#they are absolutely batshit the both of them

[flying-fangirls]

As a music, religion, and literature nerd, the Dies Irae has been one of my favorite go-to pieces of trivia for a long time, which means that this line:

Has been driving me batshit BONKERS since part 42! And also as a semi-professional media analysis yapper, I figured I might as well dive into the exact reasons I jumped up and audibly gasped upon first hearing this line and have subsequently lost my mind since then. So!

Here is why I think that the Dies Irae is the perfect analogy for John and Arthur:

Religion

Let's start with the most straightforward meaning: "Dies Irae" is a Latin term, and it translates to the "Day of Wrath." Or otherwise known as the Judgement Day, the foretold second coming in Catholic canon, when Christ will "come again in glory to judge the living and the dead." It's at this Last Judgement where God will wield perfect justice to send the worthy to everlasting peace and the unworthy to everlasting punishment. (everyone say "thank you" to excessive childhood Catholic lessons for burning this into my brain)

There's a kind of irony to the fact that Arthur so vehemently rejects Christianity and religion as a whole, and that John spends much of his arc trying to distance himself from the role/identity of a god, yet both are given this incredibly religious title, effectively restricting them from ever forgetting the presence/influence of religion in their lives.

This title has a couple layers though, because we have to consider why it's the Day of Wrath specifically that represents Arthur and John. Now, I don't think I have to tell you that those two are bursting with anger 80% of the time. But I am going to tell you that those two are not just angry, but moreso "divine fury" incarnate.

The Day of Wrath, the Final Judgment, is the final and eternal judgment of God on all: "For now before the Judge severe / all hidden things must plain appear; / no crime can pass unpunished here." (Dies Irae, Dies Illa). The final Judge, the all-powerful God, can see the objective morality of every single person, and is thus the sole, rightful determiner of fate.

This assumption of their right to perfectly and single-handedly decide others' worthiness shows up over and over, not just John and Arthur's actions, but also in how they describe these judgments.

When Arthur kills the widow on the island, it's not because she was dangerous, but because she was a cultist who "deserved" to be punished.

When John and Arthur need to get rid of Mr. Scratch's stone, John says they should give it to "criminals" who are "deserving of this curse." Even though, just moments before, Arthur refused to give the stone to Oscar because to do so would be to cursing him to a fate of eternal suffering.

And I can't go into every single detail about the entire Larson plotline because this post would double in size, but it obviously needs to be included here. Possibly the strongest tie between this arc and the idea of the Dies Irae is Arthur's conviction through it all. Arthur vows that he is going to kill Larson in divine retribution not because he wants to, but because he has to. He even goes so far as to admit that killing Larson will be a mistake, a cruel and overly-bloodthirsty action that goes against his compassion. But killing Larson isn't a choice to Arthur, it is the unavoidable punishment for Larson's sins and Arthur is simply the enactor of justice. Just like the Final Judgment, there is no sympathy, no hesitancy— the judgment is absolute, divinely ordained, and cannot be stopped no matter how undeniably horrific it is.

If we look at the Catholic Catechism, principle 2302 states that it is sinful to kill out of desire, but that it is "praiseworthy to impose restitution" and use violence to "maintain justic." So even if Arthur has intent to kill, his actions count as divinely sanctioned. He is acting as the hand of God's punishment.

Over the course of Season 3 and 4, Arthur's fiery rage dies down to a more gentle simmer, but his conviction only seems to grow, and John follows suit. Despite previously reprimanding Arthur for his unquestioning wrath, John eventually becomes just as convinced that Larson "deserves" to face a wrathful reckoning. The "fact" that Larson is wholly unforgivable and is fated to receive eternal punishment becomes more indisputable in their minds, and they both stop questioning the morality of their intentions, entirely convinced of their judgment.

Throughout the story, Arthur and John insist upon the importance of kindness, compassion, and forgiveness, and say that these are the values that guide their every action. Yet, time and time again, they approach certain people with nothing but wrath and resentment. It's a sharp contrast to the benevolent figures they make themselves out to be, and Arthur and John are often blind to the contradiction because, in their eyes, they are still following those values in every action. And in the moments when they do recognize their horrific words or actions, they still cannot let their judgment go, convinced that it is their "duty" either way.

