Okay but it's super interesting how
Din = Power = Ganondorf
Naryu = Wisdom = Zelda
Farore = Courage = Link.
Because Din, in the hylian creation myth, created the physical world. Naryu then created the laws - gravity, time, etc. And Farore finally created life - plants and people.
Din created the body, naryu the mind, Farore the soul.
And the triforce and its wielders so perfectly reflect that.
Ganon is physical power, he is big and intimidating and he breaks things. He is cunning and determined, but that's not what he focuses on. He is might makes right.
Zelda is wisdom and cleverness. She is stall tactics and information and team work. She is a powerful mage with a spine of steel, but that's not how she'll win. She is the pen being mightier than the sword.
Link is courage and persistence. He is the wild card sneaking behind enemy ranks, always moving, plunging into terrifying situations head first. He's a phenomenal fighter with a keen wit, but that's not what will get him through his challenges. He is bravery not being the absence of fear but the triumph over it.
They sit in perfect parallels to each other.
And ganon is reborn through his body - his resurrection is immortality. No matter how low he is cast, as long as he has a body he can claw his way back. He can cling to his power, build it ever higher.
Zelda is reborn through the magic of her bloodline. It's the accumulated knowledge handed down for generations, the unique power she must master, the skills she must develop to survive and get her kingdom out the other side intact. Even her name, the knowledge of herself, is handed down from all the way from the very first. Her ancestors knowledge of her future presence, her stability, is what gives her the edge.
Link is reborn in spirit. He is not bound by flesh or blood. Just like his wanderlust soul he can reappear in any time or place. His variation, his unpredictability, is exactly how he fights. It's what makes him so hard to pin down.
Ganons need to build strength means he can't chase after link. Links impulsiveness means zelda can outwit him. Zeldas stationary predictability means she's an easy target for ganon.
But the other direction?
Fire melts ice, ice redirects lightning, lightning burns fire.
And that's the very essence of the triforce.
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i feel your pain about dot and bubble 😭😭😭 white people understand the worlds most obvious race allegory and racism challenge (impossible)
It Was Not Subtle. Jesus Christ.
ive typed out like four or five different paragraphs about it and deleted them because i just can’t put into words the experience of watching that episode After knowing how everyone reacted to it on airing. there was some part of me that was being overly generous in thinking that Maybe there really was something missable about this, but i’ve seen it now. it’s. you can’t. you can’t possibly miss it. it’s there from minute one and it’s so viscerally uncomfortable being Stuck with lindy while she constantly insults the doctor and ignores him and. god. god.
i think it was the right choice, for the episode, to stage it from lindy’s pov. but i’m also so so aware that it’s putting things from her perspective that’s got to be making some people just. able to be willfully ignorant about it. and i think the sudden wave of ricky september love is the most telling bit because. the thing about ricky. is that lindy likes him. is that he saves her. is that he’s kind and reassuring and sweet to her.
and the thing about ricky is that the one time we see him interact with the doctor. he can’t even look at him except for the one moment where he’s telling the doctor to stop being condescending to him. the same way lindy did earlier.
at the end, it’s very easy for people to turn on lindy. ‘yeah, of course, lindy’s a bitch, lindy’s racist, we all see that now! unlike ricky, who would have changed.’ it feels like. people very easily could cut themselves off from the nasty parts of lindy, proclaim Well, I Would Never Be Like Her, while refusing to acknowledge that they are still empathizing mainly with her and her pov. just pretending that that pov can be taken away from her racism. does that make sense? i’m not sure i’m wording it correctly.
because the episode i watched, i know that last scene wouldn’t have changed if it was lindy or ricky there. the only difference would be that ricky wouldn’t look at the doctor while he was telling him it was his duty to save them but that he was not one of them. lindy was bold enough in her ignorance and hatred to not care. so. idk. closing thoughts, tldr, what a good fucking episode. shame about the people who think the only thing you have to do to not be racist is to be ashamed and aware of it as you continue on acting the same way you would have before.
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One part of “Aftermath” I don’t think I’ll ever get over is that Hunter, Wrecker, Echo, Tech, and Omega were on their way to get Crosshair when Crosshair walked into that hangar. The way we talk about it in the fandom is as though they left Crosshair behind in that first episode so they could rescue Omega, as though they traded him for her, but that’s. Not. What. Happened.
They go back to Kamino to grab Omega despite the risk, because they think she belongs with them, yes, but also because they’re still confident. They haven’t failed a mission yet. And —and this is important—because she said she wanted to go with them, and they take that into account.
And, of course, they immediately get captured, taken to the brig, they find Omega, Crosshair fires off about following orders—his new favorite hobby that he only picked up in the last week(1)—the guards come to take Crosshair away, and Hunter puts himself between Crosshair and the guards and says No. Absolutely not. We stay together, we’re a set, do not separate, and then—
—Crosshair gets up and leaves. And the rest of the batch probably doesn’t fully understand why.
Now, I personally think that Crosshair’s decision to leave was multifaceted. I do think the chip programming had something to do with it. It’s telling him that Hunter’s made bad call after bad call since Kaller, and that the smart thing to do would be to just comply with whatever the empire wants. He’s also deeply frustrated with the rest of his squad, though he probably doesn’t know why he suddenly disagrees with them so much. And I also think that Crosshair didn’t want anyone else in his family to get hurt. He’s got his hackles raised and he’s ready to pounce when that one guard hits Hunter in the gut; he knows that they’re going to take him one way or another, so best to do it in a way that doesn’t end with the rest of his squad getting shot. All of that is in play in Crosshair’s decision to get up and go with the guards willingly, but all the rest of the batch knows is that he does it.
