#(despite appearing in the anime pretty conspicuously quite a bit already)

[rimurutempest]

im so mad CR won't let me take screenshots through their stupid app i just want to talk about how they changed asmodeus' bandages from the

manga to what looks like a binder or undershirt, whereas before it was simple enough to assume he could just have been bandaged up from his training with balam,

thus bringing attention to & centering the layer under his uniform & adding credence to the already weighty "Alice Asmodeus is transgender" theory, but nooooooo

gotta make screenshots black. heaven forbid fans of a series just want to screenshot a frame or two for whatever reason. 🙄

[shihalyfie]

02′s influence on Adventure

You’re probably reading the title and going “...what? Isn’t 02 the sequel to Adventure? How would a series be influenced by its own future sequel?”

The thing is, assuming that Adventure was written in a vacuum and everything in 02 a retrofit runs very contrary to how both series were produced, and how this kind of anime is produced in general -- Adventure and 02 share almost identical staff members, and were separated only by a real-life single week in airing time. 02′s existence was not a sudden last-minute decision that was tacked on at the end! In fact, Adventure being extended to a second series was decided seven months into its production, right around the end of the Tokyo arc (sometime around the third cour). Despite it being a rather tonally different series, 02 is really just Adventure’s staff...writing more.

This means that by the time production had moved to Adventure’s final arc, the staff was very aware that they would be on for another year writing a sequel to this anime -- which thus likely became the fuel behind many of its creative decisions, made specifically to pave the way for 02.

The ending

Yeah, so, this ending. You know this really famous ending? The one that’s had such an impact on franchise history that a lot of later things have even tried to imitate it in some form? The one that everyone cites as one of Adventure’s most famous scenes (for good reason)? This ending only exists because of 02. You know what actually would have been Adventure’s ending if 02 hadn’t existed?

The 02 epilogue.

The ending that we now know as the “02 epilogue” was actually decided on before recording for Adventure had even started. (They weren’t even sure about finalizing the character personalities yet!) All of the most substantial details about that epilogue -- the series actually being the adult Takeru’s novel, everyone in the world having a Digimon partner, and, as it seems, even Yamato and Sora getting married -- were decided on before 02 was even in the picture.  Most likely, the only material difference would have been that the four characters introduced in 02 (Daisuke, Miyako, Iori, and Ken) and their partners wouldn’t have been involved, but everything else would have roughly been the same as the “epilogue” we know now. (This especially makes sense when you consider that one of Adventure’s major influences was the movie Stand By Me, which is extremely culturally influential in Japan as a “childhood summer adventure story”, and involves a similar timeskip epilogue with one character growing up to chronicle the story as a writer.) All of this was basically intended to tie into Adventure as a narrative of “a story of humanity’s evolution”, so this ending was envisioned as the “natural conclusion” of the story of Adventure as a whole. If anything from the original Adventure ending would have been retained in this hypothetical scenario of only Adventure existing, perhaps the sentiment of “parting” at the end -- but then it would still be followed by a timeskip epilogue 28 years later and everyone in the world having a partner.

But then it was decided that a second series would be made, and at some point they decided it would be a series set three years after the first, resulting in: this.

What this means is that Adventure’s ending was only ever intended as an ending for a single chapter in the overall Adventure series narrative. A lot of people like to pose 02′s existence or epilogue as something that “undid” Adventure’s ending, as if it was supposed to be some “ambiguous bittersweet” ending about whether they ever met their partners again, but...that ignores the real-life context of Adventure and 02′s production, where Our War Game! (which depicted an easy reunion with their partners, went out of its way to cameo Miyako in advance, and, for all intents and purposes, practically spoiled Adventure’s ending by depicting them as separated at all) screened before Adventure’s last episode aired, and there’s also the Adventure mini dramas that depicted more incidental meetings (and despite the constant fourth wall breaking and absurd crack content in them, yes, they’re intended to be taken as canon).

Again: in real life, the first episode of 02 aired one week after the last episode of Adventure. Even the real-life audience was likely well aware that this wasn’t going to be the end (and if they weren’t, they certainly would be when the promotional trailers for 02 started airing right after Adventure’s last -- and that’s assuming you missed all of the promotion appearing in real life beforehand, including at the end of Our War Game!’s screenings). The production staff all knew, because they’d already been working on 02 for months now -- they postponed their originally intended ending just to make this new one, after all!

So yeah, this line isn’t supposed to be just a vague “oh, maybe they’ll meet again” in an abstract poetic sense -- it’s completely literal, because it’s hinting at said gate opening again one real-life week later.

From both a story perspective and a real-life audience perspective, this ending was never meant to be seen as ambiguous.

Takeru and Hikari’s character arcs

02 often gets an accusation of being lacking in the character development department (one that I seriously disagree with and have been working very hard to counter), but this accusation especially gets levied often at Takeru and Hikari, who are often said to be “flat” or “kind of just there” in 02 (which, again, I object to; more on this below). This is often rationalized as a theory that the writers didn’t know what to do with them because they’d already been in Adventure, but...this, again, assumes too much that Adventure was written in a self-contained vacuum and anything in 02 was just an addition done after the fact.

There’s actually quite a bit of evidence that the last cour (or at least a significant amount of it) was written with the idea that Takeru and Hikari were going to be starring in the next series in mind.

This is especially pretty apparent when you get to the last episode, where Takeru and Hikari are conspicuously the ones to leave off on the most confident “we’ll meet again” notes, compared to the other six. Of course, they do it in their own respective ways (Takeru and Patamon resolve to make it happen, while Hikari cryptically acts like it’s already bound to happen, borderline prophetically), and maybe you could chalk it up to the fact that they’re the youngest and therefore most naive of this group...but, again, remember: 02′s first episode aired one week after this one, where we would immediately be treated to Takeru and Hikari following up on this. Given that, you can basically see this as a wink and a nod: “yeah, these two have a story that’s not over yet.”

And as much as I may sound like a heathen to the fanbase by claiming this, I would actually say that it’s the opposite of the above claim: Takeru and Hikari both have pretty unresolved arcs by the end of Adventure compared to the rest of the other kids, and in fact are fleshed out more in 02. It’s honestly kind of a stretch to say that they “already got development” in Adventure -- Takeru still has a ton of unresolved issues with his family and trauma and emotional behavior that aren’t properly addressed to nearly the same degree as how the older kids have their core issues brought to the forefront, while Hikari really was only around for less than half the series, and not only is her main problem of emotional suppression told purely from Taichi’s mouth and not her own, we also get no real follow-up on how she intends to work past that.

Those are some pretty huge things to leave unresolved at the end of a series that’s known for its focus on individual character development, and considering that the premise of 02 involving an older Takeru and Hikari was likely finalized around the middle of the last arc of Adventure, it’s easy to believe that they decided to deliberately hold off on resolving Takeru and Hikari’s issues in full so that their story could be told in the next series. And, indeed, while their characters being built on “being difficult to read” makes their development not quite as visible as some of the more eccentric personalities in the 02 cast, their respective Jogress partners (Iori and Miyako) more openly discuss and get to the bottom of their issues that had been lightly displayed or hinted in Adventure but never truly been addressed.

