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arinaco · 1 year

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Romelle: her story in the past and in the present. Part I

Translated and edited by @ Nadezhda932

Link to the part II.

I. Introduction

Hello again. The fandom has been sleeping in suspended animation for a long time, and so have we, but it suddenly turned out that enough information and thoughts had accumulated about Romelle to talk about her not only as a cunning and dodgy liar.

The trends of our time are such that it is no longer enough for a villain to be just a villain. This doesn’t work with an older audience, the level of average education already makes it clear that a person isn’t born bad by default. It isn’t for nothing that films about villains began to appear here and there, although this is done primarily because of the crisis of ideas, and the desire of large companies to rape existing franchises.

Therefore, we begin to wonder: why Romelle hated Lotor so much? How many lies are in her truth and truth in her lies? Is it just her brother?

But we’ll begin to approach that question from afar.

We'll start from the beginning - with GoLion and DOTU.

The thing is, the VLD writers didn't reinvent the wheel. When they got into the revival of the saga, they took all the old stuff, including the comics, and worked it through, pulling out whatever was useful. Characters, their past, their characters, plot ideas and conflicts. Those who have been familiar with the fandom for a long time have probably watched VLD and constantly had the feeling that they had met this or that twist.

And Romelle, as a character, isn’t something new, she’s a construct assembled from what has already been, simply reworked to fit new realities.

Unfortunately, I’m not an ardent fandom fan, and have not watched every series without exception that was drawn or bought. I will be working with the franchise's progenitors and building my conclusions on that basis. GoLion or Voltron 1.0 is a relatively serious space opera with a lot of violence and a clear ending. Yes, there is an ending: the villains die, and Altea celebrates the victory. The story doesn’t imply any continuation of the saga, at least with the same antagonists.

Moreover, this series was mostly filler. One series - one adventure that didn’t have a significant impact on further events. There is a normal plot, but there’s very little of it, and I’ll raise this topic later.

DOTU. Voltron… 1.5? I don't even know if I can give this piece number 2. The fact is that when American businessmen bought the rights to the GoLion anime series, it turned out that they didn’t have a Japanese translator. Perhaps in those days such a direction was extremely rare, or perhaps the services of a specialist cost huge money.

As a result, the scriptwriters had to turn on the fantasy and, based on the visuals, come up with lines for the characters themselves. Sometimes they couldn’t compose anything, and then the audience got the opportunity to admire how the characters move their lips in absolute silence.

As a person who made a comparison of certain episodes, I can say that they didn’t always succeed in getting closer to the original. Especially when you consider that the target audience of the cartoon was children.

They bought a series with a lot of death and violence in order to show it with a PG rating.

How did it end? The fact that a huge number of humorous and stupid phrases appeared where they never existed. Also, the showrunners tried to cut out all the excessive cruelty from the series, which didn’t always benefit the story line. In general, it turns out that VLD’s S8 repeated the fate of the entire GoLion series. And this isn’t a unique case, but a glorious WEP tradition.

For example, Prince Sincline in GoLion (Lotor) isn’t a comedic villain, and not a stupid boy, but a real sadist. Moreover, he’s over a hundred years old, which brings his obsession with 16-year-old Farla (Allura) under a criminal article on the seduction of minors – fortunately, at least it doesn’t make him a pedophile.

In addition, there’s a difference in the endings. In GoLion, the main villains die, and the story ends there. There’s not even a lovestory of Alura and Keith, because the maximum that a simple samurai (paladin) can count on is a perfumed handkerchief thrown by a beautiful hime (princess).

DOTU, on the other hand, was developed immediately with an eye on sequels, so the death of the main villains was removed, but over time, a bunch of episodes were added, introducing new characters like Queen Merla. As a result, the DOTU series consisted of 72 episodes (season 1 "GoLion" + season 3 with Merla). I won’t take into account the anime that was retroactively attributed to Voltron as season 2, Romelle isn’t there anyway.

And with such knowledge, we approach the description of the prototype of the character. I’ll describe the biographies of Princess Romelle and Princess Amue in parallel, so that you can see both the similarities and the differences. II. Plot basis

So, we have a planet related to Arus/Altea. It isn’t specified what kind of people live there, but it’s possible that the Alteans once colonized it.

In DOTU, the planet is referred to as Pollux, the sinister twin of Arus.

In GoLlion, the planet is called Hercules... and described as a cosmic body with a special orbit, which approaches Altea once every 18-20 years. No malice, negativity, etc.

In DOTU, Coran tells that the first king of Arus had two sons, a bad one and a good one. And when their parent died, the bad son thought only of the inheritance, he was exiled to Pollux for his disrespect. And since then, the descendants of the brothers have been at enmity with each other.

In GoLion, the accents are placed differently. The king of Altea really had two sons, but the division was not between good and evil, but between the elder and the younger. And it was said that the youngest son had such an intolerable character that the crowned father couldn’t stand it and expelled the child to Hercules. And since then, the family of the youngest son has harbored a grudge and attacks Altea every time the planets approach each other.

In DOTU Romelle's ancestor is presented as greedy and "bad", in GoLion - only as a person with a violent temper and resentment towards relatives for expulsion. But in both cases, he gets to rule a whole planet, which is clearly not enough for him.

And this discrepancy will occur several more times.

during Lotor/Sincline's arrival on Pollux/Hercules. Meeting the dear guest at the gangway, Koba will say that he’s concerned about the issue of dividing Arus, and Hercules – that the Heraclians are ready to fight even tomorrow, but for now he must send Altea a challenge to fight (well, how can you attack without warning? This is unethical).

at a closed military council, where Koba will declare that he doesn’t want to share Arus with the Drules, and Hercules - that they planned to betray the Galra from the very beginning, but first they need to avenge Altea for the offense.

and in the person of Bandor / Alor, who in DOTU tells his sister that Lotor promised him his own palace, and in GoLion he rejoices at the opportunity to fly to war on the same ship with such a great warrior as Sincline.

This view of American screenwriters is quite predictable, but still has a fundamental difference from the original. After all, the royal family of Pollux eventually becomes an ally of the paladins and acts on the side of good heroes. And it turns out that all the statements about what a bad planet Pollux is just dissolve in the further plot. There’s also a theory that the legendary brothers were King Alfor/Raimon and King Coba/Hercules, but no matter how much I looked through both versions of the series, I didn’t find such information. Coran refers to very old times, especially since in GoLion the planets intersect only once every two decades.

So what about Romelle herself?

Everything is very interesting. The fact is that she’s one of the rarest characters in the series who has a personal development story arc.

Yes. The secondary character had something that most protagonists didn't have.

For example, male characters - paladins - had no development at all. Because GoLion and DOTU are filler series, and as a result, their characters are static. As they were in the beginning, so they remain in the end. Even the age has not changed.

Farla was a little more fortunate, because her desire to become a pilot got her a small development arc, which was completely cut in DOTU, where Allura was turned into a plot device. By the end of the series, she’s still the same sweet, kind 16-year-old girl, somewhere naive, somewhere principled, but if you mix the episodes, you can hardly determine their order in the series.

But with Romelle's prototype, it's not like that. She has a plot. She has development.

Her path is the transformation from a classical damsel in distress into a Valkyrie, storming the main stronghold of the antagonists together with her soldiers.

Allura from the 80s can only turn green with envy. Against the background of Princess Romelle, she looks bypassed in terms of scenario.

Moreover, since Romelle's story arc begins in episode 17 and ends in episode 52, it turns out that her story arc moves the story of the entire series. Almost all episodes between episodes with Romelle are fillers. Her plot has a clear narrative line, and the plot of the series clings to this line, turning from a collection of fillers into a whole story at the intersections.

And suddenly it turns out that Romelle/Amue was an important character for the old Voltron. More important than the main characters.

But let's move on to the description of events. III. Personal arc

1. Alliance with galra and captivity

So, episode 17.

The king of the planet Hercules (nameless, and therefore I will call him by the name of the planet) comes to Lord Daibazaal to bow and offers to capture Altea together. Well, or Coba from the planet Pollux comes to Zarkon, as you prefer.

He wants to turn his eldest son Samson (in DOTU - Avok) into a robeast and claims that since his son is the greatest of warriors, he will surely be stronger than Voltron and be able to defeat it.

The plan looks as reliable as a Swiss watch, and at this point I want to give Coba/Hercules a goblet with the words "Father of the Year" written on it. But further in the series, it’s still specified that the transformation was considered reversible, and in GoLion, before his death, Samson will indeed return to his human form.

During the battle with Voltron, Avok/Samson will even speak intelligibly, which means the presence of reason and consciousness. I think the very opportunity to fight a legendary and invincible opponent seemed seductive to the guy. His people were clearly obsessed with military prowess; it wasn’t for nothing that they were drawn wearing ancient Roman helmets and tunics.

Lotor/Sincline is outraged by this speech. Some petty king has declared that his son is the best of warriors, and this clearly hurts the vanity of a Drule/Galra prince. He jumps up and expresses doubt about Avok/Samson's ability to defeat Voltron, to which Zarkon/Daibazaal offers to test the volunteer in the arena.

In DOTU, Lotor agrees and with a grin tells Avok that he will certainly not stand against the monster, and Sincline in GoLion promises to cut off his head if the prince loses.

Avok/Samson, confident in his abilities, readily accepts the challenge. There definitely was the reason why the guy was named after a mythical hero who suffered because of his own pride. He also considered himself invincible, for which he paid.

Princess Romelle/Amue, along with the younger prince, appear on screen at the moment when Avok/Samson defeats the robeasts. Lotor/Sincline, visibly annoyed by their rival's triumph, jumps into the arena and proposes a second duel, to which Pollux/Hercules' heir agrees without hesitation.

... it's so noble and fair to challenge a man who has just fought another opponent to a duel ... Romelle/Amue and Bandor/Alor enthusiastically look at the duel and cheer on their older brother. In GoLion, they admire the military prowess of both rivals, and in DOTU they say that it’ll be great when their brother becomes a robeast and defeats Voltron.

Alor was amazed and fascinated by Sincline's martial prowess. Not for long, but the prince will become an idol for him, which at the end of the series the boy will bitterly regret, sobbing over the graves of his father and brother.

As for Romelle/Amue… she supported her family, and her father. At least in the first minutes of appearance on the screen. Both Amue and Romelle will wish their brother success in the battle against Voltron. The royal family is shown as very loving and very friendly, where Avok/Samson doesn’t look like a person who was decided to be heartlessly sacrificed for the interests of the country.

But the first red flag comes when, during the duel, Lotor/Sincline notices the resemblance of the guest to the object of his obsession - Allura/Farla. After staring, he loses, the witch takes away the victorious Avok/Samson, and Lotor/Sincline rushes to get acquainted with a girl with such attractive facial features.

At first everything goes fine. The princess even flirts, but it stops abruptly when Lotor/Sincline boorishly drags the girl down the stairs with him. Even in DOTU, where Lotor invited Romelle for a walk, and she seemed to agree, the scene doesn’t look at least a little cute, since itn’t customary for a lady to be dragged by the wrist, she’s politely led by the arm, especially if the gentleman has considerable physical strength.

Of course, it can be assumed that the DOTU writers aren’t very well versed in human facial expressions, but as you can see in the picture above, Romelle/Amue's face doesn’t shine with joy even without comments from the crowned father of the family.

The fact is that against the background of what’s happening, it’s shown how King Coba/Hercules abruptly rises from his seat and looks worried. And if in DOTU he worries about Avok (whom he sent for experiments... logic, where are you?), then in GoLion he was horrified when he saw his daughter being dragged away by Sincline. Only Alor remains imperturbable in this situation, as he looks at Sincline through rose-colored glasses.

As for the princess... From now on, she’ll never say a single kind word about Lotor/Sincline again. He’ll leave her on his planet, and she’ll return home only after a few months in the company of the prince himself and a bunch of his concubines.

Somewhere I heard that Romelle was considered Lotor's bride in DOTU, but I didn't find anything like that in the series itself. Romelle/Amue's status on the Planet Doom wasn’t specified in any way, Lotor/Sincline kept her to himself out of a personal whim, without asking her or her family's opinion.

Later - in a personal conversation with her younger brother – she’ll shed light on her opinion about the alliance with the Drules/Galra. And if Romelle basically says that war and happiness are incompatible things, which is a very strange statement for the daughter of the militant Pollux, then the Amue will begin to convince Alor that Sincline is a terrible person and shouldn’t be admired.

In both cases, Romelle/Amue is no longer happy with her father's plan and tries to explain to her younger brother that the situation is much more complicated than it seems. And when, in a few minutes, she encounters paladins in the corridor of her native castle and sees Allura/Farla, she’ll experience a real shock. The striking resemblance elicits a strong emotional reaction from her, because the princesses do look like twin sisters.

Moment X comes when the Drules/Galra find out that the paladins have snuck into the castle and unleash Avok/Samson on them. He doesn’t rush at the enemy like a crazy beast, but uses fighting techniques, and does it successfully.

Voltron breathes fire in his face, hits with electricity in the water, but Avok/Samson still safely gets to his feet and continues the battle. His father didn’t lie, he really could compete with Voltron, although he wasn’t a machine, but a biological being, that is, capable of experiencing pain.

In general, when creating classic fairy tales, there’s an unspoken rule that heroes shouldn’t kill a lot, and even more so, kill non-villains. Ideally, the antagonist should fall into the abyss, run into their own weapon, refuse help, but not force the protagonist to get their hands dirty in blood. And the paladins completely fell within the framework - they didn’t injure Avok/Samson in any way, although they bludgeoned each other from the heart.

It isn’t known who would have emerged victorious if they had been allowed to finish the fight. But Lotor/Sincline, who was watching the battle through the monitor, loses patience and gives the order to attack both giants.

Yes, both Voltron and Avok/Samson.

First, because the witch's cat overheard the royal council, and warned Lotor/Sincline of the betrayal. Secondly, in DOTU, the villainous trio had already agreed in advance that Avok would be killed, Romelle would be given to Lotor, and Pollux, under the leadership of a young Bandor, wouldn’t pose a threat.

It was unprofitable for the Drules/Galra to leave a living Avok/Samson to the pseudo-allies. He was intelligent, loyal to his homeland and extremely dangerous.

Avok's death in DOTU was severely cut. Yes, he still dies when the Drules shoot missiles at his back, but in GoLion he’s also blinded by well-aimed shots to the eyes, which makes poor Samson feel like his mythical namesake.

But what else was cut in DOTU - and this is something I can't explain - is the death of King Coba. In GoLion, after seeing the Galra ships killing his son, the king rushes to the ground cannon and starts firing at Sincline's cruiser. With this gun, they blow him up, right in front of his daughter and youngest son.

Apparently, the DOTU writers decided that this scene was too violent for young children, removed it and it turns out that King Coba - who looks like a strong muscular man on the screen - is actually old and weak. Yes, yes, he’ll die soon, and in his dying fever he didn’t come up with anything better than to declare war on Arus, send the heir to a risky battle, and leave the planet to a 12-year-old child.

In GoLion, Alor becomes the new ruler of Hercules for a more logical reason - because his older brother and father tragically die and Amue is captured.

After the death of her father and older brother, Romelle/Amue is taken away by the Drules/Galra. And here’s a very important point – Romelle curses Lotor for killing Avok (which is doubly insulting for her, if we assume that, according to the American scriptwriters, she really liked Lotor), and Amue... calls her brother for help.

Younger brother.

Moreover, until the very meeting with Ryu (aka Takashi's twin brother, aka Sven version 2.0), she’ll repeatedly turn to her younger brother in her thoughts and beg to save her. And that's what was missing from DOTU.

The fact is that when the American screenwriters lined up the line of Bandor's behavior, they prescribed him as an ordinary 12-year-old child. Silly, naive, cocky, and sometimes self-centered.

What they didn't notice was that this "little boy" has bigger biceps than the average office worker.

Alor is much more serious, responsible, courageous and smart. He dreamed not of a personal palace, but of becoming as great a warrior as his elder brother. He isn’t conceited, knows how to admit mistakes and be grateful. Having been wounded in the knee, he continued (!) to crawl after the Galra in order to save his sister. And the Heraclians never questioned his orders the way Bandor's subordinates did.

True, there’s something that both GoLion and DOTU agreed on - that Bandora/Alor never (!) had to be saved. Remember this. With the exception of being captured in episode 21 (literally for a few minutes) and episode 18 of season 3 (created by WEP itself), it was the prince who ran around space and tried to save his sister, not vice versa.

Princess Amue never perceived Alor as a stupid little boy. She saw in him a young man and a warrior of her family.

On this tragic note, episode 17 ends, and the series will only return to this storyline in episode 21.

And no, in the interval between them, the paladins will never remember Romelle/Amue, as if she never existed. 2. Escape

The poor thing was sitting in a dark cell all this time along with other unlucky girls. There were no loungers or at least some amenities, only a cold stone floor. In GoLion, the storyteller adds some dark colors, describing that they were given practically no food, just enough to keep them from starving to death.

I must say that when Lotor/Sincline enters the cell, and we’re shown how the girls huddled against the walls, it becomes not so important that Lotor didn’t seem to rape Romelle, and her off-screen scream was cut out. If only his appearance horrified women, then there were reasons.

Romelle/Amue tries to attack him with a sharp stone, but, alas, to no avail.

However, there was still a difference in the behavior of the characters. Romelle begged not to touch her, and Amue asked him to kill her, but both are the usual reaction of a tortured person.

Lotor boasts that by using Romelle as a hostage, he’ll be able to control Pollux. Sincline, on the other hand, says that as long as Farla is running free, Amue will do just fine as her replacement.

Then he grabs the princess and takes her away. Lotor states that he will use her as bait, but Romella returns to the cell exhausted and sobbing anyway, so it's unlikely she enjoyed Drule company.

Her friends in misfortune console her, talking about how good it would be to run away, and then Romelle/Amue says that she has a plan.

It’s unknown how they managed to start the fire, although Amue had more room to act as Sincline's concubine. And while the soldiers hastily extinguished the source of smoke, the girls made their way into the hangar and stole the spaceship.

True, a very interesting question arises - how did they know how to pilot it? They sat down in the cabin in their places and managed to fly away safely, which is very strange for ordinary unremarkable women. Apparently, the writers considered such knowledge to be something natural for the inhabitants of a militarized planet.

How did Lotor/Sincline react to this escape? Lotor exclaimed that Romelle would pay for her act, and Sincline promised to cut Amue to pieces.

If Lotor needed Romelle alive, then Sincline was ready to kill a naughty toy.

