#they are important and show various parallels and foreshadowing

[mythicalartistx]

KH3 Worlds ACTUALLY Matter and show Major Parallels and Foreshadowing through Sacrifice and Separation

The worlds in KH3 are often seen as just retelling of the Fairytales but with added Sora and his friends or Organization members. Because of this they're often disliked especially when there are some sections that are scene for scene and Sora and the others might not be present for this.

However, if you get passed the fact it's a retelling of the movie and get into how it connects with Kingdom Hearts story, they actually play a major role.

Olympus: Sacrifice

Olympus shows themes of sacrifice and love. It shows that Hercules didn't think and all he knew was that Meg was in trouble and threw himself in harm's way to save her. He sacrificed himself by doing that but also sacrificing his godhood to be with Meg. He would have to be separated from Meg and that's not the kind of life he would want to live.

Later on Riku ends up doing the exact same thing. When Sora feels powerless and all alone he sacrifices his being and life for Sora. And I could also argue he does it out of love because when he does this he doesn't necessarily think of his actions but does it to his devotion to Sora and protecting him like he always promised Terra.

Corona: Sacrifice

In the Tangled world, Rapunzel is willing to sacrifice her freedom to save Flynn's life and become separated from the outside world she's grown to love forever.

However, Flynn decides that her freedom is more important and sacrifices himself by cutting her hair which could make her lose the power to heal.

Rapunzel is also compared to Riku because they both so desperately felt trapped. Riku felt trapped at the island and wished to leave and explore other worlds with Sora and Kairi to point where if the raft didn't work out, he would open the door to darkness. I'll also like to include they both felt that someone they were close to left them for others.

Toy Box: Separation

In Toy Box, we learn of how Woody and Buzz among a few other had separated from half of their group. However, they are later seen that the world was split in half and are separated from their beloved friends. They realize at the end their friends who they've been separated from that they are always connected through their hearts.

And this goes back to how Sora will soon be separated from everyone and become stuck at the Quadratum. It also shows that he is always connected to them through his hearts and that's how he uses/and abuses the power of waking through that connection.

Arrendale: Sacrifice

When Elsa is about to get slashed by Hans' sword, Anna who is in the brink of death rushes in and saves her by taking the hit instead. She freezes at the same time and makes it so the sword shatter from her entire body becoming ice. She sacrifice her life for her. Elsa manages to thaw her and the cold weather by the act of love.

Which Riku then does the act of love when he sacrifices his life for Sora. Riku is also compared to Elsa on how they both pushed the people they loved/ cared about away to protect them.

Monstropolis: Separation

In this world, Sullie goes through separation of being away from Boo. They have to separate so Boo will be safe.

This also refers to how Sora ends up in the Quadratum from bringing back Kairi and abusing the power of awakening by using it too many times.

100 Acre Woods: Separation

In this world, Pooh talks to hope they're growing apart and that he misses Sora. Sora feels sad that they're not as close. The eventual outcome is that he'll always be in his heart no matter what.

I feel like this refers to him and Kairi not being as close as they were before. Ever since KH1 things changed between them and she changed. She's no longer the Kairi he knew and they are slowly growing apart. (Which is honestly sad). It also shows that even if he's by himself in the Quadratum he'll have everyone in his heart no matter how far away they are.

Fransankyoto: Separation + Sacrifice

Unlike the others I decided to say this world shows both. In the past, Hiro's brother separated from him when he sacrificed himself to try to find and save the teacher. This is also reflected in the past when beymax also stays behind to sacrifice himself so Hiro can then leave.

It helps shows the connections that no matter how far they are away, the people you love and care for will be in his heart. This shows that to help save everyone he used his connection to his friends to bring them that. It furthers that he won't be alone in the Quadratum and that Riku was able to go to him in MOM because of this.

PoTC: Separation

Finally in the pirates world, we show separation. After Will gets stabbed and he is made Captain of the Flying Dutchman, he faces separation from the one he loves Elizabeth. Only every 10 years are they able to see each other.

This foreshadows both being separated from the ones Sora loves and bringing back all his friends' hearts when Will's life almost gets taken when he gets stabbed. Being apart for 10 years also could lead to how it will take at least a year to find Sora in the Quadratum.

[demodraws0606]

The very weird plays in Tsukasa and Rui's last event and how they can be analysed and the weird detail that links them together

I made a post about this before but it was poorly made (and also not really a theory or analysis it was just me having brainworms) so I deleted it and I want to actually make an analysis about it. Unfortunatly this also means this post will be long as fuck which can be a positive or a negative depending on how you view it.

Warning for mentions of suicide and drowning

So Tsukasa and Rui both have plays that are kind of the focus of the event, to the point where wxs literally stop to basically explain to us the plot of them (in world they're just talking about it but like it's clear it's also meant for us the viewers to understand the plays they're doing).

And these two plays are already very interesting and...well dark on their own but they have a extremely strange similarity that I don't believe is a coincidence (because that would be insane) and also just kinda shakes the foundation on how colorpalet write these sorts of topics in general.

First I want to preface this by saying that me analysing these plays isn't some kind of fool's herrand as colorpalet has explicitely hid backstory information, future lore hints and overall just little bits of character into WxS's plays more often than not. Of course some plays are more explicit than others.

A huge exemple of this, is the first arc ender where the play they do to save Phennyland is one that obviously is meant to parallel Emu's backstory with her grandpa. It also stands as Very early foreshadowing between the parallels of Emu's grandpa and Tsukasa that Emu sees in Admist a Dream.

So yeah, from a writing standpoint, makes sense you don't want the plays you spent a lot of words describing to the audience to be useless especially considering colorpalet has a limited amount of time to explore these stories.

I also want to get this as early as possible before I get possible criticism because I know how this fandom acts towards analysis that delve into darker topics. Don't try and respond with "colorpalet wouldn't write something like that" or "this is too dark for colorpalet". Not only because I'm not insinuating that they will actually go full dark mode and depict something graphic.

But also because this is something that is already IN the text, I'm not making up darker themes here, that is something that colorpalet chose to add in WonderlandXShowtime's event stories. I'm only bringing up how odd this is for colorpalet and how it could relate to the overall story.

I'll bring this up later because this specific criticism gets very silly once you delve deeper into it but I don't want to stall the analysis any longer.

So now with this out of the way, let's get into the plays.

This is the story of the first play showed in Tsukasa's event

Of course the first thing that stands out is how much darker this play is compared to well...almost anything colorpalet addresses in stories ? This definitely shocked when I first read it, there is no usage of "disappearing" and it Actually describes the method as to which the protagonist wants to end their life which the only thing close to that we see is Kanade hinting on wanting to starve herself. But I'm gonna get into how weird this is for colorpalet later.

Extremely dark topics aside you can easily draw parallels to this story to Nene and Rui specifically already. The story is vague enough that those parallels don't hold too much water (ahaha get it) BUT it's still something that I feel is important to point out nontheless.

Nene and Rui were both unsuccesful in their dreams before the main story. Nene having given up going on stage and Rui never being able to be a director being forced to use robots for his plays.

Both were pretty jaded and well "worn out" until they met Tsukasa and Emu which would be a stand in for the protagonist of this play going through various encounters with many people and deciding to live a little longer.

(The reason I don't compare this protagonist to Tsukasa and Emu here is because I don't think they fit as well. Tsukasa's issues wasn't being unsuccesful its more so him forgetting the reasons behind his dreams and Emu's situation while similar just doesn't feel like it fits this story in particular)

So yeah this story is pretty simple so there is not much to analyse or pick apart. I could go scene by scene but then I would be distracting from the main point I want to make so I'll just be using the simple descriptions of the overall story.

NOW this one is a doozie, I didn't put the whole story that's described but I think compared to the last one this one is way more obvious as to what this could paralleling (or even foreshadowing if you want to be spicy).

I don't think this play is meant to be interpreted in only one way but the most obvious interpretation is the parallels to the disbandement arc. I think it particularly fits Rui in the disbandement considering how Katsuyuki is described but it can also work with Emurui in general as well.

Someone struggling meeting someone who brings joy in their life before they seemingly have to leave, said person being desperate for that not to happen.

I do think it's also meant to be a sort of double meaning here as if you have seen my cyberpunk deadboy analysis, the idea of someone leaving silently with the other trying to chase them down is something that just feels...idk intentional. But I don't have any evidence other than vibes here.

Now that I analysed these plays I want to get into the one common thread they have that is extremely baffling and concerning.

They both have the main character contemplating suicide by drowning.

Now you can be nitpicky and point out how the play in Rui's event doesn't explicitely say that this dude wants to drown himself but I just find it more likely mostly because of how this and the description of Katsuyuki's characters are phrased.

When Katsyuki is said to be "without the will to live"

THAT is a literal translation

Unfortunatly I'm not a japanese speaker so don't take my research with 100 pourcent certainty

However if you look at how this sentence is phrased in japanese, this translation is pretty much word for word

And also just what Hajime says doesn't feel like what someone would say to someone if they're just leaning to close to look at the ocean or just being reckless.

Anyways now that I've made my point that there is a 95 pourcent chance this is Heavily implying Katsuyuki was plannign on drowning himself the question is....

what the fuck ?

Now one time is already a big deal considering colorpalet's insitance on censoring explicit mentions of suicide and for it to be implied twice in the span of two events in a row ? And have it be specifically be by drowning both times ?????

I don't understand people just brushing this off because Colorpalet Actively chose to make the plays like this. These plays often take a large portion of the screentime, and I've showcased how they can hold story significance so such a blatant connection between them feels extremely intentional.

This is why complaints about expecting Colorpalet to get too dark and that it's unrealistic would be legitmatly silly because what's more unrealistic ?

That colorpalet has tackled this dark topic twice in a row to foreshadow or hint at possible topics that will be addressed in the future of WxS's story ? Weither it's through flashbacks or implications like 25ji OR even just symbolism.

Or that colorpalet just went and made the plays needlessly dark, for no reason ?????? Twice in a row with it being drowning both times ??????? With the same actor and both being the protagonist of the play ?????? Have those plays that take a lot of screentime being described just being completely devoid meaning ???????

I think I made my case about why the fandom's usual kneejerk reaction wouldn't make sense here, this isn't a "X character is secretly suicidal/depressed" situation.

Either way, I actually don't legitematly know what this could entail. This is clearly important enough that colorpalet is obviously shoving it in our faces but I do not know the meaning of it towards WxS's story just yet.

It could be hints at some of the members backstory (BTW by that I mean it could be hints at basically anything, it doesn't have to be explicitely 1/1 "they wanted to drown themselves") specifically Rui considering how suspicious they are at handling ms Rui but that is it's own can of wringling worms. But that could also be my fav character bias speaking tbf.

It could also just be meant to be some kind of like, message of colorpalet saying that they are willing to go darker with WxS's storyline if necessary. In a way showing that the gloves are off if they're not censoring dark topics that they usually censor.

Anyways I'm not delving further into it because otherwise i'd get into unhinged rants but honestly this subject just gives me so much brainworms because legit what the Fuck is colorpalet doing rn.

They are being so weird for literally no reason with WxS's story and I just have to sit back and watch them just drop weird shit out of nowhere.

Edit : One of my friends pointed out how one of them is a movie and one of them is a play and i realised I might've mixed those words up while writing this so yeah 😭

[j-is-not-an-artist]

i know that anyone who can read already knows about the parallels between stsg and Megumi+Yuuji but i'm gonna gush anyways

Yuuji and Megumi's thematic and narrative roles where narrative is the metatextual story of jjk being the same as Gojo and Geto where Yuuji=Gojo and Megumi=Geto

but their narrative roles where the narrative is in universe fate and the concept of things happening for a reason and mattering as relates to Yuuji's and to a certain extent Geto's world views are reversed. Yuuji=Geto and Megumi=Gojo

and then my sleep deprived brain just started listing things in no particular order so imma put that mess under the cut

-yuuji + geto eat curses (if i wasnt lazy and sleep deprived i would put in geto's various monologues about his thought process when eating curses here)

-megumi + gojo's curse techniques are directly compared in universe (the two strongest- meaning that gojo talking about the limitless/six eyes + ten shadows fighting each other to stalemate in the past was foreshadowing the gojo sukuna fight now that i think about it )

-yuuji and gojo personalities and coping mechanisms paralleled-- their bubbly happy personas are a mask for their more selfish/angry true personalities but most importantly for their loneliness (the most important part of both character's themes in different ways but that's a whole other rant)

-megumi and geto similar personalities + relationships to y+g= grounding/semi rivals/antagonistic but caring friends

-everyone(in universe) thinks that gojo and yuuji are ticking time bombs that will inevitably cause untold horrors but it turns out that they.. just dont in not insignificant part due to words dissuading them from that ledge said by their other halves (megumi tells yuuju to "save [him]" + geto changing gojo's entire outlook on the world in their conversation when reuniting after toji's defeat)

-everyone(in universe) thinks that megumi and geto are relatively sane but their sanity is more fragile than it seems (geto is self explanatory but for megumi see the fight where he first uses chimera shadow garden and how quickly he gives up completely after his sister gets got) and both end up possessed by one of the series main two villains

-but also yuuji + geto's originally stated motivations for becoming jujutsu sorcerers are supposed to mirror each other-- yaga's whole speech to yuuji when they first meet is everything he wishes he could have said to geto before he went crazy

-their connection to the two main villains of the series (sukuna + 'fake geto')

--geto and yuuji are heavily connected to 'fake geto' for both obvious and spoiler reasons

--megumi and gojo are connected a lot to sukuna - gojo is compared to sukuna a Lot and sukuna shows interest in megumi multiple times + more spoiler stuff (((sorry anime onlys)))

ouch head hurt

[ereyies]

YOU ASKED AND SO I SHALL DELIVER!!

