#so all we have are those implications. same with babs actually - she never appears in the jaybin era

[warrior-of-storms]

Okay but do you know what really gets me?

There's no one left in-universe who can or will talk about Jaybin as he really was.

Bruce is the founder of the Jaybin Slander Department;

Alfred is no better.

Dick wasn't around much, didn't know him that well.

If Barbara ever interacted with him in his original run, I haven't found it yet.

I mean, he had some interactions with the Teen Titans, but was he really close with any of them?

I suppose Gordon could, assuming he isn't in on the Jason-bashing. I haven't seen it but I could be missing something.

And, well, Jason... somehow, I don't think anyone's asking Jason what he was like as a kid, nor is he really a reliable source. Autobiographical memory is weird.

No one in-universe will ever really talk about this bright, friendly, eager kid, and it's a tragedy.

He was smart and clever and had so much compassion.

He wanted so badly to help people, and he found joy in his work as Robin.

He had a dramatic flair and he was kind of a nerd and he was really funny on occasion.

He was so deeply, fundamentally good, and the fact that somehow his legacy has been twisted into one of anger and recklessness is honestly a crime.

It makes me so desperately sad that there's not a single character who can even start to undo the lasting damage of a four-decade smear campaign against a kid who did nothing to deserve it.

[morgannormally]

halfway through nona, gonna jot down some of my thoughts

- John’s comment about puns being automatically funny pretty much confirms my working theory that in the dream sequences, Harrow and Alecto are being mixed up, and so are Jod and Gideon (Gideon said pretty much that exact same thing at some point in GtN

- Prince Ianthe Naberius. What the fuck. I don’t think the eyes really match either Ianthe or Babs, but I don’t really remember what Babs’ eyes were like. Jod has definitely done some reprogramming with her, hopefully she gets her mind back (maybe he tried to resurrect her cavalier and it went super wrong like he said would happen if he tried to resurrect Gideon, we don’t know how that would work on a real Lyctor)

-Gideon’s dead body and new name. We now know that her not decomposing at all isn’t unique to her, which does have some implications. Her new name is very troubling (Kipaia Gaia, or something along those lines). Why are they just showing her corpse off on camera. Is Jod going to reanimate her?

-Ulysses and Titania. Hm. Implies that everyone Jod resurrects is a blank slate who he commands like in the Sims. Maybe everyone was like them after the Resurrection, and he had to program all of them to be people again. At some point Ulysses and Titania are going to obtain souls (presumably, otherwise they would not be able to do the Lyctorhood thing). Overall very troubling

-Same topic as above, if all of humanity is Jod’s game of the Sims, it might explain his “time” powers, he has full control over every cell of every person, they do exactly as he commands. When I reread Harrow I am going to watch for every time he tells someone to do something, there might be some trickery where he never actually tells someone to do anything, and the times he does they do it (maybe without knowing why)

-I think Alecto might have been Jod’s mother. The comment about him not being able to sleep without her standing in a hallway or touching his face really made it seem that way, and it could explain why he was so deadset on curing her

-The Angel. The car scene really gave the vibe that her and the driver are people we should know, but there is no way for them to be, every character we have met in previous books has either died or made an appearance already. Her description reminded me a bit of Abigail, but it could not be her without some very weird timeline stuff I’m pretty sure she is a necromancer, maybe one of the Sixth? Not sure what the deal with the driver is

-Nona’s whole deal is exactly as confusing as before, she cannot read or write but can understand every spoken language (including non-human languages like what Judith was screaming, probably communication from Varun)

-When I reread I will have to pay attention to the chapter markers, sometimes they are House skulls, sometimes they are the Tomb, sometimes they are a random building I can’t identify

-Cam and Pal are amazing as I expected, their swapping is really interesting. They also “fused” that one time, which has some implications. Maybe they are going to become a soul melange like Teacher (probably not the best existence, but better 2 people who are already super close than 50 probably random people, probably less insanity)

That’s all I can think of, time to once again leave tumblr until I finish, see you on the other side

[hopelesstvaddict]

RAVING REVIEW ON A HOSTILE HOSPITAL

For its penultimate two-part adaptation of the season, A Series of Unfortunate Events nails the perfect episodes and offers its best installments yet - the equivalent of Game of Thrones' ninth episodes. After the somewhat tepid Vile Village, the show embraces the horrors of The Hostile Hospital and manages to deliver on all fronts.

It is in great part thanks to Neil Patrick Harris whose performance as Olaf has never been better than here. Olaf makes it clear it's not a game anymore this time and Harris is absolutely convincing in his devious cruelty and ruthlessness. It's a major improvement from the previous episodes and in doing so, he manages to also pull Lucy Punch with him as well. Esme is no less scary than her partner and a major force to reckon with, as seen in the cliffhanger that ends Part One - the most thrilling scene of the season if not the entire series. That scene tops the first half of an installment that was already perfect in many ways. Once again, the show must be commended for its cinematography and musical score, both working marvels to conjure the eerie, disturbing and somehow terrifying atmosphere of the titular American Horror Story-esque hospital and making The Hostile Hospital essentially a thriller. That series is probably not the sole inspiration or reference here as the Two Faced-Powdered Women (Jacqueline and Joyce Robbins) scare away Babs (Kerri Kenney-Silver) Stephen King's IT-styled, complete with red balloons. The latter also sees her role once again expanded but it's for the best, offering another of those you-thought-you'd-win-well-think-again scenes similar to Olaf's aborted arrest in The Vile Village.

