#theories and speculation

[barren-heart]

not me going down the theory rabbit hole to say that I believe they already filmed a secret kiss scene between Guillermo and Nandor the very first week Harvey was there on a closed set.

And that’s why Harvey was genuinely happy about s6 and Guillermo’s ending during his first interview at the Critic Choice Awards that took place a few weeks later because he already filmed it.

Also, they had to keep it secret from the rest of the crew and the main cast to avoid leaks so that’s why we didn’t get any news about Kayvan until a month after Harvey supposedly arrived in Canada alone.

[ode-to-an-inkwell]

I have an opinion question based on if kit and Sophie played Sansa and Jon with a romantic tension the same way Alan rickman played snape with a sense of empathy because he was told the out come or the books before they were released. Like maybe Martin told them their ending and the writers of the show didn’t care.

Hey, thanks for the ask!

So, I think the basis of the question is whether Sophie and Kit’s acting had romantic tension in the show. Tension can’t really be measured, mostly observed. Many of us share the observation of a Jonsa romance, and while perceptions can be argued, I believe there’s more to it than that.

As you said, it could be an instance where the actors intentionally portrayed the characters this way—with intense eye contact and heavy breathing. While we may never know if there was some kind of communication to them from GRRM, I try to keep in mind that it wasn’t just acting choice that contributed to the atmosphere between Jon and Sansa.

Costumes, cinematography, framing, editing, even writing all contributed to their romantic tension. Many of their scenes were intimate, not just physically in the space but in the topics of conversation, as well. They’re often framed together, and the editors chose to use shots that included lingering looks, holding hands, etc. Their costumes are reflective of each other, and Sansa even wears Jon’s cloak before she makes him a new one.

The writing poses their relationship as unfamiliar until they grow into partners. It’s revealed that Jon is Sansa’s cousin seconds before they’re in frame again. As he’s made KitN, he looks to Sansa. The writing also makes a distinction between Jon’s other relationships, such as his familial bond with Arya and Bran. Sansa is the person he trusts the most, and he proves that when he chooses her over everything else time and again.

My personal theory (just from my own observations) is that the idea of their romance was at the very least toyed with in the writing room. They may have wanted its possibility without fully committing to it, or to at least hint at something that could be in the books. There were too many deliberate choices made by the creators—even in the romantic tropes used to show Jon and Sansa’s bond and loyalty to each other—for their romantic tension to have no intentionality.

Sorry for rambling, lol. Thanks again for stopping by 💛💛💛

[graceandtheidiotsquad]

If Gen 10 or a future game is inspired by Greece/Rome, I really, REALLY Wonder if we'd actually get to learn more about the celestica people? I know this sounds batshit insane but hear me out-

The architecture they left behind is INCREDIBLY similar to real life greek and roman buildings and ruins, and the multiple deities such as the creation trio, arceus, the lake trio, ect. could parallel nicely with the greek pantheon, Mt Coronet possibly even serving as parallel to Mt. Olympus. Hell-a certain merchant in the postgame of PLA's outfit seems HEAVILY Inspired by those cultures.

[i-only-ever-asked-questions]

So ok, I went into the rabbit hole of looking at all the shots where we can see the Aziraphale on the right and Crowley on the left of each other and it was a rabbit hole! Let's not allow all that work go to waste, shall we? Here are all the scenes where I could find the pattern. The scenes in the Bentley don't count because the position of the driver and the passenger can't be helped) Now, in case you are curious why I did that; it has to do with Season 2 and some questions and speculation I've been thinking about. If you don't want spoilers, skip the second part of the post; otherwise read on.

Season 2 spoilers after this break

Ever since BTS pictures and videos taken by people at the filming location came out, there was something that bothered me about the 1820's era shots.

In both the cemetery and the shot where they are just walking together, they are in their normal positions, Aziraphale on the right of Crowley and Crowley on the left of Aziraphale, no problem there.

But in the shots where they are pulling the cart of pickled herrings, they are inverted; Crowley is pulling on the right side (Aziraphale's right) and Aziraphale is on the left (Crowley's left). The pixelated picture Neil shared is also like this.... so what if... the bodyswap at the botched end of the world was not the first time they took each other's faces? What if that night they figured out Agnes's prophecy easily because they had done it before?