ʚ♡ɞ

I was discussing with a few friends how Of Mice and Men keeps being removed from American school curriculums and banned by various school administrations throughout the states for ‘vulgar language, using the lord's name in vain’ and so on, but primarily about how it was banned for containing ‘racism, misogynistic, and potentially offensive to those with mental disabilities’.

But that's the most fundamental point of the entire book. To show the prejudices that the characters on the ranch experienced and the importance of companionship. I found a whole list online about it, it’s super fascinating seeing just how harshly it is challenged. You can find it here, but I'll post screenshots of the list below:

When I say that the misogynistic and especially racist themes are ‘there for a reason’, that’s not to say that I believe it should be completely brushed over because it is still a fundamental part of the novel that shows a lot regarding the historical and social context which it was written in and about life of Americans during the Great Depression beyond just white able-bodied men and how it should be handled in modern society rather than completely brushed under the rug

It’s awful seeing these painful but important parts of black American history and the treatment of black people in the past being completely glossed over and ignored just because people are ‘uncomfortable’ to discuss it when it’s so important to acknowledge it so we can learn from the last the same way that is done with white history.

Books such as Of Mice and Men are lumped in with hatred-driven racist/misogynistic/ableist drivel when its incredibly important to the time period it was written and should serve as an example of what not to repeat

A wonderful friend of mine said this which is definitely worth contributing:

'Something I remember is the very blatant connection between Lennie and the ranch dog. The ranch dog had nothing more to give after it reached its elderly years and it was suggested that he was to be shot. For the ranch, it had nothing of value to give once its strength was gone. Lennie, who had been compared to a dog a chapter (or more? it's been a while) prior to making it a little more obvious would eventually be the same because jobs in that time period did not accommodate disabilities, particularly Lennie's intellectual disability. They make it very clear that that's the climate they had been working with when they discussed putting the dog down. '

“I ought to have shot that dog myself, George. I shouldn’t have let no stranger shoot my dog.”

Lennie’s parallel with Candy's dog was so clever because it was wrong. Yes, it was foreshadowing what was going to happen to Lennie, yes it was setting up how George was to be the one who shot him because he didn’t want Lennie to die at the hands of a stranger scared and alone potentially like Candy’s dog was. Yes, Candy’s dog had nothing to offer the ranch anymore as it was so old and was ‘no good to himself’ and that’s why it was proposed to shoot him as a mercy.

But Lennie did have something to offer, he was strong and worked hard and efficiently. But he was just assumed to be useless to others because of his intellectual disability. Everyone just kept underestimating him and making incorrect assumptions about him and what he was capable of which Steinbeck intentionally included because he DOES show that the assumptions made are incorrect. Lennie was truly so much more than what other characters believed him to be.

That’s why the harsh banning of it was so ironic and disappointing. The boards of education who read it and still chose to ban it for ‘ableism and offending those with mental disabilities’ are the ones who are assuming that Lennie is just as incapable as every other character assumes him to be. Children could learn a lot from this book and the writing of it's characters, but instead it’s brushed over because it makes people ‘uncomfortable’ when really it’s something so important that should be discussed and if there really is a ‘problem’ with it, then instead of banning it, school boards should instead focus on how the sensitive subjects should be actually taught and addressed than ignoring it or banning it entirely.

Crooks’s identity as a black man is so fundamental to his whole character and the way he is taught about in schools is extremely reductive, completely disregarding the way he’s treated which is bewildering since he’s just as fascinating and fleshed out as every other character in the novel - He’s got personality expressed through how he communicates with Lennie and even more so his room, he has dreams even if he pretends otherwise and longs for companionship, and yet schools just gloss over him as a character and swap out the n word and pretends like the way he’s addressed is just mildly unfortunate because it was written when racism towards black people was ‘the norm’ which again is extremely reductive and children do not truly learn anything from it.

Every major character can be sympathised with one way or another, they’re all so incredibly fleshed out especially for the time it was written even if there are aspects that aren’t socially acceptable today, it contributes to the discussions we NEED to have about WHY we feel this way about the book, how far we have come since it's writing, acknowledging the past and how it’s handled in the modern day. There is SO much to be learnt beyond the story not only looking at language and story, but also the racial, biographical, historical and social context of the novel!!

all the characters are reduced SO MUCH in an educational setting. ‘Lennie is the dumb one. George is the smart one. Curley is the angry one. Curley’s wife is the slut. Slim is the handsome one. Crooks is the black one. Candy is the old one.’

It's SO much more than just ‘Steinbeck wrote a racist, misogynistic, ableist book.’ NO. He wrote a story about migrant workers trying to find work during the great depression. He wrote a story about an intellectually disabled man in an ableist environment. he wrote a story about a woman in a misogynistic environment. He wrote a story about a black man in a racist environment. He wrote about how that environment failed and abandoned them. He wrote about how this environment embodies the whole world of the time it was written. Regardless, they all have a uniting factor: they have a dream. The American Dream specifically. Each one of them hears Lennie and George's dream and they all want the same thing and all band together until it all falls apart. It’s about how the American Dream fails and excludes marginalised groups. But it also is about the importance of companionship and how devastating isolation can be to a person. Candy is alone. Curley’s wife is alone. Crooks is alone. But George had Lennie and Lennie had George until the end when it all falls apart and they’re alone again.

“I tell ya, a guy gets too lonely an' he gets sick”

Again and again the need for companionship and togetherness is brought up:

“Books ain't no good. A guy needs somebody—to be near him”

“A guy goes nuts if he ain't got nobody.”

To conclude, Of Mice and Men is more than what people keep reducing it to. So many different messages and lessons can be extracted from this brilliant work of American literature. Dialogue about it will help to educate on American history of the treatment for people with mental disabilities, physically disabled people, the elderly, black people, and women. This will do more good than banning it.

ʚ♡ɞ

okay VERY sorry for how long this is but THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR READING IF YOU'VE MADE IT TO THIS POINT <33

sorry if I ended up repeating words a whole bunch or if it's confusing 😰😰 these are mostly edited messages that i copied and pasted from a discussion i had on discord last month that i have been ITCHING to share. love you all so very much, thank you for indulging me <33

please don't be afraid to add any points you think i've missed or correct any mistakes i've made but this was mostly a ramble i wished to share because i feel it's important, at least to me. have a lovely day wherever you are <33

hi guys it's me elaine im eating lunch right now

who wants an outrageously long post discussing why i think the education system in most countries (particularly the us) fails to correctly understand and teach of mice and men by john steinbeck to students??

[kaypeace21]

WAAAAAIT ( theory about El's lab flashback )

so I just watched the Duffers' trailer breakdown and they mention the term “gladiators in a pit” to describe Hopper and other prisoners (trapped in an enclosed space , being forced to fight for their lives). And we see how the russian prisoners parallel HNL subjects (symbolically)- shaved heads, numbers on shirts, trapped in small personal rooms, etc.

Ok. Remember how I mentioned El’s backstory is very reminiscent of Black widow's? Quick synopsis: Genetically gifted girls are k*dnapped by gov, then programed to be super-soldiers/spies in the  “red room” (rainbow room). Natasha (black widow) was even k*dnapped as a baby and her mom tried to rescue her from the lab but she was k*lled by the gov-scientists (sort of like Terry being incapacitated by Brenner, after trying to rescue El,who was k*dnapped as a baby). Natasha even has an adopted sister from the lab (kali) and they share the sentimental phrase “we’re upsidedown”. Both storylines are also based off mkultra. This natasha-storyline is in the old comics but also the recent David Harbour (Hopper) film, about black widow. In the film, David's character is even rescued from a Russian prison (by his family) ... cough like Hopper in s4.

So what’s my point? In the “red room” the gov would force these little girls to fight to the de*th like gladiators. Winner gets to live (it was a way to pick the ‘best candidates’ who as adults would become future gov- spies/assa*ns). It was part of their training since they had to become future  “weapons”. It’s why so many girls didn’t surv*ve to complete the  ‘black widow program” (which was finalized when they became adults).... 

what if that’s why El feels like a “monster” ,in s1? I’m not surprised she possibly blocked the memory out. In s2 ,when going to find Kali, a homeless man screams at El “they're all d*ad”,over and over (and El winces at the words). It's possibly foreshadowing the fate of other numbers ,besides Kali.

It would be incredibly bleak, but it would really show the the government are the real "monsters"- if they forced kids from various labs to do this. :(

Update: @0aurelion-sol0 saw this and just reminded me of an import detail. The film "hunger games" is said to inspire s4. Well...It's literally about kids being forced to k*ll eachother because of a tyrannical government program .

just a crack theory but.... you never know

[thebusylilbee]

One of the more creative and interesting elements of this film is the means by which it employs pop culture icons to explain complex terms and important economics lessons. The first example of this is when Margot Robbie is shown in the tub sipping a glass of champagne. This scene comes immediately after one of Vennett's voice-overs, which asks the audience if all these technical terms and concepts “make you feel bored or stupid?” The voice-over continues, “Well, it's supposed to. Wall Street loves to use confusing terms to make you think that only they can do what they do. Or even better, for you just to leave them the fuck alone. So here's Margot Robbie in a bubble-bath to explain.” Although a comedic transition from overwhelming economic concepts to a pop culture figure in a bubble bath, this is actually a highly subversive moment. What the film communicates through Vennett's voice-over is essentially that the system is set up to bore the average consumer into docility, and then it responds by launching a counterattack using Margot Robbie as another Trojan horse filled with important information, drawing the audience in with both her out-of-place appearance and her sex appeal (according to pervasive pop culture standards and practices). In effect, what McKay creates is a sexy, Spark Notes-esque version of everything the film has communicated thus far; it thereby meets the audience on familiar ground rather than alienates them with guilt or confusing language, or conversely, waves the white flag and simply accepts that they cannot understand. The breaking of the fourth wall in combination with the use of humor while communicating an important message is a staple postmodern technique that attempts to offer meaningful social commentary while simultaneously poking fun not only at the topic at hand but also the medium itself. This technique shows that the film is significantly more thoughtful and strategic than it may initially appear to audiences who think it is merely another Hollywood attempt to capitalize on a fashionable trend in movies post-2008.

In combination with the breaking of the fourth wall, voice-overs also alert audiences to important insights of the film. While being introduced to Baum's character, the audience is given first-hand accounts of Baum in action, along with flashbacks and voice-over commentary by Vennett. During this introduction, Vennett depicts Baum as another neoliberal figure who goes against the grain but is highly capable of detecting falsehood, but then he goes on to describe how “a tragedy happened to Mark and it turned his whole world view dark, and he was ready to believe the whole system was a lie.” This moment is instructive on various levels. First, it places Mark in a role of cultural representative, as his personal tragedy and the effect it has on his world view could be seen as parallel to that of American society. After Mark's brother commits suicide, Mark becomes angry and ultraskeptical, “willing to believe the whole system was a lie,” not unlike how the American population became very disenchanted with the all-knowing market and the legal system that was supposed to keep an eye on it after the terrible tragedy that was The Great Recession. The fact that Mark's tragedy takes places before the crash presents him as a foreshadowing figure, illustrating what many Americans would be like after the crash. Importantly, it is Mark's skepticism that allows him to personally avoid the ill effects of the crash, which may be instructive or at least suggestive of the fact that strong skepticism toward the market and its regulators may be a good start to combat the negative effects they have on the average American. This skepticism, of course, runs contrary to the neoliberal perspective of strong faith in markets and valuing the “freedom” of competition above all else. Although Baum participates in this competition and ultimately benefits, the fact that he does so begrudgingly and with immense remorse indicates that he is an instructive and subversive figure, even if he is simultaneously a flawed one. Even earlier in the film, the audience hears Baum on the phone saying, “I don't want that kind of business. Money is not money. That's bad money.” The fact that these lines come immediately after Burry tells his partner on the phone how he will get the banks to create a vehicle through which he can short the market exemplifies the moral conundrum of profiting from shorting the market, as all the major characters are about to do. The metaphorical significance of these scenes presented in tandem illustrates how both men are essentially on either side of the line, one creating the opportunity necessary to profit from economic turmoil and the other expressing discontent at the means of doing so (in spite of the fact that Baum is discussing a different business venture at the time).

Beyond the more obvious boundary traversing elements of voice-over and breaking of the fourth wall, there are also lucid moments in the film that contain significant meta-analysis in standard dialogue. One example occurs when Burry makes his initial pitch to the big banks for them to create a product for him to bet against the housing market. When pressed to explain himself, Burry admits that, yes, “Based on the prevailing sentiment, the market, the banks, and popular culture, yes it's a foolish investment, but everyone's wrong.” This serves the immediate purpose of further establishing the character's willingness to go rogue and trust his own abilities, but it also lumps together the realms of the financial world and popular culture, acknowledging that these different spheres of life are at least somewhat interrelated, if not dependent. When he says “everyone's wrong,” it applies beyond the context of the film's plot and is actually a metacommentary on American culture's trust in the market and popular culture, two major barometers against which citizens gauge the current state of the nation.