In Part 35, Arthur says "Just because you can't make the hard decision, doesn't mean it's wrong." This is exactly how John and Arthur view themselves. They know that some of their actions are harsh and violent and painful, but they are don't view that violence as wrong, because they are enacting that violence in justice. They move through life with carefully-selected destruction, culling the world of those they view as unforgivable sinners, and punishing them with divine righteousness. Arthur and John carry righteous fury in their every step, bringing the Day of Wrath down upon the world around them.

Now, there's already a ton of meaning just in this religious allusion alone. However, there's another application of the Dies Irae in modern culture, which brings us to the second side of this title:

Music

Back in the 13th century (sounds like a familiar setting...), friar Thomas of Celano wrote a poem for and about the Dies Irae. The poem was recited at Requiem Mass (church services to honor the dead), and it ended up being set to a Gregorian chant tune.

Over time, this melody has been used by a variety of composers, but the one we're focused on is Hector Berlioz. In 1837, Berlioz used the Dies Irae melody as part of his narrative symphony, Grand Messe de morts, in order to communicate that the main character had died. Then a lot of other composers saw that and said "Hey that's a cool idea!", and started also using this melody to represent death in their music. Nowadays, it's a fairly staple part of modern film and musical storytelling. If you've listened to literally any major soundtrack, then there's a good chance you've heard this motif (or a variation of it) used before. It's often subtle, sometimes loud and obvious, but no matter what, it reveals the inevitable presence of death. (essentially, the Dies Irae=death)

Now, obviously there's something tragically ironic about Arthur being likened to a musical motif when he tries so hard to distance himself from it, and there's something tragically ironic about John being associated with such a dark piece of music when he shows so much fascination and joy toward the art. Again, though, we've got some layers here. Yorick doesn't just compare Arthur and John to the Dies Irae, he literally defines them as the Dies Irae, a full embodiment of it.

Even before the story started, Arthur lost both of his parents, his friend and wife, his daughter, and his best friend.

John, when he was part of the King in Yellow, knew only how to harm and attack. In the Dark World, he falls back on this fearful lashing out with violence, harming even more people.

And throughout the story, John and Arthur seem to bring devastation to everyone else around them: Lilly the buopoth, Oscar, Noel, Collins, Daniel, Larson and Yellow.

The arrival of Dies Irae musical motif in a film always indicates that death is approaching or that is has already struck— a host carrying its blight to spread onto others. Just like the musical motif, the arrival of Arthur and John foretells the near-arrival of death. They play a duet together— John and Arthur, and death— always singing and dancing around and with each other.

These two never succumb to death, always finding a way to slip through its fingers and survive every situation. But they cannot escape death's presence because they are death's partner— singing the melody to death's subtle harmony. They cannot escape death because they are its host— destined to carry and spread devastation to death's victims. From the moment you meet John and Arthur, you know that death is inevitably approaching just a step behind, waiting to strike you down.

Whether it's the religious or musical side, we can see that John and Arthur are the literal embodiment of these allusions. They carry these powers and ideas in their every action and word, in their every step, in their very breath and blood.

Arthur and John. The hands of God's justice. The enactors of divine fury.

Arthur and John. The hosts of blight and destruction. The partner of death's song.

The man himself. The voice inside his head.

The Day of Wrath. The Dies Irae.

[phoenixkaptain]

Was rereading some of my old Qui-Gon - Luke parallel posts and I had the abrupt realization:

Luke is technically on the same level as Qui-Gon in terms of diplomatic ability.

