#the narrative Rewards this incredibly destructive behavior | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

rachelbethhines · 3 years

Text

Tangled Salt Marathon - “Rapunzel Knows Best!” ( A first half of S3 Recap)

So I decided to place the recap after Be Very Afraid for several reasons. For starters it’s where the season three hiatus took place. It’s also framed like a cliffhanger episode the same as The Great Tree and Queen for a Day; so while Cassandra’s Revenge is technically the midseason finale, Be Very Afraid functionally servers this narrative purpose better. Finally I want to keep the Cassandra heavy stuff contained in it’s own recap later same as I did for Varian’s arc in season one.

Also keep in mind, everything I discussed in previous recaps still apply here. Nothings changed and you could argue that the issues I bring up now could have also apply to past seasons; they just happen to be at their worst here.

Here are the past recaps

To Filler or Not to Filler

Hey, What Ever Happened to That Varitas, Guy?

What Is the Point?

‘Whatta Twist’

And here are the episodes that’s covered in this recap

Rapunzel’s Return Part 1

Rapunzel’s Return Part 2

Return of the King

Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf

The Lost Treasure of Herz Der Sonne

No Time Like the Past

Beginnings

The King and Queen of Hearts

Day of the Animals

Be Very Afraid

Poorly Defined Conflicts

I’m not just talking about Cassandra’s lack of goals here either, though that is a part of it. I mean in several episodes the central conflict isn’t laid out clearly enough before being resolved. We flip from one set up to the next without ever resolving the first; like in Rapunzel’s Return when Cass and Varian fight for screen time or whenever Rapunzel is suppose to learn one lesson only for someone else to learn a completely different lesson in every other episode. And to this day I don’t know what Rapunzel and Feldspar’s subplot in Lost Treasure was suppose to be about.

There’s also of course the ill-defined overall conflict; which at this point has become convoluted and nonsensical to the extreme, and will only grow more aggravatingly stupid as the season progresses. The main villains lack clear goals, their motivations don’t align with previously stated facts, and the actual interesting conflict involving the threat of the rocks and their destruction of people’s lives and homes is just shoved under the rug and forgotten about.

There is no story without conflict. Having the conflict be all over the place is not only confusing but makes it harder for the audience to invest in what’s going on.

Failed Narrative Promises

Tying in with the above statement regarding conflicts, we have failed narrative promises. Rapunzel is repeatedly told to that she needs to learn something in several episodes only for her not to learn it at all. She either learns some unrelated ‘lesson’ that wasn’t established, (like in Rapunzel’s Return with her pervious goal about ‘opening up to others’ being switched out for a generic ‘responsibility’ lesson that at the last minute, where she doesn’t even do anything responsible,) or she winds up ‘teaching’ the opposite lesson to a different character thereby rewarding her for her bad behavior.

And that’s just within the induvial episodes themselves; there’s also broken narrative promises through out the overall story arc; like...

no justice/redemption for Lady Caine,

no acknowledgment that the Saporians are the victims of colonization

no conclusion regarding Corona’s murky past

no satisfying ending to Varian’s plot that sees everyone in involve grow

a poor copout of an explanation for Cassandra’s face/heel turn

The Dark Prince reveal going nowhere

The Brotherhood being put on a bus

King Frederic, or any royal, not being held accountable for their past actions

Lance’s new found responsibilities just being thrown away for the tenth time

The Disciples plot being being dropped

next to nothing in season two winds up being relevant

And Rapunzel, the protagonist of a coming of age story, fails to learn anything at all

I could probably go on but you get the gist. Tangled is incredibly frustrating show to watch because doesn’t deliver what it promises. You’re not being clever by ‘subverting audiences expectations’ unless you can justify your narrative decisions with previous set up. Tangled is too lazy to build proper set ups so it’s ‘twists’ leave you wanting to punch things rather then impressing you.

Character Assassinations

Every single character in Tangled the Series gets thrown under a bus, driven off a cliff, and then allowed to drown in the ocean of their completely unaware self-congratulatory smugness.

Rapunzel is turned into a bully

Cassandra is given the idiot ball to hold permanently

The King and Queen are lobotomized

Quinin gets replaced by a robot

The rest of the Brotherhood are pale shadows of what they could have been

Edmund is transformed from tragic complex figure into a dumb jerkoff who abuses his kid for a laugh

Zhan Tiri, once an ancient demon warlock, is reduced to a floating impotent ghost girl

The Saporians become poor hipster parodies

Cap is put on a bus

Any villain who isn’t Cass is gets ignored

Lance is infantilized to the point of absurdity

Eugene becomes a doormat

and poor Varian is forced to become a complacent victim to his abusers as oppose to being allowed to keeping his dignity

I think the only person who escapes this mass murder of characterization is freaking Calliope, and she’s hasn’t even appeared yet! (Well okay her and Trevor, maybe)

This all ties back into the poorly defined conflict and failed narrative promises. Rather than let the characters drive the story, they’ve become puppets to the plot, and plot is really stupid and forced, and circles back in on itself and is full of contradictions.

Manipulating the Audience’s Empathy to Do the Work for the Writers

The reason why the creators believe they can get away with such poor characterization and lazy writing is because they expect the audience to do all the heavy lifting for them.

Cass isn’t given an on screen reason for what she does because they’re hoping her fans will just automatically excuse her because they like her/relate to her and not, you know, get mad at the writers for dumbing her down. And after all who doesn’t love the creator’s pet? Meanies! That’s who!

No one calls out Rapunzel’s bullshit on screen, because if everyone likes her, then you, viewing audience, should too. Because if you have any sort of independent critical thinking abilities and a sense of right and wrong then clearly you’re ‘just a hater’.

Everyone should just shut up and be satisfied that Varian is even on screen now and be grateful for the scraps that they get cause he’s not the real point of the show and according to Chris ‘Varian fans aren’t real fans’. Even though they make up most of his viewing audience.

I could go on, but it’s just variations of the above. The writing in this series is very fond of gaslighting the audience and trying to trick them into justifying the absolute worst behaviors while desperately hoping they doesn’t noticed the continued downgrading and dismissal of characters they do like or once liked.

And the sad thing is, it’s worked. There are people to this day that still try to justify this show’s shitty morals and bend over backwards to excuse the likes of Rapunzel, Frederic, Cassandra, and Edmund. Worst, there are loud sections of the fandom, (usually on twitter) who think bullying is okay and follow in Chris and his characters footsteps. Most of them young impressionable girls who are now ripe for TREFS to indoctrinate because they use the same bullying tactics and excuses for authoritarianism.

Media does effect reality, but not in the way purists and antis would have you believe. No one is going to become a violent manic from playing a video game nor a sex offender because they read a smut fic. But they very much will conform to toxic beliefs if it’s repeated enough at them by authorities they ‘trust’; like say the world wide leading company known for family entertainment and children’s media, and the ‘friends’ they find within the fandom for said company...

I’m not saying you can’t enjoy Tangled the series or that you’re some how wrong for liking it’s characters, nor do you have to engage with every or any criticism thrown it’s way. But yes you need to think about the media you consume on some level and valid criticism is very much important to the fandom experience for precisely the above reasons.

Conclusion

This isn’t even the tip of the iceberg of what’s wrong with this show, but it is most of its biggest problems laid bare. Anything that haven’t covered here or in the past recaps will be explored in the final recap. Cause this is it folks; the last leg of the journey for this retrospective. When come back, hopefully next week, we’ll tackle Pascal’s Dragon.

#tangled #anti-tangled #tangled the series #rapunzel's tangled adventure #tts #rta

95 notes · View notes

linkspooky · 5 years

Text

The Fall of Hawks and Twice.

Hawks choosing to sacrifice Twice is not purely for the greater good. In effect it’s Twice repeating what he always does, choosing to sacrifice himself. Twice essentially is twice, they’re both two-faced, they both experienced a fall, they both long for an easy life. Hawks choice to attack his foil, his shadow in Twice, says a lot about his own character. Hawks and Twice are so close it’s essentially an act of self harm. He’s beating up, and threatening to stab a person who looks like himself. Hawks is a character defined by his self destruction. Icarus is a famous story and metaphor for self-destruction, Icarus chooses to fly too close to the sun. Hawks is an icarus who wants to let himself fall, and because of that he deliberately chooses to push people like Twice who are so much like himself over the edge. Hawks and Twice are two characters who fall into conflict not because of their differences, but because of how similiar they are. More on their foiling underneath the cut:

1. Hawks Destroys Himself.

When Hawks said “You’re a very kind-hearted person” what he meant was “This is what makes you an easy target.” There’s an expression of remorse with those words as well, but you have to remember the lessons that Hawks’ learned through life. His first major action was saving a bus-load of children from an accdient as a child, and his reward for that “kind-hearted” action was to immediately get taken advantage of by every adult in his life.

Hawks has been taught over and over again by life that his good nature, the part of him that wants to save other people is something that makes him usable. To the point where saving people is no longer something he consciously chooses to do, it’s a function of who he is. The same way a robot programmed to save someone from a burning building would carry that job out without fail.

The one image we see of Hawks’ childhood with the public safety bureau he’s blindfolded. This is an important symbol for a character whose name is literally “Taka” Hawk and “Mi” See, visible, idea. Raptors in particular are known for their eyesight. Being able to see everything is important to Hawks, because seeing everything, knowing everything, visibility, and knowledge are both things that give him agency.

But as a child Hawks’ agency is completely stripped from him. He is literally blindfolded. He treasures it so much now because there was a time in the past where it was completely taken from him.

As a person Hawks is very self aware. He knows on some level that his dedication to saving others is what allows other people to use him so much. His way of regaining control of that has always been to just let himself be used, and say it was for a good cause.

Hawks’ tendency is towards self destruction. It’s the same as All Might saving people until all of his internal organs are irrepariably damaged and he is going to barely live past forty. Hawks was never treated as an individual in his life, and therefore he has almost no individual self-worth. He will always view himself as expendable, and always choose the option that damages him the most. However, this is a learned behavior. This is literally what Hawks’ was taught to do by the hero commission. Sacrifice yourself to save people, they’ve put this idea in his head since he was a literal child. The hero commission views him as someone without agency, without someone who has a choice in his own actions. Hawks as a person does not really exist outside of what the hero commission tells him to do. His value and worth as a person is entirely determined by how useful he is to others.

Hawks knows that he doesn’t really have a choice. That they’re taking advantage of the little boy inside of him that still genuinely does want to save people. However, he deludes himself and pretends that he is going along with this, that he does have a choice in order to reclaim what little agency he has left. Hawks chooses to self destruct. He flies towards the sun deliberately.

2. Hawks and Dissociation Disorders

So earlier I made the claim that both Twice and Hawks suffer from dissociation, it’s just that Hawks doesn’t really show his symptoms on the surface, and Twice is very obvious about it.

Now I don’t think there’s a like textbook diagnosis for Twice, but he displays a lot of symptoms for dissociation in his writing. Let’s do a quick review for Dissocation Disorders in general, I’m not talking about DID so much as the general category grouped together.

Dissociative disorders (DD) are conditions that involve disruptions or breakdowns of memory, awareness, identity, or perception. People with dissociative disorders use dissociation as a defense mechanism, pathologically and involuntarily.

Under this branch term there are four general types:

Dissocative Amnesia:

The Sudden inability to recall information of a personal nature due to forgetfulness or other organic conditions (We see Shigaraki do this).

Dissociative Fugue

Inability to recall personal identity and past with confusion about personal identity or assumption of new identity. (We see Shigaraki and Dabi both do this. Twice too doesn’t know if he’s the original or the real Twice or just a copy)

Depersonalization

Persistent symptoms involving changing in perception, and being detached from one’s own thoughts and body. May feel things are unreal or have a sense of being in a dreamlike state.

Dissociative Identity

Existence of two or more distinct alters, each with its own memories, attitudes, and perceptions. (Twice suffers from some form of this he at least hears two distinct voices in his head that argue with each other, but diagnosis is a very messy thing and he could overlap with a few other categories. IDK if Hori intended to show he has two distinct alters or just that he hears voices).

Hawks mostly shows signs of depersonalization, but I would argue just like Dabi, Shigaraki and Twice he also has his moments of clear dissociative fuge from his own thoughts, and intentions. Remember Hawks is incredibly high functioning a lot of the signs he shows of his mental illness are very subtle but let’s go over them quickly.

