#here you have a recurring death/life/rebirth motif

[glasscandywitch]

gankutsuou + death and the maiden - egon schiele

[armorsleevedsinglehit]

the huge shippuden music meta

no one asked for this but i’m gonna write it anyway. i’m going to focus primarily on the shippuden soundtrack here, but expect some references to the original series soundtrack as well. also before i begin i know approximately two (2) music so some of my terminology is probably going to be incorrect lol, it’s been a while since college. this is a general shippuden meta but it does focus on the uchiha clan, in particular sasuke and madara.

anyway, to start off, you can pretty easily divide the shippuden soundtrack into a few general categories:

traditional and/or acoustic

electric guitar tracks

some combination of these, plus orchestra hits aplenty

there are a few odd ducks here and there, but no worries, we’ll get to them. and then within these general categories we have a series of recurring character motifs (which can be a bit muddled, because certain themes are used for multiple characters. i assume that naruto (the show) isn’t necessarily scored the way a film would be, and so the directors just slapped whatever dramatic/sad/upbeat music they could find onto a scene, esp if it’s a filler ep, which definitely generates some confusion.) but characters and groups in shippuden DO sort of get their own motifs and themes, so here is my very basic list of those as well:

uzumaki clan and its descendants/allies: “emergence of talents/hyakkaryōran” has a very cool melody towards the end that comes back in “narukami/weeping god” and “shoryu/rising dragon”. we can basically call this the protagonist theme. naruto, sakura, kakashi, jiraiya, most of the konoha 11, and even minato get to claim this one. however, VERY interestingly, narukami is what plays when tobi (as madara) is telling sasuke about the glory days of the uchiha clan... possibly hinting at greater connections between the two clans???????????

akatsuki-related themes: i won’t link a ton of these because they’re super obvious. they’re often full of choir and organ (harkening back to orochimaru’s original series theme); they also tend to be slower. not always, though; look at crimson flames, a slapper if i ever heard one. prime example of akatsuki themes: girei, my FAVORITE bit of the shippuden soundtrack. UGH.

general shippuden themes: things like hurricane suite, heaven-shaking event, etc. most of the first ost goes in here. this category also contains the closest approximation to hashirama’s theme that i could find, experienced many battles and departure to the front lines, which both make me cry lol

there are other fun little motifs and bits and bobs that appear in this soundtrack that i won’t get into here for length (remind me to talk about the angelic herald of death sometime), but it’s a remarkably cohesive piece of work to the point where it gets repetitive sometimes; why are all the super interesting tracks unreleased!!!!??? anyway the purpose of this meta is to attempt to make sense of the way this soundtrack works. we’ll investigate sasuke primarily because i feel that he really ties the whole soundtrack together, and you can extrapolate a lot from the way his theme evolves.

sasuke’s theme (wandering/hyouhaku), yes the dramatic cowboy music theme, is this wonderfully atmospheric track that makes use of the kind of negative space between guitar strums to build up this aura, this Essence of Sasuke. this alone makes it stand apart from other mostly-acoustic pieces on the soundtrack, to me. the whole thing is just humming with this simmering frustration and melancholy and it really gives you a sense of sasuke as this tortured figure who has been severely wronged and experienced the world’s faults firsthand. notably, this version of sasuke’s theme lifts its opening notes (and structure, sorta) from sasuke’s original series theme, which i assume was on purpose. it shows that he’s grown jaded as he got older, i think.

anyway, as the inevitable battle between sasuke and itachi draws closer, we get our first variation on sasuke’s theme: black spot/kokuten. it has the same melody and structure as before, but features heavier guitars, more orchestration, and, in the final bars, notes that previously fell on 1 and 4 but now fall on 1 and 3, which bring a heightened sense of urgency to the whole thing. and more importantly, it ends without resolving itself? it leaves us hanging on this almost call-and-response bit with one wailing guitar after another, before winding the orchestration down and fizzling back down to the level of “wandering.” here we see a sasuke in progress, if you will, working towards a goal that some may find sinister, but he is determined if nothing else, and the instruments match his fervor. it’s roughly analogous to “crimson flames” in terms of intensity, but it’s very distinctly Sasuke.

there are several more variations of sasuke’s theme floating around, but the next one i want to talk about is this one called “sasuke’s ninja way,” apparently, never officially released but relentlessly employed by the anime directors. it takes a more subtle turn than “black spot,” but i don’t see it as a direct sequel to “wandering” for a few different reasons. i think it represents the dilemma sasuke found himself after finally killing itachi and learning the truth about him: the realization that this whole quest for power of his was never really about revenge on one specific person, but rather about reforming the shinobi world as a whole. it’s slower than “black spot,” yet darker, more ominous; it treads the same general path as “wandering” but with added electric guitar, and, notably, choir. recall that choir is often used for themes related to the akatsuki, which i think ties in neatly with sasuke’s motivations at this point. he, like nagato before him, wants to remake the world.

the final iteration of sasuke’s theme, “sasuke’s revolution/junkyousha,” brings it all together. the akatsuki is commonly represented through choir and organ, and this theme starts out with both of these cranked up to the max. this is (pardon the pun) sasuke’s rebirth, if you will. just combine the intensity of “girei,” the anger of “crimson flames,” and the determination of “emergence of talents” and you’re there. seriously: this culmination of sasuke’s character development basically pulls from every single facet of the soundtrack and produces this MASSIVELY rich piece full of anger and rage and hate and fury, while STILL managing to include the twangy guitar bits from “wandering” (which have gone back to 1 and 4!!). we also have someone going ham on a shamisen towards the end of the track, which calls to mind the shamisen solo from “emergence of talents” and other tracks. hinting at an eventual compromise with naruto, possibly?

