#those are all explicitly and extensively discussed in the video

[re-locative]

Research findings: How are people creating a sense of togetherness online?

The everyday inventiveness of translocal relationship maintenance

I'm excited to share some early insights from our latest study. Some of you may remember it from when it was distributed: a survey about how people who sustain relationships online create a sense of being in the same place, even at a distance.

Even now, online platforms are marching towards a future of standardised, formless, and profoundly placeless design. But relationships need place (Tuan, 1979), and people will continue to fashion new tactics to address their everyday needs. So, how do people in translocal relationships play with/around these technological limitations? How do they foster shared places on platforms that aren't designed for it?

That's what our study sought to uncover, and here's what we found...

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Our deepest thanks to all who participated in the survey! We had 44 respondents—almost twice as many as we were hoping for—and more importantly, we got a pretty broad slice of translocal connections across the world:

Our original focus was on long-distance families and romantic relationships, mainly because people conventionally assume physical closeness and cohabitation in those relationships. But in practice, the data we gathered contained accounts of all kinds of relationships, so we expect the findings to be relevant (in varying degrees) to many kinds of online connection as well.

Across the data, a few themes showed up repeatedly, and through an extensive process of coding and clustering, we've distilled it into five themes, or key drivers of practices in virtual placemaking:

1. Synchronicity ⌚

People seek to act in concert and in temporal proximity, to feel a sense of relatedness—be that by experiencing media together, collaborating on a project, or just feeling collocated via a background voice call. Voice calls often scaffolded these kinds of synchronous activities—sound is a great vector for conveying simultaneity/"at the same time."

2. Persistence 📌

We talked about synchronous interactions above. Asynchronous interactions, on the other hand, assert the "being in the same space." This requires virtual spaces to not simply disappear or refresh when the session is closed: you're able to leave artefacts for others to discover even when you're offline or "in the background," and they accumulate over time. That's a core trait of a real place (as discussed in past research).

3. Emotional connection/depth 🫂

We know from other research that long-distance couples favour text messaging. Verbal communication is paramount in relationship deepening because it supports precise expressions of care and affirmation. But it can be asserted by other expressions too, like offers of help, favours and gifts—implicitly or explicitly indicating that one has the other person in one's thoughts, as well as their interests, well-being, and goings-on.

4. Physical linkage 🔗

Despite the focus on virtual spaces, many respondents saw great importance in anchoring their bonds in physical space, and used technologies as windows, or bridges, linking those spaces together. Using video calls as "windows" to have meals together, virtual house tours where the smartphone acts as a surrogate for the person on the other end, buying the same game board and playing against each other by replicating each other's moves...our data was replete with creative ways of bridging physical divides.

5. Co-creation 🖼️📝

Collaborative narratives and creation uniquely allow for interactors to explore and cohabit a shared mental place, in which they have an equal stake and are emotionally engaged. It's a way of being psychically co-present through roleplay and active imagination. Our data was full of mentions of collaborative creative work and narratives, from Dungeons and Dragons to building worlds together to making art of imagined alternate realities.

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Other neat insights:

Rather than ever being confined to a single platform, almost everyone inhabited and interwove practices across different platforms/media types, each with its own utility, affect, and meaning: this is what Madianou calls "polymedia life." Think playing games on a virtual board while discussing it in a text chat, watching a show together on a streaming website while discussing it in a call, playing Wordle independently and checking in with the group chat to see what others thought, etc. This was almost universal across the dataset!

There were a lot of unique practices described in the dataset (i.e. instances where one respondent was the only person in the dataset who did that thing) - and yet it was never described as a practice we deliberately designed to solve a problem. This everyday inventiveness among people in translocal/transnational relationships has become the core of our research interest.

Lots of intergenerational connection (parent/child, grandparent/grandchild, aunt/uncle/niece) was evidenced - and a strong skew towards text chat, video calls, and voice calls for these. Video games are far more common among romantic relationships.

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That's all for this post—I'll be back soon (very soon) to talk about what comes next.

[backmaskedliedermacher]

Empty Spaces

I let Youtube recommend me some videos last night. This is a dangerous thing for me to do, so I tend to avoid it, but it worked out kind of OK this time out. This time out it said "Hey, you should watch a Vsauce video." So I did, and then the sidebar suggested I watch this video by someone called Solar Sands called "Liminal Spaces (Exploring an Altered Reality)".

I've been interested in liminal spaces for a long time. I can't tell you how long, exactly, but I can tell you where I first came across the concept of liminality. It was in Thomas Pynchon's book Gravity's Rainbow.

Gravity's Rainbow is one of those Books About Everything by a Clever Cisgender White Man. I'm not actually smart enough to read it, despite having attempted it several times. (I did read Infinite Jest one summer in the '90s, for whatever that's worth.) As Clever Cisgender White Men go, Pynchon is one of the ones I actually like a lot. Gravity's Rainbow is the Big One, his Trout Mask Replica, the one people go to, but like Trout Mask Replica, it's not actually his best. Pynchon grew and matured as a writer in the decade-plus he spent smoking weed after Gravity's Rainbow. He finished and published his White Whale book, Mason and Dixon, and then came to the realization that Books About Everything were not the be-all and end-all of novels. My impression is that his subsequent books are very much not about everything and are better for it. That said, I haven't read any of them. I could, probably, in that I'm smart enough, but something about Gravity's Rainbow keeps me away from even his other books. Also I don't read many novels.

Anyway. I wound up reading it as though it were a reference book. I'd skip around into various different bits. Usually these turned out to be the dirty bits. Over time the book developed a will of its own, as reference books do, and just started taking me directly to the dirty bits.

Which of course means I read the bit about liminal spaces a lot. His example of a liminal space was what we now know as "zettai ryoiki". It translates literally as "absolute area" - figuratively it seems to mean something like "no man's land". It's the expanse of bare skin between the top of one's socks or stockings and the bottom of one's skirt, shorts, or, as in the case of Gravity's Rainbow, panties. A transitional space, a space between one thing and another.

Solar Sands uses a different example to explain liminality - that of the Backrooms. The Backrooms are a particular sort of creepypasta centered around space rather than the terrifying eldritch creatures which are more typical for creepypasta. While more traditional creepypasta relies on a sort of uncanny valley effect, the Backrooms are pretty explicitly liminal.

But Solar Sands, whose experience with liminality, like many people today, is the Backrooms, explains liminality differently. They mistake one aspect of the Backrooms for another.

The Backrooms, it happens, signify multiple things. One of these things is a sense of liminality, a sense of transition from one state to another, but the Backrooms exist not just between, but behind. They are the wireframe upon which "reality" is built.

Creepypasta is fundamentally a media phenomenon, an example of the ways the media we consume shape our thoughts, our dreams. Vsauce, in the video I watched of his, "Did People Used To Look Older?", discusses this phenomenon when he talks about how people in the 20th century believed they dreamed in black and white. Why? Because the visual media of the times - films, television - were in black and white.

3D video games are the childhood popular media of late millennials and zoomers, and with 3D video games came a new concept - that of "clipping out of bounds". I first experienced this phenomenon in high school, through the game Wolfenstein 3D. The game came with cheat codes which, since I was bad at first person shooters, I used extensively. One of these allowed the player to clip out of bounds, to see the game from angles it was not intended to be seen from. This, not so much invisibility or flight, was the superpower I imagined for myself - the ability to walk through walls, to travel in and out of spaces others could not. To be liminal.

As a trans woman, I've done this now, in a sense. I am not liminal now, but for a time, I was. When I chose to embrace my identity as a trans woman, I became a woman, but I was not initially the woman I am now. I was, for a time, a liminal girl, one who walked in the spaces between gender.

This is liminality for me - existing in the spaces between. The Backrooms are liminal spaces, certainly, but for me, so too is the TARDIS. One version of the TARDIS in particular (for the TARDIS interior, unlike its exterior, has taken many forms) - that found in Christopher H. Bidmead's story "Castrovalva".

The TARDIS as Bidmead conceives it is very much like the Backrooms. The TARDIS is unfathomably large and profoundly empty - there are never more than four people living inside. It is made up of endless blindingly lit corridors. Lastly, like the Backrooms, it exists outside of reality. What is it, then, that makes the Backrooms terrifying in a way that the TARDIS is not?

The difference that I see, the thing that marks out the Backrooms as horrifying, is not its spatial liminality, but its age. Backrooms spaces, what Solar Sands calls out as "liminal spaces", are all visibly old. The flavor text accompanying one of the most influential pictures in Solar Sands' video talks not just of sights and sounds but says that it smells old. It evokes a form of sensory input that's not usually present.

But predominant, always, is visual. "The madness of mono-yellow". And what is yellow? The wallpaper.

I read this story, when I was in school. 1892. "The Yellow Wallpaper, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. All the videos, the viral content - has the strong similarity of the Backrooms to this story from the 1890s been noticed? The story is one of the narrator entering an uncanny liminal space. She sees herself as being trapped behind the wallpaper, as having noclipped out of the space where she's confined, a woman suffering from "hysterical" illness. The sense of nearly infinite space is missing, replaced by a sense of being confined, closed in, but in all other respects "The Yellow Wallpaper" is a Backrooms story.

That color seems to date to the beginnings of it. It's industrial, that yellowish-brown. The color of something stained by grime and smoke, by piss and shit. Solar Sands points out quite accurately that the only things which we see as "liminal" in this sense are human creations. Works of nature lack the same sense of the uncanny.

The Backrooms are places of emptiness, death, decay. Nature has a season for death and decay - it is this season where I am writing now, it is winter. Death will be followed, shortly, by new life, new blooming. The flowers on Backrooms wallpaper, however, will never bloom again. The Backroom spaces belong not just to a previous time, but to a previous generation. They are for the dying and the dead.

The horror of the Backrooms, in a sense, is in the reason for their solitude and emptiness. Dwellings of the industrial era are mausoleums. Shopping malls are dead like Pompeii, dead like Chernobyl. Great monuments, the ruins of empire - they are different. Chichen Itza. The Pyramids. The Great Wall. The Colosseum. The Parthenon. These things were built to be monuments, wonders. Pompeii, Chernobyl, the Lafayette Square Mall - for these places to lack people, something must have gone terribly wrong.

Something has, of course, gone terribly wrong. We have been abandoned. We are isolated, cut off from each other. The people we meet in these places, the people who belong in them, who live in them, are people who we thought are human, but who are not quite _like us_. They are monsters. Zizek, interpreting Gramsci, tells us that this is their time.

The spatial liminality of the Backrooms is not, I do not think, the source of the unease and fear they evoke in us. It is their temporal liminality. The past inside the present. The bones on which this world are built are rotten, decaying, increasingly exposed. Is this our world? Is this the wallpaper we are trapped inside?

I saw a meme a couple days ago on a kink server I'm on that struck me. It is a screenshot of the Lost Woods from A Link to the Past, overlaid with text boxes in the game's font. The text in the boxes read:

"Absolutely nothing should be sold for a profit if its absence could kill you."

"Any modern system where people still die from lack of these resources should be dismantled."

The Lost Woods is one of the many liminal spaces within Zelda games. Zelda abounds with these transitions between spaces. "A Link to the Past" sees Link travelling between two worlds. Its sequel, "A Link Between Worlds", sees Link literally entering into walls and traversing the world through these liminal spaces. "Ocarina of Time" abounds with wrong warps, to the extent that certain clever gamer/programmers figured out a way to beat the game without ever using a door.

Perhaps the most iconic liminal space within Zelda games is the Lost Woods, though. It's a maze. A room within a maze contains nothing inherently interesting. Twisty little passages, all alike. They are ways to get from one place to another. A maze is a threshhold.

How the Lost Woods differs from the liminal spaces of the Backrooms is that they lead somewhere - or, often, to something. The Lost Woods in "A Link to the Past", as in "Breath of the Wild", lead to the Master Sword. If one cannot dismantle the master's house using the master's tools, well, perhaps the Master's Sword might suffice.

The Backrooms are at the core of the world we occupy now - a decaying skeleton, an empty, collapsing ruin. There are other liminal spaces through which we may pass. I, a trans person, have passed through one of them myself. It was strange and terrifying and wonderful and very, very temporary. I've wished for a while that I could live in these spaces, but I can't. The only people who can live in liminal spaces are monsters, and I am not a monster.

[septemberadical]

I agree that I can't convince you that god is not real (it's startling that you don't believe in the concept of a patriarchy, but I would simply refer you back to all my statistics about violence against women, or encourage you to watch the news, but I digress). I have a problem when you make claims using your religion about the innate qualities of women, of which I am one. And it seems to me that the crux of your logic as to why I am inferior and should submit to men is that god tells you so. And I demand that if you are going to make claims about me based on your god, you must justify your god to me. Which I see you can't do, and that's okay. That just means what you're saying is wrong, and the reasons you're saying it are not ones that are grounded in any god but only in your own bigotry.

With that out of the way, let's turn to the video:

A lot of it was biographical but I think the crux of the argument you are trying to make by showing it to me is the Catholic idea of the theology of the body. Women are to have a lesser, submissive role in religion due to the bodies of believers being a metaphor (or a living representation) of the relationship between the bride and the bride-groom, or Christ and the church. The Christ being represented by the bride, and the bride-groom being represented by the church. And, by extension, women being represented as the bride and men being the bride-groom. That is the justification for women not being priests, not being involved in the church, being submissive to their husbands, etc. The physical bodies of believers are metaphors for the relationship to Christ.

A few problems with this:

The interpretation of gender roles is illogical, even if you believe it's ordained by god. Wouldn't women, who in this metaphor are closer to the divine vision of god than man, be in a much better position to lead congregations and understand god as a creator? Why have mass be an acting out of god's word, with the church (man) being a proxy for that knowledge, when women are by your own theology much closer to god metaphorically and in the power of creation? All this only convinces me that women should be venerated! They should be worshipped as vessels of god on earth and treated as divine vessels of wisdom and knowledge! But you want them to be submissive and not lead, ridiculous!

The theology of the body fails to explain why contraceptives or gay marriage is not allowed, both explicitly forbidden by the woman in the video. Wouldn't taking contraception simply be women taking control of their creative power? God flooded the earth to kill all of his 'children' he thought were evil, surely women taking control of their reproductive power through contraceptive and abortion would be analogous to that.

There is exactly zero evidence in the bible, or any other holy 'word', that this is how it is meant to be. The beginning of the video discusses feminist christianity, which was promising and hilarious that it seemed to lead directly to atheism, and dismisses it as reinterpreting the bible to suit the whims of angry (and overly suspicious) feminists. But show me the passage in the bible that says exactly what the theology of the body espouses, I bet that you can't. I bet all you can show me is a collection of disparate bible verses, written thousands of years apart, that were brought together and interpreted to mean what you wanted it to. By that logic I can make the bible say anything by playing black-out poetry with the New Testament. It's just as ridiculous an interpretation as 'feminist christianity' was to the speaker and guest.

But it comes down to the fact that I don't ask it to make 'rational sense'. I don't need it to. But I do know that whoever wants women and men to be at each other's throats. It isn't God.

How do you know what god wants? You are clearly uncomfortable with the literal word of god, but you are unable to justify your interpretations of those words. Men have been the greatest killers of women on earth, the god of the bible ordered the rape and enslavement of the female populations of dozens of settlements, how do you know god doesn't want men to continue to do that until the end of time? And if there is a possibility that this is the god you believe in, and worship, why do you believe in him?

[supersaiyanjedi14]

Crossover Versus Series: Harry Potter vs Percy Jackson

Hello, all, and welcome to my first ever versus series post.  While most of my followers are likely familiar with my RWBY Combat Analysis posts, I have opted to step back from RWBY this week due to recent controversy surrounding RoosterTeeth.  Instead, I have decided to capitalize on both the recent upswing in attention to Rick Riordan’s work and my recent completed re-read of the Harry Potter books to address a somewhat regular talking point I’ve seen popping up; Who would win in a fight, Harry or Percy?

For those who do not know (because, crazy as it sounds, people who don’t know do exist), Harry James Potter is the titular protagonist of the Harry Potter series of novels written by J. K. Rowling and published from 1997 to 2007, appearing as the  pint-of-view character in all seven entries of the original series, all eight entries of the film adaptations where he is portrayed by actor Daniel Radcliffe, the sequel stage production the Cursed Child, and various tie-in video games where he is voiced by the likes of  Joe Sowerbutts, Tom Attenborough, Daniel Larner and Adam Sopp.  Meanwhile, Perseus Jackson is the titular protagonist of the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series of novels written by Rick Riordan, published from 2005 to 2009, serving as the narrator of all five books and a major point-of-view character in four out of five entries in the sequel series Heroes of Olympus, with his alternative media portrayals provided by actors Logan Lerman in two film adaptations, Chris McCarrell on Broadway, and is set to be played by Walker Scobell in the upcoming Disney+ television series.

However, before we begin, I want to make a few points.

-Firstly, this analysis will be far more loosely structured than my RWBY profiles and will not be going into such extensive research.  My impetus for making this analysis was JensaaraiOne’s Thulsa Doom vs Lord Voldemort video on YouTube, namely in the sense that it, to use his own words, “is quite explicitly a fluff piece that I threw together in an afternoon because I was bored and is based primarily on information that I can recall off the top of my head”.  If anything seems underexamined, I apologize.

-For the purposes of this matchup, I am primarily assessing Harry and Percy as they were at the end of their respective series, as Harry’s capabilities as an adult are not well established and Percy’s attributes in the original PJO books are simply more interesting to discuss.

-As a final point, I want to make it clear that this is ALL opinion-based.  This is just my interpretation of the characters and their capabilities and should not be taken as fact.  If you disagree, more power to you.  All I ask is that you keep your comments civil.

With all that out of the way, let’s begin.  Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, and Percy Jackson, Son of the Sea God.  If these two heroes of prophesy met on the battlefield, who would win?

Beyond their status as the protagonists of two of the most popular young adult fantasy series of the early 2000s, the main commonality between the combatants is that both were prophesized chosen ones who were brought up isolated from the supernatural world they were born form, making them fish-out-of-water in comparison to their peers.  Both adjusted quickly to this new reality, but their outsider perspectives made them far more independent and less attached to the established authority, conducting themselves as lone wolf operatives before realigning at the eleventh hour in response to the severity of the threat.  Both were also defined by their strong senses of personal loyalty and altruism, traits that could be manipulated to trigger reckless oversights, though it was these very traits, combined with their independent streaks, that allowed them to make greater strides against their foes than they would have otherwise been.  Both were hailed as saviors of the other world, but it was the mundane world that made them who they were.

