#of course from a doylist perspective that line does point out to the audience

[tardis-stowaway]

The Doctor: He [Isaac Newton] was, wasn't he? He was so hot. Oh, is that who I am now?

So what personality trait of his new regeneration is the Doctor mildly surprised by here? He doesn't sound shocked, but it seems to be enough of a difference to mention out loud. A lot of people seem to be interpreting the that as referring to being into guys. To be fair, I think that's how Donna understands it in her next line.

My understanding of the line is slightly different. Feeling attraction to men (along with other genders) is nothing new to the Doctor. Nine and Captain Jack Harkness kissed full on the lips onscreen! Look at any interactions between Ten and the Master. Consider that changing gender presentation is something that any Time Lord might do at any regeneration, so treating gender as a limiting factor in attraction wouldn't make sense for the Doctor.

No, what has changed is that Fourteen is the sort of person who will directly admit when he finds someone hot while gossiping with his BFF. Not brilliant, or fascinating, or even beautiful, but hot. That's what's new.

[sepublic]

Howdy! I've seen people talking about how the vaccine plot line in Kipo got dropped as soon as she went to almost-nuke the boat. Any thoughts? You seem like you'd have some zesty take on this that's more than "oh wells, slight plot hole"

           The way I see it, the vaccine was a precaution against Emilia’s genocide. It was a means of making her ‘cure’ obsolete, and so it’s important that the show tells us that the vaccine is being made, and is well on the trajectory towards creation; There’s little doubt that Song and Lio are and were able to figure it out, I’m pretty sure they used Kipo as a basis for the vaccine. But the thing is…

           Even though the threat of Emilia herself was gone, the ‘Cure’ still existed. There were still her followers who fled after her transformation, and no doubt there are plenty of other humans out there with Anti-Mute prejudices. Once the knowledge of the ‘Cure’ is out, it’s like Pandora’s Box; It’s going to spread. And even if this one particular bigot is gone, bigotry can easily survive in others and continue to thrive. The fight for a fair and equal society, inclusive of all, is an ongoing battle and a test of various wills and cultural norms, and not just a matter of beating up a ferocious Mega Mute (although sometimes you WILL have to resort to self-defense).

           To totally ensure the safety of all Mutes, to make sure the ‘Cure’ is never used… Not only does it help to change societal attitudes so that nobody else wants to use it, it’s all very helpful to ensure that the ‘Cure’ will never work in the first place, by establishing vaccines. I suppose one could make an allegory to how defense against the spread of pandemics is like this, with how changing societal behavior AND working on medicine to defend against the disease is the best course of action, rather than just one or the other. How topic is is then, that the third season comes out during… You know.

            Even if Emilia was taken out of the picture, and she WAS, the threat of the ‘Cure’ being used by others was always prevalent. We didn’t need to outright see the vaccine be made, because its creation was more or less a guarantee by this point, and the audience can assume its creation by the epilogue. The conflict ends with Emilia being defeated, because even if the vaccine was made and distributed prior to Prahm… This is Emilia we’re talking about here. She murdered her own brother with a crossbow, just because he had a positive experience with Mutes and let that affect his worldviews like any human would. She would 100% resort to killing the Mutes traditionally, with weapons, or with her bare, meaty Mega-Walrus fists.

           From a Doylist perspective, having the vaccine be created before Prahm would still leave the conflict with Emilia to be resolved, and so forth. Likewise, there’s a certain beauty to that scene where the humans work to protect their Mute friends from the ‘Cure’, and we couldn’t have gotten such a beautiful gesture of collaboration and good will, if the Mutes already had their vaccine and didn’t need to worry about the ‘Cure’ anyway.

           TL;DR The vaccine isn’t useless and is still VERY much relevant past Emilia’s defeat from an in-universe perspective. But from a narrative perspective, there isn’t much to focus on once Emilia is defeated, as the conflict would just be watching Song and Lio work on the vaccine- And maybe a few leftover followers trying to continue Emilia’s work, but we’d be repeating what we already saw with the White Supremacist. From a Doylist perspective, I think it’s enough for the audience and the story tellers to explain that the vaccine WILL be made, and with that reassurance, it’s just a matter of time of waiting for its creation, and dealing with Emilia beforehand. Part of Song’s episode was both herself, and implicitly the audience, remembering to have faith in her and Lio.

[shkspr]

santhomedusae a réagi à votre billet:

I know I don't know anything about hamlet but I know enough about hamlet to posit spiral hamlet for the consideration of the committee

this is a very good insight and here’s my full thoughts, under a cut because whoo-ee i was not lying when i said i was a powder keg of hamlet thoughts and you ignited me. explosion follows:

hamlet would be courted by several entities. he’s a prince, he’s got power and potential, and he’s got the capacity for any number of things, depending upon his decisions. and which entities covet him most changes as he grows and changes as a person. 

prior to old hamlet’s death (pre-canon), the most prominent powers in young hamlet’s life would be the slaughter, the lonely, the stranger, and the web. 

he’d make a lovely avatar of the slaughter, like his father before him, if he chose. having armies at his command and perpetuating wars with causes he can’t remember and doesn’t care about.

the stranger and the lonely come from his time at wittenberg, his fascination with theatre, his deep distrust of others and his desire to keep them at arm’s length. 

the web would love to use him because he would be king someday, and the king has that power to manipulate and shape events to his liking even without supernatural help, so it would just make sense.

during the brief interlude between his father’s death and the appearance of the ghost (1.1-1.3), hamlet would still be on the radar for those ones, but especially the lonely, and he would also be of increased interest to the buried, the end, the dark, and the desolation. 

