#we're shown something and told the inverse

[randomnameless]

Reading something about "why won't the CoS open the borders will Almyra?"

Disregarding the fact that the only CoS controlled territory is Garreg Mach and the Locket is located in the Alliance, why won't the Alliance open the border and welcome Almyrans with open arms?

Well, it's basically showcased (tfw show not tell) in a certain paralogue in FE16.

To start, this is one of the few "defend" maps in the entire game, iirc we have this one, the "protect GM" version of chapter 12, Shamir's paralogue and, iirc, Chapter 14 when Randolph tries to earn "merit".

Basically, the objective of this map is to protect the locket from Almyran forces who are raiding them for some reason.

Hilda starts with :

"Most of our allies have fallen."

So confirmation that Almyran forces aren't only coming with mock weapons to play bowling with their Fodlan neighbours, or are asking politely if they can pass, House Goneril's allies were killed.

"He's not here?! Oh... I'm sorry. You must have been absolutely terrified."

She tries to reassure her random (a Goneril soldier) that she will help, so they don't need to be afraid/to panic anymore.

"That's you, Professor. Please help us save our allies and protect Fódlan's Locket."

The first thing she says is to please "save" her allies/her randoms, and then to protect the locket. Emphasis again on "saving" lives, because Almyrans are raiding not only houses to bring souvenirs, but take lives too.

"Support! We're saved!" "Ah, things are looking up. Let's keep going, and save the others!"

Yep.

If a loldier dies :

"Oh no! They got one...but we can still rescue the others!"

Hilda still wants to "rescue" the others. She worries about the lives of her soldiers who are defending the Locket, but not only the locket!

If they all die, a soldier says this "We must defend here, or else... Our house... The Alliance...".

And if the line is breached, an Almyran soldier will say this :

"Yeah! We took Fódlan's Locket! With this, we'll be able to invade, no problem!"

:(

So bar this chapter blowing a hole the size of a 7 floors building in Claude's character across both games, we see here that, well, Almyra uses weapons and isn't afraid to kill Goneril soldiers who want to protect their homes and houses to "invade".

So who is behind Fodlan's general apathy towards Almyrans, the CoS like Claude says in both games (even if he seems to reconsider after discovering water is wet in VW), or Almyrans themselves???

Or, in other terms, who are we supposed to believe, Claude who tells us the CoS is the reason why Fodlan people don't like people coming from Almyra, or the game, showing us Almyrans are trouncing Fodlan people to happily invade ?

[alittlebitofloveliness]

Let's Talk about Soda and Cherry As Foils

It's pretty widely known and accepted that Bob and Randy are foils to Soda and Steve, almost the soc version of them, something Hinton even named in her book. However, I think BECAUSE she named this foiling people overlook another pair of narrative foils who are a little harder to notice but ultimately very interesting to analyze. This may ruffle some feathers, but I'm talking about how Bob and Cherry's relationship foils Soda and Sandy's. Cherry and Sandy are narratively as different as they could possibly be. Cherry is the queen of socs, a cheerleader, at the top of the social totem pole, whereas Sandy is pretty enough and 'sweet' but still a loud and brash greaser girl, with very little social status. That said, both girls managed to pull boys who are viewed highly by their peers in their own respective circles, Bob who was 'charming and funny' and well liked by socs, and Soda who was 'handsome enough even soc girls went after him'. HOWEVER, in my opinion, this is a very surface level view of these characters relationships foiling one another- and that's because I don't truly think Chery and Sandy foil each other, or that Bob and Soda do. If we're looking at foiling through the lense of both problematic romances, which both end badly (albeit in different ways) I actually think that Cherry and SODA foil each other the best. They both fell for problematic people, but Soda was too blind to see it, and Cherry willing to ignore it. They're both very clearly upset when their relationships end, but Cherry develops through the story to the point where it's questionable she would have stayed with Bob had he survived, whereas Soda admits he was willing to stay with Sandy and marry her even though she cheated and was having another man's baby. Now, having looked at Chery and Soda as foils, we now need to look at Sandy and Bob as foils. This is difficult, as neither character gets a lot of 'screen time', but narratively speaking, they're not that different. Both were good looking, known for being charismatic, but they both clearly had a dark side, something neither of them are shown to ever have had much remorse about. We know that Bob 'was always waiting for someone to tell him no', and I think to some extent the same could be said of Sandy. I don't want to impose TOOO much speculation into what's supposed to be a cut and dry character analysis, but in my experience cheaters often want the next, shiny new person, when they get bored/feel a lack of attention from their new partner, and I think that's what happened to her when the Curtis parents died and Soda had less time to shower her with attention/love. One COULD argue that Sandy also has the INVERSE of Bob's problem, in that she's spent her whole life being told no and not having enough, so that when she has a surplus of boys who are after her, the first time she's had "too much" of anything, she takes what she wants from all of them, however, I think that interpretation comes with it's own set of problems. Either way you look at it, Bob and Sandy both end up being wolves in sheep's clothing, albeit in different ways, and Cherry and Soda end up being the idiots who fell in love with them, and ended up breaking their own hearts in the process but also learning from these failed relationship experiences.

