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hellsbellschime · 3 years

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Ok, so I’ve always noticed some of the racism on TVD , most notably the treatment of Marcel and Emily, and the founders day parade episode (which, as a Virginian I have to say that the episode made me low-key ashamed when I re-watched it years later). But it took me a while to catch onto the racism on Bonnie‘s character. I was wondering if you have done a meta about it and could link me to it, or if you could do one?

Well it only took me like a year but here ya go!

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Despite the fact that The Vampire Diaries is a show that was ostensibly created for girls and young women, the show undeniably seems to lack a certain level of respect or basic interest in its female characters. And while every single significant female character demonstrates that misogynistic point of view in one way or another, one of the most unique, distinct, and apparent instances of The Vampire Diaries' sexism is on peak display with one of it's leading female characters, Bonnie Bennett.

Bonnie obviously occupies a particularly interesting role in the series because she's the only black leading character, and it's also hard to miss that The Vampire Diaries universe has a pretty apparent issue with it's non-white characters as well.

The race problem on TVD expresses itself in a few different, extremely blatant ways. The most obvious issue with people of color on The Vampire Diaries is that those who are actually PoC within the narrative itself are typically pushed to the sidelines and relegated to supporting players at best, but there is also an issue with presenting PoC performers who are white-passing as white characters.

None of the PoC characters in The Vampire Diaries get very good treatment, but the series seems to be exceptionally problematic when it comes to its presentation of black characters. While black people arguably get more representation than any other non-white characters in this fictional world, they are almost all outrageously attractive, extremely light-skinned, and conveniently lacking in any emotional needs or inner life that needs to be addressed within the narrative, seemingly designed to show up, perform whatever service is necessary, and once again fade into the background if not just be killed off entirely.

This is an issue with every black character in the series, but given that Bonnie is the most significant and prominent in the series, it comes as no surprise that she was affected the most intensely by these biases. It's one thing to be a black character, it's one thing to be a female character, but being a black female character in the TVD universe is exceptionally crippling. But how exactly did the misogynoir of The Vampire Diaries completely neutralize Bonnie Bennett as a character?

Bonnie was mistreated, dismissed, and outright ignored in many big and small ways throughout the course of the show. But, a lot of that treatment can be pretty easily sorted into a few categorizations. The Vampire Diaries went through a pretty seismic shift from the start of the show to the end, but it has always been a series that falls primarily into two genres, the supernatural thriller genre and the romance genre.

The show pretty clearly transformed from a show that was firstly a supernatural story with a romantic subgenre into an almost entirely romantic story with a supernatural backdrop, but it's safe to say that the vast majority of the plotlines were either focused on magic or love. And, it's not particularly difficult to see how Bonnie was forcibly excluded from a predominant storyline in each genre, even when it made absolutely no sense.

Bonnie was a completely inexperienced witch at the start of TVD, so her cluelessness and powerlessness made a certain amount of sense at that point. But by the end of season 2 at the very latest, it seems fully established that she is one of the most powerful living witches in the world, and for the bulk of the series it is plainly acknowledged that she is one of the most powerful witches who ever lived. Which is exactly why Bonnie's position in the narrative is baffling.

In quite a few instances, Bonnie's magical abilities seem to be somewhat inconsistent, at least in the sense that, if she can solve some of the biggest problems that the Mystic Falls gang is confronted with, then it's very odd that she can't solve the others. And while plenty of characters in TVD are occasionally used as plot devices rather than characters, Bonnie seems to be the one who is specifically designed to show up, fix what needs fixing, and then become set dressing once she's no longer necessary as the mystical solution to every unsolvable issue.

And this is actually a significant problem with the witches at large, but of course is most recognizable with Bonnie because she is the most prominent witch. While not all witches are women of color, it seems like they are far more represented in that faction of the magical world than in any other. So then, it's interesting that the witches are presented as servants of nature who are meant to selflessly restore order to the world without actually using their abilities for their own personal gain.

Of course there are plenty of witches who appear to use their powers for themselves, but still, it's incredibly meaningful that the lone black main character in the series is constantly sacrificing herself for the sake of the otherwise entirely white cast of characters. It's even more meaningful that she seems to willingly put herself in the line of fire every time, and it's also extremely telling that she suffers and even dies without complaint for the sake of other people.

And while TVD has never been the kind of show to linger on emotional moments for too long, Bonnie seems to stick out like a sore thumb in this circumstance as well. Most of the main and even supporting characters have moments where their pain is acknowledged and at least has a second to breathe, but there are quite a few situations where Bonnie should be upset but isn't, or where her emotional journey as a character literally takes place off screen.

This lack of acknowledgment and nearly complete omission of an internal emotional life that doesn't involve sacrificing herself for her friends only further makes Bonnie feel like a plot device instead of a character. And, while no character needs a romantic relationship to make their character complete, it is incredibly relevant that, on a series that was built largely on a foundation of romance and arguably became a completely romantically driven show by its end, only one of the female leads was pretty much never presented as a viable love interest.

Nearly every character is either threatened or charmed into doing what someone else wants them to at some point during The Vampire Diaries, however, Bonnie's charm-to-threaten ratio seems to lean very heavily in favor of threatening. That in itself wouldn't necessarily be a huge issue, but it seems to punish Bonnie in a way that is so severe that it's completely illogical.

Trying to intimidate Elena or Caroline, people who at best have the strength of a baby vampire and at worst are as powerful as a normal human, makes sense. But trying to strongarm the most powerful witch in the world instead of just convincing her to do what you ask seems like an incredibly dangerous and completely baffling decision.

And yet, that is how Bonnie is forced to do nearly everything that she doesn't want to do in eight seasons of the series. By the end of season 2, TVD has canonically confirmed that Bonnie is powerful enough to destroy Klaus Mikaelson, and yet people like Klaus, Katherine, and even vampires as young as Damon get Bonnie to do things by simply bullying or even assaulting her into doing it. And what does Bonnie typically do in response? Absolutely nothing.

