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#i just feel like some of the analysis in this fandom forgets important context of what the show actually is
demonicchicken1121 · 2 months
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Alastor, Rosie, and Cannibal Town: an Analysis (I’m fucking at it (Alastor Posting) again)
Ok I know that a lot of people have already been talking about this, but I really want to analyze Alastors behavior in cannibal town and how it’s so much different than how he behaves literally anywhere else.
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Alastors true motives, personality, opinions, etc are widely debated in the fandom. Does he actually care about Charlie or the hotel? What’s his beef with Lucifer? Why did he make a deal and who was it with? Al is such a mysterious and closed off character, and his demeanor changes so frequently that no one in or out of universe really knows much about him. I personally think that the closest we get to seeing Alastor in his truest and most authentic self is when he’s in cannibal town.
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From the moment they arrive, Alastors demeanor changes dramatically, even from a few moments before, when Charlie was venting about her relationship issues. He seems genuinely excited to be there and see Rosie, to the point where he seems to forget he brought Charlie here for a reason (hell I think he forgets Charlie is even there at a few points.)
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Al and Rosie HAVE seen each other since he returned to hell, at the overlord meeting, but they didn’t really have the time to interact. Even so, they are so in tune with each other. This man was gone for seven years and here they are gaslight gatekeep girlbossing like nothing happened.
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But once they actually have the opportunity to interact outside of the overlord meeting they’re super excited to catch up. The only other time he shows this much enthusiasm to see someone is with Mimzy, but things quickly goes south when she puts the hotel is danger. Alastors friendship with mimzy feels very onesided, and it seems that she only shows up when she needs something. While Alastor and Rosie clearly ask each other for favors, it feels a lot more equal in a way where they each get an equal amount of benefit.
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And while we haven’t seen much of them yet, I get the vibe that they hang out in their free time and respect each others boundaries and schedules. I think Al went through cannibal town hoping to see her in the prequel comic, but figured she was busy after the extermination and instead asked some of the residents to say hello on his behalf. But that’s just a theory, a gam-
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Also just a little thing I noticed, when rosie is joking about Charlie being too young for Alastor, Charlie looks visibly annoyed, but Alastors body language and expression don’t change. He tends to react relatively strongly when anyone (Angel) makes a move on him or assumes he’s dating anyone, but I think he knows Rosie well enough to know she’s joking.
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Alastor lets his guard down so much in this part of the episode. He’s really in his element and his behavior seems so natural and genuine.
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I love how he’s so willing to just roast Susan. Every iconic duo has that one person they fucking hate and will not be subtle about how much they fucking hate them. It’s especially funny with alastor, who’s usually really pretentious and passive aggressive when he insults someone, but with Susan it’s just
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“✨Ornery old bitch?✨” also this is the only time in the entire series that alastor swears in a genuinely humorous way. In almost every other example, he is trying to intimidate someone or piss them off, and also when his staff was broken.
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And speaking of his staff, I think it was actually a big deal that Alastor let Charlie use it, even tho it was for a very short time. This does show that whether or not he actually cares about her, Alastor does have a certain amount of trust and respect for Charlie. Despite that, I don’t think he would have done this if he wasn’t in cannibal town and with Rosie. The staff is clearly very important to him and likely holds some amount of his power, given how he reacted when it was broken.
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As weird as this sentence is out of context, I think Alastor feels very safe in cannibal down. Rosie and probably the other cannibals genuinely like and respect him. it speaks volumes that not only he let Charlie use his staff, but he put himself in the position that would leave him vulnerable to Rosie if Charlie were to turn on him. While he knows it’s highly unlikely that would happen, I think it’s still worth noting that he intentionally left himself in such a vulnerable position in cannibal town and nowhere else.
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Something else interesting I noticed, is that “ready for this” is one of the only songs that Alastor is interacting with another character, and isn’t competing for the spotlight. He is walking all over Vox in “stayed gone”, and getting walked all over by Lucifer in “Hells greatest dad”, but here, he’s very in tune with everyone else. He and Rosie are on equal footing and he feels secure enough to fade into the background a bit, harmonizing with the cannibals and letting Charlie take the lead.
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So yeah, I feel like Cannibal town is alastors home in hell. His relationship with Rosie is probably the most positive relationship he has in the whole show. I think viv has mentioned that Alastor wasn’t a cannibal before he died, and I’m not sure if that’s still canon, but if it is, I can definitely see him becoming a cannibal when he became friends with Rosie. I can also see Rosie being one of his first friends in hell, maybe they even rose to power together. I’m clearly getting into some more speculative headcanons because I do what I want, but I’m putting them in their own section.
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Now for headcanons with little to no substantial evidence ✨✨✨
I do actually really like the idea that they became friends very quickly and rose to power together. I like the idea that they were friends before Alastor became this super powerful force in hell. It also makes sense that he would trust someone who wanted to be his friend back when people weren’t constantly asking for favors or testing his power. Bc I do think that there was a short period of time between him arriving in hell and rising to power. (I have a lot of ideas about how he got his powers which probably will get its own post, but to brief, he wasn’t super powerful when he arrived in hell.) it makes sense that him and Rosie would have become friends in that period.
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When he did start rising to power, I think Rosie would have guided him, given that he was a relatively new sinner. She would help him find overlords to target, possibly even letting him recruit cannibals to help him take them down. After he was finished broadcasting their screams, he would return their bodies to Rosie for her to sell. Maybe any cannibals who helped him would get discounts or first pickings.
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This makes sense to me bc not only would it help explain why Alastor has never seen Rosie as a rival or a target, but also it would help explain why they’re so close. Nothing builds a friendship better than overthrowing incredible forces of power. Also they totally square dance on the weekends.
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Viv please I need an episode that’s nothing but these two dicking around in cannibal town for twenty minutes.
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scarlet6rose · 2 months
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Soo just wanna talk a bit I guess
It's about good omens I know, I know. Half of the fandom is in mourning 'cause of Aziraphale and Crowley in s2 ep6 but I just want to do a character analysis of both for some more added information (ig). Now, I don't know if someone has already done this analysis or not, but fuck it, I'ma just do them anyways. I think we can look at Crowley first since most people do relate to him more than anyone else. In season 1, we are introduced to the fact that Crowley is the snake from Eden. That in itself makes him very important, but in season 2 episode 1, his importance rises so much. We find the fact that they were the ones who geared up the universe, "Let there be light" and stuff, he also said that he worked very close with upstairs. In the final episode of season 2, he could also open a confidential file that could only be accessed by a throne, a dominion, or above. This means; that before falling, he was extremely important/had a high status (whether he was Raphael or not doesn't matter). Again, in the last episode of season 2, during their breakup, he says, "I understand it a lot better than you do." to Aziraphale when he suggests that Crowley go up to heaven with him. Crowley, in this scenario, knows what's going on. He has clearly seen what heaven is like, top to bottom. From Crowley's point of view, both heaven and hell do not understand that there doesn't need to be a war. That Armageddon doesn't need to happen. He has always seen things in grey, from the beginning. Questioning God and her plans; not fully abiding with hell, like, ever; doing whatever the fuck he wants. Now, before I continue, I think I should give Aziraphale's character some more context. I have been hearing about the coffee theory in the fandom. in simple words: Metatron put something in the coffee and manipulated Aziraphale to become the supreme archangel with it. it definitely is an interesting theory, but there isn't much proof I can see. Mainly because, we see their conversation (in bits a pieces, sure), and you can see Aziraphale acting normally. He's wary and concerned. But from the beginning, Aziraphale has always (mostly) seen in Black and Whites (contrary to Crowley). Even if he denies it, he does (it's hard to forget what you believed since you existed). The only person who's shown Aziraphale that, "Hey, there can be more than one option" is Crowley. Only with Crowley has he ever had the choices (not just good and evil). Even then, he believed Heaven is always good and hell's always evil (he has made multiple remarks about him being good and Crowley being evil, for example, in the flashback of the Edinburgh surgeon, he has made that remark. Even when they met in season 1, he said, "Well obviously, you're a demon." after Crowley said that hell just said to go up there and make some trouble). This in itself proves that Aziraphale always thought in black and white even when he tries to divert himself to not think like that. In his eyes, Heaven is good, and Hell is evil. But the angels and the demons can be in between those shades of grey. That Heaven is currently corrupted, and Hell, even more. He doesn't want another Armageddon, he wants heaven to understand what it means to be "good" (good in atleast his eyes). In very simple words; Aziraphale believes that Heaven isn't working properly/is corrupt and wants to/thinks that he can infact fix it, and Crowley believes everything is working the way it's supposed to since he has seen it personally displayed infront of him, since he has been a high ranking angel in Heaven. Or in much simpler words: THEY DON'T FUCKING TALK TO EACHOTHER.
If the both of them could've had a heart-to-heart talk earlier, it could've ended so much differently. Neither of them knows what the other feels and just assumes what they think the other one thinks. It in itself is a toxic mindset to have. They both didn't "break up" because Metatron manipulates Aziraphale or because Aziraphale couldn't return Crowley's feelings (man's (non-binary) literally fell first). It was because neither of them understood eachother. Aziraphale sees Crowley as a demon who wants desperately to be an angel (many indirect remarks have been made like in Job's arc and such) and someone who accidentally fell (which is true at some level). AND Crowley sees Aziraphale as a simple-minded angel who needs rescuing from time to time (which, again, is true at some level). They both are literally forgetting their own nuances and beliefs, and assuming what the other thinks because, say it with me, THEY DO NOT TALK. The reason Crowley felt betrayed was because he didn't realize that Aziraphale wasn't exactly who he thought he was. After all, Aziraphale isn't a simple character, he's a complex character with very strict (too strict) morals. And Aziraphale realized that Crowley really didn't want to go to Heaven OR Hell, since he always thought that Crowley only hated Hell, not Heaven aswell. So it was a shock to him. WHY? BECAUSE THEY DON'T FUCKING TALK TO EACHOTHER. So, when people say that it's because of the coffee, it pisses me off a little. It practically refuses the idea of nuances existing within these characters. Listen, if it's actually because of the coffee or Metatron doing/saying something sinister to Aziraphale, I'll take my L. But for now, I wholeheartedly believe that it was fully Aziraphale's decision to go to Heaven.
so yeah, that's all, I might add to this later, might not.
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tcsaveyou · 7 months
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luke is nothing but sunshine/no depth
send me a misconception you think people have about my character and I'll explain if it's true or not.
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put some respect on my boy's name holy shit. this isn't even just a characterisation problem this is like... endemic of star wars in general to me.
i think the issue with luke is twofold, in that he's being spitroasted by time in terms of perceptions of him getting fucked. there's what comes before him -- the archetype he's based off of; and there's what comes after him -- all the imitators, the parodies and the homages and the stories written with genuine love by people who grew up on star wars.
so before luke, there's The Hero. the greek myth. the arthurian legend. and i think the proliferation of behind-the-scenes star wars content that goes so deep into the writing-of, as well as the popularity of star wars that led to a metric ton of analysis being created for it, placed an emphasis on luke's literary lineage that sort of detracted from luke as. like. a character in his own story, with a unique context. yes the context is inspired by stories that came before but so is everything to have ever been created in the history of mankind; so this narrative that the ot in particular is as basic as it can be, when said in a derogatory way, really ruffles my feathers. i don't think it accounts for how much of the original films were, in fact, original. like the fact of the matter is that if you put the same character in a different setting, and you genuinely follow through on considering how that setting would change them, you get a different character. ( hence imo why so many aus feel like they should be standalone fiction. and why some fanfiction does get given a fresh coat of paint and published. literary ships of theseus if you would. some details matter and some don't it's true but odysseus did not have hyperdrive do you understand. )
but what comes after luke? once star wars is released into the world, love it or hate it, its influence starts spreading like wildfire. and yeah you could claim that a lot of modern heroes emerge from the same primordial soup as luke and chalk the differences up to that -- but how many heroes are generic hero imitators and how many of them are luke skywalker imitators. because those are two different things. and i looked into this for my own research and people love to claim the latter, but i'm like. in the modern day. written by people born after, like, 1950. how many blond-haired blue-eyed young peppy heroes with special swords and mysterious important parents are based off of siegfried, or a solid grasp on bildungsromans, and how many of them are like that because the person writing them was impacted by star wars. of course we can't gather any concrete evidence on this, so take what i say with a grain of salt. but! even disregarding inspiration, what about those parodies. music videos. ytps. the endless stream of third party media. luke is a thing unto himself, but he's so fucking present in the culture that, after a time, in the same way that frankenstein is a german doctor, luke skywalker is now a sunshine hero.
TO BE CLEAR. this is from what i can tell an extremely online fandom interpretation. we must not forget the periods / circles in which luke was / is, to memory: an action warrior with huge pecs and flowing hair, a womaniser ( THIS WAS REAL ), a whiny nobody, gay in the derogatory way, and the Secret Villain ( from the Rebels are Evil Terrorists crowd ), among other things. but that sort of proves my point. characters can be watered down to any one trait ( real or imagined lmao! ) and then that interpretation gets repeated and spread and suddenly you have a whole community who sees luke as a sunshine boy.
so... why? because it's not stupidity. and it's not being bad at media literacy. as much as i dislike this reading, i think it would be dismissive to simply chalk it up to a certain part of the fanbase being silly or not getting the source material. what i often find is that the way a character is commonly portrayed, especially a character in an ensemble cast, is dependent on 1) the overall goal / tone of the writing and 2) who they're with. luke is sunshine because leia is Spicy and han is Sarcastic and threepio is Neurotic. luke is sunshine because anakin is not. exaggerating these traits makes for good contrast and, therefore, interaction that's both easier to write and more fun to read. and this isn't a bad thing! it's, like, pretty common. and when i think about it that way i can't get too mad.
