#they’re contrasts !! they’re parallels !! they’re fucking narrative foils !!

[vitos-ordination-song]

I didn’t go into LOGH trying to ship anyone… I don’t care about shipping in a fandom sense. It makes me so annoyed with myself that my interest in Reinhard and Yang as narrative foils eventually morphed into wanting them to fuck nasty.

It’s like… okay yeah on a narrative level I’m obsessed with them. And so into the tension and drama of their parallel stories. And the unlimited potential of their relationship which never came to be but was relentlessly teased. I don’t necessarily care about the fanfic angle of them becoming lovers. At first I was actively resisting, like, clearly Reinhard is in love with Kircheis, and Yang is such a rare kind of character, he really doesn’t fit with dramatic romance and would be incredibly out of place in yaoi.

And yet… it happened. ‘Cause for one thing GOD the power struggles were so hot lol. Yes my intellectual brain was thinking about LOGH’s deep themes or whatever but also I was slobbering over every escalating conflict. At first it’s like, oh they’re just Rivals on the Battlefield or whatever. They respect each other but that’s it. But then… BUT THEN.

Reinhard is actually an extremely hot character. I’m more into Yang but Reinhard has that ultimate erotic power, and he’s so passionate and possessive. I liked that part of him in general. But the story kept portraying him as wanting Yang so bad. Again it’s fine with me if it’s platonic, just as good to me that way, if it’s just a matter of Reinhard’s dominator personality, desire to collect talent, desire to have Yang as a subordinate and friend, etc. But that’s what pushed me over the edge into full blown insanity. The scene where he fantasizes how about he’s gonna make Yang the governor of the Alliance once he subdues him???? HELP IT’S SO HOT. And his reaction when Yang died, like, god he just wanted Yang so badly as both a friend and enemy, which an incredibly great and compelling dynamic. I really couldn’t take how sexual I found it all.

But the flip side of that is Yang himself ‘cause he has absolutely none of Reinhard’s drama. I think that contrast is another reason I like their dynamic (or potential dynamic)—it’s hilarious. It’s fun to watch. It’s interesting. Like, Yang’s sloth nature negates Reinhard’s epic romantic emperor shtick. What made it hot is how Yang always eluded him!!!!!! Like, he kept winning. Reinhard’s yang energy kept expanding, but Yang’s yin was never caught by it. Super hot, made me quake in my boots.

This dynamic is so neglected in the fandom tho 😭 Who cares about Schönkopf, get him outta here!!! And Reinhard/Kircheis is more interesting with Kircheis dead. The only people who get me on this front are the Chinese, Reinhard/Yang is popular with Chinese fandom. Most of the fic is porny, ‘cause like me, they have domination kinks. But what the best ones understand is that it’s hotter if Reinhard can never actually dominate Yang. Yang is so good because he’s passive yet unyielding. It’s so hot to have that erotic lack of fulfillment, there’s always something more just out of grasp… Also one particular fic is actually about negating the power struggle between them and it has a lot of good political writing in it too. It basically used the BL genre to further elaborate on LOGH’s themes, in ways I found more interesting than the work’s actual ending. And its portrayal of Reinhard and Yang’s relationship is so romantic and funny and compelling. Anyway I’ve thoroughly embarrassed myself with this post but I must speak my truth. I’m thinking I’m going to do two video essays on LOGH ultimately, one on its flaws and one on the excellent Reinhard/Yang foiling. And maybe in that second video, I’ll subliminally flash images of them making out to win people over to my side.

[milflewis]

☕️ Ferwis

;)

listen…it’s the pettiness. the bringing out something in each other, whether it’s good or bad, they change each other, but it’s nearly always the other person’s inner cunt and bitchiness, through in nando’s case it’s not that inner. it’s lewis’s first introduction into formula one being fernando eating a peach in front of his team principal just to be a dick and blackmailing his tp so his team gets disqualified bc he thinks they’re prioritising lewis over him. it’s the fifteen years of history. of the absolute shitshow that was mclaren 2007 and the sort of reluctant allies against seb during his redbull years and now, with lewis so far ahead of nando, he has no hope in catching up !!! god. i can’t deal. its spygate and crashgate. it’s fernando openly comparing all his teammates since lewis to lewis and finding them lacking. it’s lewis saying fernando was the toughest opponent he’s had in his entire career. it’s fernando ‘mind games are my thing’ alonso and lewis ‘i don’t do mind games. not ever’ hamilton

send me a topic + ☕️ emoji and i’ll tell you by honest opinion about it

[qqueenofhades]

Okay, well, I am dog fucking tired so it’ll be a short flail session tonight, but I have to crank this out before I hit the sack. Also, apologies since I’m sure someone has mentioned this, but I have been in standardized-test-grading purgatory and thus have not seen. Anyway!

Obviously, Star Wars loves itself a good hallway fight scene, but I was STRUCK with how much Obi-Wan’s rescue of Leia was paralleled with Vader’s attack at the end of Rogue One. And when I say “struck,” I obviously mean “consumed with arm-gnawing feelings about it.” Most people cite that scene as the scariest that Vader has ever been: it starts out when all the lights suddenly go out and the darkness is lit only by his lightsaber. He rips through the Alliance dudes like paper, he’s threatening to make all our heroes’ sacrifice irrelevant after they have already all died on Scarif, and he’s doing it to stop the Death Star plans from getting to Leia. The soldiers, running from him, reach a doorway, which jams. They desperately try to get through it, but can’t, until one of them hands the data chip through to another just as Vader is arriving to ice him. Eventually, they manage to get it to Leia, who refers to it as hope.

And then, contrast that to Obi-Wan’s rescue of Leia in Part IV. It starts out with all the lights going out, lit only by his lightsaber, as he takes out the stormtroopers. Then when he’s fighting his way down the hallway, his technique, while it’s just as commandingly competent as Vader’s, is entirely defensive. He’s not attacking them; he’s just trying to stop them from attacking him. He’s handling almost as many soldiers as Vader was, but they’re running after him, rather than vice versa. And he does this for precisely the opposite reason: to save Leia, so she can grow up to become that hope at all.

And then, the stormtroopers reach a door. It jams. They try to force their way through, as Obi-Wan desperately holds back the windows from breaking and flooding the entire hallway, entirely willing to give himself up if it means that Leia gets to safety -- which is, once again, the utter antithesis of Vader’s mindless murder spree at the end of Rogue One. Reaching Leia is the ultimate goal for both of them, but in diametrically opposite ways and for utterly opposite emotional reasons. One out of pure love, and the other out of total hate.

I just... am having Big Feelings about how they are so completely anti-paralleled/narrative foiled to each other, especially after the opening sequence with both of them burned and in the bacta tank, having violent flashbacks to their face-off at the end of the last episode. Once again, as I said, they’re just so fucking haunted by each other, they’re tangled up beyond any extrication, and their actions remain, as ever, this total dark mirror of each other, and I can deal with this absolutely zero percent.

(Anyway, I obviously enjoyed other things about the episode, like Leia remaining the Galaxy’s Most Awesome Tiny Badass, Reva using the Force like a bad motherfucker as Moses Ingram is still sadly underused and I WANT MORE OF HER BACKSTORY GODDAMMIT, and the Hand Hold That Slayed Me Dead between Obi and Leia at the end, but yes.)

[sword-dad-fukuzawa]

META META META how about something with regards to the fact that misaki and aoi look so similar; i remember we were yelling about that at one time, when i was liveblogging my mars red breakdown to you XD

(Apologies in advance. This might not make a lot of sense.)

You know, after rewatching episode one, I think the similarities between Aoi and Misaki are meant to contrast Maeda and Shutaro. 

Because Maeda and Misaki, right, are a tragedy. They’re a tragedy that reaches its climax in episode 1 and leaves you mildly confused as to who Misaki is, what’s going on with Maeda (god knows that man doesn’t show what he’s thinking or feeling) and why we’re supposed to care, other than that a very pretty woman who was only mostly crazy has just killed herself in broad daylight. But the interesting thing is--Misaki and Aoi, as foils for each other, is set up in that episode. These are two characters who have never met and yet it’s very obvious that they’re connected somehow. 

(ep1, Aoi and Maeda. It’s fairly obvious that Maeda is Jokanaan from the start, but Aoi’s shadow overlaying Misaki’s image is very clear foreshadowing here.)

They’re both extremely kind people. They both look very similar. They’re both connected in some way to the two male leads of Mars Red. 

And, interestingly--they’re both kind to Defrott. 

After looking at the manga, it seems to me like they split Aoi into two characters for the anime--Aoi, whom Shutaro loves, and Misaki, whom Maeda loves. And I think it’s telling that Defrott loves them both in his “cannot bear to attach himself to humanity and companionship yet craves to be treated like a younger sibling” fashion. 

God, Defrott. I could talk for hours about that guy. Anyway. 

In sum: yes! Lots of similarities! Once you watch ep7 and you see the sort of person Misaki is (gentle, loving, quietly pining for her silly fiancee who is busy amputating his own arm/hunting vampires/overworking himself) you realize that not only does she look like Aoi, but they’re fundamentally the same sort of person. 

But here’s the thing about the both of them. They’re both inherently tied to the central narrative of Mars Red by their relation to the two male leads, Maeda and Shutaro. So then you can look at those pairs in tandem and see how they’re meant to mirror each other. 

For both of them, there’s a separation involving vampirism--Shutaro and Misaki--and a separation involving war--Shutaro again and Maeda. But their stories end differently, which I think is the whole point here. 

Aoi lives. Shutaro lives. According to that one interview I keep referencing, they both find their way back to each other in the end. There’s hope there, for the younger characters. 

And yet for Maeda and Misaki, everything is too little, too late. Maeda is too late to see Misaki perform Salome, even though according to Defrott, that was what she hoped for. He was too late to prevent her fatal accident. He’s too late to save her from madness and death. And it’s no surprise that Maeda, in the anime, suffers the exact same fate--he’s turned by Defrott in a mirror of what he did to Misaki, goes crazy, and dies in the same location that Misaki did. 

(I would like to point out that in the manga, Aoi also gets put into a life or death situation that Shutaro just barely saves her from, as in the anime. But instead of it occurring in the ruins of Maeda’s military base, Shutaro saves her from falling debris--

in the theater that Misaki died in, in the anime. Just some more neat parallels demonstrating what Aoi situations were given to Misaki.)

But Shutaro is pointedly just in time. He saves Aoi from death (and she’s still wearing!! Misaki’s costume!! It’s painful, because it was the only thing that saved her from Maeda’s rampage!!), he kills Maeda before he himself is killed, and he reunites with Aoi in the end. 

Their plotline is about contrasting hope with tragedy and time, being on time versus being too late. And man if it doesn’t fuck me up every time I see it.

