#and if I didn't know him my default response to witnessing that would be “oh my fuck

[funkypeanutbear]

Me, talking to my best guy friend about any social topic ever:

oh my dude, we're both so fucked up, but in a different way ✨️💫

[princeescaluswords]

I was curious about fandoms having superficial readings of characters intelligences. While I know you’ve written about how Scott’s is minimized, I was curious about the inverse. I often see overestimations of some characters intellect. Usually the ‘nerdy’ characters, but who have their obviously ignorances. It’s mostly the fault of the writers defaulting to the know-it-all, but sometimes those characters are textually wrong but fans refuse to accept that.

Oh, I hate to break it to you, it's not superficial. This particular phenomenon dates all the way back to Plato: the idea of the Philosopher King. He argued that any society could only be just and free from evil once its rulers embrace wisdom and personal knowledge, and thus were able to rule from a position of understanding for the common good. They would use what they learned to move past selfish or destructive policies.

This idea permeates what is called 'Western Civilization' and influences various and wildly different applications ranging from the Divine Right of Kings to Anarcho-Syndicalism. Entropy, however, is universal, and what was once a thoughtful exploration of how to craft a better society has degraded to "the smartest guy should be in charge."

Unfortunately, the idea hasn't done well when it encounters racism, sexism, and classism. How many times has history witnessed white imperialists describing the non-white races they're intent on colonizing as 'ignorant' or 'superstitious' or 'driven by appetite and not reason.' How often were women excluded from political power because they were seen as overly emotional and thus not intellectually the equal of men? How often, even today, how often do you see billionaires automatically given the sheen of genius? That noise you hear is Plato spinning in his grave.

When you look at fandom behavior that way, it makes a lot of sense. All fiction revolves around conflict -- not necessarily physical conflict though it often is -- and most often the story progresses according to how those conflicts are resolved. In a stories with a lead protagonist, that responsibility is theirs. Fandom's praxis in that light becomes clear -- if they want the story focused on a particular character, then that character only has to be the smartest, and thus they should control how the conflict should be resolved.

And there is where the game begins. Fandom goes to great lengths to define the character they most value as the smartest and the character they see as an obstacle as the dumbest in order to argue for primacy.

Take Teen Wolf, my fandom. Scott McCall is the lead protagonist, and the show spends a great deal of time demonstrating why his way of resolving conflicts is to be valued. And yet, parts of the fandom will make any excuse to portray him as stupid, uneducated, and irrational. Then, they will choose another character -- usually a good-looking white male -- and trumpet their 'intelligence.' Stiles Stilinski is "always right!" even though he's not always right in any frame of reference. Derek Hale is superior because of his born wolf status gives unique insight into the nature of being a werewolf, regardless of his obvious and disastrous failures. Peter Hale is supposedly brilliant, except parts of fandom confuse immoral ruthlessness for actual solutions to problems.

Let's get specific and look at Season 5A, when Theo infiltrated the pack. Parts of the fandom make great hay out of the idea that Scott didn't immediately accept Stiles's intuition that Theo, the man who had just come to Scott's rescue, was sinister. Now, of course, they pretend not to have watched Scott did investigate the dangers of Theo not being who he said he was. They pretend not to have watched that no other character accepted Stiles's accusation at face value. Most of all, they pretend not to have watched Stiles get completely manipulated by Theo as well. Stiles's correct intuition must serve as proof that he deserves to be 'in charge', i.e. the lead protagonist, even though his intuition has microscopic evidence to back it and is a product of natural suspicion magnified by trauma-induced paranoia.

It's not just this show. Shadow and Bone's Darkling is another example of fandom trying to have another character usurp the lead protagonist because he's "smarter." This is the motivation behind many fandom arguments about who is the most intelligent, because of the idea that society should be focused on those people who can lead it most effectively. It's most often applied to white male characters, because there's a cultural tendency in the United States to see white men in that role, but it doesn't have to be.