anyway, i started out this meta trying to find a piece of the soundtrack that could serve as madara’s theme, but i wasn’t sure that one existed. i think the susano’o has a theme, and the uchiha clan has a theme, but....madara just doesn’t?? sure there are unreleased tracks like “legendary uchiha,” but i’d argue that doesn’t really go into his character as much as it just says “watch out for this fucking guy.”

but then i listened to hurricane suite one more time, and i was like HOLY SHIT THIS IS IT. for one thing, it’s long as fuck: this track is a whole journey. it really gives the impression of someone who has lived an impossibly long life and become jaded and cruel and hardened. i realize that the argument could be made that hurricane suite is sasuke’s theme, not madara’s, or that it’s a general shippuden theme and doesn’t represent one character in particular. and yes, i think both of these interpretations are correct. hurricane suite represents what sasuke could POTENTIALLY turn out to be, given his evolution from “wandering” to “black spot” to “sasuke’s ninja way” all the way to “sasuke’s revolution.” hurricane suite warns us that sasuke can (and very well may!) make the same mistakes madara did and end up destroying himself in the process. (the middle of “hurricane suite” GREATLY resembles “wandering.”) and recall that hurricane suite is used in the very first episode of shippuden: the episode where naruto encounters sasuke for the first time, AND- are you ready for this- when madara’s name is dropped for the first time in the series.

this is why i think that, along with it being a general shippuden theme, hurricane suite is also madara’s theme. shippuden as a whole is practically suffocating under the oppressive weight of madara’s presence, right from the very first episode. even before he’s introduced, he is VERY much there. so much of madara’s character is established before he even shows up. we hear so much about him from other characters (kurama, itachi, obito, hashirama), and as such our view of madara changes drastically over the course of the series. and guess what plays when itachi shows sasuke that genjutsu of madara stealing izuna’s eyes?

anyway, in my opinion and in my interpretation of the character, the music fits him perfectly. it starts out all low and choral with these slow ominous drums and deep strings, and this violin comes in that sounds like it’s weeping. we hear something like a heartbeat that grows darker over time, before the music comes to some sort of resolution, an inflection point, and the brass comes in heavy. NOW we’re dealing with the orchestra, three quarters of the way into the song, and we’ve got strings and drums set to a marching pace, more choral chanting, climbing strings and shamisen tumbling down the scales. it sounds like grief!!

and note that yes, this track is used in the very first episode of shippuden, during naruto and sasuke’s first encounter. but it is ALSO used during the scene in hashirama’s flashback when izuna is mortally wounded and madara makes the decision to abandon the clan on the battlefield to take care of him, despite his better judgment and hashirama’s offering of peace. the inflection point in the music represents a very real inflection point in madara’s life: the loss of his last brother. (it always comes back to that, doesn’t it.)

[atamascolily]

One of the exercises in Julia Cameron’s The Vein of Gold is to compile a list of favorite movies--or ones with images that resonate with you--and note any patterns that arise. Here are some of mine, with observations below.

(For the purposes of this exercise, I’m sticking with live-action films, but there’s no reason why there couldn’t be animated films.)

1. Star Wars Original Trilogy (Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi)

(Yes, I know this is technically three films, with three different directors and independent histories, but I didn’t feel like listing them all separately.)

2. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

Ironically, I love the first Peter Jackson movie, but not any of the subsequent ones. Which is not to say they’re necessarily bad movies, but they’re not the ones I’d want on endless loop. (Part of this is because The Two Towers and The Return of the King are essentially war movies, and also because I have to watch Faramir act OOC, which hurts my soul.)

3. The Secret Garden

4. The Matrix

I actually don’t have strong feelings about Reloaded and Revolutions--like, the actual plot is weird, but I am so not watching these films for plot.

5. Return to Oz

6. Inception

7. Labyrinth

8. The Terminator

Don’t get me wrong, Terminator 2 has a lot going for it, but it’s not the one that I can’t stop thinking about (except for that one deleted scene with Michael Biehn, which is a totally different story).

Thoughts and Themes:

So at first glance, it seems like I have two separate categories: ‘80s and ‘90s-’00s films. Or maybe it’s sci-fi and fantasy? The Secret Garden is the only one that even approaches some kind of realism, and even that is a pastoral kind of world that would not be out of place in the more peaceful parts of, say, Middle-Earth (especially Fourth Age). How about high-tech vs. low-tech, or cyberpunk vs. fairy tale? Or, even better, what about reality vs. illusion (or story vs. truth if you prefer)--which is also a major tension within every film on this list?

I’ll also note that most of these films have an epic color palette, with memorable landscapes that either serve as characters in and of themselves, or symbolize the mental states of various characters. These films are beautiful works of art, reveling in The Aesthetic, whether that’s the idyllic peacefulness of the Shire or the grimy back alleys of 1980s Los Angeles.

The thing that really got me when I laid it out like this--the thing I hadn’t noticed before--was that all of these involve a (sometimes literal) rebirth, transition, or journey from darkness to light (or light to darkness to light again, depending on the work). You could also substitute life and death here, and not change much.

