#I read that theory and ever since i don't care about facts logic canon nothing

[aangopologist]

In my delusion era, so from now on, I declare Daeron survived the war, escaped to Dorne and married a lady from House Dayne. The end

[aceredshirt13]

How the Persona 4 Writers Tried So Hard to Make Adachi Straight That They Accidentally Made Him Gay: Welcome to My TED Talk

Okay, so because of his canon characterization being a little all over the place, I’ve been spending a lot of time trying to hash out Adachi’s motivations for a fanfic I’m working on. Too much time. Possibly (probably) more time than the writers. But it was during this hashing-out period that I realized a curious result of the writing of the scenes where he murders Mayumi and Saki, one that I’m sure was entirely unintentional. Somehow, in trying to make it seem as if he were a peak yandere when it comes to interacting with women, it actually comes off as completely the opposite - and forms one of the most compelling arguments for a character’s compulsory heterosexuality I’ve ever encountered. Since I love theorizing about Adachi, it was my time. My calling. My destiny.

In the words of a friend, whom I managed to convince of this theory’s accuracy, “We must spread the good word of gaydachi”.

So gather around, fellow fans, and let’s think this out. (If you're ready for a long read, that is.)

(Also, quick disclaimer: I have not played Ultimax, so I know little to nothing about the Adachi storyline therein, but I've talked to another friend of mine who has and they said my theory seems to fly, so I hope it's all right. Either way, just covering my bases, haha.)

Let's begin by trying to figure out what exactly the authors intended as Adachi's motive behind the murders. My guess is one of two things: a delusional, violently jealous attitude toward women he believes to know and love but actually doesn't know at all, or a stance as a misogynist crusader who kills any woman he believes doesn't live up to what he thinks a woman should be (which is evidently the perspective of much of the fanbase). Maybe they were going for a little of column A, and a little of column B. To put it simply, either a yandere, an incel, or both. Sure, it makes sense on the surface - both of those attitudes are certainly reprehensible and villainous - but when you take a closer look, these theories don't quite hold up to scrutiny.

For Mayumi Yamano, both of these theories make sense. The "stalker with a crush" angle is backed up by some of his yandere-adjacent dialogue toward Mayumi - acting like he knows her when she clearly doesn't know him, being incredibly upset that she had an affair, asking why he wasn't enough for her, etc. We can also lean into incel territory by analyzing the slut-shaming tilt of his anger at her - as if the fact that she had this affair makes her disgusting, almost subhuman, and unworthy of love or respect. If the murders had ended here, every box of authorial intent would have been checked, and I wouldn't even be writing this paper.

But it all falls apart when it comes to Saki Konishi.

If we hold up the yandere lens to her, it doesn’t add up. Not because Adachi had scarcely known her for more than a few days, because there are plenty of stalkers delusional enough not to consider that an issue. It's more that there is no real evidence that Adachi cared about Saki at all. Yes, like with Mayumi, he also asks why he wasn't good enough for her, but these words are not backed up by literally anything he does. After the reveal of his true character, he tells the protagonists pretty clearly that he was only interrogating her to both look like he was doing his duty as a detective, and to make sure she hadn’t gained any inkling of the crime’s true culprit. Had she been aware of his involvement, he probably would have thrown her into the TV, anyway. This is not indicative of affection, deranged or otherwise - this is cold and calculated logic, for the sole purpose of covering his tracks. Heck, when the investigation team brings her up, he doesn't even remember her name. If you had a fixation on someone so strong that you were willing to kill for it, would that seriously slip your mind?

If we take the incel interpretation into account, it makes a bit more sense, at least. Adachi, having jumped to completely incorrect conclusions, thinks he saw Saki “seducing” Namatame, even though she's only in high school and in his opinion should be studying. So, having deemed her unworthy of both womanhood and of life, he decides to kill her. But this perspective doesn’t make a lot of sense to me, either - because I question why he would limit himself to only her and Mayumi.

Inaba is a very small town, so even though he's relatively new to the area, Adachi must know a lot of people, and there are plenty of characters that don’t represent a stereotypical traditional feminine woman. Take Ai, for example, who's had rumors spread about her and her supposed sugar daddies (untrue rumors, but considering what happened to Saki, Adachi doesn't seem to be super bothered by deep examination of the truth), or Eri, who struggles to love her husband and his stepchild, or even main characters like Rise, whose extremely sexually-charged Shadow he must have seen on the Midnight Channel, or Naoto, who depending on your interpretation is either a very masculine/tomboyish girl or not 100% a girl/not a girl at all. Sure, when it comes to the lead cast, they were part of Adachi's "game" and he might not want to risk discovery, but A. that doesn't explain why he didn't kill the minor characters and B. Adachi’s rage at the two women he killed seemed to defy his bored, rational side, so why would he make exceptions for them? Heck, everyone was so focused on the case that if misogynist crusading was really his goal, he could have just killed Rise and Naoto after they escaped. They had no reason not to trust him, so it probably wouldn't have been difficult to convince them to talk to him one-on-one. It's possible that he could even have set their bodies up like Morooka, and blamed Mitsuo Kubo, who would have happily accepted the charges because he was violent and desperate for attention. It would have been the perfect crime, but he didn't do it. So I'm not really sure that could have been his goal, either - especially since he doesn’t target or single out the girls in the IT when it comes to insulting and taunting the party, or ever say anything sexist to Nanako, or mention a hatred of women in his big motivation speech right before the final battle (and from what I've seen on the Internet, incels are not usually the type to quietly keep their views about women being the root of all evil, etc. to themselves), which suggests his motive isn’t pure misogyny.

(Bit of a side note based on the above, this is unquestionably not a popular take, but I honestly don't think that Adachi is much more misogynist than anyone else in the game - P4 already has a solid amount of casual sexism among the protagonists and others, whether internal, external, or both, so I think Adachi is what you get when you combine that with incredible paranoia, despising two specific women, and a general hatred of the human race.)

If we erase those two options, what do we have left? Fear of rejection is a possibility, but it still doesn't explain his disinterest in Saki. One I've seen a number of times is the suggestion that he's very jealous of Namatame, and it's true that even after every other aspect is disproven, Namatame is the last remaining shared factor between Mayumi and Saki. However, when he's discussing his murders and his motive for them, every last bit of his anger is directed at Mayumi and Saki. He is never upset at Namatame - in fact, Adachi has a line in there somewhere about how Namatame was going to succeed no matter what, and Mayumi and Saki were just gold diggers trying to bring him down. Those don't really strike me as the words of a jealous man.

...Well, not one jealous of Namatame, that is.

Adachi's greatest source of anger at the pair is tied to their association with Namatame - Mayumi's affair, and Saki's perceived attempt at starting another one. Particularly telling is the fact that he wasn't angry at Saki at all until he assumed she was pursuing him. When he confronts her, he doesn't even mention Yosuke, who Saki actually interacted with over a long period of time, or bring up the popular rumor of her having a college boyfriend - no, he only mentions her brief conversation with the emotionally devastated politician. If we combine these points with all the information we've gone over - his disinterest in Saki, the lack of evidence suggesting he was killing out of pure sexist rhetoric, yet his incredible vitriol toward these two in particular - it doesn’t seem like the authors were incorrect, per se, in their attempted portrayal of him as an unhinged celebrity stalker with a crush.

They just missed the target they intended, and landed slightly to the left.

Because all of Adachi’s behavior suggests an intense, violent possessive obsession not of Mayumi, not of Saki, but of Namatame.

Piece by piece, it starts coming together. His disinterest and disgust toward the women involved with Namatame, yet without any disgust aimed toward Namatame himself - because deep down, he's jealous of them, and sees them as being in the way. It might explain some of Adachi's delight at having been the person to pick up the phone when Namatame called, or his even greater delight that this “game” he’d caused had Namatame as the center of it - as his protagonist. (Since Adachi openly says that the truth is basically worthless and that it’s better to chase a lie because it’s less painful, I also wonder if in his eyes giving Namatame the fruitless goal of "saving" the people on the Midnight Channel might even have been a twisted sort of gift. It’s basically a win-win for him.) His only negative comment about Namatame is to say that he’s an idiot for developing a messianic complex - and that could be read both as a truthful distaste for the complex, as well as a distaste for him becoming a different person than the Namatame he’d “known" - but even that negative comment wasn't enough for Adachi to throw Namatame either into the TV or out the open window while he was hospitalized, even though A. he was probably well aware that the investigation team would eventually come talk to him and thus come very, very close to discovering the true culprit, and B. it would have been very, very easy to pass off as a suicide. Was his negative remark, as well as his earlier comment to the investigation team that he'd kill Namatame himself if he could, an attempt at convincing himself that he'd lost interest in Namatame's role in the "game" and didn't care about him at all, despite his actions going against it? The man's already proven himself to be a walking contradiction in many ways, so it's not unreasonable.

While I certainly don't think Adachi and Namatame really knew each other while they were both living in the city (or Namatame would likely have recognized his voice over the phone), Namatame's political campaign would place him in many public spaces - spaces that might be staffed with cops to make sure no one causes any trouble. This is spiraling into my own headcanons, but I have to wonder if he might have grown to admire Namatame as a politician, and then perhaps Namatame went slightly out of his way to be nice to Adachi one time because, y’know, he's a good guy - unaware of the effect that small action would have on the vaguely sociopathic young police officer who had been shown very little kindness in his life. If people can feel close to celebrities they've never even met in reality, imagine the power of a sliver of positive interaction on a lonely, misanthropic man with nothing to cling to!