Its mentioned several times that the expression on Hawks’ face almost never matches what he’s feeling inside. He’s completely inscrutable to other people.

Even if they want to, literally no one in his social circle can understand him. How much of this is really Hawks being the best spy ever, and how much is Hawks literally not being able to show it or communicate properly. A severely depersonalized Hawks would be so detached from his own emotions he would essentially be unaware what he is feeling as well.

I can imagine Hawks smiling in a mirror for hours so he knows when to smile at the right time, and knows when to make the right faces to react to things so he doesn’t intentionally set everybody off. If Hawks has to make all of those reactions intentionally as part of an act, if he doesn’t intuit those things naturally there’s a serious disconnect betweehn what he is feeling and how he’s able to display and communicate those feelings. It’s kind of like how autistic people don’t always react “appropriately” or at least what everybody else considers to be appropraite. (There’s a lot of overlap in these mental illness symptoms).

If Hawks has to continually at all times act like he’s reading off of a script when he’s interacting with other people, even just having normal conversations than that means there’s serious unreality he’s experiencing.

Hawks also expresses guilt in relatively the same way that Dabi does. The scene itself is even paralelled. Hawks says I’m sorry in his internal narration, but does not show it in his face, or even communicate those feelings.

Dabi then literally in the next panel when asked if he feels guilt for the people he’s killed, says that he spent so much time thinking about it he went crazy. Dabi and Hawks are foiling here to show that they suffer from the same symptoms. Both of them have to continually dissociate themselves from their own emotions in order to deal with the guilt that piiles up. Dissocation, above everything else is a way to relieve stress by separating you from yourself, your own body, the pain you feel, etc. Hawks just like Dabi thinks about these things to the point where he goes crazy.

The connetion betwen Dabi and Hawks is just like that of Twice and Hawks, what Dabi expresses, Hawks conceals. Hawks interanlizes all of his damage and destroys himself, Dabi externalizes all of his damage and lashes out at the world around him but the result is the same, internalizing, externalizing, its still exteremly unhealthy behavior.

Tumblr user @katsubf made a post about this here.

If you compare Shigaraki, Dabi, Hawks and the way they’re drawn Hawks almost always is covering his mouth, whereas Dabi and Shigaraki have their mouth open.

In the same post katsubf points out one of the few times that Hawks has his mouth open is right before he’s made the decision to kill Jeanist.

Once again in a narrative of dissociation this is once again used to illustrate the disconnect between Hawks and his own emotions. Despite the fact that Hawks is doing this for what he considers to be good reasons, we also see him smile inappropriately like a villain right before deciding to stab Jeanist. Hawks can’t make his face match his true emotions. He smiles at this time because his long repressed emotions are coming to the surface.

That’s why Dabi and Shigaraki are maniacally laughing, and Hawks has to cover his mouth. That’s the difference between the repressed and the expressed. Shigaraki and Dabi make the decision to show how damaged they are and wear their scars on the surface. Shigaraki has his wrinkled up and scarred face, Dabi proudly wears his burn scars. When Dabi and Shigaraki feel something, everybody else knows about it. They’re way of dealing with their emotions has always been to express them. Whereas Hawks is such a considerably repressed individual that he’s never once expressed his true emotions in front of others. Shigaraki and Dabi have to express themselves, they find their identity in rebelling against everything that tells them to suppress themselves.

For Dabi and Shigaraki the bad feelings must always be expressed on the surface, even if it becomes someone else’s problem. Hawks response has always been the opposite, he always pushes the bad feelings deep inside himself and lies about them in hopes that if he represses himself perfectly the bad feelings will go away.

Hawks literally represses himself to such an extreme extent that literally nobody around him understands what his true feelings are, and Hawks is so dissociated from himself he probably does not have that good of an idea either. And this is what Hawks wants. This is what Hawks thinks he has to be in order to help others. Hawks has to distance himself from his own emotions, enver let his feelings get in the way, and do as he’s told.

However, the thing about repression is it doesn’t work. It doesn’t hold. His true feelings are going to come to the surface eventually, hence why we see Hawks smiling when he’s about to cut apart Jeanist, not because he feels happy about it in the moment but because Hawks is so insanely disconnected from his own emotions that he doesn’t know what he feels.

In summary, Hawks is mentally ill. He doesn’t cope with those feelings of mental illness in a good way either. There’s something very sinister about the people who Hawks chooses to target. This shouldn’t be a surprise there’s always been a dark edge to his character.

3. Hawks and Twice

If I were to characterize Hawks in a word I would say he’s avoidant. Hawks can’t let his emotions conflict with what he has to do, he doesn’t really know who he is, he can’t know who he is, so rather than dealing with those emotions he avoids them.

So, why target Twice? It’s because of all the people that Hawks has interacted with, Twice is the person who got the closest to Hawks’ true self.

It’s important to remember that concealment isn’t just something that Hawks does for the sake of his hero work, it’s also literally a survival mechanism to him. Hawks has to know everything and see everything, but nobody is allowed to get close to him, or know anything about him because just like the hero commission if they have that information they will use it against him.

Hawks has literally never even been taught to communicate in a healthy and open manner, he’s been taught “negotiation skills.” Hawks just isn’t a person, and Hawks just doesn’t allow himself to be a person either. Twice is someone who shares several parallels with Hawks. Both of them didn’t really have any agency in their situations. They both lost their agency due to poverty, Hawks lived in a terrible home before the heroes took him in, Twice had no relatives to take him in, lost his job, and became homeless.

However, unlike Hawks, Twice is someone very honest about himself and his desires. Hawks does not trust a single person, whereas what Twice desires the most is people he can trust and be trusted by.

Hawks and Twice both experienced a fall through no fault of their own, to the point where they lost agency and control over their own lives. They were both isolated from the rest of the world and only had themselves to count on, they were also both minors at the time.

However, they were taken in by different people. This is what the police and hero society as a whole say to people who’s fallen.

This is what Giran says to Twice who had taken a similiar fall. Even though by the time Twice lost his mind it was his fault a little bit, for deciding to rob, and try to live the easy life of crime.

The response of hero society is “Let them fall” whereas Twice was told that there are people in the world who are like him and suffering the same way, and he can trust them.

So in these opposite environments Hawks and Twice have internalized very different ideas. Those Hawks and Twice are people who have fallen, they came to the opposite conclusion. Hawks believes I should fall. Twice believes no one like me should fall.

When Twice encounters someone like him, he tries to reach out and accept them because he was saved by that same acceptance.

If you compare both characters the idea of self destruction runs rampant in them. Twice evens says several times, his greatest enemy is himself, he can’t trust himself anymore, he is symbolically beaten up by mulitple versions of himself. He has let himself fall again and again.

Twice also says as much, the choice to fall is also the choice to run away. Hawks avoids, Twice has already directly confronted who he is. He’s felt his pain while Hawks literally spends every second of his day not feeling his pain.

So you have Twice who believes the exact opposite of what Hawks does. Hawks wants to disappear and to make all of his personal feelings vanish underneath being a hero, whereas Twice is someone who states outright that the most important thing is understanding who you are.

What we see in Hawks and Twice’s confrontration is the culmination of an idea set up by Twice ever since chapter 115. Heroes only exist to save virtuous people and no one else. They exist to maintain a status quo that will always intentionally let people like Twice fall because dealing with them would be an inconvenience on everybody else.

Twice is Hawks’ literal opposite. He’s very aware of what Hawks is in denial about over himself. Hawks believes that he is on the side of heroes, on the side of saving people, but Hawks himself is someone who is not going to be saved by the current hero society, he’ll be used up and thrown out. Hawks is someone known for cheekily expressing his true feelings, but he actually always wears a mask at all times. Whereas Twice is someone who becomes his real self, when he puts a mask on, and Twice having no filter at all means he’s always expressing what he clearly thinks.

So what does Hawks do when he’s confronted with such a person? When he’s confronted with someone who wants what he wants, but is honest about it rather than lying to himself like Hawks always does.

Remember Hawks copes poorly. If I were to say his coping mechanism, I would say it’s “Do everything you can to maintain the lie.” Hawks is in spy mode 24/7 to the point where he not only has to convince everybody else around him, he must also take steps to convince himself.

Look at the way Hawks interacts with Endeavor. Endeavor is almost always threatening him, being angry and irritable, and he always suspects something. Even though Hawks deeply respects Endeavor and does things to help him, he’s treated poorly by the other, and it mirrors the way the hero system treats him as well. Even though Hawks is essentially a good person always sacrificing himself for others, he’s treated with suspicion, derision and forced to do thankless dirty work.

Twice from the start always treated Hawks the exact opposite. He treated Hawks as a person. He immediately saw who Hawks was as a person, and every time Hawks helped him out he thanked him for it. Twice is an unbelievably honest person in front of Hawks, and not only that unlike Edneavor and the commission he actually cares about what Hawks’ true feelings are and asks him about them.

We see as Hawks gets closer to Twice, in his mind Endeavor starts to turn away from him. Twice wants Hawks to meet Shigaraki because he knows Shigaraki would accept him and give him a place for belong. When Hawks is around Twice, there is someone who would accept his true self, and try to support him.

And Hawks hates that.

Hawks entire world view is built around always repressing himself, concealing himself, he can’t have his true face ever show. If you analyze the two people who Hawks has targeted so far there’s a common thread between them.

Jeanist, physically missing a lung and injured.

Twice, a dropout from society, quite literally insane and violent.

Hawks considers himself expendable. Damaged Goods. Someone who is eventually going to take a fall. Hawks ackonwledges that he’s going to be thrown out one day, but propels himself forward telling himself he needs to accomplish saving all the people he needs to save before that point.

It’s because Hawks has internalized the idea that he’s expendable, that he willingly sacrifices people like Jeanist and Hawks who are also expendable in the same way he is. He goes out of his way to target them and kill them to achieve his goals.

Hawks isn’t doing this for strictly good or evil reasons. There’s a deeply personal element to this for Hawks, and he’s essentially proving his own world view. This is a world where damaged people like Hawks have to get sacrificed for the sake of everybdyo else’s peace and well being.

Because Twice is so much like Hawks, it’s an act of self destruction. What Hawks really wants is to destroy the part of himself that Twice represents, the part that wants to trust others, to be accepted for who he is. Hawks believes if he permanently kills this part of himself he’ll finally be able to do what he needs to do.

It’s not really some great act of heroism, it’s incredibly unhealthy. Hawks is stabbing himself over and over because that’s what the hero commission has taught him to do.

However, there is still hope for Hawks. Twice has said he wants Hawks to meet Shigaraki.

Hawks has been set up to meet Shigaraki for a long time in the story. I doubt either of them will die before this meeting gets to take place just because it’s been brought up so many times. When Shigaraki finally does meet Hawks maybe there will be hope for him yet, because unlike Twice who was told that there are people like him in the world, and that damaged people can have friends too Hawks has still not been told these things. Hawks needs someone to tell him that he can’t let others trample on his feelings even for the greater good.

#mha meta #my hero academia meta #lov meta #twice #hawks #jin bubaigawara #takami keigo #dissociation #hawks meta #league of villains meta

793 notes · View notes

thegildedcentury · 6 years

Text

What We Talk About When We Talk About Luv: The Beauty and Horror of Blade Runner 2049′s Tragic Antiheroine

“I’m the best one.” Luv declares as she struts away from K, fresh blood from a stolen kiss adorning her face as she departs, having again reduced her opponent to helplessness and having again decided, bafflingly, not to kill him.

If we think of Blade Runner 2049 as a pretentious yet inferior movie, a pale imitation of its source material lacking all the intellectual and emotional resonance of the original, these four words spoken by Luv mean nothing, existing as a tossed off line spoken by a tossed off character in a film that accomplishes nothing aside from looking pretty and making you wish you were watching the original.

I disagree. I think Luv is incredible, one of the most fascinating, nuanced, and profoundly tragic characters I’ve encountered in a very long time, a figure who both deserves and rewards our attention. Though it’s easy to miss during an initial viewing (I certainly did) Luv has a rich, deep story arc that branches through the whole of Blade Runner 2049, one that both parallels and intersects with K’s story, the two characters informing each other even as they violently ricochet off one another. Once understood, the tragic depths of Luv’s story don’t just reveal a remarkable character but enrich the movie as a whole, adding an extra dimension to a narrative already dense with meaning.

