#i like humanizing the villains it makes their despicable actions all the more horrifying to me

[yuridovewing]

Now I think Tigerclaw was actually a family man to some extent in this au... I think he genuinely loved Goldenflower and all of their kits together, they were childhood friends, I think he mourned Swiftpaw and Lynxkit's deaths, I think he was overjoyed when Tawnypaw came to ShadowClan because he was glad to know one of his kits would be safe. He cared deeply for his mother and sister and originally doted on his sister's kits before Ravenpaw saw him murder Redtail.

Granted, is he a GOOD dad? ... No not really. He got his own son killed (albeit as collateral damage), Tawnypelt has ptsd from what she witnessed in TigerClan, Bramblestar has a complex, and tbh he just treats Mothwing and Hawkfrost like dogshit. But there's some conflict there, they all have fond memories of him and he tries to appeal to that to get them to join him and conform to his ideology. Tawnypelt has this worst of all because she's now the only living kit who spent the most time with him and saw him at his best and his worst.

He also easily turns on them, his love comes with conditions.

[tyrantisterror]

Scattered Thoughts from my belated watch of the final season of Castlevania

I’m not gonna do a spoiler cut because it’s been like four months since it released guys if you haven’t watched it by now that’s on you

I got all emotional and sniffly by the end so it did its job

Malcolm McDowell as (this show’s take on) Varney the Vampire was something I didn’t know I needed in my life but hot damn did I need it in my life

The build-up to Death as the final boss of the season (and, really, the series as a whole) was masterfully done, both in terms of excellent and subtle foreshadowing and in how it felt so thematically appropriate

This kind of goes for the series as a whole, but this season in particular had this really interesting deconstruction of the “inherently evil monsters” trope, which in turn intersected with the theme of evil as an inherently human construction.  A lot of monsters showed an unexpected depth of character and complexity of morality this time around, and their despicable traits/actions were often revealed to be rooted in very human desires and quibbles.  It was really interesting to see how it played out and not something I expected.

Building off of this: the characterization of Death is probably controversial, but I really dig it?  He’s kind of a thematic foil for the Death of Discworld - both are far more human than you’d expect, but in this case Death’s humanity is, well, petty, selfish, and vulgar, which makes it all the more contemptible and horrifying.  His evil comes from this natural force being tied to something so... mundanely self-centered.

And the wonderful contrast is that the heroic figures in this story are ALSO uniquely human, even in the case of Alucard, who is driven to do good by a desire for human connections despite his inhuman nature.  It’s... it’s just good shit, man.

It also toned down/walked back some of the excessive darkness of season three, which is a good thing for my money.

I do feel this season had some uses of modern speech patterns and swearing that felt a bit unnecessary.  Which I can’t complain about too much because Netflix’s Castlevania is in part defined by that - cue the viral tumblr post about it feeling like a D&D campaign, you know the one - and, like, it never completely turned me off or anything, but there’s just a few scenes I think would be stronger if the writers had reined in their liberal use of the word “fuck”

That said, hearing Malcolm McDowell casually say, “Don’t you think that’s weirdly fucked up?” in the middle of an otherwise standard anime demon lord villain rant was sublime and I wouldn’t give it for the world

I’m gonna miss watching Trevor, Sypha, and Alucard’s wacky vulgar medieval monster mash adventures, but I’m glad this show was more or less solid from start to finish, and the ending gave me pretty much everything I could have asked for.

[fuckyeahcharmcaster]

Yet More Venting

The more time passes and the more I think about it, the Ledgerdomain plotline that ran throughout UA and OV utterly baffles me. Beyond the usual main characters of the show, there are four major players here: Adwaita, Spellbinder, Hex and Charmcaster (Darkstar gets involved too, but accomplishes squat so there was really no reason for his presence at all). 

My question is: what exactly were intended to feel toward these characters?

I literally have no clue, because the story was just that badly written. 

Chronologically speaking, it all began when Adwaita found Ledgerdomain, obtained the Alpha Rune, went mad and became a dictator. That’s all well and good, but then we get to the humans of Ledgerdomain...namely that besides Hex and Charmcaster, there aren’t any more of them because Adwaita killed them all. He was fine enslaving every other race within the realm, but he hated humans so personally for “stealing” magic that he felt only he should use that he systemically captured, imprisoned and slaughtered them. Now what does THAT remind you of, exactly? That’s right, Ledgerdomain humans = Jews, Adwaita = Hitler. And remembering how Ben 10 handled their last Nazi allegories (the Highbreed), this should be immediately concerning.  And sure enough, this aspect of Adwaita eventually gets brushed aside and he is allowed to have zany interactions with Gwen, Hex and Darkstar after having been restored to sanity through losing the Alpha Rune. He’s still evil, but it’s treated as just being garden variety evil, the genocide factor is forgotten entirely. And that’s just...awful.

Now that they’re revealed to be magical holocaust survivors, Hex and Charmcaster should be treated with more sympathy, right? Well, Hex certainly is, since he quickly reforms after this revelation is made to the audience. But Charmcaster remains a villain, even if an on/off kind of villain. And then we run into our next lapse in logic: according to the narrative, Spellbinder trusted his brother Hex to take care of his daughter, he gave them passage to Earth and sacrificed his life in the process. And yet Hex doesn’t take care of Charmcaster, he abuses her and forces her into a life of evil-doing because he’s pissed and wants to conquer Earth so that he can ultimately fight Adwaita’s world full of enslaved sentient beings with his own world full of enslaved sentient beings. Hex is thus portrayed as a massive hypocrite who spit on his late brother’s wishes, and yet we’re supposed to accept him becoming a good guy so easily?

Worse, he’s the one who forced Charmcaster, as a literal child, onto the road to villainy. And yet this fact goes almost entirely unaddressed the entire time while he’s a good guy and Charmcaster’s still a bad guy. They even play it in a way where her staying a bad guy is a reason we should feel sorry for Hex! What the fuck? If Darkstar was good for anything here, it was being the sole person to acknowledge this discrepancy (Gwen is trapped in a bag with Hex, Darkstar and Adwaita; Hex tells Gwen that none of them are responsible for this situation to which Darkstar says “Speak for yourself, “Uncle Hex” - she’s YOUR niece.” Basically Darkstar’s way of saying “she learned it from watching you, you fucking asshole.”)