SIMULTANEOUSLY i think it does babyboy a disservice! but since i'm not doing that and the people i write with aren't doing that, i survive mostly unbothered. far be it from me to storm into someone else's playpen and tell them they need to start focusing on luke's anger issues. would i prefer it? yes. but i currently control the luke content that i see most often so i get to do whatever i want. paradise.
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rodeodeparis · 2 years
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ok i finally realized why i was bothered by a lot of the pitting of "fandom" or popular ya fiction against "classic" literature: a lot of that literature was released as popular "thoughtless" entertainment in pretty much the same way as ya novels are now (shakespeare's plays for example). they were granted prestige over time through retrospective analysis that somehow didn't quite catch the "better" qualities the last time because it wasn't en vogue, it didn't appeal to the "right" demographic, or it didn't meet that era's standards for "good" works in some other way. regardless, there were just as many people being annoying about sherlock back when the books came out as there are now about ya. the difference is that there's an entire military-backed-industry laser-focused on capitalizing on people like that since all the nerds are making fat stacks in silicon valley that they can spend on fandom-related bs, launching culture at large into an era of enough kids playing mmos that the us military's recruiting through twitch. and, of course, when we live in a capitalist world, conceptions of what's popular are based in what's being advertised to us, a conception which can supersede reality, especially when most of our exposure to the wider world is run through algorithmic generation. not that there wasn't "fandom" back then, just that it wasn't being systematically and even preemptively catered to. individual weird ya fanatics making posts about how they should replace classics with ya are an effect, not a cause, tied in w/ their feeling of insecurity that the supposedly important "great works" bore them. (also if this replacement didn’t happen w/ pulp novels or penny dreadfuls it certainly won’t happen with these.)
i guess i just wish "classic" lit's "resonating with the masses" and outstanding literary qualities were recognized as why we see them as "classics" rather than "classic" literature in general being seen as a series of untouchable doorstops high on some smart people tier list. both "we can't forget the classics" and "fuck the classics, replace with something newer" ultimately converge in seeing art and literature foremost as "consumable content" that can easily fit into and be understood as being a part of one category or another, and therefore easily attacked, defended, or replaced, when "classic" will always have a varying definition. a preference for rosy retrospective analyiss of the "classics" along with a disregard for historical context are what make them seem stuffy in the first place, even when they're not - see the history of constance garnett's translations of dostoyevsky novels, for example.
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pearlcaddy · 3 years
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for those times when it feels like fans might have lost track of the medium/genre of the source material a wee bit
+ bonus:
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#pearlcaddyedit#this isn't really about anything specific#i just feel like some of the analysis in this fandom forgets important context of what the show actually is#and that's totally fine for fanworks--fanworks are their own thing and you should go off and be free with them#with fanworks you don't owe canon anything except love and respect for julie molina#but when you're analyzing canon and your analysis doesn't take into account that it's a tv show#and that characters will have shorter conversations than they would in real life#or they will learn things faster than they would in real life#or that things will focus on the main protagonists#because a tv show has a limited runtime and these are narrative shortcuts#then you're missing a crucial element of media criticism#this isn't a complex puzzle show#it doesn't do 'real time' conversations like GoT did#it doesn't lean heavily on an unreliable narrator#or on the trauma--the dark bits of this show are usually brief and sanitized and quickly followed up with something light-hearted#and when we get a second season it'll likely have the same runtime that this season did#and similar content/tone#and all of that is incredibly important context when you're analyzing the show#otherwise it just turns into 'criticizing the characters for... being fictional characters in a half-hour fantasy TV show'#and i just don't think that that's helping anyone understand the show better#i would actually argue that it obscures people's understanding of the show#and it's creating a lot of weird expectations for season two that don't seem to take into account the tone/genre/medium of the show#idk i'm in a safe wee fandom bubble so I feel like I'll be okay for s2 but i'm worried about other people#because i feel like some people have lost track of the source material and therefore lost track of the appropriate tools for analyzing it#but also i just like giffing flynn and i need to do it more
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hello-nichya-here · 2 years
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"Psychopath" Azula
"Azula is a psychopath." Everyone in the Avatar fandom has seen many people claim that - especially Azula fans, and it's often in an unnecessarily aggressive way and comes right the fuck out of nowhere. To say that it is a popular, but controversial headcanon, is an understatement. But does it actually make any sense? And if it doesn't, then why do people insist that it is canon? (Warning: this analysis is incredibly long and does not consider the comics because they should never, ever, ever be taken into consideration due to shitty writing)
The Fandom Problem
I've said it many times, and I'll keep on saying it: Many fans (and by this point even Bryke) view Azula exclusively through "crazy monster lens." To them, Azula is not a character with a personality, flaws, qualities, fears, goals, feelings - she's insane. And evil. That's it. That is her "motivation" for everything she does.
The possibility of her having ASPD (or any personality disorder and/or mental illness) is not meant to make us think "What does this mean for her character in the context of the story? How can it affect her arc? How does that recontextualize some of her actions and WHICH of her actions does that diagnosis recontextualize?" People don't slap the label "psychopath" on Azula to start a conversation - they do it to end it, especially if subject was the mere possibility of her being redeemable. At "best" that's a way of labeling her as a broken child that can never be saved and that was always doomed and that no adult could have ever helped (especially not her mother or uncle). At worse, it's seen as the equivalent of finding her finger-prints on murder weapons - which murders? ALL OF THEM! Don't you know Azula is responsible for everything bad that ever happened in the story? Including the beginning of the war itself (never mind that it started nearly a century before she was born).
You can rarely find any non-biased discussion on whether Azula has ASPD, because, since many fans want her to be a "psychopath" so they'll have an "unbeatable argument" to say she could never be redeemed, they'll just insist that this label fits her without offering any real evidence. It's not even "Guilty until proven innocent" it's "Guilty because I said so."
But does she have ASPD? Well, before we can even begin to discuss traits of the disorder, we need to put some very important things into context.
Azula's Personality And Background
Cold, Precise, Deadly - Azula can be difficult to understand at first, especially if you try to look at her through “Good or Evil” lenses. At first, she might look like a typical bad guy - she’s on the wrong side of war, is absolutely ruthless, likes to taunt her rivals/enemies, and has no problem with manipulation, kidnaping, invasions, coups, or murder. She can even be a threat to the people she cares about if they’re in her way or are refusing to help her.
However, people often forget her main traits: Pragmatism and perfectionism.
Azula goes to great lengths to have control of everything, including herself and own emotions. When she’s on a mission, her focus is solely on being successful - it doesn’t matter if said mission includes threatening one her best friends, capturing her brother and uncle, invading a city (or staging a coup), lying, double-crossing, taking prisoners/hostages, or even killing someone (again, including family). 
It’s not personal, it’s about finding the most effective way to achieve her goals, and avoiding being punished by a guy that she knows has no problem with being extremely cruel to his own family. It’s also a matter of survival - this is a war after all, and hesitating can mean not just failure, but also the death of your allies and your own. Zuko had problem fighting her to assure his own survival/success, Sokka of all people has a higher body count than she does, and even the past Avatars looked Aang straight in the face and said “Murder ain’t that bad, kid.” Azula IS scary and even deadly, but the she only ever attacks “fair” targets - people who are in her way somehow. 
Azula follows the rules. The problem is she follows the Fire Nation/Ozai rules.
1 - Never, ever, ever, ever, ever go against the Fire Lord.
2 - Do anything to assure the Fire Nation wins the war
3 - Don’t ever allow traitors to get on the way, even if said traitors are your family.
4 - Be a proper lady/princess (that includes her polite bichyness, devotion to Ozai - her father who is not a traitor AND is the Fire Lord - and, of course, getting rid of traitors)
She did horrible things. She’s also a literal child-soldier. This can NEVER be over-looked. 
Mixed Messages - I often see many people claim that Ozai was trying to turn Zuko and Azula into imperialists, while Ursa was trying to save them from that. I really wanna know what version of the show these people watched, because it simply cannot be the same as the one I saw.
Azula was taught by both of her parents that what their nation was doing to the rest of the world was 100% acceptable, and Iroh agreed with it too for most of his life. The difference is that Ozai said that, as royalty, aka superior people, they were allowed to look down on everyone, including people of the Fire Nation - regular people, rich people, soldiers, commanders, admirals, generals, nobility, and yes, even their friends and family.
Ursa and Iroh meanwhile, went for the “It’s only acceptable to be an asshole to the people who are not one of us” approach. It looks morally superior to Ozai’s approach at first, but it’s actually more of the same, with nothing but favoritism and hypocrisy added in. But it is different enough for them to be upset at Azula, which naturally confuses and irritates her because, from her point of view, Ozai’s approach makes more sense (likely because she was a child, and it was easier for her to understand something that was consistent instead of a rule that had exceptions). The fact that he was the parent giving her positive attention certainly didn’t hurt Ozai’s chances of having Azula side with him.
Ozai eventually becomes Fire Lord, while Ursa is banished, Iroh ends up in prison, and Zuko manages to become crowned prince again after Ozai taught him a harsh lesson about respect and knowing his place. Since she’s pragmatic, that confirms to her that her father was right, but then when the finale happens and she’s losing everything she’s starts questioning that mentality...
...Except she was already questioning it before the finale.
Almost Isn’t Good Enough - Azula’s humanity and vulnerability shines through for the first on The Beach - very fitting since the episode is set in Ember Island, which both a place where Azula and Zuko used to go to “back when their family was actually happy” and a supposedly magical place that reveals your true self.
Following that logic, Azula’s true self is conflicted 14-year-old that is obviously unhappy and unsure of herself, but suppresses those feelings as much as possible.
She was supposed to be having a great time since everything is going right for her nation, but quite clearly feels empty, and during that famous scene of her saying “My own mother thought I was a monster. She was right of course, but it still hurt” we find out something very telling that completely changes the way we look at her character (or at least it should): She doesn’t think she’s unhappy because her methods (Ozai’s methods) are wrong, but because she herself is problem that needs to be fixed - and nothing seems to do the trick. Azula is a perfectionist who believes herself to be fundamentally broken; damaged beyond repair. It’s pretty hard to think of a worse combo for someone’s mental health.
Trust Is For Fools - I feel these words are the perfect way to describe the tragedy of Azula’s character. No matter how many doubts she has, how much she’s suffering, how unfullfiled she feels, how bad things get, how scared she is, how lonely she is, and even how desperate for help she is, she will never ask for said help. Because she taught her whole life by the one person she still has left that needing anything from anyone makes her weak, worthless and a failure. Her downfall is so shocking and sad because it’s a character who always tried to convince everyone, including herself, that she didn’t need any kind of support falling apart, breaking down, and finally, literally, crying out for help.
The Fire Nation/Firebending Problem - This one is so important to understand her character that it's own post, but the basics are “Being a half-human, half-flame thrower your whole life is likely to fuck you up, especially if you grew up in a place that constantly told you to just wreck shit when things don’t go your way”
https://hello-nichya-here.tumblr.com/post/673864636667510784/understanding-azula
How Therapy Actually Works
One thing that people often screw up when trying to see if Azula fits the criteria for literally any mental illness/personality disorder is that they work backwards from that conclusion and try to prove it right, ignoring any evidence to the contrary and basically making up things to support it. Confirmation bias is a very real thing, and doctors are very careful to avoid it while diagnosing a patient.
As for the treatment for ASPD if Azula did have it, it would NOT require a complete personality change, but constant therapy, policing herself (which she already does), support from friends and family, and some medication. But most of all, it would require her to be removed from the deeply toxic and unhealthy home-life she had.
Okay, enough context - does she have ASPD or not?
Actual Traits Of ASPD
Disregard For Social Rules And Behavior Standards - Azula doesn't have this trait. At all. The main problem with her character is that she holds onto the values, rules, laws and standards of her society when she shouldn't.
Difficulty To Maintain Relationships, But Not To Start Them - This is a hard one because while Azula's relationships all fell apart, we can't forget that indoctrination, war, and a dysfunctional, neglectful, abusive family played a really significant part in it. And when it comes to easily stablishing relationships, that is also not so clear-cut, since she succeeds in militaristic settings (she won the Dai Li with just her intimidating, yet inspiring personality) but she doesn't really know how to act "normal" (which could be a sign of a disorder like autism, or just a consequence of trauma and indoctrination). I'll say this one is inconclusive.
Lack Of Empathy - Before I even go into this one, let me make one thing clear here: EMPATHY IS NOT THE SAME AS COMPASSION! Empathy is merely the understanding of what someone else is feeling. Low empathy doesn't mean someone is cruel, and high empathy doesn't mean someone is nice.
Does Azula have empathy? Sometimes, and the level gets higher or lower depending on the situation/who she's dealing with. She can tell when a prisoner is lying or telling the truth just by looking at them, and she often knows what people want to hear, but other times she seems oblivious to other people's feelings (this also ties into her throwing bread at the turtleducks - animal cruelty by itself isn't a trait, and this behavior is pretty low on the cruelty scale, but it could possibly show a lack of understanding of why it is wrong to harm living creatures, even if just a little). We can't say if this a result of nature, nurture, or both, but we can at least say that, while her empathy is not that high (sometimes) it also isn't all that low.