When the ship is hit, Romelle/Amue sends an SOS signal to her brother at the last moment and reports the crash site. The paladins also receive this message and rush to the rescue, crossing the road with the Pollux/Hercules rescue ship.

They land on a snow-covered planet, where they find a ship that sent out a distress signal. But it's empty. There are no corpses in the broken cabin, but there are no living ones either, because the Drules/Galra took the nameless girls. Their further fate will remain unknown.

At some point, Allura/Farla notices an unconscious woman in one of the cabins. That was a witch disguised as Romelle/Amue, who decided to set a trap for the paladins. She takes advantage of the sluggishness of Bandor/Alor, hits him on the head and takes him away with her.

Later in the same episode, the boy, along with his older sister, will be used to blackmail the paladins and in particular Allura/Farla. Lotor/Sincline will offer an exchange, promising to kill the captives if they refuse.

Unfortunately, events will turn out in such a way that Keith/Akira will only be able to recapture Bandor/Alora. He would use the blizzard to disguise himself and pretend to be Allura/Farla, but without a proper weapon, his chances of defeating Lothor/Sincline were slim. And he certainly wouldn’t show compassion for the one who deceived him.

So the decision of the captives to return and help may not have been too smart, but it saved their savior.

The episode ends with the witch Haggar/Honerva unleashing a robeast on the paladins, and while they fight it off, Lotor/Sincline safely takes all the fugitives away. Yes, it wasn’t possible to save anyone in this episode - in GoLion, having dealt with the monster, the paladins look sadly after the departing ship. In DOTU... Voltron returns to Arus and is met with fanfare, which looks extremely inappropriate in this episode. Just like many other things added by American screenwriters to reduce the level of tragedy in a non-children's series

3. "Space Wolf"

And then ... we move on to episode 39. More precisely, to several episodes from 39 to 40, because the 40th is actually the second part of the 39th.

And in this story there’s a very serious difference between DOTU and GoLion. In particular, because the Americans didn’t know what exactly was going on there.

What was in the original?

In the original, the witch informs Zarkon/Daibazaal and his son that at an unknown time, the White Hole spewed out a cosmic body with a diameter of 1 kilometer with an incredible force of gravity. Hypergravitational planetoid - that is, it seems to be a planet, but very small and with huge gravity. I’ll try to explain it in simple words: there’s a theory that at the end of the black hole, where everything is drawn in, there’s a white hole, from which everything flies out. Both the white hole and the black hole are real cosmic phenomena that have given rise to many fantasies about interdimensional portals. As in other parts of the universe, so in other universes in general.

The planetoid was named "Space Wolf" and began to go around in a wide arc, as it attracted absolutely everything to itself, grinding its victims into dust. We don’t know what trajectory it flew before the events of the series.

In front of the overlord's eyes, Honerva directs a Galran ship to the space body, and the planetoid immediately pulls it towards itself, twisting and crushing. But the rings that it carried jump out and, having expanded, cover the entire planetoid. Satisfied with the result, Honerva reports that now these rings completely control the movement of the Space Wolf.

Apparently, the rings caused a strong explosion at a certain point and thus pushed the planetoid. I don’t know how sane such an idea looks from the point of view of physics and astronomy.

And what is very remarkable: when Akira and Raible (Coran) will discuss whether it’s possible to destroy the Space Wolf, Raible will say that Altea's existing capacities are not enough even to force the planetoid to change its trajectory.

Yes, it turns out that the power of friendship is far from always able to overcome any evil.

What's in DOTU?

DOTU caught up with a lot of pathos. That when the Big Bang occurred at the beginning of time, in addition to ordinary cosmic bodies, it also gave rise to several anomalies, one of which was the comet Omega. That is, if the Space Wolf appeared on an unspecified date, then comet Omega has always existed.

Haggar described this comet as a flying black hole, which sounds ... somehow more absurd than the banal magnet from Japanese screenwriters. On the other hand, it now becomes clear how comet Omega managed to throw comic book characters (Voltron/Robotech crossover by Dynamite Comics) into other worlds.

And what is fundamentally important: the paladins of the past were able to stop this comet and hide it. The rumor about this feat spread throughout the universe and turned into a legend that every child knew.

But no one remembered how (!) the paladins did it. According to Coran, data on the event was lost and it took 10 years to develop the plan.

At the end of the story, the witch boasts that she found this comet, and took control of it with the help of rings, as it was in the original.

Hearing of this, Lotor/Sincline tells to bring Romelle/Amue. Sincline did it on purpose, and Lotor... apparently, in order to mock her.

And here again there is a difference in the series. Amue sees how the witch orders the rings to send the Space Wolf towards Altea. Savoring the moment, Honerva tells her that the cosmic body will cause terrible cataclysms on the planet, the princess is horrified and screams that Golion won’t allow them to do this.

Moreover, subsequent events will show that Amue doesn’t know what the "Space Wolf" is.

Romelle is told that the legendary comet Omega is in front of her, which is now heading towards Arus. And the princess of Pollux knows this legend, as well as all the inhabitants of the universe. The girl bravely declares that she will find a way to stop Lotor and the witch... which doesn’t sound very smart from the point of view of her behavior. Oh, it's DOTU... *heavy sigh*.

What's next?

Romelle/Amue shows espionage skills and manages to get to the communication system. But how she did it remains behind the scenes. The princess informs the paladins that a dangerous cosmic body is moving towards them and must be stopped by any means necessary.

Lotor/Sincline is informed of this, but he doesn't seem the least bit surprised. Sincline laughs and calls the princess a fool for not realizing that this is a trap, and Lotor simply suggests using the girl's zeal for his own purposes. In the castle, they discuss the information received. And it's quite interesting that Akira and Raible know what a Space Wolf is and are surprised when Amue calls the Wolf a weapon created by Honerva. Here we can assume that the planetoid appeared relatively recently, after the princess was captured. And then it becomes clear why the witch became interested in him just now. Despite the seeming hopelessness of the situation, Akira makes the assumption that the planetoid is controlled by the occult powers of Honerva (it is), and suggests that everything be done to keep the Space Wolf from Altea. Raible turns to Hisa and tells her to be ready to face death like a samurai. Farla orders to prepare everything for the evacuation of the population, so that people have the opportunity to keep their dignity alive.

In DOTU... Keith proudly declares that they are the Voltron Force and will be able to take down Omega no matter what. Coran dejectedly retorts that nothing will come of it and they must prepare for death. Allura… doesn’t consider it necessary to issue an evacuation order. It seems that Farla at 16 was still smarter.

Voltron flies up to Omega/Wolf. The GoLion paladins tried to keep their distance, but they were still pulled, because the planetoid's gravitational field was truly enormous. The heroes of DOTU… showed themselves to be not very smart people and flew into the gravity zone themselves, because Pidge couldn’t collect the necessary information about the comet at such a great distance.

Romella/Amue is brought in to watch Voltron floundering in the gravity zone and trying to fire all the cannons in order to at least change the trajectory of the Omegawolf and thereby save Arus/Althea.

And then there's a scene that, in the DOTU version, makes me want to roll my eyes.

What's going on in GoLion? Amue is led to Sincline and Honervra from behind, and the witch tells the prince to seize the moment and destroy Golion before the paladins figure out where the Space Wolf's vulnerability lies. To which Sincline replies that they’ll never guess to shoot at the rings, but he isn’t going to give them such an opportunity and orders adjutant Gobra to launch an attack.

Princess Amue, in a panic, rushes to the radar station in front of her, and, after contacting Altea, screams that they need to shoot at the rings. In the Japanese voice acting, she screams in short phrases, which means she understands that she has a chance in a million, and she’s about to be interrupted.

Sincline and Honerva watch this scene with a smirk, and the paladins, alas, when trying to shoot at the rings, lose concentration and crash into the surface of the Space Wolf at full speed. For an unstated reason, the main cannon fails, which genuinely surprises Akira.

What's going on in DOTU? Romelle is again brought in from the back. Lotor says that the paladins would have a chance to defeat the comet if they did this, that, and that, but they would never think to do so. Moreover, he mentions the crystal inside Voltron, although how does he even know how this weapon works?

Yes, he behaves like a typical ostentatious villain who needs to tell the enemy about how to defeat him.

Romelle, abruptly dumbfounded, doesn’t feel any trick, rushes to the microphone and retells this whole long tirade to the paladins. Apparently, she thought that she was surrounded by only gentlemen who would politely wait until the lady had talked enough with her friends.

The paladins, on the other hand, try to follow the instructions, but this, on the contrary, stops Voltron, and they still - but for a different reason - crash into the surface of Omega at full speed.

… but excuse me… what kind of surface can a black hole have?...

The prince and the witch laugh, Amue/Romelle is predictably hysterical and calls herself an idiot. In the second case, not without reason.

Voltron tries to rise, or at least tear off the limbs from the surface, but to no avail. The Omega/Wolf flies up to Arus/Althea and begins to slowly disintegrate the planet along with the population. Coran/Raible announces an emergency evacuation, and in DOTU adds that he asked the Alliance for help, but most likely they won’t send anyone.

...and why the hell is this Alliance needed then?..

Meanwhile, the witch gets tired of waiting for the planet's gravity to crush Voltron, and she releases a weapon in the form of spiked rings from the crumpled ship (the same one that delivered the rings). The situation seems hopeless, but suddenly help comes in the person of Bandor/Alor.

In GoLion, Alor says that the Heraclians were tracking the Space Wolf's trajectory and rushed to help when they realized the situation was becoming critical. In DOTU…. Bandor reveals that he’s the commander of the 11th Starfleet of the Alliance, but didn’t arrive for long, because his troops must guard the energy carrier. We’ll never know why the young king of Pollux ended up on packages from the Alliance and guards some kind of energy carrier instead of his native planet.

…just think how strange it sounds for a child of royal blood to lead a guard post… What is even more frustrating is that in DOTU, due to a mistranslation, it completely disappeared that the Heraclians not only followed the movement of the planetoid, but also managed to construct a cannon to protect others against it. The weapon didn’t have enough power to destroy a dangerous object, but it could change its course and thereby protect people against its impact.

In DOTU, the ships will just abstractly shoot at the comet, although in theory the black hole should be completely inert to such an impact.

And yes, Bandor/Alor will order a shot at the Omega/Wolf, knowing that Voltron will be hurt at best and destroyed at worst. With the full consent and approval of the paladins. This will destroy the rings and move the cosmic body, thereby saving Arus/Althea.

In response, Lotor/Sincline will become furious and send troops, both for unexpected saviors and to the planet, in order to complete what they started without the Omega/Wolf.

And then we move on to the events of episode 40.

Which starts with Lotor/Sincline flying over Arus/Althea and bombing cities. He makes princess Romelle/Amue watch the ships shoot down civilians, while he laughs and promises to kill every single one. "To the last midge" - quoting meticulous Lotor.

Bandor/Alor, meanwhile, is trying to pull out Voltron, and unlike the paladins, it wisely doesn’t approach the planetoid, but sends "laser anchors" to try to overcome the Omega/Wolf's gravity and pull the robot from the planet with the whole fleet.

Moreover, there’s a big difference in the behavior of Alor and Bandor - Alor listens to the words of his subordinates, and they support his desire to save Golion and protect Altea. While Bandor's relationship with the soldiers reaches the point that they begin to sabotage his orders.

And perhaps they would have been able to save Voltron, but the Drules/Galra didn’t give the enemies such a chance, and began to shoot the ships tied with anchors and therefore unable to defend themselves.

As a result, only Alor's ship remains, whose anchor breaks and he loses sight of the Omega/Wolf.

The allied soldiers say that they’re now millions of light miles from Arus and blame Bandor for not listening to them, but the Heraclians urge Alor to be strong and protect Altea instead of Golion.

What about paladins? No, they don’t overcome gravity with the power of friendship, alas, this doesn’t work with the laws of physics, but the Goddess of the Universe charges Voltron/Golion and destroys the Omega/Wolf.

...that's what it means to "have good acquaintances"!..

Meanwhile, Lotor/Sincline is trading with Bandor/Alor, who has dented his cruiser pretty well. He shows the boy his sister and threatens to kill her if he doesn’t stop his attack.

...in general, it seems that the superiority of the Galra over the Heraclians consisted solely in the robeasts...

As you understand, the young king didn’t want to sacrifice his sister, but Voltron/Golion arrives and solves this moral dilemma in favor of Arus/Altea. It destroys the Drule/Galra forces, and Lotor/Sincline hastily leaves the planet.

The prince is furious that all his plans have been ruined and takes the captive princess to a place full of skulls on the Planet Doom. Lotor wants to destroy Romelle for his loyalty to Voltron, and Sincline says that although he hates the idea that Amue needs to be disposed of, he must take revenge on Alor for saving Golion (yes, Sincline thought it was Alor's merit).

In general, here Romelle/Amue demonstrates remarkable restraint - she looks her killers in the face without fear and snaps, declaring that Voltron will win anyway.

But the princess manages to avoid death - a voice from underground orders her not to move (however, in DOTU it’s female for some reason ...), and when the soldiers start shooting, she falls under the ground.

The episode ends with a strange figure holding a candle who decides to approach the unconscious princess. 4. Field romance and shock content

And ... we go straight to episode 41. Yes, unexpectedly we got as many as three storylines in a row.

But the surprise was not only in this. I have to admit, when I watched episode 41 of GoLion, the thought flashed through my head that I wasn’t mentally prepared for such scenes.

...sometimes the Japanese scare me...

The guy with the candle turns out to be Ryou Shirogane (yes, Shiro is a surname), aka Sven.

The reasons why Sven/Ryou ends up in caves on an enemy planet are slightly different in DOTU and GoLion. Ryou was captured a long time ago, back in the days when his brother piloted the Blue Lion, but since then he managed to get out of the dungeon and is now a partisan (what exactly he did was never said). Sven, on the other hand, was much less fortunate. When he was seriously injured and sent to the hospital, by coincidence, it was on the planet where he was being treated that the Drules raided and took away many slaves. Including Sven. Injuries didn’t allow him to resist, and as a result he was thrown to die in a dungeon, since no one wanted to support a disabled slave at their own expense. He didn’t agree to die just like that and was able to get out into the wild, if, of course, vagrancy on the Drule planet can be called such a word.

What’s even more different is the behavior of the characters.

In general, against the background of the slender and logical replicas of GoLion, the lines in DOTU look somehow crazy. When the princess stumbles and falls while running (long skirt, shoes, you know), Ryou asks her to be quick, but Sven says that they have no time to rest.

Sven generally resembles a half-madman and calls himself a Savage who has no name. A guy crazy from loneliness, downtrodden and despising himself for being weak.

Ryou, on the contrary, is in a fighting state of mind and is confident in himself. He introduces himself as the younger brother of the famous paladin Takashi, and when Amue protests that Farla is piloting the Blue Lion, he loudly calls her a liar. The mourning of the brother takes place according to all samurai canons, with the mention of a ghost that appeared to Ryou in a dream and bequeathed to defeat the Galra Empire.

Relations between the characters are also built differently. If GoLion they’re dogging at first (love-hate fans - a step forward), then in DOTU Romelle has to shake Sven to come to his senses and encourage him to take action. Sven will even refuse to mess with the paladins, because, you see, he’s ashamed, and Romelle will have to persuade him to do this. Ryou at that moment just called without any persuasion and bowing.

Actually, the GoLion couple cooperated so much that they even arranged an escape for the Heraclian captives - who, unfortunately, were caught. Alas, in GoLion, a successful escape is a rarity.

And now we move on to shock content.

Sincline/Lotor realized very quickly that the princess wasn’t dead. His soldiers noticed that she had fled into the caves, but couldn’t catch her up. And although he initially ordered the destruction of the escaped slaves, the witch suggested that he’d use the captives for blackmail and thus return the fugitive.

And here's what it looked like. People (men, women, at least children weren’t shown, hanks for that) were taken to something like an arena, hollowed out among the rocks, and a huge metal golem was put in front of them. The prince, standing on the edge of the abyss in the company of a witch and his father, loudly declared that he knew that the princess was there, and offered to surrender and thus save the captives.

In GoLion, Sincline also appealed to royal honor, because it was clearly indicated that all slaves were from Hercules, that is, they were subjects of Amue.

Naturally, no one wanted her to agree to this proposal. First of all Sven/Ryou. The captives themselves began to shout for her not to come out, as they would be killed anyway.

Moreover, in GoLion, the Heraclians not only asked the princess not to go out, but began to chant “Long live Hercules! Long live Princess Amue!". That is, they clearly stated their position and stated that they value the life of the princess more than their own.

And the Heraclians will continue to shout these words even when the iron golem begins to crush them with its hands.

Yes. In GoLion, it’ll be shown close-up, accompanied by the crunch of breaking bones. In DOTU, the screams of people will be re-voiced, the scene itself will be cut and the sound will be replaced with a less impressive one.

... and that's when I realized that there is much more Japanese in this series than it seemed at first. Don't let European interiors confuse you...

Moreover, it’s worth noting that if the reaction of the princess in both versions was approximately the same, then Ryou showed much more callousness than Sven. Ryou said that Amue must endure for the sake of sacrificing her people, while Sven expressed regret that he couldn’t help these people in any way.

As you understand, Sven's behavior is the behavior of a Western person, while Ryou is harsh, as befits a samurai. The Heraclians die for their hime, it is their duty. His duty is to avenge his brother, Amue's duty is to survive so that the sacrifice of her people won’t be in vain.

After some time, the main characters find several more fugitives and offer them to cooperate. In DOTU, these are random people, and in GoLion, there are a few more Heraclians.

And yes, these people will also die to enable the princess to escape from the planet. Although in DOTU such dedication seems incomprehensible - the fact that Romelle is undeniably a beautiful woman doesn’t explain why several men decided to sacrifice their lives for the sake of a captive like themselves.

The hijacked ship was immediately pursued, and Lotor/Sincline decided to personally participate in the capture of the fugitives. But since Sven/Ryou contacted the paladins, they flew out to meet him along with Bandor/Alor.

An improved version of the iron golem will be released on Voltron, but Bandor/Alor will help ensure the sister's path to Hercules/Pollux.

And here comes another interesting point.

The iron golem forges Voltron’s hand and foot with the help of its crown. The creature that crushed living people a day ago was now about to destroy the main weapon of the resistance forces. And then Romelle/Amue herself (!) will deploy the ship and head to the rescue of the paladins.

