#the tldr is that i both agree and disagree with pedro

[mutsukiss]

Pedro de la Rosa (F1 pilot and test driver for Repsol Arrows 1999-2000, Jaguar Racing 2001-2002, McClaren Mercedes 2005-2009, Sauber 2010-2011, HRT 2012 and Ferrari 2013-2014) is saying "this is how it [the sport] is", and that drivers aren't used to these conditions because now with tire management they don't need to get to these extremes often or at all.

Toni Cuquerella (F1 race engineer for BMW Sauber 2008-2009 with THE Robert Kubica, HRT 2009, technical director and chief track engineer for HRT 2011-2012 and track engineer coordinator for Ferrari 2015-2016) argued that while its true the cars may be more manageable for the whole duration of the race now they are able to reach 6G and old cars weren't this physically demanding on the drivers. Pedro agrees but insists that this is an extreme sport and reaching the extremes is what is expected and actually looked for.

And I agree in the sense that I expect the fastest road coursing racing cars in the world to push the drivers to the limit and they have to be able to resist that and thrive in it, but that's also kind of the point? If the drivers suffer that's expected, and I like that, F1 should be hard and challenging and exhausting, but never needlessly unsafe (keeping in mind that they drive cars that reach 360km/h in race for shits and giggles. And a lot of money, but yknow)

So it IS true now cars are harder in a different sense but they are safer and easier to manage and the way they are driven is different with no fuel stops and a wider tire array; a significant number of the pilots now haven't driven an f1 car without a DRS system. I like when cars slip and lose control and smash against the walls and there's collisions because it's fun! and it's entertaining! and it shows how hard these cars are to drive and how insanely small the errors you can make are and how big the consequences are!!! I see how extreme the sport is there. But I only feel that when the drivers are safe. If there is a human error and someone is hurt it's a tragedy, but its stuff that happens. If the conditions are hard and someone just cannot keep up that's a shame, but it is still stuff that happens. If ALL the pilots in the grid are visibly unwell and being open and vocal about how unsafe they are while driving on something that race direction could have avoided or put a stop on, that's not stuff that happens. That's not an error, that's not the sport being hard, that's irresponsibility from the organization body, that keeps happening over and over again!

The sport IS extreme, and drivers MAY not be used to the harshest conditions a circuit may offer, and that doesn't necessarily mean that it needs changing or that it should be easier or more bearable, but that's not what's happening here and I can only watch people being pushed to the limit so much before I stop enjoying it because the worry they might get killed violently ruins the concept of the whole sport to me.

[from-the-clouds]

So I'm full on obsessed with Texas Sun. It's amazing, and I find myself anxiously a tithe next chapter. So good! Since you seem to read Joel very similarly to how I do, I was wondering what your thoughts were on Joel and Tess. I feel like there's this notion they had a love story, but all I see is a great partnership mixed in with a one sided attraction (on Tess' side). Idk if Joel really did feel something but buried all feelings bc of Sarah or if she just wasn't his person. I tend to believe the latter. Would love to hear your thoughts!

ahhhh! i'm so glad you like it!

okay so i both agree and disagree with you and here are my thoughts. i also am open to other interpretations (under the cut)

i agree with what you say about it being more of a companionship/partnership that's one sided. i think tess probably always wanted more from him but understood not to expect anything -- particularly tess in the show seemed a lot more attached to joel than tess in the game.

however, i do think that they were most likely lovers as well. it just seems like a natural conclusion based on the other information we have about them. thankfully, the show gives us a little more intimacy between them than we see in the game -- we learn that they have been 'together' since at least 2010, and even in that conversation with bill, joel refers to tess as 'mine' which i would surmise means they have known each other even longer. So he has been with her for at least 13 years by the time they meet ellie. we also see that they sleep together at night, and joel even feels safe enough with tess to sleep with his good ear to the pillow when she is there with him. strangely enough, we don't see much physical touch between them in the game, but they do have a fair bit of flirty banter. this scene comes to mind. i don't think they were that explicitly flirty on the show. just in general, though, joel in the game is a little more relaxed and less grumpy than pedro's joel (in my opinion but that's a convo for another day).

i also think that they did both love each other, but i could see joel not wanting to acknowledge this, or if he did, it was more of a platonic love he felt. i think i saw an interview somewhere with anna torv where she said that they came up with a whole backstory for tess -- she was married and she lost both her husband and son to cordyceps. if that's true both tess and joel both lost children and i'm sure that they found a lot of comfort being with someone who understood that specific type of pain.

there are also more examples that show how much joel cared for tess even if he wouldn't talk about specifics of his relationship with her -- the way that tommy asked about her, and the little memorial he builds for her in the stream in episode 3.

but yeah so like, TLDR: whether it was romantic or not, they clearly still loved and cared about each other deeply and they were close companions, even if joel could never really allow himself to commit to her in the way she wanted.

