korrssami

[korrssami]

alicent & motherhood

thinking abt that tiktok someone made about why we never see alicent giving birth, but we see aemma, laena and rhaenyra TWICE and how it's a way to disconnect alicent from motherhood, but also a way to keep the audience from perhaps empathising with her.

THIS alicent...

... is the alicent that gave birth to all her children. alicent was like 15/16 giving birth to aegon, and 18/19 giving birth to daeron. ik the hotd timeline/character ages are kinda cooked but like she was a mother of four before turning 20.

when alicent was pregnant with her fourth child, rhaenyra was pregnant with her first. not to mention that rhaenyra chose the father of her children, and while of course there was pressure on her to get pregnant, alicent had absolutely no choice in it. not when, or with who. would it have continued? would she have had more children if viserys didn't get so sick?

anyway. i just think it's weird that people have literally NO empathy for her, especially when it comes to her and her children.

[korrssami]

just endlessly thinking about blue eye samurai.

thinking about how akemi, taigen, and mizu are if a coin had three sides or maybe just the two and mizu is the bridge of metal between them.

akemi being the ideal image for women, for the life they endure. she was simultaneously a princess, a prostitute, and a prisoner. her entire life was men making decisions for her, even the ones that had good intentions, and she believed her deepest desire was freedom. it still is, but she has been revealed to this heinous predicament of her gender, and she’s realized that to reach true freedom as a woman is to be the bird in the cage, to play nice and to earn the love of a man until he buys her a bigger cage and a bigger cage until he trusts her not to fly away. and it'll never be true freedom, but it will come with power. it'll come with the freedom of only one master rather than many.

taigen being the ideal image of a man. not all powerful, but not weak. he had a taste of what it'd be to succeed, and when it was taken from him, that easy success, he mistook it for his honor. he hunted mizu down to kill him, and instead he saved him. he saved him and saved him and he came closer to killing mizu when they were on the cliff's edge, and just when he gets to the point where he may actually fight mizu, he's tortured for information on him. he is tortured. Literally tortured within an inch of his life, enduring such a heinous violence, and he refuses to break. this man was a fight, was the torturer, and the victim of his torturing could've been his salvation from pain but he refused. mizu gave back taigen's honor but not by fighting him.

akemi wanted freedom and learned she would need power to have it.

taigen wanted power and learned that the violence that came with it was infinite and dishonorable.

and then there's mizu. mizu who wants revenge, wants acceptance. arguably the same things as them both. mizu wants acceptance, the freedom of living and the freedom to love and be loved. mizu wants revenge, which follows after violence and power, to get said acceptance. she thinks she must do both, have both, to live peacefully, and she's blatant about how she will not live without either.

she's given acceptance with the blacksmith, her "mother," her husband, but she sees the flecks of avoidance in it.

the blacksmith will not hear of her true gender. her "mother" will not acknowledge the crime of her birth. her husband can't find tolerance for the violence within her, the man of her.

and so she has to balance the woman and man of her, the ronin and the bride. taigen and akemi. and it's meeting mizu that they start to unravel their own identities.

mizu, who is both, and akemi and taigen who thought themselves one but turned out to be neither.

god.

[korrssami]

the reveal that mizu is not only the ronin but also the bride is so well executed. the way she walks the line between man and woman, white and japanese, victor and victim... it's good fucking writing.

[korrssami]

Mizu, femininity, and fallen sparrows

In my last post about Mizu and Akemi, I feel like I came across as overly critical of Mizu given that Mizu is a woman who - in her own words - has to live as a man in order to go down the path of revenge.

If she is ever discovered to be female by the wrong person, she will not only be unable to complete her quest, but there's a good chance that she'll be arrested or killed.

So it makes complete sense for Mizu to distance herself as much as possible from any behavior that she feels like would make someone question her sex.

I felt so indignant toward Mizu on my first couple watchthroughs for this moment. Why couldn't Mizu bribe the woman and her child's way into the city too? If Mizu is presenting as a man, couldn't she claim to be the woman's escort?

However, this moment makes things pretty clear. Mizu knows all too well the plight of women in her society. She knows it so well that she cannot risk ever finding herself back in their position again. She helps in what little way she can - without drawing attention to herself.

Mizu is not a hero and she is not one to make of herself a martyr - she will not set herself on fire to keep others warm. There's room to argue that Mizu shouldn't prioritize her quest over people's lives, but given the collateral damage Mizu can live with in almost every episode of season 1, Mizu is simply not operating under that kind of morality at this point. ("You don't know what I've done to reach you," Mizu tells Fowler.)