In GoLion, Amue will simply decide to go for a ram, which Ryou will silently approve of, but Romelle will ask the sluggish Sven to become her navigator and dictate her coordinates (which again will look extremely strange, but I probably should get used to it) .

The ship won’t be able to ram the golem, but it’ll be able to knock down the crown and free Voltron.

And after a glorious victory, the heroes will finally return safely to Hercules.

Episode 45.

Alas, there aren’t so many interesting events for Romelle/Amue personally. She returns to the Planet Doom with Sven/Ryou to spy. In a new stylish suit and earrings to match the color of the dress.

It's funny that the dress was blue and the combat suit was pink. If you know what I mean.

The main character of this episode is Sven/Ryou, who sneaks onto an enemy ship to find out where the fighters are being taken to create a huge army of robeasts. Both the ship and the plant planet are eventually destroyed.

Of the interesting moments of the episode is the development of a romance between the characters. The characters of GoLion continue to quarrel, clearly experiencing a certain pleasure from this. In DOTU... these same disputes are spelled out a lot more boringly. The feeling that this is just a game for the characters has disappeared from the text and voice acting, and it’s more difficult to believe in any feelings between them.

Further, Romelle/Amue will appear only in episodes 51-52.

There are no longer any plot twists that are important for us, there are only battles going on in a continuous stream. The alliance, assembled by Altea from 7 allied planets, storms the Drule/Galra planet. Voltron and Castle of Lions (which suddenly remembered that it’s actually a spaceship) attack from above, and our heroes lead the assault from below.

And I must say that the princess will fearlessly rush into battle in the forefront. Throw grenades at enemies, plant bombs on walls and shoot from a machine gun.

The minuses of the series ... Ryou tragically dies. Lotor/Sincline captures him, but Sven/Ryou manages to stab the prince with a dagger and they fall into the abyss together. And in GoLion there’s no water down there, because there were no seas at the foot of the tower. Yes, they’re smeared on the ground, and before his death, Ryou triumphantly says "I did it, brother!" and proudly dies. Like a true samurai.

Many thanks to the Japanese writers for burying the best pairing of the series in the very last episode. In GoLion, it’s actually the only one, since Farla and Akira had no relationship.

This is where the story of the old Romelle ends. She, of course, appears in additional episodes of DOTU season 3, but there she’s given very little screen time, and her entire role is reduced to waving a handkerchief after Sven. Simply put, the American screenwriters turned her into a plot tool.

I sincerely hope that my retelling didn’t cause your yawning, but I considered it necessary to describe everything that in theory could have a connection with VLD. I even wonder how many similar scenes and references you noticed yourself, without my help.

#VLD #golion #voltron dotu #romelle #Allura #lotor

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chibimyumi · 3 years

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Lost and Wins in Adaptation

Dear everyone, as per Anon’s request, I shall analyse a Kuromyu and discuss the Lost and Wins in Adaptation. The results of your democratic votes (comments and asks) are out, and the winner is TANGO ON THE CAMPANIA! In this post I shall only be discussing character/plot influential changes, so no stand-alone comedic sketches will be included.

This is going to be a very long post because there’s just so much to unpack. But feel free to read it in bits, or skip to the part you are most interested in (but do come back later though (ÒvÓ)b). This post will include the following sections:

What makes a good adaptation?

AberHanks - Expert Glue and Filler

“Just like my family!” - One line, many messages

Grell - A Capable Career Woman

An unfortunate Sacrifice

Raw Trash Demon

Active Inclusion Midfords - Manga Fix?

Reunion and Aftermath

Afterword

I promise you the analysis will make you love TotC even more!

1. What makes a good adaptation?

2.5D wouldn’t exist without the 2D, so it is essential for any 2.5D producer to prove to the fans the producing side understood the source material using their form of medium. Changes are inevitable, but the key is that when things are changed, the core of the original needs to remain intact.

Theatre as medium’s biggest disadvantage is its strict time constraints. Whether the producers are capable of adapting a story within the time constraints without it feeling like a quickly duct-taped patchwork is what distinguishes a good adaptation from a bad one. The scriptwriters have no choice but to sacrifice parts to tell a concise story, but the art is in skillfully choosing what to yeet. The musical does need to be able to stand on its own without new audiences going “what?”, after all

2. AberHanks - Expert Glue and Filler

The most obvious difference between the original manga and Tango on the Campania is the addition of Aberline and the musical original, Hanks. In Tango on the Campania they are very cleverly employed to tie the musical together within the time constraints.

Ronald appeared before the Campania Arc, but it wasn’t before this one that he gets his own proper introduction. What the manga readers and musical-only audience have in common then, is that at this point of the story, Ronald is almost equally new. The line: “if we get to meet again, alive, that is” is a very effective way to introduce Ronald’s chipper but cynical personality. In the manga Ronald’s conversation partner was a passenger who fancied Ronald. It would have been a waste of stage time to adapt the third class setting and introduce this girl too, but skipping the line entirely would not do Ronald’s introduction justice. So the script writers cleverly used AberHanks instead, and when Ronald delivered the iconic line, the impact is still the same as in the original.

Additionally, AberHanks are supportive roles in them being police officers who help combat the zombies. The historic Titanic had a really poor survival rate, and that’s without dealing with murderous zombies. In Campania however, that’s a different story. I would argue that Aberline and Hanks evacuation efforts, along with the Formidable Midfords greatly increased the survival rate of Campania passengers.

This addition is a brilliant three-birds-one-stone move. This firstly shows that despite AberHanks being the comic relief, as the police they are not there to fool around. Secondly, by explicitly placing the Midfords along literal fighters of crime, the audience also clearly understands what the Midfords - the Chivalric order - are: fellow fighters of crime.

Thirdly, the gentleman’s code of evacuation is children and women first, and AberHanks would undoubtedly also have heeded that code. And yet Frances was there, and AberHanks never attempted to evacuate her or doubted her skill. The police and Frances fighting side by side shows the audience that even in the 19th century, Frances is recognised firstly as member of the Chivalric Order, before being ““just a woman in a huge dress””. Don’t mess with her.

3. “Just like my family!” - one line, many messages.

A very small but game-changing alternation is when Ciel was trying to convince Lizzie to remove her dress to benefit escape. In the manga when Lizzie refused, O!Ciel immediately rips the dress, saying that once dead she won’t be able to wear any dress, because death is the end of everything.

In the musical with real child actors they couldn’t very well reenact this scene, so instead they gave Ciel the line: “Everything is over if you’re dead, just like my family!”

In the musical, Ciel doesn’t touch Lizzie, which is very clever. When someone refuses to remove her clothes, it is because she feels infringed, exposed and/or unsafe. If somebody doesn’t do something out of fear, what you need to do to convince them is to minimise that fear. By forcefully ripping her clothes, MangaCiel only made Lizzie feel even more infringed.

Instead of touching Lizzie, MusicalCiel appeals to Lizzie’s empathy. By making Ciel say “my family” to Lizzie, both audience and Lizzie are shown/reminded how Ciel had tragically lost his family, and cannot afford to lose more. At that time of the musical, new audiences wouldn't know yet what Ciel had been through. So when later the Cinematic Record of Sebas started, “just like my family” also functions as an effective foreshadowing of what would later be revealed, avoiding Ciel being in a cage looking like it came from nowhere to new audiences.

One could argue that Ciel’s phrase was emotional manipulation, yes... but it was a literal life or death situation for the objective good of everyone. And besides, we all know who our Trash Lord™ is; manipulation is part of him.

Ciel had yelled at Lizzie, and immediately he turned around, clutching his chest. It was such an impressive moment because it showed how that blow Ciel dealt was a doubled edged one. Lizzie was clearly hit too, and very quickly she realised her own fault and apologised. Then the most fun part for the audience is to consider whether this was Ciel’s genuine reaction, or whether that was all part of his acting skills in manipulating Lizzie. I say both are equally likely! (Oh Reo, you brilliant little...)

I personally consider this alteration superiour to the manga original.

4. Grell - A Capable Career Woman

Per Yana’s direct request to Grell’s actor, Uehara, she asked him to portray Grell as a capable career woman because Yana admitted she failed to do so herself.

Most of Yana’s request was fulfilled simply by Uehara’s acting and respect for Grell, but there is also one tiny line added to her script which emphasises her focus on her job. “I’m dropping you!”

Nobody on the Campania had time to fool around because it was literally going down. Grell had her job to do, and yet Rian thought it a good idea to withhold information from Grell about the method of stopping the zombies. By threatening Rian whose life was at Grell’s mercy with “I’m dropping you”, the audience is very effectively shown that Grell is a no-nonsense woman, and that she knows how to get someone to talk. 👌👌👌

5. An Unfortunate Sacrifice

Some things had to be omitted to fit the stage time limit, but the most painful omission in my opinion were details in Sebastian’s cinematic record.

A really unfortunate but understandable omission was Ciel reuniting with Tanaka and Madam Red... but considering the time constraints of the musical, shoe-horning these moments in with different actors would have come at the expense of the rest of the musical. Though very sad, it is what it is.

Another omission is Sebas forgetting to spare one assassin to interrogate. In this post I discussed in detail why this omission by the movie adaptation was such a sin. Tango on the Campania omitted that part too, though as a stage medium it is more forgivable than an animated movie with endless possibilities Ò^Ó. Nevertheless it is a bit sad, because this omission takes away that the audience can see how Sebas was just so used to massacring on auto pilot, and how even Sebas himself recognises he needs to learn control.

THOUGH, I must say the musical actually tries to compensate for this shortcoming, unlike the movie. This omission of what showed that Sebas was far from perfect at the beginning, Furukawa compensated by simply being the most insincere, passive-aggressive, unprofessional, arrogant prick he could be.

The audience won’t catch a hint that Sebas used to be no more than a weapon, but they will see how Sebastyun never served a human on close proximity before!

6. Raw Trash Demon

I have already talked about how Sebastyun is a real game-changer on this blog, so I will not repeat every detail again. So here I will only address the significant changes in spoken lines that add to Sebastian’s character before he was fully trained. In this post I discussed in detail how Furukawa portrayed Sebastian’s gradual growth from raw demon to one hell of a butler. Sebas at the beginning was really butler in appearance only, as he was insolent and never knew when to shut his wondrous trap.

In stage format it would have been quite awkward to do a bath scene, so instead the creators replaced it with a wound-dressing scene. Instead of pouring hot water over the boy, Sebastyun is now scrubbing his master’s skin off. When the boy protests, rather than immediately apologising like his manga counterpart did, Sebastyun just shoves the feedback right back down the boy’s throat. “You’re making too much of a big deal out of it.” Here we see how Sebas is not there to serve his master, he’s just doing his thing because he has to.

Another line that is musical only is when Ciel’s stomach rumbled, and Sebas laughed his arse off, saying: “what an inglorious sound!” In the manga Sebas started a high-horse speech about human weakness, which was quite bold already. But he did not seem to dare straight up humiliate his master for a basic bodily need.

Sebastyun however? Balls of steel.

He humiliates his master, can’t apologise for shit, and when he says things in compliance with his master, it’s in a tone of: “well, screw you too”. Sebastyun was so bad at his job that Ciel too was given another line that wasn’t in the manga: “The preparations of a day’s meals is part of a butler’s job”.

Sebas had just criticised his master for being a useless kid, and now Ciel makes a comeback with the line: “well, you don’t even know what your literal job is, let alone how to do it.” The addition of this line is very powerful in my opinion, because it quite effectively compensates for the omitted scenes of Ciel and Sebas both sucking at their respective roles.

When O!Ciel commented on Sebas’ awful cooking, MangaSebas seemed quite willing to do his job well, and immediately offered to fix his mistake. Sebas does not apologise, but he does show that he made a mistake in not being considerate enough of Ciel’s current condition.

Sebastyun however, couldn’t apologise for shit at the beginning. Instead of showing openness to feedback, he immediately externalises by making humans the problem again, rather than his own lack of cooking skill. No wonder Ciel smashed that table with such aggression!

Another changed line is Sebas bringing his master hot milk after his failed dinner attempt. Originally Sebas did so potentially as an attempt to show his readiness to do better at his job. He explains that he does so out of consideration for the well-being of the boy.

In the musical however, Sebastyun does not say the manga line. Instead he says: “I can’t afford to have you starve to death.” I am not sure whether this was the script or Furukawa’s improvisation, but either way it perfectly shows yet again, how Sebas is not there to serve his master, but to just get his tasks over with.

This is a very short but efficient alternative way to retell how Sebas especially at the beginning was not very enthusiastic about being summoned, as analysed here from the original Japanese manga. Sebas is not like: “(UwU) gimme more orders”, he’s like: “(ಠ_ಠ) what is it this time?”

A small addition that was definitely an improvisation was Sebastyun sitting down on Ciel’s bed, and the boy pushing him away. (At the beginning of the run Furukawa didn’t do that yet. The first time Furukawa sat down Reo just moved aside and gave Sebas a nasty look.) Here it also reemphasises how little Sebastian understood of what was done and NOT done as a servant.

A final, noteworthy addition in the far beginning of their contract was Ciel saying that he acknowledges both he himself are the demon are still fakes. The boy says this line after Sebas had brought him hot milk which Ciel appreciated.

Ciel calls his butler forward in a soft tone, and Sebastyun just looked so self-congratulatory, self-satisfied, he adjusted his suit, standing all ready like: PRAISE ME! (●´��∀´ิ●)✨

Yeah no... you wish.

In the manga this line doesn’t exist, so Sebas is simply surprised to hear the compliment, and then his master just splashes the cold water right over him.

7. Active Inclusion Midfords - Manga Fix?

The most dramatic and influential change to the musical is the active inclusion of the Midfords. It is an entire scene that was added to the musical, so it is a bit impossible to unpack everything in this already very long post. So here I will only address the most game-changing alterations.

Yana Beaten to the Punch, strike 2 and 3?

Now many chapters later than the Campania Arc, we know that the Midfords had been the legal guardians of Ciel after the death of his family. But even before the release of the chapter, we’d see in Sebastyun’s Cinematic Record how the Midfords were very involved with their nephew. This shows how much respect for the manga the musical producers had, and how well they understood their source material that they too could beat Yana to the punch. Strike 2!

Both Midfords were present before and during the decoration ceremony. And Sebas bows deeply, thanking them sincerely for their aid all this time. Sebas cannot lie, so when he says “sincere gratitude”, it really was sincere. Alexis responds humbly, saying that it’s simply the right thing to do.

Not only did the Midfords aid Ciel in his reintegration into the world, Frances also showed the audience and Sebas she knows exactly what she is preparing the child for. Frances says she understands how cruel it is for the young Ciel to do what is expected of him, because being Earl means more than wealth and power. It is: “shouldering the burden and name of ‘the Queen’s Watchdog’.” The musical also does a great job at linking Frances’ position as the previous Watchdog’s sister, to being the legal guardian of the future Watchpuppy.

I have seen many manga readers talk about how they found Frances’ involvement insufficient in the manga, and I understand. She has a very small role in the manga, so we don’t know what she has or hasn’t done to help. But in Tango on the Campania, we do get a much clearer sense of the Midfords’ role in Ciel’s life.

Ciel was still mid-preparation before the start of the Ceremony, but Frances and Alexis had already arrived to keep a parental eye on him.Ciel is surprised, but Frances responds with: “it would set a bad example if the star is late”. Though it is but one short phrase, the script writers shows (not ‘tells’) how she is there because she wants to make sure Ciel’s decoration will go smoothly, as well as that her own role is to set an example for Ciel by being on time herself.

This is possibly a reference to what Sebas says to Frances in chapter 14, how he wishes her to be his master’s example. Except that here in the musical, it is Frances who takes this initiative, which in my opinion is the superiour way.

When Frances commends Ciel for his courage of returning to fight, Sebastian adds: “The most opportune chance for counter attack is when the opponent strikes. That is what milady Frances had taught him, the Young Master said.”

To which Frances is quite surprised to hear, and incredulously she says: “Ciel said that?” This makes one suspect whether Frances really said those words to supposedly Real Ciel. It would be very funny if Sebastian (accidentally) gave Frances a hint of his master’s real identity. I am not sure whether this is an implicit hint that Frances might have started suspecting Ciel is not the Real Ciel. Some have theorised Frances has the deepest suspicions among everyone. If that turns out to be true, then TotC might have beaten the original manga to the punch again. Potential strike three!

Another change is the replacement of Madam Red with Alexis. This one is just a very pragmatic change, because the phrase “To Ciel you are already as good as family” is very iconic and important and shouldn’t be left out. But getting a Madam Red in here out of nowhere would require time-consuming exposition. So by giving this phrase to Alexis instead, the musical effectively solves two problems in one go.

8. Reunion and Aftermath

Another addition to the original manga is the reunion on the rescue ship, just like the the movie adaptation of the Campania Arc did. After all that has happened it is very nice for the audience to see the emotional reunion and the aftermath. In the manga the Arc ended with Sebas and his master on the rescue boat, and it had a very nice, open feeling to it, I absolutely love it! 💖🚤

Audience Considerate Story Telling

To a musical-only audience (which TotC had a lot of because of the collaboration with TOHO), the opening ending might have felt a bit abrupt. These musical-only spectators don’t have the Arcs after the Campania to know for sure Sebas and Ciel went home safely, and that life would just continue. Nor would they know for sure what kind of impact the enormous revelation of Undertaker being a reaper would have on our protagonists. Had the non-manga audiences been given the same ending as the original, then it might have looked a bit like this to them.

Also considering the musical medium, any (Japanese) audience would want a satisfying finale song to wrap everything up. (Kuromyu21 not having one was a real complaint among JP spectators). And after the dramatic brawl song of Sebas fighting the zombies on that boat, you can’t very well pull another song on that tiny thing again. Okay, the song TotC did settle with for the finale song was......very disappointing in my opinion as it reminded me more of a Disney parade, but it at least had a song.

Emotional Full Circle

Despite the song being quite unfitting, the emotional reunion really, REALLY hit hard. When Lizzie says “welcome back” to Ciel, it was a perfect full circle back to what Lizzie couldn’t do 3 years ago.

In her flashback of 3 years ago when Ciel returned to her, the boy lifelessly said: “I’m back... Elisabeth”. Lizzie however never responded with “welcome back” because she was too preoccupied with something just feeling off.

In the musical reunion however, unlike 3 years ago Lizzie was fully emotionally equipped to genuinely welcome her fiancé back, and Ciel too happily responds: “yeah, I’m back, Lizzie”, using Lizzie’s preferred name.

Sebastian’s Aftermath

The reunion is but a simple addition, but it allows the musical to show the impact of such a traumatic event on the omnipotent demon butler.

