#then yeah you probably do have some internalized misogyny to examine

[tacticalgrandma]

I love how fandom and ao3 are gay gay queer utopias right up until someone mentions how these environments seem to replicate the misogynistic patterns of the societies they come from, at which point all writers are cishet women.

[sometimesrosy]

I wonder why it was Monty to help her in her mind space. For the show runners it was probably for nostalgia purposes, we love and miss Monty as does Clarke. But in the actual show, why? Why not bell. Or her mom. Or madi? Or wells? Or her dad? Why Monty?

First, I think it’s a mistake to separate the show from the showrunners, and say that the showrunners purpose is not the show purpose. They’re the same thing--unless you mean Doylist analysis vs Watsonian analysis, meaning the storyteller’s perspective vs the in narrative character’s perspective. Now that I think about it I think that is what you meant.

All right. So lets examine that.

Doylist (as in arthur conan dole who wrote Sherlock Holmes) analysis looks at a story to see the storytellers narrative purpose, how narrative choices are included so that the story can move forward, or create a feeling in the audience they want them to have, or even how fandom or society can affect their choices. While Watsonian (as in John Watson, Sherlock’s partner and friend, a character within the story,) analysis would look at a story to see how it is explained WITHIN the narrative or world of the story. Character feelings and motivations, social mores of the culture in the story, psychology of the characters, ships, world building and how it all fits together to make a fictional world.

So, what is the purpose of the showrunner’s use of Monty in the dreamspace. I do not think nostalgia is the top reason. I think more likely it’s because Monty has been the moral center of the story for a long time, so for Clarke to internalize that makes sense. Also, her dad WAS there, right when she woke up. And it makes sense, because he was Clarke’s original moral center. Come to think of it. Maya was a moral center, too. With this cast of her mindspace, Lincoln should have been there too, and Wells. They wanted Wells, but the actor was unavailable. And they probably didn’t even try for Lincoln because JR ended on bad terms with Ricky.

Also, Monty told her to do better. So he’s the one calling on her and correcting her understanding of doing better. Oh, but I think we’ve moved into Watsonian.

Clarke’s subconscious brought Monty because she is interpreting his directions and giving up and giving in to Josephine was the incorrect choice. She gave up because of guilt and probably exhaustion and narratively some suicidal urges. Internalized Monty said no. 

Why not Bellamy, Madi or her mom? 

Because I think Clarke was not ready to face her guilt over what she had done to them. This was narratively stated when she faced Octavia. He’s not there because she’s afraid that he hasn’t forgiven her and does think she’s a monster. And the drawing with Clarke shocking Madi was shown as three different drawings in three different places in her cel. ALSO was referenced as child abuse by Josephine. She also sacrificed her mother quite a few times. So why Octavia? Maybe because she feels she deserves to be attacked for what she did, and that’s why Octavia showed to be mean to her, but not Bellamy because she couldn’t deal with him being so angry at her. While we DID see Maya attacking her, which was WILDLY out of character for Maya. Even mindspace-Clarke seemed to realize this because the angry Maya couldn’t manage to remain, and soon became a helper figure rather than an enemy. 

So the people in her mindspace were: Jake (helpful), Octavia (antagonistic), Maya (antagonistic then helpful), and Monty (helpful.) She faced her guilt and kind of decided that it wasn’t useful in fixing the situation, so moved on. Josephine, however, was NOT part of her subconscious, and was continuing to manipulate her until her subconscious Monty came to tell her to knock it off. That’s the part of her who knew Josephine was manipulating her. 

You know. You can essentially look at all those mindspace actors as Clarke dressed up like them. Because that’s who they are. 

If however you don’t mean Doylist/Watsonian analysis and instead you mean a concept that I’ve seen in fandom where the writers hate the characters and audience and are creating a story simply for the purpose of causing the most anger and upset and pain in the audience... which, as a writer I simply don’t understand. Do y’all REALLY think that’s what writer’s do? I mean, yeah, we want to jerk on your tears and anxiety and joy, but any good writer is not going to HATE their audience.

Read a GOT rant after the break in which I admit the possibility that this could be what happens

Okay. Okay. This DOES happen. And I hate it. It especially happens with genre stories, where showrunners go for the surface glamour, the hollywood flash and dazzle, the cheap and trite tropes, the unearned twists, the shockers, the blockbusters. But they often don’t respect the genre itself, and intend to use it just to make money. Often they don’t understand the genre, the purpose of it, the meaning of it, the need the audience fills with it. I think this is the way D&D treated GOT, and it’s why I call them bad writers. 

But I’m not just calling them that because I don’t like them or the way the story ended or that my ship didn’t end up together because he murdered her. (I had to stop and shake my head at that ending because of how poorly done it was, but I could have accepted it if it had been told well.) The problem is that they didn’t follow the story, dropped important storylines, ignored the magic system, the political systems, the cultural systems, the religious systems, and the prophecies that had been set into place. This is the essence of the genre, and they just shrugged and ignored it. This, to me, shows disrespect to the genre and the audience. Then, they ignored the character development and narrative development, and this showed disrespect to the characters, story, and audience again. Then, they ignored the real world social and political issues like racism, misogyny, domestic abuse, and this showed that they were just complete and utter assholes who preferred the world the way it is, full of injustice, and want to keep the underdogs under the thumb of the lords and masters. Jackasses. ANYWAY enough about GOT. Fine, fandom is right. Sometimes this is the case and we can leave the possibility that JR will pivot and head the same way as D&D.... but I DON’T THINK SO.