A lot of things that were not in Adventure

Adventure was admittedly kind of written as they went along (they didn’t even originally plan to have Hikari as the eighth child at first), so it’s hard to tell exactly what was planned and what was a later addition (and at what point things were added), but considering that the 02 epilogue was one of the first things planned in the entire series, as part of “a story of humanity’s evolution” and tying into a really long theory about partners doubling every year, it’s probably at least safe to say that a lot of the worldbuilding and lore was determined very early.

02 added a lot of lore dumps about Digital World mechanics and things related to the overall state of Chosen Children, which have been said by many to be retrofits to justify a buildup to the 02 epilogue, but, again -- the 02 epilogue was supposed to be for Adventure, so it’s very likely that these lore aspects were intended for Adventure as well! This is especially because it’s been outright confirmed that there were at least certain things originally intended for Adventure that ended up in 02, or at least were in 02 because they felt Adventure didn’t sufficiently cover it:

The kids’ home lives. As famous as the Tokyo arc of Adventure is, it only covered about a quarter of it -- the rest of it was the kids stranded in another world, separated from home! It’s specifically 02 that went into all of the things like school life, family life, daily life in Odaiba, and everything closer to the real world -- basically, everything related to family backgrounds that was very likely to have been in the planning documents for Adventure but never made it.

The (in)famous 02 episode 13 (or, at least, something like it) was intended for Adventure. As much as there’s common speculation that this episode was intended to be some giant subplot that got canned, from what we’ve heard from the staff, the truth actually seems to be a lot more mundane -- Adventure was a series very big on “oddities about the Digital World that have no real explanation” (see: phone booths), and when you reframe it in Adventure’s context, it’s likely that Dagomon and the Dark Ocean were intended to be yet another of those as part of its wider lore about the multiverse, to make you think “the heck was that?” but never get any real answer to. (And while it’s unclear whether the original theoretical Adventure version of this episode would have still involved Takeru and Hikari, if you want to put a tinfoil hat on and entertain that theory, it lends even further credence to the idea that their respective character arcs were deliberately held off for 02...)

Given that, and thinking about the 02 epilogue as the eventual goal for the series, you can also easily imagine a lot of 02-introduced things leading up to it as probably also having been baked into Adventure’s lore:

You know how 02 had a subplot about Chosen Children proliferating all over the world, as a lead-up to everyone in the world eventually having a partner? This was part of a “doubling every year” formula that’s been referred to a few times in background staff testimony. If you inspect this formula, this means that there were eight other Chosen Children besides Taichi and his friends, chosen between 1995 and 1999. Now, remember how Adventure episode 52 briefly touched on the bombshell of Chosen Children existing before Taichi and co., before never addressing it again? Considering all of the above facts, it’s very likely that’s intended to tie into that formula -- and, perhaps, had 02 had not existed to continue the subplot about “more Chosen Children”, Adventure would have taken more initiative about explaining the concept of Taichi and his friends not being the only humans with partners, and led it into their originally intended epilogue.

02 episode 33 involves Miyako visiting Kyoto and learning that there may be certain similarities between Digimon and Japanese youkai, to the point where they might be related somehow, despite predating digital technology. (The concept is revisited in Mimi’s track in Two-and-a-Half Year Break and the Adventure BD drama CD, both of them having been written after 02.) The thing is, the idea that Digimon and other similar entities actually existed prior to digital technology, and that said technology only allowed it to manifest physically in the real world, also is heavily tied to the original concept of Digimon partners being a manifestation of a part of the human’s soul, and therefore having a partner being a part of human evolution -- which is, again, heavily tied to the original intent behind the epilogue. So it’s very likely that this, at the very least, was one of the original lore points behind Adventure -- and if 02 had not existed, it’s possible that Adventure might have tried to cover it as part of a lead-up to that epilogue, rather than ultimately deferring it to 02.

This is, of course, speculation -- I’m not a member of staff, so I can’t speak for them -- but I do think it’s important to consider that while 02 was a tonally different series, it wasn’t just a sequel tacked on at the last minute, and rather just (mostly) the same staff learning three-quarters of the way through that they would have more time to continue this narrative, and reorganizing things to figure out what they wanted to do now and what they wanted to touch on if they had more time. Really, this whole narrative of “02 being a bunch of random additions they came up with and retrofit” seems to almost be the opposite of what actually happened -- while some of the ideas behind 02 were certainly created later, it’s less that Adventure was some ideal perfectly crafted story and 02 an addendum, and more that they had so many things they wanted to do in Adventure that couldn’t fit and used 02 to vent more of those out:

One of the concepts behind the prior series was for us to pack in as many interesting things that we’d seen, heard about, or read about as we could into it, so for 02, we thought, what else could we put in beyond even that?, and so we looked over what we needed to have, and put in all the things we could so that they wouldn’t be left out, and the story became a multi-layered one, overlapping and accelerating. It was to the point that, after we’d gone through 02‘s story, the scriptwriters told me that they’d worn everything they had out to the ground. In any case, we put everything we had into it back then.

Which means that understanding 02 is actually very retroactively important to understanding Adventure -- Adventure’s own writing was influenced by the knowledge that 02 would be part of its story, and 02 itself carries a lot of vital facts and story points from Adventure’s narrative that didn’t fit in the first 54 episodes, and, in real life, they were both written continuously as one story over the course of over two years. It’s also because of this that I seriously warn against seeing either series in a vacuum too much -- because both series are very deeply tied to each other, perhaps more so than a lot of people want to admit.

[seasonsandcenturies]

I have Feelings about the new Good Omens

and almost all of them are about What Is Up with all the demons looking Like That so can we please talk about it

In Good Omens, angels look like people. Human people, that is. They have the right number of arms and legs, and they wear clothes that would more or less blend into a crowd.[1] The angels seem to skew androgynous - Michael is a woman, probably, as is Uriel, but there’s a little bit of room for doubt. The higher-ups seem to be trying their best to appear relatable (Sandalphon’s not exactly stereotypically glamorous, despite being very well dressed and blinged out; Gabriel conspicuously engages in the Extremely Normal human activity of jogging in a park) but even so, there’s just something about them that comes across as unnervingly otherworldly.

Demons, on the other hand, aren't even close to anything that could blend in with a crowd of humans, although they seem to share the angels’ predilection for androgyny. They are physical embodiments of decay and sickness and filth, designed to disgust and horrify, who can possess human bodies (says Aziraphale, who goes on to prove that angels are just as capable of it). The most powerful demons (Beelzebub, Lord of Hell; Hastur, Duke of Hell, and Ligur, presumably same) all have an animal/insect theme to their appearance.[2] Ligur's chameleon changes colors with his mood. Beelzebub not only wears a giant fly as a hat but is actually surrounded by flies. Hastur has a frog and vaguely frog-like eyes; on Earth, his hair seems to hide the frog, but when he isn’t trying to pass for human it’s clearly visible. Even Dagon has a suspiciously furry collar and very sharp teeth.