This is, again, often quite literal: Sarah moves underground in Labyrinth, the Fellowship descends into the Mines of Moria, the secret garden comes to life with the spring, Dorothy confronts the Nome King in his underground lair. Neo wakes up to find himself naked and soaked to the skin, and flushed down the tubes like garbage, in a literal hellscape where the machines destroyed the sun (a motif that also appears in Terminator’s dystopian future), then literally dies and is resurrected at the end of the film. Luke goes underground to confront his own double--another recurring theme!--on Dagobah.

Duality and the exploration of one’s soul through another world is HUGE  big theme--or, to put it another way, The internal mirrors the external. This is a huge motif of Inception, which is a literal inward journey into a character’s psyche; and you could also make the argument that both Return to Oz and Labyrinth cover similar territory. Is Oz real, or is it in Dorothy’s head? Is Ozma a part of her, or is Ozma a separate entity? Is Jareth a real foe or is he the embodiment of Sarah’s fears and desires, a fantasy she concocts based on a story in a book?  And Frodo realizes he’s not so different from Gollum, that the sad shriveled creature is what he could become if he fails at his task--and, ironically, his kindness to Gollum is what allows the quest to succeed when Frodo finally succumbs to temptation.

Frodo in the The Fellowship of the Ring sees the world differently when he wears the One Ring, and it’s terrifying. Sarah Connor realizes that she’s left her ordinary world behind and crossed into Kyle and the Terminator’s reality in a moving speech, and The Matrix doesn’t even try to be subtle. Even The Secret Garden uses the eponymous garden as a metaphor for the blossoming of Mary’s own soul, and the souls of those around her (especially her uncle and cousin, but also Ben Weatherstaff).

These stories are also concerned with ecology, though it’s usually a background motif, since the main focus is on saving the world (or what’s left of it, i.e, humans). The Shire is paradise; Mordor is a desolate hellscape, dominated by a giant volcano. Kyle Reese breaks down over the beauty of the world, and Mary Lennox seeks to bring the lost garden back to life. Dorothy retreats elsewhere after the grey grimness of Kansas/the mental hospital.

There’s also a real tension concerning humans’ relationship to technology in these films. The Matrix is an illusion, and machines control the earth. Or the machines don’t even bother farming humans and aim to kill ‘em all. Saruman literally transforms Isengard from a tree-lined field to an industrial hellscape. The mental institution uses that freaky electrical machine on Dorothy. Star Wars is more accepting of droids and technology, but even there, there’s tension: Obi-wan calls Darth Vader “more machine than man,” and it’s not a compliment; the Death Star is built to obliterate entire planets and must be stopped twice.

I’d argue this theme goes deeper than human/tech--it’s really human/other, with technology providing one kind of other. There’s human-alien interactions in Star Wars and Labyrinth, not to mention Mary’s relationship with the robin in The Secret Garden, Dorothy’s friendship with Jack Pumpkinhead and the Gump. On a less friendly note, Frodo’s relationship with Gollum is the emotional crux of the Lord of the Rings.

These films also feature the classic hero’s journey, but often through a female lens. The protagonist usually has no special skills other than their strong moral character and determination--or even if they do have skills (like Ariadne*), they still serve as an audience surrogate or substitute, a stranger to the new worlds they visit. The protagonist has at least one faithful friend/companion/love interest to help them (sometimes even a team/found family), and often a mentor as well (who may or may not be a crusty eccentric). In the end, the characters must take control of their own destiny--Frodo chooses to leave the Fellowship, Luke throws away his lightsaber rather than kill his father, Sarah declares to Jareth “You have no power over me”. Sarah Connor yells, “On your feet, soldier!” and keeps going to the bitter end, and Mary Lennox is unafraid of her bratty cousin’s wrath and puts a stop to it when everyone else enables him.

*(As an aside, I know Ariadne��s not the main character in Inception, but I find the actual main character way less interesting, so she’s the one I focus on, just like I find Trinity far more compelling than Neo.)

Characters often have Meaningful Names: Morpheus, Trinity, Neo; Ariadne; Luke Skywalker, Han Solo. These films also feature a question of fate and inevitability - Luke has precognitive visions, Neo consults the Oracle, Sarah is told “there is no fate but what we make for ourselves,” with Kyle serving as an oracle of sorts with messages from the future to come. The Mirror of Galadriel shows possible futures for the Shire, too.

Another theme is that the protagonist must suffer and/or work hard for their transformation. Mary has to do the actual work of gardening; Luke has to sweat and do handstands (beautifully, I might add); Frodo has to walk to Mount Doom; Sarah has to walk the labyrinth, and Sarah Connor has to survive a fucking nightmare. Dorothy has to rescue the royal family of Ev and free Ozma; Ariadne has to design a dream-puzzle for the heist to work. Even Neo has to train with Morpheus--though he’s able to use cheat codes to download martial arts directly into his brain without having to sweat for it; his real journey is in self-confidence. 

In keeping with the stunning visuals, impossible feats are regularly featured, and excellent, cutting-edge-for-their-time special effects are prominent. Many also feature stunning fight scenes--the classic Luke vs. Vader duel on Cloud City; the “I know Kung fu” sequence in The Matrix; the clashes in The Fellowship of the Ring. Jareth has some excellent moves in Labyrinth, too, although he’s more inclined to dance than traditional battles.

I couldn’t resist contrasting my favorite moment in Return to Oz--rescuing Ozma from the mirror prison--with Ariadne shattering her own reflection in Inception, because that is such a moment for me, encapsulating all of the reality/illusion, internal/external, self/other dichotomies I mentioned above. (See also the Mirror of Galadriel above.) Inception and Labyrinth also share the motif of impossible Escher staircases, which I freakin’ adore.

