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shipping-receiving · 4 years

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“Is there a chance you won’t be okay?”

An Analysis of Hwang Si-mok and Han Yeo-jin’s Final Scene in Stranger/Secret Forest Season 2

Alright, it’s been almost a week, I’m still crying every time I re-watch this scene, and somehow I’ve written 3,500 words about five minutes of this damn show, so here we go:

As with Stranger/Secret Forest Season 1, Si-mok and Yeo-jin’s final scene in Season 2 ended with a farewell meal, complete with soju. On a very basic level, this meal felt significant in a season where Si-mok was subject, more than ever, to interrupted meals or meals he didn’t particularly want to be present for – at least until he was able to have a drink with Yeo-jin in 2x12, and then lunch with her in 2x13.

More importantly, though, this scene is the most loaded scene we’ve ever witnessed between these two characters. That’s saying something for such a nuanced, detail-oriented show, in which two people placing their phones in a storage locker at a detention centre can possess such emotional weight, particularly when played by two actors who make very subtle and sophisticated acting choices.

I’m struck particularly by the way this scene bursts with subtext – things unsaid and unresolved – when Lee Soo-yeon could just as easily have written a neater, more light-hearted exchange that reaffirmed their connection, more along the lines of their final scene in 1x16. There are a thousand other ways their farewell could have been presented to us that would have given a greater or at least a more comfortable sense of finality, even taking into account their character development over this season. This lack of resolution is evident not just from what happened during the scene, but also when the scene happened within the episode itself. The meal occurred after Yeo-jin had been bullied by her colleagues, but before she met her new boss – at this point, it seemed to the viewer that her promotion would likely bring not the pride she experienced in S1, but more challenges and isolation.

More so than the Seo Dong-jae cliffhanger, this scene makes me think that this was written with a future Season 3 arc in mind, one in which Si-mok and Yeo-jin’s relationship will continue to evolve and deepen substantially (whether that will be ‘romantic’ remains to be seen). Considering they’re the core partnership of this series, there was a deliberate withholding of stability in their farewell, rather than an affirmation of it. I won’t go so far as to say destabilisation – because despite their separation, I think their bond is more profound than ever – but at the bare minimum an absence of certainty, when it could have been written otherwise.

Anyway, on to the breakdown:

The scene opens with Si-mok carefully folding a napkin and placing cutlery on it for Yeo-jin, a simple gesture of care that Cho Seung-woo plays with a startlingly gentle attentiveness. Immediately, it signals that there’s been a shift in Si-mok – how he’s able, at least with Yeo-jin, to do something that isn’t just polite, but also thoughtful. The director even snuck in a little clue that Si-mok is thinking of Yeo-jin as he’s doing this – Yeo-jin actually appears at the left side of the frame from the start, as the camera pans over to Si-mok:

In this shot, Si-mok is visually separated from Yeo-jin by a pillar. This could be read on the one hand as a kind of sectioning out of his mental space – a visualisation of his thoughts of her as he prepares her cutlery – and on the other hand, as a foreshadowing of their impending separation. (I do, however, enjoy the first interpretation more. It reminds me a little bit of her sketch of the inside of his head from 1x06.)

Back to the napkin: if you look closer, Si-mok didn’t fold a napkin for himself – his spoon and chopsticks are on the table next to his bowl – so this isn’t just a matter of neatly setting the table for their meal. In a very small way, he’s anticipating her needs, just as she has done with him in much more demonstrative ways in both seasons (helping him with his headaches being the most obvious one). This isn’t something he’s necessarily actively worked on in the past two years; he’s still the person who doesn’t instinctively say ‘hello’ over the phone, or ask after someone’s kids without being reminded. Yet, it’s a capacity for care that has expanded significantly, at least where Yeo-jin is concerned.

Compare his behaviour with the equivalent scene in 1x16 – back then, he only ordered a bowl of noodles for himself and not for her. Interestingly, Yeo-jin’s comment to Si-mok during that part of the S1 scene was, “Gosh, you haven’t changed one bit,” suggesting that he was, by nature, somehow unable to be considerate to someone else. Just from the opening to the S2 scene, we see that that comment is not or no longer true, at least when it comes to the way he acts around her. In both the S1 and S2 scenes, he was the first person to arrive for their meal; in S1, the first thing he said was, “Why are you late?” and had already ordered his soju and noodles. This time, however, Yeo-jin asks him, “Why didn’t you order something first?” – implying that although she was late again, he was patiently waiting for her to arrive.

There’s also a difference in the way he responds to her appearance. Now, I personally don’t think we can frame Si-mok’s connection with and care for Yeo-jin in conventional understandings of romantic attraction (which is not to say romance isn’t possible for them canonically, I just think it will manifest differently). Nevertheless, I’d say that he responds to her haircut in a way that is probably as close to the mechanics of attraction as we could possibly expect from Si-mok – not just the shock of “oh, you cut your hair,” but lingering looks and nostalgia for when they first met; nothing at all like noticing that she’s wearing lipstick and saying, not so kindly, that it looks weird. In fact, in a direct parallel to this moment in 1x16, Yeo-jin asks him if her haircut is “weird”, and he says, “I just meant it’s different.”

(I think the way he stares at her is not wholly due to being ‘transfixed’, but also because he’s trying to figure out what such a drastic change means, and why now, and whether he has to worry. Basically, his brain is trying to compute; part of his stare is him trying to analyse her behaviour, just as part of it is him revisiting his memories of her from two years ago, and part of it might well be an attraction he doesn’t quite understand or know how to reel in. He does stare at her for an inordinately long time.)

Switching over to Yeo-jin, I really enjoy this little routine of hers when they have meals together – how she narrows down options for him to a series of questions, and even helps him decide on occasion. It never feels like she’s trying to speak for him, but rather that she knows his likes and dislikes. Her question in this scene – makgeolli or soju – is phrased like her question in 2x02, when she asks him to choose between stir-fried octopus and hot pot; when she specifically requests a lot of cabbages, she must be thinking of how he ate lots of them in 2x12. This kind of care comes naturally to Yeo-jin – we’re talking about the person who took in a murder victim’s mother in S1 – but it’s still a form of intimacy, and one that Si-mok is clearly used to as well.

Soon, though, we have our first indication that things might not be so comfortable – not in the sense that their bond has weakened, but that there are fundamental shifts occurring in both of their lives that affect this bond. Si-mok, after a lot more staring, points out that her short hair reminds him of when they first met. (He wouldn’t have needed to take that much time to come up with that simple observation, which makes me think he was trying to choose his words carefully.) With enthusiasm, Yeo-jin responds with, “I haven’t changed a bit, right?” – echoing her comment about Si-mok in 1x16.

Perhaps Yeo-jin had meant this comment sincerely in the moment, but given context, her cheerfulness feels performative. We’ve just witnessed her crying after being bullied by her colleagues, in contrast to the warmth that she enjoys with her old Yongsan team; we’ve observed her changes – a result of maturity, disillusionment, a loss of innocence – throughout the whole season. In fact, she seems to have cut her hair precisely because she feels weighed down by all that has unfolded, just as one might after a break-up or some kind of painful life event. It’s a decision that seems to say: I acknowledge that everything has changed around me, but maybe doing this will make me feel like myself again, or the ‘myself’ of two years ago.

Si-mok, of course, isn’t quite so able to agree that she hasn’t changed. Multiple times this season, he’s observed the changes in her – “You don’t draw these days?” in 2x06, “Didn’t you want to work in police administration?” in 2x08, “You weren’t the kind of person to postpone things.” in 2x12. Now, he doesn’t respond to her question, and instead looks at her in silence, smiling only ever so slightly when she shakes her head playfully (and we know that she can make him smile wider than that). Perhaps he’s even choosing to withhold any judgment of her. But this is a moment, I think, that factors into his decision to ask her that question at the end of this scene.

Next, we have confirmation that Si-mok was the one who asked Yeo-jin out for dinner, just as he had in 2x02 once he’d settled into his new posting. It isn’t clear in 1x16 if it was Yeo-jin who’d asked to meet Si-mok when she found out he was being posted to Namhae, but it’s been affirmed twice this season that he prioritises this time with her (even more so than meeting his own mother). Then, he breaks the news to her that he is leaving for Gangwon Province this weekend.

In 1x16, Yeo-jin finds out that Si-mok is leaving from the special investigation team, without Si-mok being present. At the time, they still think he’ll be sent to the US for training, and Yeo-jin is visibly disappointed. She has the same crestfallen look on her face in this scene, in front of Si-mok. She doesn’t want to be separated from him, and when she asks about his cases, it seems she’d expected him to stay for quite a while longer to see them through. Mind you, Wonju is only about 1.5 hours drive from Seoul (yes, I mapped it), but Yeo-jin still looks like she’s had the rug pulled from under her. Perhaps, in an uncertain time, she’d hoped that Si-mok would be in her life more than the few weeks he’d spent in Seoul.

Yeo-jin’s responses in both 1x16 and 2x16 are a pretty big indicator that she has feelings for Si-mok (whether she’s aware or willing to acknowledge those feelings is another matter). I suppose one could argue that her reaction is simply out of sadness at the thought of being separated from a friend, but based on certain events in S2 – for example, Choi Bit questioning Yeo-jin about her relationship with Si-mok, and Yeo-jin deflecting – I think the viewer is at the very least meant to question whether their bond is truly ‘platonic’. This isn’t the type of show to include superfluous details just to tease their viewers, and in any case, Si-mok and Yeo-jin’s connection has only deepened through the course of this season despite being on opposing sides of the council. It feels like the emotional stakes are much higher this time than back in S1.