he falls a little bit in love with death during this time, because - it’s a cliche, but nobody alive understands how he feels. but the incarnation of death itself? that inevitability, that hopeless dread? he feels it so acutely.

then of course there’s the needless, senseless destruction of having his father ripped from his life without even the chance for a goodbye. he’s ripe with despair, and the desolation would eat it up, and it would be so easy for the desolation to turn that around and recruit him.

and then there’s the cold, lonely helplessness of the others. i’ve discussed before the connection between the lonely and the buried and the end, and i think i can throw the dark in there as well. it’s just - he hasn’t been buried alive in a literal sense, but in a figurative sense, he absolutely has. 

he’s feeling every bit of that crushing, inescapable weight upon his shoulders, every bit of his own impotence, every bit of his isolation from humanity, every bit of his own ignorance. he knows exactly how much he doesn’t know, and he knows exactly how much he can’t do, and it’s killing him. he can’t move, he can’t breathe, he can’t change, he can’t see, he can’t even die. 

so again, while he would very much be a victim to those powers, he would also be susceptible to their. grooming, for lack of a better term. he’s vulnerable and hopeless, and that’s just perfect.

after he speaks to his father’s ghost, he does go a bit twisty. but along with the spiral, this period in his life (1.5-3.3) is also ruled by the eye, the web, and the stranger.

the web is just - there are so many intricate threads of plots and lies and schemes and interpersonal relationships and what they truly are vs what they claim to be, all of it arranged just so, and of course from a doylist perspective we know this is because it literally was arranged by an author, but in a watsonian sense, it’s all very mother-of-puppets.

hamlet’s whole “antic disposition” scheme is of the spiral, using the tools of the spiral for his own ends, but also - you can’t really trust the spiral, of course, and he does ultimately become a victim of his own machine. there really is no line between what is hamlet acting as a madman and what is hamlet truly going mad.

which brings us to the stranger - because hamlet the play focuses a lot on acting as a theme, the dichotomy of reality and fiction, actor and audience. every single person in hamlet’s life (with the sole exception of horatio) is playing a part to get what they want from him, and he is doing the same to them. none of them are what they seem. they aren’t really people, not as hamlet knows them, so much as they are roles to be filled.

intertwined with that theme is the thread that runs throughout the play of surveillance. the actor/audience dichotomy is also a surveilling/surveilled dichotomy. it’s about the “now i am alone” and the “i’ll observe his looks” and the security cameras in hamlet (2009) starring david tennant. it’s about polonius and claudius directing ophelia and gertrude in how to engage with hamlet while they hide and watch. it’s about hamlet watching claudius pray and deciding that to kill him then and there would be too kind.

and finally, finally, we get to the final leg of hamlet’s journey (3.4-5.2), which still plays upon all the themes of before, with extra crunchy layers of slaughter and desolation and spiral and a bit of some others.

there’s so much murder. i don’t feel like i have to explain the slaughter connection here. the second half of this play is full of senseless, needless violence, violence without a clear target, violence without a clear goal. violence for its own sake.

which is also the desolation - so much loss and heartbreak and young lives cut short and loved ones killing other loved ones. all of that delicious destruction, and hamlet is mired in it.

hamlet can have little a flesh/corruption/death trifecta, as a treat: “at supper... not where he eats, but where he is eaten: a certain convocation of politic worms are e’en at him. your worm is your only emperor for diet: we fat all creatures else to fat us, and we fat ourselves for maggots: your fat king and your lean beggar is but variable service, two dishes, but to one table: that's the end.”

the spiral and the mother of puppets have a strong connection here - think of how skillfully claudius seems to be playing laertes and ophelia, how much he thinks he’s pulling the strings, but of course he’s not - he’s telling lies, and all it does is drive ophelia mad and make laertes a rogue element, and hamlet knows this.

hamlet also plays the spiral a bit, himself - the way he plays up his madness after polonius’s death, the way he twists the truth to get rosencrantz and guildenstern killed and get back to denmark - but i think ophelia’s death does something to him, puts a lot of this in perspective for him. it makes him angry, of course, much like it did laertes, but unlike laertes, hamlet knows exactly where to channel that rage.

hamlet understands the inevitability of his fate, and his acceptance of his own lack of agency in this situation is actually one of the most reasonable, rational decisions he makes in the play. when he thought he could manipulate these powers for himself, he failed. now that he admits he’s not in control - ophelia’s death was proof of that - he sees clearly for the first time, and he might be furthest from the spiral here.

he goes into that fight at the end, knowing that there’s something bigger going on that he’s not privy to, and he plays his part as it’s written, he makes amends with laertes, he’s cordial with claudius and gertrude, he’s a good sport. and yes, he dies for it - but that was always a possibility, and he won’t defy augury.

in conclusion: hamlet is vulnerable to many powers, and he leans into several of them, but ultimately, his role is as a pawn in the game, not as a player. he can’t use any of the powers the way an avatar would, and his attempts to pull the strings on the spiral and the eye are what gets him - and everyone else - killed in the end. 

at a certain point - and no one can say exactly when - this ending became inevitable. at a certain point, all of the players in this game became pawns, acting out their prescribed roles to serve the ultimate end.

hamlet spends the entire play stubbornly avoiding and running from the slaughter, and he turns to various other powers for aid in that endeavor, sort of like mike crew giving himself over to the vast for protection from the spiral, only in hamlet’s case, it doesn’t work.

he actively attempts to manipulate the spiral, the eye, the stranger, and the web at various points in his journey, and he categorically fails every time. it’s only when he accepts the fact that he doesn’t have that kind of power that the play can run its course and reach its conclusion.