The Cinematic Record showed how cocky Sebastyun was, and how he didn’t have a single worry in his life. After Undertaker had fatally wounded even the demon however, Sebas became a different person. In the finale we see Undertaker silently disappearing into the shadows. Sebastyun wasn’t even entirely sure whether Undertaker was there, but at the merest suspicion already you see him flinch and twitch. This shows how from now on Sebas has become a person who is on edge.

I mean, what’s the point of telling an event if the event doesn’t impact the story and characters, right? In this way too, the inserted aftermath scene skillfully wraps up an overwhelmingly eventful story.

9. Afterword

Well, thank you for reading this looong post till the end! As discussed in this post, TotC did a wonderful job at adapting an existing story with consideration of its audience and medium.

The largest obstacle of the theatre medium is time constraint, so the makers have to sacrifice parts. In what was sacrificed however, they more than sufficiently compensated by including parts outside the Campania Arc into the musical, without harming the integrity. This shows just how much respect and knowledge the TotC team have of the source material.

As a musical adaptation, it is an exemplary production.

Hyper Detailed Development - The Art of Kneeling

That Demon, Skin Crawling

That Butler - Punchable

Lost in Translation II - Sebastyun’s Butlernese

#Kuromyu #Comparative analysis #Tango on the Campania #Campania #Musical #Sebastyun #Furukawa Yuta #Uchikawa Reo

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fireemblems24 · 3 years

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Post Grondor Field AM Analysis

I'm prefacing this by saying that I'm still not sure I can write a good analysis of this scene for two reasons:

1. I don't know what comes after, and

2. I'm very emotionally involved in what happened.

But I tried my best. One thing is for sure though, what happened in Grondor in AM was an incredibly significant turning point for AM and Dimitri and my thoughts and analysis on it will definitely expand as I keep writing about and playing the game.

Part of me is just so happy I got to see Dimitri's supports, have the inevitable turn around, and get to do things like tea and dinner time again that it's hard to be objective about this scene.

And by "this scene," I don't mean that actual fight at Grondor, but everything from Fleche's attack to Byleth's words in the rain later.

It wasn't all about Byleth . . .

Given how poignant Dimitri's character arc has been so far, I had a deep rooted fear player-pandering would ruin it. Byleth, as a concept, isn't bad, but too often the heaps of praise feel underserved and other things (like Claude's intelligence, Edelgard's relationships with everyone else) get ignored to make more room for player-pandering.

Thankfully this did not happen. Byleth, throughout the early chapters of AM's part 2, failed to reach Dimitri. And, honestly, seeing Byleth actually struggle for once has done wonders for how I view her character. Still, I worried that player-pandering-power, rather than something that felt earned, would cause the inevitable eye-opener for Dimitri.

But it wasn't just Byleth. Fleche's vengeance kicked everything off, what veered Dimitri away from his fate in other routes. He accepted his death at her hands, not bothering to defend himself. Rodrigue stepping in the way and his parting words forced Dimitri to confront things he'd ignored. Throughout AM so far, people have posed questions to Dimitri who refused to answer them because he didn't want to face what they asked. But Rodrigue dying for him, spending his final words telling Dimitri to live for himself - combined with Fleche's attack - forced Dimitri to confront things he avoided. It wasn't until after all of that when Byleth steps in.

And Byleth didn't "fix" him either. Dimitri's supports show a young man who's still very much struggling with his mental health, poor self-image, his previous actions, and wondering if he deserves not only to live for himself - but if he even deserves to live. Byleth didn't hand-wave Dimitri's problems away.

Everything about the scene is stronger because it didn't fall back on player-pandering, but more earned, realistic, and dramatic actions and consequences - including Byleth's involvement which felt far more earned than usual because of prior failure.

But I wish Dimitri's friends played a bigger role.

Not everything was perfect though. I wish we got a little more than we did from Dimitri's house mates - especially his childhood friends Sylvain, Ingrid, and extra special mention to Felix and especially, especially Dedue.

Throughout all of AM, none of the above mentioned characters feel utilized to their full potential. This isn't a problem exclusive to AM, and by all means it's far from the biggest offender, but given how close all the ties are in AM, it's felt when it's not there.

I still don't know what exactly I would've done with them. Maybe I'd need to make the game an actual novel to do it, and you can't forget how perma-death has historically held back games at times, limiting major moments to a select few "retreat" candidates.

Still, though, getting a bit more from Ingrid, Sylvain, Felix, and Dedue would've made the scene even more powerful.

I actually really liked the scene in the rain.

I haven't made it a secret that I dislike Byleth. Or maybe disliked is more accurate. Lately I've been rethinking my stance on Byleth, in part because I've heard from people who like her or found ways to make her work and from my own thinking about the game while planning future write ups.

I don't think it's Byleth I really dislike, but the player-pandering. Separating the two isn't easy, but it's easier since I've starting coming around to seeing Byleth as her own character.

There's been a few moments that made me care for Byleth, and this scene in the rain was one of them. Because she didn't just fix everything. She tried and failed for months to reason with Dimitri, and despite everything she never gave up on him or failed to keep offering her hand.

I'm not going to lie. I got all the bubbly, heartwarming, heartbreaking feels the writers wanted me to in this scene. Seeing Byleth reach for something and fail, and then finally, finally get through was rewarding in a way many of Byleth's prior accomplishments aren't because this one felt earned. And by God did she earn it.

Some people will likely disagree with that last point, but I disagree with them. She asked Dimitri hard-hitting questions, forcing him to come to unpleasant conclusions rather than trying to force him into anything. She kept Dimitri from veering to far off course, even at expense to herself when she killed Randolph. She saved Dimitri from Fleche when he refused to save himself. She quietly supported him, coaxing out the good she knew was still there and refused to give up on.

I'd never in a million years say someone in real life should put up with Dimitri's toxic behavior and verbal abuse, even considering his extreme trauma and aggravated mental illness. But seeing someone fuck up so badly still get forgiven, still get supported, still struggle but honestly change for the good, still get loved, start to accept and forgive himself through the power of love and forgiveness from others is very powerful, especially since media so often downplays those "softer" things as weakness in comparison to the "badassery" of ambition and stoicism. Using Byleth, who previously had little experience with feelings, who was encouraged to experience them in healthy ways by Dimitri, return the favor isn't really the worst choice.

It's cliche, but cliches aren't always bad.

The mentor dies. Redemption in the rain. Revenge against the protagonist's actions opens their eyes. Etc . . . This scene was chuck full of cliches, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

Tropes serve an important narrative purpose because a writer can rely on them to convey a message to the audience that either saves time or sets them up for something unexpected or even expected. Fire Emblem has always and will always be incredibly cliche and full of tropes. It loves tropes so much there's in-universe ones that make some unit or character discussions sound like a foreign language to people outside of or new to the fandom, talking about "Ests" and calling someone a "Camus."

What matters is if a story pulled something off well, not if it's terribly unique. A mentor dying is powerful because it forces the student to grow. Redemption in the rain is high symbolic of water washing things away + the somber atmosphere rain creates. Someone trying to get revenge against a character provides an eye-opening experience about the ripple effect of their actions. We see these things in fiction all the time because they work.

All the tropes worked like expected in this scene. Using images instead of cut scenes did make less of an impact, but more on that later.

Tl;dr: There's nothing unexpected or terribly unique about what happened. It was honestly painfully predictable, but that doesn't make it bad and is in a series that does this all of the time.

The voice acting carried because those images can't.

A major downside to this scene is that it used vague images instead of a cut scene. I get that budget and time were likely concerns, but many cut scenes from earlier in the game seem rather trivial. Did we really need that dance one? Really? I don't think so.

This was a hugely important, action heavy moment. Using one or two still images to convey everything that's happening and all those emotions, really makes it less than it could've been.

That said, the voice acting saves it. I've raved about how amazing Chris Hackeny is as Dimitri, so nothing new here. Rodrigue's and Fleche's VAs also did a fantastic job. No one oversold or undersold the emotions. Even without the cut scene, you felt what happened thanks to the skill of the actors. This scene would've been so much harder to engage with without them, if this was an older FE game where all you got was text. This is 100% one of the moments highly elevated by the decision to have a fully voiced game and choosing high caliber talent (let's not talk about Radiant Dawn's voice acting).

Questionable support timing.

One issue I had came right after the scene when I viewed Dimitri's supports. The nature of some - like his with Raphael and Alois - didn't quite line up with the character I saw in dialogue right after. I wish they staggered them a bit more or got picker about what you could get in part 1 or 2.

This isn't limited to Dimitri either. In the same support batch, I also got a Marianne B support where she still had no confidence or self-worth. And then like 10 minutes later I talk to her in the monastery and she mentions about how seeing all the death in Grondor made her value her life even more.

In the past, I've also received entirely valid opinions that Dorothea in part 2 is hard to understand because she's cherry and flirty in her supports, and morose and hates the war in her monastery stuff, making her seem inconsistent.

It's a bit jarring. It's not really an issue for characters who don't change much like Edelgard or Raphael, but even for characters with more subtle differences than Dimitri, Marianne, and Dorothea - like, say, Lorenz - you get a lot of weird stuff because of supports. I just think Dimitri's stands out because he's a main character with a really prominent, important turning point for his growth.

#fire emblem #fire emblem three houses #dimitri alexandre blaiddyd #azure moon #fe3h #fe16

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glorytoukraine2022 · 3 years

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Hi. I’m here for another post. This post has one topic: The mothers of Elena of Avalor and TTS (or in the case of the latter, the lack-thereof). In this post, I will be comparing the treatment of mothers in Elena of Avalor to the treatment of mothers in Tangled the Series. So tighten your seatbelts!

I don’t know about all of you, but in the first half of season 1 and season 2, I found myself wondering about who Carla and Naomi’s mothers were. Did you? And lo and behold! Our questions were answered! We were given insight into who they were, explainations for their absences from their children’s lives, and their relationship with their daughters.

Of course, Ash turned out to be a terrible person and mother, but given that there are many wonderful mothers in Elena of Avalor, I would hardly call Ash’s existence a referendum on how Elena of Avalor treats and views mothers. As horrible as Ash turned out to be, I’m still glad we found out about her and who she was. Compare this to Tangled the series, where members of the fandom are still scratching their heads and wondering who Varian and Eugene’s mothers are, over a year after the show ended. The only thing we ever got of them were portraits!

One can ask, “Can it get any worse?“ and the answer is yes, yes it can.

The answers lie within the post series works of “The Rise of Flynn Rider” and “Varian and the Seven Kingdoms.”

I never read “The Rise of Flynn Rider” myself, but I know that the writer of that book got all the lore and backstories for Eugene from Chris Sonnenburg. According to the information I have recieved from those who have read the book, Eugene’s mother didn’t even have a NAME. Yep that’s right. She was just “Eugene’s mother.”

Based on this, we can assume that no thought was put into her character, or who she was, even for the show. This is infuriating, and shows a clear lack of respect for Eugene’s mother. We can only assume that the same applies to Varian’s mother as well, who was given just as little coverage as Eugene’ mother, even less, since at least we know how Eugene’s mother died. However, some amazing storyboard writers from the show who love Varian, tried to remedy that.

For those of you who don’t know, “Varian and the Seven Kingdoms” was an attempted graphic novel continuity of Varian’s adventures by two storyboard artists of the show, as mentioned above. However, Disney did not green light it. The plot was, that Quirin would give Varian an old journal that belonged to his mothe, Ulla, who was an Alchemist like him, and Varian woul set across the Seven Kingdoms to complete her work. However, by the end of the novel, it turned out that Ulla was not only alive, but evil.

At First, I was fine with this plot twist. I had nothing against Varian’s mother turning out to be the antagonist. That is, until I found out where it came from. Or rather, who.

Chris Sonnenburg.

Honestly, the more I find out about this guy, the more I begin to hate him and his twisted worldviews. According to writers behind Varian and the Seven Kingdoms, Chris Sonnenburg had the idea to make Varia’s mother evil, with the idea that Varian had inherited a “dark streak” from her. Hearing this greatly disturbed me beyond imagination. It was hearing this that made me denounce Varian and the Seven Kingdoms, or consider anything or any characters from it as canon. To this day, just the THOUGHT that this concept could have become canon TERRIFIES me.

Then, I had an epiphany.

If this was the mindset that Chris had in regards to Varian’s mother, than he must have had this same mindset in regards to Cassandra being Gothel’s daughter and her villain arc.

I want to make this clear to anybody who might be reading this, but the idea that a child inherits a “dark streak” from their parents or is destined to be a bad person because of who their parents were before them is a FALSE and outdated idea. Both Varian and Cassandra’s villain arcs were a reaction to trauma. Trauma that stems directly from Rapunzel and her mistreatment of them. A bad reaction to trauma does not make you a “villain“, or even remotely a bad person. It has NOTHING to do with inheritance or who you’re related to. The choices you make in life are completely disconnected to your relatives. Varian and Cassandra’s biological relations to their mothers have nothing to do with their trauma or decisions. They weren’t even raised by them!

When you put all this information concerning Varian and Eugene’s mothers, together with the lack of mothers in the show, or having them either be evil or insignificant, than this paints a very dark picture of the Executive Producer of the show and how it was written. Especially In regards to mother figures and how they are viewed by Chris Sonnenburg. Tangled The Series is a show insulting to mothers everywhere.

In Elena of Avalor, there are so many wonderful and heartwarming mother figures. We have Queen Lucia, Elena’s mother, who, despite her murder at the hands of Shuriki is depicted as a loving and supportive mother to Elena, even as a spirit. There’s Bianca Nuñez, Gabe’s mother, who is supportive and understanding of her son’s goals and has a loving relationship with him. There’s Rafa De Alva, Mateo’s loving, albeit overprotective mother who raised him alone as a single parent. She allowed Mateo to practice magic and even taught him how to dance, despite both being outlawed under Shuriki’s rule. She stood brave and strong, even under oppression. There’s Scarlet Turner Who despite being absent for a lot of Naomi’s childhood, always loved her and sent letters. In the show, she saw just how attached Naomi was to Avalor and how attached the Avalorans were to her, and decided to settle down in Avalor with her family. And an honerable mention, Luisa Flores, who tragically outlived both of her daughters, yet raised her grandson Esteban as her own and acted as a mother figure to both of her granddaughters, Elena and Isabel. Ash is the only rotten apple.

Yes, there are some parental figures who go unmentioned, such as Mateo’s father and Esteban’s mother. We know nothing of her besides her name: Margarita. However, given all of the positive mother and father figures this show has, I can forgive these few holes. Just like I said regarding Ash, I don’t view this as a referendum on the treatment of mother and father figures in EOA. There are so, so many loving mother and father figures in this show, and they are treated as equals. Mothers and fathers have an equal significance and impact on their children’s lives in Elena of Avalor.

Mothers everywhere are important. While it is understandable, In some cases, that some parental figures are not plot revenant or that there just isn’t enough time to include them, the lack of mothers and their insignificance in Tangled the Series. There’s no reason as to why Queen Arianna didn’t play more of a role in Rapunzel’s life in the Series. Just because they wanted to focus on her relationship with Fredric didn’t mean that there couldn’t have been more time for Arianna. We should have had more attention with Varian and Eugene’s mothers as well, and their spouses and children’s feelings regarding them. In Elena of Avalo, we get all of thi. There are moment, even songs, regarding the feelings childre have regarding their mothers. Even if they don’t get a lot of screen time, it is clear that they love their children and have a special place in their lives and hearts. Just like our own mothers.

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shihalyfie · 3 years

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02′s influence on Adventure

You’re probably reading the title and going “...what? Isn’t 02 the sequel to Adventure? How would a series be influenced by its own future sequel?”

The thing is, assuming that Adventure was written in a vacuum and everything in 02 a retrofit runs very contrary to how both series were produced, and how this kind of anime is produced in general -- Adventure and 02 share almost identical staff members, and were separated only by a real-life single week in airing time. 02′s existence was not a sudden last-minute decision that was tacked on at the end! In fact, Adventure being extended to a second series was decided seven months into its production, right around the end of the Tokyo arc (sometime around the third cour). Despite it being a rather tonally different series, 02 is really just Adventure’s staff...writing more.

This means that by the time production had moved to Adventure’s final arc, the staff was very aware that they would be on for another year writing a sequel to this anime -- which thus likely became the fuel behind many of its creative decisions, made specifically to pave the way for 02.

The ending

Yeah, so, this ending. You know this really famous ending? The one that’s had such an impact on franchise history that a lot of later things have even tried to imitate it in some form? The one that everyone cites as one of Adventure’s most famous scenes (for good reason)? This ending only exists because of 02. You know what actually would have been Adventure’s ending if 02 hadn’t existed?

The 02 epilogue.

The ending that we now know as the “02 epilogue” was actually decided on before recording for Adventure had even started. (They weren’t even sure about finalizing the character personalities yet!) All of the most substantial details about that epilogue -- the series actually being the adult Takeru’s novel, everyone in the world having a Digimon partner, and, as it seems, even Yamato and Sora getting married -- were decided on before 02 was even in the picture. Most likely, the only material difference would have been that the four characters introduced in 02 (Daisuke, Miyako, Iori, and Ken) and their partners wouldn’t have been involved, but everything else would have roughly been the same as the “epilogue” we know now. (This especially makes sense when you consider that one of Adventure’s major influences was the movie Stand By Me, which is extremely culturally influential in Japan as a “childhood summer adventure story”, and involves a similar timeskip epilogue with one character growing up to chronicle the story as a writer.) All of this was basically intended to tie into Adventure as a narrative of “a story of humanity’s evolution”, so this ending was envisioned as the “natural conclusion” of the story of Adventure as a whole. If anything from the original Adventure ending would have been retained in this hypothetical scenario of only Adventure existing, perhaps the sentiment of “parting” at the end -- but then it would still be followed by a timeskip epilogue 28 years later and everyone in the world having a partner.

But then it was decided that a second series would be made, and at some point they decided it would be a series set three years after the first, resulting in: this.

What this means is that Adventure’s ending was only ever intended as an ending for a single chapter in the overall Adventure series narrative. A lot of people like to pose 02′s existence or epilogue as something that “undid” Adventure’s ending, as if it was supposed to be some “ambiguous bittersweet” ending about whether they ever met their partners again, but...that ignores the real-life context of Adventure and 02′s production, where Our War Game! (which depicted an easy reunion with their partners, went out of its way to cameo Miyako in advance, and, for all intents and purposes, practically spoiled Adventure’s ending by depicting them as separated at all) screened before Adventure’s last episode aired, and there’s also the Adventure mini dramas that depicted more incidental meetings (and despite the constant fourth wall breaking and absurd crack content in them, yes, they’re intended to be taken as canon).