[blorbosexterminator]

Sergio's not gonna die, he is needed for a possible re-opening of the show. Palermo is too obvious (and that matters to pina), Raquel was already fake-killed. OTOH, Denver: has a lot more protagonism this season, with flashback and all, he is a universally beloved character (always a good candidate to kill), Jaime Lorente has been seen in some town with pedro and alba filming (prob flashback but why with those 2?). 90% sure he's the dead (if anyone).

Honestly, the only thing that would truly surprise me at this point if they indeed don't kill anyone next volume. Would be a move™, I'll give them that. But yes, I do think that they'll go with Denver too, and it has been foreshadowed to be honest. Doesn't change how much I dislike and genuinely disagree with that choice though. I don't think the actor would be up for a spin-off honestly, but anyway Sergio only has the element of surprise and the parallel with his father (the show is too fond of parallels lmfao) not much else to make his death a good choice.

And as you said, Palermo is predictable. And I imagine, with how politically aware™ the show is this season, they might also try to avoid the 'bury your gays' trope.

The thing is, most of what you and I just listed are just meta-textual reasons. I'm not saying those reasons have no place at all when considering writing choices, of course not, but I do disapprove, generally speaking, of writers taking this too much into account when writing their finales.

Sergio would be shocking to a more extent than the others, but that doesn't make him any more a good choice. Denver would guarantee as much of an angry and frustrated reaction as Nairobi (Although I honestly don't dislike Nairobi's death as much as everyone else. I thought it was well-played to an extent) and would have a strong emotional response plus parallels with Moscu, but to me it would be very misplayed.

I wasn't really talking about what I expect from the show as much as what I personally believe is a good writing choice. I most expect Denver to die, but I think Palermo is the most fitting choice.

Like sure, those things are subjective, and they change from one fan to the other as well as from one writer to the other. But just because the death of a character is predictable doesn't mean it's not the most fitting choice for the situation. Not really, I think it means the audience sees something there.

Look, before anyone starts assuming I just *want* Martín to die to see some afterlife scene for my ship, or even a parallel. Yeah, sure, preferablly as a fan of them I'd love this, but I don't think they are in any way necessar. To me, they would just be peppering that would make the death scene nicer stylistically speaking. I don't even think the show canonized the after-life or something of the sort, again I just think they are a mere stylistic choice. I wouldn't be at all actually bothered if we got nothing of the sort.

I just wholly believe the best choice to go with for both textual and meta-textual reasons is Palermo. First, the meta-textual ones, despite the fact that I disapprove of how they got there, I have to admit that the show managed to get him to be more likable this season. General audiences that have previously hated the hell out of him like him enough now. But at the same time Martín is still not Sergio, Raquel, or Denver. His death would cause some sadness and emotional response in the audience but not literal rage and feeling of betrayel, like say for example how GOT fans felt. Also, Martín now has enough alive characters that care about him that would make his death sad. It's unlikely an audience would give a shit about a character's death if none of the surrounding characters do. But now there is Helsinki, who incidentally Martín is also much nicer and caring towards this season, so Helsi would have "good reasons" to react strongly to his death, Sergio supposedly also cares for Martín, and we can say Raquel respects him. So the characters around him wouldn't be indifferent, especially if his death has value in the narrative, say an actual sacrifice for the rest of them. The show itself is VERY fond of the sort of arc that goes along the line 'Selfish character who caused harm and pain to all around them reaches selfishness and then sacrifices their life for the sake of the others.' It happened with Berlin, it happened with Tokyo. And it seems is effective enough. So if I were the writer and wanted a death that is effective but won't anger audience too much, I'd 100% go with him.