The differences start to show in the specifics of their conduct.  Between fighting and subterfuge, each clearly favored one over the other.  Harry Potter was at his best when conducting small scale operations with very specific goals, with his approach to grand strategy being to let these minor victories stack on top of each other.  Harry is the type of operator to avoid direct combat when he has to, coordinating his assets to achieve his objective as smoothly and efficiently as possible, ideally without triggering an immediate overwhelming reaction on the part of his enemies.  The training of Dumbledore’s Army against Dolores Umbridge and the hunt for Voldemort’s Horcruxes both amounted to secretive guerilla campaigns, maintaining a low profile and acting only when he felt confident in his chances of success.  This isn’t to say that harry is inept when dropped in cold, as he was more than willing to jump into action when pressed for time, though it was these situations that let to his most notable captures.  Humble to a fault, Harry was the first to recognize that he was not the best at everything, perfectly willing to delegate responsibility to those he deemed more qualified for specific situations, a trait that made his bonds to friends and allies all the more important.

By contrast, Percy Jackson was a frontline combatant first and foremost, boldly confronting his opponents directly with the goal of immediately ending threats.  Percy was also prone to occasionally jumping before he looked, but he made up for this by being quite clever (no small distinguishment when your most common companion is a daughter of Athena).  When confronted with setbacks, he demonstrated an exceptional ability to adapt and exploit the opponent’s weaknesses, his strategies revolving around decisively ending the conflict by any means necessary.  This on-the-spot freeform style served Percy extremely well in his various quest battles, and contributed greatly to his ability to coordinate an adaptable defense during the Titan’s attack on Manhattan.  Like Harry, Percy could often be led by his emotions and be baited when specific buttons were pushed, but he nonetheless was capable of bouncing back effectively once he got his head back in the game.  This boldness and cunning endeared him greatly to Camp Half-Blood’s population, distinguishing himself as a leader even compared to campers who had been there years longer than he had.

As strategists and military commanders, I would have to favor Percy over Harry.  He was better at improvising when his initial push was unsuccessful, he had experience operating in an established structure that he could effectively lead from, and his greater offensive focus meant that he could more decisively end a conflict on his terms.  Harry, by contrast, had difficulties adjusting when his primary strategy was turned on its head, the infancy of the DA meant that others were forced to step up when deprived of his leadership, and his inexperience as an aggressor often left him too cautious unless provoked.  While I do not hold this against Harry on a personal level, as his restraint and faith in his comrades are definite virtues of his, it does reflect on a lesser degree of comfort when it comes to the rigors of fighting.  Both were reluctant leaders who were forced into positions before they were truly ready, and both deserve credit for their ability to shoulder the burden; Percy was simply better of shouldering it on his own and could adjust to larger operations more effectively.  Even when we account for the differing population bases between the British Wizarding World vs Olympian America, Harry has never personally commanded a force comparable to Percy’s.  Dumbledore’s Army, at its peak, numbered to about 30 students at most, with the senior Order of the Phoenix members playing a far more active role in leading the defense of Hogwarts, while the army Percy commanded in The Last Olympian numbered in the hundreds, all of whom were taking orders directly from him.

However, the dynamic between these two is inverted when we address their capabilities towards personal combat, owing in no small part to the differences in combat standards between the two settings.  While Harry’s performance on the Quidditch pitch proves him to be an exceptional wizarding athlete, physical combat is exceedingly rare among wizards, with so-called “Muggle dueling” regarded as an unscrupulous tactic frowned upon by polite society.  While Harry was not restricted by societal norms and clearly willing to punch someone if need be, he was certainly not a martial artist by any stretch.  Instead, combative prowess in the Wizarding World was expressed through magical dueling, Harry being no exception.  Equipped with an 11 inch holly and phoenix feather wand, Harry’s favorite combative spells included the Disarming Spell, Stunning Spell, Summoning Charm, and Shield Charm.  In combat, Harry functioned as a defensive underminer, using active defense to repel incoming attacks while working to non-lethally disable the target, either by disarming them or knocking them out.  If pressed, Harry could quickly think on his feet and alternate spells to prevent his opponent from getting a bead on him.  Despite this restrained use of his power, Harry was ruthless enough to resort to the Cruciatus Curse when pressed and possessed knowledge of the deadly Sectumsemprua, though he refrained from using these curses for the obvious ethical reasons.

Conversely, though Riordan’s mythological universe does feature its share of combative spellcasters, they are few and far between, and physical combat is a far more prevalent expression of battle.  Armed with the Celestial Bronze xiphos Anaklusmos, Percy was regarded as one of the most esteemed swordsmen of his day, proving his mettle in everything from pitched battlefield melees, battles with feral monsters, and one-on-one duels with other skilled warriors.  Bold yet tempered, Percy’s general means of battle was an aggressive opening to dispatch the target immediately, and failing that he was capable of reevaluating the situation and adapting his tactics accordingly.  Through his father, Percy also possessed various magical abilities relating to the sea and storms, most notably his power to manipulate water, communication with horses, and limited geokenesis.  While Percy’s demonstrations of power have been awe inspiring in their magnitude on occasions, most of Percy’s more impressive feats have been due to specific circumstantial factors, making his combative applications rather inconsistent.

Between these two power sets, Harry’s is considerably more effective.  While Percy could likely overwhelm Harry if allowed access to sufficient amounts of water, the ideal scenario for my approach to a V.S. match is a contest on neutral ground, where Percy would be devoid of his native element.  Even if Percy is able to call upon his demigod powers in this fight, Harry’s defenses would be an effective counter to them, and Percy simply hasn’t demonstrated enough consistent elemental destruction for me to believe he could overpower Harry.  By contrast, Harry’s combative spells are very well optimized for this opponent, most notably his ability to deprive Percy of his weapons before immediately Stunning him.  Riptide’s anti-loss enchantment does mitigate the danger of Expelliarmus, but the openings provided by an unarmed Percy would be too great an opportunity for Harry avoid.  Furthermore, wizard dueling’s natural long-range optimization means that Harry can effectively keep Percy at a distance, severely undercutting Seaweed Brain’s superiority in close combat, and their comparable wit means that Harry can match Percy’s on the spot improv long enough to prevent losing control.  While Percy would certainly be able to mount a defense by evading or deflecting Harry’s spells, all he would be able to do is delay the inevitable.

My final stance on this matchup is this; Percy Jackson is a better military operative and a more adaptable fighter, but Harry Potter boasts superior and more reliable combative powers.  Obviously, if these two were to meet in the context of their own stories, they would get along well and befriend each other, likely swapping stories of their adventures over a couple bottles of Butterbeer and a plate of Sally Jackson’s blue cookies.  But if they were forced to throw hands, Harry’s magic dueling would allow him to negate Percy’s more mundane advantages and give him a better chance of ending the fight on his terms.  However, while Harry can overcome this opponent with these attributes, his track record shows he can be overpowered and subverted, and Percy’s will to fight means that he’s going to make any battle with him an uphill one.  Nonetheless, if I were a betting man, my chips would ultimately go to the Boy Who Lived.

I declare Harry Potter the victor.

*all images taken from the Harry Potter and Riordan Wikis*

[duchess-of-mandalore]

Bo-Katan Kryze’s Age

Or rather, it’s not polite to talk about a lady’s age, except in this Lady’s case

How old is Lady Bo-Katan Kryze by the time she appears in The Mandalorian? 

We don’t have a canon answer, but we can get pretty close. And yeah . . . it’s a weird answer. But it’s not without reasoning.

Though Bo’s exact age has not been explicitly confirmed, Bo-Katan is in her mid-60s by Mando S2.

How did I get to that conclusion?

1. Dave Filoni has implied that Bo-Katan and Satine are twins, or at least very close in age.

At least twice, Dave, who has said that he has an “extensive genealogy of Clan Kryze,” has referred to a formative event that happened in the Kryze family when "[Bo-Katan] and Satine are six.”

The first is in a YouTube video (source listed in reblog, or search YouTube for the title listed below)

You ask yourself why is [Bo] acting one way & why was [Satine] a pacifist? I have a theoretical backstory that outlines them even at six years old—the two of them—& what transpired to make them who they are today.

- Dave Filoni, The Clone Wars Hangout - February 2, 2013, start at 28:15

The second is in an interview with IGN (source listed in reblog)

I have a rather lengthy backstory that even explains how [Bo] became a Death Watch soldier that goes all the way back to the time she and Satine are six. Because to figure out how she got to that point, and yet Satine is a duchess… I have a whole story about who their father was and what their relationships were and everything with Vizsla, going back for a very long time and how that intersects with Obi-Wan Kenobi. 

- Dave FIloni, IGN Interview, 2013

Both of these sources come from shortly after The Lawless aired in 2013. Yes, it is possible that Dave has since backtracked on this idea, however, until we know more, that’s unwarranted speculation (however, we’ll speculate on whether or not Bo could be younger than her mid-60s by the time of The Mandalorian later).

-

2. Bo-Katan (and Satine) are close in age to Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Even establishing that Bo and Satine are probably twins or close in age, we don’t have a canonical age for Satine in order to solidify how old they are. However, we do know that Satine is close in age to Obi-Wan Kenobi. They fell in love together while they were on the run together during the time that he was a padawan. 

Because this is all we know, the reasoning behind Bo’s age has to rely on Obi-Wan birth (57 BBY). I’m willing to allow for a slight difference between Obi-Wan and Satine & Bo, but it can’t be much (especially since we know that Satine begins ruling Mandlore immediately afterwards). Thus, we’ll consider the difference basically negligible at this point, and just assume that Obi-Wan, Satine, and Bo were all born in 57 BBY.

That makes them 38 years old at the time of Satine’s death in The Clone Wars (19 BBY). Bo and Obi-Wan are about 56 when they appear in Rebels (1 BBY), and Bo is about 67 years old by the time of The Mandalorian Season 2 (~10 BBY).

So yeah. That’s definitely different from how Bo looks in Mando S2. Katee Sackhoff is 40 years old (about the same age as Bo in The Clone Wars), but they really did not try to age her up at all.

-

Could Bo be younger?

So, just for the sake of argument, could I be wrong about all this? Let’s say that Dave has backtracked on his original plan to have Bo and Satine be twins. Could Bo be younger? And by how much?

If Dave backtracks on them being twins, he’ll probably have to backtrack on the story that he had about something happening to Satine and Bo when they were six that had a formative effect on why Satine became a pacifist and Bo a warrior. 

(Though it’s only speculation, I’ve always assumed that event was the death of their mother, so in my mind, Bo can’t be more than six years younger than Satine, but I could be totally wrong about that headcanon)

But let’s say that just for the sake of argument, Bo is quite a bit younger. Let’s say she’s 15 years younger than Satine, and that would make her a little older than 50 in The Mandalorian Season 2 (still over 10 years older than Katee). That means that she would have been about 23 years old at the end of The Clone Wars. 

There’s nothing that concretely denies this, but we do know that Bo’s nephew, Korkie is about 18 at that same time (he’s listed as being in his “late teens” in Season 5, in the original novelization of The Lawless), and it’s just hard for me to believe that Bo is only five years older than him. She’s clearly much closer to Satine’s age.

Plus, making her that much younger robs Bo and Satine of a connection that they clearly had at one point. In The Lawless, Satine says that it’s been a long time since they’ve seen each other and that there was a time when the two of them weren’t enemies. Again, there’s nothing concrete here, but I’d have a hard time buying an actual enemies-life feud between them when, for example, Satine is 25 and Bo is 10. 

Impossible? No. But personally, I just don’t think that’s what Dave is thinking about.

-

Was her appearance in Mando S2 intentional, or was Bo’s age simply forgotten/ignored?

As I mentioned, Katee Sackhoff is 40 years old, but they really did not try to age her up in The Mandalorian, even though Bo likely is in her mid-60s.

While this is strange, I do not believe that this is an oversight. Dave Filoni loves timelines, and Katee has said that between takes all they would do is sit together and Dave would tell her everything about Bo’s backstory and work through all the timelines with her. 

So what could the explanation be? Well ... it could be an out-of-universe explanation. It could have been decided not to age Katee at all in order to make her as instantly recognizable as possible in live-action for those who already knew her from the animated shows (I struggle with this though, because some streaks of grey in her hair would not make her less recognizable, especially with that iconic armor).

However, there could be an in-universe explanation. Instead of having Katee play someone who looks like she’s in her mid-60s, Dave may have decided to have her play someone who doesn’t look like she’s in her mid-60s (but still is).

Some options include: 1. Canonizing the idea that was present in the EU that Star Wars humans simply live longer than regular humans (personally, I’m not a fan of this because we’ve never seen characters aging in a way different from Earth humans before, so I think it would set an awkward precedence).

2. Giving Bo herself a reason for why she looks much younger than her age. The one I’m most fond of is the idea that maybe for most of the time between TCW and Rebels, Bo was stuck in carbonite (perhaps by the Empire for some reason). 15 years in carbonite would allow her to be 65 but act as if she’s 50.

3. Hanging a lantern on the whole situation by saying that “wearing a helmet in the sun really keeps the wrinkles away!” or something like that. Bo’s in great shape. She’s led a healthy (if dangerous) life, but it’s not unheard of for people in their mid-60s to be very athletic. However, I do think that if that’s the fact, it still needs to be explicitly referred to.

-

Will we learn more in the future?

I sure hope so. Katee has basically confirmed that Bo’s story will be ongoing and she expects/hopes to be in The Mandalorian Season 3. It’s possible we’ll learn more about Bo’s backstory (including how old she is), and hopefully we’ll get an explanation for her appearance. 

Katee has said that she desperately wants to know more about the story of Bo and Satine, and how Obi-Wan/Satine’s relationship affected Bo as well. Those are all things that Dave has expressed interest in exploring:

I’d give you more detail [about Bo and Satine’s backstory] except I’d like to tell that story at some point in some form of Star Wars media in the future. I’ve discussed it with a couple people, and we’ve started to architect it into the timeline of Star Wars somewhat, just to see where these things fit.

- Dave FIloni, IGN interview (2013)

So I’m just clinging to the idea that perhaps some day, we’ll be getting more answers. Bo’s appearance in The Mandalorian and bringing her story to a more general Star Wars audience certainly bodes well for more details on the Kryze family story in the future.

[kinogane]

On Ninian’s Paired Ending

Theoretically, because of what is established about Eliwood in The Binding Blade, it stands to reason that pairing anyone up with Eliwood in the prequel, The Blazing Blade, can be construed as knowingly setting them up for tragedy. There’s a small wrinkle, however, in that The Binding Blade was never released outside of Japan, while The Blazing Blade was (under the annoying title Fire Emblem), which means that in practice, non-Japanese players can’t reasonably be expected to know about Eliwood’s partner’s fate.

With one major exception: Ninian.

If you raise Eliwood and Ninian’s support level to A, the modified ending to the final chapter, “Light”, has Nils talk to Ninian and explicitly spell out, primarily to the audience, that neither of them will live long if they stay in Elibe. Despite this, sensing his sister’s wish to stay with Eliwood, Nils entrusts Ninian’s shorter life and happiness to Eliwood and says goodbye as he heads through the gate to live a long life, never to be seen again.

Now, granted, what exactly Nils means by “short” and “long” isn’t necessarily clear just in the context of this scene. Since it’s established that dragons live for millennia, you could reasonably interpet “short” as “short by dragon standards”, which could be still be very long by human standards. This read doesn’t hold up particularly well given further context, but just in the scope of what is presented in The Blazing Blade, it’s not patently ridiculous.

But that interpretation only deflects from the real tension at play. From Ninian’s perspective, she is trading away a long, happy life in another world with her brother for a significantly shorter, but potentially happier(?) life in Elibe with Eliwood. Whatever “short” might mean by human standards (including the player), it’s definitely short by Ninian’s standards.

From an in-universe perspective, there’s no actual tension from this decision. Nothing in the text suggests that Ninian is making this choice out of anything but her own free will. In fact, Ninian was fully ready to leave alongside Nils and was saying goodbye to Eliwood, only stopping when Nils chimes in and essentially give her and Eliwood his blessing to stay.

The tension arises when viewing all of this from a meta perspective; namely, that the writers saw fit to make this Ninian’s fate. Even as someone who likes the pairing and likes the way it plays out, because it’s effectively setting an angst time bomb, I’d be lying if I said this narrative beat felt... questionable. Like, Ninian is a character developed enough to have an identity outside of being one of Eliwood’s love interests (see also: her relationship with Nils, her other supports with Hawkeye and Florina), but making her final major act of agency be consigning herself to a brief life with Eliwood doesn’t exactly instill confidence that she actually is more than Eliwood’s love interest.

None of this, on its own, is all that noteworthy. What is noteworthy, however, is that everything I just mentioned is contingent entirely on raising Eliwood and Ninian’s support level to A. Since Ninian is only available for deployment (and, by extension, for developing supports) for seven or eight out of over thirty chapters, and Eliwood must not have more than two support conversations with other characters, this is actually quite difficult to do intentionally, let alone accidentally. If Eliwood and Ninian do not have an A-Support, then Ninian leaves with Nils as she intended to, and quite likely lives a long and happy life with her brother.

As such, knowledge of this ending imposes a special dilemma on players who do like Eliwood and Ninian together. Do you manifest their pairing in your game, etching their union into the personal canon of your save while also ostensibly dooming Ninian to a simultaneously canonical early death? Or do you instead leave them unpaired, saving Ninian in the personal canon of your save while avoiding leaving any canonical trace that the two could even be happy together and settling for other, external ways to express your preference?

I’d wager some people don’t actually see this as a dilemma, since it’s contingent on placing what they would see as undue focus on canon, and all that matters is what is expressed to the outside world, to others, which most commonly takes the form of fanwork. Whether or not the ending is actually achieved, the shackles of canon can only weigh down those that respect it, and it’s trivially easily to pick and choose as needed. What’s the issue?

And while I am ultimately of that mindset, I also think it is useful to at least sometimes take canon as it is and properly think through the implications, however inconvenient or unpleasant they might be. Canon, after all, is only what is assumed to be the common ground for all participants, so it’s at least worth thinking about how things would have to play out canonically, if discussing works of fiction with other people is something to be valued.

I bring this up as someone who’s been sitting on an Eliwood/Ninian fic that tries to explore how Ninian (and to a lesser extent, Eliwood) would go about living in the time between The Blazing Blade and The Binding Blade, with the knowledge that she’s not long for the world perpetually lingering over the two. It’s something I’ve been thinking about ever since I learned about the way the pairing plays out in The Blazing Blade for the reasons highlighted above. Doomed relationships are nothing new in video games, but this specific kind of doomed relationship, where actualizing it necessarily brings about an otherwise avoidable death, is considerably rarer.

It’s not all that surprising that I personally would take to it, since it’s an obvious wellspring of angst, but it’s one that requires some legwork to really hit. It’s one thing to die, mourning for a potential that was never realized; it’s another (and in my opinion, more gutwrenching) thing to actually realize that potential then fade away, believing wholeheartedly that it was all worth it in the end.

Canonically speaking, if Eliwood and Ninian were to be together, it could only ever be for a few years. And through her actions, we, as an audience, are to believe that spending a few years with her beloved Eliwood would make Ninian happier than spending many years amongst her kind in another land would.