As Yeo-jin is absorbing this news from Si-mok, there are a couple of little details here that feel significant to me, but could be nothing: first, the way Si-mok half-holds out his hand as Yeo-jin is pouring her soju, just as he’d held out his hand when she was pouring makgeolli in 2x13. Second, how she pours out a cup of soju for herself first, but not for Si-mok. In any other situation, it might seem impolite – after all, Si-mok is the one who’d chosen the drink – but here it seems that she’s pouring a drink to steady or busy herself more than anything, and she doesn’t drink from it till after their toast.

Following this, Yeo-jin confides in Si-mok that “I never thought the council would end like this. [...] Will the higher-ups be replaced with more honest people while I’m catching bad men out there?” When he replies with, “Why are you talking as if those two are the same?”, it’s yet another of his probing questions, questions she never seems to have an answer to. The Yeo-jin of old would never have assumed that all the higher-ups are dishonest – she has always seen the good in people – but she feels betrayed by Choi Bit, the one person she sincerely respected. Here, she changes the topic rather than opening up, reverting to her most comfortable mode of showing care for someone else by asking Si-mok why he looks so tired. It’s a guardedness that we’re not used to seeing from Yeo-jin; when Si-mok met with Choi Bit at the start of the episode, he describes Yeo-jin as someone who “opens up easily”, even if she doesn’t “blindly trust or respect just about anybody”.

While Yeo-jin is evasive, Si-mok is more willing to be vulnerable in comparison. His openness isn’t surprising, given that Si-mok has shared more about his life and thoughts with her than with anyone else, but it is still heartwarming to see. Instead of brushing off Yeo-jin’s comment, he tells her about his dream of the prosecutors from the Western Office. For anyone else, this might not seem like a significant conversation topic, but for someone who hardly ever dreams (which Si-mok mentioned in S1), it feels like he’s sharing something special with her. This dream, and his factual recounting of it, seems to be a means for his brain to process the traumatic events of two years ago.

Before Si-mok tells Yeo-jin about his dream, there’s a quick insertion here – a lament about seeing your boss in your dreams – that suggests that she is still troubled about Choi Bit, more than she’s letting on. Again, Si-mok doesn’t push her to elaborate, though I think he’s been absorbing all the things that seem off with Yeo-jin since she arrived. Yeo-jin proceeds to analyse his dream in her head, but doesn’t verbalise her interpretation (that Yoon Se-won might be considering suicide, since he went off in the same direction as two characters who have both passed). As she’s deep in thought, Si-mok tilts his head questioningly at her; she says that he probably won’t have time to go anywhere else this weekend, implying that she was thinking of bringing him with her to visit Yoon.

Knowing that Si-mok won’t be able to come with her, however, leaves Yeo-jin resigned. As she announces, “All right, then,” I wonder if this is the moment that she’s choosing to steel herself. The two people she treasures and respects most in her life (Si-mok and Choi Bit) are disappearing from it, and she will have to learn to move forward without them.

Now, we come to their toast. In the corresponding scene in S1, their toast is bittersweet, but has a sense of resolution; upbeat piano music plays in the background as Yeo-jin says, “Goodbye, I won’t be able to see you off,” while Si-mok echoes that with, “Good luck in your new position. Sorry I can’t attend the ceremony.” In S2, the music is quieter, and much more sombre – I’ve been describing it in my head as ‘breathy sad wooooo music’ – even as Yeo-jin laughs and says, a little helplessly: “It feels like we keep repeating this.”

Si-mok, on his part, doesn’t even echo her laugh with anything more than the barest smile. Instead, he says, with a deep sincerity: “Take care, Senior Inspector Han.” As I mentioned earlier, there are many ways that they could have written or played this scene to convey even a little more resolution – choosing different music, or having Si-mok smile along with Yeo-jin, or even giving Yeo-jin a bit more notice of his departure so that she can prepare a gift (as if to say, she doesn’t draw as much these days, but she would for his sake). But the viewer is made to feel all of their reluctance, even sadness at this separation, even if those feelings are hidden beneath pleasantries. “Well, I guess I’ll be okay,” Yeo-jin says, as if there’s a possibility that she won’t be – that this is something she has to recover from in the future.

Si-mok considers her words, her phrasing, her demeanour, tilts his head at her again and says: “Is there a chance you won’t be okay?”

This, above all other lines, shows how much Si-mok has grown in the past couple of years because of Yeo-jin’s influence. Whereas he started S1 cold, guarded, and isolated from the rest of his colleagues, he has arrived at a point where he has cultivated enough of an emotional sensitivity to ask her this question – to show her care, just as she has shown care to him and other people around her. I’d even venture to say that Si-mok feels, himself, that there’s a chance he won’t be as okay with their separation as he might have been two years ago. In 2x05, during the conversation with Seo Dong-jae outside the prison, Dong-jae asks Si-mok: “You don’t feel a tad bit sad even if you’re sent far away, do you?” Si-mok answers, “No.” That doesn’t feel so definitive anymore. There isn’t anything either Si-mok or Yeo-jin can do, given that they both prioritise their careers and understand that these careers follow a certain trajectory, but parting feels a little bit harder this time.

Yeo-jin answers Si-mok’s question as reassuringly as she can, with an adorable smile and shake of the head; she lets out an “ah” after she downs her soju, as if to reorient herself. Yet, her cheerfulness in the rest of the scene – her excitement at the food, her over-enthusiastic chewing – rings empty as the sombre music continues to play in the background. For perhaps the first time in the entire series, there is something about Yeo-jin that seems feigned. Strangely, it is Si-mok’s blank expression that represents the more authentic emotion in this scene – communicating the very resignation that Yeo-jin must be feeling inside, beneath a facade that might read as comical in any other context.

“Is there a chance you won’t be okay?” is, in fact, the last thing that Si-mok says in this whole scene, despite quite a few more lines of dialogue from Yeo-jin. The way he looks at her for the rest of the scene, though, is charged with meaning. It seems to say: ‘I don’t really believe that you’re okay, but I’m going to give you space because I can tell you don’t really want to talk right now.’ It’s not as if Yeo-jin hasn’t confided in him before – their phone call in 1x15 was especially intimate – so it’s not that Si-mok is incapable of listening to her. Still, he respects her choice to deflect, and continues to observe her closely while ignoring the pajeon, even leaning forward right at the end of the scene. This very overt concentration on her is something we’ve never really seen from Si-mok before; even in the rooftop scene in 2x06, which is probably the most loaded scene they share after this one, they’re standing beside each other and rarely make eye contact. Here, his focus on Yeo-jin is palpable.

As much as this scene felt heartbreaking to me (thanks breathy sad wooooo music), it actually left me with a lot of optimism for the development of their relationship in the future. Lee Soo-yeon has said that she has enough material for five seasons of the show, and while I’m not so sure we’ll get as many seasons as that, it feels like she’s pushed Si-mok and Yeo-jin out of their comfortable friendship – planting the question, “is there a chance we won’t be okay?” I wonder if we’ll see something quite different in the third season (which is apparently in discussion!), which surely won’t see them on opposing sides again.

I’ve been burned by enough ships that can potentially be read as ‘platonic’ to know that I shouldn’t hope for any overt romance, but Si-mok is such a unique character and has such a unique connection with Yeo-jin that I’m hopeful that their relationship could be deepened with nuance, even if it doesn’t become romantic in ‘recognisable’ ways. (I have other thoughts on his asexuality/aromanticism that I won’t get into here.) It’s precisely because their connection is built on mutual trust, respect, and understanding that it remains so compelling, and I think this scene promises growth, and some resolution, whenever we see them next.

#tvn stranger #secret forest 2 #stranger 2 #stranger #hwanghan

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ichika27 · 3 years

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Mairimashita! Irumakun s2 ep11

Alright... this is late again lol. There’s more than 15 images gonna be on here, I think. Like 2 or 3 more which usually causes errors if I try uploading that much but the twewy finale post miraculously handled more than 20 so maybe it’ll be fine.

This episode has 2 parts!

The exams are finally over and everyone is worried about their grades. Kalego-sensei very disappointedly tells them that... they all passed! He was hoping they won’t lol.

Some of the students ranked up because of their exam results and Iruma got praised for being the one to have improved a lot. While everyone is celebrating, Azz tells Iruma this all happened thanks to him. Iruma is confused as to how and Asmodeus tells him that the others saw how hard Iruma was working on studying that they got inspired to work hard to. Iruma is amazed by this information.

(While I do appreciate Azz being a one-man cheer squad for Iruma, I do hope he doesn’t inflate the guy’s ego too much cause it feels like it’s actually slowly happening and it scares me cause in other stories, such a thing would be a red flag signaling something bad happening. That’s just me though.)

Iruma runs off to look for Baram-sensei so he could tell him about the exam results and the stuff Azz said. He bumps into the guy on the way and sees that Sensei is now sporting a new haircut. (I think he looks better this way. More teacher-looking.)

Sensei is happy to know Iruma’s hard work paid off and spins the boy around happily. Iruma thanks him for all his help but Sensei said Iruma did his best and it’s why the results were good.

