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iamnightduchess · 3 years

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SnK 139 (A personal thought on Reiner & Mikasa's ending)

We have finally reached the end. For those who began this fandom since 2010, it's been 11 years of happiness, tears and heartbreak, on top of character discourse with our respective favorites. This manga is rich with amazing life values that requires more than just a quick zip through of every chapter. It requires a thorough, repeat reading. Hajime Isayama weaved his universe in a way that never cease to blow all of his readers' minds away but still touched our hearts in an emotional way.

(Special thanks to @pethellhounds for the key pointers for this post!)

No doubt, I love all of the characters, each of their flaws, strengths and growth but my two favorites have always been Mikasa and Reiner, individually.

Upon the first two reads, I was saddened, I was devastated and I allowed my emotions to filter the absolute value of the final chapter; in particularly to my most favorites. All thanks to the discourse we had in our RK discord, my brethren offered me a different perspective on how we could truly perceive ch.139 for what it truly is: a bittersweet farewell which only leads to new beginnings.

Reiner Braun

Armin was destined to save humanity, Eren confided on that himself. Even if it was Mikasa's personal choice on ch.123 that is the ultimatum that had saved humanity by eradicating the power of the Titans from the world for good. As referenced on this post, it has been Mikasa that was destined to free Ymir all along through her selflessness.

Upon first read, the following panel seemed to portray the remaining alliance members in a different light. Everyone looked amazing, happy as they exchanged banter just like how old friends with shared traumatizing experiences do. After all they're all celebrated world heroes - living with possibly an upgraded lifestyle, fame and wealth even within those 3 years. But upon several more reads and deeper observation, one could not entirely disregard the rather dark and gloomy atmosphere beyond the bright surface. In particular Jean and Reiner, who seemed to be a bit more noticeable.

Jean somehow is putting on a front as a skirt-chaser (having preference for younger girls) while Reiner seemed to be simping over his old crush (who's already married & has a child in Paradis).

The above panel seemed comical because the actions & lines seemed a bit "out of nowhere", but beyond the surface - everyone's hurting secretly from within, some are masking their pain, though some remained unaffected because they all shared a heavy burden of guilt towards Eren's death & Mikasa's withdrawal from the group to lay their friend in his final resting place all the way in Paradis. Jean and Reiner both are putting on a front.

Do remember that during the Marley arc, not even once was Reiner shown to reminisce about Historia very specifically. Not even in a fleeting thought, thus why it could also be deduced that she did not actually have a huge impact on his memory or his genuine affections beyond just a fleeting crush to hide his tormented mental state from within. How could someone who has been shown to have tremendous emotional growth and a consistent, albeit shaky psychological regulation during his primary arc was reduced to a typical simp archetype in the final chapter? This is not, a "Reiner can finally be his real self who's free of his burdens & he is someone who's enjoying his new life" moment.

The last time he portrayed this "simping" behavior? When he was 17 years old during the 104th's first SC excursion and when his psyche was almost teetering on its edges as his Warrior!alter is wrestling control against his soldier personality in Utgard Castle.

Reiner's simping (which was an intended joke) was also an indicator of a bleak truth: his DID regressed, from his regulated state and his psyche was completely torn apart from that day. In Marley, he had been extremely depressed but he was a loyal, strong and steadfast soldier who had only his duties in mind. To see him do a complete 360 & reverted to a creepy old behaviour, is truly saddening. He's been masking his pain with this front. Even Pieck could be seen sending him a silent, understanding look of concern for his letter-sniffing action.

In 139, despite having a new chance at life, having his mother's genuine love and acceptance & achieved his original dream in becoming a respected hero who is recorded in history, one could not entirely rule out the possibility that Reiner's DID has regressed to the point that either he reverted back to his soldier persona as a facąde or he'd might have developed a new alter altogether after having to experience Survivor's Guilt for the second turn. Yet this time, with no known time limit since the Curse of Ymir had been eradicated. DID is a lifelong condition. It does not go away, it cannot be healed even with modern medicine but yes, could be managed. That letter, the mentioning of Eren's name and their impending arrival on Paradis - the place he felt the happiest of his life - could be his trigger to put on that front. He, (along with the rest of the alliance on that ship) had to live with the fact that his and his family's new life and future had been at the expense of two people's livelihood; Eren & Mikasa. Eren sacrificed his life. Mikasa chose to bury Eren at his final resting place in Shinganshina and remain there to honor his memories on her own, without anyone by her side despite having fought together & almost on the verge of dying together.

(Thank you @lancerofdarkness for pointing this out!) We can see the banter between Reiner and Jean is very reminiscent of Reiner and Bertolt, where the latter cautioned the former on "not getting too carried away". Where Bertolt had a filtered approach, Jean had a more direct, head-on snipe. This dynamic had been initially observed much earlier in this post.

The alliance members could possibly have made a silent pact between them on not mentioning either Eren or Mikasa's name out of respect for that 3 years. Or if they, as well as the others, were not divulged of the real truth by Armin. With or without this knowledge, Eren's death and Mikasa's silent departure from the alliance do affect everyone. Some are more obvious than the others.

Once again, I feel compelled to share an unpopular perception that Reiner's simping is not his true self's behavior. It is a mask. A fake persona. It is a front to hide the real pain from within.

He cared about both Eren and Mikasa respectively, as much as the others do.

Mikasa Ackerman

Upon first reading, I was initially devastated for Mikasa's conclusion. It was her decision and selfless act that had saved all of humanity and won Ymir over, which completely destroys the Paths as well as removing the titan powers together with its curse. The woman who had been at the frontlines, placing her life at stake, almost dying first to protect the men in the alliance; she who had sacrificed everything ended up with nothing but only memories of the one who could never be and loneliness.

To throw salt into the wound, we saw Eren uttering in Paths on how he refused to accept the notion of Mikasa being with another man, he wanted her to only love him and have him in her heart even 10 years after his death. It was indeed a last spur of the moment declaration that ironically contradicted his plea in 138.

Their relationship was never meant to take off by riding into the sunset together, they are not destined to be with each other, even if their feelings are mutual. Despite my personal observation of their relationship as a form of enslavement in itself: Mikasa still sees it as her devotion & commitment to Eren. I have to respect her perspective on this.

Ymir mistaken Stockholm Syndrome as love, she perceives enslavement as love. Being used as a tool of war and breeding, surrendering all her will to her captor, yearning for his validation - she saw those as love. Now the glaring parallel between Ymir and Mikasa are truly obvious. Because of love, Ymir tethered herself to Paths or purgatory for 2,000 years and in exchange of Mikasa's decision & action, Mikasa remained tethered to her love for Eren & his memories for at least another 10 years if not for the rest of her life on earth. That is truly heartbreaking.

I was devastated. I personally believe she deserves better. She too deserves to have her happy end, to be loved and have a family of her own.

When Armin had dreams of seeing the world beyond the walls, Mikasa has always been a simple girl with simple dreams: i) to go back home within that forest in Shinganshina and ii) to be by Eren's side forever. Once we realised this, Mikasa actually had everything she ever desired after all. She's back home in Shinganshina, living in solitude and in peace with no burden of world peace, diplomatic affairs on her shoulder and has no need to put on a facąde. She's been grieving and she still cried for her yearning to see Eren's face again even after 3 years that she might not stop shedding tears in the next 7 years just like Eren wanted. That is how psychologically and emotionally affected she is with Eren's words, actions and death. She chose to remember Eren and keep her in her heart that it is almost seen as an imprisonment but she's also free from other wordly responsibilities unlike the rest of the alliance members.

Did I wish she would have a better ending than this? Absolutely. This young woman has never been on her own ever since she was born, it's heartbreaking to see her having to process her grief alone without even a single companion by her side. She lost all of her incredible physical strength and had to learn how to fortify her emotional strength through her grieving process. She has only learn on how to love and be loved by Eren, which has major missing components left to be desired. Mikasa deserves to be loved, to receive that affection openly in return from someone who would be ideal, respectful, trustworthy, expressive, equally devoted, the raindrop to her seed, the sun to her cold days and loving towards her and maybe one day, eventually would be able to grow a real family from that genuine love.

The last two bottom panel above we can actually observe the innocent kid!Mikasa just like Isayama promised. She is ready and curious to once again, learn more about the beautiful but cruel world. She is ready to leave the forest upon realizing that no matter where she goes, Eren will always be inside her heart.

She is at peace. Even if she looks way thinner, fragile that she should be and could be seen collapsing as she was hit by another wave of strong grief. But since the members of the alliance are coming to Paradis for a potential negotiation, it is been stated by Mikasa that they are also coming to see Eren's final resting place to pay their respects. She will be meeting her friends after 3 years for the first time and I could really hope that they can be the support that each other needed for true healing. I am holding on to the possibility of her being ready to move on and start living again after putting the course of her life on hold by mourning for Eren the moment she is reunited again with Armin, Annie, Reiner, Jean and Connie.

The bird flew over the ship carrying the alliance as it is heading towards Paradis before heading towards Mikasa's location, giving his answer to her "You're happy right?" question by wrapping that scarf around her neck for one last time. He wanted her to be free after 3 years of grief. He wanted her to move on when she meets their friends again because she does not deserve to be consumed in her grief not even another day. Not even for another 7 years. Not even for the rest of her life.

Anything that we envision happening after 139 is valid in this universe. I believe Mikasa will begin living her life to the fullest as the end of the series is also the beginning of her next journey. But this time, she will be doing it in the company of her loved ones. Together.

#snk spoilers #snk 139 #snk meta #snk thoughts #snk opinion #shingeki no kyojin #attack on titan #snk #aot #reiner braun #mikasa ackerman #snk manga

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scope-dogg · 3 years

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Knight’s and Magic: Final Thoughts

Isekai anime have been very popular in recent years, and 2017′s Knight’s and Magic was one of many cashing in on that trend, with the added twist of being a mecha series. However, what many may not realise is that the Isekai genre of anime was originally born out of the mecha genre, with the first Isekai anime arguably being the 1983 classic Aura Battler Dunbine by Yoshiyuki Tomino. While Isekai has split off and diversified into its own extremely prolific and popular genre, mecha has kept a foothold within it, and subsequently some of the greatest mecha shows have been fantasy-themed, with great titles like Magic Knight Rayearth and The Vision of Escaflowne following in Dunbine’s footsteps over the years, so really Knight’s and Magic should be viewed rather as the continuation of a fairly long tradition of fantasy mecha rather than Isekai but with robots. Adapted from the early volumes of a currently ongoing manga by the same name, it’s a short series, but one with high production values, superb mechanical design and entertaining action. It’s also a series that I ultimately simply cannot stand.

The plot setup is that Tsubasa Kurata is an unassuming but highly talented programmer working in contemporary Japan - or at least he is until he’s killed in a road traffic accident. As he dies, he has but one regret - that he’ll no longer be able to live with his hobby of building plastic model kits of giant anime robots. As is often the case with such a setup, he finds himself reborn into a fantasy kingdom called Fremevilla as the son of nobles called Ernesti Echavalier. However, to his joy, he finds out that the main weapon for fighting back against these monsters is the Silhouette Knight, a kind of gigantic magic-powered mecha. Thus, he devotes himself to the art of learning everything there is about these machines and one day building and piloting one of his very own.

There’s nothing really wrong with this premise, but Knight’s and Magic is flawed in how one-track it is. The show’s really only about one thing - how robots are cool. Of course, I agree that robots are cool. Knight’s and Magic’s lineup of robots in particular is very cool, both in their form and unique functions. However, anyone who’s actually a fan of the mecha genre knows that just having cool robots isn’t enough to carry a show - you have to have compelling characters and interesting narratives. The all-too-frequently trotted-out line of “[x mecha show] is actually good, unlike the rest of the genre, because it focuses on the characters instead of just the robots” is probably the single most effective thing you can say if you want to piss off a mecha fan, because that sentence describes literally every mecha show that was ever worth a damn, even going back to the genre’s roots in the 70s. However, it arguably doesn’t really describe Knight’s and Magic. The series’ creators come off as just as obsessed with robots as its main character, and it comes at the expense of the characters and setting. Each new episode comes with a cool new robot or a cool upgrade for an existing one, but practically none of them feature development of the setting or its characters. Fremevilla and its neighbours never come off as anything more than “generic fantasy kingdom”, the supporting cast are all cut from extremely generic-feeling moulds, and Ernesti never undergoes any growth or exhibits any notable character traits beyond “likes robots.”

Now, there have been several characters in mecha anime who are in large part defined by their dedication to giant robots as an ideal, or simply to their aesthetic, and some of these are truly excellent characters. For instance, Gai Daigoji from Nadesico, Akagi Shunsuke from Dai-Guard, Noa Izumi from Patlabor, Sei Iori from Gundam Build Fighters, or the Super Robot Wars Original character Ryusei Date. The difference between all of these and Ernesti is that being fans of robots isn’t the only thing that makes them relatable or endearing characters, whereas in Ernesti’s case it’s basically the only thing that defines his personality. It also doesn’t help that he’s perhaps the biggest Mary Sue main character that I’ve seen in a mecha anime. His gimmick is that his past-life experience as a programmer also makes him profoundly adept at magic, and that he’s a genius Silhouette Knight designer. He’s always totally successful at everything he tries and everyone loves and respects him for his accomplishments. Ironically, it’s this that makes him an unlikable character for the viewer, because, again, he has no real admirable qualities beyond liking robots and being good at making and using them. It’s a character’s struggles and tribulations that ultimately make them truly sympathetic, and Ernesti is never really challenged until right at the very end of the series, and ultimately that challenge only feels like a mild speed bump for him. This results in a series that despite all its cool robots and flashy battles is fundamentally dead as a story at its core.

However, all of this simply describes a series that I would find boring and mediocre rather than one I actively disliked in a serious way. However, this is arguably the first series I’ve watched since Gundam Seed Destiny that really ground my gears quite badly, and it all boils down to one specific moment in the show’s narrative. To explain why, I need to diverge from my usual review format and spoil not only this show, but also it’s forefather, the original mecha Isekai, Aura Battler Dunbine. I really don’t think spoilers for the former is anything to worry about but spoiling the latter is probably more of an offense. As such, the remainder of this review is below this spoiler cut:

Dunbine is not everyone’s cut of tea. It’s old, has bad animation, it’s long-winded and has a sometimes confused and scrambled narrative in accordance with some of Tomino’s worst habits. However, it was also a work of great imagination that really delivered on communicating a valuable message in some engaging ways. It’s a message that Knight’s and Magic cheerfully and infuriatingly tramples all over. Let me explain.

In Knight’s and Magic, the show’s hero is an outsider who enters into a fantasy world and uses his real-world knowledge to bring about a revolution in technology. This also happens to be the chief descriptor for a major character in Dunbine too.

However, this isn’t the description of the show’s protagonist, Show Zama.

It’s the description of the show’s villain, Shot Weapon.

Shot Weapon is the creator of the Aura Convertor, the technology that powers the show’s mecha, the Aura Battlers, and other weapons besides. The introduction of this technology destroys the peace of Dunbine’s world, Byston Well, and causes it to descend into anarchy and bloodshed. However, the real devastation doesn’t occur until Shot’s creations are transported back into our world, where they inflict destruction almost beyond imagining. Ultimately, Shot Weapon’s actions condemn him to a punishment of being forced to live forever in Byston Well in a state of eternal suffering, like Cain after murdering his brother Abel. Dunbine’s ultimate, most crucial message is that those who manufacture weapons and spread death are to be condemned.

Knight’s and Magic gave itself the exact same opportunity to deal with this exact same theme. The show’s final arc is that a kingdom called Zaloudek has accumulated vast military power and used it to invade its neighours. We get to see as they descend into a neighbouring kingdom, slaughter its just and rightful rulers and install themselves as tyrants. Now, enter Ernesti and his friends at the conquered kingdom’s borders. At this point he’s achieved his aim of creating his own unique robot called the Ikaruga, and in its first battle effortlessly dispatches the Zaloudek soldiers guarding the border. In the aftermath, he examines the wreckage of a destroyed Zaloudek Silhouette Knight. He and everyone else see the obvious - this machine, the Tyranto is based on Ernesti’s designs. Previously, one of the prototype Knights he’d constructed in an earlier arc was stolen by a mysterious foreign agent, and now it’s become clear what happened to it. The source of the military strength that’s fuelling Zaloudek’s ambitions of conquest are the new technologies that he created, reverse engineered from the stolen mecha. As he looks upon the wreck of the Tyranto, the show is presented with a unique opportunity to do something that it’s thus far not done - challenge its protagonist with the consequences of his actions. Sure, Ernesti is not exactly the same as Shot Weapon - he only wanted to create robots because he thought they were cool, while Shot Weapon wanted power. However, in this case the end result has been the same - death, destruction and oppression. Ernesti has a chance to think about whether the things he’s done are right and acknowledge that he’s at least somewhat responsible for the disaster that’s played out, even if it’s just to acknowledge that he has a duty to set things right by beating Zaloudek. This is an opportunity for him to grow as a character for the first time.

The show swerves this opportunity without flinching.

Sure, Ernesti does liberate the kingdom in the end, but it’s clear that it’s not as a result of any real moral calling. He just wanted to build more robots and fight with them. His motivation in the final battle is that he wants to destroy the enemy’s flying battleship because he’s worried that battleships might replace Silhouette Knights if he doesn’t. He remains a totally one-dimensional character right to the end.

As I said before, Ernesti’s obsession with cool robots arguably mirrors that of the creators of this show, if its myopic focus on them is anything to go by. Perhaps this seems extremely out of character for me to say, but this is an infantile obsession. Yes, I like giant robots, but I don’t like them so much that I miss the point. The core of not only the real robot genre that both Knight’s and Magic and Aura Battle Dunbine belong to despite the fantasy trappings of the show, but arguably of the mecha genre as a whole, is that technology can be a force of destruction and great evil when not used responsibly. Yes, the protagonist mecha in these shows are meant to be heroic, but only in their opposition to those who’d use technology as a tool of death and oppression. This is the core of the soul that makes mecha as a genre compelling. It’s a point that Knight’s and Magic completely misses and why it’s fundamentally a failure. It’s as if it’s trying to be what the mecha genre’s detractors try to paint it as.

That said, despite my misgivings there is entertainment to be found if you only want dumb action. But I’d highly encourage you to check out any alternative. If you want a fantasy mecha series, Dunbine, Escaflowne and Rayearth are all much more compelling stories than this - even ones I’m not so keen on like Panzer World Galient and Ryu Knight are fundamentally more interesting as stories than this. If you want a story with a mecha fanatic in the lead role, you’re much better off watching Patlabor or the chronically underrated Dai-Guard instead.

#knight's and magic #mecha #respect the robot

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microcosmfortwo · 2 years

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In the 7th year

today, healthcare instagram was abuzz with “Dobby is free” memes.

Today marks the day where the class of 2016 is free from their bond. All glorious 400K of it. Every cent, every dollar, every drop of blood of sweat.

P A I D I N F U L L

As I start PGY7 and SR, it seems fitting to take stock of my last 6 years in medicine.

Love I’ve fallen in love over and over again with the science, the myriad of ways God has designed this body. Multiple pathways working in concert even for the simplest of functions in this body. Just looking at the way scientists and oncologists are fighting the war with EGFR-mutated lung cancer is a marvelous spectacle to behold.

I’ve learnt to love the hardships that come with this job. The hardest conversations, the most horrendous of diseases, the most complex of cases, the unbelievably deep science that goes on behind some of the rarest conditions.

I still love and idealise the concept of the people’s physician, even though I am tested daily - someone who puts patients first, someone who is there to serve and steward people through some of the darkest periods of their lives. Having had some health scares, I understand a bit of the cycle of worry, anxiety, anticipation, relief and how it can consume every waking moment.

I love the collegiality in the darkest of nights, where things are much simpler and yet sometimes the most difficult; where the only goal is to survive the night, but to survive it with a skeleton crew and the faintest of rapports.

I love that it polishes you if you let it, to let your strengths shine, buff down your flaws and refine your heart of compassion that is ultimately what this job is about. It also makes you grit your teeth ‘cos some of the hardest stuff on Earth can be found in this profession, amongst many, and it makes you a more resilient person. That ultimately helps you weather the storms of life and hold the fort, both for yourself and your loves ones.

Lessons I’ve learnt much about myself - my flaws, weaknesses and failures. And I’ve learnt that regrettably, failure is a key component of growth in every Dr’s journey. We learn through our successes, but we also have to learn through failure. We just hope that our failure doesn’t cost anyone their independence, mobility, function or life.

I’ve learnt how good I am, or not under pressure. How my anxiety causes me to pigeonhole and tunnel vision. How I do well when I take a step back and breathe, but crash and burn when I react and rush in.

I think most importantly, I’ve learnt how to be a better person from my patients. I will always recall the spouses of my patients with ALS - an irreversible, degenerative neurological condition that cruelly robs patient of every essential function bit by bit; you watch your independence ebb, without knowing what goes next and when. These are the spouses who vowed “in sickness and in health, for poorer or for richer, till death do us part” and fulfilled those. Promises are made, easy, at the wedding altar, but are fulfilled in the hallways of hospitals. I’ll never forget the husband who slept outside the NICU in TTSH for nights, keeping vigil over his ailing wife. I’ve seen how patients continue to think for others as cancer eats away at their own bodies, how they keep their faith. I also respect the families who drop everything and make their loved one their priority, kids and spouses who just step up and hold the fort without question, because love compels. I would like to think that someday, when disease comes knocking on my door or the doors of my loved ones, I too, might be as stalwart, brave and faithful.

Low Key

I’m low key scared of getting cancer. More importantly, I’m low key scared of getting cancer now. Specifically, I’m scared of having my life prematurely cut short before I’ve had a chance to become the man I hope I can be for God and for my family, before I’ve experienced the joy of committing to Ruth, the intimacy of sex, the satisfaction of having our own place and building a family culture, of raising Godly children and watching them pursue God, of becoming an oncologist and helping patients navigate the journey of cancer. I’ve probably journey a short path with at least 500 cancer patients by now, in 1.5 years as an oncology MO; cancer still scares the shit out of me. It is the Emperor of all Maladies, and deserves that respect.

Languish

The human body is strong, resilient and surprisingly adaptable. There is however, a price to pay for lack of self-control. As a Christian, I believe that disease and sickness, in general, came about from the fall of man, because we could not live forever, now having known good and evil. Sadly, it does also mean that, sometimes we get disease “for no good reason”, despite trying to take the best care of our body. However, a good portion of disease, is caused by sin directly - lack of self-control, immorality. The cancers that are caused by smoking, diabetes that is diet-induced and related to obesity - these are some of the consequences of poor choices, some of which were to fulfill self over God, to please the flesh. I recently recall pondering a case of Kaposi’s Sarcoma in a man who had contracted HIV sexually, and was highly recalcitrant in taking his anti-retrovirals. His young body, which was full of potential, is now wracked from the the weeping, bleeding, crusting, festering lesions of fulminant Kaposi’s Sarcoma, and I was sad to see that happen.

Leaving

No piece about being a doctor government service could go without talking about leaving the system for long. I recall my lowest moment, during Neurology in 2017, where I was assigned to take care of stroke patients in a step-down care ward in TTSH. Essentially, these were patients whose bodies were rendered powerless from neurological disease, mostly from stroke, but who had no home to return to. Most (or in fact all) were awaiting placement in a nursing home. That month damn near broke me, because my work appeared to have made no difference to their outcome; their hands weren’t going to begin waving, they weren’t gonna magically start walking, and perhaps death was a more humane outcome than wasting away in a nursing home, waiting for the last train to arrive to take them away from this Earth. But, no. That is but a small corner of medicine, and it is unfair to judge medicine for the failure of family and/or society. (The state of nursing homes, and the ease with which families admit their loved ones to nursing homes, deserves a whole other essay). What I realise, however, will make me leave is the inexorable accumulation of anger at ungrateful and/or entitled families; patients who think they are the centre of the world, who refuse to accord anyone who works in the hospital (yes, porters, cleaners, patient care associates included) with respect, families who resort to threats and personal insults (including the classic “I’m gonna post this on Facebook/Write to Straits Times/Email the minister” threat - please go ahead”) to get what they want and who demand to be treated but refuse to respect the professional opinion of the medical doctors. You have every right to refuse our recommendation, but don’t pretend that you know our subject better than we do just because of a little reading; its disrespectful to the hours and efforts we have spent gaining experience and knowledge. We are however, happy to engage in a discussion even if you disagree, if you seek to understand before making an informed choice. I even had a patient demand the kitchen make him scrambled eggs (“because that is the only kind of eggs I eat but I want to eat eggs”) and he forced the dietitian to force the chef to accede to this ridiculous request. We don’t want claps, we want respect and reasonable recompense - the first is given by patients and families.

Legacy

Lastly, looking back does no good if it doesn’t lead one to look forward. As I start SRship, I start to ask myself, what sort of reputation do I want? A reputation, left long enough, becomes a legacy. As I was praying in church the other day, I saw a dream/hope/aspiration? of myself being a mentor to future SRs, not just for medicine, but praying for them, making sure that their souls are well even as they navigate the maze of medicine. I have no wish to be head of the department or famous, but only if it allows me to speak life and encouragement to those who come after me and with me. And to build resilience, we must break the cycle of bullying and insults. Compromise on no standards, yes, but spare no compassion either.

And it is with these thoughts, that I start my first day of work tomorrow, in the seventh year of being a doctor.

#writing #medblr #jesus #reflections

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muthaz-rapapa · 4 years

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HealPre Final Review: Not terrible but not entirely laudable either...

*sigh* Where do I start?

Well, one thing I’m pretty sure of is that COVID definitely affected production somehow. By that, I don’t just mean the show needing to go on hiatus, resulting in a shorter run compared to previous seasons. I’m also talking about any possible changes that might’ve been made to the original narrative, if there was one.

Much like how Suite’s story had to be altered in the wake of the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami disaster, I believe Heal underwent a similar treatment in response to the pandemic becoming more widespread as 2020 went on.

Especially since it dealt with health and nature, HealPre is probably the season that has come the closest in relevancy to real life events.

Frankly, that can be quite scary because this virus was and is still a fucking nightmare on a massive global scale. From that view, I can understand why the writers/producers would be concerned of the anime hitting too near home. At least for their main demographic’s (children) sake, maybe they were compelled to shift to something lighter and less edgier so that the kids could find some comfort and enjoyment in the midst of the world’s current crisis.

So I can’t fault Toei for that, if that’s really the case. Going through a pandemic is terrifying, infuriating and exhausting and UGH. We could use something that can help ease our worries or momentarily distract us even a little bit.

Though would it have killed them to dedicate one episode to the importance of wearing a mask or washing hands? (-_- ;;)

HOWEVER! Seeing as I am not a fragile child, I’ve still got several (oho~) criticisms to air out before I put this season behind me. This review isn’t particularly scathing but...there is a lot of discontent so you’ve been forewarned.

But first, let’s tediously review what structure means in Precure.

We all know that there are certain things that will forever (?) remain fixed in the series formula.

The plot is always going to be “magical girls fight evil doers threatening to ruin the world”.

There are plot points to indicate story progression but in reality, are put there to correspond with toy releases which are usually marked by these five: introductions, first power up, midseason Cure, second power up, and build-up to the climax + finale.

There is usually a specific message (a theme) to be told with every season and motifs (narrative tools) to aid in getting that across. For HealPre, the theme is “living is fighting” and its motifs are “health” and “nature”.

I left out “animals” b/c 1) it didn’t hold as much significance as the other two did, 2) animals are part of nature anyway and 3) let’s be real, it’s just a synonym for “mascots” which we already get every year. :P

Right. I’m probably forgetting something but for the most part, these are immovable pillars of Precure.

Story, on the other hand, has more variables you can work with.

Story is how you tell the plot, how you convey the message.

Precure, as a tv series, is unarguably carried by its main stars, the Cures. So it only makes sense that a huge percentage of a season’s success owes itself to how much of an impact its characters had on the audience as well as how effective their individual story arcs were as sub-plots tying back to the bigger picture (the message/theme).

Ideally, these arcs would shine the brightest in the filler episodes, where the plot (“good guys vs. bad guys”) is less of a focus so there is more space for personal development and growth.

Also, not all character arcs have to be directly related to the plot but they ought to be written well in order to support the overarching message (the theme).

Now, has HealPre done that? Has each girl’s story demonstrated a good example of what “living is fighting” means?

...nnnnnnyyeeee... look, even I can’t give a straightforward answer on that because while technically they did, by virtue of Nodoka’s observance in ep 44 recounting it as such, there’s also actually not enough to make it feel substantial from a viewer’s standpoint.

At least, that’s what I thought while watching HealPre.

With the exception of Nodoka’s, there was a lot of saying but not much doing to convincingly back the other girls’ arcs up. The fillers themselves were very weak, loosely composed in relation to the motifs and, if I may be so blunt, downright boring that if Nodoka didn’t phrase those episodes as things that counted towards the theme, I probably would put up more of a fight on disagreeing. so shoot me, I’m soft for her :P

And I know that sounds confusing right now but I will elaborate as I continue.

Before that though, to be utterly fair, some seasons keep their respective themes shrouded in vagueness until they’re given a more concrete form in words around the finale. So it’s not like we can do much except make educated guesses on what they really are. Most of the time, we’re just measuring everything against our perception of a standard in the fog. Or maybe that’s just me?

Nevertheless, you can just tell, y’know? By simply watching and observing the whole show, you can tell if the characterization, the development, and the outcome (essentially the content given) really live up to what the season claims is endgame.

So let’s go through that first then. The characters, starting with our lead Cure...

Nodoka being the only Cure in her team to have an arc deserving of the praise “exceptional” should come as a surprise to no one.

She was the most solid in terms of direction on how her story was going to proceed. Out of all the girls, her journey had the greatest connection to the subject “health”, repeatedly delved into it every time the spotlight was on her and fulfilled everything it seemed to promise from her debut in episode 1.

Her struggles on the road to recovery from a long-term illness and the strength she’s drawn from that traumatizing experience as well as her time as Precure did more than establish her as the strongest character in HealPre.

She has also rose to become one of the most memorable Pink Cures in the entire franchise (personally, I rank her in the top 5).

And it’s not hard to see why she’s earned such high regard in a lot of fans’ hearts.

The writers clearly worked a lot on her character composition to the point where she can pretty much embody the theme of “living is fighting” all on her own.

She came into HealPre fresh out of the hospital and full of earnest desire to make the most of her newfound freedom but she also wasn’t without knowledge on what hardship is. From there, she only got stronger, even when she was stumbling and trying to figure things out along the way. She grew more fortified in her beliefs on what it means to be truly live a healthy life.

She bravely defied the ones who attempted to take advantage of her and twist her cause against her. And she learned that taking care of herself is equally as important as wanting others to be safe from harm.

It was never about winning or coming out on top. It was about protecting a fundamental yet precious truth. That one thing any decent human being should never have to concede: the right to live well.

Honestly, Nodoka is absolutely inspiring all around, as a fictional character, a heroine and a normal everyday person.

Everything about her arc went satisfyingly right like it was meant to and the best thing is, we don’t need to question it because we saw how it all happened with our very own eyes.

I sincerely wished I could say the same for the others but sadly, they were just too flawed.

And Pegitan can throw flippers with me all day if he wants but as undeniable as the above statements are about Chiyu, her arc failed to leap over the increasingly mounting disappointment I had with every episode that’s been assigned solely to her.

Two of which weren’t even about Chiyu. One centered on Pegitan’s admiration for his partner and the other focused on her brother, Touji. Which, while nice to give to supporting/secondary characters, is a fat waste of valuable screentime and not what I’m here for.

It also didn’t help that the conflict of her arc (the indecision over choosing between two dreams) started really late in the game and was resolved so quickly within two episodes. There was no time for me to get invested into it, there was no powerful sense of conviction like how Go!Pri or Hugtto handled theirs and really, it just felt like Chiyu was only following what the script dictated for her rather than genuinely awakening to her own competitive passion towards track and field.

It was almost like it didn’t matter. Almost as if the writers procrastinated in thinking up something worthwhile to further her development...but then settled on grabbing an old idea off the shelf without refining it to suit Chiyu when they ran out of time.

This happened similarly with Minami in Go!Pri and Elena in StarPre, both of whom left me angry at how their arcs were executed. Yet theirs don’t compare to how pissed off I am about Chiyu’s. Because while Minami’s took a while to arrive, it wasn’t done poorly and linked back to Go!Pri’s theme well enough. And while Elena’s was over crammed last minute, at least it was unique to her character and had lots of potential ways to play out if they actually started it earlier on in StarPre.

Chiyu’s arc is like a discount version of the former with hardly any of the intriguing qualities of the latter. Sure, she had two early episodes that laid out the two most important aspects of her life (her family inn and her dedication to her sport) but after that, they weren’t brought up again until we were only weeks away from the ending. Y’know, just to fill up episode slots and meet the minimal requirement of saying they did give Chiyu some issue to resolve.

It was not engaging at all.

Furthermore, the fact that her arc had very little to no relation with either “health” or “nature” hurt my appreciation of her character somewhat. I just...don’t think her kind of story really matches with the central topics of HealPre?

...but maybe I’m being bitter about this all wrong and that’s screwing up my rational thinking on this matter.

Because Chiyu’s arc is valid under the logic of the overall theme, I would never say it isn’t. And again, character arcs don’t have to be close to the plot nor is it necessary to employ the “suffering builds character” method to make them interesting.

Chiyu always does her best every day. That’s sufficient argument on why her story does fit within the frame of HealPre’s premise.

Guess I’ll just have to wrangle my resistance into acceptance somehow.

...still, her arc could’ve been done so much better than what we were given. Chiyu at least deserved that much.

Next, Hinata.

Since the beginning, I knew she was gonna be runner-up to Nodoka for having the (for lack of better term atm) “best” arc because it was heavily implied that she has ADHD and therefore, immediately checked off the “health” trait. She was even more obvious about it than Nozomi was.

Difficulty paying attention, hyperactivity, impulsiveness. Hinata didn’t just display all those signs, she also showed how hard it was for her to deal with the downsides to them on a regular basis.

She kept apologizing and put herself down excessively for inconveniencing her friends even though they never blamed her for her condition. Got them annoyed a few times, yes, but didn’t stop them from staying friends with her and definitely didn’t make them hate her either.

Everybody was understanding of Hinata...except Hinata because she always took her failures to heart and considered quitting several times to avoid the crushing dejection of making mistakes over and over again.

She got better, though, and no one could have summed it up more heartwarmingly than Nyatoran with the encouraging words he gave her at the conclusion of her arc.

But it still feels like there’s a huge chunk of development missing between the start and finish. Or rather, it seemed like all of it occurred offscreen and we were only informed later that it did in fact, happen.

To recap, iirc, Hinata had around 5 episodes that focused on her (ep 9, 13, 23, 35 and 40). Ep 18 doesn’t count because that was a Nyatoran-centric filler more than anything.

Ep 9 and 13 did their jobs of introducing and highlighting the details of Hinata’s troubles while also suggesting she will eventually learn to overcome her insecurities. The ones after, though? They pushed those issues to the backseat.

In Ep 23, she had to share the (uneven) spotlight with Asumi. Hinata’s improvements were briefly mentioned but the majority of the ep went to teaching Asumi what “cute” meant and how to get along with puppies. I mean, I get that Asumi recently joined the group and bonding with her was mandatory by tradition. But since each Cure only gets a limited number of eps to herself, it would’ve been more beneficial for Hinata if she didn’t have to split screentime with someone else’s growth schedule.

Ep 35 is slightly better but not by a whole lot. Sure, Natasha was able to reconcile with Elizabeth which was very sweet and heck, it was the goal for that episode. But again, nothing was really done or addressed about Hinata’s main conflict. She tossed it back with the rest of her homework to deal with later. ahaha, a TroPre hint

Then ep 40 came to formally close the curtains on her story and apparently, Hinata screwed up lots of times since...whenever but she picked herself up every time after and kept on trying. Awesome. So WHY didn’t we get to see that?

I’m not asking for the impossible here. I’m not asking for Hinata to be cured or anything miraculous like that. There is treatment available for ADHD but it is not curable.

Also, forcing Hinata to find a way to get better at studying, the thing she struggles with the most, is not the solution either because that would only make her more stressed and anxious over her own disorder.

What I want is to see how she moved from wailing “I can’t do it! I don’t wanna! I’m so scared of failing so why bother?!” to determinedly declaring “So what if I failed 1 or 100 times? So what if I fail another 1000 times? What matters is that I don’t let that stop me!”

That confidence is not something that can be built up overnight. It’s gradual and it takes numerous tries to reach from where Hinata was to where Hinata is now.

Telling me she grew emotionally stronger can only allow me to believe so much. I need to actually witness the changes as well.

If it weren’t for that, Hinata’s arc would have been a lot more impressive. Shame.

Finally............... Asumi.

Asumi, Asumi, Asumi, Asumi, Asumi, Asumi, Asumi... *sighs & drums fingers*

...she has no arc, ok? Seriously, what story is there to speak of, much less write a hefty analysis on?

A spirit born for the sake of Latte who just went along with the Precure ride because Latte didn’t want to abandon her duty. She made friends with those who aren’t Latte, extended her knowledge and understanding and gained valuable human experience during her stay on Earth. But ultimately, she will always define her entire existence around a puppy.

Nothing is more important than this puppy.

...... to be honest, Asumi not having a storyline isn’t what bothers me. It’s her lack of depth that does.

Hell, even the giant burger she ate had more depth than she did!

Oh, Asumi does have a personality alright. She’s consistently and unfailingly polite, utterly devoted to her raison d’être and in crucial moments, gives pearls of wisdom when the girls are in a pinch. She’s good.

But if that’s all she is, then she’s also painfully dull.

She has nothing to contribute to the discussion of health or nature, despite being created through an element of the Earth so you’d think she’d have an opinion of her own. At least worry about the planet that gave life to her as much as she frets over Latte all the time. But nope.

She shares the exact same face as Teatine’s past Precure partner so you’d think we’d explore that connection to see if it would influence or affect her in any way. But nope.

90% of the time, her role was just being Latte’s constant, fawning satellite.

Not only did that irritate the hell out of me but it just reinforced my stance that this type of character is one of the worst you can ever insert into any narrative.

Because if someone keeps reiterating how much they’re obsessed with this one thing and seldom talks about anything else without bringing their obsession into it... then what’s so special about them on their own?

You’ve practically surrendered the different qualities you could have had for worship of something else. That’s not a fair trade-in.

Asumi’s character is so packed with Latte-related stuff that there’s not much space left for anything that can be considered uniquely Asumi.

I mean, maybe it’s because I can never see myself or any normal person comfortable with living like that.

Living for the sake of being together with the one you love? Okay. But living with your whole universe revolving around that one thing? Making most if not all decisions based on this one thing?

No. That’s absolutely crazy, alright? Nobody with a healthy amount of awareness and self-worth would live like that.

And you can counter that Asumi’s just born like that. That she can’t help her origins because Teatine’s wish to protect her daughter is essentially what brought Asumi into existence so of course, her biggest concern would be Latte. At least, she wasn’t forced into it, right? As long as Asumi chose of her own will to follow Latte, it should be fine, right?

You can even use the fact that Asumi isn’t human. That she’s a spirit and we shouldn’t apply our human standards too strictly to her.

Yea, but those are feeble defenses in the face of her being a good main character, a good main heroine.

There are many ways to make a decent MC. The way Asumi was written proves she certainly does not possess traits that can classify her as true protagonist material. A protagonist has to be more than one amplified feature, which Asumi is not.

For the record, I don’t hate Asumi (she’s not interesting enough to generate a feeling that intense). I'm just severely let down because even if I don’t end up loving the midseason Cure for whatever reason, I can usually count on them to bring something intriguing to the table to dissect and analyze. At least I should find something to care about them.

Didn’t happen with her. :(

Oh god, I’ve been working on this post for days now and I’ve got a headache and with the baton pass happening in less than a few hours as I type this, I just really need to get it done and over with so please forgive me for speeding up through the rest, I’ll try to keep it as coherent as possible. NYARGH! (@_@ ;;)

Mascots.

Would you be surprised to hear that I’m not surprised that they were actually written very well?

Like I said early on, I suspected the return of fairy partnerships were going to improve the mascots’ significance in the story and, well, I was right.

This time, they didn’t just fill in the usual expectations of relaying exposition, serving as the Cures’ transformation devices and looking cute for the merchandise. The Healing Animals had to make progress on their own training to become doctors as well.

And they did through their relationships with their human partners.

It was a refreshing take on the mascot aspect of the series because the friendships felt really symbiotic. When the trainees arrived on Earth, they relied on the girls to help them perform their jobs as well as provide them with shelter, food, the occasional peptalk about their trainee status, etc.

Then as the story continued and they got to know each other better, the mascots were able to return the favor by giving support when the Cures needed it. Rabirin when Nodoka was frightened and confused about how to deal with Daruizen, Pegitan when Chiyu was having trouble choosing between two dreams and Nyatoran who made sure to always lift Hinata’s spirits up when she got upset at herself.

In short, they achieved their objectives of learning what it means to be good doctors by being there for their friends! How wonderful! :D

My memory for Latte is hazy, unfortunately, since she’s coddled by everyone all the time (can’t blame them, she’s friggin’ adorable! <3) but I’ll never forget how she stood firm on the battlefield to see things through, to fight for the Earth like she promised her mother. She started out so babie but showed us all there was enormous bravery behind her cute face and ugh, we should all be very proud of her! <3

The only major issues I had about the mascots were these:

1) Too many irrelevant fillers went to them. They only needed a maximum of two for their entire mascot group.

2) Latte kept getting sick even after she acquired a Precure partner of her own. I was hoping it wouldn’t hurt her as much as it did before Asumi arrived or that she would build up a stronger immunity but noooo, they insisted on torturing the poor pupper! T_T

Villains + Finale Battle

Not a lot needs to be said for the first part. We’ve had mediocre antagonists before. HealPre’s just happened to be extra annoying as they were despicable.

Which is worse because jerks you can just leave in the trash but assholes won’t stop harassing you unless you pummel them into their graves, set fire to their corpses and leave no trace of them behind! >:(

Y’all know who I’m talking about. Opinions on him continue to vary depending on who you talk to and if they’re avid fans of his face or not but whatever. The son of a bitch served his purpose and is dead now. That’s all that matters to me.

Anyway, the King was flat like his two lesser generals. He was neither intimidating nor distinguished enough in the brand of evil to really make us think of him as a serious threat and because of that, it ended up making the boss fight look like any run of the mill boss fight.

I know, they tried so hard with all that shiny animation but it just didn’t have that glorious sense of vindication that previous seasons (or ep 42) gave and I blame it all on this Rumiko Takahashi reject.

Also, this strategy was pretty useless?

They built it up like Earth was gonna sacrifice herself and die or something (she wouldn’t and even if she came close, deus ex machina would’ve kicked in to prevent that and COVID-induced caution too I guess).

But there were no signs of pain (well, that’s a relief) after absorbing Shindoi-ne and they really pissed King Byogen off more than they did any damage with the absorbed byo-gen power.

...so yea, this tactic was just to kill some time and budget, nothing more. Meh.

By the way, did Asumi eject Shindoi-ne’s pathogen out of her body yet or did they just leave it in there to bounce around until it eventually dissolves on its own?

Because that’s eww. I mean, it’s obviously not gonna hurt Asumi they can both relate on hyperfocusing their affection for someone so maybe the compatibility helps :P but still, ewwwww.

Fillers + Underused Motifs

In hindsight, perhaps HealPre didn’t exactly promise the content we I wanted about “health” and “nature” if their objective was to teach that any manner of “fighting” can count towards “living”.

......but fuck you Toei, you’re still cowards! >:/

Fillers will be fillers but it’s always better to try and make some of them as meaningful as possible. And they wasted the opportunity to inform an impressionable audience (during a very crucial period of our time, I must add) on a lot of things related to the HealPre’s motifs. Especially about the environment which for some ridiculous reason, they chose not to touch on for the main stretch of the overall story.

Proper hygiene, good diet plan and sleeping habits, regular exercise (already done by the girls a few times but could use another example), meditation, counseling/therapy (especially for mental health!), etc.

Real life pollution, climate change/global warming (IMPORTANT!!), deforestation, preservation vs conservation, endangered species, recycling, volunteering to clean up your community, etc.

These just came off the top of my head but yes, there’s more and no, I’m not saying that the writers need to cover all of them in extreme detail or replace the slice-of-life episodes.

But they should be able to mesh both serious and light-hearted together in harmony somehow. Like those fillers where the mascots saw people cleaning up littering at the park or that interaction with that arborist who taught them about wild animals and trees when the group went to visit a lake.

For health, maybe let the girls visit patients with chronic illness in the hospital or have them converse with a medical professional on some matter. Particularly if it’s got something to do with mental illness because stigma in Japan on those who are afflicted with such conditions is still prevalent and has caused a number of sad and shocking tragedies that could have otherwise been avoided if people didn’t have such outdated, judgmental mindsets.

That last part might be too dark for a children’s anime but there’s a lot more out there that is doable.

Do that without reducing it into a footnote, Toei. It is so necessary for your target audience to be aware of these issues at the age they are now. You have an almost 20-year old franchise to serve as a very effective platform. Make better use of it if you truly care about the message you’re conveying through your show!

Also, what the fuck.

The last episode was a mess. Why are you only mentioning this now when the season is already over?

This should’ve been brought up months ago!

All the things we could’ve seen the Cures done to protect the Earth without magic.

The excuse of “I didn’t know humans were so horrible!” is a shit one because everybody knows humans are deplorable trash when it comes to abusing the Earth. All the more reason why you have to persistently drill it into people’s heads that they should not be like those who don’t care or choose not to care.

One crack episode isn’t going to cut that.

God, I so want to unsee this ep just so I don’t have to end HealPre on a more sour note than it already was. *big aggrieved sigh*

Lastly (and this really is the end of my long ranting, I promise), the missing undisclosed lore.

There are few Precure seasons without a past lore of its own in the recent years. Is it a wonder, though?

Lore is mysterious and fascinating. If it involves a past Precure, even more so.

Sometimes fans might just hang onto a show because they’re curious about what happened before the main story. We’d never get the full tale of those adventures but at least, it’s fun to imagine the “prequel”.

Also, past Precure are just badass. Fact.

Strangely enough, we didn’t get that for Heal. All we know is that she was called “Fuu” and was very close to Teatine.

Hmm. Probably one of those changes caused by COVID interference cuz I can’t imagine the writers choosing not to tell her past in the original draft.

With all that finally off my chest, I’m ready to part ways with you girls until the next All Stars (Nodoka, I’m gonna miss you so much! T_T)

HealPre wasn’t the worst and it was nowhere near the best that it had the potential to be. But it’s passable. At least for those who loved it even with its flaws, I’m genuinely glad it was good for you.

For those who are thinking about picking it up (although why you would read this spoilery post before watching, I have no idea), if you’re looking for a standard magical girl anime to enjoy casually, then this is a safe pick. If you really want to invest your attention and heart into it, though? Then perhaps it would be in your interest to ask someone who saw it already to help you filter out the episodes that are worth watching. You don’t need to worry about the rest, they’re inconsequential. :P

Ok then! Thanks for reading as always, brave souls who have reached this point.

Stay healthy and safe out there and I’ll see you at the beach next week! Tropic underwater paradise here we coooooommmmmeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!! xDDD

#i rage quit two drafts and an outline before i got anywhere with this #now if you'll excuse me i gotta catch up on my workout and play pokemon and eat pho later #and catch up on the ccs manga #livin' the healthy life oh yea~#healin' good precure #cure grace #cure fontaine #cure sparkle #cure earth #hanadera nodoka #sawaizumi chiyu #hiramitsu hinata #fuurin asumi #rabirin #pegitan #nyatoran #latte

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sonofsallyjackson · 4 years

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Heroes of Olympus should have been in first-person.

@jo-march-is-a-lesbian wrote a really wonderful post about how “Percy Jackson and the Olympians is better than Heroes of Olympus…because it understood simplicity and character development.” It highlights some reasons I also found HoO less rewarding namely that it was an overcomplicated story with limited character growth, lacked a common thesis, and was super jarring when it switched perspectives.

And with that my little brain went: I can fix this. Which frankly is ridiculous. I can’t come up with a compelling thesis like “The idea that we should place our hope in our loved ones, our friends and our family, and if we do that, we won’t be tempted to give up hope again.” But I can imagine a simple change that would have solved some of the issues and also played to Rick’s strengths as a writer: Each book should have been written in first person and narrated by a different character.

With so many people on the quest, I often felt like I was watching a bunch of one-dimensional characters fight for their right to be the main character. I didn’t know who to focus on but I was also dissatisfied. There were all these new wonderful characters in front of me who I wanted to love, but I didn’t feel like I actually knew them. I mean I don’t feel like I know the Stoll Brothers either, but I’m not concerned about that fact because they are side characters. When everyone is painted as the main character, I have certain expectations for growth, personality, and voice. The story would have been better served if the characters took turns narrating the action, allowing us to settle into their perspective, see their growth, and better understand their personality.

Plus Rick kills first-person. While I’m not particularly a fan of Trials of Apollo, it’s not because I don’t know the characters. Apollo is so very different than Percy. Their voices, even though they can both be jokesters at times, reflect their different life-experiences, thought processes and provide massive insight into their characters. If the Seven (and Nico and Reyna) got the same treatment, I would be absolutely giddy.

I recognize that rewriting the HoO series in first-person is something a talented fanfiction writer with a lot of time on their hands could actually do. But I am not talented like that and I certainly don’t have the discipline to actually write that much fic, especially if I was trying to keep the events vaguely the same just with different narration and pacing. So instead I’ve included who I think should have narrated each book below the cut. I’d love to hear any opinions people have regarding this idea, especially who they would have wanted to see to narrate each book.

In addition to picking the narrator, I’ve highlighted what should be the “quest” so to speak of each story. Personally, MoA, HoH and BoO are kind of a blur to me despite reading them all recently. It’s hard to distinguish what happens in each book because it’s all one massive quest with a whole bunch of mini-quests. While the different narrators would obviously make the books more distinctive, splitting the series into seven books would also help simplify each book’s individual goal. Eight books would have allowed for better integration of the plot to find the physician’s cure, but with the prophecy of seven, it seemed like seven books was the best option, if I was going to be doing something as blasphemous as splitting books.

As a note, I ran out of steam as I went so not all opinions are fully fleshed out.

Book 1: The Lost Hero The Quest: Rescue Hera/Juno Narrator: Jason

Why this would be cool:

He is literally Juno’s chosen sent on a quest to rescue her. It’s poetic enough to give him the book.

Jason’s journey is just as much about rediscovering himself as it is about saving Juno. Of the new characters, I feel like I understand Jason the least. Mainly because I felt like I was missing the entire first half of his story. Jason, like Percy and Annabeth, is a hero of the Titan War. I know some of his accomplishments, but I don’t have any bearing on what his life was like or how he felt about it. He doesn’t seem like the type to relish Praetor-ship since he doesn’t have the same intense need to get back to his camp as Percy. Was he just hoisted on his comrades’ shields after killing the Titan without any real choice in the matter? Give me Jason’s memories coming back slowly over the course of the quest (with potentially a fractured memory of a mistake he made in the Roman’s final Titan battle that makes him doubt their ability to both rescue Piper’s dad and save Hero but he makes the decision to anyway because he can’t just hurt his friend like that. Let me understand how Jason is the person he is today. Give me glances of the Roman Camp with emphasis on the heavy expectations that have always followed him as the son of Jupiter and foreshadow why he eventually chooses to design all the shrines for the minor gods so he can have his own place in the world as a figure between the two camps.

Let’s dive into those feelings of anger/guilt/resentment when people at camp are disappointed with him for not being Percy or in Chiron’s case are nervous about what his presence means.

I want to dig deeper regarding Jason’s feelings about reconnecting with Thalia. He knows that if the gods hadn’t been determined to keep the two camps completely separate, he could have grown up with his sister.

What does telling the narrative like this sacrifice:

We miss some of the internal turmoil regarding the fact that Piper’s Dad has been captured and she must betray her friends.

We also don’t feel the tensions of Piper’s relationship with Aphrodite. I don’t see Piper bringing up the conversation with her mom saying that her mist memories were so strong because she automatically sensed the potential of a romantic relationship with Jason.

We don’t have any of Leo’s conflicted feelings regarding rescuing Hera or his fear of being made an outcast for his fire abilities. Jason has to go with Leo to discover Bunker 9 and Festus.

Leo doesn’t actively save the day with the Cyclops.

We don’t know how Piper feels about her charm-speak or see her defeat Madea (as the boys are in their weird trance thing).

Knowledge about Gaea’s involvement in wrecking Leo’s life will come later.

Book 2: The Son of Neptune The Quest: Free Thantos Narrator: Hazel

Why this would be cool:

The stakes are so incredibly high. Hazel is literally risking her second chance at life by agreeing to go on this chance. She’s going to the place she died to fight the monster she created. She also has to deal with the trauma of knowing she may have bought the world time with her first sacrifice but it now means nothing if she can’t succeed again.

We get to see Camp Jupiter from the view of someone who loves it but doesn’t really fit in. Hazel joined Camp Jupiter just after the final battle. She enters a community that has learned to fight as a well-oiled machine but that has lost people. Dakota or the others may remark to her about how things were before or the people who are missing. Hazel sees a community that she’s not quite a part of both because she didn’t fight in the war and because she’s in the fifth cohort with a feared godly parent.

It would explore her relationship with Nico more (because I love their dynamic and I want more). She knows she can’t replace his real sister, but she feels comfortable and happy at the opportunity to have a brother, especially one who is out of time like she is.

What does telling the narrative like this sacrifice:

Frankly, the largest pushback would be from the fans who expected this to be Percy’s book since we just watched Jason rediscover who he is.

Percy’s phone call to his mom doesn’t have the same intensity.

Frank’s relationship with Mars and how desperate he was to be claimed but now he doesn’t think he can live up to his father’s expectations.

Frank and his grandmother. We aren’t in Frank’s head as he changes shape till later.

Book 3: Mark of Athena The Quest: Close the Divide Between The Two Camps by finding Athena’s statue and Rescue Nico Narrator(s): Annabeth and Leo

Why Annabeth:

So I can have all the emotions at the reunion with Percy.

Annabeth’s relationship with her Mom has never been great, but imagine beginning the book with Annabeth being given the Mark of Athena. They haven’t left for New Rome yet and her nerves are already all over the place. Then Athena/Minerva comes, gives her an impossible quest, and breaks her hat. Annabeth wants to prove to her mother that she’s worthy because despite everything she still values her mother’s opinions. Also her fatal flaw of hubris makes her believe she will succeed where everyone else failed.

Much of the book already follows her in third person limited so we just get things with a little extra emotion.

Why Leo:

Leo has to grapple with the fact he started this war by being the one to fire the cannon even if he didn’t have any control. He is motivated to fix it

If we’re going to include the Sammy plot, we need to do it now. Leo doesn’t like being the odd one out on the ship but he certainly doesn’t like the feeling of being notable because of his grandfather.

We still need to get into those feelings of abandonment and anger at Gaea for killing his mom.

Nemesis

Leo comes into his own with the discovery of the Archimedes sphere and the decision to value people over objects.

What does telling the narrative like this sacrifice:

The aquarium shenanigans

The fight between Jason and Percy in Kansas needs to happen differently so that the others are present and try to stop it.

Neither of them went ashore to meet Hercules.

I think we might need to move up the Calypso meeting to this book, but that also kills some of the suspense since Frank will have the fireproof coating prior to his adventures in Venice when he gains faith in his abilities. It also might mean Leo opens the fortune cookie from Nemesis unless for some odd reason he doesn’t have it. There’s a lot more narrative weight for it coming later, but in order to get in as many book events as we can in, it might need to come earlier.

Book 4: House of Hades Pt. 1

The Quest: Survive Tartarus Narrator(s): Annabeth and Percy

The first time I read House of Hades, I read it out of order (reading all the Percy and Annabeth chapters until they were on the elevator out of Tartarus before going back and reading the others), because I couldn’t handle the back and forth. I felt like the tension would build, I’d be invested in this plot and then we’d switch to the other plot. Plus I was very concerned for my children. So I feel fully justified in saying that there is more than enough material to give the two of them their own book.

I just feel like all the feelings would be magnified.

Percy’s commentary slowly losing its humor because he can’t anymore.

Annabeth’s guilt at having pulled him in being extra loud.

Downsides beyond adding an entire book: Just imagine all the outrage at two cliffhangers in a row, because you know the book would end with them in the elevator remembering Bob’s words about the stars.

Book 5: House of Hades Pt. 2

The Quest: Close the Doors of Death Narrator(s): Frank and Hazel

Frank and Hazel experience the most growth on the quest to close the doors so this book is all theirs. Hazel learns to control the mist. Frank experiments with his transformations. I want nothing but them growing into themselves and their abilities.

The good thing about turning the two warring storylines from House of Hades into separate books is that we lose very little plot.

Book 6: House of Hades Pt. 3/Blood of Olympus Pt 1 (Personally I would call this one Ambassador of Pluto)

The Quest: Unite the Gods’ Personalities. Narrator: Nico

To clarify what I mean by HoH 3, I just mean anything done with the intention of trying to cross paths with Reyna, including the adventure with Cupid, in addition to the existing Nico&Reyna plotline in BoO.

Nico dealing with all the emotions and his most recent near-death experience.

He kept the secret of the camps so the world wouldn’t end in chaos, but now that the world is in chaos he will be the one to fix it.

In the short time he’s on the Argo 2, Nico realizes that even though this wasn’t his quest; this is his family and he needs to protect them.

The reader has a pretty good idea Nico is gay, even if the word isn’t explicitly said from the descriptions (his guilty Percy thoughts - he let down the man he loves even if he won’t admit it.) This means that Cupid’s forceful outing is potentially less surprising so the reader can be properly outraged at Cupid.

Downside: Reyna definitely has adventures when Nico is passed out, especially the whole waking up with the Hunters, but I think it’s excusable for a whole book from Nico’s perspective.

Also, the battle between the camps and gifting of the statue needs to happen in this book, but we shouldn’t find out if the gods have regained control of their forms yet. We alleviate some tensions because Camp Half-blood is likely to be overrun with Octavian’s monsters instead of the Roman armies and Gaea could awaken any second, but there’s an odd moment of calm and an uneasy truce. (Octavian is potentially taken under custody to be held for trial only to escape in the next book.)

Book 7: Blood of Olympus Pt 2 (and the aftermath)

The Quest: Like The Last Olympian, the final book’s focus is entirely on defeating the series’ big bad, in this case, Gaea. Leo’s quest for the Physician’s cure parallels Percy’s River Styx visit.

Narrator(s): Leo and Piper

Leo has his death hanging over his head. He has decided that he will be the one to die not any of his friends. He got the cloth from Calypso so the “fire” portion of the prophecy applies to him and not Frank. (Yes I know you can’t control prophecies, but do you think that’s going to stop Leo.)

It’s the ultimate revenge for killing his mom. We can have memories of both the happy times with Esperanza and the fear he felt for thinking he caused the fire.

Piper’s perspective is necessary as we need to be with her during the fight with the giants.

This series began with Piper, Leo, and Jason. It ends that way too with the three of them killing Gaea and the two of them narrating.

Downsides:

The Percabeth I love you-the feud is over scene remains in Piper’s perspective.

Since we’re not following Reyna’s delivery of the statue concurrently we don’t know when to anticipate the healed gods appearing in the battle with the giants.

The book can still get away with not showing us Percy’s reunion with Sally or forcing Leo to tell the others he’s alive so they’re all grieving.

#pjo meta #pjo fandom #pjo/hoo #hoo #riordanverse #heroes of olympus #my meta #percy jackon and the olympians #the seven #jason grace #hazel levesque #leo valdez #piper mclean #percy jackson #annabeth chase #frank zhang #the fandom once again improving hoo

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jadelotusflower · 4 years

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November Roundup

Some writing success this month - I finished and posted a new chapter for Against the Dying of the Light, and made progress on The Lady of the Lake and Turn Your Face to the Sun. I didn’t work much on my novel, but I did do some editing on the first third so that’s progress.

Words written this month: 6647

Total this year: 67,514

November books

Girl, Woman, Other by Bernadine Evaristo - joint winner of the 2019 Booker Prize (with The Testaments by Margaret Atwood) this was an engrossing and interesting read. Stylistically unusual formatting and scant use of punctuation that is a bit jarring at first, but you quickly adapt as you read. There’s no plot as such - instead the story is formed by vignettes of twelve black women and their disparate yet interconnected lives. We have mothers and daughters, close friends, teachers and students, although the connections aren’t always obvious at first - we can be exposed to a character briefly in the story of another with no idea that she will be a focus later on. It’s very skillfully done, to the point whereupon finishing I wanted immediately to re-read (but alas, it was already overdue back to the library). There is so much ground covered that we are really only given a glimpse into the characters lives, but there is a diversity of intergenerational perspectives of the African diaspora in the UK, and I highly recommend.

The Evening and the Morning by Ken Follett - after finishing The Pillars of the Earth I had intended to read the sequel, but this was available on the library shelf and I had to place a hold on World Without End, so the prequel came first. Set sixty years before the Conquest (150 before Pillars) it primarily addresses the growth of the hamlet of Dreng’s Ferry into the town of Kingsbridge, through the lives of a monk with a strong moral code, a clever and beautiful noblewoman, and a skilled builder, working against the machinations of an evil bishop. Sound familiar? This is Follet’s most recent work, and I do wonder if he’s running out of ideas as this covers very similar thematic ground.

Ragna is a compelling female character, but once again the romance-that-cannot-be with Edgar is tepid, Aldred is a very watered down version of Prior Philip, and there’s no grand framing device such as building the cathedral to really tie to all together (although things do Get Built, and it’s interesting but not on the level of Pillars). This is the tail end of the Dark Ages and it shows - Viking raids, slavery, infanticide - and while it seems Follett’s style is to put his characters through much tragedy and tribulation before their happy ending, I wish writers would stop going to the rape well so readily. But at least the sexual violence isn’t as...lasciviously written as in Pillars? Scant praise, I know. But Follett’s strength in drawing the reader into the world and time period is on display, made even more interesting in this era about which we know very little.

Women and Leadership by Julia Gillard and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala - I have a great deal of respect for Julia Gillard, Australia’s first female Prime Minister who was treated utterly shamefully during her tenure and never got the credit she deserved, perhaps excepting the reaction to her iconic “misogny speech” whichyou can enjoy in full here:

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Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala was the first woman to be Minister of Finance and Foreign Affairs in Nigeria, was also the former Managing Director of the World Bank, and currently a candidate for Director-General of the WTO.

This is an interesting examination of women in leadership roles, comparing and contrasting the lives and experiences of a select few including (those I found the most interesting) Ellen Sirleaf, the first female President of Liberia, Joyce Banda, the first female President of Malawi, New Zealand’s current Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, and of course, Gillard and Okonjo-Iweala themselves.

November shows/movies

The Vow and Seduced: Inside the NXIVM Cult - I’ve been following the NXIVM case for a while now, when the news broke in 2017 I was surprised and intrigued that it involved actresses from some of my fandom interests - Alison Mack (Smallville), Grace Park and Nikki Clyne (Battlestar Galactica), and Bonnie Piasse (Star Wars). Uncovered: Escaping NXIVM is an excellent podcast from that point in time that’s well worth a listen. There’s been a lot of discussion comparing these two documentaries and which one is better, but I feel they’re both worthwhile.

The Vow gives a primer of NXIVM as a predatory “self improvement” pyramid scheme/cult run by human garbage Keith Reniere, from the perspective of former members turned whistleblowers Bonnie Piasse, who first suspected things were wrong, her husband Mark Vicente who was high up in the organisation, and Sarah Edmondson who was a member of DOS, the secret group within NXIVM that involved branding and sex trafficking. Seduced gives more insight into the depravity and criminality of DOS from the pov of India Oxenburg, just 19 when she joined the group and who became Alison Mack’s “slave” in DOS - she was required to give monthly “collateral” in the form of explicit photographs or incriminating information about herself or her family, had to ask Mack’s permission before eating anything (only 500 calories allowed per day), was ordered to have sex with Reniere, and other horrific treatment - Mack herself was slave to Reniere (as was Nikki Clyne) and there were even more horrific crimes including rape and imprisonments of underage girls.

Of course each show has an interest in portraying its subjects as less culpable than perhaps they were (there were people above and below them all in the pyramid after all) - Vicente and Edmondson in The Vow and Oxenburg in Seduced, but what I did appreciate about Seduced was the multiple experts to explain how and why people were indoctrinated into this cult, and why it was so difficult to break free from it. This is a story of victims who were also victimisers and all the complications that come along with that, although I’m not sure any of these people are in the place yet to really reckon with what happened and all need a lot of therapy.

Focusing on individual journeys also narrows the scope - there are other NXIVM members interviewed I would have liked to have heard a lot more from. There is also a lot of jumping back and forth in time in both docos so the timeline is never quite clear unless you do further research. I would actually like to see another documentary one day a bit further removed from events dealing with the whole thing from start to finish from a neutral perspective. The good news is that Reniere was recently sentenced to 120 years in prison so he can rot.

I saw value in both, but you’re only going to watch one of these, I would say go for Seduced - if you’re interested in as much information as possible, watch The Vow first to get a primer on all the main players and then Seduced for the full(er) story.

The Crown (season 4) - While I love absolutely everything Olivia Coleman does, I thought it took a while for her to settle in as the Queen last season and it’s almost sad that she really nailed it this season, just in time for the next cast changeover (but I also love everything Imelda Staunton does so...) This may be an unpopular opinion, but I wasn’t completely sold on Gillian Anderson as Thatcher - yes I know she sounded somewhat Like That, but for me the performance was a little too...affected? (and someone get her a cough drop, please!)

It is also an almost sympathetic portrayal of Thatcher - even though it does demonstrate her classism and internalised misogyny, it doesn’t really explore the full impact of Thatcherism, why she was such a polarising figure to the extent that some would react like this to her death:

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But I suppose it’s called The Crown, not The PM.

Emma Corrin is wonderful as Diana, and boy do they take no prisoners with Charles (or the other male spawn). I was actually surprised at how terrible they made Charles seem rather than both sidesing it as I had expected (but perhaps that’s being saved for season 5). It does hammer home just how young Diana was when they were married (19 to Charles’ 32), how incompatible they were and the toxicity of their marriage (standard disclaimer yes it’s all fictionalised blah blah). The performances are exceptional across the board - Tobias Menzies and Josh O’Conner were also standouts and it’s a shame to see them go.

I was however disappointed to see that the episode covering Charles and Di’s tour of Australia was not only called “Terra Nullius” but the term was used as a very tone deaf metephor that modern Australia was no longer “nobody’s land/country”. For those who aren’t aware, terra nullius was the disgraceful legal justification for British invasion/colonisation of Australia despite the fact that the Indigenous people had inhabited the continent for 50,000 years or more. While the tour was pre-Mabo (the decision that overturned the doctrine of terra nullius and acknowledged native title), there was no need to use this to make the point, especially when there was no mention at all of the true meaning/implication of the term.

The Spanish Princess (season 2, episodes 4-8)- Sigh. I guess I’m more annoyed at the squandered potential of this show, since the purpose ostensibly was to focus on the time before The Great Matter and give Katherine “her due” - and instead they went and made her the most unsympathetic, unlikeable character in the whole damn show. (Spoilers) She literally rips Bessie Blount’s baby from her body and, heedless to a mother’s pleas to hold her child, runs off to Henry so she can present him with “a son”. I mean, what the actual fuck?

I’m not a stickler for historical accuracy so long as it’s accurate to the spirit of history (The Tudors had its flaws, but it threaded this needle most of the time), but this Katherine isn’t even a shadow of her historical figure - she’s not a troubled heroine, she’s cruel and vindictive, Margaret Pole is a sanctimonious prig, and Margaret Tudor does little but sneer and shout - the only one who comes out unscathed is Mary Tudor (the elder), and it’s only because she’s barely in it at all. It’s a shame because I like all of these actresses (especially Georgie Henley and Laura Carmichael) but they are just given dreck to work with.

This is not an issue with flawed characters, it’s the bizarre presentation of these characters that seems to want to be girl power rah rah, and yet at the same time feels utterly misogynistic by pitting the women against each other or making them spiteful, stupid, or crazy for The Drama. I realise this is based on Gregory so par for the course, but it feels particularly egregious here. (Spoilers) At one point Margaret Pole is banished from court by Henry, and because Katherine won’t help her (because she cant!) she decides to spill the beans about Katherine’s non-virginity. Yes, her revenge against the hated Tudors is...to give Henry exactly what he wants? Even though it will result in young Mary, who she loves and cares for, being disinherited? Girlboss!

This season also missed the opportunity to build on its predecessors The White Queen/Princess and show why it was so important to Henry to have a male heir - the Tudor reign wasn’t built on the firmest foundations and so needed uncontested transfer of power, at the time there was historic precedent that passing the throne to a daughter led to Anarchy, and wars of succession were very recent in everyone’s memory. At least no one was bleating about The Curse this time, which is actually kind of surprising, because the point of the stupid curse is the Tudor dynasty drama.

But it’s not all terrible. Lina and Oviedo are the best part of the show, and (spoilers) thankfully make it out alive. Both are a delight to watch and I wish the show had been just about them.

Oh well. One day maybe we’ll get the Katherine of Aragon show we deserve - at least I can say that the costumes were pretty, small consolation though it is.

#november roundup #long post

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wonderfulworldofmichaelford · 5 years

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Psycho Analysis: Erik Killmonger

(WARNING! This analysis contains SPOILERS!)

The Marvel Cinematic Universe has always been able to tell compelling stories with its heroes, but for the longest time the films lacked a key component of any great superhero story: great, compelling villains. Sure, there were enjoyable foes like Ultron and Red Skull and then there was Loki, the poster child for villainy in the early days, but I think at some point we can’t JUST have fun, we need something compelling and engaging too. To quote one of the greatest MCU villains, it should be “perfectly balanced, as all things should be.”

Thankfully, we eventually got those compelling villains. Characters like Zemo, Toomes, and Ghost showcased a level of complexity and depth not really seen in anyone outside Loki, and fun villains like Hela and the Grandmaster were better than ever, with more engaging personalities. Then we got villains who were a blend, like Ego and Mysterio, and don’t even get me started on Thanos. But there is one villain who stands out even among the greatness of these villains, a villain who is one of the few Marvel villains that I would without hesitation call one of the greatest villains of all time: Erik Killmonger.

Killmonger is a character who solidified Marvel’s turning point from weaker villains into villains worthy of high praise. And not only that, he helped to completely redeem his actor, Michael B. Jordan, in the eyes of filmgoers everywhere after a not-so-fantastic previous outing into the superhero movie genre (though starring in Creed probably also helped him out). Killmonger’s story is almost Shakesperean, with a tragic life molding him into the ruthless man he became, a man whose entire motivation is founded on hypocrisy. But it’s these facets and more that make him if not the greatest, but one of the most fascinating characters in the MCU. And yes, I mean characters period.

Motivation/Goals: Erik had a pretty miserable life growing up. His dad was killed by T’Challa’s father for allying himself with Klaue due to wanting to end Wakanda’s isolationist policies after seeing black people disenfranchised in America, and his mom was apparently in jail (and she died there). Erik’s greatest desire is to carry on his father’s work, only on a grander scale: he wants to take the throne of Wakanda for himself and forcibly end their isolationist policies, supplying vibranium tech to black people around the world and giving them the strength to fight back at their oppressors. And, you know, I can’t really fault him in theory, his plan isn’t totally evil…

...but it becomes very clear that the only person Erik really thinks about is himself. He’ll oppress and murder black people if they don’t fall in line with his plans, he doesn’t give a damn about anyone who isn’t black in general, and most tellingly of all: he decides to keep the power of Black Panther to himself, destroying it to keep any future generations from getting it. While there definitely is some truth to his goals and desires, it’s hard to deny that Killmonger is also acting out of vengeance and a lust for power. Unlike most villains who lust for power, he at least has a lot of other things going in to his motivations, which keeps him from being bland like, oh, I don’t know, Malekith.

I think it’s also worth noting that even in the film, the characters point out Erik is still operating like a CIA wetworker, dismantling and destroying governments while masking his motives under the guise of rebellious ideology. The thing here is that he’s not working for anyone who’s going to swoop in and scoop up the assets from the ruins of the places he’s destroying – he’s the master, and all he is doing is leaving behind chaos, destruction, and death for nothing. His own goals are not truly helped by a lot of his actions, especially not when he decides to eschew Wakandan traditions in the third act, which helps lead to his downfall.

Performance: Michael B. Jordan is a very talented man, which anyone would be able to tell you provided they had watched Chronicle and sat out F4ntastic. Unfortunately, the latter managed to stick in most people’s minds since it ruined the career of Chronicle’s director and basically garnered a lot of vitriol for everyone involved, so it was going to be an uphill battle for Jordan with this film.

Boy did he win the crowd here.

Jordan manages to make Killmonger everything you would want to see in a villain. He’s cunning, he’s dangerous, he’s charismatic, he’s pretty damn hot (Did you SEE him with his shirt off?!). It’s to the point where despite the incredibly embarrassing CGI cat fight at the end between him and T’Challa, Jordan manages to turn Killmonger’s death scene into a poignant and emotional moment that ends up deeply affecting T’Challa as a character and setting the stage for his character growth to the point where you can almost forget that you spent the last ten minutes watching a PS3 cutscene.

Final Fate: For a comic book movie villain, there is about a 10% chance you will make it out of any given superhero movie alive. Killmonger does not fall into that 10%; thankfully, he does get a poignant sendoff, where he gets to watch the sun set on Wakanda (both figuratively and literally, considering T’Challa’s actions in the ending) and deliver one last line clinging to his ideology to his dying breath. Maybe he was just playing a bit to mask his own egotism, but you have to give props to a man who stays steadfast and defiant even to the end. Even when offered the chance to be saved, he chooses to go out on his own terms.

Best Scene: I can hardly narrow it down to one scene, because Killmonger basically steals the show whenever he’s onscreen. But his cold-blooded murder of his own girlfriend when she became a liability to his plans, followed up by executing Klaue and delivering his corpse to Wakanda? That’s just ice cold. Most villains wish they could get the lengths they’d go to established like that.

Best Quote: After going on about the poignancy of his dying words, how could I not put them here? When T’Challa tells Killmonger Wakandan science can save his life following the Video game cuts- er, final battle between the two, Killmonger responds thusly:

“Why? So you can lock me up? Nah. Just bury me in the ocean, with my ancestors who jumped from the ships, 'cause they knew death was better than bondage.”

Final Thoughts & Score: There is just so much to unpack with Killmonger.

I think one of the aspects about Killmonger I like the most is that despite his good intentions, there is an inherent hypocrisy in all he does which, despite valid points and incredibly valid grievances, firmly cements himself as a villain. For all his talk of aiding and liberating his fellow Africans from the opression they face around the world, he feels no remorse in appropriating from them (as he does to that mask at the start of the film, ironically after calling out a museum worker for stealing it) or violently subjugating them and destroying aspects of their way of life as he does when he comes to Wakanda. And his own gripes against white people, while founded in a place of legitimacy, are also filled with hypocrisy on his part, to the point where he actively does everything he rails against the white colonizers for doing, down to even oppressing and harming other non-white racial groups so long as it furthers his desire to turn Wakanda into a power that can oppress all other nations with its technological superiority. Now, usually such rampant hypocrisy would lead to a poor character, or even an idiot – but such is not the case here. His own hypocrisy only serves to make him a richer, more well-rounded character.

Compare him to Thanos. Thanos also had a plan that was inherently flawed, hypocritical, and not rooted in rational thought – and he is widely praised as an excellent character. This is because you are not supposed to agree with a villain, valid as their points or their anger are. But at the same time, their anger and their motives gives you an insight onto who they are and how they operate, a window into how their mind works, and Killmonger’s definitely shows how he is a broken, angry man who was failed by Wakanda and failed by America and has suffered bigotry, racism, and violence all his life. And in his shoes, would you too not be angry? Even with the numerous atrocities he commits and the horrible hypocrisies he wallows in, it’s hard not to feel a bit of pity for a man who could have offered so much, only to give in to hatred.

And the thing with Killmonger is that not only is his anger valid, it ultimately does have ramifications, it ultimately does change the status quo, though maybe not in the way he envisioned. T’Challa realizes in the end that Wakanda failed Killmonger, that Wakanda has been selfish and allowed horrible things to occur to their fellow Africans because they didn’t consider them their people. And so T’Challa opens the borders, decides to share Wakanda’s gifts with the world, and reach out and help disenfranchised black people around the world so that someone like Killmonger never rises up again. What this could mean for the MCU going forward is anyone’s guess, but it definitely shakes up the status quo of Wakanda a fair bit.

I think it’s rather obvious that Killmonger earns himself a 10/10, joining the ranks of Thanos, Mysterio, and Ego at the table of champions. As far as villains go, I’d say he’s probably the deepest and most well-written, though I’d still say it’s arguable if he’s the absolute best. Still, he is certainly a fine metric by which to judge other villains, and if nothing else he will most definitely wash the bad taste of Jordan’s Johnny Storm out of your mouth forever. Killmonger really is what I would consider the gold standard that other villains need to live up to in other comic book movies, and generally speaking, we’ve been getting that recently. Let’s hope that the pace can be continued, and let’s hope whoever T’Challa is fighting in Black Panther 2 can measure up.

#Psycho Analysis #Erik Killmonger #Michael B. Jordan #Black Panther

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raeynbowboi · 6 years

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Why I Don’t Like Ochako Uraraka as a Character

Before I get eaten alive, let me start by saying that there is nothing inherently wrong with Uraraka, per se, and there’s nothing wrong with other people liking her. I just feel that as a female lead character she’s sort of bland. About the only traits of interest with her is that she’s a hero in training for the money, and she has a competitive streak that only rarely comes out to play. Aside from those two things, she doesn’t really have any other traits that make her stand out from any other generic female love interest character. She’s generally nice and sweet but that’s about it. We’re allowed to know and understand other characters better.

Compare Uraraka to say Midoriya, Iida, and Bakugo. These boys make up a part of what could be considered the “main cast” of characters, and with all of them, you have a very strong idea not only of who they are, but why they are that way. Midoriya is so kind and sweet because he knows how awful unkind words and actions can hurt, and he chooses to keep trying no matter how much he fails. That optimistic outlook is what makes him compelling. But then we also know that he’s a total fanboy, studious, analytical, he mutters to himself. These are character quirks that make him more distinguished from other characters. Iida is a strict, rule-abiding, and serious person. He looks up to and idolizes his big brother, and when that pillar of respect and admiration was tarnished by Stain, we saw Iida completely break character as he spiraled down a dark path. If you pay attention to Bakugo, you can start to piece together why he’s always so angry as his frustrations of no longer being the biggest fish in a small pond, especially once it’s clear that a big part of his bad attitude about strength and winning he learned from his possibly (and unintentionally) abusive mother. These are all strong characters with magnetizing and compelling personalities and backstories. We know their inner thoughts and the demons that rummage through their heads. We know where they’re weak and what they need to improve upon. But when we look at Uraraka, there’s not much else to unpack. She has a competitive streak that we don’t really know where she gets it from, and she wants money to support her family, but we’re not really shown explicitly why she has such a strong bond to her family.

Now some may be saying “Well what’s wrong with being nice?” and the easy answer is, nothing. There are some great characters whose primary character trait is kindness. But There are ways of writing these characters that don’t feel so flat.

Katara

Avatar: The Last Airbender

On the surface, Katara is a lot like Uraraka. She’s generally sweet, kind, and helpful. She is a mom type friend who takes care of others and usually follows her heart. So is the difference that Katara is just a better fighter? No, not at all. The reason Katara is better written is because she’s flawed. She can be selfish, bossy, stubborn, and proud. She was allowed to have multiple dimensions. She got angry, she had bad moods. She could go from sweet to threatening in a snap if she needed to, and she wasn’t just cute. She was clever. She was allowed to be more complex than just “the nice girl”, and that made her far more relatable and likable. In fact, some of the darkest moments come from Katara. In the episode “the Southern Raiders”, Katara becomes obsessed with tracking down the man who killed her mother. While interogating a man, she uses bloodbending for the first and only time since learning it from Hama to torture information out of a sea captain. Even though she doesn’t end up taking her revenge out on him, she also never forgives the man for what he did. She will always hate him, but she decides not to waste her time hurting him. The only real flaw in Uraraka is that she gets aggressive when she’s in a competitive spirit, which is more of a character trait than an actual flaw.

Steven Universe

The entire show of Steven Universe is centered around the emotional and mental growth of Steven. And while he’s matured into a more responsible and take charge person, he has done so while maintaining his core character traits of kindness, compassion, and sensitivity. However, this doesn’t stand in the way of giving his character a deeply dark emotional patchwork of problems and internalized issues to work through. Steven is a compelling character because despite everything he’s been through, he continues to find a reason to smile, he continues to look for a more merciful path, and he tries to reach out to help everyone he can. Uraraka doesn’t really have a story. She has a motivation, wanting to make enough money to support her parents, but that’s about all of the narrative development Uraraka has gotten.

Starfire Teen Titans

Starfire served as the emotional core of her team. Whether it was resolving bickering, or suggesting group activities, Starfire was the glue holding the team together. In fact, there’s even an episode dedicated to showing that without Starfire, they all lost touch, stopped being friends, and ended up miserable and alone. But Starfire was a lot more than that as well. She was a constant source of comedy due to her fish out of water humor, and she was for more than just “the alien babe”. One of the best things about Starfire was just how expressive and enthusiastic she’d get every time she discovered something new about the Earth, or tried to introduce Tamaranean culture to her Earth friends. Her powers were fueled by emotions, and not just pleasant cutesy ones either. Her alien strength required boundless confidence, and her starbolts were fueled by righteous fury. Starfire was extremely reactive to the world around her. She had a great deal of emotional depth to her. In the simplest terms, Starfire was interesting. She was always saying something weird, or making unusual observations. The writers had a lot of fun with making her alien biology weird and even a little gross, but it never once detracted from the fact that she was Robin’s love interest, because he liked her regardless of those charming quirks. Next to her, Uraraka pales in comparison. We don’t know any of Uraraka’s interests or what excites her. We don’t know what she cares about or what embarrassing mistakes she’s made. There’s no attempt to really make her memorable or distinct. Uraraka is just treated as this pristine porcelain figuring completely devoid of blemishes or dents that could have a very charming story behind them.

I honestly wouldn’t really be able to list more than a small handful of personality traits, most of which are practically synonyms. She’s just kind of flat and perfect. It doesn’t really work to make her endearing. She lacks the flaws that would make her feel real, a role in the story that would allow her grow and mature, and there’s nothing about her that makes her memorable and endearing. If she wasn’t the main female lead, she’d probably be the most forgettable girl in the class. Froppy has a very distinct look, Momo has a presence in the plot, Ashido has a strong personality and recognized flaws in her bad grades, Jirou is a bit lowkey but has a distinct style that sets her apart, a love for music, and a good singing voice. Even Hagakure stands out because she’s invisible, which is a memorable character quirk. Of the five, Uraraka has the least reason to really stand out or be remembered. Maybe she’ll grow a stronger personality in later seasons, but as she is right now, Uraraka doesn’t really have much to offer as a character. But these are just my opinions, and if you like Uraraka you’re free to love her as much as you can muster. But as far as I’m concerned, these are my problems with her lack of character.

#uraraka ochako #bnha #boku no hero academia #mha #my hero academia

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iceeckos12 · 5 years

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the rising sun

Johnny wins a golden fiddle from the devil. The devil’s not finished with him yet, though.

inspired by devil went down to georgia by charles daniels.

Johnny stares at the golden fiddle at his bare feet. He is pale and shaky, auburn eyes bright under the broad brim of his straw hat, and he is slowly but surely coming to terms with what he has just done.

(He is a fiddle player, the same way a human breathes air, the same way a fish swims through water, naturally and inevitably. He’s been a fiddle player since he was five years old, scraping his knees on the trash heaps near his house. He’d found the instrument, wood old and scuffed, its bow a pile of scraps and horse hair beside it, and had felt something like a siren call at the sight of it.

The fiddle was too big for him, his arms neither long enough nor strong enough to hold it comfortably beneath his chin. But he found another bow, and sanded and oiled the the instrument until it was smooth as silk to the touch, and he’s been lost ever since.

Or found, perhaps.)

He is a fiddle player; the whole town knows that he is a fiddle player. He plays as he walks the roads into town, plays as he nods a polite hello to the passersby, plays as he meanders through the farmers market for fresh vegetables, and only stops playing when the local policemen shout that he’s disturbing the peace with all that racket! But as sure as the sun rises in the east, when the police leave Johnny is playing again.

The whole town knows that he is a fiddle player, and have tolerated their most musical child with the sort of exasperated patience that comes from the knowledge that they cannot get him to stop. But if they look at this golden fiddle, if they hear the sacrilegious moan of the devil’s tone rise from the strings, their exasperated patience will transform into something more sinister. Because there is no way this fiddle could be mistaken for anything than what it is, with its raucous howling and its mournful keening.

If nothing else, Johnny is self-aware. He knows his flaws as intimately as he knows every imperfection in his fiddle, knows that he is far too rash and far too reckless for his own good. Case in point, taking a bet with the devil.

But those flaws are also his strength. He does not waffle or sit on a decision which must be made. He knows that he is keeping this fiddle; he knows that if he does, he will be run out of this god-fearing town, perhaps stoned to death.

Johnny opens his sack, empty except for a couple of coins, some extra strings, and wood polish, and reverently places the golden fiddle inside. Then he kicks up his bare, cracked feet, chucks his chin with his wooden fiddle and places the bow to the strings, as familiar as an old lover, and heads West.

-0-

A banjo player stops before Johnny as he plays in the street, his instrument tied across his back. They are of a kind, Johnny thinks, watching the dusty man from underneath his broad-brimmed hat. They look nothing alike, but they were both hewn from the same stone, then given an instrument to sing of the land from whence they came.

The man, tall, skinny and dark, a slip of shadow, realizes it too. He shudders into movement again, but his path has changed; he folds himself into the crowd that surrounds Johnny with an ease that suggests experience.

Johnny pauses in between one sound and the next

(and Johnny does not play tunes, he does not play the reels and folksongs that most fiddlers know. He has never taken lessons, could not tell you the difference between Galway Girl, Red is the Rose, and the Parting Glass. He plays what he likes, strings one sound to the next with the same casual grace as an artist painting an abstract picture, and it is both repels and draws people in equal measure.)

and meets the deep, black eyes of the stranger. He does not speak, merely gestures, calls a silent call that is more compelling than it has any right to be.

The banjo player slowly pushes his way to the front, slinging his instrument from his shoulder as he walks, does not attempt to tune it because he knows it is still perfectly in tune from this morning. He stands beside Johnny, a short young man with freckled cheeks, bright auburn eyes, and a plain fiddle that sings as sinfully as any demon, and begins to play.

Mack takes Johnny back to his home and introduces him to the other two members of his group; a tall man with tanned, leathery skin who plays a wicked bass, and a quiet percussionist with oddly slanted eyes, who’s rhythm is steady as a rock.

They teach Johnny how to play with a group, how to build off another person’s sound like bricks being laid on a foundation. They teach him the jigs and reels he should’ve learned years ago, how they lead into and play off of one another. They teach him how to put the melodies bouncing around in his head to paper, and how to read music, for that matter.

In return, Johnny is the best fiddle player that’s ever been for them. He draws crowds by the hundreds, packs every tavern they play in, lines their pockets with more money than they know what to do with. And when the mood is right, when the crowd is teetering into blackout drunkenness, Johnny will lift the golden fiddle from his sack and touch the bow to the strings.

He plays like the devil, People say, shaking their heads, disbelieving that a sound like that could come from such a child, who never wears shoes and is perpetually covered in dirt. But with none of the temptation.

Not that Johnny cares what they say. He is a fiddle player, and he will play the fiddle, regardless if his crowd likes it or not.

-0-

It is dark in the tavern, and they have just finished playing. Johnny has just polished off his third free beer and is wandering around the dimly lit tables, absentmindedly pressing the calloused pads of his fingers to the strings of his fiddle. Mack, Jason, and Kai have all gathered at the bar, but Johnny is feeling oddly restless, unable to place his feet down.

“Johnny,” A voice rumbles beside him, dark and familiar.

Johnny turns to see a man, as beautiful as he’s ever seen, with thick eyebrows and high cheekbones and black hair that curls raucously about his ears. Johnny has never been aware of his plainness before, but now he is, and he smiles a sheepish grin.

The man drums his fingers against the table, unreadable. “Sit.”

Johnny stills, and realizes where he’s heard this voice before. “Devil?”

“Sit,” The devil says, an order. Johnny does as he is bid, does not dare look away.

Then the devil says, a snappish accusation, “You are not playing my fiddle.”

Johnny shrugs, a flush rising to his cheeks. “Wrong crowd.”

And it had been. There had been a man in the second row who’d had frightful dreams of the war last night, of his dead friends, who had been staring down his breaking point. There had been a woman in the back whose husband had just died of some sickness that the doctor’s hadn’t been able to name. Johnny had gotten through two stanzas of The Parting Glass before the man had broken down into great, heaving sobs, had gotten through one more before the woman had to leave. It had been the good kind of pain for the both of them, though, the soulful kind that every human needs to feel, and the kind only his wooden fiddle could produce.

The devil does not understand this, though. He sneers. “Wrong crowd? As though my fiddle could not play for any crowd.”

Johnny’s fingers tremble, even as they continue to press against the fingerboard. “Wrong crowd.”

The devil is quiet for a few maddening seconds, his eyes gold like the gleam of sun off desert sands. Then he says, “I did not give you my fiddle so you could sit on it.”

And Johnny is aware of his flaws; he is aware of his rash and reckless behavior, and how it will get him one day. He wonders if that day is now when he says, “Come to the tavern in three days, if you like. I’ll play your fiddle then.”

There is a moment of shocked silence, those pale, bloodless lips parted in surprise, golden eyes wide. Then there is a sound like rocks being ground together, which grows until it’s the gravelly slide of boulders down a mountain. Johnny does not realize it is laughter until he sees the devil’s wide grin.

“Care to make a bet?” The devil asks, sly as a fox and twice as mischievous. “Make another bet with the devil, boy. You’ve beat me once. Let’s have another, Johnny.”

“Sure,” Johnny says agreeably, without pause. Because he gets it, he does. If he gave away his precious fiddle

(When he was thirteen he finally hit his growth spurt, and he grew and grew and grew, but he was not happy about it. His fiddle was not a very large fiddle, made for a person of average height, and if he grew much larger playing would become cramped and uncomfortable, and then he would be forced to get a larger one. And he did not want that; he had rescued this fiddle from the trash heaps, had sanded it and polished it and toiled over it until it was a piece of his very soul.

He did not have much use for any gods—they had never done him much good—but he prayed for the first time, then. That he would not grow tall, that he would remain short enough for his fiddle to be comfortable.

Ever since that time, when his growth had abruptly halted in its tracks, Johnny has made sure to be respectful of the holy men, and never, ever plays the golden fiddle when he spies them in the room.)

then he would be furious to find out that the person he gave it to was not playing it. It is the devil’s right.

The devil pauses for a second, blinks, then continues. “I’ll come in three days. If you do not give me a good show, then I’ll have your soul.”

Johnny thinks about that, then nods solemnly. “Alright. And if I give you a good show, you have to play with us.”

The silence is so profound, so absolute that one could hear a pin drop. Whatever the devil had been expecting in recompense, that obviously had not been it. “You want me to...play with you?”

“You’re good. Almost as good as me.” Johnny says honestly, and raises an eyebrow. “Haven’t you ever wanted to play with someone else before? It’s fun.”

“Fun,” The devil says, rolling the word around in his mouth like he’s just tried a new food and is unsure of the flavor. Then his expression clears and he says, dismissive, “Whatever. I’ll be back for your soul in three days.”

Johnny smirks back, and blinks. When he opens his eyes, the seat before him is empty.

-0-

Let us speak of the golden fiddle.

Let us speak of its golden body, which is shaped so naturally and fluidly that it seems to have been formed from a molten pool, so liquid that it looks like it could melt back down again at any second. Harps of gold would not be so fine, heavy rings with gaudy jewels not nearly so opulent. Gold water off of old stones, ancient and tangible as the earth.

Let us speak of white-gold strings, so pale they are almost translucent and can only truly be seen in darkness, strings which do not so much as resonate as they do shimmer against the bow. The strings of the fiddle are normally made from catgut, sheep’s intestines, stretched, dried and twisted into a shape which is capable of producing song. The strings of this fiddle are not catgut, are no more catgut than quartz is diamond, twisted from the land from whence the devil came, hot and dry and bathed in fire.

Let us speak of the sound, of the siren’s call which it produces, a demanding shriek which the human mind cannot truly comprehend. If the listener were a demon, or an angel, or anything but a human, they would be able to hear the layering of inhuman tones, the melodies of far off worlds and stories long lost to time. But a human cannot understand it, so a human cannot hear it, and instead finds themselves lost in the sound. When they finally return to themselves they have no memory of what was played, only the wistful feeling left behind, that they have lost something irreplaceable and must follow it to its source.

In Johnny’s hands, the fiddle’s body sits obedient and solid. The strings shimmer like the petals of an African violet, and the sound that they emit is loud and raucous and human and soulful, and the listeners take a little piece of that sound home with them. Well, take is perhaps not the correct word. Johnny gives it to them freely, without strings attached, lets them cradle it close to their hearts. They hear it in their dreams, make a space for it in their memories to look back on when they’re feeling wistful and lonesome.

He plays like the devil, they say, knowing it to be true but unable to explain why. But with none of the temptation.

-0-

The devil does not get Johnny’s soul that day.

Johnny finds him after the performance, splayed in his chair, looking as dazed as confused as the rest of the crowd. He grins and says, “Guess you’re playing with me, aren’t you?”

The devil looks up at him, not angry in a furious way, but angry in a confused sort of way, the way a person who does not know what to do with an emotion turns it into something they can understand. “How did you do that?”

“Do what?” Johnny asks, mild but not meek.

“That is not my fiddle, I know how it plays,” He snarls, rising to his feet. Shadows larger than they should be sink into the wood behind him, suggesting the outline of wings. “That has—it—”

The devil is trying to say, it has a soul, although he does not know it. He has never had a soul, has never loved his fiddle. It had been a necessary tool, a way to bring people to him, but he has never played simply because he wanted to.

Johnny has never been anything but a man who loves to play the fiddle, who lives to play the fiddle, who loves every broken, beautiful sound that it plays. He does not know how to do it any other way. And that is why the golden fiddle sounds as it does, all of the inhuman ringing side-by-side with the all-too-human soul of a fiddle player. All of the beauty but none of the siren’s call. All of temptation with none of the strings attached.

But neither of them know this, and even if they did, they could not put it in words. So Johnny only shrugs and says, “You’ll join us tomorrow, then?”

A deal is a deal, and the devil does not renege upon his. So after a moment of furious, confused silence, the devil nods.

-0-

The devil slips, unnoticed, into the band that day, and decides not to leave.

Mack, Jason, and Kai either do not notice the otherworldliness of the new man, or do not care enough to point it out. Either way, when Johnny hands the devil a fiddle (and it differs depending on the day, depending on the mood of the crowd, which one the devil plays and which one Johnny plays) they shrug and continue playing. They are musicians before they are moral people, and this new musician is almost as good as Johnny, so why ask questions?

The devil does not come every day—he is a busy man, after all—but when he does, the whole town knows about it. His and Johnny’s duets are legendary, the kind that can make a grown man weep like a baby, or a crotchety crone jump up and dance.

The devil could not say why he returns, only knows that he is looking for something, has been looking for something since that first day when Johnny made the golden fiddle sing. And more and more he finds it enjoyable to play with the young man with auburn eyes and bare feet and a soul made of polished wood and catgut.

It is this feeling that makes him look at Johnny one day, several years after their first meeting. It is this feeling which makes him take in the wrinkles about Johnny’s eyes, the spots of gray amongst his sandy hair, and finally parse out what it means. It is what makes him frown, deep and unhappy, because that is simply not acceptable.

“You know,” The devil says carefully, “The fiddle is the devil’s instrument.”

“Of course,” Johnny says agreeably, his ankles folded on top of one another, plucking a reel with long, clever fingers. He does not argue with the devil, has never argued with him, just listened to his infernal opinions and nodded agreeably. Not in agreement, just agreeing that they are there and exist in some capacity.

The devil frowns. “They don’t let you play the fiddle in heaven.”

Johnny scoffs at that, unconcerned. “I’ve been playing the fiddle for as long as I’ve been alive, devil. I don’t think I’m going to heaven after this.”

The devil thinks about a careful, gentle respect for the holy men that cross the threshold, and about a man who will sometimes sit, though he prefers standing when fiddling, so that the small, wide-eyed children can crawl into his lap and feel every resonant tone in their breasts. He thinks about men who find bright, innocent joy in music, who play selflessly and selfishly as only a musician can.

He says, uncharacteristically gentle, “Playing the fiddle is not a sin.”

Johnny pauses for a second, his clever fingers frozen above the strings, and then starts up again. The tone of the piece is maudlin now, though, so the devil knows that Johnny is thinking.

“I see,” He says, neutral and unhappy.

“Fiddlers are welcome in hell, though.” The devil adds as though it is an afterthought. “And someone who can fiddle better than the devil himself! Well. He might as well be a prince.”

“A prince,” Johnny repeats dubiously.

“Yes,” The devil says, so earnest that butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth. And then, “A prince who could play fiddle all day long. However long he wanted, with whoever he wanted.”

Tempting. Like the golden fiddle when Johnny was not playing it, like the extended hand of a lover. He knows exactly who this is, exactly what this creature is doing. He also knows that the devil does not lie, and he always keeps his promises.

And more than that, he knows the extent of his flaws, knows that he is reckless and rash.

And he knows that he is a fiddle player.

“Devil,” Johnny says, his words like the thick drops of rain just beginning to fall. “I’d like to make a bet with you.”

The devil’s eyes light up. He knows he’s won, that he will have this fiddler’s soul and his clever fingers and his sanded, polished wood fiddle. And he also knows that Johnny faces him with eyes wide open, that he knows what this means, and that he and the devil will make music together until the end of time, and even beyond that.

“If I win, you get my soul.” The fiddler says, chucking his chin with the fiddle, grinning his wide, cracked grin under bright auburn eyes. “If I lose, you can keep my fiddle.”

The devil laughs, the grinding of boulders down a mountain, the cracking of the tectonic plates as they rub against one another. He has found what he is looking for: a soul to call his own, who plays his instrument like a human breathes air and a fish swims through water. Who has made human a fiddle of gold, has given meaning to a sound which he’d previously thought could only be appreciated by the heavenly host, or the crowds of the damned.

And he places his fiddle beneath his chin, and prepares to lose one

last

time.

#reposting because the original text somehow got lost???#experimental piece #my writing #original #also loosely inspired by god’s and monsters by shanastoryteller #inspired by devil went down to georgia by charles daniels

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kelnius · 5 years

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A Viewer’s Review of...

One of the biggest complaints that people have against Superman is that he's overpowered. I'm no comicbook expert but based on what I've heard from comicbook analysts, the fact that he is overpowered can be an issue with bad writers; however, the best stories turn that "flaw" into a feature, by focusing on the conflict others face by having to confront the a perfect, powerful hero. So, with such an all-powerful good guy, it practically begs the question... What if Superman was evil? For legal reasons, this Sony movie can't just outright admit that their main character is based on Superman™ (since the movie rights still belong to Warner Brothers despite how much they've been abusing it), so instead of “Clark Kent”, Brandon Breyer is a child with an alliterative name who is completely invulnerable to harm, possesses astonishing strength, develops the ability to fly as fast as a speeding bullet and can fire lasers from his eyes. This guy is Superman in all but name and, of course, personality, since he turns out to not exactly be a "good guy". And, rather than being from Smallville, this kid's alien pod crash-landed in Brightburn, Kansas - hence the title. See, this isn't just an evil superman, but an evil Superman origin story...

And to be honest, and that's the first mistake. Don't get me wrong, piecemeal revelations regarding this kid's powers are cool, but this movie doesn't really dwell on that. Instead, we're given one or two creepy scenes where the kid learns about his powers (and his origins not long after). But, he basically learns his abilities through the course of a single day, and can use them with great skill and accuracy from then on out. The only reason I can think of as to why they fast-forward through these is because the writer didn’t know how to make an immortal, unstoppable child scary unless he had all of superman’s powers, so they wrote him to have his full loadout from the offset.

Sure, the way those scenes are shot are very effective, and the music swells appropriately - but you probably already knew that since they were all in the trailer. In fact, everything original in this movie shows up in the trailer - the first few "kills", the creepy outfit, his interaction with fellow kids and even some of the scenes from the third act (although, in the movie the gore isn't censored). To be frank, this whole movie feels like it was shot for the trailer. Each scene feels like it was designed to be cut up and edited into a cool scene for the trailer, to advertise the "evil superman" gimmick. So, despite the fact that this has good cinematography and editing, it feels like it was wasted.

Part of the reason why it feels that way is because there aren't really any characters in this movie, they don’t act like normal people, but rather they need to act in a contrived way to take us from one horror set-piece to another. So, there's not so much character growth and development, as instead there are a series of character actions, to keep the plot going. The kid dresses up in a creepy cape and hood for no explained reason - and at one point he actually flies away in the middle of a scene just so that he can make a costume change and return wearing the creepy hood. The mother keeps secrets, for no explained reason, only to reveal them at the most dramatic moment. The kid goes from an all-powerful tyrannical psycho back to pretending to be a regular boy as easily as the flick of a lightswitch, whenever the plot requires it. The local police somehow intuits that the most likely killer in the town is an eleven year old child, simply because of a tag at the crime scene which looks like his initials, despite the fact that they have no reason to believe that this kid is capable of the such superhuman acts. The kid himself also decides to draw detailed sketches of all of his crimes, for no explicable reason other than so that someone can find it later in the movie. And worst of all, there are some really effective scenes in this movie which I thought were interesting, but each time those subplots were quickly dropped.

One subplot was based around Caitlyn, a local schoolgirl played wonderfully by Emmie Hunter that the superpowered kid seems to find cute, but when he discovers his powers he starts to stalk, abuse and harass her. In each scene she acts the hell out of it, making you feel terrified for her, since she looks so scared and vulnerable, but there’s a total of two, maybe two-and-a-half scenes where this happens, only to then move on to more horror set-pieces. There are also a few scenes where Mr Breyer, the father played with convincing fear and anger by David Denman starts to suspect that his “son” is even more alien than he first thought, but this whole subplot seems to occupy a little over five minutes of screentime. I also want to praise the work of Duncan A. Dunn, who portrays Brandon Breyer the main “evil superhero” character, because although he sometimes seems kinda dull, I know that this isn't bad kid acting. In the earliest scenes we get to see him emote, and when he resorts to intimidation in one scene, he is scary even without the mask on, so I know for a fact that this this kid can act very well, which means it has to be the direction making him to act so unnaturally.

See, the absolute worst part of this movie is that this kid isn't a real character. Sure, he is an “evil superman”, but the thing is, the kid never chooses to be evil, there’s not actually a character-driven reason behind it. What makes him evil is that a creepy voice from his birth-pod tells him to be evil. In fact, by the way that he’s forced to repeat the alien words, and even slowly understands what they mean, it seems to be implying that it’s compelling him to be evil. Sure, there is a scene or two where he acts uncaring, and he outright says that he's superior to other people, but there's no reason to believe that he chose to believe that, or was raised to have these evil feelings. Instead, he might as well have got an "evil" software update when he synced with his birth-pod...

You might be thinking that I'm being a spoilsport - that it's not about the story but the horror and death scenes. Well maybe, but they're not done very well either. Okay, that's not fair, they are done as well as any other horror these days... there is pretty convincing blood and gore, and they take advantage of that R-rating. The kid’s victims experience very explicit trauma and it’s not discreet - it’s often framed centre-screen for us to see in explicit detail. Although one or two scenes made me question the director’s understanding of biology, it wasn’t blatant enough to detract from the effect they were going for, so if you’re squeamish, this is not the film for you. This is your standard gory R-rated Horror. And that’s my problem here - they don’t really seem to do anything interesting with the evil superman concept. Sure, he wears a spooky mask, but other than that, there’s nothing that gives this monster any personality. For instance, Brandon (for reasons that aren't really explained) seems to makes electronics malfunction and lights flicker when he's angry; but the only reason for this is so that they can play into the spooky flickering lights trope. He also has the ability to move at superhuman speed which he uses effectively - in one scene (which, again, we saw in the trailer); but the main reason for this power is either so that they can justify the offscreen teleportation trope, or simply to make him pop up in a few dozen jump-scares, like every other teleporting ghost or demon in horror films since the early 2000s. The kid also has laser vision, which he does use for just one interesting scene; but, the main reason he has it seems to be so that they can make his eyes glow red against his dark silhouette when he's chasing people in the scary scenes.

The part that annoys me the most is that he keeps playing hide-and-seek with his victims (often using superspeed) during the scary scenes, and will even slip away before he's caught, which doesn't make any sense. To me the scariest part about an evil superman would be that he's invincible - he’s literally an unstoppable monster - but even if you don't agree, you can't deny that this kid has no reason to run away, since literally nothing can hurt him. Rather than playing peekaboo, he could simply stalk them like Terminator, or maybe even like the succubus from It Follows, and just tear through anything that tries to stop them. This might make sense if he was doing these things in secret, but the story seems to go out of its way to debunk that theory, since it is both heavily implied and explicitly stated that he sees human beings as inferior and worthless, so why does he keep lying to appease “inferior” human beings? It’s not even like there appears to be some conflict within him about whether he should be evil or not because as I mentioned there’s no character growth, he’s just suddenly evil because alien technology told him to be.

Now, if they did some of this stuff to pay homage to the horror tropes that inspired this, but also did something new and original as well to really take advantage of the fact that they have an evil superman on their hands, then I would be rejoicing instead of ranting, but they don't do that. You could easily rewrite this so that the kid is possessed by a demon, or being haunted by a killer ghost, and the movie could be identical. I think you'd only have to rewrite the end, and that's just because they saved one of their iconic "evil superman" moments for the end, but it’s not enough to give this film a personality of its own - this kid may be superman in all but name, but this film is just a generic, modern horror movie in all but marketing.

So, at the end of the day (and the film) the best part of this movie appears to have been the pitch: What if Superman was evil? Yeah, it's a great question, but so far we haven't gotten a very good answer. The best that this movie can come up with is "well, if he was evil, then he'd probably kill a bunch of people" ... yeah that's true, but whilst they're not wrong, I don't think that's the same thing as being right.

Death, Bloodlust and the Hollywood Way... 6.0 ⁄₁₀

#A Viewer's Review #Brightburn #superhero #horror #evil superman #elizabeth banks #david denman #duncan a dunn #emmie hunter #R rated #gore #death #off-brand superhero #sony #definitely not DC #kelnius

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stevenuniversallyreviews · 6 years

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Episode 103: Bubbled

“If I could begin to be half of what you think of me, I could do about anything.”

In the middle of Act I of Steven Universe, Steven saves the Atlantic Ocean, and in the middle of Act II, he saves Earth. These are large-scale victories that show his growing capabilities as a Crystal Gem in the global sense: he’s a defender of the world and all its inhabitants, and has two major accomplishments to show for it.

The end of Act I is more of a personal fight. The only lives at stake are those of the Crystal Gems as they’re brought into space, and Steven takes a more passive role in the finale, helping here and there but ultimately having the day saved by Garnet (and, arguably, Lapis). And it turns out the pattern of a more extreme sequel in Act II continues: in Bubbled, the only life at stake is his own, and despite being far more competent than he was in Jailbreak, he needs to be saved by others once again, because he’s been shattered.

As with Jailbreak, Steven spends a good part of Bubbled with another ornery ruby who gripes “Great! This is just perfect!” and barely gives him the time of day at first. In both episodes he tries and fails to help this ruby: our Ruby runs off on her own in impatience, and Eyeball tries to shank him and must be ejected from his bubble. But something interesting happens when you compare these rubies further, because beyond their opposing loyalties, there’s one major difference between the two of them: Ruby has such a low opinion of herself that she doesn’t think it matters whether or not she gets hurt, while Eyeball has such a high opinion of herself that she dreams of being the hero who defeats Rose Quartz, complete with glory from the Diamonds (and her own pearl). And really, this is one of the things the show is all about.

The flaws of practically every character in Steven Universe come down to the dichotomy between insecurity and overconfidence. At a glance, we can read our heroes as insecure and our villains as overconfident (Pearl and Amethyst good, Jasper and Kevin bad), but the actual lesson is that everyone has insecurities, and overconfidence is more often than not a reaction to it. As we learn more about our smug villains, we see the shortcomings that drive that smugness, and only then can Steven bridge the gap towards friendship. Heck, Garnet is the only truly confident Crystal Gem, and while I wouldn’t quite call her smug, at her worst she evokes the ice cold certainty of Sapphire more than the exposed nerve of Ruby. Like our villains, she begins as a mysterious figure, and her arc in Act II involves letting her Ruby out to become more balanced: she better understands her insecure family by embracing the uncertainty within, and uses this growth to reach out and help an insecure enemy understand her in Log Date 7 15 2.

Garnet might seem to have her act together compared to the other Crystal Gems, but let’s not forget that the emotionally healthiest character in the series is Greg Universe. He’s overconfident in flashbacks, but in the present is at peace with his shortcomings and happy with what he has without needing to compensate. He mourns Rose, but converts this grief into a celebration of his son’s life. Greg isn’t as dynamic a character as the rest because he’s already figured the important things out; he has his missteps, but his core is consistent and largely unchanging, even when he stumbles upon life-changing wealth. Steven tries to be like Rose throughout the series, but it’s not for nothing that Change Your Mind ties self-acceptance to sitting on the beach with a guitar.

I know I’m talking big picture here in terms of the characters and the series, but there’s not much to discuss about Bubbled at the surface level: it’s the misadventure of two enemies that sours to a breaking point, followed by a rescue. It’s actually a pretty slow bottle episode, consisting of a few long conversations broken up by two action sequences, and ending with another conversation. It’s similar in structure to Open Book and Gem Hunt, but far starker than either.

So the big picture is what matters when discussing Bubbled, because it’s a story about how Steven’s inner demons manifest, and will continue to manifest for the rest of the series. After all, Steven himself began as an overconfident kid, rushing into situations he wasn’t ready for and annoyed with not being considered a peer. He becomes far more tolerable after Steven and the Stevens, when he takes this attitude down a few notches and starts trying in earnest to catch up instead of looking for shortcuts or assuming he’s already there whenever anything goes right. But his insecurity is also clear, and now we get to really dig into the unique way this affects his character after examining how other insecurities affect other characters.

Amethyst’s insecurity raises her defenses like a pufferfish. Pearl’s insecurity makes her insensitive to the needs of others. Ruby’s insecurity compels her to verbalize her own worthlessness (while Sapphire radiates confidence and is only insecure when her signature ability to be secure in the future is disrupted). Connie’s insecurity drives her to prove her worth to others. Peridot’s insecurity causes her to belittle others to make herself seem bigger. Lapis’s insecurity magnifies her suffering and minimizes the good. Bismuth’s insecurity inspires her to overcommit to a righteous cause. Sadie’s insecurity lets people walk all over her until she snaps. Lars’s insecurity makes him a huge jerk. And Steven’s insecurity fuels a martyr complex that’s cranked up to life-threatening heights in Act III.

The most important choice Steven makes in Bubbled is a mind-numbingly stupid one: to tell Eyeball that he’s Rose Quartz, and to then do everything in his power to convince her. Eyeball is the reason he learned Rose shattered Pink Diamond, and she has given every indication that she despises Rose for this, and she’s an especially aggressive member of an aggressive team made of Gems designed to be aggressive. Steven’s reveal comes after Eyeball has made it explicit that her lingering hatred of Rose is the reason she even came to Earth. He’s alone in space with someone who will try to hurt him if she thought he was Rose (and who already wants to hurt him), and he has proven throughout Act II that he’s neither dumb nor naive enough to not understand the likely outcome here. But he says he’s Rose anyway, because he’s so obsessed with helping people that he's willing to put his own safety at risk just to cheer up an enemy.

There are other reasons I think it makes sense for him to make such an obvious mistake. He’s definitely in shock, but he’s also grumpy and takes Eyeball’s disbelief as a challenge. This is an irrational decision made by someone who isn’t in a rational state of mind. But this only makes it more compelling that his gut instinct, the essence of Steven that emerges from this emotional turmoil, is to help someone else. We’ve already had a whole episode about balancing the needs of others with the needs of yourself in Kiki’s Pizza Delivery Service, but remember, that episode ends with Steven falling asleep standing up, because he ignored his own health to help Kiki learn that lesson.

Steven’s greatest strength creates his greatest weakness. He’s empathetic and sensitive, and can do amazing things because of it, but he needs to value himself as much as he values everyone around him. Act III sees him stumble and scramble through more trying times than ever, and until Connie finally calls him out on it, he compounds his troubles with his self-sacrificial mindset. He’s not suicidal by any stretch, but he decides his own needs are irrelevant when others need help, which ironically makes him more selfish than ever as he determines that he and he alone can save the day and stop his friends from getting hurt. And even when the cosmic scale fades away, his obsession with helping others to distract from himself becomes the driving conflict of Steven Universe Future.

Eyeball works wonders as a foil: she opposes Steven, but isn’t savvy enough to manipulate him on purpose, so his error is both obvious and unforced. Telling her that he’s Rose Quartz needs to say more about him than about the person he’s telling, and Eyeball is just flat enough of a character that she doesn’t steal his spotlight.

Charlyne Yi once again kills it, and little moments do personalize Eyeball further, even if it’s nothing groundbreaking. The biggest, in my mind, is commanding Steven to “find cover, soldier!” as asteroids approach, despite their antagonistic relationship: her instinct to act as a team trumps her personal disdain for Steven, and while he assumes later that the two are bonding, this is as close as I think she actually gets to reciprocating. We see her get annoyed at being called Eyeball, which is a nice and reasonable gripe from a character whose gripes we tend to disagree with. And I love that her weapon is less of a knife and more of a shiv, with a squared edge that implies she’s got a really strong stabbing arm.

Like I said, she’s still flat—we may see her quirks here, but she doesn’t change at all over the course of the episode and we already knew she was a proud warrior Gem with a stubborn streak—but it works. It’s weird to use “flat” as a compliment, but I do mean it as such. She isn’t the real villain here, and “defeating” her feels more like failure than victory: Mindful Education hammers home that this is the third enemy Gem in a row that Steven couldn’t help, no matter how hard he tried.

While Bubbled feels pretty slow, it helps that the whole thing is beautiful to look at. The opening shot of Steven tumbling through space from his own point of view gets us right into the game, and the loneliness and sheer terror of his situation is highlighted with gorgeous, silent shots of space. Steven is processing a huge shift in perspective, and the setting reflects the magnitude of his new reality.

And then, to add an auditory counterpart to the visual story, his rescue is punctuated by Rebecca Sugar finally finishing Love Like You.

The song has played over the closing credits since the beginning of the series, using a variety of instruments before the lyrics trickled in. An acoustic version accompanies the end of Ocean Gem, as Steven celebrates with the humans and the Gems discuss what Lapis’s escape means for the future. A haunting reprise, unrecognizable at first while Steven struggles to find himself, joins the end credits for Act III. And wouldn’t you know, it’s a song about insecurity.

When I first heard Love Like You, and for years after, I was convinced that it was sung by Rose. Rebecca Sugar herself said that it wasn’t written with a particular character in mind, but nope, for me it was definitely about Rose. She’s singing to Greg about how she wants to capable of loving the way humans can, and Steven is the result of the conversation. And I still think that reading stands, and that it matters, but songs can be about more than one thing.

This is the third of four songs that encapsulate the two big lessons I take from Steven Universe. Strong in the Real Way reconstructs the notion of what true strength is, and alongside Stronger Than You, we’re told that what matters most is doing the right thing and being a good person, even when it’s hard, and that healthy relationships (romantic, familial, platonic, whatever) help make this possible.

Love Like You and our fourth big song, Change Your Mind, similarly work as a duo: where the Strong Songs are about the importance of relationships to emotional strength, Love Like You and Change Your Mind address how we as individuals can be strong in the real way. It’s important to have healthy relationships, but it’s also important to love yourself, and Love Like You is about that second part: the most loving network in the world can’t fix your insecurity if you’re unable to see yourself the way your loved ones do.

As Love Like You plays in the background, with the first non-diegetic lyrics we’ve heard in the series, Steven is finally told the truth. Garnet is right that Steven’s mother would have done anything for Earth, and while the details of her misdeeds are hazy at this point, the result is the same. Steven can no longer look to his mother as a paragon of virtue, and even though the Crystal Gems love him, they can’t fix this new problem, especially if their secrecy is part of the problem. They think the world of Steven, and now it’s up to him to see that he can do about anything. He could even learn how to love.

Future Vision!

Eyeball knows Rose Quartz not by her shield, but her sword. And we know Eyeball witnessed the “shattering” of Pink Diamond. And we know that Rose’s sword was built to not harm a Gem’s gem. Hints abound.

The chase around the bubble ends because Steven stops and wonders aloud what would happen if his gem was taken. It’s the first time the subject is broached on the show. It isn’t the last.

We’re the one, we’re the ONE! TWO! THREE! FOUR!

Bubbled touches on major themes of the series, but in a bubble on its own, the glacial pace hinders the storytelling. This is a great finale, but it’s not that great of a solitary episode. I like it fine, there are a lot of great things about it (the art in particular), but I don’t rank this one very high by itself.

Top Twenty

Steven and the Stevens

Hit the Diamond

Mirror Gem

Lion 3: Straight to Video

Alone Together

The Return

Jailbreak

The Answer

Sworn to the Sword

Rose’s Scabbard

Earthlings

Mr. Greg

Coach Steven

Giant Woman

Beach City Drift

Winter Forecast

Bismuth

When It Rains

Catch and Release

Chille Tid

Love ‘em

Laser Light Cannon

Bubble Buddies

Tiger Millionaire

Lion 2: The Movie

Rose’s Room

An Indirect Kiss

Ocean Gem

Space Race

Garnet’s Universe

Warp Tour

The Test

Future Vision

On the Run

Maximum Capacity

Marble Madness

Political Power

Full Disclosure

Joy Ride

Keeping It Together

We Need to Talk

Cry for Help

Keystone Motel

Back to the Barn

Steven’s Birthday

It Could’ve Been Great

Message Received

Log Date 7 15 2

Same Old World

The New Lars

Monster Reunion

Alone at Sea

Crack the Whip

Beta

Back to the Moon

Like ‘em

Gem Glow

Frybo

Arcade Mania

So Many Birthdays

Lars and the Cool Kids

Onion Trade

Steven the Sword Fighter

Beach Party

Monster Buddies

Keep Beach City Weird

Watermelon Steven

The Message

Open Book

Story for Steven

Shirt Club

Love Letters

Reformed

Rising Tides, Crashing Tides

Onion Friend

Historical Friction

Friend Ship

Nightmare Hospital

Too Far

Barn Mates

Steven Floats

Drop Beat Dad

Too Short to Ride

Restaurant Wars

Kiki’s Pizza Delivery Service

Greg the Babysitter

Gem Hunt

Steven vs. Amethyst

Bubbled

Enh

Cheeseburger Backpack

Together Breakfast

Cat Fingers

Serious Steven

Steven’s Lion

Joking Victim

Secret Team

Say Uncle

Super Watermelon Island

Gem Drill

No Thanks!

5. Horror Club 4. Fusion Cuisine 3. House Guest 2. Sadie’s Song 1. Island Adventure

#bubbled #steven universe #su #steven universally #review

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ladyloveandjustice · 6 years

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Reflection on Attack on Titan: How the narrative failed its characters

I did a breakdown of how Attack on Titan failed the potential of its premise due to its commitment to being edgy fascist garbage, but I also want to talk about how it failed a bunch of characters who were brimming with potential.

(This is gonna be messy and loooong, because I have a lot of feelings. Someone on the last post noted my “rhetoric blows” and I will freely admit I’m not really trying for coherent “rhetoric” here, I’m just venting my frustration so I can get it all out of me and move on).

Yes, it wasn’t solely the premise that drew me and so many others to Attack on Titan and its potential. There were a lot of unique and exciting elements with the way this shonen manga handled its characters.

I said before that Isayama never cared about his characters, but that was a bit of a exaggeration. I think he did start out caring about some of them...it’s just he quickly got bored with them and started treating them solely as tools to serve the “plot” and the screwed message he wanted to impart.

Isayama does have one strength as a character writer- he excels at showing characters who are messy, flawed and selfish but nevertheless sympathetic. Nobody in Attack on Titan is a classic unselfish “pure” hero, they are all deeply flawed. Isayama’s characters were compelling in the beginning because of that. He allowed his characters to exhibit cowardice, he allowed them to fail spectacularly, and that made Attack on Titan stand out. Despire the melodrama of their situations, actions and personalities, there’s a rawness to (most of) his characters that fits the horror of the setting.

Even the protag Eren, who a lot of people dislike or find easily the most boring character (honestly I found Levi the most boring though), has this ugliness to him that makes him distinct from the billion other teen boy protags in shonen. He is genuinely unstable and honestly a bit disturbing, as this collection of weird murderfaces he makes shows (behold my post popular aot post, ah memories).His obsession with killing Titans was unsettling, it was the classic determination of a shonen hero through a screwed up horror lens, this kid ain’t all right.

Historia especially resonated me because she was TRYING to be that classic pure heroine- but she was selfish like everyone else deep down. She just wanted to be SEEN as an pure-hearted martyr who sacrificed for others, when really all she was doing was giving into her suicidal urges. It was criticism of the very concept of the “immaculate woman”, and that’s pretty cool. So was the fact she was seen through by Ymir, someone who embraces selfishness in all other aspects of her life but is ultimately selfless when it comes to her love for Historia...that’s some good shit. It’s fantastic as a character concept, and Ymir and Historia’s initial character writing and backstory will stick with me because it was genuinely good in all its melodrama.

Historia and Ymir were nuanced queer characters whose relationships were fleshed out well. I do believe Isayama put care into crafting their initial arcs and developing them.

But then we run into a problem. A problem that eventually we run into with every character in AOT. Isayama stops caring about them. After their initial big arcs or moments in the spotlight or backstory reveals, he just doesn’t know what to do with these characters anymore. So they completely disapppear from the manga or fade into the background only to matter again when he decides to kill them off for some cheap shock moment. Either that, or they just exist to further the narrative of how the military is cool and we have to exterminate all our enemies and blablabla.

Because he ultimately cares about that narrative far, far more than he does giving these characters the full stories that resonate, make sense and are effectively paced. He's completely willing to undo all the character work he did previously if it means he can be edgy or impress his ideals on the reader.

That’s why Ymir and Historia have this dramatic parting that gets the audience pumped to see what happens to both of them and when they’ll reunite...only for Ymir to just completely disappear from the narrative, then be killed offscreen without even really re-entering the story again. That’s why Historia has this whole big arc about reclaiming her agency, resisting her abusive family and learning to live for herself...only to be intimidated into becoming Queen even though she’s not super into it, because she needs to serve the military and NOT live for herself after all, I guess? And oh, now she’s numbly accepted her duty to endlessly make babies for the sake of the nation! Turns out her real purpose is to be something for the other characters to be sad about.

Isayama got bored with Historia’s arc and Ymir’s arc and their relationship. He may have fun coming up with characters backstories and the big dramatic moments, but once those are over? He doesn’t care enough to do the work to conclude their stories. He gets distracted by his next plot point, his next action scene. The characters are toys he discards or breaks for the sake of either some edgy ‘anyone can die!’ moment or to push forward whatever new stupid plot point he’s thought up for his fascist narrative. (Links to evidence of Isayama’s views in this post).

Even in the (dumb) sense of “oohhh doesn’t this impress life’s cruelty upon us”, Ymir’s death is a failure. When she’s been gone from the narrative so long, to have it suddenly be like “oh, she died” just makes for a reader feeling confused and cheated, not devastated. It becomes painfully clear she’s an afterthought to the author, a loose end that needed to be cut. Same with Sasha’s recent death, I saw no sign she’d been anything but background in the narrative for a long. looong time before she was killed off.

Heck, look not further than Annie, who has now been trapped in crystal for what, 800 chapters? It’s been YEARS, both in universe and out. It’s honestly FUNNY at this point that she’s still fuckin’ in there, literally just frozen until Isayama can decide what he wants to do with her.. I hope the manga ends with everyone dead and then 1000 years later Annie emerges like “hey guys I’m back!” Then a meteor hits her or something. The intrigue surrounding her fizzled out a long time ago, yet Isayama still expects the reader to care whenever that hunk of rock shows up?

Let’s bring it around back to Eren. There were a lot of interesting directions he could have actually gone as a character, had he been forced to actually, y’know, deal with the fact he was channeling his grief in an unhealthy way or his worldview had ultimately been challenged at all. But Isayama actually agrees with Eren for the most part, he does think enemies should be exterminated without fail and genocide is cool and stuff. So Eren’s development throughout 800 chapters was just to ultimately get more and more obsessed with killing enemies, to the point where he doesn’t even enjoy seeing the ocean for long before deciding that was more important. Only his targets are definitely people now, and he doesn’t care about children or civilian casualties anymore, and yeah he’s screwed up, but doesn’t he have a point???? You can almost hear Isayama say this.

Eren exemplifies how Isayama approaches character development. He allows his characters to get more ruthless, more calculating, more fucked up, more comfortable with killing and torture as time goes on, but they can’t develop in a positive way ever- if they start going in that direction, it’s time for them to either die or regress. Nobody’s allowed to find any sort of lasting happiness, nobody’s allowed to become softer or kinder. “Cowards” (like Armin or Sasha) can become “brave”, but they’ll eventually lose most of their softness and empathy too. But that will be excused at every turn, because that’s apparently the price, the sacrifice of being a soldier. It’s “necessary” and it’s something Isayama very obviously admires. “Bravery” trumps compassion, soldiers must be ruthless to win and in the end, any growth is meaningless.

To be clear, a lot of negative character development isn’t a bad thing and “anyone can die” narratives aren’t either (though both are very tricky to pull off without losing audience investment- if you know it’s all just gonna be suffering, why keep reading?). But even when your story has those elements, you, as an author, have to have some respect and perspective in regards to your characters and Isayama has neither. He AGREES that his characters terrible actions (like torture) are necessary, because he thinks what Japanese soldiers did to Korean civilians was A-OK too...so it all just comes off as sickening.

And in a story, even if you’re trying to impress that death is random and arbitrary, that your story’s world is dangerous for everyone, those deaths should still mean something to you. the author. Otherwise the reader can’t feel their impact. It shouldn’t be easy to kill off a character. It shouldn’t be simply because you’re bored, or don’t know what to do with them- yet Isayama has openly admitted what he does. A character ceasing to matter, and then dying, has no impact. A character must matter up until the moment they cease for their death to matter.

( And lbr, if “anyone” could really die in AOT, the four main characters wouldn’t have gotten a million miracle reprieves by now).

It’s not surprising it ended up this way, though. It’s not surprising a man who has no sympathy or compassion for victims of war crimes has no sympathy or compassion for his characters and slowly drains them of their humanity as the story goes on. His love of war and domination is more important to him than human beings, and that comes through in his narrative, where characterization takes a backseat to his love of depicting war and violence, of impressing its necessity on the reader.

The characters of Attack on Titan deserve better than to be embedded in this cynical, cheap, fascist narrative. Fortunately, there are a ton of stories out there, and you can find similar characters with authors who actually care about them and aren’t openly fascist. For instance, while thinking about Historia’s arc and how good it started out, I remembered that one of my favorite narratives has a very similar main character. If you like Historia and wish she had a better narrative, I encourage you to check out the anime or light novels for The Twelve Kingdoms.

Similar to Historia, Youko is raised in an oppressive environment and constructs this entire personality around the idea of being an ideal good girl who lives for others, even though deep down she didn’t really care much for the people she was pleasing. When she’s stranded in an unfamiliar world, she slowly finds who she really is- and she’s pretty hardcore. She comes into a royal position of power too, but needless to say, it’s handled much better than Historia’s arc in AOT.

True, she’s not explicitly queer, but there’s no explicit love interest either (the anime does add a “crush”, but he disappears pretty quickly and she gets over him amazingly fast), and ton of strong female relationships in the story too, that don’t end with one party dying and the other becoming a baby machine. And it’s written by a woman who’s never openly supported war crimes, so.

So yeah, there are so many better options than Attack on Titan, and so many better ways these character concepts can be used. If you’re as disappointed as I am, it’s important to remember that. These character were failed, but characters like them can still be given the narratives they deserve.

Here’s the final part of this series:

The final reflection on Attack on Titan: How the narrative failed its potential in regard to gender and queer themes.

#attack on titan for ts #meta #forced pregnancy cw

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bushybeardedbear · 6 years

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So Season 7 of Voltron Legendary Defender... Oh Boy...

I had so much spoiled before watching it. Thanks email alerts. So after seeing so much spoiled already, I started lurking in Tumblr again. By the time I’d actually got round to watching the season I felt like I’d already watched most of it and was primed with all the various thoughts and opinions people were sharing online. In the days beforehand I was up and down like a yoyo on a rollercoaster. Hopeful one day, thinking it’s not even worth watching the next. Hovering my finger over “delete” on both this blog and my fics at points... Even contemplating that right now if I’m honest. Maybe I should have been Bushy Bearded Drama-Llama?

In any case, having finally sat down with rock bottom, possibly even sub zero expectations and watched, here are my thoughts now season seven is over... Well... In short, I think it suffers a lot from being so rushed. And before you say it, no, going in with low expectations wasn’t a self fulfilling prophecy. Psychologically speaking the opposite is true. If we go into something with low expectations, we tend to have a better opinion overall than we would have if we went in with sky high expectations. And whilst it may seem like I hated it so far...? Well, no. I didn’t hate it. There were some parts that didn’t gel with me, but to say I hated it would be an insult to everyone involved. But that doesn’t make it free from criticism. If you care what this bear’s about to growl about, strap in, it’s not a short one. Not kidding. This is long. But I guess I needed to get my feelings down and hopefully have someone patient enough to read it and see that I’m not completely insane. And, thought I shouldn’t have to say this... None of this comes from a place of hate. No, I don’t think regardless of how you feel about this season that hatred to the creators is ever acceptable. If you feel you must, then voice your grievances calmly, rationally, but the second you resort to hate you have already lost. Though what I would suggest is to just accept this season as it is and move on. Moving on is partly why I’m compelled to write this post. Maybe if you are going to read this monster, bring some caramel to counteract the salt...

The Season Itself

So within the first episode, I’m already full of mixed emotions. Yes, the Plance moment was great. Yes, the dynamic between Hunk and Romelle was cool. Coran was great, supportive Crolia, the none too subtle dig at Prometheus as Lance and Pidge ran from the grass... (Don’t think we didn’t spot that you writer rascals! Run at an angle!) I remain in Sheith Limbo trying to reconcile they met when Keith was literally a child and relationships can grow and develop with a worried dash of will people misinterpret this as grooming if they got together...? But a lot of it was by the by. Honey I Shrunk The Paladins was a great fun start to the series interspersed with great emotional character building for Shiro and Keith. It fleshed them both out in ways I wish we’d seen sooner and as others have pointed out drastically reframes a lot of the protective over Shiro moments in the context of his degenerative disease. And yet, it doesn’t make Shiro a victim, nor Keith a white knight, it keeps them both flawed yet strong heroes. Tiny cute paladins, Lance’s cargo pilot reference. As always the design of the planets is gorgeous. Lance sharpshooting. The attention to detail with little things like in scale surface tension! I can’t overstate how much time, effort and thought has gone into this! The narrative parallels of the speeder bikes. Honestly, there is SO much to unpack in just one episode that could easily be overlooked as silly and/or filler. But it’s so much. Keith’s growth is such fun to watch, confirmation of certain fan theories is great yet so sad at the same time...

It allowed Romelle to actually have a character that wasn’t just “Lotor Plot Delivery Service” and her interactions with Hunk were pretty adorable. “Are all ancient Alteans like this?” Was a great subtle piece of world building as well. And yeah, pretty sure I saw @hailqiqi mention this already, but Hunk and Romelle are so the audience surrogates. The one and only thing that bugged me, given the fact that so much of Voltron has had to be rushed or cut for time... Did we really need the flashbacks in this episode shown twice back in the quantum abyss episode...? Couldn’t that time in the QA been used for something else...? But that’s a very minor gripe. Overall, I massively enjoyed this episode but I’m still nervous given the priming from the fandom going forward... But that last hug? Saving Shiro with his voice / quintessence maybe?

The Road home starts off well, though the idea that still nobody knows or comments on Katie’s name being such did disappoint me a little... The space road trip starting up was so cute, even if Lance’s logic of passengers is lost on me...aside from maybe cutting Pidge some slack. Let me Headcanon that little touch of unconscious favouritism, yeah? Though his taking charge in the battle here, being the right hand man, was really nice to see here. From the audience perspective, he may be stating the obvious, but in canon, that’s what we call battlefield awareness. Imagine season 1 Lance doing this? Nah. Buthe’s had no growth, so people say... “It’s super dangerous, it’s perfect!” Wonderful! And Keith’s leadership! Great stuff. (Almost) Everyone getting a chance to shine in the cave combat was also awesome. Full on frenetic energy, a little flourish of comedy from time to time, great characterisation, calm before the storm leading to a sudden yet satisfying cliffhanger? Full on Voltron to a T.

"I will help you look for that passage.” Is a cute Plance moment that others are overlooking I feel. Coran’s memoirs are something I would personally read the hell out of. I don’t know about the rest of you. But seeing the entire saga retold through Coran’s eyes...? I’d love to see it. I’m also kinda happy to know how “Acxa” is pronounced! The slow reveal of the time skip up until the reveal at the end is nice, though honestly not as mysterious as the show seemed to think it was. Maybe it was just that I got spoiled? Evil power couple were great as well and it was nice to see the ice pop mystery solved. A return of Altean shapeshifting was nice to see. “Sweet on that one with the flippity hair” and “your favourite paladin” “never wanted to kill him” “true love”? Seems a little out of left field. Unexpected? Maybe not, just rushed? Axca and Keith seemed a little sudden. To me felt like they just needed to pair a spare and keep Kieth and Allura apart. Which, I get into later. Keith being able to transport his bayard seems...fine...? Why are people complaining about this? Paladins summon their bayarads all the time. He just did it from a few extra feet...? I do wish Coran had a chance to play to his strengths though. Aside from his courage. He has brains and feels like he needs to use them more or be written in scenarios where he can use them. The three year time skip, when revealed, seems like it was just a convenient way to avoid the immediate aftermath of Lotor losing the throne. It works in that regard I suppose. But by the end of this episode I wasn’t really sold on it.

Nice new haircut though Axca. Really sells the redeemed rebel former baddie archetype. And thank goodness for your exposition. Tell don’t show, am I right? One of the ways we can see the show was rushed I feel. Though again, maybe just being picky...

The Game Show Episode. I was expecting this later in the season honestly. It was good for comic relief I guess, so it served it’s purpose. Seeing the first family of the Galra along for some comedy was great if only for Neil Kaplan having such fun. But it felt like it was missing something. I can’t quite put my finger on what. It was nice to get insight into how the Paladins feel about each other but again, it felt like a way to get those ideas and characterisations out into the open without having to, y’know, show them in natural narrative progression. It’s probably the weakest of the comedy episodes so far and it felt a little like it was all just happening until it eventually stopped. It didn’t feel like the little hints of “tv flickering” implying something artificial were necessary. In fact, as soon as I saw the concept I thought “so, all powerful being captures them for reasons?” and that’s pretty much what we got. It was...ok. Just ok. And y’know what...? After seven seasons, maybe we do need to drop the “Lance is the dumb one” joke? I mean, yes, he’s not as smart as the rest of the team. No doubt. But if he’d been given a chance to shine on his own terms, with his own abilities, if they’d subverted the goofball archetype rather than doubling down on it I think this would have made for a more interesting episode. Just because it’s comedy doesn’t mean it doesn’t have to be compelling. The Voltron Show for instance literally dealt with Coran pushing himself so hard to help the Paladins that he was willing to resort to what was essentially a mind altering drug and forcing himself to kick the habit. Where was the actual plot in this episode? Funny moments need a framework and this kinda lacked a framework in my opinion.

Really episode 5? A Kobayashi Maru scenario...? Indeed, running a simulation when the lions are running on fumes...? Ok, you do you I guess... Little self referential humour from Coran was nice, but a little on the nose. And honestly, I think these episodes are starting to feel like, I dunno, filler material? Like, nothing is really being furthered in terms of the massive plots they still need to deal with. Did the journey back to Earth really need to take so many episodes, or could these have been more efficiently used to deal with countless plot threads that remain unresolved...? It’s a strange thing to be feeling at this stage, but maybe there’s more to come...? And...it felt like another clip show filling out the backstory of the three years of Voltron being missing... Maybe it’s just me, but if you have written yourself into a scenario where the only way out is repeated massive exposition dumps... Maybe you need to rethink your story just a touch...? The fact it was also told from an unreliable narrator also means it wasn’t just exposition...it was literally pointless exposition that was likely mostly a combination of lies and half truths. And I’m sorry but, were people really clamouring for a rematch between Keith and “That One Nameless Druid...?” Really? You won’t hear me denying it was cool fight scene, yes indeed, but the set up wasn’t exactly great in my opinion. As for how Keith managed to win? Ok, sure, I guess summoning the Bayard from a few feet was a build up to something else, something even more special that may or may not get resolved this season. I’m writing these as I go. Or will it be one more plot point that will need to be resolved in the next season with limited time and episodes to do so? Keith and Krolia’s goodbye was sad. I do hope for a reunion, but honestly don’t expect it. I imagine she’ll die off screen for shock value. Sadly, I already know the fate of Altean colony and why Haggar has forsaken her druids, so, no real hook for me there.

So the halfish way point. Lost in space, desperately trying to force plance out of every interaction... And ultimately, just getting bored. I mean, yes, I get that they need to reconnect with each other... But there are countless ways it could have been resolved other than this. It didn’t really feel like there was need for this particular journey into the darkest cave. It also feels a little forced that after saving countless realities by working together, they now all get forced apart...? Hunk saving the day, saving the team, great. Really wonderful stuff. He’s been overlooked for so long. But the idea that they needed to become friends again...? To reconnect...again...? I don’t know that it felt necessary. If after all these years, literal years together there isn’t already a profound connection...? I just can’t really buy that. And again, it felt like a filler episode. And Hunk Priming the audience for the concept of passing the torch? Yeah, that didn’t go unseen. Maybe it’s just me, but after six episodes where it was already established that they can travel at crazy speeds to be told “yeah no, it’s not that the lions were drained, it’s just these people who’ve literally saved the universe together aren’t quite best friends enough...”? That just feels silly. And yes, I know “silly” is relative when we’re talking about a powerful group of robot magical cat things that are powered by love and freindship. BUT what I feel was silly was the idea that their friendship was strained at all. It felt as though the season wanted there to be this divide between them but...the comedy episode just a little while ago established they’re all willing to sacrifice themselves for each other....

That’s just....fundamentally contradictory. Are you guys barely even connected as friends or are you willing to die for each other? You can’t be both... It makes the whole “struggle” of getting back to Earth feel false because it’s predicated on the assumption that they’re a fractured team this episode yet there’s been literally no sign of that until now... Still, as always, the visuals were cool. The Space Angler Fish is a great concept. The music was great. The voice acting was on point. Everything was so SO good except...the writing... The writing in this particular episode in the context of everything preceding it just felt... Bad. Rushed. Forced. Contradictory. Drama for the sake of drama. Artificial... What’s going on guys...?

So a multiparter? Let’s see. Ok. Seeing how awesome Sam Holt is, fine. Seeing him reunite with Colleen. Also fine and dandy and cool. And it tugged at the heart strings... But do we really need him to literally tell us everything we already know in a power point presentation...? The audience doesn’t need to be caught up on the events.We don’t need a massive chunk of the episode’s run time devoted to playing catch up. We have the time for this, but apparently - according to the spoilers - we don’t have time to establish that Allura is getting over Lotor and Falling for Lance...? Not even a throw away line, or a glance, or a suggestion of that fact that needs establishing after her season six reaction to the mice... But we do have time for the events of the show to be repeated to us...? What!? I am literally bewildered at this choice. Flabbergasted. Gobsmacked.

The worst thing about this so far, is that under all the EXPOSITION there’s a great story that wants too be told. I think we’re only seeing fragments of that story. Sam and Coleen struggling to find their children again and fighting against political nonsense. But real talk... This was all stuff that could have done just fine implied. The Paladins arrive on Earth, they see the new ships piloted by their inevitable replacements in the new series they seem to want to make, Lance asks, “What are those?” Sam responds, “A fusion of Galra, Altean and Olkari tech. The culmination of months of Earth’s greatest minds working together. It was a struggle, but we got them made in the end...” BOOM. Done. Efficient use of what is obviously painfully limited time. Did we NEED the power point, the montages, the backdoor pilot for the new team...? Did we - good as they were - even need the Holt Family suffering...? Couldn’t Coleen’s transmission to everyone on Earth have been enough to get the point across that they’re awesome...? In my opinion, we didn’t need this. Not like this at least. It could have been done so much more efficiently, so much less padding. But we did get to see snippets of the messages back home. That was nice. But it doesn’t change the fact that the majority of the first episode felt really... Unnecessary. But that’s just how I feel after part one... So, the first half of the second episode? Superb. Can’t fault it, good heroic stuff, Sam stepping up. A realistic invasion of Earth, ie, we lose that’s rare to see in most media. Can’t fault it. Then the second half kicks in. The four archetypes we’ve been barely introduced to, go on a mission that narratively speaking is utterly unnecessary. I know that the Atlas gets built thanks to spoilers. But even if I didn’t, what function does this part serve? We may not be able to build a thing. Later on, that thing will be built. Do we need to into the minutiae of how the supplies were gathered...? Well, I suppose we do. But not because of how it serves the overall plot of Voltron Legendary Defender, but how it sells these new kids to us for the new series they obviously assume they’re making. But if it wasn’t for that?

Then it defaults to more exposition... More information that could have been relayed to the audience in much more engaging ways.

This could have been, rather than a messy and kinda redundant two part episode with occasional brilliance, it could have been trimmed down to a truly brilliant single part. I’m not invested in these new characters. Let me get there or not when I see them in their own show. And if they’re literally just there as homage to the sequel series from the 80′s...then they don’t need this much focus. The actual paladins and their interpersonal dynamics do. Rift creatures do. Lotor’s fate does. Why are we wasting the limited time that remains on this unless it’s a back door pilot? Why should the current series suffer just to promote the next one...? It’s just exhausting and disappointing. By the end I was agreeing with Keith. What are we waiting for...? The continuation of the series we came here for. What kept us waiting was either an advert for the next series or a massive misstep in pacing.

And now, finally back to the real story and after two episodes establishing that Earth is screwed over, Earth can barely contact other parts of itself, Earth is on the brink of collapse, Earth is holding on by a thread... In the first scene we have Earth, somehow, triangulating a jamming signal into the outer edges of the solar system and remaining undetected as they do so...? Even assuming they are “just” sending commands to satellites and installations elsewhere in the solar system, The Galra would detect that command signal. And given how much we’ve had it stated, overstated, hammered home that Earth is in such bad shape...that feels like a real ass pull.

I am being nitpicky, yes, but this is the second time this has happened on such a large and frankly contradictory scale. So I’m calling it out again. First The Paladins are willing to die for each other, or at least be trapped for eternity, then they are barely friends. Then, Earth can barely contact it’s own countries, but sending an undetectable command signal to at least three satellites in the solar system is fine...? Why not just have Voltron get the signal sooner!? Why not have Pidge send a jamming signal...?

And in terms of introductions to the new team? What we got after the drone attack? Perfect. It didn’t need to be an entire episode of establishing them because it isn’t their story. But the Paladins meeting their families? The reconciliation with Iverson? Shiro grieving for Adam. Where was all this before now? Why hasn’t our focus been where it belongs. On the Paladins? Now, I don’t really want to get into the whole debate about unfair representation of LGBT characters. I can see both sides of the argument as being valid. Shiro remains a strong canonically gay character even if the man he once loved is gone. Adam, though dead, is not immune to tragedy just for being gay. What we did see though was a man openly crying for his lost love. There’s plenty to be critical of the series for. But personally, I don’t feel the treatment of Adam and Shiro is “queerbaiting” so much as it is a couple unfairly separated by the horrors of war. A canonically and unambiguously gay couple. That’s representation. Just it may not be precisely what everyone wanted. But don’t let me stop you writing out impassioned critiques, don’t let me stop you airing and venting your grievances. I’m doing that right now, aren’t I? Just please please please don’t send any more hatred at the creators...

Now, this whole section of the Altean enhanced tech...? Why is this being reiterated again? This could stand on it’s own as an introduction to the concept of Earth meets Alien tech. Why are we being shown the same things twice, first in the two parter in depth and again now...? Why do this when there is so much else that needs addressing in ever dwindling episodes...? Though aside from that, Hunk and Keith connecting is great. Hunk finally having a dedicated arc to save his family also great. Hunk being the outsider to the Garrison Trio dynamic and spending time with Keith again? Also great, wonderful even. So where was all this previously...? But even this, even this has to be if not overshadowed then frankly hijacked by the new characters they want to sell to us. It’s getting tiresome. I don’t want Hunk’s moments overshadowed, his spotlight taken... But damn, if he doesn’t still stand proud regardless. This is the Voltron I’ve been missing for most of the season.

I was going to post the image of him crying, but couldn’t do it... So here, Happier Hunk.

Don’t know how I feel about Hover Hand. I get they’re setting it up for the final conflict with Sendak, so that Shiro will be his literal and visual antithesis...but...hover hand looks kinda goofy. And being the counterpoint to your nemesis doesn’t need to be so literal all the time. And again, the new characters forcing their way into the story with a half baked excuse to sell you them. I think from now on I’m just going to comment when Team Replacements don’t force themselves in...Even the fact one of them was Veronica felt a little frustrating, because Lance’s family dynamic with her is overshadowed in my opinion by her being part of the new forced team of replacements. Allura giving up her crystal tiara for Shiro was a nice moment.

Okay, now imagine the whole infiltration section without Team Replacements. Just the Paladins, doing their thing. Let’s assume their resident tech genius has a way to stop the sentry drones sending out distress calls.

What did they contribute other than a few quips? Are we really expected to believe our paladins, the protagonists of the story need these people...? No. It was just written that way to force the new guys in. What we need to wonder is why and the answer is most likely... Back Door Pilot. Over multiple episodes. That undermined the series I was already watching. And finally, despite it being the supposed new canon ship in town, we see our first indication that Lance and Allura might be interested. Or do we? No, we just see Lance checking her out and being teased. Then immediately afterwards we see Pidge implementing Lance style silliness and even a Lance style distraction with her own spin on it. But no, let’s focus on the blushing and the eyeballing. I’m not salty. I’m dead sea levels of salty. But I’ll put that aside for now... And roll my eyes at the Wilhelm scream... Ok, so I was all ready to be excited about the plan, but then the super forced Allurance twin blush happened. Was it...was it really supposed to hit home when there was no build up to it this season...? Or was checking her out through the sniper sights enough to replace any hint of them coming closer or Allura setting aside Lotor...? Sure, she’s bound to do it in time, but all I’d want is something to suggest as much on screen. Just a throw away line or two... Is that so much? Cut a scene or two with the Replacements and give us more Paladins.

As the paladins all fly to their thematically and elementally appropriate battlegrounds, I want to agree with some posts I’ve seen arguing that Pidge doesn’t just look concerned, or in the zone as the other paladins do. For at least one shot she looks sad. Troubled. Maybe I’m reaching. Probably reaching. Almost certainly reaching given the almost immediate Allura calling to Lance moment... The sequence of connecting with the lions though? And Lance protecting Veronica? Pretty much resigned to die before being saved by red...? Yeah, heavy and cool stuff.

But Admiral Asshole somehow getting in touch with Sendak? Betraying the entire planet? No. Just no. She can be a thorn in their side and an antagonist without being so utterly stupid. At this point she’s gone from concerned alternative view but essentially a good person trying to save the planet in her own way, to being pantomime levels of stupid. What a daft choice. What a needless choice. You know what would have worked better...? Sendak baiting the Paladins. It would play into his military genius archetype. He didn’t need intel from Admiral Asshole if the entire purpose of the planet killers was just bait for the paladins... We didn’t need admiral asshole to make a faustian pact with the people responsible for planetary genocide. Some of the choices this season just bewilder me.

Well, at least no combining sequence before the Big Zapper Cannons hit. That’s something. I guess they can occasionally cut unnecessary scenes for time.

The Paladins are asleep and it’s time for the replacement team to take centre stage again. Even with their own repeated launch sequence animation. Guess they can waste time after all. Admiral Asshole...

...yeah. Who would have thought that the mass murdering alien wasn’t to be trusted...? Except anyone written with an ounce of sense. I won’t deny, I completely and utterly lost interest during the Team Replacements moments. If you like them? Great. They were kinda written to be made valid off the back of the existing series so, I guess it worked for some, just not for me. I might even have been more keen on them myself ha they been secondary characters. But this season, they have so far felt like the focus. Yet also, they felt so undeveloped that they were like filler. They took up far too much focus that should have been on the Paladins. The characters I’ve been watching for six previous seasons. The characters I’m invested in. Even the launch of the Atlas - is it supposed to be a reference to The Gotengo in ship mode? - being powered by the Castle Crystal felt like a passing of the torch moment. There’s still a season left guys, can we wait until after this series ends maybe...?

Can we do The Paladins justice in their own series and make them the focus in their own series? Can we do the replacement team justice by making them the focus of their own series...? No? We’re going to try to do both at once and ultimately make both the worse off for it? Great, ok. Seems like a plan... SIGH

Soul-riding the lions? Now that’s a cool extension of the lore. That’s a cool new addition. That’s building more upon and actually watching Voltron again. Have I mentioned that it sometimes feels like I’m not watching Voltron any longer this season? Because, yeah, that. But during the parts where I was watching Voltron, it was great. Shame I couldn’t care more about Admiral Asshole’s sacrifice. They went beyond the pale with her outright betraying Earth. Noble sacrifice for an act of stupidity was just...meh. Didn’t feel like she’d be any additional motivation for the Paladins that earth already was.

But damn does Shiro look good as the captain of a starship. Kudos where it’s due. The artists did a damn good job.

So, the final episodes... Great set up for a final confrontation. Yet within the first half of the first episode. Oh no. Voltron has been pinned. Oh no. The Atlas can’t do stuff. What will we do? Oh gosh I hope the new team of plucky do-gooders can save the day. Whatever would we do without them? I hope we can buy their toys soon. Stop it. Why won’t they just stop it...? Stop making them such a major focus. This isn’t their show...or yeah, maybe it is now. Maybe the Paladins are the side characters now? Sometimes it feels that way. They spent a lot of time out of commission, damaged, pinned or otherwise unable to act except in montages.

“Lance, I’m coming to help!” Yes, because Allura is just there to support and look shyly away from lion glances. Sigh. Can we have Allura who didn’t need to be defined by a love interest back please?

Then again, Shiro had some time to shine which was really appreciated. The Sendak/Shiro fight was...ok? I mean, it had a lot to live up to after the Kuron / Keith fight. And it just fell short in my opinion. And much as Keith saving Shiro is kinda the default... Given how they were building Shiro up to be the anti-Sendak, it felt like the final blow was robbed from Shiro just a little.

Then of course, we get The New Robeast. More powerful than anything they’ve dealt with before and utterly unannounced. Ok. Well at least they didn’t just go to sleep for a bit and let the new guys do everything. But they still found a way to force them in even now. Wouldn’t have shocked me at this point though if the new group had just beaten the robeast. The twin swords are cool, but sadly a Plance moment it wasn’t. Maybe it would have been in old Voltron. Formed by a stronger bond between the two. But not so much now. Just a thing that happens. Like Pidge’s new gun thing. Thing that happens. No build to it really, just happens. No lesson, no moment of clarity, no greater connection, just, happens. How does the Atlas have back up generators that can make it functional when it’s already been established the only thing that can power it is the castle crystal? It was a pretty big plot point. Until it was just forgotten about. The Atlas mech formed by Altean magic was pretty cool. Shiro has a lot of moments with Allura leading to it as well. More than she had with Lance even. I’ll come back to that. Fake out Pala-deaths was cheap. And if they only reason they put the focus on the new guys was for that fake out...? Screw that. What a waste.

Seeing Hunk and Shay reunited was nice but too brief. Nice to be wrong about Krolia, but I’m not expecting she’ll last the next season. Shock factor you see. Watching Earth change and develop in flash forwards and montage now makes me wonder why that couldn’t have happened earlier. And my answer is, probably to sell the new team. And that sucks. I’m not really looking forward to another season of the Paladins taking the back seat. I do kind of expect it though. In fact, I expect it will only get worse.

And of course, now in a mere 13 episodes we have to wrap up Lotor, Haggar, the rift creatures, any and all ships, don’t forget set up the new team, because I think there were a few subtle hints there’s a new team they want us to care about. How about that new team guys? New team! And do all that without it feeling like a giant rushed mess. Heh. Won’t hold my breath.

Overall? Season Seven as others have said for many reasons, is Voltron Legendary Disappointment. Now to be fair, the art, the music, the animation, the voice acting - even given some guff lines, kudos to Josh Keaton for making “Their very home” not sound stupid... All of that was great. All of those staff members involved? A plus, amazing. But the writing...? Oh my good gravy the writing is all over the damn place. Yes, I just write silly fanfics and they’re professionals so what do I know? Their paycheck invalidates my opinion, right? But to be frank some of the mistakes and I do mean mistakes are elementary continuity gaffs. Redundancy. Repetition. Over reliance on exposition. I mean, if this is considered professional then standards have dropped... That’s not to say there weren’t moments of great writing. Moments where it felt like I was actually watching Voltron again rather than an advert for the new guys. But for the most part...? It was odd choice after odd choice. Daft move after daft move. Mess after mess. Forced and contrived plot point after forced and contrived plot point and if I was judging the series solely on the writing... I’d ask why nobody proofread the first draft.

But to literally everyone else involved in the show from the voice actors to the background artists to the intern fetching coffee...? You all did an amazing job with the mess you were given.

The Obligatory Over Long Shipping Bit

It’s not all about the ships, but... To some extent, it kinda is a little. Maybe even a very BIG little... At it’s most basic, a story, any narrative, has three parts.

The Beginning: The Status Quo, the ordinary world.

The Middle: A Challenge To The Status Quo, conflict, introduction of the special world.

The End: A New Status Quo, conflict resolved, special and ordinary world merge or become aligned to create a new standard.

And ships? Well, they’re an aspect of both the conflict in the middle and the New Status Quo at the end. Ships matter. The connection we feel to two or more characters and the connections they gain with each other? They matter. They are the story. So when I bang on about ships beneath, keep that in mind. Keep in mind that watching characters grow and grow closer is an integral part of narrative, romantic, platonic, whatever. Watching dynamics develop and shift between characters matters. That includes ships. And, I’m not calling the show bad because ships. The show itself is flawed, but overall still good. still very good in fact. All I want to do here is share my disappointment and frankly my confusion at the way that all the ships seem to be playing out right now.

But to start... Allurance.

Let me say, emphatically state, that if you enjoy this ship I have no beef with you. I am not against you enjoying it. I am not trying to tell you you’re wrong. If you and I having different opinions on this is enough for you to unfollow me, then fair enough, goodbye and have fun elsewhere, no hard feelings. However, my opinion remains as it has done from the start. Whilst this could have been a solid canonical ship if things had been written differently, as it stands... I can’t support it and feel it’s the worst outcome for these two characters.

Now, I’ve seen the argument that “maybe it all happens off screen” and that I addressed in a post here. The long and the short of it, I want to see characters develop on screen rather than off screen. That is literally what I watch for. The On Screen Developments. Not off screen assumptions. On screen this season, Allura had more bonding moments with Shiro than with her supposed new love interest. Does that make sense to you? Because it doesn’t to me. Then there’s the argument that Lance’s feelings have grown and matured and changed. But honestly, on some level, if Allurance becomes canon, it feels like they haven’t. Let’s go through it on a very basic level.

Allura and Lance meet, he hits on her. - Lance wants to be with her. They work together. He continues to hit on her. - Lance wants to be with her. They keep working together. He hits on her and is jealous and possessive of anyone who even comes near her. - Lance wants to be with her. Lance tones it down a little. Starts to be supportive. You’re the heart of Voltron etc. - Lance wants to be with her. Enter Lotor. Lance remains jealous and possessive, but plays it off to Allura as a joke. “You need a third wheel?” But to everyone else, including the mice, he makes it very very clear this makes him unhappy. - Lance wants to be with her. He makes that speech to the mice about wanting to be a better person, how he’s unworthy etc. etc. etc. - Lance wants to be with her. Allura finds out about this, seems less than pleased. - Lance wants to be with her. Allura breaks up with Lotor after finding out the man who changed her life is a genocidal space vampire. - Lance wants to be with her. Lance does the supportive hug scene. - Lance wants to be with her. Some stuff off screen presumably and Allura is suddenly over it. - Lance wants to be with her. Dual blushing scene, soft gazes lion scene etc. - Lance wants to be with her and suddenly Allura wants the same thing.

Now, to me at least, I never felt like Lance’s feelings for Allura changed. What changed were his tactics in pursuing that desire. The ultimate ulterior motive of wanting to be with her at no point altered. To me, that severely undermines his and Allura’s growth together. It re-frames the supportive friend hug in season six into the only possible on screen moment that she fell for him and to me that makes Allura seem weak willed, flighty and frankly weak as a character to be rushed into needing a new man so soon after Lotor. It makes Allura into the opposite of what she has been all along. It reframes Lance as being a creep who’s not being entirely honest and is just hanging on to get some Altean Action. It’s unwittingly supportive of the concept in toxic masculinity of No Doesn’t Mean No and I think that’s a dangerous message to be sending these days. We should know better. No means No, it does not and should not mean pursue them like an object you want to possess. In reality, that attitude being normalised can lead to obvious and dangerous extremes. In a story, the pursued partner loses their dramatic agency and is reduced to a prize or else wants to be possessed and is thus framed as less capable. I think the idea of Lance and Allura shifting their dynamic to “genuine romance” between seasons and off screen is cheap. Overall, I feel it devalues both of them rather than enriching them as a ship and an end to two character arcs should. Maybe, like resurrecting Shiro / Kuron early being down to executive meddling, the same is true here? Maybe the plan was for Lance to break the mould of the stereotypical nice guy waiting in the wings? Maybe Lotor being bad was also executive meddling? Or maybe that’s just the scapegoat for the roads we missed out on? The potential lost...

Now, the weird thing is, I’ve seen the argument made that you wouldn’t say that about allurance if allura was a guy. Well...yeah I would. Because if nothing changed except Allura’s sex and/or gender but the events were otherwise identical then it would have exactly the same narrative issues. It would still be undermining both character’s growth and arcs. Chasing someone who isn’t interested is still toxic behaviour regardless of who does it to whom. But if you want to assume that I’m just saying this “because Allura’s a woman” then I guess I can’t stop you, but I hope you take my honest statement that it’s not the case as far as I’m concerned. On the other side of this argument of well if x was y you wouldn’t z, well, that’s just you creating and answering a hypothetical question. Let’s say someone shipped, I dunno Keith and Cosmo. And the defence was “well you wouldn’t call it bestiality if cosmo was human.” And yeah, I suppose if something was changed so drastically there wouldn’t be a problem. But Cosmo is a wolf in Canon. And Allura is a woman in Canon. Maybe nobody would be saying Allurance has problematic elements if Allura was male or maybe the would. I feel that I certainly would see the issue regardless. But that argument is purely hypothetical and anyone who makes it has no way of proving it or supporting it.

There is however another issue in Canon that nobody seems willing to address. Alteans live for centuries. Centuries versus decades of lifespan. That kind of relationship will have the functionally immortal one watching the person they love ROT before their eyes. It will have them mourning their true love for CENTURIES or else callously moving on. It will, if they have or adopt kids, leave the functionally immortal one, watching their own descendants die. The functionally immortal partner will see their love reflected in their descendants eyes and faces. Forced to relive their loss generation after generation. I don’t want to contemplate that end for characters I care about. But that’s what would happen between Lance and Allura. I don’t want to think of Allura watching generations of hers and Lance’s kids and great grand kids dying like flies and thinking of her reliving that loss every hundred years or so as their next batch of descendants die in front of her. Maybe you see it as romantic? I see it as horrifying. And if the issue of Human vs. Altean ages is never dealt with on screen, I’ll assume the creators either didn’t think about it or assumed the audience wouldn’t care. Well I’m sorry, but you made characters that we love, they are part of a lore that we paid attention to. We do care and it does matter.

What I will admit is that maybe, just maybe the way I’m interpreting things isn’t what the creators intended. As much as I am a proponent of Death of the Author, I won’t disregard authorial intent. To those of you who don’t know, Death of the Author essentially states that; all media is a collaborative experience between audience and creators. That no one interpretation of a text is more valid than another. That interpretations can shift and change based on the time and context through which the text is viewed. That interpretations the author never intended are valid. Now, a lot of people seem to have this idea that “Death of The Author” means audience interpretation matters more than that of the author and completely overlook the idea of shared meaning and no one true interpretation. I’m coming at this from the point of view not that the audience owns the text but that we all, audience and author, equally share it and it’s infinite valid interpretations.

So that said, the authorial intent may well be that Lance and Allura’s relationship isn’t and was never meant to be a creepy guy being persistent. That it wasn’t meant to suggest that despite being rebuffed, he should carry on chasing. Maybe it wasn’t meant to seem like he was dishonest, swooping in after a break up to pick up the pieces. Maybe we’re supposed to ignore the ulterior motive to get into her pants that never changed from season one episode one? It may well be their intent was to show a relationship developing healthily and organically but they were rushed and it ended up feeling incomplete? But, that less positive interpretation is just not how it comes across to me and many others. Intent or not, we can only interpret what we see. We don’t hate the idea of these two characters being happy, we just feel like the way it’s portrayed so far doesn’t seem strong enough or doesn’t make it explicit enough that there has been sufficient growth and change on screen to really make us buy it. You may disagree. That’s perfectly valid. The authors may disagree. That’s perfectly valid. I disagree with those opinions and that too is perfectly valid. I don’t hate any of you for feeling the way you do or for reading the text the way you do. Everyone interprets media differently. Please do me the same courtesy and don’t hate me for my interpretation. We can both make valid points yet still disagree. There is not one true and absolute interpretation.

I suppose that leads me here. At this point, given the way that almost every ship possible has been hinted, teased, alluded to or given time onscreen... I wouldn’t be shocked if there aren’t any canonical ships by the end. Just hints. Forever hints. Because if nothing else, the Allurance shippers don’t deserve to be baited and switched. Even if I disagree with the way it’s been portrayed, even if I feel it was rushed and needed time on screen to develop, those shippers deserve a decent payoff if the show is going to tease it so damn hard and so damn obviously. The Sheith shippers have had plenty of hints as well. Kallura looks on the cards half the time. Hunay, Hunelle, Hidge/Punk all got hints at the possibility this season. Keith and Acxa, I was thinking they’d pull that as soon as Keith found her in the weblum. Plance, I may or may not have strong feelings about. Who can say?

But given that the series so far has given so many contradictory hints, even assuming the caveat of multiple interpretations, how could anyone be happy by the end? I mean, if Plance happens and I still believe it makes the most sense for Lance and Pidge’s journeys and character arcs... Well what about the Allura / Lance dual blush moment...? The Allurance fans will ask that and rightly so. Why even include that if it isn’t going to go anywhere...? Chekov’s Gun. I can’t even deny myself that if the plan really was for Lance to move on, this would have been the season to explore that to make it feel organic. If Lance ends up moving on in the next season, then that will suddenly feel forced as well. The amount of ship baiting going on is a little frustrating. I can’t see how it could end in a satisfying way for every baited ship. So, maybe they’re just going to have nobody end up with anybody canonically? At this stage, part of me would rather have that than have my OTP confirmed in canon. Because if what has happened so far is anything to go by... I’m just going to be disappointed at it feeling rushed and artificial. Unearned and pulled out of left field at the last second. With all the build up to Allurance, whether I think it hit the mark or not, it feel like it would be cheap and rushed to have him suddenly move on in the next and last season. Plance might end up feeling not organically developed, just, info dumped into existence for time constraints. I’ve been seeing hints between Lance and Pidge since episode one. Waiting for them to change their dynamic for all that time and seeing hint after subtle hint, seeing how perfectly their two stories align. They literally and narratively complete one another. And yet, if it comes down to it that one line or one half baked scene or even one future still image in a montage at the end of the series, is the confirmation of them hooking up...? Then even I won’t feel like my ship was worth coming true in canon. I’d rather have it never come true than have it come true as badly, as forced, as potentially interpreted as toxic, as contrary to the narrative and as ultimately unsatisfying as Allurance seems to be right now. I have no issue with Allurance being the end game. I would just have wanted to see it done justice and right now... It just isn’t. Don’t agree? Ok, well...

Compare and contrast... One person in this series, Allura creates - using Alchemy - a means to be whole again. A weapon capable of overcoming a nemesis in visual dramatic parallel. Having learned Alchemy through tainted means from her Evil Ex, she’s now able to put it to physical tangible use for a new person. Not only that but she sacrifices her crown, her symbol of office, one of her last remnants of her dead home world in order to make that creation whole. She has shown this person nothing but respect and kindness otherwise. Another person she barely interacted with aside from telling him to shut up then in the space of one episode they’re all blushy because reasons.

I’m being a little facetious, but let’s be honest.... What this shows is that Allura literally has a more meaningful and narratively significant set of interactions with SHIRO than she does with Lance this Season. Shiro’s arm represents her turning the bad experience with Lotor to good. Her giving up her symbol of Altean Royalty shows she’s willing to sacrifice anything for him. And through that bond, she grants him the power to turn the Atlas into a giant robot. Where she created the Sincline out of a dishonest partnership, the Altas-Mecha is formed by honest...well, it looks like LOVE to me. Now I’m not saying I ship them. But if you showed me this season out of context with any of the rest of Voltron, I would be shipping Shiro with Allura even though he’s Gay. Because frankly, in the story told on screen this season that actually makes way more sense than shipping her with Lance. Even out of context, even assuming no Lotor, no previous issues, Lance and Allura being hinted just seems...out of nowhere this season.

Maybe I should just wait for the sequel series where everyone ends up with total randoms off screen that nobody is happy with? Maybe the ships that make the most sense and have been hinted at the most will be forgotten or end up with off screen unhappy marriages as some vague and irksome attempt at being “mature”. Yes, I’m still salty about Toph/Sokka as well as Kataang, what of it? Sometimes you just want the characters you have grown to love and adore to have a happy ending together. Is that too much to ask...?

So, season 8 predictions...?

After a heartwarming episode that teases Coranecker, Lotor will finally get his redemption arc. And by arc I mean, episode. There will be an entire episode devoted to info dumping how he wasn’t really a space vampire the whole time and Romelle got the wrong end of the stick. This episode will tease Lotura again as well as hinting at Hungar, Huntor, Hunlia and Huray, the Polyship of Hunk Coran and Shay. Haggar, having now established herself as the dark queen of the Quantum Abyss will send wave after wave of Altean-Robeasts at Voltron, before the series finally ends in, you guessed it, another big battle with another new big robot. There will be a “we won” montage, Sendak will somehow be resurrected or a void creature will emerge from Daibazol to set up the Big Bad for the sequel series. Maybe both. Nobody will end up with anyone and the next series and/or movie will be hinted at. We might end up with a cliffhanger to tease the sequel series. And we’ll all go away a little disappointed and a little happy all at once. Oh and Black Paladin Kaltenecker of course.

Salty semi-joking aside, at this point given how rushed the series has obviously become, I really would not be shocked if Lotor DID get a redemption plot that was dealt with in a single episode. Or a single sentence. Just like the way he was turned into a Genocidal Space Vampire in a single episode, I’m sure they can turn him into the Space Pope in a single episode. Maybe blame it all on a rift creature? Or maybe save that plot thread for the next series, given that in 13 episodes there’s no way they can cover everything they want to AND cover it as well as they want to. Or just never mention them again. It’s not like they were set up to be majorly important or anything.

Also, if the whole of Voltron Legendary Defender is now going to be a backdoor pilot for Voltron The Garrison Guys or whatever, that seems disappointing more than exciting. Voltron Legendary Defender should be it’s own show first and a sequel should organically follow based on success or failure. If there was always a plan to have more seasons as a sequel series then...

USE THOSE EXTRA SEASONS TO GIVE THIS STORY THE ROOM IT NEEDED!!!

Make VLD the best it can be before assuming we need a sequel series at all. We wouldn’t have half the problems we have now of story lines feeling rushed if, get this the story lines had more episodes to not be rushed! We could have had more Past-Paladins. Keith’s backstory could have been explored as a full episode or two not spoon fed to us by time flashbacks. Allurance could feel less forced and artificial. Lotor’s betrayal could have been given more than a single episode info-dump. We could have actually explored Allura’s feelings and hr process of getting over one of the most important relationships in her life turning to shit. Give this story the time and space it needs to breathe and grow. Let THIS story be told in a well paced way rather than being forced to rush to hit the deadlines for the sequel series. If VLD ends up being less well received owing to bad or rushed writing, we may just end up with zero interest in the sequel series anyway. It’s self defeating!

Don’t have entire episodes devoted to characters who show up, info dump and then are mute for the rest of the season. Don’t have entire plot threads be rushed and resolved in time less than they deserve! And if you can’t do that...

THEN TRIM THE FAT!!!

We can probably all point to a bit that felt “rushed” or “forced” or “out of left field” and that all comes down to a single fact. So far, there has been far too much story to tell in far too few episodes. So certain plot threads end up suffering as a result. Not being fully realised. Not being given anything more than flashbacks and montages rather than full episodes examining in greater emotional depth and deeper narrative exploration.

I would rather see a simple story well told than a complex story rushed for time. What we seem to get in seasons 6+ of Voltron are attempts to tell the entire story they wanted but being forced to cut it short for time. Sadly, what would have been better than telling the full story badly would be telling as much of it as you can save well and discarding the rest. Maybe that’s already happened? Wouldn’t shock me.

Lotor deserved better. Allurance if it becomes canon, deserved to have been built upon to make it seem more deserved, less creepy nice guy. Allura deserved to have on screen time to adapt, grieve and move on from Lotor. Matt could have had time to develop his relationship on screen. Plance if it becomes canon deserves time to shine, because for many fans out there if it does becomes canon in season 8 then for them it will seem rushed, sudden, forced. Or worse, Pidge will always seem like Lance’s backup girl... As Said before, even me as a hardcore Plance Shipper feels like it can’t possibly be given the time it deserves to feel earned when we have just one season left to tie it all together.... So again, maybe all they can do at this stage is shrug and only ever give hints as to whom ends up with whom in this massive cast...? And then just spew out the sequel series. Because we gotta sell those new toys.

I cared and invested in the VLD characters. I wanted their story to be their story and not just a vehicle to sell the next series that, to be honest, I’m probably not going to be remotely interested in.

The Salt Floweth To An End

There is SO much potential in VLD that was squandered by things being rushed, compacted, cut and yet also being massively bloated despite this. Then there’s the obvious executive meddling that can’t have helped for a second... It just ends up making everything messy and unfocused. This season was a mess. Entertaining, yes, compelling, yes and damn good overall but with so many moments that just hit shy of the mark the creators obviously were aiming for. Almost all of it down to the writing. Because the animators, musicians, actors and all the other cast and crew did an amazing job. But the writing was...just a totally confused mess.

Overall, it ends up being Great rather than Exceptional which breaks my heart. Because the first 5 seasons? Exceptional. Every aspect. Especially the writing. But from Six onward? Everything seems to just crack and fray around the edges, the polish wears thin and the whole thing feels just slightly less like everyone involved gave 100%. Maybe a solid 90%, and some still went above and beyond... But things, in my opinion, shifted. Sometimes in service of “surprises” and sometimes just because they needed to rush. Whatever the case, it feels like somewhere along the line the writers stopped caring as much. If at all. Will I watch season 8? Sure. But I’ll always know it could have been so much more if they’d been given more time and more room to let the story flourish. At this point I doubt it’s possible given the already obvious lack of focus in the writing, that we’ll see every plot thread tied up to satisfaction. I’m not even going to kid myself that they’ll do it all well because that’s just not going to happen. I’ll be shocked if they manage it at all. Frankly I’ll be shocked if the last season doesn’t focus more on the new team again... I am not looking forward. It feels like a chore now. Will I watch the sequel series if there is one. No. Probably not. I wanted Voltron Legendary Defender to be given all the time it needed to be exceptional. I didn’t want to watch an advert for the next series and the next group of characters and toys. Especially if we’ll just end up seeing them all wasted, rushed and never allowed to live up to their potential as well. I was invested in VLD and it sucks that my investment is used as a marketing ploy for a potential new show before being discarded. Ah well. There’s always fanfics I guess... Though even that tastes a little bitter now... Like I'm just another part of the Voltron Hype Machine and not even getting paid to do it... Sucks and it taints what I plan to do and what I already have done... I do want to continue supporting the show and the ship I love along with all the fans out there in The Garden, but right now... I’m left feeling so conflicted. In two minds about how much I enjoy this show and yet despite that, how often and how glaring some of the errors, missteps and plain crazy choices they seem to be making along the way... It’s hard to feel 100% positive, but I did make this post and I stand by it. If the Voltron writers won’t give us the reality that makes the most sense? We make it ourselves. I did make these three posts and I stand by all of them as well. Even now as it seems like the writer’s minds are falling apart like chunks of wet cake, I still maintain that Plance makes the most sense in the story for those two characters I loved. Will it still make sense at the end of the series? Honestly, yeah. I’m sure it will still make more sense than whatever the writers eventually decide to churn out. Here’s hoping Season 8 is...something...

#vld season 7 #voltron spoilers #voltron season seven #voltron season 7 spoilers #spoilers #salt #bear writes a dissertation on a cartoon #voltron legendary disappointment

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mesaylormoon · 7 years

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Film and Fluff: A Review of Lady Bird

I’ll have to begin this review with a trigger warning, because unlike many others, I did not like Lady Bird.

If I haven’t lost you yet, I’d like to say that I wanted very badly to like this film. It consists of everything that makes a film amazing: a character-driven story, troubled family dynamics, a complex cast, and relatable drama. Where could it possibly go wrong? In addition to all of that, my family and even other teachers of mine had praised it, and naturally, all of their talk about their love of the movie piqued my interest. Unfortunately, after having seen it a second time, I couldn’t find much to appreciate about it. I personally found Lady Bird to be a sedate, dry, boring, and clumsily-written piece--one that was likely created to appeal to an audience of teenagers just like the titular character. With that said, I’d like to discuss where I believe Lady Bird succeeds and fails.

Christine “Lady Bird” McPherson is at a critical point in her life. Like everyone her age, the time for her to choose colleges and begin a new life is on the horizon. She is unable to attend the schools she desires, however, because her parents struggle financially. Christine also has a troubled relationship with her mother, only adding to the problems she experiences at home. The film follows this young woman’s journey of self-discovery, maturation, and personal growth, as we navigate the highlights of this brief phase in her life.

As I mentioned earlier, the story of Lady Bird is actually one of the movie’s saving graces. But in my opinion, Lady Bird is comprised of more flaws than strengths. The most crippling of all these is our heroine, Christine. A supercilious, self-obsessed, inconsiderate, troublesome, and entitled character of sorts, she is easily the absolute worst I’ve seen in years. She ruins her film for more reasons than just her personality--as an unlikeable lead, I found myself hoping she’d suffer throughout the movie. Even as she was ripping open her acceptance letters in anticipation, I was longing for her to be rejected by every school she applied to. In almost every scene, Christine can be seen saying or doing something selfish--she’s such a petty girl in fact, that there’s time devoted to her nagging her mother about not cooking her eggs properly! Thinking behind this, I’m sure the director wanted to illustrate how much Christine had grown by the end, but considering how quickly and clumsily the story moves, I don’t think these scenes were necessary. All of these character flaws would not be so detrimental if she would’ve reflected upon the advice and feelings of her family--some of the few people in her life who express concern for her--more often, but she never does. Again, in almost every scene she plays a critical role in, she’s doing something that feeds her mischievous desires. Her extensive list of crimes include applying to expensive colleges behind her mother’s back, dating a boy without her parents’ knowledge, pranking a nun, getting blackout drunk, fooling around with people who ultimately take advantage of her, and--the absolute worst of all--eating holy bread. My goodness, how I wanted Christine to suffer. (If you haven’t noticed, I’ve also been refusing to address her by her equally insufferable, pretentious, ridiculous nickname for all of this review.) Other characters in Lady Bird are not as awfully written as Christine, but everyone except her parents are generally unlikable. This also works to the film’s detriment when you, as an audience member, should be wanting Christine to have good company in her life.

Another huge flaw of Lady Bird involves Christine’s severe lack of fluid and natural character development. (Or maybe it’s just the editing and pacing.) That is to say, she becomes a much more humble person by the end of her story, but the film seems to be so hastily cobbled together, rushing from one plot point to the next, that I found her growth inorganic and oddly abrupt. While there’s nothing wrong with the major story elements in Lady Bird, viewers aren’t given enough time in any scene to see how one event in her life would compel her to become a better person. There are many moments in Christine’s life that could’ve served as a catalyst for change (e.g., finding out her boyfriend is gay, being betrayed by other boys, having drunken nights out) early in the film, but everything I mentioned only comes into play about halfway into the movie. And whenever these moments do appear, they appear to be “interrupted” by a scene that restricts opportunities for the emotions of the previous scene to be felt, and this results in a much less immersive experience. In fact, it doesn’t seem as if Christine has the time she needs to process everything she feels after something significant happens in her life. Even the ending appears to be so sudden that even the most forgiving of viewers would want to see more build-up toward Christine’s moment of change. Ideally, viewers should be able to have a reasonable amount of time to share in the emotions of the characters, and that just isn’t possible if you’re only given about a moment for that to happen before cutting to something that feels unrelated. As good as Saoirse Ronan’s performance is, it isn’t strong enough to support the idea that Christine has undergone major personal growth. It really is a shame that this film feels as rushed as it does; everything within the story could’ve made for a moving experience, had every subplot been given the time to develop.

The environment and tone of Lady Bird give the film a very sedate feel. I understand that this is supposed to be a relatable picture that has an equally normal setting, but Lady Bird feels abnormally boring, and this perception can be attributed to the fact that nothing about the movie’s environment stands out. As a native of Sacramento, I’ve seen just about everything shown in the film, but that isn’t the problem. Something about how everything was shot just seems very… lazy. In my opinion, even if it was purposeful, the lack of creative imagery, stellar editing, and memorable scenery makes this film very forgettable. Lady Bird is already a movie with a very simple plot and character cast, and if nothing about the appearance/setting of it is memorable, then frankly, the film as a whole can suffer as a result. I certainly felt that way after watching the movie.

Now that I’ve addressed my main issues with Lady Bird, I’d like to review everything I appreciated about it. The story is one of those things. Although Lady Bird’s plot has been written countless times, I find it interesting that there are not one, but four major conflicts within this film: 1) Christine’s struggle to find herself; 2) her need to become a mature young woman; 3) her desire to attend college away from home; and 4) her need to rebuild her turbulent relationship with her mother. Individually, these story threads are compelling, and it’s impressive that all of them are woven into one narrative without anything becoming too confusing. With the exception of the fourth conflict, every significant element of the plot is given enough screen time, development and focus. Most of the film centers around Christine finding ways to attend her dream college, and admittedly, it’s not the most engaging element of the story. What is a bit more interesting, however, is everything that Christine must navigate in order to become a better person, and a more caring daughter. Every wrong decision, every boy, every argument, and every negative influence brings her closer to realizing just how much her life has to reverse itself. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen that in a film. More often than not, a main character’s growth, even in an emotionally/character driven story, is motivated by all of the good deeds that they perform. I think that it’s especially refreshing that, even though Christine is a horrible main character, that her arcs are propelled by her mistakes. It’s an original--and smarter--angle to approach this plot from, and it’s very welcome when reflecting on coming-of-age stories that are rife with cliches. (Although, Lady Bird is rife with cliches, as well).

None of the characters in Lady Bird are as complex as Christine, nor are they given as much focus, but it’s also refreshing to see a cast without a perfect member. Everyone in this film is at least a little flawed. Christine’s family is full of people who are either inattentive, self-serving, or detached, and her closest friends are certainly an entitled bunch. Her parents are especially passive, and do very little to redirect their daughter so that she may do the right thing. Of course, none of these flaws make them inherently good characters, but plenty of films with coming-of-age plots feature people who are well-meaning, thoughtful, and caring. This film, I would argue, has very few, or none. (Christine’s mother could very well be considered an exception, however). Nevertheless, I suppose it’s… interesting... in some respect... to showcase a set of imperfect people in a film about overcoming imperfection, and in some ways, that may even help to strengthen the message and intent of the film.

Lady Bird is one of few films to include commentary, albeit very little, about troubled relationships between mothers and daughters. As another critic highlighted during his review of another movie, people seem to assume that many, if not all, daughters have peaceful relationships with their mothers. This is certainly not the case, and there is time dedicated to exploring this idea. As an immature seventeen-year-old, Christine finds much of what her mother says to be discouraging and upsetting. But her mother, being the doting figure that she is, understands that her daughter must understand her own limits, as well as the struggles of her family, to ensure her safety. Because of their conflicting opinions, the two are at constant odds with each other, quarreling in every scene they share. This conflict reaches its peak after Christine does something especially selfish, and subsides, of course, by the end of the film. Even if their time together is brief, the tension that their interactions provide is gripping and even humorous. To see a film feature the strained relationship between a mother and daughter is meritable, but had there been more focus on this element of Lady Bird, it likely would’ve been much stronger.

The final moments of the film are unquestionably some of the most powerful in the picture. After a disastrous night, Christine finds herself in a hospital, next to a child who is much more meek and sickly. Upon seeing this boy, she begins to silently reflect on how terribly she had behaved in the last year of her life. As she continued her self-reflection, she finally began to consider her parents, and the amount of support they had given her throughout her life, eventually reading the letters they had both sent her and reaching out to her family. These last ten or so minutes of the film are a perfect example of what makes the medium of film incredible: there need be no dialogue. Silence and subtle expression are all that is required to convey the emotions involved in scenes that are as touching and pivotal as this, and Christine’s pivotal moment is no exception. Every look of pain, grief, and longing you see in her face is so saddening that it’s easy to feel as if you’re a person trapped by the guilt and remiss that plagues her mind, even if only for a moment. And as she walks out of church and reaches for her cell phone, you as a viewer are filled with the relief that Christine is at finally deciding to reconnect with her family. In my opinion, the subtlety and emotionality of scenes such as this are able to redeem the more painful components of Lady Bird, and it’s wonderful to see that they are well-executed in such an important part of the story.

I understand that, as a person who disliked Lady Bird, that I am likely giving you a horribly inaccurate idea of what you’ll feel about the film. I can almost promise that you’ll find much more to appreciate and enjoy in this film than I--as well as very few others--did. But as someone who now thinks more critically about characters and their development in films, the technicals of filmmaking, and story, I found this picture to be much more infuriating than enriching. While the story and characters in some form can allow for a new experience, I don’t believe that they have as much to offer as everyone seems to claim. Perhaps you may think differently, and as an artistic piece, Lady Bird does have a fair amount of merit. Character-driven stories propelled by a lead’s flaws, or even the conflict surrounding their lives, are enough to create a thought-provoking experience for many viewers. I may not have enjoyed Lady Bird, but I do believe that there’s at least enough to recommend for those that enjoy the commentary that films like Lady Bird one provide.

#lady bird #lady bird review #the worst of 2017 #saoirse ronan #2017 films #independent films

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