#this one deserved its own post because this is injustice. criminal even

[wintersoldeer]

what did you doooo to my favourite shot??

[kanohivolitakk]

Since its 3Hs anniversary some really cool things I like about the game that aren’t talked about enough because the fandom is too busy arguing who is right and who is wrong

The worldbuilding just. 3H has honestly one of my favorite fictional settings. Its just both expansive but also genuinely interesting. I have spent HOURS thinking about the world and made so many ocs its not even funny. I love thinking about the setting of the game so much.

I LOVE the puzzle like way the game explains its world and story. Like I know some people don’t like it because it makes the game a bit too convoluted but personally? I LOVE 3Hs way of not telling everything but rather giving hints and clues the player has to piece themselves. It makes the games world feel more interactive and feels so satisfying. Then again I enjoy that kind of approach to worldbuilding

In general I love 3hs fragmented story and the way how the story is placed in many different fragments. It is geniunely rewarding to replay the game from another storypath and notice the foreshadowing Would’ve the story been probably better had it been just one storypath? Honestly yes. But 3h is ambitious and one of the ways it is is with its fragmented story structure.

The structure of White Clouds is criminally underrated honestly and gets way more hate than it deserves. I love how the first few chapters set up the world of Fodlan and show injustices/conflicts of the world with chapters like the chapter where you face off Lonato for instance. Then the next few chapters are spend in deepening the mysteries such as the conspiracy against the church and the mystery regarding TWSITD. Then Jeralt dies and the last few chapters are spent as “beginning of the End” so to speak, as things clears to the intense climax.

On related note I LOVE how the game handles perspective and how the lords are the respective ways we view the story. I know so many people say “WHite Clouds is same on all paths” but I do feel that’s kinda the point. The story is the same but there are differences that come from the way each of the lords is strongly characterized and has different values, worldviews. The subtle changes on what are focused on in each route also foreshadow what will be focused on each route, which I think is super cool.

Even beyond the lords and routes the game does explore the idea of perspective well. I do think 3h has this very “everyone is the hero of their own story” type of approach to perspective and it shows it well. Each character believes they’re in the right and you can get this view that they view themselves as right. Even Agarthans who are the designated villains have this sense they think they’re in right and that the Nabateans were evil.

The way how games routes being divided into having a different focus is very cool. I love how AM is a smaller scale personal tragedy, how CF is a battle of ideals and how VW explores the world and reveals deeper mysteries. I also love how all of these are related to the lords ideals and worldviews: Dimitri is the most conflicted of the lords so he gets the most characterfocused story focused on . Edelgard is the most ideologically driven so her path focuses on her ideals and battle of wills against Rhea. Claude is the one who is the most freespirited and wants to know the truth so his route focuses on revealing the mysteries.

Also the way the houses characters reflect their respective routes storyline and central themes: Black Eagles are nobles that have conflicting relationships with nobility reflecting Edelgards goal, Blue Lions are all united with the trauma of Tragedy of Duscur, and Golden Deer are a house of misfits who give this “ragtag group who will save the universe with POWER OF FRIENDSHIP and this cool gun I found” vibes which fit the route PERFECTLY

I LOVE how the game plays with and subverts a lot of Fire Emblem tropes. While it does play some tropes straight (dad death and evil cult manipulating behind the scenes) it does do a lot to break from series conventions and playing with ideas to make a more ambitious story. The way it either subverts expectations (The evil emperor being female well intended extremist, Rhea being the Gharnef/Medeus instead of the Nyna archetype she’s presented as), twists familiar tropes to their natural extreme (Dimitris arc is basically the natural extreme end of stereotypical FE lord) and other similar things make the game feeling so planned out, like the writers understood FE stories and wanted to make something that challenges FE while still feeling like it.

The way how every major player acts as foil/pararell to another player is so GOOD. Every faction leader can be compared to the other somehow and that just makes the game SOOOO fun to analyze, trying to find all the similarities and differences and pararells is so rewarding.

A more specific example on this is how i love how the game plays with the idea of holy/sacred weapons. While normally these weapons are artifacts from goddess that defeat dragons, here the holy weapons are bones made from dragons and just???? HOW METAL IS THAT????????? It’s just such a neat way to subvert the idea of sacred weapons. Rather than being blessed creations of the goddess, they are weapons of destruction made by the villains.

I ADORE THE GAMES science fiction elements. I know people say they feel out of place but personally, they make the game memorable for me. I still remember the first time I saw that scene with nukes. I especially love the heavy implication that Sothis isn’t a goddess but rather a powerful alien. It makes her character much more interesting

I know a lot of people don’t like Agarthans but can I just say their backstory being “forced to hide after their land got conquered and desiring it back” making them a dark mirror not just 3h lords/Rhea but FE lords as whole is SO FUCKING METAL. This is what I mean with 3H writers knowing their tropes like back of their hand.

I love how in Part 1 sometimes you’d talk to two characters in Monastery at once instead of just one. It’s something I miss in part 2 honestly.

I love the small sidequests such as the fishing tourney and White Heron cup and wish Part 1 had more of them, it would’ve made the school part feel more alive.

I LOVE how some missions (esp paralogues) have subgoals that you can clear to get better rewards. I wish the game had been more clear with them or even made them main goals of maps sometimes.

I LOVE THE WAY Paralogues act as small gaiden stories that show more of the games world and characters. Its a neat way to let the sidecharacters shine and reveal some neat secrets of the games world and story.

The gameplay loop is honetly fun and satisfying. It is rewarding and while it gets tiring towards the end overall its a good gameplay loop.

I ADORE the aesthetic of Shambhala. Its just so sleek and sinister. The cyrillic letters spelling different words is so cool. Shambhala is my favorite map in the game and the aesthetic is a big reason why.

The games soundtrack is so good!!!!!!!!!!  But not only that I LOVE the way its electro elements subtly hint of Agarthans being in control behind the scenes. This is especially cool in Road to Dominion where the electro parts are barely noticeable yet present. but other tracks have subtle electro vibes as well.  The other way the games music tells the story (such as use of leitmotifs or how the monastery music changes once Jeralt dies) is great as well.

I love how 3h can be read as an allegory for reformation era and reneissance. Its such an interesting way to read the games events and compare it to a real historical periods there’s quite a bit of f

In general I ADORE the cultural references of the game. There’s surprisingly lot of way the games world is based on real life and the details are just *chefs kiss*

THE GAME IS DENSE WITH THEMATIC IDEAS. Besides the perspective the game tackles ideas of how trauma can affect a persons psyche and worldview  (as well how a persons trauma affects the way they interact with the world which in turn can affect the world as well), grief, societal values, historical revisiniosm and so much more. The game tackles SO MANY topics in an interesting manner, it is thematically just as dense as it is storywise as well.

I also love how the games thematic parts work in harmony with the story rather than one overshadowing with the other. Its super refreshing honestly where a games themes and story are both rich and I don’t have to pick one over the other.

Lastly I ADORE the games central message (or at least what I see as the central message anyway): The world’s fucked up and most people want to fix it, but what they deem fixing differs and because of that they go into conflict or outright war rather than trying to find a common ground. Everyone wants a better world but no one can agree what a better world truly means  so they fight over it. It was a theme that not only resonates with my personal values but also hit me REALLY hard when I first played it as it’s a theme that I found incredibly relevant and reflective of our own world during the time I played the game for the first time.

So yeah. I made this post since there’s SO MUCH neat things about the game, its gameplay and story that sadly get swept under the rug in favor of either arguing  which lord was right/wrong or complaining how the game is an unfinished, rushed and overambitious mess. Is 3h perfect? Hell no. But it’s a game that I hold near and dear to my heart and does genuinely SO MANY THINGS RIGHT, I’m sad no one talks about the genuine strengths the game has anymore, instead just complaining.

I’m not even joking when I say that 3h should be up there as heralded as one of the best, most ambitious and complex JRPGs alongside Xenogears, the first Xenoblade game, Suikoden and Trails series as whole along other such games. Its a shame the games reputation is less like those games and more like Persona 5s where everyone focuses more on its flaws and the fans being annoying than the fact the game does geniunely A LOT right. It’s just that good, ambitious game I love so much.

[akatsuki-shin]

Review: 默读 Mò Dú (Silent Reading)

Notes:

(Very) long post ahead

Contains spoiler

This is my personal review and does not represent the entire audience, you are free to agree or not agree with what I’ve written here

Feel free to reply/send me a message if there are things you want to discuss

Using the Donghua poster because it fits the overall story more than the Audio Drama cover. :'))

Summary:

Yan City is a bright, bustling metropolis filled with all sorts of wonders, all sorts of people. From the richest occupying the city's most prestigious residential areas to the poorest huddling together in rundown slums, from the most fortunate blessed with a life of comfort to the wretched deemed to struggle until their last breath, from the virtuous walking in the path of light to the wicked lurking under the cover of darkness.

There is as much good as there is evil, and days gone by, people coming and going along with the passage of time.

Since their first meeting during a certain case seven years ago, Captain of the City Bureau's Crime Investigation Unit Luo Wenzhou thought he would never see eye to eye with Fei Du, son of a well-known conglomerate who inherited his father's position and wealth after the latter fell into comatose due to a near-fatal accident three years ago.

Words as sharp as knives dyed their bitter exchanges, even their personality was like the heaven and earth; the bold, blunt, and straightforward Luo Wenzhou - and the astute, secretive Fei Du, with his beautiful peach blossom eyes and a smile that is not quite a smile seducing countless people, his very presence seems as if it was covered under layers and layers of deceit.

Every single time they meet, they would always part on bad terms. Yet Luo Wenzhou would never have thought that a seemingly ordinary murder case of an ordinary deliveryman would lead him into the mystery of multiple long forgotten unsolved cases, turning over the Yan City and the City Bureau itself upside down, making him question his faith to those he respected and trust - and along with it, opening a door to the truth of Fei Du's past never once known to others.

STORY: 9/10

At first glance, the overall plot of Silent Reading seems neither extravagant nor exceptional. It's just one of those police drama where the main leads had to wrestle in a battle of wits with the villains looming around them, struggling to outsmart each other and eventually, bringing justice to those who deserve it.

But that is exactly what is so good about it. Silent reading could take all of those cliche and packed them into one nerve-wrecking, enticing journey from start to finish, complete with both intense and amusing interactions, and just the right amount of romance that does not disturb the flow of the main story.

And it actually does have its own uniqueness.

In most police dramas I've ever seen, the enemy is usually either a corrupt high-ranking official committing some hideous criminal acts by abusing their authority, or an individual/group with some very extreme values or obsession. Silent Reading, however, have both of those two most general types of villains in the story and what's more? It pits them against each other, pulling around and forcing the main leads to wreck their brains, slowly unravel the tangled mess until the truth finally comes to light.

The action and suspense, the atmosphere, the analysis, everything was almost impeccable to the point of perfection.

I have to especially give my kudos to how the author (Priest) structured the mystery in such a way, connecting one dots to the other from beginning to end. During the first few cases, I thought the resolution of the case didn't feel very solid, as if there are still some details that have yet to be properly elaborated. Yet halfway through, I realize that there is actually a bigger plot that encompass everything, tying all loose ends together.

And here, I would also like to highlight my two most favorite scene.

The first one is in Chapter 114-115 when Luo Wenzhou finally peeled of Fei Du's defense and for the first time exposed his true feelings, making Fei Du faced and spoke what he truly felt for Luo Wenzhou - that he really, actually did care for him. Their entire interactions and development up to this scene fits so well with these two main characters. There was no nonsense, no sappy crying and needless drama. Luo Wenzhou was as blunt as he was desperate and Fei Du, for once, admitted to the truth straight out with his own mouth.

The second one is in Chapter 157. In this case, one of Fei Du's most trusted men and an extremely important witness (that would later become their ally) were being chased and surrounded by thugs hired by their enemy. At this point of the story, the City Bureau was already in turmoil. Luo Wenzhou was suspended, nobody knows who they could or could not trust. Yet still, his subordinates all set out swiftly under his command and followed him to save the two witnesses, appearing at the most critical time.

It was actually a typical scene that exist in many police action drama, but given the development of the story, the well-built character relationship and interactions, I think it is Luo Wenzhou's coolest scene in the entire story and it makes me admire him a lot as the main lead and a leader figure.

One thing that does not quite sit well with me is Fan Siyuan's obsessiveness towards the late Gu Zhao. His motive for the crime was clear and I understand that he was using Gu Zhao's case as an example of injustice. But his extreme emotions whenever Gu Zhao was mentioned seems strange, even baseless. It makes me think whether he considers Gu Zhao as his own family or he was maybe madly in love with Gu Zhao, whereas in the entire story, unless I'm missing something, I have only ever known that Gu Zhao was Fan Siyuan's student - nothing more, nothing less.

CHARACTERS: 9/10

Silent Reading has a balanced, yet still very much appealing casts, from the major characters to the minor ones. Even the suspects and witnesses each had their own distinguishing features that didn't make them look like they were just there as canon fodders.

The composition of Luo Wenzhou's team itself is ideal; they've got the dependable leader, the smart advisor, the best friend and trustworthy right-hand man, the genius nerd, and the dependable aide.

I especially like Tao Ran (and I think most readers would agree with me). While he looks like the typical good guy type, he really, truly is a very good person. It's hard not to find him lovable. His relationship with Chang Ning was as cliche as it could get, but hey, as long as he's happy. Dude deserve it after everything he's done.

As for the two main leads, they are probably one of the most interesting couple I've found in the past few years.

Individually, Luo Wenzhou is the type of character I always like. He is confident to the point of having a narcissistic streak, but all of those are based on real talents and experiences. He speaks bluntly, but he cares for others through his action. He does not sugarcoat things and speaks the truth for what it is. Everything about him simply screams "reliable" as a leader (and a significant other to a certain someone). He deserves all of the respect and loyalty his subordinates gave to him.

Fei Du at first looks like a complex character whose real self is hidden beneath countless coats of pretense, but at the core, he is just a pitiful young man who does not know how to value himself, does not know how to love and be loved due to the abuse he suffered during childhood in the hands of his sadistic father. Despite his composure, his intelligence, his capability, he is almost like a lost little child, wandering in the darkness, going wherever the flow would take him until Luo Wenzhou pulled him out of that abyss. It is nothing less than commendable that he could restrain himself from succumbing into his father's manipulation, even if he has to correct himself through such extreme means for a long time.

And I'm glad that now he has someone who gives him the love he has long since been bereft of.

With Luo Wenzhou, Fei Du finally has a color in his life, someone to make happy memories with, and someone who genuinely love him for who he is. Likewise, with Fei Du, not only Luo Wenzhou got someone he could genuinely care for, he also finally has a place where he could relax, taking off the strong front he'd been putting before others all day long.

It was just so fulfilling to see two characters growing from "cat and dog" into inseparable lovers. They weren't sickeningly sweet, but just two people who are content with each other and would be each other's strength. I was especially happy when I saw how Fei Du changed his phone's ring tone into the one Luo Wenzhou in the extra chapter.

Now that I've finished reading this story, these two straight up went to the top of my all-time most favorite pairing list. But of course, this is just a personal opinion. Luo Wenzhou and Fei Du simply hits all of my favorite tropes, that's why. 😂

If I really have to point out one mini flaw, I suppose it's that the main villains aren't as appealing as the rest of the casts. They were practically overshadowed, even by some minor characters that only appeared for a short while.

TECHNICAL ASPECTS: 9/10

Just some very minor complaints:

1). When the story first introduced Fei Du in the beginning, it felt kind of abrupt. The narration had only been addressing him with his physical appearance, but suddenly they changed it into "Fei Du" with barely any proper start.

2). The international conference in Yan City (Chapter 2) was supposed to be a background information of the general setting of the first case, yet it was not properly mentioned at the start - rather, one sort paragraph about said conference was simply being slipped in the middle just for the sake to be there.

3). The switching of scenes between characters in the 3rd person POV are sometimes too quick with no signs of incoming transitions beforehand like taking shortcuts.

And by that, I mean that other than those three issues above, everything else was nothing less than perfect.

OVERALL SCORE: 9/10

A realistic story with perfectly balanced action, mystery, suspense, and romance - with a dash of comedy sprinkled at the right time and place.

Reading the novel from start to finish was nothing less than enjoyable. Whenever there needed to be a flashback or explanation, it didn't feel like info dump being thrown in all of a sudden.

I would like to point out a bit about the Zhou Conglomerate Case in Book 3.

Personally speaking, I think this is the most realistic case out of the others, and by that, I don't mean the crazy rich family drama.

The other cases in the books are something that to me feels "faraway"; murders, child trafficking, psychopath, organized criminal gangs. Yet in Book 3, due to the nature of the case, it was posted publicly for all to see, and damn if it didn't bring out the most annoying thing I actually hate in real life.

Clout-chasing media, meddlesome netizens commenting without thinking on the Internet, spreading personal information of the involved individuals without consent, handing down judgment based on rumors and personal opinions even if they have nothing to do with it (and know nothing about it), crashing the website due to mere curiosity, further hindering the police working on the case from doing their job.

They weren't thinking about those actually involved in the case, especially the victim. They don't care, or maybe don't even think that their meddlesome acts could cost a human's life because they see everything as mere passing entertainment. And if something were to happen because of their meddling, the most they would say is, of course, as quoted from Chapter 72:

"I didn't do it on purpose"

"I wasn't doing it to you"

"I didn't expect this to be the outcome"

"From a certain point of view, I'm a victim, too"

Even if I was just reading a fiction, at that moment I truly wished I could shut down the Internet for a bit. 😂

Anyway, amazing story. I might re-read everything from the start again when I have some free time.

[cydonianotmalus]

About the justice system of HP...

Now I don’t think I’ve seen enough people addressing this, but, the prison and justice system of the magical society is insanely stupid and inhuman. 

Let me elaborate:

About justice, I think we can say the two most known examples are the British Ministry and the MACUSA. 

I don't want to extend myself, but lets focus on two main events that show us how fucking wild justice is for the magic kind: 

Newts and Tina's execution order: No need of explanation. They just had a little chit-chat with Grindelwald using Graves handsome face and after this they are sentenced to death. No trial, no defence, not nothing. They are sent to their deaths right away. (Really, I don't know if this was common for the no-maj system too in those times but???). Now, you might think, oooookey. Death sentence. They must have a pious method, something... magical? Maybe, to make it quick and painless. But apparently, in just another example of how the magic kind are not less dispiteous and cruel than the muggle kind, it is not. BECAUSE IT SEEMS THAT THEY FUCKING MENTALLY MANIPULATE PEOPLE TO GET SUBMERGED IN FUCKING ACID. Like, wtf, man, are you serious?!! They just send people to fucking melt in that damn pit of “Death Potion” while making them “have happy thoughts” without a second thought. (And no, I don’t think the part about using the most precious memories of the condemned makes it better). Maybe it's just the shitty script but, damn. 

Oh, according to the writer of this Reddit post, this method, “references the Salem Witch Trials, involving being submerged underwater and pronounced a witch, if the accused floated.” This is just... a curious fact, btw. 

It’s mentioned too, that this was actually a reference to “how British people view the American government- we're a nation that hands out the death sentence like candy when compared to the European nation.” But just as I say later, Azkaban looks pretty much like a death sentence too, at least to me.  Sirius-fucking-Black: I can't start telling you how painful is to me to remember the injustice that ruined this man's life. How much it breaks, burns and tears apart my heart and soul. He was framed, yes, but it was really the Ministry fault that Peter fucking succeeded. Like, AGAIN, what about a fucking proper trial, man? There wasn’t one. (Apparently, there wasn’t many in war-time, so��Deatheaters coulnd’t manipulate the court, but… what a tactic). They found a man in the scene, laughing (probably because of the shock, I think he didn’t thought Peter was capable of what he just saw, he’s horrified, some people laugh when they are in shock, damn it), they say “it’s nuts, its guilty, put him in Azkaban” and THATS IT. They could have tried with Veritaserum once he had calmed down a bit, they could have used a Pensieve to see what really happened. But no. Now, I don’t want to talk about Azkaban yet, but we know the only thing that kept him sane was to think about his innocence and I think there are enough info and theories about how being in his animagus form helped him going unnoticed to the dementors and later, to escape.

Now, how is that fair? He was an innocent man, among many others, I’m sure. I’m serious. With such system, who knows how many innocents where isolated in Azkaban during “war times”? We just need to think about the Second Wizarding War when so many muggle born and blood traitors were sent there. How many were left to serve as fucking appetizers to the Dementors?

But not only that. let me continue.

There are two known prisons: Azkaban for British wizarding criminals and Nurmengard, wich... well, apparently was exclusive for Grindelwald? 