[occupyvenus]

But why?

Dark!Dany in season 7 (part 1 of ~4). 

I was almost finished writing down my dark!dany-impressions from episodes 1 and two, but then episode 3 aired and I decided to completely change the structure of this little essay and start anew. So of course, this took way longer than anticipated. I decided to finish the first part now, hopefully post the second part later today or tomorrow and complete the third and fourth after Dany went Dracarys in ep 4 (because she will, I just know that she will)

A couple of disclaimers before I get started :

First: D&D are playing loose (very loose) with the social rules and norms established in the books. I will try to keep any “that doesn’t make any sense, in the books xyz would happen” out of this. For example if the show tells me that besieging a city from all sites, thereby cutting its supply lines, will cost the least civilian life, I will take that as a fact. If the show claims that Cersei’s claim to the Iron Throne is “secure” enough to be seen fucking her own brother, at least within Kings Landing and in the mind of several Reach Lords who answered her summon, I will accept that as well. In short: If D&D say that’s how it is, then that’s how it is.

Second: I do not believe that primarily judging characters and their actions from a westerosi point of view really makes sense anymore. The world in which this story takes place should be taken into consideration, yes, but watsonian consistency and accuracy have really taken a backseat to the doylist intentions the show is trying to express. D&D are clearly changing and constructing plot lines, characterizations, decisions and reactions with a modern audience in mind and, most importantly, to accommodate their modern moral and ethical views. This is not to say that modern audiences lack the capacity to put themselves into alien positions and worldviews. This ability simply seems to be very inconsistent and sometimes even contradictory. For example: Even though decapitation has mostly vanished as a form of punishment, it’s fairly easy to recognise the supposed “justice” in such an act. If we are presented with a culprit guilty of a capital crime. As the show has displayed many times, chopping off someone else's head for breaking a vow, does not turn you into a blood-thirsty murderer or ruthless tyrant, even though we all agree, that it’s good we don’t do that anymore. But on the other hand (pun intended) if one of our good guys were to cut of a thief's hand on screen -a widespread punishment for theft over many continents and centuries, including the setting of asoiaf* - we would probably have a harder time to “forgive” them for it. I know I would. Humans and their perception of “moral” are weird. I’m sure there are some theories out there on why that is and what influences this, imo, rather weird phenomena, but I hope you understand what I mean when I say: We can accept different realities and their rules, but only when we can. In my opinion, that’s a framework D&D are carefully working with.

You can disagree with me on that, but that is how I am going to approach the show from now on, this little post included. I will focus on what the show-runners are trying to convey to a modern audience. How do they want us to react to what happens on screen and what tools do they use to influence and guide our reaction. Many of my estimations will be intuitive and not necessarily fully objective, so everyone is free to disagree with me in that perspective. But if you want to refute one of my arguments here, solely based on “but it is based on the medieval !!!”, you will have to present a very compelling case for me to care. Because the show mostly doesn’t care on what time period Westeros is vaguely based on, so why should I? 

Third: These are only my opinions, blah blah. I do not claim to have an insider in HBO who tells me what they were trying to do. These are only my thoughts, my analysis, my interpretations. 

Fourth: I don’t “hate” Dany, I don’t think she is the most evilest person on the show, I simply believe that she is moving into a darker direction. Honestly, that would be the exact twist the series could need right now. It’s starting to get a bit boring and predictable.

Now that we have that out of the way, let’s get started with the first big question:

Why even conquer Westeros ?

I believe that both intentions and consequences are important. As a rule of thumb I always judge an action by its consequences, the character of a person by their intentions. This is often intertwined, an “evil” person will often do “evil” things, “good” people can sometimes do “evil” things for “good” reasons, and if a “good” person keeps doing “evil” shit you will sooner or later question how “good” they really are. It’s useless to say that all of this is indeed very subjective and it’s pretty unlikely that two people will always be on the same page. No one has to agree with me on that (after all the entire field of philosophy has been arguing about this for centuries), but I found it to be a fair and meaningful way to assess “ethical positioning”, at least for fictional fictional characters and my own opinion. 

So in this first section, I will focus on the question Why does Dany even want to conquer Westeros? Rather than her qualities as a queen or the consequences of her actions I will try to focus on her intentions, on what drives her to conquer the Seven Kingdoms. I will end this section on whether those intentions justify or warrant the price she is willing to pay for the Iron Throne and talk more thoroughly about it in later parts.

Season 7 has had a number of interesting hints and revelations about this issue.

EPISODE 1 “DRAGONSTONE”

I honestly didn’t pay much attention to the single short scene Dany had in episode one. (I was preoccupied with the case umber & karstark vs the north). But some comments made by Dany-fans caught my attention and made me take another look at her behaviour. What I’m talking about is Dany entering the Throne Room in Dragonstone, walking towards the throne (a symbol for “ruling”) but moving to the next room, rejecting it for the carved table Aegon planned his conquest on 300 years ago (a symbol for just that - “conquest”). 

I read comments along the lines “This was such a great character moment! It really shows where her priorities lie” or “She doesn’t just want to rule, she wants to win!”. After giving it some thought I fully agree with these statements, but ... I do not think that’s ... a good thing? This reminds me very much of something Dario said in season 6: 

You weren’t made to sit on some chair in a palace. [...] You are a conqueror, D Stormborn. 