There are a few different interviews with the series’ hair and makeup artist and costume designer about how they came up with the costumes, but this article specifically states (emphasis added) that ‘Hastur, Ligur, and the other Dukes of Hell wear what they died in.’ Frankly, that’s a baffling concept, because why would a human become a demon? Throughout the series, humans are repeatedly referred to as being distinctly separate from either angels or demons. It’s heavily implied that the demons are angels who Fell a long time ago, as Dagon reminds them that while they may have lost the so-called Glorious Revolution, they are now (supposedly) “tougher, smarter, more dangerous!” - meaning they aren’t anything new, they’re just improved.

So why do the demons look the way they do?

I’m pretty sure @neil-gaiman was joking.

But. It could work.

When they Fell, maybe the demons lost their angelic forms, wings and all, and ended up stuck as animals, although they didn’t lose their abilities. Over time, they found out that going around on Earth looking like an animal wasn’t exactly the fastest or easiest way to get anything done. They needed human bodies so they could fit in, even though the ones they got never looked quite right. They leaked, a little, or they smelled. Sometimes they were already dead. But they did the job.

... I mean, just think about it. If a demon’s true form is animal-shaped, it’d explain a few things, including that strange quote about wearing the clothes they died in -- for example, Crowley telling Hastur he’d have liked the 14th century wouldn’t mean Hastur had missed it because he didn’t exist at the time, but simply that he hadn’t been paying much attention to what was going on topside. (Besides, Hastur probably didn’t acquire his current human body until the early 20th century, if his clothes are anything to go by.)

But what about Crowley? Obviously he’s got the whole animal motif thing going for him just like the others, he’s a snake. But he’s different. He’s the only demon who can unquestionably pass for ‘human’, being not only pustule-free but not actually very snake-like at all, excepting the tattoo on his face, his eyes, and a suspiciously sibilant manner of speech. He’s the only demon we see taking any kind of ‘angelic’ form, looking a little bit ragged at the Garden of Eden (an apparently intentional nod to the fact that he Fell fairly recently) and later unfurling his wings when talking to Adam. And he’s also the only demon we see actually shifting to and from an animal form.[3]

As God points out, Crowley has something the other demons don’t: an imagination. Which could mean he never had to resign himself to being worn like a hat and possessing some body to get around because he actually had enough imagination to transform himself.[4]

But even Crowley’s imagination has its limits. After all, he imagined his Bentley was a perfectly functional car that he would definitely not burn to death in, but that didn’t change the reality of the situation, which was that his car was on fire. This wasn’t like doing a miracle. So while he may have been perfectly capable of imagining himself looking the way he was last, ruffled feathers and all, he couldn’t completely change everything. He was a snake, now, so his eyes stayed mostly the same, and there was that little tattoo on his face that he couldn’t exactly hide but could at least play down. Even so, it didn’t turn out too badly, for a first attempt.

[1] The rest of Heaven isn’t exactly fashion forward. Aziraphale, when discorporated, inexplicably ends up in a tuxedo. Meanwhile, the army of angels preparing for battle, even more inexplicably, look like they’ve come off the set of Wee Willie Winkie.

[2] The only other demon who seems to eschew an animal form is Satan, possibly. One could argue the horns are symbolic of something, but I’d rather not.

[3] Hastur’s escape from Crowley’s ansaphone doesn’t count. He wriggles through the call center phone line with flesh-eating maggots and kills everyone in the room. That’s not the same thing as shifting himself into another form, that’s just-- I don’t know, gross and unnecessary. 

[4] I should probably mention that this theory only applies to the TV adaptation, as the book already has a perfectly reasonable reptile/insect/other animal-headgear-free explanation about the Effort involved in appearing human. I think. It’s been a while.

[emoshinso]

What Makes Purple Boy so Weird?: Notes on the storytelling strategies employed in Shinsou’s introduction arc

*By ‘weird,’ I mean intriguing/interesting, but in a break-the-mold kinda way.

This really has no objective other than I wanted to break down what makes Shinsou’s intro arc so impactful. Specifically, the buildup before his quirk reveal.

As heroic and well-intentioned as our boy is, the creators do a very good job creating an air of ominous suspense before revealing his true character and quirk in his match against Deku. Up till then, it’s like they wanted us to think Shinsou was a bad guy...

Part commentary, part analysis 

Just kinda… finding an excuse to rewatch the Sports Festival arc while focusing on Shinsou’s perspective.

this post goes from his first appearance in episode 15 to the beginning of episode 20

in the future, I plan on dedicating an entire post just to his fight against Deku - but in the meantime, this one centers on the buildup before his quirk reveal

So, if you’re interested, read on! If not, I understand. This is gonna be one heckin nerdy ramble. oh gosh im so excited

First Appearance: Episode 15: Roaring Sports Festival 

Confrontation with Bakugo

First, some background on what’s going on right before our boy shows up: The day after Aizawa introduces the sports festival, a bunch of kids from the general studies department show up at the hero class’s threshold, right? There’s no explanation as to why. They’re all kinda just... there (psst it’s for the drama. Large crowds create intrigue.)

Dekusquad mutters collectively, wondering if the general studies kids are scouting the competition… The general studies kids don’t really answer or react. They just keep gawking awkwardly. (psst once again: it’s purely for the drama)

Enter: Bakugo. Trying to leave for the day, but those damn gen studies kids are in his way.

“Move it, extras.”

This prompts a reaction. From one student, at least. 

“So this is Class 1-A? I heard you guys were impressive, but you just sound like an ass.”

First time we see Shinsou: pushing his way unapologetically through the other general studies kids. First impression: he already kinda looks like a jerk. Him being at the back of the crowd also makes me think Shinsou didn’t exactly jump at the chance to size up 1-A after school like his classmates, but eventually gave in and followed them over a bit later. Then after that “extras” comment out of Blasty Boy, he decided to retaliate. A jerk with a bit of a proud streak.

”Scouting the competition? Maybe some of my peers are, but I came to let you know that if you don’t bring your very best, I’ll steal your spot right out from under you. Consider this a declaration of war.”

What a drama queen.

That’s all he says. That pretty much concludes his first notable appearance as a character

His appearance essentially serves two purposes: 1) to (fleetingly) introduce him as a character 2)  to establish how resentful the general studies department is towards 1-A

It’s important to note that he didn’t get any of those usual name + quirk tag thingies that occasionally pop up whenever a new character is introduced (or as a reminder for recurring characters)

AND he never introduces himself (he just straight up declares war and falls silent, the little shit xD)

Point being, forget his quirk, we don’t even learn his name right away. For all intents and purposes, he’s just that random purple asshole who declared war for no good reason

And as soon as Shinsou delivers his little war monologue, Tetsutetsu shows up, shouting loud and a n g e r y. His and Bakugo’s little shouting match quickly overshadows Shinsou’s cold declaration, making it even easier for both the other characters and the audience to forget about Shinsou pretty quick. Despite that very conspicuous purple hair, the chronic insomnia, and the WHITE PUPILS.