Lack Of Remorse/Guilt - Nope. The Finale makes it pretty clear that is being consumed by regret and it causes her breakdown. Considering her perfectionism, she'd probably struggle with self-loathing and guilt a lot after the day of the comet.
Violent Tendencies - As I've said on The Fire Nation/Firebending Problem, there is nothing in the show that indicates she's more violent than any other firebender (including Aang and other Avatars), and she actually shows incredible restraint. Hell, her ability to combine firebending's impressive, destructive power with a more cold and calculating approach is what makes her so scary and it even leads to her being compared to lightning itself. She's so completely in control that even when she's out of her mind she can still generate lightning despite it requiring peace of mind.
Blaming Others For Their Own Mistakes - Once again, no. She tries it in the finale by labeling Mai and Ty Lee as traitors, and "Ursa" (aka her own mind) won't let her do it. Considering how she says she is a monster when she was merely a misguided child who was failed by every adult in her life, and how she's terrified of disappointing her father and feels bad for not being what he wanted even though he shouldn't be demanding so much of her, Azula seems to have a pattern of holding herself accountable for things that were in no way her fault.
Being At Least 18 Years Old - I call this one "The requirement for an ASPD diagnosis that Azula haters refuse to acknowledge exists." People can't be diagnosed with any personality disorder until they're at least 18 because the human brain takes a long time to be properly developed and one's brain is their personality.
Irrelevant "Traits"
One frequent mistake people make when discussing if Azula has ASPD, is to list "traits" that are NOT traits of ASPD, or of literally any disorder (and again, some that she does not even have anyway), and since we've already talked about actual ASPD traits, lets take a look at what the arm-chair psychiatrists are making up inside their own little heads.
"Unchildlike" Behavior - Throughout the show, Azula does a bunch of disturbing things that indicate she’s is trying to imitate her father, suffering from trauma, and possibly has some kind of disorder. That is not what I’m talking about now. 
I’m talking about the people who claim that Azula doing things like calling her brother by embarrassing childhood nickname, lying to him because he’s guillible, being annoyed that he got a cool gift he actually liked while she didn’t, destroying a doll, and pushing her friend because she was jealous said friend was better than her at something are signs of a disorder or EVIL. They’re not. If these things were proof of sociopathy, we’d have label 90% of all children as sociopaths.
Azula mocking Zuko’s scar was her crossing a line. Azula being a petty, bratty kid was something completely ordinary could have been easily corrected just by properly explaining to her why what she did was wrong, and not letting her have dessert after dinner if she did it again. 
Azula "Always" Lies - Azula is really good at manipulating people, and she does it a lot, that is undeniable. However, we only ever see her doing that when it's either a matter of survival or to deal with someone that is in the way of her goal/mission. We get a slight a hint that maybe she used to lie to Zuko a lot as a child to trick him into embarrassing situations... but that's something many children do to their friends and especially their siblings. It's also very funny that people use Zuko's line of "Azula always lies" to say she's basically a pathological liar, when the first time and only time we hear that is when Zuko is refusing to believe an uncomfortable truth.
Insanity - Insanity is not a medical term, it's a legal term. Labeling someone as "insane" means they cannot be held accountable for their actions due to not being able to understand the gravity of what they did or not even being aware that they did anything. In the finale, Azula's mental (and emotional) stability has deteriorated considerably, she's seeing things that are not real, and she's far more reckless and paranoid, but we don't know how long this condition will last, if it will get better, if it will get worse, etc. What we do know is that insanity has nothing to do with being a "psychopath", and people only think it does because "the mentally ill are dangerous."
Being Mean/Difficult - In the wise words of some random tumblr user whose blog's name I can't remember now: not every unpleasant experience is trauma, and not every asshole you meet is an abuser.
Also, being mean, being a bad person, and having ASPD are completely separate things.
Having "Evil" Blue Fire - No, this is not a joke. Someone really said that Azula fire is blue because she's evil and cruel. Apparently the fact that blue fire is hotter and "cleaner" than red fire and that Azula, aka a PRODIGY, is the only human who has it isn't self-explanatory for these people. And apparently Aang and Zuko got firebending lessons from the Avatar equivalent of Satan since the dragons had rainbow fire. Can we PLEASE not label anything that makes someone different as evidence of evil or illness? Can we leave that bullshit behind?
Conclusion
Azula might, maybe, perhaps have ASPD, but most of the evidence points to her behavior being just a result of trauma and indoctrination. But, even if Azula has any disorder, her character should not be reduced to it, and using any diagnosis to label her as "irredeemable" or "born evil" is disgustingly ableist and this fandom should do better.
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bookofmirth · 3 years
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Hi! I’m an Elriel, but I have a totally legitimate question that I’m hoping you’ll clear up for me!
So if you don’t think Gwyn is a lightsinger (which I’m pretty sure you don’t and that’s totally your prerogative), why do you think Sarah invests so much time and specific, descriptive language into depicting Gwyn a certain way and especially when she’s singing? Just that there’s mentions of Nesta feeling entranced, of Gwyn glowing (which is repeated a bunch) etc.
Is it just that you think Gwyn has autumn court powers, or that she really is just THAT good at singing 😅?
Looking forward to reading your answer, thanks for taking the time!
Hi! Sorry this took a few days, I knew I was going to write a long response and I was doing a readathon last weekend. 🥰 Also I hope the fandom isn’t getting you down. 😬
Short answer - Nesta really likes music and most of the main characters glow at some point in the series. Sometimes we can read the story at face value, especially since sjm tends to use the same metaphors and descriptions across multiple contexts. Occam’s razor tells us that the simplest explanation of things is usually the right one, and I think that really needs to be applied to a lot of the readings of this series because sjm is Not That Deep.
Longer answer:
I think the Nesta and Gwyn singing thing is easily explained by the fact that Nesta stans music in general. It’s something huge that we learned about her in acosf - she used music in much the same way that she used alcohol and sex, and if you listen to a choir or chanting irl, it’s mesmerizing. It’s beautiful. The main difference re: music, alcohol, and sex, is that Nesta has always loved music (and dancing) and so that’s why the gift Cassian got her was so great. It was personal to her as a character.
Here are some examples of Nesta’s connection to music (in multiple contexts, not just in relation to Gwyn) (also the word music is used 81 times):
Sex, music, and drink she’d learned this past year - all of it helped.
That thing deep in Nesta stirred, but she ignored it, pushed it down as best she could without the distraction of music or sex or wine.
“Yes,” Elain said. “She was trained in dance from a very young age. She loves it, and music. Not in the way I enjoy a waltz or gavotte, but in the way that performers make an art of it. Nesta could bring an entire ballroom to a halt when she danced with someone.”
But what Feyre does with paint, that’s what Nesta did with music and dance.
(Nesta to Gwyn) “It’s a long story, and not one worth telling, but through it all, I picked taverns and pleasure halls to frequent because of the music. I’ve always loved music.”
(same scene) “The drinking, the males, I don’t miss any of it. But the music... that I miss.”
And then Gwyn invites Nesta to come listen to the singing. Occam’s razor = Gwyn saw that her friend was in pain and missed something that she loved, and offered her a chance to experience it again. It’s after this that Nesta ends up unintentionally scrying to find the harp, and it makes sense that music is what would help her with that because she uses it to forget her anxieties (see: the first two quotes above).
I was going to do a full meta on the use of the word “glow” in acosf, but when I did a search in my ebook it came up 64 times 💀 Some examples, and I tried to vary the uses I found:
immortal glow radiating from Elain’s fair skin
Amren’s eyes glowed, a remnant of the power that once burned inside her
Rhys’s violet eyes glowed
his siphons glowing
Gwyn’s hair seemed to glow brighter with her song
“do you know that your eyes glow when your power rises to the surface?” (Cassian to Nesta)
Elain had been glowing the next morning
Gwyn lowered her hands, noted the lack of glowing power in Nesta’s eyes, and sighed in relief.
And inch by inch, fresh steel glowed - truly glowed, like moonlight lay within the metal
Her eyes practically glowed in the dimness (Nesta)
No grey fire glowed in her eyes (also Nesta)
His grin was brighter than the glowing siphon (Cassian)
One small lantern glowed, faintly illuminating
Nesta seemed to glow with the attention
Eris’ eyes gleamed with wanton desire, as he drank in Nesta’s smile, the glow about her
And as a side note, in acowar (I believe? someone correct me if I’m wrong) Lucien’s hair is also described as glowing when he gets upset. I think it’s when he and Feyre are escaping the Spring Court.
Another side note, Feyre, Nesta, and Elain are all described as glowing during and after sex.
So what I get from this, in this mini meta, is that “glow” is used in two ways: 
to show that something is going on with fae powers, 
or as literal description of light
While yes, Gwyn is described as glowing, the word is used most often to describe Nesta’s eyes glowing, although Lucien, Rhys, Amren, Elain, Cassian, and Feyre all glow at some point as well, and more than once. That alone points to it being maybe about fae power, but if we were to say that Gwyn glowing = lightsinger, then what does it mean when all these other characters glow? 
Occam’s razor = Nesta is super into music, nearly all the characters glow when their powers are acting up.
The idea of lightsingers is cool, especially if it were used to complement or contrast shadowsingers. But then their description in acosf is.... creepy af. And there isn’t any description of glowing (or singing!) as being inherent to their power. I don’t think anyone has ever suggested that Azriel, as a shadowsinger, tortures his victims with... song? Or lures them with song? 
My main thing with analysis of certain words or phrases is that they need to be applied across the board. If we’re going to say that use of a word is super important in one context, then it should be looked at in all contexts. That’s when it becomes a theme, and so looking at the word (or phrase, or idea) across contexts can tell us what the theme is. For example, discussion of Az’s shadows should include every instance of them being described for the full picture to emerge. I think there are other examples that make people think Gwyn is a lightsinger but glowing and music aren’t enough because when looking at the broader context and use of those words 1) there is way more evidence to show that Nesta was being influenced not by Gwyn’s “power” but more by her own preference for music, and 2) If we’re going to say glowing is a lightsinger thing then almost everyone in the books is a lightsinger.
I hope this makes sense! Sorry this got long, I like to cover all my bases. 
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masqueradingmoon · 3 years
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hey a while back you said you had a lot of thoughts on how non-jewish white arthurian fans can better be allies to jewish ppl. with the post i just reblogged i thought it was important to also discuss antisemitism in both medieval literature and the use of arthurian narratives in the present day. this is an invitation to say everything you want about a) antisemitism & arthuriana, and b) how white culturally christian fans can create a better environment for jewish fans!!
oh thank you for bringing this up! I think in general I do a lot of thinking about these things what with how d&d plays into the medieval aesthetic as well, and so I think up similar alleys when i think about like, how to make that more accommodating as well. Obviously it’s not 1:1 but... call it listing my credentials before I go on a big rant about making minority groups welcome in fan spaces for media that is also largely dominated by fans who are bigoted. 
Anyway, I’m going to skip the history lesson for this post, if you need to learn about the treatment of jewish people in medieval times you can look it up. I think it’s pretty clear that these stories at their core, if not every text that gets commonly talked about, are not welcoming to jewish people. Or... anyone who isn’t christian. It was the dominant religion in Europe for pretty much all of the texts we read, and in its origins, arthurian lit revolves around the ideals of chivalry, yes, but also the ideals of spreading christianity, and a lot of christian symbolism. So far that hasn’t been anything I saw discussed before or after King Artus was circulating in our little corner of the fandom, only within that little pocket, which isn’t a call out, necessarily, more a heads up. I think one of the most insidious things about antisemitism is that more than other forms of bigotry it feeds on not being noticed and acknowledged, especially when it crops up in media. One of the most important things to do is call it out and acknowledge it, which is uncomfortable, but there is a lot of uncomfortable stuff in these texts that i’ve seen handled pretty well so far. 
It is really hard to take back the medieval aesthetic from white supremacists, which I feel like is true of a lot of things, ancient roman aesthetics for example. It gets co-opted and warped over time, so the characters become less and less what they originally were, which wasn’t even always great, and slowly morph into beautiful, white paragons intended to carry out the white, christian way of life and morals. We forget sometimes to take these things in context, because as fun as it is for Priamus to join the knights for Gay Reasons, in the actual story, that plot point is... incredibly iffy. And because of that I think it’s important to think about who is writing what we’re reading, and who is writing the analysis that we’re reading, and how does that affect how they see the characters and stories and explain them to other people? It isn’t that you can’t separate arthurian literature from white supremacists and anti-semitism, but it takes an active effort and curation of what you’re reading and what you’re posting about it. 
And lastly, regarding making jews feel welcome in your spaces, that depends entirely on the content that you’re putting out. There are a few red flags that I could call out in other fandoms that I haven’t seen here yet, but as a general list of things to avoid, of which i may or may not have seen specific things: drawing certain human characters with inhuman features such as greenish skin, sharp teeth, pointed ears and noses, and matted or frizzy hair (multiple at once, not individually), writing characters with these features or antisemitic traits, doing this to villains in particular. I only say this up front instead of starting with the “diversity, diversity!” point because “diversity” for jews often means being written as jewish through a clearly goyishe lens, where there is a defined set of personality traits and appearance for what a jew can be. That said, diversity diversity! Include jews in your reincarnation aus, make your heroes jewish in your fanfic, clear away the heavy christian symbolism and make room for other religious and cultural imagery and themes (respectfully). You can always look up any of this stuff if you’re unclear. And honestly, I’m one of the lucky minorities who doesn’t so much mind fielding questions about how best to include us (though like, about complicated things, not what is considered kosher) so... I’m willing to answer questions if people need to reach out and get help with the specifics of some of the stuff that I only mentioned briefly in this post.  Okay, that about covers it for now, I hope all this helps field some conversation, because the fandom has been sorely missing it. And to my lovely followers who have no idea what’s going on but are interested, I’ll be reblogging the post mentioned in the ask. It has a lot more detailed information and analysis on this subject from a more general lens, so it’s worth a read as well if you’re going through the trouble of reading this whole post. 