Oh, and speaking of Charmcaster, what’s the reason the narrative decides to keep her a villain? Because after being embittered by the other rebels turning on her for the sake of power after she deposed Adwaita, she ultimately claimed the Alpha Rune and decided to sacrifice every soul in Ledgerdomain in order to bring her father Spellbinder back to life. Yes, that includes all the creatures that serve her and all those that did not partake in the rebels’ treachery and bloodshed such as the golem Ignatius. If Charmcaster was operating under any logic, she would have known her father wouldn’t want that, and that he’d reject a return to life brought about that way, that committing genocide is putting her on Adwaita’s level...and yet she isn’t and doesn’t, which means she goes through with it and the only reason it doesn’t stick is due to Spellbinder’s choice, not from her’s. In-universe, the question is raised as to how sorry we should feel for her afterward, and it’s not given a conclusive answer which just makes the whole thing seem pointless, confusing and mean-spirited. Why couldn’t Charmcaster just have stayed reformed after “Where the Magic Happens”? Kevin 11 and the Highbreed were reformed with less effort, so why drag it out with this character?

And as much as OV tries to forget about this whole thing, it also gives Charmcaster a forced reason to be a villain that undermines any sympathy you may or may not ought to be feeling for her: she’s listening to advice for Adwaita. Yes, the same Adwaita who killed her father and the rest of her kind. The excuse given is that she’s not in her right mind due to stress and the Alpha Rune triggering a mental breakdown, but even that hardly seems sufficient since she clearly isn’t crazy to the point of forgetting who Adwaita is and what he has done. She, Hex and Adwaita all just come off as skating by on their truly despicable choices and actions.

The only character who should come out unscathed is Spellbinder...and yet somehow they manage to fuck that up too! When he is brought back to life by his daughter’s genocidal ritual, he is naturally horrified by it and elects to return to being dead in order to restore all those souls. Perfect, that’s exactly the reaction he should have. The problem is that there’s no pressing time limit, so before returning to being dead he could easily try pressing his daughter for details as to just how and why the fuck she got to the point where she thought this bullshit was acceptable, locate the root causes, and ensure that this kind of thing never happens again: that his wishes for her get fulfilled this time. The simple act of making her promise to live on the straight and narrow for now on otherwise he’ll be eternally rolling in his grave would be enough, given how her love for him is clearly verging on psychotic levels.

But no, instead he just bemoans that she ever came back to Ledgerdomain and says she went against his wishes (without acknowledging his brother and his role in this, I notice) and tells her “you became a worse tyrant than Adwaita ever was”. Not only is this very tactless given the circumstances of Charmcaster’s mental state, but it doesn’t even add up: what Charmcaster did was horrifying, but she did it all at once through a magic ritual and was motivated primarily by love for her father...whereas, again, Adwaita literally re-enacted the Nazi way of committing genocide and did so purely out of hate for the realm’s humans. That’s a world of difference that means there was still the possibility of steering Charmcaster the right way, and Spellbinder all but ensured that this possibility would NOT happen with his words! You don’t tell a dangerously mentally unstable person something that is guaranteed to make them more mentally unstable. You just don’t. Where is the fucking logic in doing so? It’s like telling a suicidal person on a ledge “Just go ahead and jump; it’s what you deserve!”

When last left off, Spellbinder was still dead, Adwaita was on the loose but having lost his supreme Alpha Rune-granted power, Hex was given a comfortable position of privilege as a university professor, and Charmcaster was undergoing magic rehab whenever she wasn’t being made to compete in weird game shows. If the story was a good one, the question should now be “where do they go from here?”  But the real question is “why should I care?” 

Ugh. Charmcaster circa OS, or even circa AF, deserved better than this shit.

[infinitesimal-grey]

Prince Starved

Chapter 3: Tea and Fluff

G/T collab with R and @HiddenDreamer67 as beta reader. Previous chapters in reblog

Summary: Online friends Roman (Giant) and Virgil (Human) meet for the first time when they find they've been going to the same college. They're both nervous gay wrecks.

Chapter Warnings: Scalding tea, and the last two brain cells of two clueless gays trying to communicate that they like each other while “not making it too obvious”, aka the most pure and snarky chapter yet

Word Count: 2,436 (was originally 1,489 before I edited it as apology for being late<3)

...

"Seriously. Comrade and those villains have been messing with me since I got the Beast in Beauty and the Beast freshman year." Roman scoffed. "I was the only boy who could hit the notes, and if we're being honest the only one who could walk in the huge beast costume. Most of them are part of the stage hands hired for moving the heavy set pieces on and off. Like, I get they're strong and all, but strong does not have to mean brute. The ginger in particular, Comrade Melville, is nasty." Roman sipped his hot chocolate as if it were the the tea he were spilling. "I've ignored them for the most part, but today was simply despicable. I'm not even surprised that they're racist; they had given Talyn just as much shit while they were playing Chip." He turned as the sidewalk ended.

"I was ready to shove that thorny magic rose right up their you know where." Roman gestured wildly.

Virgil snorted and smirked behind his cup. "Gaston's sword would be better." He took a long draw from his drink, feeling the cinnamon burn his taste buds. "God. It was like the idiot was trying to break my bones or somethin'." he said as evenly as he could, he had decided not to mention how absolutely horrifying it had been in the moment. Virgil had felt as though he was about to snap like a twig.

Roman curled his fingers slightly more around Virgil, getting protective at the thought. He felt queasy just thinking about it. The giant could tell the notion disturbed his best friend more than he let on. Roman’s eyes hardened as he berated himself. "I should've never left you alone. It was my mistake." Roman stared downwards at the cobblestone path leading through the park. His other hand was tight around his drink, the heat sizzling in stark contrast to the chilly morning air around them.

Virgil watched Roman's fingers carefully, keeping his body tense so he wouldn't flinch. He let out a long sigh. "You couldn't have known they'd show up while you were gone for a couple minutes at most. Besides, I was the one that wanted to stay."

"Still. They had no right to treat you like that!" Roman huffed. He brought Virgil up higher so they were at eye level. Virgil gave him the emo equivalent of puppy eyes. Roman gave his best nonverbal argument via whining before ultimately giving in. "Fi-ne." He enunciated, "No sense thinking any more about those- those miserable fucking croutons." Roman spat with utmost disdain. He chugged some of his hot chocolate, managing to make even that unrelated action look like an insult directed at aforementioned miserable croutons. Roman asked the first non Comrade question that came to mind; "So have you really never been in a nonsegregated zone before today?"

Virgl met Roman's eyes for a good half a second before he switched back to staring at the swirls of cinnamon in his drink, shrugging slightly. "Not that I remember, nah. I mean, you know me, Ro. Never really been one for big scary chances." His voice was mostly joking, although it did have a more serious tone behind it. Because despite it all, it was very intimidating to be able to fit in someone's hand while they gave little to no effort. Although, Roman was pretty good at keeping his hand relatively still. Huh.

Roman looked away as well, before hiding behind his paper cup to take fake sips.