Again: in real life, the first episode of 02 aired one week after the last episode of Adventure. Even the real-life audience was likely well aware that this wasn’t going to be the end (and if they weren’t, they certainly would be when the promotional trailers for 02 started airing right after Adventure’s last -- and that’s assuming you missed all of the promotion appearing in real life beforehand, including at the end of Our War Game!’s screenings). The production staff all knew, because they’d already been working on 02 for months now -- they postponed their originally intended ending just to make this new one, after all!

So yeah, this line isn’t supposed to be just a vague “oh, maybe they’ll meet again” in an abstract poetic sense -- it’s completely literal, because it’s hinting at said gate opening again one real-life week later.

From both a story perspective and a real-life audience perspective, this ending was never meant to be seen as ambiguous.

Takeru and Hikari’s character arcs

02 often gets an accusation of being lacking in the character development department (one that I seriously disagree with and have been working very hard to counter), but this accusation especially gets levied often at Takeru and Hikari, who are often said to be “flat” or “kind of just there” in 02 (which, again, I object to; more on this below). This is often rationalized as a theory that the writers didn’t know what to do with them because they’d already been in Adventure, but...this, again, assumes too much that Adventure was written in a self-contained vacuum and anything in 02 was just an addition done after the fact.

There’s actually quite a bit of evidence that the last cour (or at least a significant amount of it) was written with the idea that Takeru and Hikari were going to be starring in the next series in mind.

This is especially pretty apparent when you get to the last episode, where Takeru and Hikari are conspicuously the ones to leave off on the most confident “we’ll meet again” notes, compared to the other six. Of course, they do it in their own respective ways (Takeru and Patamon resolve to make it happen, while Hikari cryptically acts like it’s already bound to happen, borderline prophetically), and maybe you could chalk it up to the fact that they’re the youngest and therefore most naive of this group...but, again, remember: 02′s first episode aired one week after this one, where we would immediately be treated to Takeru and Hikari following up on this. Given that, you can basically see this as a wink and a nod: “yeah, these two have a story that’s not over yet.”

And as much as I may sound like a heathen to the fanbase by claiming this, I would actually say that it’s the opposite of the above claim: Takeru and Hikari both have pretty unresolved arcs by the end of Adventure compared to the rest of the other kids, and in fact are fleshed out more in 02. It’s honestly kind of a stretch to say that they “already got development” in Adventure -- Takeru still has a ton of unresolved issues with his family and trauma and emotional behavior that aren’t properly addressed to nearly the same degree as how the older kids have their core issues brought to the forefront, while Hikari really was only around for less than half the series, and not only is her main problem of emotional suppression told purely from Taichi’s mouth and not her own, we also get no real follow-up on how she intends to work past that.

Those are some pretty huge things to leave unresolved at the end of a series that’s known for its focus on individual character development, and considering that the premise of 02 involving an older Takeru and Hikari was likely finalized around the middle of the last arc of Adventure, it’s easy to believe that they decided to deliberately hold off on resolving Takeru and Hikari’s issues in full so that their story could be told in the next series. And, indeed, while their characters being built on “being difficult to read” makes their development not quite as visible as some of the more eccentric personalities in the 02 cast, their respective Jogress partners (Iori and Miyako) more openly discuss and get to the bottom of their issues that had been lightly displayed or hinted in Adventure but never truly been addressed.

A lot of things that were not in Adventure

Adventure was admittedly kind of written as they went along (they didn’t even originally plan to have Hikari as the eighth child at first), so it’s hard to tell exactly what was planned and what was a later addition (and at what point things were added), but considering that the 02 epilogue was one of the first things planned in the entire series, as part of “a story of humanity’s evolution” and tying into a really long theory about partners doubling every year, it’s probably at least safe to say that a lot of the worldbuilding and lore was determined very early.

02 added a lot of lore dumps about Digital World mechanics and things related to the overall state of Chosen Children, which have been said by many to be retrofits to justify a buildup to the 02 epilogue, but, again -- the 02 epilogue was supposed to be for Adventure, so it’s very likely that these lore aspects were intended for Adventure as well! This is especially because it’s been outright confirmed that there were at least certain things originally intended for Adventure that ended up in 02, or at least were in 02 because they felt Adventure didn’t sufficiently cover it:

The kids’ home lives. As famous as the Tokyo arc of Adventure is, it only covered about a quarter of it -- the rest of it was the kids stranded in another world, separated from home! It’s specifically 02 that went into all of the things like school life, family life, daily life in Odaiba, and everything closer to the real world -- basically, everything related to family backgrounds that was very likely to have been in the planning documents for Adventure but never made it.

The (in)famous 02 episode 13 (or, at least, something like it) was intended for Adventure. As much as there’s common speculation that this episode was intended to be some giant subplot that got canned, from what we’ve heard from the staff, the truth actually seems to be a lot more mundane -- Adventure was a series very big on “oddities about the Digital World that have no real explanation” (see: phone booths), and when you reframe it in Adventure’s context, it’s likely that Dagomon and the Dark Ocean were intended to be yet another of those as part of its wider lore about the multiverse, to make you think “the heck was that?” but never get any real answer to. (And while it’s unclear whether the original theoretical Adventure version of this episode would have still involved Takeru and Hikari, if you want to put a tinfoil hat on and entertain that theory, it lends even further credence to the idea that their respective character arcs were deliberately held off for 02...)

Given that, and thinking about the 02 epilogue as the eventual goal for the series, you can also easily imagine a lot of 02-introduced things leading up to it as probably also having been baked into Adventure’s lore:

You know how 02 had a subplot about Chosen Children proliferating all over the world, as a lead-up to everyone in the world eventually having a partner? This was part of a “doubling every year” formula that’s been referred to a few times in background staff testimony. If you inspect this formula, this means that there were eight other Chosen Children besides Taichi and his friends, chosen between 1995 and 1999. Now, remember how Adventure episode 52 briefly touched on the bombshell of Chosen Children existing before Taichi and co., before never addressing it again? Considering all of the above facts, it’s very likely that’s intended to tie into that formula -- and, perhaps, had 02 had not existed to continue the subplot about “more Chosen Children”, Adventure would have taken more initiative about explaining the concept of Taichi and his friends not being the only humans with partners, and led it into their originally intended epilogue.

02 episode 33 involves Miyako visiting Kyoto and learning that there may be certain similarities between Digimon and Japanese youkai, to the point where they might be related somehow, despite predating digital technology. (The concept is revisited in Mimi’s track in Two-and-a-Half Year Break and the Adventure BD drama CD, both of them having been written after 02.) The thing is, the idea that Digimon and other similar entities actually existed prior to digital technology, and that said technology only allowed it to manifest physically in the real world, also is heavily tied to the original concept of Digimon partners being a manifestation of a part of the human’s soul, and therefore having a partner being a part of human evolution -- which is, again, heavily tied to the original intent behind the epilogue. So it’s very likely that this, at the very least, was one of the original lore points behind Adventure -- and if 02 had not existed, it’s possible that Adventure might have tried to cover it as part of a lead-up to that epilogue, rather than ultimately deferring it to 02.

This is, of course, speculation -- I’m not a member of staff, so I can’t speak for them -- but I do think it’s important to consider that while 02 was a tonally different series, it wasn’t just a sequel tacked on at the last minute, and rather just (mostly) the same staff learning three-quarters of the way through that they would have more time to continue this narrative, and reorganizing things to figure out what they wanted to do now and what they wanted to touch on if they had more time. Really, this whole narrative of “02 being a bunch of random additions they came up with and retrofit” seems to almost be the opposite of what actually happened -- while some of the ideas behind 02 were certainly created later, it’s less that Adventure was some ideal perfectly crafted story and 02 an addendum, and more that they had so many things they wanted to do in Adventure that couldn’t fit and used 02 to vent more of those out:

One of the concepts behind the prior series was for us to pack in as many interesting things that we’d seen, heard about, or read about as we could into it, so for 02, we thought, what else could we put in beyond even that?, and so we looked over what we needed to have, and put in all the things we could so that they wouldn’t be left out, and the story became a multi-layered one, overlapping and accelerating. It was to the point that, after we’d gone through 02‘s story, the scriptwriters told me that they’d worn everything they had out to the ground. In any case, we put everything we had into it back then.

Which means that understanding 02 is actually very retroactively important to understanding Adventure -- Adventure’s own writing was influenced by the knowledge that 02 would be part of its story, and 02 itself carries a lot of vital facts and story points from Adventure’s narrative that didn’t fit in the first 54 episodes, and, in real life, they were both written continuously as one story over the course of over two years. It’s also because of this that I seriously warn against seeing either series in a vacuum too much -- because both series are very deeply tied to each other, perhaps more so than a lot of people want to admit.

#digimon #digimon adventure #digimon adventure 02 #shihameta

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marcspectrr · 3 years

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A word or two on Kiara's mental health...

Before I attempt to summarize the 39 page slideshow living rent free in my brain, a preface! This will include spoilers for s2, as well as a few mentions of suicidal thoughts! Also. I love Kiara Carrera with all of my heart so if you're not a fan of her, you might wanna keep scrolling. If you don't vibe with her that's perfectly fine, but this post is heavy with Kiara appreciation, be warned, my respect for her runs deep. The choice is yours, of course, just understand that I'm writing this bc @yellowlaboratory among others have encouraged me to get it out there because it's all I've been thinking about since I watched s2. This is not to start anything.

(This is also not me hating on Pope because I genuinely like his character, he's just made some very questionable choices throughout the show, some I can forgive and some that still don't sit right with me.)

Deep breath, here we go.

It's no secret Kiara has been poorly handled by the writers and therefore the characters at times. We got little development in s1 compared to other main male characters, leaving us to fill in the gaps as far as her ambitions, motivations, family, overall interest in the boys, etc. While I do keep this in mind, I could rant about it for days so for this I'm going off of what we have as well as what's been implied.

Kiara didn't have the same upbringing as the boys but it's clear the Carrera's had/have their struggles. She's got her foot in both worlds, not quite 'rich' but not entirely 'poor', inevitably giving her a fragile sense of belonging and identity. 16 is a hard age even without societal pressures and growing up in a classist environment, but here is where we're assuming the boys come in. They give her a place to feel comfortable in her own skin, with shared interests and accepting her for who she is, which we know the kooks don't provide. Just being around them helps ease those deep insecurities, helps her form meaningful bonds. We weren't given an explicit scene where this was shown but over the course of the two seasons it's clear how she feels about them and what they do for her mentally.

Her relationship with the pogues, however, puts a rift between her and her parents. Mike and Anna clearly want what's best for Kie but it's also obvious they've struggled with her even before the pogues. Anna wants Kiara to have the things she never got growing up, breeding a disconnect since Kiara doesn't share in her mother's interests. This leads into my biggest problem with Kiara's arc in s2, which was how Anna and Mike were written.

Yes, Kiara didn't/doesn't treat them the best but it went both ways -- they all failed at communicating. Instead of finding a common ground and compensating for the things Kiara cares about, Anna shuts her down and ignores her, leaving her to feel like a problem rather than a person, further perpetuating even less healthy communication. Kiara even says in s2 that's why she doesn't like going home, because it always means walking into an argument and not feeling accepted.

I sorta expected a little more understanding from Anna considering her own background with pogues but instead it backfired. And Mike...he didn't contribute much at all. They could've all done better and need some work. Kiara could be more grateful and Anna and Mike are the parents, the adults, they need to make the space feel safe to talk. Kie didn't just wake up one day and decide to act out and keep her parents in the dark all the time, that stems from not feeling listened to when she does try and open up.

Expanding on this with...the whole Blue Ridge plot. Moment of silence for the show neglecting to acknowledge the academy, even though it clearly had a big impact on Kiara's life. In s1 we got a brief look into how her 'kook year' affected her and it was not good. More isolation, blurred identity, insecurity and this time suicidal thoughts, with no one to turn to for support, assuming she was not on good terms with her parents then either. I'm assuming this because for them to send her to the academy, hoping to give her better opportunities only for it to end with her wanting to cut her wrists, to then thinking the best option is to send her away again? At this point I hope they didn’t know how badly the academy affected her because sending her away a second time with that knowledge is such a hurtful and oblivious move.

Kiara already thinks her parents see her as a burden, hurting her sense of worth as is. I really wanted to like the Carrera's and I still feel like they genuinely love and care for Kie, I just need to see more communication maybe. And if they choose to include the Blue Ridge plot, which I'm leaning towards yes on that one, I hope it's handled somewhat well, preferably not a tool to create drama even though I know a lot of people want to see it be used that way. I'm very particular, I'm sorry I'm this way.

Things I've seen her being criticized for in s2 is her behavior. The thing that people have to remember is that she's 16 and teenagers are just not the best with navigating their emotions. She made questionable choices (the 'murderer' thing and 'abusing' Pope) but these are both things that fit the plot and her character. She was by no means the only one grieving so I don't know why she's being targeted for it (although I'm not surprised, the fandom treats her horribly). Some of her core characteristics are her high moral integrity as well as her headstrong belief in people and causes. She's never been one to make herself palatable for people and s2 shows a lot of this (calling out the Cameron's, going off in front of the court, etc). Even if it caused them problems and even if they are flaws, that doesn't make her an inherently intolerable character, it makes her realistic. She was not in a good place emotionally and it would've been wrong to shy away from depicting it any other way, especially in a show where the teenage experience is decently represented.

Now with the Pope thing. I think it was handled as well as it could've been considering the circumstances. It really should've never happened but to justify it, emotions are messy, relationships even messier and they were both spiraling at the end of s1. I don't agree with the way it started (why give Kie the line of literally telling him she wanted something different only to show them together next episode, I'm forever confused) but I'm not mad about how it ended. They were both in the wrong at times so only bringing up Kie's faults is just unfair.

I believe they both tried their best and even wanted to feel the right things but learned quickly that's not exactly how it works, which was how it was supposed to be shown. Not as this romanticized, idealistic healthy relationship but as one that has its bumps and was bred out of all the wrong things. All of their body language pointed towards this. Pope didn't deserve to be hurt but Kie clearly didn't intend for things to turn out how they did. She wasn't mentally comfortable enough for a relationship and I can appreciate them showing this in the ways the writers framed it. Even the conversation with Kie describing their night on the beach, I think it was perfect. It was awkward but it was honest, which is so important.

Overall, I think Kiara's gone through a lot mentally that the show could be better at exploring. It doesn't have to be big, obvious lingering shots, they can be subtle and still mean so much to people who relate to her. Seeing someone on screen grapple with real life struggles (even if the show walks a painfully fine line as far as realism), it means a lot. Especially when mental health (more prominent than ever) is so rarely portrayed to translate in any significant way in media now. It's definitely something I would love to see get more time and effort so until then, just know I'll be manifesting the screen time Kiara Carrera deserves.

#obx #outer banks #obx s2 #outer banks season 2 #kiara carrera #whoever read this whole thing kudos to you #i also hate the tumblr app for posting it twice before it was finished :)#i have MANY thoughts on kie #as well as the rest of the pogues arcs in s2 #its a curse to have this many opinions agshdjf #obx rants #i guess?

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itsclydebitches · 3 years

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That post on the cast's lack of curiosity and imagination hit the nail on so many issues I've had with this show lately. If I had to guess why this is the case, it's either because so much stuff has been crammed into the show that they decided thinking things over can be cut or they learned the wrong lesson from V5 and think that they shouldn't have the cast slow down and discuss what they've learned or are unsure about.

Personally, I think it's both those things with a third issue of the show not knowing where it's going. Hence, why we get so many ideas that are shoddily executed, dropped completely, randomly return, seem to go in circles before disappearing, etc. There are a hundred ideas piled on top of one another, with no real focus on any of them, so yeah, no wonder we haven't seen space made for those questions. I know the more optimistic side of the fandom pushes this idea of the mater plan. Most of the writers worked with Monty, they have his notes, just look at all the comments about how they're writing two volumes at once. Personally, I'm of the opinion that if this story was truly well-plotted, we would be seeing more of that creative work in regards to the group's thinking. If the writer knows basic facts like how Salem will be defeated, how the heroes hit on that solution, and the like, then you're able to incorporate not only their journey towards that ending, but all the pitfalls that come along with it. Questions like whether Ironwood's downfall was truly planned from the beginning is a more subjective (a fairly emotionally driven) conversation, but scenes like Nora's comment on the way to the party, introducing the Staff's abilities a few minutes before they're used, accomplishing nothing with Penny before killing her off, diving into a random void that was never a part of the story's expected structure... none of this feels like the writers have a good handle on where they're doing. And if you don't know where you're going — at least a basic idea — it's a lot harder to let your characters discover how to solve their problems. The authors may not know how to solve those problems yet. RWBY's magic system has always had wishy-washy rules and Salem's own motivations were only announced this volume, eight years in. That's not good groundwork for creative thinking on the part of the characters.

Then yeah, we've got the added issue of how much thinking the cast can engage in. I absolutely understand the criticism leveled at Volume 5, especially given how lack-luster the action was once we got it. However, I don't think we can ignore the show RWBY has become. By introducing more cerebral themes — who's keeping what secrets? How much of this war is fought with information? How do we judge our enemies in this supposedly gray world? — RWBY has axed the simplistic, "Hehe bad guys get punched in the face!" focus we had at the start. It's no longer nameless White Fang goons who get blown up in an epic train tunnel battle, it's drawn out conversations over torture wherein a kid tries to turn one of the bad guys by... appealing to basic, "You don't want to die too" logic, I guess. The point is, when you change the show in that manner you also necessitate that the characters talk about things. Work through them. Tease out lies from the truth, allies from foes, the strategy that will ensure victory when epic punches are no longer enough. Fans aren't wrong to be frustrated at their action characters just sitting around, but there's also a reason why many of us are simultaneously frustrated by things like Emerald's forgiveness, Ozpin's apology, or Weiss' interactions with her family: all of them lack important conversations to prove that growth, resolution, or characterization to the audience. Frankly, as much as I do understand that, "I want to see them fighting, not talking all the time!" perspective, I think it's the least of RWBY's problems post-Volume 8. Simply because so many of our characters didn't fight and didn't talk about anything important. Fans bring up drinking tea in the mansion again and again because it is, thus far, the most extreme example of RWBY failing to have their characters forward the story. Fans are frustrated because half of our main team didn't do anything, and that includes undergoing no real emotional growth, discussing no strategies, coming to no decisions — anything that might come of a well-written conversation. Personally, I don't actually think most fans dislike conversation in the show as much as they might think. It's just that RWBY (as is so often the case) hasn't executed it well. But not only do these talks usually provide fan-favorite moments (how many Blake/Yang shippers focus on their selfies, or Yang's dance moves, the stuff that happens in their downtime?), but it can be downright exciting to see these characters hit on solutions that will then impact later fights. We want to see them succeed, both on and off the battlefield. Yet Volume 8 failed spectacularly in that regard, giving us a Ruby who did nothing, randomly realized she could use the Staff (no real catalyst there), and then basically implemented Ironwood's plan only worse. If RWBY can't even manage to keep its title character significant, I'm not at all surprised we don't have more nuance like, say, creatively testing Salem's immortality, or questioning the information they've been told, or even just having conversations during the midst of battle so you can take out two story birds with one stone. RWBY has too much going on, making it near impossible to discuss what's important, and even if we knew, yeah, there's this fear that it will be too boring... despite us getting stuff like the mansion scenes anyway.