Alexander Long, “Calling-Out the Bullshit: The Paradox of Neoliberal Critique in The Big Short” (10 april 2018)

[esther-dot]

1 I tend to think those who will end up on a throne have looked at the world from a very high place, and these are Jon (top of the Wall)/Sansa (top of KL, Eyrie)/Bran (top of... everything, lol). The show ending was truly baffling, but it makes sense bookwise at least in part. Sansa will marry a king (in the text): king in the North, or king in the South? Imo Jon might become king of Westeros but then he'll pull a Cregan/Duncan/Aemon; or, king in the North. But "marry a king" means

part 3 didn’t make it through, anon, but thank you for these! I really love the way you think. I still haven’t formed any coherent thoughts on the endgame, but I’ll chat about it under the cut.

Well shoot. To me, that placement above everything always seemed more like god than king indicator (because I was focused on Bran as the counterpoint to Dany) but your take, that that vantage point is actually ruler foreshadowing is so interesting because while we all argue over Jon and Sansa and Arya’s ending, King Bran has been confirmed. So, looking at him, seeing what indicates his end, and then looking for echoes of it in other character’s chapters…that seems promising! I’ll definitely keep this in mind if/when I reread.

The parallels Martin creates and the playing with names seems to indicate what you suggest regarding Jon being offered the throne and choosing not to accept or abdicating. I think it was drifitng-snowflakes who mentioned that first in conjunction with a Duncan parallels (link), and a lot of us have commented on the parallels Jon has with various Aemons (@estherruth-jonsatrash mentioned some here, additional parallels with the dragonknight here, and a helpful anon and I talked about it meaning Jon rejects the crown here). I tend to think that Martin’s interest in writing the additional precanon stories is because they make the canon material weightier with the idea that the main series will have aspects of history repeating as well as the sense of history finally being corrected. So, your speculation, that Jon (a Targ) is the one who calls a great council the result of which is to remove the Targs (himself) from power and form some new method of rule, well, that would be very satisfying. And, there’s spec that Rhaegar intended to call the lords of Westeros together because he knew his father was unfit to be king, so Jon summoning them, well, it ties in there too. I’m not sure that Jon would actually be king at that point, but it seems very likely that he would have some backers but refuses to allow all those parallels to come to fruition.

As for Sansa’s fate, I’m actually partial to her becoming queen in her own right rather than by marriage. Also, to me, rejecting the kingship over Westeros has the most weight if Jon isn’t already a king. As in, maybe he refuses to honor Robb’s Will because he doesn’t want to disinherit Sansa, and maybe he doesn’t accept the crown either? It’s pretty commonly accepted that he’ll be KitN, and that may happen, but to me, so much is made of people wanting Sansa to hold the North/marrying her to get Winterfell, it seems that Jon can’t agree to take it from her and get the happy ending we want for him. I think if he goes along with Robb’s Will/accepts Winterfell and becomes KitN, exile or the Watch is his endgame. If he refuses, then I think he will get a happy ever after in Winterfell with Sansa LoW or queen. (I think she’ll be queen, but I know people differ on that.) And, since he has already refused to take it from her and he supported Alys, I think there is reason to believe he’d remain firm on this. Also, Sansa wants love, it is important for her as a character to be prioritized, vital that she knows she is loved for herself, not because of what a man can gain through a marriage with her, so her being safe and in a position of political power and then marrying Jon because she wants to would be the perfect way to end her story. I’m not saying that’s what we’ll get, that’s just my preference. There’s always been a lot of spec that Jon and Sansa marry to resolve the mess of Northern succession/Jon being revealed to be a Targaryen which obviously makes a lot of sense because so much has been done to build towards a real mess there.

I’d love to hear more of your thoughts on Bran because that’s something I’ve been wondering about a lot. Why would he accept becoming king? How is this meaningful to him? Regardless of having powers or not, I keep trying to think about how that would be written from his POV. In a lot of fiction, being a ruler is romanticized, but to me, imagining Bran and Sansa trying to pick up the pieces after the devastation to come, it just sounds like a huge burden. The idea that people who have suffered as a result of these wars will work to prevent future wars, that makes sense, and the idea that Bran who was taught justice by Ned (one of the more merciful men in the series) becomes a good and just king, that makes sense, but I just keep wondering how it would be written as an emotionally fulfilling ending for Bran/his fans? Maybe doing a read through of just his chapters would answer a lot of my questions.

Thank you for the message!

[dodgefred]

(u wanted questions sooooo) If you could rewrite the spring awakening musical, what things from the play would you include? (and what from the current musical would you eliminate?)

this is such a good question it took me a rlly long time to figure out how i wanted to answer lol but basically i just wish the musical included a lot of the important points the play established. the musical does this fun thing where we see the outcome of a lot of the things the play brings us to, but we don’t see the buildup that the original play had.

for example, the beating scene. in the musical, without any context at all, it seems like just a weird random bdsm thing and melchior runs away out of fear of being caught. that’s how it’s perceived by a lot of audience members because we don’t get to see the context the play builds up. the play establishes melchior as having a nightmare that he hit his dog and then spiraled, and we find out that this is his biggest fear. therefore, after that scene he’s so disgusted with himself and he is a lot more resentful. he doesn’t want to cause anyone genuine pain- and this even works with how sater romanticized the hayloft scene! obviously he shouldn’t have but it’s kind of silly he didn’t use this plot point to humanize melchior even more than he did, because again with just the context we are given in the musical, melchior is still a really gross person and not a kid who has made mistakes and has fears just like every other kid.

i also wish the musical kept a lot of the smaller details. i really wish moritz’s death monologue was longer. i studied it for class recently and it’s such a heartbreakingly good monologue and i think sater could have definitely brought more into that scene in the musical. my favorite part of that scene, though, and the reason i bring it up is when moritz burns frau gabor’s final letter to him. i think that’s so impactful to moritz’s arc especially and i wish it had been kept, whether they used physical fire or not.

i wish the vineyard scene was longer, and less portrayed as a joke. hanschen and ernst are foils to melchior and wendla and while melchior and wendla are openly discovering their sexuality with each other, hanschen and ernst are doing the same thing but much more privately and much more tentatively due to the society they’re in. therefore hanschen snd ernst’s interactions, while hanschen does get some sexual innuendos, seem to be a lot more innocent and are perceived as much more tender, and i think this is an awesome contrast to how queer men are typically portrayed in terms of the homophobic predator stereotypes and all. this is why the vineyard scene is so impactful in the original play (esp bc of the time it was originally written!!!) and why i wish steve had made it longer and why i wish actors milked the beats a little bit longer than they do. the scene is so brief but it could say a lot and i wish sater took the time to do that.

i also wish ilse was included more. her arc is so interesting and we barely get to see it at all. she runs away from her abusive childhood home, only to move in with artists who are probably older men and who probably groom her and drug her up every day and we don’t get to see that beyond her small scene with moritz before his death.

there are a lot more things like that but they’re mostly much smaller details and stuff. as for stuff i’d keep, i really like how the mama who bore me scene is at the beginning. i think it’s really impactful foreshadowing and it was such a strong decision to establish right from the start that sex education isn’t taken seriously by society. i’m obsessed with the way the audience is treated as society throughout the show and when we laugh at a joke onstage, 9/10 times that means that society wouldn’t be taking it seriously either. and that especially works here, in this scene, where we’re currently laughing at how frau bergmann is avoiding teaching wendla about sex, but we aren’t laughing at the end when wendla is pregnant and being dragged to an abortion against her own will. the parallels between mama who bore me and whispering are literally CINEMATIC, especially how wendla’s first and last lines while alive are “mama.” i think that works so well. sater is so so so smart when it comes to small callbacks to other songs and that’s a quality i’m obsessed with in musicals.

i like how there are less characters? this is a super dumb one but i literally cannot keep up with the play WHO is robert WHO is lammermeier WHO are these people.:.... but i like how in the musical it’s a much smaller ensemble and there’s a clear Boy Squad and Girl Squad. we have enough ensemble to paint a picture of various people’s views, but we don’t have too much ensemble to be overwhelming. i like that choice a lot.

i like the way he cut the mysterious man holy shit the mysterious man is so strange and on the roundabout workshop album he freaks me the fuck out so i’m so glad he was cut LMAO. he’s an interesting narrator but i don’t think the story needs a narrator. i think the kids can and should tell their own stories.

this is getting to be super long and it’s just a bunch of word vomit that prob doesn’t make sense so i think i’ll cut it off here but thank you for this question anon it made me think a lot (: the play and musical both have their redeeming qualities and i don’t think i favor one over the other but i think it’s really interesting to look at the differences between the two, esp in terms of characterization. someday i’ll talk in-depth abt how queer-coded moritz is in the original but for now i’ll shut up abt the play LOL

[papers4me]

When Stories Changes Colors

Often authors start their stories based on certain themes & genres, then they later move away from some of them as the stories deepen & reach climax. So, once you reach the conclusion, the story has become something else entirely different from how it started.

That’s called story-telling. The longer you tell the story, the different it becomes. However, this change helps the story move away from the basic introduction of its characters, plot & world-building into the exploration of meaningful themes leading to the story’s vision. The overall vision is the reason why the story was essentially created. Doing that is not a necessity, but it sets complex stories apart from simple ones. It is very important that while you can change themes & even genres within your story, you need to effectively wrap things up in the conclusion. Not necessarily bringing back what you have long moved from, but holding the story together using the vision. This is the thing that can’t change. You started the story for a reason & this reason should conclude it. Themes & genres are tools you need to reach your destination.

For example: (with spoilers)

-Fruits Basket anime started as simple, basic, direct, short “lesson the day” episodes in season 1 & moved to exploring traumatic themes, character depth, ugly truths, & emotional turmoil in season 3. While Fruits Basket isnt the best example due to the anime’s favoring quick over-dramatic presentation of trauma over deep character depth & consistency of quality in season 3, the later still does the job of reaching the heart & conveying the message of “welcoming growth & accepting change”. Story-wise, there is no comparison between seasons 1 & 3. They look so different that it feels rewarding. Season 3 holds what fruits basket is in its core, a story abt accepting human weakness & moving on in life, leaving behind the small simple lessons of its early episodes.

-Attack on Titans is a an example succeeding brilliantly to change colors then failing miserably "tie” the colors in the final step. we can compare the first season to season 4 (firs part) & you’ll feel you’re watching/reading a different story! in a good way! the last good way. Now the final arc in the manga does a good job of ruining this as it attempts to return back to the beginning to story that has long moved from what it was initially. Calling back sth that has long been abandoned isn’t parallel, it’s contradiction & the plot will strat having holes bigger & bigger as the conclusion comes. AOT’s plot has become sth way bigger than a group of “ united avengers” can defeat to save the day & the story has become is too deep & complex to have one big giant baddie that must be defeated for peace. You can’t start simple, go complex as hell, then finish as simple as “snow white & the 7 dwarfs defeating the Evil Queen”. Isyama had the ending decided for so long as he claimed more than once, so what went wrong is the road reaching to it. If what we have in the final arc is the vision from the beginning, then the story should have been tailored to suit it. The story-telling reaching before the final arc is one of the most complicated, complex & deep plot exploration with various character depths (minus the protagonist or antagonist or whatever u wanna call him), but the final arc itself failed to contain all this with its basic one-sided battle & no color suited it, so it revered back to trying to parallel the beginning bringing back as much parallel as possible from every character & scene in its early stages.

-Game Of Thrones is an example of unnecessary intentional change of colors. Unlike the above examples, GOT started complex & complicated from the get go. You get introduced to tons characters thro their dialogue & interactions. The story’s themes & world-building involve magic, mystical world & politics. These three are the core of the story, moving away from them creates a story that is a kind to soap opera of repeated short dialogues & unnecessary drama. The show producers wanted to minimize the unique “magic “ aspect of the story to change its colors to appeal to the masses “like mothers & sport players” or sth. The problem is GOT’s color is what gained popularity & changed the masses view abt watching fantasy stories. For example, stories abt vampires & mermaid have their own audience & the majority of viewers won’t tune to watch them as they might deem them too “ fantasy”. But GOAT seasons 1 & 2 with the magic world gained immense flowing from viewers who normally skip such genres. These ppl have already accepted the “magic” of GOT as part of what the story is & were expecting to see a pay off in the final season. However the producers decisions to move away from “magic” meant killing off what was the build up from season 1. The White Walkers were destroyed with one stab thro a single character’s body. With one stab, you end what you sacrificed seasons, plots & characters to establish. The politics itself was simplified immensely as long built, established with foreshadowing political rivals simply “bent da knee due to love love”. Others wanted elephants & died under a brick. Villains who once were the core of the story with their complexity such as Tywin & little finger, or their madness such as Joffery & Ramsey were changed into whatever the show’s Euron Greyjoy was. a simple& basic villain with not much plot value.

So, good story-telling requires a well-established structure with thought off vision & an overall perspective of what the story needs to become from the beginning. Writing itself is a nonlinear process, so writers will either go above their own structure or under it, especially in stories that are published/aired while written. However, if the decisions is made to start publishing or airing before the whole process of writing is over, then there is bigger responsibility on the writing team to review each chapter/ episode while keeping in mind where it’s going & what’s expressing. Nothing is more disappointing than seeing a great written story loose its colors instead of just changing to new better colors or showcasing more hidden ones.