[gffa]

IF YOU STRIP CONTEXT OF THE REST OF THE SHOW--HELL, EVEN OF THE REST OF THIS EPISODE--FROM THIS SCENE, I can see how we should be siding entirely with Ahsoka, especially on the heels of the walkabout arc and her conflict with being drawn back towards the Jedi and the Jedi Order. Her points aren’t wrong, in the sense that she’s right that Obi-Wan is playing politics with this, but she’s stripping context and consequence out from the choice he faces and that’s specifically why he says, “That’s not fair.” and even Ahsoka herself says, “I’m not trying to be.” Her accusation is not fair. Because, let’s say that Obi-Wan did exactly what Ahsoka said--that he prioritized the people of Mandalore over saving the Chancellor.  We’re setting aside that this was a manipulation on Palpatine’s part and that Mandalore is a trap, only what we can see from Obi-Wan’s point of view and his motivations, his good faith assumptions on why rescuing the Chancellor is important. If they chose Mandalore over Coruscant, what would happen is: - They would be drawn into yet another war because they had broken a treaty, when they’re already stretched to the breaking point for this first war. - The Chancellor may be the one in trouble, but what does Ahsoka think will happen if the Chancellor dies or is ransomed back?  The Republic would be in chaos, the war effort is already balanced precariously, and none of them know that the Separatists aren’t the real threat.  Whatever good reasons many of the Separatists may have, they murder, enslave, and oppress the worlds they attack.  If the Republic loses the war, that’s what happens to every world in the Republic. - The Jedi might be more popular with people if they saved Mandalore, but would it really benefit the galaxy as a whole, given a good faith assumption on what these characters would know?  (There is no right answer to this question, of course.) Ahsoka is very nearly arguing for popularity over doing the more important thing, because this isn’t a situation where there aren’t consequences.  Mandalore needs their help, but so too does Coruscant and it’s not just about the Chancellor, it’s about the Republic as a whole.  And it even comes down to--why are politics bad?  I get that Ahsoka means that choosing your actions based on politics is a calculated sort of thing, but why is that bad?  Because Star Wars: Propaganda basically posited that that was the problem, that the Jedi didn’t play enough politics, that’s why their image was so bad. Ahsoka’s case for Mandalore could be argued to be the same thing--you want to win back the public’s faith, then you have to take this path.  That right there is politics, too. EVERYTHING IN THIS WAR IS POLITICS.  NOTHING CAN ESCAPE IT.  BECAUSE POLITICS IS EVERYTHING LIKE WE ARE LIVING IN A WORLD THAT HAS DEMONSTRATED THAT TO US VERY CLEARLY.  AND WE SHOULD ALL LEAN INTO POLITICS, RATHER THAN SEPARATING OURSELVES FROM THEM. If politics were inherently bad, we wouldn’t see characters like Padme Amidala, Bail Organa, and Mon Mothma--or, hell, even Leia Organa herself--as heroes.  Because politics are important!  You don’t have to be (and shouldn’t be) a full-time politician for politics to still be important.  That working within a system to help better it and be able to reach more people is a good thing. Further, this doesn’t come without context of earlier in the episode, Obi-Wan is specifically shown to be incredibly desiring of helping people--he basically caves to Anakin’s strategy based on Anakin’s argument that they can help people sooner:

That is right there in this very same episode.  Obi-Wan agrees to a reckless strategy specifically when Anakin points out that it can help people sooner. Obi-Wan Kenobi is not someone who doesn’t want to help people, that’s his whole thing! Further context, which isn’t specifically related to this particular issue, but does give context to Obi-Wan Kenobi as a character is everything with Bo-Katan seething over whether Satine even meant anything to him.  She did.  And she still does.  But he cannot allow his feelings to cloud his judgement--and that is something that is key to being a Jedi.

It reminds me of George Lucas’ commentary on attachment: “But [Anakin] has become attached to his mother and he will become attached to Padme and these things are, for a Jedi, who needs to have a clear mind and not be influenced by threats to their attachments, a dangerous situation. And it feeds into fear of losing things, which feeds into greed, wanting to keep things, wanting to keep his possessions and things that he should be letting go of. His fear of losing her turns to anger at losing her, which ultimately turns to revenge in wiping out the village.“  –George Lucas, Attack of the Clones commentary “He turns into Darth Vader because he gets attached to things. He can’t let go of his mother; he can’t let go of his girlfriend. He can’t let go of things.”  –George Lucas, Time Magazine interview (2002) The thing about Obi-Wan/Satine is that it was pretty clearly created to be a foil to Anakin/Padme (and, boyyyyyyyyy, is that abundantly clear in the scene with Bo-Katan where Anakin is STARING at Obi-Wan as he says this, as we all know Revenge of the Sith is looming riiiiiiiiight over our heads), where Obi-Wan and Satine do make the right choices about the vows they’ve taken to other aspects of their lives.  That they are balanced in a way that Anakin and Padme are not. Dave Filoni says it himself in the commentary for the Bad Batch arc, in this very season: “I mean, even Obi-Wan was in love with someone.  That’s not abnormal.  It’s very normal.  What you choose to do and how you choose to have a relationship, what you sacrifice, then that becomes a bigger deal when he’s made an oath to the Jedi Order to be selfless, to put everyone else ahead of himself.”  --Dave Filoni Obi-Wan’s feelings for Satine are very much a parallel and contrast for Anakin’s feelings for Padme, and we know exactly how that’s going to turn out for Anakin, because Revenge of the Sith looms incredibly large over this entire episode and this entire arc. ”He’s made an oath to put everyone else ahead of himself.” is something Obi-Wan has done and continues to uphold, so accusing him of politics is like--what does Obi-Wan gain by playing politics then?  He’s putting other people ahead of himself, so playing politics must be for that reason, too. Furthering this context, especially in tying it to what it means to be a Jedi, is commentary from “The Lawless”:

”And in that moment, that critical moment, he cannot seize on his anger and his hatred for Maul.  Though that’s probably there, deep within, he can’t seize on it or Maul will win, he knows that.  I think we learned a lot about Obi-Wan and what it means to be a true Jedi, which is what I see Obi-Wan as.“ –Dave Filoni, on “The Lawless” All of this is important to understand that, when Obi-Wan Kenobi talks about the choices one makes, about not letting his feelings cloud his judgement, he’s coming from a place of established narrative reliability. We want to side with Ahsoka, because her hurt is so genuine and valid.  Because she sees a problem with the way the galaxy views the Jedi and we know that the Jedi’s doom is soon upon them.  (And this is where I get wary of the show’s narrative potentially trying to say, “Well, they’re kind of responsible for their own genocide because they just weren’t nice enough to people and only helped so many people, that they should have done more and more and more.” because, no, fuck that idea for real, the Jedi are not responsible for their own genocide, certainly not based on anything in the canon!)  She wants to fix this problem and she’s coming at it with a choice that she thinks would restore faith in them. The problem is that the Jedi are being asked to make choices between what’s popular and what they see as doing more good for more people.  And there’s a great line from the Age of Republic - Padme Amidala comic that ties into these themes as well:

“But trying to serve the greater good doesn’t exactly make you popular.”  (Oh, hey, look!  More politics!) On first blush, the idea of helping the people of Mandalore over saving the Chancellor seems like the right thing to do because we know Palpatine is Sidious, we know that it leads to ROTS, we know that ROTS leads to the Empire, especially when Ahsoka ties it to the Jedi Order becoming unpopular with the galaxy.  But Obi-Wan points out that she’s not being fair.  He points out that the Republic is on the line.  I’m pointing out that everything is politics, one decision over the other isn’t less political just because it’s more intimate.  And it doesn’t come without context.  It’s not just the Chancellor, it’s bigger than that. And serving that greater good--as Obi-Wan genuinely sees it--doesn’t always make them popular. And still even further, this isn’t entirely about the Jedi Order’s politics, but it’s about Ahsoka’s own hurt at how the Jedi had to play politics with her, too.  She’s still hurt that they expelled her--though, as always, context shows that she gave them absolutely nothing to work with, she immediately distrusted them before they even heard anything, she refused to even send them a message, she attacked clones on her way out, she was seen colluding with a known Separatist war criminal, she was found with incredibly damning evidence, and still wouldn’t actually talk to them or ask them directly to trust her, and ultimately none of her own actions saved her, it was a Jedi who saved her--that this doesn’t negate that they made mistakes as well, they should have visited her in the jail, they were playing politics and it doesn’t matter to Ahsoka that their hands were forced--and that’s driving her conversation with Obi-Wan, especially as someone who is part of the Council that she feels betrayed her. And Obi-Wan’s coming at this from the point of view that she let her emotions cloud her judgement over what happened, that she reacted blindly rather than trusting them in the critical moment (and the theme of trust was allll over that arc), and she’s still coming from this from a place of emotion, but that he respects her choices in the end and he obviously still cares very much about her.

All of that is underlining the conversation and one of the things that makes it such a hellishly complicated scene here in “Old Friends Not Forgotten” is that both of them are pretty narratively reliable. They’re both coming from a place of deep care and a desire to help people. They’re both coming from a place wanting to do what’s best for people. Which is why I love that I think Ahsoka genuinely loves the Jedi Order and why she says, “people who truly need us”.  It furthers my feeling of how I think, had Order 66 not happened, she may have come back to the Jedi eventually, if this difference could be resolved, but at the very least she certainly never hated them.  This is all coming from a place of love for the Jedi, for her family.  Even if she’s on a different path, even if ultimately she’ll say, “I’m no Jedi.” in Rebels, that’s about what she’s willing to do, what lines she's willing to cross, that a Jedi wouldn’t, and that it doesn’t mean they’re not still her family and that she wants good things for and with them. And why I love that she may not be being fair here, she may be stripping context and consequence out of the choice she wants to make, she may be letting emotion cloud her judgement, but she’s still so incredibly valuable and I do think they should have listened to her more.  The Jedi’s genocide is not on them, the murder of an entire people can never be on the victims, but I do think Obi-Wan has so much weight on his shoulders that he has trouble seeing the forest for the trees.  And that’s not a horrible thing, especially because Ahsoka’s shoving the trees aside here. But that there was no right answer here.  Mandalore is a trap.  Mandalore is going to fall to the Empire anyway.   Coruscant is a trap.  Coruscant is going to fall to the Empire anyway.   It doesn’t matter if they choose Mandalore or Coruscant.  Order 66 is already set to be triggered any minute now, nothing can stop that.  Them being more popular wouldn’t have saved them from it, not in a galaxy where the Republic general public was apathetic enough to not stand up against the Separatist themselves, instead allowed a clone army to be commissioned and the Jedi to be drafted into the war.  They wouldn’t stand up for themselves against the Separatists, they weren’t going to stand up for the genocide of a tiny religious culture, either.  It doesn’t even matter if the Jedi fought in the war or not--fight and be killed.  Don’t fight and they’ll be like Mandalore and be forced into it anyway or killed. That the Jedi were forced to make shitty choices in situations where there weren’t any right answers and get blamed for not having magical answers to problems that they cannot possible solve. What really brought that home to me was the way the scene ended--when Anakin offered an actual reasonable, viable solution (something that most people don’t offer the Jedi when saying what they should or shouldn’t do, they’re rarely given actual, workable options) where they could do both, Obi-Wan pretty readily jumped on it.