At a certain point, the consistent contrast between Bonnie's mystical strength and the way that people treat her in order to use that strength becomes a pretty gaping plot hole. And while it's not unheard of for someone to try to sweet talk Bonnie into joining their team, it is almost always done by a character who is far less powerful than she is and who is completely irrelevant to the narrative at large.

In contrast to characters like Elena and Caroline, the distinction between them becomes even more obvious. Perhaps a thin argument could be made that because Elena is a doppelganger that makes her a tad more unique, but when one of the most powerful creatures on the planet was wrapped around Caroline's finger, it really begs the question, why wasn't anyone ever as invested or even obsessed with Bonnie as they were with the other two female leads on the series?

After all, Elena's love was consistently treated as if it was the greatest prize that anyone could possibly win, and the two male leads were completely obsessed with her and willing to do anything they could to try to win her over. And despite the fact that Elena was at the center of the love triangle that was a significant driving force behind the story for the entire series, she still managed to score a few love interests that weren't Salvatores throughout the show's eight seasons as well.

And, while Caroline was actually treated as more of the reject love interest in comparison to the unattainable Elena, her record with romance is also incredibly varied. Even though she was portrayed at best as the consolation prize and at worst the abuse victim, she did have some sort of romantic relationship with the two male leads in the show. Or at least, that is how The Vampire Diaries chose to portray it.

In addition to her horrorshow with Damon and her incredibly brief marriage with Stefan, Caroline is also a love interest for Klaus, Matt, Tyler, and disgustingly, Alaric. Arguably the only main male character who doesn't serve as Caroline's love interest or potential love interest at any point is Jeremy.

Although this laundry list of love interests can be partially excused by the fact that Caroline is characterized as someone who wants to date a lot, the contrast bet0ween characters like Caroline and Elena and characters like Bonnie is astonishing.

Over a nearly decade-long run, Bonnie's only legitimate leading men are Jeremy, Elena's kid brother who Bonnie will willingly die for but who also prefers a literal dead person over her at one point, and Enzo, her epic love romance that comes about at the very end of the series in a relationship that almost entirely develops off-screen.

Of course, female characters do not need love interests to validate their characterization or very existence, however in an environment where every single barely significant supporting character seems to get at least two love interests, it's incredibly telling that Bonnie Bennett gets two important love stories in eight seasons of storytelling.

It seems even more relevant that the show seemingly went out of its way to sidestep almost any and all opportunities for romance in Bonnie's character arc. Whether it was Kol, Kai, or Damon Salvatore, there were quite a few instances where there was a clear and easy route to develop a love interest for Bonnie in a way that made sense and had a pretty solid amount of audience support, and yet the series always went out of its way to avoid it.

In stark contrast, Caroline is still seen as a viable option for a burgeoning love story when she's pregnant, and Elena is an acceptable love interest when she's literally unconscious. And yet, in a series that began with romance as its secondary genre and that evolved into a romance series with a supernatural backdrop, Bonnie is supposedly not as appealing of a love interest as Elena and Caroline regardless of any circumstances, no matter how insane.

If these issues existed in a vacuum then they might be excusable, but considering how poorly The Vampire Diaries treated its female characters and black characters, it's pretty much impossible to avoid the reality that Bonnie Bennett's entire character arc was likely hamstrung by the fact that she was a black girl.

In any reasonable circumstances, Bonnie would have arguably been at the center of every single supernatural storyline, and she logically would have been a far more appealing love interest to any powerful characters in the series. But instead she spent the vast majority of her screentime with her inner characterization ignored, her personal development unexplored, and serving as little more than a glorified deus ex machina who didn't even want her friends to bother mourning her when she literally sacrificed her life for them.

Representation was always an issue in The Vampire Diaries universe, and unfortunately it seems like Bonnie was the definition of their token black character. Although the series had eight entire years to course correct and had many seasons where they were desperate for new ideas and decent character development, the racism and misogyny of the series seemingly prevented them from ever tapping into the enormous untapped potential of someone who should have been one of their flagship lead characters.

#bonnie bennett #anti tvd #anti the vampire diaries #misogynoir #racism #sexism #misogyny #tvd #the vampire diaries #bonnie bennett meta #anti tvd meta #tvd meta #meta #my videos

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aion-rsa · 4 years

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Anya Taylor-Joy Infiltrates the Boys’ Club of Chess in The Queen’s Gambit

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Netflix’s period piece miniseries The Queen’s Gambit spans a decade in the life of fictional chess prodigy Beth Harmon (Anya Taylor-Joy), a wunderkind whose natural aptitude for anticipating her opponents’ moves is blunted by her addiction to the tranquilizer pills with which she credits her wins. Following gawky teenage Beth through her early tournaments in the 1950s to the aloof redheaded beauty wowing spectators in Europe in the ’60s—and leaving a trail of defeated men in her wake—the seven-hour series was faced with the challenge of making every chess scene equally thrilling to enthusiasts and non-fans alike.

The key, Taylor-Joy explains to Den of Geek, was in having every single game be recognizably unique. “[Series creator and director] Scott [Frank] and I would have a lot of conversations about both the chess and the addiction scenes, and how we were going to make each of them different and each of them fresh,” she says. “Because this show is seven and a half hours, and if a lot of that is the same chess game, people are gonna wander off.”

The cast and crew imbued each chess match with specific emotion, matching Beth’s personal and professional growth, and unique physicality. For the latter, that involved bringing in chess consultant Bruce Pandolfini (who also consulted on Walter Tevis’ 1983 novel on which the series is based) and grandmaster Garry Kasparov to plan out the series’ many games down to every gambit and checkmate. Because neither Taylor-Joy nor her on-screen competitors had played much chess prior to shooting, treating the gameplay as choreography helped them pick up the moves.

“I saw the whole thing as a dance,” explains Taylor-Joy, a former ballet dancer. “I saw learning the choreography as dance, but just with your fingers.”

Costar Harry Melling, who plays one of Beth’s early rivals Harry Beltik, agrees that the authenticity was found in the tactile movements of the pieces themselves.

