#the great season 1

[imnotoverlyobsessive]

Peter in The Great is unironically one of my favorite kinds of dudes. Catherine tries to kill him? He’s like 😍 Catherine is ruthless and cruel to him? He’s like 🥵 Catherine insults him and threatens his life repeatedly? He’s just like 🍆 and I love that, that’s fucking hilarious. I love it when a guy is like “omfg she’s so mean and bloodthirsty I love her so much” it’s amazing

[ladystrallan]

I could write an essay on all the intricacies and nuances of the INSANE relationship dynamic of Peter/Grigor/George. The three of them are so codependent it’s crazy. Like George loves Grigor but also loves fucking Peter (and there’s also a weird power dynamic between them because he is emperor), but she doesn’t love Peter romantically. And Grigor loves George so he hates that she’s fucking Peter, but he can’t hate Peter because he loves him so much (platonically, but maybe not???). And Peter is so oblivious and has been made so entitled to everything by being emperor that he needs them both to be completely and utterly devoted to him, and has never stopped to think that maybe he shouldn’t fuck his best friend’s wife. They’re his friends but he also has so much power over them. It’s simultaneously beneficial and awful for everyone involved. It’s so toxic but none of them can imagine life otherwise. It’s so interesting and it should have been explored more on the show.

[mynameistocool]

Just to add to that last post I find it so unbelievably strange when people say they hate Marial and love Peter like I love them both but hating Marial and loving him is odd to me. I so confused by what greater thing Peter has done then Marial on the moral scale 😕

(I haven’t watched season 3 yet so this opinion on Marial could change but I doubt it I fucking adore her)

[thegreatmadness]

Elle Fanning and Nicholas Hoult during The Great’s season 1 panel at Winter TCA. (2020)

[nobodylivingknows]

jesus CHRIST, Leo/Sebastian de Souza is MAGNETIC in the great like I can't rip my eyes away when he's onscreen nor would I want to. His acting is so subtle and so charming, he completely embodies leo

[greencarnation]

eleven is fascinating to me because he came right off the back of tens horrible traumatic breakdown after he lost everything and he immediately tried to establish himself as the opposite of that. he is funny and goofy and almost childlike, and he bulldozes on in his adventures with amy like nothing happened at all. but then something happens and his masks slips and it's like oh! the core of this man is still anger. he is so so angry all of the time and this façade is the only thing stopping him from being consumed by it. he isn't over any of it and he hasn't moved on. he is wearing a fez and laughing but under that all that exists is age old anger and grief and it is going to consume him

[columboscreens]

[solar-kidd]

Oldest sibling bonding :D

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

My rendition of @tempo-takoyaki's DTIYS!

Congrats on the milestones! And to everyone else, please go check out their 'Drawing TGCF (except I haven't read the books)' series!

[shivroy]

my friends

[seasideoranges]

It shocked me to find out that people will completely skip season 1 in their ATLA rewatches. The season gets a little too much flak imo. Is it a little more childish than S2 and S3? Maybe! But so many important moments and setups are established in that season, and in terms of story and pacing, it’s one of the strongest seasons right next to S2 imo!

[ladystrallan]

The weird way The Great frames infidelity

The Great is a show which portrays many extramarital relationships. However, it is quite inconsistent with the way in which they are framed by the narrative. This portrayal results in a strange theme of ‘cheating is okay if you don’t love your spouse’. Let’s look at all of the affairs in the show and how they are framed:

1. Catherine and Leo: this affair is consensual from all sides until it isn’t. Peter is the one who sets up Catherine and Leo, who she ends up falling in love with. Peter only starts to have a problem with this relationship once he falls in love with Catherine, and we all know how that ends. Catherine is not portrayed as in the wrong for cheating, because her marriage to Peter is loveless and he is a horrible person in season 1. Additionally, Peter is also not framed as bad for being jealous, only for killing Leo.

