#these characters are so fun to dissect bc they have so many valid interpretations i just use whichever one is most interesting at the momen

[myaoiboy]

The Boss being John's emotional pillar and base to what he thinks relationships are supposed to be like/end up really fucks him up and i dont think people talk enough about that...

and yea she definitely slept with him at some point and all that, theres so many implications that she was more than one thing at the same time (master, mother girlfriend thing) and it just makes sense yknow? I wonder if part of his attraction to Ocelot is motivated by the fact he looks so much like her,,,, ouch

Anon you have no idea how much you fed my brainworms today lmao

Like, we definitely know the Boss and Snake were involved. We hear people talk about it on Mother Base in V, and when asked if she was his lover Snake doesn't deny it but says it was "deeper than that"

But ALSO Kojima literally said this:

so I mean idk maybe we're all crazy and The Boss would never fuck the kid she picked up as a replacement for the one the Philosophers stole, and we're the sick ones. lmao.

I love The Boss bc she really is this all-encompassing icon of femininity and nurturing (naive Maiden/mature Mother/wise Crone roles vs Lover/Mommy Figure/Mentor) while being completely untameable. You've heard of a domestic housewife? The Boss is a feral wildwife.

And then you bring me to the thing that I think is the most hair-pulling, teeth-grindingly tragic thing about Bosselot: the fact that they're just perpetually loving *past* each other. Big Boss wants a solution for his mommy issues, and Ocelot just wants to be seen and cherished, even used, for just a fucking taste of love and appreciation from Big Boss (that he doesn't even get in death, god i will cry about this forever).

The worst part is, Ocelot is by far the Boss's son that has the most inherent capacity to be most like her, but he has neither the environment nor the inclination to foster that in himself.

If he had ever listened to anything BB said, he would know that the fact that he lived with the Boss as an equal, someone who challenged him, was exactly why he loved her. He had the capacity to be exactly what BB wanted, but instead he went the low risk/low reward route of making (or trying to) himself indispensable as a tool, a weapon, an attack dog for BB to command, a possession instead of a partner.

But it's better to be appreciated by the love of your life for what you aren't than potentially lose them for what you are, right?

Also the same people who want to talk about how Bosselot is the better mgs3 ship bc of the mommy figure situation totally ignore the fact that that makes them like...adoptive brothers? Wouldn't be a Kojima game without a strong undercurrent of incest themes.

[essayofthoughts]

While I agree with the importance of most FB criticism the one which boggles me is that of our 4 mains having no personality. Not just cuz they seem so distinct and layered to me but cuz Newt’s shy and nurturing nature (best dissected in The Fantastic Masculinity of Newt Scamander) is such a clear contrast to Grindelwald’s predatory and manipulative one. That could be its own can of representation worms but it could also open some wider discussion and if not a bother I’d love your thoughts.

I don’t really have thoughts on this? I don’t care, very simply. If people want to interpret it as the four mains having no personality then that is their problem, I don’t care? I’ve not seen people accusing them of being boring, and if that’s how they want to interpret them that’s.... fine? Everyone’s entitled to their own opinion. I personally am not even all that interested in most of the characters, the ones which interest me are Credence (bc YAY TRAUMA, but also FUCKING YES VALIDATION OF MY TRAUMATIC MAGIC THEORIES), Percival-Gellert, because I mean that was part of the plot mystery, and Newt, because of his kindness and appreciation of the creatures around him where other’s didn’t understand.

Tina and Queenie are cool, and fun to write, Jacob is... a non-entity to me, but like... I don’t particularly care if people wanna go “they’re boring” because I can see why? A lot of people don’t find “the good guys” compelling and prefer the villainous characters. It’s not that it’s necessarily “easy” to be good - I believe it was Dumbledore in the HP universe who pointed out that sometimes it can be incredibly hard - but it’s what a lot of people tend towards and aspire to; they wish to be considered good and will try to be good, provided it isn’t too arduous.

It’s this which makes the villains and/or antagonists more compelling to many - why are they like this? What made them this way? 

