From Game Informer:
Solas plays an important role in the game as a central figure and significant character, but the game is not about Solas, hence the title change
Rather than focusing on a specific individual, the focus and centerpiece of the game is Rook's team, stopping the end of the world with this group of specialists
"I think you could argue [these companions] are the best the franchise has ever seen". We will have the opportunity to interact with them in a way that both shapes their story and also influences the main story, including having the opportunity to impact their fate
"Arguably, this game has kind of, in a way, been called Dreadwolf to some degree since its earlier days"
Excerpt:
"When I ask about Solas' role in the story after I learn his namesake is no longer in the game title, Darrah says Veilguard is still taking the Elven God's narrative in a good direction. He adds, "It allows us to, hopefully, give a good conclusion to all the varied attitudes toward Solas that are going to be coming from people who love Solas, who agree with Solas, who hate Solas, people who want to kick Solas off of a building – I think that we give you the opportunity to bring that to a close, but then tell a greater story about The Veilguard and about the world as a whole."
Talking to Epler, I learn more about how Solas isn't exactly the big bad I expected before seeing the opening hours of Veilguard. There's a lot more nuance to everyone's favorite bald elf.
"The most interesting villains to myself, and honestly most people, are not just straight up, 'I want to end the world.' To them, they are the heroes of the story, and Solas is no exception," Epler tells me. "Solas always feels that he is a tragic hero but a hero nonetheless, so he's coming into this believing firmly that what he did, that which you stopped him from doing, was the right thing – that you made a mistake. But now he's trapped and can't reach out and actively affect [Thedas], so he needs to work with you.
"That allows us to provide a lot of nuance to that relationship," Epler says."
Solas is literally trapped in the Fade after the game's prologue. Rook and co stop his attempt to destroy the Veil. Rook passes out and wakes up in a dream-like landscape to Solas' voice. He explains that he was trying to move Elgar'nan and Ghilan'nain to a new prison because the old one wasn't containing them properly anymore. The two blighted gods are now free and roaming Thedas. Rook has to stop them, but it seems that they will have to work with Solas ("or at least listen to his guidance and advice") to do so
Excerpt:
""So one of the principles we took to when we were building the story of The Veilguard early on was we wanted the beginning of the game to feel like the final chapter of an earlier story and you're coming in right at the end, you're coming in as if you've been chasing Solas – the [Solas at the end of Dragon Age: Inquisition's Trespasser DLC] who said he was going to end the world and tear down the Veil," Epler adds.
Epler says players will see early on (and as the narrative develops across Veilguard) that Solas sees much of himself in you, the player-controlled Rook, especially "the parts that maybe he doesn't like to face." As a result, there's an interesting push and pull between Solas and Rook. He says players can define the relationship between these two characters with their choices in dialogue.
"You can continue to be suspicious and hostile towards him, or you can start to see him and find that common ground, that connection between the two of you, and really develop a different relationship over the course of the story," Epler says."
[source]
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Could you please explain what is ableist about Zur-En-Arrh? (Not trying to be a dick, I genuinely don’t know.)
Ok so this is my best explanation:
a lot of batman villains are neurodivergent or mentally ill in a way that has the mental illness or neurodivergence be responsible for their evil. like... two face is evil because his face got scarred and now he has two personalities*, one of which wants to hurt people and do bad things and the other of which is good harvey dent. the ventriloquist has schizophrenia and his 'evil side' is manifested in a puppet he uses to kill people. joker is crazy so he's evil**
now bruce is responsible for all of these awful things because he has an alternate personality. we have an equivalent of a real world neurodivergence and that is specifically responsible for bruce's evil acts. if he was neurotypical, he wouldn't have done that.
it creates a narrative that pathologizes evil (treats it as something as a result of a sickness) and stigmatizes people in the real world who may have the same neurodivergences or mental illnesses as the characters. like there are so many stereotypes about schizophrenia or psychosis or DID due to ableist tropes in fiction that people hear about it and automatically assume whoever has it must be dangerous, which often justifies bad treatment against them.
I see some fans say like "Oh well Bruce/batfam members are still mentally ill so its not bad" but often they mistake their headcanons for canon (like. AFAIK no batfam member has a diagnosed mental illness in main continuity comics, and many portrayals in terms of depression/trauma vary based on writer) or act as if all mental illnesses and neurodivergences are stigmatized equally. the characters being traumatized but still able to function in accordance with the demands of neurotypical society doesn't mean that the writers doesn't mean that the writers aren't portraying various more stigmatized mental illnesses or neurodivergences badly.