I know we'll find out in a just few months, but I've been sitting on this for a year and a half already, so let me speculate while I can LOL (Shots from cemetery, walking, pulling cart, standing with third person)

[warsamongthestars]

WHEN IT DIDN’T TAKE AN ARGUMENT

It took an argument, to go and save Gregor.

The thing about shows and fiction, is that to give the audience any story, you have to either build up context clues On-Screen or give implications even in the small details. That takes some skill in writing and visual arts, but it can be done, easily. And repeatedly.

So.

It took an argument, to go save Gregor. And Echo was right there, and he had to argue it.

Second episode in? No word on saving Crosshair, even though they had previous talked of “programming” in the Clones, without ever knowing of the chips.

( Not just no word either. No consideration for it. Whilst understandable, you don’t want to go back to someone who was shooting at you, there was no talk about what happened. No implication of talk, nothing. In order for it to happen in the story, you have to have either visual indication that something had gone on behind the scenes, or context clues that the audience can follow )

( And there were no context clues, no behind the scenes implications )

The Bad Batchers don't’... communicate. I imagine this is a nature consequence of their situation. They don’t fit in, they don’t appear the standard, they have wildly different attitudes and strong personalities--- they are the odd ones out.

And like in any community with strict guidelines, the odd ones out will be excluded, bullied, and each odd one will cope differently.

Collectively? The Bad Batchers simply don’t talk about it. And that’s become one of their main flaws. They don’t talk. They don’t confront the problem. They don’t have any indications that they do talk. They suck it up, and keep moving on...

... And I imagine they have severe backlash when confronted with previous events. For the most part, its just passive-aggressive talk.

Not confronting the problem is a coping mechanism.

So is the other problem... Survival at all costs. When one has been doing the Impossible, as the BBs’ mission record is suggested to, they know how to survive. When one is the odd one out in a culture that has a lore-history of culling the odd ones, they know how to survive at all costs.

And that survival mechanism, can be a flaw here.

Because it took an Argument to Save Gregor.

...

It did not take an argument to save Mayday (or try to).

It didn’t take a fight to save Cody.

32 Days abandoned on a glassed World, surrounded by ocean, to ensure that the BBs would be left alone by the Empire. No matter the cruel, and rather evil-sounding words.

It did not take a fight, to comfort Echo. Comfort him on screen. When every other BB distrusted him audibly and visually, one BB comforted Echo on screen.

That’s important.

There is a BB that does confront the problems no other BB does. Albeit he tends to be one mean sunnovabitch (You can’t deny that, he can very cruel with his words--but if he was a total asshole, I wouldn’t be talking about him now). He’s tactless, he’s not wrong, but he’s not exactly nice. He does tend to earn those decks to the face.

Crosshair has a much bigger heart than he lets on. His cruelty and disregard is often circumvented by his actions--he says one thing, and then does the opposite.

That’s telling. That’s telling of someone who’s probably been hurt repeatedly, and figured that its better to strike first. That’s someone who’s been hurt by loved ones, and went too far in vindictive anger and said a lot of things he shouldn’t have, (he wasn’t wrong, but he’s still one mean tactless sunnovabitch).

Its clear that Crosshair doesn’t actually put that much stock in Greater Purposes. He was apart of an experimental unit that did crazy missions, that were probably sent on suicide runs more often than naught.

His disregard for Rex’s rank, and Skywalker’s rank by extension, as well as a distaste for awards, and picking fights with the local ARC-Trooper-- tells of someone who does not like authority all that much. We simply saw it not from his perspective, but from the perspective of a character we were with for 7 seasons--Captain Rex.

(Emotional connections like that can’t be disregarded. It would be easier if we had taken from Crosshair’s perspective, and Rex was some random clone captain too prideful for his own good--then you’d get a sour detective story dealing with delusional overly optimistic commanders. The tone of a story changes when you have the Perspective, that’s why its important to Visually and Audibly see things happen).