Granted, this is mostly extrapolated from external works, the novels and comics and such, because the Original Trilogy doesn’t put Luke in any realy situations where he needs to act diplomatically (aside from the scene with Jabba, but I will come back to that) and, as we all know, Luke Skywalker was only ever portrayed as a baby in the prequel trilogy and then he was never portrayed ever again outside of that instance that the Original Trilogy, there were no other major motion pictures with Luke in them, unfortunately, and as we all know and accept with sadness in our hearts, the next time we saw Luke in live-action was in the Mandalorian. It’s wild, they never put him in anything else ever, never ever, not once, not twice, it was OT, PT, then Mandalorian S2, wild-

Let’s begin with the movies.

We see Qui-Gon’s diplomatic prowess in the Phantom Menace, when the diplomatic talks with the Neimoidians go south almost immediately and he has to fight his way out.

We see Luke’s diplomatic prowess in the Return of the Jedi, when the diplomatic talks (thinly veiled threats) with Jabba go south almost immediately and he has to fight his way out.

(Leia and Obi-Wan are my parallels in these scenes. Not because I think they actually are supposed to parallel each other in the text, but because they both are part of the action while being cute, so like-)

Already, we can see that they’re both prime examples of Jedi Diplomacy. Something goes south and they have to fight their way out of it. The Jedi way :) (look at Mace’s attempt to rescue Obi-Wan, Anakin, and Padme, my guy started by pulling out his lightsaber. At the very least, Qui-Gon and Luke both waited a bit longer to start beheading people.)

But, what I actually want to draw reference to is that Luke is skilled at de-escalating situations. In the 2015 comics, he is one of the only reasons Leia and Han don’t start wrestling each other like feral dogs. In the novels, specifically in the Thrawn Trilogy, there’s a scene where Luke handles a diplomatic situation by being as polite and fair as he can be. Also, he is a Jedi, which means that he is polite, fair, and nobody really wants to go against him because he’s the man who blew up the Death Star and can kill literally anybody in the room without lifting a finger.

We know from the text that Qui-Gon’s diplomacy was probably similar. Because, Obi-Wan learned negotiating from Qui-Gon, so if we look at how Obi-Wan deals with tense political situations, we can make an educated guess as to how Qui-Gon did so.

We know from Tales of the Jedi that Qui-Gon’s go-to in tense situations was de-escalation. Because if he didn’t de-escalate that shit really fast, his Master would kill literally everybody. He also seems to try and take the polite and fair road. Of course, he also is a Jedi, plus he has his Jedi Master growling at everyone from over his shoulder, only held back from committing senseless murder because Qui-Gon told him to please not to, so nobody really wants to go against him.

I don’t know. The parallels, the strange, strange parallels, are certainly present in the text. Which could mean a few things. We have options.

Option 1: Luke learned really, really fast from Obi-Wan. An option that, theoretically, does make sense. After all, we know that Luke knew Ben Kenobi before learning he was a Jedi Master, which means he could have mimicked the behaviour he witnessed. And we can reasonably assume that Ben Kenobi, crazy old desert wizard, was probably more talking his way out of trouble in the desert than fighting his way out.

Option 2: Luke and Qui-Gon really are just narratively mirrored. They act similar even if they don’t seem like they should, so Qui-Gon’s talent in political talks is based off of Luke’s inexplicable ability to make everyone in the room either begrudgingly accept what he says or be too terrified of him to argue. This would make sense, since they do parallel each other in quite a few ways anyway. One more parallel isn’t too strange to think about.

Option 3: I’m looking way too deeply into the theoretical political power of two fictional characters whose prowess in debates we know of only through sources of questionable canonicity, both of which are considered unskilled in this particular field by the fanbase at large, which for some reason rubs me the wrong way enough that I feel it necessary to make an incredibly long text post detailing my thoughts.

It could go any way ¯\ _(ツ)_/¯

[chinzhilla]

the soulmate effect

[epicfirestormer]

What I love about Hellboy and Abe Sapien's dynamic in the comics is that, if you came into this blind, you'd expect Abe to be the voice of reason or the straight man to Hellboy's impulsive and hotheaded personality. But no, Abe is more often than not the crazy one. Hellboy would deal with fighting evil monsters and bad guys by just sighing and getting it over with, while Abe is going rabid over tearing the creature apart when he does get into a fight. Hellboy acts like it's a 9-to-5 job and will reasonably talk things out with a guy that had nearly killed him before, Abe acts like a madman in a slaughter house and his first instinct is to shoot first kill second and ask third. They're both insane, but on completely different levels.

