gym. Having pushed himself harder then any of the rest of them. He notices the way Jamie jots down notes in a little pocket notebook at lunch. Roy doesn't see what's in it, but he'd bet his championship trophy its that stats of whatever Jamie's eating at lunch. Its not new. Everyone has macros to track, protein goals to reach. Carefully controlled carb intakes, but there's a darkness to Jamie's eyes as he scribbles hastily in his little notebook. Roy knows that look, and a part of him wants to look away, pretend he didn't see it, pretend he doesn't know the signs for what they are. He looks around the room, everyone is eating and laughing, they don't see what Roy is seeing. Most of them barely even spare Jamie a glance. Fuck. Fucking fuckity fuck it. It has to be Roy, it can't be anyone fucking else.

[marley-manson]

Well I succumbed and watched the Pilot and first ep of Due South last night.

Really struck me how central the theme of Fraser's estrangement from his father is in the Pilot. Fraser mentioning that the last time they spoke was Christmas, essentially saying that the only times they speak are presumably brief calls at holidays. Gerard responding with a platitude - "I guess the more you know someone, the less needs to be said" - but it becomes quite clear that Fraser feels he doesn't know Bob at all, and has to learn about him through his journals.

And yet they're cut from the same cloth: "I always thought your father was the last of a kind. I was wrong - you are." And this is tied to the mountie stereotype lol.

Bob and Fraser both repeat the lines, "You're going to shoot a mountie? They'll hunt you to the ends of the earth," and they're both wrong. No one wants to pursue Bob Fraser's death except Fraser, and no one's happy with Fraser for solving the case because it uncovered corruption. He gets exiled for it. Bob and Fraser are the only mounties who "always get their man," lol, and it's because of Bob's neglect in the course of duty that Fraser follows in his footsteps and becomes so similar to Bob. He idealizes his father and wanted to grow up to be just like him - we can see that admiration in the drawing of him he finds in Bob's things that he made when he was a child eg, or in the song Superman that plays while Fraser reads his journal in the diner. But he doesn't know him. And he pursues duty above all else because he has nothing else of his father.

And then you have Ray, who seems to exist as the opposite of Bob. If there's one thing Ray is, it's there. He is there for Fraser to hunt down suspects, to invite him to a loud family dinner, to save him from an explosion, he tracks him down to apologize for being dismissive, to invite him to dinner, and he flies to the Yukon when he can't reach him by phone. In the diner scene in particular he's directly positioned as a contrast to Bob's absence both in life and death. Fraser is alone trying to understand his father through his journals (looking for something "he missed" ie his dad), and Ray joins him, ending the thematically significant song montage, and eases his solitude. Fraser says he doesn't have family, and Ray shares his own with him.

And after the pilot case, there's nothing drawing them together except friendship. They're not a mismatched pair of cops assigned together who have to learn to get along, they work together unofficially because they can't help but spend every waking moment together.

Bob represents absence and Ray represents presence, distant admiration vs actually knowing someone.

And I'll probably have more to say on that as like, poles Fraser is caught between, if/as I rewatch more of the show. Ray's position is a little muddy especially because pre VS he buys into Fraser's image to an extent, as pointedly examined in Heaven and Earth. But again, more on that another time.

[wavesoutbeingtossed]

Have we talked about the parallel between “pulled him in tighter each time he was drifting away” and “My white knuckle dying grip holding tight to your quiet resentment”?

As in the thing she held on to the hardest was him and the thing he held onto the hardest was his grievances which is all she had left in the end because that’s all he could give her… 🙃

[emblemcest]

The thematic link between cannibalism and incest in The Coffin of Andy and Leyley

Something I've been thinking about is. The huge emphasis on cannibalism in the marketing of The Coffin of Andy and Leyley. And the way people talk about it: like, 'of course these siblings aren't normal, they literally ate their neighbour!'

And I think it has some very interesting parallels with the incest that happens later on.

Because. All things considered? The cannibalism in act 1 is sincerely one of the least fucked up things these characters do, morality-wise.

They didn't murder the guy. In fact, they had nothing whatsoever to do with his death: if they hadn't been there at all, it would've all turned out exactly the same way, and you can't even accuse them of inaction, because a) it all happened so quickly and unexpectedly, and b) it's not like calling for help would have done anything anyway. In material terms, they did no harm at all to the guy.

On the other hand, they were literally starving to death. Ashley sincerely wasn't sure they'd even last a few days more the way they were going. What they did to the guy wasn't for fun, or revenge, or even a lack of concern for him as a person, but survival. It was an emergency!! In a lot of ways, it could be seen as comparable to self-defence.

So is cannibalism so strongly associated with the game, and with the horror genre in general? The taboo.

Regardless of the circumstances, regardless of the level of harm done, cannibalism is a no-go. It's a line that must not ever be crossed. Even if we can understand and sympathise with the people involved - even in cases of literal life and death - there is a wrongness to it that we can't easily move past. In an increasingly secular world, it's one of the few really spiritual crimes that still resonates as much as ever.

And, yeah, sure, you can talk about the health risks of ingesting brain matter, or the practical issues with not making cannibalism a crime, but those aren't the reasons we shy away from it. It's instinctive; philosophical. Cannibalism is simply wrong.

Much in the same way we react to incest.

Again: this is not claiming that incest is always totally okay, just like the point of this post isn't to be all 'yay, cannibalism!' There are practical reasons to disallow it, and there are potential health issues here, too (albeit for the children rather than the subjects).

But that's not why we wince at incest. Even if everything was okay - a consensual relationship between two twins of the same sex where nobody else would ever see - it would still elicit strong reactions. Incest is simply unnatural - simply wrong.

The incest in TCOAAL isn't quite so straightforwardly defensible as the cannibalism. The relationship itself is unhealthy, and adding sex to the mix is very unlikely to make it less so, as well as the fact that sex is literally the exact place where 'consent issues' tend to get REALLY important.

But also... the relationship was already unhealthy. The two were already isolated and excessively dependant on one another, and most importantly, they had already enabled one another into cold-blooded murder. It's sorta... hard to get much worse than that.

By contrast, the incest vision itself? Seems entirely consensual. Pleasurable, even. The two are uncharacteristically happy, once Andrew gets over his moral anguish (or, rather, until he gets distracted away from it). And the 'Not Sane' route portrays them as closer and happier and kinder than any other.

It doesn't matter. Even if the results are entirely positive - like with getting food into the mouths of two starving people - it's still wrong. By its very nature. It's 'disgusting.'

I know I'm not the first person to comment on the willingness of some antis to whole-heartedly accept murder and cannibalism in fiction but then draw the line at incest. But I think this comparison of taboos illustrates a really big thematic link between the cannibalism and incest specifically, and in doing so, just one way that the incest really is important to the themes of the work, rather than just gratuitous shock shlock.

...in fact, if you wanted to really stretch the metaphor... You could ask: 'are things good or bad inherently, or due to the surrounding context?' Which, honestly, is a pretty good question about our titular two characters themselves. Are Andy and/or Leyley inherently bad people? Should we judge them based on the circumstances of their upbringing or the world in which they find themselves? Or does none of that matter, and they would have turned out this sort of way regardless?