“One of the most important things in terms of the choreography was the feel of the pieces,” he says, “about how you take pieces—whether you slide it across the board or whether you lift it up or put it down. All of these little details [are] what makes it look like you’ve been doing it your entire life.”

“It’s like riding a horse,” says Thomas Brodie-Sangster, whose chess champion Benny Watts is known for a distinctive leather duster and laconic attitude. “It doesn’t really matter if you can ride a horse, it’s more about if you can get on the horse and get off the horse and look cool doing it. That’s what people pick up on; it shows that you actually look comfortable doing it.”

While Beltik and Benny are as fictional as Beth, the actors were encouraged to draw inspiration from current and historical grandmasters on which to base their characters’ games. “Every game in the show is based on a real game,” Brodie-Sangster says. “If you’ve got a really keen eye, you can probably recognize games from across the history of chess.” He modeled Benny’s moves after Bobby Fischer, while Melling devoted a lot of time to watching current World Chess Champion Magnus Carlsen play.

“That was really fascinating,” Melling says, “because I knew nothing about chess whatsoever—so [I was] starting from ground zero, really, working out how these people operate, what makes them tick.”

Equally important as the dance steps were the dance partners. Taylor-Joy credits the originality of each sequence to who Beth is playing at that moment in time—like Townes (Jacob Fortune-Lloyd), a hunky competitor who flusters young Beth. “The first time that Beth plays Townes, it’s the first time that she’s ever liked somebody that she’s playing opposite against,” she says, “so she wants to win, but she doesn’t necessarily enjoy seeing him crumble, which is a new experience for her.”

Taylor-Joy soon found the game as dramatic as Beth does. “For her, it is life or death,” she says. “This is her intellect being challenged, and her intellect is the only thing she has any faith in. So I definitely felt the pressure, and then—whenever she’s playing with somebody—the power high of that.”

It’s no surprise that Beth gets a power high from defeating her male opponents, as it is a very insular boys’ club into which she enters as a dowdily-dressed teenager in the ’50s. For her first match with Beltik at the Kentucky Chess Championship, Melling says, the former is very much in his element, “and then she sort of enters his sphere, and he becomes completely in awe of her talent, and he knows that she’s a better player than him. His bubble gets burst very quick.”

Though Benny saunters into their first match together, Brodie-Sangster acknowledges that there is also an immediate spark with Beth. “Her presence is a bit of a surprise, and a bit of an enigma for him,” he says. “She is very much in a man’s world and doesn’t really look like she really fits in there; neither does he, and I think there’s a kind of connection there.”

Beth grows up in the world of chess, both as an aspiring grandmaster and as a young woman. Taylor-Joy had a blast playing so many different versions of Beth, though she laughs recalling how Frank initially asked her how young she thought she could play. Fourteen or fifteen was her answer—“eight, you’re gonna have to get another actor to do that one”—and so she portrays Beth from her inelegant teenage years through to her mid-twenties.

Over the course of the series, we witness Beths who are alternately brilliant and awkward, shy and sexy, on top of the world and extremely vulnerable. “Because [the show] takes its time and because you do grow with her, you as an audience are allowed insight into why she is the way she is,” Taylor-Joy says. “You see the things that shape her, and you see her grow from it, and you understand why she’s grown in that direction.”

To move between those many phases, she would devise her own backstories for the different Beths: “She starts off walking very clumsily and awkwardly and almost side-to-side, and then I was like, ‘Oh, and this is the first time she’s ever seen an Audrey Hepburn movie’ and she starts wearing the black pants and the turtleneck and starts standing differently, if a boy’s around. And just trying on different personalities, as I think we all do, especially in that age range, and probably into our adult life. It was really fun.”

In contrast to her male opponents and love interests who inhabit the same sphere, the two key women in Beth’s life exist almost entirely outside of the chess world. Fellow orphan Jolene (Moses Ingram) shows her the ropes at the orphanage, much like an older sister, but resentment stretches between them when Beth is adopted and Jolene is left behind.

“It’s all in how they’ve grown up with each other and gotten to know each other,” says the theatrically trained Ingram of her first on-screen role and the difficult emotional history between Beth and Jolene. “I think people that truly love one another certainly get the very best, but also the very worst, of each other. When you can see someone that deeply, you can’t help but be locked in to one another.”

Complicating their relationship is the fact that preteen Jolene is the one who introduces eight-year-old Beth to the tranquilizer pills to which she immediately becomes addicted. “Jolene was just teaching her how to cope in the only way that Jolene has learned how to cope,” Ingram explains, but that simple act irrevocably shapes Beth’s approach to chess for the next decade. Initially used to “even out” the orphans’ disposition (and then later banned for their habit-forming tendencies), the pills help Beth envision a chessboard in the shadows of her bedroom ceiling at night. Taylor-Joy says she would track Beth’s mental and emotional state not just by the different matches, but by how the ghostly chess pieces appear to her: “Sometimes they’re familiar, sometimes they’re very threatening, it all very much depends on where she’s at.”

Unfortunately, where Beth is often at is relying too much on the pills to help her focus during chess games, believing herself unable to triumph when not in her altered state. Her dilemma is complicated by the fact that the tranquilizer pills come back into her life care of her adoptive mother Alma Wheatley (Marielle Heller), who initially comes off as a stereotypical ’50s housewife who can’t function without “Mother’s Little Helper.” (Though the pills go by the fictional name Xanzolam in the series, they seem to be a cousin of Azolam and other benzodiazepines.)

In the past four years, Heller has been best known behind the camera, as the director of such celebrated films as The Diary of a Teenage Girl (for which she also wrote the screenplay), Can You Ever Forgive Me?, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, and What the Constitution Means to Me. While Heller had always referenced her history as an actor as “part of my superpower as a director,” she says that she began to feel like “a fraud” when directing stars like Tom Hanks or Matthew Rhys. “I started to feel like, ‘Do I even remember what that feels like, to be an actor, to be asked to do these things, to be asked to go into these certain emotional places?’”