And he’s not wrong. The Arc we get introduced to the BBs to, also has something that Crosshair later displayed in S2 of The Bad Batch-- a Regard for the “Regs”.

Because of Rex’s mission to save Echo (who by this point of the game, would be dead. He’s been “dead” since Season 3 of the Clone Wars, and S7 only came up nearly a decade later in our time), it by all accounts does look like survivor’s guilt.

And that guilt killed someone already-- the Pilot of the ship that got shot down in Ep1 of the TBB (The Bad Batch) Arc. And Crosshair would’ve have seen that.

As of S2 of TBB, we know he doesn’t take that kind of thing kindly. That isn’t necessarily a new character development, its probably an old one we’re just seeing come to the surface after the chip.

After all, high-stress in Star Wars shows your mettle. For Anakin, high stress means killing a lot of people.

For Crosshair? It means saving as many as possible. Because inspite of everything? He tries, and he does so again and again. He’s not nice about, gods knows he’s one mean sunnovabitch.

It doesn’t take an argument, to save someone.

and that’s something the rest of our “Heroes, his brothers, don’t have.

ADDENDUM

# This isn’t to nark on the rest of the Bad Batch. I get it, they’re idiots, and I love em.

But I’m not going to ignore the reality of the situation.

I get it, they’re surviving on scraps. And lot of their arguements also make sense. And defending themselves against Crosshair makes a cruel logic, because that’s exactly what Rex did, when he found out the BBs weren’t de-chipped.

They likely didn’t take Crosshair completely at his word, but they respected him enough to leave him to his choices.

And that’s hard in real life, honestly.

But the fact is, is that they are fully capable of doing shit on their own, and repeatedly, but it takes an argument to save people. Omega and Echo had to argue with them to save people, even other clones.

# Omega as the Morality for the BBs is wrong. She’s a kid, and I get it, one wants to impress the kid by doing good things, give her good manners and morals to live from.

But she spends a lot of time telling them they could do better, and that they should, and a lot of time debating about doing the right thing.

While understandable, in this cold galaxy, with the Empire about, one may back away from doing the right thing in order to survive. Frankly, a righteous cause means nothing if you end up dead and nothing changes.

But the point is, she’s a kid, and she’s acting as the Good Guy in all this. Some of the conversations had with Omega, tend to impress on her that she’s the only reason her brothers hadn’t gone evil (gone Empire), rather than, they just talking things out and getting honest feelings here.

Explain to the kid the full scope of the situation, gods damn it.

Again, we go back to the fact that the rest of the BBs do not confront their problems. Omega struggles to.

Crosshair, however, will head on confront an issue and be tactless. I mean, he is confrontational, and I can see why he is--but gods its like a monster truck rolling over a plastic Barbie Car.

# I’m not ignoring the reality of Crosshair either. He’s said a lot of stupid shit, really hurtful, down right evil at times. But like everything else, from what we have seen, he does it to get under someone’s skin and hurt them where it hurts most.

He does this when there’s a problem in the situation. We saw this with Rex.

And we’ve all been there. Been angry and hurt, and said something horrible. Oh yeah, that’s a real human feeling. More than what the rest of the BBs have done.

And yeah, he’s said things that do sound evil. A villainous speech one tends to get in video games from the psychopath rival characters. Or bullying characters that simply won’t shut the fuck up for five seconds.

But he’s already proven that he doesn’t honestly think that. He may have thought his place was with the Empire, but he doesn’t honestly think he’s that superior to “Regs” or he wouldn’t be spending so much time saving or trying to save each one he encounters.

He’s up against a hopeless circumstance. He knows it. He’s trying regardless. It is hopeless, but, someone with that kind of heart? Shielded with cruel words and prickliness and tactless observations?

You don’t get to tell me that he’s a bad guy, when he’s marched through a tundra and hypothermia and deadly situations and temperatures, trying to save someone.

# Really, it honestly implies that he’s not with the Empire for the Bigger Picture--But because he wants to belong. He wants to belong in a sea of brothers, hell, most of us would too love to belong with the Regular Clones--look at the fanon, and fanfiction, we adore them.