And while I still feel like Mizu has an obvious and established blind spot when it comes to Akemi because of their differences in station, such that Mizu's judgment of Akemi and actions in episode 5 are the result of prejudice rather than the result of Mizu's caution, I also want to establish that Mizu is just as caged as Akemi is, despite her technically having more freedom while living as a man.

Mizu can hide her mixed race identity some of the time, and she can hide her sex almost all of the time, but being able to operate outside of her society's strict rules for women does not mean she cannot see their plight.

It does not mean she doesn't hurt for them.

Back to Mizu and collateral damage, remember that sparrow?

While Mizu is breaking into Boss Hamata's manse, she gets startled by a bird and kills it on reflex. She then cradles it in her hands - much more tenderly than we've seen Mizu treat almost anything up to this point in the season:

She then puts it in its nest, with its unhatched eggs. Almost like she's trying to make the death look natural. Or like an accident.

You see where I'm going with this.

When Mizu kills Kinuyo, Mizu lingers in the moment, holding the body tenderly:

And btw a lot of stuff about this show hit me hard, but this remains the biggest gut punch of them all for me, Mizu holding that poor girl's body close, GOD

When Mizu arranges the "scene of the crime," Kinuyo's body is delicate, birdlike. And Mizu is so shaken afterward that she gets sloppy. She's horrified at this kill to the point that she can't bring herself to take another innocent life - the boy who rats her out.

MIZU'S ONE MOMENT OF SOFTNESS AND MERCY, COMING ON THE HEELS OF HER NEEDING TO KILL A GIRL TO SPARE HER THE WORST FATE THAT THIS RIGID SOCIETY HAS TO OFFER WOMEN, AND TO SPARE A BROTHEL FULL OF INNOCENT WOMEN WHO ARE THE CASTOFFS OF SOCIETY, NEARLY RESULTS IN ALL OF THEIR DEATHS

No wonder Mizu is as stoic and cold as she is.

And no wonder Mizu has no patience for Akemi whatsoever right before the terrible reveal and the fight breaks out:

Speaking of Akemi - guess who else is compared to a bird!

The plumage is more colorful, a bit flashier. But a bird is a bird.

And, uh

Yeah.

I like to think that Mizu killing the sparrow is not only foreshadowing for what she must do to Kinuyo, but is also a representation of the choice she makes on Akemi's behalf. She decides to cage the bird because she believes the bird is "better off." Better off caged than... dead.

But because Mizu doesn't know Akemi or her situation, she of course doesn't realize that the bird is fated to die if it is caged and sent back home.

Mizu is clearly not happy, or pleased, or satisfied by allowing Akemi to be dragged back to her father:

But softness and mercy haven't gotten Mizu anywhere good, recently.

There is so much tragedy layered into Mizu's character, and it includes the things she has to witness and the choices she makes - or believes she has to make - involving women, when she herself can skirt around a lot of what her society throws at women. Although, I do believe that it comes at the cost of a part of Mizu's soul.

After all, I'm gonna be haunted for the rest of this show by Mizu's very first prayer in episode 1:

"LET" her die. Because as Ringo points out, she doesn't "know how" to die.

Kind of like another bird in this show:

[korrssami]

Bruce Wayne/Batman & Talia Al Ghul is the ship known as Brutalia. Its lesser known names are Brutal, Battalia and Demonbat.

Brutalia is such a great ship because these two individuals are so similar yet different at the same time. They understand each other on an emotional level only they can understand. They have both had terrible upbringings. They are two broken people, but when you put the pieces together they form one whole united by love and loyalty. You wouldn’t think two people so broken, so deprived of love and the normalcy of life could have such a loving, caring, meaningful relationship, but they do. Plus the fact it’s a tragic hero “villain” romance makes it better.

Talia is the daughter of Ra’s Al Ghul, the demon’s head, one of Batman’s greatest and most formidable foes, yet despite that he can see past it and love her for who she really is. Bruce loves her and Talia loves him. For god’s sake, her traditional role was to be Batman’s love interest. She isn’t so much as a villain, more so a morally grey antihero. Time and time again she risks everything she has and goes against everything she has ever known to protect her beloved. She goes out of her way to disobey/betray own her father and sabotage his plans for her dark knight. Their relationship is completely mutual, two sided. They both love each other always will.