Luv, like our central protagonist K, is a Nexus-9 Replicant model, a product of the Wallace Corporation. When we first meet her she is in the process of selling other Replicants as Off-World slave labor. This may seem like a betrayal of the first order but, as we will soon learn, Luv does not see it that way.

Luv works directly under CEO Niander Wallace himself, acting as his personal assistant, assassin, and all purpose fixer. While Niander Wallace is the face Technological Capitalism chooses to show the world--brilliant, eccentric, full of glorious and high minded ambition, a Ted Talk come to life--Luv represents it’s actual real world consequences: empty sadism, nihilistic violence, and ignorant self-aggrandizement, which is not to say that Luv is stupid. Luv knows she is a slave but nevertheless exalts in her position because she is the best slave, Niander Wallace’s chosen instrument. If Niander Wallace is God, and he certainly seems to think he is, Luv is his "First Angel”, the chosen means by which he enacts his will on the world. Luv knows this, but she can’t bring herself to fully comprehend its ramifications, a failure of understanding that ultimately leads to her tragic destruction.

Any discussion of tragedy would be incomplete without at least a brief detour to account for the Ancient Greeks, the originators of Tragedy as Western Civilization knows it, so let’s get it out of the way now. All tragedy results, on a fundamental level, from a failure to obey the message inscribed above the Oracle of Delphi: “Know Thyself”. When you don’t understand yourself, you open yourself up to becoming prey of the Gods, what today we might call the Passions, though few Greek Tragedians would have recognized a distinction between the two. (Euripides being the notable exception.) The most famous embodiment of this kind of tragedy through self-ignorance was Oedipus, the subject of the tragedy Oedipus Rex by Sophocles. Though a prisoner of fate, Oedipus effectively strolled into his own cage by letting his passions rule him, first by giving in to his wrath by killing a stranger he met on the road, and then by giving in to his lust by marring the wife of the man he killed. When wisdom finally comes to Oedipus in the form of the realization that the man he killed was his father and the woman he married is his mother, it arrives too late to save him, and instead destroys him.

The character of Luv in Blade Runner 2049 bears less direct blame for her own tragic fate, yet the mechanisms by which it operates are fundamentally similar. Luv does not understand herself. The result is pain and suffering, yet it is far more nuanced than it first appears. What superficially manifests as depraved cruelty is, in fact, the result of a more fundamental lack, the sort of profound misunderstanding of her own nature that elevates her from the status of a mere hired goon to a character worthy of our consideration, and even our sympathy.

Unless I’ve overlooked something (which is entirely possible) Blade Runner 2049 makes no mention of whether or not Luv has the sort of artificial memory implants that prove such an integral part of K’s personality and story. Knowing this is vital to understanding her character, and while there is no way to be absolutely certain, I believe Luv’s actions clearly demonstrate her lack of a synthetic past, maliciously depriving her replicant mind of what Eldon Tyrell in the first movie called “a cushion or a pillow for their emotions”. As a result I believe, despite her often cold exterior, Luv is a raging tumult of conflicting, contradictory emotions she can neither understand nor control, paramount of which are her feelings regarding K.

Luv expresses interest in K during their first meeting, her fascination paralleling the sparks that fly between Rachel and Deckard in the old recording they both listen to. Unlike the meet-cute that occurred thirty years prior in the first Blade Runner, the attraction isn’t mutual, and when Luv attempts to inquire further into K’s life he rebuffs her. This quiet, polite rejection will ultimately have devastating consequences for both characters. K makes a powerful enemy, while Luv becomes divided against herself, afflicted with powerful feelings she has no context for or understanding of. As Kierkegaard said, life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards. Without any history there can be no understanding, we become disconnected and begin to float, easy prey for any passing impulse. Knowing this doesn’t let us absolve Luv of her misdeeds, but it does give us a chance to reach a better understanding of her, as well as the more enigmatic aspects of her behavior.

We see Luv cry twice in Blade Runner 2049. The first time is when she sees her master Niander Wallace stroking and bidding happy birthday to a newborn female replicant (credited only as ‘Female Replicant’) who he then proceeds to murder by stabbing her in the womb, a brutal crime committed for no real reason other than vent his frustration and illustrate a point in a monologue he’s delivering more or less to himself. The second time is when Luv tortures and kills Lieutenant Joshi, K’s master. Both instances involve a woman being murdered, stabbed to death specifically, their body violated with a piece of metal in a grotesque pantomime of the act of heterosexual lovemaking. (When Blade Runner’s symbolism isn’t Judeo-Christian it’s Freudian. Freud would have diagnosed Luv with the three A’s: Ambiguity, Alienation, Ambivalence.)

When Luv cries with Niander Wallace it is in response to the nameless female replicant shedding her plastic birth caul and spasming into life. Luv casts a fleeting glance upward as the tear rolls down her cheek as if in acknowledgement to a higher power that bestows the transcendent spark of life, but if that’s the case any pretense to the sacred is destroyed when Niander Wallace murders the newborn replicant, an act that serves as a vulgar reaffirmation of his own mastery over life and death.

When Luv cries a second time it’s in response to her torturing Lieutant Joshi by crushing shattered glass into her hand, an act of sadism that concludes with Luv murdering the Lieutenant outright.

The fact that Luv sheds tears in both instances despite their profoundly different circumstances may lead us to the conclusion that Luv’s tears have no real emotional resonance, instead being an involuntary autonomic response to any extreme stimuli, what is little more than a bug in her design. It’s a natural assumption, but one that doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.

Luv is the best one, at least as far as her status as a consumer-grade product is concerned. She is the pinnacle of Wallace design, the closest to perfection he’s yet managed to come. If Luv had a fault in her genetic architecture that made her cry at inappropriate times, Niander Wallace would likely have disposed of her with the same dispassionate matter-of-factness he disposes of everything that mildly displeases him. Yet if Luv’s tears are genuine, how can we make sense of them?

The answer is the absence of her memories. Without the mental foundation of memory that would provide her with a chance to ground the violent events she experiences and violent emotions she feels in context, Luv is helpless to control how she reacts, a condition her judiciously maintained cool exterior can only do so much to hide.

The tears she sheds while witnessing the nameless female replicant’s birth and the tears she sheds while torturing and killing Lieutenant Joshi are both genuine. This is naturally confusing since the situations are so different, but as the author Leonard Richardson writes in his book Constellation Games, (which I cannot recommend highly enough) crying does not mean you’re sad, it means you’re experiencing an emotion that’s too large to keep inside of you. Blade Runner 2049 throws us off the scent because the first time Luv cries the cause is obvious, then when she cries for a second time it seems completely inappropriate to the situation, yet when we appreciate the emotional tumult storming inside Luv, both reactions begin to make congruous sense. The first time Luv cries it is out of empathy and a sense of the sublime. The second time Luv cries it is out rage fueled by a mix of resentment and jealously.

When Luv first strolls into Lieutenant Joshi’s office she says in regards to K “I like him. He’s a good boy.” an evaluation Lieutenant Joshi’s silence seems to affirm. Lieutenant Joshi is a character who, let us not forget, is for all intents and purposes K’s owner and master, having the same power dynamic with him that Niander Wallace has with Luv. Killing Lieutenant Joshi not only serves the practical purpose of giving Luv free reign to access Lieutenant Joshi’s computer and find K, but it also gives Luv a chance to eliminate a romantic rival, experience the catharsis of killing a human master in a way she never could with Niander Wallace (who she needs to reaffirm her status as the Highest Angel), and eliminate the person that has enforced rigid control over every aspect of K’s life. She’s acting out of a very warped sense of duty to K, not quite the sort of redeeming "kinship” that led Roy Batty to save Deckard’s life at the last moment, but a kind of solidarity nonetheless.

When viewed from this perspective, the desires motivating Luv are very fundamental and very human. She wants solidarity with her fellow replicants. She wants revenge on those who’ve enslaved her. She wants to experience romantic love. The fact that she gets none of these things, that she has been explicitly denied the capacity to understand what these desires are and how to act on them and is instead forced to derive comfort from her status as the best one, the best product, the best slave, is what elevates her as a character beyond the stark dichotomy of victim or villain to the higher echelon of tragic antiheroine.

Luv spares K’s life twice in open defiance of the spirit, if not the letter, of Niander Wallace’s commandments. The first time is when she and her fellow Wallace fixers storm Deckard’s Las Vegas sanctuary and abduct him. K fights back despite being wounded thus forcing Luv to beat him into submission, though when the time comes to move in for the kill, she holds back. Instead she kills Joi, K’s holographic A.I. companion, crushing the emitter that contains her consciousness beneath her radiantly polished boot.

Immediately before doing so she says “I do hope you’re satisfied with our product.” Luv looks at Joi when she speaks the line, though it seems to be intended for Joi, K, and Luv herself, all three of whom are themselves commercial products of the Wallace Corporation. It’s a line that can be read as pure sarcasm, yet when considered in the context of what we’ve been talking about, we can view it as a sort of question, and a sort of appeal as well. Joi and Luv are both Wallace Corporation products, but Luv knows herself to be the best product. There is an implicit “Why?” in Luv’s words and actions, an inquiry that demands an answer from K. “Why Joi and not me? Am I not the superior model?” K choosing Joi over her is an insult to her attraction and an affront to her pride, yet the only way she can express her outrage is with violence. By destroying Joi she demonstrates her preeminent status as a product, while also eliminating another rival for K’s affections.

Luv departs without another word, leaving K alive. It’s safe for us to assume that Luv hasn’t simply fallen victim to the classic bad guy cliché of incorrectly assuming the good guy’s dead. They are are both the same model of replicant, there’s no reason for us to think she isn’t precisely aware of both K’s limits and his potential. Luv is still intrigued by K in a way she doesn’t understand, and lets him live secure the the knowledge that they will meet again under similarly unpleasant circumstances. By then the scales will have completely fallen from K’s eyes and he will be endowed with an unshakable sense of purpose, his own personal raison d'être. Luv will not be so fortunate.

K, at great cost, comes to understand who and what he really is in time for him to act on it in a way that gives purpose to his life and, more importantly, his death. Like all great villains Luv is K’s antitheses, a distorted reflection of him, what C.G. Jung might identify as his shadow-self. K begins the movie doing the same thing Luv does, namely killing on cue in accordance with his design. The difference is K encounters people who change his worldview, making him aware of the possibility of altering his circumstances. Luv never gets that chance.

The name ‘Luv’ is obviously dumb, the kind of dull platitude you’d find on a candy heart or in a rushed-off text message, and the fact that it is the name Niander Wallace chose to bestow on his First Angel shows the true indifference he feels regarding her, how the contempt he has for all life extends to her as well, despite his lofty rhetoric and empty praise.

Names are powerful, but they aren’t enough to imbue one’s life with meaning and purpose, a fact illustrated when a massive advertisement addresses K by his adopted name, the name Joi gave him, calling him “A good Joe.” Not only does this show that even something as personal as a name bestowed by a loved one can be corrupted and co-opted by Technological Capitalism, but that both Joi and the advertisement are probably making decisions based on the same artificial intelligence program, leading both of them to pick the same name out of thin air. This works to expose K to the artificiality of the relationship he had with Joi, forcing him to seek out something more authentic and human. It’s the sort of epiphany Luv is denied, so while she does seek to form a sort of relationship with K, the why and how of it completely eludes her, leading her to act on a sort of animal instinct that can’t distinguish between aggression and affection, two very different human Passions that appear to her as indistinct aspects of the same raw emotional yearning she becomes less and less capable of containing over the course of the story, a compulsion that climaxes with her beating and stabbing K nearly to death, then following it up immediately with a deep, soulful kiss.

The final battle between K and Luv at the sea wall isn’t just a grim parody of the iconic scene of two lovers passionately entwined in the surf from From Here To Eternity. (Though it is at that.) It’s a baptism.

Christian baptism is a ritual where the physical is sanctified and thus made to represent the spiritual, its invocation of grace elevating the ritual to transcend the mundane and evoke the divine. When Luv and K fight they are also sanctified by the symbolism surrounding them, which renders the conflict more significant than two people beating each other up. It is the physical versus the spiritual, the sacred versus the profane, the meaningful versus the meaningless, an elemental confrontation between the loftier and baser aspects of reality. For Luv the thing that matters most to her and carries the most meaning are her Passions, which aren’t in themselves bad, but when misunderstood and uncontrolled lead to destruction. In her fury she attacks and defeats K, and in her infatuation she yet again neglects to kill him. Her mercy is rewarded with death.