Book deviations have never been better than in those two episodes. VFD takes a step back as neither Olivia nor Larry nor Jacquelyn appear but we still get a surprise appearance from the dead Jacques through the most important Snicket file. While in the books it was in literary form, the show upgrades it to a film which allows Nathan Fillion to grace our screens once again while delivering another bombshell - one of the Baudelaire parents may be still alive. It's a bit baffling that the first revelation that led to this one (in the books, Hal (David Alan Grier) recognizes the children as explicitly mentioned in the Snicket file) is not included but that was ultimately rendered unnecessary given Snicket's revelations. And if we were taught enough by now to be suspicious on the question (after all, Snicket does not mention what particular fire it was and there have been many at this point) the show tries hard to steer us in that direction as Olaf does seem none too pleased to come to the same conclusion as well - another deviation, or perhaps more of a confirmation as he was heavily implied in the books to have had something to do with the fire.

He certainly seems to enjoy arson as he both unwittingly and then willingly sets Heimlich Hospital on fire. The act itself is seen rather than implied in the books and that's perhaps a good thing. The show gets better and better at trying to tie everything together and explaining what it can explain while keeping blurry what must remain blurry. It is for example very satisfying to have a proper explanation (however simple) to the question of how Olaf always managed to catch up on the Baudelaires, however far they went when that was more of a stretch in the books. Another nice revelation is the actual showing of the revered sugar bowl, a fleeing storyline the series has tackled much more clearly than the novels ever have. Esme's obsession with it now borders on comical relief and clashes with Olaf's desires to smash the orphans but she voices the concerns of legions of book readers who agonized over what purpose this item exactly had. To actually see it hidden here in the hospital is a reward in itself and for a moment, fear crept in that since the sugar bowl was never revealed in the books, then perhaps the show could not do it either and that it would be lost in the fire. But then the final scene happened and our interest got renewed. Kudos to the show too for understanding its source material better and better both by nodding to its habit of foreshadowing its next installment (that's twice now that Madame Lulu from The Carnivorous Carnival is mentioned) and also with visual parodies (The Vile Village featured a particular book with a cover and edition similar to the real-life editions of the novels). Lemony's quiet personal reveal does beg the question to be asked considering what happened to Jacques, Josephine, Uncle Monty or his assistant Gustav - are the remaining VFD members headed the same way ?

But it is the story itself and its adaptation that win here. Violet's abduction and cranioectomy feel all too real and we're genuinely anxious about the fates of the three orphans. Especially when Harris is so convincing in his threats not only of succeeding in stealing their fortune but also erasing the Baudelaire family once and for all - a scene that gets a whole new meaning now that we know (or do we?) that one of the parents may have survived. While the implications are not clear (Olaf does not really explain how he plans to get the fortune with Violet dead; we can only assume that he counts of Klaus and Sunny to rescue her so that he can snatch one of them while killing the other two and keep only one to come of age so that the fortune is legally inherited; or he means to kill them all and steal the fortune in not so legal ways), it does point more and more in the direction of an awful past drama between Olaf, the Baudelaires and the Snickets - one that left Olaf bitter enough to turn his back on VFD and former friends and to now want to destroy the legacy of his enemies. Nonetheless, the cranioectomy scene itself is almost rendered as close as it was in the books down to the Sleeping Beauty reference - visually matched perfectly with the arrangement of Malina Weissman's long hair around her head - to the disturbing gestures of an adult towards a teenage girl. Only this time, it falls to Olaf (who in the books was not present at the actual scene) to do it instead of the Hook-Handed Man and the Bald Man - all for the better as it perfectly fits the former's state of mind this episode and it would have seemed out of character for the two latter. For all their following of their leader, Olaf's troop remains a source of comical relief and that's no less an achievement that they can and indeed will be as ruthless as their boss at the same time. Having Klaus forced to perform the operation by Esme and Olaf instead of them falling for his disguise (a clever way to bypass his and Sunny's rather difficult book counterparts replacing the Two Powdered Women) gives another extra shade of devious in an already dark story. How good of a contrast it is then to juxtapose the scary parts with the upbeat singing of the VFD (not the real one) members - that is what can be called an effective use of musical numbers. Just in passing, John Bobek fits much more the image I had in mind for Hector but that's just a minor detail.

But it's perhaps in the most random and quiet moments this adaptation works best. In a rare scene of calm and reflecting, Hal invites the children to literally look up to the stars and be upbeat about the outcome of things, sharing some wise knowledge about how, in the future, it'll be their turn to help others in need (foreshadowing much?). It's a nice moment, tender and hopeful and it is then the cleverest choice to follow it with the children's first step into morally grey areas. Malina Weissman and Louis Hynes are absolutely great at portraying the inner turmoils of their minds, of straying away from the right path - VFD's path? - and what it costs them to effectively lose their integrity. That is the kind of reflection, the kind of questions A Series of Unfortunate Events is best at raising. Not about nebulous organizations. Not about mysterious cooking recipients. But the personal kind, the kind that push you to reconsider your nature and your own beliefs and to push them against circumstances. It's ultimately a question of finding yourself and having the strength to ask 'Who am I?'