He gives Iruma a congratulatory present which made Iruma panic a little as he recognized the plant as a salamander flower. This made Sensei happy as this meant Iruma’s studies were successful and that the boy could recognize these stuff now. All of these knowledge would help Iruma survive living in the Demon World which is what Sensei wanted. He then mentions the flower he’s holding is made safe.

They talk a bit and Iruma tells him about Azz’s observation. Sensei then tells Iruma about why he changed his hairstyle. He says it’s to make himself look less scary so he could try and get along with other people. Iruma asked if it was because of him that he wanted to change (like Azz said earlier about how he affects people) and Sensei answered that it’s not exactly the case. It was thanks to Iruma that he wanted to change because Iruma’s words had a good impact on him especially cause he knew Iruma was sincere and not lying.

On the way back, Baram-sensei passed by Kalego-sensei who immediately notices the hairstyle change. Kalego-sensei laughs a bit and says he’s glad that Baram-sensei’s new hairstyle made him look more regal as it fits their ranking. It is now revealed that only the two of them in the school have the khet rank which is the 8th highest.

It’s also revealed what Baram-sensei’s ability is: Buzzer. He can tell when people are lying and could detect when someone is cheating which is why it’s impossible for students to cheat on the exams. He has the entire school covered, too and will immediately have any cheater caught.

Iruma and friends had their mini celebration for passing the tests by the way! Iruma asked where their Senpai is and Asmodeus informs him that the guy got caught cheating and is now taking remedials.

On the 2nd part of the episode, Ameri is waiting for Iruma so she could hold a mini celebration of her own as Iruma passed the tests but Clara shows up instead to tell her the bad news: Iruma had been dragged by the others to their own happy get-together at a karaoke... er, screaming room.

We then see the boys having fun and one is singing season 1′s OP!

Ameri reads Iruma’s text apologizing about not being able to come. She’s disappointed but she understands although she’s confused as to why Clara had to show up to tell her about it when Iruma could just text her like he had actually done. Clara then drags her, alongside the tea and snacks she prepared for Iruma, and brought her to the other girls.

Awkward.

They decide to do an introduction to start things off. Elizabetta also decided to finally talk to the popular Student Council President and ask a question she had been wondering: what shampoo does Ameri use? This started their little convo about shampoo and conditioner.

After Kerori tells what she uses, she remembers the commercial she did for said products (lol she’s sponsored) and is embarrassed. Ameri sees this and is confused as to why Kerori looks like she’s panicking.

Clara reveals that hers is soap. She uses just soap on her hair and body and everyone is surprised and kinda horrified by this information. They offer to give her some extra shampoo they have so she could try them out next time.

Meanwhile, back to the boys! It’s Iruma’s turn to sing and he can’t just say no. He worries as he doesn’t know any song... except one.

He then chose to sing the Kuromu song he sang with the idol last season - complete with dance! Everyone cheered on and sang along as well! No one suspected anything and just thought that Iruma is probably just a big Kuromu fan.

Back to the girls... it's time for the inevitable: talks about romance!

Elizabetta asks who they all like and Clara didn't miss a beat and answers "Iruma-chi". Ameri is shocked and also worried since she now realizes she has a rival who is closer to Iruma than she is (and one who is more feminine than her to boot!).

When it’s Kerori’s turn to answer, she suddenly remembered Iruma in his evil cycle (being the cool edgy boy that he is). Ameri is internally pissed and is wondering how many other girls might be into Iruma.

She is then reminded of a scene from the manga Iruma reads to her and realizes she can now relate to the female rival lol.

Hang in there, President! You’re better than this haha.

Everyone then continues with the love talk and assumes Ameri probably has some romantic experience with her being popular and all and asked for advice. Ameri, not actually having any and not exactly knowing what to say just answered the only things she know: stuff she’s read from a shoujo manga.

Kerori on the other hand is confused. Is it that hard to get a guy’s attention? In her experience as an idol, even just smiling at a guy would get them to like you. after all.

Clara later mentions how she likes Iruma... and everyone. Ameri then had to ask for clarification and explains the “like” they've all been talking about all this time is romantic in nature. To explain, it’s like wanting to marry Iruma.

Clara’s imagination quickly went to work and she thinks of her wedding with Iruma. Here’s a cute picture of Clara realizing her feelings lol.

Kerori and Elizabetta starts arguing about the whole marriage thing. Kerori thinks they’re too young to even think of marriage (yeah, like, aren’t they all 14-15?) and Elizabetta thinks that it doesn’t matter cause love is love. Ameri gives her own perspective and says proposal and being engaged first would be good (and she thinks of Iruma). In the middle of their argument, they wonder why they all suddenly got aggressive about this. It is revealed (to the audience only) that it’s the effect of the relaxing tea. They’ve become too relaxed that they were able to say what’s on their minds easily.

They finally calmed down later that afternoon and realized they actually had fun and got along. Ameri then tells them that if she’s not on student council duty, they may call her by her name which made the others happy. The girls exchanged phone numbers afterwards.

This episode is pretty peaceful. I like all the little things that happened and the conversations that let us learn a bit about many characters. The boys having fun at the karaoke was nice to watch and the girls becoming friends is so cute!

So, I usually don’t really mention the “Interval” chibi segments of the show but the one for today’s episode gave a bit of behind the scene at something. Eiko, the girl who has a crush on Iruma (and Ameri) wanted to help Iruma study so she did what she could: she herself studied and made easy to understand reviewers. She had Asmodeus pass them onto Iruma (in a past interval segment, the two became friends due to their shared love of Iruma).

Come exam results, Eiko got really high marks from all the studying she did for Iruma’s sake. :)

Nothing too intense happened this time around so this is pretty short. If I had known I wouldn’t get errors, I would’ve gotten a few more screenshots. I wonder what the next arc is gonna be like though?

Well, thanks for reading!

#welcome to demon school iruma-kun #Mairimashita! Iruma-kun #anime #sana_post

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rachelbethhines · 4 years

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Tangled Salt Marathon - Rapunzel and the Great Tree Part 1

We’re now finally at the mid-season finale of season two, and it’s easily the best episode of this season. That however doesn’t mean that it’s not flawed, so here we go...

Summary: The group makes it to the Great Tree, only to be confronted by a new adversary: Hector, the brother of Adira, the most dangerous member of the Brotherhood; sworn to keep all from reaching the Dark Kingdom. Despite all that has happened, Rapunzel is determined to continue on toward the Dark Kingdom to uncover the truth behind her destiny. As they navigate through the Great Tree, Rapunzel discovers the Moonstone incantation which overwhelms the magical powers of the Sundrop in her blonde hair and causes injury and weakness to those around her.

The Brotherhood Is Such a Wasted Concept

We have a group of highly trained warriors, directly connected to the series main macguffin, who consider each other siblings, who all have conflicting goals, and they’re all severely underdeveloped to the point of ridiculousness.

For starters, in a show all about pushing sibling rivalries as parallels to the two main characters, it utterly fails to show the only other siblings who are actually connected to the plot acting like actual siblings.

Adira and Hector should be a parallel to Cass and Rapunzel in this very episode. One that actually ties into the narrative, yet outside of calling each other brother/sister/brethren they don’t act like family; even feuding family. Adira also fails to treat Quirin, Varian, Edmund, and Eugene as family. She shows no real concern for any of them despite saving her home (which would included her family) from the rocks being her main goal. She should be just as every bit as invested in saving Quirin as Varian. Which is yet another reason why Varian should have been S2 and another entry point for him in the show’s plot.

As for the rest of the Brotherhood, they never even interact at all. I don’t think anyone tells either Edmund or Hector what has happened to Quirin or Varian. And Edmund clearly didn’t inform Hector of Eugene, even though he logically should have. And did any of them know if Edmund was alive, despite Edmund having the means to communicate with the outside world with the crows?

What we’re left with is a bunch of holes in the story, because there’s now a bunch of holes in everyone’s motivations and their actions never quite line up.

And before you say, ‘well they’re not that important’, or ‘they’re aren’t meant to be a real family’; then that is in of itself a flaw because they should be. Not making them found family undermines Raps and Cass being found family, as it undermines every other sibling parallel in the show, and those parallels are the only build up we have to the sister reveal in S3.

It also undermines the moonstone plot and the whole reason why season two exists. Don't introduce things that connect back to your story and not make them important. In fact don't introduce unimportant elements in a plot driven show like this period.

Another Indication of the Timeline

As stated before, Tangled is really bad at indicating the passage of time, despite the passage of time being a big plot point. We’re now a ‘few months’ past the island, which itself was 6 weeks, and before that it was several weeks to maybe even a few months before getting to the island...

So when does this take place? Well we were told that season two takes place over the course of a year by the creator, and that this is the mid-season finale so 6 months since SotSD sounds the most plausible. We also see fall trees dotted around like we did during the first half of season one. Which is the only visual indicator we get of changing seasons in the show, but it’s too understated to be properly noticeable most of the time.

However, the crew themselves can’t even seem to agree if Rapunzel’s Return is her birthday or not, so if you’ve heard conflicting sources, it’s because this shit wasn’t planned properly first. But all dialogue and visual cues point to the first half of season two being at least 4 to 6 months. With 6 being the most logical placement.

Just a Reminder, that Hook Foot Is Still Useless

If all you were going to have him do is whine like a child during the only plot important episode that he is in, then why not just replace him with an actual child?

It takes more work to leave Varian out of season two and force Hook Foot in his place, than it does just to write Varian in. There were so many potential entry points for his character, that the one they would up going with was the least natural to the characters and the story they were trying to tell. And even then, the Saporian take over they went with could still have worked had they handled things properly and pre-planned that stuff out.