2. Peter and George: the most fucked up relationship in the show. Both are married; George to Grigor who she does love, and Peter to Catherine who he doesn’t love (at first). It is also pretty evident that their relationship started long before Peter married Catherine. There is an obvious power imbalance here. Peter is the absolute ruler of the country and George is his subject. No matter how ambiguous the question of consent is, he could absolutely have her killed if he wanted to. A lot of people forget how volatile and absolutely cutthroat Peter was in season 1. Catherine is hurt when Peter invites her into a threesome with George, but his infidelity largely doesn’t matter after she decides she doesn’t love him. Peter cheating on his wife is pretty much not a big problem at all and just adds to reasons why he is a ‘bad person’ in season 1. There is also a second element that makes this affair ‘worse’. George’s husband is Peter’s best friend. We see just how distraught Grigor is about this affair, finally snapping and trying to kill Peter. George is framed as an ‘evil whore’ for cheating on her husband with his best friend, while no one mentions how Peter is fucking his best friend’s wife. Peter is the emperor of Russia. He literally could have chosen anyone to be his mistress and he chose his best friend’s wife. Additionally, in the 18th century ‘mistress of the king’ was a legitimate position and one of the only ways for women to improve their position in court. She also makes many references to how she only does this to keep her (and Grigor’s) position in court. (See scenes from s1e5 and s1e9)

3. Peter and Joanna: this one is also a mess. Joanna is obviously framed as bad for trying to seduce her daughter’s husband. Peter is framed as in the wrong— but there is a bit of ‘he couldn’t help himself because Joanna seduced him’— but mostly because of who he cheated with. It’s not that big of a deal that he cheated, it’s bad because he fucked her mother. (And then she fell out the window and died and he covered it up)

4. Grigor and Marial: Similarly to Catherine and Leo, this relationship is also ‘person finds true love outside of their evil spouse’ except George was not an abusive murderous tyrant, but that’s besides the point. This affair is framed as very triumphant for Grigor; he has finally escaped his toxic marriage! Even though his relationship with Marial is very toxic. She is constantly rude to him, lies to him, hates his friends, not to mention how she treats him after Peter’s death. She wants to be the only person in his life. When George returns from France to find that her husband has left her for another woman, she is justifiably upset but is framed by the narrative as in the wrong even though she does nothing to break up Grigor and Marial. Marial is also married to Maxim but he’s 11 so it doesn’t really matter, and the fact that he is upset about her infidelity is played for laughs more than anything.

Honorable mentions:

- Hugo and Agnes: they both make passes at other people but are both always in on it

- Catherine and the American ambassador: it’s fine because she does it to get back at Peter for fucking her mother

- Peter’s countless hookups: don’t matter because they mostly happen when he and Catherine are not in love

- Tatyana and Arkady: Arkady gets really defensive at the idea of Tatyana doing anything with Peter, but she wants to take George’s place as his mistress. This is pretty evident when they think Pugachev is Peter and Tatyana is desperately trying to fuck him. It doesn’t amount to much of anything

When you look at all these relationships and how they are framed, one thing stands out. The only person who is vilified for cheating is George. Even though the dynamic between her, Peter, and Grigor is super complex, the one takeaway the narrative and most people in the fandom get is ‘George is an evil slut’. Even when she gets her ‘punishment’ and loses Peter, Grigor, and some of her standing in court, it’s still not enough and people want her dead. The theme turns out to be ‘cheating is only bad if you’re George’.

[mynameistocool]

Anyway I finished the great Marial is still my favourite that doesn’t mean she’s excusable from her actions especially with the full grigor thing that made me sad like comfort him and tell him you love him for once anyway I really enjoyed the season ❤️

[smultronviol]

Ppl going "waaahh unpopular opinion but Alice is kind of annoying and obnoxious and I don't think I'd like be her friend irl" is so funny to me bc like.

God forbid a cast of characters be multifaceted and have actual flaws and unpleasant aspects other than "grr angsty hero" and "whoops i'm so clumsy". Sometimes character dynamics and arcs need to be prioritized above "who would i personally be niceys with irl"

2. bro just WAIT until you hear about season 1 jon lol

[writer-room]

Honestly the funniest thing about TDP to me is that Rayla for some reason always thinks Callum isn't 100% ride-or-die with her on any given situation. Seriously, she could decide she's jumping off a cliff and he'd do it too--oh wait.

I get that half of it is 'protecting' him but like. Girl he has been ready to die and kill for you since the first snake chain incident. It has not lightened up since. In fact its gotten worse. She's his special little guy and if anything happens to her he will kill everyone in the room and then himself. She physically cannot ever sacrifice herself for anyone because Callum WILL be following her straight into the afterlife in no less than a minute. I'm fully convinced he can and would go even further than Claudia and he'd barely have to think on it for five seconds before shrugging like "damn this sucks, can't believe I have to turn evil" "you literally don't have to--" "no I'm gonna"

And honestly I think that's peak teenagers first girlfriend behavior.

[raiderlucy]

Endless Gifs of Steve Harrington (62/?) Stranger Things • 1.02 The Weirdo on Maple Street