Lets talk about Azkaban first: It’s a fucking isolated island, used as prison since 1718, employing Dementors as guards. According to Sirius, most prisoners went insane after a short while, and some even stopped eating, preferring death to their lives within Azkaban. As it seems, each prisoner is in secluded cells. So they have only the Dementors to interact with. If the Wizarding world had anything like the fucking UN, they would be horrified by so many fucking  broken human rights. I mean, to me it sounds like Azkaban is for itself a death sentence.

This brings me to another question: what happens with the minor criminals? What happens with thieves, scammers, etc,? Are they sent to Azkaban for just a short period of time? Because, according to the books, Azkaban can turn a man in to a demented in a few weeks. A simple pickpocket deserves that? I don’t think I have found anything about that (if you do, please tell me).

The worst is that, in almost 300 years, the only one who apparently tried to do something about Azkaban was Eldritch Diggory, around the 18th century. And nothing else until the end of the SWW. What the fuck.

There’s not much to say about Nurmengard. We know it was where Grindelwald was imprisoned (a sad fate, to be locked up in your own fucking fortress). Many will be of the opinion that he deserved what he got but… It’s still unethical and immeasurably pitiless, if you ask me. He was kept alive for fifty-three years, yet… he was absolutely isolated, with (at least so it seems) no means of entertainment. It’s implied that he regretted his actions at some point but, for what? If you ask me, it would have been more merciful to kill him sooner.

Idk what do you think but, the wizarding world needs to improve a lot of things, beyond his fucking pro-slavery and racists ways. Excuse my funny grammar. And please, if anything needs correction you can say it. 

[mirrormirrormag]

Black Lives Matter.

Over the past few months, I’ve been trying to write something in response to the police violence and brutality against Black people that has once again overwhelmed our country. It’s hard to find something new to say when what you’re trying to say is so simple. There isn’t a “hot take” to this issue, nor is there a contrarian opinion.

It’s simple: Black lives have and always will matter. Furthermore, they are essential and worthy; matter is the minimum when you consider the culture, societal, and academic shifts they have created. Yet, for hundreds of years, we have seen this refrain systematically denied through the course of American history. For hundreds of years, young Black men have been lynched and murdered in cold blood at the hands of white Americans leveraging their privilege and place in society to continually oppress black Americans and keep them powerless. Words can’t even begin to scratch the surface of the generations of pain, loss, indignity, disrespect, and hate, which is why choosing to stand on any other side than that of Black Americans is not only problematic, but racist because any other side is actively working to police the anguish of the Black community. 

The foundations of our nation were never created to accommodate the livelihood of Black people which is why issues of race continually resurface. Why do we still see the same disgusting events over and over again? Why do we still have to protest? Because the systems at play will never protect the interests of Black Americans. This is why we see Black Americans reacting in the way that they are. They peacefully protested, and everyone said they were disrespecting the country that supposedly gave them so much. They peacefully protested, and Martin Luther King Jr. was murdered. They peacefully protested, and absolutely nothing has changed in the way that America treats its Black citizens because it functions on the manipulation of marginalized people. America would not be America without the exploitation of Black people. They are the reason for why you are able to choose to be political. 

For this reason, they are entirely justified in reclaiming the power that American capitalism stole from them through looting and rioting. If you have a problem with this, ask yourself why. Are you uncomfortable with Black people taking ownership of their lives after white people spent centuries asking Black people to stay patient only to sweep their struggles under the rug? Looting and rioting is not ideal. The fact that Black people still have to be on the front lines fighting for their own humanity while simultaneously risking their own lives is it not ideal, however it is an accurate reflection of the society we have created, the society that is supposed to be the most progressive and equitable. 

The use of force through riots and looting isn’t designed to hurt people. It’s a manifestation of the years of frustration of feeling like absolutely no one is listening to you. White people have never felt threatened by Black people in America because they know that the power they possess is enough to perpetuate the oppression of Black Americans. What they ARE threatened by is their mobilization and unwillingness to accept the mistreatment, because they know that there is strength in numbers. And to those who have attempted to co-opt Martin Luther King Jr’s message of peaceful protests against the very people MLK sought to protect: stop trying to leverage the voices of Black people to prove a convoluted point. Stop whitesplaining the history that flows through the blood of Black people. It shouldn’t matter to you how Black people choose to voice their frustrations as they are entirely entitled to this and so much more. If they want to burn everything to the ground: so be it. The system is inherently racist anyways and the only way we can see justice is if we abolish racist systems and start all over. 

As time after George Floyd and Breonna Taylor’s murders grew, I was worried that publishing something now, after so much time, would be irrelevant. That everyone would’ve moved on already to something new, but if this essay serves any purpose, it’s to remind you that these injustices are happening everyday, and will continue to happen right under our noses as long as we don’t demand systemic change. 

The creation of the Black Lives Matter movement came from a place of necessity, and since then its message has been commodified as a way to posture to others that you are not racist, however we cannot allow the movement to be simplified to just a hashtag because it demoralizes those who are directly affected by systemic racism and police brutality. When BLM is simplified to a trend as opposed to a long term movement, people underestimate how long it takes for societal change to happen, and I’m guilty of this as well—hence why I hesitated to write and post this. 

Furthermore, the death of Black and Brown people don’t serve to remind or trigger you into anger or frustration. As cell phones and social media have become instrumental in raising awareness to issues that were only visible to those who suffered from them, it has also desensitized many people to the image of dead Black and Brown bodies. Simply the fact that the color of one’s skin determined their death should be enough to enrage people into action, yet now it’s a matter of how gruesome or how sad a story is. 

It doesn’t matter whether a Black person had a criminal record or wouldn’t even hurt a fly: the bottom line is that ALL Black lives matter. Comparing certain deaths over others perpetuates harmful notions that Black people are criminals and therefore deserve the racism that they endure. 

Of course, the change we seek won’t be fulfilled from electoral politics which is derived from the policies created by racists. The change starts from the people, and we need to begin reclaiming the power that we are meant to have. The politicization of every issue, no matter how non-partisan it truly is, will forever keep us divided as long as we are slaves to the electoral system.

We have to think bigger and collectively realize that our power is greater than just voting, which some may consider useless at this point, but if we dare to imagine a world that is not just equitable for some but for all, a world that isn’t controlled or crippled by militarization, but a world lead by community and acceptance, then we might realize that dream that seems so unrealistic now. 

[rosecorcoranwrites]

Heroes and Villains are Not the Same

That's right, I hold the controversial opinion that heroes and villains are, in fact, not the same thing. Crazy, I know, but I stand by it. Let's step back a bit. Recently, I've come across a few writers and commentators saying something along the lines of "who the hero or villain is depends on who's telling the story". This sounds provocative, I guess, but it disregards a lot of standard terminology surrounding storytelling

Let’s talk about four types of character.

First, you have your protagonist and antagonist. The protagonist, obviously, is the main character. The antagonist is the character who works against the main character. Wikipedia puts it rather eloquently: "The protagonist is at the center of the story, makes the key decisions, and experiences the consequences of those decisions. The protagonist is the primary agent propelling the story forward, and is often the character who faces the most significant obstacles," while "an antagonist is a character in a story who is presented as the chief foe of the protagonist".

It is true that who the protagonist and the antagonist are depends on who’s telling the story. If Les Miserables were from Javert's perspective, then Valjean and all the revolutionaries would be antagonists. If there were a book series starring Draco Malfoy and his two cronies, then Harry, Ron, and Hermione would be the antagonists. And, yes, in these two instances, I think you could call Javert and Draco heroes; the first has a classic Greek heroic flaw, while the second goes through a long redemption arc.

Let's look at another example. If L were telling the story of Death Note, he would be the protagonist. And yes, the hero. Unlike in the other examples, he already was the hero. If you're unfamiliar with Death Note, it features a high school student, Light Yagami, who obtains the book of a Grim Reaper. If you write the name of an individual in that notebook, that person will die. Light, deciding to rid the world of horrible criminals, goes to town with it. But lest the audience see him as some tragic hero who goes down a dark path, it's made clear early on that he has a god complex—assuming the name "Kira"/"Killer"—and is willing to murder anyone who gets in his way, including the famous detective, L, who has been brought on to catch Kira. L is the antagonist to Light's protagonist, specifically, his villain protagonist.

That's why the idea that the villain and the hero are just the same thing from different perspectives is so confusing to me. We have villain protagonists. That is the other perspective. Though I feel like the insistence on heroes and villains being the same stems from our relativist culture, I think it also comes from a misunderstanding of what "hero" and "villain" mean.

A hero is a character who, generally speaking, struggles with some flaw or conflict. Their main arc deals with either overcoming this conflict or eventually capitulating to it. Greek tragedies are built around a "heroic flaw" that undoes the hero no matter how much they struggle against it. Modern superhero stories do the opposite, where the hero fights against internal vices or external foes, eventually winning the day, proving that virtue wins out over vice.

And that is the important thing about heroes: virtue. Whether or not a hero follows the path of virtue to its conclusion or ends up failing and falling off it at the end, they are at least seeking it. They are trying to be good. This is why you can essentially say that a hero is the Good Guy. The Good Guy might fail at the end, but that doesn't mean he wasn't trying his hardest until that point.

What makes a hero different from a villain? Well, obviously, the villain is the Bad Guy. No, really. A villain is "a character whose evil actions or motives are important to the plot", “a cruelly malicious person who is involved in or devoted to wickedness or crime; scoundrel; or a character in a play, novel, or the like, who constitutes an important evil agency in the plot". While a hero concerns himself with trying to lead a virtuous life, even if they fail, the villain doesn't. Maybe they actively pursue selfish and evil ends. Maybe they just don't care. Maybe they do think they're the hero (a popular idea in writing circles that will get its own blog post later), but are willing to do evil actions to achieve those good ends. The point is, while the hero pursues the good, a villain pursues evil.

So, with these as our criteria, let's look at a recent example: the 2019 film, Joker. Is this protagonist a hero or a villain?

I'll go ahead and say spoilers, but I actually don't think spoilers matter for this movie. I watched about two dozen reviews of the film before seeing it myself—to see if it would be too intense for me—so I knew every plot point going in. It was still amazing! The way those plot points were presented made them intriguing and fresh. Nevertheless, if you want no spoilers, I would bow out now.

Joker is the story of a man beaten down by society and circumstance. Arthur Fleck, as he is named at the beginning of the story, is a mentally ill man working a low-paying job at a clown-for-hire agency. His life is pretty awful: he gets beat up by teenagers, his coworkers don't respect him and even fear him due to his illness, he lives in a somewhat shabby apartment with his elderly mother, his therapist doesn't listen to him, and so on. All this pressure and anxiety finally come to a head when three jerk businessmen on a subway start assaulting Arthur while he is still in his clown costume. He shoots two of them in self-defense, then runs down the final one and shoots him in the heat of the moment.

Due to the swirling unrest in the city—there's a garbage strike going on, the social service budget has been cut, businesses are closing down, and so on—this nameless clown striking out against three rich men starts a movement. The unhappy masses don clown masks. Then they start protesting. Then they start rioting. While all this is happening, Arthur soaks it in. Though he states that he’s not political and doesn't believe in anything, he clearly likes seeing people imitate his look. He likes seeing the story of the killings in the news.

Eventually, through several more dark turns in the plot, he learns that his mother has lied to him about who his father is (maybe? The story kind of suggests that maybe his birth certificate is forged? And there's the writing on the back of that photograph? I don't know...), and that she allowed him to be mercilessly abused as a child. He makes a speech here, about how he has never in his life been happy, but that he realizes his life is not a tragedy, but a comedy. Then he smothers his mother with a pillow.

This is truly the moment he throws away "Arthur Fleck" and becomes the Joker, underlined by him dyeing his hair green and donning an orange and purple three-piece suit. He kills again, on television nonetheless, then basks in the rioting and burning he has caused. He thinks it's funny. Now, we not only have Arthur Fleck turned into the iconic Joker, but we have the city turned from an admittedly grimy and unjust place into the mask-clad-murderer infested burning hell hole that is the Gotham we know.

So, is the Joker a hero or a villain? Does it matter how you look at it?

One of the reasons this movie was so popular—aside from being about the most famous comic book villain ever—was that different sides could see what they wanted in it. Those in favor of movements like Antifa could point out the economic injustice that led to the riots; the movie makes no attempt to hide how unjust the society in Gotham is. People who see such movements as dangerous can say that, even if there were reasons for the protesting, at the end of the movie innocent people were murdered and the city is literally on fire, which the film also presents as a pretty bad thing. Maybe if Arthur was helped to get proper medication and counseling, he wouldn't have felt so hopeless, and thus wouldn't have become the Joker. True. Maybe if Thomas Wayne or child protective services had stepped in—since they both apparently knew Arthur was being abused as a child—and removed him from his mother, his life would have had a totally different trajectory. Yep.

No matter what particular political message you want to take from it, the fact is that Joker, the movie, is about the failure of society to address wrongs and about the chaos that comes when no one does anything about it. Remember, at this time in Gotham, there is no masked vigilante looking out for the little guy. Not yet, at least.

It's also a movie about one of the most iconic villains ever. The fact is, Arthur does not care about starting a movement. He likes that he did, because at least people are noticing him, but he doesn't care. He doesn't care that people are rioting and that the city is on fire, but he likes that the rioters look up to him. He doesn't care that he killed three businessmen on a train, or smothered his mother, or hacked up a colleague and got covered in the guy's blood, or that he shot a talk show host on live TV, or murdered his doctor at the end of the movie, because he liked doing it.

Yes, he does have a motive beyond that: revenge, for being lied to, or made to take the fall, or for being made fun of. As he says: What do you get when you cross a mentally ill loner with a system that treats him like garbage? You get what you deserve. He has a point, and he's bitter, but he also really likes killing people. Throughout the movie, he laughs uncontrollably at inappropriate times— almost always when he is nervous or uncomfortable with the situation. But what does he do after he kills? He dances. Because he likes it. He may not be happy, but he still thinks he's in a comedy.

And that is why we can say that he is not the hero of his own story nor the hero of a Batman movie where it's told from the Joker's perspective. Because as sad as Arthur Fleck's story is, he's never trying to be virtuous, he's just trying to get by. In the end, the way he chooses to get by is through murder. It's tragic, but, as he himself says, it's not a tragedy. He's not a tragic hero. He's a comic villain. The only thing that depends on who’s telling the story is whether or not you get the joke.

[bigskydreaming]

Something that has always bugged me about the Garzonas story, that I don’t recall really ever seeing mentioned....

Is that for someone who is usually referred to as having a lot of concerns about Jason’s behavior and brutality as Robin, Bruce spends a whole lot of the issue validating and supporting Jason’s anger at Felipe, the likelihood he’ll get away with his crimes, and what was done to Gloria. 

And then this is the page where they finally bust Felipe and then bring him in:

“He’s all yours,” Bruce says, and he pretty explicitly indicates he’s okay with Jason venting some of that anger on Felipe. Because thing is, this is something Bruce does himself with some of the worst of the worst he faces at times.....and there’s an impression here that I think he believes giving Jason something of an outlet in the form of even just a little one on one time with Garzonas will help Jason process the unfairness of all that happened this issue.

Except, it doesn’t, obviously. But what it also doesn’t do IMO....is hold up or substantiate any kind of idea that Jason was always this inevitable killer. Any implication that Jason was already ‘on his way to becoming’ the Red Hood when he was Robin, or that him becoming a killer was inevitable all along....or with the understandable anger of a kid from Jason’s background shown being treated as a kind of evidence in and of itself that his ‘destiny’ as the Red Hood was already all but predetermined even then.

The big, lingering issue I’ve always had with this storyline, lies with the way Jason’s guilt is pretty much just presumed, in regards to much of this. There’s a lot of just....running with the impression that of course Jason did it, obviously he deliberately pushed Garzonas and killed him....because look at him after Garzonas dies, when Bruce confronts him on the terrace, right? Jason’s not sorry at all.

Except....there’s a whole lot of room between “Jason’s not sorry a rapist slipped and fell to his death” and “Jason’s not sorry he murdered a man for the first time.”

And its the latter that tends to be my real problem here, I think, because like....its one thing to examine whether Jason was capable of doing the deed itself at that point in his life. But in this case, believing him capable of that requires also believing that he was not only capable of the initial action....but of then also going on to display no negative emotional turmoil about having killed someone for presumably the very first time. Even if he had truly believed he deserved it.

That’s why I’ve always assumed that Jason hadn’t actually done it....because I think if he had, Bruce would have had more than just his feeling that Jason had done it, or that he was covering up something. 

Theoretically it could be argued that Bruce had trouble finding conclusive reason to believe Jason had done it, because he didn’t want to believe Jason capable of it....but I think its more likely for the opposite to have been true. Bruce was defaulting to the assumption that Jason had done it, but was unable to find conclusive proof...because his assumption wasn’t born of intuition, but rather guilt. More specifically, fear of his own guilt.

Which leads back to the panel I posted above....that, to me, is the heart of the matter.....because its easy to imagine that in hindsight, Bruce really blamed himself for all of this. Because he looked back on that moment, where in order to try and empathize with Jason’s anger at the injustice of Felipe’s inevitable release, he essentially encouraged Jason to express that anger. In a kind of “I do understand where you’re coming from here, and why you feel the way you do, I feel the same way about this” sort of solidarity.

Except in Bruce’s case....he himself has on occasion vented that anger, or similar enough to it, on various supervillains or criminals. Even if it might not have been that often, as of that particular point in that particular continuity. But still, it was likely often enough that he’d done this, and with him possessed of enough discipline and self-control due to his years of experience in general.....that he knows how and when not to take it too far. How and when to pull back before the anger turns into something actionable that he can’t take back.

And I think it could be argued that Bruce’s assumption, his belief that Jason had done it, was ultimately less about the likelihood Jason actually had, and more about Bruce himself projecting his fear that he had caused this, by encouraging Jason to vent his anger without ensuring first that Jason would similarly be able to pull back before he took it too far. And as well, that given Bruce’s own views on killing, and his admittance of having struggled with the temptation before and his belief that should he ever give in to that temptation, even once, it would destroy him, as he’d never be able to stop.....

All of that could have feasibly almost baited Bruce into setting his own kind of trap for himself to fall into. Where concerned about watching Jason’s faith and confidence in the system dwindle right in front of him, even just from this single case...seeing Jason’s rising anger at the injustices in play in all of this and how easy it was making it for Jason to in turn draw from his own prior life experiences to substantiate his view of the system’s failings and his own anger and discontent with it......plausibly, all of this could have added up to Bruce taking a gamble, and trying to shore up that failing faith in the system by attempting to get Jason to put it instead in him directly, as an alternative. 

Building a bridge to the island Jason basically saw himself on in that moment, rather than trying to convince him to come ashore so to speak....Bruce might have tried to go to him in that way, emotionally speaking. At least if only temporarily. To say I am on your side, I think its just as unfair as you do....and then doing something fairly unheard of for Bruce, at least in Jason’s experience, in any kind of permissive way.....essentially Bruce stood back and said “He’s all yours, I understand your anger and where its coming from and agree its all unfair, so I’m not going to stop you just right now, or act to keep you from expressing that.”

Except, not all that long after this, and with events further amplified by the stressor of Gloria’s suicide - which, again, its not all that hard to imagine Bruce projecting onto his own behavior, and imagining how that makes him feel and what kind of vigilante justice it makes him want to enact on Garzonas - with all of this front and center in his focus, Bruce then discovers Jason standing on the balcony with Garzonas dead far below, and Jason appearing unphased and without remorse.

And Bruce, already having bridged that gap between himself and Jason’s own anger at the injustices at work, in an attempt to empathize and show solidarity with him.....would, I imagine, find it equally easy at this point to look back across that same gap while imagining himself in Jason’s shoes....discovering Gloria’s death, Felipe perhaps gloating about getting away with even this....except its here that Bruce could feasibly have ended up tripping himself up. 

Because while he believes he’s still identifying with Jason and what could have been going through his mind through all of this.....its actually Bruce’s own emotions he’s projecting onto it all, his own temptation to want to make Garzonas pay with his life for costing Gloria hers....and his own fear that if he, Bruce, were to do so, he’d never truly come back from it.

And so in actuality, Bruce ends up just presuming Jason’s guilt as kind of an admittance of his own guilt, or rather, how easily he could see himself having made the guilty choices he’s presuming of Jason. With this all compounded by Bruce’s guilty feelings about having encouraged Jason to NOT be impartial with Garzonas, to Jason having allowed himself to give into his anger even if just a little bit, and feel the injustice that was bothering him rather than try and quash it down. 

Only now, in hindsight, to Bruce this looks like a fatal mistake, as in his suspicions, Jason wasn’t able to then pull back from where he let his anger take him, when he allowed himself to vent some of it on Garzonas - again, only at Bruce’s encouragement and even instigation. 