"I suppose you're right, besides; most giants couldn't handle you." Roman externally gave a flirty smile, but internally his mind was screaming at him not to screw up tremendously. This was Virgil's first time ever meeting a giant and Roman had already failed once by leaving him alone. "You're too much of a nightmare." The giant smirked, ruffling Virgil's raven black hair playfully.

Virgil couldn't help but snort in amusement, reaching up to lightly bat at Roman's finger. "Says the king of being overdramatic!"

"King, pff, sounds like too much responsibility." Roman struck a regal pose, golden brown irises and diamond-like smile glowing in the morning sun. "I'm more like a prince~." He went full confident smolder, laying on his charm thick.

Virgil froze. Roman almost got concerned before the human burst out laughing, barely keeping himself from falling over and spilling his drink. Virgil hid his totally not flush-red face behind a hand. "Oh my lord you are so extra, Ro."

He scoffed. "As a prince should be." Roman answered proudly.

Virgil just rolled his eyes, leaning back on an arm as he drank a good few gulps of hot chocolate. "Hmm, yes, Prince of the Absolute Losers does have a nice ring to it..." he tapped his chin cheekily.

Roman scoffed goodnaturedly, throwing his now empty cup away before clutching invisible pearls. He made a few offended noises before coming up with comeback.

"Hey Steven Doomiverse~?" Roman sang, a mischievous idea creeping in. Virgil eyed him back warily. His eyes glinted and suddenly he started tickling Virgil’s side mercilessly.

"Wh--Ahk--!" Virgil dropped his cup, falling onto his side as he laughed uncontrollably, kicking the air-and Roman-as Virgil fought to get the giant to stop, barely managing to get enough time between breaths to even say any understandable words.

"Hmm what's that?" Roman leaned in with a grin. "Couldn't quite hear you." He easily held back Virgil's kicks and continued his attack.

Virgil snorted like a pig, laughing a bit more before he finally managed to get a word out. "Sto-h-hpp!"

"Pardon?" Roman asked, smug as all hell. He redoubled his efforts for a burst longer before backing off with a laugh.

"T-ih-ih-ickling m-me!" Virgil screamed in laughter.

"Moi? I'd never." Roman said in defense, a smile playing at his lips. He lifted Virgil higher so his palm was level with his eyes once again.

"Yeah right! You do all the time." Despite Virgil’s efforts to remain serioud, the playful tone to his own voice couldn't be denied, and he smirked, now not really having any option but to meet Roman's gaze. Fuck that's terrifying.

Roman's eyes lit mischievously for split second while staring into Virgil's before looking up and feigning cluelessness. "Hm no I, simply do not recall..." Virgil gave Roman a wary look.

Giant fingers snuck up behind Virgil and quickly tickling him on his side before redrawing back just as fast. "-must have been some other charming, charismatic, and obnoxiously tall prince." Roman turned back, a smug look on his face.

Virgil let out a yowl of surprise at the sudden tickling, falling onto his side and letting out a flustered, exasperated huff. "How dare you."

Roman threw his head back and laughed, entire body shaking with mirth despite his efforts. He had a grin that split his face when he looked back down. Roman froze in amazement when he found himself locking with Virgil's emerald eyes.

Roman had fallen in love with them on camera.

Video call was one thing.

In person was a world all its own.

In person he could see that even the most stunning of the world’s gemstones couldn't hold a flame to the rainforest that made up Virgil's eyes.

Virgil felt like time itself had frozen. They were still walking, but everything around them seemed distant compared to Roman's amber eyes. It was like looking into a sparkling sunset, with a vibrant orange sky that stretched for miles, and the golden clouds sparkling. It was simply awe-inspiring.

Roman paused; head ducking and pace increasing only a moment later. His heartbeat was running wild with thoughts of what he wanted to say. What he wanted to do. "Sorry," he whispered softly, barely audible to even the human's hearing. Crimson branded itself across his gold skin.

Virgil blinked out of his own daze as Roman moved his head. He'd said something, but what it was, Virgil wasn't so sure. "Huh?"

Roman shook his head, and he wore a smile when it rose. "Nothing." His eyes met Virgil's again and darkened his blush. Roman’s eyes quickly jumped up to the sky. "So..." Come on you fool your blush is so dark, come up with something!

Roman’s smile grew a bit more genuinely upbeat. "So…. How's your psych class with Dr. Picani? Heard he's the best for weebs." Roman smirked and nudged Virgil's side with a finger. If Roman really stopped to think about how maybe Virgil didn't like that, he probably stopped himself, but honestly Virgil was just so… so... adorable. Roman just couldn't resist.

Virgil jumped slightly from the push, but didn't linger on it for long. He knew Roman was just being his oblivious and loud self. Virgil didn’t want to call him out on it and make him uncomfortable. "It's alright- and hey! It's not for weebs! He's… He’s just passionate about how media explores aspects of psychology." Virgil nodded matter-of-factly.

Roman smiled, enjoying Virgil’s flustered state. "Mhm."

Roman proceeded to continue his playful jerk act and Virgil was equally as snarky; they called each other names and generally fooled about. They talked for hours and by the time they looked at a watch, it was lunch time. They were both disappointed and Virgil tentatively asked if they could just go back to Roman’s fraternity house. They walked to the parking lot around the block.

Roman transferred Virgil to one hand while he fished his keys out of his pocket. He tossed them up and down in his palm a few times, humming happily and strolling to his white and gold motorcycle.

Virgil glanced around the lot, eyes settling on the very extravagantly painted motorcycle. "Oh." Shit.

"Hm? Something wrong Virg?" Roman asked sincerely.

Virgil let out a slight chuckle, leaning back on his arm. "Nah, Just ah... forgot you drive a motorcycle."

"Ah, I could maybe call Patton for a ride if you-?" His eyebrows knitted and paused when he reached the motorcycle, already reaching for his phone questioningly.

Virgil considered it for a few moments, glancing between the motorcycle and Roman's other hand, before shaking his head. "Nah, don't bother him. I'll be fine."

"Alright," Roman regarded the motorcycle. "So how do you wanna do this? The only other time I can remember I've done this with a human is when I gave Talyn a ride to the Beauty and the Beast after party because I lost a bet that I couldn't rap guns and ships faster. They wanted a joyride and that human’s got fire."

Virgil snorted. "You know them? That dude never shuts up!" He shook his head a bit, then hummed. "Dunno, never really ridden with a giant. As long as I don't feel like I'm about to' fall, it should be great."

"Well... We have to go faster than I had with Talyn to get back to the frat, since the ride back goes on the highway, so you probably have to go somewhere more secure..." Roman said, he swung a practiced leg over the seat and cupped Virgil above his lap, "Namely, you're gonna have to ride in my pocket, pint-size." He didn’t mention that Talyn had ridden on his shoulder and he thought they were going to die every five seconds. And that was actually why he wanted Virgil somewhere more secure.