It will probably come as no surprise to note that I also enjoyed films like The Dark Crystal, The Neverending Story,  and What Dreams May Come, which tap into similar themes and imagery. You’ll probably be able to guess that The Sword in the Stone is my favorite animated Disney film, too.

I also love a number of Asian films like Hero, House of Flying Daggers, and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, all of which feature beautiful landscapes and color palettes, stunning fight scenes and special effects, along with a healthy dose of the fantastic, and a focus on story vs. reality (often with a plot twist or surprise reveal at the end). This is unsurprising when you consider the strong debt both Star Wars and The Matrix owe to Asian cinema in terms of style, plot, and aesthetic. In those films, the tension is more society vs. self, but duality is still very strongly present.

If you notice any other patterns or recurring themes, let me know; I’d love to hear them! Also, if you can think of any other movies I might enjoy based on this, let me know.

[racefortheironthrone]

Thoughts on House of X#2

I fell way behind on writing these even as I devoured each issue, so I thought I might as well knock these off as the HoX/PoX miniseries come to an end and the “Dawn of X” looms over the horizon. (Also I did a re-read recently and it got my mind buzzing.) 

So let’s get into it!

Moira’s Ten Lives:

It turns out that, like everyone else, I was sort of right/wrong about time travel shenanigans. It’s technically a semi-stable time loop, but I’m not about to quibble. (Incidentally, on a re-read one of the things that’s been really impressive to see with the benefit of hindsight is the way in which Hickman et al. top each issue with the newest high concept or reveal, like some mad plate-spinning act.)

Here’s how the individual lives break down:

Life 1: 

Because everything in this life takes place prior to the activation of her mutant gene (which, talk about a hell of an additive retcon), Moira’s first life is a romanticized, bucolic portrait of innocence not corrupted by worldly knowledge. The emphasis is strongly on family and nature (note the tree motif, which isn’t as prominent as the tower motif but still) as opposed to scientific pursuits.

On the other hand, you definitely get the sense that the perfect nature of this life is a distortion caused by nostalgia, as we’ll see in the next life.

Life 2:

Moira reincarnates for the first time with full knowledge of her previous life, which for all that HoX/PoX has been analyzed through the lens of both Christian and Jewish theology, can’t help but draw from Hindu and Buddhist thought.

One key aspect of her power is that Moira is given an enormous developmental leg up, being born with all of the skills of a grown adult. Suprisingly, we don’t actually get to see Moira make much use of some of the broader implications of her mutant power.

As a good scientist, Moira uses observation and experimentation to prove to herself that her memories are real and that she can change the future through her actions, two critical pieces of information.

Speaking of Buddhism, Moira’s “curse” concept is tied to the Second Noble Truth, that suffering comes from attachment. In this case, Moira’s problem is an attachment to her memories of her idealized first life: when she meets Kenneth Cowan for the second time, the emotional connection isn’t there because her foreknowledge of her first life changes her perceptions.  

At the same time, I wonder how much of her reaction to this upheaval is due to her realizing that her first life wasn’t as perfect as she thought it was (the flaws she focuses on), or that she herself has changed and isn’t content to live and die as a rural schoolteacher.

In this timeline, Charles decides to come out of the closet as a mutant on national television, which is a different tack to how he’s approached pro-mutant activism in the past, although there is a common theme of putting his faith in public debate. Sadly a faith that will be broken. 

Despite her misgivings about her own mutant gifts, Moira decides to fly to America to meet Charles...and dies in a plane crash. I wonder how much of her heel turn in life 3 is due to the Kenneth Cowan issue and how much of it comes from her experiencing violent death for the first time?

Life 3:

In Moira’s third life, she turns sharply away from Charles (nicely symbolized by her turning away on a pub stool) to try to cure the mutant gene, which brings her face-to-mask with Destiny, who is the closest thing that this issue has to an antagonist (at least in the sense an outside force acting on Moira and changing her behavior).

The conversation between them is split in two: in the first, Destiny does a good job of laying out why narrative of individual choice/consumerism don’t really work with regard to mutant cures, because of pre-existing structures of power and inequality that will turn an option into a mandate. Something that Whedon’s “Gifted” arc and X3 should have maybe mentioned. 

(Incidentally, even before we got the later infographic from Powers of X #4 about mutant genocides, I thought this didn’t bode well for Wanda Maximoff.)

After setting up a Prisoner’s Dilemma situation - if you don’t change your behavior, this scenario will keep recurring - Destiny then gives us the next big reveal of the issue. Moira’s powers of resurrection only give her ten or eleven lives, that there is a way out of the cycle of endless rebirth if she makes the “right choice.” (Word is still out on the other aspects of the Eightfold Path.) I don’t know what the eleventh signifies - after House of X #5, I saw a lot of people suggesting pod-rebirth as her eleventh life, but I dunno. 

However, I did spot something this time: Destiny “see[s] ten lives...eleven if you make the right choice at the end.” This may be me reaching, but it suggests that Destiny knows already that Moira isn’t going to get it right in lives four through nine, but isn’t telling her. Which, given the immense potential involved in combining their powers, suggests that it’s not just about Rube Goldberging her way to the Good Ending but rather that Moira has to experience her defeats personally in order to grow into the person who would make the right choice. 