So when Frank, a long-time friend, invited her to join the series and spend a few months shooting in Berlin, Heller saw it as the perfect opportunity to, in her words, “keep my street cred as a director who was an actor.” As a director who seeks out projects about the uncomfortable things that people don’t talk about, Heller found that Alma embodied those same sensibilities: “She’s someone who has a lot of pain in her past, and that makes her most interesting; she’s not some version of a ’50s housewife that doesn’t feel real. So much of what I try to do as a director is to tap into that thing that has made somebody the way they are.”

Despite mother and daughter’s initial friction, as Beth carves out her niche in the chess world, and Alma begins accompanying her on her more glamorous tournaments, the older woman is inspired to revisit her own long-abandoned dreams of devoting her life to a creative pursuit. “For Alma,” Heller says, “she had this dream deferred. She was somebody who wanted to be a pianist and artist and never could, and that’s a pain that I feel is very human, and I totally connected to.”

What’s remarkable about The Queen’s Gambit is that each of its female characters experiences a different and specific struggle for the time period. “Scott did that really beautifully,” Ingram says of playing adult Jolene, advocating for change during the Civil Rights movement while Beth is moving up through the ranks of the chess world. “He didn’t let us forget what point in time we were in the world—we’re in the ’60s, in the smack-dab [middle] of civil unrest, because people aren’t being treated fairly. And I loved that Jolene is out front and being a crusader, being a champion for change, when very clearly all she’s known is white people her whole life. So it was beautiful to see that she’s found herself later, in changing the world—trying to, at least.”

In that endeavor, Jolene describes herself as a radical, though Ingram also feels that the word was a fitting theme for the series overall.

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“I think it’s radical that Beth, as a woman, is this far into the chess world at this point in time,” she says. “It’s unheard of that she’s there, and everyone’s shocked by it. It’s definitely a story of radical love, and radical faith.”

The Queen’s Gambit premieres October 23 on Netflix.

The post Anya Taylor-Joy Infiltrates the Boys’ Club of Chess in The Queen’s Gambit appeared first on Den of Geek.

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fuanteinasekai · 5 years

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Tanuma Kaname and the Anime Problem

A sweet—and significant—moment in the middle of “Unchanging Form” that redefined Natsume and Tanuma’s relationship. Anime version: not found.

A BRAZEN THEFT

There’s a moment in “The Time-Eater” when a de-aged, amnesiac Natsume is sitting alone in Tanuma’s house, watching Sensei totter off in search of a cure. His friends observe him with concern. Taki comments to Tanuma that while Natsume’s transformation is difficult to believe, his “un-childlike, wooden” expression is still recognizable. After a brief acknowledgment from Tanuma, she rambles on that it’s good Sensei found their help, but wonders what will happen to Natsume if he can’t turn back. Then she sees Tanuma’s face, and her tone changes abruptly: she apologizes to him, saying she’s sure Sensei will fix the problem, there’s just not much they can do themselves.

There’s little ambiguity in this sequence: the change in Taki’s tone is visually apparent in the style of speech bubbles—from the soft curves of “normal” speech to the more angular lines of emphatic speech. And the use of a “…” speech bubble makes it clear that Tanuma is responding with silence, not just listening from the outside. Even Taki’s body language supports this reading, her fist awkwardly balled up as if to say “oh crap, I screwed up.”

The effect is to create a contrast. Though Taki had shown concern at an earlier point in the story, she now demonstrates an ability to emotionally detach enough to speculate about undesirable results—she’s the kind yet tactless bookish friend. Tanuma, on the other hand, is too hurt by the thought to speak. The implication is that Tanuma is more invested in Natsume as someone he can emotionally relate to—not just a friend to take care of or have fun with, but a mental equal to share life with.

This theme continues, sometimes subtly, throughout the story. Whether it’s gently checking on a frightened Natsume while Taki giggles about how fun it was to chase him, or single-handedly dealing with Natsume’s fear of being hated by his caretakers, manga-Tanuma consistently demonstrates a higher level of attention and emotional intimacy. He’s even the one to beg Natsume to “come back,” a symbolically important role. The implied intimacy is not one-sided—Tanuma is the only character Natsume is unambiguously shown to regain memories of.

Yet when the anime adapted this scene, the dynamic is reversed. The visual staging and the progression of Taki’s tone of voice are changed to imply that she is, absurdly, apologizing to herself rather than Tanuma. The anime’s framing centers her and her stolen emotions, though it fails to do so for Tanuma later when it’s actually supposed to. Instead of reacting sadly to Taki’s rambling, Tanuma is shown observing with a blank expression at unrelated moments, looking as if he doesn’t understand why she’s upset.

The dialog remains exactly the same, simply recontextualized, and Tanuma is still shown reacting, merely at a different point; so it doesn’t save a millisecond of time or even art. The only practical reason for this change is to change the implication. In other words, the anime reversed the characterization of the manga in order to make the girl more sensitive than the boy. This continues throughout the episode: if a moment belongs to Taki, it’s Taki’s; if a moment belongs to Tanuma, he either shares it with Taki or gives it up entirely.

This is not an insignificant quibble. Taki and Tanuma’s personality differences and the way they relate to Natsume inform their roles in the broader story and the way their relationships with Natsume evolve. The anime erased one of the single most important aspects of this story.

Anime vs. Manga. [Remember that Japanese reads right to left.] The corruption of Taki’s “I screwed up” fist into an “I’m a delicate bird” fist is almost hilariously manipulative. Taki is feminine, but she’s anything but delicate—it’s one of her most admirable traits. And I could go on about the use of white space and merging shadows on the bottom left, but honestly the staging isn’t subtle. Natsume is talking to Tanuma, and Taki is watching. Any such implications preserved in the anime are so brief and unnoticeable as to be not worth crediting.