[lovesickeros]

im back for my monthly delusion and its alice this time BECAUSE WHY DOES NO ONE ELSE TALK ABOUT HER. OR RHINEDOTTIR. extremely powerful witches who are probably on equal power level to an archon just vibing and committing war crimes.

[autistic-britta-perry]

bitches will see any character that hates having emotions or is said not to have them and go 'is anyone gonna project into them' and not wait for the answer

[collegeoflore]

on a similar note to the weed post last night ramza and i also realized that in light of xarrastarion getting more or less married on their own and not Necessarily caring about having a wedding that gale would just be a bridezilla on their behalf LMAO he’s the one who rly insists on them having Some sort of celebration and xarrai thinks it’s hysterical that he wants to put his whole autistic pussy into planning it so they don’t even ask astarion they just tell gale to go crazy

[the-kipsabian]

i will legitimately be thinking about this game for years to come

[pawnshopsblue]

was scrolling on a taylor blog for fun taylor posts and saw the most heinous most factually incorrect most ‘all arabs are muslim terrorists’ pro israel take im seething with rage i have never ever seen anything so blatantly wrong and disgusting. i do it to myself by venturing outside my dash literally never again

[xxgalacticambitionsxx]

so. uh. any Scar Island enjoyers out there

[feilien]

Honestly, the more stuff I watch with Matt's FC the more I fall in love with him. And it doesn't help I see a bit of Matt in every role. I just asdfghjkl

[arts-i-enjoy]

Something I've noticed from subbing to just a couple of very small patreons (like fewer than 50 members) is how SHY people are about talking to the creator that they are paying! What's up with that? I wonder if it's because most of these patrons come via tumblr, where there is the culture of talking in the tags/reblogs and comments being your "outdoor voice"/basically it being RUDE to talk to people.

I think that's fucked up, especially in the context of artists (just to be clear every time I say artists that is inclusive of writers). Like these are people that are making a thing and showing it to you, they don't just want silent nods of approval by way of reblogs/likes. They want FEEDBACK. They want CONNECTION. I think a fundamental part of creating and sharing art is the goal of connection. And I don't think people realize how truly disheartening it is to post something and then get completely silent likes/reblogs.

For the love of God they are TALKING TO YOU. TALK BACK!!!!

[ikilledamanforthisurl]

Minami anon x4 but you bring up a lot of really interesting points abt like subcultures / attitudes and also more personal life stuff I never thought about b4! In my head the kinda headcanon justification I made for myself was like the idea Minami used to be formerly realllyyyyy low on the yakuza ladder and as thus kinda just acted like a robot / as dully competent as possible (he wouldn’t drink because What If that affects his ability to Do Anything etc) and so on and Internally Really Wanting To Live A Much different life / be more important then just Another Guy In this Organisation. Which is why he clings so hardcore onto emulating Majima who IS someone eye catching and attention grabbing and to him Important. I think my main basis for this is all of the times Minami in like fight scenes acts really dramatically and even when he loses tries to insist on Keeping On Fighting UNTIL Majima walks in and Minami completely shuts down and just lets him Do As He Does. Sorry if this is a rly big deviation I didnt have a lot to respond to your previous answer outside of I think it’s all really interesting especially the stuff in tags regarding his tattoos (who is she fr!) and if this were a situation where we were having a more private one on one conversation i'd nod very enthusiastically

HAHAHA i know this feeling. thank u for indulging me either way anon and idm the deviation it's like waving a new set of keys in front of my adhd ass. passionate conversations with me derail all over the place i'm very used to it ^_^

and i really like your point about him not wanting to blend in, wanting to Stick Out as a Somebody. it would not phase that kind of Minami if drinking + whatever else was the norm amongst his peers. perhaps it was influence from Majima that convinced him to drink after all........ its certainly what i like to think....... makes their stupid toxic dynamic hurt a little more

and i am so glad u also noticed the way he refuses defeat every chance he gets it literally plagues my thoughts the most.... i think about it sooooo much so so soo much. it's definitely an ego thing + just another nod to Minami's utter reverence of Majima. he goes from being pretty emotional and throwing a tantrum when you Throw Off His Groove™ but forgoes doing what he wants the second the bossman gives the order. Boss' word takes all priority, regardless if you're stupid, or emotional, or whatever else.