The final contest between K and Luv is their mutual attempt to drown one another, one that ends by demonstrating the ultimate disparity in their respective personalities. Both Luv and K forcibly hold one another underwater for what are at first roughly equivalent amounts of time. K survives because he is able to exert enough control over himself to hold his breath until he can turn the tables. Luv in contrast dies because she is a slave to her Passions. Instead of holding her breath and waiting for an opportunity to regain the upper hand she rages, clawing and growling, resisting with all her unchecked strength until her life is totally spent.

K and Deckard partake of the waters, die, and are born again. Luv is subjected to the same trial, but she is denied such grace. She is the First Angel, the most raw and brilliant and terrible, and as such, she must fall in all her dreadful glory, our horrible, beautiful, drowned Lucifer.

Like the studio-mandated happy ending of the original Blade Runner that everyone loathes, there could be another ending to this movie, a more conventionally satisfying ending where K and Luv gain a deeper understanding of themselves and, in doing so, find the capacity to care about and even love each other. It would be nice, but it would also deny Luv her final tragic grandeur, and us the vision of a true antiheroine.

The actress Sylvia Hoeks’ portrayal of Luv is as eerily perfect as the character herself, a performance that easily ranks among the best popular depictions of uncanny quasi-humanity ever rendered, on par with Christian Bale’s Patrick Bateman, Anthony Hopkins’ Hannibal Lector, and Rutger Hauer’s Roy Batty. Luv is also different, a step beyond but also a step removed. The sheer virtuosity of Sylvia Hoeks’ performance is largely based in restraint, the sort of illusion of control that Luv is so good at deceiving herself with that it’s easy for us, the audience, to be deceived as well. It is right and good that we bemoan the lack of good female roles in popular cinema, but such objections can come to ring hollow when they come from an audience that routinely overlooks outstanding exemplars like Luv, a rendering that’s brave enough to not be obvious, whose peripheral status in the narrative does nothing to diminish. I don’t think we’re going to see a great many characters equal to Luv in the future, not only because it’s rare for a concept this good to be executed this well, but the demographic of people who were once most inclined to notice such things are now largely intellectually hemmed in by an ideology that Blade Runner 2049 does not neatly fit into, and who thus deem it unworthy of consideration. It is my ardent hope that it will eventually find a public worthy of it, just as its predecessor did. It’s the reason why I’m writing this, why I’m proselytizing for Luv, who is, after all, the best one.

OTHER PUNS I CONSIDERED WHEN TITLING THIS ESSAY

All You Need Is Luv

Luv Will Tear Us Apart

Luv Story

Luv Actually

The Luv Guru

Me Luv You Long Time

#blade runner #2049 #blade runner 2049 #luv #prose

216 notes · View notes

rebelsofshield · 5 years

Text

Panels Far, Far Away: A Week in Star Wars Comics 9/18/19

Three of the most iconic Star Wars women of the decade highlight a solid week of Star Wars comics from Marvel.

Star Wars Age of Resistance: Rey #1 written by Tom Taylor and art by Ramon Rosanas

Next to Snoke, few Star Wars characters in the sequel trilogy are more shrouded in mystery than Rey. While Snoke was never able to define himself as a character outside of questions about his past, Rey has grown to be a great addition to the franchise through her compassion and inventiveness but also her fear and insecurity. Telling a story with Rey in the tight timeline given by the sequel trilogy is a difficulty though. With a post-Battle of Crait world off limits and her time as a scavenger already extensively covered in other media such as Star Wars Adventures and Forces of Destiny, writer Tom Taylor opts for the creative solution of finding an undiscovered story after the destruction of Starkiller Base and Rey’s arrival on Ach-To.

“Alone” follows Rey decompressing from the trials and trauma of her time on the snow covered First Order base and later through her trip and pit stops on her journey to see Luke Skywalker. The result is an issue that is split into two chapters, one focused on character and the other a new adventure showcasing her traits. Of these, Rey’s grappling with the death of Han and bonding with Leia over her future in the galaxy are easily the strongest moments. A particularly poignant sequence sees Rey and Leia discussing Han’s final moments with their faces functioning as frames for a beat by beat recreation of the tragedy. It’s a visually arresting depiction and represents the best artistic moment by Ramon Rosanas in this series.

The second half proves more disappointing particularly in that the limited page count prevents Taylor from fleshing out Rey’s adventure in adequate fashion. It plays well into her knowledge for machines and for her innate compassion for those in need, but it can’t help but feel both too rushed and too large in scale to organically fit into the narrative space that it is forced to occupy. That being said, Ramon Rosanas’s villain is a delightfully creepy design and I wish we got to see more of him.

Score: B

Star Wars Age of Resistance: Rose Tico #1 written by Tom Taylor and art by Ramon Rosanas

Tom Taylor said before the launch of Age of Resistance that Rose Tico’s chapter was his favorite. After reading this issue it is easy to see why. Of the eight Age of Resistance one shots, Rose Tico’s feels the most substantial and offers the most revelatory information into the character and her history. Unlike Snoke or Rey which have histories that are key to the franchise mythology or Finn or Poe who have been covered extensively, Rose Tico is a known character with also a lengthy history that is waiting to be explored. Taylor gets the opportunity here to dig deep into Rose and her sister Paige’s childhood and later their joining the Resistance. As a result, Taylor’s script feels substantial and important and required reading for any reader that wants to know more about the best mechanic in the fight against the First Order.

Unfortunately, it tends to be too much for the limited twenty four page length. Large portions of Rose and Paige’s life such as their early days of rebellion against the First Order, their time joining the Resistance, or even some of their familial tragedy are rushed through and feel like they could have been full issues of their own. Taylor’s script is at its best when he zeroes in on a single moment. The issue’s start showing a childhood flying lesson shared between both sisters is filled with enjoyable sibling rivalry and play and its concluding emotional conversation with Leia is a standout. (In general, Taylor writes a great Leia who manages to balance wisdom with that trademark sense of wit and snark.)

In general, after the abuse that Rose has suffered from rough patches of the fandom over the last two years, it’s a treat to read a comic, flawed as it is, that is filled with such obvious affection and attention for the character. We leave “My Hero” with an apprecation for Rose and for an involving story about family and fighting for causes we believe in.

Score: B

Star Wars: Doctor Aphra #36 written by Simon Spurrier and art by Wilton Santos and Cris Bolson

Simon Spurrier’s time on Doctor Aphra has been marked by complex plotting while keeping the series’ trademark character study and dark sense of humor. At its best, like in last year’s stellar “Catastrophe Con” arc, it makes for some of the best storytelling in Star Wars comics and can make for a rewarding piece of spinning plates and multilayered payoff. Taylor presents a new take on this here in “Unspeakable Rebel Superweapon” which unveils a deceptively complex narrative and is peppered with arc changing reveals.

With the masterplan of Minister Pitina Voor laid out, Aphra finds herself caught in the middle of a twisted galactic coup attempt. It becomes clear with each passing moment just how much Aphra has been used by every party around her and how much her own past deeds are responsible for her actions. However, in typical fashion, the good doctor is not one to be caged and her final act of resistance is about to show itself.

The conclusion to “Unspeakable Rebel Superweapon” is a complicated read. This isn’t just due to the staggering amount of double crosses and string pulling on display here, but also due to its message and execution. While Spurrier has managed to succeed in the past with these falling domino style finales, “Doctor Aphra #36” struggles.

On one level, it may just be the staging of the issue itself. So much of the pure plot of this comic comes down to two people explaining things to each other in a room while the action happens elsewhere. Wilton Santos, usual stylistic downsides aside, does his best to pepper these with intercut flashbacks, flash sidways, imaginations, etc., but Spurrier’s script can’t help but feel frustratingly static. It also doesn’t help that the plans laid out by Minister Voor are so convoluted that it stretches credibility to an incredible degree. So many independent forces had to work in purely specific ways for us to reach this point and the result robs the big reveals of much of their wait.

Thematically though, Spurrier’s story functions as an entertaining rebuttal and reversal of any familiarity the reader has developed for Aphra’s character. Voor’s masterstroke ultimately comes down to assuming that Aphra follows a predictable pattern and that her behavior follows formula. What Spurrier crafts instead is a fun inversion of this common criticism of her character and it leads to a great moment of personal independence and rebellion by the title character. The result proves incredibly cathartic and fun and makes for the best personal beat for Aphra in this arc and does just enough to keep this finale from being a dud.

Despite its promising features, “Unspeakable Rebel Superweapon” proves to be the weakest arc of Doctor Aphra’s long comic tenure. Between weak art and an oddly paced and structured story, Aphra sputtered here in a way we haven’t seen so far and as a result we enter into the next arc with mixed feelings. Bringing in a stellar artist like Caspar Wijngaard to tell the story of Darth Vader and Aphra’s long awaited reunion is an exciting choice, but we also learn this week that next arc is to be the series’ last. It’s disappointing to bid Aphra goodbye, but let’s hope that it leads to something equally exciting down the line. Besides, nothing’s better than a good ending.

Score: B-

#Star Wars #Star Wars comics #review #reviews #Age of Resistance #Doctor Aphra #Rey #Rose Tico #Simon Spurrier #Wilton Santos #Cris Bolson #Tom Taylor #Ramon Rosanas

7 notes · View notes

aion-rsa · 3 years

Text

My Hero Academia Season 5 Episode 24 Review – Tomura Shigaraki: Origin

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

This My Hero Academia review contains spoilers.

My Hero Academia Season 5 Episode 24

“I wonder if this itch would have stopped…”

Hey, remember when this was a show about plucky heroes?

Picking up on the powerful revelations and themes that the previous episode “Tenko Shimura: Origin” establishes, “Tomura Shigaraki: Origin” continues that chilling story in order to tell the grander narrative of the Symbol of Fear’s birth. This episode is a heartbreaking look into Shigaraki’s first steps as a villain that’s contrasted with his current destructive war against the Meta Liberation Army. In the previous episode, Re-Destro teases that Shigaraki was experiencing an awakening and “Tomura Shigaraki: Origin” brings it to fruition.

My Hero Academia’s previous “Tenko Shimura: Origin” told one of the series’ darkest stories that already casts the series’ major villain in a new light. However, “Tomura Shigaraki: Origin” hits equal levels of nihilism as it looks at the character’s official start as a villain now that he’s been removed from his roots as an innocent child. Both of these episodes hinge on Tenko Decaying individuals, but this time around it’s an active choice that he takes ownership over as he embraces his purpose in life.

Shigaraki’s unflinching origins create further parallels to Deku’s journey, only at opposite extremes. All Might’s protégé is trained to become an inspirational figure through the Number One Pro Hero’s teachings, yet each of All For One’s lessons to Tenko infect his mind and make him more susceptible to chaos. This backstory is so moving and provides crucial context to Shigaraki that it would have been interesting to see how My Hero Academia would have functioned if it actually featured these events throughout the series alongside Deku’s accomplishments.

A negative influence can be an incredibly dangerous thing, especially to a child who’s lost his entire family. All For One takes advantage of Tenko’s vulnerable nature, repurposes his pain, and gives him meaning. That’s not to say that Tenko’s glee over his gruesome destructive powers isn’t genuine, but he also acknowledges that if someone else had taken him under his wing instead of All For One then these impulses very well might have been quelled in favor of a more productive direction in life.

My Hero Academia achieves a very chilling atmosphere that’s reflective of the unnerving relationship between Hannibal Lecter and Will Graham. Tenko is presented with a clear obstacle, but because this is a look into his development as a villain it’s immediately clear that the bullies are going to be murdered at some point. They’re grisly deaths are inevitable, but what’s even more uncomfortable than their deaths is how All For One fosters trust in Tenko and teaches him that this retaliatory behavior is his duty. He has no chance at escaping this fate and it’s devastating to see just how early Shigaraki has been All For One’s pawn. The moment where All For One gives Tenko his new name as “Tomura Shigaraki” is like when a cult leader dehumanizes their subjects.