I know I kinda forgot about him - the first time watching, at least.

Sports Festival Opening Ceremony

The next time we see Shinsou, he’s walking into the arena with the other 1-C kids, who are all looking pretty dejected about being forced to participate in a competition rigged to make them look inferior:

“We’re just here to make [the hero kids] look better...”

“Yeah, I can’t wait for this to be over...”

It’s a key reminder that Shinsou is one of these kids, and by all logic should be thinking the same thing. But his expression is hard to read: 

Is he bored? Tired? Ready for it all to be over like those other kids? Or is he steeling himself to make good on his declaration of war?

We don’t really get a chance to find out. Not until MUCH later...

Todoroki’s Ice Trick

The next shot we see of Shinsou is my absolute FAVORITE. After getting through the tunnel to the obstacle course, Todoroki uses ice attack. It’s super effective, but somehow there’s still plenty of students who dodged it including our boy Shinsou

A LOT is going on. We see shots of all the different students who evaded Todoroki: Yaoyorozu, Bakugo, Aoyama (lol), Ashido... the montage ends with Uraraka, who makes a comment about waiting for the right time to show off her quirk, and hence alludes to someone else who’s trying to be sneaky:

“So they are good at using their powers, huh?”

What I love most about this scene is first time watching I LITERALLY DID NOT QUESTION the fact that he was being carried by three other students

I chalked it up to him being a charismatic figure in his class who somehow convinced his fellow students to carry him as part of some elaborate grand strategy

And hey... I wasn’t wrong?

Also interesting to note how none of the three non-brainwashed students around him seem too concerned he’s hitching a free ride on their classmates... they’re all too busy dealing with Todoroki’s ice

Point being, between Todoroki’s flashy ice attack and the other students’ equally flashy evasive maneuvers, it was pretty easy for us as an audience to overlook that one purple-haired kid who decided to play cavalry battle a little early. The inclusion of the extra kids stumbling around him in the frame also helps him blend into the background. All this seems very intentional on both the animators’/Horikoshi’s part AND as part of Shinsou’s grand strategy. 

Episode 15 ends with us still wondering what this guy’s deal is...

Episode 16: In Their Own Quirky Ways

We don’t see Shinsou at all this episode, which both builds up the suspense and leaves me with a lot of questions:

Q: How did he get past the robots? (Theory 1: By using other kids’ quirks and directing them like his own personal quirk army 2: (more likely) waited till a path was clear and ran through)

Q: How did he get past the chasm? (Theory 1: Again, by hitching a ride with a kid with the ideal quirk 2: Human rope?)

Q: How’d he get past the MINES?! (Theory: By brainwashing other students to walk ahead of him and clear a path)

Regardless of how he got through the course, the ONLY glimpse of Shinsou we get is when Midnight goes over the rankings in the race. Shinsou came in 27th, by the way, not that you’d even notice because the camera cuts off almost before you even see him in the rankings. (I couldn’t even pause it that fast) I have no idea if that was intentional or not, but man does it fit the mood:

This is also the first time we see his name.

But it’s so fast literally no one could’ve actually read and retained it without the help of a quirk. I know I didn’t. BUT I remember from the first time watching, this one tiny glimpse of the random purple asshole with the derpy ass smile ranking so high was enough to make me start wondering just what this guy’s deal was...

It was enough to get me curious. But I wasn’t invested quite yet. 

Also, in retrospect, my absolute favorite thing about this screenshot is all the other contestants look angry/disappointed by their ranking EXCEPT FOR SHINSOU. Nope, he just looks like a smug little asshole happy to be the ONLY rep from Class 1-C.

And that further adds to the suspense...

Episode 17: Strategy, Strategy, Strategy

Once again, we only get glimpses of Shinsou this episode. But they’re crucial: 

1: Him smirking as the rules for the cavalry battle are explained. Makes us wonder, as an audience: why does he look so confident when everyone else is gritting their teeth over this? What advantage does he have?

(Notes brought to you by 20/20 hindsight: He was probably so confident because he literally had his pick of teammates. As soon as he asked anyone about teaming up and they answered, boom, they were on the team. I would guess he intentionally picked teammates that wouldn’t stand out (no offense Aoyama,) so he could hang around and not call attention to himself during the cavalry battle, both from other teams and from the commentators.)

AND WAIT. LOOK HERE:

2: Once all the teams have coalesced, they’re all just kinda standing around haphazardly, or facing each other slightly to talk strategy... BUT NOT SHINSOU’S. They’re all facing the same direction he is. Yep, you guessed it... they’re already brainwashed.

3:

At the ready with his team. This also marks the second time we see his name. But it’s not announced, it only appears in tiny letters/kanji in the scoring bracket. Also note that his teammates are definitely all brainwashed now, but we wouldn’t be able to tell unless we were looking for it. Aoyama really doesn’t look too different lol

4:

Before the episode ends, we get our first glance at the scoreboard. The game’s already been underway for a bit by now, and Shinsou’s team is at 0 points. Which means Shinsou most likely let Monoma take his bandana to avoid being targeted later in the game, and therein, avoid attention.

End of episode 17. Still no name (unless you were super attentive), and no quirk.

Episode 18: Cavalry Battle Finale

Between the Todoroki vs. Midoriya and the Monoma vs. Bakugo showdowns, there’s so much drama happening it’s no surprise Present Mic didn’t pay much attention to Team Shinsou...

...and that really left me wondering... What were they up to this whole time?

Quick glance at the scoreboard tells us he’s still at zero, and he stays that way for most of the episode again:

BUT. WAIT FOR IT.

HERE’S THE SCOREBOARD RIGHT AFTER PRESENT MIC ANNOUNCED THERE WERE ONLY 11 SECONDS LEFT:

TETSUTETSU STILL HAS HIS POINTS.

Which means...

TEAM SHINSOU MANAGED TO SWIPE THE POINTS IN LESS THAN 11 SECONDS.

Just look how smug he is about it too:

“In third place is Team Tetsute- wait, what?! It’s Team Shinsou! When did they come back from the dead?!”

Point being, Present Mic is so surprised by Shinsou’s comeback he almost says the wrong name. Thanks to all the drama radiating off of Monoma and the Traffic Light Trifecta and Shinsou’s strategy of staying out of the fray until the last possible second, he pulled off a victory without anyone even knowing who the heck he is or what he can do.

This also marks the first time his name is stated clearly enough to catch.

Also note his confused (and frightened) teammates behind him. How ominous...

Little by little, we’re getting hints at who he actually is as a character, which up to this point, still looks a lot like ‘first class jerk’

that smug grin gahhh

Episode 19: The Boy Born with Everything

Okay, here’s where things get  s u p e r  dramatic. 

First half of the episode is dedicated to Todoroki and Deku’s little confrontation, so gives us more time to forget about our purple son...

Second half jumps into discussing the next round: sixteen contestants remaining, waiting to be divided into one-on-one matches. Things are progressing smoothly until....

OJIRO WITHDRAWS. 