That is until he, who shall not be named, but we all know who I am talking about, completely wrecked her character and brought upon years of hate and slander against her name, turning her into the Talia Al Ghul most people know today. He said Talia never loved Bruce, that she was using him and that she drugged and raped him to conceive an heir for the League of Assassins. They retconned this. It became, and is canon. This all happend because he could not be bothered to reread a comic, Batman: Son Of The Demon, and tried to rewrite Bruce and Talia’s relationship from memory and we all know how well that turned out. When asked about the it, the writer said that when Superboy Prime punched the universe in Infinite Crisis, this happend as a result, but we all know he was lying to cover his ass. Since then, the writer has apologised, saying that it was a mistake to demonise Talia, and that’s putting it lightly. Then they retconned their retcon and made the sex consensual, but that doesn’t fix the years of slander upon her name. It doesn’t change most people’s opinion of Talia and her relationship with Bruce.

Sorry, I kind went off topic with my rant. Anyway, where was I going with this? Oh, right. Bruce and Talia are one of, if not the best couples in DC. Their feelings and emotions are so genuine. The dynamic of their relationship is so great, so wholesome. The only reason more people don’t ship them is because they don’t get as much attention as some other ships and Talia’s demonisation. Brutalia is such an under appreciated and misunderstood ship, and they deserve more love and attention.

[korrssami]

*Azula burns a doll*

Fandom: She was born evil

*Zuko burns a village*

Fandom: He's just misunderstood

[korrssami]

Something about Bruce still hanging around lower-class areas. Not just as Batman with crime rates and all that, but billionaire Bruce Wayne. Because his parents took him to places from their childhoods and he grew up under Dr. Thompkins so he spends his time sitting in a shotty theater, watching circus performers, spending time with the community he resides over. The other socialites sit and ignore the plights of the working class or even outright abuse them, but not Bruce.

Something about Bruce taking in all these lower-class kids. Whether son of an immigrant, from a poor neighborhood, abusive parents. All children that society would have thrown away. He raises them to spread the same kindness, to spread hope to those like them. He surrounds himself with people at the bottom. His wife a convicted criminal, his father a butler, his friends reporters and felons.

Something about Bruce dedicating his life to reaching down to pull everyone else up.

[korrssami]

The Handmaiden (2016) dir. Park Chan-wook // Interview with the Vampire episode 11 (2024) dir. Levan Akin

He lost his Hindu-originated name “Arun” when he was trafficked from Dehli as a child, was renamed “Amadeo” by his paedophile Maker the vampire Marius, then finally assigned “Armand” by the Roman coven before they sent him to France. He’s also lost his voice in a way, shown code-switching and adopting different accents in different settings. Throughout world history, colonised peoples have often been forced to adopt the languages and names of their oppressive colonisers as a way to erase their cultural identities.

Armand’s history was essentially colonised. His personal sexual trauma is an allegory for wider colonial trauma. This idea was explored similarly in Park Chan-wook’s 2016 film The Handmaiden, where the character Hideko’s forced exposure to pornographic Japanese literature as a child is meant to parallel the colonial oppression of the Japanese occupation of Korea.

The only evidence remaining of Armand’s experiences of sexual and colonial violence is this painting The Adoration of the Shephards With a Donor that hangs in the Louvre. Another cruel irony here is that ‘Adoration of the Shepherds’ is an episode of Jesus’s nativity. Arun as a (presumably) Hindu boy was used as a prop in a Christian narrative. The one historical document that exists of his mortal life is a depiction of his religious assimilation. Completely divorced from his roots, with no identity outside the roles his abusers assigned him, Armand, Amadeo, and Arun “were cut loose and dead like children turned to stone.” Being immortalised, “donated”, and placed on display in a European museum, a space he’s not even really allowed to access, for the mostly-white gaze is a clear metaphor for colonisers’ persisting theft of cultural artefacts belonging to their victims.

The only consolation this journey has for Armand is creative inspiration. He took Amadeo, trapped in the horror of his youth for the entertainment of others, and transferred that idea into the play My Baby Loves Windows to torture Claudia.

Armand, colonialism, and the weaponisation of anti-Blackness by Deah

[korrssami]

Sadness is a condition of motherhood. There's naught to be gained from it.

[korrssami]

"Sadness is a condition of motherhood."

From the moment Eve shed her first tears over Abel’s death, mothers throughout history have carried a profound sorrow alongside the joy of nurturing life. No mother has escaped this sorrow since Eve's first tears—not Mary, who wept at the foot of the cross; not Queen Victoria, who mourned her beloved Albert for decades; and not even the mythological mothers like Queen Hecuba, who grieved over the fall of Troy, Gaia, the Earth herself mourning her children's conflicts, or Rhea, lamenting the loss of her offspring to Cronus.