And again, a point is Martín even has something that neither Tokyo nor Andrés did, he had a very direct hand in the killing of a very beloved team member. Sure, you can say Tokyo had a hand in what happened to Moscu, but Tokyo legitimately had very little choice because she couldn't find Sergio and she had no intention to do harm, she didn't know her entrance would literally cost the man's life. Martín knew very, very well what Gandia was capable of and this is exactly why he did what he did.

Martín is narratively still responsible for Nairobi's death and took no hand in even avenging her from Gandia. That was Bogota and then Tokyo. And the character seems to be weighted by that guilt to a large extent. And I think the absolute best way for the narrative to resolve this point is by Martín dying directly to save Helsinki, who the show also made a point of also incapacitating, and I'd imagine that would have repercussions on how efficient getting out of the bank would be on him. Characters rarely get injured just for the sake of it, Nairobi's terrible injury from Alicia made her much more susceptible to Gandia, who had a huge leverage on her as she was physically incapable of resisting anything. (I imagine Monica's situation would also have repercussions--hopefully just not on Denver lmfao)

So despite generally not being a fan at all of the pairing in any way or form, and how they generally make no sense to me, with how the show is going now it's definitely best for Martín to die partially for his plan and partially for Helsinki.

Like ideally, what I'd personally most love to see and what I'd personally write a 2573 different fic versions of, is for Martín to die for his plan and for Sergio. I personally believe outside of the plan, Martín's most important relationship in his arc is with Sergio. But the show already ignored their relationship enough this volume as a first and Sergio already got the strong death scenes with Berlin and Tokyo as a second, it could be seen as an excess. But with Helsinki it's meaningful on a different level. The character Nairobi cared about the most is Helsinki (and he's also nearly as well-liked by the audience), so this would balance what he did to Nairobi in a pretty significant way, not completely out-do it, but the two acts would definitely balance each other. To both the audience and to the characters, Martín would be truly "redeemed." Which despite how much I dislike, and genuinely don't agree with it, the show is already putting a lot of focus on his 'redemption'. I don't like redemption arcs generally speaking, I don't think Martín is fit for it, and I don't think it's happening in an organic way at all, and I frankly believe it made him boring, but alas, it is what is is, the show is already half-way there, it already took that route, so the only end for it is to finish it and go all the way. It would be very useless if he ended up surviving lmfao.

And of course the other reason is for Martín's personal arc. The plan is his life's work, the thing he showed most loyality and love to from the moment he showed up 2 seasons ago, the end of his arc is with the end of his plan. Never mind how A LOT of scenes would be useless if Martín doesn't actually die for the success of the plan; the whole reason Sergio opposed it so strongly is because, in his own words, it was completely suicidal. Sure, you can say that they already proved the plan is dangerous by the army going in and all of this "war", but there was no Rio, Raquel, Plan Paris or Plan Roman in the original plan, so there would have been no reason for things to go that bad in that respect, all that happened in volume one is by direct consquence of the plan changing, so that still leaves the question why was Berlin and Palermo's plan so wrong and so suicidal if we don't take into account this war? If there is no answer and if there is no answer that is actually anchored by a death in canon, then those were really all just empty scenes. And of course it's Martín, the mastermind and engineer, the artist who crafted this poem, that has to die for its completion and overall success. Since day one, his arc has been tied intimately to this plan, we barely even know anything about him beyond it. And like, three people died for the mint heist and it was a plan made to work perfectly without a single flaw, where does this put a heist that was just full of romanticism and complete focus on the gold with disregard to the people? All of the scenes we saw of Sergio rejecting the bank heist in the flashbacks on that basis have to mean something now.

Against all of this, what does Denver have? What will his death signify? Nothing, in my opinion. The man didn't even want to be there. Also I guarantee you, if he does die for Monica the way he said, every single fan will turn against her and the hate the character will receive will be insane. Like why end the story of those two characters this way? What is there beyond edginess and grimness for their own sake?

Martín's death, even if it causes sadness, will be satisfying for his character. Besides, Martín as a character is too much like Tokyo, I don't imagine he himself would be very satisfied growing old and dying under the radar somewhere; going with a blaze now, sealing off his life's work and having his death mean something too is a much, much more satisfying ending for him.

Tldr; Palermo in a very balanced position to kill, especially that he is currently the actual leader, a position the show has given him with more space and better, much nicer spotlight now than in the third season. And I imagine with volume two focused more on extracting the gold, his role will get only bigger in that respect. He's still responsible for Nairobi's death. And he should 100% die for the Gold and the completion of his plan.