Everyone’s shocked, why the heck would this kid pass up on the chance of a lifetime? Ojiro explains it’s a matter of pride for him:  “It just wouldn’t be right. I barely remember anything from the cavalry battle until the very end of it. I… think it was that guy’s quirk.”

“Wait, who was Ojiro with again?” 

Again, no one seems to remember. But once Ojiro points him out, the camera pans over to Shinsou, who looks away. As if he’s worried about getting exposed. Interestingly enough, however, Ojiro doesn’t immediately reveal what Shinsou’s quirk is (which also might have to do with his personal honor code), instead just presses to withdraw:

“Everyone gave their all in Round 2, but I was just someone’s puppet. I don’t want to advance if I don’t even know how I got here.”

‘Someone’s puppet’? That’s ominous as hell...  but once again, it doesn’t fully reveal what Shinsou did. Ojiro could’ve been speaking metaphorically for all we know at this point. But it sure makes us start wondering what the heck’s up with this purple guy, and just what his true motives are...

Later on, once the full bracket’s announced, Izuku looks at the lineup. He’s initially more concerned about the prospect of facing down Todoroki, but then he remembers he’s got a whole match ahead of that: “First I’ve got to worry about this Shinsou guy (whoever the hell he is...)” As someone who  l o v e s  to collect and analyse data on heroes and quirks, it probably bothers Izuku to no end that he knows absolutely nothing about his upcoming opponent. 

“Izuku Midoriya, that is you, isn’t it?”

To top it off, SHINSOU SNEAKS UP ON HIM. I mean, in all fairness, it probably isn’t even that hard to sneak up on Izuku, given how lost in his head he gets. But again, it helps build that aura of suspense: Shinsou’s the type of character to sneak up on people. He’s also the type to stay out sight, use clever strategy instead of shine in the limelight like a typical hero in the BNHA world would. In all fairness, he’s acting a lot like a villain would.

Izuku: “You’re the guy from before, from general studies?”

Shinsou: “A pleasure. So, are you excited?”

Once again. Doesn’t even properly introduce himself. What is with this guy and introductions? And before Izuku gets a chance to respond, Ojiro intervenes, covering Izuku’s mouth with his tail and leaving Shinsou to smirk and walk away.

Izuku: “Ojiro, what’s the deal?”

Ojiro: “You can’t say a word to him.”

These are the first real clues we get as to what Shinsou’s quirk actually is and how it works. but we still. don’t. get. full. disclosure. 

The scene cuts to the side games / preparations of the remaining contestants for the final round: 

I really appreciate the sheer amount of dread on Izuku’s face. 

This is a meme. We all have Shinsou to thank for this meme. At this point, we can’t even hear what they’re discussing, we just know it’s making a nervous boi  e x t r a  nervous...

A few scenes later, and we finally get what we’ve all been waiting for:

“Whoa, he looks kinda scared in that picture, doesn’t he? It’s Izuku Midoriya from the hero course!!” 

VS.

“Hitoshi Shinsou from general studies, who really hasn’t done anything to stand out yet…” 

Once again, Present Mic reminds us just how much of a dark horse Shinsou is. Discounting a few strategic bits and pieces, two whole rounds have passed already, and we still know next to nothing about him. It’s interesting to note how Present Mic explains the rules of the match too:

“The rules are simple: immobilize your opponent or force him out of the ring!! You can also win by making the other person cry uncle. Anything goes… so don’t be afraid to put your morals aside and play dirty!”

Which Shinsou does. 

He starts playing before the match even begins, already trying to get Izuku to talk:

“So you can just give up, huh?”

Izuku doesn’t respond, so Shinsou continues:

“In a way, this is a test of how strong your spirit is. If you know what you want your future to hold for you, you can’t worry about what other people think.”  

Present Mic: “READY?!”

“That monkey was going on about his pride earlier...”

Present Mic: “BEGIN!”

“...but I just think he’s an idiot for throwing away his chance like that.”

Shinsou started playing even before the match began, and he started off by saying a whole lot of incendiary things: 

Why would you care what other people thought of you? (In a world where pro heroes depend on popular appeal for their livelihood, that’s not something a typical aspiring hero would say...)

“That monkey... is an idiot” (insulting a former teammate... not very hero-like) 

Who cares about pride? (People who say that often hint they’re willing to get their hands dirty if the ends justify the means... again, not very hero-like)

In retrospect, of course we know Shinsou’s primary motivation for saying all those things was to elicit a response from Izuku, but at the time... it just made him look like a jerk. Maybe even a jerk with a potential villainous streak...

Regardless, it does get a rise out of Izuku, and that’s when it finally happens. 

We openly see Shinsou use his quirk for the first time.

Izuku freezes.

Everyone’s shocked. But even then not everyone understands what’s going on yet... even Present Mic seems confused, even possibly chalking it up to stage fright:

“Huh?! What’s the dealio? This is the first match, it should start out with a bang! The fight has just begun and Izuku Midoriya is… completely frozen?!”

AND THAT’S WHERE EPISODE 19 ENDS.

WE STILL DON’T KNOW SHINSOU’S QUIRK.

Yes, we’ve seen it in action, we can infer, but it still takes a whole episode to put a clear label on it...

Episode 20: Victory or Defeat

Way to build up the suspense with a corny episode title am I right

Present Mic introduces us back into the fray:  “Izuku Midoriya is completely frozen?! He’s not moving a muscle! And what’s with that look on his face? Could this be a quirk at work? Hitoshi Shinsou seems to have Izuku Midoriya completely stunned!”

Let’s take a quick inventory on just how sh00k everyone is:

Concerned frens. I was too the first time I watched this. I think we all were. Our baby Izuku’s been frozen by the weird purple jerk who we don’t really have any sympathy for yet.

Even the pro heroes are stunned. They don’t seem to have any idea what’s going on either, which suggests maybe they haven’t seen a quirk like Shinsou’s before...

BUT what really gets me are these guys. I’m pretty certain they’re all general studies kids. Shinsou’s classmates. Meaning they KNOW Shinsou. And assumedly they know his quirk too, since that’s like the second question that comes up whenever you meet someone in this universe, right after “What’s your name?” YET THEY’RE JUST AS SHOCKED AS EVERYONE ELSE. Which makes me wonder... what if Shinsou never told his UA classmates what his quirk was?

Regardless, it builds up the suspense even more. 

And at long last, as the crowd still sits stunned, Aizawa steps in to finally answer all our unspoken questions:

“Since we’re on to the individual matches, I had some information compiled about our final competitors. Shinsou failed the practical exam to get into the hero course. Since he also applied for general studies, he probably figured that would happen. His quirk is incredibly strong, but that entrance test consisted of fighting faux villains. It gave a huge advantage to those who had physical superpowers they could show off. Despite his abilities, Shinsou never stood a chance at passing.”

He never stood a chance beCAUSE...

*cue ambient unsettling music*

Izuku turns around and starts walking out of bounds.

EVERYONE FLIPS THE HELL OUT.

All Might, watching from the sidelines: “What is this power?”