Credence’s abuse left him with considerable trauma which left him vulnerable to the manipulations of Grindelwald, as well as giving him a tumorous piece of magic that is never quite under his control, he is a villain of the narrative because he will do harm, yes, but he does harm because harm has been done to him and he’s finally snapped, he’s had enough. He’s been struck one time too many, he feels the magic rising in his skin, his own sister is fleeing him, hiding, and the man he thought cared about him has just said “I lied to you, you will never have magic, you are useless”. He’s been betrayed on all sides and he’s had enough, and so he lets go, he falls into his magic and he unleashes it. That is incredibly compelling.

Grindelwald is a fucked up mess, aspiring for companionship of intelligence to his own (Dumbledore) and yet having lost it, desiring power and strength and power over others, all while trying to hide who he is and what he is doing in order to further his disguise. This isn’t a narrative very interesting to me, but to those who like spy novels etc. it can be more intriguing, and offer an exploration magical warfare. This can be interesting.

Seraphina Picquery and The System are not exactly villains, they’re more antagonists, but they offer a huge opportunity for exploration - according to our mains they are Bad and Wrong for wanting to see ended that which risks exposing them, for trying to limit the risks of exposure for the sake of protecting their whole society - but this doesn’t account for what caused��that drive: the deaths and danger which led to their much stricter rules. You can see why she’d want to see Credence - and thus his Obscurus - dead, because the risk of him losing control is too great, they don’t even know if he can be taught to manage it, they know most Obscurials burn out and die eventually anyway - so the simplest and best solution is killing him because how else can they protect their society? Picquery rules them and she has to make decisions for this “greater good”, coming perilously close to Grindelwald’s “For the greater good”, because she has a responsibility to those who voted for her. It’s fascinating.

With our mains we have:

Newt - Probably autistic, fascinated by magical plants and especially creatures, not good at people but highly empathetic towards animals, will defend his creatures when he won’t even protect himself (his cry to not kill the creatures in the case, that they’re innocent and have harmed  no one, as he himself is dragged away). But we’ve seen this before, in a way, it’s the archetypal Caring Hero, with a few quirks thrown in.

Tina - Pretty much a Rookie Cop archetype. Not to say she isn’t interesting and well acted, and that her own empathy especially with Credence wasn’t very important, but she is kind of archetypal. Again, it’s not that they’re boring it’s that we’ve seen this before.

Queenie - Personal fave, if only because she can read minds. Queenie is actually the one with I think the most fleshing out after Newt, of the mains. She’s highly in tune with her sister, is very willing to use what she sees in other’s minds when she has to, but otherwise seems largely ok to not speak about things except to that person - she seems to have a moral code with her particular form of Legilimency (I personally think her Legilimency is atypical, as we never see her using a wand to do it; given the Goldstein sisters lost their parents young I imagine it could be a kind of traumatic magic). She sees people objectifying her in their heads every day and yet she survives - Queenie has one hell of a backbone and a huge amount of internal strength.

Jacob - Mundane Dragged Into Magical World. Comic Relief. Sorry, but that’s about the grand total of his character, Jacob is startlingly unmemorable; I could barely remember his name and I pride myself on my memorisation of HP.

So yeah. I can see why people might say boring? The characters are pretty good and they are all well-acted, but of the mains two of them are outright archetypes, one is a variant archetype even if he is pitched as non-standard masculinity, and one is unique but more of a side-main than a main-main. The antagonists come out on top, I think.

This doesn’t mean the mains are boring. This doesn’t mean you have to fight the people who think so, or that you need to be validated. If you like the mains that’s great! Enjoy them, love them, appreciate them, delve into their depths, show how you see their complexities and drag people into the pit with you. This doesn’t mean those who think otherwise are necessarily wrong - they can have their own reasons for things. I can see both sides of this, and I don’t think it’s an issue to look at it one way or another? I don’t really think there’s much else to say.

(Though: yes to Newt’s vulnerable and empathetic masculinity vs. Gellert’s controlling and manipulative masculinity. Actually showing the characteristics of common masculinity for being as dangerous as they are and prioritising the empathetic arc is great.)