It’s even possible that their initial read on Crosshair’s decision is mostly in line with the last thing I listed—that Crosshair does it to keep the rest of them from getting hurt. It’s also possible that their read on it was that Crosshair was upset. But it probably doesn’t matter. The first thing—the first thing out of Hunter’s mouth when they break out of the brig is, “We need to find out where they took Crosshair.” The only reason they go to the hangar at all is to grab their gear so they have a better chance of getting him without dying on the way. They suit up, Hunter tells Tech to get the ship ready for a speedy getaway, and no sooner does he add that the rest of them are going to get Crosshair that Crosshair walks in. When Crosshair walks in—what he sees of them, and what they see of him informs every single interaction they have through the rest of the series.
First, what they see of him. Crosshair’s chip is activated. He’s just been electroshocked into submission and had that chip’s programming ramped up to twenty. He’s not in control of his thoughts or actions, but the only two people who have any inkling that that’s the case are Tech, who’s powering up the ship and not in the room, and Omega, who is a Child and about to be shot at for the first time in her life. The rest of them have no idea. All they know is that Crosshair is standing there wearing a new set of armor, leading a new squad, with a new rank, telling them to stand down and looking oh so pleased with himself as he clarifies that that is, in fact, an order. At the time, while Crosshair is monologuing about how they need to come quietly and how Hunter can’t see the bigger picture, it must look to them like the reason Crosshair left in that earlier scene was because he wanted to leave the squad. We, the audience, know that’s not true, but the rest of the batch doesn’t, especially given what they’re seeing at the time.
And then Crosshair starts shooting. It looks to them like he’s trying to kill them, and its not just empty. As much as Crosshair surely doesn’t want to, as much as Crosshair probably hates himself for this later on when he’s more in control, he shoots Wrecker. And unlike earlier in the episode, when Wrecker got shot during the battle simulation, Wrecker isn’t able to eventually get back up and keep fighting. Wrecker’s down. It’s all Hunter and Echo can do to just drag him onto the ship, and the only reason they even manage that is because Omega manages to shoot Crosshair’s rifle out of his hand; they don’t have the manpower to subdue Crosshair and drag him on board as well, not without potentially getting themselves or Crosshair (or Wrecker) killed. They don’t leave Crosshair behind for Omega’s sake or because they got in one argument and wrote him off here. They leave him because, in that moment, it looks for all the world like Crosshair does not want to go with them, like he suddenly wants them dead or captured, and they’re just trying to get out of there alive.
And what he sees of them…gah. There’s a split second, blink-and-you-miss-it moment when Crosshair first walks in, sees them, and he looks terrified. He knows what he’s about to do, and he hates it, and he probably doesn’t know WHY he hates it, because his programming has to be screaming at him that what he’s about to do is right. Good soldiers follow orders. But the part of Crosshair that’s still himself, the part that’s still aware, still able to differentiate his own mind from the chip’s programming here in the early days after order 66, that part is yelling back that he doesn’t want to hurt them, but he can’t stop it. He doesn’t have that capacity. And that has to rip him apart here. The things he must have had to tell himself later just to cope.
But also—what he sees when he walks in? He sees the Marauder powering up. He sees everyone suiting up and grabbing their gear. He has to think—the thought has to cross his mind—that they’re leaving without him. And they’re not, they were literally on their way to rescue him, that was the next move, that was the plan, the only reason they don’t go through with it is because he walks in, starts shooting, and Wrecker almost dies, but Crosshair doesn’t know that. He wasn’t there to hear Hunter say that was the plan, no more than the rest of the batch was there so see what Nala Se and Tarkin did to him.
The worst part? None of them know about the parts they missed yet(2). Hunter, Wrecker, Echo, Tech, and Omega still don’t know what happened to Crosshair after the guards took him away. Crosshair still doesn’t know the others were coming for him. And I’m really curious about what’s going to happen if, and maybe when, they all get that context.
1. “Aftermath” takes place over at least several days, meaning Crosshair’s chip has been partially active and working its way into his thought processes the entire time.
2. I also think that part of the reason why things between Hunter and Crosshair are so broken is not because either (or neither) of them is willing to see things from the other’s point of view, but because both of them understands the other’s point of view a little too well, but in a way that lacks necessary context. Hunter probably understands that Crosshair has every reason to hate him, every reason to feel bitter and betrayed, and, honestly, Hunter probably agrees with Crosshair in that regard, and hates himself because of it. But Hunter also doesn’t know that Crosshair was never trying to kill them of his own free will and that he was therefore never bitter enough to actually want to hurt them. And Crosshair probably completely understands that Hunter has every reason to distrust him and to have completely given up hope that he might come home, and he probably hates himself for everything the chip made him do. But Crosshair doesn’t know that his family was, in fact, coming back for him and that Hunter is furious with himself for having left Crosshair behind. If they both ever had those gaps filled in they’d maybe both realize that, for all their hurt and misunderstanding, neither of them has ever hated the other. I desperately need them to sit down and talk. And then hug. And to break down weeping. Give me that catharsis I am BEGGING THIS DAMN SHOW.
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