Despite this, I don't think Adachi is fully aware of this fixation he harbors, or at least not of its true target, because I think back to a conversation with Yu in his social links. While I didn't finish them entirely myself, I've discussed my theory with those who have, and they more or less agreed that though he talks about wanting a girlfriend, it doesn't really seem like he has much actual interest in dating a girl - he only wants to have someone living with him who knows how to cook because he can’t cook for shit. Less interest in a girlfriend as a person, more of a mundane benefit they might be able to give him. As far as I can tell, it's unclear if Adachi even shows a sexual interest in women - especially when compared with the other boys in the game, whose sexual interest in women is rather overt (even when we consider that Kanji is canonically bi and Yosuke also - though probably unintentional on the part of the writers - comes off as bi, too).

A lot of times I don’t necessarily like some fandom arguments for a character's compulsory heterosexuality because it tends to feel like bi erasure. For example, in the Ace Attorney fandom, I’ve seen people invalidate crushes or even entire reciprocated relationships in order to suggest a character was 100% a lesbian despite having little proof to back up the theory. But considering the above evidence, if the authors were trying to make it seem like Adachi liked women, they did a really terrible job of it. While his skepticism and bitterness toward marriage was likely intended to be indicative of either misogyny or a general misanthropy, what it actually reminds me of is something a friend of mine told me a few years ago - that growing up, she always thought marriage sounded like a boring obligation you just had to go through and couldn’t possibly enjoy - until she realized the reason she felt that way was because she was a lesbian, and since gay marriage hadn’t yet been legalized, she didn't know girls were an option. (Unlike Adachi, this friend of mine did not turn out to be a yandere. Unless she’s really changed since high school.)

So ultimately, if we assume that his parents' marriage was seriously fraught, and he was very much isolated from his peers, thus stunting his emotional growth, Adachi likely has a very distorted concept of what love is and is supposed to be (not helped by the number of "crimes of passion" he probably saw and/or investigated while on the force in the city) - so when he was angry at Mayumi and Saki, he thought then, and still thinks now in his confusion, that it was out of love. Add a big dose of "it's Japan in 2011 and Adachi has internalized homophobia as a result", and his repression of his sexuality is several extra padlocks on the closet door - he confuses his feelings for Namatame for jealousy, convinced it's actually Mayumi he has a crush on in order to justify his emotions to himself. It's the one solution I can think of that checks every box, and explains every action - a messy mixture of love, denial, and violence that becomes the catalyst for the entire storyline of Persona 4.

If you have any questions, criticisms, rebuttals, or whatever, hit me up in comments or asks or reblogs! This pet theory of mine has been a long time coming, and I'd love to discuss it with others (or I wouldn't be posting a big long essay on social media, haha). Thank you for reading all this, and I hope that even if you disagree with my interpretation, it was at least an enjoyable thought experiment and character analysis! See you around!

[gilly-bj]

Hi, I am future Gilly that finished now to write this “analysis”, this is a complete random thing I wrote while I was having a Rivamika attack (terms coming back from March, ah the good old days) and I apologize if I am not clear about the things I am saying and if you don’t understand something don’t worry it’s not your fault 🙃 and I apologize for any possible grammar mistake since it’s late here and I am sleepy 😴

You know I'm an hardcore Rivamika shipper and I don't deny the fact that I might sound delusional sometimes, but these days I've been wondering if all my analysis, all the things I found important, basically all the things that made me think RM would have become canon were nothing. The thing that made me believe in Rivamika the most were all their parallels; they have similar outlooks, similar ways of thinking, similar pasts, and this leads to a deep understanding, which is one of reasons why I like this pair. You can see them adopting the same fighting technique, or making the same expressions. But there's this one parallel, it's the only one that made me really believe Mikasa and Levi were meant to end up together. I have never believed in that red string of fate thing between Eren and Mikasa for obvious reasons, but I believe there's a connection between Mikasa and Levi and now I will explain my theory (which is not new but is the most sensible Rivamika theory I've ever read): now, you know Farlan and Isabel? They were Levi's friends when he was living in the underground and them three together make the so called Underground Trio. They died soon after joining the Survey Corps and in my opinion, their death was the one that hurt Levi the most. Many would say it was Erwin's or Kenny's, but I can't forget the pain I saw in Levi's eyes when he realized they were gone.

For, apparently, inexplicable reasons, EMA trio has obvious parallels with the Underground trio, it terms of looks, personality, and the bond they have with each other. Farlan and Armin have both blonde hair and blue eyes and they have a reflective personality, their actions are lead by logic. Isabel and Eren have both green eyes, and a determined personality (there was a rumor that said Eren and Isabel were cousins but I don't know if it was confirmed) . Mikasa and Levi have both black hair and a similar personality: both are quite, cold and heartless outside but they have a big heart and care for the people around them, especially their friends. Young!Levi was also impulsive, like Mikasa, and in my opinion, this is the reason why he always tells her to calm down. He doesn't want her to make his same mistakes. Many Rivamika shippers have already said that, but Levi's care and protection towards Mikasa probably comes out from the fact that he sees his younger self in her and doesn't want her to became broken like him.

(This picture is not mine, credits to the owner)

The last parallel I can find between these two trios is the most beautiful one in my prospective. Like Isabel and Farlan died and left Levi alone and broken, Eren and Armin were meant to die because of the Titan Curse. At some point of her life, Mikasa would have found herself in Levi's conditions, broken and alone, and I can perfectly see Levi comforting her because after all, he's the only one that can fully understand her feelings. So basically, the connection between them is given by the fact that after all the mess these two poor characters went through, Mikasa was meant to find herself in the same conditions as Young!Levi. Do you remember what happened after Isabel and Farlan died? Levi found Erwin, his liege. So a broken and alone Mikasa without a liege with a broken and alone Levi without a liege leads to… Rivamika becoming each other’s liege! (I’m not a big fan of the liege thing, but I find cute the idea of finding someone you bond with and that you will never let go). Take a look at this:

Some say that Levi was thinking about Kenny in this frame, but I don't agree. The moment EMA is having made him think about his friends. Why? Because he lived the same moment with them various years ago. It's a circle. And Mikasa's line "Yet another conversation only you two have" intensifies Rivamika connection. Mikasa excluded herself from Eren and Armin conversation, which is a metaphor to their future: she will be excluded from their lives because they will die, and casually Levi was there, eavesdropping their conversation.

I don’t know if you get what I mean, I am sorry if I don’t sound clear but I can’t find any other words to say what I am saying 😭 If you want to explain what I am saying in the comments I would appreciate your help 🥲

Now please take a look to this panel:

I am trying my best to not sound biased but please, look at them. Look at their expressions. Levi seemed to vulnerable and soft in the first panel. In my opinion, this is when Levi understood that Mikasa and him have many things in common, especially with his younger self. Then he made that kind of “snap out of it” look which I assume was because he didn’t want to reveal his vulnerable side or because he knew she might become important to him. And then the close up on Mikasa’s face, like she noticed that Levi was looking at her in a different way. I think this is one of the few moments in the manga where Mikasa wasn’t wearing her “Eren is my liege” mask. You know when in films or dramas, the girl decides to treat coldly her future love interest just because he did something bad to her friends/her original love interest, but then it turns out that he is not that bad but she doesn’t want to break the promise she did to herself, it gives me those vibes. Anyway, my question is: what was the reason behind this? I refuse to believe it is meaningless.

Another thing that made me believe Rivamika had chances to be canon were all their interactions in the last chapters. All the times Levi was seen staring at Mikasa were so many, especially in chapter 133 (If I am not mistaken, I don’t remember and honestly I don’t want to re-read the chapters 😬) and the parallels between chapter 135 and 31? Can we talk about how the tables have turned? And it was the first time we saw them fighting together after... centuries 😬 What a comeback... I was so happy when I saw the leaks. Oh and 138? Please ignore the Erem*ka kiss because we know it’s a joke so is the ugly last chapter 139, but... the foreshadowings? Eren had Levi’s haircut in Mikasa’s dream, and there’s no way that was a mistake since Eren and Levi’s haircuts are completely different. And Levi’s eyes shining after hearing Mikasa’s words? I don’t know, maybe to Yams that didn’t mean anything, or maybe he did it only to make sure we were reading 139 since he knows we pay particular attention to details... I don’t know but I don’t think so, too many hints. In conclusion, what I wanted to say with this long ass “analysis” is

Rivamika is canon cry about it

Honestly this makes no sense so sorry everyone 🤦🏻‍♀️ I missed writing analysis and this is not the way I imagined my comeback but please don’t bully me haha

[basketballandtextbooks]

Speaking of analyses, what's your interpretation of Kenny? (I feel like he's the one character that really doesn't get talked about in the same manner as other characters. Sure, he gets praised often for being a good boi and there's discussions/theories of his curse, his homelife, sex... But as far as him as a WHOLE, as a person, I don't tend to see that a lot. I think that's why his fanon interpretations feel like a disconnection: He's quiet, his hood being down doesn't mean he'll "talk more")

To even begin delving into all of the aspects of Kenny’s personality, we’ll first have to divide up subsections to how he behaves in certain circumstances, ascertain his motives for doing so, and then finally combine all of that information into a cohesive assessment of his thoughts, feelings, and agendas. And as a bonus, I’d like to discuss how these traits would most likely change and develop over time.  All that said, I just really like his character so instead of doing all that fancy essay work, I’m just going to babble about him. We’ll start with what is both the most and least important aspect to Kenny; his relationship with death.