And finally, thanks to Aizawa’s data, Present Mic tells us:

‘When an opponent answers his question, it flips a switch in their minds, forcing them to do whatever he says. Not every question does it though. He only brainwashes when he wants to.” 

There it is.

After five episodes of ominous, behind-the-scenes buildup, we finally have it. I don’t know about everyone else, but I was blown away. Looking back, it made total sense, and I had no idea how I didn’t figure it out beforehand, (maybe someone did, lol, I am kind of a dumbass). But, main point here: Shinsou’s intro had a lot of great suspense built into it, culminating in his match with Izuku, which reveals not only his quirk but also his true character (which I’ll talk about in a future post - specifically how Shinsou’s backstory reveal completely flips our perception of him). Along the way, we had plenty of opportunities to forget about Shinsou, discount him - at least in favor of our already well-established favorites - and most importantly, type cast him as villainous. But all that turns on its head the moment we learn what he can do - and as I’ll talk about later on, when we find out his true intentions.

What a brilliant intro. 

And he knows it too. Just look how smug he is.

[urbancoroner]

NIKE MISSILE BASE HM-40: LAUNCHER AREA

The time I tried to find an abandoned missile site but wandered into crocodile hell instead

With a vague idea of where I was going and armed only with my Nikon and claws, I set off alone for Key Largo at high noon. Seeing as this place looked pretty wilderness-y, I assumed it would be a Pineapple Paradise kind of deal where I could only find it by Google Earth coordinates and careful guesswork but damn if it didn't appear when I typed "Nike Missile Base Key Largo" into the Maps search.

I haven't been to the Keys in over 18 years and I barely saw it then so I appreciated being able to take in the scenery in silence as I drove. The Card Sound Bridge was pretty intimidating and I smiled to myself imagining how hard my mom would NOPE if she saw it approaching on the roadway ahead, cutting a thin, two-lane asphalt slice directly upwards through clear, cloudless blue skies.

I slowed down a bit once my app indicated I was approaching my destination. When I started the directions I'd noted that the little marker for my destination appeared to be a bit off the roadway in the middle of the wilderness. I'd resigned myself to having to park nearby where the marker was - but not too close seeing as I don't want to be TOO conspicuous - and walk into that patch of green where the marker sat. It took me a few passes to find the right spot but eventually I pulled off to the side and parked across the street and slightly south of where my destination was. I looked up and saw a sign proudly announcing "Crocodile Lake" between my car and the break in vegetation that would be my entrance point. Awesome.

I did a bit of on the spot recon - as much as my cell service would allow me to since it was barely hanging on to a signal. The time it took for Google Earth to load up on the tenuous connection gave me a chance to reflect on the podcasts Flowerbomb and I had been listening to lately that detailed strange disappearances in National Parks - of which I was currently in. Google Earth didn't tell me much more than I already knew. I was looking for any kind of view of buildings in relation to where I currently was, specifically the radar towers that I knew should be visible above the trees, to gauge which direction I should head off into. All I saw on the satellite picture was a barely-there path amid the endless forest in the general shape of a conversation bubble that had obviously been a road at one time. Any buildings that could be or should be along that road were hidden beneath a sea of green.

This was about as prepared as I was going to be and if I was going to get lost in the fucking forest I might as well do it while I still have at least three and a half hours of quality daylight left. With this mindset I changed from my flip flops into my flats - people who are ill-prepared for the wilderness rarely get taken - and jogged across the street, camera thrown over my shoulder and trying to look as inconspicuous as possible. I power-walked along for a ways until I felt my presence was mostly concealed from any passing cars by the mass of trees encroaching on the once-road.

As I drew further away from the road, the ambient noise of civilization quickly faded and I was struck once again by how deafening the silence is in the middle of the wilderness by yourself. Luckily the former road I was on was wide enough that I was mostly able to avoid the surrounding trees and I didn't immediately encounter any of the aforementioned crocodiles or other wildlife that would like to eat me. In fact, there were no animals around at all, with the exception of the occasional bug that buzzed harmlessly by. I was very, very alone.

This was a bit of a relief, after all no company is better than large, hungry reptiles. Mostly, though, the heavy silence and isolation were just unnerving. It didn't help that an eerie feeling hung heavy over the area as well. I came to an area where the road forked and after consulting Google Earth - which was thankfully still hanging on to my connection - I saw this was where it circled around. Both roads would eventually take me to the same place so I elected to take the direction that was not mostly blocked by a huge, old orange dumpster.

Unfortunately, that direction was a much tighter path that required me to get way more intimate with nature than I had desired or intended, especially in shoes that barely covered the tops of my feet. Most of the path required me to bend down and duck beneath low-hanging branches and spider webs I only just managed to see in time.

"Kaine's gonna be so mad when he finds out I did this alone,' I thought to myself as I did it anyway. I am stubborn and refuse to have been not-so-gently caressed by so very many branches and god knows what else for nothing and that stubbornness was the only thing preventing me from turning back now.

Once the path opened up again, the eerie feeling increased as well. The trees here were still thick, but now I had enough space to continue on without being concerned I was going to be dive-bombed by a thousand banana spiders for walking face first into their web.

I watch the killer channel enough to know that this is the exact situation people are in right before they get murdered in some weird way and go missing forever so I called Flowerbomb just so my cell phone would ping off the nearest tower and the police would have somewhere to start looking for me when I mysteriously disappear.

I told Flowerbomb as much on the phone and she immediately requested that I video chat her so she too can experience wilderness hell. Talking with her distracted me from the feeling that I was immediately about to be taken by the swamp wendigo and robbed of my shoes, even though she was awestruck by the fact that I was DEFINITELY about to become one of those podcast disappearance stories.

There wasn't much for her to see on the video chat as far as scenery, not only because the connection was weak and occasionally breaking up, but mainly because there wasn't much to see at all. I mentally orientated myself and was pretty sure I was walking around the far side of the rounded part of the path. I still hadn't found any buildings. I could see a fence running along what I assumed was once the perimeter of the area about ten feet from the path I was on and just barely visible through the brush.

As I continued on, I saw bits of wreckage here and there; the remains of what had once been buildings most likely, demolished and now nearly entirely swallowed by nature. Beyond the thick trees, on the side opposite where the fence ran toward the center of the long, rounded road I thought I saw what might be a bunker of some sort. It was a built up area that almost looked like it had been built into a hill. There was some concrete protruding from the foliage, which was the only thing that tipped me off that it was - or had been - a building in the first place. It looked like the doorway to one of the control stations in Lost, which is the main reason I assumed there was a door there. Because of the overgrowth I couldn't tell for sure - and there was also a high probability that it was actually just a storm drain or something equally useless, which is why I was unwilling to brave the heavily wooded area to find out for sure.

Still on the phone with Flowerbomb, complaining about how damn lost I was, I rounded the corner and though there was still nothing to be found but indistinguishable rubble I was relieved that there was also no hungry crocs or cryptids. The road widened here again and the forest was back in its lane - by which I mean not in my fucking face.