This shows that of course the Jedi want to help, whenever and wherever they can.  Not going to Mandalore isn’t that they don’t care or that they don’t want to help, but that there are two tire fires put in front of them and they didn’t see a reasonable way to do both, and Coruscant, as the capital of the Republic, which is the only body that can possibly stand between the Separatists and the enslavement/oppression/murder of thousands of worlds, must be protected. (Just look what happens when the Republic and the Jedi fall--the Empire inflicted atrocity after atrocity on the galaxy, which says to me that the Jedi were right in that the Republic had to be defended because it was all that stood between the galaxy and a lot of really evil things happening.) Ultimately, the only thing that the Jedi could really do that mattered is that they helped save people--people like Hera Syndulla--and they did do that.  And the accusation that they’re not trying to help people is not a fair one.  Even when it comes from a place of deep care.  And that’s why this scene was ouchy in such a good way, it really was an amazing episode to watch!

[idkwhoiamanymorebutwtf]

Amity absolutely in not going to choose the Emperor’s Coven over Luz.

 I keep seeing it suggested that Amity’s ties to the Emperor’s Coven could become an issue. That she may decide supporting Luz isn’t as important as her ambitions related to the Coven. That she might chose to side with the Emperor’s Coven, causing a rift between her and Luz. However I don’t believe that for a second, and that’s for two reasons.

1.) Luz is, as of right now, the most important thing to Amity. It's always felt to me like Amity already chose Luz over everything else. Amity has sacrificed her own physical wellbeing, even putting her own life in danger, to help Luz in the past. There's no way Amity's parents approve of Luz so she's put her relationship with her parents, something she's worked desperately for, at risk just by liking Luz, but she continues to be around her. Amity was willing to throw out her social group for hurting Luz. Why wouldn't she follow the pattern and pick Luz over the Emperor's coven too? And I mean..she must know she'll have to. Amity knows that Luz is Eda's apprentice. She knows that Eda is wanted by the Emperor's Coven. She's gotta know that she'll have to pick between the two things eventually, right? And if her plan wasn't to eventually pick Luz when she had to make the choice, why would she have put Luz before her own physical wellbeing, before her social status, and before her abusive parents' wishes? Not to mention , Amity's greatest fear was being rejected by Luz. It wasn't her abusive family. It wasn't being denied by the Emperor's Coven. It was the idea that she could lose Luz. Which makes it pretty cut and dry what the most important thing to Amity is in the end. Amity has already been willing to put so much on the line for Luz. I feel like she isn't going to stop now. Especially since, tbh, it seems like Amity has never been happier than she is currently. Realistically if you were a normal person with a good strong support system and a healthy conviction to follow your dreams then you wouldn't be willing to risk your life and dream job for another person. However Amity isn't a very healthy person. Her family is abusive, her friends are cruel, etc. Amity made their goals for her into her own goals because she didn't feel like there was anything else out there for her, not becsuse she personally wants it. She wasn't happy. Until Luz was kind and optimistic and showed her the potential that there are good people out there. I mean, why do you think she latched onto Luz so quickly and has put her physical wellbeing, social status, and relationship with her family in jeopardy just through having feelings for Luz and standing by her so far? She's willing to do that because Luz is one of if not the only person in her life that isn't abusing her to some extent. She isn't going to act like a normal person with a good support system and healthy ambitions they care about because Amity isn't any of those things and right now Luz means so so so much to her by proxy of being the only person in her life who's good. I don't think she'd give that up for anything, speaking both from personal experience and from the behavior ive seen her exhibit as of late and how much she's already risked.

and

2.)  Siding with the Emperor’s Coven would go against Amity’s strong sense of morality. Amity has been an incredible human being for her entire life. Every flashback we've seen of Amity has shown her as nothing but a good person. She was wrong to treat Willow the way she did, sure, but Amity did it all in an attempt to protect Willow and in the end how could anyone hate her for that? When she was told to befriend Boscha, Amity immediately refused, acknowledging that the other girl was mean, and for as long as the two were friends she never seemed to warm up to the cruel girl. When Amity accidentally got her Grudby teammates hurt she felt so horribly guilty that she quit playing forever. She's made mistakes cause she's a human being and people mess up sometimes, but I honestly think Amity has always been an admirable person. Why on earth would Amity ever support the Emperor’s Coven when she finds out what horrible things they’ve done? And some people suggest that while she’s not a bad person, her ambitions may make her do bad things. But Amity’s integrity has always come before her ambition. That much is made exceptionally clear back in Covention. Amity wasn’t willing to cheat in their magic duel. She refused to lie or cheat and that means that if Luz had really been better than her and won fairly, Amity would have taken the loss. She easily could have cheated. Everyone else did, it wouldn’t have been hard for Amity to do the same. But she didn’t, and she was extraordinarily upset that the other people involved did. Amity was horrified that Lilith cheated in her favor. Even if it helped her look good in front of the Emperor’s Coven, cheating was never even an option that crossed Amity’s mind and she was completed mortified that Lilith tricked her into it anyway. Her ambition was never as strong as her integrity back then, so why would it suddenly overwhelm her morals now? I mean, if cheating in a competition was a disgusting thought that she never considered for a second. Something that Amity screamed at Luz for doing and was completely ashamed when Lilith did it. Then how can anyone expect that Amity would support the Emperor’s Coven after all they’ve done? Even with all the pressure Amity’s under from society in general and her abusive parents, she hasn’t sacrificed her morals yet, and to suggest she might now is to completely disregard the strength of character she’s been shown to possess so far.

“But Wait!” I hear you say, “A clear parallel was drawn between the relationship of  Luz and Amity vs  the relationship of Eda and Lilith! That means Luz and Amity was likely to go down the same route and become enemies!”

And you are correct that there was a clear parallel drawn between these four in Covention. However i’d venture to suggest that this parallel will be used as a contrast rather than to show history repeating itself.

I’ll start by saying that I personally believe the “history repeats itself” trope is very hard to get right and is only really effective in certain situations, this not being one of them. Tell me, what, narritively, would be the positive effect of pushing Amity and Luz down the same route Lilith and Eda went down? I can’t see any good reason for it except the ~shock value~, and honestly anything you do with a character exclusively to shock or upset the audience rather than to develop the characters in their natural progression is a bad choice by default. There’s no reason Luz and Amity need to be like Eda and Lilith. And in fact, not only is the idea of their relationship being a foil the the Clawthorne sister’s relationship more interesting to me because it has an actual purpose (to show that the sister’s both screwed up their relationship and that if you communicate and try to be good people then you won’t end up in a fight to the death against someone you’re supposed to love and that both sister’s could have made steps to be better siblings but they didn’t and that’s on them), but it also seems to fit a lot more cohesively into the narrative knowing what we do about both the relationship between Lilith and Eda and the relationship between Amity and Luz.

I get the feeling Lilith was always jealous of Eda. That Eda was stronger. That Eda outshone her. It may not even have been fair a lot of the time, after all, Eda is known to cheat her way through things. And it also seems as if Eda, instead of supporting and reassuring her insecure sister, was proud of this and held it against Lilith that she was better. Well, when Luz and Amity first met, Luz outshone Amity too. Amity was angry and bitter and disliked Luz because it fucking hurt to have her achievements taken away from her unfairly. They easily could have gone down the same route Lilith and Eda did. With Luz sticking to her guns and insisting she was better, that she deserved the recognition more anyway and Amity acting like a jealous, vindictive child. But that didn’t happen. Luz tried her best to make it up to Amity and Amity, once Luz expressed her remorse and took steps to make amends, not only accepted it but reflected on her own behavior and admitted she herself could have been better too. How did Amity and Luz manage to overcome a conflict that’s still tearing two grown women apart?  By overall being better than Eda and Lilith were. Luz felt terrible for hurting Amity. Eda was proud of outshining Lilith. Amity didn't let herself be overcome with bitterness or jealousy and instead reflected inwardly on how she could have been better too. Lilith just kept getting worse and worse and straying from the path of morality more and more. We can see it clearly in Covention. Lilith cheated. Amity on the other hand would never stray from her integrity even if she wanted to win and was mortified to find out what happened. Eda bragged and taunted and teased Lilith for cheating. Luz ran after Amity to comfort her. Overall Amity and Luz are better than Lilith and Eda and that's why I don't see them making the same mistakes.  Another difference I see, Lilith let her desperation for power make her a bad person. Amity realized she was being colder than she'd like to and instantly ditched her cruel friends and tried to he better. Eda let's her wild nature make her inconsiderate (she's not just a criminal for not joining a coven, she does actual morally wrong crimes too) but Luz tries her best to be kind and to make people happy and he selfless in general. As I said before, they're both better than their mentors. Both Eda and Lilith made mistakes that lead them to where they are (although Lilith is objectively the worse of the two, she isn't necessarily the only one to blame for their relationship failing). Because Luz and Amity are a contrast to Eda and Lilith, not a repition of their story. Luz and Amity show what can happen when you communicate and try to understand and empathize with people and don't stray from your own morals no matter what other people may do to you.That's something it doesn't seem like the sister's ever learned how to do, and that's what tore them apart. But it's something Luz and Amity exhibit consistently. Communication, mercy, understanding. and that's why they aren't doomed to be like their mentors. Because as I said before, they contrast Lilith and Eda's dynamic in every way simply by being better friends to each other and people in general.   

[twilightofthe]

So...about that Obitine Anidala rant. Also, you said something about how Sidious and Obi-Wan are foils. I would love it if you elaborate. (Also, I love your blog.)

Awwwww thank you anon!  I just be yelling on here!

*wheezes* okie doke!  Tho I stress that this won’t exactly be a rant because I adore Obitine and Anidala and rant kinda implies aggression towards them, this is more of just a long-ass ramble because while I love them, I don’t always love the way canon portrays them in the narrative, particularly in relationship to each other, because I often do not feel that what the show is trying to push us to think about them is accurate to how they actually act and come across.  Notably, the show attempts to draw comparisons to the two relationships that really don’t exist below surface level similarities.  Again, these are my own personal opinions, and in fact, I welcome discussion!  I truly do!  Please politely debate me on this if you disagree!

(god dammit it got long again, so long I’ll actually put ur Sidious and Obi Wan as foils part in a separate post)

I’ll get to why exactly the show compares the relationships very strangely in a moment, but first we gotta explore the reason why it does this in the first place, which is that the Clone Wars show has decided to make Obi Wan and Anakin narrative foils to one another.  Narrative foils, by the literary definition, are two characters that contrast one another.  They don’t have to be the protagonist and the antagonist, these characters can be on the same side, basically the thing is that they have “opposite” personalities where if one character is hot, the other is cold, if one character chooses to go right, the other will go left.  It’s usually used to show one character’s qualities as more favorable for the situation as opposed to anyone else’s.

TCW does this whenever they possibly can with Anakin and Obi Wan.  I get its reasoning behind it.  I do.  The reasoning is that while Anakin is supposed to be a main character, he makes questionable decisions quite often and for the kiddies watching, those decisions must be seen as Bad even if the hero does it, so they have Obi Wan, the unquestionable good guy, encounter the exact same scenarios Anakin makes his questionable decisions in, and then has Obi Wan make the Right(TM) decision to teach the kids a valuable lesson.  They turn Obi Wan into the voice of reason for the entire show, which turns basically almost everything Obi Wan and Anakin do into a constant competition in the narrative in a way the movies do not do (and I’ll get to the movies later).  I’m not saying it’s necessarily a bad thing, making them foils, but it’s definitely more of a show-only thing and it does it quite, quite often.