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treestargarden · 3 years
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wonder egg priority, episode 5, “the girl flautist” analysis below the cut
tw: paedophilia, suicide, beauty standards (thinness, fatphobia, colorism/racism, youth)
FUCKING FINALLY WE GET SOME INFO ON NEIRU
neiru’s weapon
so neiru’s weapon happens to be a combination weapon. i’ve discussed previously that the weapons seem to correlate to each girls’ life--i’ve even discussed specifically they could be coping mechanisms. 
stay with me here, but i honestly think neiru could be an assassin. we know so little about neiru’s life up to this point, and it was very briefly mentioned how her sister died at the very end of the episode. 
as mentioned in the episode, neiru was stabbed by her sister, before she jumped off the bridge to her death. its unknown /why/ this happened, but i have a guess, which will be discussed later. 
anyway, neiru’s coping mechanism after her sister’s death has been to fight more. she said specifically she isn’t saving wonder eggs to save her sister, she’s doing it for herself, so she doesn’t have to live with the pain of forgetting about her (literally and metaphorically). the weapon is a combination sword/gun--gun for assassination? and sword to commemorate her sister stabbing neiru. 
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neiru’s wonder killer quotes
so up to this point, i’ve made it pretty clear that i think even if the wonder killer’s are the wonder eggs’ specific abusers, the killers are also very closely linked to each girls’ own trauma as well. during both of neiru’s wonder egg scenes, there were some specific quotes that caught my attention that could point toward neiru’s backstory a little more and provide motive behind neiru’s sister’s death. 
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the first wonder killer briefly spoke about the egg’s parents not loving her, and that only he could ever love her (grooming). but this also points to a very specific trauma--possibly neglect for this egg. and as mentioned previously, the girls’ are probably working through their own traumas as they save the eggs. its quite possible that neiru and her sister faced a lot of neglect in the household (which would make sense, considering neiru has inherited a large company--her parents being rich/powerful would be significant support for such an inference). this wonder egg also spoke about capitalism, which i found really interesting, considering much of the stories up to this point haven’t really mentioned... capitalism. 
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quite honestly, i’m not sure how to take this into the context of trauma, but it could also lead into some of the beauty standards trauma talked about later in the episode. i suppose, though, that this sort of line could point to the fact that beauty standards are very capitalist-motivated. its within the realm of tell women they aren’t good enough naturally, so they must spend all their money on looking young. 
now that i think about it, i kinda wanna delve into the beauty standards controversy that’s been going on in the fandom. 
neiru’s next wonder egg broaches the subject of beauty standards. in this scene, neiru is being tormented by both the wonder egg /and/ the wonder killer. the wonder egg belittles neiru for continuing to live, when she could die young and beautiful.
i think a really important key word in this killers quote is “fairest.” often, people tend to read it as “most beautiful.” but, given the context of this being in neiru’s scenes who is the dark-skinned girl of the ensemble, its important we read more closely into this quote. what its really asking is “who is the /lightest/ of them all” specifcally to denote that lightness = beauty. 
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the colorism that /should/ be read into this scene is compounded by the fact that the egg berates neiru for the state of her hair, asking if she does “hair treatments” and that her hair has gotten “damaged.” this could directly point to some other traumas neiru has experienced irl, too. up to this point, no other girls’ appearance has been specifically commented on like this. i want to point out that literally the scene just before this, rika was tickling neiru. neiru’s reaction was to laugh, because she /somewhat/ trusts rika. 
the juxtaposition between being touched affectionately, and being touched to be criticized is incredibly important in this scene and can definitely point to some of the background we have yet to uncover into neiru’s past. 
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in terms of neiru and her sister: my line of thinking is both girls’ parents were absent, but when their mother (specifically mother, because this egg is the one repeating the beauty “advice” rather than a male wonder killer) was around, she probably belittled the girls about their appearances. 
i don’t think neiru’s sister’s age was mentioned, but i have a feeling she was older, given there was a lot of emphasis on age in this particular scene with this wonder egg. perhaps neiru’s sister had finally decided 1 of 2 possibilities:
1) enough was a enough. she was miserable and wanted a way out. but this doesn’t explain why she would stab neiru or 
2) neiru’s sister was probably of the same mind as this wonder egg--kill yourself while you’re young so you can stay beautiful forever. neiru’s sister was probably so enticed by this idea, that she felt she was doing neiru a favor by stabbing her (hoping it would kill her, too). 
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the controversy behind the beauty standards of this particularly series is that... everyone is thin, young, etc. And I absolutely agree that is the case for this series. HOWEVER, i do not think its controversial. i think the creators are using a very specific medium to drive home points about racism/colorism, paedophilia, beauty standards, fatphobia, etc. Most of the wonder killers have been... paedophiles to all of the girls in the show up to this point (eggs included). i think this show specifically tackles a lot of the issues people don’t /think/ it tackles. 
for instance, the girls are children. they’re small, frail, “helpless”. All of these are characteristics that paedophiles look for in a “victim.” this series specifically calls out the traits in our society that are deemed “valuable” or “attractive” as they are /very/ childish traits (flat chests, thin legs and arms, small stature, meek personality, youthfulness, etc.)
that’s just my 2 cents on the situation though. i think this anime does an incredible job at tackling a lot of these difficult subjects. no it isn’t perfect, but i think that’s actually realistic--real life, real /trauma/ is messy and there’s no one /right/ way to talk about it. i think this anime does a fantastic job highlighting the different ways different people talk about it, excuse it, resolve it, think about it, etc. i think that’s the beauty of healing. the fact that we can all sit here and argue about the validity of what this anime has been illustrating is an act of healing. 
anyway, this is long enough and it ended up being more of a neiru character analysis more than an episode analysis, lol. but i really love her character and i can’t wait to see where she goes from here. i am absolutely in love with the mystery of her background. 
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Allan A Dale Analysis - 2x06
Investigating Allan A Dale’s Character Through For England...!
2x06 of BBC Robin Hood arguably presents some of the most dynamic character relationships and power plays of the entire series, and it was for this reason I came away from rewatching it a few nights ago and instantly began to scribble notes. Originally I aimed to write about the wider relationships within the episode – Guy and Marian’s as well as Guy and the Sheriff’s are particularly interesting here – but alas, I just couldn’t stop myself from writing about my favourite character Allan A Dale, who also goes through one of the climaxes of his general progression and betrayal arc in this episode. As a fan favourite, Allan is often seen throughout the fandom as the victim of a series of worsening situations, and while this is a credible interpretation, it often forgets to acknowledge Allan’s agency and his decisions to go ahead with actions that slow the greater good. Although I agree that Allan’s betrayal and further descent is largely worsened by the actions of those around him, in this essay I hope to restore his accountability and show how he initiates several violent acts, all while victimising himself by placing the blame on others. I will walk through the episode chronologically, analysing his motives, actions, and their consequences, trying to establish a fair view of Allan’s reasoning in this episode, as I examine not just his actions, but the decisions he made in order to complete them. (Wordcount: 3.2k)
This can be read alone, but works best when read after my 2x05 confrontation analysis.
This episode is the first time we see Allan operating fully outside of the gang he’s been a part of for the rest of the series. At the end of 2x05, Robin finds out Allan is the spy who has been working for Gisborne, and they truly clash for the first time. In 2x06, his first scene occurs right at the beginning, as we see Allan trek back into the forest with the hood of his cloak up to avoid being seen by the gang, in order to gather the money from his stash. However, he arrives only to find the gang have found his money, as they proceed to yell at him for being a traitor and keep his stash. The gang’s pain here is understandable; Allan hasn’t been able to explain that the catalyst for his betrayal was physical and emotional torture, (he told Robin but Robin dismissed this and likely hasn’t told the gang) so they think he was more willing to work for Gisborne than he actually was. The pain of the wound is fresh, him having been told to leave by Robin what can only be assumed to be a day or so before. To them, they are taking his ‘blood money’ to help the poor. However, Allan now has very little to survive on. He essentially only has the clothes on his back, as he can’t go back to camp to collect his belongings, and so only has what he left with. His worse possible situation has become his reality overnight: he has gone from having both friends and money to neither. I imagine when the reality of his spying first hit him, he calmed himself from the worry of being thrown out of the gang with the promise of money; he’d have no friends but a means to survive (which is what he wanted the money for in the first place, he wanted financial security), yet now he has neither. However, he still repeatedly tries to reach out to the rest of the gang, saying he never wanted this to happen, but is interrupted by the black knight carriage that drives between them and he runs away, likely to avoid being caught by the Sheriff’s men but also to re-evaluate his situation, as he’s now probably feeling especially vulnerable. In his eyes, this is another situation where Robin or the gang could have given him a second chance but haven’t. (Sidenote, he and the gang are literally divided by the Sheriff’s men, if that ain’t symbolism I don’t know what is).
So now, feeling completely abandoned by the rest of the gang, who have not just been passive in their dislike but have actively taken his only money, he goes to the only person he has left – Guy. Yes, he could’ve left Nottingham and begun a new life, but this would have been extremely difficult, especially keeping in mind that Robin saved Allan from losing a hand when he was poaching to survive after his brother stole everything from him in a similar situation before. Basically, surviving alone is hard, and he knows this, so his quickest and easiest option is to go to the one contact he has who won’t reject him instantly, which is Guy. By the end of the episode, I argue that Allan has more spiteful motivations, but I believe he initially goes to Guy out of necessity, rather than as an act of vengeance against the gang by siding with the enemy.
And luckily for him, Guy agrees to take him on! Some more stuff happens but as I can’t remember it, I’m not going to deem it that important. The next time we properly see him is when he walks into the wrong place at the wrong time, and the Sheriff instantly calls for him to be hanged. We see him arrested, although never in the cells, however you can just imagine the anguish he’s going through there. I always view Allan as at least partially traumatised from his almost-hanging in 1x01, and now he’s been told he’s going to be hung again and is left to wait in a cell, knowing how painful a death it’s going to be, and without any hope of rescue. So now, on top of his exhaustion from sleeping rough for a night or two, having to completely adapt to a new environment and knowing his friends all hate and reject him without him being able to explain his actions, he’s also grappling with imminent death through his worst fear – he’s having what could be described as a really, really terrible time. Even Guy tells the guards to ‘take him away’, so he is essentially abandoned by everyone he knows. He is completely cornered with no way out.
Let’s expand our view for a minute and just think about Allan as a person. I love a good personality test, and my personal favourite is the Enneagram. The Enneagram categorises personalities into nine types, with a person’s basic desire and basic fear at the crux of this designation. I believe Allan to be a Type 7 with a 6 wing (7w6), which essentially means his biggest fears are of being deprived and in pain, and of being without security. If we go back to the episode, taking into account everything he’s just had to consider – a painful and imminent death, the loss of his friends, and loss of a shelter and money – and place that in the context of his worst fears – being deprived, in pain, without security - we see a man who has every single worst fear come true in the space of around 24 hours. And then, what if on top of this, we place him on a flimsy wooden plank on top of a vat of boiling liquid, pitted against the man who personifies why his life is now awful: we see a man who has lost everything, who is completely cornered, who has nowhere else to run, but an instinctual desire to survive. (Allan’s ideas of right and wrong aren’t as strong as the rest of the gang’s, and his desire to survive places these even further back on the priority list.)
Now, this doesn’t excuse what he does when he’s fighting Robin over that pit of boiling oil, but it does give an outline of just how emotionally wrecked he’s feeling. In that moment, it’s him versus Robin, him versus the man who is the reason why his life has gone to shit. I’m not saying that everything is Robin’s fault – while the inability of the others, especially Robin, to listen to Allan’s side of the story definitely accentuates his problems, he is still to blame for willingly feeding Guy information and the consequences of that – but to Allan, it is easier to blame everyone other than himself. In his head at this moment, he is the complete victim, as especially in the early moments of processing what is happening, it is easier to be angry at others rather than accept any of his own responsibility for what’s happening. So he’s angry at everyone in lieu of being angry at himself, and hence he takes the initial swing, initiating the fight despite Robin trying to stop him. (It was these moments in the fight which prompted me to write this essay, to investigate his reasoning, because before I viewed him as pretty much a complete victim, but here is an explicit example of how that is not true). Both Robin and Allan are being prodded by the guards to force them to fight, however, so I’m unsure how quickly he would take the first swing without their insistence.
They begin to fight, and I can’t remember all the ins and outs of their conversation as they fight but it’s mainly:
Allan: You should’ve given me a second chance.
Robin: When did you become so low?
Allan: When you started thinking you were better than everyone else.