I rounded another corner, now theoretically heading back in the direction from which I'd come, and was disappointed that I hadn't found anything worth exploring. I saw a wider open area along this way and my hopes had revived for a moment that there might be something to actually photograph, but when I finally passed the trees that had been blocking the view I saw nothing but the foundation of a building that had obviously once stood here.

I didn't understand, had the location been demolished? Something had most definitely once been here, even if it was all rubble and remnants now. Was there nothing remaining of Nike Missile Site HM-40 but stray blocks and a lonely foundation rapidly being consumed once more by nature?

A short way past the foundation was the orange dumpster, indicating that I'd at least reached the same area I'd started from and wasn't quite as lost as I'd thought. I decided to quit while I was ahead - by which I mean not a delicious crocodile brunch - and head out the way I'd come. I didn't get anything to photograph but I also didn't get eaten so it wasn't as bad as it could have been.

Once I was safely back in the air conditioned comfort of my car I tried to regroup. I opened Google Earth once again to see where I'd fucked up on this. Was the location demolished and gone? Or was I just in the wrong place? In one final weird-as-hell moment when I opened Google Earth and told it to find my location, it put me across the street, still in the woods that I had just left. I tried again, assuming the app was just glitching (despite the fact that it had been working flawlessly all day, even out in the woods, and I now had enough bars back to sustain the app). Once again, it showed my location as in the woods.

I took a screenshot and sent it to Flowerbomb, telling her what was happening and her immediate response was a resounding GET THE FUCK OUT OF THERE!

Ignoring the weird wendigo-ness going down on my app, I panned around the surrounding area trying to see if maybe Maps had just led me to the wrong location, even though something obviously had been there. I turned on the Maps again and searched "Nike Missile Base Kay Largo" and this time, since I was actually paying full attention to what I was doing, I noticed that the app gave me TWO results; one of which was the forest location I'd just left and the other about a mile north of my current location titled "Control Site".

Later I'd find that I was actually at the right location, just at the wrong part of it. Nike missile bases consisted of two facilities; the Launch Area where the missiles were stored, assembled and - obviously - launched, and the Integrated Fire Control (IFC) site, which was always located about a mile away from the Launch Area, which consisted of the barracks, radar tower, administration facilities, etc. Basically the IFC site was the brains and the Launch site was the muscle.

The area I had just left was the original Launch Area of the HM-40 site and had been demolished long ago and given to the US Fish and Wildlife Service, who turned it into a protected habitat and nesting ground for the endangered American crocodile. The IFC site was what I had been looking for.

This is why it pays to do more than ten minutes of half-assed research, kids. Normally I'm much more careful and coordinated than this but when I'm going out adventuring by myself I have way more of a go-with-the-flow attitude. When I have others with me, our locations are more carefully thought out, but when I'm by myself I allow myself to take more chances and see where the day takes me. Sometimes it works out and I find some really cool places. Other times I end up getting almost-lost in a crocodile infested forest because my dumb ass skipped off half-cocked into the wrong damn location.

[fireleaptfromhousetohouse]

Tintin in the 21st Century

It’s weird that Tintin is only really known in continental Europe, and obscure as hell in the UK, because it was localised extremely well - so much so that it really confused me as a kid when, in The Black Island, Tintin takes a ferry over to Britain. If he tends to be knocking about in Brussels pre-adventure, I certainly didn’t notice.

What tends to get emphasised about Tintin these days is the racism - as in this Robert Brockway column - and yes, Tintin in the Congo comes off like Kipling’s The White Man’s Burden crossed with those episodes of Looney Tunes that they won’t broadcast any more, but Herge himself disavowed that one as being basically early installment weirdness. There is a good deal of fairly iffy content in some of the others, including, in Shooting Star, a scheming Jewish financier serving as antagonist (which to be fair, Herge wrote while living under Nazi occupation, and later edited), but none of this was key to the comic’s appeal.

What I’m criticising specifically here is Brockway’s assertion that “Nobody knows how to deal with the racism. [Modern adaptations] keep trying to whitewash it -- pun so totally intended, friend-o -- and every time they do, they act surprised that the property has lost all its magic”, an assertion he illustrates entirely with excerpts from Tintin in the Congo and Tintin in the Land of Soviets (an even earlier work than Congo and an anti-communist tract in which Tintin is a prick to everyone in Russia). I’m well aware that this all may come off as a white European trying desperately to salvage one of his Boy’s Own mighty-whitey heroes from the dustbin of history, but look at the following excerpts:

(The next panel is Tintin breaking this awful man’s cane. There’s a lot of instances like this throughout the series, where someone’s being a dick to a POC, and Tintin lets them have it. Yes, it’s robbing the POC of agency in favour of Tintin as mightiest of whities, you could call it racist, but it’s not quite a Klan march, is it?)

Certainly they’re depicting racism, but is anyone really looking at those and getting the impression that the author endorses Native Americans being thrown off their land? Or that the author agrees with the stereotypes he’s calling people stupid for believing? (The stereotypical Chinaman picture serves as a bit of a brick joke when, later on, Thomson and Thompson attempt to blend in.) Those last two excerpts are from The Blue Lotus, often held up along with Tintin in Tibet as a rebuttal to the charges of racism laid against Herge (largely because of Chang, based on one of Herge’s life-long friends). Ironically, The Blue Lotus was criticised for racism against the Japanese: the villain, Mitsuhirato (that’s him in the last panel) is a pug-nosed, buck-toothed opium trafficker who commits seppuku after the climax, so it’s a fair cop, although The Blue Lotus depicting Imperial Japan as authoritarian warmongers claiming more and more of Manchuria on flimsy pretexts has perhaps been vindicated by history.

Brockway’s column describes Tintin as ‘a racist Indiana Jones...for kids’, and this is basically accurate, although I think it’s debatable whether Tintin is more Indiana Jones or James Bond. (Last Crusade, apparently, began life as Spielberg’s Tintin fan script.) You could easily go with both - the crucial points are the globe-trotting, the intrigue, and Tintin’s own indomitable capability. To paraphrase another Cracked columnist, the weird thing about Tintin is that he was awesome. He looks like a cherub but will happily get mixed up in, and win, a fistfight or gunfight any day. He’s about 19 and already has a nemesis - a Greek nemesis. Despite being half a boy, and despite being a journalist who never writes anything, he’s self-sufficient in every way, and as physically capable as a man twice his size - which can flow back into the mighty whitey stuff in some fairly unfortunate ways:

but then again, take the racial dynamic out of that page (or, if you prefer, focus more on the white colonialists bossing about the South Asian guys) and it’s pretty standard protagonisty stuff.

The series is ‘for kids’ in that Tintin is your classic boy hero - given his trusty dog companion, it’s a lot like one of The Famous Five aged a few years and got a real job - and a lot of the humour is generally accessible, slapstick stuff - there’s a bit in Tintin in Tibet where Captain Haddock spends about three pages bumping into people and tripping over. Then, out of nowhere, an international arms dealer will plant opium in Tintin’s luggage to get him banged up by the cops. Seriously, most of the villains are gun-runners, opium smugglers, or both - there’s nothing too graphic, no Trainspotting-style illustrations of the full horror of the global opiate trade, but still, heavy stuff for a comic book. Particularly considering the great costumed comic heroes never even touched the subject of drugs until around the ‘80s, and an endless stream of edutainment telling kids to hey, just say no, man.