All For One recognizes the pure ruin that Tenko is capable of and he carefully finds subtle ways to activate the child’s pain and push him further towards villainy. All For One curates which hands adorn Shigaraki, specifically because they trigger different emotions in him. Every element of Shigaraki’s creepy villain persona has actually been meticulously cultivated by All For One to not just be intimidating to the public, but to repress Shigaraki’s ability to resist his fate as the Symbol of Fear.

Shigaraki has spent his life lost somewhere in subconscious ambivalence where he hasn’t allowed his Decay Quirk to hit his apex and for his mind to abandon the past. In “Tomura Shigaraki: Origin” when Shigaraki consciously decides to destroy his father’s hand it’s because he proves to himself that not only is his future unnecessary, but so is his past, and all that matters is his white-hot hatred in this exact moment.

The remainder of “Tomura Shigaraki: Origin” is devoted to the riveting, cataclysmic battle between the League of Villains and the Meta Liberation Army. My Hero Academia has presented the aftermath of Deika City’s destruction from different perspectives before. In this sense, the audience may be prepared on some level for what’s to come, but that doesn’t make it any less horrific when Shigaraki completely frees his Quirk. He allows waves of destruction to wash over not only his Liberation Army opponent, but the entire city.

There are some very grand visuals as these two juggernauts take swipes at each other. Re-Destro’s Quirk continues to expand on itself in dangerous ways until he amasses a natural set of armor and accesses 150% of his power. This would cause most villains or heroes to retreat, but this strength only entices Shigaraki. He even equates Re-Destro’s Quirk to the heights of One For All, yet still isn’t phased in the slightest by Re-Destro’s demonstration.

While these two fight, Re-Destro reiterates that he wants to use his strength to liberate others through their Quirks, whereas Shigaraki purely wants to revel in destruction. These two villains push very different philosophies, but their similarities aren’t lost on either of them. Shigaraki, on some level, is fueled by All For One’s influence, just like how Re-Destro feels indebted to carry out his father’s goal for how to improve society.

The end of all of this desolation is actually somewhat anticlimactic. Even though Re-Destro is completely overpowered, his submission to Shigaraki feels slightly sudden. Shigaraki’s accomplishment still resonates due to the crucial context regarding his past that’s provided, but the balance here is skewed and “Tomura Shigaraki: Origin” would benefit from slightly more time spent in the present before Re-Destro admits defeat. It’s still a satisfying conclusion to this lengthy arc, but it’s just a little surprising how brief the actual battle between Shigaraki and Re-Destro is in a series that’s so preoccupied with combat.

This clash of Quirks and values doesn’t result in more lost lives, but it instead culminates in the birth of the Paranormal Liberation Front, a supergroup of villains that’s formed from the ashes of these two antagonistic organizations. Past alliances between enemies have occurred, but the Paranormal Liberation Front feels unique because they very consciously choose a name for their group which disposes of the restrictive label of “villain.”

The “My Villain Academia” arc has explored this perspective in great detail. These angry individuals are more empowered and united than ever before, but the fact that they no longer view themselves as villains, but rather liberators of society, is what’s the most frightening aspect of this new organization.

My Hero Academia could have easily coasted through this season without providing such a heavy look into its antagonists’ motivations and roots, but the approach has yielded some of the series’ most rewarding material. The anime is still lost in a showdown between two different dark forces where neither winner is advantageous for the state of society. However, episodes like “Tomura Shigaraki: Origin” generate just as much empathy and emotion for the series’ murderers than what was felt with Shoto Todoroki’s painful family drama during the Endeavor Agency arc.

It just goes to show how everyone has problems and internalized pain. In exploring this, My Hero Academia doesn’t redeem its villains, but it presents them in an enlightening new context that will only make the final showdown between Midoriya and Shigaraki, and One For All and All For One, carry even greater stakes.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

Oh, and Himiko Toga is back in working shape, hungry for sushi, blood, and just as deranged as ever.

The post My Hero Academia Season 5 Episode 24 Review – Tomura Shigaraki: Origin appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3lBjjj4

#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

0 notes

infinitedeaths · 3 years

Text

okay so i’ve put my thoughts together about why i am. incredibly annoyed about the fandom response to c!niki’s lore yesterday. and i mean the ENTIRE response on all sides.

this specific post will be about the people saying ‘cniki should punch c!wilbur’ and i’ll have another later addressing the...narrative argument because tbh i feel people really do NOT understand what needs to happen before c!wilbur really gets his actual redemption arc.

(from here on i will not be using c! but it is still /rp)

okay i have four points: one, punching wilbur will NOT help niki or her mental state. two, she needs help and new friendships and to recover some of the old. three, you are encouraging her character to be harmful to herself and others the same way wilbur’s chat encouraged him to be harmful to himself and others during pogtopia. fourth, her chat is her journal: there is no reason to believe that her stream was anything other than her writing her day down in a journal with her thoughts for that day.

first point: niki needs to TALK to wilbur and she has yet to be given the chance to. she learned he was alive from someone else which is both bad and good. on one hand! it would’ve been better if he sought her out himself, to prove he was still thinking of her because that’s one of the things that’s hurt her the most. on the other hand, it means her gut reaction to be angry and furious, to rage and be hurt, won’t be unleashed on wilbur immediately. she now has a chance to think about what she’d say to him if he ever seeks her out. which...is currently unknown if he will.

second point: she needs!! to make new friendships! that was part of what helped her in the first place to start moving on from her misplaced anger at tommy. she needs the same if she’s going to be able move on somehow from wilbur. she could also rekindle old friendships...like puffy or tubbo or tommy or eret. she needs help just as much as wilbur does and that help needs to come from stability. that’s one of the reasons why she cared about lmanburg so much: because it was stable for her and after the elections it stopped feeling that way for obvious reasons.

there was a chance! to get that back. but it was ruined by nov 16th and she feels partially responsible for it due to the whole. finding TNT and not mentioning it thing because she trusted wilbur not to blow the country sky high. if she can’t trust wilbur then who can she trust? which is also why she needs the stability ot friendships also.

third point: the part of the community egging on her destructive behavior is the same as the part of the fandom that were egging on wilbur’s destructive behavior. but same i mean in vibe/the way yall are acting. neither of their behavior was good for them!! hells wilbur’s was so bad he ended up making everyone else get trauma from it. we do NOT want niki to end up going down the same road, pls and thank, especially considering her comments about self harm during the stream.

fourth: she’s stated before that her chat is like her journal that she writes in. her stream yesterday (june 1st, for future readers) was, most likely, her just writing her day down in a journal. not her actually monologuing. the reason i’m saying that is because a) the stream was in black and white and b) despite standing in the middle of the syndicate commune, there was no one else there. even though its heavily implied this would take place right after techno’s stream ended.

also, as someone who used to write journal entries, some of the stuff she says sounds like something you’d write in, well, a journal. i wouldn’t admit to self harm out loud in case someone heard me.

conclusion: niki needs to stay away from wilbur, not for wilbur’s sake, but her own. she still isn’t in a mental state where she can deal with wilbur in a rational way. because her character used to be very rational! its just months of trauma have rewarded people acting on irrational actions that end up hurting more people. which means niki (and others) have been conditioned to acting irrationally in situations they wouldn’t have before. case in point: trying to DROP a NUKE on a teenage boy.

what i want for niki is for her to end up bonding with eret again despite eret’s status as monarch. or perhaps more puffy and niki content! things won’t get better for nii until she confronts and comes to terms with her trauma from the past.

slowly, of course, because you can’t speed run therapy.

#thoughts on the dsmp rp #throws that in that tag #also this isn't critical of any character but i guess if someone wants me to tag it i will #at least i'm not tagging any characters! i live in fear of this fandom sometimes yikes #some of yall need to go open a window and log out for a little while.#get some fresh air. read a book. do anything other than stare at tumblr and or twitter all day

1 note · View note

ramajmedia · 5 years

Text

Remnant: From the Ashes Review - Soulslike Gunslinging Takes Root

Remnant: From the Ashes brings guns and friends to the Soulslike table, and playthroughs remain engaging despite its several flaws and bad tendencies.

Darksiders 3 developer Gunfire Games' Remnant: From the Ashes is the newest Soulslike, introducing high-intensity gunplay and online co-op to the well-trodden genre while still aping a sufficient amount of Dark Souls series elements to fit the trendy criteria. This surefire formula means that combat and exploration are decently rewarding, but the game inherits its antecedents' worst annoyances in the process. Its post-apocalyptic story settles itself somewhere between the dark fantasy of the Souls games and the gritty sci-fi setting of The Surge without borrowing much from either, but its efforts to craft the caliber of universe, lore, and characters that defines the genre cumulatively miss the mark. Luckily, Remnant: From the Ashes's core gameplay loop is engaging and difficult enough to carry both solo and co-op players through to the end of a semi-randomized campaign, but it's a far cry from the infinitely replayable adventure that Gunfire touts.

Setting the stage on an alternate history Earth ravaged by an alien force known as the Root, a hive mind of tree-like lifeforms hellbent on the complete entropic destruction of life across all worlds. Minus the tree thing - which, at the very least, makes for some interesting enemy and world design on Root-infested Earth - Remnant: From the Ashes's story isn't exactly groundbreaking, retreading a tired premise that's been explored to far greater effect by the likes of the original Halo and Mass Effect trilogies. Of course, the Soulslikes' main quests are rarely particularly imaginative or well fleshed-out, so the unoriginal concept deserves a pass here. What moves players from one area to the next is the search for the Founder of Ward 13, the only one who knows how to stop the Root at its source on Earth.

Related: Vicious Circle Review - Messy Multiplayer With Potential

There are many attempts by Gunfire to contrive the mandatory lore that Soulslike fans crave and a few heavy-handed text logs that spell stuff out, but its the search for the Founder - the only one who knows how to stop the Root at its source - that sends players on a circuitous journey across multiple worlds to kill almost everything they meet. Most of the game is a blur of near-constant monster slaughter, and interspersed among protracted combat sections are a few moments where Remnant: From the Ashes's creativity is allowed to shine through. However, none of these moments really pertain to or enhance the main storyline. It's expected that the drama should take a backseat to gameplay, but even the most seasoned and cynical players will likely be surprised at how anticlimactically and abruptly the central plot thread slams the door shut on playthroughs after hyping up the ending over a lengthy course of playtime.

The barebones story's lackluster payoff does sour the final hours of a Remnant: From the Ashes playthrough, but the focal point of the game is obviously combat, which does a more than serviceable job of delivering players from start to finish without descending into monotony. Its emphasized gunplay is punchy and satisfying, and it feels consistently great to stagger rushing enemies with shotgun blasts and devastate harassers at range with precise headshots. Though weapon variety is fairly limited during a significant portion of most initial playthroughs, the six starting guns can be outfitted with a diverse assortment of mods that temporarily alter weapon behavior or grant player abilities after filling a damage meter. Melee combat is also an option, but it's far more situational than in other Soulslikes due to its lack of power and zero stamina usage, relegating it to crowd control and a risky method of ammo conservation.

Although it misses the chance to flip the script on Bloodborne's brilliant fusion of ranged and melee combat, Remnant: From the Ashes isn't shy at all about lifting most of its mechanics and ideas straight out of FromSoftware's other titles. Though most lack the nuance of their inspirations, there are tough-as-nails boss battles (blocked off by fog gates, even), an obligatory stand-in for Estus Flasks, a stamina meter, and a Bonfire-like system of World Crystals and checkpoints that enable fast travel at the cost of global enemy respawns. The prescribed approach is slightly subverted by exchanging risk-reward Souls for permanent experience and Traits, though it's hardly an imaginative change. Its biggest additions are gunplay and online co-op, the latter of which makes the game innately more fun despite seriously killing atmospheric tension and tipping gameplay balance severely in the favor of bosses.

In picking what Souls elements to incorporate, Remnant: From the Ashes chose to take after its forebears' worst habit: padding out boss fights with droves of cheap fodder. Confoundingly, this mistake was entirely avoidable. It was most present in Dark Souls 2 before being addressed in its sequel, meaning Gunfire had five years' worth of hindsight and still actively chose the worse alternative. It's a shame, too, because Remnant: From the Ashes has great boss designs and a few with some truly formidable move sets. Rather than give players a genuine sense of accomplishment after mastering more intimate battles against hulking opponents dangerous in their own right, the game instead over-relies on overwhelming players with frustrating quantities of common enemies. Remnant: From the Ashes's best bosses are those that deploy only a small number of additional elite minions at a time, but these gratifying encounters are too few and far between.