So, its not even necessarily that Bruce is holding this against Jason, since its equally likely at this stage that he’s still blaming himself most of all. Not just for Jason not being able to pull back after just venting a little of his anger - but for Bruce also just not preparing him as well as he feels now that he should’ve. Teaching Jason the discipline ‘truly’ necessary to walk that tightrope as successfully as Bruce has managed in the past, when just on his own. 

Because here’s the final element of this possibility: with Bruce theoretically projecting not just the guilty actions he could see himself having indulged in all too easily, had he been the one in Jason’s place, and at a similar level of self-discipline in his own training.....but at the same time, theoretically Bruce might have continued to further mix up himself and Jason in all of this....and superimpose atop Jason’s future - after ‘having done this’....Bruce’s own fears about himself and what he’d become, if he ever allowed himself to kill, didn’t make himself pull back in time.

All of which adds up, essentially, to the idea that what was really fueling Bruce and his assumptions here.....could’ve just as likely been his own deeply-rooted and swiftly spreading, corrosive fear....that with just one simple mistake, one single instance of encouraging Jason to give into his anger at a crucial moment, instead of insisting on both of them adhering to Bruce’s example of discipline at that very same moment....Bruce didn’t just fear that he himself might have been the true root cause of Garzonas’ murder. But that if this were true....in doing so, being that root cause....Bruce feared he might have destroyed his own son’s life as well. Led Jason or sent him down a road he couldn’t find his own way back from in time....and now, Bruce was afraid, Jason had perhaps already ended up going too far down it, even if it had just been the once....and it was already too late for him to ever truly be able to turn back from where he’d already gone.

With this coupled then with Jason’s attitude throughout this internal journey of Bruce’s being one of apathy and a seemingly willful lack of remorse....this might likely in Bruce’s eyes have just affirmed everything he’s afraid of here. Even though, by potentially jumping the gun on Jason’s guilt.....Bruce was actually clouding his own judgment in favor of his own biased fears, and at the expense of the truth....because he was reading Jason’s guilt as the thing pronounced by his visible lack of remorse.....rather than interpreting Jason’s lack of guilt as a possible indicator of his innocence. 

And so with not a hint of regret coming from his son, even in the aftermath of the first time Bruce now believed him to have taken a life, Bruce is just becoming more and more convinced all of this is all wildly past the point of no return already. That he’s actually underestimated how quickly and decisively even giving in just once, could’ve shut off the faucet, on even an empathy as deep as he knows Jason’s to normally be.....

Except with all Bruce’s continued conclusions and extrapolations throughout all of this still being born of an initial assumption that was slightly left of center to begin with....tainting everything Bruce ended up concluding as fact as he continued down this train of thought...the lack of remorse he’s still reading off of Jason, that he’s not seeing any hint of in Jason, any indication he regrets what he’s done.....this is all really just due to the fact that Jason didn’t actually do anything. 

That this is all a worst case scenario Bruce leaped to because of how quickly and deeply he’d come to fear he’d made a terrible mistake here....and the lack of apology or remorse from Jason, that’s only amplifying Bruce’s panicked certainty in his own conclusions....is actually just Jason seeing no reason to be all that upset that a rapist they both knew was guilty, and whose lack of accountability for that crime had in turn led to the death of his victim....like, Jason’s apathy was really just due to a rapist being dead for reasons that truly had nothing to do with him and weren’t actually his fault.....and so he had no reason to feel guilty, or to see himself as being to blame or needing to beat himself up over it.

And all the while, Bruce’s refusal to believe Jason, to accept that, kept alienating him more and more, pushing him further and further away....even though ironically and tragically, it was in many ways more his own guilt Bruce refused to look away from. It was really his own mistakes he was refusing to let himself off the hook for.

Because the thing is, ultimately I keep coming back to the reality that Bruce knows cold-blooded killers. Has encountered countless of them by this point. And Jason, even in the event of him having conceivably pushed Garzonas....like, that might result in him being a killer in the wake of this story....but a cold-blooded one? The very first time he took a life, no matter how justified he believed himself to be in doing so? Without displaying any hints of second-guessing himself afterwards, that Bruce could actually perceive as an admission of guilt....even with how well he knew his son, and how many killers and how well he’d come to know and recognize them over so many years....not to mention after so many interrogations and face-to-face encounters?

That’s the part that I could never reconcile, never actually match up with a scenario where Jason did do it and it all played out from there as it did in canon. 

Not just whether Jason could’ve been moved to push Garzonas, might’ve been willing to act on that impulse - that’s really just one part of the picture. But everything else after that point still matters a great deal as well. As evidenced IMO by Bruce’s frustration, as he continues to see himself having no luck connecting to Jason and getting through to him now, no success in getting him to see and understand the depths of Bruce’s fears about where all of this was leading and had already lead.

All while from Jason’s POV, the same frustration was there, about his inability to connect with Bruce and get him to understand him and what he was feeling and thinking now...but here, all of that coming from the opposite end of the spectrum. Born of Jason knowing he did nothing wrong, that he had done nothing to be ashamed of....nothing that Bruce hadn’t encouraged him to do himself and that Bruce now seemed to be ashamed of, now seemed to be regretting having encouraged....and with all of this ultimately being over a man Jason did still truly not see as worth this.

And especially as in the aftermath of all this...the death of this awful man, this rapist and predator....seems to be of greater concern to Bruce than the death of his innocent victim. Which would only have increased the distance between Bruce and Jason, should Jason have from there drawn the not unreasonable assumption that for some reason Garzonas’ life seemed to just have more value in Bruce’s eyes than Gloria’s had....though ironically, the reality there was that it ultimately was Jason’s life Bruce was actually focused on and concerned about, how it had been affected by all of this.

But ultimately, then, from there, at the end of the day the greatest tragedy in all of this IMO, were Jason truly innocent of having pushed Garzonas in the first place....this would have been in what happened after Jason had already come back from the dead, had been fully restored by the Lazarus Pit. As the first time he killed after that point then, the first time he took a life while under the League’s tutelage and at their direction.....that would truly have been the first time Jason killed. Not that night with Felipe Garzonas. 

And with then, in this case, perhaps the very thing that acted as a deciding factor, the thing that tipped Jason all the way over the line and led to him not just thinking about doing it, or wanting to do it, or understanding the reasoning behind doing it, the logic in doing it....perhaps the very thing that just ultimately led Jason past all of that, one way.....and resulted in him actually going through with it....

....being that he saw no reason not to....since Bruce had already judged him a judge, jury and executioner, that night with Garzonas, when Jason really had actually been totally and completely innocent. 

And so the assumptions Bruce had leaped to, out of fear they might be true, and might be his fault....and with this guilt potentially underscoring and motivating so many of the choices that led him there....

It all ultimately could’ve just been the end result of a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy. One born of the father simply trying to relate to and understand his son and to seem in turn like someone his son could to the same with....only to see Bruce then end up just leaping too far ahead when doing so, in such a hurry to conclude his own guilt responsible for all of this, he failed to slow down long enough to remember that Jason was not him, and his actions and choices and logic, even when similar, weren’t necessarily ever going to be fully interchangeable with Bruce’s own actions and choices and logic....and vice versa.

[lily-of-the-eyrie]

🎓🔍 Scene Commentary: Colonel Edition ①

Welcome to the first in a series of posts about taking a closer look at the Colonel’s scenes, in which I’ll be analyzing all the sections in which he appeared to:

get a clearer idea of his character, and 

maybe squeeze just a liiittle more content for HCs etc.

For this post, I’ll be doing Sequence 3-1 “The Color of Right”. As you can expect from the Colonel’s first appearance, this scene’s straight up packed with key details about his character—I’m talking mannerisms, value systems, ideals, and more. 

Highlights! 　❗️The Colonel’s Negotiation Skills 　❗️The Colonel & Templar Beliefs

I’m essentially writing out my thoughts on what’s happening on screen as they go, so I highly recommend keeping a Rogue playthrough open in another tab for maximum clarity. 

🌟 Thanks to the-colonel-who-cares for assisting with the beta reading! 

This post has a lot of text and a lot of screenshots, so the rest of it goes under the cut.

[SQ3-1] The Color of Right

— Part I: First Meeting — Shay took down the gang members in the Greenwich HQ, and met the Colonel for the first time.

　The scene opens with Prosperity and Decay, an ominous and rather foreboding track which does a great job at underlining this scene's uneasy calm and tense undercurrent. Although Shay's opinion of the Colonel, whom he just met, did get better towards the end of the segment, at the beginning he's still very much unsure of what to make of the man.

　We start with Shay feeling alert and suspicious: upon noticing the Colonel, he narrows his eyes at him and his hand goes straight to his pistol. It's pretty clear at this point that he's not going to be instantly cooperative.

　Now the first thing the Colonel does to deal with this is raise his hands, which, together with his telling Shay to be at ease, and that they're friends (promptly name-dropping the Finnegans to make sure that his point gets through quickly), says something very, very clearly―"I'm NOT your enemy". Then, and only then, does he introduce himself.

　The Colonel follows up by thanking Shay for taking down the criminals, but Shay's first and almost reflexive response to this show of gratitude is, surprisingly, contempt. He combatively, condescendingly questions the sincerity of the Colonel's concern. Watch his tone and body language as he spits on the very idea that the Colonel could even actually feel anything about the city and its people. The way he blinks and throws out his arms questioningly before saying "What do you care?", and the contemptuous tone with which he says that line, is absolutely dripping with poison.

　And in this moment, we catch a glimpse of Shay’s infamous troublemaker side. Here he is, raring to go—a commoner challenging not just any redcoat, but a goddamn British military officer right in his face. This is the Shay that gets into bar brawls, the one who can't stay out of fights for long; this is the Shay who has zero innate respect for authority, and this is the Shay who can and will fearlessly call bullshit on anybody, even his "social betters", if he thinks they deserve it.

　Now to be fair to Shay, he’s not just looking for trouble out of boredom. We know there’s no love lost between him and the redcoats, judging by how he treats them from the very first scene. They were his enemies, plain and simple.

　However, in the wider scope of things, his behaviour isn’t anything particularly unusual—historically speaking, during the period Rogue is set in, there's a lot of tension going on between the Irish and the British, since the latter is pretty much on an all-out bender to subjugate the former. Needless to say, this creates a lot of bad blood between the two sides, so Shay’s reaction, while quite aggressive, isn’t really out of place considering the social mood of the time. 

　But one thing is clear―Shay is straight up looking for a fight, and he was no pushover; he's totally ready to back up his fighting words with an actual fight. He would have no qualms (and might even rather enjoy) socking a redcoat in the face...or worse. Their shared acquaintance of the Finnegans is probably the only thing that reined him in for now, and had that the risk of causing his caretakers further trouble not been on his mind (he certainly seemed to have momentarily forgotten it when he taunted the Colonel). Hell, he might've even thought of roughing him up. I mean, he's a trained Assassin―he's got good reason to believe that he could 100% beat the stuffing out of this guy AND escape afterwards. 

　Now watch the Colonel totally avoid falling in line with Shay's predictions by simply not fighting back. Normally, you'd expect any other redcoat, common soldier or otherwise, to whack Shay right across the face to teach the rude, uppity brat a lesson. And he’d have a pretty strong case in his defense too, since it was undeniably Shay who "started it". 

　But here's the point: the Colonel isn't just any other redcoat. Not only did he accept Shay's pointed accusation (which would've been doubly hurtful if he did truly care about the townspeople), he did so with grace; you don't see him squirm, you don't see him trying to deny or make excuses for his colleagues' behaviour. Neither did he get defensive and try to justify their wrongs. "Not getting reactive" seems like a simple action, but it suggests the presence of a significant amount of self-control―and, in extension, control over the situation. He didn't get angry, or violent, or emotional, which would surely have led to a confrontation where everything spins out of control and would surely end with one of them bleeding out on the ground; instead, he was able to keep Shay talking, and also gain a foothold in the argument by introducing the idea, the possibility, to Shay that whatever "the redcoats" had done, this redcoat in front of him intends to do differently. 

　Of course, Shay's not stupid or gullible, so he doesn't immediately trust this weird fellow who had not only completely circumvented his open invitation to a fisticuff, but also actually continued to try converse with him to boot. As far as he's concerned, the logic of "redcoats=bad people=enemies", an observation doubtless fed by years of experience that agreed with that statement, still held strong. Even so, the Colonel managed to get Shay, who is suspicious as heck and obviously not a big fan of anyone with his profession, to at least let him try to prove himself different.

　Okay, now let's take a look at the Colonel's side of the conversation, which plays like a masterclass in conflict resolution. After explaining who he was to take the edge off Shay's defensive stance, and taking the brunt of Shay's scorn head on afterwards, we see him accepting the fact that yes, a lot of his comrades have indeed "been less than helpful", and it can't be helped that Shay feels animosity towards him. 

　Now look at his body language here―he averts his eyes when speaking of his less compassionate colleagues, and his talking speed noticeably drops, like he's looking for the right words to say. Shit, I'd even go as far as saying he looks visibly sad about this―watch his eyes, the crease in his eyebrows. But far from being a sign of refusing to look at the unfortunate truth, this comes across as a very empathetic gesture―it's less "yeah, I guess so...I guess //shrug" and more of a "yeah, I know―what a shame, isn't it?" The slight, almost imperceptible nod at the end of it just seals the deal―this is the Colonel telling Shay that he isn't about to run away from the charges Shay had brought up against him. 

　But he wasn't just going to take it all sitting down, and not do anything about this injustice whose existence he just told Shay he's well aware of―he will, he tells Shay, take a different approach. If his comrades are going to abuse their authority and mistreat the common people, he claims, then he won't do the same thing. Now clearly this isn't something Shay hears very often, much less think possible, so naturally he's rather suspicious of the Colonel's intentions. His first instinct would've been that if this guy isn't in it as a "landlord", oppressing the townsfolk for his own gains, then well, he's probably after something else just as selfish. So this is where the Colonel's words again pulled the rug right out from under his feet, because, going entirely in the opposite direction, the object of his suspicion instead said the most selfless thing―that he cared for the welfare of the citizens.

　Okay, here comes the most important line in the Colonel's primary characterization. Questioned on his motivations by Shay, who doubtless wondered why the Colonel would take the trouble of going against the party line (a thing that Shay, who freshly broke away from his Brotherhood doing just that, may even have a personal interest in knowing), he answered:

"I care."

　First, let's talk about the delivery of this line (or, well, phrase) itself. It's short, it's sweet, it gets straight to the point―in two words, the Colonel posits that he does what he does out of a highly personal sense of duty to look after the people, plain and simple. It's only after a pause to let this sink in that he elaborates on the statement by saying he wants safety and prosperity for New York's citizens, but even then it's all very bare-bones, and its straightforwardness is supported by his tone, which sounds like the very embodiment of someone saying something just like that―no stumbling, no doubt, no hesitation. With no flourish to it, it doesn't look like he's trying to make a show of flexing his moral muscles here, either. He answered Shay's grilling with an answer that rings like a simple truth, and that gives the line the impact it needed to make an impression on the still suspicious Shay.

　Now let's look at the gestures: speaking of his wishes for New York's welfare, he throws his gaze down the street and lightly spreads his arms, motioning to the city as a whole. That, and his following expression, gives him a very vulnerable air. He'd stated his thoughts on the issue, and laid them out for Shay to judge. These are the actions of a man who has nothing to hide, and the effect is instantaneous―Shay still hasn't been completely won over, but there's a considerable drop in the combativeness of his behaviour from that point onwards, and he's now more open to the idea of keeping up a conversation with the Colonel.

　With Shay still skeptical but more importantly somewhat calmed down, the Colonel now has a fighting chance in trying to get Shay to at least allow him the opportunity of proving his sincerity.

❗️The Colonel’s Negotiation Skills

　 The Colonel’s methods here reminded me of crisis/hostage negotiation techniques, which generally places a huge emphasis on staying calm, building rapport with an uncooperative/emotionally wrought individual, and working on convincing the other guy that they can trust you enough to help them resolve the situation in a less destructive way. Of course, their first encounter is more of a standard argument between two parties who are supposed to have a lot of mutual antagonism than a hostage situation, but I did find it interesting that one key phrase that comes up a lot in the context of such negotiations is that the ideal resolution to the conflict is gaining what they call “voluntary compliance”—that is, getting someone to do what you want them to do without forcing them into it—from the target. I’m sure the Colonel most likely didn’t have any formal training in that craft, but the idea that you can actually codify what you need to do to win someone’s trust does add a more sinister sheen to his intentions. 

　On my end, I think the Colonel’s being honest with a lot of things here, and professional negotiators do tend to stress that their techniques need some actual sympathy from their end in order to work at all, but for people who want to write an unapologetically manipulative Colonel, I think it’s a interesting topic to look into. 

― Part II: Freedom From Want ―

　The Colonel attempts to prove his "noble words" immediately by putting them into practice, and instructs Shay to use the gang's stolen funds to renovate an old church in the city.

　The Colonel says what's on Shay's mind, impressing upon the still wary man that he understands what going through his mind―that Shay has no reason to trust him yet. Shay's reply this time is decidedly tame; he's no longer spitting bile by default. Instead, he now asks for more elaboration on the common ground the Colonel introduced earlier: their shared friendship with the Finnegans, whom we know Shay thinks of dearly.

　The Colonel states that his relationship with the Finnegans is tied to the fact that their late son was a subordinate of his. He further extends the common ground by saying that Shay's "much like him", drawing a straight parallel between the two men. Now, you don't make a comment like that unless you expect the other guy to ask why you said that, which is exactly what Shay does next. This can be a normal conversation...or it could be the Colonel deliberately reeling Shay further into that common ground to build a connection. Is this just friendly talk that naturally evolved from Shay's question about the Finnegans? Or is it a calculated move by the Colonel to draw Shay into trusting him more? Or is the Colonel honestly reminiscing about the past, slightly shaken after being caught totally unaware by the fact that the Finnegans had decided to give Shay his late protégé's robes? You decide ;^)

　The Colonel then elaborates on the late Finnegan Jr, painting the picture of a saint―a young man who had cared about the townsfolk, who had wanted to "do good by the people", and wanted to make the world a better place. Now all these are good things, and only it would take quite a disagreeable personality to shit on that at this point. But this isn't just about Finnegan Jr.; by stating outright that all this was a dream both Finnegan Jr. and himself shared, intentionally or not, he's essentially also painting himself in the same light. He might’ve planned that, or he might not, but Shay would likely feel that the Colonel’s a more agreeable person given that he shows great appreciation for the charitable spirit of people like Finnegan Jr.

　Next, here comes the Freedom of Want line. It's really important, so I'll tack the whole thing here:

"Mere survival is not enough. Full bellies, warm clothing... Freedom from want is the greatest freedom of all."

　There are two things I want to talk about when it comes to this line. The first is the nature of benevolence in these lines, and the target of that benevolence. Now, the Colonel made it absolutely clear from the get-go that he isn't concerned only for the wellbeing of what we might call the “important people” (a.k.a. the higher social class, the “somebodies” of society), but all the citizens of the city―this includes the absolute poorest members of the society, who would most likely long for this "freedom from want". Speaking of that freedom from want, how did he define it? He outlines it as having "full bellies, warm clothing"―he's talking about the right to a comfortable life, to the basics of not just barely surviving, but of a life worth living on a physical, biological level. Now this is important because, aside from having a very humanitarian angle to it, it will strike Shay in a raw spot―Shay, who spent his childhood in a harsh environment, who's got a lot of brushes with poverty, reeling from one tavern to the next, feeling like he was never taken care of by anyone. And it's a strong callback to Shay's first accusation to the Colonel―that he was no different from a landlord wringing his poor tenants dry while said tenants are breaking their backs trying to earn just enough to not die of hunger in the streets. 

　The second thing is, of course, the obvious jab at the Assassins―I don't think anyone would deny that the Colonel is a Templar through and through, and, looking for all the world like he'd known and fought Assassins for a long time, he likely already knows their arguments about the concept of freedom by heart. Given that he's likely very much aware of the importance of the word "freedom" to the Assassins, and also that he knows that Shay's one of them, it's highly possible that the Colonel picked his words very deliberately for this line. But I would argue that it's not malicious; I don't think he's sassing the Assassins' ideals here, because he never seems to be the kind of man who indulges in petty sarcasm like that (although whatever he thinks the Assassin brand of freedom is, he very likely disagrees with it, or at least figured the Templar take on it is preferable). What I'd say he's trying to do here is introducing a different sort of freedom―one that he hopes Shay could get behind.

[PS. On a side note, “freedom from want” is recognizably one of the Four Freedoms, which can be rephrased as a “right to an adequate standard of living”. I wonder if it’s a reference... In any case, I just want to say that trying to figure out why this seems to be a topic of personal importance to the Colonel is a great way to start working on his backstory.]