[inbarfink]

I know I already made a post about the Rose Quartz-Greg Universe Backstory Parallels, but thinking about it... the fact that Greg’s backstory is just the Normal Human Earth Version of Pink Diamond’s Story is important... but it’s not the ONLY reason why Steven felt like Greg is “just like mom”. There’s also another factor here, the fact that Greg has never told him about his human family, the fact that he hid this information from him. He did that Thing Steven associates with Rose most of all, he lied. 

Well, ‘hiding’ and ‘lying’ is kind of heavy words here. I don’t think Greg saw himself as lying. or hiding anything. This is - like a lot of the issues brought up to the surface in Mr. Universe - this is a communication issue created by the wide difference in the perspectives and life experiences between Steven and Greg. 

Greg, in his POV, never divulged false information to Steven about his family. He never explicitly told Steven “I have always had the surname ‘Universe’, I was born with it”, or “No, you can’t visit your grandparents because..... they’re dead”, or “I did not run away from home”. He just... didn’t talk about his family a lot. He occusionally mentioned vauge stuff about his family when they subject gets brought up that foreshadowed this episode, but all in all, Greg just didn’t talk about it. 

(And you can totally understand why, these Family Issues are clearly still a sore spot for Greg. I think he’s been underplaying his own emotions even all through “Mr. Universe”. PLUS, discussing them with Steven in spesifics is gonna be extra-hard cause...well... at what age do you tell your child that his grandparents never answer your letters??? Especially since Steven already has so much on his plate!)

And Greg doesn’t view that as ‘lying’ or ‘hiding’ anything, if Steven actually directly ASKED him about his family at any point in his life, he’d probably would have explained his backstory in vauge, emotionally-disconnected terms and then he would have been like “oh whatever, YOU’RE the only family I care about anymore, schtu-ball!”. He clearly didn’t treat that backstory-revealing road trip, as... like... Revealing anything previously hidden to Steven. This is also consistent with the way he feels about Rose’s secrets and falsehoods:

Rose didn’t *lie* to Greg about Not Being a Diamond, she simply did not tell Greg that she was a Diamond - and there is a difference there. Well, for Greg, at least. For him, that level of ‘secretiveness’ comes off as normal and acceptable. Because he basically grew up with the Normal Human Version of Pink Diamond’s Upbringing! Overcontrolling parents raise oversecretive children, that’s a Theme in the Show!

But I think that Steven sees less of a distinction here. Greg might have grown up until the age of 20 having to Hide Everything from his parents, but Steven grew up constantly having to deal with the emotional fallout of his various parental figures Hiding Stuff from him! Rose’s many, many secrets are the most obvious examples, but the CGs and Greg also have their fair share of it. Steven starts the show knowing almost nothing about Gemkind because the CGs and Greg (who DO know a bunch of Stuff) chose to not tell him and he had to find out a lot of the Lore in the worst possible moments.

Garnet, Amethyst, Pearl and Greg never directly *lied* to Steven about the origins of the Crystal Gems, but they didn’t tell him any of the truth either and quietly allowed him to build a very inaccurate image of the situation in his head - which got knocked down one-by-one as the Gems were *forced* to tell Steven the truth. And I don’t think it would have made much of a difference for Steven if this inaccurate image was purely a result of Steven’s imagination running wild with the void of information that his parental figures chose to give him or if they directly told him false shit. The result for Steven was the same!

Either way he had to deal with Dramatic Big Revelations rather than being able to process stuff like the nature of Gemkind or Pink Diamond’s supposed shattering in a calm environment surronded by loved ones. Either way he had constantly put himself and his loved ones into dangerous situations because he has not been given enough information to know that This Is a Bad Idea. Either way he had his viewpoint shattered a million time. For Steven, who has directly experienced the very worst of this ‘sorta lying by omission’, it’s all bad and it’s lying!

And I think Steven had a similar sort of situation with the Gem-Stuff and with Greg’s family. Like, I guess it’s unclear how seriously we should take “I thought you said you grew up in a prison!”, but I can see Tiny Baby Steven hearing Greg talking about ‘sneaking past the warden’ and assuming his dad Literally Escaped From Prison and then Older Teen Steven just never really questioned that information because it’s just never got brought up a lot. At the very least Steven is VERY suprised that the DeMayos’ house is ‘beautiful’.

And we already know he’s sick of being lied too! It’s been a thing since Steven’s Dream! (at the very least!)

Steven thought he was done with all the Secrets to Supposedly Protect Him back when he found out that Rose ‘shattered’ Pink Diamond. He thought that his family was gonna share stuff with him and be open. So he was extremely mad when he thought that the Gems were keeping yet something ELSE from him (when actually Garnet was trying to avoid the confertation with Blue Diamond she kept future-visoning and Pearl was technically keeping a secret from him... but not necasserly out of her own will). And as he clearly states here, for him, the Gems were LYING to him. When they are not telling him any information, it’s the same as lying to him!

And just as I understand why Greg doesn’t like to talk about his family much, I understand why Steven feels like he’s got a right to know. If it was just Greg not telling a Friend everything about his backstory, it would have been different. But the DeMayos are Steven’s family too, doesn’t he has the right to know about them? Steven has angsted so long about Rose and what’s she like and how unknowable she is to him because he only got to know her through other people’s stories of her... maybe he doesn’t want his grandpa and grandma in this category too. He’s defos has some conflicting feelings about them now. Between being super-charmed by the decor of their house and feeling like he’d be better off raised in such a ‘normal’ situation and between his dad’s super-negative feelings about them.

And remember, “Growing Pains” has just gone over how Steven’s PTSD makes it hard for him to react to Issues in a porpotional manner. Steven has gotten yet ONE MORE THING his loved ones have ‘hidden from him’ or ‘lied about’ (even if it wasn’t Greg’s intentions), and his brain’s Emotional Reference Points are all the OTHER times where his family was keeping Shit hidden from him. Even if Greg’s backstory is technically small peanuts, Steven is processing the shock like he’s realizing the Gems are an Alien Invader race all over again. Like he heard that his mom had murdered someone for the greater good for the first time. Like he is once again seeing Rose Quartz transform into Pink Diamond. 

So as far as Steven, processing his Emotions behind the wheel of that car is concered... what Greg did *feels* like what Rose has done. It at least feels equivelent in a way that I don’t think Greg really understands. 

[fuckyeahisawthat]

So I finally made it all the way through Trust episodes 1 and 2 last night and I feel like I had some kind of filmmaking revelation about how deeply who you position as the protagonist influences how we perceive a story. I mean, this is stuff that I knew and I have talked about before, about how who you choose as the protagonist is the most important decision you make when creating a story because you’re telling us where we’re supposed to place our empathy and who we’re supposed to have hopes and fears for and who this narrative belongs to. But it’s striking to find an example that illustrates this so clearly.

Film language has a certain grammar that we’re used to reading whether we’re conscious of it or not, and the order in which we see things has a lot of power to shape what, and who, we perceive to be important. At the beginning of a film story, we’re used to seeing: Here’s a person! Now, here’s their problem. Watch how they try to solve it despite obstacles. That’s what this story will be about.

If you just watched the first episode of Trust and then I asked you to tell me what you thought the show was about, you would probably say it’s about Getty the eldest and his succession problems. The first episode sure sets us up to think that he’s the protagonist, which is a problem, because he’s not just a horrible person I don’t want to spend time with; he’s boring. He’s boring in a narrative sense, because he has no real obstacles in his life. He’s surrounded by people who are at his beck and call; he has all the power in every relationship around him, and so there are no real stakes for him, dramatically.

Lucky for us, he is not actually the protagonist. Little Paul and Primo are. They’re co-protagonists with parallel stories. They are the people whose wants we are following throughout the story. Little Paul wants to get out of this kidnapping alive, and Primo wants the ransom money. And the person standing in the way of both those things happening is Grandpa Getty. Functionally, narratively, he is the antagonist in both of their stories.

(This is why there are so many moments where, despite the fact that Paul is Primo’s prisoner, we see them hoping for the same thing to happen, and it sort of glues them together emotionally--both for us the audience and for the characters themselves--in a really interesting way.)

If you watch episode 3 as if it were the first episode of the series, who the protagonists are is really obvious, because we meet Little Paul and Primo, in sequences that tell us a lot about them, back to back right at the top of the episode.

If you watch the series in order, Little Paul’s character introduction happens when he shows up at his uncle’s memorial service in jeans. He is introduced in relation to Old Paul and Big Paul, as a problem and a disturbance in their worlds.

If you treat episode 3 as if it were the first episode of the series, Little Paul is introduced in his own world, living the kind of life he wants to live and having a blast. Then, we very quickly see his problem (he owes money to dangerous people) and we watch him try to solve it, fail several times, and then come up with the kidnapping idea which launches the main plot of the entire series. If we view it that way, everyone else in his family is introduced in reference to him, which is actually an accurate reflection of the structure of the story.

If we put episode 1 after episode 3, episode 1 suddenly becomes a lot more interesting. Because it’s no longer a story about Old Paul and his rich people family problems, it’s a story about Little Paul trying to get money from this rich asshole, money we already know Little Paul needs to solve a very urgent problem in his life. Suddenly the stakes are very clear and very high, and the whole episode is actually a microcosm of the main plot of the series as a whole. Little Paul needs a comparatively small amount of money to get himself out of a life-threatening problem, and his rich-as-fuck grandfather won’t give it to him.

Switching the POV and storytelling order around also gives episode 1 something it sorely lacks if you watch it as the intro to the series: suspense. Because we already know before Little Paul arrives at Sutton Place that he’s going to fail, and this will put him in the predicament that launches the main plot on its way. But Little Paul himself doesn’t know he’s going to fail, and we the audience don’t know how he’s going to fail, so things like the scenes of Little Paul charming his grandfather in various ways suddenly become interesting, because we’re waiting to see how and when all of this will blow up in Little Paul’s face. Even scenes of Old Paul being horrible to various people become ways of heightening the stakes, because we’re thinking about the fact that Little Paul’s life depends on getting money out of this motherfucker.

Big Paul also suddenly becomes more interesting, because the only thing that elevates him in this story from pathetic self-involved wallowing to a passably interesting tragic figure is the way his emotional self-involvement damages other people, particularly his own son. Now, instead of Little Paul showing up as a problem in Big Paul’s story, it’s the other way around. Viewed this way, Big Paul’s actions in episode 1 become a way of foreshadowing his actions in episode 7, which I think is a really effectively-told tragedy. Episode 7 ends with Big Paul finally doing the thing he’s been wanting to do this whole time, which is stand up to his father. But he manages to do it in the most selfish and destructive way possible, in a way that puts the lives of all of the characters we care about at this point at risk--Little Paul, but also Primo and Leonardo--and launches us into the tension of the pivotal episode 8.

Switching the episode order also makes a whole bunch of tiny details in episode 1 pop. We know Little Paul is lying when Old Paul asks him if he does drugs, so we’re waiting for that lie to blow up. The crucial detail of the Playmen magazine shoot is also highlighted, because we’ve already seen this photoshoot in the opening montage of episode 3 and we recognize the damning cocaine t-shirt instantly.

In addition to being an exercise in how directing the audience’s POV controls our emotional experience of a piece of media, this is also a really good example of how telling a story non-chronologically, in a way where the audience already knows how a plot point resolves, doesn’t kill the tension but can often heighten it. And in general this is something that Trust is very effective at--perhaps most masterfully so in episode 5, where we spend the entire episode knowing that Little Paul and Angelo are not going to successfully escape but still get extremely invested in them trying.

As for why the creators set the series up in a way that foregrounds the least interesting characters and buries the natural starting point of the story in episode 3...I don’t know. Desire (or pressure from the network) to frontload the actors who were best known in the US? Confusion about how (un)interesting these rich people actually are, and why? Who knows. But I think this contributed a lot to the mostly lukewarm critical reception when the show first came out (especially knowing that most reviews were only based on the first three episodes, which is what critics were allowed to see in advance of the premiere.)

In conclusion, now you have the correct viewing order for Trust; thanks to Luca Marinelli for being compelling enough to make me skip to episode 3 and get invested in this show; and if I ever teach a filmmaking class I am definitely using this as an example when teaching a lesson on suspense, POV, and choosing the most interesting protagonist.

[aros001]

First time read through light novel vol. 7. Random thoughts.

Through some kind of mistake, Rem had completely accepted Subaru, but he knew all too well that the Subaru Natsuki she saw was an ideal far removed from the real thing. Compared with the man she envisioned in her mind, the cards that the real Subaru held were few in number, and poor in quality—

But he learned, now that he stood at the playing table, no one cared about his personal problems.

All anyone in his position could do was try to win with the cards he was dealt.

This is sign I think Subaru has grown a little bit, though he is still growing. It's not about him, and Ferris later seems like he's trying to drill that into him a bit more later when Subaru wants to help with the battle preparations. It's good that he wants to help but sometimes he's unintentionally making things too much about himself, just to ease his own feelings. There are places where he would be getting in the way if he tried to help and Subaru's learning to accept that; to be patient and give his services where he can actually be of use, not just to help himself feel better. And damn, does he put that new maturity to good use in the big battle.