This intertwining of joy and grief defines the essence of motherhood. Each mother, in her own way, experiences the bittersweet reality of raising children: the inevitable distance that grows as children mature, the anxiety for their safety, and the heartbreak when they suffer. Motherhood is a tapestry woven with both love and loss, and among all these sorrows, Mary stands as the lady of profound mourning, embodying the ultimate sacrifice and pain as she watched her son endure unimaginable suffering.

Now, as war looms on the horizon, Alicent's grief deepens. She has already lost her grandson, and her daughter mourns her baby boy. With conflict inevitable, countless more mothers will weep over their sons, and sadness will once again be their constant companion. Alicent's sons are spiralling out of control, driven by reckless ambition and disregard for the suffering they may cause. They now seek to drag her golden boy from Oldtown into the fray—a child, not even of age to join the fight, with a dragon he's scarcely old enough to command.

And on the other side of this war is Rhaenyra, another grieving mother, her former friend (and lover), now turned rival. Sadness is her constant companion as well, and peace is no longer an option for either of them. Both are mothers engulfed in a conflict that promises only more loss and sorrow, their shared history overshadowed by the looming shadows of war. Each mother's heart breaks for her children, knowing the path ahead is paved with grief and bloodshed.

[korrssami]

this whole scene is so creepy like….the way he’s dragging claudia like a doll, calling her “our beautiful little daughter” when he doesn’t know her, the “i’ll be anything,” lestat’s look of resignation and misery…ldpdl there isn’t enough therapy in the world for u

[korrssami]

I feel like I get to pick one thing for myself, and it's her. A weird white lady I met by happenstance.

[korrssami]

"You must join or die."

[korrssami]

i really thought everyone understood the claudia-lestat comparisons are about how the qualities everyone lauds in lestat (white man) are punished in claudia (black woman).

it's meant to be a contrast not a quirky aw they're so similar. she tells us

lestat is kept by magnus for days and comes out rich. claudia is kept by bruce for days and comes out traumatised and reminded she cannot travel alone ever again.

anne used lestat to jerk off on a very specific brand of white masculinity. rj and crew interrogate what are the consequences of white masculinity on others.

[korrssami]

the parallel! between Armand choosing to betray Louis to save himself! despite having the power to save everyone! and Madeleine choosing to die with Claudia! while actually being powerless to save anyone!

[korrssami]

Just had a thought about this line. After Azula says this, Zuko doesn't say anything to try and deny it. Which is what you would expect him to do since what she's saying is technically an insult to his favorite person in the world. The fact that he says nothing says one of two things:

Zuko himself thinks that Azula is a monster, and thus sees nothing wrong with what she just said.

He doesn't say anything because from what he can remember about Ursa and Azula before their mother disappeared, they never had a positive interaction between each other, and that Ursa always treated Azula differently. So regardless of whether or not Ursa actually said that to Azula, her actions towards her made that way of thinking perfectly clear.

Also worth noting that absolutely nothing in canon says that Azula's way of thinking about her mother is wrong. I know that people like to use the mirror scene as proof, but here's the thing about that: it's a hallucination of Ursa. An image from Azula's mind, that is saying things that Azula wants to hear in that moment, things that she wishes her mother had said to her back when she was a child. Positive reinforcement that she always gave to Zuko no matter what he did. Particularly the "I love you, Azula. I do" part. Because out of everything else, Azula desperately wanted her mother to love her. And she never felt that she did.

[korrssami]

After the finale, many seems to conclude that Toranaga's schemes has always been perfect from the start, that every events and every deaths are all part of his design all along, happening exactly how he wants it. But really it was only half true. His "sacrifices" aren't intentional sacrifices. No matter how clean he plotted, unexpected blunders always occurred beyond his control, he just happens to be very good at letting it flow rather than going against the current.

Tadayoshi and Tsurumaru, Fuji's husband and son. Toranaga never even intended them to die. Before he came to Osaka, he took Ochiba to Edo because her sister was in labour, knowing the regents wouldn't dare to do anything to him while the heir's mother is still in his domain. Everything would've gone all calm and well until at least Ochiba came back and the council voted. But Tadayoshi unexpectedly lashed out publicly with half-drawn katana in front of the regents (in Tadayoshi's defense: he does it out of loyalty for Toranaga), such offense would've sentenced Toranaga and his entire clan to die had he didn't de-escalate the situation. Tadayoshi then asked for seppuku and to end his bloodline out of shame for his outburst. Hiromatsu said he was foolish for it, but Toranaga acknowledged Tadayoshi's bravery, and ensured Fuji be spared from it.