Robin: Not better than everyone else, just you. Allan is now furious, as in his view, Robin has just completely backed him into a corner by forcing him out of the gang and taking his money, and is now lecturing him on morals, because Allan tried to find a way to survive despite this. (A difference in their priorities: Allan’s to survive, Robin’s to be good. Robin would rather die knowing he stayed true to his morals, but Allan would rather live). But the moment that is most interesting is when Robin is distracted, and Allan decides, completely of his own volition, to go for Robin with what should be a killing blow (Robin manages to twist out of the way last minute). But for all intents and purposes, Allan directly tries to kill Robin. He isn’t prompted by the guard’s stabbing at him, at the very least this isn’t shown, and he has the time while Robin is staring at Marian to properly consider what he’s about to do too. On screen, there is a wide shot of him getting ready to swing, which lasts long enough to see the action was, to some extent, mediated. This is the moment where you could lose faith in Allan as a good person, because he just tried to kill Robin in cold blood. There was no individual catalyst or bad influence (apart from the boiling vat of oil) like when he was previously pressured into betraying the gang, it’s entirely of his decision. Let’s break down the motives behind this action. He’s in the midst of the angriest he ever gets at the Robin and the gang, full of bitterness about his position, as well as in the heat of a life or death situation with the philosophy of ‘I’ve got nowhere else to go.’ In his eyes, he can either die right now, or live to survive another day and even gain the respect of Guy and the Sheriff, possibly guaranteeing him further work. That’s the first possible reasoning – he sees this more as a business opportunity to prove his loyalty to someone else and stay alive.  The other reasoning, of which his motive could be a mix of both or just one (I think it’s a mix), is that he’s genuinely so hurt and furious at Robin that in that moment he does just want to kill him. However, if he was motivated by such an emotion, it has to be interpreted as more of a spur of the moment decision as killing Robin would essentially completely seal his fate of never being able to get back together with the rest of the gang (which does become one of his largest desires by the end of season 2, so taking that into consideration, the moment he goes for Robin he’s likely not thinking of the consequences).
These moments as he’s fighting are so interesting to me, as so much of the time Allan is painted as a victim – which I realise I am kind of doing now – but it’s important to note just how much stuff he does of his own volition. I see these explanations as not excuses for his actions, but reasons, because he does decide to try to kill Robin, just as much as he decides to continue selling information to Guy after being tortured into agreeing. At the very least, he was completely out of rope, so it shows just how far he’s willing to go to protect himself when so much (or arguably so little) is on the line.
Straight after the moments where we see him at his most vicious and vengeful, however, he’s able to jump down from immediate danger, and while the wider fight between the merry men and the guards are happening, he sees John and instantly tries to reach out, saying a genuine thank you for helping save him. Despite being completely willing to kill Robin, he is easily able to thank and attempt to reconcile with John. This might be part of an ‘eye for an eye’ philosophy, as Robin pushed him away from the gang multiple times, but John has done nothing to directly hurt him. The only person Allan has anything against is Robin, the gang are collateral damage in this conflict between the two of them, and it just so happened to be Robin forced to fight him. It would be interesting to see his reaction to having to fight any other member of the gang, as I think he would act very differently – much more defensive than offensive. It also could be because Robin is the person Allan envies the most even when they are friends. He makes a dig of this nature at Robin when talking to him after he’s revealed as the spy in 2x05 (if you can’t defend yourself, attack, could be the ideology he’s using there), likely due to the Ron-Weasley-style insecurity of ‘you’re always in the sun and I’m always in the shade’. This is the same insecurity that Guy preys on when torturing him to convince him to sell him information, and it gets through to Allan, so it obviously runs deep. Robin is the person he has the most internal and external conflict with. When talking to John, it isn’t instant life or death, so he is calmer, and the only reason Allan even came close to killing Robin was due to the fact they were both captured and made to fight. If this hadn’t happened, I imagine Allan would’ve just stayed out the gang’s way until he found a way to get back to them. So he tries to reconnect with John, as he is a friend whom he holds nothing against, to show his gratitude and perhaps find some sympathy or allyship in the gang. All he gets is a punch in the face, though, which is kinda sad. However, this is, when considering John’s vantage point of the situation – Allan just betrayed the gang and tried to kill Robin – completely fair.
After the fight is over, the rest of the gang have made a safe getaway and Guy and the Sheriff are arguing over what to do next. The camera cuts to Allan nursing his bruised jaw from where John punched him, looking not only physically hurt, but pretty emotionally ruined too. When Guy orders him to move, he moves so slowly that it’s definitely more than just pain, but also exhaustion and him processing the full extent of what he just did and what happened to him. He tried to kill Robin, he tried to reach out to John and got rejected, and now he’s going to have to work for Guy for the foreseeable future. He now knows what the gang think of him for joining Gisborne: they see it as a direct attack against them, rather than him trying to survive. He’s dealing with the worst parts of himself while having to accept that he’s truly hated by the rest of the lads, and not just Robin. The fight was the climax of his bitterness and anger, but I think from this moment, we see him begin to realise he wasn’t the victim, and regret and grieve his actions. Although he does go along with the Sheriff’s orders while at the castle, he is subdued about it, replying to Marian’s demands for an explanation for his worse actions with a quiet helplessness as he just ‘knows what side  [his] bread is buttered on’ (2x12). He doesn’t like what he’s doing, shown by his multiple attempts to help the lads while at the castle, but he knows he must do it to survive. His instincts of self-preservation are too strong, and I think this leads to his main internal conflict and possible self-hatred, as he battles between doing what he can to live, and doing what is right. He has a lot of time for self-reflection at the castle, as he comes to term with what he has done, is doing, and must do in the future.
We don’t see anything else from Allan in this episode, but most notably, the camp dynamic is completely thrown after the fight – Much struggles with the silence as the eat at the end of the day, and as a team of five they are generally less mobile. They are able to fight well still, but in 2x06 after Robin writes his letter to Marian and says goodbye to them, about to sacrifice himself, they take a long time to read his letter and realise what he’s about to do. I think that, had Allan been there, he would’ve been able to read Robin better and prompted the others to read his letter more quickly. Here, his looser moral code and intuition would’ve proved highly helpful to the gang. On top of his, in his absence, Much gets even more of the bullying, as he worries more and the others increasingly tell him to ‘shut up’, leading to Much’s outburst in 2x12 which is only resolved by Allan coming back. Interesting, despite expecting Much to be the one to hold a grudge, he’s the first to welcome Allan back into the gang as they fight together, showing that he missed Allan’s presence much more than he let on, and felt the gang’s dynamic shift because of it. Much acts as the emotional compass for the gang, so to see him be so thrown by Allan’s leaving portrays how unstuck the others also feel.
All in all, Allan’s actions in 2x06 stem directly from his confrontation with Robin in 2x05, building on the insecurities and bitterness which Robin failed to acknowledge and address, instead diminishing his experience and taking away all options, until Allan’s only course was to leave the gang and join Guy – not yet in vengeance, but in the name of self-preservation. This backfires as he is almost hung by the Sheriff, left alone to face the threat of his worst fear. His fight with Robin later in the episode shows his anger and frustration come to a head, to the point where he, for a moment, intends to kill Robin. Allan’s inability to take any blame upon himself forces him to direct his anger onto others. Luckily for him, this passes quickly, and he tries to reconnect with other members of the gang but fails to do so. He is then forced to resign himself to working for Guy at the castle, on a side he ever intended to permanently be on. He is very much at fault for his actions, but the decisions made by Robin and Robin’s influence on other members of the gang (by not letting Allan tell them his side of the story) worsen his situation to lead to his permanent working for Gisborne. His actions at times seem spiteful, at others desperate, and the impact other people have on him directly motivate many of his decisions – but at his worst, he has the full agency to make terrible decisions of his own accord.
Thanks so much for reading if you made it this far, I hope you enjoyed my take! I’ve loved writing this duo pf essays of character exploration, they’ve truly helped me to understand Allan’s reasoning further. If you’ve anything to add, please don’t hesitate to! Your response to my 2x05 analysis was so kind and I’m genuinely honoured to be part of such a wonderful fandom.
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beevean · 3 years
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3 years of Sonic Forces, the biggest love-hate relationship of the series
[note: this is the translation of @latin-dr-robotnik​’s article]
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Today is an almost special day, today it’s the anniversary of a rather peculiar game in this series.
On this day 3 years ago, the (to this day) newest game of Sonic Team was released: Sonic Forces. After waiting a year and a half since its announcement (and four years since Sonic Lost World’s release), it was finally time to see what the last chapter of the main series had in store for us, and the results were… okay.
There were so many warning signs in the months before the release: a marketing campaign that was noticeably absent until the very last month, opting to focus more on Mania (let’s not forget that we still get videos about Mania even after the game’s release, not so much about Forces), which added to the uncertainty caused by the footage already available at the time, which ended up being confirmed a few days before the release, when some people managed to get the game early and streamed a good chunk of the game. While one of the leakers was just a bad player, the quality of the game itself was put into question…
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A harsh reality
I’m not going to soften up my words here: for being the latest Sonic game, in a post-Generations and post-Boom era, Sonic Forces fell short of everything it tried to do (if it tried). Anything positive comes from the roots of something negative, and in the context of this anniversary, after 3 years without knowing a thing about the next game, it only emphasizes the frustration and the disappointment it caused.
Sonic Forces promised a world devastated by Eggman, an epic battle to save the world and win against a powerful enemy. However, of so many promises, not even the first one, the most basic one, was kept: it was an empty takeover, explained poorly (because they didn’t even show it, they told it through text) and developed even worse. All the potential of such an exciting world was thrown away as soon as the game didn’t even try to explain some of its most important questions (like why Green Hill was in the process of desertification); to this day we still don’t know what the fuck does the Phantom Ruby do, in Mania it has some powers, in Forces it has different powers, and it’s not clear where does it come from or if it’s more powerful than the Chaos Emeralds. It is disappointing to not be able to discover all this untapped potential, and it is so disappointing that one of the oldest works on my blog was an attempt to rewrite the beginning of the game, give it more context and a better footing to start the adventure.
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This old leak dates back to 2016, when the game was barely announced, and surprisingly it ended up being real, very very real. Even the title “Sonic Wars” is true, and if you don’t believe me you can open the game’s folder and read the names that appear. Source.
The confusion and disappointment don’t end here. If you have read the mess of opinions and emotions that is my analysis of the game [translator’s note: the link is in Spanish], you may have noticed that one of the biggest questions never answered was, what’s up with the order of the levels and why is it so confusing? Between 2016 and 2017, there were some leaks and statements going around places like Sonic Stadium that confirmed that the game went through numerous changes, not just in the plot, but in the levels as well. Right now I can’t find these old posts (I’m surprised that the fandom didn’t archive them), but it was said that the original idea for Forces, then still called Sonic Wars, was to shine the spotlight even more on the Avatar, or Buddy as it was called; the decision was unanimously rejected by SEGA of America and Europe, forcing SEGA of Japan to order that the game was modified. In fact, I remember that the leak that mentioned this meeting between the SEGA branches was rather bad, with a very tense atmosphere and lots of disagreements.
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This is the closest thing to a confirmation of the scrapped plot that I could find. At least it’s proof that I’m not crazy and that Forces was indeed more focused on the Avatar. Source.
The mess that is the order of the levels, the questionable presence of characters like Classic Sonic, and some of the details of one of the leaked scrapped scripts such as that apparently they considered to reintroduce Mephiles – all of this shapes the network of a mediocre game, created under the premise of “from the creators of Sonic Colors and Sonic Generations” but taking all the wrong parts of those two games, using an engine that has been proven to be less efficient than Unleashed’s and Generations (and I’m not talking about the Hedgehog Engine, which is the graphical engine – I’m talking about the game and physics engine of Lost World), and with short levels and… polarizing bosses, to say the least.
The result is a game that shows a lot of potential, but in practice it doesn’t live up to it at all, be it for its own limitations (being rushed like hell) or for a noticeable lack of attention to details; it didn’t succeed in creating a cohesive and coherent world, with levels that could be worthy of what has been learned in these years. This is the reality of Sonic Forces.
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And yet...
Despite everything I’ve just said, despite all the unacceptable errors that Forces made, and despite all the terribly wasted potential… we still talk about this game.
There are many reasons. On one hand, Forces and Mania have been the latest Sonic games for 3 years now, which is tragic in on itself (Team Sonic Racing disappeared from the face of the Earth); on the other, we still talk about Forces because there is something that still attracts us to it.
It’s not the same attraction we feel for Sonic ‘06, though. Forces is not a complete, almost-franchise-killing disaster like ‘06 was, it’s not a giant meme that spread from the fandom to popular circles and internet figures such as the Game Grumps. People have been trying to fix Forces’ mistakes, but not on the same scale as projects that tries to completely recreate ‘06 with a radically different engine, or fix each and every bug in the original version. Forces is nowhere near as infamous, and so the discussion goes in different directions.
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Episode Shadow is still one of the most entertaining parts of the game, and one of the most important as well, as Shadow himself hadn’t been a playable character since… well, Sonic ‘06.
On one hand, there is a cult surrounding Infinite, one that I personally don’t agree with, and I don’t know if it’s bigger than Mephiles’ 15 years ago, but I do know that it exists and it’s still present. One of the ways Sonic Team tried to “go back to its roots” was to introduce a character like Infinite in a plot that was supposed to be “more serious”. Final results notwithstanding, Infinite managed to win the heart of a sizeable portion of the fandom, which still wishes for his return and development.