Death has haunted Kenny for his entire life so far as we, the viewers, are able to tell. The current in-series explanation for his ceaseless bouts of death involves his parents in a cthulhu cult before he was even born. The details here are vague, but the implication that leaves us with is that this is a lifelong affliction. Flashbacks as early as preschool support this theory as we’ve seen Kenny die in a firecracker accident back then. Kenny’s feelings towards death are made clear in several lines and yet more nonverbal cues. He’s scared of death. It’s painful and he hates it. Even knowing he’ll come back, or at least assuming he’ll come back, that doesn’t stop him from screaming, running, crying out, hiding, and outright declaring how painful and unpleasant he finds death. This at least tells us one thing about Kenny’s personality going forward that will be important to understanding further aspects: He hates pain. He’s had plenty of pain, pain beyond what a normal person could ever imagine, and he hates it. One conjecture we can make from this knowledge is he’s extremely unlikely to self-harm in a violent or painful way, such as cutting or punching himself. He has shown a brief interest in pain for sexual pleasure though, as seen with his stint of asphyxiation for masturbation. The attempt killed him but we never get a follow up on whether or not he found it enjoyable, therefore it can be read as either “Kenny enjoys pain for pleasure, specifically asphyxiation” or “Kenny tried pain for pleasure once and as it resulted in his death, he doesn’t want to do it again” or “Kenny will try anything sexual at least once”. Among these readings, the third is most likely the most accurate while the first two can be entirely up to the opinion of the interpreter. They have equal canonicity behind them.

His hatred of death and pain has led him to become bitter and angry towards the people around him on many occasions. For example, when Kyle was dying Kenny was incapable of feeling sympathy for Stan’s sadness over it when Stan was so consistently apathetic towards his own death. It’s clear that Kenny doesn’t want Kyle to die and cares about the well-being of all of his friends (sacrificing his life for them on many occasions) but it was particularly painful to listen to Stan talk about how sad he was that a friend of his was dying in the hospital. If we pay attention to the timeline, this happens before Kenny dies in the hospital and Stan refuses to visit him, which would solidify every feeling of resentment he felt when Stan was worried over Kyle. During that time, Stan had had no trouble visiting Kyle in the hospital so from Kenny’s perspective, Stan just didn’t care. Still, he clearly cares for Stan and his other friends which is why we hear the repeated “Where’s Stan?” that breaks our hearts every damn time. It’s worth noting that Kenny has a teddy bear in the hospital that is never seen before or since, it’s very likely a bear from the hospital gift shop given to him by one of his visitors. So either Chef, his parents, or Kyle bought him the bear. A personal favorite headcanon of mine is that Kevin stole the bear for him but there is absolutely no evidence to support that hypothesis. Logically the culprit is either Chef or Kyle, considering the McCormick’s money troubles, and it would be very in character of Sheila to insist he buy something for his friend at the gift shop. Another thing to note is that Kyle is the only one of his friends, aside from Cartman, who visits him in his hospital room. Butters sends a card and there are visible gifts that build over time. We know for a fact during the episode where Kyle was dying that the teacher would have the students make cards for a sick classmate, so the card and gifts are most likely a byproduct of that. It is worth noting that while Kenny was dying such a slow and painful death, Kyle was the only one who was able to stay at his side. Stan found it too painful to watch him die and Eric was off on his mission to ‘save’ Kenny. I believe this impacted the way Kenny viewed his friends in the future, distancing himself from Eric and opening up to Stan less and less. His relationship with Kyle remains dubious and the other kids in his class he keeps an emotional distance between.

One cannot address the issues of this episode without also delving into the issues regarding the length of his death and revival. It’s implicit in the show that Kenny has no idea how long he will be dead for, a few hours or a few years, and there is very little consistency in how he is revived. Most frequently he revives via a literal rebirth (one notable instance of this causing his mother to have a miscarriage), but he’s also had instances of reviving back into his own corpse or literally appearing out of thin air. This leads us to the explanation that he doesn’t know how long he’ll be dead, where he’ll go, or how he’ll revive. This loss of control in his life causes him to put a significant distance between himself and anyone he might care about, for fear that his condition would ruin any chances of maintaining the relationship.

This is especially apparent in his complicated relationship with Cartman (which we will address in more detail later). During his extended period of death, Cartman was the driving force in finding a ‘Kenny replacement’ and Kenny’s self-proclaimed BFF. Both Stan and Kyle joined these attempts cheerfully, but Cartman was the most determined. He tried with both Tweek and Butters, succeeding in finding a best friend in Butters and making Butters an on-again-off-again addition to the ‘main four’ while also maintaining a close (and complicated) friendship to Cartman. Butters was compared to Kenny on several occasions during this transition and showed both agitation and resentment over the comparison. Eventually putting Kenny up on a pedestal as someone ‘great’ because of all the times the guys assured him that “Kenny would do it if he were here”.

It’s worth noting that the two individuals within canon who clearly and canonically remember Kenny’s deaths are Cartman and Timmy. While an explanation for Timmy’s knowledge is still left up in the air, there are a few potential explanations for Cartman’s retained memories. One explanation that I normally prescribe to is that Cartman has Kenny’s eyes and by taking a body-part of Kenny’s, he can now see Kenny’s deaths. This explanation isn’t perfect, as Cartman showed signs of understanding Kenny’s condition prior to that episode, but its one potential explanation. Understanding his condition could have been a basis for the initial development of their friendship or it could have been a secret shared when they were still close that Eric was naïve enough to believe. Although, Eric’s understanding of Kenny’s condition could very easily be an explanation for his own apathy towards other people's deaths (like how he murdered Scott’s parents). Ever since he could remember, his best friend had died and come back, at the age of 8 or 9, how could he possibly have a complete understanding that Kenny’s case wasn’t normal. He could have very well expected Scott’s parents to return the next day the same way Kenny did. While it’s also possible he committed those murders knowing full well that their deaths were permanent, it is still hard to believe that he’d even be capable of taking death seriously after seeing Kenny die so many times.

Continuing further, Kenny’s fear of death does not make him cowardly, quite the contrary. Some stand out sacrifices that he made while scared would be during the meteor shower trilogy (he owed nothing to those people and still gave his life to protect them) and during the hunt for Eric’s parentage, sacrificing his life to save the hospital. He was scared both times and they were ultimately selfless acts. What makes them stand out even more though is how dependent his friends were on him during both instances. They had full and complete faith and trust that Kenny would save the day. Even without cognitively remembering Kenny’s condition, they still trust him with their lives and know he’s the sort of person who would save them.

It’s very likely that this is a reason that Kenny grew into a more and more protective person as the seasons go by, in a way this faith that he’d save them is some of the purest positive feedback he gets from his asshole friends. Whether intentional or not, there was a part of Kenny and his friends who viewed him as a protector above all else. These sorts of implicit expectations can really affect a person’s development. It is most likely due to a combo of this aforementioned expectation and Kenny’s growing cynicism about his own deaths, that he accepts the role so whole-heartedly.

Kenny has a strong association with drugs from early seasons, where rumors of him sniffing paint were prevalent and an instance of him snorting alien coke occurred. His hedonistic personality and inability to die seemingly leading him to believe that he was invincible. And therefore he doesn’t need to worry about the negative effects of recreational drug use. This all changed after the events of major boobage. It should be evidence alone that by the end of major boobage, all rumors about Kenny and drugs ended and he was never again referenced to indulge in recreational substances, especially considering their earlier prevalence, but the series goes even further to show us that he not only got clean, stayed clean, but has developed a dislike for recreational and addictive substances.

Kenny would never do recreational drugs of any kind as a teen or adult and he is unlikely to drink alcohol either. It is very likely he dislikes weed, meth, and beer in particular. Kenny exhibited addictive behavior during Major Boobage and he was addicted to cheesing. However at the end of Major Boobage, Kenny stated firmly that he did not want to be addicted, would quit immediately, and he decided firmly to avoid drugs henceforth. His entire character arc for the episode was learning that he did not like the recreational use of drugs. It’s interesting that the fans interpret this episode as proof he would do drugs considering the entire plot of the episode was about his character growth in that specific regard. It’s like watching an episode where Stan learns to accept his gay dog and saying he will always be homophobic and never change because he started the episode not accepting his gay dog. It’s boggling.

However it is worth noting that Kenny relapsed at the very end of the episode by 'getting high on life'. While this could be evidence that he’d ‘never’ get clean (again disregarding all other evidence to the contrary) but it actually shows something that is quite telling for his ability to stay sober. His friends were quick to help him and pull him back from it. This alludes to him continuing to have support from friends and family during recovery. Recovery is a hard and difficult thing that is nearly impossible without a support network. This is a shockingly optimistic moment when understood through the lens of how difficult it is to fight for sobriety.

However the evidence that Kenny has chosen to stay clean doesn’t stop there. Aside from all rumors about him sniffing paint and other implications dying down all together, we have an extremely telling scene with his parents in a later season. During the superhero trilogy Mysterion startles his parents while they are getting high (specifically on weed). His parents state, fearfully, that Mysterion has been threatening them to stay off drugs and attempt to hide the pot from him, knowing he wouldn’t approve. This is telling in a few ways but one that is significant is that Kenny hated his parents' use of drugs, including ‘harmless drugs’ such as marijuana so much that he would go as far as to threaten them. We very rarely see an outright aggressive or threatening Kenny and we almost never see him show any ill will towards his family. Kenny is shown over the course of the series to be very fond of his family. His hatred of recreational drug use would have to be quite intense for him to go as far as to threaten his parents. The implied subtext of this scene is that Kenny considered what they were doing to be an extremely bad thing. So bad that he would threaten people he loves enough to terrify them that badly. This shows that since the Major Boobage episode, Kenny's attitude towards drugs has definitely grown negative. Moreso, the threat of staying off drugs was paired with the threat to ‘treat their children better’, leaving the heavy implication that he views those two as linked.