Virgil felt his heart skip a beat. That was... Wow. But he just hummed slightly before he spoke. "That works. Better not have any holes in your pocket, princey."

"Of course not, even while a broke college student I must dress like me; which means no holes. Also, if any of my human friends happened to slide into it from my shoulder and fell through a hole into my shirt? I'd never hear the end of it." Roman rolled his eyes and held the hand carrying Virgil up to his shirt pocket.

Virgil couldn't help but laugh a bit at that. "Hell yeah ya' wouldn't." As he was lifted up closer to Roman, however, he felt all the confidence he'd been building up wash away again. It took him a good few seconds to bring back enough to slip off Roman's hand and into the pocket, not prepared for the odd texture and ended up laying twisted at the bottom of the pocket, instead of leaning against the edge like he'd meant to. "Oof--"

Roman's eyebrows shot up, "Oh shit, you good?" Roman slipped his fingers in, trying to help him up without even thinking.

Virgil stiffened, not really making much effort to get up, but didn't pull away from Roman's hand at all. "Uh--"

Virgil took a few breaths, staring wide eyed at the fingers. "Uh, yeah." This is weird. Am I making it weird? Oh god just get up Virgil you're being dumb he's just being nice. He used the finger nearest him to help himself to a less twisted position.

Roman pulled his hand away and cleared his throat awkwardly, quickly putting on his helmet and turning the ignition key. The two-ton classic horsepower machine revved loudly underneath them, filling the silence. Roman looked down at Virgil, metallic gold helmet visor obscuring his entire face and sending Virgil's reflection back at him in a golden tint. "Ya can't hang out like that on the road, storm cloud," Roman blew air out of his nose in a laugh, fog lightly dusted his visor.

Virgil looked up toward Roman, but only really ended up meeting his own gaze. "But I--ahk!" Roman nudged Virgil back into the pocket lightly, pulling the pocket flap closed and buttoning it securely. The giant kicked up the kickstand and put it into gear.

Virgil fell onto his back again from Roman's push, huffing and crossing his arms. Well this is demeaning. "Don't take too long." He yelled up at the lumbering oaf.

Roman couldn't hear Virgil's complaints as they pulled out of the lot and onto the main road. Cool morning air rushed past them as he cruised on his way. Roman could feel Virgil against his chest and his face grew flushed. Definitely just from the warmth of the enclosed helmet.

The human laid on his back, the sunlight slipping around the edges of the flap and through the fabric for an admittedly calming glow. He was lost in his own thoughts when suddenly the world around him started vibrating. "What the…" He didn't move, just opening his eyes and looking about for the odd source. His mouth made a little o when he realized it was Roman humming quietly to himself. The giant listens to music more than anyone else he knew, Virgil doubted he even actually realized he was doing it. The human smiled softly.

His thoughts drifted almost exclusively towards Roman after that.

During the ride, Virgil brought his headphones back over his ears. He didn't play any music, but they muffled the sound of the engine and wind, which was helpful. He shifted slightly to get more comfortable, leaning against Roman's chest somewhat. The giant's body heat made him realize he was freezing. The wind chilled him to where Roman's chest was hot against his cheek. Virgil noticed he could hear a vibratic, rhythmic thud. Was that his heartbeat...? Wow... Virgil's mind drifted, and between the rumbling of the motorcycle's engine, rhythmic thumping of Roman's heart, and the warmth and darkness of the pocket, he eventually fell asleep.

...

A/N

So sorry it took so long to get up, and I hope you enjoyed this peace because the next chapter is fun. ;)

Asks, reblogs, and comments are welcome!♡

[zetalial]

FMA 03 Month Day 11

(Seems like the event’s fallen behind by a day. Oh well! I’ll still post this one on time.)

State Alchemists

Well, I promised I’d be talking about villains this month, didn’t I? Either way, I figure I’d use this spot to discuss the Sewing Life alchemist.

Honestly, talking about Tucker and Nina is a bit overdone. I’m going to keep this short and focus specifically on Tucker.

What I like about a lot of the FMA villains is that many of they are a bit humanised, the actions they take are understandable. And here I want to point out the very important distinction that understandable does not mean either sympathetic or likeable or justifiable nor does it downplay the depravity of their actions. It simply means their motives are less evil for the sake of being evil and this in my mind makes them more horrifying. 

A character that is just evil is one that’s hard to take seriously and isn’t half so terrifying as one that you can understand their motives and why they act the way they do so. It’s a distorted mirror that freaks you out because it’s close to being sensible. 

See, Tucker isn’t just a man that mutilates his daughter. He’s a man that cares deeply for his daughter, and yet still chooses to mutilate her.

It’s a decision that deeply agonises him too, the above screenshot is where he’s contemplating what he’s planning to do and he’s hugging Nina tightly, sad about the idea of losing her. Also, it’s pretty clear that Nina loves her father back - she’s only young of course but the only sign of unhappiness we see from her is loneliness - and Tucker is very happy to let Ed and Al into his house and let them be part of his family.

 Now the anime isn’t too subtle with the fact that there’s something off about Tucker right from when you meet him - the twist isn’t that he’s evil. That isn’t too hard to guess. The twist is that he inflicts the worst damage on the daughter he cares about where you might typically expect a young daughter to be a character’s one redeeming feature. Like maybe he’s involved in the murders being foreshadowed around this time in the show to earn money to pay for his daughter’s welfare. There’s a variety of possibilities. 

Okay, a discerning viewer might gather the dots and realise that a talking chimera might mean using a human. Our main character Edward, is able to piece together as much - when he sees the Nina chimera, he’s not actually all that shocked - mostly disgusted and furious. It’s worse than being completely surprised. 

Tucker’s reasons boil down to a wish to retain his current luxurious lifestyle - a wish to keep everything as it was. And an arrogant hubris, a desire to gain knowledge and attempt the impossible. As the show will later reveal, human chimeras are very much possible to create. Did Tucker think he was creating something like that when he fused Nina and Alexander together? He didn’t want to lose Nina. Maybe he genuinely believed he’d be successful.

This has some nice parallels with Ed and Al’s attempt at human transmutation - they wanted to get things back to how they were, they thought it would work, and Ed is very proud and believed he could do the impossible where so many others had failed before. Yet Ed and Al were foolish kids in denial and the quickly regretted what they’d done. Tucker had already failed once and lost his wife and now acts pleased with his creation, as if wasn’t trapped in a tortured existence.

It’s the dark reflection thing - the similarities are there so it freaks you out even though Tucker is so obviously a despicable, monstrous person and Ed and Al are so clearly feeling troubled and guilty about their past. 