And as someone who on some level wants the two to be together, I feel at least some obligation to try to imagine a life where that holds true, in my own small way, even if such a life is bound to end in tears.

[theshedding]

Lil Nas X: Country Music, Christianity & Reclaiming HELL

I don’t typically bother myself to follow what Lil Nas X is doing from day to day, or even month to month but I do know that his “Old Town Road” hit became one of the biggest selling/streamed records in Country Music Business history (by a Black Country & Queer artist). “Black” is key because for 75+ years Country music has unsuspiciously evolved into a solidly White-identified genre (despite mixed and Indian & Black roots). Regrettably, Country music is also widely known for anti-black, misogynoir, reliably homophobic (Trans isn’t really a conversation yet), Christian and Hard Right sentiments on the political spectrum. Some other day I will venture into more; there is a whole analysis dying to be done on this exclusive practice in the music industry with its implications on ‘access’ to equity and opportunity for both Black/POC’s and Whites artists/songwriters alike. More commentary on this rigid homogeneous field is needed and how it prohibits certain talent(s) for the sake of perpetuating homogeneity (e.g. “social determinants” of diversity & viable artistic careers). I’ll refrain from discussing that fully here, though suffice it to say that for those reasons X’s “Old Town Road” was monumental and vindicating. 

As for Lil Nas X, I’m not particularly a big fan of his music; but I see him, what he’s doing, his impact on music + culture and I celebrate him using these moments to affirm his Black, Queer self, and lifting up others. Believe it or not, even in the 2020′s, being “out” in the music business is still a costly choice. As an artist it remains much easier to just “play straight”. And despite appearances, the business (particularly Country) has been dragged kicking and screaming into developing, promoting and advancing openly-affirming LGBTQ 🏳️‍🌈 artists in the board room or on-stage. Though things are ‘better’ we have not yet arrived at a place of equity or opportunity for queer artists; for the road of music biz history is littered with stunted careers, bodies and limitations on artists who had no option but to follow conventional ways, fail or never be heard of in the first place. With few exceptions, record labels, radio and press/media have successfully used fear, intimidation, innuendo and coercion to dilute, downplay or erase any hint of queer identity from its performers. This was true even for obvious talents like Little Richard.

(Note: I’m particularly speaking of artists in this regard, not so much the hairstylists, make-up artists, PA’s, etc.)

_____

Which is why...in regard to Lil Nas X, whether you like, hate or love his music, the young brother is a trailblazer. His very existence protests (at least) decades of inequity, oppression and erasure. X aptly critiques a Neo-Christian Fascist Heteropatriarchy; not just in American society but throughout the Music Business and with Black people. That is no small deal. His unapologetic outness holds a mirror up to Christianity at-large, as an institution, theology and practice. The problem is they just don’t like what they see in that mirror.

In actuality, “Call Me By Your Name”, Lil Nas X’s new video, is a twist on classic mythology and religious memes that are less reprehensible or vulgar than the Biblical narratives most of us grew up on vís-a-vís indoctrinating smiles of Sunday school teachers and family prior to the “age of reason”. Think about the narratives blithely describing Satan’s friendly wager with God regarding Job (42:1-6); the horrific “prophecies” in St. John’s Book of Revelation (i.e. skies will rain fire, angels will spit swords, mankind will be forced to retreat into caves for shelter, and we will be harassed by at least three terrifying dragons and beasts. Angels will sound seven trumpets of warning, and later on, seven plagues will be dumped on the world), or Jesus’s own clarifying words of violent intent in Matthew (re: “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.” 10:34). Whether literal or metaphor, these age old stories pale in comparison to a three minute allegorical rap video. Conservatives: say what you will, I’m pretty confident X doesn’t take himself as seriously as “The true and living God” from the book of Job.

A little known fact as it is, people have debunked the story and evolution of Satan and already offered compelling research showing [he] is more of a literary device than an actual entity or “spirit” (Spoiler: In the Bible, Satan does not take shape as an actual “bad” person until the New Testament). In fact, modern Christianity’s impression of the “Devil” is shaped by conflating Hellenized mythology with a literary tradition rooted in Dante’s Inferno and accompanying spooks and superstitions going back thousands of years. Whether Catholic, Protestant, Mormon, Scientologist, Atheist or Agnostic, we’ve spent a lifetime with these predominant icons and clichés. (Resource: Prof. Bart D. Erhman, “Heaven & Hell”).

So Here’s THE PROBLEM: The current level of fear and outrage is: 

(1) Unjust, imposing and irrational. 

(2) Disproportionate when taken into account a lifetime of harmful Christian propaganda, anti-gay preaching and political advocacy.

(3) Historically inaccurate concerning the existence of “Hell” and who should be scared of going there. 

Think I’m overreacting? 

Examples: 

Institutionalized Homophobia (rhetoric + policy)

Anti-Gay Ministers In Life And Death: Bishop Eddie Long And Rev. Bernice King

Black, gay and Christian, Marylanders struggle with Conflicts

Harlem pastor: 'Obama has released the homo demons on the black man'

Joel Olsteen: Homosexuality is “Not God’s Best”

Bishop Brandon Porter: Gays “Perverted & Lost...The Church of God in Christ Convocation appears like a ‘coming out party’ for members of the gay community.”

Kim Burrell: “That perverted homosexual spirit is a spirit of delusion & confusion and has deceived many men & women, and it has caused a strain on the body of Christ”

Falwell Suggests Gays to Blame for 9-11 Attacks

Pope Francis Blames The Devil For Sexual Abuse By Catholic Church

Pope Francis: Gay People Not Welcome in Clergy

Pope Francis Blames The Devil For Sexual Abuse By Catholic Church

The Pope and Gay People: Nothing’s Changed

The Catholic church silently lobbied against a suicide prevention hotline in the US because it included LGBT resources

Mormon church prohibits Children of LGBT parents to be baptized

Catholic Charity Ends Adoptions Rather Than Place Kid With Same-Sex Couple

I Was a Religious Zealot That Hurt People-Coming Out as Gay: A Former Conversion Therapy Leader Is Apologizing to the LGBTQ Community

The above short list chronicles a consistent, literal, demonization of LGBTQ people, contempt for their gender presentation, objectification of their bodies/sexuality and a coordinated pollution of media and culture over the last 50+ years by clergy since integration and Civil Rights legislation. Basically terrorism. Popes, Bishops, Pastors, Evangelists, Politicians, Television hosts, US Presidents, Camp Leaders, Teachers, Singers & Entertainers, Coaches, Athletes and Christians of all types all around the world have confused and confounded these issues, suppressed dissent, and confidently lied about LGBT people-including fellow Queer Christians with impunity for generations (i.e. “thou shall not bear false witness against they neighbor” Ex. 23:1-3). Christian majority viewpoints about “laws” and “nature” have run the table in discussions about LGBTQ people in society-so much that we collectively must first consider their religious views in all discussions and the specter of Christian approval -at best or Christian condescension -at worst. That is Christian (and straight) privilege. People are tired of this undue deference to religious opinions. 

That is what is so deliciously bothersome about Lil Nas X being loud, proud and “in your face” about his sexuality. If for just a moment, he not only disrupts the American hetero-patriarchy but specifically the Black hetero-patriarchy, the so-called “Black Church Industrial Complex”, Neo-Christian Fascism and a mostly uneducated (and/or miseducated) public concerning Ancient Near East and European history, superstitions-and (by extension) White Supremacy. To round up: people are losing their minds because the victim decided to speak out against his victimizer. 

Additionally, on some level I believe people are mad at him being just twenty years old, out and FREE as a self-assured, affirming & affirmed QUEER Black male entertainer with money and fame in the PRIME of his life. We’ve never, or rarely, seen that before in a Black man in the music business and popular culture. But that’s just too bad for them. With my own eyes I’ve watched straight people, friends, Christians, enjoy their sexuality from their elementary youth to adolescence, up and through college and later marriages, often times independently of their spouses (repeatedly). Meanwhile Queer/Gay/SGL/LGBTQ people are expected to put their lives on hold while the ‘blessed’ straight people run around exploring premarital/post-marital/extra-marital sex, love and affection, unbound & un-convicted by their “sin” or God...only to proudly rebrand themselves later in life as a good, moral “wholesome Christian” via the ‘sacred’ institution of marriage with no questions asked. 

Inequality defined.

For Lil Nas X, everything about the society we've created for him in the last 100+ years (re: links above) has explicitly been designed for his life not to be his own. According to these and other Christians (see above), his identity is essentially supposed to be an endless rat fuck of internal confusion, suicide-ideation, depression, long-suffering, faux masculinity, heterosexism, groveling towards heaven, respectability politics, failed prayer and supplication to a heteronormative earthly and celestial hierarchy unbothered in affording LGBT people like him a healthy, sane human development. It’s almost as if the Conservative establishment (Black included) needs Lil Nas X to be like others before him: “private”, mysteriously single, suicidal, suspiciously straight or worse, dead of HIV/AIDS ...anything but driving down the street enjoying his youth as a Black Queer artist and man. So they mad about that?

Well those days are over.  

-Rogiérs is a writer, international recording artist, performer and indie label manager with 25+ years in the music industry. He also directs Black Nonbelievers of DC, a non-profit org affiliated with the AHA supporting Black skeptics, Atheists, Agnostics & Humanists. He holds a B.A. in Music Business & Mgmt and a M.A. in Global Entertainment & Music Business from Berklee College of Music and Berklee Valencia, Spain. www.FibbyMusic.net Twitter/IG: @Rogiers1

[dwellordream]

“...We can dispense with the first question fairly quickly: is violence the supreme authority from which all other authority derives in actual societies? After all, we keep encountering historical models predicated on that premise and they keep being pretty bad, inaccurate history. But even shifting from those specific examples to a more general appraisal, the answer is pretty clearly no. Reading almost any social history of actual historical societies reveal complex webs of authority, some of which rely on violence and most of which don’t. Trying to reduce all forms of authority in a society to violence or the threat of violence is a ‘boy’s sociology,’ unfit for serious adults.

This is true even in historical societies that glorified war! Taking, for instance, medieval mounted warrior-aristocrats (read: knights), we find a far more complex set of values and social bonds. Military excellence was a key value among the medieval knightly aristocracy, but so was Christian religious belief and observance, so were expectations about courtly conduct, and so were bonds between family and oath-bound aristocrats. In short there were many forms of authority beyond violence even among military aristocrats. Consequently individuals could be – and often were! – lionized for exceptional success in these other domains, often even when their military performance was at best lackluster.

Roman political speech, meanwhile, is full of words to express authority without violence. Most obviously is the word auctoritas, from which we get authority. J.E. Lendon (in Empire of Honor: The Art of Government in the Roman World (1997)), expresses the complex interaction whereby the past performance of virtus (‘strength, worth, bravery, excellence, skill, capacity,’ which might be military, but it might also by virtus demonstrated in civilian fields like speaking, writing, court-room excellence, etc) produced honor which in turn invested an individual with dignitas (‘worth, merit’), a legitimate claim to certain forms of deferential behavior from others (including peers; two individuals both with dignitas might owe mutual deference to each other).

Such an individual, when acting or especially speaking was said to have gravitas (‘weight’), an effort by the Romans to describe the feeling of emotional pressure that the dignitas of such a person demanded; a person speaking who had dignitas must be listened to seriously and respected, even if disagreed with in the end. An individual with tremendous honor might be described as having a super-charged dignitas such that not merely was some polite but serious deference, but active compliance, such was the force of their considerable honor; this was called auctoritas. As documented by Carlin Barton (in Roman Honor: Fire in the Bones (2001)), the Romans felt these weights keenly and have a robust language describing the emotional impact such feelings had.

Note that there is no necessary violence here. These things cannot be enforced through violence, they are emotional responses that the Romans report having (because their culture has conditioned them to have them) in the presence of individuals with dignitas. And such dignitas might also not be connected to violence. Cicero clearly at points in his career commanded such deference and he was at best an indifferent soldier. Instead, it was his excellence in speaking and his clear service to the Republic that commanded such respect. Other individuals might command particular auctoritas because of their role as priests, their reputation for piety or wisdom, or their history of service to the community. And of course beyond that were bonds of family, religion, social group, and so on.

...So while it is true that the state derives its power from violence (as in Mao’s famous quip that “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun”), the state is not the only center of authority within a society. And indeed, even the state cannot run entirely on violence; this is the point that Hannah Arendt makes in the famous dichotomy of violence and power. In many cases, what Heinlein’s premise does is mistake violence for power, assuming that the ability to violently compel action is the same as the power to coordinate or encourage action without violence. But in fact, successful organizations (including, but not limited to, states) are possessed not of lots of violence but of lots of power, with much of that power rooted in norms, social assumptions, unstated social contracts and personal relationships that exist entirely outside of the realm of violence.

And so in both theory and practice, Heinlein’s premise fails to actually describe human societies of any complexity. There are no doubt gangs and robber-bands that have functioned entirely according to Heinlein’s premise (and presumably some very committed anarchists who might want such a society), but the very march of complex social institutions suggests that such organizations were quite routinely out-competed by societies with complex centers of authority that existed beyond violence, which enabled specialization (notably something Heinlein disapproves of generally, ‘specialization is for insects’) and thus superior performance both in war and in peace. Kings and empires that try to rule purely with force, without any attention paid to legitimacy or other forms of power (instead of violence) fail, and typically fail rapidly. As with almost any simple statement about complex societies, Heinlein’s premise is not merely simple but simplistic and so fails.

...The Cult of the Badass, as expressed here, lives in what we might call the “cult of tradition,” “dreaming of a revelation received at the dawn of human history” about a certain set of warrior values which were both expressed by famous historical warriors and which now provide a blueprint for life. This point of explicit in Pressfield’s set of videos, and implicit in the Fremen Mirage’s strong men/hard times model of history. This “cult of tradition” is quite selective, of course; Pressfield makes functionally no effort to engage with actual ancient value systems in a sustained way, limiting himself mostly to ‘badass’ aphorisms from Plutarch (himself hardly the most intellectually sophisticated or morally challenging author in the classical canon). It is tradition as imagined dimly in the present, not tradition as uncovered by careful historical research.

Consequently, the cult of the badass must engage in “the rejection of modernism;” this is no accident because the cult of the badass is an “appeal to a frustrated […] class” – this too is explicit in that Pressfield frames his ideology was a way for individuals who are held back or stagnated to unleash their true potential and overcome their limits, through the explicit rejection of modern values and the embrace of what are at least presented as traditional, even timeless values. That sort of appeal is also explicit in a lot of the fitness marketing that trades on the cult of the badass (and it seems notable that Pressfield himself lists “anybody that is heavily into fitness” first among his people living out the ‘warrior archetype.’), calling on people to work out like the Spartans. Consequently, it is a “cult of action for action’s sake” often focused on doing rather than asking what should be done (it is striking that Pressfield, despite nearly all of his video examples coming from the Greek and Roman world, engages not at all with the extensive Greek and Roman philosophies of justice).

Instead, this ideology, because it positions the capacity for violence as the highest human value, presents the thesis that “life is lived for struggle.” Pressfield reframes all of life’s struggles, including struggles of motivation and self-discipline, in terms of violence, in terms of a war against the ‘inner enemy,’ and consequently “life is permanent warfare.” And I think this goes a long way to explaining the obsession of this philosophy on warrior elites, because there is an inherent element of “popular elitism” in the cult of the badass, an insistence that at least it should be the case that “everybody is educated to become a hero” and thus not only develop the capacity for violence but also orient themselves towards “heroic death, advertised as the best reward for a heroic life.”

Thus the outsized influence of Thermopylae, a ‘heroic’ Greek defeat over other battles; Pressfield, again, is explicit on this point that it is at Thermopylae in particular that the Spartan warrior ethic is best and most perfectly displayed. If these are held to be the highest ideals, then anyone who falls short of them or refuses to engage with them must be weak, perhaps even “so weak as to need and deserve a ruler” (a point that often emerges in the sheep/wolves/sheepdog metaphor used by many ‘warrior cops,’ an ideology Pressfield explicitly appeals to, lumping in law enforcement as exemplars of ‘warrior’ ideology).

And of course, as is I think obvious in these readings, there is an undercurrent of anxiety about masculinity here. It is, after all, strong men in the strong men/hard times trope (and that is no accident as the trope is deeply connected to concerns about masculinity throughout its history). ...While Pressfield insists in some of his videos that his life philosophy is equally applicable to men or women, it is hard not to notice that his historical examples of warriors are all men (no Molly Pitcher, no Deborah, no Hua Mulan, etc. Not even Empress “Imperial Purple is the best burial shroud” Theodora; he does discuss the legend of the Amazons with rather less historical rigor than I might like). Where actual historical women fit in to his narrative, it is mostly as the mothers and nurturers of warrior men. While Pressfield does his best to paper over this (and to be fair, I think he is sincere in trying to present his ideology as non-gender-specific, unaware of the ways in which the broader framework of that ideology is aggressively unwelcoming to women), I think it is fair to say this is an ideology created largely by and for men, which values a hypermasculine ideal – we might even say “machismo.”

And by now readers are beginning to wonder where all of these little quotations are coming from (apart from the bit from Theodora). But first I want to note that we have a name for an ideology that fits these main points – where “life is permanent warfare,” “lived for struggle”, such that “everyone is educated to become a hero” to participate in a “cult of action for action’s sake” in a “cult of tradition” seated in a “rejection of modernism.”

And it’s fascism. Because all of those little quotes are from Umberto Eco’s famous essay “Ur-Fascism” (1995) which presented one of the most compelling classifications of the foundational DNA that all of the various, disparate forms of fascism share in common. ...Now I think it is important to back up here and be fair to Steven Pressfield. I don’t think Steven Pressfield is a fascist; ...What I do think is that the ideology that Pressfield is advancing has fascist tendencies (that he is, I suspect, unaware of, having not interrogated the nature of Spartan society as carefully as he might have). The ideology he is advancing shares most of the DNA of Ur-Fascism and it is not hard to see how the remaining handful of elements might easily be bolted on to this framework.

It is also, in a way that Pressfield never really addresses (and I suspect has never really realized), an ideology which is fundamentally at odds with the democratic values he also holds. If only some people are ‘warriors’ and developing that warrior capacity towards violence it the primary or principle virtue, it follows – and literally any Spartan could have and would have told Pressfield this – that everyone else is merely fit to be ruled. Sparta’s brutal oppression was not incidental to its ideology or social structure (as we’ve discussed!) but essential to it. As Eco points out (in his 10th point), it does no good to suggest that everyone ought to be equally a warrior; this is after all a cult of violence for its own sake and in violence there must be winners and losers. No complex society is composed only of warriors; for there to be kings and knights, there must be serfs too.

...Put more bluntly, the ideology of the Cult of the Badass is so easily falsifiable that the act of disagreement itself, rather than the content of arguments, must be rejected). The rejection of disagreement in turn demands the fear of difference because the ideology requires consensus and an absence of criticism. And once the ideology fails – and it will, because it is disconnected from the real world – conspiratorialism is the natural response for true believers unwilling to reject the ideology. If your ideology tells you that you are superior, and yet you do not produce superior results, what recourse is there but to conspiracy? As Eco memorably quips, “Fascist governments are condemned to lose wars because they are constitutionally incapable of objectively evaluating the force of the enemy” which is also, by the by, why so many authoritarian armies, theoretically filled with supposedly highly motivated, ultra-badass super-soldiers, tend nevertheless to lose more than they win. We saw this with Sparta; the very ideology of the place made them bad strategists, in precisely the ways that Eco suggests it would.

In short, the ideology of the Cult of the Badass – which is easy to see in any number of modern films, books and TV (and occasionally read into films that explicitly reject it by their viewers; I suspect everyone of at least a certain age has known that guy who watched Fight Club and then wanted, entirely unironically, to start his own fight club) – is a gateway to authoritarian thinking which, contrary to the name, is based in violence rather than authority. The supremacy of action, of violence, of the warrior and his ‘ancient’ (but actually quite modern) values are the foundation stones on which fascist ideologies (and I’d argue, other non-fascist authoritarianisms, but that’s a debate for another day) are constructed.

And, as Eco notes, “The Ur-Fascist hero craves heroic death, advertised as the best reward for a heroic life. The Ur-Fascist hero is impatient to die. In his impatience, he more frequently sends other people to death.” This is not a good ideology. As I noted in the first post in this series, a free society has no need for warriors. Not among its soldiers, not among its police, not among its civilians. At times, a free people may need to become soldiers, or police officers, but always to return to being civilians again, either at the end of the day or at the end of the war.”

- Bret Devereaux, “The Universal Warrior, Part III: The Cult of the Badass.”

[rena-rain]

Evidence for ADHD Marinette

Marinette has some tendencies in the show - that she does over and over again - that scream ADHD to me. Obviously I can’t cite every single instance in the show that points toward that, but here are some examples of ADHD traits/symptoms Marinette repeatedly exhibits on screen.

Forgetfulness, Time Management

Forgetting things. A hallmark of ADHD.

Let’s look at Timebreaker. Mari was all set to do her homework and wait for her parents’ client, completely forgetting that she was supposed to bring a banner for a race between her friends Kim and Alix - across town. Alya calling her at all didn’t even remind her, she had to be told explicitly what was happening before she remembered. Then proceeded to freak out because she’d accidentally made two commitments at the same time.

Marinette completely spaced on the race, even though it was important to her, because there was something else right in front of her: homework, her parents’ anniversary, and the Eiffel Tower cake. She was then certain that she could make it to the race and still be back at the bakery to meet Mrs. Chamack - which was a resounding NOT for anyone who watched the episode. The only way she got away with it was by literally being in two places at once. ADHD often comes with a bad sense of time, so while 20 minutes probably felt like enough time to Marinette it passed way more quickly than anticipated. 

Forgetfulness, Distractability

Ah, another instance of Alya reminding Mari of her plans. In this case she’d lost track of time because of the Adrien ad playing on a loop on her computer - to the point that she was still not dressed even though all her friends were out and about (including the ones waiting for her at the pool).

As soon as she realized she was very late, Mari grabbed her stuff and sprinted out of her house without changing out of her pajamas. Even when Tikki told her she was forgetting something she’d jumped to the wrong conclusion - although she may very well have forgotten both her swim suit and to change. 

Impulsivity, Creativity

Marinette improvises all the time. And she has a habit of diving headfirst into dangerous, crazy plans. The girl was facing down a T. Rex headfirst in Animan, and when she got her lucky charm her weird, creative problem-solving skills told her to jump into its mouth and jam it open.

In general, I think her use of the lucky charms indicates a wild creativity that’s characteristic of ADHD. Current research shows a very high correlation between ADHD and creative personalities, and Dr. William Dodson (who has been studying ADHD for 25 years) has found that “by the time most people with the condition reach high school, they are able to tackle problems that stump everyone else, and can jump to solutions that no one else saw.”

Marinette exhibits this surprising and unorthodox problem solving when she spots a series of seemingly unrelated objects that will somehow end the fight. Take Copycat for example. She got a freaking SPOON and she decided to make it into a homemade fishing rod to hoist the fake Chat Noir into the air by his belt. WHAT EVEN

more Impulsivity

Even before she got comfortable in her skin-tight supersuit, Marinette did demonstrate an inclination to take impulsive risks in the origins episode. Master Fu tested her by deliberately walking in front of a moving car to see if she’d save him.

There was no hesitation here. She saw Fu, saw the car, and immediately ran out to pull him to safety. The whole thing happened in a few seconds. Obviously this action was motivated by her inherent kindness; she didn’t do a dangerous thing because it was dangerous. Plenty of good people (none of whom seemed to be at the crosswalk that day, they all noticed nothing) would have wanted to do something but hesitated, or not reacted in time.

Not Marinette. While she was clearly scared for him, the high stakes of the situation didn’t faze her; she just acted instinctively. According to Dr. Dale Archer, ADHD brains do well under pressure, because high-stress situations get the dopamine flowing and those levels make them snap to attention.

Time Management, Impulsivity (again)

In Lady Wifi, Marinette ran into class late for no indicated reason, something she does frequently (and only sometimes it’s because of Ladybug duties) to the point where her chronic tardiness becomes a running gag. This is an extension of her inability to judge time accurately as discussed above. 

Also demonstrated in this episode, ADHD’ers will often have outbursts and accidentally say things without thinking. Upon learning what happened to Alya from Nino, she lost control and shouted “What?!?!?!” not once, but TWICE. It could also allude to emotional dysregulation (a less-known ADHD symptom) because she was unable to keep her emotional reactions to her friend getting in trouble under control. 

Hyperfixation, Emotional Dysregulation

Hey, remember when Marinette was so absorbed in that Adrien ad that she forgot about her friends and her clothes? I think the Adrien video hit her with a double whammy, because she’s deeply infatuated with him and this new thing about the guy she likes ensnared her attention.

So Marinette is obsessed with Adrien, right? I’m sure most of us would fawn over a new ad starring our crush-who’s-also-a-model. But she has a one-track mind when it comes to him. Hyperfixation is an extremely intense obsession and focus on a subject, and I think her crush can qualify because it tends to dominate her life and attention. While many things may be difficult for Marinette to maintain focus on, ADHD is great for focusing on things that are interesting, challenging, and new. So when that beautiful ad showed up, this new thing related to her fixation pushed all the happy dopamine buttons in her brain. She obviously finds Adrien interesting because she’s interested in him, and she keeps trying to get him to notice her romantically and that’s definitely a challenge.

If you’d like/need another example of Marinette hyperfixating on something, I give you: fashion. Okay, maybe that’s more of a passion than a fixation, but the episode Mr. Pigeon DID give us a hyperfocusing Marinette when she spent hours and hours on end designing and making the derby hat for Gabriel Agreste’s competition.

Moving on to emotional dysregulation. We’ve seen Marinette overreact to Alya being mistreated in Lady Wifi. Even casual watchers of Miraculous will know that Marinette has similarly powerful reactions to feelings and events concerning Adrien. I can’t even begin to count the number of times she's screamed around him.

Remember that time she publicly yelled at Lila in Volpina? Her jealousy and annoyance at her lies completely dictated her decisions here and she went way overboard - as Adrien was quick to tell her. She laid into her. NOT normal behavior for Marinette when she has her head on straight. Tikki sure wasn’t supportive of Marinette using Ladybug like this.

Tikki also wasn’t too pleased when she used her lucky charm to break up Adrien and Chloe slow dancing at his birthday party. This is another time her jealousy overtook her.

And one more little overreaction here. In Copycat, Marinette was totally spiraling in true melodramatic fashion about the consequences of stealing a phone. She imagined a life sentence. This is characteristic of how ADHD’ers often have trouble regulating emotions, leading to overblown responses to various stressors. Is it just me, or does she get particularly worked up when she’s fantasizing (both good and bad)?

I can’t find a picture for it, but another time Marinette was reacting very strongly to a predicament was in Mr. Pigeon when she paced back and forth, flipping through her sketchbook, and ranted at Alya about how difficult a derby hat design would be. She was pretty disheartened by her lack of immediate inspiration; she was even curled up on the bench dejectedly while Alya tried to help her.

It’s also worth mentioning that she totally ran into a wall after Adrien complimented her drawings.

I could add more, but this post is already basically an essay and I think you get the point. If you share the ADHD Marinette headcanon do please add any examples you think of!

[maahlon]

an essay exploring why Susan Sontag may be weary of images by now, from an anthropological perspective.

/  visual anthropology — 

The use of photography and film within anthropology has accelerated fairly proportionately with the increase of the image in popular culture over the past hundred years. The image can be anything we decide, and has become an important aspect of modern existence. Anthropologically speaking, Mead has argued that, both implicitly and explicitly, the discipline has had to accept the responsibility of making and preserving records of human beings on this earth (1995:3). This use of the image has served anthropology well, however in an age where immediate reproduction, sharing, and communication of images is the norm, it is necessary to question their capacity and potential for exhausting effect as mere images dominate the world, and seem to stimulate everything (Mitchell 2005). Within this, it is valuable to consider the intents and power of the image makers alongside the images themselves. The following essay is a brief exploration into this debate, considering the power of images within anthropology and the wider world, their relationship to text and other forms of visual practices, and how the intents of the image producers fit within the influence of images themselves. This will be situated around and within the research of writer, filmmaker, and political activist Susan Sontag, and considering whether or not she is weary of this potential power of images. It is clear that the image is an instrument of power (Morgan 1997) but it is through deep consideration as to where this power comes from and what it affects that it is possible to determine why Sontag may be weary of them.

The image has always been a point of contention within the anthropological discipline. Film and photography’s power in anthropology is rooted in structures of oppression, with its history steeped in naturalization of negative racial stereotypes and its constant need for ethical reevaluation. However, by initially and stubbornly relying on note taking and ethnographer’s memories, anthropology became a science of words, with those who relied on words being unwilling to change (Mead 1995). There is still a certain degree of pushback, but with the increase in participation and research under the guise of visual anthropology, the image has gained a degree of respect within the discipline. Despite its many intellectual turns and transformations, anthropology has become and continues to be a highly visual practice, which has resulted in, intentionally and incidentally, a rich photographic and image-based legacy (Edwards 2009). Further to this turn in anthropology, visual research pushes the boundaries of disciplines, allowing for a freer movement of information. Though not strictly anthropologically, Sontag has researched images and human interactions with them almost exhaustively for over forty years, framing images almost as if they are animalistic in their influence and portrayal of human life, yet with a constant reminder of our power and intent of production. Sontag notes early in her book On Photography that to photograph means to place oneself in relation to the surrounding world in a way that feels like knowledge, and therefore, like power (1977:2). Images produced in real time can act as immediate records, holding people accountable, while also providing a platform for performative action. This is extremely powerful in regard to what goes into the creation and production of an image, and what comes of its existence. Photographs are experience captured, appropriations of the thing being photographed (Sontag 1977) though unrooted and ungrounded in time or reality due to the fact that they give people and imaginary possession of a past that is unreal (Sontag 1977). This is, in a sense, taking a carbon-copy of the world from a certain perspective. Sontag points out that the awareness of an event that gathers when photographs are taken is purely constructed (2003:17) as opposed to objective portrayals of reality. Even within image making under the guise of artistry there is a common understanding that artistic intent is rooted in creating a reflection on reality, whether it is a rejection of it or not. Anthropologically speaking, the rare combinations of artistic ability and scientific fidelity that have provided exceptional ethnographic films can be cherished, but it is not necessary to demand that film and images in the field have the earmarks of a work of art (Mead 1975). This is due to the fact that anthropology, which is seen as a social science, is often corralled into purely written academia, where image making itself, let alone image making with artistic value, is looked down upon. However, recently, with the industrialization of general use photography, it now, like every mass art form, is not practiced by most people as an art; instead, as a social rite and a tool of power (Sontag 1977). As Sontag points out, photography and image making has gone from an elite activity to something that is practiced widely, and can be used as a tool for the implementation of influence by many. It is important to consider who is doing the making and why they are making within discussions of fatigue regarding the production and consumption of visual texts.

Images are tiring. It is no wonder Sontag may be weary of their power — however ambivalent, images still demand attention, require engagement, and encourage action, even if the result is action against their desires. The energy required to produce and decipher images is boundless. The conscious effort it requires to avoid absorbing images, especially with the advent of public commercial advertising and increasing popularity and reach of social media, gives them power in the sense that there is a sustained effort expelled in avoidance. Even if this represents a stand against images, the negative connotations and constant awareness of their pervasive and nonconsensual influence on the mind inherently acknowledges the power they hold over us. Images also have power through their applied personhood — they exhibit physical and virtual bodies, and behave with a voice and a face that confronts the viewer (Mitchell 1996). With this constant confrontation comes a potential for exhaustion, especially when considering that the point of a photograph or other visual text is to provoke, whether that be an action, thought, or even just a memory. The photograph, Sontag argues, provides a quick way of seizing something and a compact, transferable way of memorizing and distributing it: “Nonstop imagery (television, streaming video, movies) is our surround, but when it comes to remembering, the photograph has the deeper bite,” (2003:19). Referencing images as our nonstop surroundings gives weight to the argument that Sontag is tired of the power of images as they are extremely pervasive and intervene in everyday life. Mitchell argues that images may actually be a lot weaker than is usually considered (1996:74), such as the point where images can become banal due to their pervasiveness in everyday life. Desensitization seeps in and response limited, though this does not discourage an image’s power, especially considering every engagement is particular and objective to the perspective it comes from. Photographs can, and do, faithfully record gruesome cruelties and crimes, which one can feel obliged to observe, but Sontag argues that one should be obliged to think about what it means to view them and how much it is possible to fully comprehend what they show (2003:75). Visual texts may create a physical separation between viewers and what is being portrayed, however it is in actuality a process that brings the viewer close, their understandings of faraway happenings supplemented by a magnifying glass that gives the picture unnecessary, indecent information (Sontag 2003). This is a return to her ideas about photographs and image making being reflections or copies of reality as opposed to reality itself, expanding on this idea by including notions about photographs exposing a harsher sense of reality then is necessary. The camera is an instrumental extension of our senses that ruthlessly records with little abstraction (Collier, Collier 1986) however it is human direction that the camera follows. This can be applied to any reproduction of reality as photographs furnish evidence — the camera record justifies and incriminates (Sontag 1977) whatever the photographer or image maker decides. At this juncture, the question is begging to be posed — is the image powerful, or are the image makers loud through their images?

As Sontag famously began many of her publications with the statement “to collect photographs is to collect the world,” (1977:1) and over forty years later, at a time where images inflict their influences and desires in every conceivable form at every conceivable turn, it is important to consider where this power truly comes from. As text has dominated the anthropological discipline for most if not all of its existence, it is necessary to consider if written elements are what critiques, especially writers, should be weary of. Text is thorough, complex, and considerably influential, and thus assumably extremely powerful. Textual accounts, however, do not collect the world as Sontag argues photographs do. Sontag argues that a written account may struggle more, depending on its complexity, reference, vocabulary, and distribution, to reach a wider audience than a photograph, which has only one language and although must be ‘read,’ is destined potentially for all (2003:17). Although arguably images need a certain level of education to be purposefully read, writing skills and proficient literacy are an extreme privilege that make non-visual texts inaccessible. Ethnographic textual accounts cannot have the same representational agency as images through their inability to be easily accessible, and are thus often less powerful for a wider audience. The process that goes into education, research, and production of a piece of writing, especially an ethnographic text, arguably requires subjectivity and a specific perspective and experience of the world for it to be successful, even if the aim is to be objective. Photographs, additionally, are as much an interpretation of the world as other handmade visual pieces, such as paintings and drawings, are (Sontag 1977), and arguably as dependent on and influenced by the author’s perspective as written pieces. But while perhaps photographic images are not statements so much as pieces of the world, miniature realities so to speak (Sontag 1977), it is important to note that though photographs are representations of a certain physical reality, the decision of what to photograph, when, from what angle, and how to distribute the resulting image is as much an interpretation as any other form of making. This is an important aspect of image making to include in any discussion of power and production — intent.

As has been previously discussed, Sontag argues that textual accounts seem like a less deceptive way of distributing fractions of the world as it encourages mental imagery as opposed to visual depictions, which she notes provides most of the knowledge of how the past looked, and how far the present reaches (1977:2). This provides evidence to the idea that the author is less weary of textual accounts for their apparent transparency, whereas she is more aware of the possibility of negative intent with photography. Thus, it is arguable, though perhaps controversially, that Sontag is not weary of images themselves, but indeed the power of images being produced by those with certain privileged intents, such as journalists, for example, who have created an immense market for the steadily increasing flow of information about the agonies of war (Sontag 2003). Such as with war photography, the author questions awareness of suffering that is registered by cameras which flares up, is shared by many people, and fades from view (2003:17) and by considering the end result of incessant depiction of violence in the name of image making. Sontag has pointed out that images have the power to create and reinforce reality, especially when something like the suffering of war is photographed is shared to those who are elsewhere, following it as ‘news’ (2003:19). It is important to note that the author does not claim it is the images themselves that generate the power, but the actual act of the creation of the images. Thus the power to be weary of is not the images but the maker, the operator, the distributer of the reality captured. This is further emphasized considering that the act of looking, seeing, and absorbing imagery, however consciously, can contribute to the physical formation of the social structures of a viewer’s world (Morgan 1997). Sontag is indeed, and rightfully, weary of the power of images for their ability to convey the desires of the image makers, which can go on to alter the audience’s perceptions and constructions of their world. It is important to recognize the power of an image while understand that the power is socially, culturally, perhaps even politically, given to it (Wolff 2012). An image does not exist autonomously with power: it is imbued with power ascribed to it from its maker and from its viewers. Sontag, who reminds us that to simply photograph something is to confer and reaffirm its importance (1977:22), would understandably be weary of the mere possibilities of power this could bring, especially with an image in competition with text. Mitchell has argued that images want equal rights with text, seen as complex individuals occupying multiple identities, though not to be leveled with or turned into language (1996:82). The root of image production is inherently complex and multi-faceted, so it is easily conceivable that the subsequent visual texts produced would be, too. But the power to make someone feel, not feel, act, not act, to make something happen or not, the power that is exerted over viewers is not the fault of the images themselves, but of the image makers. Images are merely the catalyst or conductor. Our relationship with images, such as with other objects, is often emotional, and often retain the idea that images and objects are powerful in and of themselves — but it is important to note that this is not the same thing as believing the power exists within the image (Wolff 2012). The power that is perceived to be based in the image is not. This is why Sontag is rightly weary of the power of images — it is really the power of the producer embodied. As Sontag points out, “The photographer chooses oddity, chases it, frames it, develops it, titles it” (1977:27) and there is no point at which the image is autonomous from its maker.

At its forefront, this essay has been a critique of the power of images as a whole, touching upon differing debates inside and outside of the anthropological discipline. It has delved into detail, however, as to why they are so powerful, especially in comparison to reality and to textual accounts, and why writer Susan Sontag may be especially weary of them. By being critical of the power of images it is possible to understand the true nature of their uses within various disciplines and across a variety of fields. Film and photography have not endured a simple or easy path within the anthropological discipline in particular, but visual research, which has both academic and applied uses (Pink 2003) is increasingly valued in anthropology and beyond. Sontag has researched and written an extensive amounts on images, which was briefly chronicled at the beginning of this essay, along with photography and image making’s place within artistic and anthropological disciplines. Working with Sontag’s extensive body of work on images and on war, determining the origin and power of images was key to understanding where their influence and nefarious ideals could come from. While the author may be understandably weary of the power of images due to their pervasiveness and influence, it is important to note that the production and intent of such images are where the power originates and is affirmed.

The camera’s machinery allows us to see and record without fatigue as the memory of film replaces the notebook and ensures absolute and utterly powerful quotation of reality (Collier, Collier 1986), but it is only ever a portion or section of reality that has been decidedly copied by an individual maker. It is through the action of deciding what to make an image of, where, when, and most importantly, why, that the image itself gains its power. That is why this essay concludes with the decision that it is not merely the power of images that Sontag is weary of, but the power of image makers and all that they imbue into their imagery.

/

Collier, J., Collier, M. (1986) Visual Anthropology: Photography as a Research Method, Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press

Edwards, E. (2009) Morton, C. (ed) Photography, Anthropology and History: Expanding the Farnham: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd

Mead, M. (1995) Hockings, P. (ed.) ‘Visual Anthropology in a Discipline of Words’, Principles of Visual Anthropology De Gruyter. pp. 3–10

Mitchell, W. J. T. “What Do Pictures ‘Really’ Want?” October, vol. 77, pp. 71–82

Mitchell, W.J.T. (2005) What Do Pictures Really Want? Chicago: University of Chicago Press

Morgan, D. (1997) Visual Piety: A History and Theory of Popular Religious Images, California: University of California Press

Pink, S. (2003) ‘Interdisciplinary agendas in visual research: re-situating visual anthropology’, Visual Studies, 18:2, pp. 179-192

Sontag, S. (1977) On Photography, New York: Picador

Sontag, S. (2003) Regarding the Pain of Others, New York: Penguin Books

Wolff, J. (2012) ‘After Cultural Theory: The Power of Images, the Lure of Immediacy’ Journal of Visual Culture, 11:1, pp. 3–19

[blessedarethebinarybreakers]

hi there! i really appreciate the resources on clobber claims, but something i still can't really explain is passages that refer to marriages as being husband and wife, for example ephesians 5:22-33 - if husband and wife is the only model of marriage that the bible talks about in this way, how could it be applicable to all marriages (ie. same gender marriages)? 1/2

(2/2) and by extension, if the way marriage is talked about is not inclusive of all marriages, wouldn’t it mean same gender marriages aren’t included/accepted? sorry if i’ve worded it in a rather strange way, i’m not sure how to frame my question and i’m just kind of confused about it all. thanks ever so much and God bless you!

____

Hey there, great questions! 

My quick response is: 

the Bible was written in cultures much older than and utterly different from our own. Our concept of marriage doesn’t directly translate into anything depicted in the Bible. Plus, some things that exist now didn’t exist back then (cars, phones, terminology like “LGBT” or like “Christianity”) – so just because the Bible never explicitly mentions a certain thing doesn’t mean it condemns that thing, you know? 

One thing that this means for me at least is that I need to constantly challenge my own assumptions about which kinds of relationships are “valid” or not in God’s eyes. What about polyamorous ones? Ones that involve sex without marriage? Marriages or other forms of committed partnership that don’t include sex? 

My longer answer is below!

__________

I’ve got a post that responds to the question: The Bible’s passages on marriage are only about man+woman couples – so does that mean it condemns same-sex marriage? In that post you’ll find….

a link to another post that discusses what sexuality and marriage were “like” in biblical times – for instance, the concept of marriage as we know it today did not really exist in the time of the Hebrew Bible (“Old Testament”)! The closest thing that did exist was more like an economic agreement in which the woman was like property – it wouldn’t have made much sense for a two-man or two-woman relationship. 

examples of stories in the Bible that actually do something somewhat like a marriage between two men, or between two women

Check out this post for even more – responding to the question “What does God consider marriage?”

________

Next, I said at the start of this post that just because something’s not mentioned in the Bible doesn’t mean it’s rejected by the Bible / by God. I want to note that the reverse is true as well: just because the Bible does discuss a thing doesn’t mean its authors and/or God affirms that thing – the Bible’s full of stories of attempted genocide, sexual violence, sexism, ableism, and more; but that doesn’t mean God condones those things! (If you’re interested in a book that delves into the various forms of violence in the Bible and what we should make of it, I recommend Inspired by Rachel Evans.)

The post I linked up above about biblical marriage describes how the closest thing to our concept of “marriage” in the Bible is more of a business transaction between men – usually the father of a woman and the man who wants to take her as his “wife" (or concubine, sex slave, etc. Yes, ew.) Just because that’s the model of marriage described in the Bible doesn’t mean God wants our partnerships to be like that! These things were just part of the “landscape” of the time and place the Bible was written. 

Even when the authors of scripture seem totally content with those models or concepts, or even affirm and build off them like Paul does for marriage in that Ephesians passage you mentioned, that’s not still not a reason in itself to conclude that God also affirms them. 

One can hold that the Bible is divinely inspired without concluding that that means that every viewpoint expressed in it is itself the “divine opinion” – human authors penned the Bible’s various books, and necessarily brought their human limitations and assumptions to that writing. Ephesians 5: 22-23, for instance, supports the marriage model that was normative in Paul’s day and that he therefore assumed was moral or “correct” – one in a marriage is necessarily between a man and a woman and contains a hierarchy, wherein wives are subject to / submit to their husbands. But is that really what God wills for our relationships? For explorations of that question, see this post on women in the Bible! And if you want even more to read, see this post too. 

________

With all of this in mind, you might be wondering – so, is there anything in the Bible that can helpfully inform our marital relationships today? I think so!

People who consider the relationship between Adam and Eve to be a sorta paradigm for marriage should know that Eve is Adam’s equal, any idea of her subordinate status comes only after the Fall corrupts human relationships 

As one of the linked posts above discusses, relationships between characters like Jonathan and David might could teach us some things about marriage

 My wife and I once made a video on the concept of “complementarianism” and how the way it’s usually taught is super sexist and homophobic but maybe it can be reworked into something more LGBT-affirming. 

…And honestly, if nothing else, some of the relationships we see in scripture might be examples of what not to do in a marriage (or any romantic/sexual relationship). We can study some of the relationships in the Bible and consider how they bear good or bad fruit, and take on or avoid characteristics of those biblical relationships in our own relationships. 

Finally, one more post that might help as you continue to explore this topic – how to we take cultural context and human authors’ limitations into account without simply using the Bible to justify our own views; and if God affirms LGBT persons why is it so hard to “prove” it?

Good luck, and please let me know if you have more questions! 

[blackwoolncrown]

i just saw someone reblog your post that was kind of outlining something you wanted to write about the reflection of what porn means about society and i would love to read that. you're absolutely correct that most analysis of porn and society come from swerfs and terfs and they're absolutely terrible if you look beyond surface-level anything. oh but also please never make me read the phrase "regular degular people fornicating" ever again lol

So…thank you for waiting. The first thing I’d like to say is…*clears throat*

TERFS/SWERFS absolutely suck and their awful rhetoric and invasive presence obstructs discussion of women’s right. TERFS are the footwomen of the patriarchy and absolutely brainwashed, useless voices. 

Now that that has been said…

Regular degular poeple fornicaiting. :D

Okay enough silliness, here’s my point. Usually critique of porn comes in two main flavors: “Porn is terrible and inherently sexist, a perverse product of patriarchy” and “All porn is good, actually and critiquing it is prudish and un-progressive”. And I would like to, as usual, submit that the actual truth is somewhere in the middle:

Porn is entirely neutral, and what porn looks like in a society has everything to do with the content of the people’s minds. The content of their minds is heavily influenced by that society’s social mores, habits, etc.

TL;DR - porn is a product of culture. if the porn is bad, that’s the culture’s fault.

The idea that porn is bad and wrong, all of it, is nothing but an extension of the sexual shame colonizers have been peddling along with their sham Christian moralism and oppression for centuries. Our culture fancies itself very open, free and liberated- hence porn and violence can be found in spades bc ~FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION~ but literally everywhere you look, people have complexes about sexuality that are deeply rooted in sexual shame. I want to note here that repression almost ALWAYS causes not an overall lessening of the repressed subject, but a diverted (perverted here is a relative word) and intensified expression of that subject elsewhere.

As a sex worker, when I came into the fetish world, I had the assumption that fetishes in general were like, a conscious type of self exploration done in the spirit of play. What I found was that ‘fetish’ is sometimes that but generally an unconscious mess of psychological expression that people think they don’t need to be critical of because it’s fantasy. To keep this short, most of the fetishes that could have a cathartic or expansive effect on a person’ are actually just sort of like, dead-ended expressions of the world we live in instead of being creative ways beyond it.

Ultimately these ‘fetishes’ and ‘fantasies’ are really anything but. They aren’t fanciful non realities at all- they’re actually sexualized versions of the oppressions we all know and suffer. And that’s horrible. 

The issue with porn, then, is that it reflects the minds and desires of the average person involved with its making and consumption. And in a world where (mostly but not all straight, mostly but not all ((but really really mostly here)) white) men disproportionately have voice, power and resources, then they are who porn is about and for.

‘Porn’ is terrible becuause a society with this kind of power imbalance is terrible.

THere’s an aspect of the mind/body where like…anything you like or are attracted to, there’s a part of you that can eroticize that feeling of attraction into something that may be experienced as more and more sexual the more it’s repressed/ignored. If you think of love as attraction, and attraction as neutral, then you can understand how, then, the very things our patriarchal society loves, celebrates and represents can end up eroticized into sexual fantasy and content. If power is good, then expressions of power feel good, somewhere in the mind/body. If violence is good, then expressions of violence feel good. If maintaining male dominance is good, then expressions of male dominance feel good. The simple fact is that if an individual is taught that expressing some quality *is good*, that thing is remembered as so because of the positive reinforcement. 

Somewhere in their mind, the conditions of that moral quality are associated with feelings of pleasure, positive stimulation, excitement, arousal (think neutrally here as ‘increased excitatory interest’), and feelings are felt by the body. In a certain way, then, the production/creation of porn based on patriarchal male desire and its offspring (fetishization of feminine subjugation, fetishization of racism, fetishization of gender roles, fetishization of sexual shame as a domination tool, fetishization of abuse etc), creates a feedback spiral that ends up ritualizing and reinforcing those things.So we lose a huge opportunity for healing and growth as a society when either of the following positions are taken:1) Porn is bad (sinful, dirty) and shouldn’t exist– this will only further repression and reinforce sexual shame.

2) Porn is good and also 100% fantasy/meaningless fun. Critiquing or questioning it is oppressive, prudish– this is what people with unresolved mental issues say to keep from having to examine what their porn consumption/fantasies are saying

The fact that pretty much all porn that exists  in main (and many side) streams is fetishization of exploitation, celebration of male dominance,  the degradation of the feminine or eroticized personal trauma is really really telling. But we can’t do anything about that in terms of helping people grow into a healthier way of experiencing/expressing sexuality if we go ‘Porn is bad so let’s get rid of it! Shame shame! Criminalize!’ 

Speaking for experience, people, specifically men, can actually be trained away from harmful porn and harmful positive associations (being turned on by violence is not, actually, ideal) and to something more relative. Of course they can- recovery is human, people change and relearn things. The complication here though is that the porn industry and the broad presence of mainstream and even indie porn exist within a capitalist market. Capitalist markets are by their very nature a) exploitative and b) manipulative, focused on controlling and exacerbating the consumers needs and desires. So the porn itself, its content and marketing, will overtly to explicitly imply to its viewers/buyers that they need it, that it is good the more you consume, that its extremity and ‘extra’ness is what makes it good, and that it is an addictive indulgence.

I have a lot more I could say about this but it would have to go all into fetish, content and psychology so I also want to say this: Understand that this is not a situation in which men actually benefit. In fact it gets them to perpetuate their own trauma, their own internal oppression. Encouraging them to mistreat their bodies, to have a dysfunctional view of sexuality, to degrade the feminine (something ALL people have) via the degradation of women– this by extension harms their minds deeply. Porn as it is is simply a recycling and eroticization, and extension of society at large. Thus it of course simultaneously revels in the exploitation of the feminine and turns men into tools of sexist, racist, homophobic, transphobic oppression, coding into them the positive reinforcement of social mores so that they support and perpetuate them.

Lastly: The idea that what one fetishizes/consumes doesn’t say anything about them is FALSE and its often a subconscious expression of the mind aimed at resolution. Whether its fanfic, art or videos it’s all porn and yes, ones fantasy mind is actually a manifestation of their mind in general. The world of fantasy is meaningful, actually.

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[thepucegoose]

Starsky is Canonically Jewish - A Moodboard & Analysis

A detailed exploration of all the Many Many aspects in the canon that point to Starsky being Jewish can be seen under the cut + bonus headcanons! 

So I was looking at Starsky’s fanlore page and the discussion there talks about hints within the canon that Starsky may be Jewish. As one commentator notes, “There is plenty of mild justification for Starsky being Jewish”. Tbh, I’d say that, whilst subtle and never explicitly addressed, there is far more than just mild justification to suggest that Starsky is Jewish, and that he is in fact canonically so (and also I found the menorah they were talking about and I felt like I was on Myth-busters, which I’ve never seen but I imagine they mainly investigate fandom hearsay regarding background menorahs and other such suggestions. I’m insanely proud for having found it please appreciate because it took me a Very long time to, although I’ve found in researching this that there was at least one screenshot of it online here from 2011 :D). 

TV Tropes has Starsky down for the Ambiguously Jewish trope and whilst I definitely agree that Starsky fits this trope description, I would say that there really is nothing ambiguous about it. There are just so so many aspects that come together. This boy is just canonically Jewish! 

(Disclaimer: I’m not Jewish. Although I am very much considering converting and I’ve been studying everything I can about Judaism for well well over a year or so now, as well as attending services through whatever means I’ve been able to, I am by No Means even remotely close to being knowledgeable on the topic. Still, I figured there were some things I’d noticed whilst watching that hadn’t been mentioned that I wanted to bring up, and I also wanted to pull together observations by others into one place because I’m always hyped for canon representation and creating coherent resources. Extensive Research Is My Jam. If I’ve got anything wrong; said something in an uncomfortable way; talked where it wasn’t my place to talk; made assumptions I shouldn’t have; or like, said/done literally anything else that feels even slightly off then Please Please say and I’ll do everything I can to sort it!!)

Reasons why I reckon Starsky is canonically Jewish: 

For one, Paul Michael Glaser is Jewish and if William Shatner being Jewish is good enough for my Jewish!Kirk headcanons then it’s sure as heck good enough for my Jewish!Starksy headcanons. Furthermore, according to Wikipedia, both Leonard Goldberg and Aaron Spelling are Jewish, and a good many of the writers have Jewish surnames too, though I can’t find out much about them specifically. Due to their fame, and therefore extended biographies, Wikipedia does specify that writers Michael Mann, and Fred Freiberger are Jewish. Joe Naar, who produced the show, was also Jewish, and used to joke that his style “was born out of being a short Jew with a huge chip on his shoulder.” Rick Edelstein was hugely involved in the writing of the later series and you can really see the influence Judaism has on his work, as is evident in his more recent short story, Bodega. He also ended his short video supporting Obama in '08 with "l'chaim, to life".

Essentially, I think Jewish people were involved in all levels of production within the show - from the writing, to the acting, to the direction, to the production - and this can be seen in the varied means by which it’s suggested that Starsky is Jewish himself. As such, suggestions that may have been seen as accidental otherwise can then take on greater significance, whilst the more explicit examples take on more emotional weight. 

Why, then, would it not be more explicitly stated that Starsky is, and was always considered to be, Jewish? I read a really interesting post the other day about how Jewish people in Hollywood often felt unable to include Jewish characters/actors/themes in their work out of fear of seeming too “tribalistic, or insular, or that Hollywood was (as it was in the antisemitic imagination) a ‘Jewish’ front”. Obviously, I can’t comment from a Jewish perspective, but when I was younger I felt similar pressure in regards to including queer characters. As such, I think it’s really exciting to see the very explicit references to Starsky being Jewish, even if they aren’t clearly obvious to a wider audience not actively looking for such references.

Paul Michael Glaser also played Perchik in Fiddler on the Roof (1971) - which I mention not only because it shows Glaser playing other Jewish roles, but also as a recommendation because I Love My Hyped Wee Jewish Communist Revolutionary Boy. Glaser talked about how Starsky was a culmination of other characters he’d played prior to Starsky (DVD extras) and I think this is quite evident in Starsky and Perchik’s respective behaviours. As a nod to this, the middle top picture is (apparently) from a Jewish Labour Bund publication. This is something you can learn more about on its Wikipedia article here, and there’s more interesting things about The Bund here and here as well!

As we all know, Starsky calls Hutch the Blond Blintz (to his Puce Goose) :D Here’s a recipe for blintzes from myjewishlearning.com - they’re like pancakes and it’s an Ashkenazim custom to eat them on Shavuot. Also I love the scene in The Set-Up: part 1 where he first calls Hutch the Blond Blintz and Hutch is like???? and Starsky just says Blintz very definitively and with no further explanation and Hutch is just like,,, u kno what,, I’m just going to roll with this.) 

I basically just really love this because it’s an example of Starsky being very openly and explicitly involved in Jewish culture, not just when he says it in The Set-Up, but also in Starsky’s Lady, when playing with the kids, especially as there aren’t a lot of references to things that carry on across multiple episodes.

I also like the way he pulls everyone else into his reference of it very un-apologetically; it feels very in character. There’s a picture of a blintz in the left column of the middle row! (Also, I feel like,,,, there might be some,,,, Freudian Implications to naming your partner after a rolled pancake filled with cream cheese that gets released when eaten?? @jimmyandthegiraffes fite me.)

Whilst Hutch looks at a glow in the dark cross being sold by Huggy in Jojo (written by Mann), Starsky picks up a mezuzah, which are put up at gateposts and door frames in Jewish homes - here’s a video about it :D The picture in the left-most bottom corner is Starsky inspecting this mezuzah. I really like this scene because he goes straight to it and seems to be considering it with very real interest. This is interestingly contrasted with Hutch picking up the cross, which isn’t the only time the show appears to draw a distinction between their respective cultural and religious heritages. 

I think that really responds to some of the stuff William Blinn has said about their casting and how thrilled they were to have two actors playing characters from such different backgrounds whilst having such great chemistry, and how that really helps form the magic of the show even (DVD extras). I think their respective choices really help to demonstrate how assumed it was that Starsky Would naturally pick up a mezuzah, in contrast to Hutch’s cross. 

The menorah (or actually Chanukkiah if we’re going to be really specific about it) in the background of Starsky’s apartment in Foxy Lady and in Blindfold. For so long I thought this was a myth but!! it’s not!!!! You can see it in the right hand column, middle row :D With the greatest thanks to the canon compendium for pointing out the episodes it appears in and also for like, literally everything else - it’s genuinely just the best fandom resource I’ve seen. I love this because I think, asides from a Magen David (Star of David), I think a menorah is one of the most well known symbols of Judaism and I think it’s really rad that it’s something the crew thought consciously to include, even if it is a largely not shown background detail. Again, it’s subtle but explicit which is why I would argue that Starsky is canonically Jewish.

It’s also worth remembering that even though it’s in an area in his apartment that doesn’t get shot by the cameras except on a few occasions, it Is a part of the apartment that’s Really visible from like, every direction and is right across from the front door. I’ve got another screenshot below from Blindfold that puts it more in context of where it is. I think this is really cool!! It’s obviously something he considers a big enough part of his life to keep on display year round and it’s something instantly recognisable and visible for anyone coming into his house (Foxy Lady came out on March 1st and Blindfold on October 21st, neither of which are around Chanukkah, if you’re going by episode air dates).

Speaking of the Magen David :D As can be seen in the episode Little Girl Lost, Starsky has a couple of blue six pointed stars on his dash under his Christmas decoration, as you can see in the top left hand corner of the mood board. I think this is really cool because Starsky is obviously very hyped for Christmas in this episode, hanging reindeer from his mirror and singing Christmas songs and being really hyped for presents, and this could be used to suggest that Oh No He Can’t Be Jewish He Likes Christmas, but not only does he only engage in secularised aspects of Christmas (in contrast to the nativity scene at Kiko’s house), there’s the very conscious inclusion of these stars. All the scenes in the car are set during Chanukkah, which ran from 16-24th December in 1976, and the stars are blue, which, along with white or silver, is often used for Chanukkah decorations and is traditionally associated with Judaism. Basically this remains in keeping with the subtle yet very conscious inclusion of Jewish symbolism, easily missed by those not thinking to look for it. 

Also I know heaps of Jewish people that enjoy the secular aspects of Christmas, particularly if the holiday has meaning for their friends. In Starsky’s case this might be more because he wants to annoy Hutch and he likes bickering or perhaps because he’s upset by Hutch’s increasing cynicism and wants Hutch to feel happier. Or because he wants a new caboose for his train set. Probably that.

In the bottom left hand corner you’ll see a picture of Paul Muni, born   Frederich Meshilem Meier Weisenfreund, Meshilem being his Hebrew name. I just like that Hutch suggests Starsky’s mother called him Rudolph Valentino and Starsky corrects him saying she “said I was more of the Paul Muni type”, suggesting the actor she compared him to was actually a notably Jewish one (Paul Muni references can be found in Lady Blue, as written by Mann, and Silence). Again, I think the contrast between Hutch suggesting a gentile actor, and Starsky raising a Jewish one instead is interesting, as well as highlighting Starsky’s mother’s engagement with, and perhaps predisposition towards, Jewish culture.

On it’s own this is perhaps more of a curiosity, maybe too much opportunity for coincidence to really warrant too much attention, but Dobey also chooses a Jewish comparison in The Velvet Jungle when he says, “who do you think you are, Starsky, Milton Berle?” So here we have two instances wherein the comparisons drawn with Starsky are with other Jewish personalities.

In Terror On The Docks (written by Freiberger), Huggy apologises for not bringing an ill Starsky chicken soup, instead bringing mustard green broth which, “where I come from is just as effective”. This might not have much significance in and of itself, except that literally just 2 episodes later, in Shootout, Sammy Grovner makes a joke about chicken soup being Jewish penicillin. In addition, Huggy’s reference to his own culture’s cure-all suggests that chicken soup would have been the culturally appropriate first-choice for Starsky. As such, I’ve included a picture of matzo-ball chicken soup in the top left hand corner. 

Also, in The Game, Hutch says in regards to their soup related upbringings that, “we obviously had different mothers” and Starsky says, “yeah, mine was chicken soup, yours was,, clam chowder”, which isn’t really that important except that the show likes to highlight their different cultural upbringings and once again they’re doing so by referencing something that is widely culturally understood to be Jewish, having already explicitly stated it within the show to be so. (I could write a whole dissertation about cultural soup references in Starsky and Hutch, but I’m not going to. Just note that there are a weird amount of them.)

We see in Running that Starsky calls his mother every Friday evening. I think this is really interesting because, if they were both observant orthodox, they wouldn’t be using electricity on Shabbat. I mean, duh, Starsky is Not observantly orthodox but this scene shows that neither is his mother. Any yet, the time they’ve picked to talk each week is on Friday evenings, when many Jewish families come together for Shabbat dinner. As such, I think this shows how Starsky’s Judaism holds a place within his life and his routines, as well as suggesting what tradition he may have been brought up in. I personally headcanon conservative, but Reform works too!

As the fanlore page says, “Starsky looked stunned when Nancy's mother asked him if he were Catholic in 'Terror on the Docks,' to which he replied he was not.” This scene is a really interesting one to watch for this (and, again, was written by Freiberger), and whilst this merely shows that he’s not Catholic, his confusion and bafflement suggests just how surprising this question is to him, and his discomfort is evident as he laughs awkwardly. I think this is an experience many minorities can attest to, and he’s feeling the unease that comes when you’re put under pressure to reveal a part of your identity that may well be not received well. 

In terms of the canon, I think the way in which this is played is so in line with the concept that Starsky is Jewish that it really suggests that this was something in clearly in mind in regards to his characterisation, at least by a number of the people working on the show. 

In terms of headcanons, I like Starsky’s bewilderment here because it seems like he straight up just thought it was obvious that he was Jewish, and so it offers an in-universe explanation for why he never says “I’m Jewish”, rather than the external explanation regarding the fears surrounding creating explicitly clear Jewish characters in the 1970s. 

It is interesting, in universe, that he doesn’t then say, “No, Mrs. Blake, I’m afraid I’m Jewish”, but I think this shows Starsky’s reticence to talk about his background with strangers, despite his comfort proudly talking about blintzes with Hutch and Terry. This is frankly just understandable, given the existence of antisemitism and Mrs Blake’s evangelical Catholicism, and again offers another explanation for why he never says I’m Jewish, wherein everyone he feels comfortable knowing already know, so there’s no need for him to say that. 

(This said, @jimmyandthegiraffes and I headcanon that he just explains everything he doesn’t know with the fact he’s Jewish, even when it’s totally unrelated, *queue Starsky’s sage voice* “Ah see, I wouldn’t know whether those out of date eggs are safe to eat because I’m Jewish.” - Hutch is going to throw something. Also saying he can’t eat something healthy Hutch has made because it’s not kosher, whilst eating something obviously treif, which I made a post about here.)

We also see Starsky’s reticence to talk about his background with antagonistic strangers/suspects in The Committee, “Starsky? What is it, Polish?” “Something like that.” And yet, in Starsky And Hutch Are Guilty we see Starsky talk with Sharon, with whom he obviously feels comfortable with, about his home cooked goulash, “My mother gave me a recipe straight from the old country.” Again, this shows an in universe explanation for why we never see Starsky talk about his background explicitly, as those who he feels comfortable knowing already know.

This line is also interesting as it suggests information about Starsky’s heritage that pretty clearly implies a family with an immigrant background;  this again would be in line with the experience of many Jewish people in the US, particularly when considering Starsky’s roots in New York as many families settled there fleeing pogroms and persecution. I headcanon that Starsky’s father was killed just after his 13th birthday (and his Bar Mitzvah) and moved to Bay City the summer after (this is taking Glaser’s birthday as Starsky’s for consistency).

This would mean Starsky lived in New York 1943-1956. The Jewish population of New York was at its peak in 1950 at 2 million. Still today, New York City is the largest community of Jews in the world within a city proper, including Tel Aviv. I think it perhaps goes without saying that this was and is particularly true in Brooklyn. I’ve seen lots of fics argue about where about in New York Starsky is from (with one claiming New Jersey which was pretty left field). The closest connection to New York that I have is that I grew up on the outskirts of the city it was named after. If you ever want to visit York, it has a lot of chocolate museums and a nice Gothic cathedral and a bad connection with Jewish history. I’m on a tangent. My point is, although I can figure Yorkshire accents, I’m not especially good at figuring out the nuances of New York accents so I leave it up to you lot, and on the whole people tend to suggest that he has a Brooklyn accent. We also know he has swum at Coney Island, and that the sea there tastes better than on the playboy island (Murder on Voodoo Island: part 2).

What we do know is that Starsky grew up on 84th Street (Targets Without A Badge: part 2) although there do seem to be a Lot of 84th streets in New York. We also know that if we are agreeing on Brooklyn then 84th street runs through Bay Ridge, Dyker Heights, and Bensonhurt. I figure Bensonhurst works best because, even though it’s a very Italian neighbourhood now, until the 50s it was a Jewish/Italian neighbourhood, which works with Starsky’s grandmother’s flat above the Italian restaurant (Shootout). It also works with the implications surrounding Starsky’s family and the mob (The Set-Up: part 1) as the Bath Avenue Crew operated in Bensonhurst. The mob thing is also interesting when considering Starsky’s Jewish heritage. There’s a painted Bensonhurst shop front in the bottom middle of the mood board which has been kept the same since the 1950s when Starsky could have been living there!

This has all been largely (or wholly) tangential, but essentially my point is that what we know of Starsky’s heritage chimes pretty neatly with the experience of many Jewish Americans, which again ties in with the argument that Starsky’s Judaism was something held in mind by those involved in the creation of the show. 

Another thing I found interesting was in an article I was reading about Paul Simon, born less than two years before Glaser. In regard to Simon, Donald Fagen says, “There’s a certain kind of New York Jew, [...] almost a stereotype, really, to whom music and baseball are very important. I think it has to do with the parents. The parents are either immigrants or first-generation Americans who felt like outsiders, and assimilation was the key thought — they gravitated to black music and baseball looking for an alternative culture.” Simon responded to say that this wasn't too far from the truth. Obviously, Starsky enjoying baseball does not at all mean anything about him being Jewish, but it does fit in with his Jewish New York upbringing, from his father taking him to see the Yankees and him collecting baseball cards (Vendetta), to his enthusiasm with Pete (Little Girl Lost). 

It is worth noting how this enthusiasm for baseball seems to be something that Starsky engages in far more than Hutch, which is interesting given Soul's history with the sport. (I feel like they definitely could have done more with the fact that David Soul was a good enough player to be offered a contract with the Chicago White Sox). Perhaps this wasn't pursued because a passion for baseball was thought to be more in line with Starsky's upbringing, versus Hutch's Sea Scouts. Again, this maybe suggests a certain narrative held in mind regarding Starsky’s background and how it influenced his characterisation.

Curiously, any Yiddish on the show is typically said by Hutch rather than by Starsky. In Vendetta, Hutch says to Artie Sorkin, “Fagin, faigeleh. What’s the differences? You’re vermin.” Faigeleh meaning homosexual. Also, as the canon compendium notes, “Hutch calls his houseplant ‘Meschugah Mantherlus.’” ‘Meschugah’ means crazy in Yiddish.  “‘Mantherlus’ doesn’t translate as anything but is probably an inside joke and supposed to sound Latin.” (Ballad for a Blue Lady, co-written by Glaser.) 

Largely I just found this interesting, but I did read a really cool study talking about the use of Yiddish in the American vernacular and one of its many findings was that gentiles with close Jewish friends were, unsurprisingly, more likely to use more Yiddish terminology. Also, unrelated but super fascinating, LGBT+ people were more likely to use Yiddish too.

On the Jewish immigrant experience, in Partners Starsky tries to get Hutch to play Pinochle with him, claiming "you love Pinochle", suggesting this is a game they frequently play together. Pinochle used to be a favourite card game of Jewish and Irish immigrants. I get that at this point I'm probably clasping at straws but I'm going for as comprehensive as possible, and I think it creates a good story about Starsky playing it with his family and later teaching it to Hutch.

It is interesting how Hutch is possibly shown to be engaging with Jewish culture in regard to both his use of Yiddish and his love of Pinochle. This may well be because Jewish culture permeates American society, after all it's Soul we see say the Yiddish "putz" in the bloopers. But it is slightly interesting that these were lines given to Hutch, perhaps for plot purposes, or because the writers were choosing to include their own culture and ways of speaking in a way that is safer through the evidently gentile Soul rather than the conspicuously Jewish Glaser. 

There are other instances of Judaism in Starsky and Hutch that aren’t necessarily pointing to Starsky being Jewish but that are notable. Huggy Bear and the Turkey starts with Starsky and Hutch undercover in Caplan Laundry, where Hutch seems to be undercover as an orthodox Jewish man (and Starsky his wife? Seemingly? They certainly uh, go for it in the bloopers). 

Caplan/Kaplan is a surname found in a number of cultures but it is a common Ashkenazim surname which also makes me headcanon Officer Minnie Kaplan as Jewish because we all want more Jewish headcanons in our lives and I think it puts her friendship with Starsky in an interesting context. (Marki Bey more like Marki Bae)

Again, it's Hutch we see taking on the more visibly Jewish role, although this does not go to negate Starsky's own Jewishness, as this may well be understood to be his influence on the friend he spends significantly more than 75% of his time with. Also, it can be assumed that Starsky is undercover as a Jewish woman as he appears to work at the launderette. 

Obviously A Body Worth Guarding is the episode that deals most with Judaism as the Jewish protesters are a central plot feature. It’s interesting that Starsky’s involvement with them is largely hostile, however, I think this is more to do with the circumstances. At first he believes they’ve hired muscle to hurt Anna so he goes in hard which means the Jewish Organisation for Action respond with a more hostile approach. And yet, he’s completely on-board with dropping the JOA lead and following the fascist one as a result of Kauffman’s logic that attacking Anna would only lead to more antisemitism, which despite being a sound argument had no actual evidence to support it. From this point Kauffman is still resistant to working with Starsky which means Starsky maybe is more heavy handed in his approach, but it is on order to get Kauffman to help him follow the fascist lead. Once the job has been done he seems a lot softer towards the JOA and genuinely thankful for their help.

Essentially, the episode is noteworthy but Starsky’s reaction to the JOA tells us not so much about his own personal beliefs and upbringing and more about how he approaches his job. I do think it interesting that he believes Kauffman’s logic and subsequently drops all suspicion of the JOA and instead trusts him enough to bring him in as help.

Also Huggy calls the JOA the “desert people” which might just be Huggy’s turn of phrase but I think it feels more comfortable if Starsky is Jewish as it’s more like banter between friends then.

In spite of all these very purposeful allusions and references to Starsky’s Judaism, in Savage Sunday he complains about having to work on a Sunday, the Christian sabbath instead of Judaism’s Shabbat. And yet, I don’t believe this undermines Starsky’s Jewish presentation as it seems that his complaints are more that he expects to have Sunday off because he is in a Christian society which usually allows him a break on a Sunday to which he can look forward to. When he’s complaining about working on a Saturday in Jojo (written by Mann), Hutch says, “Could be worse, could be Sunday”, to which Starsky replies, “Come on, Saturday’s bad enough”, bemoaning all the sports that he could be watching instead. 

This is interesting too as you could easily use this to headcanon him using sport as an excuse to express his frustrations at having to work on Shabbat, especially as it’s Hutch who says, “Could be worse, could be Sunday.”

Note: It was mentioned on the fanlore page that Huggy gives Starsky a wreath of garlic ‘for those of other persuasions’, but, as far as I can tell, the garlic is to ward off vampires of “all the rest of the denominations” when the cross for “any vampire of Christian persuasion” won’t be of help, rather than the garlic being for non-Christian vampire hunters. As always, I’m loving Huggy’s enterprising approach to religion, making sure he covers all bases, but it’s not really a suggestion that Starsky is Jewish, just that he needs to protect himself from non-Christian vampires.

In the same vein, Huggy does say “Shalom” to Starksy (and to Hutch) in Dandruff, though this seems to be more as an aspect of his undercover role as Prince Nairobi.

Essentially, Starsky is frequently presented as engaging with Jewish culture, practices, and traditions, often very visibly so. Aside from the very explicitly Jewish references, Starsky is very frequently characterised in a way that suggests his being Jewish was held in mind, on a writing level, an acting level, a direction level, and a production level. As I mentioned earlier, American society in imbued with Jewish culture and so many of these things may have been purely incidental. However, coupled with the more explicit examples of Starsky's Judaism they may be said to take on greater purpose and subsequent significance. Pretty much across the board, he is understood to be Jewish and whilst these references maybe subtle enough to pass by those not engaged with Judaism or considering it a possibility, this does not preclude Starsky’s Judaism from being a very knowing and explicit inclusion, and therefore canon.

Given all this, I have some headcanons about to what extent Starsky is practising! 

We canonically know he doesn’t keep kosher – I mean this boy eats linguine with clams. I have read a fic where Hutch is forbidden from telling Starsky’s ma that he eats bacon or meat with dairy and I really like this as a headcanon. I definitely think she Knows but she lets Starsky pretend he doesn’t because it keeps him happy.

We also know neither he nor his mother have qualms about not being shomer Shabbos, but as I mentioned earlier, we Do see them using Friday evenings as the time they choose to call one another.

We know he doesn’t wear a kippah on the regular, too. And he never says the Sh’ma out loud if he thinks he’s about to die, although I do think he probably says it to himself. Again, I think I’ve read a fic about that. As I reread the ones I have bookmarked I’ll add them in if I can find them.

Other than these examples, pretty much everything else as far as I can tell is fair game, particularly if you’re considering along the lines of Reform, or even conservative, depending on the community. I know a lot of Jewish people who would consider themselves to be actively practicing who don’t keep kosher or who work on a Saturday etc.

About that, as I mentioned above, we know he does sometimes work on a Saturday (and he complains about it). This suggests that he doesn’t necessarily frequent synagogue regularly, particularly as he was frustrated about missing the sport he likes to watch on a Saturday.

However, for one thing, this doesn’t mean he Never goes to temple, and for another, we do know that Starsky very likely celebrates Chanukkah, due to his Chanukkiah. Chanukkah is a relatively minor Jewish holiday and so if he celebrates this it’s likely he also celebrates other, more significant holidays, and high holy days. Maybe he doesn’t go to shul every week, but a synagogue on Yom Kippur is generally full of people who are not regular attenders.

Please imagine this boy trying to fast I bet Hutch would be glad as hell that Starsky isn’t at work lol.

Personally, I tend to headcanon that Starsky moves to greater observance post Sweet Revenge. I think the hospital rabbi is good at playing Pinochle and the two become friends and they have good philosophical debates and Hutch joins in and after Starsky is discharged they want to see the rabbi so they start regularly attending shul and they both find something they can get out of it, especially as I headcanon that they retire from the force I think it gives them a community. For Starsky, I think it gives him a connection to his heritage and his family and maybe his father in particular, as well as a focus on social justice work through the synagogue so that he and Hutch can still feel like they’re making a difference. Tbh, I think that Hutch might find a lot to connect to in Judaism, maybe in the way it’s focused on making a difference in the here and now and not in order to access some afterlife. To be clear, I don’t think that’s necessarily the angle Christianity takes but I think it is how Hutch might perceive it and I think he might find Judaism more grounding in that respect. Also, if he converts then Starsky’s ma would be thrilled that if he hasn’t found a nice Jewish girl then at least he’s found a nice Jewish boy and Starsky will tease that Hutch’s hair is so long he might as well be a girl. I think it would create a really interesting relationship between Starsky’s ma and Hutch where they talk about Judaism and she introduces him to recipes and books and stuff and later Hutch is showing Starsky and he’s like, how come Ma never showed me?! And Hutch is like, she tried to idiot you just got distracted. And they can just, explore stuff together. It’s really soft.

Also, I think they host Shabbat dinners every Friday and it’s really cool because it’s a way that they can stay in touch with the Dobeys after they’ve left the force, and how they can stay close with Huggy when they’re not visiting for tips every other day. Also Kiko and Pete can come and then stay the night and spend Saturday with them maybe to give Mrs. Ramos a break. Minnie can come too and say the prayers!! Plus Paco Ortega and Joey and tbh any number of the other kids they’ve accidentally adopted over the years.

Pesach at theirs is just, the fullest house you can possibly imagine I love it. @jimmyandthegiraffes came up with the idea that there isn’t space for Dobey and the boys are like, oh you’re sat on the counter and he’s like? But there’s an empty chair and place set out here?? And he goes to sit down and everyone is like, nOOoO that’s for Elijah!! You cAnt sIT in Elijah’S plaCe?!

Gosh I love them

Starsky high key calls the new year “secular Rosh Hashanah”

Even though I personally headcanon a greater observance after sweet revenge, there really is nothing at all to say he isn’t at least somewhat practising over the course of the series and even that he is, given the Chanukkiah and what that means about holidays. I like how he keeps it up year round to maybe keep in mind his faith/upbringing/background.

I think it’s interesting that many of the fics that engage with Starsky as Jewish often suggest that he’s not religious, which is of course completely possible. However, just because he doesn’t ever talk about a faith in God doesn’t mean it isn’t present, especially when faith is often something so private and proselytising isn’t a part of Judaism. Personally I think that Starsky does have faith in God throughout the series and after, and this does impact his relationship with Judaism prior to Sweet Revenge as he considers things like the mezuzah and engages with Jewish culture, but that it’s after Sweet Revenge that he starts engaging with his faith more as connected to Judaism and religious traditions, rather than I’m going to celebrate my culture and upbringing and also I have a faith in God. He sees the two as more connected perhaps? and his faith as having a more direct impact on his life.

I really like how Huggy says the thing about the chicken soup too, and the “desert people” line is made a lot sweeter by thinking of him as a cool supportive friend who Starsky has known for a long time and who typically engages with Judaism specifically because it means something to Starsky.

I seemingly have a lot of thoughts on this.

Also, I really like how he calls him blintz, weird Freudian implications aside, especially because blintzes can be eaten at any time but are typically associated with Shavuot and I like the idea that Starsky has really a really fond association with his religion but also with Hutch. I really like the idea that if Hutch converts then the two can stay up all night together, eating blintzes and cheese and Hutch can maybe read aloud for my dyslexic boy.

Essentially, I just really love thinking about this and I think there’s more space for an actively practising Starsky than there’s generally understood to be, religious or not, even over the course of the show. Especially if you consider Reform Judaism. But tbh just give me Jewish!Starsky fics and I’m happy whatever they’re like.

I’ve worked really hard to find each scene I’ve mentioned on my DVDs (this post has taken me literally So Long to write (9 months-ish? it’s my Child) and I’ve researched it far Far more than I do my uni assignments whoops), so you can be sure I’ve checked to make sure each reference is legitimate. If you want to see screenshots of these quotations, or you want to know whereabouts in the episodes they occur, then message me! If you have additional examples or you disagree with me or if you’ve spotted a mistake then share that too!

With all my thanks to my partner Chester who’s put up with me banging on about this and spending Hours and Hours being ridiculously pedantic in the hopes of creating as coherent a resource as I can. They’ve also contributed so much and just they’re rad. I also cannot thank enough the canon compendium for helping me fill in all the blanks and pointing me in all the directions I needed to go in, I Genuinely cannot think of a better fandom resource. Also the first 3 seasons scripts are available here which is a huge help.

tldr; Starsky is irrefutably, canonically Jewish and also I love him 

[arcticdementor]

Here is the acceptance speech by Travis Corcoran for 2019 Prometheus Award for Best Novel for Causes of Separation.  (Corcoran could not attend the Dublin Worldcon but wrote this acceptance speech to be read there at the ceremony.)

I would like to thank the LFS for this year’s award, but more generally, I’d like to thank them for existence of the Prometheus award, all forty years of it. It’s good that our subculture has a long-lived award to recognize excellent science fiction, especially pro-liberty science fiction.

But the Prometheus award is not merely recognition, it’s an incentive!

In fact, I might not have written my novels without the Prometheus to aim for. But the Prometheus is not a financial incentive. The one-ounce gold coin on the plaque is nice, but neither I nor any of the other winners over 40 years would ever trade or sell it, and thus – ironically – it has no financial value.

And yet the award – a recognition by a community – is a huge incentive. There’s an interesting argument here about anti-libertarian tropes like the not-so-veiled anti-semitic and anti-capitalist propaganda of socialist Star Trek’s Ferengi, the bourgeois virtues, and the non-market human flourishing that only human liberty unleashes, but that’s a rant for some other day. Thomas Aquinas said “Homo unius libri timeo” – “beware the man of one book.” The meaning has shifted – almost reversed – from “beware the man who has studied one topic intensely” to “beware the man who has only one simple view of a thing.” I concur with this advice (in both forms!). Libertarianism is absolutely correct in its magisteria (the morality of freedom vs coercion), but we need other theories to augment it when we move our sights from individual liberty and financial incentives to other topics, like culture formation – and culture subversion.

…

Every ideology and subculture likes to tell stories about how it will naturally and obviously win. Nineteenth century Protestant missionaries knew that European Protestantism was the way of the future. 20th century Marxists knew that Marxism was. In the early 21st century Wired magazine told us that “netizens” would use technology to create a brave new world. The fact that every one of them has been wrong so far should inform our Bayesian priors. Perhaps cryptography, bitcoin, and the internet aren’t going to create a libertarian future. Perhaps the future looks a lot more like Orwell’s boot stomping on a face, forever.

Why might this be, and – if it does – how might we respond to it?

Last year I spoke about the essay “Geeks, MOPs, and sociopaths in subculture evolution” by David Chapman, which argues that new subcultures are pioneered by geeks, appreciated by members of the public, and taken over by sociopaths. His thesis is a particular example of a more general case.

There’s also Pournelle’s – yes, that Pournelle – iron law of bureaucracy” which states “In any bureaucracy, the people devoted to the benefit of the bureaucracy itself always get in control and those dedicated to the goals the bureaucracy is supposed to accomplish have less and less influence, and sometimes are eliminated entirely.”

Robert Conquest’s third law expresses something similar: “Any organization not explicitly right-wing sooner or later becomes left-wing.”

Chapman’s essay and Pournelle’s and Conquest’s laws are three observations of a single underlying phenomena: the collectivists always worm their way in and take over. We know THAT this happens, but WHY does it happen? How can we model it and understand it?

…

My theory, which unites Chapman’s “Geeks, MOPs, and sociopaths”, Pournelle’s Iron Law, and Conquest’s Third Law is this: organisms, whether they’re unicellular, multicellular, or purely information, like Dawkin’s memes, egregores, and ideologies, mutate, evolve, and are selected for. Those that are best at surviving and reproducing soon dominate the population…and one of the best ways to survive is secure energy resources by hunting, killing, and eating (or, more gently, parasitizing) organisms that do the hard work of harvesting energy and building structures.

David Hines has a great essay at the status451.com blog titled “Days of Rage” where he discusses the surge in left-wing organizing and terrorism in the US in the 1970s. One thing that Hines points out again and again is that collectivists plan, they train, and they invade. I note that their organizations also exchange members and ideas (mate) and fission (reproduce). We are looking not just at a parasite, but at a class of parasite, forged and refined in the Darwinian furnace.

Evolution is a harsh mistress.

…

Predation and parasitism are selected for in the biosphere because they are efficient. They’re selected for in the realm of human culture for the same reason. It’s easier to harvest energy from a parasitized host species than it is to grow leaves, and it’s easier to take over a subculture than it is to create one. Thus science fiction will always suffer wave after wave of entryists, trying to claim the subculture for themselves. And, like Orwell’s Big Brother, they will rewrite history to declare that they invented it. “Let me join your club. You have to change now that I’m here. You have to leave now. We all agree that I made this, decades ago.” We see that all entrusts do this (“The United States was always about social justice ; the Jewish faith was always about social justice ; this TV station and car line and toothpaste were always about social justice”) and we conclude that they do because it is the optimal strategy, tested and chosen by evolution.

So, is that it? Are we doomed to lose all battles, to be preyed upon and parasitized?

In the biosphere, only a minority of organisms are predators or parasites. How could it be otherwise? Someone still needs to do the hard work of capturing solar energy and building biological matter. So too in the world of human culture. Tax-thieving governments and culture-thieving brigands can’t kill the goose that lays the golden egg. The Lotka-Volterra equations, first developed in 1910 to describe chemical reactions, but echoing Pierre-François Verhulst’s logistic equation from almost a century earlier quantified the mechanism.

And, since biology is economics is sociology, I note that Mancur Lloyd Olson Jr.’s theory of roving bandits, which are willing to loot everything from a village, and stationary bandits, who learn to restrain themselves so as to keep the village alive, and capable of being pillaged (or “taxed”) again reaches the same conclusion: predators can never outpopulate the prey … at least not for long.

Based on Lotka, Volterra, and Olson, then, I suggest that the collectivists’ social entryism will never be total. Negative feedback loops will ensure that. When will the entryist wave peak? Perhaps it already has. The last decade saw the cultures of video games and comics under attack from entryists, but perhaps the high water mark has already been reached, as we’ve seen several horrific market failure, such as the female Ghostbusters fiasco, Mass Effect: Andromeda, or that time when Zoe Quinn of comicsgate / Five Guys fame was given a DC Comics title. As the Twitter meme says “get woke, go broke”.

But on the other hand, perhaps not. Strauss–Howe generations theory, which I tentatively give the nod to, suggests that we’re going to be deep in the suck for quite a while yet.

…

What strategies can we use to improve our odds, to make life somewhat more tolerable in a world where Darwinianism means that threats are ever present?

Look to biology.

We can evolve physical defenses, we can evolve camouflage, or we can adapt to new environments that are less conducive to predators.

What do these mean in social terms?

Physical defenses means organizations building mechanisms to keep entryists out – a topic on which I am not an expert…and Pournelle’s Law and Conquest’s Third Law suggest that perhaps no one is.

The social equivalent of camouflage is a mixture of esotericism (in dangerous times people speak in code) and foot-dragging Vichy coexistence. Scott Aaronson and Slate Star Codex wrote essays on “Kolmogorov complicity” (a good pun on Kolmogorov complexity), and I urge you to read them.

My favorite, is the third option: moving to where the predators aren’t. Which – surprise – boils down to my old favorite, exit.

Jame C Scott talks about exit extensively in his book “The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia” and in his later book “Against the Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest States”. He makes the core point that when you see a populace that does not have certain social technologies, that does not mean – contra the default narrative – that they never evolved them. Sometimes populations intentionally abandon technologies because those techniques make them legibile to control and subversion by the overculture. If you want to avoid computer viruses, rip the computers out of your Battlestar. If you want to avoid land taxes, burn down the land registry, or become nomadic. If you want to avoid having your subculture taken over by collectivists … what, exactly?

[lonesomealley]

Borderlands 3 Review

*Writer’s Note: I played this game when it came out and have based my review on the version of the game that I played then. Some of this information may become outdated with time. 

DISCLAIMER: This review is going to contain a lot of spoilers for Borderlands 3, if you don’t want that then this is not the review for you. My overall opinion of this game is that it’s… okay. It entirely depends on what you value out of a video game. Borderlands 3 is, at heart, just another Borderlands that’s been somewhat dumbed down, and if you don’t like the Borderlands series’ base mechanics (i.e. farming, constantly throwing away weak gear, getting stomped on for being underleveled) then this is not the game for you. If you value storytelling in your video games, this game is absolutely not the game for you. However if you’re someone who just wants to shoot some guys and already like, or think you’ll like, Borderlands’ looting systems then this game is going to range anywhere from okay to good. It should be kept in mind that this review is meant to take into account many of the different aspects of the game, hence why this review is going to have a far lower score than many other reviewers/media publications seem to be rewarding it.

I don’t really know if Borderlands 3 is worth the $60 asking price, and I would ultimately say to either wait for the game to go on sale or at least wait for it to go up on Steam. This is because the game really is just a dumbed down Borderlands entry, you could easily just go buy the Handsome Collection for $60 (if you haven’t already) and have just as good, even better, of a time. Also that Steam has more laid back refund policies than the Epic Store (which can be blamed for this review existing in the first place). But this is where the spoiler free section ends, anything past this point will contain heavy spoilers for the sake of in depth discussion. You have been warned.

When the Borderlands 3 reveal trailer came out back in March I was entirely skeptical that the game would be anything good. The story looked like a mess, the guns looked like complete shit, and overall it appeared that a lot of the things they were promising on were too good to be true or would end up simplified. Also, at the time I had just played through the entirety of the existing Borderlands series (excluding Tales From the Borderlands), so this new game was going to have to spike a certain chord with me. This definitely wasn’t helped by the “additions” that they tried to make to those games such as second game’s graphics enhancements, and the Borderlands 1 remaster. The former, while making the game look prettier, had the problem of cutting off cross platform play (across PC, Mac, Linux, etc.) which left a small crowd of people very disappointed. And the latter had the issue of being a complete load of garbage with many of the same bugs, new performance issues, clunkier menus, new menus not working, and of course Gearbox’s patented golden chest. They pulled a BL2 and just gave you OP guns at the beginning of the game as to make the beginning area more trivial than it already was. And if that wasn’t bad enough, they suited you out with 75 golden keys for connecting your shift account, meaning that you could destroy any sense of value the guns originally had.

There was also the new BL2 dlc that was meant to tie the game into BL3’s story. However I can safely say that after having played through BL3, this dlc’s campaign in no way whatsoever connects these two games together. I guess at best it explains how Sanctuary fell, but that in of itself has a lot of problems. You get attacked by some Dahl commander (who has never been brought up in the story before) where he infects Sanctuary, and by further extension Pandora, with this plant virus. Your job is to kill this guy and stop the plant virus. There is no motivation established for this guy besides that he wants to make Pandora into some paradise, and the story has absolutely no effect on BL3 at all. The crew was already set on going to outer space, this invasion only served to speed up this process. To further this claim, there is no mention of this dlc’s events in BL3 and Pandora is still the same sandy hell scape that it normally is.

Which finally brings us to Borderlands 3. A game that feels surprisingly devoid of passion and love despite how much effort went into it. A game that feels like there wasn’t enough time to flesh out ideas. A game owned by a company who sold out to Epic for money- let’s get a couple of things out of the way first. 1. Borderlands 3 isn’t an entirely bad game per se. 2. I have relatively no issue with the game being an Epic exclusive and my opinion is not biased or soured due to Randy Pitchford’s constant fuck ups.

However, that doesn’t mean that I don’t outright despise Gearbox and 2K for their actions. They take an exclusivity deal with Epic which actively disrupts consumer convenience and confidence in purchasing their product (not a big deal). But then they have the audacity to push this game out in the buggy, unpolished, and unoptimized state that its currently in (kind of a big deal). The menus are buggy on a basic, functional level, the performance tanks constantly, and items would quite literally disappear out of thin air from my inventory. All of these made Borderlands 3 just that much more of a painstaking experience to play through.

It was the unpolished game and the Borderlands’ trademark shitty introductory area that made me want to refund the game. And believe me, I tried to refund the game. Unfortunately I got denied my refund because I had accidentally played over 2 hours of the game, when the Epic client doesn’t even show your playtime. So ultimately I had no choice but to play this game in order to get my 60 dollars worth. In that time I learned that this game is exactly like the other Borderlands games. Right down to the pacing and the disappointing endings. The beginning of Borderlands 3 is a complete slog. You’re just slapped down on Pandora and have to suffer through Clap Trap’s “hilarious” writing and get formally introduced to the mechanics of a Borderlands game for the 4th time now. Gearbox has apparently never figured out that people really hate playing through the beginning of their games because it refuses to give the players a skip tutorial option or a way to just outright bypass the introduction. Now I will say that this introduction isn’t as bad as BL2 or The Presequel, but it's certainly nowhere near good either.

The problem with these introduction areas is that they aren’t engaging or really even play into the story in any meaningful way. In BL3, you arrive out of thin air on Pandora and are forcefully met up with Lilith and the Crimson Raiders so that you can prepare to take off into space. Between meeting up and going into space you’ll be doing menial tasks such as fixing Marcus’ shops, getting a basic vehicle, and doing some really boring boss fights. Your motive for killing these bosses is because Lilith is on the hunt for the vault map. That thing that they had in BL2, how did they lose it? Nevermind that because it’s just sitting with Mouthpiece, a painfully easy boss that expects no brain power out of you other than just avoid the giant speakers that go boom. Apparently it was in Vaughn’s possession before he was betrayed by his Sun Smasher clan in return for good boy points from the Calypsos. Why the Crimson Raiders thought it would be a good idea to leave the map with Vaughn beats me, but I can safely say that this theme of Vaughn being a complete fuck up is consistent throughout the entirety of BL3.

Vaughn at best feels like a comedic relief character, and at worst feels like padding. This character has no important role throughout the story, just plainly isn’t a funny character, and comes across as a complete waste of space. He could literally just disappear from the entire game and nothing would change. You (luckily) don’t even see him for most of the game because his ass is left back on Pandora to do…  something. I’ve heard that Vaughn is a far better character in Tales from the Borderlands, however as I haven’t played that game I cannot say for certain whether or not Gearbox really just dropped the ball on this one. Vaughn also isn’t the only character I have this opinion of, however as I am still discussing the game’s intro I feel that I should hold off until later.