Even further evidence provided for Kenny’s continued sobriety and dislike of recreational abuse of addictive substances. During The Poor Kid, when Kenny was out of options with his foster family, he resorted to providing them with alcohol. Showing that he firmly believes that the best way to destroy people is to give them addictive products like alcohol. Further evidence that he feels negatively towards the drugs and alcohol. It’s played off as a joke in the episode but it’s clear that Kenny has strongly associated alcohol with destroying people.

Despite drugs and alcohol playing a major role in several plot lines that follow, Kenny is never shown to have an interest in them. As stated above, in early seasons he’d happily snort alien coke and now he never so much as approaches drugs positively. It’s extremely indicative that this change and interest in sobriety is long-lasting.

Finally we also see Kenny joining Stan's band that he created out of frustration with his situation on Tegridy Farms. Stan has grown to hate weed and what it represents and it is currently causing his family life to be much worse than usual. Kenny, as shown in episodes like The Scoots, loves his friends a lot Stan included. Watching his friend in so much pain can only cause him to view the substance as even worse. It is very likely that while they were working on the band and practicing he heard Stan's complaints as well. Kenny is actively watching as marijuana tears the Marsh family apart. He also watched Stan’s struggles with alcoholism and Stan’s fathers struggles with addiction as yet further examples of how these substances can destroy lives.

During TFBW game, there is a drug subplot that Mysterion actively works to put a stop to. Again, never once part-taking in drugs and actively fighting against their spread in his city. It doesn’t get any more blatant that that. Kenny is far more likely to join the DEA than he is to get high behind the gym. Kenny would never indulge in recreational drug use, specifically meth, weed, and beer, because of his experience watching them ruin families and strain friendships. As well as his own experience with drugs when he decided that he did not want to live that kind of lifestyle.

There’s a bit more evidence that delves into the realm of headcanon, but it is a logical extension of deductive reasoning based on the canon content we are provided with so I will include it as well. We know that Kenny and Satan developed a friendly relationship during Bigger, Longer, and Uncut. We also saw Satan give Stan a very simplified and child friendly lecture on addiction, as though he’d given the same lecture before. While there is no evidence of this, it isn’t a stretch to imagine the person he’d previously helped through their addictive tendencies was Kenny.

To be clear, this isn’t an anti-drug PSA. I don’t care what characters do or don’t do drugs, this is merely establishing that for Kenny specifically with the character arc he’s had, it is very unlikely and borderline insulting to his struggles for sobriety. However Kenny’s connections to drugs also open up some interesting relationship details as well.

During the major boobage episode in particular all of his friends join forces to get Kenny clean, Kyle in particular spear-heading the effort. Stan was there and Butters was there but neither showed as much passion or commitment for assisting Kenny’s progress to sobriety as Kyle did. Even putting his own neck on the line by hiding a cat in his room (with Sheila Broflovski as a mother, is he suicidal?). It’s yet another case, like with the Kenny Dies episode, where all his friends offer very passive support and Kyle offers a very aggressive and consistent support. It’s shown a pattern thus far of Kyle feeling in some way responsible for Kenny’s wellbeing. Which could be explained by a few things, Kyle’s obsessive and passionate personality or perhaps he feels subconsciously guilty for all the times he’s left Kenny for dead. Really we have no way of knowing why he’s doing this but we do know he’s starting to develop a pattern of protectiveness towards Kenny. What’s even more interesting is during both instances Kenny is too far gone to notice. During Kenny Dies he’s frequently asking for Stan and during this episode he’s angry and belligerent that Kyle is taking away his high. Making both tasks thankless endeavors on Kyle’s part (which is also a little unusual because Kyle loves to be praised for his hard work). Kenny’s relationship with Eric is at a low during this episode, Eric caring more about cats than his old BFF and Kenny now knowing that Eric won’t even make an emotionally dishonest attempt to be there for him. I would be interested to see how Kenny in specific felt about Eric facilitating the drug trade during TFBW considering his sobriety and the fact that Eric was never there for him through it. Butters and Stan just don’t stand out as particularly good or bad friends during this episode, they’re just sort of there and listening to Kyle’s instructions. 

However, it’s worth noting that when there were rumors about Kenny getting high in early seasons, Eric was a mentioned accomplice, which makes it even more interesting to think about how Kenny’s sobriety might have solidified the growing rift between the two. Perhaps they used to be the kind of friends who got high behind the gym together and now Kenny won’t and Eric thinks he’s a pussy with sand in his vagina. It’s just an interesting nugget of characterization to explore. How specifically did Kenny’s sobriety impact his relationship with Eric? It’s an engaging question I wish more fans would ask because I would love to see the potential answers and hypotheses’. It’s also worth noting that after Stan’s own struggles with sobriety and addiction in later seasons, it’s possible that Kenny could have become Stan’s sponsor or perhaps that the two of them connect over this unique struggle in their lives that their other friends wouldn’t have as complete an understanding of.

There’s a lot and a little to be said about Kenny and his relationship to his siblings. The clearest picture we get of his relationships with them is his obsessive protectiveness of Karen, even going so far as to deny her own wants and needs (as seen in the TFBW dlc) in order to protect her from all perceived danger. Even if the danger is as mundane as ‘being lame’. But to get a better idea of his relationship with his siblings, I’d like to start from the beginning.

Namely, before Karen even existed within the narrative. In the early seasons with Kevin and Kenny as the only two McCormick children, we see a passive and friendly relationship (a stark contrast to the Marsh family siblings). Kevin does nothing aggressive towards his brother and he is seen peacefully playing with Kenny as well. While this does not make it impossible that Kevin isn’t a friendly sibling, from the context we see him in for the early seasons, there’s no reason to assume he isn’t a kind older brother to Kenny.

Which brings us to the impossibility of Karen’s birth. As stated above, Kenny revives most frequently through rebirth and he dies far too frequently to allow Carol a successful pregnancy.  And we know that, to Kenny’s knowledge, he was the youngest McCormick child during the episode that confirmed he gives his mother miscarriages. He tried to give her a miscarriage before doing so on accident, hating the idea of having a younger sibling more than anything.

This is something that also lends to the idea that Kevin is a kind older sibling and that he is fond of his parents, regardless of their flaws. It’s explicit within the episode that Kenny doesn’t want a younger sibling because he doesn’t want to share that love. He wants Kevin to spoil him and his parents to spoil him and he doesn’t want to lose that to someone younger and cuter. Perhaps his attachment to being spoiled could be because he’s so relied upon by his friends as a protector that he is loath to lose the one type relationship he has in his life that places him as someone to be protected rather than doing the protecting. This is conjecture, but it would make sense with the characterization we’ve seen thus far.

But how did Karen come into being? The ongoing theory in fanon is that she was born during the year Kenny was dead and his friends replaced him but going through the aging timeline, it’s unlikely he was dead a full year (more likely only a few months) and even if the timeline matched up, Karen is six years old when she is first introduced, only 3 years younger than Kenny. Which means she had to have been born long before this incident. Another ongoing theory is that she’s adopted or a foster child, but those are relatively unlikely as well. The McCormick household has a fucking meth lab in the back yard. There is no adoption agency that is going to give them a child. And this theory ignores her clear resemblance to both Kevin and Stuart.

This is why I believe the most likely source of Karen is through a third party and Stuart. There are no adoption hoops to jump through if Stuart is her biological father and it explains the familial resemblance. It’s not difficult to believe Carol would accept her as her own due to how desperately she wanted another child.

As for how Karen was conceived, that’s up for interpretation. She could have been a product of infidelity or a case of someone else carrying her for the McCormick’s as Carol is effectively baron. I will say that Stuart’s infidelity is more likely purely because of the age. If they’d asked someone to carry Karen to term for them, Karen should have started living with them when Kenny was three and yet, she doesn’t join the family until the age of six. There could be a myriad of reasons for this that can be left entirely up to the interpretation of the viewer but the only logical way for Karen to exist as she does is that she is Kenny’s half sister.

When Karen showed up, Kenny clearly grew immediately attached and began to mature quickly. Taking part in less shenanigans, taking responsibility for her well-being, protecting her from bullies, playing with her in his free time. Kenny didn’t want to be an older brother but when push came to shove, he accepted the responsibility whole-heartedly and fully embraced his younger sister. Even more meaningfully, he didn’t care about whether or not she was fully blood related and treated her as a sister just the same. It’s possible one of the reasons he didn’t see any need for blood to create familial ties is growing up with Kyle and Ike nearby and knowing that it wasn’t blood that made them brothers. It’s also possible that he just has too much integrity to treat her as anything less than his baby sister.

One thing that should be noted about children Kenny’s age is modeling. Children, especially under the age of ten, are extremely susceptible to the behavior modeled for them. For example, children who have older siblings who mistreat them are far more likely to mistreat their own younger siblings. It’s a monkey-see, monkey-do time of life. Therefore I would like to present with this as my evidence that Kevin was just as kind and protective as Kenny is to Karen. He’s at an age where he models what he sees around him, treats others how he is treated. The other sibling relationships he’s close to is Kyle and Ike, which while loving took awhile and is significantly less overtly affectionate at times, and of course the Marsh siblings who have an overtly negative relationship until very recently in canon.