I think he is spot on with this. It has been shown again and again that what Dany is good at, what she thrives at, is conquest. Fighting and defeating your enemy. My question is: does this make her a good candidate for the Iron Throne? Shouldn’t her conquest simply be the means through which she accomplishes her real goal - ruling - instead of her true vocation? I don’t believe that Dany actually wants to sit on a throne, she simply wants to win it. Robert showed that good soldiers don’t make good kings, I do not believe that good conquerors make good queens neither.

EPISODE 2 “STORMBORN”

This episode tackles and subtly undermines two motivations behind this conquest, that made it an relatable, righteous venture in both our and Danys mind. 

First, Dany admits that Dragonstone “doesn’t feel like home”. 

Dany to Viserys in Pentos [s1]: I don’t want to be his queen. I want to go home. 

Dany to Tyrion in Meereen [s5]: I fought so that no child born into Slaver’s Bay would ever know what it meant to be sold or bought. I will continue that fight here and beyond. But this is not my home. 

Dany to Tyrion in Dragonstone [s7]: I always thought this would be a homecoming. Doesn’t feel like home.

Longing for one’s home is an outmost humane desire. We can empathize and sympathize with this. We can’t begrudge her for this wish or the actions she takes to fulfill it. She might have never spend a day of her adult life in westeros before, but it has always been “home” in her mind. Now she is faced with the ugly reality that it isn’t. That Dragonstone, and I would deduce the Seven Kingdoms as a whole, are a strange, foreign place to her. If the castle she was born in, her family's ancestral seat doesn’t feel “like home”, what will? The Red Keep? The Iron Throne? It is quite tragic, but the only real home Dany ever knew was the House with the red door in Braavos she lived in as a child. And that is not the home she will find at the end of her conquest. 

Second, Dany realizes that the common folk is not praying for her return, sewing dragon banners and drinking secret toasts to her health.

The wine seller and Dany [s1]: You know there are many in your homeland who pray for your return princess. --  I hope to repay your kindness someday.

Tyrion and Dany [s5]: When you get back to you home, who supports you? -- “The common people”. 

Dany to Varys [s7]: They call out for their true queen? They drink secret toasts to my health? People used to tell my brother that sort of thing and he was stupid enough to believe it. 

Acknowledging that Viserys was a fool to believe this, certainly shows maturity and that she’s come to understand “how the world works”, but this notion, that she would return the rightful ruler to her people also gave her conquest a “moral backbone”. After all Dany has always depicted herself as a champion for the common people (at least as long as she was in essos, more on that later). If she believes that “her people are crying out for their true queen”, even if it isn’t true, simply if she believes it, her conquest is to some extent meant to fulfill the wishes of her subjects. Whether that is an important factor for the legitimacy of a feudalistic ruler, is another question, but it definitely is a quality we admire and look for in a good ruler. What makes the King in the North scenes so powerful and engaging, is the fact, that both Robb and Jon are chosen by their people. This has always played an important part in Dany’s self-image as a ruler. She was always shown to be loved by the essosi commoners (ie former slaves), she herself has stated that “the common folk” is who supports her in westeros. But quite frankly the show hasn’t addressed yet what the westerosi small folk is thinking about the dragon queen's return. Neither has Dany. It is only brought up once, when Varys starts to recount how unpopular Cersei is and Dany shuts him down immediately.

I noticed that “the good” Dany could do for the small folk in Westeros is mostly addressed by her supporters, not herself. Varys claims to back her because he believes “she is the best chance the common folk has”, Tyrion is the one to tell Jon that she “protects people from monsters”. In her time in slaver's bay she brought this up numerous times herself: What SHE could do to better their lives. But since she landed in Westeros, she only talks about bringing peace and prosperity to the people twice. Once when talking to Onella, who immediately shits all over warfare-the-nice-way and tells her to be “a dragon” (more on that in part 3) and a second time when talking to Jon. But this sentiment was brought up in the context of how “a targaryen on the Iron Throne and a Stark as warden in north” have been good for the realm. It isn’t directly linked to Dany herself, rather her conception of her family's legacy and it’s influence in the past.

EPISODE 3 “THE QUEENS JUSTICE”

This episode has done nothing to paint Danys motivation in a, let’s say “humanitarian”, light. Quite contrary, Dany freely admits in her own words that this conquest is most and foremost about her. Her wishes, her desires, what she thinks she deserves. She is approaching her “negotiation” with Jon with two key arguments in mind. First, her hereditary claim as a Targaryen and secondly, her personal claim based on her life experiences. 

The last King in the North was Torrhen Stark, who bend the knee to my ancestor, Aegon Targaryen. In exchange for his life and the life of the Northmen, Torrhen Stark swore fealty to House Targaryen in perpetuity. [...] You’ve travelled all this way to break faith with House Targaryen? ...

I’ve already talked about my problems with Dany calling herself the “rightful” ruler. Though she admits that her father was an “evil man”, she doesn’t acknowledge Robert's Rebellion as a justified uprising against a tyrant. She simply sees her father as the bad apple of the family. As a single outlier in the otherwise “consistent” history of “righteous” Targaryen rule. Not only showing an unwillingness to accept any wrongdoings done by her house, her father gets outsourced as an exception, but also the consequences his downfall has for her “birthright”. Notice how she is specifically introduced as the “rightful” ruler (which is a little node at Jon heritage as well). She insists that the oaths Torrhen Stark made to Aegon are valid for eternity. She accuses Jon of “breaking faith” and “being in open rebellion”.  She is not trying to re-establish House Targaryen post-rebellion, she is refusing to acknowledge the rebellions significance, as if it doesn’t even matter. Her goal is to keep the Targaryen rule going, because in her mind, it never was rightfully “interrupted” in the first place. This is a mind-set that hasn’t changed since season 1.