But they didn’t. By all accounts S2 was a hasty re-write to get rid of Varian and Hook Foot was shoehorned in as his replacement at the last minute. And it’s the most utterly baffling creative decision I have ever witnessed in my life. There was zero logical reason for it.

This Plot Point Wasn’t Built Up Enough and It Goes Nowhere

Look, had they actually pointed out that Cass is a bodyguard now, and that this line from Raps threatens her career goals, that would make sense; or they could have explored the idea that Cass’s identity revolves around her job, and so feeling like her job is pointless makes her feel pointless therefore making her feel insecure about her future. Either of those would have been interesting jumping off points for her character arc and later conflicts.

But that’s not what they did.

I think that’s what they were initially trying to go for here, but it got muddled in the mess that was last minute rewrites.

Cass obtaining her goals in season one is ignored in favor of a bland and vague validation goal from this point onwards. Her issues with Rapunzel are then boiled down to be about; not identity, agency, class, or wanting a future, but into fighting over a dead mom and how one wasn’t ‘loved enough’ apparently. Which makes no sense given what we know of Cass from previous seasons.

Cassandra isn’t deep or complex; she is convoluted. The writing team couldn’t agree on what her goals and motivations should be, and so she performs conflicting actions throughout the story that actively undermines what was previously established and what she supposedly wants.

Most people who try to defend the writing for Cassandra do so with this idea that because they had to work hard to ‘connect the dots’ for all these seemingly disconnected plot ideas, means that of course the writing is ‘deep’ but that’s ignoring one of the basic fundamentals of writing.

The audience shouldn’t have to do the writer’s job!

Having to think about a story doesn’t mean that you need to go digging around for basic information like the character’s goals or what happened when. A writer’s job is to first and foremost clearly communicate ideas to their audience. Plot and character analysis is about finding extras like, metaphors, moral messages, and coming up with fun headcanons that don't impact the wider story. Because all of the bare bones information needed to understand the story should already be there for everyone to see.

If you gotta go into ‘analysis’ just explain the damn plot and why things are unfolding the way they do, then the story is badly written. Full stop.

Cinderella wanting to go to the ball is a simple goal, but it’s an understandable one that anyone watching can grasp. You could go into a deeper analysis about abuse and what the ball symbolises for Cinderella’s character or how the story is an analogy for wider social issues at large, but at the end of the day everyone needs to be in agreement that, yes, Cinderella wants to go to the ball and we know why she wants to go, so that her actions in trying to get there make sense.

No one knows what Cassandra wants. Cassandra herself doesn’t know what she wants. So the ‘why’ part for what she does is never answered.

Hector Is Wasted

As already stated, all of the Brotherhood is wasted, but Hector more so than most. Season two desperately needed an ongoing threat, a main antagonist to push the story forward. Hector should have been that antagonist. Instead he shows up for this one episode, and then in a few non-speaking cameos in S3.

Then Why Not Just Stay With Them Adira?

We’re never given an actual reason for why Adira keeps leaving the group, and indeed doing so conflicts with her stated goal of getting Rapunzel safely to the moonstone. It’s just shoehorned in here to create ‘mystery’, but mysteries have to be answered at some point. You can’t throw something in for drama’s sake and not explain why it’s there.

Lance’s Crush on Adira Isn’t Handled Well

Look, this isn’t a judgment upon those who ship the characters. When I talk about relationships in the show I’m only talking about how well they are written on screen. I couldn’t care less what the fans do with them.

Even when I discuss my personal preferences for ships, that is all that is, my personal preference. I don't give a shit if you ship something that I may dislike, or if you hate something that I do enjoy. I’m a grown up with more important things to do than worry over what a bunch strangers may write on A03 about a bunch of fictional characters, and as someone who hates bullies above all else, I’ll defend your right to make whatever content to want to because censorship is just a form of bullying and nothing else.

No matter how gross or reprehensible I may personally find it. Different stories resonate with different people and for different reasons. I may debate your reasons, if the subject comes up, or critique professional media for the messages it puts out to the wider public, but I’ll never say you can’t like it or that you can’t make it.

So with that stated, I don’t like Lance’s dynamic with Adira in the show and here’s my reasons for that.

She doesn’t ever return the feelings.

At best she tolerates him, at worse she actively kicks his butt when he gets too close, and most of the time she ignores him. Which is for good reason; she’s old enough to be his mom. Why would she be attracted to him?

Like I’m not saying that age gaps between adults are inherently wrong; I’m saying that if there is a significant age gap then you really have to work hard to build up a reason for why the two characters would go for each other when naturally they wouldn’t be in each other’s usual sphere of dating options. Which the series never does because once again Adira is clearly not interested in him.

This leads to Lance basically being an annoying ‘nice guy’ who can’t take a hint. Like constantly badgering someone who doesn’t want you to isn’t charming or endearing, and Lance is old enough to know this by now.

Basically the writers just took the Varian and Cassandra dynamic from Great Expotations and slapped it onto Lance and Adira despite the fact that it made zero sense for their characters. Lance isn’t a lonely teen who desperately wants to fit in and make a connection with someone. He’s not out to prove that he is mature, nor mistakenly believes himself to be an equal to the only other girl in the kingdom that has ever talked to him that isn’t already married/seriously dating and still living at home. Adira never comes around to considering Lance a trusted friend and confidante after shoving nearly everyone else away. She doesn’t seek out his help or approval, nor tries to build him up with compliments, ect, and so forth.

Now, I dislike the Cass and Varian ship for many, many reasons, but as they are presented on screen in the Great Expo it makes sense for why Varian would at first have an unrequited crush on her. Now after that QfaD he logically shouldn’t ever want anything to do with her but we’ll get to that later. That’s not the case with Lance and Adira; they’re both too old for such a dynamic.

To add on to the weird factor, they’re both related to Eugene. Adira is technically Eugene’s aunt, even if she never acts like it. Lance is also the closest thing to a brother Eugene has. They don’t recognize each other as such, so if you want to say their just friends or ship them or whatever, there’s wiggle room. But the end effect is like Maya in Girl Meets World crushing on her best friend’s, Riley’s, Uncle Josh. Only even with less basis, and it wasn’t that great there either.

Why Do you Suddenly Not Trust Adira Cass?

Forest of No Return was all about establishing trust in Adira, including with Cass at the end, so why the sudden back track? Especially since Adira hasn’t done anything but been honest with them, and has saved their butts several times now. All this does is make Cassandra look like an ass, which you don't need to be doing if you want the audience to side with her later on in the story.

Everyone Now Knows Quirin is a Part of the Brotherhood, So There’s No Excuse For Later

It’s an odd way to state that fact, but yeah, both Cass and Raps are told directly that Quirin is in the Brotherhood, and Lance, Eugene, and Hookfoot are also present and presumably listing to this exchange. So no one in S3 has an excuse to ignore this plot point until the finale.

This Backstory Goes Nowhere

Adira launches into this story about Zhan Tiri, Demanitus, and the Great Tree and literally none of it actually matters. It’s never brought up again after this episode. We never get any insight into why they were fighting, how Zhan Tiri corrupted a tree, what significance the tree has outside of being really big and holding some scrolls, nor how the scrolls got there, why the tree is still connect to Zhan Tiri hundreds of years later, nor how Demanitus magic spear works or what it even does exactly.

Don’t introduce lore and then don't have it mean anything.

Why Do you Care, Cass?

Cassandra isn’t a lady-in-waiting anymore. We’ve already established that back in Secret of the Sun Drop and in Beyond the Corona Walls. So why should she care if Adira calls her one? Adira isn’t from Corona. Adira isn’t in charge of anything. Cassandra doesn’t even like her, so Adira’s opinion shouldn’t matter.

This whole season we’ve seen Cass treat Adira like shit, but apparently we’re supposed to feel sorry for her when she can’t take clap back for all the grief she’s given. Is she really so immature that she can’t just ignore a petty insult for what it is? Why does she have to behave so insecure that she will jeopardize the mission or someone’s life over it? This is the deuteragonist I’m suppose to root for and relate to? I mean she’s twenty three for goodness sake! Grow the hell up woman!

Also while we on the subject, a royal guard and a lady-in-waiting are both servants. There’s no distinction between the two beyond what duties they perform, and that would be the case regardless of what job Cass had. Rapunzel’s a princess, everyone is her servant. That’s how the class system works, and by all means Cassandra enjoys more privilege than most people in Corona. She’s the Captain’s daughter, was granted next in line for that position in SotSD, and lady-in-waiting means to the princess means she’s above all the other maids except for Crowley and Friedberg. Cass may hate her job, but she hasn’t room to complain when Faith is right there and has things much worse.

In short making Cass suddenly indignant over being treated as lower class when she didn’t give a crap about the likes of Attila, Caine, Varian, Eugene, Lance, ect... just makes her look like a hypocrite.

The Other Reason to Dislike Lance’s Crush is That It Hinders His Development

Lance’s arc is that he’s suppose to learn to be more responsible. This episode in particular is suppose address his habit of lying... only it doesn’t. We get no real resolvement on this point. We also never see Lance progress enough to give up on Adira and stop pursuing her even when it’s directly pointed out to him that she doesn’t reciprocate his feelings. So in the end he still remains immature and irresponsible.