Meaning it’s possible he modeled how to treat a younger sibling after how Kyle treats Ike but it’s difficult to imagine him playing kick the baby with Karen. It’s more likely that he grew up with a protective older brother who spoiled him and he is now passing down the behavior that he received.

In short the McCormick siblings have a complicated but interesting relationship. There’s a lot to be said about how while Kenny was being conceived (with Stuart and Carol constantly getting high at a cult and subsequently arrested) that Kevin was only three years old and he wouldn’t have been able to fend for himself at this time. He might have attached onto Kenny so strongly out of loneliness over the severe neglect his parents subjected him to.

It’s worth mentioning that one place Kenny remains determined to indulge is with his hobbies, specifically with magic the gathering, his psp, and nascar. Kenny has for the majority of his characterization been defined by his hedonism. Doing what felt good, when it felt good. It’s why he has such a striking and intriguing character arc over the course of the series. Going from a pure hearted and selfless hedonist (an interesting combo in itself) into a more mature and more reserved individual who denies himself those simple easy pleasures (such as drugs).

But he still has a desire for escapism and so he pursues his hobbies with a passion and protective zeal that can be alarmingly violent. He doesn’t just love his hobbies and desire to indulge in them, but he also wants them to be respected and he despises a mockery being made of them. He doesn’t just enjoy them, he becomes masters at them. He pours all of his passion into being an amazing Magic player, into achieving the highest score in his favorite game, into murdering the one who mocked Nascar.

Wait, that last one doesn’t quite belong. We’re going to put a pin in that one for further exploration in the Cartman section, but it’s worth mentioning that his passion for that sport is so intense that he would be willing to commit murder. While the characters in South Park are outright murderous by nature, Kenny is one of the least homicidal in town (it’s a relative term) and as such, his turn to homicidal rage in defense of his hobby is notable.

He knows Cartman, he knows this is probably a phase and Cartman will get over it, if it was any other circumstance he’d probably be laughing his ass off at home that Cartman was making an idiot of himself on live TV and driving a vagisil car while eating the cream. It’s objectively hilarious and something that Kenny would normally have laughed at and moved on. He’s shown discomfort with Cartman’s escapades before but he’s never taken it so personally. Even when it was a direct attack against Kenny.

There is a part of Kenny that just can’t tolerate his hobbies being so openly mocked and made a sham of. Even during cock magic, he felt deeply uncomfortable with the spectacle the game he loved was turning into, doing everything he could in his limited capacity to continue to treat it seriously and play with integrity. Kenny loves his hobbies with a passion that we don’t see from him for much else.

One potential explanation for this is the emotional distance he has with other people that I alluded to before. He has a lot of love to give and a passionate personality but he dies. All the time. No one remembers, those that do only use his death for their own gain, and while he’s dead even his closest and dearest friends will attempt to replace him or actively resent him. People can replace him. People can betray him.

Playing cards? They have no autonomy. They can’t change after his death; they just wait for him in his room until his revival. Nascar? Sure, he might miss a few races but he can always catch up or just watch new content. Kenny has found an outlet for all the love that bubbles up inside of him that doesn’t rely on people who he’s learned to mistrust.

There is also something to be said about his addictive personality and it’s very possible that he uses his hobbies as a replacement for drugs. Indulging in healthier hobbies in an attempt to replace the ones he now views so negatively. A strong support of this theory is that before Kenny’s sobriety he was less passionate about hobbies and after his sobriety, he is clearly and consistently more obsessive about his hobbies. (further evidence of his continued sobriety, fucking fight me fanon. don’t even tell me you do it for the angst, a struggle for sobriety is way more angsty than a momentary high. ya’ll just want him to do drugs/alcohol because you do and you kin him.)

Kenny’s love for his hobbies is quickly becoming a defining trait but also it’s worth noting that his hobbies are social in nature. He didn’t pick up drawing or writing or origami, things he’s shown an interest for in early seasons, he picked up Magic and Gaming and Nascar, all three when indulged as hobbies are inherently social. You watch Nascar with people, you play Magic with people, especially in this day and age, you play videogames with people.

Even though he’s given up on connecting with people on a deeper level and puts a distance between himself and others, he still pursues hobbies that connect him to them. This indicates that he could still be trying to reach out to others and wants a deeper connection. But on his own terms. He doesn’t select hobbies that the others are already into to attract them to him, he’s pursuing hobbies he likes. Stubborn and selective boy. I haven’t listed all of his talents, skills, and hobbies here, mind you, just the ones relevant to my points (meaning I left out details about his passion for singing because that appears to be a natural talent and sports because he enjoys them but shows no real passion for them)

I’ve probably put off talking about his friendships for too long at this point but a part of me wanted to save this for last, as so much of what there is to say about his friendships with others is indicated in other segments. But the as this is an entirely unstructured attempt at explaining my thoughts and headcanons about Kenny McCormick, I don’t believe it matters the order I go in so here is an overview of his relationships with a few key individuals in his life.

We’re going to start with Kelly. Not because she’s the most influential or most important, but because her impact on his personality is striking in a way that I have to wonder why more people don’t address it. Prior to meeting Kelly he didn’t have as much resentment towards his friends over his condition and after meeting her, for reasons that will become obvious soon, the seeds of pain grow into something larger.

For those of you who are largely unfamiliar with her, she is Kenny’s first girlfriend. She developed an immediate attraction towards him and began to pursue him with a hesitant intensity. Kenny, as he does with most people who approach him so passionately, treats this with confusion and hesitance. She’s hyper logical, goes at her own pace, and treats the fact that Kenny would like her as a matter of course.

Her pursuit of Kenny isn’t what’s most notable but it is worth noting how he responds to someone pursuing him. It’s the confusion that strikes me the most, he’s not used to being treated like something special, and he doesn’t know how to reply. It’s a far cry from the smooth talking flirty Kenny of fanon. Kenny is far more likely to respond with hesitant interest, confusion, and eventual flustered flattery to a romantic pursuit based on how we’ve seen him respond in canon. This isn’t to say he couldn’t develop a more flirtatious personality with age, but it’s worth noting that within canon we don’t see a hint of that as of yet.

The impact that Kelly truly makes on Kenny’s personality isn’t a romantic one though. Although it is my belief that he will grow to view it and gestures like it as romantic ones in the future, but that’s a headcanon digression. Her contribution to his development is simple:

She saves his life.

While no one else would, no one else tried, no one else thought it was possible. It’s very likely that his friends all have a sense of subconscious learned helplessness in regards to Kenny’s death and therefore don’t fight it because, to them, it’s an inevitability and Kelly was only able to do this because she was not previously exposed to the multitude of Kenny deaths.

But the fact is that a person claimed to care about him, wanted to date him, and then when the worst thing about his life was going to happen again, she saved him. In this moment Kenny associated on some level caring about him to saving him. The fact that Kelly saved him meant she cared and by extension, the fact that no one else saves him or even holds him in his dying moments, means that they do not care about him.

Let’s return to that moment of lost empathy and sympathy when Stan was grieving Kyle’s illness. Perhaps on some level he’d just grown to understand that Stan wasn’t the sort to try helping his friends when they’re in mortal peril, made an exception that it’s not that Stan didn’t care, it’s just that Stan wasn’t the type to try saving another person’s life. Or grieve. Sure, it frames Stan as an awful person but to Kenny, Stan being an inherently cruel person was far less painful than the horrible knowledge that Stan did care. He just didn’t care about Kenny. In this moment he’s able to see the moment that Kelly saved him, because she cared about him, and all the moments that neither Stan nor his other friends even tried to save him. To add insult to injury, he dies right then and there and Stan still doesn’t care.

He’s left with the horrible implication that his worst fears about his friends are right. It’s not that they don’t remember because they can’t, it’s that they just don’t give a fuck about him. It’s terrifying, worse than even the prospect of a friend dying.

Which is another matter, as Kenny is semi-frequent in the underworld(s), it’s difficult for him to fully empathize with the idea of Kyle dying. Normally the terror of a loved one dying is that you’ll never see them again, but for Kenny it’s likely he’d still see Kyle every Tuesday. While he words to protect his friends and clearly loves his friends, when they’re lives are in peril like this, it’s sometimes difficult for him to empathize. He doesn’t want them to die but there’s a bitter part of him that’s unable to grieve if they do.

Kelly’s selfless and kind act, one that showed Kenny a moment of what it was like to feel loved, left such a terrible lasting impact that we can see seasons and seasons later. "ALL THE TIME! I die all the time! And you assholes NEVER remember!! Remember! Try and fucking remember!"

Now this can’t be entirely attributed to Kelly, obviously, but I think she’s an important contributing factor to his descent into bitterness that is entirely under-explored. And I also find the way he continues to pursue the relationship with her after she’s left back to her home state to be really telling about how loyal he is within a relationship. Even with his own financial and logistical issues in dating a person who lives so far away, he does his best to visit her whenever he can. She clearly meant a lot to him and it will forever taunt me that we never got an onscreen breakup. It’s also notable that he shows the same level of respectful loyalty to Tammy while dating her. This showcases a clear pattern of treating his significant others with kindness, patience, loyalty, and respect.

Now that I’ve spent ages talking about a girl most fans don’t even remember existed, let’s start in on Stan. Stan seems to hold a special importance to Kenny, it’s difficult to say exactly why (but I’m sure if I dig more I can find out) but moreso than Eric, Kyle, or Butters, Kenny seeks out Stan’s approval in one way or another. It’s very subtle, sort of a ‘blink and miss it’ thing but it can be blatant. The aforementioned moments regarding Kyle’s hospitalization and his own hospitalization. In more subtle moments, we can see Kenny gravitate towards Stan while Kyle and Cartman have their tiffs.