Originally, these negotiations had been Rem’s appointed duty. He could easily imagine how being unable to divulge her task to Subaru and having to speak with Crusch day after day had whittled away at her spirit.

Subaru had continually rotted by himself while the future of the Emilia camp had been entrusted to her—she must have suffered under that burden.

He hoped that in some small way, this victory repaid the girl whose feelings had supported him for so long; if so, then for the moment, that was enough for Subaru to be happy.

I really like this part. Again, it's not all about Subaru. He's acknowledging how much Rem's had to deal with while he was having his breakdowns and indulgences during his prior loops, and how much she still did what she could to support him in spite of it all. We're getting a little more that she does have a life outside of just Subaru and a little more added on to why he feels he's been so selfish. It really feels like he is now doing this for her. It's not like Subaru was completely self-centered before but I imagine there were times, especially with Emilia, where he wanted to help, but he wanted to be the one to help. He wanted good things for her but part of him cared more that he was the one giving them to her, verses her just getting what she needs in general. It's like how he couldn't feel happy that Otto was in support of Emilia first time he met him, though of course that was when he was at one of his lowest points.

And, of course, I'm absolutely reveling in all the sweetness of Rem supporting Subaru through his negotiations. Even if it's just holding his hand and reminding him she's there, he clearly appreciates the strength and courage it's giving him. Obviously they're not a romantic couple but this is the kind of stuff I love to see in romantic relationships. Just the basic comfort and support they find in each other's presence.

“...If I am gone, will you remember me just as long?”

“...I don’t wanna answer that. It’s bad luck.”

Speaking with a voice of dismay, Subaru gave Rem’s forehead a little poke.

When he touched Rem’s forehead, she smiled with a happy expression, almost as if she’d received the reply she had been hoping for.

Given something I believe I've been spoiled on for what happens later in the story (after where the anime leaves off), this feels like a very cruel monkey's paw bit of foreshadowing.

“Subaru.”

“...What?”

“I am fine with being your second wife.”

They were words to make a man unwittingly halt in his tracks.

When Subaru, unable to resist, looked toward her, Rem made a face like that of an adorable puppy, seemingly wagging her tail as she awaited Subaru’s reply.

Oh, good grief, just how far is this girl gonna—?

“If Emilia-tan’s a very generous first wife...”

“Well then, when we get back you must convince Lady Emilia. I shall try hard as well.”

Rem clenched the hand not grasped into a fist, very animated as she spoke with a smile.

Speaking jokingly like that broke all the tension, driving home to Subaru how weak he was. He truly couldn’t hold a candle to the girl.

I'm...going to have to see where the story goes from here, and how truly joking/serious Rem was with that second wife line. Just to put it out there, I don't really have a good view of polygamy. I'm always going to think that, 1st wife or 2nd or 3rd or wherever, someone is always going to be treated like second best and second priority. What they're receiving doesn't feel like real love and that's not fair to them. The only way I can see myself supporting a polygamous marriage in this series is if it's made clear Emilia and Rem are attracted to each other as well as Subaru and want to bang. Then it at least becomes three people who love each other as opposed to just "the guy and his two prizes".

So, first time you read this part in the novels or watched it in the anime, was anyone else afraid of the White Whale not showing up where and when Subaru told everyone it would? Like the world would just want to gut punch him one more time and have everyone think he's a fraud? I remember I was.

One theory I have for why the witch's scent grows stronger, not just when Subaru RBD, but also when he tries to talk about RBD is that maybe the witch likes when he acknowledges her "gift" to him. But she's also quite screwed up and doesn't like it when he tries to "share" what's between them, thus why she punishes him or those around him for doing so.

In front, behind and up above, he saw yet another whale-shaped figure high in the sky, scattering mist all around.

—The infinite mouths of the three White Whales laughed together, drawing out the despair of men.

Subaru, Crusch, the soldiers, everyone, etc.

Though pests had interrupted it, the White Whale’s mission was to cover the world in mist. This, too, was the command of its instinct, and doing so was the purpose of the White Whale’s existence.

One thing I've enjoyed about the various light novel series I've been reading is that, compared to their anime, I get a better idea of various characters' and monsters' mentalities. The best example I could give would be the goblins in Goblin Slayer (that they are not mindless creatures; that they know EXACTLY what they're doing to people and they enjoy it) and this bit with the White Whale is another good one. It seeks to cover the world in its mist and thus destroy/consume/erase everything (maybe?) And it doesn't know why it seeks to do this. It just does, suggesting there is something else, possibly the one behind its creation, driving it.

It's also interesting that, to the White Whale, the witch's scent is described as foul, despite the stories that she's the one who created it. This brings to mind a couple different theories.

Satella didn't actually create the whale. Someone else, perhaps one of the other six witches did or one of the archbishops.

Satella did create the whale but maybe used one of the other witches to do it. Puck did mention something about Gluttony when he sensed the whale approaching in the last loop.

Satella REALLY cannot tell the difference between positive and negative emotions, even more so than we were already led to believe.

Kind of cruel of Rem to trick Subaru into thinking she was dying, but at least we do get Subaru's completely true feelings out in the open. Back to the polygamy matter, I don't have a problem with Subaru being indecisive between Emilia and Rem or being in love with them both. It's not just that they've done so much for him, in which case the relationship would feel just like how Emilia described, just the two of them repaying debts to each other. Both women have been a hugely positive influence on Subaru's life. They've impacted it for the better and helped push him into being more of a man he can live with being, and it works the other way around too. It would be hard to imagine his story without either of them in it. I feel the same way with Code Geass in regards to CC, Shirley, and Kallen in Lelouch's story. It was the only "harem" series I've ever watched where I had trouble saying who the MC should end up with, because all three were irreplaceable in his life and story. Take any of them out and it loses a lot. Emilia and Rem are a similar case.

As Rem looked back at Subaru, now beside her, large tears filled her blue eyes. It was not being left behind that she feared. No, what she feared more than anything was—

“When you are in distress, Subaru, I want to be the one offering my hand faster than anyone. When you hesitate along your path, I want to be the one pushing on your back. When you challenge something, I want to be at your side, stopping you from shaking. That is—that is all I wish for. So please...”

Again, more great parallels between Subaru and Rem, as this isn't dissimilar to what he wanted to do for Emilia.

Wilhelm might just be the biggest example of a tsundere I've ever seen. Married a woman he loved from the bottom of heart for what was assumedly a decent amount of time...never freaking told her "I love you" until he finally killed the beast that killed her.

As for Theresia, it's definitely a case of why context is so important. She never wanted to be the Sword Saint. She only did so because she found purpose in saving as many lives as she could with the insane power she had (the whole "great power, great responsibility" chestnut). If Wilhelm is strong enough to protect and save people, to where her absence would make no difference, then she doesn't have to be the Sword Saint anymore and can live the life she wants. It's what makes it an actual kindness vs. some chauvinistic BS. Probably helps too that she'd already helped put an end to a long war, so she wouldn't have been needed as much anyway.

“So it is said. The existence and origins of demon beasts are mysteries to us. Some propagate in the same manner as ordinary living creatures, but some suddenly appear out of nowhere like the White Whale. Though, properly speaking, the only exceptions on par with the White Whale are the Black Serpent and the Great Hare.”

Oh...I'm so not looking forward to meeting those two. After how much tragedy just the White Whale caused, what the f**k are those things going to do? My money would be that whatever it is, it will hurt Subaru quite horribly.

This book potentially answered a question I had in my last post. The Witch Cult is after Emilia because they see her as an impostor of the Witch of Envy, or at least so the characters in-story are speculating.

Not sure how many people here are fans of Rising of the Shield Hero but after this I kind of want to see the White Whale and the Spirit Tortoise duke it out. That sounds awesome. Mountain Turtle vs. Witch Fish.

Original Reddit post: https://www.reddit.com/r/Re_Zero/comments/gub735/novels_first_time_read_through_light_novel_vol_7/

[violethowler]

The Elephant in the Room

In my previous essays, I have covered how the Kingdom Hearts narrative follows Maureen Murdock’s template of the Heroine’s Journey, as well as how various characters and story elements tie in with the overarching themes of the framework. Before I can continue to dig further into other themes and archetypes, there is something I need to address first. While I have avoided directly touching on the topic in my previous essays, I have now reached the point where it is no longer possible to talk about the Heroine’s Journey in full without acknowledging the elephant in the room: 

Romance.

In ongoing serialized stories such as TV shows and video games, conversations about potential relationships in canon are often treated as inconsequential to the overall story. Something that is separate from the main plot. At worst, I have seen fans who openly center a ship in their analysis and theories be dismissed and criticized as biased - or worse, delusional. They are treated as being so obsessed with their pairing that they try to make everything about their ship and jump on any excuse to declare that it’s viable in canon. 

Among the Kingdom Hearts fandom in particular, this has often taken the form of someone trying to dismiss other fans’ hope for a ship to be canon by saying that the series is about friendship, not romance.

While friendship is absolutely an important theme in the Kingdom Hearts series, to insist that this is mutually exclusive from depicting the development of romantic relationships ignores the continued presence of canon Disney romances in almost every game in the series. In each “main” game where Sora is playable, he has directly or indirectly been involved in getting those Disney couples together in the KH universe. So it’s not out of the realm of possibility for the series to turn the tables and give some attention to his romantic interests for a change. 

A story having other major themes is not mutually exclusive from showcasing the development of a romantic relationship. There are many popular movies, shows, books, comics, and video games in which a romantic relationship plays a central role in the narrative but there are still other plotlines going on that are equally as important as the romance. This is especially true for Disney and Square Enix.

The reason why it’s impossible to fully talk about the Heroine’s Journey without acknowledging romance elements is best encapsulated by this quote from She-Ra showrunner Noelle Stevenson about her show’s endgame pairing in an i09 interview after the release of the final season:

“The show’s not a romance show. It is about a lot of things. It’s about choice, destiny, fighting, tyrants, you know, all of these other things. I grew up with so many stories—like sci-fi and fantasy—that I was so passionate about. And it would be considered no big deal to have the hero get the girl and to have a kiss at the end, without it suddenly becoming a romance or ‘Oh, the shippers got what they wanted.’ It was just a part of the story. And to actually see it be a central part of the plot and to fulfill the arcs of the characters in a way that felt satisfying. I really want to take it beyond ‘Oh, the shippers got what they want.’ Like, it’s not just a ship for me. It is a plot point. It is the necessary conclusion of each character’s arc, separate and together.[1]”

While not every story known to follow the Heroine's Journey features a romance for the main protagonist, those that do make the romance an integral part of the narrative. It’s not something thrown in at the end to please shippers, but a central component of the story. Therefore, when analyzing a Heroine’s Journey story, it is vital to acknowledge and discuss textual support for potential romantic relationships in order to have a full understanding of the narrative.

Even if one is not aware of the Heroine’s Journey, Sora’s repeated interactions with Disney romances indicate that there is a high probability that he will be in a romantic relationship himself by the end of the series. Every story I know of that follows the Heroine’s Journey broadly adheres to a pattern in regards to how the romantic relationships of a main character are set up.

By examining the series through these patterns, we can narrow down who Sora’s endgame romantic partner will be. 

Because the themes and character dynamics emphasize resolving internal conflict through balance, the Heroine’s Journey lends itself extremely well to Beauty-and-the-Beast, rivals-to-lovers, and enemies-to-lovers relationship dynamics. A major component of the Heroine’s Journey is the main character learning to accept themselves, and since the Animus as a Shadow figure can represent the parts of themselves that they haven’t accepted yet, it is simpler to symbolize that self-acceptance via a romance with the Animus rather than attempting to build a separate relationship on top of the existing story framework.

For these reasons, the Animus is more often than not the main character’s endgame love interest, their feelings for each other made into critical aspects of their respective character arcs. The only Heroine’s Journey stories with romance that I know of where this wasn’t the case are ones where executive meddling resulted in the finale being rewritten to kill off the Animus despite established narrative set up for them to have a happy ending together[2], while the protagonist was either forced into a relationship with a different character or left single.

And like I said in previous essays, the one character in the series who fulfills all criteria for the Animus role within this storytelling framework…. 

Is Riku.

[Image Description: Sora supporting Riku as they walk toward the ocean on the Dark Margin at the end of Kingdom Hearts II. End Description.]

As mentioned in my earlier analysis, this narrative framework emphasizes the importance of balancing contrasting attributes, which fits in extremely well with Kingdom Hearts’ focus on balance between light and darkness. For stories that follow the Heroine’s Journey in a visual medium, that dichotomy is often incorporated into the characters’ look. Height differences are common, while their color schemes and outfits are designed to make them complement each other. Further adding to the focus on balance between light and darkness, the visuals of the story frame the romantic leads with imagery associating each one with light or darkness to create Yin-Yang symbolism when they are finally in balance. 

In Re: Chain of Memories, Vexen openly calls Riku the “Hero of Darkness[3]” as a counterpart to Sora’s role as the “Hero of Light”, and their combination attack in Kingdom Hearts II utilizes moves that reflect both elements. In the Ultimania for the original game, Tetsuya Nomura said that Riku’s look was intentionally designed to balance Sora’s[4], and the contrast between their respective color schemes is maintained in each of their new outfits. In Kingdom Hearts II and Dream Drop Distance, Riku wears white and blue, while Sora in those same games wears black and red. Two different pairs of contrasting colors. Kingdom Hearts III has them both in outfits that are primarily black and grey, but still emphasize the blue and red that have been part of their respective outfits since the first game. 