On the other hand, there is the Avatar, our personal OC with an impressive customization system, which allows us complete freedom, to the point that we could recreate characters introduced in Sonic IDW like Whisper the Wolf. What at first looked like a questionable idea, nothing more than a source of memes, ended up becoming the smartest idea Forces had, with a gameplay style that, in my opinion, retains a little of the old Adventure spirit, and even had some of the most fun levels in the game. While Classic Sonic ruined one third of the game, and Sonic was somewhat mediocre compared to his past feats, the Avatar’s gameplay style manages to keep its quality throughout the game, despite the fact that the plot keeps revolving around their presence instead of focusing on the other aspects of saving the world, which is... well, a little unfortunate.
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Even I, who I’m not really into Sonic OCs, had a lot of fun recreating some of the characters.
And finally we get to the best part of the entire game: the music.
Even after three years my opinions haven’t changed much. Forces’ music isn’t perfect, it has its low moments (I feel like I’m the only one who doesn’t like Light of Hope) and some disasters (F*ded H*lls lol), but overall it has good intentions and it has some pretty good highlights.
The use of synths, as overdone and criticized as it is, was an honest attempt to follow a trend present in older games, like Sonic Unleashed, where this instrument symbolized Eggman’s influence. An interesting touch that, while wasn’t completely successful, is appreciated.
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I still say that Fighting Onward is one of the best themes of the entire game, and Spaceport as the level benefits from having it.
Then there’s the best part of the entire soundtrack: the return of vocal themes, such as the main theme, the villain theme, and some of the level themes. I cannot explain with enough words how much fans were waiting for this, and it was brilliantly handled by the advertising campaign: a preview of the instrumental version of Fist Bump, a short peek of the Avatar themes, and finally the reveal of some of the major themes. It’s not surprising that it became one of the most appreciated parts by the fans. From the iconic intro of Fading World to the subtle nod to Green Hill in Set In Motion, every theme has something that makes it stand out from the rest of the game.
But even so, the rest of the music in the game has redeemable points as well. Forces in general distances itself from the music styles previously used in the series, especially from the variety of incredible sounds of Unleashed or even Lost World; but from time to time it still recognizably Sonic, like in the half-Megaman, half-Runners Network Terminal, in the extremely epic and underrated Last Judgement, or in the always-mentioned Ghost Town (not the only “good” Classic theme in my opinion, but the first one that comes to mind). Even the remixed Zavok theme sound better in Forces than in its original version.
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A love-hate relationship
At the end of the day, the only thing left I could say is that Forces is still one of the most polarizing games in the series. 3 years aren’t enough to heal some of the wounds left by the 4-year hiatus, plus the disappointment of the time, but at the same time these 3 years kept alive the memory of its best moment, the discussions about the music and the uncountable groups of fans reunited to share OCs like the fandom has always done.
In this anniversary, I thought it would be interesting to revisit a bit the peculiar relationship I have with this game, as we wait for a new hype cycle for the next game. And maybe, just maybe, that will be the moment Forces will fade from our collective memory, at least for a decade, until new fans will look back to the good and bad this game has done. And I hope that, in the future, the situation of the franchise will also be different from what it has been these last years, in a good way of course.
This is all we have left of Forces today, a game that did not manage to capitalize on its opportunities, and a game that shames the legacy of the Unleashed-Colors-Generations era; but also a game that had some genuine, interesting ideas, and a different musical direction, one that (with some exceptions) was what the fans wanted. It’s a polarizing game, it’s a love-hate relationship.
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clansayeed · 3 years
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Jack, many of the fics I read around here, treat Kamilah as a Gaius' victim and him as an abuser who manipulated her. I don't know if that perception comes from the fact that most of Kamilah's fanfic writers are lesbian and there's this "trend" of treating men as enemies or if it comes from the fact Kamilah's fans need to see her as a manipulated victim, so they can excuse her for her atrocities. To me, it's very difficult to label Kamilah as just Gaius victim, considering how badass, strong and powerful she is. I see her more as Gaius' accomplice that managed to redeem herself that his puppet. There's loads of evidence on the BB books that she was his partner in crime rather than his victim. IMO, treating her as a product of his manipulation looks like underestimating Kamilah. What is you opinion about this? I'd like to hear your input as I consider you one of the writers that has managed to understand Kamilah's personality the best.
I want to start off by saying I don’t know, nor am I speaking for the majority of writers in the fandom, no matter their orientation, but rather I’m only speaking for myself--my interpretation of Kamilah--and my thoughts on her. Which... as is pretty apparent by now is very different than perhaps PB or the BB writers intended. I have nothing to say regarding the beginning of this ask.
You pretty much hit it home with my ideas here:
“I see her more as Gaius' accomplice that managed to redeem herself than his puppet.”
But... I think it’s possible to be both in this case.
Something I mention a lot and something that drives much of my thought process when it comes to characters like Gaius and Kamilah is the simple fact that I don’t think it’s ever possible to understand them. Yes because they’re fictional first and foremost but taking that away and giving critical character analysis; they are thousands of years old. 2,000 for Kamilah and based on my logic nearly if not 3,000 for Gaius. Like... think about how much you change in a lifetime. Think about how much you change in a decade, or a year, or whatever. Multiplying that by literal thousands is... kind of small potatoes to someone like us. Someone finite.
Because there’s a difference in mentality, I think, when you stop considering yourself in league with the things that will come and go. A freedom of mentality and, in my opinion anyway, a freedom from certain values and morals and ethics, etc. The way you treat someone you know will die in your lifetime changes. The way you treat someone who you know will not die in your lifetime changes.
So when the dynamic of Kamilah and Gaius is brought up I think the idea of “nothing exists in a vacuum” needs to be brought up (in analysis anyway) more than it is. Because it’s easy to see motivations and intentions in the moment (or, in this case, in the context of the scene given) and take them one way, but if they are taken as just another tiny tiny piece of the whole... that’s a different story.
“... treating her as a product of his manipulation looks like underestimating Kamilah.”
Yes. This one thousand (or two thousand, depending on your persuasion) times yes. One of the reasons I think they stayed together for so long was because of their similarities. It’s only for brief moments at a time but we see Kamilah was a tactician, a nomarch; someone with keen enough military strategy to have a decent number reporting to her and important enough that the fabled Undying Centurion, or any prisoner I’m willing to bet, would be brought before her to decide their fate.
Saying the Kamilah we see in flashbacks and meet in the present -- cunning, capable, even a little devious, and very powerful -- is nothing more than a product of her time with Gaius is doing her a great disservice. The potential was already there. He just gave her the years to develop her talents as much as she wished.
Controversial opinion, but I would even say had she lived 2,000 years on her own and without Gaius’ influence she probably would have ended up a very similar woman to the one who had been at his side. Maybe a little more open emotionally, but with only very minor personality changes.
Of course what Gaius did (in canon anyway) was unforgivable, abusive, awful. But denying their similarities is just kind of silly. They worked so well together because of those things -- not in spite of Kamilah being some repressed doe-eyed soul forced to put on a hard face for her abusive partner, but because I really believe they played each other as well as they played the world.
There’s nothing wrong with seeing Kamilah in this light, too. It doesn’t make her evil, or imply she would ever be emotionally abusive towards MC. So often a woman’s cunning and devious nature ends up demonized and that’s just... such a shitty way to view women, and especially characters. What Gaius did to her and how he treated her was terrible, but that doesn’t automatically make her the typical kind of victim.
Going back to the vacuum train of thought -- we can’t forget that despite her wits and mental and physical dominance... history hasn’t exactly been kind to women. And definitely not women of color. Which is putting it way too mildly, obviously, but isn’t the point right now. Sure there were periods and places in which a smart woman could find a way to gain her own power but as a whole, and likely in Gaius’ Western-modeled Court, that power had a limit.
So taking that and applying it to a woman of color who has seen dozens of those social structures come and go and always ending up the same flavor of sexist, and saying she wouldn’t grow a thick-ass skin like armor and find any way she could to twist the world to suit her? Like I said above; a disservice.
Hope that curbs your curiosity?? I wrote this in segments with long breaks in between so if I seem to jump tangents my baaad and feel free to ask me to elaborate on one part or another.
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panharmonium · 4 years
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why are you being like this?
people i’ve met - they’re not like you.  they don’t care.  i don’t matter.
don’t ever think that.  we all matter.
just some meandering thoughts on where the thematic center of merlin bbc lies for me, and how it weaves itself in and out of my fandom experience.
under a cut because this is a) sort of long and b) not really directed anywhere but my own brain, as i keep thinking about and creating for this show.
[as always, before i get rolling, a reminder: when i write about how i engage with this show, it’s just me talking about what gives me, personally, the most satisfaction or enjoyment, not the way i think everybody should do things.  if this isn’t your particular read, please feel free to scroll past.  i am not ever going to bother anybody for engaging with this show in their own way, so please don’t worry about it if we are not on the same page.]
that post about kilgharrah really got me feeling things.  
i struggle a lot with the sort of...non-nuanced ‘fuck kilgharrah/fuck gaius/fuck arthur/fuck whoever’ mode of engagement that i sometimes run across in fandom.  (and i’m not saying there’s anything intrinsically wrong with it; if you have the most fun engaging with the show in that way, please continue to have fun.  i’m just writing, on my own blog and in my own space, about what i personally do or don’t find compelling.)
i struggle with this mode for the same reason that i struggle with the whole ‘fuck yoda!’ narrative that pops up sometimes in tumblr’s star wars fandom.  because it’s not the narrative that the story is actually trying to create, and though this fact doesn’t mean you can’t twist things that way if it gives you more enjoyment, for me, there’s nothing about it that feels good.
writing fictional characters off like this, when the narrative is clearly not asking us to do so, feels...frustratingly false, and externally-imposed, as if characters are being evaluated based on the exacting standards of a universe in which they never lived, in a context where they were never intended to exist.  doing so requires you to willfully ignore what the story is actually trying to say, and it’s fine to go ahead and do that if you want, but for me it strips away so much of what makes the story meaningful.
bbc merlin’s core plotline is about believing in someone’s better nature.  the central storyline is that merlin commits himself to someone who doesn’t always give merlin reason to believe that this commitment is worth it, and yet still there’s always this hope and faith and belief that one day arthur will make it right.  
and this is presented as a worthy choice.  are there problems with it?  of course.  the show knows that, and it gives us places to think about that.  but even with this being the case, the ultimate message of the show is still never that this commitment was useless, worthless, or foolish.  the message of the show is that under the right conditions, people grow.  this show says that when we are given deep love, care, and companionship, we can change for the better.  it says that people, under the right conditions, can learn how to be better than they were before, and that everyone deserves the opportunity to grow into the person they were meant to be.
bbc merlin is not asking us to cancel any of its characters, ever.  that is never the show’s intention.  i won’t try to stop anybody from doing that, if that’s how they have more fun watching the show, but i am still going to contemplate, in my own space, how small that makes the story feel for me.
sometimes i see things like ...‘morgana/gwen/whoever is the only valid character in merlin bbc,’ and i just...first of all, neither of them are perfect, okay, and second of all, it doesn’t MATTER, because that has never been the point of the story.  this story is not asking us to rank characters on a scale of how righteous/unproblematic we think they are.  it’s asking us to CARE about the characters - ALL of the characters - and to root for them (yes, ALL of them), in the fullness of their imperfection.
when i explore the wider fandom, i typically bump up against one of two mindsets.  there’s the shipping mindset, where everybody loves arthur and he’s helplessly in love with merlin.  but i don’t want that mindset (because i don’t ship that pairing), so i look elsewhere.  but the other mindset is an attitude that dislikes arthur, full stop.  and i don’t want that either!
this ‘either/or’ divide is the opposite of what bbc merlin is asking us to do with its characters.  i criticize arthur all the time, but i still don’t think the story is asking me to reject him.  and i don’t WANT to reject him, either - why would i even watch this show, if i didn’t think it was important to see him become who he was meant to be, if i weren’t invested in his growth, if i didn’t ultimately believe in his possibility?  if i didn’t think the show was asking me to root for him - not uncritically, of course; the show is never asking me to do that - but with the core understanding that arthur is somebody worth caring about?
the same goes for morgana.  the show never asks us to write her off.  up until the very end, the show wants us to care about her.  the show wants us to root for her.  the show never asks us to forget that she and the other characters used to love each other; it never tells us to stop wanting morgana to get what she needs.  
gaius, too - the show never wants us to kick him to the curb.  it knows he’s not perfect.  he knows he’s not perfect.  he tells merlin, when talking about his own life, “there has, for the most part, been very little purpose to it.”  but the show doesn’t want us to fixate solely on his failures, or to dump him for his more cowardly moments.  the show wants us to know that he still has value.  it wants us to know that he is doing more good in the world now than he did before, which is all we can ask of a person, in the end.  it wants us to know that he cares, and that he is trying.
and kilgharrah - the show is never asking us to hate him, either!  yes, i get that it’s funny to joke about how “unhelpful” he is; i think that stuff is funny, too - but i also think it matters to understand that in canon, in the show, we are not meant to read kilgharrah as a malevolent figure.  we are not supposed to read him as a villain.  we are supposed to care about him.  we are supposed to understand that he, too, is working, ultimately, for the triumph of Good.  even though his version of this may feel convoluted to us, because kilgharrah isn’t human and can’t possibly be evaluated by human standards, we are supposed to understand that he, too, is trying.  we are supposed to be moved when merlin asks him, “what will i do without you?”
we are supposed to care about all of them.  we are supposed to find all of them worthy.  we are not supposed to evaluate them (and then discard them) according to inflexible, merciless, decontextualized standards imported from a non-merlin-bbc world.
and this doesn’t mean people aren’t still allowed to do that, if it’s fun for them, but for me, analyzing this show outside of its context doesn’t bring me any satisfaction.  we can go ahead and say things like ‘arthur should get his head chopped off’ and like, okay, that’s funny as a joke.  but as an actual analysis of the show - as a sincere interpretation of the story - it fails.  it’s devoid of all context.  we aren’t supposed to be evaluating this story from the perspective of ‘let’s overthrow the monarchy, kings should die, etc etc.’  the context of merlin bbc is that albion is waiting for a righteous monarch, and that this is a desirable, acceptable, correct thing, in the context of that world.  we are supposed to understand that arthur IS the once and future king, and that this IS a good thing, in this universe, and that the journey we are on here is one where he becomes worthy of his seat on the throne and then ushers in a time of peace and justice for all of albion’s people.