One possible explanation for his attachment to Stan is his horrified “oh my god, they killed Kenny!” frequently by the time Kyle has joined in with “you bastards!”, Kenny is already too dead to hear it. So it’s possible that he puts a lot of weight on their friendship because he views Stan as one of the few people who react to his death at all.

(I can’t help but wonder how gleeful Kenny must have felt that Stan chose his side during the Black Friday trilogy)

Regardless of the reason, Stan appears to be the one among them that Kenny has distanced himself the most from. He’s shown to be very compassionate in most situations but in later seasons when Stan is struggling, Kenny is frequently distant or unresponsive towards it. This seems to be mending in the most recent seasons, with episodes where it shows that they’re fond of one another but even then, there’s an undeniable rift. Despite being Stan’s friend for longer and what most would consider closer to him, during the band episode Stan interacted more with Butters and Jimmy than he did Kenny.

This is also possibly explained by Kenny’s under-explored shyness (something I don’t know if I’ll even get the chance to dig into because I’ve already been going on for so long and I’m barely through half of the things I want to talk about). But I believe that Kenny has put some emotional distance between himself and Stan due to the moments that led him to believe that Stan does not ‘care’. One example of this is during the Cthulhu trilogy, when he explodes in response to his friends questioning, he gets upset with Stan’s reactions but only explodes to Kyle’s, despite their questions being equally ‘offensive’. Perhaps he’s put up more emotional walls with Stan and he’s more prepared for him to be insensitive than he is with Kyle.

Kyle is a complicated relationship to define. On one hand they’ve both had moments of cool apathy towards one another (Kyle during ookie-mouth and Kenny during Cherokee Hair Tampons), although both of those situations are easily understood under the lens of the other stressors. Kyle claimed to “not care about Kenny” but it was only in response to being asked to spit in one another’s mouths. Kyle is a canonical germaphobe (in weirdly most regards other than poop, which he is strangely very comfortable with) and being asked to let someone else spit in your mouth would be trying even if you had no issue with germs. As for Kenny’s moment, as explained above, he was far more concerned with the implications of what it meant for his friendship with Stan at that moment. And not entirely unreasonably.

Kyle’s strange because despite not being Kenny’s closest friend by any stretch of the imagination, he’s been there for Kenny during most of his pivotal character moments in one capacity or another. In a way, Kyle is the one constant in his life. He holds Kenny as he dies in Wing, he stays by his side in Kenny Dies, he fights for his sobriety in Major Boobage, he invites him to become a Jew Scout in Jewbilee, helping him out in The Coon, there are weirdly numerous examples of their friendship and yet there is no explicit focus on it. It’s also worth noting that among all his friends, Kyle was the one Kenny chose to view the meteor shower with and this was during a time where he was still objectively closest to Cartman. And the same can be said for the Coon episode, Kyle was the one Kenny went to for help.

It’s difficult to define their relationship because while they have a strong pattern of a deep and supportive friendship, they also never even attempt to be one another’s ‘favorite’. Although Kyle does seem to be the most protective of Kenny among the main boys (this is of course only a relative, the bar is really low). For example, despite all the boys having lice in Licecapades, Kyle was the only one who came forward to save Kenny from the sock bath. It would take a whole other essay to fully dissect how their relationship works but to simplify it, it appears that they rely on one another.

During Jewbilee, Kyle has complete baseless faith that Kenny will save them. There’s no reason for this other than he just knows that Kenny will. Moses is captured, an all powerful figure, and Kyle still thinks his parka wearing little friend has got this covered. Conversely Kenny comes to Kyle when he needs help, like with Mysterion’s “You’re the smartest kid I know”. It’s just interesting how much they rely on one another and never make a big deal of it. Their friendship is based on an understated mutual trust.

Cartman on the other hand takes any and all trust, and throws it in the bin. If Kyle requires an essay to explain, Kenny’s relationship with Cartman needs a dissertation. That said, I’ll make an attempt to keep this short and to the point. Eric and Kenny do seem to at one point have shared a mutually beneficial friendship, with both of them liking Kyle and Stan more than they liked one another but still clinging to one another in a strange and desperate loneliness. One of the ways they bonded over the course of their friendship was a similar sense of humor. They both enjoyed crude and childish jokes more than either Kyle or Stan did and therefore they were able to indulge in them with one another. The trouble was that Eric had a malicious edge to his humor and Kenny did not. Eric was willing to take things farther than Kenny ever was, potentially purely to prove to the world that he would. A perfect microcosm of why this aspect of their friendship fell apart is found in How To Eat With Your Butt. They both found the ‘butt’ school picture to be hilarious in the beginning but when real people were looking for their son, Kenny dropped the joke immediately but Eric pushed further. These sorts of moments increased in frequency, leading Kenny to pity Eric above all else and Eric to both love and despise Kenny in equal measure.

Eric was still the person Kenny reached out to more than most people, like during Bigger, Longer, and Uncut, but the strain on their friendship began to show more and more and then… Kenny died. Eric knows about Kenny’s deaths, possibly the entire reason he spent all his time trying to make a clone Shakey’s rather than actually saving Kenny’s life. But more time passed between this death than any other and Eric, who has abandonment issues but that’s a whole can of beans to explain, decided he needed to replace Kenny. The trouble was his first attempt, Butters, wasn’t the same. Neither was his second attempt in Tweek. And while Butters did eventually replace Kenny as Cartman’s ‘best friend’, it still wasn’t the same. Eric had lost that friendship for good and still longing for a taste of it, he’ll often still seek out Kenny’s opinion on things. Kenny meanwhile came back to life (we’re going to skip over the sharing a body possession arc, not because it isn’t relevant but because it’s just WAY too much to cover in a short span of time) and found that his best and worst friend had replaced him. In some ways it was a relief, being Cartman’s number 1 friend (especially when Cartman clearly wanted Stan and Kyle’s approval more) was never a great role. But at the same time, being replaced is never a pleasant feeling and it really bloomed that horrible terror that had begun to grow with Kelly and Stan. His friends don’t actually love him, he’s replaceable, they don’t need him. He begins to close off more and more through this and starts to focus his attention on spiting Cartman in small ways (like as Mysterion). He can’t help but be a little resentful and a little uncomfortable.

This discomfort can also explain a lot of why Kenny appears so uncomfortable around Butters during Going Native, not wanting to be called Butters’ best friend and not wanting to go on the trip with him to begin with. Overall Kenny seems to veer from apathetic to Butters to uncomfortable with him. There’s no single scene in the show where he actually seems to show any affection towards Butters. He was forced to go on the trip during Going Native, he had to listen to Butters call Nascar ‘stupid’ endlessly with Cartman, and he just… doesn’t spend time with Butters. They’re seen in the background together, but so are Clyde and Kenny or Annie and Kenny. This isn’t to say Butters has had no impact on his life, but even when he’s on a trip to Hawaii with Butters, he spends his free time writing letters back to his friends or hanging out at a bar alone instead of spending it with Butters. Butters does seem to hold a certain level of affection for Kenny though, whether this is due to Cartman’s influence (the constant comparisons that put Kenny one pedestal as the ‘best’ kind of friend) or due to an actual affection for Kenny, that’s up for debate. I lean towards the former because it’s more consistent with Butters’ overall characterization and it also gives the progression of their relationship a… progression. In the latter interpretation Butters’ fondness for Kenny seems to spring from nowhere within the scenes we’re provided with. In the former, Butters’ fondness is based on his own insecurities and the significant trauma that Kyle, Stan, and Cartman put him through. There really isn’t anything worth dissecting with the Fun Times With Weapons incident, Kenny doesn’t appear to be particularly apologetic nor does he do anything to protect Butters from the hell that follows. Strangely Stan seems to be the most obsessed with getting Butters’ help, although in the most misguided ways possible. Furthermore, during the Cthulhu trilogy Butters is imprisoned and forced to eat his own poop to survive throughout the entirety of it and Kenny just… didn’t care at all. The initial imprisonment was clearly Cartman’s doing but even after Cartman was kicked out and Kenny assumed leadership, he made no effort to free or protect Butters. Whether this was out of resentment or apathy is left up to interpretation. Put plainly, Butters and Kenny do have a strange connection although that connecting piece appears to just be Cartman and without Eric, that bond is nearly nonexistent. (istg if i get another message calling me a bunny hater… guys, im not being mean or an anti, this isn’t about ships, this is about talking about how kenny actually feels and behaves towards other characters within canon. and no, kenny did not invite him to game night. it was very clearly a joke that no one invited him… that said, if someone did invite him, it’s more likely to have been kyle who invited him due to kyle’s response when butters first entered the house)

Kenny also has some interesting relationships with the secondary cast that is worth mentioning (Craig, Timmy, and Bradley in particular) but I’m not sure how long I’ve been typing for so we’ll put a pin in that.

Fuck, I had a lot more bulletpoints I wanted to get to in order to expand fully on his character and I haven’t even gotten to the ‘conclusions’ section but my fingers fucking hurt. Here are the bullet points I didn’t get to, if you’re really curious feel free to ask for more details on any of them:

Anger issues

Mischief

Wisdom and foolishness

Growth

Prostitution 

Sex

Parents

Work

Protective

Shyness / Quiet / timidity

Loyalty

Resentment

Hedonism

Pride and poverty

[alphacentauriiswatchingyou-blog]

Steven Moffat Appreciation Day 2017: DWM Production Notes

With the end of the Moffat-era we are not just losing Steven’s writing talent on the screen, but also in the monthly DWM column in which he answers questions from readers of the magazine, sometimes serious, sometimes less so. Here are some of my favourites: 

Is the Doctor's accent innate or part of the TARDIS' translation system? While people and lizards from Earth hear the Doctor speak with a Scottish accent, would beings from other planets hear him speak with a totally different accent?