Though this conversation just proves that Eugene and Lance still have the healthiest relationship in the show. They’re about to disagree or call each other’s bullshit without resorting to insults or getting violent, which is more than what any relationship involving Cass does.

Questions With No Answers

We never learn why these scrolls are here, why they have the incantations on them and upon the wall, we don’t know who translated them, nor who came up with the incantations in the first place.

This is all important info that he series glosses over, because unlike the moonstone and sundrop, the incantations are things that someone had to have made at some point, and they could only have made them by studying what our plot macguffins are and how they work. Since the incantations are things that are also sought after by the big bad along with the magical objects, then we need to know how the big bad knows about them when no one else does. How they came about.

Which is yet another reason why we needed a magic system in place.

This Song is Catchy, But It Doesn’t Need To Exist

In a musical a song needs to either establish the plot, build the world, or further the characters. This song does none of those things, it’s not needed for Lance and Eugene’s relationship, it doesn’t actually resolve Lance’s plot as he is high when he apologizes for lying, and it wasn’t needed to established the man eating plant. I honestly think this song only exists so that the animators could just reuse assets they built to save on money.

The Hurt Incantation Is the Coolest Thing In the Show! Shame It’s Not Utilized Well

People are suckered into this show by one of three things usually, ‘Let Me Make You Proud Reprise’, ‘Ready As I’ll Ever Be’, or this scene.

It’s shocking, powerfull, and a really, really awesome concept. It’s one of the best scenes in the show, and an interesting idea that offers up a lot of story possibilities.

Possibilities that’ll never actually be explored on screen. The hurt incantation isn’t useless, it does affect the plot, but it’s not used effectively. There was so much you could have done with this but it’s then never explored. Characters outright forget its existence even when they have no reason to, or it’s used to do things that should have been accomplished in other ways. It’s also never fully explained or expanded upon. They couldn’t even bother to give it more than one verse.

All of the incantations are mishandled in this show, but the hurt incantation is the one that has the biggest let down.

Conclusion

So that ends part 1, join me tomorrow for part 2.

#tangled #tangled the series #rapunzel's tangled adventure #anti-tangled #anti-cassandra #hector #the brotherhood #lance #adira

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zhouxuns · 5 years

Text

thoughts on the finale

overall, s3 was quite good. but the finale makes it all feel pointless. and not just s3, but s2 and s1 as well. and i know the line about “the universe acknowledges you” was because of what was to come and was supposed to be some sort of comfort to the audience, but it wasn’t. at least not for me. legion never stuck the landing for their finales so this doesn’t surprise me. but i’m gonna rant anyways.

several things i didn’t like.

1) no acknowledgement whatsoever of the hallers who gave david a loving life. they retconned the hallers’ existence this whole season to push the idea that david never received love in his childhood and didn’t grow up looked after. despite the fact that we’ve seen throughout s1 how dearly important david’s childhood was and how important mama and papa haller were to him and how much he loved them and vice versa. i mean really, no acknowledgement of amy haller at all? the woman he cared about most besides syd? his sister? who was so important to him, we got a multiverse episode about how key amy was to david’s lives? not even an acknowledgement towards lenny when she killed herself inside amy’s body? and even worse, we’ll never know precisely why the xaviers gave david to the hallers in the first place. i found this retcon extremely insulting to david’s character, but to adopted families/foster families.

2) farouk’s redemption. how utterly insulting to the audience’s intelligence to redeem farouk with no recognition for his insidious actions and unrelenting vile choices. he possessed a baby, terrorized it for fun, abused a child, he sexually molested david every time david was frozen with fear to further suppress him, he raped lenny, a lesbian, whenever he felt like it, he stole people’s bodies because he felt like it, he killed endless amounts of people. and then they have this same farouk ask his younger self if he was really that hateful and petty as if the audience is supposed to forget that just a year prior to that conversation, that this same farouk brutally murdered an innocent amy haller to get at david and, as lenny said, raped her whenever he wanted. the same person who continued to plant the ideas in david’s head that he’s god and doesn’t have to regard the lives of other people. the same person that kidnapped syd and manipulated her into turning against david before he even betrayed her. like, for real? just retcon all of that to pretend like farouk had a change of heart and always loved david and wants world peace? all it takes is to share beer with your old enemy despite the fresh blood on your hands? wow. how embarrassingly bad is that on the writers’ behalf.

3) syd. not only did syd have a mere handful of lines in this episode, but yet again, it’s as if the writers changed their minds about syd’s feelings/characterization. she’s got to be one of the most jerked around characters on this show. she used to be consistent up until the latter half of s2 when the writers decided to make syd ooc for the sake of plot (you know, the david is evil crap). syd just episodes prior expressed that she felt it was worth it to have been with david and that she wouldn’t change it. she didn’t regret their love, she regretted their downfall. in her final moments, she’s back to bitter snark, borderline defeating the whole empathy episode. i loved the bit about saving baby david, but loathed the “i am” in response to david saying she’ll be extraordinary without him around. it retcons the entire value of syd’s history, her life choices, her self perception. syd, who ALWAYS believed she was extraordinary, given by her famous quote “who teaches us to be normal when we’re one of a kind”, suddenly will be a “better” person w/o having known david? when it was through him she found summerland, found mutant allies, found freedom, found a second childhood. and then what is the purpose of saying her new life will be distinctly amazing if we don’t even get to see it? not even an epilogue paragraph of what syd became in her new life? it felt like such an impersonal send off for her. she’s the female lead but yet again she ends up on the reduced end of things.

4) no consequences. the entire theme of s3 was, time traveling can change the past, but it can’t change who we are. there were no consequences in sight for any of these people. all those awful things david did, murdering and orphaning people, causing his best friend/sister’s suicide, drugging those hundreds of women, none of it mattered when legion pretended like it was supposed to. we didn’t really see david grow. we didn’t truly see him redeem his self. we didn’t see him express any true regret or remorse for all he did on the way there. right up until he end he remained in his entitled tantrum state. all it did was justify everything he did. because the past got rewritten. david got his second life and the people he sacrificed to do it don’t matter. and really? “sorry” was all he could say to the woman he raped and hurt the most? big yikes. legion’s faux commentary on make entitlement and sexism went absolutely nowhere. it’s absolutely bull crap. further proof that rape should’ve never been part of this show, let alone trying to do commentary on rape culture.

5) disjointed elements. switch turning out to be a time god felt so last minute and so lazy. she suffers and endured all this abuse from david because she was meant to “grow up” into her celestial clock form. sure it’s better than just her dying, but it feels as if her screentine was dedicated for a disappointing surprise. given how much screentime switch took up, i expected better. this is my main problem with shows adding more characters to the main plot. it causes the original characters to be neglected which results in less screentime for the originals (syd and the loudermilk twins) or being killed/written off (lenny, ptonomy, the birds) and usually the pay off isn’t good.

6) the severe lack of follow up. we will never know what oliver’s 1 + 1 plan was. we will never know what ultimately became of the birds. what became of ptonomy, who they turned into a flash drive and gave all of 3 lines to for the whole season, we’ll never know what the 3 years from now event change ptonomy calculated turned out to be, or what became of summerland or division 3. we’ll never know why they showed 616!legion in the desert. we will never get a true apology from syd to david and vice versa. we will never get an actual explanation for why farouk was allowed to roam around freely and unchecked despite him being the root cause for david’s demise.

7) the impersonal approach to mental illness. what’s the deal? legion had such a sensitive despite clinical approach to mental illness in s1. they handed the diagnoses with such care and the themes involved with it. in s2 it’s all but abandoned, and in s3 the theme returns, but with no personal touch whatsoever. ah gabrielle has the sickness, it runs in the women in the family, okay mental illness is hereditary for david, understandable. how come this is something david never reconciles his self with? how come they never give david’s true diagnosis? we know he has dissociative identity disorder, but david doesn’t. david is expressly in denial about being mentally ill, even saying he’s not “crazy” to his mother. yet he has a system of alters he works with. they all say “i am legion” which we know is what his collective of alters are called, but that’s it. one of the things david wanted to change was his mental illness. is he ever going to learn he can’t change that because he was sick all along because of his mother? his mental illness is such a huge aspect to her character yet in s3 it just feels like a post it note stuck to his chest. no one regards it with sensitivity. no one accepts responsibility in exacerbating his condition. nothing. legion used to be about mental illness. then they shed it for social commentary which held no weight, and destroyed the characterizations for an outcome that was ultimately inconsequential.

overall, this just proves to me that legion needed more than 3 seasons. easily 4-5 seasons would’ve worked better for this. legion doesn’t even leave things up for interpretation, it just leaves most of what they set up unanswered. i felt since s2 that it had been too soon to develop the story they were developing and i was right. choosing a 3 seasons arc where 2.8 out of the 3 seasons the male lead is a sympathetic and genuinely good character to make him evil and narcissistic and apathetic? makes no sense. or when the female lead used to be this complex morally grey character and at her last hour becomes isolated once more and is quoting things straight out of 2014 tumblr? i mean really? wtf.

the other characters didn’t get to do enough across these seasons. they were cannon fodder for david’s story/development (or lack thereof) more than anything else. once they were less proximal to david, they were less relevant to the writers too.

syd and david’s relationship didn’t last nearly long enough before they were thrust into ghastly new territories. and the same goes for everyone else’s dynamic on the show. far too much offscreen development occurred. farouk having a change of heart? you truly couldn’t pinpoint any point where farouk ever felt sorry for david or cared about anyone else but his self. he’s been nothing but condescending, sadistic, manipulative, and countless other atrocities. d3 and the summerlanders being comfortable with farouk with no mind control at play at all? get real. kerry and syd’s friendship was nice tidbit but we didn’t see it develop at all. it would’ve been important to see these female mutants develop a relationship. it’s the most frustrating thing aboutall of this. clearly more time was needed.

we needed more time for these things to feel truly earned. but noah was way in over his head because of how busy he became by the time s2 swung around and decided to cut the show short. i don’t buy for one minute that 3 seasons was the plan all along. everything about legion’s story progression beyond s1 screams improvisation and a messy one at that. there wasn’t enough time for these characters to breathe, too much characterization and story had been retconned to get the ending over with, and legion choosing to end where it began, except all the characters we loved are gone, all the things that made the show most important to us are gone, feels more depressing than i thought it would.

it’s going to be difficult rewatching the show especially from its flawless premier season, knowing none of it happens at all. it’s literally unfathomable to think that 3 years later this is where we’d be. i’m so disappointed.