While this argument seems to be prepared, her “outburst” that follows, reveals her most honest thoughts and opinions.

I was born in Dragonstone. Not that I can remember it. We fled before Robert’s assassins could find us. Robert was your father’s best friend, no? I wonder if your father knew that his best friends sent assassins to murder a baby girl in her crib. Not that it matters now, of course. I spent my life in foreign lands. So many men have tried to kill me, I don’t remember all their names. I have been sold like a broodmare. I’ve been chained and betrayed, raped and defiled. Do you know what kept me standing through all these years in exile? Faith. Not in any gods, not in myths and legends. In myself. In D Targaryen. 

 Don’t get me wrong, she deserves sympathy for all this. She was victimized for most her life, breaking free of this role, taking agency and even drawing strength from her abuse is indeed inspiring. I don’t know if that was the purpose of her speech, but I’m sure that many people perceived it that way. I don’t want to badmouth those who took just that away from it. 

But somehow ... it also raised some “tragic-villain-backstory” alarms in my head. You know, traditionally at the end of the movie, when our heroes are chained up somewhere in the bad dudes lair and ask “Why are you doing this?” and the villain responds with all the bad shit that happened to them. Talking about how the world wronged them, often how our heroes wronged them.  “All my life the laughed at me, look who’s laughing now?”

This is not a sentiment directly expressed by her, but I feel like it’s so heavily implied that it’s fair to list it here. She has endured many, many hardships and now she feels that the world “owes” her big time. I feel like her ambition of conquering an entire kingdom has crossed the line of “not letting all your traumas stop you” and entered the realm of “I deserve everything I want, no matter the cost because life was unfair to me.” And that really is a text-book villain motive. 

I really do not like to compare female characters, and I’m not trying to say that one of them “had it worse than the other”, but all of these things also apply to Sansa, some of them even to Cersei. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that in an episode titled “The Queen’s justice”, we see one Queen using her sufferings to support her claim, one taking revenge on those who wronged her and another taking care of her people’s needs. All of these three women have suffered in similar ways and while two of them use it to justify their rather selfish behaviour, one of them is shown to spend her time working for others. This “parallel” is only amplified by Bran mentioning Sansa’s wedding night in the same episode. The only reason I can see for Bran bringing up this specific incident (there were many other options to proof his three-eyed-raven powers), is to draw a connection to Danys speech. Again, I am not necessarily trying to set them against each other, but Danys approach to coping with her abuse, at least resembles the one Cersei chose to take. Compare Danys speech to this book quote from Cersei and tell me you don’t get similar vibes:

I waited, and so can he. I waited half my life. She had played the dutiful daughter, the blushing bride, the pliant wife. She had suffered Robert's drunken groping, Jaime's jealousy, Renly's mockery, Varys with his titters, Stannis endlessly grinding his teeth. She had contended with Jon Arryn, Ned Stark, and her vile, treacherous, murderous dwarf brother, all the while promising herself that one day it would be her turn. If Margaery Tyrell thinks to cheat me of my hour in the sun, she had bloody well think again.

This makes me believe that Dany is more or will be more like Cersei than she would like to think. If we all believe that Cersei is power hungry, isn’t Dany as well? For very similar reasons? 

The ending of her little speech also makes her seem a bit megalomaniac. 

[...] Do you know what kept me standing through all these years in exile? Faith. Not in any gods, not in myths and legends. In myself. In D Targaryen. The world hasn’t seen a dragon in centuries until my children were born. The Dothraki haven’t crossed the sea, any sea. They did for me. I was born to rule the Seven Kingdoms and I will. 

It’s no surprise really. She is the Mother of Dragons, the Unburnt, the Khal of Khals. It’s no wonder all of this goes to her head. This also ties into her conversation with Melisandre in episode two. She immediately assumes that the prophecy is about her, or at least, seems rather pleased at the possibility. She seems to be taken aback when Mel said she (only) “has a part to play”. (At least that’s how I interpreted it, it’s not really easy to know what EC is trying to convey with her ... “acting”. Sry, not sry.) She has fully accepted herself as a chosen one, a prophesied savior, an über-mensch. Whether because of her lineage or her own achievements, this attitude hinges on plain arrogance and is way more often found in “villains” than “heroes”. 

Please notice that her speech is not triggered by Jon refusing her claim, but by his insistence that the white walkers are real and coming for all them. Having her react like this at that point off the argument seems a bit out of place. It could boil down to shitty writing, but it could also be meant to emphasize an apparent contrast between Jon and Dany. Jon embraces leadership to protect his people, Dany seeks it to satisfy her need for self-importance. 

While episode two subtly degrades her relatable and philanthropic motivations, episode three highlights those who are ultimately self-centered. Those rooted in ideas of superiority and entitlement. Whether she feels entitled because of everything she had to endure or her birthright as the last (lol) Targaryen, isn’t important. The point is that she feels she deserves to rule. She feels entitled to the seven kingdoms because of external circumstances, not because of her own qualities or competence. 

I would also like to point out one more thing: Dany could have very well stayed in Essos. She could have chosen to remain in “the Bay of Dragons”, rule as it’s queen, bringing real stability to the region. The show swept that under the rug, and yes, I promised to just take the bullshit D&D feed me at face value, but it she just left Slaver’s Bay behind when it was time to conquer Westeros. I don’t see any reason why the region shouldn’t return to chaos after she, her armies and her dragons are gone. After all, it was “D Stormborn and her dragons coming to Meereen”, as Tyrion put it, that finally brought the former Masters to obey. Now that she’s busy somewhere else, what’s going to keep them in check? Daario and his 2000 Second Sons? 