This approach of throwing large waves of enemies at players works a lot better in Remnant: From the Ashes's regular environments, and the difficulty here also scales much better based on player squad size. Mowing down scores of grisly adversaries is the name of the game here, and it's obvious that Gunfire went to great lengths to ensure that the core combat remains engaging dozens of hours in. The act of clearing areas of common enemies in normal ARPG fashion is regularly punctuated by the appearance of elite enemy types that require advanced tactics and greater firepower. These stronger combatants keep players on their toes and contribute to a consistently frenetic experience, and it never fails to spike one's pulse slightly when hearing the distinct warning sound and seeing the sudden Left 4 Dead-like rush of lesser foes that herald their arrival.

That said, this core gameplay loop quickly grows predictable, but that gripe can be attributed more to overly simplistic level layouts than to enemy patterns. Whereas most Soulslikes pride themselves on cleverly funneling players around complex, interconnected areas that build a sense of real place within their worlds, Remnant: From the Ashes instead settles almost exclusively for series of corridors of varying dimension. Coupled with the relative small size of disparate areas within each world, it becomes apparent that the game is so densely populated with hostiles in order to artificially lengthen the amount of time and resources needed to reach the next checkpoint. The feeling of being a monster exterminator is further reinforced by the inclusion of a mini-map that reveals paths as they're navigated. This concession was likely made to cater to the game's online nature, but it considerably dulls the thrill of exploring the unknown.

While its environments are shallow, enemy design in Remnant: From the Ashes is the full package. Non-boss enemies leave little to be desired in terms of their disconcerting visages and solid variety, and they're an effective vehicle for effective environmental storytelling. Each world sports unique collections of foes, and no faction outshines the Iskal on the primordial swamp planet Corsus. Brainwashed and enslaved by the manipulative Fairy Queen, the once peaceful Corsans have been made hosts to an incredibly aggressive species of parasite. When first exploring this world, shambling humanoids with amputatable legs at first seem like generic aliens. That is until later on while encountering eerily familiar Corsans that have yet to fully turn, culminating in the introduction of their more heavily affected peers that degenerate into their fully devolved form mid-battle. Gameplay-driven discoveries like are far stronger plot devices than anything found in the main story or flavor texts, and the game would be stronger overall if it had shifted its focus more toward this direction.

Even though it won't set the Soulslike genre alight with its well-implemented but ultimately minor additions and tweaks to the formula, Remnant: From the Ashes is an intensely compelling gameplay experience, doubly (or triply) so when played with friends. Even when it sabotages itself with its abortive narrative, cheap boss tactics, and undervalued enemy design, it still emerges from the ordeal as a solid shooter with a high amount of polish and decent replayability. Though it remains to be seen if Gunfire can fix the present issues and expand the game into the infinite time sink that the studio promised, Remnant: From the Ashes will no doubt inspire genre fans to hang up their swords and shields for some time in order to dive into a chaotic universe, guns blazing.

Next: Telling Lies Review - A Thoroughly Immersive, Interactive Story

Remnant: From the Ashes is now available on PC, PS4, and Xbox One. Screen Rant was provided a PC code for this review.

source https://screenrant.com/remnant-from-the-ashes-review/

#screenrant

0 notes

ruwinhimself-blog · 5 years

Text

Day 38 - Interviewing

A talk by Richard Carrillo (of UbiSoft Toronto) just came out today called ‘Interviewing for Game Design’ on the GDC YouTube channel so I figured we’d check it out and maybe take some notes. I’m sure there will be some helpful tips for nailing the interview process which I will surely need.

Richard noticed there a lack of consistency among interview results for candidates based on the people who interviewed them. So he wanted to know what questions other senior team members were asking that led them to the occasional opposing response to candidates. So Richard decided to watch and be involved with some of the interviews to see what was being done differently.

Standard GoTo’s

Experience

Resume Trap - Did they really do it?

Generally interviewers would pull out the resume, ask about interesting items on it and start probing along the way. Interviewers will spend some time determining whether they did what they actually said they did. Even if it has been determined that the candidate did all those things, it still doesn’t say if they’re a good designer.

Game Ideas

Game Designer vs. Game Enthusiast

Game designers don’t come up with game ideas. It is not our job to pitch. A game designer’s job is to pick all the different ideas up from other games and other members of the team and combine them into systems that work.

Richard also noticed that there is one burning question that begs to be asked during an interview but rarely is.

“Are you a game designer?”

A candidate can have experience, a process and ideas but that does not make someone a good game designer. Richard spent much of his time deliberating over how to ask candidates this question.

Richard put up a slide that separates what game designer’s do and don’t do (based on his studio and experience). He continued to hammer home that everyone has game ideas but what designers do is create systems, own the player experience, solve problems and create engaging gameplay loops.

Just to step out of this for a moment of meta discussion. This very topic is something that I have been struggling internally with. I wonder just what (form) of designer I am, as there are multiple types of designers (systems, level.. etc). It is comforting to hear that I am solidly on the game design side as my mind generally resides with each left side element. I actually struggle with level design and creating engaging spaces in the world, but I thrive on creating deep, interesting systems that keep the player coming back for more. Focusing on the overall experience is where I am most comfortable so it is exciting to hear that I closely align to UbiSoft Toronto’s definition of a game designer.

Richard then segues into questions that can be asked during interviews that answer how familiar and how thorough their understanding is with the aforementioned principles.

He found that this question comes up a lot and the purpose of it is essentially, “I want you to talk until I hear something interesting.” Use this as opportunity to talk about a system in particular.

WARNING: LONG GAMER SYSTEM RANT

In my case, one of my favorite examples of a game that I love that had some disappointing systems is Diablo 3. It was an incredibly fun and well made game, but the blood shard system needed some work. With this system, you would obtain a variable amount of currency from end game activities and this currency would be used to ‘target gamble’ on a particular item. I felt with how infrequent equipment upgrades were, not giving the player a bit more control over when their rewards were received created a poor experience. We already have a variable amount in how many blood shards are received-- I would have much preferred that specific items could have their own blood shard cost, or that a separate currency could be acquired to target these specific pieces. This would create a more fixed reward schedule that runs parallel to the game’s normal entirely chance-based drops-- giving players something to look forward to, even if nothing of use has dropped in some time. I am cognizant of the fact that a system like this may decrease the amount of time players may play the game, as they may reach that critical mass in equipment sooner.

Which leads me to my next system critique for Diablo 3. I didn’t intend to detour this far away from our post topic. I’m sorry, but I love the series. Like, really, really love it and it broke my heart that it didn’t live up to my (no doubt astronomical) expectations following Lord of Destruction.

Part of what made Diablo II great was your ability to show off all the great items you had-- and that you could give them all away if you wanted. Not that you would, but you could. Diablo III implemented a (to me) rather puzzling restriction on items. Only the people in your game at the time that you found a specific item were eligible to receive that item from you (and only for a limited amount of time). In my eyes, part of the allure of ARPG/Hack and Slash power fantasy is becoming filthy rich. Amassing some wild fortune of items or currency that can be lorded over others-- much like real life. We take some amount of pride in our accomplishments and having the ability to profoundly affect someone else’s journey through Tristram profoundly on a charitable whim felt great (I imagine it is akin to being Mr. Beast giving away thousands of dollars to random people). Or perhaps even gifting a friend your entire estate when you decide you’ll come back next ladder reset. This grounds the experience. Without (at the very least) free trading, the game may as well be a single player ARPG. I can take a stab at why they implemented this loot system. They had planned the game around having an auction house and that was supposed to cut out the middle man of trading. It very well could have been that the experience was designed around having access to the best items in the game at any time, at the click of a button, had you the currency. A currency (gold) that was acquired steadily as the game was played so you always had some inevitability towards an upgrade, even if loot drops were not in your favor. You know what, I’m going to go out on a limb here. I think Diablo III was ahead of its time. I think an auction house is a great idea for a game about hoarding and peddling loot. I think trading was a miserable experience for the average player. I think today’s gamers would be much more accepting of this (especially if we skip the real money auction house fiasco).

ANYWAY...

The issue Richard had with that question was it was too open ended and left you open to the candidate discussing a game you’ve never heard of, or going off on subjective tangents.

He found that the best way to rephrase that is as follows:

Bonus: See if they understand the implications of adding or removing that mechanic.

Here is that question in an interview.

Richard claims he doesn’t care about the answer. He wants to know what is going through your mind and how you problem solve. He is interested to know what steps you take.

He had asked this question in interviews to candidates and had received a myriad of responses like some of these (minus the last one):

The responses do not denote critical thinking about how removing that mechanic would impact the systems.

So here are some good answers (minus the first one):

The second answer shows that you are aware of how this would effect the system. The third shows that you are stepping through it as the player to understand the experience more closely. Both extremely valid ways to approach this.

In summation, this covers an understanding of systems and game loops in question form, but leaves problem solving and player experience out.

So we move on to the next question.

This is a very open-ended question, that may or may not be considering the candidates process. However there is a good answer to this. Interviewers are generally looking for something specific. They want to know about your experiences and how you have approached designing NPCs in the past and why. What factors would you consider?

A good way to phrase this question, if you wanted to understand process is this:

Some bad answers to this would be:

Clearly these candidates did not understand what being a designer entails. You are given a set of restrictions and you need to adhere to those restrictions and design a fun and engaging encounter. Be careful using to much reference to other games and not relating back to the product you’re discussing.

Which leads us to good answers:

And a great answer:

How can you get this encounter to cause less problems for stealthy playstyles? A candidate came up with a revelation that the tank was controlled by people and those people would occasionally leave their tank for a break. This creates an opportunity where both stealthy and guns-blazing playstyles have options. To me, this is a situation where you think outside of the box and find a solution that fits narratively and has mechanical implications. Bonus points if you come up with a solution-- in this case an NPC behavior system, that can be used throughout the entirety of the game instead of just an idea for this one encounter. Reusing assets! Modularity!

So what are our takeaways with this question?

Some general things to keep in mind as a candidate:

It is absolutely crucial that you play a wide variety of games. Game design isn’t a hobby. It requires you to be able to pull experiences from a swath of games for inspiration or even cautionary tales.

Truly understand what game design is. Take a loot at Liz England’s blog post ‘The Door Problem’.

When interviewing, remember to think out loud.

Richard says “ideas are like Legos in a sea of Legos.” You will be surrounded by people who have ideas, just like you. Your job is to find which of those legos in the sea come together to make the best experience.

I hope this has been as eye opening for you as has been for me.

See you tomorrow!

0 notes

burltonsing82-blog · 7 years

Text

How Yield Signaled the Evolution of Pearl Jam into Rock and Roll Lifers

Studies in human development depict a person's life as a series of crises to be negotiated and, for lack of a better word, mastered before moving on to the next challenge. Experts argue that if someone fails to come to terms with a particular phase in a healthy and productive manner, they run the risk of developmental paralysis and missing out on the stages that come afterward. For some reason, this information from a bygone professorial career crept into my mind while I listened to Pearl Jam's Yield over and over again this past week as it turns two decades old. I wondered, do similar hurdles exist for rock bands? Because Yield always felt like a daunting hurdle cleared to me - a clear division between who Pearl Jam are now and who they once were.

Several of the acts Consequence of Sound celebrates seem to have made that leap from adolescence to young adulthood and later to middle age. Productivity may slacken, breakup rumors may periodically surface, and hiatuses of multiple years may come and go, but bands like Pearl Jam, Foo Fighters, Radiohead, and even studio feet-dragging outfits like Tool seem destined to carry on well into old age. The late Erik Erikson, a pioneer in human development, may have posited that the stability demonstrated by these bands stems from them being comfortable with themselves, secure in their relationships, and content with their standing in the music world. Hence, when it's time to plug in again, the band members are in a healthy space to create, contribute, and collaborate rather than backslide into the behaviors that cause an inordinate number of bands to whither long before their time.

youtube

None of this is meant to make an academic study of the longevity of rock bands, but it's perhaps worth considering that the difference between a band burning brightly or burning out prematurely could be this idea of discovering a new type of maturity in the midst of crisis. And considering all the mounting tensions that consumed Pearl Jam prior to recording Yield, it makes the record seem like a clear-cut resolution of the destructive behaviors and problems that had plagued the group and threatened to cut their career short. The album feels not like a coming of age but, for this band, a coming of middle age and the first leg of the rest of their run together as a veteran act.