I love picking this apart trying to discern their dynamic but it also reflects on how Majima is with his men in general..... I've yet to see any of his boys defy him. And for good fucking reason (insert montage of him smacking around his own men)........ Minami also kindof reflects this in how he strings along a bunch of his fellow Family men to watch him fuck around on the karaoke machine, who CLEARLY don't want to be there but tolerate him regardless! I'd like to think he doesn't randomly assault them though. Not over small shit anyways, he seems pretty lenient and understanding (see: "shit happens"). He's probably just very obnoxious when ribbed, as he is in many other aspects. Or hell, maybe he shuts down and gets so bummed out that its obnoxious in a really cringefail pitiful way

Ideally Majima's garnered respect not strictly through violence.... We have all seen how personable he can be and how he got himself roped into helping random folks all over in y0. Ideally Minami even less so, if he is as lenient as he seems. Which leads me to asking what's up with his title, "junior leader"? What the fuck even is that? Surely it doesn't bring all that tolerating respect with it yknow. I dont think anyone else in the series is a JL. We're not particularly clued in to how Yakuza life actually works in the game about Yakuza, but you can bet I can pull ideas out of thin air to tie stuff together if given scraps

Least likely in my opinion: JL is literally a next-of-kin for a leader position in the Family, possibly for patriarch itself, which implies a much closer relationship between Minami & Majima than we're ever clued into. i'm also not so sure it suits him (though i can pull arguments for it out of thin air as well if you want) since he really seems like the kinda guy happy doing his regular grunt work. brother is not patriarch material imo...... not for what i personally believe a patriarch's duties are, anyways.

Funnier option: he got the role to be appeased. you mentioned that you think he wants to Be Somebody and i completely headcanon-same..... this scrappy little shitkicker kid waltzed in one day, hounded someone until they let him join, and has been gunning for respect ever since. not necessarily power, i'd like to think he wants to be well-liked, but also, it's totally an approval-from-the-father thing. he wants to do good enough for Majima to Notice. since Minami wouldn't know subtlety if it socked him in the face, it's not difficult in the slightest to see this and he gets thrown a Special Role because he's just the most Specialest Boy Ever.... in this case Junior Leader probably just reflects stuff he was already good at while working. Couldve been a socialite amongst the new kids on the block, could even be a trainer. Higashiyama and Nojiri (Dead Souls Majimagumi) seem to imply that recruiters and their recruitees generally work one-on-one and get to know one another pretty well, but that could easily just be a Them thing. I'm sure there's plenty of newbies who get recruited by already-busy blokes.... fuck it, have Minami show them the ropes, get em ready ASAP and keep it going......... yknow that type of thing

[pauls1967moustache]

It wouldn’t surprise me if Yoko genuinely believed John had a vision. This is the same woman who thought she was the reincarnation of an Egyptian queen. Also I wouldn’t put it past John to tell her he did since he admittedly said he was a chameleon and would mirror the vibes of whoever he was with. His and Paul’s relationship was characterized by a hammy sort of humor so he would’ve definitely played that story up.

There’s something really endearing about this anecdote. Like, Yoko’s earnest (and stubborn) belief in John, and just the image of Paul trying to kindly explain it and then getting more and more baffled that she refuses to believe him.

I hope John did tell her he did. Love this from him. Max confusion for no reason!

[seizedeath]

only a few people actually know the depths of dio as a character and only two of them (hi zoe hi chris) are still around it's very wild

[sixstringpansy]

I am begging and pleading for the English version of Sprint by Last Alliance to be released. I am on my knees. I am BEGGING. PLEASE.