#rwby #mymetas

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the-family-we-choose-118 · 3 years

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Why I Think Albert Doesn't Die in 4B: A Meta Post

Maybe this is me reaching or some really wishful thinking, but i don't think albert is the one who dies, though i think he does get seriously injured (explanation below the cut so hear me out lol)

Based on scenes from 3b, 4a, the 4b promos, and some interviews done after 4x08 about 4x09.

In multiple interviews (one example below ⬇), Tim has stressed that there is going to be a divide between Bobby and Athena because he feels that she's too independent and won't let him in when she has issues. 4b is being set up to build off of last season's attack at the storage unit. Athena has made peace with the attack, so it will take something (encountering the attacker, being trapped while looking for a suspect, a storage unit, or experiencing other trauma) to act as the catalyst to trigger her into needing Bobby's help but refusing to ask. Albert dying will in no way drive or affect this plot line and will only really heavily affect Chimney, Maddie, and Buck and maybe Chris and Eddie.

Tim did a different interview where he said that multiple characters will be in life or death situations ⬇

As far as we know from the promo Hen, Buck, Bobby, Athena, May, Eddie, and Chimney are working the crash and Maddie is shown at work going into labor or having false contractions. None are likely contenders for a life or death situation, which leaves the side characters. Since this involves a massive pile-up, and we already know that Albert is in one car, that leaves three others.

The scenario I see best playing out in term of writing and setting up 4b and going into season 5 is this:

Albert gets horribly injured in the crash and has a long recovery. (This plays into 4a when Taylor said Buck was selfish and has no real friends because he doesn't know how to treat a friend.) If Albert gets injured and has a long recovery, he has 2 options for care. He either moves back in with Madney (but they have their hands full with the baby) or he stays with Buck, who has had to recover from a serious injury before. By staying with Buck, he learns how to really care for a friend unselfishly (tho we're gonna ignore the Buddie friendship for a minute bc the writers did). This also gives them the opportunity to set Albert and Buck up in a friendship so Buck can have friends outside the 118.

OR Albert goes into a coma because the writers are playing with a lot of characters right now and I don't think they know what to do with Albert and how to give him enough screen time for anything meaningful to happen. This way, they can revisit his arc in the future. Also, imagine Chimney and Maddie getting ready to take their daughter home and stopping by Albert's room to introduce their baby to her Uncle Albert 😭 Putting Albert in a coma or giving him a long recovery time is something that could be revisited at the end of the season easily.

I think the 3 others in jeopardy are in one car and I think it is Michael, David, and Harry after going to dinner one night or something and I think they are at the center of the crash.

I think the person who dies is Michael or David, mainly because of this interview ⬇

First, they've brought in David, but like Albert's storyline, they can't fit him in enough for it to really be meaningful. We see them meet towards the end of season 3 and by season 4 they have quarantined together (even though David is on the front lines) and are now living together. Most of their story occurs off screen. The only reason we even saw Michael and David in most of 4a was because it was a storyline attached to Athena and Bobby. Killing off David is less characters to deal with and would affect Bobby and Athena, but not to a degree I would see it driving a wedge in their own relationship. It would affect Michael and encourage him to complete his bucket list he referenced in 4a but it wouldn't have an impact on the whole 118.

Both Bobby and Athena are really close with Michael, though I'm gonna focus on Bobby for a minute. If Michael dies suddenly, that "lighthearted and hilarious" relationship "quickly turns on a dime" and suddenly it "ends up being quite emotional" because Bobby is dealing with losing a friend. This could also dredge up those feelings of having lost his family in a fire and not being able to save them because Michael is now part of Bobby's family. Later in the season, it would be easy to revisit if Harry is mad that his step dad and dad's boyfriend weren't able to save his dad. Bobby would be dealing with his feelings of losing a friend while trying to help Athena (who doesn't want help) deal with the loss of her ex husband.

Shifting the focus to Athena, Michael dying would absolutely devastate Athena. They were married for nearly 2 decades and he is still a close friend and confidante. Losing her ex husband at the site of a crash she responded to would be traumatic. And if you compound that with her unresolved trauma from the attack, now you've got Athena trying to deal with everything on her own and not asking for help. Now Bobby gets mad/sad/distanced because Athena won't ask for help and he needs his own support from her. And maybe she is giving that support but she won't let him reciprocate it and now you have a recipe for anger and unresolved grief that begins to drive them apart.

Focusing on May for a moment, she became an operator because she wanted to make sure Athena was never alone in the field. Though I can't imagine her taking the call for Michael because he is on the line when Albert is injured, her dad dying in a crash she responded to would likely drive her out of the field and into college or another path (1 less character to have around to try to give screen time.)

Michael's death was also foreshadowed in 4a when Athena is concerned he gets the telescope and is spying on neighbors. He talks about having a bucket list that he never got to do because the pandemic forced him into isolation. He also talked about how his only concern during the cancer was preparing his kids for losing him.

Michael's plot is stagnant. He is happy and living with his boyfriend and son. He's cancer free. His whole plot is tied up in a nice bow where they could easily kill him off and the only loose threads to deal with on screen are his family members and friends grieving his loss. This would impact the 118 as a whole.

Honestly, I thought they were going to kill off Michael when he first got cancer and he decided to stop treatments but they bad May talk to him and convince him to go through with the treatments.

Now, by killing off Michael, it is 2 less stories they have to tell, and it is less they'll have to include storylines for Harry as much as they were because he was linked to Michael's storyline. And if they have May decide to leave the field to pursue other dreams or complete her dad's bucket list for him, that is 4 less storylines where they can now focus on the Madney baby, Bathena's relationship, introducing friends for Buck (they mentioned brining back Taylor), focus on ending Eddie/Ana, and establishing Albert as a character (based on a quote from the above article, I think Albert's storyline is going to parallel Buck's 1.0 to 2.0 phase ➡ "If you think about how we ended season 2, Buck being smashed by the firetruck. We knew he was going to survive... I would expect something similar here.")

Referring back to that first article, where it says "Then look for a significant source of agitation for the entire 118."

At this point, Michael would have passed and Bobby and Athena are now having marital problems AKA mom and dad are fighting.

Hen would be stuck in the middle because she is good friends with both Bobby and Athena. She is also facing her own loss of Nia being returned to her birth mom and doesn't have time for their marital problems but still tries to help. She can also pull from her experiences from the season 1 cheating storyline to tell them to communicate or it'll ruin their relationship (yes i too hate that storyline but it would work here)

Buck would likely (nonverbally) side with Bobby, but he sees them both as parental figures, so he gets stuck in the middle like a middle child who is just going with the flow. This would also parallel the Buck Begins storyline where Buck feels caught in the middle after his parents face a loss.

Chimney is raising a baby and (if this theory is right) worrying about Albert in a coma or recovering from a massive injury. He has no time for their marital problems but still lets Bobby confide in him and gives advice (maybe this is just cause i wanna see the bobby/chim friendship we used to get in s1)

Eddie sides with Bobby but he thinks the whole argument is dumb. He can also offer advice to Bobby based on his own experience, but it's going to be something about communication, at which point Bobby will start ripping his hair out because why won't she just tell me her problems and let me help?

Lastly, when have we ever known the show to go ahead and give a major spoiler of the episode 2 weeks in advance? They let us speculate about Daniel for like 8 months and imo it wasn't as big of a deal as they made it out to be. It seems more likely to me that they offered the promo to get the viewers with a twist ending when the show comes back.

Feel free to share your thoughts if you made it this far lol

TL;DR Based on the interviews Tim has done, Albert dying would have little impact on the 118 as a whole, but Michael dying would offer exactly what they need to set up season 5 and finish 4b.

#I should be writing a case analysis for school but instead I'm doing this #Yes that new promo ended me stop looking at me like that #It makes no sense to me that they would kill off Albert unless it is lazy writing #Though I hope ****** doesn't d word #If this doesn't actually happen I may write it in fic form because this is a very detailed outline lmao #The dig at Eddie/Ana wasn't meant to be mean #I saw she was auditioning for other roles so I don't really think she will stick around past 4b #She also barely posts about being on the Fox set anymore #911 spoilers #911 speculation #911 meta #thoughts are being thunk #I do not give permission to repost #<- someone on Twitter keeps reposting metas and other content without credit and I am tired #my posts

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drivingsideways · 3 years

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Misaeng review

Ok, it's been almost a week, so I feel like I can get my thoughts (somewhat) in order. As usual, I'm late to the party, given that Misaeng aired 6 years ago, and is already considered a kdrama classic. Still: thoughts!

(under the cut)

I came to this drama with quite a lot of expectations, both because I'd seen it on a lot of rec lists, and also because I'd watched director Kim Won-seok's Signal and My Mister, which are justifiably as beloved as Misaeng. I'm happy to report that Misaeng mostly lived up to those expectations!

The writing & direction work together to make Misaeng a very immersive experience, which is good, considering the entire run time is over 20 hrs. The level of seemingly mundane detail of the operational aspects of running a trading firm that they delve into (and other dramas might have avoided for sake of pacing) seemed odd to me at first, but eventually result in a world building that's incredibly well fleshed out. The (formerly unlikely!) high stakes of a misplaced piece of paper or octopuses in a shipment of squid end up being parts of an emotionally wrenching narrative whole fairly seamlessly. Still, at 20+ hours, Misaeng also does get into the kind of pacing issues that most of the slice of life kdramas I've watched so far have. And it didn't need to! I think it had a wonderful ensemble of characters, and if they'd maybe given a little more time and space to characters other than Jang Geu-Rae (Im Si wan) and Oh Sang-sik (Lee Sung-min), the mid portions may not have felt quite so, well, stuck.

But more than the strong writing and direction, it was really the actors who delivered. They made what could have easily been a dull-ish office drama into a heart warming story about human connection and the joys and troubles of leading an "incomplete life". I'd never watched Lee Sung-min in anything before, and about half way through the series I was like, HOW IS HE MAKING A SHORT TEMPERED, ALCHOHOLIC MIDDLE MANAGER SO SEXY? Like, serious props, dude. Lee Sung-min is by turns annoying and brash and too shout-y and stubborn and funny and so incredibly vulnerable as a man trying his best to live by his principles in a world that thinks they are an impediment to "success", that you forget that he's playing a fictional character-- he's someone you know, he's someone you've seen in the mirror.

His performance as Oh Sang-sik is very ably matched by Im Si Wan's Jang Geu-Rae. This series would not have worked if these two actors didn't have the chemistry they do, and play off each other in every scene. I had watched Im Si Wan recently- in JTBC's "Run On", in which I liked his performance quite a lot, but I absolutely loved him as the naive and endearing Jang Geu-rae. Misaeng, is in part, a bildungsroman narrative centered around Jang Geu Rae. Im Si wan brought a kind of vulnerability to the role that might have felt cloying and emotionally manipulative in the hands of other actors, but Im Si-wan manages to do it with a light touch. I feel he's one of those actors that uses his whole body in a scene, not just relying on facial or verbal expression, and it's a joy to watch.

Each of the other actors in the ensemble also bring that dedication and talent to their roles, even if it's in a single scene. There are lots of one-off characters that we meet during the course of the series, and every single one of them leaves an impact.

But! I'm going to pick a fave from the supporting cast and that's Byun Yo-han, whom I'd last watched as the broody, troubled (and very sexy) swordsman Lee Bang-ji in Six Flying Dragons. I can't imagine a character more in opposition to that one than Han Seok-yul in Misaeng, but Byun Yo-han just knocks it out of the park as the scheming, cheerful and mostly inappropriate clown with a heart of gold; Han Seok-yul is the definition of Chaotic Good, and you're equal parts horrified by his antics- which include sexual harassment dont @ me -- and yet charmed by him. I wish they'd given him a few more scenes and a larger plotline to work with, but I also suspect that he might have just walked away with the entire series if they did that. (Am I plotting that series in my head as I write this? MAYBE.)

Alright, this is getting a bit too long, so I'm going to get to the bits that disappointed me. That's really one major thing: the gender politics. I don't know how different the show is from the web toon it's based on, so I can't tell whether they made significant changes to the basic plot and characters. As in- I have no idea if the webtoon was as male dominated in every way as the show is, so I'm not sure how much of the show's treatment of women as a class, and its female characters in particular, I should lay at the door of the original writer vs the screenwriter and director. I'm also lacking the Korean context in which this was written and made and aired, so you may take my criticism with a pinch of salt, if you please!

That the show features mainly male characters is perhaps unsurprising and realistic, since we know that the kind of corporate life it depicts is very male dominated, top to bottom. The show also portrays the very real and horrific overt and subtle misogyny that women face in the workplace and out of it; mainly in the character of Ahn Young-yi, played with steely determination and quiet suffering by the lovely Kang so-ra. There are only 3 other female characters that have any sort of real speaking role- Sun Ji Young (played by Shin Eun jung), a senior manager at the company, Jang Geu-rae's unnamed(!) mother (played by the amazing Sung Byoung-Sook) and Oh Sang-sik's unnamed (!) wife (played by Oh Yoon-Hong, who's a delight in every tiny scene she has). There are other women who appear but in very minor roles, and often in "comedy" moments that often rely on sexist tropes to start with.

Anyway, right there you can see one of the problems- 4 women characters that have any kind of real screen time, and only 2 of them are named. Aigoo! Screenwriter Jung Yoon-jung is a woman, and like, I don't like putting the burden on any one woman to y'know fix structural misogyny, but I can't also help feeling disappointed that she overlooked even this "small" thing among the larger things.

But that apart, the main issue for me was that while the show doesn't shy away from depicting egregious sexism in the form of sexual harrassment, verbal and physical and certainly emotional abuse, in a manner that's clear that we are meant to be horrified by it--it falls short of depicting how women deal and work with it. It just doesn't give enough space to women or their worldview.

It's very comfortable depicting victimhood, but doesn't put work into depicting the ways in which women survive by finding solidarity with other women. We have a scene or two where Ahn Young-yi who is this show's poster child for female victimhood interacts with the older women who offer sympathy and understanding, but no real strategy or support. And yes, we see men also being targeted by their seniors for the grossest verbal and physical abuse; and it's men who help Ahn Young-yi strategise on how to deal with her situation. Real life experience tells me that it's the women who do this work for other women. I have certainly been on both sides of this equation, for one, and so has every woman that I know in corporate life. And yes, one of the show's core philosophies is that those who endure, survive--but it is none the less extremely painful to watch Ahn Young yi "endure" the kind of abuse she does as a coping strategy and a survival strategy.

At the end of it, when she slowly manages to gain the support of her sexist team, it's shown as a victory-- though naturally imperfect, because this show takes its Realism very seriously (right until the end where it makes a tonal shift into quirky that I was a little ?? about)-- and y'know, sure, it is a victory. And I absolutely understand the choices she makes and why she does it-- I guess I just got annoyed by the fact that other antagonistic figures in the narrative get a more straightforward comeuppance for their egregious behavior, but Ahn Young-yi doesn't even get a goddamned apology from her abusers. Instead, we have a half humourous, half serious moment where she comments on how she's working at turning herself into "someone cute"- because she understands now that sometimes the right strategy is to "go with the flow". Be the water that slowly wears away at the rock. It's an interesting moment- the men she tells this to are taken aback by her bluntness, but also a little clueless about what she means. It's the kind of nuance that I would and do enjoy. Unfortunately, it also closely follows one of the show's most annoying scenes at the tail end of the series- where it tries to play off workplace sexism and misogyny as comedy- boys being boys-Reader, when I tell you that I had to WORK to unclench my jaw--!

I'm not saying we should have a single and obvious narrative of female emancipation. I'm not against realism in fiction, but god, sometimes, please do remember that when we look for escapism, we are actually imagining a better world. The first step toward liberation is allowing yourself to imagine it.

And the show does allow other characters its moments of unfettered fantasy- Im Si Wan parkour-ing all over the rooftops of Amman- and having a semi mystical + Indiana Jones moment in the deserts of Jordan--so why, I ask, are the women not given that gift?

*looks into the camera *

Tl;dr: I enjoyed it, it made me cry every episode, and I cared about all the characters, and if you haven't watched it yet, treat yourselves.

PS. Yes, Han Seok-yul is a disaster bi, sorry, I don't make the rules. Yes, hotties Oh Min Seok and Kang Ha-neul are canonically naked in a hot tub six feet apart because they are bros. Yes, I will be writing the fix it in which they fuck like angry bunnies. Yes, I am going to put my shipper cooties all over this gen slice of life show, deal with it.

#misaeng #kdrama #thinky thoughts

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doux-amer · 3 years

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The reason Wandavision ultimately was a big disappointment was that it didn’t say anything new or add any depth to Wanda. Some people have argued that we shouldn’t have expected much because this is the MCU we’re talking about, but I hate that logic for two reasons:

Marvel is using the Disney+ series to expand upon characters and plots that they couldn’t/didn’t get to explore in the films

This dismisses the existence of MCU works that have, while dealing with the trappings of being a blockbuster/studio film or “just” a superhero film or show, tried to go beyond that with their stories and characters

You can’t ignore Marvel’s goal with D+ nor can you paint all the works with the same brush.

This was Marvel’s opportunity to give a side character who has been given such shoddy writing the growth she sorely needed. We didn’t get that. Wanda is very much the same person she was in Age of Ultron; we still barely know anything about her besides the fact that she’s powerful and traumatized. She is very much defined by that. Who is she outside of that? Who is she outside her grief? Why, for instance, does Vision love her so much? We know why she loves Vision. In fact, I’d argue that the star or at least the heart of Wandavision was Vision because we learn more about him and see him grow.