Pearl Jam might be the most dependable, well-oiled American touring band around in 2018, but that's light years from the tumult of the group's earliest days, which included, among other trials, rising from the ashes of a fallen friend and bandmate. Less than three years after Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament had buried both Andrew Wood and their rock star dreams as Mother Love Bone, the two found themselves at the unpredictable epicenter of the grunge explosion as members of Temple of the Dog, the fictional band Citizen Dick in Cameron Crowe's Seattle-promoting Singles, and the multiplatinum-selling grunge band Pearl Jam. The fame rushed in even quicker than units could ship out, but with notoriety also came cries of “sellouts,” castigation over the graphic “Jeremy” music video, and barbs flung at the band by no less than Kurt Cobain - comments the Nirvana frontman later rescinded.

youtube

By the time Vs. and Vitalogy had run amok all over the top of the charts a couple years later, the band had already taken personal steps to sidestep some of the media's glaring spotlight. They stopped giving interviews, cut down on their television appearances, opted out of releasing singles, and refused to belittle their songs by making music videos. More infamously, they declared war on Ticketmaster after finding out that the ticketing behemoth had been sticking it to fans with secret service charges on tickets to Pearl Jam concerts, even ones organized as “benefits.” The ongoing five-year battle saw Gossard and Ament testifying before congress and the band attempting to tour from scratch without the backing of the world's biggest ticket broker or its spiderweb network of venues.

1996's No Code can be viewed in several different lights. For fans, it remains an inexplicable outlier in Pearl Jam's catalog, even though many have warmed to its eclectic charms over the years. For Pearl Jam, as a band, it could constitute hitting rock bottom. Musically, it finds them, as on Vitalogy, pushing as far away from their anthemic roots as possible – as far away from themselves as possible, which makes sense. The gauntlet of grassroots touring sans Ticketmaster had taken its toll on the entire outfit, and Eddie Vedder, heretofore given complete creative control of the band's direction, had burned out on going it alone. So strained was the recording process that co-founding member Jeff Ament didn't find out Pearl Jam was even recording a new album until three days into the sessions. By all accounts, drummer Jack Irons can be credited with nursing the band through the sessions intact and even reportedly got the bandmates to begin sorting through their contentions by the end of recording. “No Code was all about gaining perspective,” Vedder would later explain, a theme easily identified in several of the album's contemplative, inward-looking songs, like “Off He Goes” and “In My Tree”.

youtube

I'd argue that just casually inspecting the packaging of Yield tells you so much about the band's maturity and state of mind. Instead of the chaotic, eye-diverting mosaic of 156 bizarre Polaroids that constitutes the album art for No Code - not to mention the collect-the-whole-album loose replica photos that came with each copy - Yield features a yield sign presiding over an open expanse of rolling Montana highway, sandwiched between two black bars, one above and the other beneath, as in a widescreen projection. Flipping open the front cover reveals a cut-out and that the yield sign actual resides in a sky-blue sea with no bounds. The cool, crisp, and pacifying artwork meant something slightly different to each member. Ament sees it as representing open possibilities, Vedder as a reminder of that aforementioned perspective, and Mike McCready as as sign of maturity and the band having become more comfortable in their own skin.

It's not surprising then that Yield sounds as it does: unabashedly like Pearl Jam, only a bit older and wiser. In many respects, it was the first Pearl Jam album not made in reaction to previous recordings. It feels at peace with itself, comfortable enough to open up and soar like the band hadn't in years on anthemic singles “Given to Fly” and “In Hiding” one moment and to mumble through a cataloging of Vedder's desires the next on “Wishlist”. The album, while eclectic, somehow manages to find a through line between songs as emotionally varied as the paranoid agitation of “Brain of J.”, the tranquility of “Low Light”, and the resolute abandonment of “MFC”. With Vedder ceding some creative control and asking bandmates to bring in more developed songs for him to polish, Yield marks the beginning of Pearl Jam as a more collaborative studio outfit –more a songwriting brotherhood now than Vedder and four flies on the studio wall.

youtube

As important as Yield and its songs are to Pearl Jam's narrative, the record also found them in a place where they were comfortable enough to begin making decisions based on what was best for the band and their fans rather than on broad, sweeping principles that had often crippled or put undue strain on them in the past. For instance, the band that had famously refrained from reducing their songs to music videos opted to partner with Spawn creator Todd McFarlane on an animated video for “Do the Evolution”, a power-drunk take on technology that perfectly matched McFarlane's dark, skeptical depictions of the world. Even more critically, Pearl Jam finally ended its one-band crusade against Ticketmaster, which allowed them to tour full-scale again and return to venues and towns they hadn't visited in years. Their 1998 North American tour behind Yield alone can boast an incredible live record (Live on Two Legs), bringing former Soundgarden drummer Matt Cameron on board full time, and truly planting the seed for what would germinate into the most reliable, dedicated, and rewarding veteran touring act working today.

If the maturing that Pearl Jam underwent as a band between the end of the No Code sessions and the touring of Yield can be viewed as the band equivalent of a person transitioning from adolescence to young adulthood, then the group have long since entered middle age. It's a time in life when people - in this case, a band - traditionally turn outward to care for others and view the world with empathy and concern. In that respect, look no further than the band's upcoming hometown shows this August in Seattle. They've pledged to donate at least a million dollars from those concerts to help the local homeless, with the goal of raising several more million through community partnerships. Picture it: Pearl Jam's first hometown shows in five years; 100,000 people in attendance, the most for a show in Seattle since the Stones back in 1981; a guaranteed marathon set from one of the best live bands going; and a chance to funnel millions of dollars towards helping the most needy among us - the real forgotten Americans.

Now, that's a future worth growing into.

0 notes

carinaconnor5 · 7 years

Text

How to Help: A New Perspective

If you are someone who loves someone misusing substances, it is likely that you want to help and want things to change. It’s also likely that you feel either incredibly overwhelmed or confused with where to start and what to do. Luckily there are lots of things you can do! And research has shown time and again that loved ones can have a powerfully positive impact on their loved one’s change process. We know however, from experience, that the most helpful thing to do first is to develop a new perspective on the issues confronting your loved one and your family.

Substance use is a highly stigmatized and misunderstood problem and the cultural narrative has been one of character/morality flaws, disease, pessimism about change, skepticism about medication options, constricted beliefs about what people need to do to get better (e.g., go to rehab, go to a meeting, “just say no!!!”) and a general disdain for people who lose control of themselves. The reality is that science has given us a much broader understanding of substance use problems, including who is at risk, how problems develop, what supports the change process, and what sustains change and engages motivation. By understanding these issues in a new light (one infused with the glow of science), you will become more flexible, effective and resilient as you try to help your loved one.

There are a few central new understandings we’d like you to walk away with as as they will help you use the evidence-based tools that are at your disposal. Here’s the story:

Behaviors Make Sense

First and foremost, all behaviors have a purpose. We (human animals) do things (perform actions) because we get something out of it (a sense of well-being, acceptance, praise, calmness, money, excitement, relief, etc). This “reinforcement” drives all behaviors, and determines whether we repeat them or lose interest in doing them, even behaviors that seem to be destructive, irrational, or “crazy”, like drug use. Understanding what each individual gets from their substance use (a behavior they are performing) is the key toward developing new helping strategies. By understanding what is reinforcing about their substance use (in other words what they get out of it) you can find other behaviors to reward or reinforce. You can also work towards finding new ways to help them get what they need (e.g. relief, reduced pain, pleasure) that are not destructive. This understanding can also be the beginning of empathy (instead of just anger or fear) about their use, and which will help you take the behavior less personally.

Ambivalence is Normal

All human beings engage in and then repeat behaviors that reward or reinforce us. If we do something that feels good in some way or reduces a negative experience in some way, we tend to do it again. When we need to move toward a new behavior that will eventually reinforce and motivate us (e.g., being healthy), it’s important to recognize that it might not feel good right off the bat. And the old behavior still does! The new gym workout makes me feel happy with myself, but the old chocolate ice cream still makes me happy as well. The outcome? Ambivalence! Which is wanting two conflicting things at the same time. Bottom line? Ambivalence is a normal part of change, no way around it. Most of us have both reasons to change and reasons not to change, or wanting to change and wanting things to stay the same. Knowing to expect ambivalence during change (a zigzag path of progress) can help you stay calmer, be more understanding, and stay constructive yourself, which is a huge advantage. Starting in a new direction, taking new action, often requires living with these contradictory voices. Importantly, you can learn ways to respond in interacting with someone who is ambivalent that can help strengthen the voice of change. Which leads us to…

Pay Attention to the Lights

How can we best communicate to help change? If we do things because we get reinforced for it, and it’s hard when starting new behaviors to not also keep going back to the old ones, we could use some support in keeping that straight. One of the things we humans are really good at is language. We’re pretty unique among creatures in communicating incredible amounts of complicated and not complicated information to each other through our words. And our words themselves, how we speak to each other, is one of our most powerful tools for reinforcement, both positive and negative. “That’s a beautiful thing you did”! … “What the hell were you thinking”? Language can lift us up and it can crush our spirits. It is also a major way we stay connected emotionally. So the understanding here? Communicating effectively and staying connected is a bottom line critical ingredient in helping loved ones during the process of change. We need communication to reinforce positive changes, to be clear about expectations, to “get on the same page”, to understand uniqueness and the other person’s story, and to help shift ambivalence.

A simple version of this? Slow down in your next couple conversations to listen and watch; see what is happening. Is the person hearing you? Paying attention or distracted? Open or closed? Following up or shutting it down? Understanding what you are seeing and hearing while connecting with a loved one (“conversational signals”) is vital to stopping and starting conversations and allowing them to be as constructive as possible. It’s easy to “run through red lights” and go off the road, so understanding how to avoid that and stay on course is critical. This helps this powerful tool of communication be used most effectively, and it takes time and effort to use this tool well.

One Size Does Not Fit All

And a lucky thing we have the nuances of language, because (back to #1) if we are trying to learn to reinforce new behaviors, it is really helpful to understand this: we are all different and unique. As individuals, as families, as people using substances, as people helping others. Likewise, there are many paths towards change and each child and family is different. Thus, what works for one family may not be the same for another family. Remember, we want to learn to reinforce things that matter to that unique person!…not things that are supposed to matter, or that matter to us and not them, or that matter to that family down the block! Families usually receive a lot of different advice and opinions from friends and professionals, often in the form of very black and white answers. These usually start with “you need to”, which can be a clue that they are not speaking to you, but to “families of addicts”. It helps to realize that there’s not only room for, but the need for different strategies and paths to change. Understanding the uniqueness of each person is also a fundamentally respectful and collaborative stance, for a parent, for a teacher, for a policeman, for anyone…and bottom line: seeing others this way increases their motivation to engage in change.

Practice, Practice, Practice

Foul shots and compassion. And to finish our story, when we are talking about learning new behaviors, and finding ones that are going to be reinforcing (you’ll know because they’ll want to repeat them!) for the person (“I like to get high but I also like working out now too…it helps my anxiety”), we have to understand that this is new learning, and it takes time and practice and compassion. You may think “she should be doing this anyway”, but the new behavior is going to take some time to develop, kick in and become solid. This is an important part of the blueprint for change: practicing, seeing what worked and what did not, and using that information to provide direction for the next step. This is true for both the person trying to change AND the people learning how to help them change! You are here learning something new right now! And…being willing to practice and being open to the messiness of learning something new DOES require compassion, again whether it’s for the person trying to change old negative habits or you, trying to learn how to help! New learning (like learning to shoot foul shots in basketball) needs 2 things: 1) repeated practice (and failure) and 2) nourishment (in the form of patience, encouragement and compassion for the process).