Prior to this episode, I had given the anime the benefit of the doubt, assuming that the numerous emotional scenes they cut from Tanuma repertoire were simply too long to fit. But there’s no such excuse here. Either (1) Taki’s lack of feminine intuition and Tanuma’s lack of masculine stoicism were unacceptable, or (2) the boy being more sensitive than the girl was too suggestive of queerness. Whether out of their own discomfort or to placate the audience, the anime has deliberately adapted the manga in a way that downplays Tanuma’s sensitivity and his emotional significance to Natsume. And while the above examples are among the most difficult to explain away, they are far from alone.

There’s a reason I’m bringing this up.

The popularity and availability of the anime mean that most people who’ve read the manga have also watched the anime—perhaps even seen the anime first—which means that their understanding of characterization and development is likely influenced by it. But Midorikawa-sensei isn’t using the anime to guide her writing, she’s using her own. (Little could be more obviously devil-may-care than making a story’s last minute reveal revolve around the color of something we’ve already seen. Have fun with that, anime!) And that means viewers (and readers) are being misled not only about what function characters play in the narrative, but also where the story is going.

DISTORTED LENS

For a look at the way a cynical, targeted heteronormative adaptation can influence characterization, themes, and even perception of the source material itself, there’s no better example than “The Other Side of the Glass,” a.k.a. the Omibashira Arc.

At first glance, the anime appears to have made a perfectly reasonable adaptation of the manga. When boiled down to plot points, it looks the same. And it’s still romantic enough, on Tanuma’s part, to make people uncomfortable (hat tip to the “fan” in the Crunchyroll comments complaining that Tanuma wasn’t Taki). Yet in reality, it’s a complete mess, with (in addition to a new cringe-inducing fake boy/girl scene) nearly the entire mansion sequence rewritten to change both the themes and characterization, spinning the emotional focus off its axis.

When I first read the manga, I was struck by two impressions: One, that it was much more delicate than the anime, with a painful, slow interplay between Tanuma and Natsume that spirals into emotional collapse for both. Two, that it was somehow also sloppy and inconsistent. At first I couldn’t put my finger on why, but then I realized, it was this:

Tanuma, looking supremely ungrateful, as Natori hands him the talisman stone.

What I perceived as “sloppiness” was actually the dissonance between the anime characterization and the manga. Because I had seen the anime first, I had subconsciously projected its version of the characters onto the manga, and thus found it jarring when, for example, the normally sweet manga-Tanuma continued to act petty and angry toward Natori long after the more assertive anime-Tanuma had shyly introduced himself.

Hmmmmm.

The anime’s replacement of manga themes with their own was too surgically precise to be unintentional. Once I recognized what they were doing, I started making accurate predictions about what else they would change. This is, without a doubt, a story revised to meet the anime’s priorities.

It would be impossible to list everything the anime changed without essentially transcribing the entire manga, so instead I will focus on three of the most important scenes.

Right to left, again!

First is the scene I mentioned above. This is where Natori apologizes to Natsume for not being able to get him out quickly, but also where Natori and Natsume treat Tanuma like a child—or worse, an object. Natori suggests splitting up and Natsume agrees, immediately charging Sensei with “following” Tanuma like he’s a wandering child, then with finding the exit. Tanuma is never addressed directly. Both Natori and Tanuma notice Natsume is in an agitated mental state, but it’s Tanuma who steps in and tries to provide emotional support, gently suggesting that they take a break. Natsume brushes him off, inadvertently rejecting Tanuma himself, and pretends to be okay. But in the next frame he’s mentally chiding himself not to “leave his heart unguarded” and “get led astray,” suggesting he’s afraid that his emotions for Tanuma will distract him and lead to disaster. Tanuma calls after him, but Natori interrupts with the talisman stone, snidely throwing his earlier rescue in Tanuma’s face: “Take this. It’s a protection stone. Since you’re no match for an ayakashi when it matters, are you?” Tanuma accepts with cold politeness, then gives up.

This is plainly intended to help set the groundwork for Tanuma’s emotional collapse. And it’s likely setting up his recklessness in dealing with Omibashira. The scene as a whole is a microcosm for the relationship issues that led to this point. Natsume relies on distance to maintain his equilibrium, pushing Tanuma away to “protect” him and calm his own mind, but also effectively rejecting Tanuma’s affection in the process. Though Tanuma tries to do something he’s actually good at, his rejection leads him to behave more recklessly so that he can be useful anyway—and perhaps earn Natsume’s respect. For his part, Natori is everything Tanuma thinks Natsume would prefer him to be: powerful, self-assured, with movie star looks. Perhaps worse, he speaks the judgmental opinions Tanuma is afraid Natsume holds, dismissing Tanuma as weak and useless. Natori takes Natsume’s side in pushing Tanuma away because it aligns with his cynicism: he, too, believes ordinary people must be rejected to be protected. That to make them “treasures” is to make himself “weak.”

In the anime, this becomes a scene where Natori does all the planning, where Natsume never pushes Tanuma away, where Tanuma insists on helping ineptly and Natsume is open about his fears. Instead of cruelly dismissive, Natori is silly with jokes about “not making a lady work.” Instead of distant and avoidant, explicitly trying to bottle up his emotions, Natsume is openly emotional, saying “If anything were to happen to you...” He’s far too articulate.

Thematic change #1: Instead of being emotionally repressed and struggling to adapt, Natsume becomes the Generic Hero, nobly worried about his foolish best friend who doesn’t know his own limits.

Second is this scene between Tanuma and Sensei. Here Tanuma fishes for validation from Sensei, pestering him incessantly about “that ‘Natori' guy” and “that ‘Reiko' girl.” He asks whether Natori can sense presences like they can, but Sensei brushes him off because sight is more important. He calls Natori “high pressure” but Sensei defends Natori, saying it’s a habit from having so many enemies. He’s about to interrogate Sensei about exorcists when Sensei finally snaps, saying “Don’t ask me, ask Natsume!” It’s a cruel, if not exactly intentional, reminder that Natsume never told Tanuma about Reiko or Natori or exorcists in general in the first place—yet another step closer to emotional collapse. Tanuma’s whole tone is clearly one of insecurity, digging for evidence that he’s better than Natori at something, however petty. Tanuma never lets go of this. Even at the end of the story, he’s making backhanded comments:

祓い屋って…やっぱり資格とか必要なんですか？ An “exorcist”.... Do you really need “qualifications” or whatever, after all?