Life 4:

Having received a fiery “swift spiritual kick to the head,” Moira makes two changes in her life. First, she begins to approach the question of mutancy from a systems perspective - although I have some significant issues with Hickman’s evolutionary biology. Second, she looks deeper past Charles Xavier’s “confidence...arrogance,” to see the real Charles beneath, and the two fall in love (which makes the second time in her lives).

The result seems to be the 616, breaking down into the Gifted Years (the Kirby/Lee years), the Time of Hate and Fear (the All-New X-Men given to us by Claremont et al.), and “the lost decade,” which given the associated panel is a pretty clear slam on the last ten years of X-Men storytelling, most pointedly Avengers vs. X-Men. 

This page (p. 17) has made me somewhat out of step with a lot of folks who’ve been arguing online that Moira’s sixth life must be the 616 - a trend we’re going to see repeating.

Regardless, this timeline is the first to end with Sentinel genocide, resulting in Moira for the first time seeing the dystopian dilemma. Much of what follows is a series of unsuccessful iterative attempts to solve this dilemma.

Life 5:

In her first go, Moira decides to see if accelerating the process will work, showing Charles what happened to his dream in her past lives. Hickman’s use of the term “radicalized” is key here to understanding what’s going on with Krakoa in X^1, because as Moira learns (and Charles will learn), separatism alone will not do the trick. Mutants got an 11-year head start to build up their defenses, and the Sentinels came anyway.

Life 6:

Because this life remains completely redacted, the fandom has gone absolutely nuts in speculation. One common speculation I’ve seen is that the X^3 timeline is Life 6, which I find quite puzzling. The reveal in Powers of X #1 that Cylobel is stuck in Nimrod’s femtofluid database is strongly suggestive that X^3 is Life 9, unless we’re going to say that in alternate timelines in which so many variables change, there’s always going to be a black brain hound mutant who looks identical to Cylobel and who dies in the exact same way. Which strikes me as falling afoul of Occam’s Razor.

Life 7:

Here’s where we really start zeroing in on the dystopic dliemma, as Moira tries to forestall the inevitable by eliminating the Trask bloodline. It doesn’t work because of the whole idea that AI is a discovery not an invention, and as a result Sentinels will always come about and the only thing that can be changed is the name of the person who’ll discover them.

Here is where Hickman’s obsession with mechanical vs. biological transhumanism (and/or singularities) really come into play. If you’ve read his book Transhuman (which I don’t necessarily recommend, as it comes with some rather nasty sophomoric undercurrents that have aged very badly in the last ten years), you’ll know that Hickman considers biological transhumanism to be superior to the alternative. Something to keep in mind when thinking about mutants vs. the man-machine supremacy, mutants vs. the technarchy, etc. 

Interestingly, we never learn what happened to Xavier or the X-Men in this life.

Once again, Moira is “radicalized” by the seeming inevitability of robotic genocide, although it’s noticeable that her focus is shifting from humans to their creations.

Life 8:

Her solution is to go to Octopusheim and ally with Magneto, presumably because the Master of Magnetism is her first bet to go up against the mutants.

Magneto reacts to “the good news” with thermonuclear war, and gets curb-stomped by a combination of the Avengers, Fantastic Four, and X-Men.

Important note that by this point, Moira dismisses the idea of any great good beyond that only of mutants, and we go for another round of radicalization.

Life 9:

At this point, Moira decides to ally with Apocalypse out of desperation, presumably because Apocalypse is a revolutionary who can’t be killed as easily as Magneto can. 

Although we didn’t know it at the time, this is X^2 (and I think X^3) as well, and while Apocalypse’s power levels allow him to prosecute a war “without end,” it doesn’t solve the strategic stalemate.

Life 10:

I don’t know what the two black panels suggest; it’s quite possible that they’re just pauses for emphasis. 

In her tenth life, Moira takes a step back and focuses instead on “all the old ways of thinking.” Here, I think we see a preview of the Krakoan solution: mutant unity will unlock synergies of cooperation that were not possible while working with limited mindsets and only a part of mutankind. 

Notably, we don’t know when Moira or anyone else found out about the possibilities of Krakoa and mutant biotechnology - we know some of it existed in Life 9 because we see Krakoan flowers being used, but we don’t know if Moira encountered it earlier or whether the higher order stuff was in use. I somehow doubt the resurrection system was intact, because it would seem to make Mister Sinister’s breeding program largely irrelevant.  

Once more, we return to Powers of X #1, as we now know what Xavier learned from Moira’s mind.

Infographics:

The whole circle wrap-around thing is very evocative of other signs we’ve seen (on Cerebro when Xavier uses it for various higher-order stuff, on the Librarian’s face, etc.), but it actively makes the map harder to read, which I think is the point. 

(Also, while I’m complaining: Comixology is not well set up for these large-scale infographics, because it keeps crashing on me when I try to zoom in. Very annoying.)

Note: earlier lives are more leisurely, things more spaced out, and then the pace accelerates as things get more intense.

One interesting difference between Life 4 and 616 canon: Moira and Xavier marry when she’s 23 and establish the Xavier School 12 years later. 

Life 5 is interesting, because we’re seeing repeated themes of Moira in comas, even when it might not be necessary. For example, what’s the dramatic purpose of having the two Sentinel attacks?

In Life 7, I noticed that Larry Trask isn’t killed with the rest of his family. Is it because he turned out to be a mutant?