*yes i know there are stories re-telling it as 'he was always going to wind up as two face'/connecting it to childhood abuse and anger, and IIRC one tec story treated the big bad harv as someone who protected harvey... but like. i'm talking about the basic set up of his character and how he is used in many stories
**i'm a bigger fan of stuff where joker's not really treated as crazy but like.... many writers lean into that
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on morality & madeleine: interview with the vampire meta (written after s2e6)
so far, i’ve found that trying to process my thoughts on madeleine feels really difficult when everyone online has their own opinions and their own biases. this post is kind of my attempt to sort out how i feel about her, and to refute and explore some arguments i’ve seen pop up in her tag.
i think the people who are pointing out that first and foremost these are fictional characters have it right: they’re not real people, their relative morality is only relevant as it pertains to the story itself. and in a story like interview with the vampire, your baseline is that every main character is a killer. in terms of morality, evaluating whether or not a character is a good person is pretty useless and also just… isn’t the point of the story. all characters are functions of a narrative, all characters are tools that you use to tell a story. their morality should not be judged in the same way as you would a real person’s! now. all that being said, let’s have some fun judging* madeleine anyway!
*doing some of my own biased character analysis on
what we know comes to us from a few sources: claudia’s diary, which daniel can read, (decent primary source, but filtered with her biases), louis’s recollection of madeleine’s memories (secondary source that relies on both of their ability to remember clearly) and presumably, louis and armand’s recollections of their interactions as well, which isn’t a whole lot to begin with.
part 1: the nazi fucking
when madeleine talks about sleeping with a nazi to claudia, she’s extremely casual about it. while she notes he brought her food, and cigarettes, she says in a way that invokes a courtship ritual, rather than a direct bribe. it’s impossible to divorce this from the context though: her neighbors are starving, and she was brought food. it likely was a bribe, but what’s important is that she doesn’t relay it as one. her focus when she starts talking about him is on the connection: “it was the comfort, the proof of life,” as she says. if she had been coerced, or if she felt like she had no choice in the matter, i think she would have presented it a little differently. but her affection for the guy is clear, and she even mocks him a little to claudia. in her own words, “i wasn’t inviting hitler to stay in france, i was inviting a frightened boy to cradle my tits.”
which. let’s be real here: to claudia, she is downplaying it. she slept with an occupying soldier during an occupation. watching this scene for the first time, you could even reasonably assume she doesn’t get how serious that is. but once you see the degree of punishment she faced, and continues to face for her actions, you realize her framing here is a learned defense against genuine violence. she feels she has to downplay it to herself and to claudia because there is an imbalance here. it becomes harder to admit to your wrongdoings when the punishments you face for them feel wildly disproportionate.
madeleine did something she never should have done, something she doesn’t feel remorse for, but something that she’s being punished for in a way that far exceeds what any person deserves.
when she talks about it to armand, her framing changes again. she calls it a love, still, so the affection is still present, but she places a greater emphasis on doing what it takes to survive, implying more so that sleeping with a nazi was an act of self-preservation. regardless of whether this is more true than how she presents things to claudia, she has a motivation here too.
when she shares her experiences with claudia, she’s flirting, trying to make her laugh, trying to make a connection, and this part might be subconsciously, but she is certainly trying to get claudia to like her. when she talks to armand, however, she’s actively trying to convince him to grant her the dark gift. she has to portray herself as capable, as self-sufficient, and discerning, and it works! even though he denies her based on his own biases, armand is visibly impressed by all of madeleine’s answers to his questions.
and all we get from louis was that the experience was sweet. and let’s be real, it did look pretty sweet.
i don’t believe madeleine has any hatred for the boy she slept with. i don’t think there’s any evidence she has any hatred for jewish people either, or for her country, which her neighbors believe she betrayed. i think she chose to prioritize a moment of human connection (and possibly food) over the greater consequences of her actions.
i have been looking for the post again since i saw it, so if anyone sees it lmk! but! the op talked about the fact that madeleine as a collaborator isn’t changing her behavior in any meaningful way now: she watched claudia kill in front of her, and instead of running, she once again invited the danger in, joined up with it. i believe the post said something like: once a collaborator, always a collaborator.
this has really stuck with me and i really wish i could reference it properly.