There’s no movement, either positive or negative, here. Wanda continues to behave the same way, never learning or truly being shaped by her actions for good or bad in any significant way, and the MCU refuses to commit to making her anything. She isn’t a good hero. She isn’t a good antihero. She isn’t a good villain. They want to make her someone complex, but we’re left not understanding if we’re supposed to root for her despite her troubles or see that this is a troubling evolution towards emotional and moral corruption. Is she a messy hero? Or is she a sympathetic villain?

As a recap, here’s what we’ve seen of Wanda and why I’m saying she hasn’t had any meaningful growth:

Wanda volunteers for Hydra. You know, Nazis? If you want to quibble about whether they’re “technically” Nazis, whatever; they’re still a terrorist organization, and Wandavision explicitly states it as such. Here was a chance to address the awful decision Whedon made, but we get a white woman nonchalantly excusing her voluntary involvement with the world’s most famous terrorist group with a blasé “We wanted to change the world.” This is the most we get from her about this.

Wanda mentally violates and assaults the Avengers. She forcibly traps them in their worst nightmares. She coerces Bruce into transforming into the Hulk against his will, ripping him of his agency and sanity. When Bruce confronts her about this later in AoU, she straight up refuses to apologize. Wanda has yet to apologize to any of the Avengers.

In her thirst for vengeance, she decides to use the Hulk to hurt innocent people, most of whom are black, in Johannesburg. The only reason people aren't killed is that Tony tries to get people out of harm's way, get Bruce away from civilians, and help Bruce regain control before subduing him when he fails. We never see Wanda thinking about what she did in Johannesburg.

Wanda knows Ultron is evil and follows him, standing by as he hurts Helen Cho, yet another innocent civilian POC. She only cares about Ultron’s destructive nature when she reads his mind and realizes he wants to commit global genocide. Wanda is also arguably one of the Avengers most responsible for creating Ultron. Without her, there is no Ultron. Without her interference, we get Vision. We don’t ever see her grappling with her culpability. This is not the case with the others who made Ultron.

Wanda therefore plays a huge role in the destruction of her home country of Sokovia and the countless resulting deaths including Pietro’s. We see her sad, but we don’t see any guilt. We don’t even see survivor’s guilt.

Because she can’t control her power, Wanda commits manslaughter, killing innocent black people in a Lagos hospital. Other than seeing her react in horror at the scene and turn away from the video that Ross shows later, we don’t see how this impacts her or the way people treat her as an individual. She’s briefly detained under house arrest, essentially grounded, a logical response to what happened.

Despite the damage she caused, she flees the compound with Clint to the airport even if Clint doesn’t give her a valid reason for doing so, not before slamming the person she cares about the most, Vision, through dozens of feet of concrete and earth.

Rather than seeing Wanda be reluctant to use her powers after learning she doesn’t know how to control herself, we see her chiding Clint for being soft and taking it easy on the other side. The Avengers are doing that because they’re fighting against their own teammates and friends; they’re acting to escape or subdue. She doesn’t care if she gets people hurt while trying to stop them as evidenced by what she says to Clint and her actions thereafter.

Wanda takes a whole town hostage and mind controls them. All of the people whose identities she wipes and whom she turns into her puppets are in extreme pain. While what occurred happened instinctually rather than as a deliberate, conscious choice, she becomes aware of what she’s done at some point (Dottie’s cry for help, Wanda’s refusal to listen to Jimmy’s message, Monica breaking free of her conditioning, Vision bringing it up, etc.). She doesn’t let them go. She refuses to believe that they’re in pain even when she’s told that. Only when she’s backed into a corner does she let them go. She then never apologizes or even speaks a word to them. (It doesn’t matter whether or not she thinks they’d accept her apology; you don’t apologize on the condition that you’re heard and forgiven. You do it because you should, even if it doesn’t change anything for the people you hurt. She only apologizes to the one person whom she knows will accept her apology/be lenient on her.)

When Monica starts to remember the real world, Wanda gets hostile and slams her through multiple houses, past the ends of town, and through the reality boundary.

When Vision becomes aware of the problem at hand, she repeatedly gaslights him and tries to control what he can/should and can’t/shouldn’t do. She gets upset when he doesn’t act the way she wants him to. She doesn’t apologize to him beyond saying she should have told him earlier which is only part of the problem.

Wanda tells Agatha the difference between them is that while Agatha did what she did intentionally, she didn’t. This isn’t true.

What Agatha says about Wanda is true; she’s cruel. For the third time in a row, Wanda decides to violate someone’s mind and control them. She essentially murders Agatha, even if it’s bloodless and reversible (and she only says she’ll reverse it if she wants to use Agatha).

After the fight is over, she decides to leave Westview rather than face any consequences or help clean up. She leaves the Westview residents with all their trauma and the destruction of their town without a word to them.

In the post-credits scene, she has fled the country and is isolated in a remote cabin, reading a book she doesn’t understand about concepts she doesn’t understand instead of seeking help when she has a terrible track record of self-teaching or understanding her powers.

When you put all of this together, everything screams “villain,” but as I said, the writers refuse to come out and say that she’s that. They refuse to say anything, and maybe you can argue that they don’t have to make it clear right this moment. You can argue that Wanda should be allowed to be messy, just like many other characters in the MCU are.

The thing about that line of reasoning, though, is that those other characters who are messy? The writing acknowledges that, and we see them deal with the ramifications of their actions and they’re held accountable to them. We see them apologize. We see them try to be better people. We see them work to make up for their mistakes or sins. We need to see Wanda do that if we’re supposed to see her as a hero. Or if she isn’t (and there’s nothing wrong with that! Wanda doesn’t have to be a hero, and in fact, she could be a compelling antagonist or villain which can be exciting), well, she still needs to face consequences.

She doesn’t. She is, by far, the uncontested champion in getting away with what she does; yes, we get some handwaving for certain things other characters do, but no other character has nearly all of their deeds and behavior ignored to the extent Wanda does. It’s extremely frustrating to see. We keep seeing a cycle:

Wanda is full of anger/vengeance and/or grief.

She acts from a place of trauma and prioritizes her desires.

Something bad happens.

Often, it’s something she didn’t mean to happen or she didn’t mean to go that far.

She’s horrified or sad.

Very occasionally, she gets a slap on the wrist, but it’s so brief and doesn’t actually change anything that it might as well not have happened. Most times, it’s as if she never did anything and the story never brings up what she did again (unless it’s to show how she’s sad or powerful).

She doesn’t do anything. She does the same mistakes/crimes again. Wash and repeat.

It’s so unbelievably vexing and tiresome. Despite all my issues with Wanda up until Wandavision and, most importantly her casting, I wanted to like Wanda, whether it was as a hero or villain or someone in between. BUT WE GOT NOTHING NEW. I don’t know anything about Wanda even now beyond “vengeful, sad, powerful white woman who is traumatized and clings to family because of that”! This is the SAME EXACT THING we’ve been dealing with since the beginning, and it’s so frustrating. Wanda deserved better.

#wandavision spoilers

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sourdough-morbread · 3 years

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Morgana 👀

ok so i know you left this ask ages ago and this is like so fucking long i am so sorry.

but i just... i have a lot of thoughts on morgana. *hides pages of notes made for two big morgana-centric WIPs*

First impression: this is what went through my mind in my first watch through

s1: i fell for morgana really quickly. i was like. YES she has MAGIC and she tells off uther and arthur.

s2: i still liked her but i getting concerned about the direction the writers were pulling her character in season 2. i was quite disappointed in the way her turn to evil was written. like she was good then barely on screen and very damsel-in-distressy for some reason. and then she became evil!morgana with zero explanation and zero reluctance. didnt really make sense to me.

s3: i enjoyed her as a villain in, but at that point she was a completely different character in my eyes. not in the old character new instalment but in a entirely different person was put inside her.

s4: she was so boring and one dimetional. just. meh. she barely felt like a threat..

s5: i wasnt even paying attention to her. she has become the random conflict generator the writers rather than a character. so i just didnt care. also i skipped a few eps in my first go so. like dark tower bc i didnt want to see gwen hurt. so i missed out on the emotional impact of that.

Impression now: after rewatching i can see her character arc a lot better. i still think her arc wasnt well done. but thats because the execution was lacking, rather than the trajectory of her character not making sense. because it actually makes a lot of sense.

like in season 1, she is basically immune. she is caught aiding mordred and yet she can get away with uther yelling at her and have it all be forgotten with an apology. meanwhile tom is executed for being seen with a sorcerer. when she wants to kill uther, i dont think she thinks she will be caught. nobody would ever dare accuse morgana and arthur would never suspect it.

then she discovers she has magic herself and all of that immunity is gone. and without that safety net she becomes willing to endanger so many people, including the allies of magic in camelot. you know, people she would be screaming at the defence of previously.

her in 1x10 is a small glimpse of what she could have been. a force for good. someone willing to actually fight against what uther and rulers like him were doing. and i would have loved to see that.

but thats not what the writers chose. instead she regains her footing in hatred and blaming everyone for the fear she felt of death and disgust she felt of herself once she became one of those she defended but saw as beneath her none the less.

and i will never not be salty about how they skipped over her turning evil and how flat she became. like. let me have a deeply evil terrifying witch damn it!

i think what makes her terrifying is that she doesnt want power. not really. she wants revenge. she wants to take everything arthur cares about. she wants the throne because arthur doesn't get to have it. she wants camelot to kill its people. she doesnt care about power beyond how much pain she can cause with it. and thats so terrifying. enemy with no goal but to cause you pain. and knows all your weaknesses and can fool the people you have wronged to think she is fighting for their salvation. how do you even fight that?

idk i just think it was underutilised. again she was just a conflict generator the writers used until the final battle. even then mordred was more significant than morgana.

Favorite moment: just her in the entirety of beginning of the end. if i had to pick one moment it would be her goading arthur to look behind the curtain. its just so good.

Idea for a story: again... the WIPs. but one i havent written yet.

i had one au where arthur found out about her magic on accident and like. it kicked off a whole plot of her learning magic, and arthur finally facing how terrible uther is and getting his shit together. its not a very detailed idea. morgause would probably use this opportunity to manipulate arhtur. agravain would proably be not evil, tho still a spineless slimy noble. idk.

Unpopular opinion: this is not going to be a surprise to people who know me, but i dislike pretty much all of the discussion ive seen about 2x03.

fandom seems to be stuck on this dichotomy of either merlin should have told her about his magic and by not doing so he betrayed her— he did not. merlin tried to help her at the risk of his own life. go watch 2x03 again. or merlin reacted perfectly— also he did not. even while helping her, he still refused to acknowledge her magic.

in a situation where something invisible about you can get you killed, subtle word choices matter. merlins words, him continuing to say he wouldn't know if it was magic, even though they both knew it was and that the other also knew, means something. it means i will keep your secret but i cannot help you. this is by no means a moral failing of merlin. he made this choice out of fear for his own life, and i think it is unreasonable to expect him to react perfectly.

morgana in turn had no reason to go to merlin again about her magic. he has made it clear he doest want to be involved, which he has no responsibility to. and why would merlin be able to help her? he, as far as she knows, has no personal experience with magic except his sorcerer friend.

besides, druids were the safest place for a her to be. it was the safest place for any warlock to be, including merlin. her knowing or not knowing about merlin has nothing to do with it. like. everything that happens in camelot between merlin and morgana in season 2 is perfectly understandable. they didnt wrong each other.

what merlin and morgana actually did wrong is getting all those druids killed because they didnt think the plan through. like all of those people in that camp died. aglain, the person helping morgana, died right in front of her and mordred. the druids were the only ones wronged in that situation. which i have never seen pointed out.

Favorite relationship: her and mordred

listen there is only a singular instance of morgana genuinely hesitating to hurt somebody after her turn and that person is mordred.

Favorite headcanon: oracle!morgana. this is like a whole big headcanon thats basically the origin story of how draognlords came to be. something happened and oracles stole dragons wills and their births to give to mortals as punishment. and then a group of these people came to albion and became the Seers and the dragonlords. who have like different traditions to the druid seers and the priestesses who use methods adapted from scry methods.

thats why she can speak with aithusa even though aithusa cant speak.

#im sorry i cant shut up #a cup of jasmine tea #this is so fucking long #long post #ask #bro idk how do i even tag this monstrosity of a post?

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dreamsofthescreen · 3 years

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Alluring or Meaningless? - The Ending of Sorrentino’s La Grande Bellezza (The Great Beauty)

Renowned director Paolo Sorrentino's classic 'La Grand Bellezza' mixes the pathos of life with philosophical ideas, but does its ending even have the desired meaning that audiences were expecting?

Giusi Merli in ‘La Grande Bellezza’

Paolo Sorrentino’s renowned 2013 Italian modern classic, ‘La Grande Bellezza’ (The Great Beauty) was certainly one for the critics to praise highly, yet there is a certain quality to its largely masterful storytelling that can see it lacking in true depth. Where much of the film’s entirety soars, its value seems to get lost amongst its artsy attempt to create meaning, where it really can appear as overdone and quite hollow. If we look at the last 30 minutes of Sorrentino’s work, we as an audience can certainly debate whether there is awe-inspiring significance or just overplayed rhetoric in the ending of La Grand Bellezza. Where whimsical characters and moments are introduced, viewers can be very easily swept up in Sorrentino’s foreign fairytale, where it really can be deemed as just pretentious. Yet, this point is far from black and white, as ‘La Grande Bellezza’s’ meaning is up to the audience to interpret, still making it a favoured and beloved work.

Italian director Paolo Sorrentino’s works have garnered praise for their dramatic and striking visuals, as well as their convoluted plots. He has been compared to Federico Fellini, and certainly does seem to take inspiration from the 1960s film icon. But Sorrentino is certainly no copy of Fellini, as his culturally inspired films do reach audiences well. Yet where The Academy Awards gave it the win for Best Foreign Language Film, and where critics seem to kiss it’s feet, this doesn’t always mean that it is altogether an expert piece of cinema. You can say that the beauty of film is that it can be totally subjective, which, in hand, is what makes such great art. So us as an audience can ask whether we view the film as more so pretentious or philosophical?

‘La Grande Bellezza’ follows former writer & popular socialite Jep Gambardella, a sort of philosophical muse for Sorrentino. As Jep’s life in Rome is consumed by materialism, it isn’t until his 65th birthday that he begins to look inwards. This leads him on a search for ‘the great beauty’, which has him relishing in nostalgia and existential simplicity, audiences closely following behind on that journey with him. The greater part of Sorrentino’s film does successfully have us questioning our place in the world, and where our values lie. Through comparing and contrasting the superficial high life with what’s most important to humanity, we are reminded of our own perspectives on what does and should hold the most substance or meaning.

Toni Servillo in 'La Grande Bellezza'

Yet as Jep has wandered around searching in different areas for beauty in truth and philosophy, his defining moment seems to be towards the end of the film, when he is introduced to Saint, Sister Maria. As Jep is told that she had ‘read his novel & loved it’ years before, we are left open to interpretation to who this Saint may be. Yet the answer in itself is somewhat disappointing. Again, it is not to say that the ending of Sorrentino’s film is wrong or terrible, but is surely very thought provoking.

This moment starts in the last thirty minutes of the film, and we are never given a backstory to Sister Maria when or before she is introduced. And she is introduced, literally, on a pedestal. As she sits there in silence, she wears a dusty, grey-blue nun’s habit, her olive skin lined with deep wrinkles, and expression truly dried out. Members of high society kneel to her, kissing her hands. In the chapel that she sits, there are priests, monks, African tribesmen and all in all, only established figures flocking to her, their eyes wide in honour of her presence. It is as though these figures are all awaiting an answer that they cannot find, and seek out from Maria. Though she is established as a wise old prophet with supposed life-changing aid, what makes her so respectable? She appears as though she has lived three lifetimes and has ‘only granted three interviews in all her life’, yet this alleged messiah altogether utters very little meaning. Sister Maria’s introduction has her appearing as a monumental figure, mostly due to the filmmaking aspects of the scene. In the chapel, lit with a chiaroscuro inspired light, along with medieval Roman Catholic music echoing throughout, with the purpose of warming our hearts. Contemplative looks from across the room, including a black priest, may be there to show the diversity that Maria is surrounded by, as those across the globe seem to adore her. The only interpretation gathered is that Sister Maria is an attempt to create a grandiose moment to close out the film in a profound sense. Yet what I’d gathered of this Saint, is that she lives so austerely that Sorrentino’s ending becomes muddled and pretentious.

As previously mentioned, we are never given a backstory to Sister Maria, but maybe that is the beauty of it that Sorrentino was trying to portray. This icon in the film is looked up to for her granted simplicity. But by portraying something so obscure, Sorrentino’s work doesn’t always appear as interesting, but as an attempt to do so. Is it her goodness or her stripped back way of living that those aspire to? And why does it need to be members of high society that only seek her advice? Wouldn’t Sorrentino’s inclusion of ordinary citizens make it all the more realistic, or relatable and grounded, rather than once again getting caught up in something so grand?

Her grandeur is never explained, to which we can be inspired or simply baffled by the mystery, seeing it as something that creates interest, or just remains pretentious. Yet even if her significance was explained, and made this supposed icon as meaningful as someone like the Pope or Mother Teresa, aren’t we supposed to be inspired by the ordinary and the beauty in simplicity. Isn't the point of 'La Grande Bellezza' to celebrate the simple things in life, rather than an established, worshipped figure? The portrayal of this kooky character tries to make a point towards being so well grounded, that it is absurd. As she speaks to Jep, she asks 'Do you know why I only eat roots?', to which Jep asks why, her response following as, 'Because roots are important'. Now Sister Maria's actions line up with her values and grounded nature, as she genuinely decides to eat roots. This can be seen by some as profoundly inspiring, but is altogether quite a weak attempt to deliver an overly-artistic message. And sure, it isn't all pompous, as there is a great reference to the Catholic influences in Italy and the holy hierarchy of Rome & it’s art. But it is the aureate expression doesn’t sell it as being moving, but is instead simply too showy.