She could have stayed there, leading a comfortable life as it’s queen, caring for the people who worship her as the breaker of chains. Instead she decided to lead a war of invasion on Westeros. She decided to leave as soon as a fragile peace took hold, to wage war again. For what? If Dany isn’t fighting for “home” or “the will of her people”, what is she fighting for? What is left? She said it herself: D Targaryen. She is fighting for herself. This all is primarily about her and no one else. Honestly, I have a hard time rooting for someone who starts an invasion for selfish reasons.

This was part 1 of this long-ass post. I really hope I can finish “Tyrion Cricket starring in Danoccio” today or tomorrow. The sections “Fire and Blood and Burning Shit” will follow most likely after episode 4 has aired and my favourite topic right now (Targ!Cest vs Targ!Bowl) will come shortly after that. Stay tuned and thank you for your attention. 

[dgcatanisiri]

Gil’s Story Is My Nightmare

You know, it normally takes weeks if not months for my feelings to settle on a subject relating to fiction. Like, my first time through, it’ll wash over me, I’ll consider it a while, and then, eventually, I’ll come to a conclusion.

But Gil’s story rubbed me wrong on first run, and I easily figured out why.

Gil’s story is my nightmare as a gay man.

I know I’m not the first to sum it up, but I am SO frustrated and pissed off by this (and Mass Effect Andromeda’s handling of M/M relationships in general), I need to work it out of my system.

So let’s start with the beginning: Jill. AKA “Fuck This Bitch.”

That’s a pretty extreme reaction coming from me, but… No, you do not get to call yourself a friend to a gay person if you’re going to “tease” them about how they’re ‘making [your] job harder.’ Like… No. This is where real life in 2017 intrudes upon fictional life in 2819. Here and now, gay people face discrimination for this very fact. Our relationships are considered somehow less legitimate because children will never be a biological possibility between the couple. Outside help would always be necessary for that to happen. There’s no room in our world right now for a fictional character to “tease” what real life people suffer.

Which, by the way, as a procreation tech, that would actually mean he makes her job EASIER, because if Gil ever wanted a child, he’d have to go through her. Just because he’s not doing it now doesn’t mean it would never happen. He’s a guaranteed customer at a time when no one is actually really ready to have children the natural way anyway.

And that’s YET. ANOTHER. THING. about this. Jill is talking procreation, talking about her job as a procreation tech, at a time when the Andromeda Initiative has no established colonies and is living almost entirely off of the Nexus. Hell, why is she even out of cryo? This seems like something that should be reserved for second wave, once a foothold has been established, not when the colonies are still in the drawing board phase and resources are questionable at best.

Anyway, far too many real gay people have this as a form of questioning, devaluing, delegitimizing our relationships for this to be something that should ever be teased about. From the Watsonian perspective, maybe (hopefully) that’s less of an issue in the future than it is now, but the Doylist perspective is the one that we have to work with, because this is a real thing that impacts real people.

Indeed, there were homophobic remarks after the title was released that amounted to ‘why would a colonization effort include gay people when they won’t reproduce?’ Now, I don’t know if this had any influence on the story, hopefully meant in a ‘let’s prove them wrong’ kind of way, but… This really just validated them.

Because it’s only the gay guy being questioned here. He is the only one facing the question of reproduction. Not the straight characters. Not the straight relationships. Not the inter-species relationships. The gay guy is being pressured to have a kid RIGHT THIS SECOND.

There is no reason for this to be a subject in the here and now. Literally, this is a decision that so easily can and probably should wait. Again, the Initiative colonies are literally only established in the course of the game proper. Hell, the “suggestion��� that Gil have a kid that he actually considers comes at probably one of the worst times – Gil’s maybe in a relationship that’s, generously, a month or two old, and he’s the chief engineer on a ship that’s at the forefront of Andromeda exploration. He’s in a bad place to become a father here and now. He’s on a life-threatening mission that could easily end with his death. This isn’t when you say ‘hey, how about a sperm sample, old buddy, just in case?’

Hell, what about a relationship that only gets confirmed AS a relationship in that scene where we meet her even says that it’s ready for a child? Like, yeah, sure, they’ll drop the love-bomb in the romance scene but being ready to love someone and being ready to raise a child are two very separate things. Why would you even suggest that into a relationship this young and in a situation this dangerous? The Pathfinder and his chief engineer are not in a position to even have a stable environment to raise a child. It's one thing to ask the question as a hypothetical, but this is going straight to the practical before anything has been floated between them.

And the fact that he’ll end up in a family unit with her if not romanced is… very unpleasant in consideration. A gay man is settling down to raise a child with a woman. Please, read that sentence and tell me that you understand why I find that so troubling. This is no unconventional family thumbing its nose at heteronormativity. This is a gay person settling down with someone of the opposite sex in the name of starting a family. And this is considered a happy ending.

Sure, no one mentions that he’s going to suppress his homosexuality or something in the name of making the family unit ‘proper,’ but that’s not the point. The point is that this is a gay person entering a parental relationship with someone of the opposite sex, with her as mother and him as father. That’s pretty damn heteronormative. Him settling down with a woman is in effect devaluing his identity as a gay man in the name of letting him be a father.

I repeat, this is my nightmare as a gay man.