　Shay's sarcastic side then comes out again as he prods the Colonel about his goodwill. On one hand, it's just Shay being Shay―giving people playful grief is just a part of his personality. Under the surface though, we see him buying more and more into the idea presented by the Colonel: when they first talked, Shay ridiculed that very same goodwill, acting as if it's only common sense that it doesn't really exist, but at this point he's like, hey, idk, maybe it could be real this time? You can see him get more comfortable around the Colonel; whatever techniques the Colonel's employing to get on Shay’s good side, it's clearly working.

　Now let's see how the Colonel takes issue with Shay's idea that the relationship between the Colonel and the citizens is that of the governor and the governed. One interesting point here is that Shay is still talking to the Colonel like he's "the British Government", not an individual in his own right. Shay is still subconsciously conflating the Colonel's actions with his party's actions, and this is where it gets very interesting―the Colonel staunchly, flatly, even snappily, denies that claim.

　The Colonel is, generally, a very calm speaker―his tone is very stable, and he talks in a very measured manner. This makes any sudden rise in his voice very noticeable. Listen to the way he says that line:

　"I do not govern, Master Cormac. I merely assist."

　He's clearly put off by Shay's words; compared to his previous line, there's an obvious change in volume and force in his denial, and his voice only returns to normal at the back half of that line. Now I don't know about you, but the speed at which he shot back makes that part sound...unscripted. That's either top-grade acting, or the Colonel’s instinctive response to Shay stepping on his tail.

　As for why this caught my eye, I think it's interesting on two levels―on a personal level as a hint to what the Colonel thinks of his own role in society, and on a grander level as a reference to the position of the Templar Order in the world as an organization.

　Starting with the first one, if the Colonel did in fact shoot this line back reflexively, that's a huge hint to his personality. It's interesting because it's a rejection―he claims to not be a "governor", someone who rules over others and calls the shots only expecting his subjects to obey, but an "assistant", who is here to help others along. By the way he said this line, he might have even viewed this distinction with pride.

　On the greater scale, this line can also take on a shady note to it because "assisting, not governing" is very much in line with the Templar Order's overarching strategy ever since the time of the Borgias (AC:Revelations’s Abstergo Files are a good read for more on this).

　As such, there's a lot of complexity in how we can interpret this bit. Is the Colonel just calling back to his party stance? Or is he, through the actions he carries out, trying to write his own version of how to execute this Templar strategy, in direct opposition to how most of his other comrades (read: ye standard-issue villainous Templar) interpret it? Does he take this line to mean really "helping people out and guiding them to greatness", not just "manipulating them like pawns as part of your personal agenda"? The striking difference here, and whether one believes the gap exists or not, is pretty much what sets him apart from the generic Templar.

　Next, they arrive at the dilapidated church. Watch his phrasing here:

　”We can make it better."

　See how quickly he reels Shay in as part of the team, not an outsider. It might feel a bit sudden given they literally just met, but it’s definitely a good line for building camaraderie—it’s the Colonel quietly stressing that they’re on the same side now.

　He also mentions that urban renewal is “a new science that had already proven effective on the Continent". In addition to showing that he takes the Templars’ focus on being people of science and technological advancement seriously, this bit also gives us a look at his other interests outside his immediate occupation. And from the look of it, it's not the first time he's renovated a building; arranging for resources means that he had to organize the logistics at some prior point, and these materials needed to be sourced, paid for, transported―if you want to get really grounded, this isn't something that easily just happens without a lot of paperwork. Had he built an existing logistics network for this?

　Having fixed the church, he suddenly brings up the topic of watching over New York. Judging by Shay’s outburst of anger towards the “landlords” mismanaging the area earlier in the scene, the Colonel can probably make a educated guess that this responsibility’s something that will resonate with the man at this point.

　He ends their meeting by saying, “after all, a man needs purpose". Now, everybody knows "purpose" is an extremely important keyword in Templar ideology, so I doubt he used this word on a whim here. He's obviously trying to give Shay a sense of direction―a direction that, unsurprisingly, lines up with the Colonel's interpretation of Templar ideology.

❗️The Colonel & Templar Beliefs

　Despite its shortness, this scene does a great job at encapsulating a lot of things about the Colonel’s personality, and his particular idea of what his Order’s beliefs stand for, ie.-”doing good by the people”.

　As in any other belief system, the “true meaning” of the Order’s philosophy is likely something hotly debated among the Templars themselves, much like how various Assassins have incongruous ideas of how their Creed should be put into action (Mackandal v. Ah Tabai, Bellec v. Arno, etc. etc.). Given that the Templars are supposed to play the antagonist in the Ass Creed series, their ideology’s unethical applications inevitably tend to take center stage whenever they get mentioned, but the presence of Templars like the Colonel who register as “good” does bring up the fascinating topic of what Templar ideology looks like when exercised in a righteous way. That said, the Colonel seems to have a strong attachment to the concept of being a charitable Templar, which begs a lot of questions—how does he feel about his less-than-helpful comrades in the Order? The British Rite under Birch, or even the Templar Order in general, likely has a great proportion of dodgy figures in it—how does he deal with having to work with them? Assuming he’s not the only member of the Order who believes that a Templar has the responsibility of executing their ideology in a morally upright way, could there be factions within the Rite that are at odds with each other’s take on their shared belief system? All this would make the British Rite’s internal politics incredibly interesting to think about.

🤔 Extra: Chapter Questions

Okay, now that we’ve reached the end of the sequence, there are several unanswered questions that presumably had crossed the viewer’s mind at some point:

Q1. Why did the Colonel even let Shay live? What’s his game plan? Q2. How much did the Colonel know about Shay's personality/background? Q3. How much of this encounter is staged?

Since these questions need the whole of his cutscene discography to answer properly, I’ll do them in a later post, but they are intriguing Qs to keep in mind as we go! :^D

[kallypsowrites]

Daenerys Targaryen vs Light Yagami

A long while back, I made a post about the different readings of Daenerys Targaryen and how one could make an argument for a light, bittersweet and dark version of her storylines. And I knew that if she ever went dark, I was going to make this post. The version of Dark Daenerys that I think they were set up to write is not the version they wrote at all, which is part of reason her ultimate arc falls so flat. But, shoddy execution aside, I do think this is the direction George is going with the books. No doubt he’ll do it better and more gradually but he has not come out in any way saying that the MAJOR beats of the plot are different. Just the side characters and the execution.

This is the point to turn back now if you don’t like Dany criticism or mentions of Dark dany. I understand that people in the Dany fandom are grieving right now and I get you. So, for all of my pro-dany followers, please don’t read this post! You will not enjoy it, and I REALLY don’t want to fight! 

But, for the rest of you, I’m going to talk about Daenerys arc and how it is awfully similar to that of Deathnote’s Light Yagami--or it would have been if the writers were like...smart and good at character development and framing.

For the non-anime watchers of the fandom, Deathnote is the story of Light Yagami, a privledged, attractive, genius student who comes across a notebook which grants him the power to kill anyone with just the stroke of a pen-so long as he knows their name and face. If the victim’s name is written in the notebook, they will die of a heart attack less than a minute later. But the user of the death note can also specify HOW the person will die (though they must stay within the realms of reality). Once Light finds out that, yes, the Deathnote is real, he sets out on a quest to rid the world of evil doers by taking justice into his own hands. He wants to create a new world--one of only innocent people who follow the law--and he will be it’s savior.

And Light Yagami, despite being the main character, is the villain of this story.

Because while yes, Light’s vision of the world SEEMS great at first, he has effectively made himself judge, jury and executioner for the entire population. He doesn’t investigate to see if anyone is wrongly convicted, he often kills criminals who are already serving their time and jail, and he also has no problem killing innocent people if they happen to threaten him or get in the way of his grand plan. Light’s main problem, you see, is his ego. A vision of a better world with no evil is all well and good, but LIGHT is the one who wants to make it happen and he has a grand vision of himself as some sort of divine, just God. Its not enough for the world to BE better. No. He needs to be the one pulling all of the strings. His vision is useless to him if he is not the one at the top.

Daenerys Targaryen, likewise, is bestowed three dragon eggs which she hatches into dragons, giving her a powerful weapon unlike any the world has seen in centuries. She sets out to change the world into a place where there is no more sorrow. Only laughter and happiness. She wants to break the wheel. She wants to end slavery. These are all great things. But, like Light, her desire for this new world is tied with her own ego. She wants to be the queen behind it all. She needs the throne. She needs people to love and bow down to her. And she has no trouble with killing or punishing people if they happen to threaten that. She believes the ends justify the means and is willing to slaughter millions...if it will help her to build her new world.

Now, its not a one to one comparison. Light lives in the modern day, Dany lives in medieval times. Dany’s story, as a woman in a sexist world, is gonna be different. Dany has way more advisors and people actually know her face, while Light keeps his secret from nearly everyone and acts covertly. Dany faced a lot of hardship in her younger years and Light is relatively privledged. Dany has a name that makes her think she has a divine right to rule and Light has no such ‘divine right’. They aren’t the same people and neither are their circumstances. But I would like to delve a bit into their similarities here.

1. A Sense of Divine Purpose

Let’s play a game. Who said it? Daenerys Targaryen or Light Yagami?

“This world is rotten, and those who are making it rot deserve to die. Someone has to do it, so why not me?”

“I am justice”

“In all things, one cannot win with defense alone. To win, you must attack.” 

"Look around you, and all you will see are people the world would be better off without."

"I must protect my fledging Utopia."

"No matter what the world is, the god of that world creates the rules. In truth, you have been defeated by the rules I created. And as punishment for defying the God of the new world, you will die..."

"But you know the saying, "play with fire, and you'll get burned". I'll make you regret underestimating me."

“There was no other way! The world had to be fixed! A purpose given to me! Only I could do it. Who else could have done it, and come this far? Would they have kept going? The only one who can create a new world is me."

"I am Justice! I protect the innocent and those who fear evil. I'm the one that will become the god of a new world that every one desires!”

"Our battle will be concluded, and I will begin my reign from the summit of victory!"

“I was chosen to renew this rotten world, to bring about true peace."

"He was someone who deserved to die."

Its a trick question. They’re ALL Light Yagami. But some of these quotes are just a few words off being Danerys Targaryen quotes like:

“I will answer injustice with justice.”

“They can live in my old world or they can die in their old one.”

“They’re all just spokes on a wheel. This one’s on top then that one’s on top and on and on it goes, crushing those on the bottom. I’m not going to stop the wheel. I’m going to break the wheel.”

“We’re going to leave the world better than we found it.”

“You are small men. None of you are fit to lead the Dothraki. But I am. And I will.”

“My reign has just begun.”

“I will do what queens do. I will rule.”

“If it comes to that they will have died for good reason.”

“Because I know what is good.”

“They don’t get to choose [what is good]”

In all of these quotes, Dany and Light have a strong sense of justice, a desire to protect their new world, and an inflated sense of self. But I think the best quote that sums up Light’s state of mind is this one:

"This world is rotten and those who are making it rot deserve to die. Someone has to do it, so why not me? Even if it means sacrificing my own mind and soul, it's worth it. Because the world... can't go on like this. I wonder... what if someone else had picked up this notebook? Is there anyone out there other than me who'd be willing to eliminate the vermin from the world? If I don't do it, then who will? That's just it: there's no one, but I can do it. In fact, I'm the only one who can. I'll do it. Using the death note, I'll change the world."

You can start picking up Light vibes from Daenerys as early as season two with the “but I’m no ordinary girl. My dreams come true”/”I will take what is mine. With fire and blood, I will take it” monologue, but the similarities REALLY make themselves clear in season 4 and 5 when Dany talked about the breaking the wheel and ‘answering injustice with justice’. As Barristan said, her father also believed in his own form of justice. It made him feel powerful and right.

But this type of talk shows, from the beginning, that it is more about who THEY are (their claim/purpose/skills/divine right) than saving the world itself. This is not a selfless, ‘I want to make the world a better place’ motive. This is a “I want the world to see me as its savior” mentality. Very different things. Dany and Light both want to be powerful. And they both want to be right.

2. The Power to Kill

At it’s core, Deathnote is an exploration about how the power to kill corrupts. No matter what the intention. No matter how it is used. Whenever one has the power to kill indiscrimately and on a massive level, that power will corrupt them the more they use it. Light’s father straight up states that at one point in the show. Light has a weapon that almost NO ONE else has. A notebook that can kill anyone with just a stroke of a pen. He uses it for what some of us might deem a “good” purpose. But it doesn’t matter. It’s still death on a massive scale.

Daenerys, likewise, has dragons, which are weapons of mass destruction unlike any that have been seen in centuries. They can burn whole cities to the ground and melt stone. They are very difficult to kill unless you yourself have a dragon (they went down too easy in the show but I digress). With them, she has the power to kill and she uses it often. It starts small with the warlock in Quarth. And then it grows until the season 8 massacre of King’s Landing.

And many of Dany’s victims are bad people, which Tyrion acknowledges in his 8x06 monologue. Early on in the show she kills slavers and murderers and people who have wronged her. But she often does so without fair trial which also results in some innocents being killed as well. She battles against this. She even locks her dragons away at one point for killing a child, knowing that this could poison her. But ultimately, she is unable to turn away. 

Now, many people say that Dany isn’t the only person in Game of Thrones to commit acts of murder. And you would be right. Ramsay, Joffrey, Tywin, Euron, Cersei...they’ve all got war crimes to speak of. But none of them--thank god--had dragons. None of them had the power to kill on the same scale that Dany does. The message, in this case, isn’t just ‘murder is bad’. Rather, it is that the power to kill on such a massive scale corrupts, no matter how noble the intentions, and it eventually leads Dany to kill hundreds of thousands of innocents in King’s Landing.  

3. Charisma and Love Interests

Both Light and Daenerys are extremely charasmatic people and generally well liked by those who surround them. They, in particular, attract several suitors from the opposite sex, many of whom they have no true feelings for, but some of whom can be useful to their interests. Daenerys, in the show, is of course given a genuine love in Jon, while Light only barely seems to tolerate his main love interest Misa, so there are some differences.

Both of them draw followers as well, particularly based on their cult of personality. Light takes up the persona of ‘Kira’ a just god who punishes evil doers and many people around the world vehemently defend his actions because he has made the world safer. Daenerys, likewise, becomes ‘Mhysa’ to many of the slaves she has freed. They are both very concerned with maintaining this image. Light, for instance, gets very angry when a second Kira starts pretending to be him and operating outside the bounds of what he wants. Daenerys often thinks of herself as a mhysa, because she likes to think of herself as a savior, and many of her good actions stem from not wanting to fall from that pedestal.

Naturally, they both attract a great deal of enemies too because of their severe policies. In some cases, we could say that we don’t care about those enemies because, well, they’re bad people. Criminals. Slavers. Who cares right? It seems like good people support them and bad people are against them. This is a prescedent that Light upsets MUCH EARLIER in Deathnote when a private investigator is hired to tail him. The guy hasn’t done anything wrong according to the law, but Light gladly kills him since he could reveal his secret. The ends justify the means, right?

Daenerys, on the other hand, has the benefit of her enemies being mostly awful people. The majority of her enemies, well, we don’t care about them. That doesn’t change until she actually starts clashing with other characters we know and love, starting with season seven but especially season eight. In the book we do see the RESULT of her conquest all across Essos. Many of the cities she has visited turned into a living hell for many innocent people. But this is ignored in the show. Most of Essos is ignored in the show.

This is because of a problem with framing. Light, despite being similar in many ways to Dany, is framed as problematic from the beginning. We still want him to win in the beginning because, lets face it, he’s fun to watch, but we get the sense that he is sinister and its not surprising when he does bad things later. Daenerys darkness, however, was mostly hidden and misdirected and overshadowed so that it could be a plot twist. We’ll circle back to that later.

Regardless of framing, both Light and Dany have a similar effect on their AUDIENCE. Because you can bet your ass that there were SEVERAL fans defending Light to the death in the fandom, saying that he ultimately had good intentions and the ends DO justify the means. He fooled the audience. He won many of them over with his charm and charisma. And Daenerys has done the same on a much wider scale. There’s a reason that people are saying that it ‘wasn’t foreshadowed at all’. Sure, the execution of the writing wasn’t the best, but not at all? Then why were so many people able to predict this turn? Dany is a likable person on the surface. She’s someone to root for. To get behind and cheer on as she burns her enemies. But a good villain is able to convince you (and themselves) that they are not really villanous

4. Lost Potential/Goodness

One of the most common defenses I’ve seen of Dany in the past week is people posting a bunch of gifs in which she was nice and kind to people as ‘refutations’ that she would ever go bad. But sympathetic and good traits only make a more three dimensional villain. Part of the tragedy of Light and Dany is that they COULD have been great. They COULD have been good...if the power to kill had not corrupted them.

The story starts with Light getting the Deathnote and he moves pretty quickly into dubious morality territory. But halfway through the show, he ends up losing his memory (its all part of his one hundred step plan) when he gives up the Deathnote. He then joins the task force trying to find Kira. Light is clearly a hard worker who cares about justice. He’s smart and capable. He would have made a brilliant detective. And throughout the arc he wonders, what would HE do with the Deathnote? Would he become Kira? No, surely not. He’s overthinking it. He would never do such a thing.

Daenerys starts out the story with no dragons, and she’s a very sympathetic character. As a victim of abuse, we see her rise above her circumstances with only her wits and raw determination. Then she gets the dragons and its a much more gradual descent. She frees slaves after all! She wants to make the world a better place. And when one of her dragons kills a child she willingly locks them away (I.E. gives up her power to kill) in order to try to be better. Throughout this arc in the book, Daenerys often thinks about whether she is a monster or a mhysa, just as Light contemplates his own morality. Self reflection does not automatically equal “good”, after all. But in both cases, we see two bright young souls who could have been wonderful...and that makes their arc even more tragic.

In the end, Light gets his hands back on the Deathnote and his memories and, rather than letting his time without the Deathnote change his ways, he returns to his original plan. And Daenerys rides away from the dragon pit on Drogon and (in the show) releases her other children from the keep, fully embracing the dragon. They tried to give up the power and set it aside (though Light with his memoires never really intended to give it up, it was just part of his plan to throw the investigators off the trail), and they ultimately chose violence in the end.

5. The Ultimate Result

Daenerys and Light both die at the end of the story, killed by someone they trusted--someone who believed in them until they realized the truth behind their supposed goodness. And they both die doubling down on their misdeeds. They do not have regret. They are still overflowing with their divine purpose. They want to do MORE (”It’s not enough. The world is still rotten”/”We will not stop until we have liberated everyone in the world”) and they would willingly kill anyone who stands in their way. Above all, neither of them see anything wrong with their actions. The ends justify the means. They must. If they look back, they are lost.

Their deaths have different framing of course. Light’s is filmed as a mental break down of sorts as he finally reveals just how violent and delusional he is beneath the charismatic facade. At that point we WANT him dead. He’s clearly gone nuts. The angles show as much.

Daenerys’ death is filmed more...empathetically. She’s not frothing at the mouth. She’s smiling. She still so fully BELIEVES in what she has done, and it quite frankly hurts to see. She dies quietly and quickly and gets tragic music in the background while Jon sobs over her body. Light dies alone on some stares after desperately running away until he’s too weak to move anymore.

It’s a similar conclusion. But the framing is the problem. Which is why we have to talk about...

Why Daenerys’ arc fails to deliver

I’m not wild about how they ultimately executed Dany’s arc. Because don’t get me wrong I would LOVE a villainess who fulfills the Light Yagami role. I’ve never seen a female Light Yagami before and Light is one of my favorite characters of all time. But remember when I said earlier that Light is always framed as morally dubious from day one? Daenerys’ framing is ALL the FUCK over the place.

Is she good? Is she bad? We’re not going to tell you because we want it to be a TWIST. Gotta give several scenes that don’t jive with her arc in order to throw everyone off the trail. Can’t make it too obvious where this is heading right? Can’t even tell the goddamn actress until the last season so she can use that info to inform her performance. Make the framing topsy turvy!

Framing is how a film communicates how we are supposed to feel about a character and there is a REASON Daenerys is so divisive in the Game of Thrones audience. Because the directors just didn’t know what the hell they were doing during the scenes, so it didn’t ultimately build in a satisfying way. In the end, there was foreshadowing but her turn was rushed and sudden and not that well written.

There are other problems that make Daenerys fall short of the Light Yagami brand, including:

1. Premeditated vs ‘crazy woman’ evil

This kind of villain is most effective when they think through their decisions and carry them out while they are of sound mind. Light Yagami rarely acted on impulse (except at the beginning and toward the end) and he was never ‘crazy’. Narcisisstic and psychopathic, yes, but not ‘crazy’. But they ultimately choose to make Dany’s turn be this sudden, emotional break down. Like, whoops! My friend was killed. Guess I gotta genocide because I’m SO emotionally unstable. The catalyst for this kind of character’s villain decent can NOT be revenge or an emotional loss of some sort. Because this kind of villain is characterized by being obsessed with themselves in their own vision.