In a Heroine’s Journey, the love interest is typically an active character in the story and usually serves as the deuteragonist. This fits with Riku having been a mandatory playable character in multiple games since 2004. In addition, series producer Shinji Hashimoto said before the release of the HD 1.5 Remix collection[5] that the main focus of the series is how Sora and Riku develop both as individuals and as a pair, which fits with how the central conflict of the Heroine’s Journey revolves around the dynamic between the Protagonist and their Animus. 

A common viewpoint held by many fans of the series is that Kairi is Sora’s love interest, and it’s not hard to see why people get that impression. He has sacrificed himself to save her in two separate games now. He’s charged enemies head on in order to rescue her whenever she’s been captured. He even got down on his knees and begged for her freedom when Saix demanded he show how important she was to him. Multiple characters have talked about how special she is to him, and Roxas refers to her as “that girl he(Sora) likes.” 

However, there are multiple elements in the narrative that point to them not being the endgame romance. Kingdom Hearts III foreshadows the final shot of them sitting on the paopu together at the end of the game with Sora disappearing from the cover of the 100 Acre Wood storybook, textually framing Winnie the Pooh as a parallel to Kairi. While many fans regarded their sharing paopu fruits in the base game as the beginning of a relationship between them, he still only refers to her as a friend in Re:Mind, and even compares his bond with her to the bond between Ventus and Chirithy. 

Sora also does not treat his promises to her with the seriousness he would if they were going to end up together. The promises to return her lucky charm and to come back to her that he makes in the first game are never treated as anything urgent when he awakens in Kingdom Hearts II. Instead, he declines the opportunity to return to the islands and check in with her in favor of searching for Riku. When Kairi says in The World That Never Was that they’ll be together every day, Sora agrees, yet he was content to spend the rest of his life on the dark beach at the end of the game as long as he was with Riku. 

Meanwhile, the most consistent theme regarding Kairi in relation to the Destiny Islands trio is the idea of childhood friends drifting apart as they get older[6][7]. This is particularly highlighted in Kingdom Hearts III, with Kairi writing letters to Sora that she never sends, thereby keeping her thoughts to herself. Merlin also emphasizes this when he talks about forging new connections after Sora’s visit to 100 Acre Wood. This parallel frames the ending of Re:Mind as the two of them recognizing they’ve drifted apart and choosing to put in the effort to renew their friendship by spending time together.

On a structural level, her portrayal does not fit with how love interests are typically depicted in the Heroine’s Journey, both as an individual and in relation to the main protagonist. There is no contrast between her and Sora’s designs or roles the way there is between his and Riku’s. Her color scheme is predominantly pink, which does not have the same contrast with Sora’s red as Riku’s blue. Because she’s a Princess of Heart, there is no dark and light contrast, and the combination attack she shares with Sora in Re:Mind only utilizes light-based moves. It took 17 years after her first appearance in the series for her to be made a playable character, and even then, playing as her is not mandatory. They are never portrayed as equals, and she is not an active force in his emotional growth. 

The Heroine’s Journey was crafted for narratives revolving around identities that have been Othered by society for one reason or another. Murdock designed her template as a tool to help women deal with being shamed by society for expressing and pursuing their desires. In a similar way, LGBTQ+ people also face stigma from society for expressing and pursuing their desires. So it makes perfect sense that a framework for narratives of people overcoming internalized stigma against important parts of themselves would be ripe for stories featuring LGBTQ+ protagonists of any gender.

As mentioned in previous essays, stories that follow the Heroine’s Journey challenge the biases and blind spots of the audience. A relationship between Kairi and Sora does not challenge anything because she has largely been regarded as the endgame love interest by default since the beginning. Meanwhile, a romantic relationship between Sora and Riku challenges players to recognize heteronormativity within themselves and in the media around them. It challenges people to examine the lens through which they perceive the story and rethink how they look at what’s happening in the narrative.

In summary, the portrayal of Kairi and her bond with Sora is not consistent with how love interests are commonly depicted in the Heroine’s Journey, while the portrayal of Riku and his bond with Sora is. If Sora’s story is going to continue on this storytelling formula to the end, the structure of the Heroine’s Journey narrative leaves Riku as the only thematically viable candidate for the role of endgame love interest. 

Now, as some people bring up in conversations about Soriku, there is a potential obstacle in the form of corporate executives. It is entirely possible that Disney will drag their heels and try to force the development team to downplay or remove any open same-sex relationship the series may try to depict. They do not have a strong track record of LGBTQ+ representation that isn’t a minor character who only appears for one scene. Given that their last IP to follow the Heroine’s Journey - the Star Wars sequel trilogy - crashed and burned at the end, executive meddling is my greatest fear for this franchise.

But the thing to keep in mind is that Tetsuya Nomura is stubborn as hell. One of the reasons the long gap between Kingdom Hearts II and Kingdom Hearts III was because he was holding out for permission to include Pixar movies in the game, outright refusing to start work on KH3 until they were given that go ahead[8]. If you want further proof of how stubborn he can be, this is how he described the meeting where he first pitched the series to Disney in a 2012 interview with the late president of Nintendo[9]:

Iwata: Their ideas were different from yours, naturally…

Nomura: Yes. They appeared to believe that we would make whatever they wanted us to make and came up with rather specific requests such as, "We'd like the game to feature this character." They were really excited, explaining their ideas... To be honest, though, I wasn't really interested in any of them. (laughs) 

Both: (laughter)

Iwata: You wanted to borrow Disney's characters in order to make a new game that could compete with Mario 64, and you already had a vision of what this game would look like. I suppose their ideas didn't fit in with this vision.

Nomura: They didn't, no. In the end, I actually stopped a presentation halfway through. We didn't have that much time, and it looked like it was all going to get taken up by various Disney presentations. So, I interrupted them and told them the conclusion by saying, "I won't make such games."

Talk about nerves of steel. This man basically said “we do this my way, or we don’t do it at all” TO MOTHERFORKING DISNEY, AND. HE. WON. If there is any human being with enough force of will to make the Mouse House cave in and allow the depiction of an openly LGBTQ+ relationship in the Kingdom Hearts series, it is Tetsuya Nomura.

I cannot say with 100% certainty how things will go. But everything I know about storytelling patterns and narrative structure is telling me that Kingdom Hearts is a textbook Heroine’s Journey with a romance between Sora and Riku at its core. A relationship between the protagonist and the Animus does not truly begin until the “Integration” stage at the end of the Journey, and we are rapidly approaching the point in the narrative where the two leads traditionally become aware of and acknowledge their feelings in order to be on the same page for the finale.

Sources: 

[1] “She-Ra's Noelle Stevenson Tells Us How Difficult It Was to Bring Adora and Catra Home” May 18, 2020

https://io9.gizmodo.com/she-ras-noelle-stevenson-tells-us-how-difficult-it-was-1843419358

[2] “Death of a Dark Youth, Desecration of the Animus”; December 20, 2018. https://www.teampurplelion.com/death-of-a-dark-youth/

[3] Kingdom Hearts Re: Chain of Memories. Square Enix, 2007. 

[4] “A Look Back: Kingdom Hearts Ultimania Gallery Comments Part 1″; August 30, 2019;

https://www.khinsider.com/news/A-Look-Back-KINGDOM-HEARTS-Ultimania-Gallery-Comments-Part-1-15519

[5] “How Kingdom Hearts III Will Grow Up With Its Players;” September 24, 2013.

https://www.ign.com/articles/2013/09/25/how-kingdom-hearts-iii-will-grow-up-with-its-players.

[6] “E3 2018: Tetsuya Nomura on If Kingdom Hearts 3 Is the End of Sora's Story”; June 14, 2018.

https://www.ign.com/articles/2018/06/14/e3-2018-tetsuya-nomura-on-if-kingdom-hearts-3-is-the-end-of-soras-story

[7] “Character’s Report Vol. 1 Translations”; Jul 16, 2014

https://www.khinsider.com/forums/index.php?threads/characters-report-vol-1-translations.195560/

[8] “Edge Magazine Features Kingdom Hearts III Cover Story”; January 9, 2019. https://www.khinsider.com/news/Edge-Magazine-Features-Kingdom-Hearts-III-Cover-Story-14331

[9] “Iwata Asks: Nintendo 3DS: Third Party Game Developers, Volume 12: Kingdom Hearts 3D [Dream Drop Distance], Part 2: It’ll definitely be fun”; April 2012. 

https://iwataasks.nintendo.com/interviews/#/3ds/creators/11/1

[warrioreowynofrohan]

The Silmarillion as a TV/Netflix Show (Part 5)

Season 5 centres on Túrin, Tuor, and Dior - and, later, Elwing and Eärendil. The last two seasons have looked hopeful for a while but ended on tragic notes (the Bragollach and the Nirnaeth); this season is going to flip things by being almost unremittingly tragic but ending on a hopeful note.

There are a few key things to do here:

1) Draw out parallels and common threads between our main characters. At first I wanted to shift the timeline a little and have key events in Túrin and Tuor’s lives happening at the same time: Túrin as outlaw, Tuor as thrall and then outlaw; Túrin in Nargothrond, Tuor in Gondolin; Túrin and Finduilas, Tuor and Idril. But it felt like there were too many big events happening simultaneously, and it was hard to fit them all in. Still, the parallels between the cousins are present.

Dior needs more characterization in order to be able to hold his own, narratively speaking; we have very little on him in canon.

2) The Fëanorians will be very important in the last few episodes of the season, so they need to be worked into the storyline of at least some of the earlier episodes to keep them in view. I’m going to go with them being based on Amon Ereb for this period; it fits some of Tolkien’s versions, and having them in Ossiriand at the same time as Beren and Lúthien and Dior would feel like a massive Chekhov’s Gun that is never fired.

So, with that in mind:

Episode 1: Túrin is going to take centre stage here, with the episode covering everything from his departure from Hithlum up to the death of Saeros and Túrin’s departure from Doriath. (And the episode will start with the Words of Húrin and Morgoth.) There will also be a few scenes from Tuor’s and Dior’s childhoods, which were comparatively more stable. Since Beren and Lúthien had such a large part in the last season it will be nice to see their experiences of parenthood. Lúthien, never having met mortal children, will be shocked at how fast Dior grows up. (He definitely ages on a Mannish scale - he’s married at 22, a king at 27, and dead at 30.)

Near the beginning, the episode will also include a scene where the Fëanorians attempt to invade Doriath and are turned back by the Girdle of Melian. It doesn’t function as a direct, physical barrier; it causes confusion and disorientation and strange visions and a loss of sense of direction, and you look around and find you’ve ended up outside Doriath again. This eerie, hallucinatory quality fits Melian’s background as a Maia of Lórien, Master of Dreams. (And hey, if you can work some subtle prophetic/ominous foreshadowing into the visions, all the better!) The purpose of the scene is to show that the Fëanorian’s aren’t idle; they do want pursue the Silmaril, but for the moment it is beyond their reach. The brothers will have varying levels of enthusiasm about the plan, with Celegorm and Curufin being the ringleaders.

Episode 2: Heavily focuses on Túrin’s time as an outlaw, from his first meeting with the bandits through to Dor-Cúarthol, the fall of Amon Rudh, and the death of Beleg. This is a lot of material - joining the bandits, becoming their leader, the first meeting with Beleg, finding Mîm and Amon Rudh, Dór-Cuarthol, and the fall of Amon Rudh and the death of Beleg. There may be a need to streamline it, with Beleg only finding the outlaws once they are at Amon Rudh, and staying with them then.

There’s a lot of good characters here, and a lot of good personality confllicts - it’s practically a short movie in itself. Particular care needs to be taken with Mîm, who cannot be allowed to become a caricature.

This episode introduces Anglachel, so it would be good to have a short Gondolin scene with Maeglin (bearer of Anguirel) to establish the symmetry. And also to keep Gondolin in the viewers’ minds. A short scene in Nargothrond showing their reaction to Dór-Cúarthol (positive: it is or was their realm, and he’s doing more to defend it that they are) will set up later events,

Episode 3: The focus splits between Túrin in Nargothrond - particularly his relationships with Gwindor and Finduilas, and his growing prominence, with him becoming de-facto in charge at the end of the episode - and Tuor as a thrall and later outlaw. Tuor’s personality really comes to the fore here: he’s patient, and steady, and kind. He puts up with considerable abuse an a thrall, escapes when there’s an opportune moment, and can’t be effectively pursued because he’s made friends with all of his captor’s hounds. (I especially like that last fact.) The episode ends with him leaving Dor-lómin by the Gate of the Noldor.

This is also a good time to build up the romance between Dior and Nimloth. Nimloth must be Laiquendi, as those are the only other people Beren and Lúthien would meet in Ossiriand; I rather like the idea of them being childhood friends, to offset some of the more love-at-first-sight romances. Dior is now in his late teens and - this is important - very, very good-looking, even by elf standards. He’s also very interested in his Doriathrin heritage, and asking his parents a lot of questions about his grandparents; that sets up his determination to be Eluchíl later on.