(and as i’ve said before - this is why the merlin bbc finale is so stunningly bad.  it’s not that the show subverts our expectations, it’s that it annihilates its own story, which it has been consistently telling for sixty-three episodes.)
that aside, though - this same overlooking of contextual nuance is the reason why i don’t connect to takes that consider ‘oh no, merlin kills people!’ to be evidence that he’s “changed,” “gone dark,” or “lost his soul.”  merlin does go through a dramatic (and tragic) change by the time we hit season 5, but what happens to him has nothing to do with the fact that he’s killed people.  the context of this show isn’t one where killing is a universal evil.  killing in battle or for the purpose of self-defense is not a morally problematic choice, in this world.  merlin, like everyone else in this show’s context, understands this, and killing a group of enemy soldiers to protect his own life is not something the show intends for us to interpret as an erosion of his humanity. 
what IS framed as an evil act, in the context of merlin bbc, is when someone chooses to kill despite the fact that mercy is an option.  if arthur had killed odin when he could have instead made peace with him, if arthur had executed annis’s champion or vivian’s father when he had already defeated them in single combat, if merlin had killed kilgharrah whilst having absolute power over him - those are morally bankrupt choices, in merlin bbc’s context.
we’re not supposed to see things like merlin killing agravaine as evil decisions.  in the context of the show’s world, killing agravaine is a necessary, morally uncomplicated act.  it isn’t something merlin wants to do, certainly, and he tries to avoid it, and he doesn’t strike back until agravaine tries to kill him first, but ultimately this moment is not supposed to be illustrative of merlin turning down a dark path.  it’s grim, sure, but in the context of the show - in the context of the era - it’s nothing more than the justified wages of aggression.  agravaine brings this fate down upon his own head.  merlin is not a pacifist, and neither he nor anyone else would expect himself to just stand there and let a group of enemy soldiers murder him when he could instead kill the soldiers and get away.  that’s nonsensical and utterly decontextualized.  it’s not an expectation that anyone in-story would have, nor a standard that merlin (or anyone else) would hold himself to.
all that aside, though -
the issue, for me, in summary, is just that i think sometimes we...evaluate this show in ways that it really isn’t meant to be interpreted, without considering the story’s context or thinking about what the story’s actual intent is.  and i think that these decontextualized interpretations are often less generous than what the show is actually trying to say to us, and that sometimes we write characters off when the show absolutely is not asking us to do that.  
and of course, nobody has to listen to what the show is trying to say if they don’t want to.  if it brings someone more enjoyment to pick one character to stan and say ‘the rest of these characters are Bad People and i’m not interested in them,’ then that’s fine!  whatever floats your boat.  
it just doesn’t float mine.
the point of this show, for me, is that everybody deserves a chance.  the point of this show is exactly what merlin says to daegal in the woods, even as daegal is leading merlin into a trap: we all matter.  the theme at the heart of this story is that it is possible to love someone who doesn’t deserve it, and that this can be a worthy choice, a transformative choice, a powerful choice - not necessarily a perfect choice, or even the right choice, maybe, for the person making it, but still a choice that holds value, a choice that creates something good in this world, even at cost.
listen to me, clotpole.  i don't care if you die, there are plenty of other princes.  you're not the only pompous, supercilious, condescending, royal imbecile i could work for; the world is full of them.  but I'm going to give you one more chance.
should merlin have done that?
we can debate that forever.  i am critical enough of arthur pendragon myself, when it comes to merlin’s well-being, and i could easily argue that no, merlin shouldn’t have given arthur as many chances as he did; he shouldn’t have stuck around; he shouldn’t have offered so much of his life to someone who continued to make arthur’s kind of mistakes.
but i think it matters to remember that in canon, thematically, the story’s answer to this question is yes.  mercy, in this story, is the most noble gift a person can bestow on someone else, and i think we are asked to bestow this same kind of mercy on the show’s characters, heroes and villains alike.  we aren’t ever told, in this show, that some of these characters “weren’t good enough” to deserve their chances.  we are told that in this world, compassion is always worthwhile.  love is never wasteful.  it is never foolish to care for people, even and especially when they aren’t yet their best selves.  giving someone a chance does matter.  choosing to care does make a difference, in the end.  
people don’t have to import these themes into their own personal analysis, by any means.  but i am still committed to remembering, in my own work, in my own space, that when we raise the question “was it worth it” in reference to whether these characters truly deserved to be loved, or trusted, or given a chance to grow - the story’s answer is unequivocally yes.
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nadango · 4 years
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Alela Grora: an analysis thingy
Good day to the funamusea fandom that has neglected my beautiful angel (joking. Maybe.) I offer you sea urchins a collection of observations concerning the eccentric lady: Alela Grora.
I'll be breaking down her personality and interpreting every scene and official art she's appeared in, and even include a couple of theories to fill in the gaps, if you find that interesting.
Note: I believe seichiinara did this before when she was active, but I sadly never got to read it. Therefore, everything here is based on my own observations.
First of all...Who is Alela Grora?
Grora is an angel that serves as Etihw's subordinate. She's an archer and a war veteran, and now destroys Wodahs' garden full time.
Based on canon appearances, she is described by Yosafire as "a weird lady looking for her eye"...Perhaps it's because Yosaf isn't too familiar with Grora (which I kinda doubt) or Grora simply doesn't get too close to others, keeping her cool and mysterious appearance.
To the player, I'm sure she seemed like a cool and laid back adult, contrasting Wodahs because opposites attract. She only ever loses her cool when Ater is involved because of the eye incident, which I will talk about later.
But, other than that, we don't know much about her. Being chill isn't an entire personality, especially when we're talking about a literal soldier who lived through the dark war era. Yet, what makes Tgg and dsp's storytelling magnificent is the way they make their stories more than what they seem. During the game, you have a group of cute main characters who are facing danger, but slowly you start to feel something darker creep in the background, not the angry flame demons, but the guardians of their peaceful world hide a lot more than you think.
Therefore, important characters such as Grora, Kcalb, Etihw, the cats and Wodahs-- who is this big question mark-- aren't going to reveal themselves just like that. No, a good writer will drop subtle hints in their mere actions.
Grora literally lost an arm and nearly blew to death for --ah, a certain group of girls. Reincarnations of Etihw's past subordinates. Grora's previous colleagues she had witnessed their deaths and their burial.
She encourages Macarona and is close to Froze for a reason (she hasn't interacted with Chelan as of now, probably didn't have a chance to) ...because of the guilt and the pain she has felt as she saw her previous world fall apart, she wants the descendants of her colleagues to enjoy this new world a d have a wonderful and peaceful life, a life their ancestors would've wanted. And this would make sense, since she's the only character to not explicitly talk about the past, but also the only one to directly compare Froze to Sherbet.
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To sum this up, Grora is a very chill individual who is loved by all, a bit odd sometimes, but still friendly. She is selfless and will fight for what is right, probably due to her past experiences during the war, which she is trying to forget and move on, unlike the rest of the crew. Alas, she can't, for everything reminds her of the terrible old world.
Character Design
Hands down, dsp did the Blancblack crew's designs justice. When it comes to Grora, we could note a few things:
Her current outfit resembles Sherbet/Froze's a bit too much. This may indicate that Sherbet might've had a certain impact on her. I can't say for sure that they were close or not, but he did do something that'll make Grora act the way she does towards Froze.
Missing halo: She is close to Etihw and works under them, no? So why doesn't she wear it? We know it's an accessory, but someone in Grora's position would wear it. For example, Taffy, who is the Head Angel of his world, doesn't wear one because he's not fond of Fumus to begin with, and that includes Olive. All the other Angels don't mind their gods, so they keep the halo. Dsp doesn't need to tell us that, it's logical. Something might've happened between Grora and Etihw, but it's not necessary huge. It could've just altered her point of view or something.
Now, for the war outfit. It is, simply, inspired by Etihw's diamond themed robes. Another thing to note is the tired expression she wore is VERY similar to Etihw's. This might mean that Etihw had a large influence on Grora, and we'll get to their relationship later on.
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Grora's color palette is exactly the opposite of Wodahs', which is a good choice considering that they drastically contradict each other. But it's important to note that Etihw and Kcalb also have opposite color palettes, black and white, dark and light, two past enemies who's mentalities are totally different. It's quite curious of Dsp to design Wod and Grora this way too, no?
Ater and Grora's eye
Grora's grudge against Ater isn't simply a grudge. If she is truly trying to heal and let go of the past, why couldn't she just forgive Ater and heal her eye like Wodahs suggested?
Grora was most likely a fierce warrior, an archer, and having her eye taken out must've been humiliating. A strong and pure being torn down to pieces. That incident was proof of her cowardice. Therefore, the lost eye resembles her lost pride. Finding it again means redeeming herself, but of course, the eye has nothing to do with pride. It's just a distraction.
I may be looking way into this, but it DOES make more sense that way. Same thing goes for Wodahs' eye, but I'll talk about that some other time.
Speaking of Wodahs...
Eyepatch Angels
Whether you ship them platonically or romantically, they're still the best duo and work perfectly together either way.
Based on the events of the game, Wodahs and Grora are close colleagues who always bicker and fight over the most mundane things (Grora is usually the one who starts) yet they make a great team. Grora has a bit of a crush on him because who doesn't but these feelings don't seem reciprocated (Small note: That doesn't mean he doesn't care for her at all, and we barely know what Wodahs is thinking most of the time, so we're not really sure. He's also very dense sometimes)
There isn't much to say about their current relationship for now. What's more interesting is their relationship during the war, and boy oh boy, do I have some news.
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I'm sure we all know this infamous art, the only art featuring them so badass and, so far apart too. They're also facing each others backs, and considering their close relationship, this is bad news. Only enemies are positioned like this, and the high gap resembles how distant they are from each other. That being said, Wodahs and Grora have quite the history. If only dsp could reveal more about them.
Oh, a wild theory has appeared!
Using these observations (specifically Grora's relations to Etihw and Wodahs, and the missing halo) we could come up with some context.
Grora respected and looked up to Etihw, remaining true and loyal to them. At some point, Grora became/was going to be head angel, only for her position next to Etihw was taken by Wodahs, and it angered her.
Etihw most likely paid more attention to him, and ignored Grora. Perhaps they've hurt her in some way, which resulted into a shattered relationship. Sure, everything was fine after Kacalb nuked the world, but memories and past experiences stay.
Well...this speculation is farfetched, but I wanted to share an abridged version of it with you
And that, ladies and gentlemen, includes the analysis thingy. If you've made it here, thank you so much for reading!! And I hope this helped you in some way!
Also, looking at how hard I tried to summarize this, I'm kinda anxious about the Wodahs analysis, since there's a LOT to cover...Haha.
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blacksunisvalid · 4 years
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Analysis: Did the Death of Pyrhha raise the stakes?
I want to start this by saying that people who were smarter and more qualified than me have talked about other problems with the character of Pyrhha and the writing behind her, and also with other things like the Arkos dynamic. But this has been something I've been thinking about for a long time, and I wanted to ask the question in the title: Did Pyrhha dying really raise the stakes of the series? The answer after I've come to about this is no, it didn't, but we as an audience believed they had been. Let me sort of explain what I mean by this, and use some other series as an example.
When Pyrhha died, we knew very little about her. We knew she was an arena fighter and was one of the best of the best. We knew that this had left her to be mostly friendless, and wanted to be viewed as normal, based on her interactions with Jaune, we can tell she felt good that someone was seeing her as a person and not The Invincible Girl. And we know that Pyrhha is socially awkward, with her habit of apologizing for things that aren't her fault, and the sort of awkward way she would say ' Hello again.' But beyond that, anything for Pyrhha is a head-canon or a bit of a deeper reading of what's present. We didn't know if she had a family at the time, what her goals were at Beacon, and for the rest of her life. We know the above things, and that she liked Jaune. An important thing to note is for the most, we are told these things. We are told she doesn't really have friends, and we are told people put her on a pedestal. But we aren't shown this. This is less effective as we have no context for this.
I think a lot of people will agree that when characters die in fiction one of the saddest things is the fallout other characters go through as a result of their death emotionally. When I think of some of the saddest deaths in fiction, it's usually not the death itself, but the way people around them react. One of the best examples of this for several shows ( spoilers for all will be here, hence the spoiler tag) is the death of Maes Hughes from FMA and FMAB. Maes Hughes was a supporting character, but we knew a lot about him. He was Mustang's best friend, supportive of the Elric brothers, and a loving husband and father. We also know he was very supportive of Mustang's plan to advance and change the world once he had more power. Importantly, for the most part, these things are shown to us. We see Hughes on the phone gushing about his wife, we see Hughes showing tons of photos of his family. They didn't have to tell us ' Hughes cares about his daughter' because we knew that. And so when he died, it was devastating to the audience because we had to see how everyone reacted, and these were characters we knew also. Everything from Mustang crying and saying ' It's a terrible day for rain' to Hughes's daughter crying and asking ' Why they're putting dirt on daddy' at the funeral. These are characters who we cared about, and so seeing them in pain was awful to experience.