When sat down at dinner with Jep and his fellow members of Roman high society, Maria is slouching at the head of the table with a vapid expression. The attempt at meaning that Sorrentino has so clearly tried to create is open to interpretation, yet it can be said that this is not one of the his finest writing moments. Sister Maria does not speak a word, and whenever she does, it is a brooding comment that is supposed to hold substance, but instead can be regarded as pretentious. The moment she lifts her head to comment on Jep's novel, all eyes are so enthusiastically on her. Sister Maria does not sleep in a bed, as she finds Rome’s 5 star Hassler hotel, ‘uncomfortable’. Her perspective on life can be seen as purely existential and somewhat nihilistic, or greatly generous. As she works alongside the sick and supports the Third World, her abandonment of any enjoyment and subscription to poverty has us question our place. Is someone really so empathetic that they’ll refuse any comfort, because others are worse off? Again, Sorrentino does succeed in communicating a message that has us asking questions like this, yet the point is too greatly emphasised through the worshipping and dramatically overdone expression of this holy character.

As Jep focuses on switching his hedonism for eudaemonism, his perspective on the finer things in life is the things he used to have, leading him to relish in nostalgia. Sister Maria seems to be an exaggerated symbol of his changing philosophy, as well as a turning point for him to once again write, after abandoning any such creativity for decades.

Something in meeting Sister Maria has Jep retuning to Giglio Island to report on a shipwreck, again, quite symbolic of Jep’s career position, having not written a novel in 40 years. Here, he remembers his first meeting with his first love, to which inspires him to write again. Apparently Sister Maria is the bridge between Jep’s despair & newfound hope.

Paolo Sorrentino's expertly expressive film is a no doubt a masterful passion project that communicates the pathos and joy of the human condition, impacting audiences greatly. Yet Sorrentino's attempt to create something meaningful to close out an already wonderful film filled it with more vanity than it needed. It is an entirely subjective work that involves the audiences thought and we can all interpret it how we see it, which is assuredly a good thing. However, Sorrentino’s quite bombastic ending was just a questionable cliffhanger and didn't line up with the greatness that the first two hours of 'La Grande Bellezza' provided. Though a fantastic feature, Paolo Sorrentino seemed to get too lost in portraying a message so obscurely overdone, that it had somewhat lost it's original meaning.

visit at: dreamsofthescreen.com

#cinema #writer #blogger #bloggersoftumblr #italianfilm #philosophy #cinemaisnotdead #cinematography #worldcinema #italiancinema #la grande bellezza

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hello-robin-goodfellow · 4 years

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Top Five Favorite Books

TAGGED BY: @hmmm-what-am-i-doing

The Hunchback of Notre Dame

The other famous novel by Victor Hugo. Written in 1831, Notre-Dame de Paris, known in English as The Hunchback of Notre Dame, is a rich, meandering tale that addresses messy relationships, fate, and the future of architecture in 1482. The English title is a misnomer, since the protagonist of the story is Esmeralda, the original title being a metaphor on the cathedral who serves as the central location of the novel, and Esmeralda herself (though one could argue the cathedral is itself a character). Victor Hugo strongly protested against the English title, as it turns the focus from the cathedral onto the characters.

The hunchback is Quasimodo, the deaf, one-eyed, hunchbacked, monstrously ugly bell-ringer of Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris. Abandoned outside the church at the age of four, he was taken in out of kindness by the Archdeacon of Josas, Claude Frollo, who raised him in the church and introduced him to the bells. When the hitherto chaste Frollo sees the romani girl Esmeralda dancing in the street one day, he finds himself stricken with lust, and doesn't know how to deal with it. So, sure as Love Makes You Evil, he grabs Quasimodo (for muscle) and tries to kidnap her. The attempt is foiled by Phoebus, Captain of the Archers. It is spectacularly not foiled by lovable slacker-poet Pierre Gringoire, who gets knocked out trying to save the girl.Later that night, however, Esmeralda temporarily marries the poet, to save his life from her friends at the Court of Miracles. That doesn't mean she's going to let her new "husband" touch her, mind you, or that she's going to give up her dreams of marrying Phoebus. Phoebus likes the look of her, himself, and although he's already engaged to his teenage cousin Fleur-de-Lys, he's not opposed to a bit on the side. Esmeralda's small kindness to Quasimodo when he is in the stocks for the kidnapping attempt (Frollo having let him take the fall) makes her an angel in Quasimodo's mind, and he is henceforth devoted to her. This eventually, and painfully, puts him in conflict with Frollo, whose combination of lust and loathing for Esmeralda makes him increasingly unstable. Amidst the drama and tragedy resulting from everybody's fatal obsessions, Hugo includes leisurely chapters on the architecture of Paris and the expected impact of the newly-developed printing press.

Frankenstein

Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, usually abbreviated to Frankstein is a novel by Mary Shelley. It was originally published in 1818. It had a 1823 reprint without Shelley's involvement and a third edition in 1831, this time with significant edits from the author. Frankenstein is considered an Ur-Example of Science Fiction and inarguably has vast historical significance.

The novel tells of Dr. Victor Frankenstein who unlocks the secrets to Creating Life. He uses this knowledge to create an artificial man, larger and stronger than most mortals, by means which he chooses not to describe. While he is initially triumphant with his success, a few moments of observing the flailing and moaning patchwork being leaves Victor disgusted by and fearful of his creation. Realizing the ramifications of his success, he is horrified. He abandons the Creature and flees to his family's estate. In his absence, the Creature is forced to come to grips with suddenly finding itself alive and alone without explanation or guidance. He learns about humanity by watching a family cottage from afar, but is again driven off when he attempts to offer his friendship- one of many bad run-ins with humanity which leave the monster bitter and cynical. Eventually, the Creature comes to resent his creator, whom he views as his father, for abandoning the Creature to a life of torment, and decides to come home to seek vengeance against Frankenstein...

The subtitle, The Modern Prometheus, compares Victor Frankenstein to the Greek titan Prometheus, who brought the secret of fire from Mount Olympus to mortal men, reflecting on Frankenstein's spiritual would-be theft of the secret to creating life — but like Prometheus, Frankenstein also came to regret his transgression.note Many would say that Frankenstein was the ultimate warning of Science Is Bad, though similar stories were common throughout the industrial revolution and it is not even clear whether the act of creating the Monster was bad in itself, if the world wasn't ready for it, or Frankenstein was just a horrible and abusive parent.

One Hundred Years of Solitude

One Hundred Years of Solitude is a 1967 novel that won Gabriel García Márquez the Nobel Prize for Literature. It's become a staple of Spanish-speaking high school curricula everywhere. Arguably one of the most important pieces of literature written in the 20th century, or to put in context, almost as important as Don Quixote to Spanish speaking literature. Famous, among other things, for using every conceivable trope one could ever hope to fit in 28.8 oz of paper.

The book follows the story of the Buendía family and the town they create, Macondo, from its foundation to its end. Of course, it is told in a non-linear fashion with every generation having the same few names, as well as the same basic attributes (except for a pair of twins whose names are thought to have been accidentally switched at some point). Alongside the story of the Buendía family, there are an abundance of vignettes recounting both the everyday and the supernatural occurrences that shape the lives of the inhabitants of Macondo. The themes range widely, incorporating legendary figures (such as the Wandering Jew), historical events (Sir Francis Drake’s bombing of Rioacha, the Massacre of the Banana growers), and short stories about the love of two minor characters who never get to interfere with the main action. Believe it or not the story takes place in a time span of a hundred years.

Netflix has announced that it will be adapting the story into a television series.

The Arabian Nights

The Arabian Nights, correctly known as The Tales of One Thousand and One Nights (Farsi Hezār-o yek šab, Arabic Kitāb 'alf layla wa-layla), is a massive collection of Fairy Tales drawn from sources as far apart as the Middle East, North Africa, India, and, to an extent, even China and Greece. It has for centuries shaped the European view of the [relative to Europe] "(Near) East" or "Orient", even though only some of the stories are widely known. In fact, early Arabic-language versions only contain about 300 nights. The 701 others were added later; most of the additions were by Arab writers, but European translators added some other folktales they'd collected in their editions. Some of these additions were based on other Arabian sources, but others, including Aladdin and Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, were stolen by Antoine Galland (the French translator) from Syrian Maronite writer Hanna Diyab, who recounted those tales to Galland and based them on various aspects of his own life. Diyab's autobiography was found in 1993 and greatly expanded our understanding of these stories.

The Framing Device for the story cycle is the tale of King Shahryar and Shahrazad. The King's first wife had cheated on him, so he had her executed. Then, feeling that no woman could be trusted, he hit upon a plan only a powerful and insane tyrant could pull off: He'd marry a woman, spend the night with her, and then, in the morning, send her off to the royal Wazir (chancellor) to be executed. No woman would ever betray him again! After a great many wives were executed in this manner (Richard Burton's translation says the King did this for three years, which would be about 1,100 wives), the Wazir was running out of marriage prospects to present to the King. Then the Wazir's daughter, Shahrazad, came to him with a plan. Since her plan involved marrying the King, the Wazir objected in the strongest manner possible, but nothing would deter the girl, and finally he brought her to the King.

Come the wedding night, once he started putting the moves on her, she feigned becoming upset, and pleaded to see her younger sister one last time. The King acquiesced, and allowed Shahrazad's sister Dunyazad to stay in the room with them until dawn. Even while they consummated the marriage. Awkward. After that and the three of them went to sleep, the sisters woke up at midnight. Just as planned, Dunyazad asked Shahrazad to tell her a story, but by the morning she was not finished, and ended the story on a Cliffhanger. The awoken King was so hooked on the story that he postponed the execution for one night, in order to hear the rest. But after Scheherazade ended that story, it was still the middle of the night, and she started up another story, again ending on a cliffhanger in the morning. The nightly routine continued. Some of the stories were simple, some complex and multi-layered; sometimes a character in one story would begin to tell a second story, and sometimes the story was never actually ended because Scheherazade had gone on two or three layers and never returned to wrap up. Or sometimes she claimed she didn't know the ending, but had another tale that was even more intriguing than the unfinished one. But all of the stories were so compelling that the King could never bear to order her execution without hearing the ending. So Shahrazad kept up the stories for three years — in the meantime bearing Shahryar three sons — and finally, after 1,001 nights, she said that she had told all of her tales and was ready to die. But the King had fallen in love with her, and had been calmed by her entrancing stories. He declared that no woman in the kingdom was as wise as Shahrazad, and he made her his queen for keeps this time, and they lived Happily Ever After.

Unlike many legends which deal primarily with the deeds of the nobility (who after all were the ones who could afford to have a bard as a permanent resident at their palaces), Arabian Nights has the fascinating twist that it covers people from myriads of occupations in a highly-complex society.

The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana

A novel by Umberto Eco.

Yambo Bodoni has a problem. After suffering a stroke, he lost his episodic memory. Now he can't remember his name, family, or any aspects of his life. Thanks to a lifetime of work as an antiquarian book dealer in Milan, however, he can recall anything he's ever read. In order to rediscover his lost past, Yambo heads to his childhood hometown of Solara. As he pores through old newspapers, comics, and magazines, Yambo - and the reader - get glimpses into the often tragic and bittersweet reality of a boy coming of age in Italy during World War II.

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Why Wonder Woman’s Real Origin Story Lies in First Wave Feminism

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This holiday season, one of the few bright spots for families unable to go to theaters—and even those who did—was Patty Jenkins’ Wonder Woman 1984. An ambitious and vibrantly colored celebration of heroism in all its forms, including those that don’t end in fistfights, it’s a superhero movie that’s won as many fans as detractors. But while basking in the new spectacle is well and good, it’s also worth considering how it came to be. For even in this HBO Max tentpole, one can still see how the feminist movement of the early 20th century is grafted into the very DNA of the Wonder Woman character, her origin, and even her most contentious iconography… something that rarely gets acknowledged in the broader comic fan community.

The character of Wonder Woman was created by Dr. William Moulton Marston in 1941. A psychologist with an eclectic career, Marston went from inventing the lie detector test while still an undergraduate at Harvard in 1914 to being essentially blacklisted from academia by the age of 33. But of course his most enduring legacy came afterward; it came when he engineered a superheroine intentionally designed to be a great role model for girls and boys.

As Marston famously said, “Frankly, Wonder Woman is psychological propaganda for the new type of woman who, I believe, should rule the world.” However, the actual political and sociological influences on Marston and the women who helped him create Diana are often overlooked, even as the character has come to dominate pop culture.

Marston, rather infamously nowadays, lived a polyamorous lifestyle with his wife Elizabeth Holloway Marston, and a second partner named Olive Byrne. Byrne is often credited in the 21st century as the inspiration for Wonder Woman (instead of a wedding ring, Marston gave her two bracelets that are identical to those worn by Diana Prince). Yet it is very likely that Holloway Marston had just as much influence. After all, she was a lover of Greek antiquity and until her death kept a book of Sappho’s poetry from the island of Lesbos within reach.

Still, it is Byrne’s influence that historian and esteemed Harvard professor, Jill Lepore, most untangles in her riveting portrait of the Marston family, The Secret History of Wonder Woman. Lepore, who holds the title of David Woods Kemper ’41 Professor of History at Cambridge, zeroed in on Byrne’s relation to the early feminist movement at the turn of the century and its impact on Marston, recasting Wonder Woman as a bridge between the suffragist movement and the generation who grew up reading Wonder Woman comics before fighting for the “women’s liberation movement.”

Olive Byrne was born in 1904, the daughter of Ethel Byrne and the niece of Margaret Sanger, the latter of whom founded what became known as Planned Parenthood (Margaret also coined the term “birth control”). In 1916, Ethel and Margaret opened in Brooklyn the first United States birth control clinic, and received jail time at a workhouse for their trouble. There Ethel nearly starved to death while going on a hunger strike. During this time, a 12-year-old Olive Byrne was being raised in a Catholic orphanage because her father and grandparents had died, and Ethel Byrne was not interested in raising her daughter.

Despite their absence, Olive held her mother and aunt’s politics in high regard. And those ideals would reverberate in Wonder Woman comics too. They were thoughts informed by the circle of New York intellectuals and early 20th century socialists Margaret and Ethel interacted with in Greenwich Village. Among their contemporaries were Upton Sinclair, Emma Goldman, and a very notable Lou Rogers.

Lou was actually named Annie Lucasta Rogers, but because she was told she couldn’t get work as a woman cartoonist, she initially submitted her work as “Lou” via the mail. Her historic drawings of women being able to finally break off the shackles of patriarchy by using the right to vote are echoed throughout Marston’s Wonder Woman comics, just as much as the author’s own fascination with male and female domination and submission.

In the 1910s, feminists and suffragist literature was rife with Amazonian imagery that would live again in the pages of DC. For example, Max Eastman published in 1913 a book of verse called Child of the Amazons and Other Poems. In it, an Amazonian girl must confess to her queen that she has fallen in love with a man. Yet Amazonian law forbids any warrior to marry or bear children until she has produced significant change in the world. Thus the young Amazon abandons her romance, stating she won’t seek love again until “the far age when men shall cease / their tyranny.” This is echoed in Wonder Woman comics as Diana repeatedly, and flatly, refuses to marry Steve Trevor.

In one classic Marston story, a dopey Steve whines, “Angel, when are we going to be married?” Diana coolly fires back, “When evil and injustice vanish from the Earth!”

More appropriate still is Inez Haynes Gillmore’s Angel Island. Published in 1914, after Gillmore co-founded the National College Equal Suffrage League, Angel Island envisions five American sailors who are shipwrecked on an island that’s crawling with “super-humanly beautiful” women with wings. Driven mad by lust, the men capture the women and cut off their wings, leaving them helpless as none has ever walked with their feet. But eventually one of the angels leads a violent revolution “with the splendid, swinging gait of the Amazon.”

This too echoes early Wonder Woman stories of the heroine being chained or rendered powerless by men who would wish to dominate her in every sense of the word. It is, after all, the fate her mother Hippolyta had to free the Amazons from in bloody battle.

Men trying to chain Diana or rob her of her powers by either bounding her bracelets together or removing them was also a common occurrence in ‘40s Wonder Woman comics, particularly those authored by Marston. In one memorable Marston story, a man unaware that Diana Prince is Wonder Woman even chains her to a stove so she cannot leave the kitchen. Diana retorts with a smirk, “How thrilling! I see you’re chaining me to the cookstove. What a perfect caveman idea!”

The year of 1915, meanwhile, saw the publication of Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s Herland, another feminist tale of an uncharted utopia of only women. For thousands of years, this lost paradise’s women have reproduced asexually, not unlike how Diana is born to Hippolyta in the comics after the Amazonian Queen sculpts her out of clay. These women of “herland” know nothing of fear, war, or even basic concepts of property. Unfortunately, three male American students find them and fall in love, each marrying one woman. But then each is thunderstruck that they cannot consummate their relationship whenever they want. In this thinly veiled allegory about the need for birth control, two of the men are banished when one tries to rape his wife, and another expresses confusion as to how rape can be a crime in marriage.

“The women [of Herland] are Amazons because, in the nineteen-teens, reporters routinely used the name to describe suffragists,” Lepore said in a recent article in The New Yorker. “So did suffragists themselves in both the U.K. and the U.S., including Elizabeth Holloway.”

The writers of these stories were also contemporaries and even sometimes neighbors of Olive’s mother, Ethel. And just as Olive helped introduce a worshipful admiration for her aunt Margaret Sanger and Planned Parenthood to the Marstons, with whom she built an unorthodox home, so too did she seemingly inform (along with Holloway Marston’s love for antiquity) what became the Wonder Woman origin story, which was recently given new life by Jenkins and Gal Gadot in 2017’s Wonder Woman.

There is of course the question of whether the new movies fully embrace these legacies. Lepore, for one, is skeptical, writing in 2020 that “Patty Jenkins seems to be interested in history… But she’s apparently not at all interested in the history of women: it’s got no place in either of her two ‘Wonder Woman’ films, even though they both take place during major inflection points in that history.”

However, the hard-won victories of that history, and how Marston seeded the ideals of its first wave into his comics, is still inextricably linked to Gadot’s Wonder Woman. We see it when she stands with a near divinity over Chris Pine on a beach in the 2017 movie, unaware and undisturbed by the preconceived limits a patriarchal society would place on her; and we see it when Wonder Woman can defeat villainy and greed in Wonder Woman 1984 without having to throw a single punch.

So for whatever bondage iconography that also clearly seeped its way into Marston’s creation, there is a definite through-line of a century’s worth of feminist ideals that connect the fantasies of the suffrage movement to the icon of female empowerment that the women’s liberation movement claimed Wonder Woman to be when she was placed on the cover of Gloria Steinem’s Ms. magazine in 1972. And a hundred years later, it lives on like Amazons and angels on the big screen.

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