#legion fx #david haller #sydney barrett #amahl farouk #lenny busker #text post

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ganymedesclock · 7 years

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Your meta is singlehandedly responsible for all my opinions and characterization of Shiro tbh and I kinda just realized something. Tell me if I'm wrong but I get the feeling what you're trying to say about after-s2 Shiro is just: This is Shiro, except now all his stressors are Worse.

I mean, Shiro’s not the same person he was in the first two seasons just as much as none of the other paladins are the same person they were in the first two seasons, but, I definitely think Shiro since then has built on what was established as his essential character that’s growing and changing.

Part of it is he’s under a lot more pressure. Part of it is, when Shiro first came to the position in s1 he basically took all of his trauma and survivalism and tried to stuff it back into the mold of the Garrison’s Golden Boy. And ironically, I think it’s s1 Shiro who’s a lot more callous- look through the early episodes and see how many times Shiro interrupts, corrects, shoves or silences Lance in particular.

He’s determined to make a good impression early on, and, frankly, Shiro’s first impression of Lance is not favorable- he seems to regard him as just fooling around when the paladins need to be serious, they need to commit to this.

He’s also the one to chew out Keith for demanding Pidge can’t leave and was about to make, frankly, a very bad decision by letting Pidge wander off alone into the universe without even questioning how even a very resourceful and clever fifteen year old intends to survive in a hostile spacefaring empire they know almost nothing about. And it’s pretty clear, I think, rather than fair judgment, Shiro’s letting his personal sense of guilt, believing he failed the Holts, rule in this context.

Yes, people shouldn’t be shackled to paladin duty, but given Pidge’s custom jet booster had a good chance of making the pod explode (and by good, seemingly as high as 50% since it was used twice and the second time it detonated) on top of everything else, it’s clear if she’d gone off alone the way she meant to, she would have died.

Shiro in s1 is trying to be a perfect leader for everyone and frankly, who he’s become since then is better. It stands that he’s come a long way that Hunk, Lance, and Shiro himself all agree it’s unlike him to snap at people and bark orders.

At a glance, Shiro might seem as if he’s doing worse, but to me, I think it’s an incredibly heartening sign that Shiro’s character development appears to be an exercise in learning to ask for help.

Because while Shiro’s not a tyrant of a leader the way Zarkon leaned alarmingly close to in s3e7 on multiple occasions- it stands that Shiro, too, especially early on, suffered from that disconnect. He kept his own problems incredibly close to his chest. It’s obvious that he desperately latched onto being Black Paladin as a way to cope- as a way to redefine himself by something other than what had just happened to him.

Shiro in s1 is a tight-coiled spring. He’s uptight, he argues with Lance over the littlest things, in s1e1 on two separate occasions he breaks up arguments just by yelling for them to stop or “Stow it, cadets!”

Shiro’s growth as a character involves climbing off the pedestal he was sitting on at the beginning of the show. And he’s not the only one who was enforcing it, either- Lance flat-out says Shiro was his personal hero.

In the comics, Pidge can’t conceive the idea of defeating Shiro at all even though he’s really not that much a better fighter than the other paladins- before she gets her head in gear and is able to knock him out, she just reflexively looks to him as an invincible paragon which is a pretty big cognitive slip in an issue all about Pidge’s ability to gather and keep data.

In s3e1, none of the team can really see themselves conceptualizing Shiro and a lot of their overtures seem to suggest, more than none of them are suited to the Black Lion like Shiro is (fair!) that... not a lot of them really understand what Shiro was doing. Even Keith, the closest to Shiro, leads as a Red Paladin. He says he can’t do this like Shiro can but he never seems to clarify what that entails.

What I personally think began in earnest in s3, though there were small things building towards it all along, is the systematic demystification of Shiro as the perfect leader, as the team’s paragon.

There’s kind of a point that, as Zarkon’s specific counterpart, enemy, and successor, Shiro is going to be called upon to succeed where Zarkon failed.

And Zarkon’s failure, what led to his death and downfall as a paladin, was twofold: he failed to listen to his team when they had valid points, and he kept all of his personal suffering privately away from them.

Zarkon gambles everything to rescue Honerva in s3e7, and it goes disastrously because he lies to his team the entire way leaving them completely unprepared- so when he ends up outside of his Lion and faced with a devastatingly powerful opponent, he’s surrounded and killed while the rest of the team is not in a position to do anything to help him.

Shiro in s1e11 leads the team in an equally desperate gamble to rescue Allura, and it works out. It works out because Shiro has the team’s consent beforehand, and even people who disagree (Keith) still consent to go. So when Shiro ends up outside his Lion and faced with a devastatingly powerful opponent on two fronts, it’s not his personal skill as a fighter that keeps him alive.

It’s Keith going toe to toe with Zarkon to buy Shiro time to get back to the Black Lion.

It’s Lance, Pidge, and Coran holding off the majority of the empire’s forces.

It’s Hunk smashing in to break Allura out, and it’s her and him together that come to save Shiro’s bacon from Haggar who had already seriously injured him and could easily have killed him in that moment.

It’s pretty obvious that Shiro being honest and transparent with his team is what’s keeping him from getting killed. They’re his saving grace, time and time again, Keith especially- which is a big deal, when Keith is Alfor’s successor, and while Zarkon broke with the entire team, it was his refusal to listen to Alfor that was the nail in his coffin.

And in s5e3 and s5e6, what’s steadily moving into position to save his bacon from Kuron? It’s not just Lance being the team’s interpersonal Heart as usual- but rather, that Shiro is finally, decisively, opening up and connecting to the person he’s been at odds with from the start.

And while a lot of people take that as a “boo hoo, poor Lance”... it’s really more to Shiro’s detriment than Lance’s. After Shiro and Lance argue, Lance is the one who has multiple people verbally taking his side (Hunk, twice, and Allura personally talking to him about it with her concerns, and Shiro himself apologizing)- while Shiro clearly is falling back on bad habits and withdrawing from the team about his issues.

Because Shiro, in a very catlike manner, starts avoiding people when he’s feeling awful. Which is why I think it’s such an unsung glorious moment when in s5e6, when Lance hasn’t even brought it up again or prompted it- Shiro is the one to bring it up and basically tell Lance to keep looking into this because something’s really wrong.

S5e6 is a glorious day for Shiro’s character because, some time before the car has set on fire, Shiro’s actually rolling down the window and telling someone “hey, the door’s locked and I don’t know where this thing is going, and this is kind of a problem. Can you... get help, please, I’m terrified”

So in that sense, much as I purport to be take it or leave it about clone theory, that’s why I really hope this is the original Shiro at hand... because everything he’s learning here is incredibly good and important for his long term emotional health and I’m pretty sure what we’re gonna get out of Kuron is a strong positive emotional arc for Shiro and Lance.

Shiro’s moving away from being the team’s perfect leader, but that’s nothing to mourn, because instead of a perfect leader he’s becoming an honest, emotionally healthy person who knows he can actually trust his team. And my multiple posts talking about how Shiro really wasn’t that perfect once you take the rose-tinted glasses off isn’t dunking on him or calling him lame-

it’s pointing out that he really wasn’t doing anybody a favor by pretending to be ideal leader. In s1e9 he had a full-tilt panic attack and immediately jumped into realizing Allura was still in danger and they had to act fast to prevent them all from being destroyed- which is fine, except the part where... he didn’t unpack or process any of that afterwards.

Sendak dug up a huge volume of Shiro’s insecurities, trauma, and frankly fear of himself, of the idea of being irreconcilably changed by what the empire did to him. This is a big problem. The implication is on some level Shiro is genuinely not comfortable in his own skin and that... wasn’t the only allusion to it.

S4e4 is basically a whole exercise in the paladins and how they relate to image (and how they really don’t) and with Shiro, the main thing Worm!Coran focuses on is Shiro’s body.

Shiro’s body, that, seemingly, he prefers to keep covered as much as possible given even though he prefers pretty close-fitting attire, he’s also pretty consistently one of the most modestly dressed of the paladins. That, as mentioned, Sendak was able to maliciously play on the fact that Shiro has some lingering anxieties of what was done to it, and that pervades his flashbacks and reactions to his missing year- the repeated implications of medical torture emphasized less by pain (sedatives are frequently shown) and more that things were done to him, that he doesn’t know the extent of, and he was powerless to stop.

And Shiro- perfectionist, anxious about how people see him (s1e6 for example), with these very serious insecurities about bodily autonomy and the aftermath that he’s been living with...