This patent insecurity, framing Natori as a literal rival, evaporates in the anime adaptation. His exchange with Sensei about Natori is bastardized to make his opinion positive, with a laughably transparent “I think that ‘Natori’ exorcist might actually be a good person.” Instead of fishing for validation, Tanuma interrogates Sensei about how Natsume really felt about his involvement. As if he got involved out of bad judgment. As if it were not, instead, the emotional desperation of someone repeatedly shut out, repeatedly in the dark, finally having an opportunity to do something without being able to see Natsume tense up and try to escape. This reinvented scene is capped off with a wholly new comment from Sensei: “Someone weak like you will get eaten [in this world].”

Considering this scene was meant to be an illustration of Tanuma’s insecurities and his ineffective attempt to quell them, it’s almost comically cruel that the anime chooses to not only canonize Tanuma’s uselessness as a central theme, but to make their voice Sensei, the only character in the manga to give Tanuma any agency. Not only was Sensei the one who involved Tanuma in the first place (a fact the anime makes no attempt to explain), he’s also the one who trusted Tanuma with the task of freeing Natsume. The anime vaguely implies that Sensei and Tanuma worked up a plan together, but the manga was clear: Sensei more or less gives Tanuma a mask and kimono, slaps him on the back and says “you’re on your own.” Tanuma stumbled around interviewing dangerous yōkai by himself long enough to work up a sweat. The sake bottle gambit was all his.

(Though the above is mildly exaggerated for humor, it’s still more accurate than the anime.)

This scene doesn’t just miss the point, it flips it. Tanuma having good judgment is one of his central character traits. Natsume even says so in the same chapter, describing Tanuma as 思慮深い and 慎重, meaning that he is meticulously thoughtful, careful, and responsible. The problem, here, is not his lack of judgment. It’s that his judgment is overwhelmed by his emotions toward Natsume. Natsume, in his inexperience and emotional immaturity, has used the Natori-esque technique of outright avoiding people during yōkai problems. This leaves Tanuma with no outlet for his love and desire to support Natsume, a suppression and repression that eventually builds to the point of desperation. Natsume getting stuck in a bottle where Tanuma could not see or hear him was a crack in a wall that was already under a lot of pressure. As Tanuma says, blushing, at the end of the manga:

姿見えないから勢いで超キザなこと言った気がする… I have a feeling I got carried away when I couldn’t see you, and said something super-cheesy...

Thematic change #2: Instead of behaving uncharacteristically out of emotional vulnerability and insecurity, Tanuma is merely weak and foolish.

Third, we have the climax: Natsume’s emotional collapse when Tanuma finally gets hurt. Here, it’s the little details that really matter, like manga Natori showing up and utterly failing to acknowledge the collapsed boy at Natsume’s knees until Natsume falls apart. Anime Natori gets Sensei’s lines, reassuring Natsume as if he actually values Tanuma. Or the moment when Natori finally admits that Tanuma is important, which the anime gives soft-focus to emotionally center Natori instead of Natsume’s emotional needs. Or even the moment just afterward when Natsume—his and Omibashira’s eyes now open—regains his strength.

The manga has:

ぐずぐずするな夏目　あれを封じんとこいつもお前も帰れんぞ Sensei: Don’t dawdle, Natsume. Neither [you nor Tanuma] are going home if you don’t seal that guy. ああ　そうだな Natsume: Right!

The anime completely rewrites this:

夏目無理なら私が行くぞ Sensei: If you’re not up to it, I'll go. いや俺が行く俺が行きます Natsume: No, I’m going [to Sensei]. I’m going [to Natori].

Thereby making Sensei strangely soft, and Tanuma an emotional drain Natsume has to shake off, instead of someone Sensei recognizes as a motivator.

Again the anime misses the point of the original manga. Or, perhaps more likely, dislikes the point. Natori is not, as they would have it, here to be the knight in shining armor, saving the silly boys and wisely imposing emotional advice. Natori is usually wrong about emotions, and this has always been so.

Though he means well and tries his hardest to be a good mentor, it’s Natori who offered to take Natsume away from the Fujiwaras, and gave him a nightmare about it. It’s Natori who told Natsume he had to “choose a side” between yōkai and humans, directly contributing to the child god’s rejection of Natsume. It’s Natori who, on finally being told of the Book of Friends, said he’d rather just burn it. When they first met, Sensei described him as “full of hate” for yokai, and there’s no reason to believe he’s improved. Yorishima’s accusation that he’s becoming more like Matoba is in his second most recent appearance (as of the end of 2018).

This should be no surprise: he’s only 22 and on top of that lacks even 15/16-year-old Natsume’s experience with healthy emotional relationships. From a strictly logical perspective, he has no basis to be wise.

Furthermore, his given name 周一 (Shūichi) literally means “circuit one” or “lap one.” Though it’s typically used for a first-born son, here it has another meaning: Natori is the first version of Natsume himself. He was the powerful “good kid” (as Hiiragi called him, and as he called Natsume) who was turned bitter, isolated, and cynical by yokai trouble and emotional neglect. His attitude and his life reflect the direction Natsume was heading at the beginning of the series, when he says “I’d rather talk to [a yōkai exterminator] than to yōkai.” Natori is the little boy who “just wants to live alone,” all grown up and living alone.

In other words, Natori is what Natsume could have become without the unconditional love and acceptance of the Fujiwaras, and of Nishimura and Kitamoto; without the protective buffer of Nyanko-Sensei, and without the emotional pull of Tanuma. Perhaps without the cautionary tale of Taki: his inverted mirror in ability, desire for sight, and family life. (And gender.)