Jill gets so much prominence in Gil’s character arc, I’ve devoted more than a page to just her alone. And without her? There’s really not much to his arc at all. Seemingly every conversation with him ties back to her in some way. SHE’S the one going through a character development and evolution, going from procreation tech to expectant mother.

If you want to write Jill so much, go write her and let someone else write this character. Because he has no independent arc. He’s a supporting character in her narrative instead of the lead in his own.

There’s a telling and not showing element here. There are indications that we’re supposed to see Gil as maturing – he’ll say ‘you’re making me a better man’ in the romance scene, and (much as I’m loathe to acknowledge her) Jill says that something’s changed about Gil when we meet her. But we see nothing of the sort in game. Gil’s character isn’t shown to change over the course of the game. We just get told this, that hey, your very influence and existence in Gil’s life has somehow matured him, without any evidence of how he’s changed ever being produced.

The worst part about this, though, is that we’re likely going to be stuck with this in the final analysis. That as much as we want an improvement in the form of Gil’s story actually focused on him, that would involve writing whole new scenes, bringing at least three actors back into the studio (if not more to offer him better integration into the main cast of characters), and programing that in. That’s a costly thing, and while I honestly think that BioWare should eat the cost, considering how offensive this whole mess has been to an extremely loyal audience… I’m realistic enough to recognize that it’s not likely to happen. The best we can expect is probably some duct taping patchwork in whatever finale DLC they put out, Andromeda’s answer to Citadel or Trespasser.

This story needs to be rebuilt from the ground up. And it sucks because once I divorce all references to Jill from his story, I find a character who I’d like to know more about, that some part of me does find appealing and interesting and relatable. I find something in him I can identify with. But everything else about his story so completely overwhelms that, because so much of it ignores him in favor of a side character who appears in one scene and has like two lines. If Gil were cut, Jill could still function as an autonomous character. HIS characterization depends on HER.

Seriously, this is a case where it really would be best for BioWare to eat the cost needed to fix this because this is homophobic. I’ll be nice and say it’s not intended that way, that this was a misguided effort at queering a straight story for a gay character, but something doesn’t have to be intended to be homophobic to BE homophobic. And given the rest of BioWare’s missteps with handling M/M relationships in this game, it’d be a really solid show of contriteness on their part, of understanding how they messed up, to go back in and fix this whole mess, drop Jill and focus just on Gil’s development.

But I know that they won’t. And it pisses me off.

[stonefreeak]

Hello! I love Chancellor!Obi-Wan ! I have a question though, we all know that sometimes Anakin has visions, right? But, what about Obi-Wan? 'Cause on the expanded universe, he is decribed to be very much in tune with the Unifing Force, wich is what grants Jedi and Sith, force visions... They say that since he was very young he was plagued by very strong visions... Is something like that going to be important at one point in this AU?

Well. Let’s start with Obi-Wan shall we?

I have no set headcanon on how prone to visions and stuff Obi-Wan is, but I am at the very least a believer in him having fairly decent precognition/prescience. Y’know, like his “bad feeling” during the Naboo crisis.

We’ve actually seen a bit of this in Chancellor Kenobi. For example: when he ducks during the first assassination attempt.

As for actual visions… nah, I have no plans to bring that into this verse. Right now, anyway.

Now on to Anakin.

Anakin, Anakin, Anakin…

Please don’t come after me for this, but: I don’t think Anakin gets Force visions. 

Read my long-winded explanation beneath the cut. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Aight, so you might be thinking “Stone, wtf. Anakin has those dreams about his mom and later about Padmé! What are you smoking?”

Well, I don’t think they’re Force visions. There. I said it.

“But Yoda told him to be careful when sensing the future!”

Yeah, obviously. But it’s not like Yoda could be sure whether or not Anakin was really sensing the future or not, he’s not omniscient. Better safe than sorry. Especially when the dreams are about pain and suffering but considering that they’re at war and Anakin never says he thinks it’s from childbirth, obvs Yoda’s advice lacked a few necessary extra steps like “Take that friend to the Healers, you should. Double check their health, you should.” before the part about learning to let go and all that with its shade of “forgetting that not everyone else lives for centuries and has a different reference for the passage of time as well as life and death” lmao

Also, if Anakin was prone to visions, I’m pretty sure Obi-Wan wouldn’t be treating Anakin’s dreams about his mom as just dreams. It’d kinda be his responsibility and duty to check for that, so he’d probably ask for more details and ensure they’re not visions. Also, Anakin probably would have called it visions rather than dreams. But whatevs, lol.

So if we exclude Force visions from the explanation of Anakin’s dreams, what other explanation is there for him having them in the first place?

Well, from a Doylist/extradiegetic perspective the dreams serve a very specific function:

Anakin’s dreams about his mom, and the later discovery of her kidnapping and death, is only in AotC in order to set up the dreams in RotS. If the Tatooine business in AotC didn’t happen, the audience wouldn’t recognise “Anakin’s having dreams” as anything of worth. It would also be a bit confusing as to why he’s putting so much energy and basically laying everything in his whole life on the line over dreams.

So the dreams about Shmi + what happens on Tatooine exist to make the audience go “OH NO, WAIT, REMEMBER AOTC! IS PADMÉ GONNA DIE?!”

The dreams about Padmé serves to make the audience see why Anakin decides to do what he does. 

From a Watsonian/intradiegetic perspective, however, things are a bit different.

Let’s begin with the dreams about Shmi.

They could just be force visions, absolutely. But as we’ve removed that from the list of possibilities for now, what remains is two options that I will explain.

1) Shmi is Force sensitive.