Life 8 is the first instance where I think the initial panelling let us down. The original one-two punch heavily implied that Magneto was defeated on his first attack on Washington D.C, but here we learn that he ruled America for eight years before being defeated and killed. (Incidentally, this suggests that the visions he’ll have of his failures don’t include this life).

As other people have noted about Life 9, Xavier and Magneto are killed in Years 19 and 21 respectively, which makes it easy to rule out their appearances as happening in Life 9. Also, it’s significant that the first horsemen aren’t on earth (almost certainly on Arakko/No-Place).

Life 10 including Moira’s marriage to Joseph McTaggert despite presumably knowing from earlier lives that he would be abusive suggests that Moira may well have gone into the marriage because she needed Proteus to form the Five. Not sure how I feel about that. Finally, I’m a bit puzzled about what the schism was and whether it was genuine vs. feigned (after all, Moira is faking her death, so there’s plenty of skullduggery going on). 

[catricks]

whatever

Here's how I think the finale will go down, and why. I could be very wrong though

Kendall won't drown in the pool. I think, based on the recurring water motif (where he's usually submerged), the fact that he's on a floating raft is actually a good sign. I think the reason he's still facing into the water both symbolises that he's still preoccupied with the guilt from the death = emphasises he has a conscience, and as a lot of people have said, he's ruminating on when Logan was talking about how long the guy was alive before he drowned. There's also the double whammy of how the way he drops the beer into the water makes it look like a gun pointing at his head. For some reason that makes me think that it's more of an external thing than internal. I think the suicide imagery points elsewhere - to a more emotional suicide. I do think there's a big chance he'll confess to the crime, but it could be something else that would throw his future into an unfamiliar plane of existence, and also threaten Logan. Maybe Gojo comes into it.

But I also have a theory that Logan is gonna use Kendall's kids against him in the finale. There've been some breadcrumbs: Logan calling Iverson into the dinner Kendall asks to get out, Caroline talking about her decision to secure her kids' futures, the spying. I'm thinking that maybe Logan stems a big move from Kendall by using his kids, or that he uses them after a move to punish him. Could be through guilt tripping (i.e. "you're taking away your kids' futures, I'll cut them off if you leave too") or financial manipulation or something else.

Also thinking about the reference to Dream Song 29 in the title, it doesn't sound too optimistic. I love the poem. I think what 'all the bells say' is referring to in it is maybe a kind of unignorable admission of guilt. This + its proximity to 'this is not for tears' makes me think that maybe Kendall's actions of last finale come back around, though it seemed to have sorta conclusively fizzled out. Then again, the poem seems to be generally about a sense of guilt/shame that's not connected to any one real tangible source, and the idea that the bells are saying 'too late' could maybe be about a false alarm, perhaps from Logan. Plus there's the constant themes of death and rebirth around Kendall: Jesus imagery especially last season, the shaved head, the high ledges he's always on, etc. I know this is vague, but I feel like Kendall is headed through a door that he can't return from. I think Logan is going to lead to Kendall's "death" (not Death) in a pretty direct way. Probably necessary, because I think the only way Logan would let him go is either completely unwillingly or because he thinks he has to dispose of Kendall himself, if that makes sense.

I think ultimately, the season's been leading up to Kendall having to make a big decision between doing what he's always thought was best for himself, and what he's starting to realise is actually best for himself. This season has had him outside the business in a way I don't think he has been for a long time. He started out with the douchey over-the-top confidence where he was still trying to emulate his dad and sort of brute savvy his way to success - but he reached that breaking point at his birthday party, where he was desperate to find his kids' present, and I think that's where the ways of thinking of his old life started to fracture for him. You could see that episode as a showcase of Kendall's character and internal journey. Last episode saw him have a sense of purpose and level-headedness he hasn't had all season. It wasn't mania, it wasn't Logan-lead attack dog. It was him looking to an uncertain but free future. Succession believes that real change is rare and difficult - I think though, that Kendall's character could be about what it really does take to grow and the price that may come with it. I'm just hoping the show isn't too cynical to accomodate that.

[noldorinsherlock]

Reposting from my main but here’s my thoughts on water in the films we’ve been watching in my Spanish class. Not really relevant to Sherlock, but the water=emotion thing did influence my thinking somewhat and I’ve concluded that the water/emotion connection goes further than just being a motif in Sherlock.

So to start with, the three main films I’m talking about are Y Tu Mamá También, Krampack (Nico y Dani), and Sueño en Otro Idioma. What these films have in common is that they range from kind of to very gay, and I guess I have no idea why my professor decided to do this but I’m also not complaining. These films also all use water as a recurring motif, especially the ocean. In all three, the ocean is a place of youthful summer exuberance, especially for lovers. It’s a place of freedom - in Sueño, it is at the beach and in the water that the two young men can kiss and be openly affectionate - returning to the normal world, social disapproval and the Catholic church scare one of them (Evaristo) into rejecting and denouncing the other (Isauro), causing a 50 year rift between them. Likewise, in Krampack the ocean and water in general is used to convey freedom and intimacy, as the four central teenagers play around in the water. And while I didn’t watch all of Y Tu Mamá, class discussion made it clear that the pattern holds there too. Moral of the story is, you can be gay in the ocean I guess? Say rather the ocean represents idealism, a paradise isolated from the rest of the world.