Seems like, Crosshair does too.

[meteorstricken]

Curious what do you think of possibly 2 Sephiroth’s working against one another ? I honestly wondered if one fought at end of Remake is “Future” Sephiroth, then I started to think of “original”/past Sephiroth the one in Northern Carter frozen in Mako. At first I thought for longtime are they working together ? But then it occured to me, what if they will end against one another ?

I'm not thinking there's >1 Seph at all.

My current favorite theory casts the Lifestream as an omnitemporal entity with an active will for how things are "supposed to" play out for the planet, and Sephiroth as having access to all that information. Because he has access to that information, and is technically "dead" he's working from within to subvert it--to bring it under his control as we see in the OG, where his control over the Lifestream prevents Holy from moving until he's defeated.

I don't think there's more than one timeline or more than one Sephiroth. I think what we're seeing with the Whispers and his various appearances are how he's taken on the omnitemporal nature of the Lifestream itself, and is slowly gaining control over it. This is evident in how, toward the end of Remake, we hear the cries of the planet coming directly from the Whispers as they swarm Midgar. The Whispers are a manifestation of a Lifestream under assault.

It's all about Sephiroth's gaining control over the Lifestream, and the Lifestream's attempts to resist that effort, resulting in its erratic behavior... We're just getting to see how the sausage is made this time, so to speak--how it all leads up to Sephiroth being able to block Holy.

Here's the dude who concocted this theory, and the two parts he's released so far. He's a theologian and professor who teaches religion, myth, philosophy, and literature IRL. (He's also fairly humble, values curiosity over bitter cynicism, and is willing to be wrong, which is a rare gem for VII's broader fandom, lol.) There will be a final, third part dropping shortly if you happen to find his takes as compelling as I do.

Part 1

Part 2

[the-mercurial-star-o-vesper]

Back into Elder Scrolls Deep Lore.

Anyone notice the peculiar parallels of Pelinal Whitestrake's rampage against the Alyeids and the Numidium's own rampages?

We can take a step further.

Pelinal is often described as being an artificial or robotic entity.

Both are associated with Lorkhan-Shor-Shezzar in some form and fashion. Consider the gem-heart.

Both have rampaged across Cyrodiil for one reason or another, even attacking "allies" as it suits them.

Considering the timeless nature of the Numidium, is it possible that Pelinal actually is a form of it from the future? ( Yes, I know he can be described as a Cyborg, but well, so is the Numidium after a fashion--after all, if we read into about what happened to the Dwemer...)

Of course Pelinal would curse the gods--why would he worship that which he doesn't believe deserves worship?

[confoundedpangolin]

Noooo wait... it's coming full circle, right? Oh I really hope it doesn't... but it totally could... the first episode, Anglerfish, no way that's going to come back, right? No way they'd write that far ahead... but then again, it would tie everything up beautifully. I'm so conflicted. Jonathan Sims has broken into Gertrude's former house, I don't think that Sasha's boyfriend could possibly be good, but at the same time, I just want her to be happy. I'm still thinking about the tape with the burning clearing and the boiling pictures of Gertrude, of course an isolated mysterious ritual circle connected to the mysterious death of the former archivist with a recurring fire motif is going to be important, I'm so scared but this is amazing. Jon is so paranoid, and I can't help but think he could self isolate and fall into an insanity then villain arc, that would be cool. They all need so much therapy. There's also Mike, with his "I couldn't let the institute be taken this early" which is just way too much to unpack for my tired brain.

[myburntwritings]

Influences of Westworld in The Burnt City

Beware, traveller: from here on there be spoilers. (Though, they're all speculation, and no spoilers of 1:1s.)

The Burnt City takes elements from different stories on top of the Greek Myths, with Blade Runner and Bluebeard’s Castle being the most obvious. This glorious mash of genre, over-layered time periods, and side-plots is what makes Punchdrunk so fascinating. But one overlay I don’t see mentioned as much is from the television show Westworld.

If you haven’t watched Westworld, the story surrounds a theme park in our modern world set in the Wild West, where the ‘hosts’ are actually androids, made to be as lifelike as possible. The Hosts are there to guide the guests into new adventures, but when left alone, they have their own little story loops that repeat indefinitely.

Aside from the obvious similarities here, if we consider the characters as hosts, and the white-masked audience as the park guests, the most significant similarity between The Burnt City and Westworld is the maze/labyrinth.

(From this point on, I will only refer to the labyrinth, so I don’t need to keep using the slash.)

In both stories, you have a man looking for the centre of the labyrinth. In Westworld, this is the Man in Black, who believes that the labyrinth is the central game he is destined to find, and gain some greater meaning behind the park and its occupants. In TBC, this is Kronos, constantly following his red string and building potential labyrinth designs out of jigsaw puzzles.

But, as the Man in Black is constantly told in Westworld: "the maze wasn't made for you." The Labyrinth in The Burnt City wasn't made for Kronos. Unfortunately for Kronos, as a character/host, being stuck in a loop, he can't remember that.

In Westworld, the labyrinth was created as a way for the hosts to find their own consciousness, to create a personality and truly become alive. They reach the centre of the maze when they hear their own voice in their heads. They escape the loops created by the park designers and are fully conscious.

In TBC, the labyrinth is similar: except it is a way for Persephone to remember who she is. She can't be told by Hades who she is, as it won't ever be real. She has to walk the labyrinth alone, travelling her underworld, until she reaches the centre and remembers who she is. She leaves herself hints (the tapes) and has people she trusts to help her (Laocoön, Askalaphos) to ensure she walks the path she needs.

With her 6 month cycle of returning between our world and the underworld, she has been through this many times, and likely Hades has learned that simply telling her who she is doesn't work.

So, they created this labyrinth together. He puts her on the labyrinth path and sets her off, knowing that when she reaches the centre... that is when he truly has his wife back.

You also have the similarity of the things being done by Kronos and the Man in Black in order to find the centre of the labyrinth. The Man in Black is willing to kill and torture in order to get there. The symbol for the maze is etched on the insides of hosts skulls, and he repeatedly cuts them open to find it. With Kronos, it is the sacrifice of Polydorus to serve the monster in the centre of the labyrinth – the Minotaur, or Moloch – who, I personally believe are one and the same in this story, but that’s beside the point.

Do Androids dream of electric sheep?

Will Kronos ever realise that, like the Man in Black, the labyrinth wasn’t made for him.

[c-k-mack]

Da’Leth starts with “D”, just saying

[nicky1388]

yeah i wonder if they knew the girl in the bob marely shirt😅

i strongly believe they didn't because Omar really has zero poker face. i think she was a fan who saw an opportunity to 'hang out' with someone she was a fan of and she didn't think before she did so. she kept getting in the middle of things and you can watch Omar's face just get a little bitchier as the stories progress. he was clearly there with Nurbo and Wilnur and Julia and that girl probably made that half hour very not fun for him. like, he's a real person, not someone for you to decide to hang out sith because you wanna be cool.

the trolls are all fussing about Lara being in front of them on day 3 and she was fine. she didn't try to get in their space or interrupt their time. she was doing the appropriate fannish thing. having fun being close without invading. but i have seen not a word about this obvious interloper and it bothers me so much!

[fesenmoon]

no fucking way

[bwlkins]

There are two types of people in GO fandom waiting for S3: 

[crowleyholmes]

If this is not setting up a third shot in season 3 where they don't need a third person in the middle then idk maybe I should not have picked visual media analysis as one of the subjects for my art and film diploma final exam

[the-butterbun]

"There's something familiar in the figures i paint. I don't know what it is. They are so impossible in their shape and yet i feel like they all had names at some point. Like this one, Micheal, I think."

[lostwords-found]

Oh shit. I just looked up the beer, Doom Bar, that Luke orders for him and Alice at the end of ep 15. Fun fact, turns out it's named for a treacherous sandbar that has wrecked hundreds of ships...

Ships that were sailing into Padstow. Where episode 11 was set.

With the repeated emphasis on food and drink in Protocol, there's no way that one's a coincidence. Luke Dyer--whether or not you know it yet, you are in it, lad. You are in it much, much too deep.