The show didn't quite picture it, but in the book Toranaga was actually quite shocked to found that Yabushige had assembled a sizable army when he arrived in Ajiro, large enough to end him had Yabushige wanted to betray him right there. However, he kept a calm facade and maxed out charisma points to sway Yabu's army into loyalty, right out of Yabu's hands, acting as the true interest of the late Taiko.

Toranaga never intended to draw the first blood with the killing of Jozen. Nagakado was honestly to blame for this, even Omi too for provoking it. But then it turned out to be a W move for him, because in response the entire Osaka would be out for blood for his head into the open field . No matter how strong Toranaga's army is, attacking five armies inside a fully armed fortress would be a foolish instant defeat.

Then Nagakado acted out of place once again. So many had said that Toranaga "sacrificed" his son, when actually this boy is one rabid horse and Toranaga was right to pull his reins. If everyone is somewhat a "pawn" for Toranaga to use, he didn't actually count Nagakado as one. He always tried to keep Nagakado away from the big fight, if not out of love then at least out of wisdom for his son's recklessness. When Saeki handed the order for Nagakado to commit seppuku over the crime of killing Jozen, Toranaga sternly prevented it. Remember that he could've just let Nagakado took it like Tadayoshi did, it would've been a fair retribution and de-escalate the hostility, but still he didn't.

In Nagakado's defense, how would you feel being the son of a great lord famous for astounding achievement at such a young age, and then you, the no swag son. Even if Toranaga didn't expect Nagakado to copy him, the people around them would still constantly compare them. That's why Nagakado was so rogue to prove himself. It was exactly the same with Saeki, so jealous of Toranaga that when the opportunity arise to thwart his brother he took it.

Toranaga was fully prepared for the real Crimson Sky until the earthquake devastated his army, not to mention the unexpected betrayal from his brother. He had no choice but to surrender.

Nagakado's death was the most unnecessary, truly no beauty in it. He was the one blunder that kept blundering himself out of his father's control. But then turns out the mourning period for Nagakado was crucial for Toranaga to plan the next move. Without it, the council would've immediately ordered him and his clan's execution and it would be all for nothing. In the end, he made his son's ugly death into a meaningful one.

Then came Hiromatsu's death, the most costly death for Toranaga. Being friends for so long they understood the cost of the greater goal. Yes Nagakado's death did buy him some time, but the council wouldn't be so convinced of his surrender, the master of trickery™. Plus they took Nagakado's death as a bare minimum L. "Don't give up on our lord, even when it appears he has given up on himself." Hiromatsu knew that they have come so far and they couldn't stop now, so out goes Toranaga's best guy to complete the surrender facade.

The secret ultimate ace card was Mariko. From the beginning, no one seemed to fully catch up with Toranaga, not even Hiromatsu, except for Mariko. The relationship between Toranaga and Mariko was a mutual one, each with their own goals but happens to be intertwined in the same path.

Toranaga didn't even intend for Mariko to die. The book explained that Toranaga had future plans for Mariko after the war, to divorce her from Buntaro and have her as his messenger to England with John. He knows that Mariko was the only one who could reach Ochiba. He just wanted Mariko to come get Kiri, Shizu, and their newborn son to get out of Osaka, at the same time tell Ishido he's a bitch and hopefuly broke Ishido and Ochiba's alliance (the Minowara sends their regards). It was ONE BIRD throwing TWO STONES. Unfortunately, then he lost his ace card too but damn did it worked a little too well, he literally won the war because of it.

People expected John to be Toranaga's secret weapon, setting the expectation of a "Some dude got isekai-ed into foreign world and now he's destined to save it" trope.

To borrow Mon Mothma's quote: "I show you the John in my hand, you miss the Mariko at your throat".

Yabushige was the audience's voice when he asked "How does it feel to shape the wind to your will?" Because everyone saw Toranaga's final reveal and thought damn it was him all along! But then Toranaga went meta and replied, "I don't control the wind, I only study it." No, everything didn't fell into place like exactly how he wanted. He's not the all-knowing untouchable god. Many times he was crossed and blocked, but instead of trying to force his path through, he simply let it flow. His schemes are not a rigid linear one like how his opponents worked, but it branches and found its own way, and that's how he won.