So yeah, TCW likes to compare Obi Wan and Anakin to the point that sometimes they try and use Obi Wan to diminish Anakin’s genuine trauma and struggles by going “well why didn’t you do it like THIS?” and I think that writing parallel plotlines for the purpose of shaming/criticism is kinda ://////, but that’s another rant for another day that again, if y’all wanna hear about, lmk

Anyway, the need to compare them absolutely made its way into their romantic relationships as well, as they acknowledge the similarities in the show, and Filoni and the crew explicitly compare the two relationships in interviews.

Basically my problem with how they try and draw said parallels can be boiled down to one quote by Filoni that a cursory Google search could not find but I know exists so y’all can take my word or not, that went along the lines of “Obi Wan and Satine are like Anakin and Padmé but better because they know how to stay unattached and let each other go.  They’re a success story.”  I disagreed with this quote so much it inspired me to write a whole-ass fic about it (Mutuals update: yes, it is coming soon, Darth Maul is just himself and therefore an utter pain in the ass to do a POV on and is fighting me like the bitchass he is)

My thesis that I will be arguing today is that while TCW tried to create Obitine as an Anidala parallel, they’re really not similar in the way the writers think they are.  Obitine is not a success story to Anidala, they’re a goddamn tragedy too; the real parallel to Anidala is that Obitine also ended in death and tears despite making all the “right” decisions instead of all the “wrong” ones, and that is what is sad about them.

Like, on the surface level?  Yeah, the crew-intended parallels are there.  A fancy politician and a Jedi get together after the Jedi is assigned as the politician’s bodyguard.  The first time they see each other in over a decade the guy’s first words are basically “damn girl you’re still hot”, there is Conflict(TM) and the choice to try and be together or stay yearningly apart because they are Forbidden(TM) to be together, and ultimately a Sith Lord fucks them both over because he’s obsessed with the Jedi and uses Politician Lady to his advantage, finds and exploits a vulnerability of hers, destroys her life’s work, and then lets her die to make Jedi Man sad.  The difference is all that one pair said “yeah we aren’t gonna break the rules to be together” and the other said “fuck it yeah we are, let’s do this”

But beneath all of that, they real similarities are different and not at all focused on by the narrative.  Obi Wan and Anakin are extremely different people, as are Padmé and Satine, so their relationship dynamics together will not be the same.  You want to try and compare Obi Wan and Anakin and then compare Satine and Padmé like the crew attempts to, and you can’t, they have the same job but not nearly the same life.  Namely, the funny coincidence is that Obi Wan and Padmé are much more similar in personality, while Anakin and Satine are also much more similar in personality, so the first time they meet again, it’s both Anakin and Satine as the one who’s been pining for over a decade and the one more actively pursuing the relationship, while Obi Wan and Padmé who are more like “uh, hi, wow, you’re hot and this is a Problem because I have a job to do pls don’t look at me like that but also I will Cause Problems On Purpose and flirt with you anyway because I can’t help it”.  I get the Corruption TCW ep with Sati and Pads was mostly intended just to help Satine pass the Bechdel test and also show how similar the two leading lady love interests are, but it was a genuinely creative episode that actually ended up showing how much Satine and Padmé compliment each other instead of mirroring each other, much like Obi Wan and Anakin do.

And, onto my next point, despite the character parallels being wrong, the parallels in the relationship are different too.  Like I said, the parallel isn’t that Obi Wan and Satine aren’t attached like Anakin and Padmé are.  The parallel is that Obitine is actively running from what that attachment means instead of embracing it like Anidala is.  The show would argue that since they try to avoid it, that they are able to live without one another, means they aren’t attached like the Jedi define it, but I argue that they definitely still are attached to a degree because they cannot give each other up.  They held torches for each other from a timerange of 15 YEARS.  Yes I know they spent an entire year together at a young and emotionally volatile point in their lives, but I stand that NO ONE is that hung up on their ex for that long unless there is some serious emotions involved.  Anakin was hung up on Padmé for ten years, and that was because Palpatine was constantly bolstering those affections and reminding him of Padmé.  Obes and Sati both-- or at least Satine, the show always makes Obi Wan’s feelings for Satine in return much more vague --held on to their feelings for five years longer without the influence of a Sith Lord.

And the thing is, they know it.  Obi Wan and Satine are both fully aware that they haven’t been able to shake each other off like they should and that that is a Problem, that’s why they’re both a mite venomous with each other beneath the flirting at first, they’re both extremely frustrated with themselves for not being able to get over this thing they have, and frustrated with the other for being there as an active temptation.

And yet, they still are attached to each other.  They try to avoid it, they definitely try, and that’s what makes them different from Anidala, but they are definitely still attached.  You can see it in Obi Wan’s actions in Voyage of Temptation when Merrik is threatening to blow the ship, the way he hesitates in attacking him because that would be “striking an unarmed man”.  Obi Wan Kenobi does not prefer violence, no, but he has never hesitated to cut a bitch before if it’s for the good of the many.  This is the man who stabbed someone with a fork and threatened to eat him just to maintain his cover as a dangerous criminal.  This is the guy who had no problem killing Zam Wessel for information to protect Padmé.  This is a pragmatist who prefers peaceful solutions, but he does not hesitate if he feels it is a justified offense.  But this time, when an entire shipful of people is at risk, Obi Wan hesitates.  Because he doesn’t want to upset Satine.  Because he’s probably thinking on how she told him that if he had killed the last terrorist they encountered, she wouldn’t speak to him, how she had criticized every time he used violence to escape Death Watch before.  He hesitates because he’s putting her happiness, just for a second, over the sake of duty.  Do I think that if Anakin hadn’t shown up to save their moral compasses, Obi Wan would have eventually taken out Merrik?  Absolutely; hell, I honestly think Satine might have done it.

But the matter was, Merrik could have pressed the kill switch any second of Obi Wan’s hesitation, and Obi Wan knew that, and was hesitating anyway.

I am calling this attachment solely because if the situation was reversed, if this was Anakin and Padmé in this situation, with Anakin not taking out a dangerous criminal because he doesn’t want to upset Padmé (lol ignoring the fact that Pads 1000% would have shot that bitch, and even if she didn’t, Anakin would because he is perfectly fine with hurting his loved ones’ feelings if he feels it’ll keep them safe), god, the narrative would have eaten Anakin alive.  

No, I won’t take criticism.  I know how the show handles the Anidala dynamic.  It would have shown Obi Wan popping up to take out the baddie as him doing the right thing and saving the day, and then Anakin would have been shamed for letting his feelings for his wife get in the way of protecting a shipful of people.  THAT would be the Vader foreshadowing, none of this “only a cold-blooded killer” shit, no way would they ever stick that label on Obi Wan.

So yeah, I’m going off of the fact that if that would have been classified as attachment for Anidala-- which, it would, then. it counts for Obitine.

And then Obi Wan and Satine continue to be hung up on each other for the rest of the eps they’re in, Satine saying in words multiple times how much she loves and cares about him and wishes things could be different, and Obi Wan performing it in actions, risking his own neck and political standing to help her even when she’s a fugitive, probably personally putting in to send his own grandpadawan to help her later.  Right up to the time when Satine decides that she is going to call Obi Wan when she is deposed.  Not the Senate.  Not any powerful politician friends.  Not even the Jedi Order or the Council as a whole.  She calls and addresses her distress call to Obi Wan alone.  And Obi Wan, as now revealed to us by TCW S7, defies Council orders and breaks a century old neutrality treaty to try and bust her, a convicted murderer in the eyes of the Republic and Mandalore, out.  He didn’t even know Maul had her.  Just knew she was in danger and came running to her aid.  He risks starting a potential war to come save her.  They acted so in love that Vizsla was able to guess from being around them for like five seconds, and was able to tell Maul exactly who he would need to bait Obi Wan.

That is where the attachment comes from.  It’s the fact that Obi Wan and Satine tried so, so hard to give each other up and do the right thing, but when it came down to it, they couldn’t lose the other one so they put them first when logically they shouldn’t.  And thus, Satine ended up dead.

Now I know most people will argue with me that actually Filoni means that since they didn’t stay together after the year on the run, THAT is what makes them able to give each other up, and also the fact that Obi Wan didn’t go dark side and murder everyone when Satine died.

But I still think that at least the murder front is a fairly low bar to cross, and anyway, that just because they could live without each other didn’t mean they weren’t still attached.  Anakin and Padmé were apart for 10 years and then even after that, they were apart almost constantly during the war.  Just because they could live apart or even past the other’s death didn’t mean they weren’t attached, as they both still had not let the other go mentally and also broke rules to try and ensure the other would not die, even if the rules said they should let it happen.

So yeah, that’s my big theory.  We can’t compare Obitine with Anidala by saying Obitine was a success story, we compare them by acknowledging that both struggled with attachments and letting the other go, but Obitine at least tried to the bitter end to do the right thing while Anidala didn’t really bother, and both ended up with dead women and broken men regardless, and that is the true sad parallel to me.

[eponymous-rose]

I’ve also further progressed in my Vorkosigan re-read! Memory was as wonderful as I remembered (Illyan and Miles going fishing via improvised hand grenade out of boredom is always a highlight). 

I love the way Bujold structures her books---I talked about that a bunch with Mirror Dance---but Memory is just brilliantly laid out. Miles is spiraling, Miles fucks up, Miles gets fired (the closest pop-culture parallel I can think of is a superhero having to permanently revert to their mundane secret identity), Miles’s friends manage to yank him out of the mire, and then... surprise bizarre out-of-sequence murder mystery! The victim’s not dead! Miles keeps finding clues out of sequence and realizing he was meant to be framed! And god, you’re so sure it’s Haroche right at the start and then you have that moment of “oh well shit of course he thinks Miles might have it in for the boss that just eviscerated his identity” and so you’re still surprised when that first instinct was right! And then he offers Miles his life as Naismith back. Even Cordelia placed a bet on Miles giving up his life as Vorkosigan. And... he doesn’t. Mirror Dance was about Mark fracturing himself to survive. Memory is about Miles dragging himself back together to live.

I love how Illyan takes the loss of his memory chip---it’s fundamentally a piece of him gone, but it’s also freedom from thirty years of being a tool of his emperor (and then of Aral), and his embracing this destruction of his identity and learning to move forward is such a great foil/foreshadowing for Miles’s revelation. Everything in this story is about moving forward, not without regrets, but moving forward. It’s so fitting that the romance story going on in the background is Alys and Illyan, two 60-somethings, falling in love (and god, I love the scene where Miles wanders in on them in the morning and thinks something like “huh that dress is more of an evening style isn’t it?” and then like ten hours later the penny drops).