But with Pyrhha, we don't really have that. I forget the exact volume, 6 or 7 but even when seeing a redheaded woman talk to Jaune at Pyrhha's statue when they leave flowers, we don't know who that is. We don't know if that was her mother, her sister, an aunt, or just someone who had known Pyrhha. Everything about that ( unless RT has revealed on social media) is speculation, and while a good scene, it doesn't really solve the problem I mentioned above, we don't really know people like a family who would be the most affected by the death of Pyrrha.
Jaune and Ruby were both affected by the death of Pyrhha, with Jaune reforging his armor to be a tribute to her. But the problem is, at least to me that it doesn't feel deep enough. Using a different example, the death of Peter Parker in Infinity War. Some of the first words Tony says in Endgame are ' I lost the kid.' At first, Tony is not willing to risk his wife and child on the chance of bringing back everyone else, because he got incredibly lucky. We've seen the arc of Tony, and this, while maybe selfish is understandable, he's always made the sacrifice play, and so seeing him saying for once he won't is satisfying. But then he sees a picture he has with Peter. Trying to play it off as curiosity, he sees if he could actually invent time travel, and then he does. It's subtle, and it's not tossed in our face, but it's there that the death of Peter really affected Tony and played into his survivor's guilt.
One could say that Jaune wants to kill Cinder for what happened to Pyrhha, and that is a fair example of growth. Volume 1 Jaune probably couldn't fathom taking a life, and by Volume 5 he was trying to murder Cinder in the battle of Haven. But Ruby saw her die. And other than activating her silver eyes ( Another issue others have talked about is how she doesn't really wonder what the silver eyes are) I can't remember really her ever commenting on it. Contrast this with the death of Penny, which is some of the best voice acting the series has for Ruby.
Really small scenes could have helped a lot with this. Some of the examples of things I think could have helped-
When Jaune is calling out team attacks, he accidentally calls out Arkos or a move which relied on Pyrhha, only to realize she wasn't there, and there's a brief moment of silence as it sinks in all over again. ( Example: Shotaro from Kamen Rider W calling for Phillip in the last episode but Phillip wasn't there)
Jaune or someone else does a move in combat that Pyrhha had taught to them. Some of the others see it happening, and they briefly see Pyrhha with them. ( Example: Kakashi seeing Minato in front of him when Naruto performs the Rasenshuriken)
Let the characters talk fondly about Pyrhha with a sense of wistfulness. An example of this would be a difficult battle, and then after the battle, they say something like " If Pyrhha had been there with us, well that would have been easier." Tense silence, and then someone, maybe Jaune chuckles and agrees. It's okay to talk fondly about those who are no longer with us. ( Example: The Justice League cartoon when in an alternate world, Flash is dead and Green Lantern and Hawkgirl talk about him with playful annoyance.)
No one really talks about what her death means for them or how outclassed they seemingly are. An example of what I mean is in Kamen Rider Ex-Aid when a character named Kiriya, or Kamen Rider Lazer dies. The characters are told he died because he 'knew too much' and so a lot of time is spent in uncovering what it was he knew. It became a meme of sorts in the fandom about ' the real reason Kiriya died.' On top of that, the characters lament on how it's concerning that their enemy has a Level 10 form while the highest they can reach is Level 5 as an example.
Pyrrha's death and the fallout from it ultimately remind me of the Justice League movie. We're told the world misses Superman and is a worse place without him. But the DCU hadn't spent enough time building up a Superman the world at large would mourn for, or a Superman who did so much for the world that in his absence, things fell apart. I felt the same way with Pyrhha's death, we were told that it mattered more so than anything.
Now that I talked about what I feel is the emotional failure of the death of Pyrhha, I want to move into the other side of it, raising the stakes. Yes, killing a character is a great way to raise the stakes. It's the most lethal version of The Worf Effect (TVTropes some it up very well, basically a character we know to be strong losing to a new character to establish the new character is strong, IE Thanos beating the Hulk as Infinity War opens). But I feel that Pyrhha was not the right character to do for this for the following reasons
We don't really know strong she is. We are told she was a prodigy, but we are never really shown what that means. The only fights we see her in are CRDL, students at Beacon, and while she does beat them all, this is also the only extended fight we have for them, so we don't exactly know how difficult it would be to beat them. Mercury, but he threw the fight purposefully to get information on her, so we have no idea how they would have stacked up if they fought. ( I think she would win but still) Penny, which even if the fight ended in tragedy is the best possible matchup for her since her Semblance lets her control metal, and the fight which ultimately cost her life in Cinder. We knew Cinder had the power of half a Maiden and got the other from killing Pyrhha, but we don't really know what 'half a Maiden' amounts too because we don't know how strong Cinder was before becoming a Maiden, so it's impossible to say what the amp was. I'm not an expert power-scaler, but killing a character to show someone is strong works if we have a much better sense of how strong they were. The example of this is the death of Jiraiya against Pain in Naruto. We know how strong Jiraiya is as a member of the Three Sanin, which by the narrative would roughly put him on par with Tsunade, the head of the village at the time, and Orochimaru who had trained Sasuke. Jiraiya dying shows the audience that Pain is stronger than the current Hokage and protector of the village, and most of the cast. We never got to see Pyrhha sparring with RWBY or other members of JN_R to show how much stronger than them she is. If we had seen this, and then Cinder killed her anyways, it would have been much more d effective and plant a question in our mind: " How can the main cast hope to defeat Cinder?"
Killing Pyrhha wasn't really an objective for the villains, and it was more so good luck that happened along the way. Sure, Mercury gathers data on Pyrhha, but it seems like Cinder wanted to destroy Beacon more than get Pyrhha out of the way. Even the set up of Emerald making Pyrhha kill Penny amounts to nothing, as in the same volume, Pyrhha dies before the consequences of this can be addressed. Pyrrha was in the way of what Cinder wanted, and Cinder killed her which can be an effective set-up, but in my opinion, it's more effective if the villains have been planning specific things, like toppling a public figure like Pyrrha. In BNHA, people try to take out All-Might, and for good reason, he's seen as the Symbol of Peace. Small scenes could have built this up for Pyrhha also. After Mercury gets information on her, just have the villains make small statements about how she's in the way, and that they have to do something.
Pyrrha being chosen to be the Fall Maiden doesn't really make the most sense. From a set-up perspective, it does, the villain killing the hero before they can achieve a powerup, and said power-up is the hero's best hope. ( Examples of this being the Muteki form in Kamen Rider Ex-Aid) But we're not shown why Pyrhha was chosen. As I said above, because we don't really know how strong she is, it could have been Weiss, or Yang, or Blake, or Nora because we don't know what qualities she was chosen for. On top of that, both Glynda and Winter were there, and arguably more powerful than Pyrhha, and would have been better choices. The set-up for me just doesn't work, and so by extension to me, Pyrhha's death felt like they wanted her out of the way, and needed a reason.
This was an incredibly long-winded post, but I hope I was able to get my points across. What do you think?
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dabistits · 4 years
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while reading your posts, i always feel that you’re really well rounded and good at character analysis and just articulating your feelings and opinions towards stories in general. it’s something that i’m trying to get better at, and something that i admire you for, so i was wondering if you had any pointers or tips regarding developing analysis skills? thank you!
first of all, thank you so much!!😭😭 i’m so glad you enjoy my stuff and it gives me a lot of joy to know that this, like, inspires people or w/e fkdkgkf
i’m putting everything below a cut bcs it’s long as fuck and kind of disorganized. i wrote some parts half-asleep, so they might be rambly or stating the obvious or whatever, but you know, pick and choose what’s helpful to you! this probably isn’t exhaustive (and i kinda focused in on the ‘character analysis’ part, bcs otherwise there’s… so much), and if anything’s unclear or if you want more elaboration on sth just let me know!
the basics:
write!! it doesn’t matter what you write, it can meta, fanfic, rp, whatever, but as long as you write about this character you’ll be forced to articulate your thoughts; by extension that means you’ll have to gather evidence and make a convincing case for your portrayal. even if you’re writing fic or rp i think you should have a strong reference of where your characterization is coming from - i used to rp at places that required applications, so that would force me to think about my character’s personality and put it into words. i think most people are helped by the actual process of writing itself also, so don’t let lack of confidence stop you if you’re someone who tends to do that: you might wind up happier with your ideas after having written something than before (and you can aaalways edit).
read!! read other people’s analyses, not necessarily just about the character you have in mind, but about other characters, other stories, other genres, etc. what kinds of things do they point out to support their argument? what patterns are they picking up on? do you agree/disagree? what’s a new thought they’ve introduced to you? what are things they do that you particularly like? can you replicate that idea/technique in your own reading? there are so many times when i’ve read another person’s analysis and made a note to be more aware of [a certain thing] in the future, so that’s what helps me change and build and incorporate new stuff into the way i think about stories.
try to keep an ongoing chronicle of your thoughts. this could 100% be a personal thing, but i actually started to think and absorb a lot more (especially about small things) after i started this blog. being here meant that not only was i keeping up with chapter releases bcs of other fans, but i was also regularly writing about my impressions. reading and discussing chapter by chapter forced me to read & process everything in smaller increments, which let me take in more details, and gave more time for my thoughts and feelings to develop. in contrast, when i binge-read, i actually miss a lot of details and a lot of finer points of the storyline because i’m just trying to get from one plot point to the next.
stick close to canon. this is definitely subjective, but since this is also partially about how i approach character interpretation, i’ll toss this in. i personally don’t stray too far from what’s shown to me in-text, and i revisit canon a lot to establish a “baseline” characterization rather than building off of my own headcanons. this has pros and cons: for example, i feel like i don’t overstate things compared to their canon importance, and i feel like i don’t get too carried away with embellishing character traits; however, it also holds me back from theorizing unless there’s a ton of evidence in front of me, and i can be overcautious when it comes to approaching narrative hints. sometimes i do talk about my headcanons, but even then i usually point out whether or not it’s substantiated, because i do think the line between headcanon and canon gets muddled a lot in fandom discussion.
think about a character’s role in the story. so, we know stories have plots, a start and an end, and messages and themes. all characters function within that framework, they advance us from point a to point b, the carry the moral of the story. i think these are aspects that are important to include in your character analysis; while sure, there’s already plenty to analyse about the LOV as self-contained characters, but they also seem more important, more interesting, and more complex when you take them into the context of the larger story (how and why their relationships are built, what they mean as a part of man vs society conflict, etc.). not only does it inform you about the character (what the author is trying to say through them, what direction the author might push them in), it can also tell you a lot about the overall structure and themes of the story itself.
authors include everything for a reason. when you’re creating something from scratch, you have to actively decide what you include. the way someone’s room looks doesn’t necessarily mean anything in the grand scheme of things, but the author decided to design their room that way based off something—most likely a character’s interests, tastes, and preferences. while mina’s dorm room looking a certain way might not mean she has an old-fashioned personality, it can maybe tell you that she has a more retro taste and aesthetic. this can apply to “big” things too, like one of tomura’s severed hands still surviving the chaos. hori chose to have it survive rather than be decayed like everything else, so of course the question is why?
… but they are imperfect. creators also do make choices out of plot convenience, because of their own biases, or sometimes they just forget (as hori has done before, such as twice duplicating himiko in the overhaul arc and then saying he doesn’t know her measurements for the mla arc). so it can sometimes also be assumed that a detail was included/excluded because of something on the creator’s end, rather than because of it necessarily being symbolic or important to the characters (e.g. a character not being able to make it to a fight might be because their skills are too useful and could resolve the plot too easily, not because them getting sidetracked is important in itself; a female character losing a fight she should have won could be an issue of the creator’s misogyny). so these are aspects you can keep in mind as well when you’re evaluating characterization!
tendencies i see people fall into:
don’t take everything characters say at face value. characters can and do lie. they can be sarcastic. they can be manipulative. they can be deluding themselves. they can even be mistaken! there’s a reason why they’re expressing themselves that way, and sometimes you can gain more by actually investigating that contradiction rather than just assuming they mean what they say.
allow characters to change! they will change in canon, so don’t be too beholden to their early characterization if you’re trying to analyze or write them from a later point in the timeline. again, this seems intuitive, but i see a lot of people who still appear to draw on tomura’s early character portrayal by making him irritable towards the LOV, but he’s much more recently allowed himself to be physically pushed around by some of them without really reacting in any way.
embrace subtlety. a lot of people in their fanfic just see one aspect of a character and blow it up to make it their only characterization. like, tomura is irritable, himiko is obsessed with blood, any villain can be written as a sadistic killer hellbent on annihilation, etc. while having a couple personality traits come through strongly can help the character have a unique personality and voice, too much will make them appear one-note. it’s just as important to recognize moments when characters are being calm and focused and articulate, as much as their most dramatic moments. for example, a lot of writers don’t seem to notice that tomura doesn’t snap at his allies, tends to answer their questions evenly, and never lashes out at them; that’s because these moments are very understated in the manga. hori doesn’t point a huge arrow at them, and he shouldn’t have to! it’s one of those very subtle ways to show a character’s growth. so, pay attention to those moments, and pay attention to what’s not being done as much as what is.
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