(he has a large facial scar, lost color in part of his hair, and is missing an arm, to say nothing of any other scars he might have that we as an audience haven’t seen, and, personally, his body type to me suggests that he lost weight in prison and his super-defined musculature is less about athletics and more a lack of proper subcutaneous fat)

...has Worm Coran repeatedly telling him to show off his body. The relatively innocuous (before Coran gets brain-wormed) start of it all even has the script make a joke about how Shiro only has one hand, that he gives a “really?” aside look at.

I can’t help but feel like the implication there, when all of the other prompts poke at existing insecurities-

Allura feeling like she’s just an ineffective replacement for the person no longer with the team when she was one of the loudest unhappy voices about him drifting away, Hunk being relegated to his gastrointestinal problems and his genuine quick wit and keen sense of humor ignored, Pidge being ignored because “nobody cares what you’re saying anyway!”, and Lance the actor basically spending the entire time indulging the fake, flashy casanova persona he uses to cover all of his own insecurities

-that there’s something significant that, again, all of s4e4 for Shiro is talking about his body, especially his muscles, which is seemingly another change after the missing year- he doesn’t seem nearly that built in the Garrison pictures, though it could be that he’s just wearing more modest clothing, it’s still very suspicious especially when Haggar’s endeavor was to turn Shiro into her personal fighting machine.

Shiro’s got a huge amount of things that have been quietly eating him from the start, and the good news is, they’re actually starting to bubble to the surface- he’s actually breaking down and talking about them with less and less impetus, which is important, because back in s2e7, Shiro made it clear that his connection with Black, that any ideal connection, needs to be rooted in trust. And while he’s heavily spun that as, he needs to be trustworthy to others...

If Shiro never talks to the team about his problems, no matter how he might spin that as not wanting to burden them or that he’s able to deal with it on his own, he’s not trusting them.

And again, that Lance is seemingly the catalyst for this is amazing to me, because Lance?

Lance is the trust guy. Lance is the feelings guy. Lance is the uncrowned king of literally every thing Shiro has been struggling with the absence of here.

Lance is both the guy who genuinely gets in Shiro’s face when he feels like Shiro isn’t listening to him, but he’s also the guy talking about how Keith needs to trust the Black Lion because Black wouldn’t ask him to do this for no reason (when Black is Shiro’s Lion, and Keith draws many obvious explicit parallels between Shiro’s requesting him to fly Black and Black taking Keith as their replacement paladin).

Lance is the one who tells Allura that Shiro is ultimately not their enemy, that they’re on the same side, and who’s vindicated when Shiro is now clearly working with Lance against Haggar, telling him that something’s wrong and that he doesn’t feel right, hasn’t felt right for a while, which is the last thing Haggar wants Shiro to do.

Lance trusts Shiro, but not blindly. He’s compassionate, but not to the point of self-neglect. He is exactly the head that Shiro needs on his team right now. And that experience is gonna mean a hell of a lot to Lance, as well.

#voltron legendary defender #vld #Shiro #Lance #readmore #guess who's pumped for Shiro and Lance in season 6 #this guyyyyyy #Anonymous

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starellas · 6 years

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Voltron S6 Review/Thoughts/Venting? XD

So I’ve finished watching s6 a while ago and my emotions are all over the place. I saw a lot of Tumblr users writing their impressions/thoughts, so I decided to do the same. Right now I’m a mess with feelings all over the place so this will also be a mess (sorry).

The post is long so be warned.

Ok so before I get into anything, right off the bat I want to say that the animation was absolutely gorgeous and stunning. I’m not knowledgeable in animation or anything like that but I was honestly blown away by the small details. I also noticed some mistakes here and there like Lance pushing Kaltenecker into the Blue Lion instead of the Red one, but i think that at this point the VCrew are also confused about the whole lion swap just as much as we are.

Music was stunning, especially during the Keith vs. Shiro fighting scene. It’s so powerful and beautifully goes along with the feelings the characters feel. It portrays their inner conflict but also hurt they’re feeling. We, as audience, can feel all of that in the music alone and honestly, the music made the feeling of that moment all the more powerful. I know it’s something people tend to miss a lot so try listening for yourselves. If you re-watch the season and pick out the music, you’ll see what I mean.

Now I’ll separate my points because if I don’t, it’ll get a bit messy. One thing that got to me is that most fans are talking about ships and about Allurance. Are you guys serious? You’re going to talk about ships while there is some powerful shit going on aside from romance?

Don’t get me wrong, romance plays a huge role this season. We got our very first kiss and then the words “I love you” being spoken. It was a shocker and especially with the kiss, however, before I get to all that, I want to admire the masterpiece that is Keith and his development.

Keith’s arc

Keith was absent from the team for 2 seasons and we were all complaining how badly we want him back. Well, I can officially say that this makes it up to me for all the seasons he missed. His actions were so fucking powerful, and his words were so sincere that it made me cry on multiple occasions. Keith has grown tremendously and his journey of self discovery has really helped him achieve all that, giving us this masterpiece of a finale.

Keith’s selflessness

Keith is the most selfless person on Voltron and nobody will tell me otherwise. I know that we have the other paladins who are just as willing to sacrifice themselves for their teammates but it’s noting quite like Keith.

From s1 we always saw Keith running into danger and in s2 he even went and infiltrated a Galra ship by himself. While his intentions for doing that may have been different (for the mission), this time he’s putting himself in danger for the ones he loves. He jumps into danger for Shiro but also for the rest of the team. We can see Keith’s love for Shiro when he follows him persistently, and even faces a whole fucking fleet of Galra cruisers on his own. That single scene shows how desperate Keith is, and to what lengths he would go for the ones he loves. That scene was so powerful that it left me breathless and that was just the beginning of it.

When Keith got back into Black, we could see his maturity there right away. After taking a hit, the first thing Keith does is ask “is everyone okay” and that one sentence just tells us so much because it shows how much he cares about his team. He also returned to help everyone instead of chasing after Shiro and the pod. Remember when in s1 Allura was captured? Keith was against going to save her, thinking that it would be the best in order for Voltron to not fall into Zarkon’s hands. And now? He’s fucking doing everything he can for his team, placing their wellbeing before his own. That is some quality character development and I’m so proud that words can’t express it.

Keith’s leadership

In s3 Keith has been struggling to accept his role as the leader of Voltron, but now by the end of s6 we see a completely different attitude.

First Keith was placed into the Black lion without a choice.

Then he rejected the Black lion altogether.

Lastly he made the decision to go and pilot Black by himself.

And this decision to pilot the Black Lion again shows so much of his development since s3. Keith isn’t the insecure leader anymore. He’s learned from his past mistakes and doesn’t intend to repeat them again. He realises that being a leader comes with responsibilities and he knows that team comes above anything else. If his time with the BoM taught him anything, then it’s the importance of teammates and teamwork. That’s the main part of his story arc and honestly I think he finally learned this lesson fully. It’s something that’s been with him since s1 and finally seeing him change to a mindset where he values his teammates over his mission is so satisfying.

Keith’s relationships

First I’d like to address his relationship with Krolia. While I noticed that many fans are pissed about the way Keith and Krolia were stuck on the space turtle creature, I personally think it was something he absolutely needed. It gave him the family time he missed with Krolia and gave him an opportunity to bond with her. Since Keith and Krolia just met, I think that gave them the perfect opportunity to get to know one another (without it requiring too many episodes to do). Also, you can imagine the many flashbacks of the past they must have had while there, which means that they got to learn everything about each other whether they wanted to or not.

Not to mention that Keith’s wolf is adorable and him having the wolf while living with Krolia gave me a true sense of a “family home” which is something I think the writers were intending to do.

Keith’s past with Shiro was finally revealed and oh god... Wow... Episode 5 is easily my favourite episode of the entire series. I have no other words but to say that it’s a literal masterpiece. There were so many emotions put into it and so many things come to a resolve in their relationships that it made he cry over and over again.

While watching the episode, you can practically feel Keith’s love for Shiro in his actions, words, and everything he does. If Keith was an orphan and Shiro was the one who raised him instead of his parents, then I fully understand why their relationship would be so deep. Keith loves Shiro as his brother, his only family he had.

Keith’s words “You’re my brother. I love you.” Are so powerful and full of emotion, conveying all of their feelings and their relationship thus far. Those are some powerful words, and they hit you right in the face when you hear them. It’s not subtle at all but it’s out there and in our faces. Not in a bad way! But in such a powerful way that it shows Keith and Shiro’s relationship perfectly.

Shiro has been Keith’s only family, the only person that didn’t give up on Keith. Even if Keith gave up on himself, Shiro never did. “I’ll never give up on you. But most importantly, you can’t give up on yourself.” And those words hit me so hard because I personally do give up on myself a lot. This scene made me realise that and I feel like this will resonate with a lot of you as well.

“And I should have abandoned you, just like your parents did. They saw that you were broken, worthless. I should have seen it too.” Is what Shiro says but despite these strong words, Keith still says “I’m not leaving without you.” And then after that he says “I love you”. I don’t think I need to say anything to this. It speaks for itself.

And just as he cuts Shiro’s arm off, he looks like he’s about to cry.

For the entire fight the animation was done so perfectly and we can see the care the staff put into this scene. They wanted to portray how Keith feels here and they did a fantastic job with it. Keith is beautiful and seeing him like this after all this time of isolating himself is just... so fulfilling.