And god, Miles and Elli. I love how this was done, how it’s made apparent that you can love someone, and they can love you, and you can be very good for each other in a lot of ways, but your circumstances can still be such that marriage will annihilate one or both of you. It’s nobody’s fault, but the inevitability and recognition of it means it’s not always a devastation: “He could feel the letting-go in them, with the easing of the tension and the terror, with the slowing of every pulse of their blood. Not pain, or not so much pain, but only a just sadness, a due measure of melancholy, quiet and right.” Even when they’re quite bizarre relationships, the relationships in these books are very mature and well-thought-out from a narrative point of view, and this is a wonderful example.

Just a really, really lovely book:

No wonder he was laughing. He wasn’t mourning a death. He was celebrating an escape.

“I’m not dead. I’m here.” He touched his scarred chest in wonder.

[...]

Harra Csurik had been almost right. It wasn’t your life again you found, going on. It was your life anew.

Aaaand on to Komarr! God! I love this book! The most Miles possible meet-cute for his future wife: board at the home of her family on an investigation, have combat flashbacks on a shopping trip with her, and wind up watching her husband die horrifically while chained to a rail on a planet with a toxic atmosphere, knowing if he reacts too strongly he’s likely to have a seizure that’ll dislodge his own breathing mask, killing him in the same terrible way. You know. Rom-com stuff.

Speaking of relationships portrayed well, Ekaterin and Tien’s disaster of a marriage is extremely chilling in its realism. Even as you absolutely detest Tien, you can see how Ekaterin got yanked into that orbit, and it’s all all all so tied in with the very same aspects of Barrayaran culture that we’ve seen Miles face: Tien destroys everything because of his perception of what the response would be to his illness (where Miles, for better or worse, never had the option of hiding it), and because of his shitty insecurities about Ekaterin’s fidelity (echoes of a young Aral come to mind). We’re given explanations (his brother’s literally impossible-to-live-up-to example) but are never expected to see them as excuses, which is a very fine line to walk. The end result is a believably fucked-up relationship that draws on parallels with every single time you’ve ever thought to yourself about a friend, “Oh god sweetie you can do so much better than him”.

And Ekaterin’s thoughts about being bound to this marriage are right along the lines of the most stick-in-the-mud traditional Barrayaran loyalties we’ve seen Miles exhibit, all tangled up in language about honor. And even though it very shortly (and mortally) becomes a moot point, I love that she gets the chance to decide to leave Tien in spite of that. 

I also love the scene between Tien and Miles, talking about Nikki’s jumpship obsession, partly because of the obvious contrast between the two of them, but mostly because it illustrates how much of Tien’s awfulness is because he’s just... fundamentally a bitter coward with no imagination.

"Well, every boy goes through that phase, I suppose. We all outgrow it. Pick up all that mess, Nikki.”

Nikki’s eyes were downcast, but narrowed in brief resentment at this, Miles could see from his angle of view. The boy bent to scoop up the last of his miniature fleet.

“Some people grow into their dreams, instead of out of them,” Miles murmured.

“That depends on whether your dreams are reasonable,” said Vorsoisson, his lips twitching in rather bleak amusement. Ah, yes. Vorsoisson must be fully aware of the secret medical bar between Nikki and his ambition.

“No, it doesn’t.” Miles smiled slightly. “It depends on how hard you grow.”

The alternating POVs between Miles and Ekaterin are charming because we get to see Miles from an external (non-hostile) point of view and get all excited about each small revelation, and then we get to see Ekaterin both from Miles’s point of view and from the point of view of her own very active inner monologue, giving us insights we would otherwise have missed since she, as Miles says in the understatement of the century, has a tendency to underreact.

Their relationship is built up very carefully: there’s an obvious mutual interest practically from the first, but they both have reason to be cautious. There are those moments of genuine rapport early on, and then the shopping trip! It’s such a clever revelation, and so layered!

Miles was traumatized at Dagoola IV by watching Beatrice fall from the shuttle in front of him: he reached out to try to catch her, and just missed, and she died. And then we have this perfectly safe little parallel, with himself and Ekaterin falling off a water feature in a shopping district, and he manages to catch her, this time... and they both go over. It’s cute and oddly triumphant...

...and then he realizes exactly what it means. If he’d caught Beatrice, he’d have gone over with her. They’d both be dead, and that revelation hits right after he’s had a whole book to figure out just how badly he wants to live. And to Ekaterin, it’s a very quick summary of what and who Miles is: he’s the man who would not let go. BUT Ekaterin ALSO frames her leaving Tien in that context: she’s not just watching him fall, but purposefully releasing her hands. It’s so twisted and so complicated and such a weird little microcosm of their respective states of mind. And while part of it is Ekaterin giving Miles the little push he needed to properly process that trauma, fundamentally and on a larger timescale it places Miles as the “I’ve been in this hole before and I know the way out” path to Ekaterin’s healing. It’s so well done.

There’s also a hell of a parallel in the physical aspect of Miles’s seizures coming on unexpectedly in moments of great stress versus the psychological aspect of Ekaterin’s whole coping mechanism being built on trying desperately not to flinch or show strong emotion.

(And I don’t know where else to put this but special shout-out to the running gag of Vorkosigan House getting gradually overrun with cats, to the point where Miles starts, apropos of nothing and on a totally different planet, asking strangers if they’d like a kitten.)

These kids! Will they make it work? I may be only halfway through the book, but I have a funny feeling things might work out...

Also, here’s the “rescue” scene in full, because it delights me so:

The root-compacted soil of the edge sagged under her weight, and she began to slide precipitously forward. She yelped; pushing backward fragmented her support totally. One wildly back-grappling arm was caught suddenly in a viselike grip, but the rest of her body turned as the soil gave way beneath her, and she found herself dangling absurdly feet-down over the pond. Her other arm, swinging around, was caught, too, and she looked up into Vorkosigan’s face above her. He was lying prone on the slope, one hand locked around each of her wrists. His teeth were clenched and grinning, his gray eyes alight.

“Let go, you idiot!” she cried.

The look on his face was weirdly, wildly exultant. “Never,” he gasped, “again--”

His half-boots were locked around... nothing, she realized, as he began to slide inexorably over the edge after her. But his death-grip never slackened. The exalted look on his face melted to sudden horrified realization. The laws of physics took precedence over heroic intent for the next couple of seconds; dirt, pebbles, vegetation, and two Barrayaran bodies all hit the chilly water more or less simultaneously.

The water, it turned out, was a bit over a meter deep. The bottom was soft with muck. She wallowed upright onto her feet, one shoe gone who knew where, sputtering and dragging her hair from her eyes and looking around frantically for Vorkosigan. Lord Vorkosigan. The water came to her waist, it ought not to be over his head---no half-booted feet were sticking up like waving stumps anywhere---could he swim?

He popped up beside her, and blew muddy water out of his mouth, and dashed it from his eyes to clear his vision. His beautiful suit was sodden, and a water-plant dangled over one ear. He clawed it away, and located her, his hand going toward her and then stopping.

“Oh,” said Ekaterin faintly. “Drat.”

There was a meditative pause before Lord Vorkosigan spoke. “Madame Vorsoisson,” he said mildly at last, “has it ever occurred to you that you may be just a touch oversocialized?”

[sob-dylan]

What do you think about Nacho Varga’s arc/where do you think he’ll end up?

Oh man. Big question. I think if you go through my “nacho varga” tag, it’s pretty evident how disappointed I’ve been with Nacho’s arc from season to season. I just don’t think his story has been given enough room to breathe. Maybe with the exception of season 3, it feels like the major beats of his arc are relegated to the beginning and end of each season, making it feel rushed and unsatisfying. (In the words of the late, great Dr. Wendy Carr from Mindhunter “I don’t know how anything lasting for 19 seconds could allow for gratification.”) In seasons 1 & 2, it’s a little more justifiable in terms of the narrative they’re trying to weave. It was clear that at that point, Nacho was mainly there to serve as a conduit for Jimmy and then Mike into the ABQ underground. Tuco served a similar role for Walt and Jesse. The difference with Tuco, though, is that he was a pretty run-of-the-mill, macho, angry, heavily racialized gangbanger type. And don’t get me wrong, I love Tuco, and not just because I’ve become obsessed with learning everything there is to know about the Salamanca family. (At this point, the only thing I would even consider trading for a flashback of how Nacho got in the game is a flashback of Tuco, Marco, Leonel, and Lalo illustrating what the family dynamic was like when they were little kids). The entire Breaking Bad audience loved Tuco because he was a fun and exciting villain! He’s entertaining! But he wasn’t exactly intriguing. Audiences don’t watch a guy like Tuco and ask “what’s his story?” because we feel like we already know the character. Nacho, on the other hand, is more of a mystery. In his very first scene, we see a character that’s clearly complex with more of a story to tell. We get bits and pieces of that story, but we sit back and wait for more because this show is all about the long game. He’s involved with Jimmy and the Kettlemans and then with Mike and Pryce, but he doesn’t really get to start telling his own story until Hector wants to use his dad’s shop. I mean, I fell in love with Nacho in his very first scene, but it wasn’t until then that the audience was really made to care about the stakes of his situation. The problem is that even though Nacho’s story from that point forward has embodied so many of the overarching themes of both Better Call Saul and Breaking Bad-- shit like: “what do we do for family?” and “you made your bed, now lie in it” and “oh, how we hurt the ones we love” etc. etc. etc.-- the issue of pacing keeps it from being as impactful as it probably should be. (I think Michael Mando’s well though-out performance definitely has a lot to with keeping it from falling flat). 

I don’t want to blame it all on front-end writing. It sounds like a lot of Nacho scenes end up on the cutting room floor, making the post-production process partly to blame. I wonder if I would be as dissatisfied with Nacho’s story if I saw all those deleted scenes. Either way, I think Peter & Vince though let’s be real it’s Peter’s show should have been able to make Nacho’s story fit a little better 5 years in. As much as I love Mike and care about how he became the character we knew in Breaking Bad, there are plenty of Mike scenes I would gladly trade for more detailed studies of Nacho’s motivations.

Now, as for where I think he’ll end up: uh, I’m not really sure. I will say that (even though I have my problems with El Camino) the Breaking Bad universe does a pretty good fucking job of giving characters endings that are appropriate for their stories, regardless of whether or not they’re “happy endings,” (see: Hank). So even if Nacho does die because, as he put it, “once you’re in, you’re in,” I’m sure it will be satisfying to some extent. . . That being said, I’ll be furious he dies, and it’s all because of El Camino. Jesse similarly made a series of Bad Choices (TM) that led to him having his freedom stripped away, but ultimately he was able to escape from underneath the rubble of all the horrible decisions he made and find his own, better path (camino). So even if Nacho’s death does feel like an appropriate ending for his story, I’ll definitely be asking why Jesse got to take an exit off Bad Choice Road onto El Camino and not Nacho.