2. Losing supporters to death vs losing them to your own growing ego

In the end of Deathnote, all of Light’s supporters and friends have turned against him as they realize what he has become. This is more effective than killing off all of a character’s greatest supporters so that you don’t have to deal with them. Missandei shouldn’t have died. If they wanted to have a good villain arc, they should have had Missandei realize Dany’s growing darkness and start to have doubts. Maybe they could have had her and Greyworm try to leave for Naath and have Daenerys get snappy and annoyed because she needs her supporters to believe in her.

But by killing her dragon and two of her closest companions, we only feel sorry for her, and it makes it much harder to turn against her in the next episode. If you’re going to make her go villain you HAVE to make the audience turn on the character. Why give them a sympathetic motivation?

3. An earlier turn

Light graduates to full villain about 2/3 of the way through the series which means we actually have time to deal with the aftermath and spend time with the character on his descent. Its the worst written part of the series but, no one’s perfect.

Dany goes dark and gets killed in like...seconds. So there’s no time to actually explore her as a villain. Its just a twist. That’s all it is. A twisty twist.

4. Targaryen madness

I don’t think D&D actually understand what Targaryen madness is or how it works. Like the fact that Aerys deteriorated slowly over the course of many years but Dany had a complete mental break in the span of a couple of days. Also, not all Targaryens are mad, and blaming Dany’s genetics is just one more way to say ‘but its not her fault. It’s just a blood thing’.

Light has no history of ‘madness’ in his family. His father is actually a detective. He’s a normal kid who comes across a powerful tool of death and it corrupts him. That’s it. So Light has more agency in his villain narrative than Daenerys.

5. Legitimate love vs Fake Love

Jon x dany is what ultimately kills the villain arc, because it make Daenerys look like she turned evil because “Jon wouldn’t love her”. Dumb. Very dumb. Stupid and dumb. The writers got caught in between doing a ‘tragic love story’ and a ‘villain decent’ that they decided to write both characters terribly in the final episodes.

Light never cared genuinely about his main love interest and his fall ultimately comes because of his own ego and his death comes not from a love interest he genuinely cares about, but from someone who supported him who he used. Dany’s fall comes from...love. And that makes her potential villain arc so much less powerful. She could have been this strong, amazing character. A great female villain for the ages. But you just HAD to make her a woman scorned/tragic love interest didn’t you. You had to make it about Jon’s man pain didn’t you? How very feminist. How progressive. Groundbreaking.

So Dany could have been a great Light Yagami style villain, and I’m holding out hope for that execution in the books. But the show did not nail it. Not even a little.

In Conclusion

Daenerys and Light’s goals and dialogue and sense of self worth are practically identical in nature, and so is their ability to drawn in the audience. But whereas Light’s story has direction, proper framing, and never tries to trick it’s audience for a cheap twist, Daenerys’ writing is ultimately confused and that’s why very few people like this ending for her.

Both of their stories are about how the absolute power to kill corrupts even the most promising souls. But Deathnote stuck the landing and Game of thrones stumbled and went out with a confused whimper.

[buzzdixonwriter]

Lena Horne, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump

Back in the Golden Era of Hollywood* white folks would point to Lena Horne as an example of how America wasn’t racist, America offered opportunities for everyone.

“Look at her!  She’s a movie star!  She appears in big movies!

“How could she do that if we were racists?”

Every society, no matter how stratified or hidebound, has space for a few socially approved outliers.

You can always afford one rigidly controlled exception to the rule, who can paradoxically serve as both a reassurance that there’s room for others and as an easily dismissed distraction should they arouse too much or the wrong kind of attention.

Lena Horne was an exceptionally beautiful singer-actress in a time and place where beautiful singe-actresses were the norm.  She appeared in dozens of major movies from big studios, and was well respected by her co-workers and peers.

And she was -- or rather the role she occupied in America was -- totally fake.

Ms Horne never had a substantial role or dramatic scene in any movie that did not feature a predominantly African-American cast.

The big budget musicals she appeared in, the ones aimed at mainstream audiences -- white audiences -- typically cast her as a specialty number:  In the middle of a big show within the movie, the camera would pan over to her standing in front of a curtain where she would belt out a show tune.

And white Americans would say to foreigners who criticized the US for its racism, “What about Lena Horne? Look at all the movies she appears in!”

She appeared as an appendix, a wholly superfluous addition whose presence or absence didn’t affect the film one whit.

Her musical numbers in mainstream (i.e., white) musicals were filmed and edited into the final picture so they could be cut out!

See, there were parts of the US that did not care for Ms Horne’s skin color one little bit.

And when her movies played there -- snip-snip.

Out she came.

That way no lily white audiences ever had to be offended that a n[FL play]er dared sully their lily white screen.

Why was she in there in the first place?

As a sop to the African-American community, to lure them into the theaters so they could have five minutes enjoying a performance by somebody who looked like them.

And to a lesser degree, as a sop to those few white Americans who, while not exactly “woke”, were at least stirring restlessly in their sleep.  “Hey, we can’t be all bad if we let a colored girl sing in a movie, can we?”

[SIDEBAR:  You wanna see what Ms Horne was capable of, track down Stormy Weather, an all African-American musical that I rank as the 3rd best movie musical ever made, trailing narrowly behind Singin’ In The Rain and The Band Wagon.]

Barack Obama was 21st century white America’s Lena Horne.

“Hey, how can we be racist if we elected a black president?” was white code for “We want you black people to shut up about the injustices you have suffered and continue to suffer.”

White America wanted Obama to be their Oreo:  Black on the outside but white on the inside.

They wanted him to champion white values and interests.

Not American values and interests.

White values and interests.

“Hey, we elected a black president…”

”…so we don’t have to do anything about the disproportionate justice meted out against African-Americans.”

“Hey, we elected a black president…”

”…so we don’t have to do anything about inner city communities that are still reeling from the effects of hundreds of years of dehumanization.”

“Hey, we elected a black president…”

”…so we don’t have to do anything about addressing the needs and concerns of people who have been deliberately and consciously excluded from the American dream.”

No, Obama was supposed to be the magic cure-all, the ultimate placebo that would get those pesky minorities to stop complaining so white folks could like their lives in ease and comfort and not have to worry about how non-whites were being treated.

Just stand up against that curtain, Barack, and sing…

But Barack Obama didn’t do that.

Barack Obama said, “Hey, we still have a problem if police accost an African-American in his own home and accuse him of being a burglar even when he can prove he lives there.”

And ya know what?

We do have a problem if that can happen.

Because in order to reach the relatively mild level of just getting falsely arrested by a police office who doesn’t believe your identity, we first have to undercut your basic rights as a human being and as a citizen of the United States.

We have to pre-judge you on the color of your skin, to assume you are intrinsically criminal and hence worthy only of suspicion and distrust.

We have to assume you are not educated enough to hold a job that would pay enough for you to buy the home we’re accusing you of burglarizing.

Many white people voted for Obama because they wanted to shut up minority critics.

And to their surprise and horror, Obama basically said, “No, they’ve got a point:  There still is a lot we need to work on to make this nation what is claims it wants to be.”

White people lost their shit over that.

Things got worse as the #BlackLivesMatter movement started.

White folks really lost their shit over that!

Most white people do not hate minorities…

…but they do fear them.

They fear minority crime, but not in the way one thinks.

White people are the biggest criminal threat to other white people.

Rather, they fear minorities because they ultimately fear a loss of status.

As I’ve noted previously, white identity defines itself by whom it excludes.

Barack Obama had one white American and one black Kenyan parent.

In the eyes of white America, that made him black.

And to many white Americans, it made him Kenyan as well.

White Americans define themselves by whom they exclude, never by whom they include.

Also as noted previously, despite its claims to be a classless society, America is very much a class-oriented society, one in which white people were guaranteed at the very least working class status by the simple fact non-whites were automatically regulated to lower class status.

When non-whites achieved skills and education that enabled them to climb out of their lower class status, they were only allowed to climb to higher status within their own communities.

An African-American lawyer might be able to plead a case in a white court, but only for a black client, never a white one.

Middle and working class whites feared losing their status; middle class whites feared slipping down to working class, working class feared becoming lower class.

Only if there was a built-in cushion, a concrete floor they were guaranteed they could not fall below, did whites feel comfortable.

(The astute reader will note this also applies to matters of gender, and orientation, and religion; we focus on race in this post because it’s the most obvious example, but it’s far from the only one.)

That floor was a ceiling for the minorities trapped below it, and the cracks that allowed some minorities to rise above it terrified whites who feared they’d slip through it.

Laws and customs and traditions and practices that kept minorities at arm’s length were the spackling that plugged those cracks.

Police and law enforcement and the judicial and penal systems were part of those plugs.

Minorities were treated more harshly, and penalized more severely, that whites who committed similar crimes.

Whites justified this by saying minorities were, by nature or nurture, more dangerous…more violent…more criminal than mainstream (read “white”) culture, and as such were inherently deserving of such treatment.

A white college student caught with a gram of cocaine would likely get A Very Strong Talking To by the judge and perhaps even have to perform some token community service, but a ghetto kid with a joint?  

Five to ten.

But as whites excluded more and more people from their group -- their own children and grandchildren from matings with non-whites -- the number and voice of minorities grew.

#BlackLivesMatter quite literally and explicitly means “Black lives matter as much as all other lives” but the white community couldn’t have that.

First they deliberately lied, and said #BlackLivesMatter meant “only black lives matter’.

I’ve said elsewhere that some people project so much they should really pay union dues to IATSE. #BlackLivesMatter is a response to the “only white lives matter” attitude found among too many people in law enforcement and the judicial system.

Second, whites claimed #BlackLivesMatter was anti-police (no, it only calls for the police to treat all persons with the same degree of courtesy and respect).

They framed that fake anti-police stance as a desire among the African-American community to wreak harm and havoc on innocent whites (though, as noted elsewhere, how innocent are you if you help maintain a system that harms others for your benefit?).

Nobody ever posted #AllLivesMatter or anything like it prior to #BlackLivesMatter making its first appearance, yet the sentiment found in #BlackLivesMatter can be traced back to the earliest calls for racial justice in this land.

Finally, whites promoted #BlueLivesMatter, a completely bogus straw man argument that places the lives and safety of the police above those of common citizens.

Whitey, please…

Being a police officer is a stressful and dangerous job -- though far from the most dangerous job in America (you wanna risk your life on a daily basis, become a roofer).

Being a police officer isn’t even among the top ten most dangerous jobs in America -- and most law enforcement on the job deaths are the result of traffic accidents (not surprising considering how much time the average officer spends on the road).

Being a police officer means one is entrusted with an awesome and terrible responsibility:  The authority to carry a lethal weapon and to use it against anyone the officer deems to be a clear and present danger to the lives of others.

That is absolutely an authority police officers should have…

…but not all police officers today are worthy of that responsibility.

There is nothing wrong or outrageous about African-American and other minority communities insisting the country’s police officers treat all people they encounter with the same courtesy and respect.

There will be people of all races and genders and ages who will respond to the police with defiance, perhaps up to and including armed resistance.

Fine, that’s why we give the police their authority to carry and use a weapon.

But they need to approach every situation based on what the person is doing at that moment and not whether whether they think or they fear the person may do them harm.

We are employing them -- in every sense of the word -- to put their lives on the line, and to risk their safety in order to preserve the public safety.

And most times, this means waiting until you know what the person you’re dealing with intends to do before acting yourself.

Frankly, if you’re inclined to shoot someone because you’re afraid they might do something, police work is not the career for you.

If unarmed, unresisting whites were treated as callously at so many unarmed and unresisting minorities are, if police gunned down a 12 year old white child without warning while playing in a public park the way they killed Tamir Rice, the white people in this country would go berserk and demand systemic changes top to bottom.

Which brings us to Donald Trump.

If Obama was the homeopathic placebo that white people thought would give them the “Get Out Of Racism FREE” card they longed to have, Trump was to be their purge to drive all the toxins they perceived out of the system and to restore them to their previous lost status.

Make American Great Again was their motto.

And yet when you asked them what that meant, it never referred to real measurable metrics such as changes in purchasing power, increases in productivity, spiraling health care costs, etc.

It always came back to re-establishing a mythical golden social order, where whites felt safe and secure in their (disguised) middle and working class status, and never feared dropping below the concrete floor that held so many others down.

Several years ago I wrote about the fast approaching year 2048.

That’s the year the census bureau projects the number of people identified as “white” Americans will drop to 49.99%.

The year the white majority vanishes…

…replaced by one large minority…

…but a minority nonetheless.

Knowing this day approaches, we will see more and more acting out by white people.

Uglier and uglier.

Sicker and sicker.

Deadlier and deadlier.

In a perverse way, we are lucky to have Trump now.

A competent racist demagogue could do far more damage.

He will taint the white political waters for at least a decade.

And that will shave white majority status ever narrower.

Remember, don’t feel sorry for whites; they are causing this by excluding their own descendants.

What they do to their children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren will eventually be visited upon their own community.

The day they fear will finally arrive.

They won’t be anything special.

They’ll just be like everybody else.

E pluribus unum = “Out of the many, one.”

Maybe that will finally come about when there is no longer an arbitrary racial barrier to divide us by class.

 © Buzz Dixon

 * Well, post-WWII era Hollywood; the real golden era ran from the end of WWI to the start of WWII.

[aion-rsa]

The Falcon and the Winter Soldier Episode 3: Marvel and MCU Easter Eggs Guide

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This article contains The Falcon and the Winter Soldier spoilers and potential spoilers for the wider MCU.

The Falcon and the Winter Soldier episode 3 might end up being remembered as the turning point of the series. A slow burn first episode led to some bigger revelations in the second one, but the third episode of the Marvel series is a bona fide sequel to one of the biggest MCU movies of all time in Captain America: Civil War. With a truly triumphant return for Sharon Carter and the re-introduction of Baron Helmut Zemo in a form that should feel much more recognizable to fans of the comics, there’s plenty of Marvel action to be had in “The Power Broker.”

Here’s what we found…

Dr. Wilfred Nagel

Wilfred Nagel was first introduced in Truth: Red, White, and Black, the same story that introduced Isaiah Bradley to Marvel Comics canon. The comics version of Nagel worked on the super soldier project back in World War II. After Professor Abraham Erksine’s death, Nagel was the one in charge of trying to recreate the process. He was the monster who killed hundreds of Black soldiers until succeeding by turning Isaiah Bradley into a super soldier.

And while Nagel’s comics super soldier program is designed to evoke the horrors of the Tuskegee Experiments, his description of his research in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier sounds more like a different injustice perpetrated on a Black subject: Henrietta Lacks. 

Nagel describes working from “blood samples from a semi-stable test subject.” Henrietta Lacks was a young Black mother treated for cervical cancer in the early 1950s. The cancer proved fatal, but a collection of her cells sent to a tissue lab were remarkably hale, growing in the lab where other tissue samples would die out within 24 hours. The cell line cultivated from that sample would go on to be mass produced and used for a ton of biomedical research, even playing a critical role in the discovery of the polio vaccine. 

Of course, all this was done without hers or her family���s consent. They didn’t even find out the cell line existed until 1975. That has led to a fight by her descendants and medical ethicists to give her the recognition she deserves for the part she’s played in helping human society, a movement that has only really taken off in the last decade.

Captain America: Civil War

Falcon is annoyed that Bucky won’t move his seat up. Their roles were switched during Captain America: Civil War.

Of course, that’s the only reference to Captain America: Civil War this episode. Just kidding!

Baron Zemo

This is the first time we see Zemo wearing his trademark purple mask. In the comics, Helmut Zemo was horribly burned by adhesives during a fight with Captain America and would hide his mutilated face with that mask.

When Bucky first enters Zemo’s cell, there is a reprise of Henry Jackman’s Captain America: Civil War score. Zemo was the central villain of Cap’s third MCU instalment, and Jackman returned to compose the Falcon and the Winter Soldier score for Marvel.

The Russian code words Zemo immediately uses – “longing, rusted, seventeen, daybreak, furnace, nine, benign, homecoming, one, freight car” – no longer activate the Winter Soldier, but Zemo attempts to press Bucky’s psychological buttons throughout the episode in other ways, and also tries to sow doubt in Sam’s mind about just how “healed” Bucky is from his time as HYDRA’s deadly assassin.

Zemo reveals he is currently reading the works of influential Italian Renaissance diplomat, philosopher and writer Niccolò Machiavelli. This is spectacularly on the nose, as Zemo is just about the most Machiavellian Marvel Comics villain there is – known to use his powers of deception and treachery to play all sides in almost any equation. 

Wait, Marvel just dropped the entire “Zemo is royalty” backstory in there like it was nothing! The Baron has officially joined the MCU – with all that entails.

Zemo says that Sokovia has been gobbled up by neighboring states after the Avengers’ battle in Avengers: Age of Ultron left its city in rubble. He rhetorically asks whether Bucky and Sam have been to the memorial, and naturally they haven’t. We’ve seen a glimpse of Helmut standing in front of a memorial statue in trailers for The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, so he may go and pay his own respects at some point.

We also see that some time spent in the slammer has done nothing to change Zemo’s mind on the legacy of superheroes and super soldiers. He still believes they must be wiped out, and murders Nagel in a heartbeat when he thinks he has a chance to end the Super Serum line. Make no mistake, Bucky has a target on his back a mile wide where Zemo is concerned, and we don’t think Zemo will hesitate to kill Bucky as soon as the time is right.

Bucky as Captain America

This is the first time Bucky has suggested that he wield the shield. Not only has this happened in the comics for a time (with Zemo being part of his downfall), but previous Captain America movies have planted the seeds by regularly having Bucky wield the shield in the heat of battle.

So Bucky doesn’t just have a notebook like Steve’s, it IS Steve’s. Wonder if Zemo saw his own name in there?

Sharon Carter

The Sharon Carter we catch up with in episode 3 is much, MUCH closer to her Marvel Comics counterpart – in that she’s badass af – but this Sharon is also extremely jaded after going on the run, and is clearly involved in some other murky business that us viewers are being kept in the dark about, for now.

This is the first episode of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier written by John Wick franchise creator Derek Kolstad, and Sharon Carter becomes the MCU’s version of Wick. Just when she thought she was out, they pull her back in, and she has the unenviable job of fighting a series of Madripoor’s most eager assassins single handedly. 

The Power Broker

In case there’s any doubt who holds a lot of influence in Madripoor’s Low Town, there’s some prominent graffiti that promises “The Power Broker is Watching”.

The Power Broker wants that Super Soldier Serum pretty bad, and with Nagel now dead thanks to Zemo, Karli Morgenthau is suddenly holding a lot of bargaining chips.

Any guesses on who the Power Broker might be? There are still three blank slots during the end credits. One of them is surely for whoever is playing the Power Broker. Who could the other two be for?

John Walker

We don’t spend a ton of time with John Walker in this episode, but we see the character’s harder edge increasingly creeping through. His “DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM” feels very much like how the character used to behave during his early post-Captain America days as the U.S. Agent in the comics. John has a bit more nuance here on the screen than he did in the comics, but they clearly aren’t going to shy away from this aspect of the character.

Madripoor

Madripoor is one of the most famous fictional locations in all of Marvel Comics history, first appearing back in New Mutants #32 in 1985. It has pretty much always been primarily associated with the X-Men throughout its history (especially Wolverine, who liked to use Madripoor as his favorite personal vacation spot), but plenty of other Marvel heroes have found trouble in Madripoor through the years (including both the Clint Barton and Kate Bishop versions of Hawkeye, so don’t be surprised if we return here during their series). Of course, there are still no firm plans about how mutants will eventually be introduced into the MCU, this would be a fine place to start looking for clues.

The monkey sign was probably the entrance to the Brass/Bronze Monkey Saloon, a bar we visited back in the very influential Gruenwald Captain America run. Crossbones took Cap’s kidnapped girlfriend, Diamondback, there as he was running from the hero. 

When talking about Madripoor, Falcon compares its ominous description to Skull Island, home to King Kong. Funny to drop that reference on the week of Godzilla vs. Kong‘s release. Unless this is referencing a totally different Skull Island. Did the Red Skull have his own island in the MCU?

The Princess Bar

If you’re looking for any big X-Men mutant clues, you should probably start with The Princess Bar itself, which in the comics is owned by Wolverine. But other than that, we didn’t get much in the way of mutant stuff out of these scenes.

Introduced in Chris Claremont and John Buscema’s story in 1988’s Marvel Comics Presents #1, The Princess Bar is owned by a man named O’Donnell and home to a bunch of Wolverine espionage shenanigans. At some point, Wolverine bought a silent partnership in the bar under his Madripoori alias Patch (Wolverine in a white tux with a patch over one eye, in the worst cover identity since that time Zooey Deschanel got rid of her bangs). These days in the comics it’s owned by Krakoa generally, as Captain Kate Pryde and her crew of Marauders are putting in quite a bit of work in Madripoor.