Keith’s Galra side

Keith suddenly turning part Galra during his fight with Shiro was totally unexpected but at the same time it kind of was? We know that Keith is a hybrid but so far he wasn’t seen with any Galra traits on him. That is except for his sword of course, but other than that, nothing much. Not even purple skin.

After watching this, I feel like we’ll be seeing more of this Keith in the future. I’m going to theorise a bit and say that Keith may be having a problem with his Galra side in future seasons, something he might need help controlling.

But then again at the same time, Keith’s emotions may have been so strong that they triggered him to turn Galra when facing Shiro. It adds to the portrayal of Keith’s feelings towards Shiro, and further strengthens their fighting scene. It is meant to show how strongly Keith is feeling towards Shiro, aside from his words and actions.

Also, is it just me or do you feel like Keith was onto Lotor for the entire s3, s4, s5 and s6? The rest of the paladins were played by him while Keith was the one running around and uncovering the hidden truth. Just a random thought.

I could go on and talk about Keith forever because his scenes were so perfect and beautiful. However, I also want to focus on other things I noticed and I’ll fist tackle another big part of the season; and that is Allurance. But most importantly I want to focus on Lance’s character arc

Lance’s arc

So we know that Lance will have an endgame lover by the end of the series and I think that they’re finally beginning to push Lance towards that direction. Lance’s crush on Allura was there since the very first episode, and I personally believe it is something he will have to get over in order for his character to develop. This development will be essential for him and will push him forward to better things. Allura will be the one to push Lance into this direction because she is his friend, and they’ve undeniably grown really close during these past seasons. There is development and I’m not going to deny it. However, I do not think it’s romantic in any way shape or form.

This part will be ship heavy but I’m conscious that I can’t approach this unless I address the ships. I’ll admit that I’m a klance fan so I’ll approach this from a biased point of view. Then again, nothing is really unbiased so I’ll just go ahead and explain how I feel about this.

For me, Allurance is a ship that died this season. Right from the get go we get a scene where Lance saves Allura and then Allura saves Lance in return. However, for me, these scenes aren’t romantically coded at all and rather portray the closeness between the two as friends. The moment in ep 1 also shows the growth of Allura’s powers (which in my opinion are too op).

But we see Lance struggling with his unrequited feelings for the whole duration of the season and in the end they’re not addressed. It will be brought up again in future episodes since we were left hanging like that without a closing.

Allura rejecting Lance and telling him how she really feels will set Lance on the right path to his character development. Allura has always been something he wanted, a crush, but not what he needed. Sure they may have grown closer during the seasons, but Allura still isn’t returning Lance’s feelings. At the beginning I was super happy about everything that was happening because that means that Lance will finally get over his crush and I really believe that Allura will reject him at this point.

Lauren and Joaquim pointed to Lotura’s relationship affecting another character and that was undoubtedly Lance.

Lance isn’t dumb, he knows what’s up. He realises that he’s the third wheel and that Allura may not have feelings for him (he even says it in episode 2). Yet he’s still here, trying to win her over. But I think that now his feelings got the wake up call they needed and the scene where Allura embraces him is the moment where Lance realises that he’s chasing an impossible target. Allura doesn’t love him back, and I think he realises that much this season. Now we just need Allura to tell him herself before he can fully move on from her.

Also, remember this quote from Lauren?

Lance will end up in a completely different place then he expected, and that will undoubtedly be with Keith. I can go on and on why Klance will become canon, but maybe it’s better if you all read about the reasons here. (yh, good luck with that btw XD)

My prediction for future episodes is simple. Allura will reject Lance and then Lance will realise that he had a crush on Keith all along as well. It may take time, but I believe it will happen. That’s when his sexuality arc kicks in. Remember the drawing by Lauren as well? We have Shiro standing next to Lance here, and since Lance missed to act on Shiro’s warning that he was a clone, I can imagine that Lance would want to make it up to him somehow. Shiro will tell him about Keith and maybe reveal a little something about Keith that Lance didn’t expect. (I’m a firm believer in the fact that Keith is gay, so Shiro telling Lance subtly could make him realise that Keith had been hitting on him since the very beginning).

I still can’t believe that they did nothing with Lance and Shiro this season. I can only imagine how guilty Lance feels for doing nothing, even though he knew something was wrong with Shiro.

Also, Allura’s face when she found out about Lance tells us everything. She has feelings for Lotor and by the end of the final battle, she still feels something for him. Love defines all logic and reason, and I believe that at some point, Allura will forgive Lotor for what he did. She may not fully forgive him, but she may be willing to be with him again. This is a stretch and I don’t know how confident I am in this, but I’m keeping everything on the table thus far.

Keith and Lance’s arcs

Ok so we were all confused about this Klance thumbnail for the trailer. And they put it during pride month of all times. However, hear me out on this one. The thumbnail wasn’t meant to show Klance, but show that this season focuses on their arcs.

Keith’s arc was beautiful and showed so much of character development that it was breathtaking and we’ll probably end up talking about it for months to come until s7 hits us. However, apart from Keith, Lance also had his own arc explored in this, and it’s heavier than in any other seasons thus far. Lance’s character development was always shown in the background, however now, it’s out there in broad daylight.

Keith’s arc is about being there for the ones he loves. He understands the importance of a team and values his team over the mission.

Lance’s arc is about... love as well. He had decent development in s5 where he unlocked a new bayard form, and him becoming Red’s paladin overall was a huge step up for him. He understands the weight of war now, and isn’t goofing around like he used to in s1 and s2. However, apart from all that beautiful development, Lance’s character arc is all about love.

We know that Lance will get an endgame lover by the end of the series and I think that the VCrew are slowly beginning to address that. Love is complicated so it needs time to be solved. Lotura is a perfect example of how complicated love is, and even though Lotor fought against them in the end, Allura still feels something for him.

This season didn’t give us any klance but it did give us Keith and Lance’s character development. It was separate but done in the same season, and that’s what the thumbnail is showing. Both of their character arcs focused on love.

Lotor & Allura

Lotura was strong this season, that is until it all came crashing down in the end. But did it really crash? I mean, I can’t deny that Lotor did some terrible things but I still feel like Allura has some feelings for him. In the last episode when they fought against Lotor, she expressed her hesitation at not wanting to leave him behind. The team had to push her to the right direction, begging her to leave even though she didn’t want to. Allura’s emotions were all over the place, and they mirror Lance’s own perfectly. Both of them had their hearts broken this season, and I think the VCrew portrayed that perfectly.

You can see it in both her expressions and her words that she is pained, and didn’t want to leave him. They kissed this season, and a kiss portrays so many strong emotions into one. The VCrew could have chosen to take this in a different route but I firmly believe that they were aiming for Lotura to kiss and that it was a must in this season.

I’m not going to lie, I’m torn about Lotura. A part of be believes that Allura will never forgive him, but there’s also a part of me that thinks she might.

Lotor didn’t have evil intentions, and nothing is black and right. His cause was just, and I believe that he really wanted peace. However, his methods of achieving that peace were wrong and that’s what broke his and Allura’s relationship at the end. Perhaps a part of Allura knows this, knows that Lotor really meant what he said, but her finding out what he did to achieve that broke that trust and made her love for him crack.

There is still hope for Lotura, at least in my opinion. Lotor will appear once again, and judging how Haggar was protective of him ever since she fond out he was her son, I can see her coming back to get him.

Also Lotura mirror Zarkon and Haggar’s relationship so I can see Allura taking on Zarkon’s role of saving her lover from overexposure to quintessence. Possibly?

Other random thoughts

This post is already getting too long so I’ll wrap this up. All of the characters got screen-time and a moment. Even Coran! And him finding his grandfather’s toolbox was very sweet. Then when he had to let go of the Castle, that was a big step of letting go for him as well.

As my friend @msbluebell said, this season is all about letting go of the past and focusing on the future. The destruction of the castle ship showed that, as well as Lance’s arc where he slowly understood that he had to let go of Allura. Keith, and everyone else for that matter, also changed for the better.

And now that the team is going back home, we are told that things will get more “personal” by the VCrew. I can only imagine that the issue of Allurance will be carried over and that there will be even more focus on ships. Also relationships will be explored, whether it be family, platonic or romantic.

I’m expecting Hagar and Sendak to return as well now that Lotor is gone. Also, I’m not giving up on Alteans from the alternative reality because we know that they have a comet as well. The one Team Voltron found was a second one, meaning that they could very well cross over realities and find Lotor. It may be a stretch, but it is possible. I think we’ll focus more on the Alteans in the future, since now we found out that there are living Alteans in the universe.

(Also, I can imagine that Allura will make Romelle a princess while she sleeps with the rest of the paladins. We know because of a spoiler leaked by Kimberly that the paladins will sleep for a very long time. So what if during that time Romelle becomes a princess?)

Either way, there are still mysteries that are left unsolved and a lot of potential as to what direction the VCrew might take this in. I can’t wait to see what s7 has to offer. I loved all of the season, despite Lance’s arc leaving me a bit unsatisfied by the way it was carried out. Keith’s arc was stunning though and by far the best moment in the entire show thus far.

I probably forgot to mention a million things by the time I post this but the post is already too long so whatever.

(Thank you for reading if you made it till the end)

#klance #voltron spoilers #voltron season 6 #voltron season six #vld #allurance #sheith #keith kogane #vld keith #venting #thoughts #my post #Voltron legendary defender #review

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