[casual568a]

30 day One Piece challenge, day 2

02. Your favourite villain

Unlike the last one, this one was easy;

Donquixote Doflamingo is easily the best and most terrifying villain we’ve yet to encounter in One Piece. My god he is horrifying, even though he’s now been defeated.

We first saw Doflamingo in chapter 233, and we finally got to his arc in chapter 700+. It took him 12 years to make his appearance properly.

So Doflamingo is one of those few bad guys we waited years to encounter. He first appeared in way back in 2002, and after that made his appearance at some key points of the story. Everytime we saw him during that time he was potrayed as this extremely ruthless individual, but not much more. We were then slowly shown more and more how dangerous he truly was, and this peaked at the Marineford arc and especially after it. When Doflamingo literally threathens the World Government officials, we finally realized that this man was more terrifying and influental than we had initially thought.

His visual design is just amazing. My god, I never thought I'd be this terrified of a grinning man wearing a huge pink feather coat, and how WRONG I was. His design is so ridiculous that you'd never think this guy was as horrifying as he was, which is an amazing contrast. From the sunglasses to the slightly curved shoes he has, all the details are well thought out, including his impressive height of 3 m/10ft. He is so unnerving when he uses his height to intimidate those below him.

Almost every panel of him smirking is enough to send chills down my spine. His smirk is so hair-raising, and when it rarely dies, you know shit’s about to hit the fan. His Devil Fruit complements him perfectly, and the way fights with it is so beautiful to watch. The way he flies with it, the string clone, the birdcage, the way he fixed his organs. Doflamingo is one of the few who has learned to maximize the use of his fruit, and the fact that he’s so damn good with it makes him all the more dangerous. 

Also the way his past is made up is amazing. We’re shown that even before the torture and loss he suffered, he’s already mad. Like Rosinante said, Doflamingo was born evil. The hardships he went through only amplified his will to do evil and broadened the demographic up to the Tenryuubitos along with normal humans. His past is definitely tragic, and the way it still haunts him to this day makes him so much more spine-chilling than he already is.

I am not afraid of a person who doesn’t love his family and kills.

I am afraid of a person who loves his family and, despite that, kills.

Sure, Doflamingos concept of family is damn warped, but he still cares for them, proven when he gets mad at people laughing at Pica, or gets rid of the people who try to exploit Baby 5′s nature, to mention a few. He cares, and he feels. Being emotional and understanding how emotions work is very important when you manipulate people.

So this man not only feels some level of affection towards his family, and yet still he so cruelly abuses the citizens of Dressrosa, turns anyone into toys, no matter the gender or age, kills Rosinante and allows Caesar to experiment on children.

He full well understands how his actions affect the people, yet he feels no remorse whatsoever doing all these deeds. He is so damn ruthless while looking like a pink, oversized feather duster with legs. 

Depsite him being so utterly despicable and cruel, I can’t bring myself to hate him in the least. I love him as a character, he’s so well written, he’s so charismatic, he’s so damn interesting and terrifying at the same time. 

Also flamingos are my favourite animals. Completely unrelated.

[nonameinanytongue]

The Flower & the Serpent: The Violent Women of Game of Thrones

“Here's the smell of the blood still: all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. Oh, oh, oh!”

-Lady Macbeth, Macbeth, Act V, Scene I

DC’s Wonder Woman opened this summer to critical acclaim. Pop culture outlets made much of its empowered protagonist and progressive themes, lauding everything from its feminist fight scenes to Wonder Woman’s thigh jiggle. In approaching the first superhero flick of the modern big-budget tentpole era both helmed by and starring a woman with such intense and specific scrutiny, much is overlooked and more repurposed to suit a flexible, almost reactive set of ideals held by fans and critics alike. If a woman does something in art that shows her to be powerful, it is interpreted as inherently feminist no matter its context in the work of art or the world beyond.

Perhaps in a world where women, homosexuals, and transsexuals lobby vigorously for the right to serve in active combat zones a conflation of ability to do violence and the possession of feminist power is understandable. Surely there are many women who, for reasons understandable or awful, crave invincible bodies and the power and grace to crush the people who hurt them. Many more are happy to acclaim any media in which a woman emerges victorious as another mile marker driven into the roadside on the highway of equality. Especially beloved are movies, shows, comics, and novels in which such victories are portrayed as straightforwardly virtuous and good. 

Think of Sansa Stark condemning her rapist and tormentor, Ramsay Bolton, to a grisly death at the jaws of his own hounds. How many fans and critics expressed unbridled joy at that, as though Sansa had won some kind of symbolic victory for all women? Her sister Arya’s rampage, which has taken her across the Narrow Sea and back again and claimed the lives of dozens, has likewise been applauded as a meaningful triumph in the way we tell women’s stories. For the record, I think both of these plots are intensely compelling and reveal volumes both about the characters themselves and the world they inhabit. Game of Thrones is a show nearly singular in its refusal to make violence joyous or cathartic, no matter the whoops and cheers of many of its fans.

Still, no matter how many times the show delivers searing anti-war images or explores the corrosive influence of violence on those who commit it, viewers remain hungry for the spectacle of women overpowering their enemies and turning back on them the weapons of their own oppression. In a culture where Redpill misogynists hold elected office and our president is a serial rapist, a desire to see women take power with a dash of fire and blood feels all too understandable, but celebrating the destruction of their personalities and lives is a reductive way to understand their stories.

In order to understand what Game of Thrones has to say about violent women, it’s necessary to set aside the thrill that seeing them materially ascendant brings and focus on the images, words, and larger context of the show’s particular examples. Where films like Wonder Woman thrive by repurposing a complex and horrifying conflict (World War I in the first film, the Cold War in the upcoming second) into a heroic battle between good and evil, Game of Thrones, rooted in a genre where conflict is often artificially cleansed of moral ambiguity through devices like entire species of evil-doers, makes no attempt to sand the edges off of its depictions of war or violence. 

Nearly every woman on the show, with the possible exceptions of Gilly and Myrcella, are directly involved in war, torture, and many other forms of brutality. From Catelyn and Lysa’s ugly mess of a trial for Tyrion, an act they surely must have known would cost many smallfolk their lives once Tywin Lannister caught wind of it, to Ygritte fighting to save her people by sticking the innocent farmers in the shadow of the Wall full of arrows, the actions of women with power both physical and political are shown to bear fruit just as ugly as any their husbands, sons, and brothers can cultivate. There’s an uncomfortable truth lurking there, an admission that some modes of action and ways of being may not intersect meaningfully with many of modern feminism’s tenets.

In this essay I will dissect scenes and story to illustrate the show’s deeply antipathetic stance on violence and the ways in which it is misunderstood both by those who enjoy the show and by those who detest it or object to it.