Snap Wilson

Falcon is annoyed because his Madripoor outfit makes him look like “a pimp.” For a time, Marvel retconned it so that when Steve Rogers met Sam Wilson originally, he was actually a pimp named Snap Wilson. Some time later, Marvel decided that this was in bad taste and undid the retcon. It has since been explained away as Red Skull trying to alter time and space with the Cosmic Cube, as he has been known to do.

Anyway, Sam’s “pimp” outfit is because he’s supposed to be masquerading as…

Smiling Tiger (Conrad Mack)

Smiling Tiger (Conrad Mack) is an archnemesis of the New Warriors who has, for a time, helped run the criminal underworld of Madripoor. Fittingly, while people may see Madripoor as the first step in seeing Wolverine show up in the MCU, Smiling Tiger’s comic incarnation has a noticeable resemblance to the famed X-Men member.

Trouble Man

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Sam once again brings up Marvin Gaye’s Trouble Man soundtrack album, which he has been talking about literally from his first minutes onscreen in the MCU. He’s right, by the way, this album rules. Funny enough, this episode airs on April 2, which would have been Marvin’s 82nd birthday. Go listen to this album specifically or Marvin in general in honor of the man.

Black Panther

Bucky follows a trail of tech breadcrumbs at the end of the episode after previously warning Sam that Wakanda hasn’t forgotten the killing of King T’Chaka during an attack orchestrated by Zemo in Captain America: Civil War. Waiting for him in a quiet side street is Ayo (Florence Kasumba) second-in-command of the Dora Milaje from Black Panther, who is less than happy about Zemo’s freedom. We wrote more about what this is gonna mean for Sam, Bucky, and Zemo here.

The post The Falcon and the Winter Soldier Episode 3: Marvel and MCU Easter Eggs Guide appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[raximoweek]

An insight into Cristina’s life by C. Bonadincel

You wake up to 45 text messages from your son Máximo waiting to be answered on your phone.  Check your facebook/twitter/Instagram and you have 450 likes on the selfie you took of yourself with a caption making fun of our current President.  You want more attention though, so you take a shower, put on a shirt that whoops! accidentally lets the side of your bra show, put on 4 whole pencil’s worth of eyeliner to go from a 9.5/10 to a 10/10, and snap a quick selfie of yourself that you quickly upload to your social media accounts with some sarcastic emojis.  Maybe this one will get you 4500 likes.

Your driver takes you to the Senate in a car that cost 365,283 whole Argentinian pesos.  Before you get out you make a quick video complaining about all the injustices done to you by Federal Justice Claudio Bonadio : (  Got to keep the public talking about you! you laugh to yourself.  As you walk into the Congress building, you pass several Federal Justices on the street. They all stare at you as you pass. Most of them are actually concerned with bringing justice to the nation of Argentina and punishing its most heinous white-collar criminals.  Gross! You ignore them.  These losers spend their whole adult life jerking off to persecuting their political opponents, and they still only earn one million pesos per year—legally.

You stop to get your usual morning diet fruit salad on the way.  Have to maintain all 140 pounds of you!  The good-looking boy serves you and tries chatting you up again, but he’s too good looking, nothing like your crude, hulking son Máximo or the rotting corpse of your dead husband who it’s time to get over.  You know he’s going to ask you out one day, but you’ll end up rejecting him because you only fuck people with the last name of Kirchner.  You don’t mind the attention though.

Several men stare at your cleavage and the bruises on your leg that conveniently show through your tights as you resume your walk.  It’s so hard to be such a radiant goddess.  You enter your 106,000 pesos per year Senate job which you had to get by manipulating the voters due to being a mentally ill degenerate with no competence or leadership skills who’s thirsty for power.  You notice many of your male political opponents are there. The Senate is sexist.  Typical.  You greet all of your coworkers: Máximo’s handsome young friend from La Cámpora, Axel Kicillof your young, brilliant Chad former minister of economy, Máximo’s other handsome young friend from La Cámpora, Hot Blonde Female Senator who you’re probably fucking, and nemesis from the opposing party Vice President Gabriela Michetti (in a wheelchair, so she can’t even sit on the special throne!)  Of course the “less corrupt” political party is currently in office.  They get all the good jobs now!  But that would change.  We’re fighting to get me—I mean, us--back into power! You remember how Kim Il-Sung of North Korea is still considered the leader of the nation even after his death. Good on him, you think to yourself.

You ask the Vice President to shut up and let you speak and she immediately does so.  You cut a grape from your fruit salad in half because grapes have such a high caloric content and demand that a bottle of low-sodium mineral water be brought to your desk.  Máximo’s young Chad friends have to come over to flirt with you, so you make the entire Senate wait for you to begin your egocentric ramblings.  Then you take the floor and talk for 45 minutes about how you’re being persecuted for your beliefs and then answer another 45 texts from Máximo.  Then leader of the majority Miguel Pichetto asks to speak.  He can be so conceited sometimes thinking anyone cares what he has to say! But at least this gives you time to go to the bathroom.  You stand up and make sure to announce how unfair it is that the bathroom is so far away while you pretend to be leaving the room quietly and respectfully.  Before you know it, it’s lunchtime and you hide in your office and stuff your face with your favorite fried pig intestines so no one sees you eating anything other than fruit salad and grilled chicken.

Around 2pm another senator from your party comes and jokingly asks if you’re doing any work.  You laugh and tell him you don’t need to work to make money and smile sexily at him (because you’re talking about all your laundered money).  You spend the rest of your time in the Senate ranting on Facebook about how Federal Justice Claudio Bonadio has accused you of colluding with Iran.  What an ugly, fat son of a bitch he is!  Your post from this morning now has 450,000 likes.  You have several text messages from Máximo letting you know he wants to get dinner tonight.  So far, he’s asked for dinner 3 times and for pre-dinner drinks 4 times. You check P��gina|12, the one news site in the country that understands how oppressed you and other Kirchnerite policians are (but especially you).  You see an article about how Federal Justice Claudio Bonadio should be removed from the Iran case because he holds a grudge against you and is very corrupt besides. You share the article and say how hard it is for you that this competent, experienced judge is persecuting you and your family.  You get 45 likes and 45 comments agreeing with you and saying that this innocent and ruggedly handsome enforcer of the law of the land should go to hell.

After work you head back to your apartment and do 30 minutes of running on the treadmill with smoke pouring out of your ears while watching the news anchors on TV talk about your criminal behavior.  You notice your personal trainer Luciana staring at you from the weights section. She’s pretty hot, but topping you is a privilege that she has to repeatedly earn, so you put your headphones in to listen to the Gladiator soundtrack.  You wouldn’t dare take a selfie when you’re done with the treadmill, because you don’t want the public seeing what you look like with most of your eye makeup sweated off. You head off to the water cooler to drink another glass of low-sodium mineral water.  Luciana tries to make conversation with you.  She’s hot and attractively younger than you, but her last name isn’t Kirchner, so you politely make it clear that you’re not interested (today).

You already have several more likes on your reposted article about angel of justice Bonadio and more comments about how heartless he is to persecute the best president the country has ever had.  Máximo has now asked you to go out for dinner with him 6 times.  You text him 4 times and organize the night and make sure to use lots of heart emojis.  You get home and say hi to your poodle Lolita and ignore your daughter Florencia.  She’s 27 and still a vegan.  She’s always cared about the environment, stood up for the rights of dairy cows and shit like that.  Now her baby daddy dumped her because of how obsessed with soy milk and social justice she is.  Maybe if she showed some ambition like you did.  You got into politics relatively early on because the electorate noticed how charming, sexy, and honest you are.  She was always Dad’s favorite though, and never appreciated you enough before he died.  She could be such a selfish bitch sometimes.

You call your 89 year-old mom and tell her that you want to buy a new Birkin bag but don’t want to use any of the funds you’ve thoughtfully embezzled from public works projects.  She gives you 6,088,350 pesos that she earned from scamming the Post Office.  You say thank you, even though you know you don’t really need it because you recently had a net worth of 80 million USD.  You deserve it for simply being Cristina Kirchner.

You decide it’s time to meet up with Máximo.  You need protection out on the street though in case the people who have seen through your grating charisma and realize what a sexy piece of shit you really are decide to throw eggs at you again.  You text some of Máximo’s buff, Chad friends from La Cámpora to come walk with you. You take fifty selfies and a dozen videos for your YouTube channel while you’re walking down the street.  Some men who also happen to work as federal judges and prosecutors call out to you about how immoral you are, and you and your Chad posse laugh hilariously.  All these guys aren’t getting laid, right?  Like, why do they even bother?

As soon as you get to the restaurant Máximo comes to greet you and plies you with expensive wine.  You don’t really plan on staying though because you want to have a private night with your good for nothing Chad son who’s never had a job interview in his life.  You make sure to keep his handsome male friends from La Cámpora there so they can protect Máximo’s blubbery body and lack of a law degree too.

After 4 men come to talk to you and tell you they definitely don’t believe that you allegedly ordered the murder of a prosecutor who was about to accuse you of collusion with Iran, which gets them kisses on the cheek from you, you abandon the restaurant and head off down the street with Máximo.  People greet him with respect even though he has no degrees from institutions of higher learning and owns 45 SUVs purchased with stolen money.  Your Chad bodyguards get in between you and Máximo and the innocent Argentinian citizens who you proclaim to love so much who are demanding you answer for your disgraceful crimes and complete lack of disrespect for our justice system, especially learnèd and powerful Federal Justice Claudio Bonadio. Máximo takes a video of you two walking down the street while ignoring the demands of your countrymen.  You can’t stop laughing at how empowered it makes you feel to ignore this persecution.  This is great!

At home you and Máximo sit close together on your expensive imported couch and talk because literally no one matters to you other than the degenerates in your family.  Máximo tells you how he’s broken up with his latest girlfriend, just another one in a series of girls who look like a broke-ass version of you.  You tell him how you approve of this because she was a distraction—Kirchners need to stick together.  That’s why you refuse to testify in your court appearance and won’t meet Federal Justice Claudio Bonadio’s eyes when he greets you.  Some guys can be so pathetic.  Your lawyer Gregorio is texting you.  He is a pretty hot Chad and you’ve considered ****ing him to see if that will get you free legal representation and perhaps inspire him to bribe the jury (with his own money, not yours).  Your degenerate son Máximo gets jealous so you stop replying.  The only thing you love more than defrauding and deceiving an entire country while dressing like an oversexed mom is your son who always seems to get girlfriends even though he has accomplished nothing in life (certainly nothing like going to law school and becoming a Federal Justice, anyway).  You make plans to have Máximo spend the night. You ask him which of your apartment’s 5 bedrooms he’d like to sleep in and he says he wants to sleep in yours. Gregorio is still texting you but you have long since stopped replying.  Even your Chad lawyer is kind of acting like a loser right now.  You tell Máximo that of course he can sleep in your bed with you because he’s such a big strong boy who spends Mommy’s laundered money so well. He is a literally perfect Kirchner. You remember Florencia telling you that it’s weird that Máximo still likes to sleep in your bed at age 40, yet she’s the one sleeping alone tonight.  You laugh to yourself. She must be doing something wrong.  She’s obviously not worthy of the kind of love you and Máximo share.

After a night as deviant as you are, you wake up to Luciana asking if you’ll have hot girl-on-girl sex with her today, your mom sending you her fraudulent money for your new Birkin bag, and 450 comments on a leaked photo someone took of you on the treadmill saying you look good even with your 45 pounds of mascara smeared all over your face.  It’s only 9am.  Máximo brings you cake in bed and you post another article trashing the blameless silver fox Federal Justice Claudio Bonadio on all your social media profiles.  Today is going to be a good day!

[wsmith215]

Obama urges Americans to make “real change” in wake of George Floyd’s death

Former President Barack Obama urged Americans on Wednesday to use the urgency of the George Floyd protests to spark “real change” in the United States. Mr. Obama’s comments come after more than a week of demonstrations sparked by Floyd’s death in Minneapolis. 

“Let me begin by acknowledging that although all of us have been feeling pain, uncertainty disruption, some folks have been feeling it more than others. Most of all, the pain that’s been experienced by the families of George and Breonna, Ahmaud, and Tony and Dreasjon, and too many others to mention.”

“In some ways as tragic as these past few weeks have been, as difficult and scary and uncertain as they’ve been, they’ve also been an incredible opportunity for people to be awakened to some of these underlying trends,” Mr. Obama said. “And they offer an opportunity for us to all work together to tackle, to take them on, to change America and make it live up to its highest ideals.”

His remarks were part of a broader conversation about proposed reforms to the nation’s law enforcement agencies, and how to improve trust between police and the communities they protect. 

A conversation with President Obama: Reimagining Policing in the Wake of Continued Police Violence by Obama Foundation on YouTube

During his address, the former president offered a direct message to young people of color who have “witnessed too much violence and too much death,” often at the hands of those tasked with protecting them.  

“I want you to know that you matter, I want you to know that your lives matter, that your dreams matter,” he said. He added that he hopes that they feel hopeful even as they feel angry, because they “have the power to make things better and you have helped to make the entire country feel as if this is something that’s got to change.”

Mr. Obama also urged local leaders to take immediate action. 

“Today, I’m urging every mayor in this country to review your use of force policies with members of your community and commit to report on planned reforms,” he said. 

The former president also acknowledged there are members of law enforcement who “share the goals of reimagining policing” because they “took their oath to serve” communities. He said they have a tough job and he knows they’re “just as outraged by the tragedies in recent weeks” as the protesters. He expressed gratitude to what he described as the “vast majority” that protect and serve. 

The event, “Reimagining Policing in the Wake of Continued Police Violence,” was hosted by My Brother’s Keeper Alliance, a program established by the Obama Foundation. It also included Mr. Obama’s former attorney general Eric Holder Jr., executive director of Color of Change Rashad Robinson, activist and educator Brittany Packnett Cunningham and Minneapolis City Council member Phillips Cunningham.

While Wednesday’s event marked the former president’s first statements on camera addressing the protests, Mr. Obama wrote in a Medium post on Monday that the ongoing demonstrations “represent a genuine and legitimate frustration over a decades-long failure to reform police practices and the broader criminal justice system” in the U.S. He also said the protests could “be a real turning point” for those efforts.

“When we think about politics, a lot of us focus only on the presidency and the federal government. And yes, we should be fighting to make sure that we have a president, a Congress, a U.S. Justice Department, and a federal judiciary that actually recognize the ongoing, corrosive role that racism plays in our society and want to do something about it,” Mr. Obama wrote. “But the elected officials who matter most in reforming police departments and the criminal justice system work at the state and local levels.”

Earlier this week, former presidents Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter and George W. Bush also addressed the death of George Floyd and widespread protests.

“Rosalynn and I are pained by the tragic racial injustices and consequent backlash across our nation in recent weeks. Our hearts are with the victims’ families and all who feel hopeless in the face of pervasive racial discrimination and outright cruelty,” Mr. Carter said in a statement. “We all must shine a spotlight on the immorality of racial discrimination. But violence, whether spontaneous or consciously incited, is not a solution.”

STATEMENT FROM FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT JIMMY CARTER

(corrected)https://bit.ly/3gSjjYC pic.twitter.com/WudUuNSHmX

— The Carter Center (@CarterCenter) June 3, 2020

“No one deserves to die the way George Floyd did,” Mr. Clinton said in his own statement. “And the truth is, if you’re white in America, the chances are you won’t.”

Mr. Bush said Tuesday that he and Laura Bush were “anguished” over George Floyd’s death, adding that the tragedy, “in a long series of similar tragedies — raises a long overdue question: How do we end systemic racism in our society?”

In recent weeks, Mr. Obama has publicly weighed in twice on current events. Last month, he headlined two national virtual commencement ceremonies, in which he made indirect, but pointed criticisms of Mr. Trump’s response to the coronavirus pandemic. 

This will not be the only time the public will get to hear from the former president on camera this week. Mr. Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama are both slated to participate in a “Dear Class of 2020” virtual graduation event on Saturday, June 6. 

Melissa Quinn contributed to this report.

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[newstechreviews]

“I really do believe that, if people do a crime, they need to do the time,” Kim Kardashian West tells TIME in a recent phone interview (from one self-quarantine zone to another). “But it’s a matter of, what is that fair [amount of] time?”

That’s a question she leaves open-ended — seemingly deliberately. But as her efforts to raise the profile of criminal justice reform movements continue, as showcased in Kim Kardashian West: The Justice Project, a documentary special set to air on Oxygen on April 5, it’s increasingly clear that her answer is along the lines of, well, less.

As The Justice Project documents, there are some important caveats: Kardashian West’s activism has primarily focused on change at a granular level, championing the causes of individual inmates versus larger swathes of the U.S. prison population. (Still, Kardashian West notes, that’s not to say it’s a strategy that can’t be scaled.) The Justice Project highlights five currently or recently incarcerated people, juxtaposing a focus on their crimes with efforts they have since made behind bars toward personal growth and rehabilitation. It’s at times a jarring narrative — the disconcertingly cheesy soft-focus crime re-enactment scenes in particular — but perhaps that’s deliberate too? (If not, that’s cable TV for you.) The repeated ‘flip’ in each inmate’s story, from crime and consequence to rehabilitation (and beyond), seems to mirror the journey Kardashian West has taken herself to learn about the prison system and what she now understands to be its many flaws.

Take the now well-known case of Alice Marie Johnson, who in 1996 received a life sentence, without parole, for working as a “phone mule” for a ring of Memphis drug dealers. (At Johnson’s trial, prosecutors argued she had taken on a “leadership” role in the trafficking operation.) The case leads The Justice Project, just as it spurred Kardashian West into action for the first time.

Learning of Johnson’s story was a “huge eye opener,” Kardashian West explains; a campaign working for her release surfaced in her Twitter feed in October 2017 and caught her attention. The injustices she believed Johnson had suffered — “that someone who was a phone mule [received] a harsher sentence than Charles Manson made absolutely no sense to me,” she says — was a lightbulb moment. “It just really broke my heart, and I just wanted to help her,” Kardashian West says. “Because [I knew] I could.”

Cheriss May—NurPhoto/Getty ImagesAlice Marie Johnson speaks at the 2019 White House Prison Reform Summit and First Step Act celebration at the White House in Washington, D.C. on Monday, April 1, 2019.

Kardashian West began working with Johnson’s own lawyers, advocacy groups and, eventually, the White House. In May 2018, Kardashian West met with President Trump to petition for Johnson’s release; Trump commuted her sentence the following month. Johnson attended the 2019 State of the Union as a guest of the President, and has since returned to the White House to successfully lobby for the release of three other prisoners, Kardashian West notes.

In subsequent campaigning for prison reform, Kardashian West was among those lobbying Trump to pass the First Step Act, bipartisan legislation seeking to reduce recidivism in people released from prisons and improve related services both in and outside of prisons.

“I think when people saw Alice’s face and heard her speak, they felt safe, feeling [of her release] that, ‘Oh, this is going to be OK. Our society is going to be safe; she deserves a second chance,’ Kardashian West tells TIME. “I don’t look at prison reform as very political… The key is humanizing these [people] and taking on these individual stories, to let everyone know that people on the inside are just like us.”

View this post on Instagram

Alexis Martin was just a child when her sex trafficker was killed and she was charged with murder. Hear her powerful story when @KimKardashian West's documentary #KKWTheJusticeProject premieres, Sunday, April 5 at 7/6c on @Oxygen.

A post shared by Oxygen (@oxygen) on Mar 17, 2020 at 3:48pm PDT

While her platform and, in many respects, her resources stand alone, The Justice Project also works shrewdly to present (reframe, even) Kardashian West in a similar vein — that, in the context of her activism awakened, she’s a regular person “just like us.” Or, more importantly, that any of “us” could step up too if we chose to.

Kardashian West is very conscious to highlight the work of her collaborators, attorneys and long-standing activists — many of whom are people of color — whose work her celebrity status could be seen as overshadowing. In any context, but particularly so when considering community-building and social justice work, appropriation or a ‘white savior’ narrative is “problematic,” as Brittany Barnett, an attorney who worked on Alice Marie Johnson’s case said in a 2019 interview with Essence. “I’ve never done this work for credit,” she continued, noting that she was “grateful” for Kardashian West’s “complementary efforts” and support, “but I do feel it’s important for little Black girls to see that two Black woman lawyers are doing this work.”