This idea is one of those that I can’t say for sure work because keeping track of time in Star Wars is a crap shoot at best. However, we know that Shmi has been gone for a month, because Cliegg says so.

In star wars, from what I can find, a month is 7 weeks of 5 day weeks. Aka 35 days. Then there’s the travel times, I’ve based it on this post, because what else would I use, as well as this map and this map.

Basically, from Coruscant (Core) to Naboo (Mid Rim) it’s about 84 hours of pure travel time, that’s 3.5 days. From Naboo (Mid Rim) to Tatooine (Outer Rim) it’s supposedly 24 hours, aka one day.

So that’s 4.5 days, let’s say 5 days (a week), of pure travel time.

That still leaves 6 weeks, 30 days, for: Anakin dreaming, mission days on Coruscant, and hanging out on Naboo. Aka more than enough time for the timeline to work out; in fact, it would even if you were to go really on the safe side and set two weeks for travel times instead.

So why the fuck did I check travel times and timeline for this, you might ask? Well, this idea is based on Shmi being Force sensitive. When she’s kidnapped and hurt, she subconsciously calls out for her son, who she so dearly would like to see at least one last time before she dies. She does so through the Force, and reaches Anakin through his dreams. She calls for him, and she’s in pain, of course that would make the dreams seem scary. Even if Anakin doesn’t know that she’s dying at first.

Considering that Anakin’s dreams seem to be progressively getting worse, that could be connected to Shmi being progressively more hurt and closer to dying.

That’s why the timeline is important here. If there hadn’t been enough time for the travels and stuff, the idea would be bust simply because Shmi would have gone missing after Anakin started having the dreams.

But as I said before, we have no such issues and this is a perfectly plausible Watsonian explanation. Especially since we’ve already seen that Force sensitivity is a bit hereditary in the Skywalker line: Anakin -> Luke & Leia -> Kylo Ren. Why not add Shmi to that?

So that’s one explanation!

2) Palpatine did it.

Of course this is an explanation. Palpatine could very well have set everything up, both with Shmi’s kidnapping (Force compulsion on the Tusken) and then ensuring Shmi stays alive long enough for Anakin to get there (after all, Darth Plagueis did learn how to keep people from death, didn’t he? Who says Sidious didn’t learn to do that too?).

Because really, how convenient was it that Shmi died just moments after Anakin finally reached her? Unless, whatever kept her alive felt Anakin reach her and stopped doing the whole “keeping her alive” thing.

After all, Palpatine wants Anakin to Fall and lose his shit. Setting up the death of Anakin’s mother is certainly not unthinkable for Palpatine.

Not to mention, the first time Anakin dreams about his mother being in pain and suffering calling out for help, is after he and Obi-Wan has been separated. Which could hint that well, finally time for Palps to make his move and ensure Anakin really goes to Tatooine. Because again, it’s really convenient that he dreams about his mother actually dying only now. 

After all, Palpatine would want to make damn sure Anakin goes looking by making sure he dreams about more specific Bad Shit™, but if Anakin had dreamt about his mother dying while still with Obi-Wan, the latter would likely make sure they check that shit out “just in case” rather than say dreams pass in time—which is a totally valid thing to say when Anakin is just dreaming about his mom, and it could be memories for all Obi-Wan knows—which would be bad since Anakin probably wouldn’t go on to commit mass murder when Obi-Wan is right there.

ANYWAY.

So those are two plausible Watsonian explanations for Anakin’s dreams about Shmi that aren’t “Force visions”.

Next we move on to the dreams about Padmé dying in childbirth. So what’s my “not Force visions” explanation for this one?

Palpatine did it.

Of course it is. Considering everything else Palpatine has done, this really shouldn’t come as a surprise that he would.

But you might think “but the dreams about Padmé came true though! They even had Obi-Wan there!”, but I’d say that’s not actually correct.

1) Padmé doesn’t die in childbirth. Literally, does not die in childbirth. (Ofc, that could just be Anakin’s interpretation of the dreams). The med droid says “Medically, she is completely healthy. For reasons we can’t explain, we are losing her.” and then they said they should operate immediately save the twins, because Padmé isn’t even in labour (I think it looks like they end up inducing actual labour instead of just doing a c-section… or else it’s a Space C-section). They said something about her having lost the will to live too. Palpatine did it

2) Yes, Obi-Wan is there, but that’s just about the only thing the dreams get right. Everything else is wrong. 

The first dream has Padmé crying out “Anakin, help me!” which she does not. The next has Obi-Wan saying “Save your energy”, which he does not, and she answers him with “I can’t!” which she does not, and then he says “Don’t give up, Padmé.” which he also does not. So the dreams get way more things wrong than they do right.

Ofc, Obi-Wan being in the dreams makes Anakin suspicious and like “Obi-Wan was here.” and then goes on to say that “Obi-Wan and the Council don’t trust me.” despite everything Obi-Wan said before he left for Utapau. 

3) Obi-Wan being in the dream and Padmé still dying lends a lot of credence to the “the Jedi can’t save her” thing Palpatine implies. After all, if Anakin’s dreams about Padmé dying has Obi-Wan being RIGHT THERE, then clearly Palpatine is right when he says that you can’t learn to keep someone from dying from a Jedi. Otherwise Obi-Wan would know and save her, right?

ALSO, both dreams happen after Anakin was recently in Palpatine’s presence, so bonus points for that, lmao.

Anyway, it’s 100% possible that I’ve forgotten something that breaks my whole argument, but whatevs. This is my take on it, lmao

¯\_(ツ)_/¯