I might just be saying this ‘cause they’re my favorite characters, but one of my dearest wishes for season 6 is for Nacho to be treated as a foil to Kim. In a sense they always were, sort of representing two different lives Jimmy could possibly have, (mostly in season 1). But season 6 feels like it’s gonna be an especially opportune time to explore the contrast between their stories. They’re moving in opposite but parallel directions. We’ve seen Nacho become less and less comfortable with his criminal-henchman lifestyle and we’ve seen Kim become less and less comfortable living in her morally stringent world where she’s pushed around by her superiors (I’m thinking mostly about season 2 here). As Kim has been able to find more freedom for herself, quitting HHM and then Schweikart and Cokely, Nacho’s lost practically all his freedom. At the end of season 5, Kim is headed into the crevasse largely because she’s sick of people like Howard and even Jimmy deciding who she is. She’s asserting her autonomy and she’s doing it with glorious and reckless abandon! Nacho, on the other hand, is desperately trying to claw his way out of the crevasse so he can find that same very same kind of agency, but he’s failing miserably. Point is, it’s much easier to find your way onto the Bad Choice Road than to find your way off it.

And lastly, as I mentioned before, I am desperate to find out how Nacho got in the game in the first place, especially now that he’s on his way out.

[janiedean]

You've been very critical of Cersei, especially in response to Tumblr often defending her in more ways than she probably should. In the same vein, do you think Daenerys is as bad or ambitious as Cersei? Are they meant to be parallels or foils?

I... don’t know if it’s like that for various reasons starting with the fact that cersei is a villain and dany is not and I think that what they have as parallels isn’t really where grrm means to go at, but I’ll try to give the most possible objective answer.

premise: dany is a character I really don’t care much either way about and I don’t remember 60% of her chapters (like, 90% of adwd and for the rest I only remember decently the got stuff and half of asos plus the vision at the end of acok) and I haven’t reread them in ages unless I needed to because a) she’s really not on my radar, b) that’s not the most engaging storyline to me so take my opinions for what they are.

that said:

I don’t think they’re nowhere near the same level because dany actually cares about other people which cersei does not;

also, there’s the angle where imvho dany wants the throne more because of her name/legacy/because viserys wanted it and she grew up with that toxic environment and she’s not actually moving forward bc basically she’s taken on herself what viserys wanted, but if you look at it... tbh I think dany just wants to get back to the house with the red door cuddling her lizards which is also why i think she’s not eventually getting the throne even if she won’t die at the end but that’s beyond the point, while everything cersei does is to get power and fuck everyone else in the way;

which is the other fundamental difference ie cersei doesn’t gaf about anyone else that’s not herself and doesn’t see people’s needs as something she needs to care about, while dany actually does care about other people - admittedly she gets caught up in selfrighteousness about that a lot for that but like... it’s not as if she freed the slaves for that, she really does believe in her cause/in helping others;

now, the thing they have in common imvho that I can see as a pseudo-parallel is that neither of them is actually good at ruling - or better, cersei is plain bad because she thinks that she’s her father and she’s not and she doesn’t listen to other people while dany has good intentions but doesn’t have one single adviser who’s actually trained for politics and is bad at seeing the great picture never mind diplomacy never mind that she hasn’t grasped the concept that you can’t just dismantle an entire established system with fire and blood even if it’s wrong (ie: everything that happens post-conquer of mereen is basically the realistic consequences of swooping in with dragons without looking at the entire situation around the place you’re supposed to conquer), which means that cersei’s stint at ruling and dany’s are both not good (and if adwd/affc had been one single book probably it would have been a more blatant parallel than it is with the books separated) so like... they could have been foils in that sense but if they had been in the same book it would have been more obvious but I mean... at worst it would have shown that dany isn’t a good ruler but means well while cersei isn’t a good ruler and.. well, means well for herself;

that said dany’s ambition, as stated before, is her brother’s ambition more than hers and it’s more about her birthright than what she actually wants, so i don’t think you can compare it with cersei’s because cersei again wants power for herself and like... she does want that;

I don’t think dany and cersei are even remotely on the same level morally because as stated dany cares about other people and cersei doesn’t;

also, you can dislike dany or not care, but... she’s written to be sympathetic, while cersei is not, in the sense that while you can find sympathetic someone the narrative doesn’t present as such and viceversa (for example with dany I’m not particularly interested so like... I care but I don’t relate to her nor feel anything that much specific except that I don’t dislike her but that’s it even if she’s written to be relatable/sympathetic while with cersei people see traits they find relatable/sympathetic so they empathize with her even if the narrative is very clear about how cersei is a negative character, which ofc is their prerogative bc everyone feels about characters in their own way), objectively dany is not coded negatively even if she has faults while cersei is coded negatively because she’s a villain and there’s nothing in her chapters that suggests that she’s going to change or that she wants to or that she would care for that, so ‘as bad as cersei’ is.... not correct because they’re nowhere near the same level when it comes to their personalities and they don’t act for the same reasons;

also: re cersei my problem is that people excuse everything she does on account of things that each single woman in these books has to deal with but somehow cersei is untouchable even when she’s done far worse than most other characters and without even taking dany into account (bc I think discourse on dany is extremely polarized in fandom and I don’t agree with either the FLAWLESS HERO side nor the OMG SHE’S THE VILLAIN side - I think she’s trying to do good but being a queen is not her life call and she’s there to deconstruct very specific tropes while being written sympathetically, so I’m like... not touching that, but people do criticize dany even if 80% of the time it’s not for reasons that are in the text but nvm), but like... if you objectively compare what catelyn has done textually and what cersei has done textually and see what fandom thinks of either in general it’s obvious that there is a strong double standard and I’m personally extremely tired of being classified as some kinda internalized misogynist because I don’t like cersei when people shit on catelyn for actual misogynistic reasons (because sorry but ‘she’s such a bitch she should have gone back home to her smaller children why did she even think she could help out robb’ when cat’s smarter than 90% of the other povs combined is a goddamned misogynist argument and guess what half of this fandom happily partakes in it to say one, and it’s not even the start of it). like, my issue with cersei is that people don’t discuss her critically nor accept that she’s a bad guy objectively - subjectively they can think whatever they want, but if you’re selling me your analysis as meta/STUFF THAT’S IN THE TEXT then it should be in the text and passing cersei as some feminist hero that is crushing the patriarchy is not what the text says;

I don’t have 99% of the same issues with dany bc as stated I don’t go there, idc about her and I disagree anyway with 98% of the takes I see concerning dany anyway but at least no one says that if you dislike dany you automatically don’t give a damn about women but that’s another problem;

but tldr the way dany is discussed in fandom is not the same cersei is discussed in fandom and I disagree with both discourses bc I think dany’s is too polarized in two opposite ways that don’t cover it imvho and cersei is polarized in one direction and that is my issue with cersei discourse basically;

I don’t think these two are comparable on a moral scale bc as stated dany has morals and cersei... doesn’t, on a narratively sympathy scale because grrm wants you to sympathize with dany at least to a level while not hiding that she has faults same as everyone in these books while cersei is written as a straight-up negative character that has possibly relatable reasons for being like that and which people can see themselves in, but she’s not meant to be someone the story sympathizes with - you’re meant to feel sorry for her at some point (I guess because I’m not the right person to ask that question) and you can absolutely find her relatable, but we’re not talking about people with the same set of morals, values and life targets anyway so tldr the answer is that at most they’re foils in the way grrm explores how they both fail at their first try at ruling (and for cersei most likely the last) but dany’s meant to be sympathetic, cersei isn’t;

I think they’re parallels in that sense but tbf I think that cersei has quiiite more foiling going on with cat in the sense of characters you contrast with each other who are starting from similar premises, and with dany I think it all begins and dies with their being queens but tbf I also don’t think it’s dany’s endgame and cersei is dying because she’s power-hungry so if dany lives renouncing it and cersei dies embracing it it’s definitely a foil for that, but like... they also aren’t directly connected by the narrative and I absolutely don’t think dany is younger and more beautiful which would actually connect them, idt they’re actually ever meeting, so... there is a parallel/foil but just on that one aspect. for the rest they’re wildly different imvho.

... I hope it made sense. XD

[atamascolily]

lily liveblogs  watching “The Terminator” for the first time

I cannot believe no one ever told me the first ten minutes of The Terminator are filled with naked men roaming 1980s Los Angeles. In addition to full-front Arnold Schwarzenegger nudity, there's a chase scene in which Kyle Reese's actor (no slouch himself in the muscles department) runs through a clothing store, dressing himself as he goes. The narrative economy of this movie, I tell you.

Whoever decided that time travel does not involve clothing was clearly having a lot of fun. 

Also, I have no idea why the punks decided to make fun of a naked Arnold Schwarzenegger except they were probably drunk/stoned/high and fond of making poor life choices. Either that or they really were Too Stupid To Live.

Is the close up on Kyle Reese's stolen Nikes supposed to be product placement? I think it's product placement. This is the '80s after all.

OMG, a phone booth. This film was not supposed to be a period piece (or was it??), but it's unintentionally hilarious as such. Kyle Reese doesn't seem to know how to reach Sarah Connor otherwise... so the phone book gets to stand in for the Internet.

(god, if you're from his version of 2029, the fact that machines DON'T control everything seems both a) quaint and b) infinitely desirable by comparison.)

What's interesting is both the film's present and the film's future are dystopic hellholes. Yes, it's the middle of the night in Los Angeles, but the way it's filmed, with all the urban debris and trash and homeless wandering the streets very much parallels the future. The garbage truck in the present and the human-killing laser machine in the future are foils to each other.

EVERYONE'S HAIR, OH MY GOD.

It's kinda sad that food service is still visual shorthand for "sucky job" even in the present day, but you can tell Sarah Connor has spunk because she rides a moped and sasses her chain's mascot. Their outfits are terrible. And that kid putting ice cream on her--to the amusement of the assholes she's serving--what a nightmare.

Also, Sarah's friend is awesome and won my heart with one line: "In a hundred years, who's gonna care?" This takes on vast levels of irony given that Sarah Connor is the Chosen One--er, sorry, Chosen One's Mom. I really hope this friend doesn't die.

Child's toy truck getting run over by the Terminator's stolen car. NOT SUBTLE, Y'ALL.

Sarah's friend's first reaction to the news of another Sarah Connor being murdered is to track Sarah into the break room to watch. Efficient way of letting Sarah know something's up and another good character moment.

The contrast between the Terminator effortlessly starting the car and Kyle Reese's labored hotwiring is nicely done. The PTSD flashback as he watches the bulldozer thing is also very efficient way of conveying information without the need for infodumping dialogue. Of course he has a female friend who dies for added trauma. Sigh.

Oh, so she and the friend--whose name is Ginger--are roommates? Well, that explains a lot. Oh, nope, I’m wrong, different person.

SARAH CONNOR HAS A PET IGUANA, I'M CHARMED. She looks so sad holding her pet iguana while her date's voice mail message plays - no going out after she got all dressed up. But at least she has the Iguana of Consolation!

(his name is Pugsley omg omg omg asghkkfl)

Why the hell does Ginger's bf kiss Sarah on the cheek as she leaves? Are they that close to each other or is this a weird quasi-sexual harassment thing (like how he was only kinda embarrassed when she picked up the phone by mistake while he was doing his phone sex thing thinking she was Ginger?)

CREEPY PARKING GARAGE IS CREEPY.