[jellydishes]

The Tethras family home was old and large --'stately and grand,' Bartrand had called it in one of his more snobbish moments, to which Varric had replied, 'It's fuckoff huge, Barty'-- and perhaps most importantly, the Tethras family home was stuffed full of furniture and mementoes and dust covered hope.

Almost every inch of the place echoed with ghosts. He felt shades of himself running down the halls and scrawling words underneath wallpaper that had been chosen specifically to cover up his indiscretions. He slid a hand down a lintel, feeling the bumps covered up with layers of paint until you could barely tell where Bartrand had carved out lines to measure how tall Varric had gotten.

He sighed, leaned against the doorway, and scrubbed a hand down his face. He almost laughed when it didn't come away caked with dust, after spending the late morning and the entirety of the afternoon packing away some of the lower floor of the house into boxes. Some would go into storage, the rest to be sold or donated to thrift stores. And… now that he had sealed the most recent box with packing tape, he was unable to ignore anymore the weight of what he was doing, which had been settling down upon his shoulders one piece at a time like drifts of the same dust that filled the rest of the house. It made him feel older and duller beneath the mercilessly soft crush.

He tried to drag in a shaking breath, and it tasted like ash. His mother was in that box, and so was Bartrand, and himself. Everyone, he realized, except for his father.

Almost without his being aware of it, his head slowly tilted up and up, towards the sealed room that had been his father's study when he'd been alive. He hadn't been inside in almost a decade and a half, not even now when he was closing up the house and had a proper excuse to do so. He hesitated even to broach the thought. That was his father's space. His sanctuary. And leaving it closed up had become… more than a family habit or way of honoring the dead, it had become a responsibility.

Varric swallowed heavily. Without looking away from that section of the ceiling, he pulled out his phone and entered in the code to unlock it. He glanced down only to pull up Hawke With An E, which he had only recently edited to say Hewk.

The phone rang only once, and then there was a click. "What?"

The words he'd been planning to say dried up on his tongue.

"Varric?" There was a shift of fabric on the other end of the phone. He could almost see Edyiss Hawke shifting the phone from ear to ear as if that would somehow allow her to better hear what he hadn't been able to bring himself to say.

He laughed humorlessly, and raked the hand not holding his phone through his hair. "I need you, Ed. Here," he clarified, clearing his throat. "I need… Shit, I don't even know. A sounding board? Someone to witness my descent into madness?"

"You aren't going mad, Varric," Hawke said. The determination in her voice was thin and crackly. She must have driven to the base of Sundermount to go hiking again. Always said it cleared her head.

He looked away from the chair his mother had always sat in by the window, and towards Bartrand's room. "How do you know?" He asked hollowly. "If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, has family history like a duck…"

"I'm coming over."

***

Hawke showed up over an hour later, carrying two lukewarm cups of coffee and an intent expression on her face. Not that she didn't always look like she was attempting to psychically peel back your mind layer by layer until all your secrets came spilling out, but he'd long since learned that those narrowed eyes and thinned lips were just her default expression.

Well.

That, and she probably needed glasses.

"Hi, Ed," he said, reaching out without looking up. A travel cup was set into his hand, and he took a sip on automatic. It wasn't until several seconds later that he registered both the temperature and the flavor, or lack thereof. "Oh," he said. "Oh, this is foul." He took another sip. His eyebrows shot up. "Is there rum in this?"

"Yes. You can thank Isabela." Edyiss sat down on the floor across from him, and drew her knees up to her chest the exact same way she had back in middle school. For a moment, he looked at her and saw the thick messy braid she'd used to wear her hair in, snaking down the shoulder of her father's old, oversized leather jacket. But both the braid and the jacket were long gone, and Edyiss was twenty-one years old, not twelve.

"Varric, what is going on?" Hawke's voice shook him out of his thoughts, and he looked up at last to see her watching him with a strange expression. Varric averted his gaze before he had to figure out what it was.

"Closing up the house," he said by way of explanation, which got a grunt in reply. He couldn't help sketching an imitation of a smile at the sound. "It's one of the things I returned here to do. Or… the justification I gave myself so I'd have the courage to do it."