I. ARYA

If a man is getting his eyes stabbed out by a child he intended to beat and rape, does the child’s gender matter when determining what the scene is meant to convey? Is it somehow triumphant for a girl to do that to another living person, no matter how repugnant he might be? Isn’t it possible that what the scene communicates is not that Arya’s slow transformation into a butcher with scant regard for human life is something we ought to cheer for but that the fact she couldn’t survive in Westeros or Essos as anything else, much less as a little girl, is deeply sad?

Arya’s crimes nearly always echo those of her tormentors. Think of the first person she kills, a stable boy, not so different in age or appearance from her erstwhile playmate, Mycah, who was slaughtered by the Hound a bare few months before. Or else consider Polliver, the Lannister soldier who murdered her friend Lommy and whose own mocking words she spits back at him as she plunges her sword up through his jaw. More recently, her wholesale slaughter of House Frey recalls with a visual exactitude which can be nothing but intentional the massacre of her own family and their allies at the Red Wedding. In this last instance she literally dons their murderer’s skin in order to exact her revenge, pressing Walder Frey’s face against her own in an act that feels uncomfortably more like embodiment than disguise.

Arya’s long journey through peril and terror has hardened her, but there’s little reason to rejoice in her hard-won powers of stealth and bloodletting. Who, after all, does she resemble with her obsession over old scores and her penchant for cruelly ironic punishments if not the subject of this essay’s next section.

II. CERSEI

Cersei Lannister,  is distinguished from a hundred other interchangeable evil queens by the attention devoted to her own suffering. Sold by her father to a man who beat and raped her, denied the glory heaped on her twin by sole dint of her gender, humiliated and terrorized by the despicable son whose monstrosity she nurtured, and finally stripped, shaven, and marched barefoot through jeering crowds after being tortured for weeks or months in the dungeons of the church she armed and enabled, Cersei’s brutality serves only to deepen her misery and isolation.  

The aforementioned tyranny of the High Sparrow she put in power, the murder of her monstrous son by her political rivals after she groomed him to be the beast he was, her conflicted and good-hearted younger son’s suicide after his mother’s revenge on the High Sparrow and the Tyrells broke his spirit; Cersei’s litany of victories reads a lot like a list of agonizing losses when you look at it sidelong. Certainly her grasping, vindictive reign has brought her no joy. It’s true that audiences are expected to see Cersei as a horrible human being, which she is, but the time the show spends on giving viewers a chance to empathize with this badly damaged person trying to throttle happiness and security out of a recalcitrant world argues for a more complex interpretation of her character. Watching her need to dominate rip her family and sanity apart, ushering all three of her children into early graves, transforms her from a straightforward villain to a troubled and tragic figure.

III. DAENERYS

Sold into slavery after a life on the run with her unstable and abusive brother and raped on her wedding night by a foreign warlord, Daenerys’s relationship to violence after her ascent to power is complex and heavily ideological. Her crusade to end slavery, motivated as much or more by strength of character and an innate sense of justice than it is by personal suffering and an impulse toward vengeance, has engendered sweeping changes throughout Essos, but at times it has taken on shades of the ostentatiously symbolic punishments for which her family name is famous. The crucifixion of the Masters is a particularly gratuitous example as Daenerys allows her desire to change the world and her need to feel good about the justice she doles out combine to produce a dreadful and inhumane outcome.

This act of performative brutality finds its echo in the rogue execution of a Son of the Harpy, imprisoned and awaiting trial, by Daenerys’s fervent supporter Mossador. Dany may claim that she is not above the law when Mossador confronts her, but when butchery without trial suited her she was quick to embrace it. Her case is uniquely complicated by her enemy: the slavers. Nothing excuses violence like a civilization of rapists and flesh-peddlers beating and maiming their human chattel onscreen, and there is powerful catharsis in seeing their corrupt works shredded and their hateful and exploitative lives snuffed out, but in making them suffer and in choosing the easy way out through orgiastic episodes of violence, Dany betrays her own unwillingness to do the hard work of reform. In many ways, her long stay in Meereen functions as the tragic story of her decision to embrace the grandiose violence her ancestors partook of so freely. We may feel good watching her triumph over evil, but we’re reminded frequently of the horrors and miseries of her reign.

IV. BRIENNE

Brienne’s pursuit of knighthood and adherence to its practices and code is no warrior-girl fantasy about a scabby-kneed tomboy learning to swordfight. Trapped in a body unsuited to courtly life, mocked by suitors and competitors alike, and yearning for the right to live by the sword as men do, Brienne finds challenging refuge in a way of life intimately associated with violent acts. From her butchery of the guards in Renly’s tent to her honor-bound execution of her one-time king’s brother in a snowy forest, Brienne’s path has frequently led her into mortal conflict.

At the climax of Wonder Woman, Diana kills a super-powered caricature of historical figure General Erich Ludendorff, a character who seems to exist solely to uncomplicate the moral landscape of World War I. A few minutes later she kills the man behind the man, her divine uncle Ares, and breaks his grasp on the people of war-torn Europe. The presentation of the act of killing as a triumph for human morality strips away much of what violent media can offer. Contrast Brienne’s desperate fight with three Stark soldiers as she attempts to spirit Jaime Lannister to safety on Catelyn’s orders. Screaming with every blow and leaving her opponents hacked to pieces, Brienne succeeds in her mission at an obvious human cost. Men, despicable men but men nonetheless, are dead. She and Catelyn are now in open rebellion against Robb’s authority. 

To kill is to sever a life and give birth to a living, growing tree of consequences. To explore it instead as a tidy way to resolve problems and make the world a better place is to misrepresent its essential nature. You can’t improve the world through butchery. You can’t heal by harming. What violence in media is meant to teach us is a capacity for empathy, a reflexive understanding that all people are as fully and completely human as ourselves. Loathsome or virtuous, kind or cruel, no human suffering should be a comfortable or affirming thing to witness. (The Republican Party’s elected officials and pundit corps certainly makes a strong case for an exception to this rule).

One might charitably assume that lionization of violent women and their specific acts of violence stems from a place of vulnerability, a desire to balance the scales and erase the danger and aggression with which almost all women must live on a daily basis. I would argue that while this may hold true in part, a deeper truth is that many people have not been taught to feel pain for others in a way that allows for true emotional vulnerability or complex feelings about morally ugly and confusing actions. It’s easier to cheer when the guy we hate gets his than it is feel sorrow for the former innocent who dished out justice, or empathy for the deceased whose life must surely have held its own miseries and secret hurts. 