cuz i think there is something there—i think madeleine’s self-preservation instinct is a little screwed on wrong, i think she is acting similarly with claudia as she did with the nazi, but i think it’s not just about the danger. portraying her choice to follow claudia as a cold moment of choosing survival takes away from her complexity, and from the veracity of her feelings for claudia. so, not just the danger. i think it’s about the connection again.
the connection she has with claudia is real, the love she has for claudia is incredibly real. but madeleine is once again prioritizing an interpersonal connection over anything else, and that is the pattern she’s repeating here.
part 2: the apparent age gap issues
every single person who says their relationship is problematic because claudia is a child owes me and claudia fifty bucks.
i don’t really even want to get into that because i don’t think it’s worth my time. the show has put a lot of effort into demonstrating that claudia is an adult trapped in the body of a teenager, and that experience is hard enough on her without all you people insisting she’s still a kid anyway.
however, there’s a secondary argument i’ve seen which i do want to address, which is madeleine’s perception of her.
in their first meeting in the shop, it’s clear that madeleine is seeing claudia as a teenager. she calls her one directly, and references her “body about to bloom” when they meet again two years later. however, when they do meet two years later, claudia has not grown. we know madeleine has noticed this by the dress fitting scene for certain, but it wouldn’t be unreasonable to assume she noticed that sooner. additionally, in the same breath, madeleine also references claudia’s “mind of a sophisticate.” by the time claudia tells her that her growth was stunted due to the war, it’s extremely likely that madeleine had already reached a similar conclusion. she doesn’t look surprised at all when claudia says it, and it’s because claudia seems like an adult. even if she doesn’t look like one, she carries herself like one, she makes conversation like one, and it’s very easy for madeleine to accept the reality trust she is one, because she may have suspected as much already.
the reason i say all of this is because i’ve seen multiple people saying it’s inappropriate for her to flirt with claudia before she knows she’s an adult.
is their interaction at the shop window flirting? are they flirting outside the theatre, just after the play? both of these scenes are before claudia says her growth was stunted. i think it’s impossible to say they were definitively flirtatious, but i will certainly say there was a vibe. and i think that’s… kind of fine actually ? two people can have chemistry and it doesn’t have to mean anything about them morally. and my coworker andy said it would have been weirder if they had no chemistry and then did suddenly after madeleine realizes she’s an adult, which made me laugh, and which i think is correct. i like the way they get along before the dress fitting, i think those scenes are fun, and the ambiguity of the flavor adds to it.
i did see at least one post that said it was inappropriate for madeleine to talk about sex frankly with claudia if she thinks she’s a teenager, and to that i say. you can talk to teens about sex. even if she didn’t suspect claudia was older, it’s still fine. they are friends, and she’s sharing an experience she had because claudia asked her about it.
additionally, it’s both a very contemporary & a very american idea that People Under 18 need to be kept from conversations about sex. frankness about sexuality is in fact, very french lol.
i did originally think that this was after the conversation about claudia not growing, but i just watched the scene again to be sure and it was, in fact, also before, but i think my point stands.
i don’t know for certain if she intended to come across as flirtatious in these scenes, but i know something clicked for her right around her confession. you can see it, when they lock eyes in the mirror, that whatever the vibe is, they’ve both clocked it. and she finds out claudia’s older than she looks only seconds later, because she’s the one pointing out that claudia hasn’t grown. (but, yes, i’ll add anyway: after claudia says her growth was stunted, and after that moment of connection, madeleine’s expressions do seem a lot more… Interested too, lol).
i understand and i empathize so much with people’s criticisms of madeleine’s past. i have no intention to exonerate her in that regard (other than her previously mentioned narrative tool status) but i will jump to her defense when it comes to her relationship with claudia.
madeleine sees claudia as an adult, because claudia is an adult.
if they weren’t vampires, and if they weren’t queer in the 1940s, maybe she’d be worried about how others saw their relationship. or maybe it would be weird if she didn’t care how it looked. but given that the only people who will know they’re romantically together are other vampires, i don’t see her lack of concern for the optics being that much of an issue either.
and the reason she’s not concerned is because she knows what claudia is to her. which brings us to:
part 3: the sister stuff
once again i think the show does a pretty good job of refuting this one on its own, but i’d like to get all my arguments in the same place.
so. i see “don’t worry about the blood, it’s the blood that made you,” getting thrown around a lot as proof that madeleine is replacing claudia as her sister.
why would they have a scene that directly refutes this if they were true? when louis asks if that’s what’s going on, claudia says they already “had it out,” and madeleine clarifies that claudia is nothing like her sister, and cannot be a replacement.