The Parenting North Star and Willingness

Moving Toward What You Value as a Parent/Partner/Friend. This storybook has a very important binding that holds it all together, which are your values as a person and your willingness to keep pursuing them. To help someone struggling with substance issues (or any behavioral issues for that matter), takes a lot of work, thought, compassion, patience, and emotional hardship. So we are suggesting 2 critical steps to work with and keep in mind: 1) Clarify what matters to you as a person. What kind of person do you want to be? Spend some time identifying your values and how to use them as a directional arrow, or north star, and 2) understand that to pursue these values will include being uncomfortable/in pain at times. To move in your valued direction takes “willingness”, an acceptance of this discomfort and a decision to walk forward anyway. Allowing yourself to be scared or mad, and at the same time open to learning new skills to engage with your loved one differently, is an example of willingness. The opposite of being “willing” would be the common reaction of trying to shut the whole process down with such behaviors as trying to force change – kick him out/send him away – or ignoring events entirely.

Your values can include any number of things: consistency, reliability, being loving, positive communication, keeping your loved one safe, connection, mutual respect etc. We are suggesting the importance of clarifying what tops this list for you and place it “north”, because it is easy to lose track of and not walk in this direction under stress, and substance use in your household is probably causing a lot of stress!. Then what happens? Everything BUT these values…yelling, erratic behavior (kick them out then turn around and bend the rules etc), disrespectful, angry communication, withdrawal etc. Clarifying the direction you want to head (even if you take off ramps at times) is critical AND uncomfortable..staying with what matters to you will mean NOT GETTING IT at times and living with that. It is painful, but allowing for that pain is the key to staying on track with what you care about. We call that “willingness”, and it takes practice, just like everything else new you are doing. So find that north star of values you want to look toward, knowing that it is a direction, not a goal and understand there will be turbulence (and joy!) in moving in that direction.

Summary of the “Story” Narrative

The summary of how to understand and help? We humans do things (and repeat those behaviors) because we get something out of doing them, whether they’re “bad for us” (substance abuse) or not. Changing behavior is most effectively done by adding in something new that is also rewarding, but this is challenging for most of us, AND the old behaviors and routes are still there “calling our name”, a natural pull. Providing support and encouragement for the new positive behaviors is REALLY helpful. Knowing how to TALK about these changes and their challenges (including the old behaviors which keep popping up) is a REALLY important way to help the person strengthen positive change. And in helping support someone attempting new behaviors, it goes a long way if you can see their unique challenges and needs, what matters to THEM, and try to support those in particular. Additionally, because new stuff is hard to do and we all suck when we start, change takes two more important steps: repeated practice and compassion, whether we are learning new behaviors to replace substance use, or we are learning how to help another person change. Last, the context of all this is usually pain; your loved one is struggling, you are scared/angry/fill in the blank, and things can get unmoored. So the first, middle and last part of the story is this: It also takes getting grounded in what matters to you as a person, clarifying and using your values as a “north star” to keep remembering where you are heading, and willingness to be uncomfortable and in pain at times to stay the course, and not just try to “make it all go away”.

The post How to Help: A New Perspective appeared first on The Center for Motivation & Change.

from https://motivationandchange.com/help-new-perspective/

0 notes

randalljolson-blog · 7 years

Text

Relajo, Apretado & Their Influence on Politics in the Digital Age

The following is an excerpt from an an assignment I wrote today:

I consider myself a very analytical thinker. I think out multiple different outcomes for the situations I’m presented with. I measure the effects of those decisions like a chemist combining a variety of different compounds in a science experiment in order to measure the effects of a reaction or a chef mixing many different ingredients while seeking the perfect taste for their dish to ensure their guests are satisfied. At the end of the day you never know exactly how others are going to react to your cooking but, with experience, you can begin to make very strong predictions. In my mind, everything in the world can be explained, in some part, by an equation. Some equations more expansive and difficult than others. I also find value in community building and in creating environments where everyone can grow and develop skills they didn’t even know they could realize. Much like an architect, I’ll find myself doing the math and layout out the blueprint to create and build these experiences for myself and for others. But perhaps the most important piece of community building and inspiring growth and development is to establish an anchor; a value or goal by which you and those you’re working with can intrinsically share. It’s from here by which you can slowly build a foundation of similar values and beliefs that drive everyone to become architects themselves and then begin to build themselves, the people around them and entire communities and organizations upward. They now have a stake in the success of this structure because they’re contributing to its success and also reaping the reward. However, any building can fall when the base begins to crumble or when a value goes unfulfilled or forgotten. Every structure needs routine maintenance in order to adapt to a changing climate. It can begin to collapse when its ability to sustain is not taken seriously. When you work with larger groups, these foundational values are easier to lose sight of if people begin to stray too far from those original values. They become unintentionally less important and more out of focus than ever before. Before you know it, everyone has not only stayed too far from the foundation and spread too thin but they’ve become far too distant from one another. Disorganized, they all begin to question why they’re here in the first place. All this work for a glimpse of chaos? If the building goes unmaintained it will then crumble and fall to the ground from whence it came.

It's in this metaphor that I personally find Portilla’s concept of relajo important. Many leaders find it difficult to maintain order not because they push their peers too hard, but because they find it difficult to remind their peers why they are here in the first place. Or, perhaps, the environment changes and values upholding the base of your organizations structures are no longer viable. This lack of communication and dedication to the universal undertaking of building something larger than oneself is lost. We lose all reinforcement. This can lead to apathy or resentment which can lead to intentional or unintentional ignorance which can lead to more destructive forms of humor, satire, sarcasm; the concept of rejalo. They chip away at the value of an idea that was once held to the highest degree.

The concept of Relajo can be found in The Suspension of Seriousness by Carlos Alberto Sanchez, who translates the work of Jorge Portilla’s “Phenomenology of Relajo”. Here relajo can be explained through an expression of values. Portilla explains, “The acts that tend to provoke the transformation of a serious situation into relajo necessarily imply that adoption of a position (regarding the value) and that lack of attention.” (132) In this sense, relajo happens to make light of or relieve a value of its importance. In many instances this phenomenon can ease a high stress situation, however, it can also serve as a roadblock to a conversation that absolutely needs to happen either to improve quality of life or perhaps prevent significant loss of life or a value. Given this context I am proposing that, in this day and age, relajo can be of major detriment to society when discussing politics, particularly through social media.

To fully grasp my position it’s incredibly important to fully grasp the concept of relajo. Although he is more neutral than I am on the net positive or negative influence of relajo, Jorge Portilla, in particular, is very clear in his evaluation of relajo and its function. He goes on to explain relajo as something that cannot happen in solitude because, “in solitude there is nowhere to throw it.” (133)[1] Relajo is always experienced in a group, but in order to have a visible impact there, “are bodily attitudes, words, chants, noises that imply a call to others to adopt the negation of a proposed value.” (131)[2] This phenomenon manifests itself in an attitude that still requires a sense of seriousness. Portilla continues, “…when, in an immediate and direct way, I pronounce that “yes” inside myself, when I give an adequate resource to the demand for actualization inherent to the value, I tactically commit myself to a behavior, I mortgage my future behavior, making it agree beforehand with that demand; I take the value seriously.” (129)[3]. It is in this climate that opportunities for relajo increase.

Many consider and perceive the battlefield of politics as a brutalist mud-slinging affair between human beings who are far too self-absorbed into the position. And yet, many still acknowledge the weight in the decisions politicians have to make on a daily basis and the scale of impact those decisions can have on its people and its institutions. But, no matter which side you fall on in that debate, neither piece sounds all that attractive at first glance. Either way, it’s a lot of pressure. In this regard, an environment of taking things seriously for the cause of seriousness itself is already sowing the seeds for the infiltration of relajo. We can see it in the popularity of satirical news sites like The Onion or late night shows like The Daily Show. Both rely heavily on particular styles of writing that take real life situations and extract bits and pieces of them to form comedic narratives to relieve us of the pressure of current events and major global issues. Relajo can find itself embedded in the delivery of the humor found in these examples because they can often displace the concern for poor political decision-making in the name of humor for humor’s sake. It takes your mind off the issue and relieves you of the stress you feel from your concern but no real solution is created. The result is a deflation in your concern and the deflation in the values you hold in particular favor that created an environment for your initial concern. In other words, if a political leader makes a mistake then we develop a concern. We would mostly likely agree that in order to relieve that concern the next logical step is to correct the mistake and establish measures to prevent it from happening again. However, we’ve grown accustomed to indulging in these forms of entertainment because they take our concern, acknowledge that it’s a problem but then draw comparisons to something we consider below us. Perhaps we elaborately compare a Bush-era government decision to a barrel of monkeys. Monkeys are statistically less intelligent than the average human being. But monkeys are also very child-like in their presentation through mass media so we can empathize with their spirit in trying. It makes us feel better than the politicians of the era but it doesn’t give credit to the values we expect in our leadership. The 2000’s found this form of writing so popular and consumable that competition opened the door to more and more public acceptance of the phenomenon. This sort of narrative in political-satire is so consistent across mass media today that we’re often conditioned to solve our concern in comedic relief of some sort. Websites, blogs, social media, and entertainment have only continued to blur the line between satire and reality because it keeps people tuned in and, well, entertained. But in the same fell swoop, we find our stock in values somewhat compromised in the popular political discourse. Politics shouldn’t be nearly as entertaining. I can certainly agree with intellectuals who are vocal in criticizing the politicians and business men and women making poor decisions on our behalf but we also have to place the blame in the third estate (journalism/media) who should be keeping our institutions of power in check but by informing society but would rather pinch pennies for the sake of getting more views, and as a result making money. All this informed by the way we consume information in the social media age. We want instant gratification and, therefore, we need a good headline to captivate our attention or a notification pushed to our phone that provides an answer for a void in your heart. We’re losing faith in institutions not simply because of poor decision-making but because we’re too busy consuming entertainment and a false sense of security to actively participate. Now, more than ever, we need to take seriously our inability to take politics seriously. Rather than share a spicy political internet meme that we find, “so true” perhaps we act on it. Otherwise we may lose our voice entirely. Relajo cannot be left unattended. If we cannot at least educate ourselves on how it impacts our political discourse, alongside forms of comedic relief, that we lose sight of ourselves.

And all this brings me to Portilla’s explanation of another concept, apretado. Translated to, “tight one”, the apretado is processed by the spirit of seriousness. “The apretado/a is a person who we, observers, think takes things way too seriously. But this is not because things are serious or demand to be taken seriously; rather, it is because these are the kinds of things that the apretado/a believes should be taken seriously.” (60)[4] In asking the reader to consider my aforementioned concerns about the dangers of relajo in political discourse one might attempt to label me an apretado. “In apretado/a being and value are welded together and become a personality.” (60)[5] There may be an argument to be made for my unrealistic expectations of others to see beyond what could be considered an exploited and possibly conditioned indulgence in the entertainment market of political satire.

However, I must acknowledge that I do ultimately believe that both relajo and apretado can be used together to create a balanced approach to political discourse. In an ideal word, a leader with the tact to utilize and know how to respond to both would preserve a balance in personality that could bring people together. A measured approach to both could have a significant effect on bringing personalities from the entire spectrum of seriousness together. But I must advise that, when you consider the trends in political discourse towards an uneasy indulgence in relajo that seems to prevent us from reaching the root of major political and global issues than maybe, just maybe, we have to temporarily tip the scales towards a more serious values-based approach. Otherwise, it is my fear that our institutions will only lose sight of their already foggy values that established a foundation for them to exist in the first place. By revisiting these founding principles through a spirit of seriousness we can return to a more sobering middle ground to allow for a measured balance in the critical thinking of the collective consciousness of society.

I speak of my concern because I’ve experienced relajo and apretado in my work with others and how I measure the importance of particular values in my interactions with others. I’ve began to see the world open up through another lens as a means to understand another dichotomy that supports another structure of humanity and society itself. In this regard I do believe that Portilla’s concepts have a place in understanding society and, political discourse in particular. When all is said and done my understanding of these concepts can provide me and hopefully anyone else with a better grasp on how to continue our efforts to build communities in the future. My understanding of these concepts and their effects can also assist in measuring my ethical impact as I begin to enter the field of advertising - a major influencer on how media is consumed. Portilla finds both relajo and apretado important in the discourse between individuals. They both can contribute a positive and negative impact on creating solutions to major issues that we, as human beings, must overcome in order to move our society forward. Where we go from here will take a conscious effort from all of us, to establish how seriously we hold particular values. And that’s a good lesson learned in relajo and apretado.

0 notes