Episode 4: Tuor’s meeting with Ulmo and his coming to Gondolin, the Fall of Nargothond, and Túrin in Dórlomin. The fall of Nargothrond and deaths of Gwindor and Finduilas form a nice counterpoint/contrast with Tuor’s meetings with Voronwë and Idril and his arrival at Gondolin. Túrin’s impulsive actions in Dor-lómin contrast with Tuor’s approach in the prior episode as well.

Episode 5: Focus is on Túrin’s story. Journey of Morwen and Nienor to Nargothrond and its consequences, and Túrin in Brethil, through to his slaying of Glaurung and his and Nienor’s deaths.

For extra bonus irony points, parallel the wedding of Túrin and Níniel with the weddings of Idril and Tuor and of Dior and Nimloth.

Episode 6: Wanderings of Húrin through to the Sack of Doriath and Beren and Dior’s fight with the dwarf-army. (Dior isn’t mentioned as being part of this fight in the Silm, but it’s an excellent moment to include him here.) The Fëanorians reenter the scene, attempting to intercept the dwarf army carrying the Silmaril, but arriving too late. This is the best chance they’ve had st recovering a Silmaril yet - they’re not going to ignore it.

The line “while Lúthien held the Silmaril no elf would dare assail her” is typically read as it just being something no one would consider on a moral level - and that’s a valid reading - but I like the idea that the Fëanorians aren’t going after her because they’re freaking terrified of her. This is the woman who defeated Morgoth single-handedly! Holding one of the most powerful artifacts ever created! Who knows what she could do! (The Fëanorians absolutely make concessions to practicality when it comes to the Oath - otherwise they would have attacked Angband sometime in the 400 years of the Siege, or after the Nirnaeth as a way to die pursuing their oath in a decent way rather than slaughtering kin. It’s only the final attack by Maedhros and Maglor after the War of Wrath that they attempt in the face of impossibility, and by that time I think suicide-by-Valarin-army makes up a solid portion of their motivation.)

Episode 7: The refounding of Doriath, the Second Kinslaying, and the capture and treachery of Maeglin. Broad theme of the episode being Bad Elvish Behaviour all round, with elves doing Morgoth’s work either directly (Maeglin) or on their own initiative (the Fëanorians).

My idea on the refounding of Doriath, and on Dior’s title of Eluchíl (Thingol’s Heir) is that this quickly and breifly becomes the core of Elvendom in Beleriand. Dior, as Lúthuen’s son and Melian’s grandson, likely has some degree of ‘magical’ power beyond what is usual for elves. Not enough to reestablish the Girdle of Melian, but enough to provide some general deterrance against evil forces. Doriath is also, for the first time, open to all the other free peoples of Beleriand, and is the only true realm remaining aside from secret and mysterious Gondolin. Not only do the Doriathrin Sindar and some of the Laiquendi and the northern grey-elves unite around Doriath, various Noldor, remants of lost realms and destroyed armies, join them. Dior is becoming in truth what Thingol claimed to be: King of Beleriand. All the more so when the Silmaril comes to him and Doriath blossoms like a memory of Valinor in the Ages of the Trees.

And this would fit with why the Fëanorians would regard Dior as ‘proud’, this would offend them more than anything, because what he’s achieving is exactly Fëanor once boasted that he would achieve, long ago in Tirion. This would fit with the sheer visciousness of the Second Kinslaying, with the abandonment of Dior’s young sons in the forest. Celegorm’s people aren’t even thinking in terms of hostages; they just want to destroy Dior’s entire family line, because his existence, his kingship, what he’s achieved are such an affront.

But Elwing escapes, and the Silmaril is still out of their hands.

(The attack is at Yule, whuch sets up a strong and deliberate parallel - Morgoth’s earlier attacks on the Lamps and the Trees were also at times of festival/celebration, so the Fëanorians’ actions are being deliberately equated with his.)

Episode 8: The Fall of Gondolin. This is your absolutely epic big battle scene. Balrogs! Dragons! Eagles! Maeglin acting like a cackling B-movie villain! (I have not read The Fall of Gondolin, but I’ve hear that Idril swordfights Maeglin in it, and this absolutely needs to happen.) Ecthelion kills a Gothmog! Glorfindel kills a balrog! It’s tragic, but it’s also extremely exciting television (unlike the kinslaying the previous week, which was mostly just really depressing and horrific.)

The episode ends with the survivors of Gondolin making their way to Sirion, where the survivors of Doriath have already settled. I think that the survivors of Nargothrond should also be there, to keep things simple and allow for some extra drama.

Episode 9: This one starts with a timeskip, so we can have adult Eärendil and Elwing. The episode is a quieter one, mainky setup for later events: the departure of Tuor and Idril, the marriage of Eärendil and Elwing, the birth of the twins, and Eärendil’s departure to seek the aid of the Valar. The voyage of Eärendil is dramatic and can take up some of the episode.

Episode 10: The Third Kinslaying, the destruction of the Fëanorian base on Amon Ereb, the voyage of Eärendil and Elwing to Valinor, and the Valar’s decision to go to war. The nain reason I wanted the Nargothrondim in Sirion is so that we can get Celebrimbor fighting against the Fëanorian forces here, because that just increases the level of emotional drama. The whole thing’s a traumatic mess. Fëanoruan solidiers throwing down their swords and surrendering. Fëanorian soldiers switching sides to defend the people of Sirion. It’s hard to overstate how teagic this is - here is almost the last remnant of elves in Beleriand, and they are being destroyed not by Morgoth (from whom they would be protected by Ulmo’s waters), but by their own people.

But at the end of the episode, Valinor is marshalling for war, and things are finally. finally, looking like they could get better.

[dokidokivisual]

Gochiusa BLOOM episode 7 impressions

Previously: 6 - 5 - 4 - 3 - 2 - 1

In real world Halloween might have been a month ago, but in the world of Is The Order a Rabbit it’s exactly the season for all things spooky. And maybe things become a little too supernatural for a slice of life show. In the last episode we’ve seen how BLOOM symbolizes the growth of the characters. And as we enter the second half of the season, another meaning is revealed...

But first let’s visit Ama Usa An, where horror-loving Chiya is decorating the traditional Japanese teahouse for Halloween. Since Halloween is decidedly not a traditional Japanese holiday, it looks kinda surreal, but Chiya’s grandmother is more worried about souls of the dead coming back to life, especially that of Chino’s grandfather (see season 2 episode 9 for more of their backstory). Of course the soul of Chino’s grandfather isn’t actually dead, but is inhabiting the body of a rabbit. It’s not clear how exactly this happened and Cocoa might have been involved.

Speaking of Cocoa, we see her practicing with the magic set she bought in the first episode of the season. She tries to make something appear in her hand, but nothing happens. Clearly you can’t just learn to summon matter into existence in Gochiusa world, or can you? Anyway the shot focuses on a candy laying on a table before the opening sequence cuts in. This must be the object Cocoa has tried to summon and it’s also clearly a foreshadowing for something.

Meanwhile, Maya and Megu are trick-or-treating in matching werewolf(?) outfits hoping to score some free candy. Interestingly the tradition of giving out candy on Halloween has descended from a medieval practice of sharing so-called “soul cakes” which represented the souls of the dead.

Meanwhile the staff of Rabbit House are dressed as vampires. The theme of vampires fighting werewolves brings up to mind the Twilight series although I’m sure the idea came up many times throughout history. If you look closer, you’ll notice that Cocoa, Rize and Megu have fake fangs (I think Maya’s is natural), although they’re not consistently drawn between scenes, even though in the manga they’re drawn correctly. Maybe they’ll fix this in BD. The only one whose fang is not shown is Chino, and ironically she is the one who actually bites somebody.

Also the flashback of Chino “roaring” at the mirror reminded me of the scene from Celestial Method where Noel (also voiced by Minase Inori) roars at a dinosaur standee. To be fair it sounds completely different but I just can’t help but compare them.

Also while I was browsing through my copy of volume 6 I found a cute illustration card that seems to be relevant to this episode, but includes Mocha and Cocoa as the wolves and Chino as the vampire (here’s a highres version).

I think I bought this particular volume in Japan on the day it was released. Good times...

Next MaMe go to Fleur de Lapin and are greeted by Sharo dressed as Little Red Riding Hood (bunny version). This costume appeared earlier in an illustration for the rabbit chapter from the previous episode.

This is also a rare scene where other employees of Fleur de Lapin can be seen, as usually Sharo is shown working there alone. Even in the manga, Sharo is the only employee shown in this scene. In the end it turns out that Sharo is a wolf in disguise and craving for some meat. Which is weird because Sharo hasn’t been shown eating or cooking any meat before.

Anyway, next stop is Ama Usa An, which is called the Witch’s Mansion now. Chiya mentions the beginning of the Sabbath, and the manga chapter’s title 今宵は甘兎サバト also mentions the Sabbath. This might be confusing because in Judaism and Christianity the Sabbath is the day of rest and happens weekly (on Saturday or Sunday). However since we’re talking about witches, this actually references the Wiccan concept of sabbat, or one of eight festivals in the Wiccan calendar. In particular, Samhain, one of the four Greater Sabbats pretty much coincides with Halloween and celebrates the beginning of winter.

Chiya does this thing where the protagonist’s hand hurts only to awaken their dark powers, I’m not really sure where this trope comes from but I’ve seen it referenced in anime before and it’s a common chuunibyo stereotype. In this case, Chiya did really just hurt her hand. There’s also some sort of runic circle drawn on her bandages, but if you look closer it says shiratama anmitsu matcha parfait in hiragana.

Maya and Megu agree to help Chiya, and become her “familiars”. Even though familiars are better known as a video game mechanic today (which is what the “level up” scene references), witches were associated with familiar spirits since medieval times. A familiar often took form of a small animal, such as a cat. Unfortunately MaMe don’t even know which animal they are, so clearly they didn’t take their backstory as seriously as Chiya did. Their ears and tails look canine to me, so I can see Megu being a fox spirit, but Maya being a cat is less believable. Also during their confrontation Megu confirms that Maya’s fang is her yaeba (snaggle tooth).

As a revenge for the trick MaMe pulled on her, Chiya gives them a selection of pumpkin tarts, one of which is laced with wasabi (which she calls ”Russian roulette”). This seems like a common thing for her, since she did the same with botamochi in season 2 episode 6, and with green tea in season 2 episode 7 (except she used aojiru instead of wasabi). However this time, it was Chiya’s grandmother who put wasabi in two of the tarts, unbeknownst to Chiya. By the way in the manga it wasn’t shown that Chiya got one of the wasabi tarts.

Chiya goes shopping for some pumpkins, but is helped by Rize, and later Sharo gives her anti-pain medications, reminding her of how Chiya tended for her when she was sick in season 1 episode 12. It’s not mentioned in the anime, but Rize also had a “motivation” for helping Chiya, as she hurt her leg before (see season 2 episode 2). Chiya invites Rize and Sharo to dinner and brings up the wasabi-laced pumpkin tarts. According to Chiya the probability of getting wasabi is 1/3. Initially there were 7 tarts, of which 2 had wasabi. Megu, Maya and Chiya eat one each, with Chiya’s having wasabi in it. That leaves 4 tarts with 1 wasabi, so either Chiya’s calculation is incorrect, or somebody ate one more tart.

Apparently last day was just a warm up to Halloween (All Hallow’s Eve’s Eve?), so next day Megu and Maya come to Chiya again and try to summon something. A larger and slightly different version of the runic circle previously seen on Chiya’s hand starts glowing and we see that the 3 white rabbits correspond to three people holding hands. There’s also Anko corresponding to the black rabbit in the middle. By the way, in the manga the sign on Chiya’s hand was just a hexagram, and the summoning ritual didn’t have any visible symbols.

Anyway, they want to summon a messenger from demon world/hell, and coincidentally Cocoa and Chino come in (dressed as vampires) and try to attack (cuddle) them. Chiya, Maya and Megu form New Chimame-tai which works because Chiya and Chino have the same first syllable. However Chi is written with kanji instead of katakana in this version (because Chiya’s name 千夜  is one of the few given names among Gochiusa characters that’s always written with kanji). This defeats Chino, and Chiya consoling Chino like a big sister defeats Cocoa as well.

Ok let’s move on to part B, which is the really important part of the episode. The streets of the town are filled with people dressed in various costumes. Cocoa’s classmates can be seen among the crowd, and Aoyama and Rin are enjoying a boat ride on River Sanzu.

Our main character have also prepared some new costumes for the occasion. First we see Chino, dressing up as Phantom Thief Lapin, while Rize is going as a police officer. Soon Chiya and Sharo join them, who somehow independently of each other also went with a Lapin costume. At least Sharo had a good excuse. For Chiya, Lapin’s gloves obscure the bandage on her hand, so maybe that’s why she chose this costume. But what about Cocoa?

Well, she kinda got lost and we find her at the location that you will recognize if you read my episode 5 review. Cocoa says it looks a little different than usual, almost like a different world (isekai). Well, there’s a lot of evidence to support this hypothesis. First, in a scene that parallels episode 1, Cocoa finds a lost child and tries to calm her down with a magic trick. However you might notice that the child’s head is literally a pumpkin with a moving mouth.