Kardashian West says she has reckoned with this, and continues to do so. “We talk about it all the time,” she says on this subject. “I always say this is a team effort, I tell everyone I’m the last push at the end. I’m that vessel.” And there are occasions she says she now steps behind the curtain herself; “We are very strategic,” Kardashian West explains. “There’s cases that I’m working on that people know nothing about and maybe never will—cases where we know that a state governor, say, would probably not like to receive a call from me, and that [my involvement] could even be used against our client. I speak up when I’m needed, and when it’s not, I don’t.”

Read more: Amid Growing Support Campaign, Texas Death Row Inmate Rodney Reed’s Planned Execution Has Been Stayed. Here’s What You Need to Know

She’s likewise conscious to air her privilege — having grown up in a family that, save sister Khloé’s very brief jail stint for violating probation from a DUI arrest (and yes, that viral KUWTK moment), was never directly impacted by the prison system — and the lack of awareness that, in her case, came with. “I wish I had paid attention sooner,” Kardashian West tells TIME; an admission that could undercut some of the criticism a Kardashian near-inevitably faces for doing anything, let alone something serious.

A particularly poignant, if overtly-staged scene in The Justice Project features Kardashian West and a friend discussing some of the cases she’s taken on, and her successes. They’re sitting at a table covered in letters received from, presumably, prisoners whose cases she surely couldn’t have had time for. But, The Justice Project argues, she’s doing something.

In this vein, Kardashian West and her Justice Project becomes both aspirational and accessible for its viewers, her followers or anyone hearing of a case that didn’t sit right with them. It’s a subtle call-to-action, but impactful nonetheless.

[phooll123]

New top story from Time: ‘I Wish I Had Paid Attention Sooner.’ Kim Kardashian West on Her Justice Project and Quest For Apolitical Prison Reform

“I really do believe that, if people do a crime, they need to do the time,” Kim Kardashian West tells TIME in a recent phone interview (from one self-quarantine zone to another). “But it’s a matter of, what is that fair [amount of] time?”

That’s a question she leaves open-ended — seemingly deliberately. But as her efforts to raise the profile of criminal justice reform movements continue, as showcased in Kim Kardashian West: The Justice Project, a documentary special set to air on Oxygen on April 5, it’s increasingly clear that her answer is along the lines of, well, less.

As The Justice Project documents, there are some important caveats: Kardashian West’s activism has primarily focused on change at a granular level, championing the causes of individual inmates versus larger swathes of the U.S. prison population. (Still, Kardashian West notes, that’s not to say it’s a strategy that can’t be scaled.) The Justice Project highlights five currently or recently incarcerated people, juxtaposing a focus on their crimes with efforts they have since made behind bars toward personal growth and rehabilitation. It’s at times a jarring narrative — the disconcertingly cheesy soft-focus crime re-enactment scenes in particular — but perhaps that’s deliberate too? (If not, that’s cable TV for you.) The repeated ‘flip’ in each inmate’s story, from crime and consequence to rehabilitation (and beyond), seems to mirror the journey Kardashian West has taken herself to learn about the prison system and what she now understands to be its many flaws.

Take the now well-known case of Alice Marie Johnson, who in 1996 received a life sentence, without parole, for working as a “phone mule” for a ring of Memphis drug dealers. (At Johnson’s trial, prosecutors argued she had taken on a “leadership” role in the trafficking operation.) The case leads The Justice Project, just as it spurred Kardashian West into action for the first time.

Learning of Johnson’s story was a “huge eye opener,” Kardashian West explains; a campaign working for her release surfaced in her Twitter feed in October 2017 and caught her attention. The injustices she believed Johnson had suffered — “that someone who was a phone mule [received] a harsher sentence than Charles Manson made absolutely no sense to me,” she says — was a lightbulb moment. “It just really broke my heart, and I just wanted to help her,” Kardashian West says. “Because [I knew] I could.”

Cheriss May—NurPhoto/Getty ImagesAlice Marie Johnson speaks at the 2019 White House Prison Reform Summit and First Step Act celebration at the White House in Washington, D.C. on Monday, April 1, 2019.

Kardashian West began working with Johnson’s own lawyers, advocacy groups and, eventually, the White House. In May 2018, Kardashian West met with President Trump to petition for Johnson’s release; Trump commuted her sentence the following month. Johnson attended the 2019 State of the Union as a guest of the President, and has since returned to the White House to successfully lobby for the release of three other prisoners, Kardashian West notes.

In subsequent campaigning for prison reform, Kardashian West was among those lobbying Trump to pass the First Step Act, bipartisan legislation seeking to reduce recidivism in people released from prisons and improve related services both in and outside of prisons.

“I think when people saw Alice’s face and heard her speak, they felt safe, feeling [of her release] that, ‘Oh, this is going to be OK. Our society is going to be safe; she deserves a second chance,’ Kardashian West tells TIME. “I don’t look at prison reform as very political… The key is humanizing these [people] and taking on these individual stories, to let everyone know that people on the inside are just like us.”

View this post on Instagram

Alexis Martin was just a child when her sex trafficker was killed and she was charged with murder. Hear her powerful story when @KimKardashian West's documentary #KKWTheJusticeProject premieres, Sunday, April 5 at 7/6c on @Oxygen.

A post shared by Oxygen (@oxygen) on Mar 17, 2020 at 3:48pm PDT

While her platform and, in many respects, her resources stand alone, The Justice Project also works shrewdly to present (reframe, even) Kardashian West in a similar vein — that, in the context of her activism awakened, she’s a regular person “just like us.” Or, more importantly, that any of “us” could step up too if we chose to.

Kardashian West is very conscious to highlight the work of her collaborators, attorneys and long-standing activists — many of whom are people of color — whose work her celebrity status could be seen as overshadowing. In any context, but particularly so when considering community-building and social justice work, appropriation or a ‘white savior’ narrative is “problematic,” as Brittany Barnett, an attorney who worked on Alice Marie Johnson’s case said in a 2019 interview with Essence. “I’ve never done this work for credit,” she continued, noting that she was “grateful” for Kardashian West’s “complementary efforts” and support, “but I do feel it’s important for little Black girls to see that two Black woman lawyers are doing this work.”

Kardashian West says she has reckoned with this, and continues to do so. “We talk about it all the time,” she says on this subject. “I always say this is a team effort, I tell everyone I’m the last push at the end. I’m that vessel.” And there are occasions she says she now steps behind the curtain herself; “We are very strategic,” Kardashian West explains. “There’s cases that I’m working on that people know nothing about and maybe never will—cases where we know that a state governor, say, would probably not like to receive a call from me, and that [my involvement] could even be used against our client. I speak up when I’m needed, and when it’s not, I don’t.”

Read more: Amid Growing Support Campaign, Texas Death Row Inmate Rodney Reed’s Planned Execution Has Been Stayed. Here’s What You Need to Know

She’s likewise conscious to air her privilege — having grown up in a family that, save sister Khloé’s very brief jail stint for violating probation from a DUI arrest (and yes, that viral KUWTK moment), was never directly impacted by the prison system — and the lack of awareness that, in her case, came with. “I wish I had paid attention sooner,” Kardashian West tells TIME; an admission that could undercut some of the criticism a Kardashian near-inevitably faces for doing anything, let alone something serious.

A particularly poignant, if overtly-staged scene in The Justice Project features Kardashian West and a friend discussing some of the cases she’s taken on, and her successes. They’re sitting at a table covered in letters received from, presumably, prisoners whose cases she surely couldn’t have had time for. But, The Justice Project argues, she’s doing something.

In this vein, Kardashian West and her Justice Project becomes both aspirational and accessible for its viewers, her followers or anyone hearing of a case that didn’t sit right with them. It’s a subtle call-to-action, but impactful nonetheless.

via Blogger https://ift.tt/2UHWoWQ

[amateurthinker]

A Proposal for Parliamentary Socialism

In this opinion piece, I will attempt to outline my ideas about what a socialist society should look like and why, how it could be implemented in the United States and how it should operate after it has been implemented.

TL:DR, the most notable details are:

I start from family values theory rather than class analysis. I propose protecting democratic institutions from conservatives by disenfranchising chauvinists, and with constitutional protections of socialist principles.

=== Contents ===

Foundation

Family Values

Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness

Life

Liberty

The Pursuit of Happiness

Creating a Socialist Economy

Seizure of Production

A Social Market

Open Source

Revolution

Constitution

Protected Rights

Treason

Socialist Democracy

Native Americans

Policies

Dechauvinism

Dealing with Terrorists and Counter-Revolutionaries

Green Transformation

Law Enforcement

Native Americans

Gun Control

=== Foundation ===

Family Values

According to family values theory, human reasoning combines logic with an emotional attachment to their values. More specifically, when humans try to reason through any question, they rely on one of two biological value systems; strict father family values or nurturant family values.

Strict father family values are based primarily on hierarchical dichotomies between masculinity vs femininity, strength vs weakness, discipline vs licentiousness and punishment vs reward. The association of these values with stereotypes leads to every form of chauvinism (eg classism, sexism, racism, xenophobia, homophobia, transmisogyny, etc.). While some people may have an inherent bias towards chauvinist thinking, every human is capable of it, and both fear and privileged circumstances encourage it.

Nurturant family values are based primarily on empathy, fairness and happiness. These values underlie both the social justice movements and socialism, and are incompatible with chauvinism. Notice also that while this value system is gender-neutral, those who consider it from the perspective of the strict father model must categorize it as feminine, because from that perspective it is “the other” and therefore “lesser than”.

Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness

I submit that economic systems can be characterized in terms of family value systems. Capitalism is inherently chauvinistic, in that it is (at minimum) a straightforward application of classism. Moreover, every other form of chauvinism can and has been employed by capitalists to enhance their wealth and power, naturally at the expense of others. This makes capitalism incompatible with the principles of empathy, fairness and happiness, with the natural result that capitalist societies tend to be cruel, unjust and miserable.

Socialism (the essential idea that workers have power over what happens to them in the workplace) is motivated by nurturant family values (i.e. fairness and empathy), and therefore good socialist systems are designed to maximize empathy, fairness and happiness. I submit that socialism is naturally fulfills the Declaration of Independence’s primary goals of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”. In this document, I intend to suggest a form of socialism that I believe can best fulfill those goals.

Life

The model for a sane society should be “survival is free, but you must work for luxury”. Providing the necessities of life should reduce the death, sickness, exploitation (both in the workplace and in the home) and misery that result from not having these things, while allowing a market for luxuries should provide an attractive incentive for people to work (especially for jobs that are necessary but not as exciting or enjoyable as others). The arts would be stimulated, since starvation would no longer be a barrier to pursuing that work full-time.

The basic survival needs that should be provided to everyone by the state without charge, including:

housing

food

water

clothing

hygiene products

health care

abuse shelters

sanitation

baby supplies

In addition to these, these other services should be provided by the state without charge, as an investment in the health and productivity of the nation, and as a way to reduce overhead costs for individual proprietorships:

education

mass transit

child care

electricity

While loss of life is an inevitable consequence of armed conflict, in the civilian arena the death penalty should be abolished. There are too many downsides to allowing the state to execute people for crimes (either real or imagined), and many upsides to sentencing the worst criminals to life in prison.

War, whether declared explicitly or engaged with a political wink and a nod, has in the past been too frequently engaged in and too rarely for just causes. Any armed conflict should be approved by public referendum within thirty days of its start, and re-authorized every year by public referendum in order to continue. Without good cause for war, even a fearful public will eventually become exhausted and lose interest, and the government will be forced to withdraw.

Liberty

The justice system of the United States is built on a chauvinist premise; that bad people can be improved through punishment. According to this system, “bad people” are those who rich chauvinists dislike. Among adults, the police are the public-facing edge of this system, and their purpose is to exercise lethal force against those “bad people” who refuse to surrender. In theory, the police can exercise discretion to soften the harshness of the law, but instead they use it to subjugate marginalized communities, and they always uphold the demands of the capitalist order.

The public deserves to live free from armed occupation. The police must be fired and replaced with effective, non-oppressive alternatives. The vast majority of so-called criminals are victims of unjust laws that serve as a means of public control, and that are unequally applied. Laws against “victimless crimes” should be eliminated, people convicted for them should be freed and their criminal records should be expunged of them. Real criminal activity can be reduced dramatically with social programs that satisfy all of the basic needs of the citizenry. The need for traffic patrols should be eliminated by replacing private cars with robust public traffic networks. Many violent crimes can be prevented with non-violent approaches like the “Cure Violence” program. Property crimes, fights and other lesser crimes can be handled as civil disputes.

However, there is one class of crime that does require law enforcement, namely crimes of chauvinism. These are crimes committed by members of privileged groups against members of marginalized groups, or by those who have more power against those who have less power. The reason is that neutrality and neglect always favor the bully; therefore, some form of formal justice system is required to remove chauvinists from society and restore balance.

Examples of such crimes include terrorism, torture, sexual assault, hate crimes, hate speech, domestic abuse, child abuse, abuse of authority, violating public protections (labor, environmental, financial, etc), murder and capital accumulation.

I should make a special note about the word “terrorism”. I consider terrorism to be the commission of violence against civilians to inspire fear. A civilian is anyone who is not a member of the dominant class or one of their armed agents.

Crimes against children are especially awful, not only because they are powerless to resist, and not only because they have fewer legal rights to protect them, but also because the damage done to a child cuts deeper and lasts longer - sometimes for generations. Ending or at least reducing the frequency of these crimes has the potential to eliminate incalculable levels of intergenerational suffering, but it also has social consequences. Children are naturally empathetic; it is fear and abuse drive it out of them, corrupting our society and robbing us all of what might be.

These also happen to be crimes which our present police force has utterly failed to pursue with any serious commitment or vigor. This is due, no doubt, to the intellectual consistency between the chauvinism of the police forces’ mission, training, regulations, equipment and management on the one hand and the chauvinism that underlies the crimes themselves. Nor should there be much surprise when our current police forces commit these crimes themselves, or when the system protects them from prosecution.

The logical conclusion is that a new police force, focused on pursuing the perpetrators of chauvinist crimes, must be formed. Half of these police should be women. Police training should focus on deescalation and a more just approach to law enforcement. Regulations concerning police should eliminate the double standard that currently grants police carte blanche to murder at will. Their equipment should be demilitarized. Police management should be restructured to reflect a civilian, rather than military, mode of organization. Internal affairs should work with their own district attorneys, whose only roles are to prosecute police abuses.

While imprisonment can and should be minimized, it is difficult to reconcile the complete elimination of prisons with the need to protect the public from chauvinist crimes, and the elimination of the death penalty exacerbates this problem. At the same time, jails and prisons (when they are used) should have three goals in mind:

to avoid making mal-adjusted citizens worse

to minimize recividism

to rehabilitate those who can be rehabilitated

To accomplish these ends, prisoners should be protected from harm and from institutional injustices; differences between the prison environment and the external world should be reduced; post-release employment barriers should be reduced to the extent possible; counseling and education programs should be made freely available to all prisoners in the hope that they may find their way before they are released.

The Pursuit of Happiness

The word “happiness” is usually understood in terms that are too subjective to be useful. I suggest that an objective understanding of “the pursuit of happiness” should make use of self-determination theory. That is to say, our focus should be on maximizing these elements:

connectedness

autonomy

competence

Capitalism discourages connectedness, not only by forcing workers to compete against each other (as opposed to working together), but also by creating a socially atomized society. In so many ways, we are driven to consume as individuals, because the behavior of disconnected individuals are easier to analyze, aggregate and manipulate through advertising. A better alternative is not only to build workplaces built on cooperation rather than competition, but also to eliminate advertising and to encourage the development of civil society, eg open source projects, social clubs, support groups, activist groups, political parties, etc.

At the same time, capitalism discourages autonomy by subjecting so much of a person’s life to the control of hierarchies over which they have no influence. Traditional marxists usually assume that this can be addressed through state ownership of the means of production, but this is false. To encourage an individual’s sense of autonomy, that individual needs to have more input in those things that affect their lives, which of course is the essence of democracy. To encourage individual autonomy, democratic decision-making approaches can be used, but eliminating unnecessary restrictions on individual workers and customers can also give people the space they need to breathe.

While capitalists value and reward competence, they don’t like to develop it. They don’t like to pay for training, and they don’t like giving workers enough time to think or to experiment or to validate their proposals. Moreover, capitalist systems discourage competence in areas that don’t directly contribute to private profits. Instead, society should provide academic and job training free of charge, both to high school graduates and to older adults who wish or need to learn more.

Economic class can be, and has been, defined in a number of ways, each with different consequences for one’s worldview. I believe that economic class should be based on the concept of “the rich and powerful”. This gives us two classes; a dominant class (those who subdue others to empower themselves) and the under class (those who don’t). The dominant class is populated by managers, investors and large political donors, whereas the under class is populated by slaves, workers, the self-employed, prisoners, volunteers and stay-at-home caretakers.

I believe that Bichler and Nitzan’s theory of Capital as Power is the best explanation for why capitalists do what they do, and how they relate to government. This theory claims, in a nutshell, that capitalists are motivated by a desire to maximize market control rather than profit per se. This is consistent with both capitalists’ strategic statements and their actions, both in public and in private, and their analyses are of that odd, elegant sort that seem puzzling before you read them but obvious afterwards. As far as I can tell, their theory explains capitalist behavior better than both marxist and marginal utility theories.

Artificial divisions between members of the underclass have been created by the dominant class. Whereas the self-employed is in reality a free worker, they may see themselves as an aspiring member of the dominant class. Highly paid workers may look down on poorly paid workers. The work of stay-at-home workers is completely ignored. Marginalized groups are criminalized under flimsy pretenses, imprisoned and then either excluded from the workforce, or forced into slavery (which simultaneously robs others in the underclass of useful work).

Creating a Socialist Economy

To design a socialist economy, I begin with these premises:

state seizure of production is the only way to survive the climate apocalypse

luxuries should require work

people want to work

people dislike working for others

Seizure of Production

The national government must seize the energy and transportation industries to force a rapid transition to renewable energy and fuel sources. The government should nationalize other industries that cannot be allowed to fail, or that cannot function as a free market with many buyers and many sellers. These include, but are not limited to the insurance, war, utility and education industries. PBS should be expanded to emulate the BBC, providing multiple channels of free, high quality shows and movies to the public. [private property] These changes will ensure cooperation in our efforts to survive the climate apocalypse, while also removing the greatest organizational threats to future generations.

However, public ownership alone simply replaces several hierarchical organizations with one hierarchical organization. Unless this organizational structure is changed, workers will still suffer from alienation. To address this, the public sector should:

adopt an “open source culture” that involves the Deming management philosophy, internal crowdsourcing, collaborative work and an emphasis on personal freedom and professional development

give workers the power to elect executive boards, which in turn will control management appointments

organize small offices (eg. schools) as co-ops. if they choose to have managers, those managers should be elected (or hired) by co-op members.

Banks should be reorganized as regional credit unions. Tenants of rental properties should be empowered to evict their landlords, and to make citizens’ arrests if they resist (while offering military support to those who need it). Idle homes should be seized, renovated and given to needy families.

Creators of music, independent films and various other forms of art should receive taxpayer funds according to their popularity. To avoid the problems caused by casting child actors, and to alleviate the stress caused by filming sex scenes, 3d technology should replace those roles.

A Social Market

If the national government takes over all businesses, it may not be able to properly handle some demands. Some people will desire greater independence than public agencies can offer (despite the reforms I’ve suggested). Some markets could be made to function as something like free markets, which according to classical economics maximizes employment and minimizes profit margins. Finally, workers in the private sector are better able to agitate for better conditions, and under the right conditions those conditions can spread to the private sector. In other words, the private sector should be used as a laboratory to bring new ideas to light, and as a check against government overreach. To achieve all of these ends, I believe that a private market should still exist, but one with social characteristics.

Large companies that haven’t already been nationalized and that can be broken up, (including media companies and restaurant chains) should be broken up. All business ownership arrangements should be invalidated and all non-management employees should be given equal, non-transferrable voting shares (transforming workers into owners and managers into employees). Temporary, part-time and outsourced workers should be banned, forcing companies to properly staff themselves. If threats are made against cooperatives, they should be armed. Sole proprietorships should be organized into retailer’s cooperatives, to take advantage of economies of scale, and to try to encourage proprietors to think in less conservative ways. New companies should either be cooperatives or sole proprietorships.

As much as possible should be done to push markets towards the ideal of a theoretical free market (i.e. competition is on price alone, no one can influence the market price, many buyers, many sellers, no barriers to market entry or exit, etc.). Product networks like amazon.com should be nationalized and tweaked to favor local businesses, and all advertising should be banned. Where practical, products should be standardized, and anti-competitive practices should be strictly prohibited. Business chains should be prohibited, keeping businesses small.

At the same time, market protections (labor, environmental, financial, etc) should limit the negative results of market competition. The advantage of enacting these laws in a society without a corporate elite is that these protections can continue to exist as long as the public supports them.

