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unordinary-analysis · 4 years

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Episode 174

Honorable mentions:

I’ve been thinking a lot about Cecile recently (I don’t know why) and about how she went from being in control and having authority behind the scenes to being John’s punching bag. It’s scary really how much power John has over people. Cecile, I’m almost certain, still has ambition though, so I am looking forward to seeing what her next move is.

I’m not going to talk about the basic confirmation of the New Bostin/Wellston association in John’s mind because I’ve said everything I wanted to say about that in the last handful of posts, and I’m looking forward to moving on past that analysis (mainly so I don’t have to restate everything I’ve ever said in every post ever every time I want to write a new analysis lol). I might write something on this in the future though because it was a big part of this episode, but not right now lol.

The height difference between Arlo and John gets me every time ksjdfhsjeraksjngj

Rereading episode 123 reintroduced me to John’s, “ARLO, YOU BITCH”

The same thing happens in episode 123 and 174. Arlo is obviously better off in the situation, but for some reason John feels the need to punch him in the face. And both times it’s not strong enough to even move Arlo’s jaw sidkfhskjfrnkk.

I just want to say that it is pretty much confirmed that John has some sort of mental health issues as a lot of people were saying in the comments of this episode. Arlo also says something that sounds like he thinks this. I’ve talked about this before (don’t remember where/when), but I just wanted to put this here as an acknowledgement of that. I don’t know. I’m not sure if that will lead anywhere specifically in the future or if I’ll talk about it.

While writing this, I accidentally almost wrote Seraphina as Claire and I just--

I think from now on I’m going to be trying to keep these posts shorter because I think they get hard to digest when they end up at almost 5k words like last week’s. Also, I want to learn how to be able to shorten things without losing any substance, so that’ll hopefully happen. Who knows.

John:

The thing about John’s development as a character is that it’s so subtle that it’s a while before the changes are really obvious. I mentioned this while talking about how the switch between John’s fake side and his dark side had become so apparent after such a long time of watching John’s side, but I’m talking about something different now. I think that chapter of this fake vs real John in my analyses ended last episode along with that climax. Right now I want to talk about John’s violence.

I know it’s not exactly (or at all lmao) new for John to be extremely violent, but while in the past that violence had always been targeted at Arlo or Cecile or someone else, now it’s being targeted at Seraphina. For the most part (besides that scene between John and Cecile in episode 167), Seraphina has been kept out of that drama, and that is because John was still trying to convince her of the whole innocent cripple thing. But now, as she just told him that she knows who he is and what he’s done, there’s no more reason for John to hold back, and he doesn’t. In this episode, John grabs and yanks her arm and stuff. And in general he hurts her like he doesn’t care about her. It really was more of his demeanor that made his actions stand out. But everything just seemed so much more extreme because we’ve never seen this with Sera before. Sera’s always had this special significance to John that we kind of got used to. Anyway, that’s why in this episode, even more than all the others of Joker beating up people, John’s violence is very obvious. I also want to say that I think John’s violence has peaked. And, yes, I say peaked because I don’t think John will get any worse from here on. He might stay at this level, but he won’t become even more violent. I mentioned that I closed a chapter of my analyses last episode, and that chapter was about the inevitable takeover of John’s true, dark nature. When John finally became fully dark last episode (or however I said it), he reached his worst point and I think that is the limit to how bad he is going to get. I might be wrong though.

Another thing that I noticed was just how different Seraphina and John’s dynamic has changed throughout the story. Obviously, there was going to be a change, but I realized it’s been a complete switch. We started this comic with John as the quiet, but will fuck you up cripple and with Sera as the everybody’s scared of, powerful bitch. Now we can just reverse those and it fits. As some of you may know, I am a sucker for dynamics and this had me thinking. I’m just wondering how their dynamic is going to change again. Because, oh boy, it will.

Arlo:

When Arlo walked in, my heart stopped, but that’s a little off topic for this-- Anyway, as I said in honorable mentions (and yes this had to be said twice), that height difference between John and Arlo has me livingggg. Height difference is a really good, kind of subtle way to compare two characters, and I think uru-chan does this on purpose because it was something she also highlighted in episode 123. Height difference is used in this comic to express authority/superiority. In episode 123, Arlo stands up to John for one of the first times and refuses to keep being his errand boy. While previously in their scenes, the height difference was never stressed, in this episode, multiple panels show it, symbolizing that in this scene, Arlo has more power, has more control. And in this week’s episode, there’s a similar meaning. When Arlo walks in, John is taken off guard and stutters Arlo’s name. Arlo, on the other hand, is presented as cool and calm. This dynamic, too, helps to orient Arlo as the person most in control in the room.

Anyway, besides in relation to John, I feel that this episode is really where Arlo starts to gain his authority back. We all know that he’s been struggling with losing his title as king and watching John ruin the school, but he never did anything about it because he felt it was hopeless. But, as I said, Arlo is portrayed as the most powerful in the room in this episode, even though he technically isn’t. That’s difficult to achieve and something that used to really set Arlo apart from others: his ability to command authority. This is one of the reasons why Arlo made such a great king. Anyway, Similarly to Sera and John, I think that this part of the story is a turning point for Arlo too. He’s being pushed back into the drama by Seraphina and I think he’s finally going to get himself back. That authority we saw from Arlo in this episode is what I think of him as. It was nice to see it again.

Hallway Scene:

This is going to be a quick little section, but I didn’t want to put it in honorable mentions. During the hallway scene between Seraphina and Arlo, I felt that when Arlo brought up John, he was talking from a more outside point of view. He says, “He needs help. He’s so lost in his own head… Nobody can get through to him. Not even you.” This was a very observational thing to say, which I feel Arlo is really good at. Arlo knows when he needs to step back. Seraphina, on the other hand, still seemed caught up in John’s thought. She says, “I’m just a cripple. And you’re just his errand-boy. The Royals, and this whole school… all garbage.” Sera is still trying to figure John out, she’s still only focusing on him, which can be expected, but is still not ideal. She does say, “If that’s how he truly sees us… then what makes us worth listening to,” and, “Now that it’s over, I just want to move on. I have more important things to focus on,” which do state that she wants to move past John, but just the fact that she hasn’t accepted that she can’t even begin to comprehend John’s thoughts separates her from Arlo. Seraphina is still treating John as an equal part of this situation, whereas Arlo knows that he’s just a distraction. I’m not sure if that made a lot of sense because I struggled with words, but who knows.

Terrence:

Just here to say that I absolutely adore anything there is to do with Terrence because of his potential and link to the underlying plot of UnOrdinary. That’s it. I’m just excited. You might be asking yourself, if they thought the previous point could’ve gone into honorable mentions, why not this one? It's even shorter! To that I say ha. Imagine limiting Terrence to a single bullet point. The disrespect.

#unordinary #webtoon #unordinary webtoon #episode 174 #official

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