The police are all, "shit, this is awful," and trying to do something, but it isn't going to go well. Also, you can tell it's the '80s because the police lieutenant just casually lights up indoors like it's no big deal.

Like, literally the plot of this movie depends upon a) Sarah Connor's name and address in the phonebook, and b) no cell phones. The fact that these two are intimately connected IRL amuses me greatly.

God, as soon as Ginger and her bf revealed they were staying home, I knew they were toast. The fact that they're shown having sex just makes it all the more inevitable.

I like that the police decide to get a jump on the press AND maybe alert the other Sarah Connors they haven't been able to reach by announcing it over the TV. Sarah's at a restaurant eating pizza so she actually sees it!

The only reason Sarah Connor survives is because the Terminator went very literally through the list and Kyle Reese went straight to the right person. The difference between human intelligence and AI?

I cannot BELIEVE the club doesn't check ID, but maybe it's an illegal club anyway? Nice relevant background techno.

Of course the police's gambit backfires because Sarah can't reach them when she tries to call...

OH MY GOD PUGSLEY THE IGUANA IS SO PRECIOUS (but seriously does not stay in his cage, lol). Please don't let the iguana die...

The dangers of earphones and not being able to hear your surroundings being illustrated literally as soon as the devices were invented.

OF COURSE SARAH IS GOING TO LEAVE HER VOICE MAIL MESSAGE WARNING GINGER OF DANGER AT THE WORST POSSIBLE MOMENT. And she's going to tell him her location, too. This is... god, I don't have words for this.

Sarah left her driver's license in her apartment, what? Or is that an old ID? I can't tell. Welp, now he knows what she looks like, which he clearly didn't before.

This scene where the Terminator shoots up the club with an automatic REALLY hasn't aged well. I feel sick to my stomach just watching it. Of course Sarah is the second-to-last one out and has a human shield, because of course she dies. Sigh.

"Come with me if you want to live." I think that's the first words Kyle Reese has spoken in this movie! Not that the Terminator has said much, either...

Of course the police show up at exactly the wrong moment and draw exactly the wrong conclusions. Of course they end up dead, too. Sigh.

I would say Kyle's driving is atrocious, but there's no actual roads in 2029 LA, so this is much better conditions than he's used to.

Gosh, what would this movie do without alleyways?

Sarah's like "Can you stop it?" and Kyle looks away sheepishly, all WELL I WOULD IF I HAD MY LASER WEAPONS FROM THE FUTURE INSTEAD OF YOUR PUNY '80S GUNS.

Oh, he says he's going to ditch the car, but instead Kyle finally explains things to Sarah, and we're in yet another parking garage. Parking garages and alleys, that's this movie. Oh, and hotwiring cars.

Kyle's monologue about the defense network computers setting off nuclear war is a very '80s manifestation of a very '80s fear. Several '80s fears, now that I think about it. (Wasn't this also the plot of War Games?) Not that it's not topical today, but I think it's expressed in different formats now.

I hate that Sarah is only special because she's the Source of the Savior instead of the actual savior herself. I hate this so much.

Kyle and the Terminator playing "who can shoot better while also driving" in a parking garage that seems to go on literally FOREVER, how is this possible. This is WHY shotgun is a thing.

Oh, good, he's finally letting Sarah drive while he shoots.

Ohhhh, now she's in police custody, and the Lieutenant is comforting her. I hope he doesn't die, but I know better than to hope that anyone other than the Final Girl survives this movie.

The "flex your artificial hand with a hole in it" scene is a bloody counterpart to Luke testing out his new prosthesis in ESB.

It says something about humans that the only way the machines could hunt them was to make them human-coated (human on the outside).

You can tell by the look on Kyle Reese's face when he says "Nobody goes home," that he knows he's on a suicide mission.

Why the hell doesn't John Connor go himself? Why was Kyle chosen? Because he had to lead humanity in the aftermath of Skynet's defeat or because it would make the upcoming plot twist that much more awkward? Probably both, but I wonder if they ever discussed this. "Uh... hi, dad? Dad-to-be?" (Reminder that Douglas Adams is right when he says the worst part of time travel is the grammar.)

Oh, god, the "eye repair" scene is nightmarish. Excellent job foreshadowing it, filmmakers. But still gross. So this is why he gets sunglasses.

(Does he have heat vision? Why do none of the future machines seem to have infrared sight? Wouldn't that be super-useful if you're human-hunting?)

Kyle Reese's "I DIDN'T BUILD THE FUCKING THING!" line is such a relatable mood. We the audience already knew that Time Travel = Mandatory Nudity, but I think it's a nice touch that Skynet assumed the Terminator could just work with whatever was available instead of needing to bring weapons. He’s weapon enough. 

Also, this implies the Terminator is just human ENOUGH to pass through the field, which might have been a reason they started working with human-augmented machines in the first place. The reasoning seems to be--no, really--if you put enough living human tissue over a machine, it's "alive" enough for time travel. I don't understand how this works, exactly, but fine.

Oh, good, the cops are giving her body armor now. That can only help. Oh, no, it's a fake-out to explain how the Terminator survived being shot.

I don't understand how this movie is not a walking billboard for gun control, I really don't.

Kyle Reese being all "things are going to shit and I'm going to seize the moment". I think the policeman he slugged might actually survive if he was knocked unconscious and otherwise stayed out of trouble? Don't think the Terminator's going to bother when he's got his real prey to deal with...

And the lietunant who was nice to Sarah is dead. I knew that was going to happen. Great, now the other detective is, too. Sigh. NO ONE IN THIS MOVIE GETS TO LIVE EXCEPT SARAH... and maybe Pugsley the iguana? I don't think he's dead...

Oooh, oooh, another visual theme of this movie is broken glass and smashing windows to unlock things. DON'T FORGET THE BODY ARMOR ON YOUR WAY OUT. (If that's not Chekhov's body armor, I'm going to be very surprised.)  

God, it's so weird to contrast the different fates of the Terminator franchise and the Star Wars films, especially given their similarities.

Oooh, oooh! Huddle together for warmth under a bridge! Fall in love!

Skynet has no freakin' subtlety. You can tell they're not human because they automatically decide the best way to keep Sarah Connor from having kids is to kill her, not to have her doctor give her a fake diagnosis so they can perform a hysterectomy or some other scheme. Or even just giving her birth control.

OR HOW ABOUT EVEN CREATING A SPECIAL MODEL TERMINATOR SHE COULD DATE WHO WAS STERILE AND THEREFORE SHE'D NEVER GET PREGNANT. And then Kyle Reese would be the obnoxious dude trying to break them up for the good of humanity and constantly trying to prove to Sarah her hot boyfriend is actually a robot, and Sarah just thinks he's delusional/trying to get in her pants.

(Oh, my god, I want this fic now.)

Oh, she just discovered Kyle's hurt now, ordering him to take off his clothes, there's only one way this can possibly end.

Nice contrast between the Terminator calmly repairing his bloodied self and Sarah feeling nauseous and having Kyle talk to her while she fixes him.

Oh, god, the way Kyle Reese describes John Connor makes me wonder if Kyle had a crush on HIM or if he knew he was John's father from the get-go. FICS FICS FICS, WHERE ARE THE FICS.

Oh, okay, so Reese volunteered because he wanted to meet "the legend--Sarah Connor". Please tell me she's a legend because she's a badass, not JUST because her son is important. Please. Or at least allow me to keep my illusions, okay?

The way Reese looks at her is distinctly hero-worshipping, which is kinda funny given their roles to date. Also, Sarah is pre-badass at this point -- she will become one as a result of the events of this film.

Sarah also has a problem with time travel tenses, I sympathize.

"Thank you, Sarah, for your courage through the dark years. I can't help you with what you must soon face except to say the future is not set.... You must survive or else the future will never exist."

LOL, John telling his mom she better level up or everyone is doomed... so why isn't SHE the savior again??

And--open question--what happened to HER by 2029? Why is it John and not Sarah who's in charge?

Ok, so the HKs DO have infrared, but what keeps them and the Terminator from finding people on various occasions? (Yes, plot, I know.)

"Tell me a bedtime story about your dystopic past-that-is-my-future and give me all kinds of Nightmare Fuel..." (That could have gone better.)

Where do Future Humans get their Future Guns and Gear?? Do they steal them from machines? How does that even WORK? Wouldn't it be easier for the machines to just, I don't know, get creative and kill them some other way?

Keeping with the machine-man parallels, Reese has his own "code numbers" rather like a serial number that he uses to ID himself.

DOGGIES! THERE ARE STILL DOGS IN THE FUTURE, yay!

Yup, the humans in 2029 live in squalor just like the homeless people in the film's present - which might explain why Kyle Reese is remarkably at home, with way less culture shock than you'd expect.

Too bad he and Sarah are on the run and can't go to a fast food restaurant or something fun he's never had before.

The future kids are watching a fire burn in the shell of a TV, OH MY GOD.

Like, it's kinda good the future isn't set because if this what humanity's come to, it might be better to send someone back in time and hope it goes differently? Of course, things can always get worse. Not that they had a choice - I think discovering the machines' plan forced their hand.

Kyle Reese has a photo - is that Sarah Connor? Or is that the woman who got killed earlier in the film? I can't tell.

Dogs barking at the fake people just like the dog barked at the Terminator in the '80s. Nice. Interesting they don't try to shoot the dogs.

Ahh,the photo is burning, the symbolism.... especially when Terminator's flesh melting is going to be a Thing coming up. Cut to: Sarah's sleeping face. Foreshadowing much? (Also: WORST BEDTIME STORY EVER.)

Okay, the way he brushes her face is kinda creepy and hasn't aged well. I hope Sarah has dogs in subsequent movies? I would if I were her.

OH MY GOD, the Terminator has suggested prompts for conversations and chooses "Fuck you, asshole". DYING.

Oh, he's got her address book... and her mom's address. That's how he finds her. Otherwise, there's no way this movie will end in thirty minutes.

Kyle stopping to pet the dog while Sarah gets them a hotel room is such a beautiful background moment.

Sad that even the shittiest '80s motel room is nicer than anything Kyle has ever seen.

AHHH, SHE CALLS HER MOM, this is the smart and appropriate thing to do, but there's no way this can end well for her mom.

I thought the scene was going to cut to her mom on the phone with a gun at her back (before the Terminator kills her), but she's talking to the Terminator mimicking her mother's voice and I... don't know what just happened, but pretty sure it isn't good for Sarah Connor's mom's survival. (Why they didn't go back in time and try to kill HER before she had Sarah... seems like there are so many ways to do this.)

LOL, you think Reese is going to be into food and instead he's into manufacturing explosives in the kitchen. Nice. What follows is Baby's First Improvised Weaponry Lesson.

"He'll find us, won't he?" "Probably." WELL MAYBE IF YOU HADN'T GIVEN SOMEONE YOUR ADDRESS AFTER HE TOLD YOU NOT TO, IT WOULD HAVE BEEN "LATER" RATHER THAN "SOONER", ughhhhhh.