And her mother is also a pumpkinhead. Cocoa doesn’t encounter any other people during this segment, even though you’d think a spot that overlooks the town like this would be quite popular. Well, she does encounter one more person, a mysterious masked magician with an angora rabbit on her head. She also wears a G-clef pendant indicating some sort of music connection.

Now, since y’all had already watched the episode, it wouldn’t be a spoiler to say that this is the ghost of Chino’s mother, Saki. The rabbit on her head is the ghost of the original Tippy before its body was taken over by Chino’s grandfather. The original Tippy was a female rabbit, by the way, a fact established early on in the series. In Sing for You OVA (for which I wrote a not-very-detailed review by the way) it’s established that Saki was a singer and even had a record released.

Anyway, as a ghost, Saki doesn’t speak (although she still can giggle and such) and doesn’t physically interact with Cocoa (only indirectly, by casting candies at Cocoa). Nevertheless she does teach Cocoa how to do the candy trick correctly.

Meanwhile, the rest of the group tries to call Cocoa’s phone but she doesn’t answer. This is another evidence for isekai theory. Cocoa is just out of range, you see. Rize and Sharo swap their costumes (the most unrealistic part of the episode) and Sharo starts “policing” the Lapins on how the real Lapin would talk. Chiya has a bright idea to shout out for Cocoa and call her big sister. However Cocoa would obviously only react if Chino calls her that, so Rize encourages Chino to say it louder (referencing her training for the choir in Sing for You).

Cocoa and Saki hear Chino, and Saki looks at her daughter from the terrace. Chino also looks up... but doesn’t see anything. She does get a hunch that there’s something up there though, so the group finds Cocoa eventually. Meanwhile Saki feels like her time is up and makes for a quick exit, literally disappearing.

This is where Cocoa returns to the “real world”, as the current Tippy calls out for her. Why was Tippy with Cocoa anyway in the first place? Cocoa looks around and there are in fact lots of people there as expected.

Cocoa thinks that Tippy speaking is an evidence of a ghost, despite her interacting with a real ghost just a few moments before. The 3 Lapins arrive and start arguing who is the real Lapin. Chino says that it’s the one who gets away with everything in the end, implying she will take the whole Cocoa for herself. However Sharo arrests Cocoa for making everyone worry.

On the way back, Chiya recalls the legend which was also mentioned by her grandmother at the beginning of the episode about the spirits of the ancestors coming back for this one day and then returning to heavens. Chino looks up to the sky, while Tippy gives her a solace in the fact that he was once again turned away, implying that he expected to return to heaven with the other spirits.

Tippy also seemed to know what Cocoa was talking about in an earlier scene where Cocoa said she forgot to give thanks to somebody. Just what’s up with Tippy and why is he not allowed to enter Heaven is a big mystery here.

Cocoa also notices Chino being distressed and shows her the magic trick with the candy. It turns out Chino remembers this trick from her childhood, and we get to see a full flashback with Chino’s mother even getting a few speaking lines (delivered by none other but Nana Mizuki). Since the candy was probably a part of the magic set, it’s no coincidence that it has the exact same wrapper in the flashback. The color of the candy matches with Chino’s clothes at the time but you can also think of it as a combination of Saki’s white and Chino’s blue.

By the way, in the manga Cocoa conjures up two candies, and they have a plain wrapping so there wasn’t One Specific Candy like in the anime. Also in the flashback, Chino is carried by her grandfather. His face is not shown, but Takahiro is seen in the background (with Rize’s dad) so by exclusion it had to be him. And in the current scene Chino is the one carrying Tippy like this.

The episode ends with Cocoa asking Chino to tell her more about her mother, while a star is seen rising in the sky, presumably symbolizing Saki’s spirit.

Let’s go back to Cocoa meeting Saki scene one more time. Like I explained, it’s heavily implied that Cocoa isn’t really in the same world as the other characters when she meets Saki’s ghost. Of course Gochiusa had supernatural elements from the start, such as a certain talking rabbit who happens to be Chino’s grandfather. But now we have a ghost of Chino’s mother and Cocoa is the only one who can see her, but Chino can’t? Just what the heck is going on here?

But wait, there is a rational explanation for all of this! Cocoa had a hallucination triggered by all the Halloween celebrations. She imagines helping a lost child just like Chino did before (and told Cocoa about it later) and then imagines the ghost of Saki teaching her magic, because subconsciously she wants to be like Saki. She had seen Saki before on a photograph, but haven’t heard her speak, which is why the ghost can’t talk to her. Hearing Chino call her onee-chan brings Cocoa back to her senses. But how did Cocoa learn the trick if it was just her imagination? Well, consider the fact that she was practicing this exact trick at the beginning of the episode. By the time she shows it to Chino, she has already practiced it a lot of times, but maybe she only realized the crucial part (feint) during the hallucination. Either way, the blue striped candy wasn’t given to Cocoa by Saki, she had it from the start, as part of the magic set! The candies that Saki uses to show the trick to Cocoa all disappear when Cocoa returns to reality.

Saki appears one more time in the bar time scene with Takahiro, who is listening to her record Silver Spoon from Sing for You OVA and then calls her by name. I think this is the only time the name “Saki” is mentioned in the show itself, and it’s not mentioned in the manga at all (unless maybe in some recent chapters which I haven’t read yet). The first time it was revealed was during April Fool’s day Clockwork Rabbit event, as a solution to a “puzzle”. Her name is written in katakana as サキ, however one of possible readings of the word “saki” is 咲き which means “bloom”. Now consider how the last few seconds of the opening animation it cuts from a blooming field of dandelions to Saki:

The dandelions connection to Saki was previously seen in season 2 episode 1 and Sing for You. Saki’s character design doesn’t really say “blooming of dandelions” to me, but consider that a dandelion turns into this:

Now that’s more like it! Although it reminds me of Tippy as well. Anyway, that was a very mysterious episode of Gochiusa BLOOM and let’s see what happens next! Only 5 episodes remain...

[roseategales]

SOLAS & ORPHEUS I: YOUR NAME IS LIKE A MELODY. (THE POWER OF EPITHETS, TITLES, & NAMES.)

                                                           EPITHETS & TITLES:

VGS: Where do you see a character like Solas ending up? Patrick Weekes: [Sighs] Musical theatre.

The above exchange is from an interview with Video Game Sophistry, where Patrick Weekes goes into detail about the creation of Solas and how we ended up with the character and romance we got. Although said in jest, I do believe Weekes honestly recognised that Solas is a character who could easily be adapted to the medium of the stage musical, due to how musicality is baked into the foundations of his story and the world of Dragon Age. In fact, Weekes compares the fantasy and romance of Solavellan to The Phantom of the Opera earlier in the interview, and anyone familiar with Phantom can see the parallels, as Solas and his arc share many tropes and archetypes in common, not just with the Phantom, but with other male characters in musicals. If I told you I was going to see a show about a Morally Conflicted Soldier, a Trickster in Disguise, a Rebel Leader, a Decadent Noble, a Mythic Legend, or a Monster Boyfriend, I’m sure several examples would jump to mind.

Solas is all of these. Layer upon layer, stitched together, and then taken apart, whenever he needs to be whatever he needs to be. And he is also, if we are borrowing the epithets from Hadestown, The King and The Poor Boy Working on a Song.

It has to be noted that Hadestown’s use of epithets is itself a nod to ancient oral poetry, particularly in the vein of Homer. In Homeric convention, important characters, settings, and objects weren’t described by adjectives, but with epithets that would change based on context. (e.g. Much-enduring Odysseus, who is another paradoxical Trickster figure in ancient myth.) The use of epithets is a signifier of the origins of Homer’s works, serving as a mnemonic device and a way to fit the scenes of the stories to dactylic hexameter, as they were first oral poems that were composed and sung in front of audiences before they were written down. However, because of our modern understanding of the English language and what the word epithet connotes to us, what Anaïs Mitchell has done by using this device in Hadestown, is turn it into something that’s closer to the definition and function of a title rather than an adjective. Hades is always “The King.” Orpheus is always “The Poor Boy Working on a Song,” or “The Poor Boy With a Gift to Give.”

Solas bears his names in a similar fashion. When introduced to us as merely Solas, he is the “Humble Apostate” (or “Unwashed Apostate Hobo,” if you have Vivienne and Dorian in your party), or the “Fade Expert”; he is nicknamed “Chuckles” by Varric and “Fade Walker” by Iron Bull. Descriptors that comment on his lowly, outsider status, beaten and betrayed in this strange new world, that endear us to him. When he again dons the badge of Fen’Harel/Dread Wolf, he is “He Who Hunts Alone,” “Lord of Tricksters,” “The Great Wolf,” “Roamer of the Beyond,” and “Bringer of Nightmares.” Bynames that, of course, evoke those given to deities in ancient cultures (e.g. Hades is also known as Plouton in Greek myth, “The Rich One.”), that make him out to be fearsome, malevolent, and unknowable beyond the legends.

When I separate Solas into these two personas and archetypes, of Solas and Fen’Harel, The King and The Poor Boy, I don’t want us to make the mistake of thinking he is someone who bifurcates himself so completely that one part of him is unrecognisable from the other. His is not a situation of one identity hiding another or two identities battling to control the fore. He is Solas and he is Fen’Harel; the way Lavellan is “The Dalish Elf” and “The Herald of Andraste.” He is simply someone who has some impressive compartmentalisation skills (displayed in a conversation he has with Sera on the tactics of the Red Jenny group), and who has a thorough experience of a line he says to Cole:

“We all have a face we want to show, and a face we do not.”

                                                                      NAMES:

Perhaps the best way to convey Solas’ complexities coming together to form the whole of him, is by examining the construction of his name. How cyclical it is, beginning and ending with the letter S, as effortlessly smooth and slippery as he. The L in the middle like a delineation, a fork in the road of choices before him. O and A on either end like they’re mirrors or masks. How it’s composed of five letters, the way iambic pentameter is composed of five syllables that you must stress and unstress—like the two syllables in his name itself. And depending on which syllable you stress in your pronunciation, your voice will either rise and fall or fall and rise when you say it.

I may be giving Gaider and Weekes too much credit here, but Solas’ name is quite literally perfect for him. Change any single one of these components or his characteristics, and you will no longer have Solas but someone else in his stead.

There are layered meanings to the sound of his name, too. Solas is a homophone for Solace and Soulless in the English language. The former recalls all the times he might’ve provided solace to his friends or lover, or received it from them; and the latter recalls how he does seemingly soulless things to achieve his goals, or becomes someone who is soulless altogether if you don’t reach out to him with kindness. Angela D. Mitchell explores this wonderfully on her blog Dumped, Drunk and Dalish, along with homonyms in other languages. Among them are:

Latin: Solus Meanings: Solitary, alone, sole, only, uninhabited.

Irish: Solas Meanings: Light, Bright, Clear; Brightness; illumination; lucid, intelligible; light-giving, lamp flame; enlightenment, insight; revelation, disclosure; the light of existence; vision. Also: self-interest; limelight.

Old Irish: Solus Meaning: Light.

Scottish Gaelic (derived from the old Irish "Solus" or "light"): Solas Meaning: Light.

Old French: Solaz, Sollas, Soulas Meanings: Joy, pleasure, enjoyment.

She also explores the Latin root of ‘Sol’:

Lone, alone, solitary, lonely, desolate, dismal, gloomy The sun (also can refer to the Sun in a personified sense) A source of comfort, calmness, soothing "To be accustomed" (as found in such words as: insolent, obsolescent, sullen)

These are all such apt descriptors for various facets of his personality and story, it shows the amount of thought and care given to him in the writing process. And of course, there are the Elven meanings: ‘Pride’ or ‘to stand tall.’

Because of the level of thought involved, I wondered how far back Gaider chose his name and decided it would mean ‘Pride’ in Elven, and how that might’ve informed Weekes’ writing of his character. @maythedreadwolftakeyou, @felassan and @lesbianarcana (my heroes!) helped me out and did some top-notch digging.

The first instance we have of the word Solas was found in a codex acquired from Dragon Age II’s Black Emporium, which was released on March 8, 2011. After that, it appears with its Elven meaning and on a map in World of Thedas Volume 1, released on April 30, 2013.

Since we have an enormous amount of foreshadowing for him by way of Shartan in Dragon Age: Origins and Merrill in Dragon Age II, I think it’s safe to say the first concepts of what Solas would mean and who the character who would wear the name would become began as far back as DAO. (Note: I believe Gaider or another Bioware dev confirmed this on social media, but I couldn’t find the post anywhere. If it crops up and you see it, please let me know. I’ll amend the post and credit you.)

In any case, the power of names is yet another running theme that links the storytelling of the ancients, Hadestown, and DA:I. Orpheus pays attention to the composition of Eurydice’s name, and remarks on how it’s “like a melody,” and his arrival in Hadestown reminds her of it when she’s been stripped of it and has forgotten who she used to be. Solas tells Abelas he hopes that he finds a new name after he leaves the guard of the Vir Abelasan, because it means Sorrow. The Qunari in Tevinter Night’s Genitivi Dies in the End have a special interest in finding out what they believe to be Solas’ “true name,” so they can then “track [him] back through the best and worst of [himself]”; “find flaws”; “exploit weaknesses”; “know what [he] failed to be.”

To be named is to be given an identity, personality, and, in most cases, personhood. To be named yourself and to be able to name others is power. Whether that comes as the name you’re privately called, your title, or your epithet.