Audiences would be well-served by taking a moment to step back from their reactions to violence in media and attempting to interpret what message the art is trying to convey. Is the violence slickly produced and bloodless, a parade of cool moments and heroic victories? Or is it focused on the humanity of victims and perpetrators and the cost of their actions? What is the camera telling us? The colors? The editing? Are we meant to agree with King Theoden’s speech about the glories of war in Return of the King when the very next cut brings us into the hellish, pointless confusion of the taking of Osgiliath? Are we meant to be happy when Sansa smiles at Ramsay’s death when the very last thing he told her was that she would carry him, his essence, with her forever? 

The most transcendent joy art brings is the opportunity to reach out of your own beliefs and feelings and into someone else’s dreaming mind, to parse the language of symbols and ideas with which they have addressed the world and make in the negative space between your consciousness and theirs a new understanding. Learn to relish the complex and sometimes hideous nature of humanity over the easy thrills and cheap moral lessons of crowd-pleasers made by billionaires. Understand that art that makes you uncomfortable could be helping you grow. 

A woman’s actions are not laudable just because she’s a woman, or just because she’s been wronged. In our rush to associate the violent triumph of women over the men who’ve hurt them with personal strength, healing, justice, and praiseworthiness we ignore what shows like Game of Thrones are saying in favor of what we want to hear. Violence should never be easy, and violence that assures us, or that we think assures us we’re good and rooting for the right people should always be suspect. 

In labeling anything that pleases us, that satisfies our own hunger for justice and supremacy “feminist,” we forget that feminism is first and foremost an attempt to remake the world. The structure of things as they are is brutish and oppressive, and to cry tears of joy as women, even fictional women, fall prey to the allure of those same structures is to fundamentally misunderstand the point of a life-or-death struggle in which at this moment in history we are perilously engaged. As assaults on our tattered reproductive rights continue, as women struggling with addiction, illness, and homelessness are thrown into prison en masse, as our political leaders openly contemplate sentencing the most vulnerable among us to death in order to pay off the corporate elite and the Left (justifiably, in my opinion) contemplates and utilizes resistance through force on a scale unheard of in this millennium in our country’s history, learning to see violence for what it is has become more imperative than ever before.

[hspencer-researchreport]

Megamind - Megamind (2010)

Dreamworks Animation

Megamind’s backstory mirrors that of DC’s Superman. Last survivor of a doomed home planet is sent to Earth, destined for greatness.

Megamind starts the film as an antagonist protagonist, but then becomes the heroic protagonist.

“I was destined to be a super-villain, and we were destined to be rivals.”

Megamind relishes in being a super-villain. It is the role that he plays with great enthusiasm.

Megamind: “How do I look Minion? Do I look bad?”

Minion: “Disgustingly horrifying, sir!”

Megamind: “You always know what to say!”

The tone of the movie is self-aware and referential. Much like Despicable Me, it parodies as well as homages the super-hero genre. The characters joke about evil lairs and the roles each character plays.

Metro-Man is Megamind’s hero adversary. He is portrayed as vapid, self-centered and egotistical. He is a parody of Superman, removing the humble and selfless aspects of the character.

Within the first twenty minutes of the film, Megamind wins. Despite being the villain, he seemingly kills Metro-Man. While he is initially happy, he soon slips into a depression without a protagonist to oppose his antagonism.

“But without him, what's the point?”

Megamind: What's the point of being bad when there's no good to try and stop you?

“Something happens to a central character that throws them off the beaten track and forces them into a world they’ve never seen.” (John Yorke, Into the Woods p7) - Megamind’s victory means Megamind is lost in a new world

Minion: Create a hero? Why would you do that? Megamind: So I'll have someone to fight! Minion, I'm a villain without a hero, a yin with no yang, a bullfighter with no bull to fight - in other words, I have no purpose!

Megamind then decides to create a hero to fight him

“Shadows create conflict and bring out the best in a hero by putting her in a life-threatening situation. It’s often been said that a story is only as good as its villain, because a strong enemy forces a hero to rise to the challenge.” - 66 - dramatic function

“Shadows need not be totally evil or wicked. In fact, it’s better if they are humanized by a touch of goodness, or by some admirable quality.” - 67 (Vogler, Writer’s Journey, 2007)

The hero he creates, Titan, turns out to be a bad excuse for a hero, and turns to more typical ‘villainous’ deeds, such as stealing and taking over the city for himself.

Megamind: I can't believe you! All your gifts, and you squander them for your own personal gain?

Titan: Yes!

Megamind: No! I'm the villain, you're the good guy! I do something bad, then you come and get me! That's why I created you!

TURNING POINT in Megamind’s character arc. The new ‘hero’ he created turns out to be more of a ‘villain’, taking the role that Megamind had. He is annoyed that, in trying to fix the status quo, he has made a bigger villain.

Parallel between VILLAIN Megamind and VILLAIN Titan: both steal things that they want. However, Megamind has grown as a character and therefore sees this as the wrong thing for a hero to do, which he had hoped Titan would be.

“Two opposites are placed side by side; art is rendered from juxtaposition.” - (John Yorke, Into the Woods, 116) - the hero becoming the villain, the villain becoming the hero

Roxanne and Megamind join forces to find help from Metro-Man’s hideout, finding him still alive. Metro-Man then tells Megamind that he should be the hero instead. Megamind initially doesn’t rise to the challenge until the forces of antagonism build to where he has to act

Metro Man: You know, little buddy, there's a yin for every yang. If there's bad, good will rise up against it! It's taken me a long time for me to find my calling. Now, it's time you found yours.

“But here, instead of passing outward, beyond the confines of the visible world, the hero goes inward, to be born again” - (Jung, 1959, 84) - Megamind reflects inwardly during the time he’s away from the action to then be reborn as a hero

When Roxanne Richie is kidnapped, Megamind turns to heroism to save her and the city from the mess he started

“TRUE CHARACTER is revealed in the choices a human being makes under pressure - the greater the pressure, the deeper the revelation, the truer the choice to the character’s essential nature.” (McKee, Story, p101)

Megamind uses typical ‘villain’ tricks like deception to be victorious against the bigger villain.

[medialiterates]

D. W. Griffith and Birth of a Nation: Racist Filmmaker or Filmmaking?

          Of all the films in the history of cinema, perhaps none is as important to the medium or as controversial as D.W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation (1915.) The film is broken into two halves. The first follows two families, the Campbell family from the South and the Stoneman family from the North, as they fight in the Civil War. The egregious second half is the story of reconstruction in the South. It tells the false history of how the congress allows the free slaves to take over the South and oppress the white people. The movie ends with Ben Campbell forming the Ku Klux Klan, who save the South and restore the white people to power. I first saw Birth of a Nation on the second day of class in my Art of Film course. I knew it was going to be racist, but I did not understand the full extent of its racism. One particularly horrible scene in the movie was when the sister of Ben Cameron is running away from a black man who intends on marrying or raping her. She ultimately decides to jump off a cliff and die to escape. This was horrifying to watch. I feel even more conflicted about Birth of a Nation as an admirer of film because without this despicably racist film, the modern film industry would not be what it is today. Without D.W. Griffith, the language of film would not be what it is today.