The Scottish accent is prevalent throughout the universe because it is so sexy. That's one hell of an evolutionary advantage.

How do you think the other Masters would react to Missy if they ever met?

Oh, I've given it thought! Surely there's fan fiction already? There must be - to your work, if not! The impossible one, of course, is the Delgado/Gomez simmer-fest - but oh, imagine! Hooded gazes at dawn! Sneers like sword slashes! Sexy prowls, cat-like circling! In no time flat, a country cottage, three kids and a Volvo.

One summer evening, as they both puff away in the cigar gazebo, watching the children (identical girl triplets, dead white and levitating) rebuilding the lawn mower into a nuclear reactor using Master Plan Q, the question inevitably arises...

THE MASTER: My dear, you've never exactly told me who you are.

MISSY: You're always so busy, trying to drain the world's oceans, or rob banks with dinosaurs - 

THE MASTER: I just want the kids to have a future. 

MISSY: Then why do you keep trying to blow up the planet? 

THE MASTER  Must we always take this attitude to my work? 

MISSY: Or freeze the polar ice caps. 

THE MASTER: That was a simple administrative error. 

MISSY: Don't you think there might be a clue in my name? 

THE MASTER: Missy? 

MISSY: Tiny bit of a clue? 

THE MASTER: I have long suspected there was some cunning word play involved. Some abtruse hint as to your true identity, of some fiendish complexity and subtlety that it eludes even my mighty Time Lord brain. Is it short for Mistress, though? 

MISSY: Yep. 

IN THE GARDEN, THE TRIPLETS OBSERVE THE TWO CIGAR TIPS GLOWING MORE BRIGHTLY FOR A MOMENT IN THE SHADOWS OF THE GARDEN. 

THE MASTER: My dear, do you think the triplets ever get lonely?

AND FROM THE HAPPY HOME, THE REST IS SILENCE. EXCEPT FOR THE NIGHTLY SING-A-LONG OF THE ADDAMS FAMILY.

In Kill the Moon Clara is very upset at the prospect of killing a big chicken. Yet in The Time of the Doctor she is seen gleefully roasting a turkey! How can she care so much for one type of poultry and so little for another?

Oh, for God's sake! It's not a turkey inside the moon, is it? It's a giant, pregnant space dragon and some spiders. Have you no grasp of physics?! Has Doctor Who taught you nothing?!

RUSSELL T DAVIES asks: I love your list in DWM 482 of the Doctor's many wives. Did you ever think we'd be having that conversation, 10 years ago? But... what's this? His marriage to Queen Elizabeth the First was unconsummated? But, but, but... in The End of Time Part One, the Tenth Doctor arrives on the Ood-Sphere to greet his old friend Ood Sigma with the words, "Got married. That was a mistake. Good Queen Bess. And let me tell you, her nickname is no longer... ahem." So, what does that mean, boss? What can it possibly mean?? Steven, what does it MEAN??? Thank you.

Oh for God's sake. PAY ATTENTION. You've gone soft up there in Manchester. Practically tofu, I'd say. Probably all that lazing about, never writing any episodes for me, even though I wrote six for you. Yes, SIX. Actually, no, SEVEN. Time Crashcounts too - and it was for charity. But never mind, oh no, I'll just type on and on and neglect my children, that's fine.

Okay, the facts. I said the marriage was unconsummated - and so it was. You saw for yourself in The Day of the Doctor - he ran straight off after the ceremony. Would we have put that on television if it wasn't true? But I never said - not once, not ever - that the relationship was unconsummated!

Yes, Russell! I went there. Even as you gasp and clutch the furniture for support, I am writing in the pages of Doctor Who Magazine about pre-marital shenanigans! I realise you've probably never heard of such unsanctified naughtiness - glancing at your resume, I see you write mainly about fruit and veg for Channel 4 - but it does go on, you know. Well, outside of Manchester.

So there you are. You may sleep again. The Doctor's boast in The End of Time (oh, and thanks for that title, just before I took over) and my statement that his marriage to Elizabeth was unconsummated are in no way contradictory. True fact! Accept my True Face. Back away in shame at your wrongness.

Actually, write me a story, and we'll say no more about it.

I read an article that said there was a TARDIS flooding scene in an episode of the 2012 series that was cancelled due to Karen Gillan being unable to swim. Could you elaborate on that further, please?

We decided not to drown Karen. There was a meeting. We voted.

Do you have any plans in store for the Cyber-Brigadier? Or will he just be left in limbo, protecting Kate wherever she goes?

Oh God, can you imagine. It's the spin-off: "My Dad's A Cyberman!"

KATE: Dad, please don't sit in my office. CYBERBRIG: Just sorting out a few things for you... KATE: Really, we're fine. CYBERBRIG: You've got far too many people. All you need is a Sergeant, maybe an occasional Captain, and a nice family car for you all to drive around in. Keeps the Earth perfectly safe! KATE: It's changed days, Dad. CYBERBRIG: And why don't have a big sign outside - UNIT HQ, with your name on it? Does you good to see your name on a big sign. KATE: Well, we are supposed to be a top secret organisation. CYBERBRIG: Yes, yes - you put 'Top Secret' on the sign. Have I taught you nothing about security?! And for goodness' sake, why do you have all these women about the place? How much tea do you need? KATE: They're scientists. CYBERBRIG: Scientists?! Have we been infiltrated? Evacuate the building, I'll lure them into a nuclear reactor. KATE: They work here. CYBERBRIG: They what?! You only need one scientist, Kate. A funny one, with silly clothes, that's the ticket. Give him a tiny little office and a table, he'll be perfectly happy. KATE: I'm a scientist. Science leads, that's what you taught me. CYBERBRIG: Exactly! Science leads! But only if you let it. Round them all up, put them in booths, waterboard any trouble-makers - KATE: Dad, you're getting excited again! Your moustache has slipped. CYBERBRIG: Oh, no, has it? It's this face, it's a bit slippery - like all aliens. I say, Kate - do you think people know my moustache isn't real? KATE: I think they always did.

Since the earliest days, whenever we viewers follow the Doctor into the TARDIS, he seems to take quite some time getting to the console before the TARDIS takes off. But when we stay outside, the door barely has time to close before dematerialisation occurs. What's your in-universe explanation for this quirk?

Oh, you and me both! I've worried about that for years. And in fact, decades before I got anywhere near Doctor Who, I came up with an answer. It's not in the show - it is not canonical - but I offer it up.

The TARDIS knows the future. Or rather, the TARDIS makes no distinction between past, present and future - for any time machine, time is all one long event stream, hanging there in causality, unmoving and unchanging. In other words the TARDIS already knows when its connection to real time and space will no longer be necessary, in any given part of the event stream. So as the Doctor and friends move towards the console, in the world outside the doors, the TARDIS has already fast-forwarded to the take-off the Doctor is about to perform.

Any good? Got something better? All head canons are equal!

How come the Doctor allowed River Song to go freely with her vortex manipulator but he kept disabling Jack's?

Every time he grabs River's wrist, it all goes very wrong.

[In Heaven Sent] who put the chalk marks around the missing paving slab, and who buried the slab in the ground? Was it whoever created the trap?

Oh, this is... wrong somehow. I figured out, in detail, how the Doctor's first few trips round the castle worked, but I deliberately buried it. I wanted atmosphere and mystery: for us to be trapped in the Doctor's nightmare, never sure what to trust. And I particularly liked (and still like) the idea that everyone would have a different theory about the logic. Peter Capaldi has one version, Rachel Talalay has another, and in a moment you'll have mine. But mystery and discussion is better, I swear.

So. What follows is not canonical. It's just the best I could work with from what the Doctor told me. Frankly, and with all my heart, you're better off not reading what comes next. Never trust answers - they're the opposite of conversation.

Okay...

The first time round the castle, the Doctor is there for many years - because there is no clue leading him to room 12. He's ancient by the time he understands that room 12 is important. It's a very old man who starts punching the wall...

After a few thousand years of this, he realises he's going too slowly. He needs to get the next version of himself into room 12 faster. But how to leave a message in a recycling puzzle box that a man like him would ever trust?

One ancient version of the Doctor doesn't punch the wall. He totters back out of the chamber before the veiled creature can arrive, and scratches the words 'I AM IN 12' in every nook and cranny he can find. He chooses that message because it sounds a little like a cry for help, and that always appeals to him. The next Doctor might even be fooled into thinking it's Clara. Oh, the cruelty of the Doctor to himself!

He knows that some of those hidden messages might just survive, because he knows the castle reset isn't perfect - the dust in the teleport room, the skulls in the water, the way the portrait of Clara he painted (of course it was him, the soppy old fool) has aged. Suspecting that objects moved from rooms, or added to them, sometimes can resist the reset, he pulls a scratched-on flagstone from the kitchen floor and buries it in the garden (later Doctors add the details of the arrows and the spade). It's this message - one of only two that manage to survive - that he always finds. The loop shrinks, the Doctor is younger as he punches the wall, and the Time Lords tremble as the storm grows closer.

The other message that survived? In my head - and I suppose, only there - 'I AM IN 12' is also written on the back of Clara's portrait. The trouble is, the Doctor draws too much strength from her smile ever to turn her face to the wall...