One crucial difference between Tintin and Indiana Jones/James Bond is the series’s utter sexlessness. Female figures, on the rare occasion they show up at all, are either damsels in distress, desexualised mother-types, or both. This aspect of the series has drawn its share of Freudian analysis over the years, and, due to Tintin’s best friend and roommate being salty seaman Captain Haddock, came in for a bit of ribbing in the bootleg Tintin in Thailand. If you were to put James Bond into that machine from Red Dwarf that splits things into their good and evil selves, you’d end up with Tintin and Sterling Archer. 

Really, Tintin’s closer to a modernist-era Hitchcock protagonist, who gets swept up in events and has sufficient pluck to see them through, and while I forget which way round the inspiration came, The Black Island bears a striking resemblance to Hitch’s The 39 Steps. To stick with The Black Island a moment - being half-Scottish, it was always a family favourite - I’d just like to present the first page in full:

Take note, any film or narrative that wants me to spend fifteen minutes with idiots, because that’s how you kick off an adventure. There’s your wholesome protagonist out for a walk with his dog, and there’s your bad dudes up to bad shit. Tintin spends the night in hospital, then proceeds to walk off the bullet going after the guys - who, it turns out, are some conspicuously German forgers operating in Britain, in 1938. Again, there’s nothing too graphic, but perhaps that’s bending the definition of the word for a work that involves the protagonist stepping in a bear trap, nearly being consigned to a Nazi asylum, getting knocked out during a gunfight with a White Russian when his bullets smash some bottles of chloroform, and then getting caught in a house fire (all this, incidentally, happens in one sequence of five pages or so).

To return to The Blue Lotus, one of Tintin’s allies in that, Mr Wang Chen-yee, more-or-less fits the bill for @thathopeyetlives and @raggedjackscarlet‘s idea of a mirror-universe Rocky Horror Picture Show, in which Bizarro Frank-N-Furter comes to represent the good side of traditionalism, the idea that ‘here is something worth believing in, if you dare to’:

Yeah, he’s a stereotype - you know it, I know it - he’s that specific kind of East Asian man they invented the word ‘venerable’ for, and the fact that at no point in The Blue Lotus does he use kung fu to devastating effect just makes you more certain he’s a master of it. But crucially, he seems like - as with Speedy Gonzales - the kind of stereotype the people it depicts could really get behind.

Mr Wang is the leader of The Sons of the Dragon, a secret society - and a robust, active secret society at that, much closer to the mafia than to the Freemasons (or, if you like, closer to the classic Freemasons than the modern Freemasons). Tintin first meets him after having been kidnapped and smuggled back into China, on his orders - and Mr Wang is hoping that Tintin will help them to fight opium smuggling. How perfect is that for a secret society? There’s your completely justified underdog, there’s something you can believe in, or at least you could before world governments introduced some anti-drugs boilerplate and fucked everything up for everyone.

There was a very mild religious grounding to Tintin - it didn’t come up a lot, but to be fair these were still the days when religion and a moral core were thought of as basically one and the same. It wasn’t lessons in theology like Linus in Peanuts, it was a more general use of universally recognisable icons, a lot closer to how Baikinman was elevated to go-to antagonist symbol in Japan - here’s the villains of Tintin and the Broken Ear being literally dragged off to hell:

Here’s Tintin invoking heaven’s name to try and stop the villain from capping himself (luckily, his gun’s been switched for a joke one):

And here’s Snowy grappling with his alcohol problem via his good and evil selves:

(That’s not a joke. Snowy’s taste for hard liquor was a recurring theme, at one point leading to Tintin spanking him as punishment for getting drunk in the Himalayas and nearly going over a waterfall - both content which I suspect simply wouldn’t fly today in the face of the animal rights lobby, at least not in a children’s book.)

Interestingly, this isn’t limited to Christian theology - here’s Snowy again, this time envisioning Tintin’s wrath by having him wield Zeus-style thunderbolts:

And a Buddhist monk levitating while in a prophetic trance:

Similarly, bona fide magic makes some semi-regular appearances in the series. In Cigars of the Pharaoh, Tintin is temporarily hypnotised with one glance from a fakir, but the most audacious depiction of this comes in The Seven Crystal Balls/Prisoners of the Sun, in which ball lightning attacks the gang, causing Professor Calculus to levitate, and it turns out the neo-Incas have been using what are essentially voodoo dolls to torment the explorers who looted their temple - this is particularly jarring in Prisoners of the Sun, contrasted as it is with Tintin’s little yay-science moment of getting out of his own execution by exploiting his knowledge of an upcoming solar eclipse.

In a way, all this magic and the various acts of god were an extension of the deus ex machinas that were a staple of the series from the start. Tintin in America is probably the worst offender in this regard, with the most ridiculous moment being a toss-up between the time the meatpackers go on strike and turn off the machinery seconds before gangsters throw him into it, and the time he gets chained to a barbell and thrown in a lake, only to discover the barbell’s inexplicably been switched with the wooden barbell of a crooked strongman.

Come the later adventures, though, the deus ex machinas would take a slightly different form to the literal intervention of god:

That’s not out of context, that’s not an idle aside - in Flight 714, the second-to-last complete comic, the gang gets out of a tight spot (an erupting volcano-cum-ancient ruin, no less!) when literal fucking aliens turn up to save the day and cart off the baddies. And, unlike most narratives of that ilk, they get out of it with definitive proof of extraterrestrial contact - Professor Calculus brings back a bit of metal composed of an alloy that does not exist on earth, although this is played off as a product of his cloth-eared eccentricity.

Even with the time difference, you’d probably say there’s surely a bit of a leap between the wholesome-but gritty early exploits of Tintin, where he’s running around after forgers and smugglers, and where he’s literally encountering aliens. Fortunately, there was an adventure that bridged that gap very nicely:

And you may well gather from that adorably kitsch rocket that this went down long before the actual moon landings - but despite this, Herge had done his research, he didn’t have the place turn out to be composed of cheddar like Wallace and Gromit’s A Grand Day Out, he depicted space travel and lunar survival reasonably accurately. A lot of people credit the white expanses of Tintin in Tibet as Herge’s masterpiece, but man, the inky blackness of Explorers is surely its underdog brother:

The final adventure, Tintin and Alph-Art, exists only as concept art and various bootleg versions. It features some genuinely radical departures from the established norm - a black Jamaican artist gets to have a heroic moment of his own, rather than just being acted upon by white people, and Tintin plans a date with an actual human woman. So the series obviously had come a long way from the days of publishing a version of Heart of Darkness where Kurtz is the good guy. And to go back to where we started - it’s not like we had to write off Bugs Bunny because of all the times he blacked up, right?