"You're selling it?" A beat of silence. "Good. Fucking… good. I always hated this place."

He looked at her in surprise, and Hawke grimaced. "You never saw yourself, when we visited you here."

"What do you mean?"

"You sort of… shrunk down into yourself. These walls closed in on you, and you got smaller. Talked less, laughed louder." She shrugged. "Can't say I'm sorry to see the shithole go."

"Hey, my mother lived here," he protested halfheartedly. The cup was still in his hands, and he took a long draw from it until the bad taste in his mouth was replaced with a worse one.

Edyiss' face softened, just enough that someone who was very familiar with her would recognize it. The expression was all in the eyes. "Yeah. I know. But she isn't here anymore, Varric."

His eyes shot up to hers and he almost started to snap at her out of protest, but the words died before he could give voice to them.

"And what about the others?" She asked, and he almost choked on the bitter taste that was back in his mouth again.

"We aren't here to talk about Bartrand. Or my father."

"Then what are we here for, Varric? Because from the way you sounded on the phone… I could've- a lot of things went through my head, alright? I didn't spend three years waiting for-" She stopped and started and stopped again. "I'm not going to watch you crumble like this house, alright? So say whatever you need to say, do whatever it is you need to do to fix this."

His mouth was dry. He took another drink. "Okay," he rasped.

"Okay?"

"Okay… I'll talk. I don't know what I'm going to say, but I'll say it."

Edyiss looked so relieved, he didn't have the heart to remind her that he was a notorious liar.

[roundthatcorner]

"Something that didn't happen but did. But only for a minute" Can you elaborate on what you think this means?

(Okay,hopefully you are still here, anon (carpal tunnel = me reluctant totype much of anything, sadly, bc I need to save my loser hand for myjob…Gird your loins or w/e, this is long…and meandering…)

Ithink I stuck that in the tags of a post, but I was just paraphrasingPaul’s lyrics in ‘The Pound Is Sinking’, where he sings ‘hear me,lover/I can’t be held responsible now/for something that didn’thappen/I knew you for a minute/oh, it didn’t happen/no, only for aminute/your heart just wasn’t in it anymore’ (probably you knowthis, but just for background…).

So,just let me like riff on my interpretation a little, and don’t be toooffended if I get off track, it’s all related in my head:

Incomparison to the kind of nether-world of John and Paul’srelationship with each other, we can maybe look at theirrelationships with their (eventual) wives to see what wouldconstitute, at least in Paul’s mind, something that actually'happened’. No matter what we think DID happen between John and Paul,it was clearly never a 100% fully fledged relationship, right? Theynever got married, they never bought a house together, they nevermade each other breakfast every morning, they never adopted kids,etc. They never actually ran away together – at least not withoutcoming back. Paul wrote those lyrics after 10 years of marriage withLinda and 4 kids, and in comparison to that level of day in, day outcommitment, whatever John and Paul had is something that onlysemi-happened, or only happened for a minute (or happened in 'anotherlifetime’ or 'was I just dreaming or was it only yesterday?’).

Awhole range of possibilities exists for what their relationshipactually was (I have another ask that I am trying to formulate aresponse to that will be more along those lines), and so these lyricscan be interpreted a lot of different ways…but essentially…nomatter how far they went with each other, romantically or sexually, Idon’t think either of them ever got quite what they wanted out ofeach other, you know? Neither of them was ever fully satisfied by it– there was always SOMETHING in their relationship that was out ofreach – unattainable – whether because of their ownpersonalities, conflicting demands and desires, fame on a level noone could possibly understand (I mean…really…the ENORMOUSpsychological pressure on them is simply unfathomable and somethingwe should always try to have deep, deep empathy for), exteriorpressures, homophobia, the hard slog of being in a band together,jealousy, competition (!!), differing drug habits, etc.  