There are many more and I recommend to read them all. You can find a lot of them on reddit or on here. I really hope old chibs keeps this up, but I know it will never be as glorious as the answers of Steven “Master Selfcest Fanfic Writer” Moffat.

[occupyvenus]

i REALLY don't understand the kind of audience who don't realize jon is a hostage right now. they took his boat and his weapons, but d/ny said he wasn't a prisoner so i guess he could just swim to shore and walk unarmed back to the north if he wanted to no big! and then there's the folks who think kneeling is the same thing as making an alliance like literally i don't understand how the big speech about perpetuity could have gone so far over their head like the stakes are high dudes

This will kinda cover a huge portion of my up-coming “Targ!Bowl vs Targ!Cest” - post, but who cares since you asked and I wanna talk about.

Though I absolutely understand you and your frustration I kinda do understand why some parts of the audience don’t realize all that, or at least not the severity of it. 

I’m not even talking exclusively about the shippers who, to like anything from 50 -99%, don’t care what happens as long as their ships becomes canon, or the stans who will find a way to sugarcoat and excuse absolutely anything, anything I tell you, before admitting their fav has done some seriously terrible things or, dear god, “problematic” traits and storylines. 

It also seems plausible to me that some parts of the more general, non-obsessive, “I don’t read the books” or “have a blog about it” kind of audience, have trouble to really grasp these issues. You wanna know why? D&D are half-assing it. Right now they are half-assing two narratives, instead of whole-assing one.

I propose the following theory: 

Right now D&D are setting the stage for dark!Dany, while simultaneously selling her as Jon’s love-interest this season. Those two narratives are pretty much forced to hold the other one back, because Jon can’t fall for “ the villain”, while Dany can’t break bad out of the blue.  

Leaving us with this incoherent mess, slightly ooc characters and actions that don’t influence the story in a “logical” way or even contradict each other.

Dany’s “transformation”, if you will, has to be properly foreshadowed, it has to be sufficiently hinted at from the moment she touches westerosi soil. The audience has to be able to look back and think “Oohh… I guess what she said there wasn’t alright. Should have seen that”. But she also has to appear loveable enough to warrant any kind of affection Jon displays towards her. The audience’s reaction once dany does break bad should be “But why did Jon!? Well, I guess I didn’t think she was that bad back then neither.”

There you have it. That’s why her behaviour seems so appaling to some people, while others are still strong advocates for good!Dany and everyone in between doesn’t know what the fuck to think. That’s why you can make a strong case for both, or more precisely for neither.

This is apparent when you look at the fact that every “negative” characteristic she portrays is counter-attacked with one of two things: 

Someone else making a comment, implying the exact opposite.

The narrative conveniently jumping to a new plot point, reducing the immediate emotional impact of what we just saw.

Here are some examples:

Varys interrupting their dispute at it’s climax | Their first meeting didn’t go particularly smooth. They did not see eye to eye, they were not moving towards an understanding. Quite on the contrary, their interaction become more antagonist with every line of dialogue. It’s starts with both of them playing nice (in their own way), moves to Dany saying that Jon is breaking faith, Jon telling her that he doesn’t give a fuck about her birthright and ends with Dany outright accusing Jon of being in open rebellion (!!!). Where do you think that conversation was heading at? An intimate conversation about dead brothers? Dany has made her stance on Northern Independence clear, she see’s it as treason, I swear to all the gods, if Varys hadn’t walked in right then and there she would have explained what exactly the punishment for treason and oath breaking is. Try making a romance out of that. But conveniently enough Varys did come in at the perfect moment, dissolving all the tension into nothing, ending the scene on a half-baked Jon is her prisoner-but-not-really note.

Tyrion telling Jon about Slaver’s Bay | I don’t know if you had noticed, but Dany left her undeniably good accomplishment of abolishing slavery out of her little speech. She exclusively focused on awful things that have happened to her and the two big achievements that make her so god-darn special: Bringing dragons back into this world and making the Dothraki cross the Narrow Sea. All her statements were about her, not about the good she has or could do in this world. I strongly believe this is to imply that her conquest is deep down rooted in selfish desires. Contrasting Jon, who embraces his role as king to protect and save his people. So of course, we need another character to swoop in and remind us of the good things she has done. Too make it more clear: Dany says that “faith in herself kept her going”, Tyrion reminds Jon that “she protects people from monsters”. 

Jon is a prisoner, but hey, he gets dragonglass | Jon was a “prisoner” prisoner for exactly five seconds, when he - rightfully - complained about it to Tyrion. It is establish that Jon wants to leave, but simply can’t, because Dany took his ship, thus making him her prisoner. If D&D had some balls they could have pursued this narrative, but instead wooossshhhhh we are jumping ahead to Jon being allowed to mine dragonglass. Now it doesn’t matter whether Jon is staying on dragonstone by his own free will or not. He needs that dragonglass, so of course he will stay to mine it. The audience was forced to contemplate Danys decision to lock him up for like a minute, before rendering the conflict obsolete. Begging the question why it was necessary to begin with, if not to show Dany doing some un-nice things to one of our protagonists.

Varys and the whole “burn someone alive” issue | This isn’t limited to her interactions with Jon. I am going to talk about Dany threatening to burn Varys alive, very much, very soon. Right now, all I want to say is that it is not a good omen. It’s one of the clearest indication so far that Dany will embrace her “inner dragon” and cause some serious destruction when doing so. Dragons plant no trees. But all the not-so-great undertones of her interaction with Varys are forgotten in the next scene when she embraces Melisandre with open arms saying “we decided to pardon all those who served the wrong king.” Sucking all the dark implications of threatening someone to BURN HIM ALIVE right out of the audience’s mind. Emphasizing that part where she pardons former “traitors”. If that scene would have cut away from Dany right after “her promise”, without reminding ous of her “forgiving” side, that little comment would have left a way more bitter taste in your mouth than it did. 

I don’t wanna spoil anything from episode 4, (next paragraph contains very minor spoilers!)let’s just say that Dany demanding that Jon bends the knee, is met with another character stating that “Dany was chosen by her people”. Supposedly trying to establish a parallel that doesn’t hold any water in her current situation in westeros, anyway. But again, it is taking the sentiment expressed by Danys actions and words (a chosen king should kneel to her, whom his people didn’t choose) and twists it to paint Dany in a better light (she too was chosen by her people). It doesn’t make any sense when you think about it, but it fabricates enough emotional connections, for the audience to soften their view on Danys opinion on northern independence. 

Do you see what I mean? I have a couple other examples, but some of them are from episode 4 and I’m going to go into this in my upcoming post anyway. The unobservant and/or biased show watcher simply has no time to properly process all this in one go. I’ve watched each episodes several times, am pretty obsessed with this whole thing and even I took some time before noticing a pattern. 

Most people will just stick to that component of the narrative which is coherent with what they already know: that Dany is one of the good guys, a hero of this story. All her questionable actions are either dismissed or boiled down to “well, it turned out okay in the end”. As sloppy as the individual narratives seem to be (neither dark!Dany, nor, let’s call her hero!Dany are well developed, they overlap, contradict each other, etc.), they did a fantastic job at keeping the audience in the dark about it. Why? 

Because for one reason or another she has to fuck Jon. Why that is, can only really be judged once we seen the whole of season 7, probably season 8, but I do have a couple of ideas why:

It happens in the books and D&D shouldn’t have cut the episode count. Maybe Jon and Dany hook up and/or develop feelings for each other before she breaks bad in the books as well. But since we only have 10 episodes where that could happen and dark!Dany and targ!bowl also has to happen at one point, those two storylines overlap. It isn’t too far-fetched that something will happen in the books as well, since Jon unknowingly committing “incest”, while being tormented about falsely-assumed incest is just too … fucked up, not to have crossed grrm’s mind.

It’s a red herring to throw the audience of Targ!bowl and Jonsa. Yes, I do belong to the people who are pretty very much certain that Jonsa will be endgame. I also belong to the people who are pretty very much certain that targ!bowl will happen one way or another. Believe me or not, I believed that Jon and Dany would rather fight than fuck once she comes to westeros, way before I ever thought about Jon and Sansa being a thing. So it’s not because I’m a salty shipper. So what else do I have to say? It’s a red herring, they are throwing us off the rails, to make Jonsa and Targ!Bowl extra-super-duper-surprising in season 8. And probably a bit rushed as well. Great. Just what I wanted. At least Jonsa was properly set up in season 6 and they mention each other every episode. Coincidence?

They want to have a sex-scene with Kit and Emilia. D&D are trash. They have sexualized countless other encounters on the show, single-handedly coined the term “sexposition”, I do believe they could write in a Jon x Dany sex-story just because. You can call that fanservice if you like. I’m not going to stop you. 

Maybe they thought Jon and Dany having “a history” would make targ!bowl more engaging. Could be.

Either way, I personally feel a bit exhausted by this decision. Not because it “threatens” my ship, it doesn’t imo and not because I’m so opposed to the idea of Jon and Dany hooking up or even having a love-affair. It’s because the screenwriting is sloppy. It’s because they are messing up Danys characterization and maybe Jon’s as well. It’s because both Dany and Jon contradict themselves and the development of their relationship simply suffers by Dany being set on the path to the dark side, without any character on screen noticing it (at least yet. I have this feeling that Tyrion will seriously start to doubt all this very soon.) 

I know this got way too long again, but giving unwanted, unnecessarily long answers is my forte after all. 

I’m still holding my fingers crossed for Jonny playing Dany, all I can do is wait and pray. Let’s see how the rest of the season / series progresses, but for now I’m going to leave you with some wisdom from Ron Swanson, D&D should have taken to heart IMO: