#Those things are not invalidated by NOR do they invalidate the atrocities

[yanderemeganekko]

At this point I'm considering blocking anything to do with China or Russia on tumblr tbh.

Like yes everyone knows the US sucks. Yes we know about the internet censorship and racism and transphobia and rapidly increasing human rights violations in the US. It sucks bad. It sucks massive humongous balls.

Unfortunately. That does not mean that China and Russia don't also suck a little bit. While this may be shocking for US Americans and other people poisoned by constant barrage of US politics in their feeds, many countries exist. And they can, in fact, suck at the same time. And they do.

This post was made by someone living in a country that's direct neighbor to Russia so US Americans stay quiet please.

[utilitycaster]

What’s your thoughts on tm9 suggesting working with Trent? Do you think tm9 are being “bad friends”? I have seen a lot of discussion on it and I was wondering what your thoughts are. Apologies if you have already shared your thoughts.

Hi anon,

I have shared at least some of my thoughts but, as always, give me an inch and I will take one thousand miles and then take one thousand more. If you wanted a normal answer, please click on that link and then feel free to stop reading. If you want me to yell about behaviors in fandom that fill me with rage (and also some additional thoughts about the Mighty Nein in this episode, to be fair, which I’ve marked so you can skip to it), read on.

GOOD FUCKING LORD I AM PRETTY SURE A CERTAIN SMALL BUT LOUD PORTION WITHIN FANDOM, AND THIS IS ABOUT FANDOM IN GENERAL AND NOT SPECIFIC TO THE CRITICAL ROLE, ACTUAL PLAY, NOR D&D FANDOM, HAS NEVER HAD A FUNCTIONAL FRIENDSHIP OR RELATIONSHIP IN THEIR LIVES WHAT WITH THE WAY THEY TALK ABOUT CHARACTER INTERACTIONS. LIKE WHAT THE FUCK.

I don’t think that any of the Mighty Nein were being at all inappropriate during this conversation in the first place, and more on that below, but also like, people say insensitive things to their friends all the time! It’s impossible to account for every situation that could potentially upset someone, and sometimes people need to have difficult conversations! I’ve said this before with people in private conversations but there is an exhausting amount of discourse for CR (but also, like, in general about fictional media by people who are Way Too Online) regarding who really understands and cares about whom and it’s like. They are all friends. They have all referred to each other as found family. They all care about each other. And with that in mind, it’s also true that if you or anyone else were to give me literally any pairing of two characters in the Nein, romantic or platonic, I can without considerable effort name an interaction in which one of them said or did something hurtful or insensitive to the other, because this is a thing that happens when different people with different perspectives and experiences talk to each other for any length of time.

A not-insignificant amount of discourse, in my opinion, has nothing to do with how real interpersonal relationships work and is entirely "this is my favorite/least favorite character (or ship) and I think everyone should also think they are flawless/terrible” and if I had to guess this is probably more of the same. But even if it’s not just that, the idea that the only “good” friendship is one devoid of arguments, slip-ups, and even the most minor of transgressions and anything else is “bad” or “toxic” is so divorced from reality I absolutely cannot engage with it without wanting to scream. Which is not to say that a single action by a friend, even a close one, could never be enough to invalidate the friendship. But it has to be a pretty significant and deliberate violation, and in my opinion the events of this episode do not even budge the needle.

With that out of the way before I return to it at the end: I think the overarching attitude of the Mighty Nein on the whole is “this is going to be an incredibly difficult fight, and we need to discuss all of our options, even distasteful ones that none of us particularly like.”

The linked post talks a lot about why I think Fjord brought it up in the first place, but from there, I would say that Yasha was the only one who was consistently on the side of “No,” which is in line with her character. We know Caduceus is fairly sure they’re going to die without additional help and has seen by far the most terrifying visions of what happens if they fail; that Jester likely has some similar ideas to Caleb regarding “if Trent’s with us, at least he’s not going after Marion”; and while Beau brought up the downsides of working with one’s abuser it’s highly worth noting she was still entertaining it: she floats that maybe this could kill two birds with one stone [2:01:10-ish on the Twitch video].

Veth strikes me as the one who came closest to “pushing” Caleb, and this has been a theme recently. I’m not fully sure about this - Veth is often a character I struggle to get a handle on - but I think it’s a combination of her family being at risk in the same way Jester’s is, her own feelings of guilt or shirked responsibility about leaving the Nein after this before Caleb has achieved his goals particularly given how instrumental he was to achieving hers, and a little bit of still seeing Caleb how he was earlier on, when they first met. That last reason is definitely frustrating when it happens in real life, but it’s a very real phenomenon, the first one is wholly understandable, and the middle one is both. Basically, are those actions a little selfish? Yeah, but people are selfish sometimes. There’s a reason why even when I don’t understand her Veth (and, tbh, all the Mighty Nein) feels like a wholly realized person, and it’s because of things like this, where she has real reactions and emotional turmoil in response to an incredibly stressful situation instead of being blandly understanding.

On top of that, anything that denies that Caleb was not entertaining it, particularly after he quite literally says he’s considered it, feels like ignoring his response because it doesn’t fit a particular narrative. It ignores the entire conversation with Essek, in which Caleb is the one who brings it up first, Caleb is the one who continues to argue for it after Essek expresses his discomfort, and Caleb is the one who says he’s frustrated that his attempt to persuade Essek fails.

Returning to the generalized rant but at what point do you (the abstract you, not you the anon) stop overlaying how you think someone should react and actually listen to people? One of the things in this world that genuinely angers me the most that isn’t, you know, atrocities, is when people assume how someone feels instead of asking them and persist in doing so even when told otherwise, and this is probably why the whole “the Mighty Nein are bad friends” statement has prompted such a strong response from me here. I don’t think I’m saying anything revolutionary here but all the arguments in favor of that statement are stupid! If you don’t ask for a hug, sometimes you won’t get one! If you don’t say you’re uncomfortable you can’t assume people will be aware of it! The realest distinction between good and bad friends, actually, is whether they listen to what you’re saying or if they just project what they think you should be saying, and whether they tell you what they want from you or if they make up elaborate unspoken rules that you’re supposed to magically intuit and follow. Not whether they never make mistakes, or disagree, or bring up difficult topics.

Uh, anyway, this is probably a whole lot more and maybe not even related to what you were looking for but really, the idea that a deep friendship can be reclassified into a binary from good to bad based on two conversations, and the related idea that every interaction that isn’t perfectly harmonious must have someone to blame instead of acknowledging the full depth and breadth of normal healthy interpersonal interactions, are both absolutely terrible ideas and I would love if people in general would immediately stop having them.

[eggfucker-1]

Ai yah, I really have to respond to this post again, huh?

Well, for starters, I apologize for a mistake I made in my original post. In the OP, I insinuated that the Princess Zeldas we see in the series could have possibly had a role in the atrocities committed by the royal family. This is incorrect, and it was poor wording on my part. I should have clarified my intentions when writing that particular passage; however, I felt it was unimportant, given that the point wasn’t solely about Princess Zelda, but how the addition of the Goddess Hylia and the Demon King Demise not only invalidates Ganondorf’s character up to that point, but adds much greater weight to the terrible actions committed by the royal family, especially towards the Sheikah.

Given that tumblr user lorelylantana is the third person to make a reply by discussing the reincarnation cycle, rather than the actual point of my post, perhaps I should have proofread and double checked my post before sending it out into the world to cause problems on purpose.

With that said, after I read lorelylantana’s response, I felt it necessary to make a proper reply of my own. It’s going to be a rather lengthy reply, as I have many things to say and many images to post.

However, I’m going to do all that I can to avoid discussing fanon or fan theories. I don’t mind them, but adding fanon wasn’t the point of my original post, and it shouldn’t have been the focus of the responses I received. I want to stay as close to the canon Nintendo laid out as possible. Thusly, my sources will strictly be drawn from the games, game manuals, Creating a Champion, Hyrule Historia, and Hyrule Encyclopedia. Despite the latter two being dubiously canon, they were approved by Nintendo, so they’re worth mentioning.

So, without further delay, let us begin.

-       “The original post seems to be based on the idea that Zelda and the royal family of Hyrule are synonymous, which is questionable for reasons I’ll get into later.”

For all intents and purposes, yes. Zelda and the royal family are synonymous, as she is the face of the royal family in almost every Zelda game featuring her. Even if she isn’t the ruler of Hyrule in that particular moment, she is our figurehead for the monarchy, by all means.

-       “The games don’t hand wave the actions of Hyrule’s royal family, they just don’t go out of their way to hold a young girl personally responsible for the actions of kings […]”

While the actions of the royal family are briefly acknowledged, as is the case with the Shadow Temple and the Arbiter’s Grounds, the monarchy has never had to answer for their actions. Even in the case of the Sheikah’s massive exile 10,000 years ago, the royal family never answers for this, nor are they ever portrayed being in the wrong. In fact, the event in question is only mentioned by a single member of the Sheikah in Breath of the Wild, Cado.

Image credit goes to YouTube user Macintyre.

The royal family’s actions are never directly described as “these were horrible things that happened.” Instead, it’s simply, “yeah, it happened.” There is no acknowledgement that the Yiga was created by the royal family’s own hands, nor is there any emphasis placed on the impact any of these acts have.

For example, the exile of the Sheikah wasn’t even the first instance of the royal family of Hyrule mass-exiling a group of people and displacing them from their original homes.

After the events of Ocarina of Time, Ganondorf is captured and executed for his crimes leading up to the events of the game and presumably the events of the Adult Timeline, given Young Link’s testimony. (I’ll get into why the King of Hyrule believes Link over Zelda later.) After Ganondorf was executed, the Gerudo were forced out of Gerudo Valley and banished from the Haunted Wasteland. Even during the events of Twilight Princess, the Gerudo Desert is completely abandoned. Once again, there is no discussion concerning the royal family’s actions, with the narrative instead being that the Gerudo, some of whom were actively against Ganondorf’s actions and many of whom were hypnotized during the events of OoT, are entirely at fault and have to atone for their sin of… having Ganondorf for a leader, I suppose.

Source: Creating a Champion, p. 405

Source: Hyrule Encyclopedia, p. 46

The royal family gets to punish an entire people for the actions of one man. Rather than the act being portrayed as negative or even discussed, it’s hardly even mentioned.

While I’m aware Encyclopedia’s canonicity is dubious at best, its material was still approved for publication by Nintendo. Thusly, I feel it worthy to discuss.

To summate, the royal family did bad things, and very select few acknowledge it.

Next point.

-       “I think that the Zelda/Hylia = good Ganon = bad situation serves a narrative purpose that justifies the black and white nature of the games because it highlights the shades of gray in between installments…”

The Legend of Zelda is almost thirty-five years old. This series should have long evolved beyond the black-and-white-morality narrative, especially when the side we’re supposed to sympathize with literally used the Sheikah to commit war crimes. You don’t have to have stark white and pitch black in order to see shades of gray.

-       “… And trying to assign Zelda a dark side is kind of missing the point, especially when no one seems to question Link’s morality even though he’s constantly stealing people’s stuff.”

Examples of Consequences to Link Stealing People’s Stuff

1.     In Twilight Princess, stealing from Trill will result in the bird branding you a thief and pecking you every time you come near him, which will only cease when you finally pay up.

2.     In Link’s Awakening, stealing from the old man’s shop will result in instant death the next time you enter his shop. If you steal, your name is changed to THIEF for the rest of the game.

Furthermore, Link is controlled by the player; thusly, his actions have no consequence to the story or Link’s character. Zelda, on the other hand, is an active participant in the story, whose actions and whose family’s actions weigh heavily on the games. That’s not to say Zelda is ever evil. However, as much as she is a victim of her own family’s history, she still has just as much power to change it.

-       “If the games wanted to gloss over the sins committed by the royal family[,] they wouldn’t have designed entire dungeons around them.”

I reiterate: the sins of the royal family were mentioned once, and then immediately dropped shortly thereafter. It’s not there for you to dwell upon, merely window dressing as if to say, “Yeah, that happened.”

-       “I believe The Legend of Zelda series is a critique of the Divine Right of Kings”

Until the events of Skyward Sword, the Hylian Royal Family wasn’t a divine lineage. A thirty-five-year-old series can’t be a critique of a concept that it barely even acknowledges. The only emphasis placed on the “goddess blood” part of the royal family is in Breath of the Wild, in relation to Zelda having to unlock her sealing powers. Despite the massive repercussions the revelation of the royal family’s lineage tying back to divinity should have, it’s barely even mentioned,let alone discussed.

As a side note, the divine right of kings specifically denotes that the monarch is chosen by God to rule. In contrast, the Hylian Royal Family continues to rule by, presumably, claiming lineage to the Goddess Hylia, which is closer to traditional practice in feudal Japan.

-       “If the Divine Right of Queens is indeed present, does that justify a hereditary monarchy? As far as the Legend of Zelda is concerned[,] the answer is no.”

The Legend of Zelda series never questions the validity of the royal family’s rule.

-       “Isn’t it funny that the Kingdom of Hyrule seems to be perpetually stuck in the dark ages?”

Ocarina of Time has neon lights, jukeboxes, and canned goods. The lakeside doctor’s chemistry is advanced enough that he is able to synthesize eyedrops. Given the newspaper articles strewn about shops, Hyrule also has pictoboxes in OoT.

By Wind Waker, pictoboxes have evolved to print in color. In Phantom Hourglass, Linebeck’s ship is steam-powered.

In Twilight Princess, pictoboxes now print higher quality images. In addition, with the introduction of Malo Mart’s Castle Town branch, TP is confirmed to have fully functional electrical lighting in some places. Cannons are so safe, you can get launched out of one for fun. Pyrotechnics have grown advanced enough that explosives can function underwater, and Death Mountain has become a functioning, refined mining facility stable enough for Hylians to safely walk in. Also, Auru has a bazooka.

SPIRIT TRACKS HAS TRAINS. THEIR AESTHETIC DIRECTLY REFLECTS THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION.

Hyrule is hardly stuck in the dark ages. It’s high fantasy.

Next point.

“For starters, I want to establish that I don’t agree with the assumption that what the Hyrulean Royal Family does = Zelda/Hylia would do. I don’t think it’s a mistake that almost every text in the OP explicitly mentions that it was a King that committed those acts, not Zelda herself.”

Once again, that was an error on my part. It wasn’t my intention to imply Zelda had any part in such actions. However, Zelda learns how to rule from her father, or her mother, or whomever holds the throne in that particular moment. These acts are never questioned in canon beyond “Yeah, that happened,” and the most conflict we have is the issues between Zelda and her father in Breath of the Wild boiling down to how to confront the Calamity—science vs. sealing magic— rather than anything else.

It’s a personal issue, and Rhoam treats Zelda terribly, essentially alienating himself from his own daughter and treating her as little more than a pawn. I agree that it’s absolutely terrible. However, that’s merely a personal issue. She’s complicit in how Rhoam addresses the Sheikah, possibly even fully aware of the anti-aging rune Purah was developing to force retired soldiers into battle against the Calamity, and from what we’ve seen in Age of Calamity, she doesn’t have an understanding of the Yiga Clan other than the snide remark Urbosa gives:

Image credit goes to YouTube user BeardBear.

It’s up to Zelda to develop a deeper understanding of her country’s history; not to take personal responsibility, but to understand where those who are suffering are coming from.

That said, acting with the Hylians’ best interests at heart is exactly something Hylia would do.

In the prologue to Skyward Sword, the Demon King and his army attack the Hylians, slaying many and throwing the world into despair. Thus, the Goddess Hylia saves the Hylians by sending a chunk of land up into the heavens, sparing them from the war to follow while she gathers every other race to fight alongside her.

So… How come Hylia only saved the Hylians?

I understand many were wiped out by demons, but if Hylia was fully prepared to spare people from violence, why not also send small numbers of every other race? Why only save the Hylians, her chosen people, while essentially dragging everyone else into battle with her? Furthermore, when Hylia’s immortal body suffered grave injuries, she opted to take advantage of this by choosing to be reborn as a person. Not only is it explicitly stated that Hylia reincarnated in order to utilize the Triforce’s power, as she could not do so as divinity, but she knowingly chose to be reborn as someone who would become close with her chosen hero, in order to influence him to follow her plan without hesitation.

Hylia used Link.

That much is certain, and it’s laid out clearly by Zelda shortly before she takes Hyrule’s longest beauty nap.

It must be noted that while Zelda states she is Hylia reborn, and has regained Hylia’s memories by this point, she still sees herself as a separate entity from Hylia. While she herself is immensely guilty and apologizing over and over for what she’d done in her previous life, we have no way of knowing if Hylia herself would react the same way.

In fact, according to a fan-translation by ZeldaUniverse user Yamikawa, Demise goes as far as to describe Hylia as “brave and so-prideful,” hinting that even a being who loved her chosen people so much to save them still saw them as beneath her, if being reborn as human is seen as such a drastic extreme contradictory to her supposed character. Now, this is merely reflection on the inner workings of the Demon King, so his word can’t be taken as gospel. But, like all things, I find it interesting.

From what I can gather, however, Hylia certainly cared more about the Hylians than any other being in the land of Hylia, not dissimilarly to the royal family.

-       “I also don’t think that every princess Zelda is a Princess of Destiny or Representative of Hylia, I think that she reincarnates just about as often as Link and Ganon(dorf) do, because the logistics don’t really work out otherwise. This leaves hundreds, if not thousands of years where Zelda/Hylia isn’t on the throne.”

This is merely speculation. Moving on.

-       “There’s a notable trend of the King of Hyrule getting in the way of Zelda’s attempts to save the kingdom. First[,] he doesn’t take Zelda seriously [in] Ocarina of Time, forcing her to rely on Link […] I don’t know why the King of Hyrule was willing to listen to a random boy claiming to have been from the future over his own daughter but whatever I guess.”

The King of Hyrule believed Young Link because he came back to the Child Timeline with the Triforce of Courage. Up to that point, the whole Triforce was supposed to be safely locked away in the Sacred Realm, which was supposed to be completely inaccessible without the spiritual stones and the ocarina of time, neither of which Link had. I’d listen to the kid’s story too if he came back with a God Dorito on the back of his hand.

-       “And then again in Breath of the Wild when Rhoam bans Zelda from ancient tech research despite the fact that he has absolutely no reason to believe his pray the incompetence away method is the right one.”

The tapestry showcasing the events from 10,000 years ago depicts a princess possessing the blood of the goddess using her sealing magic in order to seal away Calamity Ganon. Link can swing the Master Sword at Ganon or whack him with ancient arrows or light arrows all he wants. Without the ability to seal away the darkness, as shown at the end of Ocarina of Time, all of this preparation and planning would have been for naught. That is why Rhoam is so harsh on Zelda. That’s why so much emphasis is placed on unlocking her power. Without it, defeating Ganon would be impossible.

On that note, Rhoam also had no idea what he was doing. Zelda’s mother was the one with the sealing magic, not him. She was supposed to be the one to train Zelda, but she passed away before she got the chance to even start. He puts so much emphasis on prayer rather than ancient technology because he genuinely doesn’t know what else to do.

I can’t believe this post forced me to defend Rhoam of all people I’m gonna have a stroke—

-       “Also, this is purely speculation, but [I’m] pretty sure there’s an implication that King Daphnes Nohansen caused the flooding of Hyrule in Wind Waker […] This sounds like a wish on the Triforce that backfired[,] but I digress.”

Daphnes couldn’t have made a wish on the Triforce before Wind Waker because, when the Hero of Time left the Adult Timeline, that timeline’s Triforce of Courage shattered into eight pieces and scattered throughout the land—er, ocean. Even if he had Wisdom on him, Ganondorf still possessed the Triforce of Power when he was sealed away, and he wasn’t going to let go of it when he broke free.

Besides, if Daphnes did wish on the whole Triforce, it would have disappeared. There would have been no Wind Waker.

-       “When she saves Hyrule in spite of interference…”

I’m not even going to finish the quote because the entire paragraph is too much for me to unpack. I’m assuming they’re saying that Zelda is never the one truly in power, and the royal family takes advantage of one Zelda’s good deeds to get brownie points.

However, concerning the first line…

In Ocarina of Time, Zelda going behind her dad’s back to try to “save Hyrule” leads Ganondorf straight to the Sacred Realm. Even though a time paradox leads to everything turning out okay in the end, the bleak future was created because Zelda wanted to play hero and pulled Link along with her. Even if Ganondorf managed to wrench the spiritual stones away from the Zora and Gorons, he wouldn’t have been able to access the Sacred Realm if Zelda didn’t send Link there to pull out the Master Sword, which Ganondorf would have never been able to touch. By all means, Ocarina of Timehappened because a little girl was in over her head and tried to take matters into her own hands when her dad didn’t believe her.

Aside from Breath of the Wild, there’s no other “interference” from the royal family that Zelda has to face.

-       “Zelda is the representation of a deity, so it makes sense that people would worship her to some extent, and having a goddess on the throne [probably] blesses the land. So[,] while the kings of Hyrule have a tendency to screw things over, [it makes sense] for Hyrule to be a monarchy because Zelda’s power as the goddess incarnate is needed to defend against Ganon and other threats, [r]ight?”

I acknowledge the author is attempting to portray the royal family’s possible justification for their rule. However, until I reached the succeeding passage, I believed it was the author making this justification, given how the entire paragraph preceding this was pure speculation. Once again, this passage is speculative, as nobody in Hyrule has ever explicitly given any notable opinion concerning the royal family. Why try to justify your rule when nobody’s criticizing it?

Since the author brings up Zelda being a representation of Hylia, however, it does bring to mind a particular problem I have with the royal family suddenly being goddess-blood.

It completely recontextualizes the relationship between the royal family and the Sheikah.

According to Creating a Champion, the Sheikah have a deep devotion to the Goddess Hylia. Since the royal family is descended from the goddess reborn, the Sheikah thusly are deeply devoted to the goddess Hylia.

Source: Creating a Champion, p. 372

Now, the royal government using a minority group of people to do your dirty work is already scummy enough when you’re just a normal royal. In this case, however, the Sheikah are so devoted to their goddess that they will do anything for you. Whether it’s because certain monarchs are a “representation of a deity” remains to be seen, but the point is that they’ll do anything for you.

And the royal family takes complete advantage of a group of people unconditionally loyal to them, bidding them to do unspeakable things in the name of their religion, which for all intents and purposes is the royal family.

That’s absolutely deplorable, and it’s a wonder nobody’s brought attention to it yet, whether in-canon or in-fandom. What’s more, given how Impa is always Zelda’s attendant, this relationship is never questioned or criticized, whether it be by the Sheikah or Zelda herself.

And that’s terrifying.

-       “The reason Ganon is always an antagonist is because he’s the vessel for the curse of Demise.”

Demise was introduced in Skyward Sword. Demise is the root of all evil, the creator of monsters and conjuror of demons. He is pure evil in every sense from the word, the Zelda series’ version of Satan. Naturally, he’s as simple as you can get in terms of character. Barebones characterization, providing only just enough to tell the player exactly what they need to know:

He’s evil, he’s powerful, and he wants the Triforce. You have to stop him.

Ganondorf existed before Demise. Ganon had over twenty years of development before Demise brought his progress to a permanent flatline.

Who was Ganon before Demise?

Allow me to remind you.

In The Legend of Zelda, first released on February 21st, 1986, Ganon is simply described as “the Prince of Darkness,” and steals the Triforce of Power when he invades Hyrule. After the Triforce of Wisdom is shattered, he kidnaps Zelda.

He’s evil, he’s powerful, and he wants the Triforce. You have to stop him.

Although Ganon doesn’t physically appear in Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, released in 1987, his presence is still felt as his minions pursue Link in order to revive the Prince of Darkness. In fact, the game over screen is the successful revival of Ganon.

Now, given that these are the first two games in the series, it’s perfectly alright for Ganon to be as barebones as he was. After all, many villains at the time were the same way, with the most notable of Ganon’s counterparts being Bowser from the Super Mario Bros. franchise.

However, with innovation of technology comes innovation of narrative, and it’s with the release of A Link to the Past in 1993 on the SNES that we begin to see Ganon develop as a character. In the prologue to ALttP, Ganon is revealed to have once been human; he is given the name Mandrag Ganon—or Ganondorf Dragmire, as we now know him—and he was once the leader of a band of thieves who sieged the Sacred Realm and took control of the Triforce after murdering his own followers.

Source: A Link to the Past SNES game manual

Ganon is still irrevocably evil, but in this case, we begin to learn more about him. We begin to see a character starting to form. One who isn’t just mindlessly evil, but who has the charm and wit to infiltrate Hyrule Castle and earn the King of Hyrule’s trust in the guise of Agahnim. Ganon was also a very capable leader, having successfully led his band of thieves straight to the Triforce. Even after wishing upon the Triforce and corrupting the Sacred Realm, Ganon’s power attracted followers in the form of greedy, power-seeking people. He’s powerful not by brute force alone, but through his cunning use of intellect.

Ocarina of Time served to further develop Ganon in little ways. For example, this is the first game wherein, for the majority of the game, Ganon is seen and referred to by his human form: Ganondorf. Ganondorf is shown to be powerful enough and stealthy enough to infiltrate the homes of the Zora, the Gorons, and the Kokiri, and send dangerous hazards their way in an effort to seize the Spiritual Stones. At the same time, he is first seen at an audience with the King of Hyrule, as if there for diplomatic reasons.

Although Zelda sees Ganondorf as evil because of her prophetic dream, the King of Hyrule doesn’t believe her. Because of this, we can infer that Ganondorf has enough charm and charisma to, if not win over the King of Hyrule, not be seen as suspicious despite the horrible acts he’d committed, not just in the past, but at that very moment. He’s also shown to be highly cultured, shown at the end of Link’s ascent up Ganon’s Tower. Not only is Ganondorf playing his own theme, but he’s doing so on the pipe organ, which is notoriously one of, if not the most difficult musical instrument to master.

Once Ganondorf seizes the Triforce of Power, the kingdom of Hyrule is subjected to seven long years of his rule. During this time, normal people such as Ingo succumb to their greed and follow Ganondorf’s influence in pursuit of power and riches. Although Malon is naïve enough to believe Ingo was somehow under Ganondorf’s control, it’s clear to players that he was completely in control of his actions, and that Ganondorf’s rule brings out the worst in seemingly average people.

Image credit goes to YouTube user ZorZelda.

Even a Hylian knight can fall under this influence, with it highly inferred that the knight who once guarded a room of pots for Link to smash is now a twisted poe collector, the man even stating that he likes it better this way.

In Wind Waker, we finally see a more introspective side to Ganondorf. While he’s just as ruthless and fully ready to murder a child in the name of accomplishing his goal, he reveals the reason that started him on his path of darkness:

His people were suffering, and he wanted for his people what Hyrule had. He believed that taking Hyrule and taking the Triforce meant that his people could finally live freely, away from the harsh desert.

Now, I’ve seen this challenged time and time again. Was Ganondorf lying to distract or manipulate Link? Was he telling the truth? Is this what Ganondorf has convinced himself to believe, after so much time sealed away and in isolation? We will never know, and that’s part of what makes the game so interesting. Ganondorf’s portrayal is a large part of why so many people love Wind Waker, and it’s not hard to see why.

Perhaps the darkest the Zelda series has ever gone in terms of the Triforce’s power was in Twilight Princess. After freeing Lanayru, the Light Spirit warns Link of the dark power he seeks, the Fused Shadow. In order to do this, she explains the history of the Triforce, and the bloodshed brought by its allure to the darkness in the hearts of men. Before the construction of the Temple of Time, many battles were fought, and one of them was the “Interloper War” that inevitably resulted in the creation of, not only the Light Spirits, but the Twili and the Twilight Realm.

It’s important to note that Lanayru’s cautionary tale highlights that Link, the hero of the story, could succumb to the allure of the Triforce and dark magic just as easily as any other person. In this particular case, anyone could have fallen down the same path as Ganondorf. If anything, this tale is one of the most important bits of lore to take into consideration when discussing the series.

Anyone could have been in Ganondorf’s shoes. It could have happened to anyone.

Then, in one fell swoop, Skyward Sword ruined it.

In a single game, every bit of progress on Ganondorf is lost. Once again, we’re dragged down to the baseline characterization from the original game.

He’s evil, he’s powerful, and he wants the Triforce. You have to stop him.

Suddenly, everything the previous games had built up no longer matters. There’s no longer a need to question whether what Ganondorf did was solely out of greed, but also out of what he felt was necessity. There’s no need to wonder if Ganondorf was once a rational man, who succumbed to the irresistible pull of the Triforce like so many before him.

Ganondorf is, purely and simply, the reincarnation of Satan, so there’s no need to go any deeper than that.

And that’s why I hate this “vessel of Demise” thing. It completely undermines everything Ganondorf once was and reduces him to a single, cardboard cutout of a villain.

Moving on, before I get sad.

-       “This curse is specifically tied to Hylia’s bloodline and the Link’s soul, which is pretty specific…”

Demise’s curse is essentially dooming the earth with a never-ending rebirth of his hatred; his malice, if you would. The wording of his curse is specifically “people like you,” which could mean that it isn’t Link and Zelda’s exact souls that are tied to his hatred. Rather, people possessing the blood of the goddess and a heroic, courageous soul are doomed to deal with this curse.

However, my thoughts on this matter are pure speculation.

Also, Demise specifically targets his curse at people like Link and Zelda because they were the ones to kill him in the first place. That much is obvious.

-       “… [So] why do the clashes with Ganon always throw the fate of Hyrule into disarray? Because Zelda’s bloodline runs the country.”

Ganon would attack Hyrule even without Zelda’s family in charge. His pursuit of power and domination of the Triforce/Hyrule is therefore closely tied with the fate of Hyrule. Goddess blood on the throne has nothing to do with it.

-       “If Zelda came from a small town the curse would probably manifest in peril for that one region which isn’t great but it’s better than an apocalypse.”

Firstly, this is a run-on sentence. Secondly, I reiterate: Ganon would attack Hyrule as a whole, regardless if Zelda’s bloodline was on the throne. It wouldn’t matter if Zelda’s whole family suddenly moved to the countryside. When Ganon inevitably comes back, he’s still gonna go straight for the Triforce or to conquer all of Hyrule. Goddess blood isn’t even part of the equation for Ganon. And if goddess blood isn’t there to stop him, then that’s even better.

Alright, so I’m not even going to bother gratifying the last two paragraphs of the response with an answer, because it’s all rambling that has nothing to do with the original argument. Relinquishing the throne would do nothing to right any wrongs dealt to the many people who were hurt, and evil doesn’t care about a single princess with goddess blood or a boy with a pointy stick.

In conclusion, the addition of Hylia made it so that the royal family’s power dynamic with the Sheikah is even more critically imbalanced than it originally was, making the exile of the Sheikah 10,000 years ago even more heinous than it originally was. Yet, because Hylia is portrayed as wholly good and incapable of doing wrong, despite in-game evidence to the contrary, the royal family, and Zelda by extension, will never be criticized for any wrongdoing. In fact, doing so may well be heresy, if the responses to my original post are anything to go by.

By comparison, the addition of Demise diminishes Ganondorf’s character, rendering him down from the makings of a complex, human character—where anyone could have easily been in his place and had the same greed and ambition for power—into simply the reincarnation of the literal devil, where of course he’s evil, and you don’t have to do any digging beneath the surface. Ganondorf is the reincarnation of Demise, or his hate, or his vessel, so he’s pure evil and nothing more.

And that’s the greatest disservice Nintendo has ever dealt to The Legend of Zelda.

[charlemange1]

Ask of the Lesser (Frankenstein/Lovecraft Works): 6 Gods and Monsters

Darkness enveloped my little cell as I waited for my last sunrise. A cruel ending it was, to be hung in the square and have the name Frankenstein permanently branded with unhallowed deeds. The shadow of Victor’s legacy would trap me till the end, and I had only myself to blame. My selfish desires to revive my family had blinded me to Curwen’s dark work. A mistake I realized had likely cost many lives, judging from the number of crates I had delivered over the past few months. Human blood! Oh, if only I had known! How could I hate Victor when in my own obsession I had enabled such atrocities? What right had I to judge him when I was enslaved to the same master?

My head thumped against the wall in defeat. Victor. My mind drifted back to our final conversation in the villa, when we were all that remained of our family and a trembling husk was all that remained of him.

“That daemon has struck down everyone but you, and he is coming, Ernest! I have failed to stop him, and he shall claim you too, if you stand idle!”

“Calm yourself, Victor. You are unwell,” I soothed, watching him pace the floor. “Elizabeth’s death has shaken you.”

“Murder. She was murdered by him, Ernest! You must believe me!” Victor clutched my shoulders with boney fingers. He shoved his journal against my chest, and I saw his nails were gnawed to bloodied stubs. “Here is my journal, dated years ago! Could madness be so precise? So detail-oriented?”

Grief had settled into every line of his exhausted face. His manic eyes pleaded with me through the strands of unkempt hair that floated rather than fell around his head. I ignored the lice crawling in the knotted curls and gently shut the journal.

“Victor, you know I stumble with such fancy words. These are scribbles to me.” I patted his trembling hand. “How about we get some sleep, huh? The servants are pouring some Laudanum to calm your nerves.”

“I do not need calm, we must act,” Victor’s voice rose to the rafters in desperation. My hand discreetly waved forward the servants positioned in the hall. “I have wrought terrible mayhem upon our house, but I will not let my curse consume you too! You are all I have left, Ernest. I beg of you to believe me! Not these mad claims, but me. As my brother, you must heed this threat!”

“Yes, yes, Victor,” I smiled gently and fought back tears. Elizabeth and Papas’ deaths had broken him. My poor, hysteric brother! He had always been the strong one. The one with all the talent pushing my miserable frame to be better. Where had that trailblazer gone? My brother may have been clutching me, but he had abandoned me in spirit. The Victor I had known was gone. The servants filed in to take his imposter away.

“Do not let them do this, Ernest,” Victor fought the hands that restrained him, though he had lost the strength to fight long ago. “Please, believe me! I cannot lose you too!”

“You are mad with grief, Victor,” I soothed. “Rest will restore you.”

You are the strong one! How can you fall apart and leave me alone?

Victor opened his mouth, but my mind was set. Something like defeat settled in his eyes. Victor’s body went limp as the servants’ drug him to his room. His eyes never left me, two watery pits silently pleading to be heard.

Wanting to save a thick-skulled wretch like me.

My hands pressed against my eyes and I wept for words left unspoken. He had cared! Victor had done wrong by turning from God, but I had turned my back on my own brother who so desperately wanted to keep me safe.

Was that why his creature had spared me? Not because I was to insignificant for my death to hurt Victor, but because me living and reducing his suffering to the rambles of a madman was the ultimate punishment? Victor could find strength in those murdered by destroying his monster and avenging them. The misery I had to live with in their absence would not end by Victor putting a bullet through the creature’s heart. My murdered family’s thoughts were at peace, but my ongoing misery was Victor’s shame to carry to the grave knowing he was responsible. His fond letter crinkled in my pocket, and I knew I could not hate him. I knew then too, that the unhallowed work that had withered his spirit and decimated our family could not continue, no matter the intent.  

The prison door swung open and a streak of light cut back the shadows. I covered my eyes from the haggard silhouette outlined against the intense brightness.

“Ernest, what in heavens name are you doing here?”

“Walton?” Blinking rapidly, I focused on the captain’s battered frame. “Have you come to take me to the gallows?”

Silence settled between us.

“I want to know why?”

“Why an invalid like me would play with a fire that scorched my brother?” I laughed bitterly. “I thought I could resurrect my family and we could be happy again, but not if their life comes from the death of others. I have seen death, Walton, and felt the void created in its wake. I would never subject anyone to that grief, even if it meant restoring my only source of happiness. I know what such work did to Victor and saw how it tore our family apart. I was a fool to think any good could come of its continuation.” I turned from the captain. “So write your sequel. Tell the world what a fool I am!”

“You are a fool,” Walton nodded. He bent beside me and rested his hand across mine. “But you are not a bad man. You clearly did not know the contents of your wicked cargo. It seems your destiny to be caught up in the madness of others, a lonely ship tossed about in a storm it could never hope to understand. You know better now, though.” Walton’s voice cracked. “Tell me who tricked you? What are they planning with Victor’s work?”

My repressed misgivings of Curwen resonated with Walton’s trembling voice. I had been too focused on my family to consider how Curwen would utilize the spark of life after they were brought back. What had he meant about merging raised souls with new flesh to be unstoppable?

“I do not know the details, but if the end justifies the mean, and that mean is human blood, it is a wicked thing,” I frowned. “Is this an interrogation?”

“A rescue,” Walton corrected, stepping aside to give me a clear path to the door. Seeing the confusion on my face, he pulled out an empty sack and smiled. “Your father was a magistrate. You should know how a few gold coins can sway a verdict. Yet not everyone has deep pockets, if you want the night on our side, we must quit this place and put an end to whatever is brewing on the edges of Ingolstadt.”

Gripping the wall, I pulled myself to a standing position, longing for my cane left by the river. “I will do whatever I can to stop Mr. Curwen from following in my brother’s steps.”

“We will stop,” Walton placed a hand on my shoulder.

“Captain, this is my sin to mend,” I said. “You must not jeopardize your life to let mine be at peace.”

“I fear all life will be in jeopardy if I stand idle,” Walton frowned. “I am more than just the historian of great men’s exploits, and you are not your brother. You do not have to do this alone.”

A roach darted in and out of the shaft of floor light. What chance had I of talking down Curwen alone? Walton knew the thrill of discovery, he could speak a language to Curwen that I had never known and Victor knew all too well. And, despite the pain Walton’s biography had caused me, I realized that Victor’s legacy overshadowed us both, but while I was tied to Victor by blood, Walton merely happened upon him by chance and was unknowingly thrust into this world of gods and monsters. I was shunned for the deeds of my brother, but as I looked at the frail captain, I knew he had suffered too. My hostility was unwarranted, and I extended my hand to relate as much to Walton.

“Shall we destroy that feind, then?” Walton asked, eagerly returning the handshake.

I thought of the morning after the servants had drug Victor away. I had stood in his empty room torn apart by a hasty deserter rushing to an Arctic death.

I shook my head beside Walton. I had ignored Victor for the last time.

“Walton, my brother held this man to the highest regard. I will not underplay the depravity of Mr. Curwen’s work, but perhaps his delusions of grandeur have incapacitated his ability to reason, a crime which I cannot judge, nor you, Arctic explorer. When we enter the university, let me speak with him before any rash action is taken.”

“And if speech fails?”

“You know what Mr. Curwen will do, and that cannot be.”

Walton looked reluctant, but having nearly died in his own quest for glory, he could not protest.

Outside, we were met by a horrid wind that sent overturned barrels bouncing across the streets. Walton found me a broom to replace my cane as we hurried past window shutters slamming open and shut. It seemed nature itself was sick of this wicked business.

“Does this Curwen character work with human flesh?” Walton shouted above the wind as we cleared the courtyard.

“Initially, though his process for reanimation differs greatly from Victors. He boils the body down to salt and relies on black magic for completion.”

Walton nodded with a frown. “By any chance, did you ever inspect Victor’s casket after I delivered him to you?”

“There was no reason to after I saw his face,” I said, confused by this question. A chorus of barks and howls rose up throughout the city. Were they following us?

“I see,” Walton said, eyes darting around in search of bloodhounds. “Given your former disbelief of Victor’s accomplishment, I refrained from sharing certain requests he relayed to me. Requests I felt best to omit from my biography.”

“Do tell?” I said as a man leaned out his window to wrangle the collar of his howling dog in a vain attempt to silence it.

“Victor said he did not wish to be brought back and asked for me to dismember and discard him after death,” Walton admitted, side stepping a bouncing barrel. “An odd request, considering he alone knew the secret of reanimation. Or so I thought.”

“Right,” I said absently. The unnamable smell from Curwen’s lab hung heavy in the air. “Did you do it?”

“I could only bring myself to throw his left hand overboard, I am no butcherer!” Walton shivered from more than the wind. “I did not know if that means anything to you now?”

“It appears straightforward enough,” I breathed as the gates of Ingolstadt University came into view. “Victor cannot be revived.”

[youareshauni]

Spoilers under cut:

Yes, I meant Maruki, but also Sumire!

Maruki's suppression of unhappy memories could wreak so much havoc. And it's just impossible. He could've 'revived' Kasumi and made Sumire forget the accident - but that didn't happen. My personal interpretation is that Sumire always knows that Kasumi is dead because of her deep-rooted despair. And she hates herself that deeply. So she can't imagine a world where her sister's alive, nor one where Sumire is. To make her 'happy', Maruki enforces the identity overlay even into his ideal reality. Just like Akechi can't accept a world where he never committed any of the atrocities he did. It invalidates the trauma he experienced influencing him to do these things, and steals his agency.

Not to mention the hints that Maruki pick and chooses what he believes is the better option, especially between clashing 'perfect worlds' of different people. And the overlay seems to work along what people think would make them most happy.

I feel this would become even more obvious in Gravity Falls. Complicated personal issues and between people like with Sumire occur more often. It also shows the discrepancy between what they want, what they really want, and what they need, and how those things conflict with other people.

Mabel and Mabeland is a good example. Mabeland makes more sense because it's tailored to one person, unlike the ideal reality which has to account for billions of people. Yet it is still instable. Yet it doesn't actually give what Mabel wants and needs. It's artificial. It's a lie. It's made to cover the actual sources of her pain and desires. Which is having a person in her corner and choosing her. A person who will stand by her side to face the future together.

I'm switching to the older twins as the next example. The complexity of Stanley and Ford's shared history and relationship is so nuanced, so intertwined, because the other was always on their mind... Where part of the reason they hurt each other so deeply was because of their deep love of each other, and how external and internal factors made it impossible for them to show that healthily during and after their teenagehood.

How could you detangle these decades into one simple reality where none of their traumata happened and both of them are happy? What would that even look like? And that's only the two of them, without their extended family and friends.

I feel Stanley would notice the false reality instantly or fast. The paranoia and disbelief that something good could happen to him are ingrained that deeply inside him. But I still imagine him in a spot between Sumire (wishing to replace despair and feelings of inferiority for something better) and Akechi (insulted that all the terrible things that happened to him and that he did are hidden).

That's not to mention that messing with the reality of magical spots that don't rely on the Collective Unconscious would be such a bad idea. Even if Bill isn't a problem anymore around the time of Persona 5, Gravity Falls remains weird.

And yes, I was thinking about Sumire because of the denial and the twins, but both sets. How does she feel about that Mabel still has Dipper and vice versa? How does she feel about their grunkles, who are identical twins? About how the twins were treated, Ford always on a pedestal if not bullied, Stanley always as lesser if she discovered that information? About Stanley accidentally shoving Ford through a portal to be lost for decades? About Stanley impersonating Ford for so long to bring him back? About Stanley's sacrifice to save his family by impersonating Ford again?

And how would she feel about Stanley being able to get Ford back after Stanley's mistake? Ford being able to get Stanley back after Ford's mistakes?

I've just remembered Persona 5 Royal and a specific exclusive character to that. They'd have so many feelings about the canon of Gravity Falls already...

If you're talking about Maruki, ohohoho that's a FUN rabbit hole discussion I could go down. Persona 5 Royal spoilers (and Gravity Falls) under the cut:

Oh man, I think Maruki would have been on board with the Society of the Blind Eye goal's, or at least Fiddleford's original intentions. Wiping people's memories of the past so that they can live happier in the present? That just what he does to Sumire, or at least suppressing her memories of the accident so she can believe she's Kasumi.

Mabeland, while not created for the same intentions as Maruki has, has many of the same trappings as the ideal reality. It gives you what will make you happy, there's a disruption if the real world is mentioned, etc. Though, where Mabeland is everything Mabel, or anyone, could ever want, the Ideal Reality is perfect by absence of "negatives." The Phantom Thieves may not have everything they wished for, because what they wished for occurs in a world where hurt hasn't happened.

With both the Society and Maruki, the past must be erased for the future to be bright, and stuff like death or trauma cannot exist. For Mabeland and the ideal world, the inevitable course of life and hardship, reality, is unspeakable. You can have everything thing you want, but either way, "you" is only who you were before life happened, not after.

If you meant Sumire uhh ooops!! Yeah I think she and Mabel could bond over some of that reality denial stuff. Oh also twins. Even if Sumire lost her twin. That's a swap AU idea for someone out there.

[dalekofchaos]

Everything about the Sequel Trilogy is at the expense of Han, Luke, and Leia.

The notion that the remnants of the Empire are once again threatening the galaxy, obliterating planets, and committing other such atrocities completely invalidates Luke’s, Han’s, and Leia’s victory from the OT. They were supposed to have already defeated the Empire but the new movies are like “lol JK no they didn’t.” Um, ok? Cool? Then what was the point? Answer: to set up the NEW movies so that REY can defeat the Empire!!!! (I’m not even going to bother saying “First Order” because honestly what even is the point we all know it’s the same damn thing right down to the iconography).

Kylo Ren. The decision by the writers to make this trilogy’s Big Bad Villain be HAN AND LEIA’S SON is the biggest “fuck you” to those characters imaginable. The creative decision to write their son as the villain completely ruins their lives and reduces their love story to a terrible tragedy resulting in a murderous monster and a collapsed marriage. And seriously, the fact that Leia’s own son grows up to become part of the same regime that destroyed her planet, that he idolizes the man that tortured her and her husband??? That’s the most grotesque suffering they could have subjected her to. Not to mention the fact that Kylo kills Han Solo in cold blood—Han Solo’s death serves no other function in the story other than to set up a villain’s character arc.

Oh but he also exists at the expense of Luke, too! Because in order to create a “backstory” for how he became the way he is and give him some element of “tragedy” to make him sympathetic to the audience and to Rey, they decided that the best way to accomplish that was to tell us that Luke almost MURDERED HIM. Luke “I can’t kill my own father” Skywalker’s first “instinct” upon sensing his nephew’s conflict was to ignite his lightsaber and almost MURDER HIM? Sure, because that’s not character assassination at all. They prioritized setting up Kylo Ren’s backstory over the integrity of Luke Skywalker’s character.

Plus, again, if we’re going to discuss the invalidation of every one of Han’s, Luke’s, and Leia’s accomplishments, let’s talk about the fact that their son/nephew hero-worshipping Darth Vader and resolving to carry on his legacy—even going so far as to do the one thing Vader COULDN’T do which was murdering family—completely nullifies the salvation of Anakin Skywalker. Symbolically, it cancels out the return of the Skywalker legacy to the Light, and narratively it makes it so that Vader’s “redemption” didn’t even matter, because the seed of evil was in Luke and Leia’s blood no matter what they did and the shadow of Vader loomed over them even after his apparent return to the light, so that their own child/nephew has taken up the Vader mantle, plunging their lineage back into darkness, spitting in the face of Luke’s once-founded faith, and giving the middle finger to the entirety of Luke’s journey and purpose in the OT.

Then there’s Rey. EVERYTHING about Rey is at the expense of the original heroes. They took Han’s ship away from him so that Rey could have it. They took Luke’s lightsaber away from him so that Rey could have it. Actually, I lied before when I said Han’s death only served to create Kylo Ren. It also served to give Rey her “death of a mentor” moment à la Obi-Wan Kenobi. He died so that she could grieve him. Then they tear Luke down to make Rey look better. He HAS to be a cranky, selfish piece of shit who has lost his faith in everything so that SHE can be the heroine who Sees What He Does Not and Opens His Eyes or whatever. In fact, Luke was made a hermit so that Rey could have a Yoda.

Every single element of these movies drags Han, Luke, and Leia through the mud. And now even the Emperor is back?! So Han, Luke, and Leia accomplished NOTHING is what they’re telling us. They didn’t defeat the Empire. They didn’t free the galaxy. They didn’t eradicate the Sith. They didn’t save their family. They didn’t have a happy ending. They failed on every single point. Even their bonds to one another have failed: Han leaves Leia. Luke leaves both of them. When Rey finds a map to Luke, Han isn’t willing to bring it to his wife nor does he seem to care about finding Luke. When Rey tells Luke that Han is dead and Leia needs him, Luke isn’t willing to help her. There is character assassination at every single level of this story, and the reason why is simple: Han, Luke, and Leia have become pawns. That’s it. It doesn’t matter if it’s completely OOC for Luke to turn his back on his family—the writers didn’t care about his legacy or characterization or journey. They only cared about using him to prop up Rey, and Kylo up. It doesn’t matter if it destroys Han’s character arc for him to leave Leia and revert to a life of petty crime—the writers don’t care about Han, they cared about how he could be used to serve their story. I could go on and on. There was nothing that was off limits and nothing was spared.

Even just simple facts such as: If Rey and Finn and Poe succeed in defeating the Empire, the implication will be that they did what Luke, Han, and Leia could not. If Rey defeats the Emperor once and for all, restores balance to the Force by destroying the Sith and eradicating the Dark Side, she will do what Luke could not. If she redeems Kylo Ren, she does what Luke and Han and Leia could not. These things that don’t even seem to be a slight against the OT are, because the message behind a victory for these new characters will be that against these same threats, the NEW characters succeed where the OLD characters failed, and thus they are better, and this fact is the direct result of the way the sequels were written. It did not HAVE to be this way, and in fact it EASILY could have NOT been like this. If Rey and friends weren’t battling the exact same foes that Luke and Han and Leia were supposed to have already triumphed over, then none of this would be true. If they didn’t give us the remnants of the Empire, if they didn’t give us the Emperor, if they didn’t give us an evil Skywalker descendent, if they didn’t give us the Death Star—if they had conceived of literally ANYTHING else this could have all been avoided. It easily could have been the “passing of the baton” story they originally promised it would be, but instead they systematically stripped Han, Luke, and Leia of every single victory they had, bent and twisted them into any incongruous imposter they needed to, and destroyed their characters at every turn, both by ruining their lives and by means of egregious character assassination.

And the ironic thing is, by making a trilogy that is inherently at the expense of the original, by attempting to pillage the original story of all beloved things and foisting these items onto the new (the Skywalker lightsaber, the Millennium Falcon, heck even CHEWBACCA is like an object to be given to Rey), and by reducing the iconic and treasured figures of Han Solo, Princess Leia, and Luke Skywalker to chess pieces and props to be recycled and used and manipulated by any necessary means to facilitate their cheap knock-off plot and propel Rey to Ultimate Specialness and Victory, THEY STILL DON’T UNDERSTAND WHY FANS ARE PISSED.

They have the audacity to crucify fans as whiny babies who are upset we didn’t get what we wanted when they literally served us up a story about how Han, Luke, and Leia failed at every single thing they had set forth to do and then died meaningless deaths and called that Star Wars.

[claritywithachanceofnuance]

We Are So Fucked

I’m going to try to articulate some ideas here and nobody is going to read them, which is central to what I want to say. Our society is splintered in dozens of ways, nearly all of which are reparable. Most people I know consider themselves virulently anti-Trump. Most Trump supporters I know consider themselves battle-scarred free-thinkers who had to shrug off a gauntlet of corporate media propaganda to arrive at their views. Meanwhile, the anti-Trump camp considers Trump supporters overweight, underdressed knuckle-draggers. But if Trump’s base seems less educated, less wealthy, less sophisticated, is that a reason to scoff? Why are so many Americans susceptible to what Trump is selling? Racism is too facile an answer. But whether Trump’s base is willing to tolerate intemperate language if it leads to greater economic opportunity, or they prefer white supremacy to diversity, why hasn’t the intellectual firepower of American liberals brought enlightenment to rural Michigan? What do urban anti-gun activists know about varmints? What do outspoken advocates for racial and economic justice know about the vacuum of capital where heavy machinery manufacturing used to thrive? 

Meanwhile, after staying couped up for months, we took to the streets to proclaim neither passive nor homicidal racism would be tolerated any longer. We all know the names George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. But going back to what we do and don’t know based on what’s beamed onto our screens, note the kinship we feel with unarmed black victims of police violence and the contempt we feel for the trailer park. Injustices are occurring all over the place. Some we have to research to understand or even realize exist, some are bombarded at us by the media and some we’ll never know about. How does it get determined which stories get headline treatment, which get buried on back pages and which get ignored? And who is involved in those decisions? 95% of the people I know with advanced degrees believe whatever the New York Times tells them to. And more than 50% of the people I know without a bachelor’s degree recognize that major media outlets, be they Fox, Comcast, Disney, Viacom, Facebook, Google or Amazon all apply manipulative criteria to which stories get amplified and which get muffled. 

It feels exhilirating to see beyond face value, to be contrarian and even iconoclastic and have your rebellious impulses validated by the most powerful man in the world. What sort of comparable thrill is the woke crowd offering? Lockstep agreement on language to use around current reckoning with historical atrocities? Will that work? Has it thus far?

None of this is to take Trump’s side and pooh pooh his opposition. It’s to get the opposition to take a break from mocking the rubes who voted for him in order to recognize manipulative forces at work on Blue America. And it’s to call attention to how readily we disdain. We all carry pain, we all process it differently. There is a very great fear out there that acknowledging pain is a form of weakness that could lead to societal collapse. The rise of the beta male. I’m not ready to invalidate that fear. Maybe that’s me. But one person’s hurdle is another person’s doormat. An obstacle to you might be an on-ramp to me. Or vice versa. So I’m slower to condemn just about everybody. Is anybody deliberately trying to be awful? Offensive, maybe. But awful? No. So when somebody presents objectionable views and employs risible logic to defend those views, that doesn’t mean that that person’s terrible. It means that person is doing the best they can and might make a good friend if given the chance. Views can be discussed. Disagreements can be managed. Being right or wrong on a given issue is not a definitive stamp on the quality of a person’s soul. Why do we act like it is? 

If you ask me, it’s spiritual poverty. We’re so busy and so worried about so many things, most of which are balmed with terrible tv and even worse music that getting right with ourselves without being SELF-righteous feels like a luxury beyond our means. But stopping to consider this might cost you that promotion. That’s an obtuse example. But even attuning our personalities to thrive in professional environments can make us less available to our families. How many successful people do we know with miserable home lives? How many unsuccessful people do we know with miserable home lives? Success isn’t an arbiter of happiness, but it’s worth recognizing just how difficult cum elusive a happy home life is. Will it get happier when you get that pool? Again. Obtuse. But the point is that we’re harried and bent out of shape. And that’s how you get politics as dysfunctional as ours. All that fundraising. All that apathy. All that ignorance. All that bullshit criteria. 

I dunno. More later, I guess.

[chippedteakettle]

GOT rant

I think the most wildly frustrating thing about this ENTIRE game of thrones debacle is that I can’t even remember the last time I felt this thoroughly invalidated about the way I feel.

I am a writer and I love stories, but most of all I love CHARACTERS. I have a passion for editing stories and smoothing things out to make character arcs feel believable and like the dialogue and choices ring true and feel as natural them as possible. And as such, I feel like I have a good eye and solid intuition about when things feel a bit off the rails, but every single time I have spoken up about the dissonance within season 8, I have been hushed.

I have been told that I can’t say the show is making incorrect or “wrong” choices because it’s not my creation- that I therefore am being unreasonable in my own right if I critique the writing or say it seems lazy or poorly fleshed out or straight up bizarre. That I am a hater for using my ability to employ critical thinking.I have been tossed the age old insult that I am both too invested and also somehow clearly missing things. I have been told that others are “even more on dany’s side than me” or that they “love her just as much as me, but this was the only obvious outcome and it’s clear through the entire series.” Wanting something that simply made sense means I am being an ignorant thrones fan who just wants a “happy ending.” “BS. If everyone including dany dies in the end for a justifiable, believable reason and its how the entire show ends, I wouldn’t enjoy it but I could understand it and that’s truly all I’m asking for. I am so sick of being shushed and silenced....

And it’s ALL by my peers who are MALE fans of the show. Every woman I know who loves this franchise LOVES the dimension of dany and feels robbed. But every man I’ve spoken to personally in my small corner of the world is perfectly content with the crazy ex girlfriend logic being implemented in this show and I find it both invalidating and absolutely bonkers. To have my sound logic rebutted with flat, non dimensional absolutes that dany is just an angry emotional woman who’s lost everything and this was unavoidable because of her Targaryen blood is absolutely staggering. I have never been so heartbroken- not only for her, but for myself and the women I love that this is readily acceptable. Like what the actual heck?

And I am sick and tired of being told over and over and over again that this seasons ONLY issue was being rushed. I am completely over some of the smartest people I know repeating the rationale they were spoonfed by D&D as if they are valid factors behind the character’s choices and motivations. I am BEYOND baffled by the amount of smart, intellectual men that I have seen who fully accept this atrocity of a season at face value and BELIEVE that every choice Danaerys made in the last two episodes was fully validated, justified and foreshadowed and made apparent in a clear, obvious way throughout the entire series. That is garbage.

What was FORESHADOWED was the battle against the dead. What was FORESHADOWED was the power of the three eyed raven. What was FORESHADOWED was the prince who was promised and the intervention of the lord of light. What was FORESHADOWED was Jon’s Targaryen lineage and ultimate legitimacy and how it would eventually affect him.

And all of these legitimately foreshadowed things were all chucked out with the rubbish to pick up these random threads that they tried to weave into something that ultimately fell apart.... now I will concede that Dany was made increasingly cold and absolute in both her decision making and emotions approaching season 8. Dany is depicted as ruthless when exacting justice with the potential to go too far. That is very valid. There are hints of her potentially going too far and it having dire ramifications and potentially little remorse. I did not like this choice but it IS plausible. But what she does to Kings landing and the scale in which she does it has nothing to do with vengeance , retribution or justice- It’s just illogical. And that’s why it doesn’t fit....

a monarch who intends to protect the downtrodden suddenly becoming an intentional blind mass murderer of innocents who have already surrendered to her because her council betrays her and she decides to rule a dead city by fear MAKES NO SENSE! call it foreshadowing all you want but it’s an inconsistent plot point within a well established character.

A character having the potential for a poor decision based on their flaws is NOT the same thing as telling us it was the unavoidable conclusion to her tale. You cannot make a human character without giving them flaws. The existence of those flaws is not proof that the flaws will inevitably undo them. It only shows that there is a chance for something to happens.... not a direct indicator. The characters code of ethics, core beliefs, and level of self awareness still dictate how much power their shortcomings will have over them and how much they will indulge in their weakness. And with danaerys, despite her temper and despite her “divine right of kings” mentality that the iron throne should belong to a a Targaryen, there is SO MUCH MORE EVIDENCE to the validity of her good nature overruling her darker inclinations. At this point, she has been failed by her advisors, but she still wishes to make Westeros a better safer place, take back her birthright, avenge her fallen children and friends and be a better Targaryen than those before her. So it makes no sense for her to hurt civilians....Because Danaerys above all, wants to be a good ruler. She wants to be ruler who inspires love and deserves it. This is clear when she told Jon point blank in season 7 that she hopes she deserves the gift of both his faith in her and the faith of the north backing her. She makes this incredibly genuine confession even in the wake of handling the heart crushing loss of her first dragon and child. This is something that would typically consume her with grief, but she is instead concerned with the world at large and hoping she is worthy of the trust bestowed upon her.

This is not the sentiment of a cruel unreasonable tyrant. It is the true heart of Danaerys Targaryen. It is an indicator of humility, objectivity and positive potential. It is an indicator of the fact that she DOES deserve love and loyalty. That caring about whether or not she deserves the sacrifices others make for her will drive her to make wise, good choices that benefit those who support her and ultimately benefit the world at large because she considers the ramifications of her actions and how they affect the people while none of the other rulers of Westeros have.

The complete abandonment of her prior sense of justice and self awareness in her dialogue in the throne room in episode 6 is inconsistent with a ruler who never wanted to be her father. Her logic is tyrannical then and *out of character*- then she dips back into being madly in love with Jon : not because she is crazy but because this monologue is incohesive and needs revision!

As a woman who has been sweet and soft her entire life, I am so done with being trampled on by boys and their incoherent rhetoric. I was abused my entire life and sexually taken advantage of by a man I called my husband at the time. I am not as sweet and delicate as I used to be prior to that. I’ve had seasons where I lost absolutely everything and it devastated me. And at my core I am the same girl, but I have more grit now. I stand up for myself and I have more strength to assert myself and stand up for those around me. Not because of my abuse (Sansa), but in spite of it. I get walked over less and am honest and driven while still being idealistic...But none of that makes me ”MAD”. Those are not symptoms of insanity or depravity. Nor are they evidence that should I systematically lose everything all over again that I would commit mass murder. No, Madness is not what danaerys suffers from. Danaerys suffered from being written in a short sighted, poorly plotted way that was inconsistent with her heart and narrative.

Danaerys was being tipped in a direction that certainly contained much more chilling absoluteness, but that DOES NOT justify ANYTHING. If that is the rationale alone, then Sansa is the same character! Other characters, including female characters in this show, have done heinous things but there is NO other character who was labeled as entirely beyond salvation after a *single* choice. And that is another nail in the coffin of this backwards logic!!

Tyrion betrayed her and undermined and redirected her so many times but still lived to tell jon to kill her BECAUSE SHE WAS LOYAL ENOUGH TO HIM TO LET HIM LIVE EVEN AFTER TELLING HIM HIS NEXT BETRAYAL WOULD BE HIS LAST! if dany is truly “mad,” then there should be nothing at all holding her back from slaughtering him where he stands on the stone steps of kings landing when he insults and disrespects her in front of her entire army-but she doesn’t! She civiliy has him removed and chained and allows him visitors!!!! Yeah, what a completely irrational despot.

And even if she DID kill him, it would be because it was EARNED! He committed treason more than once and prioritized her enemies over her despite being HER hand. This was the FIRST Thing she does that is out of whack and they suddenly think she’s going to murder Jon snow because of a fear of his legitimacy? She’s never so much as raised her voice at him! So why in God’s name would she kills him?

She’s begged him, she’s shown him her desperation and vulnerability and fear and desire to connect with him, and shown him in every way she can that SHE is still on HIS side but after a single (albeit brutal) action, she is only bad and purely unsalvagable? What? Even Theon Greyjoy got a better redemption arc than that and he literally burned two little boys to death!

Can we also address the fact that Dany knew of John’s bloodline for nearly the ENTIRE season and does not breathe a word of it to anyone, even when her back is against the wall at dragonstone and everyone she trusts has failed her. It has not even occurred to her to betray him because regardless of what anyone else may say or think, danaerys is LOYAL, almost to a fault. She never treats John any differently outside of being shocked the moment it’s revealed and still continues to love and seek him out, desiring closeness with him as he pushes her out, because she still wishes to be with him regardless. Because she is not petty or terrified that he will steal people’s love from her. Even if she realizes she is out of place in the north, it never occurs to her to betray his confidence.

While goddang Sansa can’t even keep her petty sharp tongued mouth shut for a whole thirty minutes before she rats out his secret for her own short sighted benefit because she’s what?jealous of danaerys and thinks she’s smarter than John?

But sansa is openly praised in the aftermath of this series as our queen in the north !? For what? For being a snake? For ruining John’s life and getting the brother she wished to hold close exiled beyond the wall and suddenly being unable to form a single word to defend him in that council when she knows good and well that she started this and it’s her fault but she’s articulate enough not one breath later to ask for the north’s independence???? For seceding from Westeros when her own brother is king just so the whole world knows for sure just how racist and xenophobic the north is- not by tradition but by choice? For being an unoriginal, unclever mean girl who hates danaerys because she’s different and is jealous that she’s a queen and then Sansa gets her way and ruins her in the least strategic, most sloppy, pettiness fueled way ever? But Sansa is considered a beloved character by most men in the end while Dany is fed to the absolute wolves???? What?!

Danaerys has never lied or betrayed her word. She has always had a reason for every action she did. And in the world of game of thrones, she is not surrounded by innocent lambs. Tyrion is a murderer who’s gone free more than once. Jon broke his vows to the nights watch. Varys has hatched more murderous plots than can be counted- including plots aimed at Dany’s own life. Sansa was stone faced as she watched Ramsay die just as dany was at the death of Viserys. Arya has murders countless people- even to the depravity of feeding someone their own children in a pie. Tywin Lannister was calculating, cruel, vicious and treacherous and was a part of countless battles, rebellions and murders- including the red wedding. JAMIE LANNISTER PUSHED A SMALL CHILD OUT A GODDANG WINDOW AND CRIPPLED HIM FOR LIFE just so he could go back to rutting into his own sister in peace. Excuse me? what?? But none of these characters were killed after their FIRST offense. None of them had their internal motivations chocked up to a lazy shoulder shrug of “eh, grief, man. Never know what a woman will do. B*tches be crazy man. Guess I should’ve seen it coming. Signs were probably there all along-she did kill all those evil men tho.” Nor were ANY- not a single one of them- labeled “mad.”

“Mad” is someone like Craster who was beyond all morality and consistently showed a horrific lack of care for human life. “Mad” is someone like Ramsay Bolton who caused dismemberment, torture and rape for FUN. Danaerys Targaryen is not even close to being in this eschalon for a single choice. “Madness” in this particular universe is based on a series of repetitive, consistent patterns that continually choose the inhumane option because of no justifiable reason other than “because they want to”, and that’s just not what we’re working with here.

Dany has a temper. Dany can threaten fire and blood all she wants, but at the end of the day, she doesn’t blindly swing her axe. She is strategic and intentional. And above all else, she does not want to be queen of the ashes- she does not wish to be the next Targaryen to perpetuate crimes of cruelty. She’s already lived with an abusive brother and been haunted by the stories of her seemingly unhinged, possibly schizophrenic father. She shapes each choice she makes to help her become a ruler who only encites fear in the heart of those who wish to do evil, not in the common man. She wishes to liberate and free those who have been oppressed like her- like she is still being crushed, misused and mistreated by the people around her in season 8, episode 5.

So for her to suddenly snap and just take the choice of life away from thousands of innocent people and children in an instant to prove that what- she can if she wants to? MAKES NO SENSE. She wouldn’t harm innocents ESPECIALLY WHEN IT IS AVOIDABLE AND SERVES NO PURPOSE!!! how does she risk everything she’s worked for to save all of humanity only to decimate the entire city she wishes to rule from in the span of 2 episodes??? Because what? she’s pouty that John won’t kiss her back? THAT IS NONSENSE. And it doesn’t even touch on the fact that CERSEI IS STILL IN THE CASTLE ! So if rage and grief are the “motivators” then why in the heck would she burn down the civilians of the city she wishes to rule and the leave the red keep virtually untouched while woman responsible for murdering missandei is still inside if vengeance is her game at this point? TELL ME HOW THAT MAKES SENSE. Oh you can’t? You know why? Because it doesn’t!

Either you make her full tilt crazy or let her be Dany, but don’t you dare mix the two and tell me it made a lick of sense. Or tell me that I’m being unreasonable just because I’m a girl who related to dany’s original arc. That’s nonsense. If this is a case of hereditary mental instability then where the heck are the signs?? Because even her fathers descent into madness was GRADUAL. He didn’t just wake up one day and light half the city on fire because he felt consumed by a certain mood- even psychotic breaks don’t work that way. If we’re looking at facts like they keep asking me to, targaryen madness was a long, grueling, arduous descent into chaos that broke Jamie Lannisters heart to watch.

So don’t you dare turn around and suddenly make Tyrion instigate her death just so you can a shitty parallel of both Targaryen monarchs being taken out by Lannisters they trusted or try to tell me that Dany being stabbed in a way she wasn’t suspecting by someone she loved is some kind of Targaryen poetic justice allusion to her father being run through the back when his chaos had reached its apex. Don’t you dare make me look her in the eye while her loving gaze collapses into confusion, hurt and disbelief as John plunges that stupid dishonorable knife in her. That was wrong. Just plain wrong. And none of us should have had to see it.

The “turn” of danaerys Targaryen was unfounded, unwarranted and sloppily executed, and I am tired of being spoken down to like I’m a dumb little girl for believing in this character and despising where they took her and how she got there.

Mic drop

[lyra-morton]

The Aftermath || Self Para

Lyra lay propped up on against some pillows as she watched her sister speak with the nurse, not really hearing what they were saying, but hoping she looked engaged nonetheless. It was day two in the hospital and she was more than ready to get out of the stuffy room and back into her on clothes and her own bed. After all, her injury didn’t need surgery, so they’d done all they could do. Why should she continue occupying a bed someone in more critical condition might need?

The doctor had said she was healing up well enough, the gouge in her leg was mostly superficial, though she had heard him whisper about potential muscle damage-time would tell- and rehab to her sister. She had yet to see the actual wound, electing to state out the window as the dressings were changed throughout the day. Sooner or later she’d have to watch, to learn how to care for it herself, but she couldn’t quite stomach the thought yet.

Maybe tomorrow…

A moment later, her attention was brought back to her sister, who had returned to her chair beside the bed. “She said that hopefully you can go tomorrow, but you need to learn how to wrap your leg properly.” Jyn paused, her brow furrowing, before she spoke again, “Lyra, are you sure you won’t stay with me? Even just for a few days. I just want to make sure you’re okay,”

Rolling her eyes, she shook her head, “You’ve already missed enough work on my account. And I’m not an invalid. I can take care of myself.”

Lyra loved her sister, really she did, but the last time she’d been in her care, she’d hovered over Lyra, barely giving her any room to breathe. Of course, that might have been more the fact that Lyra’s injury had been caused by her- though she’d assured her sister is wasn’t her fault- but she didn’t want to take that chance. They were close, but had always been independent, and she wasn’t about to give up her independence again.

“Really, I’ll be okay. If you’re worried, you can always bring me a piece of cake twice a day. I’m sure that will help heal me right up.” She smiled as she joked, but a cold feeling settled over her as she spoke, and she knew immediately that Jyn had picked up on it.

“Lyra-“

Shaking her head, Lyra turned away to stare out the window. “I’m a little tired. Could we talk about this later. Please?”

She heard a heavy sigh behind her, followed by the scraping of a chair and the rustling of fabric. Lyra new she wasn’t being fair, but she didn’t want to talk about it anymore. She wasn’t ready.

This all happened to her because she stayed for some more cake. Well, most of her knew that it ran deeper than that- her curiosity had gotten her into all kinds of troubler before, though nothing as serious as this- but it was easier to attribute the situation to something a little more tangible and the thought alone made her want to swear off the delicious treat forever.

“Alright. I’ll go and get some lunch from the cafe and I’ll call Mom and Dad. You just rest up, okay?” Jyn didn’t expect a response, nor did she receive one. With another sigh, she turned and left the room, closing the door quietly behind her.

Lyra, for her part, felt a slight pang of guilt, but it was quickly overshadowed by al the questions swimming around in her head. Despite the large quantity of alcohol she consumed, she remembered the whole evening in stunning high definition- the blood, the screams, the werewolves. She closed her eyes as she recalled the sounds of shattered glass and the terror etched into the faces of those who were not as lucky as she.

She had read plenty about werewolves before and knew they lived in Wallcord- peacefully enough, considering there weren’t a whole lot of wolf attacks reported too frequently- but she’d never seen that many, nor one up close. Nor had she ever been chased down and injured by one. A small, dark part of her wanted to find the nearest slayer and convince them that all werewolves must be evil, but she knew that was just dead talking. The larger, more logical part of her reminded her that- just like humans- supernatural beings were both good and evil.

Shuddering, she thought back to Davenport, his red eyes and the emptiness behind them. She hadn’t figured out how, but she was sure he was involved. While she was no stranger to the supernatural, there was definitely something unnatural about him. Based on her research, he gave every indication to being a Witch, but clearly a dark one. The only other witch she knew besides her sister was Kaia, and she couldn’t reconcile the idea of either of them ever committing the kind of atrocities Davenport had influenced.

She had read his statement in the paper, claiming surprise and sorrow for the horrible and tragic accident that occurred in his estate and she scowled, tossing the paper away. Her sister had been surprised at the outburst, but said nothing as she picked up the paper and dumped it in the barrel. Several times, Lyra considered telling her what really happened, beyond the ‘I don’t really remember, it all happened so fast’ line she was feeding the doctors, but something held her back. Not distrust, but rather fear. There was something in the way he looked at her that told her she wasn’t out of the woods yet, and the last thing she wanted to do was to put her sister in danger.

Full of questions, and answers that only creates more questions, Lyra pushed the thoughts of the attack out of her mind for now. With no resources and the inability to leave her bed, thinking about the situation would only serve to continue to frustrate her. Instead, she turned her mind to the more positive. Kind of positive, anyway, since the thought alone had her heart racing, but for an entirely different reason than before.

She had a date.

Of all the things she expected from a drunk text, as date was probably the last on the list. Least of all with the girl who had been the queen bee of high school. The girl who had never glanced twice at her, who stood by as her friends mocked “that weird, nerdy girl who is always reading about vampires and werewolves”. It was almost surreal and if you had told her literally the day before that she’d be going on a date with Cecelia Blair, well, you’d probably be laughed out of the bookstore by both parties.

Yet, something had shifted that night.

Obviously, she was beautiful- Lyra would have to be blind not to notice- but their drunken texts had opened a door she didn’t realize was even in the room. As ridiculous as most of the conversation had been, it was real, and that was something Lyra didn’t realize she wanted. Well, maybe she did, but she never thought that it would happen while she drunk texted a girl who barely noticed her, who she barely ever spoke to. It was almost like something out of one of those stupid romance novels she kept stashed under her bed.

The Queen Bee and The Nerd.

Now that she was sober, the nervousness about the whole thing came back full force. What if she messed it up? What if she was weird and awkward- well that was a given- and Cecelia decided she never wanted to see her again? Lyra let out a disbelieving laugh. It wasn’t normally her style to worry about the opinions of others- people had been judging her all of her life, after all- but for whatever reason, she felt a pull to the other girl, one she’d never noticed, but suddenly realized had been there all along. It was a harrowing notion, really. Lyra has spent her entire life knowing who she was and what she wanted, and now this came out her out of the left field.

Glancing at her phone, she forced herself to pull up Cecelia’s contact information. Would she even want to talk to her after receiving for word for nearly three days? Her phone had spent the first day dead, and it was only after she woke earlier that day that she was able to ask her sister to bring a charger, but still. Lyra doubted that the other girl had ever been stood up before, intentionally or otherwise. That thought in and of itself was incredibly daunting and Lyra tried to force down the overwhelming feeling of dread as she typed out a single line of text.

Can you meet me outside the hospital tomorrow afternoon?

[garbandier]

Child Please: Concerning the Pyszczyk Maneuver

“Human memory is like a scribe laboriously setting down letters while his left hand erases the text of the past. Every generation knocks together its own apocalypse and utopia and, confident in its own powers, believes its utopia and apocalypse will come off exceptionally well, unlike any other, will be final.” —Zbigniew Herbert, “Passo Romano.” The Collected Prose: 1948-1998 (pp. 651-652). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition. 

The mind, like the human face, is a pebble on which the stream of time exerts tremendous powers of revision and change. I love creeks and the places that nourish them. Few occupations delight me more than stopping in some leafy cloister to consider the subtle arts by which time’s whimsy alters the rocks in a stream. In wheeling, whirling courses of silt and sediment, in teeming eddies and gurgling little pockets, the pebbles in the stream are constantly prodded and perused, tested and turned, worked on and prised and pushed by the patient fingers of the water. Heavy rocks and sunken logs and broken branches cluttering the stream are massaged by detritus and flowing sediment and whatever else the churning waters may choose to marshal as a persuasive tool. The stream’s hands exert their influence quietly beneath a calm surface glazed with floating leaves and spidery skimmers. The water might spend a hundred years smoothing a single stone. Or instantly the stream might give in to greed and gorge itself on a chunk of earth from an overhanging bank, or snap a mossy log and ferry it to some new position. 

Eventually, the artistic collaboration between time and water rearranges the small stream-things and the large stream-things, and what emerges is a new pattern of movement, a slightly new direction for the whole stream. The water’s work changes the rocks, but the story does not stop there: the changed rocks change the stream in turn; alterations in the stony bed change the course of the stream itself. The new course changes the rocks in new ways, and so forth.

The human mind is altered by time, but time itself is baptized by contact with the imagination. The imagination amplifies how we experience the past: we can gratefully imagine how things could have turned out much worse than they did. Conversely, we can choose to torment ourselves with the power to imagine how much better life could have been. But the imagination can also make the future seem inhabitable. The person for whom the future holds no imaginable significance is likely to enjoy a less meaningful present. 

As someone who wrestles with depression, I have real sympathy for anyone who considers the future likely to be desolate and uninhabitable. Nor am I surprised when bleak assumptions lead to bleak opinions and bleak paintings. But I must try to cast a critical eye on such assumptions when they arise in my own mind. And when bleak surveys of the future form the basis for drastic calls to action, I wonder exactly how did it happen, this shriveling of the imagination, this inability (in the words of poet Dana Gioia) to “dream of a future so fitting and so just / that our desire will bring it into being.” 

What follows are some scattered thoughts on a recent opinion piece by Kristen Pyszczyk positing an ecological mandate to procreate less. 

Pyszczyk takes as her starting point the announcement by Fixer Upper stars Chip and Joanna Gaines that they are expecting their fifth child. Pyszczyk notes an online backlash against this announcement, and says she was surprised:

Not because I disagree with their critics, who admonished the couple for having too many kids, but rather because it's a sentiment so seldom heard in a society that generally celebrates procreation with almost militant cheerfulness.

I am amazed by Pyszczyk’s apparent struggle to understand why people celebrate procreation so much. Complaining about some taboo against “criticizing parents for having too many kids” would be like Westboro Baptist Church members grousing about a taboo against protesting military funerals. Society has no need for taboos against notions that can only bubble up in the mind of someone predisposed to extreme zealotry. How pleasant it is to imagine that disagreements stem from the irrationality of others. If one’s position meets widespread unpopularity because of a “taboo”, an “almost militant” sentiment, or an “uncritical” contagion, then surely one is excused from the risky task of scrutinizing one’s own motives too closely.

While having a child or five is a very personal choice, it's also a choice that affects everyone who inhabits our planet. So while many people might find the backlash unwarranted, it's actually a conversation we need to have in order to challenge our uncritical acceptance of the life-fulfillment-through-procreation story.

Pyszczyk employs the term “conversation” three times in this piece, but she uses it as a euphemism for whatever is the opposite of conversation. She seems to have no interest in persuading anyone through dialogue. She advocates calling people out for having lots of kids and shaming them into having fewer kids (henceforth will I refer to this as the Pyszczk Maneuver). Oh, I don’t know; a conversation centering on being shamed and called out just does not appeal much to me.

Procreation is becoming a global public health concern, rather than a personal decision. So when people do irresponsible things like having five children, we absolutely need to be calling them out.

The only noteworthy ecological effect of “calling out” parents with lots of kids as “irresponsible” would be to befoul the atmosphere by exposing one’s own toxic asininity.

Someone who might be inclined to have children, yet who chooses not to in order to help the earth, has my admiration for incurring so real a cost by acting in a principled way. That person also has a measure of my sadness, because I imagine the path they choose to walk may be very lonely at times. I say all this as I walk my own lonely path in life. 

Pyszczyk writes:

Population control is a fraught topic, and carries with it associations with eugenics and other nasty historical events. But we still need to talk about it, and people who reacted strongly to the Gaines' pregnancy announcement know this on some level. It's not an exaggeration to say that the survival of our species depends on it.

Population control is not merely associated with “nasty historical events” like eugenics; population control was the animating principle for the perpetrators of those atrocities. Indeed, the history of population control alarmism is a long train of abuse and hubristic overreach. Today’s theories remain tainted (inescapably, to my mind) by the heinous stank of odious and cruel social projects like eugenics and one-child policies, not to mention the spectacularly failed predictions of famine and devastation made by the likes of Thomas Malthus, Paul Ehrlich, and others.

By no means should past abuses and quackpot tendencies invalidate concerns about humanity’s impact on the natural world. Quite the contrary. Likewise, just because every so often some kook hauls himself out of a dank pit and decides to predict the date of Doomsday in the name of the Lord, his kookery has exactly zero bearing on the truth claims of Christianity.

I am troubled by the way Pyszczk glosses over eugenicist and racist aspects of population theory. She claims that “the survival of our species depends on” population control. If the situation is that dire, if [cue cinematic music] the fate of humanity is at stake, then what possible justification can there be for not forcing people to procreate less or physically winnowing the population? If a certain number of babies truly is too heavy a burden for the earth to bear, then would not the ruling authorities actually have a moral obligation to forcibly reduce the population? I do not see how a person’s choice matters if humanity truly hangs in the balance. 

The Pyszczk Maneuver will never persuade anyone who is not already amenable to its logic. Its core problems are ethical and evidential, but the message of the Pyszczk Maneuver also faces an impossibly steep public relations battle. Hectoring an extremely well-liked celebrity couple for having a baby seems like a fine hill to die upon. 

I see no way to argue for a reduction in people without inviting an array of half-sarcastic replies like “which people?” and “you first.” To argue in any respect for “fewer people” is to first plant in my imagination the seed of a person’s existence. That hypothetical person acquires real weight in my mind, and for me to then wipe that person out of existence would be participation in a hate crime against otherness.

“Now,” Pyszczk writes, “as a feminist, I tend to oppose any cultural conversation that involves telling a woman what to do with her body.” Pyszczk then constructs an elaborate rationale for why she feels comfortable telling other women to have fewer children. Such moral contradictions will arise in our wacky hyper-modern world, where people still want the narrative satisfaction of eschatological meaning traditionally provided by religion, but not the burden of having to be traditionally religious in respectable society. So one cobbles together one’s own sources of narrative meaning. When one’s personal vision of Utopia fails to materialize, the next step is to seek the consolations of Apocalypse. Some amount of pricking and poking seems inevitable when you inhabit an epistemological nest of your own making, cobbled together with any contradictory twigs and scraps you could gather. Pyszczk senses two sides of her values coming into conflict and cannot really reconcile them.

People crave justice. They see nature ravaged and tortured under rack and screw and forced to give unreliable testimony, and so where nature cannot speak the truth, people rightly cry out for justice on her behalf. I lament all plundering and exploitation of the earth and its creatures, and I question my preference for ways of living that insulate me from the claims of nature and leave me blind to the goodness and sheer fragility of natural life. I affirm the need to steward and protect ecological resources. But the Pyszczk Maneuver seems obviously counterproductive. I can scarcely imagine a more efficient way of alienating people against the environment than by shaming them for their desire for children, all on the basis of extremely flimsy speculation. And I do not see any way to argue for an ecological mandate to have fewer kids without shaming people who have or want to have lots of kids. 

Concerns about ecological justice must be grounded in humility, given the overwhelming complexity of being. “All the efforts of the human mind cannot exhaust the essence of a single fly,” declared Thomas Aquinas over seven centuries ago. The more attention I pay to the small things in my midst, the more voluminous they become and the more they absorb me. The more I look at a thing, the more substantial thingness it seems to possess. 

Think about the early days of microscopes. Can you imagine how wonderful it must have been for a man of learning to peer through a microscope for the first time and see the world with a whole new perspective? What a rush of blood to the brain; what intellectual vertigo it must have been. The seventeenth-century poet and mystic Thomas Traherne looked at a common housefly under the glass and what he found was a marvel beyond marvels:

The Creation of Insects affords us a Clear Mirror of Almighty Power, and Infinite Wisdom with a Prospect likewise of Transcendent Goodness. Had but one of those Curious and High Stomached flies, been Created, whose Burnisht, and Resplendent Bodies are like Orient Gold, or Polisht Steel; whose Wings Are So Strong, and Whose Head so Crowned with an Imperial Tuff, which we often see Enthroned upon a Leaf, having a pavement of living Emrauld beneath its feet, their contemplating all the World…the Infinit Workmanship about his Body the Marvellous Consistence of his Lims, the most neat and Exquisit Distinction of his Joynts, the Subtile and Imperceptible Ducture of his Nerves, and Endowments of his Tongue, and Ears, and Eyes, and Nostrils; the stupendious union of his Soul and Body, the Exact and Curious Symmetry of all his Parts, the feeling of his feet and the swiftness of his Wings, the Vivacity of his quick and active Power...

Life overpowers me with plenitude. Perhaps Pyszczk and I simply inhabit mental worlds too radically different to be bridged: while I stroll down to the neighbor’s barn behind my house, she aspires to the rings of Saturn. The small world of a backyard, a neighborhood, a sloping hill, a patch of woodland—to me these are places replete with possibility and mystery. Just yesterday my little world was transformed with snow, and the tree outside my window filled up with cardinals. I spent hours watching dozens of fat red males and dappled gray-brown females bustle and perch and fuss and feed.

I could not say for sure how moving a handful of pebbles from one spot to another might affect the course of a flowing stream; what, then, is there to say to those who would not blush at reducing human life to carbon footprints and doling out blithe judgments on which person’s future should or should not be blotted out? What algorithm or cost-benefit analysis or predictive model can possibly account for the ripples in time that may emanate from a single human life, let alone whole groups of people? What wretched slide into cultural glaciation must the people of Iceland undergo in order to systematically annihilate people with Down Syndrome through abortion? You may bend the direction of the stream to your will; you may change the way the water moves by rearranging the rocks and the sand and the dirt; but you cannot account for the way the stream will change you in return.

[flyingtreehousefarm]

Captain Marvel and the importance of "holding back."

The scene in Captain Marvel where she says "I've been fighting with one hand tied behind my back" means a lot to me, as a woman and a radical feminist. Because, that's what womankind has been doing for generations now. We've been holding back.

Misogyny and patriarchy calls us weak, thinks of us as lesser because we've been holding back, as we've been taught to do.

As little girls we learn to dumb ourselves down and let boys win because we also learn compassion - we see their feelings get hurt when we beat them, we see their self esteem and ego suffer when we're smarter, so we hold back. We feel compassion, so we spare their feelings- but we diminish ourselves in the process.

And by the time we are adult, we forget that it was a series of choices we made, not some inherent inferiority innate to our biology.

I read a quote once, that "men should be grateful that women want equality, not revenge."

And another quote that connects well with that one; "even if it was true that men are physically stronger than women, in general - how sad to think that's the only important measure of superiority!"

It reminds me that Batman beat Superman, canonically, because though physically much weaker, Batman understood and studied his opponent and prepared for the fight.

How lucky men are, that after mankind as a whole has given womankind every reason to view them as an enemy to our health, success, sanity, and survival, overall, we do not.

How would you fight an enemy who lives side by side with you, knows you intimately, cooks your meals, has access to every inner working of your home, has access to your children.

Fight Club was a movie about disenfranchised working class men, but the quote about... we cook your food, we clean your houses, we guard you while you sleep... that resonated strongly with me as a woman.

Mankind should be glad that womankind is taught to love, forgive, be patient, and have compassion. Like all humans, they have to eat and sleep sometime. If we were truly their enemies (as many of them might deserve) we would have access to them at all their most vulnerable moments.

Don't misunderstand- I'm not saying that women should rise up and kill men, take over the world by force, etc. I am saying that at any point, if the majority of womankind had been willing to sink to the level of wartime atrocity that mankind so often has, we COULD have.

And furthermore, the fact that we haven't, is not a weakness- forbearance, compassion, patience, tolerance, endurance... all these are critical parts of what make us survive as a species.

The average woman isn't stronger than the average man? The average man is by definition, not stronger than 50% of the other men. That's what average means. Nor is he stronger than a bear, or a blizzard, or a famine. He is weaker than a rattlesnake bite, a burst appendix, a drought, a forest fire, a virus.

Only by the knowledge, labor, strength, teamwork, and compassion of all other humans, have we created a society that, as whole is stronger than all of those things.

The guy that imagines himself as a Mad Max survivor? Or a Tarzan type barbarian? Think of all the ways that the traditional "women's work" is keeping him alive! Starting with the mother and midwife who safely delivered him, the herb witch who cured his bronchial pneumonia, the sister who nursed him through post surgical infection after a dirty arrowhead wound, the women who wove and sewed clothing warm & dry enough to survive the snowy wastes, the ladies who know how to grow food, raise chickens and goats, make cheese, and cook and preserve all of these things so that nobody gets botulism or food poisoning...

The truly "lone hero" would be malnourished, filthy, hungry, in patched rags, with infected wounds. No matter their sex. Humans work better in teams where each person is free to slightly specialize in a couple main areas of skill.

And given what we know of modern women... hmm... I wonder which sex was doing most of the emotional labor of keeping morale up with good food and pleasant environments, the diplomatic and social work of smoothing over little disagreements before they blow up into fights and tribal schisms...

Over history, womankind has done much of the important work of keeping humankind together and alive. And overall, mankind has claimed that work isn't important. Has claimed that the jobs, behavioral traits, and social roles they chose for themselves are the actually important ones.

Overall, though history, mankind has tended to discount our contributions and glorify theirs.

But, that's not necessarily true. The ability for physical conflict and violence, is not necessarily virtue or a mark or superiority- and it may not even be what will win in a conflict. The battle is not always to the strong. Strategy, subterfuge, knowing your enemy, planning... those can easily beat simple physicality.

And, having the diplomatic and social skills to negotiate and make the enemy an ally and trading partner- that can be said to "beat" all of those. The ability to transcend a win/lose situation and create a win/win? There's a type of strength that sadly, doesn't make good action movie fight scenes. So it doesn't get glorified. Because womankind over history has done the hard work of keeping the daily life of society together, without demanding praise and glory for it. We've been holding back.

Because, whenever we point these things out, there's always some jerk there to say that because we feel strongly about these things, our emotions somehow invalidate our point. As if the only way to have a valid point is to debate the pros and cons in a robotic, dry monotone. The truth is the truth, the facts are facts. Even if you scream those facts in a frustrated tone of voice with clenched fists and tears streaming down your face, that doesn't invalidate the literal accuracy of your words.

Over and over, I see men wanting to argue with women online about women's issues and women's rights. . And, they want to set the rules of engagement for that interaction. If the woman gets angry or intense or upset, one of their unspoken "rules of engagement" is to claim that emotion, especially anger, is a sign of irrationality and invalidates the point.

That's completely idiotic and irrational. If I scream that 2+2 is 4, or that the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell, or that statistics repeatedly show that nearly all rape accusations are real, my anger or frustration does not change the accuracy of my facts.

So, in Captain Marvel, when Carol fights her old teacher, I am so overjoyed to see that she refused to let him limit her. She refused to let him set the rules of engagement for their interaction. She refused to let him guilt her into holding back. She refused to let him frame her emotions as a weakness.

She just did what she needed to do, and moved on.

So that's my challenge to womankind. We don't need to treat mankind overall as an enemy- even though in so many, many cases it would be justifiable.

Instead, let's just stop holding back. Let's not pay the bullshit any attention anymore. Let's not be nice to spare their feelings. Let's not dumb ourselves down or let them win. Let's see what we can do when we stop holding back.