Like,I think we can get a pretty clear idea of WHAT John wanted out of arelationship by comparing his relationships with Paul and Yoko. Whydid John swap Paul for Yoko? Presumably because he was gettingsomething from Yoko, at least in the first couple of years of theirrelationship, that he COULD NOT get from Paul, or wouldn’t ask forfrom Paul, or couldn’t expect from Paul. Paul was never going to beat his beck-and-call 24/7; Paul was never going to go on about himbeing a genius without also expecting him to actually producegenius-level work; Paul was never going to BLOW UP everything theyhad built, their whole world, for John, on an impulse; he was nevergoing to tear the Beatles apart for John; he was never going todevolve into junkie-ism for John; he was never going to stop writinggreat songs because it made John jealous when he did; he was nevergoing to stop being the prince of swinging London because it madeJohn feel stultified in comparison; he was never going to…put hiscock on the front of an album, or mail back his MBE, or put on artshows that are designed solely to rile/exasperate/pull-one-over-onpeople (Paul’s art, in contrast, is almost always 'invitational’). IfJohn was into his 'great debunker’ mode in '68, Paul could not be hispartner in that – but Yoko could, since she never put in thefucking hard work of building their Empire (though she has happilyreaped, for decades, the benefits of what she helped destroy).

(Also– Paul could never stop being a man in order to bolster John’smasculinity, or to quiet his gay panic, or lessen his probablepost-Brian-dying existential crisis about what-the-fuck theirrelationship, or any gay relationship, could ever be. A best friendwho you can fuck but is also a woman (so it’s alright)? That’simpossible for Paul, he can only go two-for-three there.

Also,not unimportantly – for all John described Yoko as a genius, blahblah blah, she was NEVER EVER going to write a number one hit. Youknow? She was NEVER actually competition for him – he never wasgoing to look at her and be like, “Gosh, I like your songs on thisalbum better than mine…”, LOL. Yoko and his post-Beatles work wasa way of REMOVING himself from the game – how better to escape fromthe pressure of coming up with another Ticket to Ride than byproducing Life with the Lions, or whatever-the-fuck? He TALKED a shitload about his genius after the Beatles were over – but by thatpoint his genius (which was being the leader of a ROCK 'N’ ROLL BAND,btw, in case anyone (Yoko) ever forgets) was atrophying. The world will never love Yoko the way it loves John or Paul, which allows John to win that competition BY DEFAULT -- with no effort! -- while also getting to play a bit of a martyr vis-a-vis her and her treatment by the press/society/fans.

Also, Iwould compare what Paul was able to get from Linda to what he gotfrom John (it’s a valid comparison, obviously – Linda and John werevery different Libras), but doing so doesn’t quite make sense here,since Paul never actually made a choice between John and Linda. WhatPaul chose Linda over was dying – literally fucking dying – of abroken heart.)

So,having hashed out some dynamics or dysfunctions that were presumablypresent no matter what 'level’ their relationship went to, and whichpresumably drove them apart, you’re probably saying…what the fuck,dude? Because all of this is sort of putting the cart before thehorse, right? Since John’s impulse to do all of theseBeatle/Paul-ruining things, which necessitated 'Yoko boat’ ratherthan 'Paul boat’, had to come from somewhere…

Myactual shortened timeline-sort-of view of their relationship and myCONJECTURE on how it may have happened: sometime between 1964 ('If IFell’) and May 1968 they moved into a semi-stable phase of theirrelationship which is semi-explicitly romantic (the sexualinterplay/experimentation presumably far pre-dates this period, maybedating back to their first months together ('Baby Elvis’ – John wasphysically/sexually knocked-the-fuck-out by Paul from the start)), inaddition to being ten dozen other things. One or both of them mayharbor the notion at this point that some day – when the demands ofBeatlemania are done, when things are more settled, when they haveaged out of fucking around so much, when they buy an island, when thepress hounds them less, when homosexuality is more destigmatized inaddition to being decriminalized (1967 in Britain, which may playinto this) – they will be in a yet more stable, more exclusive &more serious relationship.

Atsome point it becomes clear to one or both of them that this is notgoing to happen: Brian dies which fucks everything up (nothingharshes a buzz like death, especially the death of one’s gay mentor, which may then precipitate a decisively un-gay turnaround), Paul gets engagedto Jane in a last ditch effort to save their relationship, and Pauland John as-a-couple fizzle out. Possibly it’s even amicable atfirst, like they’ve agreed to put it on hold because they acknowledgethat they can’t give each other what they want – which wouldexplain why Paul is so docile and accepting of the Yoko thing atfirst. Not only does he not think it will last (another of John’swhims – Chip Madinger puts the Two Virgins recording on the VERYSAME DAY that John announces that he is Jesus fucking Christ! (*)) andmaybe it’s actually in-line with what they’ve agreed to, but Paulalso doesn’t yet understand that John will at some point becomewilling to destroy the whole dang thing, all-or-nothing, 'if we can’tbe lovers we’ll never be friends’, etc.

Withouttheir being lovers, all the little resentments John has towards Paul– over leadership, talent, looks, personality, music, etc, that heis able to overlook when they’re fucking – boil over. If John’sperception becomes that Paul has managed to wrest the band away fromhim by sexually manipulating him (**), then that’s one more reason forhim to now try to assert his dominance – by foisting Yoko on all ofthem, which only drives home further how not-the-leader he is (in hisown mind), since if he WERE the leader, they would accept her(especially because he thinks she’s cool, and they generally thinkeverything he thinks is cool is cool!). Having Yoko nearby all thetime also conveniently keeps Paul-and-his-sexual-wiles away from Johnand gives him a continuous alternate sexual outlet. For John to’re-take’ the leadership position (which has always actually been aco-leadership, of course, since the moment John and Paul were theones wearing matching blazers while everyone else had plain shirts)would require that he start writing better songs than Paul – onlynow he’s too heroin-addled to effectively do so and he’s got writer’sblock something major, so instead he withdraws further into Yoko andheroin and non-communication. At the point where Paul is begging himon bended knee – writing Oh Darling for him and then repeatedlyTELLING him it’s for him – Paul is at his lowest point yet and he is STILL writing more songs than John andpretty soon he’s refusing to go along with Klein, too, which onlyfurthers the resentment. And especially if Paul’s love andprotectiveness towards the band partially caused him to put thebrakes on the relationship with John, what better way for John toessentially fuck with Paul and get all his latent heartbreak anddisappointment out than to leave Paul with nothing by destroying theband, too?

(*) John really seems to have experienced a BREAK with reality at this point, and it’s bizarre how rarely this is explicated in discussions of him finally getting together with Yoko. After years of compulsively drinking/drugging they go to India where, at least at the start of things, John is STONE COLD SOBER and meditating for hours on end – anyone’s psyche would be shaken up by this! And then Paul LEAVES – which, even if it wasn’t precipitated by any argument or whatever (I’m agnostic on this), had to be massively destabilizing for John because suddenly he has HOURS to ruminate on Paul and their relationship and what he is and isn’t getting from it, and he no longer has Paul actually physically there to ground him, both in reality generally and in his Paul-ness and how essentially lovable and fascinating and alluring John finds him and will always find him. 

(**)Paul may well have been the first guy that John was physically turnedon by – bisexuals supposedly realize their same-sex attractionslater than their opposite-sex ones and comparatively later than gaypeople do – but moreover Paul seems to have SET and embodied thepattern of John’s male attractions for the rest of his life. Not fornothing was John’s intended panty-dropper line to Tony Manarosupposedly 'you’re prettier than Paul’. Practically every rumor I’veever seen of John’s sexual encounters with males in his later yearsemphasizes that he liked PRETTY BOYS (and who’s the toppermost of thepretty boy heap?). So if John was conflicted about his attraction tomen, it makes sense that he might manage to blame that on Paul, too.

Hopefully this makes a slight bit of sense…at any point in there at all, lol. Feel free to ask me again if I didn’t quite hit the mark or if you want clarification. :)