But yeah. Just some Thursday night thoughts.

[threeopennames]

HP1C3

Letters From There's A Sender On The Letter This Is Just Misleading Titling

We start this chapter with some more Harry abuse, and more Dudley hate. This chapter lets us know that Harry is going to a bad school, and Dudley going to a private one, again to layer on the whole abuse thing. I'll make a brief aside here to mention that there's a character named Mrs. Figgs that Harry doesn't like, although we're given no real reason to believe she's a bad person. The Dursley's send him to her when they want to leave him out of something, so maybe he's bitter at that, but it's kind of odd to spare a paragraph to dumb some hate on what sounds like some old retired woman with cats. The author might just not be a cat person.

Vernon and Petunia both heap loads of love on their son, which I think we're supposed to interpret as bad because if they were good parents, they'd be disciplining their son for being an asshole. But, like, it's hard for me to hate someone for showing unconditional love for their child. Yes, the abuse is bad and unforgivable! But I don't think the inverse is true, where if a bad person like, shows love to a small animal, I'm supposed to...hate the animal now? Like, it's twisted for sure, but it's not quite as clear cut as I think the author wants it to be. I would have preferred Dudley not exist at all, and the Dursleys just abused Harry because they hated children or something. What we're shown is not just that the Dursleys are miserable, angry, evil people (which they are), but that they are also fully capable of being loving and caring for one another. That's kind of weird, innit?

Anyway, a letter shows up, and Vernon sees that someone knows he's been abusing Harry, and panics, as is understandable. There's one line in here that I think is telling. The scenes and the following scenes are supposed to show escalating stakes as the Dursleys try to hide the letters from Harry. But what ends the scene is Vernon saying he wants to stamp out 'that dangerous nonsense'. As a first time reader, you don't really know what he's talking about, but if you're rereading you know he's talking about witchcraft and wizardardy and all that. Which, for those who might not be informed, IS actually incredibly dangerous nonsense! The seven books are basically nothing but dangerous nonsense. Vernon might not even be aware of how dangerous, but he knows Harry's parents were killed because of their affiliation with magic, and that Harry himself is possibly a magnet for that kind of danger. With this in mind, him being ridiculously scared of the letter comes off not so much as blind bigotry but like, a legitimate fear of the unknown. The magical world IS terrifying. A natural response to being told you're being watched by omnipotent reality benders who do not respect personal privacy, property, and answer to no one, is fear! That's a very reasonable thing to be afraid of!

Anyway, we're basically treated to slapstick for the rest of the chapter. With a different tone, all this would be the start of a horror short story. We're treated to totally not stalker levels of harassment as 'No One' continues to send letters to the Dursleys. He finally takes them out to an isolated cabin where of course, they'll all be murdered one by one, because that's what happens in stories like this.

The door bursts down and in walks the maniac, so you can play the jump scare track now.