(Similarly, Reiko is the “avoided path” whose tragically short and lonely life is redeemed by the growth her “Book of Friends” forcibly imparts on her grandson—and she, too, makes an appearance here through Sensei.)

In fact, this is supported by, of all things, Natori’s paper bag mask. Besides being funny, it hides a bit of subtext. The marks are meaningless alone, but taken with the shape of the bag you get 肉. This is the word niku, meaning “meat,” but more importantly “flesh” as contrasted with “spirit.” Natori’s life, and his path, are preservative for the corporeal body, but spiritually sterile.

Natori is here not to be a hero, but to admit he is wrong and Tanuma is right. He is still Natsume’s best source for advice on human magic, and still the protective older brother figure, but he is utterly lacking in the kind of relationship experience that Natsume needs advice on. The best he can do is to say “it might be terribly difficult, but you need [what I threw away].”

This isn’t just a moment of realization for Natori—it’s a dramatic reversal. The boy he was so foolishly, cruelly dismissive of, believing him to be nothing but an intrusive, “reckless” child, is actually a desperately devoted key to Natsume’s happiness. In a sense, we’ve known this all along. The standard Japanese word for “necessary” [that Natori uses] is 必要 (hitsuyō), and it contains the same kanji as Tanuma’s given name 要 (Kaname). There’s good reason: Kaname literally means “the most important person or piece.” He is the lynchpin of Natsume’s emotional growth.

We see this just three stories earlier in “The Long Road Home” when Tanuma confronts Natsume for lying about his parents' photo, thereby setting his visit to his childhood home in motion. This visit makes Natsume feel “lighter” and helps him let go of the past so he can recognize the Fujiwaras as his (new) true home. Tanuma’s role is so important he gets an entire third of the arc. In other words, Tanuma is the anchor who steadies Natsume so he can have stronger relationships with ordinary people.

In downplaying Natori’s cynicism, the anime also erases the reversal, and with it the sense that Natori has been convinced of the impossible by Natsume’s loving (if unintentional) description of Tanuma’s devotion. This opens up the scene for a broader interpretation that's about ordinary relationships in general instead of Tanuma specifically.

Thematic change #3: From Natori the avatar of emotionally barren power conceding to Tanuma the avatar of love, to Natori the charming if a bit silly hero saving Tanuma from driving Natsume away.

These are not the only losses, though they are the largest thematic issues. The anime suffers continuously from a Natsume who is far too aware and open about his emotions, and a Tanuma who doesn’t get interrupted or sabotaged. The groundwork for their respective breakdowns is poor.

The result is a two-parter that satisfies as many fans as possible, at the cost of Tanuma’s (and Natori’s) symbolic role. Anime Natori is fluffed up for his fans, and anime Tanuma is sweet enough to satisfy his fans without threatening those who would be uncomfortable with his fundamental centrality. In other words, it’s a cynical, heteronormative adaptation that assumes there is no long-term purpose to Tanuma’s role—an assumption they may come to regret.

力になりたいと頑張ってもやはり出来ない・かなわないということはあって、前向きに行動をとればとる程それにぶちあたってしまう田沼。話したいけれど話すと、そいうジレンマに田沼がおちいるとだんだんわかってきた夏目。それを見て、それ見たことか！と言いたいけれどそうとも言ってしまえない不思議な可能性に、口から出る言葉が変わっていってしまう名取。と、それぞれの立場のズレあいが描けてとても楽しかったです。普段描けないような夏目の表情が描けた先生ナツメもワクワクしながら描けました。あらためて夏目は表情とぼしい奴だなと実感しました。

Tanuma, who wants to help, but can’t no matter how hard he tries. Who, having things he cannot handle, finds that the more positively he takes action, the more he runs into that problem.

Natsume, who wants to talk, but is gradually coming to understand it leads Tanuma into that dilemma.

Natori, who wants to say “See, I told you so!” but finds himself unable, a curious possibility escaping his mouth instead.

I enjoyed drawing the meeting of these incongruous positions. I was also excited about drawing expressions on Sensei-Natsume that I normally can’t. I felt a renewed sense that Natsume was a guy with few expressions.

In Part 2, I’ll be talking about the textual basis for canonical Tanuma-Natsume soulmates, and how this is downplayed by the anime.

#Tanuma Kaname #Natsume Takashi #Natsume's Book of Friends #natsume yuujinchou #田沼要 #夏目貴志 #夏目友人帳 #Let's be honest #this turns into #田夏 #eventually.#meta #a bit of Natori meta in here too #technically #Several large images behind the cut.#Sorry if you're on a bad connection!#anime vs manga

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cogentranting · 7 years

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The majority of the Arrow fandom seems to take one of two positions regarding Felicity: she’s perfect and always right, or she’s terrible with no redeeming qualities. I love Felicity, so if you hate Felicity, this post probably isn’t for you. She is one of my favorite characters. And I love her because she is a well-written, complex character. Which, sorry, means she has flaws, so let’s get rid of that pedestal some of you have been polishing.

One of the most common criticism’s of Felicity is that she’s self-righteous and that she thinks she has no flaws. In essence there’s this position that Felicity thinks she’s perfect (I’ll talk more about her being self-righteous specifically in a second). And, frankly, she doesn’t. Just look at what she tells her father at one point “I grew up thinking I was broken”. The reason I think that some people get that impression is 1. from the fans who view Felicity as perfect and take her word as gospel in any disagreement, 2. because she’s juxtaposed against Oliver who is brimming with self-loathing and thinks he destroys everything he touches, so any measure of self-esteem looks extreme by comparison, and 3. because she is not as unguarded as she gives the illusion of being and actually keeps her insecurities locked away for the most part. So let’s look at what some of Felicity’s actual flaws are, and how aware of them she is.