In Y Tu Mamá, swimming pools also recur throughout the movie and are something of a counterpoint to the ocean. At the beginning, the two teenage boys (Julio and Tenoch) spend certain afternoons swimming at this exclusive rich people resort while it’s closed for maintenance, because Tenoch has access because his father is rich. The pool there is huge, pristine, and screams money and privilege. That pool represents the bubble these kids live in - theyve never faced any real difficulty or emotional upheaval, they’re basically just here to mess around and have a good time. (Also they’ve definitely got unresolved sexual tension between them but at this point in the movie it remains subtext, although the scenes at the pool hint at it). Later in the movie, once they go on the road and get into a fight over a woman they both want to sleep with, they end up in some random hotel pool - small, unimpressive, and covered in leaves. The world isn’t an uncomplicated bubble anymore! They’re at a low point in their friendship, and the pool reflects this - the water is full of dirt and ugliness, just like their emotions towards each other. Whereas once they reach the ocean, they’ve worked out some of their interpersonal problems and can return to having fun in the water together (it is also around this time that they have a threesome of some sort with the aforementioned woman and apparently make out a bunch, idk I didn’t watch this far).

Returning to Sueño, we see this idea of water as emotion further fleshed out.  One of the characters (Evaristo’s granddaughter) is literally named Lluvia, meaning rain. There are rain storms at several key points in the movie, tying together themes of love, death, and grief. Furthermore, in the movie, whenever one of the Zikril people dies, a river is heard throughout the whole village, again representing grief, death and life or rebirth, as the Zikril believe that the dead continue to live on in a land called The Enchantment. Nor is it an accident that the conflict between Isauro and Evaristo took place on the beach all those years ago - that conflict is a paradise lost, so to speak (with respect to their previous happiness), an association further supported by the religious imagery of Jesus bleeding on the cross that terrifies Evaristo into repressing his love for Isauro.

Interestingly, the fourth movie we watched, Roma, also represents water as emotion but in a slightly more negative context. In Roma, the ocean does not represent paradise like in the other movies, but rather is a place of danger - two of the children nearly drown, and the main character Cleo must wade in to rescue them despite not knowing how to swim herself. It is not an accident that this scene takes place immediately after the childrens’ mother tells them their father has abandoned the family: here, water represents emotion but in a negative sense. The children are literally submerged in the water even as they are figuratively submerged in feelings of loss, abandonment, and confusion. And Cleo doesn’t know how to swim - she doesn’t know how to navigate her own emotional ocean of giving birth to a stillborn child she didn’t really want in the first place and whose father turned out to be a violent jerk who abandoned her at the first opportunity. But all three of them make it out alive, in the end.

TL;DR water represents emotion and ties together complex emotional experiences in the films we watched in class, but my peers cannot stop harping on the idea that it represents “fluid sexuality” because gay people must automatically be “sexually fluid” right?

[aion-rsa]

Batman #21 Proudly (and Effectively) Displays its Watchmen Influences

SPOILER WARNING: This article contains major spoilers for “Batman” #21, on sale now.

Tom King and Jason Fabok’s “Batman” #21 marks the beginning of the Dark Knight’s anticipated crossover with the Flash, first teased in “DC Universe: Rebirth,” that will unveil many of the mysteries of the current DCU — including (possibly) the mastermind behind the New 52 universe, which excised five years from our heroes’ lives. “The Button, Part One” leans hard into the “Watchmen” themes that have permeated multiple titles since Rebirth, drawing heavy inspiration from Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ classic story.

RELATED: Watchmen’s Comedian Button Is Crucial for [SPOILER]’s Return In Batman

Last year’s “DC Universe: Rebirth” one-shot by Geoff Johns, Ethan Van Sciver, Ivan Reis and Gary Frank, which re-introduced former Flash Wally West into the current continuity, immediately began the unraveling of some elements of the New 52 reality. The story strongly implied that Dr. Manhattan, the clockwork demigod of “Watchmen,” had altered the bonds of the DCU’s reality for some unknown purpose, while another character called Mr. Oz, whom some have speculated is Moore and Gibbons’ antagonist Ozymandias, has since been seen operating behind the scenes, working toward some obscure stratagem, faking the death of Tim Drake (aka Red Robin) to take him off the board.

“The Button” represents the overdue team-up between the two heroes most invested in this universal struggle, and those most likely to unearth its mysteries. In the “Rebirth” special, Batman discovered, embedded in the walls of the Batcave, the iconic, blood-stained smiley button Rorschach recovered after the Comedian’s murder. Wally West’s return showed current Flash Barry Allen that core pieces of his life had been ripped away, and illustrated how Wally’s role in changing reality in “Flashpoint” weighs heavily on his shoulders.

Now, Batman is finally getting around to investigating that smiley button. And King and Fabok are showing off their “Watchmen” chops, enhancing their story in a way that holds all manner of Easter eggs for fans immersed in Moore and Gibbons’ book, but is simultaneously entirely accessible for those who haven’t read it.

On the Grid

“Watchmen” was noted, among other things, for its strict employment of the nine-panel grid, a device artist Dave Gibbons used masterfully for the story’s rhythmic pacing. Tom King previously wrote for the grid in “Omega Men,” illustrated to perfection by Barnaby Bagenda. He does so once again in “Batman” #21, which adheres almost entirely to the grid, though it does break for a single page as Batman’s time runs out in his fight against the Reverse Flash (more on this in a bit).