Agribusiness in the United States is interesting. Most US citizens refuse to work on factory farms for low wages under slave-like conditions, but undocumented immigrants will do so in order to survive. Therefore, when undocumented immigrants are unable to work on factory farms, the crops rot in the fields. However, when people own their own and work their own lands, they fight hard to keep them. Moreover, small farms produce more than factory farms (although they’re more labor-intensive and therefore more expensive).

Factory farms should be seized and given to small agricultural cooperatives, which can give us the advantage of higher productivity while also allowing us to ban child farm labor. Moreover, research should be done to make small farming safer and easier for the adults who work them. If threats are made against cooperatives, they should be armed.

The morality of sex work, and of its prohibition, is complicated by the socioeconomic system within which that work is embedded. In an economic system which compels people to work to survive, the value of a worker’s consent is reduced by their ability of to withhold it, and the erosion of consent in sexual relations is especially worrying. On the other hand, an economic system which separates earned income from survival lacks this problem. Studies have shown that legalizing sex work increases human trafficking, but other evidence shows that legalizing sex work also reduces crimes committed against sex workers. Finally, there is the observation that many (though certainly not all) sex workers report that they felt driven to their careers by economic desperation. If everyone’s basic needs were provided for, it seems likely that fewer people would become sex workers, and more would retire sooner.

In a socialist society, I suggest that the ideal solution to these problems is to fully legitimize sex work (i.e. not only to legalize it, but to uphold labor rights within this industry), while simultaneously increasing prosecution of crimes against sex workers and of anti-trafficking efforts.

Worker strikes are a legitimate avenue of democratic control, even in a socialist society. They are also a safety value to relieve public frustration. If unions are organized on an industrial basis rather than a trade basis, union activity can also serve as a way to reduce divisions within the under class. This is important because even after the formation of a socialist government, those who grew up under capitalists will have to outgrow old habits. Unions must be allowed to form easily (preferably on an industrial basis), and they must not be directed by the state.

Social space must also be created for conservatives, whose numbers are great, and whose worldview is incompatible with worker cooperatives and union shops. Moreover, a certain percentage of people are genetically biased towards conservative thought; they cannot help the way they were born any more than anyone else can. To allow these people the space to breathe, single-family farms and single proprietorships must be allowed to continue alongside cooperatives and employee-owned corporations.

This point is actually very important. Throughout this document, I’ve put great stress on the dangers of chauvinism and of chauvinists. However, a few moments’ thought reveals that half of the United States population comfortably fits that description, and at least another quarter of the population is chauvinist enough to casually accept genocide and other abominations as “necessary evils”. Society must include an escape hatch for those who cannot cope with the transition to socialism, while allowing for everyone else to move forward. The alternative to this approach is to provoke an even greater armed resistance than might be expected, just at the time when cooperation is needed to survive the coming climate disaster. “I told you so” is no substitute for success.

I should say something about “bourgeoisie economics”. So-called “saltwater economics” turns out to predict market outcomes better than any other economic theory, and as such would still be useful for managing that sector of the economy that remains in private hands. In fact, under socialist conditions, it should work even better, because large businesses simply wouldn’t exist in these markets. Furthermore, responsible economists could use Hyman Minsky’s business cycle theory to counsel credit unions and public banks against irrational optimism (a less likely outcome in a capitalist society).

Open Source

While open source software has prospered in capitalist societies, I believe that its true potential is constrained by programmers’ need to work to survive. In a socialist society this would no longer be true; programmers dedicated to open source could work part-time (or perhaps not at all) while still being able to contribute to projects that interest them.

At the same time, open source projects are woefully under-developed outside of academia and the computer software industry. A society whose institutions are largely non-profit can afford to use the open source approach to most forms of knowledge and technology. This has the potential to accelerate technological development, lower barriers to involvement and increase quality beyond the levels that capitalist societies are capable of.

=== Revolution ===

The Declaration of Independence contains two oft-overlooked pieces of wisdom, namely that “governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed” and “that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed”. These statements are true of every people in every society, even when that consent is purchased with intimidation or with control over information. For though that consent may be eroded, a kernel nevertheless remains, and can be exercised when the ruling elite loses its leverage over the public. That leverage is based on one or both of two things; legitimacy and fear. Elites lose their legitimacy when they can no longer solve the problems their society needs them to solve. Whenever that happens, they resort to violence to maintain their power. To minimize their cognitive dissonance (which is uncomfortable), the public responds to this violence in one of three characteristic ways.

They may withdraw from reality, becoming distracted from it. These distractions could be compulsory, in the form of long work hours, they could be escapist, as popular entertainment can be, or they could appear in the form of transhumanist philosophies that ignore present realities. In the modern United States, these are the people who are, for one reason or another, “nonpolitical”. They may lose themselves in some version of fascist ideology, romanticizing authority, violence, tradition and the past. These are the conservatives, found most obviously in the Republican and Constitution parties. However, some can also be found in the Libertarian and Democratic parties; ask how someone feels about corporate abuses or Democratic presidents’ roles in mass incarceration, war crimes or persecution of whistleblowers, and you should be able to tell who they are.

Finally, they may recognize their plight and the plight of others, embracing a philosophy of empathy and equality and solidarity with others. In today’s United States, the progressives have done this for every marginalized group except the poor. This befits their essential function, which is to save capitalism from the pitchforks of the angry villagers. Only leftists (socialists and left-wing anarchists) consistently apply these values to every marginalized group, including the poor.

The biggest obstacle in spreading this recognition is the problem of bounded rationality, the observation that humans have only so much time and intelligence to process information, and that as a result they are forced to use heuristic methods to solve problems (or to make logical errors or avoid some problems altogether). The key insight here isn’t that humans do these things, but rather that this outcome is inevitable, unavoidable and natural.

This makes maintaining focus on high ideals difficult. Socialism, democracy, revolution, class consciousness and even every-day morality are all susceptible to the limitations of bounded rationality. This is why revolutions are usually sparked by economic downturns, and why people often do not see others’ suffering until they begin to suffer themselves. Perhaps we are wrong to behave this way, but most of us do, and our revolutionary strategy must take human behavior into account.

In the case of the United States, it seems likely that no revolution will occur uncontrollable acceleration of the climate emergency occurs. Only then will a sizable majority of the population become convinced that fundamental change is required, and at that point the question will have changed from “how do we prevent the climate catastrophe” to “how do we survive it?”

After the great depression, capitalism was saved from both its most self-destructive impulses and from popular unrest through legal reforms, but those reforms left wealth and power in the hands of those who had caused it. Eventually they wanted to accumulate even more wealth and power, so they tore down those reforms and took what they wanted. These events teach us that gradual reform cannot bring about fundamental socioeconomic change because the rich and powerful will always use their wealth and power to block it.

Rapid, violent revolution is likewise impossible in the United States. The state is too well-armed and its existence isn’t threatened by a large-scale external military conflict. There is exactly one avenue for revolution left, which is the general strike. But it is not enough for marginalized communities to strike. While their efforts can effect positive change, the state is more eager to commit violence against marginalized people than against privileged people. Therefore, privileged people must participate in even larger numbers.

Social revolutionaries must also have a clear post-revolutionary plan in mind. The lack of a post-revolutionary plan has led to severe problems in real-world socialist revolutions, from the Russian revolution of 1917 to the German revolution of 1918 to the Chinese civil war of 1945. Socialist societies are as difficult to run and maintain as they are to establish, and their design should not be overlooked.

A general strike must demand not only the formation of a new constitutional convention, but one whose delegates are elected by those who engage in the strike itself. This is critically important, because corporate-owned governments must not be allowed to hijack the process.

Furthermore, a general strike must also have some idea of the policies it wishes to implement once the new constitution has been put into place. A constitution is a starting point, but the policies enabled by it are the real work.

Finally, defense against counter-revolutionaries must be taken into account. Within the United States, there are many who publicly declare that they would rather kill and die to prevent their government from aiding the poor, women or minorities. Furthermore, the United States has a long history of violent corporate suppression of leftist and progressive ideas. To assume that these elements would peacefully accept a socialist revolution within the United States defies all sense. I believe that the proper way to anticipate and deal with these existential threats is to use traditional police investigations and military deployments against domestic terrorists and insurgents.

=== New Constitution ===

Protected Rights

A new constitution should begin by paraphrasing the Declaration of Independence, centering “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” as the core of all human rights, and of rights of the citizenry. It should further state that not only does the public retain rights not listed within the constitution, but that it is necessary and proper that future reflection on the constitution should widen society’s understanding of the rights retained by natural persons, and by the citizens.

These statements should then be followed by a longer list of protected rights than are explicitly stated in our current constitution, if only to prevent unnecessary arguments from those who would deny those rights to others. While such a list is too long to list here, it should certainly include unconditional bans on slavery, torture and rape; freedom from oppression; and freedoms of expression, conscience, intimacy, etc.

A note on rape: rape should be legally defined as sex without freely given consent, with the additional condition that some conditions (including but not limited to childhood, intoxication and intellectual disability) eliminate or reduce that freedom. In cases that do not involve a white person accusing a non-white defendant, the defendant should be presumed guilty until proven innocent. This case is special in that most accusations are true, and yet most rapists go free under the presumption of innocence standard. At the same time, false accusations of rape are most commonly rooted in white supremacy. To recognize these truths allows for the pursuit of real justice, rather than the continued support and enablement of rapists everywhere.

It should nevertheless also be explicitly stated that (with certain exceptions), the limits of individual freedom are harm to, endangerment of and chauvinism against others. The first condition follows from the principle of equality; we cannot be equally free if my actions prevent you from acting as freely as I do. The second is equally important, though less obvious; if my actions endanger your freedom to act, then they unjustly put your safety at risk, even if that infringement is not guaranteed.

The last condition involves systemic cause and effect rather than direct cause and effect; for example, hate speech can increase the chances of a so-called “lone-wolf” terrorist event, even if there may be no way of predicting the specific chain of events that connects a specific utterance of hate speech and a specific terrorist event. This ambiguity, and the public’s lack of understanding of systemic cause and effect, give cover to oppressors, their supporters and their enablers. However, socialists are keenly aware of these problems, and of their threats to society. While loss of life is an inevitable consequence of armed conflict, in the civilian arena the death penalty should be abolished. There are too many downsides to allowing the state to execute people for crimes (either real or imagined), and many upsides to sentencing the worst criminals to life in prison.

Treason

Treason should be defined explicitly, in exactly the way it is defined in our current constitution. The mis-use of treason charges has been a source of much injustice throughout history, and its current definition is a just and good innovation.

Socialist Democracy

We know that capitalists can increase their market share (and their profits) by manipulating democratic institutions. We also know that chauvinists will always make excuses for those capitalists’ manipulations. Capitalists and chauvinists disenfranchise and marginalize those who resist victimhood. When that isn’t enough, they arrest or murder their victims en masse.

Those who would oppress others and/or tear down democratic institutions must be prevented from doing so. Whenever they are recognized, chauvinists must be barred from voting, from owning firearms and from holding positions of power over others (including political office, supervisory positions, law enforcement, military, chaplain positions and teaching). This principle must be enshrined in the constitution; democracy shall be reserved for those who support it, and chauvinists are to be barred from participating in it.

A note about prohibiting chauvinists from owning firearms: we know that domestic abusers use them to murder their partners, and that white supremacists have used them to mass-murder black, Native American and Jewish people. These are society’s oppressors; arming them supports oppression.

However, these restrictions alone may not be enough to prevent a socialist democracy from returning to capitalism. To further guard against this, a constitution should include defensive language, enforced by the judiciary, requiring that all legally permitted political parties and candidates adhere to certain socialist principles. These should include:

support for worker control of the economy

support for equality of outcome for people of all backgrounds

support for democratic processes

opposition to private companies being owned by people other than their workers

opposition to compulsory labor of any kind

opposition to every kind of chauvinism

Any political party or candidate who fails to meet these criteria should be de-certified by the judiciary, and barred from political office.

The national legislature should consist of a single chamber (eliminating the undemocratic Senate), evenly populated by women and men (ensuring fair representation of women’s perspectives). One third of the legislature should be elected every three years (to reduce the chances of wild swings of power balances), using a nation-wide party-list system (to ensure proportional representation) and the approval voting method (or something comparable; to alleviate the pressure to vote for less desirable candidates). Votes on new laws, approvals of appointees and votes to cease debate should all require simple majorities (to reduce the chances of partisan gridlock).

The executive should consist of a prime minister and a cabinet, elected every three years by the legislature. The prime minister and members of the cabinet should be removable at any time by a vote of “no confidence” on any pretext whatsoever, including but not limited to criminal activity, corruption, negligence, chauvinism or treason. The prime minister should be elected from the legislature, but this requirement shouldn’t be applied by the constitution to the other cabinet members (some of whom might benefit from specialist expertise).

At the time of the adoption of the new constitution, the members of the judiciary should be replaced by the prime minister, with the approval of at least half the legislature. At least half of the members of each multi-member court must be women, and half of all judges must be women. Future members of the judiciary should be appointed by the highest court within the judiciary rather than by the legislature in order to protect the nation’s socialist commitments from political corruption. Nevertheless, the legislature should have the power to impeach and remove judges for criminal activity, corruption, negligence, chauvinism or treason.

All levels of government, from the national level to the municipal, including all of the companies seized and retained by those governments, should share a single budget. This will allow poor communities to stop financing their needs with traffic fines and fees against the poor, it will give the public greater input in how their taxes are used and it will address socialism’s calculation problem. The participatory budgeting approach should be used to allocate these funds, and participants should be considered to be public sector union members, public housing tenants union members and legislators (including members of town hall governments). An environmental impact premium should be added to the labor cost of extracting raw materials.

War, whether declared explicitly or engaged with a political wink and a nod, has in the past been too frequently engaged in and too rarely for just causes. Any armed conflict should be approved by public referendum within thirty days of its start, and re-authorized every year by public referendum in order to continue. Without good cause for war, even a fearful public will eventually become exhausted and lose interest, and the government will be forced to withdraw.

Liberal societies have long claimed that one purpose of public education is to equip the citizenry to become responsible stewards of democratic societies, and yet those same societies delay their citizens, once educated, from voting or holding office. The result is that young, educated citizens become too discouraged to vote, or perhaps accustomed to not voting, by the time they’ve become old enough to do so, and they’ve likely forgotten the relevant preparation they’d received. Society is then left in the hands of older, more conservative people, who are reluctant (or unable) to learn from and adapt to changing circumstances. If we are to take such ideals seriously, and if we are to survive both present and future crises, we should set the voting age at age sixteen, and we should allow anyone who can vote to hold office.

Lower Governments

The lowest level of government should be the citizen’s assembly. Depending on a region’s popular concentration, this could represent a town, a neighborhood or a rural county. This assembly would consist of all eligible voters, who would vote directly to both propose and ratify legislation. Legislative meetings would be led by the city council, who would serve rotating two-week positions, chosen by lot from among the citizenry. Professional managers could also be hired by the council, removable at any time by the council, or by the assembly.

Higher governments, up to and including provincial governments, would consist of single legislative bodies of delegates sent by lower governments, in numbers based on their relative populations, and recallable at any time. These governments would similarly be led by executive councils, populated by rotating positions chosen by lot from among the delegates. They would also have the option to hire professional managers, removable at any time by the council, or by the delegates.

Areas with enough citizens to form assemblies, but with too few non-chauvinists to vote, should be run by managers hired by the provincial government. This balance should be re-assessed periodically until normal government can replace them. The popular assembly would retain the sole power to send non-voting delegates to the next level of government.

To further rationalize their organization, I suggest drawing the lines of the provinces to create fewer provinces to be relatively compact, to have more uniform populations, to align with existing lines of communication and to be fairly reflective of the populations of the time. (If we were doing it right now, I would personally favor the 2011 MIT cell phone map mention here.)

Native Americans

Native Americans are full US citizens, and as such should also receive the same social benefits and protections as every other citizen. However, our nation has not only established treaties with native tribes, but it owes them a blood debt that can never be repaid. This the reason native benefits must be honored. Moreover, the history of the United States is replete with betrayals of Native Americans’ trust; therefore, a new constitution should offer better guarantees than any law or treaty can offer.

Reservations should be converted into “commonwealths”, whose borders cannot be reduced, but which can be expanded or combined on their own initiative. Reservations should enjoy first jurisdiction for all legal matters within their borders, including definitions of inheritance rights. National approval should not be required to pass laws on reservation land, although if conflicts with national law arise, the national law should take precedence.

Native American reservations should collectively be guaranteed at least one voting representative in the legislature (or more, if their percentage of the overall population merits it). The national government must also provide funding for the preservation of the many aspects of native culture, so that their past will not be forgotten. National funding for environmental cleanup of polluted reservation lands must also be constitutionally guaranteed.

=== Policies ===

Dechauvinism

Initially, one should begin with something like the Soviet Union’s denazification program in East Germany; identified chauvinists should be barred from teaching, law enforcement, the military, supervisory positions, political office and chaplain jobs. They should not be allowed to own firearms, and any firearms they possess should be confiscated. This should be followed by something like West Germany’s self-reflective “vergangenheitsbewältigung” period.

All members of the Republican, Constitution and Libertarian parties, anyone who voted for far-right presidential candidates, and any white people who didn’t support progressive or leftist presidential candidates should be classified as chauvinists. Rebels, supervisors, anyone convicted of chauvinist crimes, members of known chauvinist organizations (i.e. hate groups), self-identified chauvinists (via survey), and diagnosed narcissists, psychopaths, sadists and machiavelists should also be classified as chauvinists. Genetic and psychological tests should be used to identify, discharge and screen current and future soldiers and police for innate chauvinist tendencies.

The police should immediately be disarmed, fired and replaced en masse, so as to stop them from oppressing the populace. At the same time, sweeping pardons and commutations should be issued for the unjustly criminalized. These include, but are not limited to, those convicted of drug-related crimes, those convicted of defending themselves against attackers and those convicted of attacking their abusers. The right to vote should also be restored to all those who have been released from prison. With certain exceptions, those interviewing people for jobs should be prohibited from asking about a job applicant’s criminal history, and discrimination against those who’ve been arrested, charged or convicted for a crime should be made illegal. Drug prohibition should end, all drug interdiction efforts should cease and drug addiction should be treated as a public health issue.

Dealing with Terrorists and Counter-Revolutionaries

Within the United States, there are many who publicly declare that they would rather kill and die to prevent their government from aiding the poor, women or minorities. Indeed; even under President Trump, some have already been emboldened to murder their political and ideological opponents. Furthermore, the United States has a long history of violent corporate suppression of leftist and progressive ideas. To assume that these parties would peacefully accept a socialist revolution within the United States defies all sense. I believe that the proper way to anticipate and deal with these existential threats is to use traditional police investigations and military deployments against domestic terrorists and insurgents.

When deploying the military to arrest terrorists and insurgents, I suggest using the official liberal standard of law enforcement. That is to say, that those who comply should be taken alive. Those who do not comply should be met with lethal force. Conservatives are fond of telling black victims of police brutality that “they should have cooperated”. When they use violence to terrorize others, or when they threaten to overthrow the people’s government, they should receive the same message in turn.

Green Transformation

To survive the impending climate catastrophe, we must stop contributing to it. This requires a rapid transition to renewable sources of power and fuel, drastic cuts to the US military, robust mass transit networks, an international open-source green technology development effort, debt forgiveness for the global south and a carbon rent paid to the global south to re-plant and maintain the rainforests.

These goals can only be accomplished through the institution of a socialist economy. We can no longer afford to trade survival for the enrichment of a few old white men. By the time a successful general strike becomes possible, the obviousness of this truth will have become painfully apparent.

Law Enforcement

All police officers should be fired. Unarmed violence prevention teams modeled after programs like “cure violence” should be deployed in major cities and drug prohibition should be eliminated. New police forces should be built with new regulations, new management, new training, new equipment (including a ban on firearms and military equipment) and a new focus. That focus must be to target the enforcement of chauvinist crimes, to wit:

terrorism, torture, sexual assault, hate crimes, hate speech, domestic abuse, child abuse, abuse of authority, violating public protections (labor, environmental, financial, etc), murder, capital accumulation

Native Americans

Native American tribes that have been recognized by state governments should also be recognized by the national government, and tribes that have been unfairly stripped of their recognition should be re-certified. An aggressive effort must be made to expand native lands under tribal control.

Gun Control

A good gun control policy in a socialist society should rest on three observations:

high concentrations of firearms among the general populace leads to higher death rates

chauvinists tend to use firearms against women and minorities

the poor need arms to defend themselves against chauvinist oppression

Accordingly, gun ownership among civilians should be restricted to shotguns for those who can demonstrate that they are members of a vulnerable population; that they can pass written, marksmanship and psychiatric tests; who don’t already possess a firearm; and who haven’t been identified as chauvinists.