           When I saw the options for the blog posts this week, the Birth of a Nation documentary immediately caught my eye. I watched it over the weekend thinking it would be about the film. Rather, it was about the public outrage the film caused. In many American cities, African Americans protested the film. The documentary, Birth of a Moment, focused on Boston and the work of William Monroe Trotter. William Monroe Trotter was the publisher of the Boston Guardian, an African American newspaper. He worked hard, using tactics that would be used again 40 years later during the Civil Rights movement of the 1950’s and 1960’s, to protest and censor the film. Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on one’s view of censorship, William Monroe Trotter was unable to censor the film, but his legacy was carried on by future African Americans to protest that which they deem wrong.  

           During the film, though, there were a few quotes that stood out to me. The first was from director Spike Lee, who, talking about D.W. Griffith, said, “Racism is racism no matter what form… ‘Father of racist cinema’ that’s even better,” which is referring to D.W. Griffith’s title as the “Father of Cinema.” Another quote that stood out was from Harvard University’s Vincent Brown who said, “some of our greatest cultural products have also been some of our worst. Spectacular and great things are done with evil intent and have evil effects, but that’s just part of history.” These quotes stood out to me because the underlining assumptions would be that D.W. Griffith was racist, which raises the question: Was he racist and did he make Birth of a Nation with an evil intent?  To answer this question, I will examine his upbringing, his approach to the art of the cinema, and his filmography.

           To attempt to answer the first question, I read “D. W. Griffith in Black and White” from Slate Magazine by Bryan Curtis and the D. W. Griffith’s biography on PBS.org. From those sources, I learned that D. W. Griffith was born in 1907 in Kentucky into a poor family. His father, a former confederate officer, died when D. W. Griffith was only ten-years-old. In the documentary, D. W. Griffith said that when he was a boy, he would listen to his father recount his tales from Civil War. From this upbringing and the culture of the South at the time, D. W. Griffith would have racist ideas so integrated into his mind that it would not seem like racism, rather just how the world worked. Curtis says in his article “racism was no more a dominant factor in conditioning his sensibility than the hard times he and his family endured” (Curtis). So, is that considered racism? In my opinion, it is a type of non-overt racism. He did not actively hate African Americans, rather he was ignorant because the facts he knew were not the true facts. Additionally, D. W. Griffith did not have strong political leanings. Although he made the racist Birth of a Nation, Curtis writes the D. W. Griffith “never publicly lobbied for segregation or black disenfranchisement; he defended the Klan only as a historical relic” (Curtis). He was in a bubble that made him view the world in the way he was brought up.

          Next, when looking at his approach to cinema, he was going for spectacle. As it said in the PBS documentary, D. W. Griffith knew how to harness the power of cinema to affect people. As a director, D.W. Griffith is one of the most important figures in early film history. He set the course for all filmmaking to come by redefining and utilizing “varied camera distances, close-up shots, multiple story lines, fast-paced editing, symbolic imagery” (Campbell). These all culminated in producing a greater effect on the audience’s emotions. Additionally, in Birth of a Nation, he knew he needed a good enemy to increase the spectacle. In Bryan Curtis’s Slate article, he writes “the director chose stories not for their political content but for their potential to thrill audiences” (Curtis). While this does not excuse his racist choice of making the Ku Klux Klan heroes against the evil black people of the South, it shows that it was not done in a with malice thought. In fact, it was said in the documentary that he was surprised by the reaction to his film because he thought he was telling the truth.

          Also, when looking at the rest of his filmography, people see a different side of D. W. Griffith. In one of the short films he directed called The Rose of Kentucky, the evil villain was a Klansman attacking a country girl (Curtis). The same person who had the Klan as heroes in one movie had the group as villains in another. In the article “Pioneer Film Director Dishonored by Those Who Follow in his Footsteps,” the author argues that D. W. Griffith, in response to Birth of a Nation, became the “Social conscience of Early Hollywood” (Jacobs). Following Birth of a Nation, he made Intolerance (1916), which had a very strong message of tolerance. His other films of this time were Broken Blossoms (1919), a tragic story about a white woman and Chinese man who fall in love, but run into trouble with her bigoted father. Another was Orphans of the Storm (1922), a story about two orphaned girls of an aristocrat in France leading up to the French Revolution. The film was very critical of over-bearing governments. A reason for this shift in story telling in his movies is “Griffith was more concerned with filming stories he believed were cinematic, entertaining, and portrayed inner human truths than with maintaining a consistent politically correct attitude” (Jacobs). The story was always the most important part to D. W. Griffith. The content of the story came second to him. If it was a good story that could produce an effect on his audience, D. W. Griffith was happy to make it.

          Overall, was D. W. Griffith a racist? I would have to say no based on the evidence presented. Was he ignorant of both history and potential consequences of making a film like Birth of a Nation? Absolutely, I would agree with that. However, I want to draw the distinction between committing a racist action and being a racist. Birth of a Nation for all its acclaim and innovation is a very intolerant and racist film, but to call D. W. Griffith a racist for this one film would be irresponsible when considering his other films and his approach to filmmaking. I would say that D. W. Griffith committed a racist action by making a racist film, but this one film should not reflect on him a as person. Yet, this raises far more questions than it answers. For example, can art still be art if it is racist? Is it acceptable for D. W. Griffith to exploit people with his knowledge of how films work? Do his other films excuse D. W. Griffith for Birth of a Nation? Can D. W. Griffith be blamed for the results of the movie, like the second revival of the Ku Klux Klan and hate crimes against African Americans after the movie premiered? These require timed and nuanced responses. The fact of the matter is that Birth of a Nation is here it stay. It is not only as a remembrance of a twisted way of thought in American history, but also as one of its greatest films. Will people be able to separate the artist from the art and the art from the content to see the art hidden beneath the racism?

  Works Citied

“About D. W. Griffith.” American Masters. PBS, 29 December 1998. Web. 9 March 2017.

“Birth of a Movement.” Independent Lens, written by Kwyn Bader and Dick Lehr, directed by Susan Gray and Bestor Cram, PBS, 2017.

Campbell, Richard, Fabos, Bettina, Martin, Christopher R. Media & Culture 10: Mass Communication in a Digital Age. Bedford/St. Martin’s, Boston/New York, 2015.

Curtis, Bryan. “D. W. Griffith in Black and White.” Slate, 3 January 2003. Web. 9 March 2017.

Jacobs, Christopher P. “Pioneer Film Director Dishonored by Those Who Follow in his Footsteps.” High Plan Readers, 6 January 2000. Web. 9 March 2017.