The device isn’t necessarily apparent in the first few pages — pages 1 and 2 are each three panels, three rows with a single panel each, while page 3 is a splash. Further, the first two don’t immediately call “Watchmen” to mind, focusing as they do on a scene at Arkham Asylum, where the semi-amnesiac Saturn Girl watches a hockey game she knows will end in tragedy. (There is a quick nod to Moore and Gibbons’ work in the background, though, in the form of a smiley face-emblazoned poster declaring “Arkhman is for Healing.”)

But from page 4 on, which divides into a full nine panels, it’s clear that what’s preceded has also adhered to the grid, combining the left, center and right panels on each tier for pages 1-2, and all of the panels for the page 3 splash, much as Gibbons modified the grid in “Watchmen” to create specific pacing effects. Fabok and King use less variety here than did Gibbons and Moore — “Watchmen” layouts would switch up the selection of combined panels, whereas this issue trades primarily in full-nines, horizontal threes, and splashes. Whether this is by design and will play into the story’s upcoming chapters remains to be seen.

Iconography

The bloodied smiley button, perhaps the most recognized emblem of “Watchmen,” hardly needs its significance explained. But King and Fabok make many subtle nods to the imagery of Moore and Gibbons’ dystopia, beginning right on page one.

Varying perspective, such as an extreme close-up of an object followed by a view of the same object from further back, was a recurring feature of “Watchmen” from its opening pages, where the view pulled directly up from a smiley button in a puddle of blood all the way up to the to the top floors of a high-rise. In “Batman” #21, we begin on a close up of center ice at a hockey game, viewed through a TV screen. In panel 2, when we pull back, a player’s stick has landed, evoking another bit of “Watchmen” iconography — the clock face. If that’s the minute hand, it’s pointed to around ten minutes to the hour. Not a lot of time, and deliberately similar as well, in fact, to the orientation of the blood spatter on the button.

Shortly after, in a scene Bat-fans have seen any number of times before, the Dark Knight stands before a massive wall of monitors in the Batcave. But in the context of such a “Watchmen”-heavy issue, the image evokes Ozymandias observing the world from his own headquarters. In this case, however, every screen is filled with the smiley face, save for four central monitors, one of which is tuned the hockey game.

The smileys overwhelm the image, giving an immediate impression that Batman is simply obsessed with this mystery, but with a moment’s thought this becomes a very strange scene. One of the smiley monitors displays a double helix overlay, suggesting Bruce is running tests on the button’s blood splatter, perhaps conveying that each monitor is devoted to a different experiment or set of data. But with only four remaining screens to keep an eye on Gotham — one shows firefighters at work, another appears to be a news program, a third looks like a bird’s-eye view of the city — why is one devoted to the hockey game? Is this what the Batman’s tests on the button are telling him is important, was he aware of Saturn Girl’s breakdown at Arkham, or is the Dark Knight simply a fan of the sport?

After rotating the button several times over his hand, all while he takes in the game, Batman tosses the button aside, causing it to come into contact with the Psycho Pirate’s mask. The Pirate, of course, was a major figure from “Crisis on Infinite Earths,” DC’s first major universe-altering event; so important that when the dust settled and a new universe was born, Psycho Pirate was the only person to remember the original continuity. Here, a spark passes between the mask and the button, and Batman sees a brief vision of the “Flashpoint” Batman, his father Thomas Wayne.

Batman phones up the Flash to help with this new mystery, and Barry Allen promises to be at the cave… in one minute.

“I saw God”

In that minute, though, the revitalized Reverse Flash attacks, taking revenge for his own death in “Flashpoint” at the hands of Thomas Wayne upon his son, this reality’s Batman. Bats actually holds his own pretty well against against a villain who can move at the speed of thought, taking each punch and even landing a solid hit by momentarily pinning Thawne’s foot to the floor with a Batarang. As the seconds tick down — another motif seen throughout “Watchmen” — Batman knows all he has to do is run out the clock until help arrives.

But the Flash is late.

This is the scene that breaks the grid; the clock runs out and the anticipated event fails to materialize. On the three-panel page, two tall panels split what would be the grid’s center panel, and Reverse Flash lands his knock-out punch in a full-width panel that is slightly taller than the grid’s third tier.

Thawne picks up the badge, which instantly transports him… somewhere; a moment later, he’s back, much as Dr. Manhattan would disappear and immediately reappear throughout Moore and Gibbons’ epic. But when the Reverse Flash returns — in a burst of blue light — his body is burnt and ruined, similar to how Barry’s was when he ran to save the universe in “Crisis.” Thawne’s final words before his seeming death are, “I saw God.”

The World’s Greatest Detective, The Fastest Man Alive

DC has made no secret of the fact that the “Watchmen” characters are central to the “Rebirth” mystery. Now that Batman and the Flash are attacking the problem head on, it shouldn’t be surprising, then, that that the influence of “Watchmen” grows ever stronger. But what’s also notable is how King and Fabok aren’t just using “Watchmen’s” characters and objects like the button, but also studying the storytelling elements that landed Moore and Gibbons’ book not only in the pantheon of comics but also earned it a spot on many literary “best of” lists. The result is not at all academic; they’ve enhanced their own story by using effective techniques, devices with a particular pedigree that enrich the sense of weight and import that the “Watchmen” characters’ arrival portends.

Most importantly, if you don’t know any of this, if you couldn’t care less about the science of comics storytelling. Even if you’ve never read “Watchmen,” you’ve still got a rock-solid story about the Flash and Batman teaming up to solve a mystery and stop a powerful villain. It’s a damn fine superhero action adventure, and really, isn’t that what matters most?

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