So after you acquire the vault map and experience a “high stakes” encounter with the Calysos, Lilith loses her siren powers. I feel like this was supposed to be some big, “Oh shit,” moment but I have to express that I simply don’t care for Lilith’s character and people who are new to the Borderlands series won’t care either. Lilith is not necessarily a “good guy” in Borderlands. She has done some fucked up things that have drastically changed the overarching plotline and a lot of people’s perception of her both in the story and by players experiencing it. In The Pre-Sequel, she is framed as being the reason for Handsome Jack’s insanity as Lilith literally branded a vault symbol onto his face. In the epilogue of TPS she actively commands a firing squad to gun down Athena after she tells her story in its entirety, completely against the judgement of her colleagues. And she makes incredibly rash decisions in BL2 that causes detrimental results for the crimson raiders such as being captured by Handsome Jack after being explicitly told not to come to Angel’s prison that greatly changes the dynamic of the story. These are only a couple examples, and I could keep going, but the point is that I don’t value Lilith as an entirely productive or a beneficially proactive member of the Crimson Raiders. And new players who have never played Borderlands before literally won’t even know who Lilith is or why she is even important. Hence when Lilith loses her siren powers after a pretty pathetic fight with the Calypsos, I can really only roll my eyes and just go with it.

From here the story relatively picks up and becomes a bit more bearable (but not really), however I don’t want a couple thousand words of this review to be about the story. Overall it’s trash, and I’m going to try my best to summarize just why it’s trash. Firstly is that the Borderlands writers might be writing for way too many characters. Seriously you have: ProZ-oh I mean Flak, Amara, Zane, Moze, Vaughn, Lilith, Brick, Mordecai, Tiny Tina, Ellie, Tannis, Marcus, Zero, Rhys, Lorelei, Aurelia, Hammerlock, Typhon Deleon, The Calypsos, Katagawa, Bosses also have some writing with them, Ava, Rhys, holy shit I could just keep going. This isn’t to mention that the the only returning vault hunters from BL2 are Zero and Maya. And then factor in that the writers had to write up a ton of audio logs, some Typhon logs, Eridian logs, side quest dialogue for meaningless bosses, etc. and you have just this disaster of a story that churns everyone out to be really shallow characters. There aren’t any truly good characters in this game. Some of them are passable but that’s because they either aren't main characters or they have some somewhat funny writing and redeeming qualities.

Characters like Ava and Maya (and Vaughn) are completely devoid of any purpose within Borderlands outside of being fuel to the drama fire or just outright being an obnoxious brat. It’s pretty obvious that Ava is just a spoiled teenager who has no idea what she’s getting into, but even in the context of Borderlands her character doesn’t fit at all. For example, after the player kills the first vault monster (Rampager) and returns from the vault, you’re suited to a cutscene where Ava and Maya go pants on head retarded. Ava, a defenseless, tiny, teenager with no powers whatsoever, tries to tell Maya that, “We should be kicking [the Calypsos’] asses!” after the Calypso twins show up to absorb the powers of the vault monster. Mind you, this is after her and Maya debate about how Ava is a piece of shit that’ll get herself killed if she sneaks off to more vaults. Ava then has the audacity to tell the vampire sirens that eventually she’s going to be a siren and she’s going to, “Mop the floor with assholes like you.” These actions ultimately gets her put in her place, and Maya killed. Bottom line: She’s an obnoxious character that makes playing through the story of BL3 worse the more you’re exposed to her. And speaking of Maya, her character in Borderlands is completely useless. She introduces Ava, and then gets killed so that the players can go grrr at the big baddies. Her only significance to the story is that Maya is a siren so that the Calypso twins can steal her powers. Otherwise she is an absolutely useless character that now we’ll never get to see again without Gearbox pussying out on their own writing.

I’ll be completely honest here in saying that Typhon Deleon was the best written character in the game, and you hardly get to hear anything from him outside of backstory and the final couple hours of the game. If Typhon Deleon was a main star of BL3 I think the story would’ve went in a much more favorable direction. However I can’t discount the good writing moments within the story. Even though I absolutely hate Flak’s character even down to his voice, he does have some lines that made me chuckle. Rhys’ entire gag about Rhys ball had me laughing for that entire section, especially the line, “Suck on my big ball, Katagawa.” In fact I think most of the jokes that I laughed at were sexual jokes. I frankly don’t think a lot of these sexual jokes make the cut in a lot of games nowadays outside of obvious fanfare or really out there stuff like Grand Theft Auto 5. This was really unexpected and pulled off well in BL3 as weird as a compliment this is.

I also just want to express my disappointment for how the old vault hunters were treated in this writing: Axton, Gaige, Krieg, and Salvadore aren’t present in this game outside of some echo logs. It could be plausible that Axton and Gaige will come back for a future dlc, but I’m not holding my breath. We ultimately got Maya and Zero, and oh god these characters are bad. Maya dies only a couple hours after you meet her and Zero is comparable to a boomer dad trying to be hip with the kids. Maybe that’s the joke, in which case all I can say is, “Wow, they pulled it off really well and I’m not laughing.”

And finally, the Watcher. What the hell happened to this dude and why isn’t he in BL3? He appears at the end of TPS and is like, “You’re gonna need all of the vault hunters you can get,” however, not only do we have a very restricted roster of vault hunters, the Watcher is literally never mentioned again. Unless the Watcher is the Eridian that left all of the audio logs laying around, but what a disappointment.

I could keep going a good while if I wanted to, but that’s reserved for my videos. The next part of the game that should be brought up is the world design. Most of the world design is okay, I wish Pandora wasn’t just set in desert hell ala BL1, but other than that they seem to have enough content and discoverable areas to make them interesting to explore. My ultimate problem with the world building comes in when considering the planetary system in the game. Now this point can be entirely perceived as me just being an ass but when I think “planets” I expect a lot more than the world hubs in BL3. The planet’s levels are relatively small scale for being on, you know, a planet. And this isn’t just a problem with BL3, many other games that have incorporated planets like this, such as Destiny and Warframe, ultimately fail at capturing the scale of planets. A planet is often scaled down to a simple level within a video game, and it’s somewhat shameful to see a game boasting, “tens of planets to travel to” and then those planets have the same (and even less) scale as their previous title entries that were based on a singular world. Now I perfectly understand that this is a hard request to answer to, and having to build and construct one world is difficult on its own. Despite this, if a development/marketing team wants to promote their usage of a planetary system in their video game, it’s implied that the levels are going to be gigantic. It’s not at all impressive to see planets being used in BL3 because BL2 had the same, if not more, level variety and the same, if not more, amount of levels without the pseudo use of large scale.

This isn’t to say that the levels contained in the game are bad, just that I wish they weren’t pushed into a planetary system. Generally speaking, the levels aren’t bad. I hadn’t ever reached a part of the game where I thought, “Wow this level is trash,” or found levels that were broken. In fact, the gameplay and level design seem to be the real highlights of this game. Gameplay this time around has been modernized and sped up. Players are suited with a slide, ledge grabbing, barrel throwing, and melee slams. Sliding in of itself is important because of how non-committal it is as you can cancel a slide instantly by jumping. These additions ultimately make combat faster and more varied in how you approach the game. See Borderlands 1, 2, and TPS (while it tried) suffered from each fight encounter being basically the same shootout with basic cover systems. This time around, while you can still use the basic playstyle from the older games, you’re provided the methods to really make your gameplay interesting. Personally I never used the melee slam or the barrel throwing, and the new ledge grabbing system only serves to add verticality in map exploring from my experience. However I did use a lot of the slide, and given the right gun (especially shotguns) it became very satisfying to slide into an enemy and pop them into the air with a shotgun.

On this note, I feel like I have to express how much I disliked the feel of the guns. And clearly I am on the contrary opinion here because I have heard everyone on the planet say that, “Wow the gunplay is soooo good omg!!!” but I’ll be honest in saying that I didn’t see it here. Sure, the gunplay now feels more weighty and the new animations and stuff are nice to making the player character good gameplay feel. But the guns themselves, despite apparently having tons of funding behind making the guns sound good and being completely reworked, still have the chronic floaty-ness issues of the previous games. Some guns (primarily early game Hyperion SMGs, Maliwan guns, and some shotguns) just felt so awful to play with that I put them down and never touched them again. I’m not too sure what I was expected as I slid into an opponent and shot them in the face with my shotgun, only for them to fly away a couple feet and just get right back up only having lost about half or less of their health. Jakobs guns were consistently the best weapon, feel wise, despite me always wishing they had a bit more of a kick to them.

One of my major issues with the guns is that they are way too sci-fi and not enough like guns on wastelands and battle driven hell hole. Seriously for how terrible a place Pandora is, you don’t get weapons that reflect this attribute, Instead you get these futuristic Hyperion smgs that will project a shield out in front of you or a Torgue gun that will home into your target when thrown. This is a consistent theme throughout the game where guns won’t aesthetically match the environment. I could understand if you found futuristic guns on Promethea, or even that you find technologically advanced weaponry in the form of Hyperion leftovers on Pandora(given that they’re consistent with the styling of BL2). This would 1. Appease me, because I am the only person worth pleasing, and 2. Would allow the Gearbox developers to create more variety with their weapons so that the game actually feels like it’s hitting its promise of, “Billions of guns.”

Another issue I have is the sound design for these guns, which is probably the point I’ll get absolutely grilled for but: Using actual sampled gun sounds apparently does not work for video games. Seriously every time a game tries to improve the sound of its guns, the new sounds somehow turn out to be worse. This can easily be explained off as having a bias against change, but let's talk about it. Firstly, the guns are way too quiet in Borderlands. And they seem extra quiet in BL3, like worse than BL1 quiet. Maybe it’s a difference in subtlety, because let’s face it: It’s not like a microphone was stuck right next to an actual gun. In reality the sound designers probably had the microphone a good many feet away. This gives the gunshot more of a subtle popping sound rather than the huge blast that the person holding the gun actually experiences (hence why you wear earplugs when shooting guns in real life). But I’m going to put in my take on this matter: Guns need to have an impact in their noise. Now this doesn’t mean that guns sounds even need to be based on real guns or realistic in any shape or fashion. Borderlands is a game with a unique artstyle, so why can’t Borderlands have unique sound design?

It seems that every game nowadays wants the best sounding or most realistic guns to boot, however what happened to all that stylistic choice? Some of the best examples I can think of are Counter Strike’s western inspired whiff sounds for its older titles, Enter the Gungeon’s wide arrangement of different gun sounds, the cartoony gun shot effects for Wasted, and even Borderlands unique sound designs such as The Bane and the beam guns from TPS. These unique sound designs are missing for BL3’s guns and, despite Gearbox making an algorithm to suit one gun sound to thousands of guns, they all really sound the same. Not like you can’t tell the difference between what you’re shooting but in that all snipers sound like a generic sniper, all pistols sound like pistols. Of course you have to discount certain weapons like the Occultist that don’t even shoot the bullets respective of its weapon type. But the point is: this is a missed part of the game. I don’t necessarily like or dislike the realistic approach to the sound design of weaponry, but in a game that feels anything but realistic, the sounds aren’t doing it for me here.

But let’s reel it back to the game again, and get into the basic looting mechanics for this game. Upfront: It’s dumbed down, and takes little effort to get good gear. This is the part of the game where I fall out of my element (if I haven’t already), because I don’t really appreciate Borderlands for its RPG mechanics. It feels nice, and the act of finally getting something you grind out for hours if exhilarating (4 times magic missile), but it is far from how I prefer to play my games. Given this though, even I feel that legendaries drop way too often. Over my playthrough of just the main game content (I did 6 side quests on my first playthrough, and we’ll get to this) I collected tens of legendaries. When I was finished with the game I had 10 legendaries just sitting in my inventory that I was either actively using or keeping as a memorial item. This isn’t to mention that you literally get a chest at the end of the game that contain 4 legendaries in it. The loot dropping system is no longer satisfying at this point. And this isn’t just a matter of, “Oh they buffed the loot drops a little bit,” it’s a matter of the looting system becomes a complete joke when bosses can literally drop multiple legendaries without Mayhem, and will consistently drop multiple legendaries with Mayhem.

Assemble this with a forgiving leveling system, and now it’s just a dumbed down Borderlands experience. In previous Borderlands games, you couldn’t just do the main quest from start to finish. At some point you would eventually become underleveled, and paired with Borderlands’ trademark unforgiving and shitty rpg mechanics, meant that being 3 levels beneath an enemy granted you 10% damage reduction. This is no longer a worry, you can now play the main quests from start to finish with zero leveling hiccups. Or at least from my experience. Some reviews that I indulged in have said that they did have troubles with the leveling system, to which I rolled my eyes and had to immediately question what the hell they had done wrong. On normal mode I finished the campaign having only completed 6 side quests in total. One of these, to tie back to the looting system real quick, gave me a legendary elemental pistol that melted enemies for the next couple of zones. I also asked someone about their experience playing Borderlands 3 so far, only to learn that he had been doing every single quest that he was given and was massively overleveled come time for the first vault boss (he was level 21).

The bosses of Borderlands, this time around, were the best and the worst that the series has ever gotten. They’ve been massively revamped from the older system of AOE insta-kill moves to having actual attack patterns that you can skillfully avoid. To compensate for this, the bosses have been relatively tuned up to be more aggressive, throwing out more attacks. These new bosses range from very good to very, very bad. Some of my favorites were the Graveward, the Penn and Teller styled boss (Pain and Terror), and Troy Calypso. The bosses that I ultimately ended up hating were Katagawa, the Rampager, the Warden, and the Anointed. These bosses either suffered from boring attack patterns, bullet spongy-ness, or a lack of direction on what you’re supposed to be doing to beat the boss. Katagawa and the Warden fit into this last category. For Katagawa I was confused by him taking inconsistent damage (he loses a ton of health on shield break) and the Warden I couldn’t figure out whether or not I was allowed to kill him early. This is because the Warden is styled around the Goliath from BL2, so whenever he kills one of his teammates he gains all of his health back and then levels up. It turns out that you can kill this boss early, I just had garbage guns for this fight. So to answer your question, yes I did get the Warden to max level, and what pursued was a 20-something minute boss fight where you run the boss around in circles and turn around to deal damage when you can, and then he would kill a minion and level up. The only way I managed to kill him was that when he did eventually hit max level, he would stop focusing his minions when on low health.

The bosses that were truly good were the ones that kept the player busy, while not being too spongy or time consuming. It should be noted that the spongy factor of a boss can be easily biased by what type of weapons you enter a boss fight with. Some of the bosses I thought were easier may have actually been harder for you or another player, and vice versa. However, I will speak more of a general design philosophy and less of a, “This guy had too much health,” philosophy. I loved the Graveward (while admittedly being underwhelming for a vault monster) because of his unique battle area and clear attacks that would make his weak point exposed. Having the entire floor tilted to the side while you’re spamming jump to save your life was a fun mechanic to work with, especially when you factor in dodgeable acid balls. This was a simple boss fight that had a unique spin on an FPS boss. Terror and Pain I loved for stylistic reasons and the meta-humor around putting characters themed around Penn and Teller in a game made by a company with a CEO who is super into magic. This boss is comparable to Mouthpiece, but actually just a straight upgrade. The arena you fight Terror and Pain in is far more interesting, the boss itself looks cool, and while I have honestly forgotten the attacks that the boss had, it was still a fun encounter. One of the attacks I do remember though is the floor lighting up to indicate that fire was going to shoot up to incinerate you, and felt far more fitting than getting blasted by a speaker turned up too loud.

Something that I disliked across the board with these bosses, and this is a massive opinion piece, is that the bosses were too easy. Sometimes I honestly wished I was playing Borderlands: The Bullet Hell. I really wanted a boss that wasn’t just going to engage my attention, but make me feel like, “Holy shit, holy shit, oh my god, I am going to die.” Actually, the entire game was pretty damn easy. Although this can come down to a lot of reasons such as ally NPCs now being able to revive you, and the upped pacing of the game causing players to need to rely less on cover.

And I mean, it’s not like the game stays easy forever right? After you complete the campaign on normal mode you then unlock True Vault Hunter Mode (TVHM) and the brand new, super cool, “Badass-,” oh whoops I mean, “Guardian Ranks.” The end game is perhaps the most disappointing thing is this game for hardcore veterans of the Borderlands series. Firstly, that “reworked” end game comes in the form of the new badass ranking system, only this time you can’t disable it (This pieceo of information has become outdated with time, a future update has included the option to turn off these gaurdian perks and the passive bonuses). I mean, this time you get some rewards for using the guardian ranks? Meh. Otherwise the game still revolves around making you play it multiple times in order to get to the level cap. The only real reworked thing here is the new mayhem difficulties, annnnd they’re bad. So what the mayhem system is supposed to do is make the game more difficult while incentivizing you to play it by giving you consistently better loot rewards (more blues, purples, and legendaries). This system would otherwise be okay if not for just one problem: Mayhem 2 added no difficulty to the game, while Mayhem 3 felt typical to Borderlands end game difficulty (It should be noted that the Mayhem system has been revamped to include 10 Mayhem levels). Again, this may be because of my own personal experience with the game, see apparently Flak is outright broken when it comes to crits (Future updates have severely nerfed Flak). So this could be influencing my opinion greatly on this difficulty switch. But I’ll say that I had no reason not to play Mayhem 2, because for essentially no difficulty increase, the game started commonly dropping me blues, purples, and legendaries, while rarely spitting out a green.

At this point I had essentially had enough with the game, as my terrible, clunky inventory was constantly filling with valuables, and I had to make constant stops to dump stuff out of my inventory. Given this, the fact that Mayhem gave you a ludicrous amount of XP for very little difficulty on Mayhem 2, and a quick Google search about the raid bosses in the game, I’ve ultimately put the game down. I went from level 39 to 44 in the span of an hour, was being drowned in good loot, and the biggest sting of all: There are no raid bosses in the base game of Borderlands 3.

This is a massive review for a game that probably doesn’t deserve it. Borderlands 3 has a lot of ups and downs. It’s not a game that many people will enjoy for the story. Veteran players may have a distaste for the lack of an interesting end game. All in all, if you’re playing Borderlands 3, you’re probably playing it for the gunplay and the loot, which still, somewhat, hold up. I didn’t see how the game had a billion guns, but you know what, that’s alright. And after all of the controversy, and now that Gearbox is releasing patches, performance fixes, and balancing to the game, it��s not that bad of a game. The game just doesn’t strike me as the godlike triple A, return to Borderlands that many had hoped for. Overall, I would give the game a 6/10.

EDITOR'S NOTE: There used to be a video here demonstrating a supposed XP glitch that had occurred to me while playing through True Vault Hunter Mode while using Mayhem. It turns out that, at the time, this was an intentional mechanic for Mayhem to give you massive XP gains. To correct for this error, the video has been pulled from Youtube and this paragraph has been written, as well as all mentions of the XP glitch being pulled from this article.

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