I trust JR because of the narrative choices he has been making. I do NOT think that he hates Bellarke, because the narrative has been bringing them closer and closer together. I do NOT think that he will betray the story he has been telling, because he has systematically been wrapping up various storylines... not always happily, but always in a way that is consistent with the world view presented in the story. Yes, some characters have terrible endings, but it doesn’t seem to me to be useless torture, but rather an exploration of the TRAGEDY of the world that does ACTUALLY sometimes show that people cannot overcome their traumas and weaknesses. It’s sad but it’s true. And he has enough characters with endings that show their strength, even in death, that I think it is not about torturing them. He also has enough characters that learn from their failures and are growing and making better choices. And THEN he gave Harper and Monty a happy ending, and brought Bellamy to the completion of his hero’s journey, and gave Memori an honest and unflinching love story, and HAD the discussions about what it means to do what someone else says even if it’s evil, because you’re following instructions. There’s just too much about BEING a better person and transforming your world for me to believe he’s going to trash the slow development he’s been building.

But I admit that I might be wrong to trust him. The only way to tell is to watch the rest of the show. So we’ll see. 

[mtlmrk]

Okay. So the reason there is Umbridge discourse is because there is Snape discourse.

Yeah, you wanna talk about internalized misogyny the fact that a bunch of the shit Snape pulled is labelled as romantic gestures or whatever is sickening. He basically antagonized a child ‘because’ for years. He should be or maybe eventually will get all the universal contempt and sober recognizance Ross from friends gets.

Umbridge is still terrible. Umbridge is Mitch Mcconnell, Umbridge is Paul Ryan, @ajohnnygoldmain mentioned Pence. I agree. Umbridge is anyone who would use their religion, position or anything like those things to actively exclude, harm and or torment people because that is why they sought power within these structures. Do not forget she comes back in Book seven is happily HAPPILY a part of Voldemort’s regime. You mentioned people might hate in her a little more because she is a fat ugly lady who likes cats. I don’t like her when she is a man like the examples listed above, I don’t like when she is a conventionally attractive blonde woman who looks like she could played by Nicole Kidman in Kirstjen Nielsen when she defends family separation and happily undertakes and justifies putting kids of families fleeing the consequences of AmErica’s failed war on drugs in cages. I have had male and female teachers who were an Umbridge. The unifying factor of them was not their external ugliness but their internal ugliness, their pettiness and their need to suffocate people with their agenda because they could.

If you want to unpack things and distill the villainous characters to their horrible essences yeah, there’s some big ideas intentional or otherwise stomping around. Voldemort of course is Wizard Hitler, racism, hatred. Snape is the notion of romance at its most toxic: Nonconsensual obsession that spans generations. Umbridge is bad faith stewardship , power for the sake of doing knowing harm. Where all of those stand in the layers of one’s own Inferno is probably subjective.

I can also see where misogyny may factor in because in many ways when it comes to disingenuous authority and using power to inflict one’s own malicious agenda Snape was Umbridge before Umbridge was Umbridge and the fact that we call Umbridge Umbridge and not Snape is something to examine. I think owning that is productive in its own way but just as long as you stop before you throw the baby out with the bath water.

So yeah, I will agree with you that Snape needs to be hated way more universally, he is worse than Umbridge because he is also embodying those characteristics on top of his own.

Still the ideals behind Umbridge , the evil behind it transcends the frumpiness of the character and I think in unpacking the misogyny behind that frumpiness you might also find the parts of the culture that obfuscate some of the more insidiously gross things about Snape.

That’s my two cents anyway.

This article is well-written and highlights a lot of the issues I have with Snape and Lily’s relationship. I think it’s missing a crucial piece though:

Snape didn’t overlook the fact that the prophesy would lead Voldemort to the Potters, he was COUNTING on it.

Think about it. Lily was MARRIED. His chances of having her to himself were pretty much zero at that point. And she had a baby, so even if she divorced James, Snape would still have to be a step-father to the son of his nemesis.

Clearly he wished that James and Harry were dead, but not even someone as deluded as Snape could kill them himself and still hope to have a chance with Lily.

So revealing the prophesy to Voldemort must have felt like the PERFECT opportunity for Snape. He could gain favor with Voldemort, and at the same time ensure the deaths of James and Harry. If Lily ever found out, he could always feign ignorance about how the prophesy would be interpreted. And if REALLY cornered, he could reveal that it was HIS “love” for her that had saved her life that night!

Snape was not only willing to step over the dead bodies of Lily’s husband and son to get her affection, he was eager to do it.

Snape is the biggest slimeball in the entire series (100 times more than Umbridge) and he doesn’t come anywhere CLOSE to redeeming himself in the books.