Felicity is a genius. That’s just fact. That means that growing up Felicity was a “gifted child”. One common struggle of gifted children is that they feel a pressure to be perfect. In all kinds of different ways- school, behavior, accomplishments. Felicity feels this push very acutely. That’s why her intelligence is always on full display, because her tasks have to be completed perfectly (you’ll notice she is generally very hard on herself if she feels she made a mistake). It’s why her appearance is typically completely pristine and put together (either in her more business-like professional attire, or when she chooses to get dressed up) even when you wouldn’t totally expect that level of togetherness (that and the fact that it’s a tv show). And that’s why she always feels a pressure to be the “good one”. This particular aspect is fed into by her father’s abandonment (a common reaction of children in this situation- which she outright expresses, as mentioned above- is the “what did I do wrong that he left me”) and by the fact that the team looks to her in that respect. This even twists into times when she feels she has to prove herself to the rest of the team in certain ways, like the time she’s been eager to be in on the action even though its not her disposition and not within her skill set. It is also the reason why she is often very guarded. Why she mostly chooses to grieve alone. Why she doesn’t talk about her past or her parents. Why she disguises her pain with humor. And why she appears to think she’s perfect- because she feels like she has to, because that is the expectation put on her by everyone else.

For certain periods of her life, Felicity has also chosen the other option in response to this pressure to be perfect and has rebelled against it in some way. By becoming a goth hacktivist. By being an IT girl after graduating MIT. By joining Helix, perhaps. But it’s always some balance of rebelling while excelling on her own terms. Never a full-scale about face.

Felicity is also proud. It’s hard not to be when you’re that smart. Not only is her intelligence instantly recognizable, but she is a woman in a STEM field and there is a certain degree to which she has to advocate for herself in order to get the respect she deserves, and it is very difficult to do that and maintain a balance of humility. But there is also an element of her clinging to what she knows without a shadow of a doubt that she is good at to reassure herself that she is not as broken as her father and what happened with cooper have made her feel. So she is proud, but it’s justified; it’s not always genuine, sometimes its covering up insecurities; and that pride manage to rarely translate into condescension or scorn. Felicity doesn’t give off the impression of thinking she’s better than Diggle or Oliver or _______ just because she’s smarter and she knows it. She’s also very good at acknowledging and encouraging the talents of those around her. She doesn’t feel threatened by Ray or Curtis or Cisco or Caitlin. She actively praises and encourages their brilliance and is quick to admit when something is out of her area of expertise.

Related to that, yes Felicity is sometimes self-righteous. Much in the way that ALL the characters in the Arrowverse tend to be at times. Felicity is far from the worst (I’m very tempted to point out which characters I do think are the most self-righteous, but I’ll restrain myself. But it’s definitely not Oliver). Here’s the thing though: Felicity is a good person. She’s kind. She’s largely very moral. She’s much more traditionally heroic than most of the members of team arrow. And the show typically frames her as being right in ethical disagreements. Because that is her function on the show. And much of her self-righteousness that is complained about, is really just her standing up for what she believes in. And she believes it because she thinks she’s right. And here’s where I really think that the argument that she is a primarily self-righteous character falls apart. Self righteousness means believing you are morally superior to the people around you. Oliver believes Felicity is morally superior. But that is mostly expressed by OLIVER. Felicity, for her part, is much more likely to speak about her admiration for OLIVER. About what a good man he is. About what she admires about him. In essence, about how she is not better than him in the way that he thinks she is. (which, I will point out, is not a common thing for Oliver. Most of the time when Felicity corrects Oliver, it’s about him being better than he thinks he is- don’t be suicidal, don’t punish yourself, don’t take on everyone’s sins, don’t feel like you have to do this yourself because you’re atoning. But most other characters, including some of the people close to Oliver, spend their time telling Oliver what is wrong with him- we’ve seen this from Moira, Thea, Tommy, Laurel, Barry, Joe (indirectly), Slade, even Diggle at times).

Felicity also tends to feel isolated, in large part due to her intelligence. Do you think a seven year old who spends their time building computers has a lot of friends with common interests? Intelligence on Felicity’s level does a lot to drive people away. It can feel threatening or it can just create a gap between interests. A lot of the fandom criticizes not seeing Felicity’s friends- she probably doesn’t have that many (aside from her ever growing circle of superhero friends- which in turn doesn’t leave her a lot of time to go out and make other friends, especially considering the amount of time she would have to spend lying to them). Felicity’s also a bit awkward in her social skills, but not nearly as much as she was, and not as much as she thinks she is. Her tendency to babble is something she’s very aware of and very self-conscious about, if her reactions are any indication. Not only does it make her feel awkward, it makes her feel like she’s not someone people respect, and it makes her feel out of control. This contributes to her feeling of not being able to build connections with people. She even at times feels isolated among the team because her role is so unique (having Curtis helps, but with him in the field now it reinforces the idea that she is different. Distinctly separate from the team). It’s why she fell for Ray. It’s why she sought out Curtis. It’s why she gets along with Cisco and Caitlin so well. Because she feels like among them she isn’t an outsider. And it’s part of the reason she joined Helix.

And the last point I’m going to talk about, Felicity has a tendency to run from problems. It has to do with needing to give the appearance of perfection. It has to do with feelings of abandonment and trust issues- he/she/it isn’t going to last, isn’t going to be there for me so I should just leave now mindset. And it has to do with the belief that she isn’t strong (which has steadily been changing over the course of the series) or capable (hasn’t been changing as much, paralysis didn’t do wonders for this) enough to handle it. When she left hacktivism (ultimately a good decision) she was running from the pain of everything involved with Cooper. When she walked away from Oliver at the end of 3x12, she was running (whether or not her points she made to him were right). When she started dating Billy, I think she was, in part, running (we’ll see what the 5x20 flashbacks reveal). Joining Helix she was running. Leaving Oliver in 4x15 she was running (leaving him might have been right, but the way she did was not). She’s not inclined to face her problems head-on. She’ll bury herself in work. She’ll end a relationship. She start a new one. She’ll leave the team. She’s especially prone to this in relationships because of what she witnessed with her parents. Because she’s afraid to be them.

And all of this, is part of the reason I love Felicity, and the way she’s portrayed, and the way she’s written.

#arrow #felicity smoak #felicity smoak meta #cogent metas

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