“don’t worry about the blood, it’s the blood that made you,” is something that madeleine says because she loves claudia, because she loves the person and the vampire that she is. because she wants claudia to know that her past does not define her. because she wants her to know she doesn’t feel tainted by it, and that claudia doesn’t have to either.
and yeah, it’s not that there’s zero incestuous tones to it! or to the whole arrangement, certainly. but i think any that are there pretty neatly fall under the “iwtv typical wire crossings” flavor rather than the “you’re my dead sister’s replacement” flavor.
so, yeah. despite saying fictional character morality doesn’t matter, i’ve just written several paragraphs trying to figure out if madeleine is a good person or not. really, though, that’s not the question iwtv wants us to ask, or the question i really want to ask its viewers either. is madeleine a good person? eh, probably not. is madeleine a good person for claudia? absolutely.
on this, iwtv is extremely clear. madeleine is an ideal partner. she’s not scared, she’s not surrounded by friends and family she’d grieve, she’s weirdly suited to vampirism, and she loves claudia so much. they share a morbid sense of humor, they’re comfortable teasing each other, they communicate in an extremely healthy way, and every single step of their relationship is based on consent.
the entire time i was watching her scene with armand, i just kept whispering, “oh my god, she’s perfect.” she nailed absolutely every question because she’s perfect for what she’s supposed to do as character, as a function of the narrative she is a part of. madeleine is perfect because she is perfect for claudia.
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Once again Helluva Boss continues to improve and mature as a series.
I haven't talked about it for a while but the series is making leaps and bounds of improvement in writing quality. A common complaint i've heard about the show is that it seem to function on what's called protagonist centered morality, essentialy " whatever the main character does is morally justified because he's the main character" but the more you look at the show the more untrue this is.
Even if Blitz is sympathetic, his actions are not justified, and his behaviour makes people he cares about hate him. Sure, it makes him sad but he deserves to feel sad, he's the one who keeps hurting people. "Apology Tour" really makes that point shine.
An excuse he makes for his own behaviour is that he was born and raised in literal Hell, he's "supposed" to be shitty. This line reminds me of the kind of immature and media illiterate behavior some vivziepop fans display when it comes to her work. When her shows have South Park levels of dumb edginess, they'll excuse it with "Duh it's Hell they're supposed to be bad people!" then turn around and gush over how sweet and kind those same characters are. That line, and how the show immediately refutes it, Is also showing me that the team is capable of self-criticism and change, because their work almost seems to use that same excuse. But the whole point of both Hazbin and Helluva Boss is that those are not valid excuses, and that characters in Hell have both the ability and responsibility to change and be better people.
Another common criticism of the show is the inherent toxicity of Stolitz, but that's also the point of the show. The way the characters are when they get together and where they are currently do not make for a healthy relationship. Whils a lot of critics point to Stolas as the source of the toxicity, I feel that's unfair to his character. The show initially sets him up as the selfish hedonist who uses Blitz for his own pleasure, which is how Blitz sees him. But the show continues to show us that that's not who he is. He's a hedonist only in the sense that he's been denied happiness and pleasure his entire life, of course he'd seek it out. He was the child of an emotionally neglectful father, a repressed gay man forced into an abusive relationship because of compulsory heterosexuality, and a father struggling to connect with his teenage daughter through the haze of bitter divorce. He eventually has enough character growth to realize the unhealthy power imbalance he has with Blitz and attempts to solve it. But when he does, we see the true source of toxicity in this relationship.
Blitz is a violently traumatized man who developed some really unhealthy coping mechanisms, and essentially allows his trauma to control him. He's manipulative, rude, possesive, impulsive, and prone to lashing out against the people who care about him the most. Stolas went from "he makes me happy" to "I want him to be happy", but I don't really think Blitz knows how to be happy.
And that's why he has an entire room full of people whose hearts he broke and hate him enough to throw a party about it every year.
Another thing I liked about this episode is that it really embodies the concept that the opposite of love is not hate. Stolas put at the best, the "Fuck Blitz" party exists because so many people loved him, loved him enough to be hurt when he betrayed them, loved him enough to hate him. The show validates and justifies that anger and pain, and acknowledges that Blitz is just the protagonist, not the good guy.
And it forces him to realize that, too.
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