Kyle's reaction when Sarah asks him about his previous lovers is HILARIOUS if you assume he's actually in love with John Connor. But this does answer the question of who the woman in the photo was: it was Sarah, he's been in love with Sarah the whole time (and now kinda embarassed/thrilled at the prospect of sleeping with his hero?)

I can't tell if Sarah genuinely thinks he's hot or if she just feels sorry that he's a virgin. I guess it doesn't really matter since they've been through hell together and sex is a valid way of coping. Also, while Kyle isn't  as muscular as the Terminator, he's no slouch in the shirtless department--and he's not wearing a shirt in this scene.

Kyle's admission that he "disconnects" to avoid feeling pain just heightens the machine-man continuum even further...

Oh, my god, John totally knows that Kyle's going to be his dad, and that's why he gives them the picture of Sarah. SO AWKWARD TO BE SET UP BY YOUR SON.

This is the '80s so they can't just have casual sex, he has to be in love with her, and have ALWAYS been in love with her, because this is ROMANCE, and she's the heroine (otherwise it would be morally wrong??). I get it, although this trope hasn't aged well and seems vaguely stalker-ish, even though relatively little stalking was involved.

So he loves her, but Sarah never says she loves him... but she's stressed out and exhausted and she feels sorry for him and he's hot, wtf not?

Hey, he lets her top! That was unexpected and also kinda sweet.

What was the point of Sarah telling her mother if her mother never called back and if they were only going to be there for a day? Shouldn't she be suspicious that her mom never called back? IDIOT BALL.

Kyle hears the dog barking and knows what's up right away. You can see the "oh shit" look on his face.

YET ANOTHER CAR CHASE... except now they're in a truck and the Terminator's on a motorcycle. Oh, goody. And he makes her drive once she pulls out the explosives. Oh, good, an underground tunnel!

I don't understand why the Terminator doesn't shoot out the wheels on the truck. He keeps aiming for Sarah, and I know that's his mission, but... seems like it might be easier to disable the truck first? IDK.

Of course leaning out the window makes it easier for the Terminator to shoot Kyle... now that he's delivered his Sperm Packet from the Future, his role is done and he's toast.

That's also the first moment that Sarah really takes agency by swerving and crashing the car. I think up until this point, she's just kinda gone along with everything...? NOT A COINCIDENCE.

Oh, great, now he has a tractor-trailer. Full of gas. And you have explosions. This will end well.

Wow, the Terminator didn't kill the passenger in the truck after all. Why waste energy, I guess?

I don't understand why he goes for the tractor-trailer instead of.. I don't know, just walking over and strangling Sarah? He's a lot stronger than she is and she's trapped in a wreck. I don't understand it. That seems WAY like overkill. And also gives her time to get her bearings and escape with Kyle.

Kyle jumping into the dumpster is oddly appropriate, given how often dumpsters and trash appear in this movie.

Sarah breathes a sigh of relief WAYYY too soon after the truck goes up in flames.

WHYYYY is she going so close to the flames, that's so dumb, it must be so hot and toxic fumes, whyyyyy? (So they can be RIGHT THERE when the Terminator wakes up, that's why!)

This time Sarah's the one to break a window and unlock a door. Agency! Character development! Whatever you want to call it.

Can you really turn an automated factory on that easily? Shouldn't there be... passwords, or something? But I like that Kyle does it "so he can't track us" - so the EMFs interfere with the Terminator's abilities??

And of course, there's the irony that the smart machine from the future is destroyed by by the dumb machines of the past.  Humanity's enemy is also its savior. (Can you imagine what would havehappened if the Terminator had been able to talk to them and convince them to kill the humans / figure out where they were?)

Hey, the Terminator busts down the door in its Final Form and does the EXACT SAME DOOR OPENING TRICK IT'S ALWAYS DONE.

Sarah pulls a chunk of shrapnel OUT OF HER OWN LEG. She gets to scream while she does it because she's female, but it's the foil to the other "repair/healing" we've seen - and a sign of her own transition/evolution.

Kyle's face wound mirrors that of the Terminator, AHHH I SEE WHAT YOU DID THERE.

And of course the Terminator still isn't dead even after it's lost half its body and is just this metallic torso dragging itself across the ground with its arms. Because we're still not done yet. Both Sarah and the Terminator have leg wounds, so they're both crawling, I like it. EVEN MORE PARALLELS.

Oh, god, it's on a conveyor belt now. NIGHTMARE FUEL. And then some sort of ventilation shaft? Oh, god.

And she's able to press the button as it's strangling her and issue a snappy one-liner LIKE THE ACTION HERO SHE IS! And watch its red eye stare balefully at her the entire time.

Oh, and THEN the police show up and she's put on a stretcher and bundled away. Could be worse, Kyle's on a stretcher zipped up into a body bag.

CUT TO: Sarah driving a truck in the desert. A pregnant Sarah is narrating into a microphone a message/memoir for her unborn son. There's a German shepherd in the backseat. Sarah's wearing the same headband we've seen before in Kyle's photo of her. She's got a pistol in her lap that she handles coolly and calmly.

She's in Mexico, at a gas station full of chickens. She tells John she's worried about paradox, but he has to send Kyle. So John DOES know, and gave Kyle the photograph so he'd be primed to fall in love with Sarah, thus guaranteeing his existence. The German shepherd is a Very Good Dog.

Sarah's very blunt about the fact that she and Kyle only had a few hours together, but says "we loved a lifetime's worth" and I'm not sure that checks out, but okay. Maybe on Kyle's end? I feel like Sarah barely had time for any of this, and maybe some of it is retroactive, but... anyway, maybe it's a story she tells herself so she can live with it, especially since she may not be interested, open to, or willing to risk any more relationships in the future, given that she's a perpetual target.

While she's talking about Kyle, her face twists up and a kid snaps a photo with his Kodak camera, and claims if she doesn't pay for it, his father will beat him. She knows it's a scam but takes it anyway, talking him down to four dollars instead of five.

The kid takes the money and runs away, crying about a storm coming. Sarah sighs. "I know," she says, and puts on dark sunglasses as tumbleweeds roll and she drives away, waiting for the apocalypse, towards some mountains that look awfully early-CGIish.

Credits roll. Acknowledgment to the works of Harlan Ellison - that's cool.

Wow, okay. Well that was a ride.

Reading the Wiki: I like how James Cameron decided to cast Michael Biehn as Kyle Reese because he was famous at the time, even though he's nowhere near a household name compared to the film's other stars. O.J. Simpson was floated as a possible Terminator, irony. Harlan Ellison credit was added after he threatened to sue for infringment--oh.

Also, (male) critics talk about how the Terminator represents masculinity, and the ideal man is both machine and human? I guess I don't really see the Terminator as ideal masculinity, but that's a rant for another day...

Also: wtf happened to the iguana??

[saltyfilmmajor]

AN EVEN DEEPER DIVE™ INTO THE THEMATIC SYMMETRY IN MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE.

A Breakdown of the character relationships in Rogue Nation and Fallout

For: @not-too-tall-for-trick

Y’all, I literally spent four days of my spring break working on this Rogue Nation Analysis Video and I also made this post a while ago touching on this subject, but I really can’t stop thinking about this. So here we go diving deeper into the implications of the characterizations of Ethan, Ilsa, Lane, and Benji.

Ethan Hunt will always do good no matter the cost. He disregards his own wellbeing if it means that the world will be safe. This is consistent in his characterization throughout the franchise. Which leads to the tragic implications that Ethan and by extension Team Hunt aren’t fully realized, elf-actualized people. They are tools for the government they work for, even if they are not loyal to that government.

Ethan’s loyalties despite everything he has gone through has always been on the side of protecting human life and the innocent. And he has remained able to keep a steady head on him, unwilling to sacrifice the needs of one over the needs of the many. Hunley even says as much to him in the beginning of Fallout. But never once throughout Rogue Nation and Fallout does the audience ever see Ethan being concerned with his own wellbeing.

When The boat scene in Rogue Nation occurs, Ethan already has made a decision to send Benji away: “I can’t protect you, that’s why I NEED you to leave.” The dialogue here is very significant. It’s not a want, a selfish desire. No. Ethan needs Benji to stay safe which is want informs a majority of the decisions he makes in Rogue Nation especially. The entire plot of Fallout kicks off because he was unwilling to let Luther, his oldest friend, die.

Ethan can never choose between the needs of the few and the needs of the many, at that includes himself.

Ethan, having done this for like some 20 odd years now, understands this. Ilsa however differs, but they go through similar circumstances that parallel and make them interesting to analyze closer.

Ilsa is not a bad character, (morally speaking anyway, her character in the narrative is fucking amazing and I love her and so do all my other film major friends) She has different priorities than Ethan, yet they strive for similar things, making them thematic mirrors/parallels.

Ilsa is put in a similar situation of having to go rogue in order to bring down the syndicate, she is forced to be disloyal to her government in order to live. Ilsa still holds on to her personhood and does not accept that she must be loyal to Lane or Atlee. She and Ethan agree that Lane needs to be stopped and no one will believe them, but she still believes she can walk away from the spy world and become a free woman.

“Lane, Atlee, your government, my government, they’re all the same. We only think we are fighting for the right side because that’s what we choose to believe.”  

She is ideologically more aligned with Ethan than she is with Lane. She does not agree with his methods, but she understands why Lane is opposed to his government. She is concerned with survival above all else, which is why in Fallout she must kill Lane. Otherwise, she will never again be able to live in peace.

So, both Ethan and Ilsa experience similar character arcs, but they go about it in different ways making them not foils but parallels of each other. They are on equal standing in the narrative but can’t see eye to eye in a few things.

Contrast that between Lane and Benji. The narrative between both Rogue Nation and Fallout posits them against each other and are in an odd position of being mirrors of the other, as well as being highly antagonistic towards each other to quote my friend @Snovyda

“Which is peculiar, because usually, parallels are drawn between the main villain and the main hero. Not between the villain and the hero's friend.”

They aren’t exactly mirrors, but they are linked thematically, they are connected

See, they are both competing for Ethan’s attention (not in a ship or romantic way, I just don’t have a better way to say that, the English language can only take me so far.)

It’s inferred that Ethan was to be turned to Lane’s side after that whole torture sequence, in which Ethan looks like a whole ass snac (rip sorry it’s just Tom Cruise’s Arms Make me feel safe, amongst other things) Vinter even says “What does He [Lane] see in you, I wonder?”  Lane saw protentional in Ethan to become a terrorist (That’s what he is be we don’t really have time to unpack all that.) And Lane was attempting to manipulate Ethan by whichever means to get what he wants, which is ultimately the disk. To him, human nature is something easily manipulated, which is somewhat proven right when Ethan unlocks the disk in order to keep Benji safe.

Lane sees no other way to becoming his own person than through terroristic acts. He also is definitely the leader of The Syndicate; he shoots those he deems have outlived their usefulness and the audience is never shown if he ever takes any advice from those around him. He is violent, cold, calculating. Contrast with Ethan who is caring and compassionate and only managing to get by, but because he values his team’s input, because they are all equals, he prevails.

Benji is competing for Ethan’s attention in that, he wants Ethan to know that he does not need to be alone on his mission to stop The Syndicate. He wants to be seen as just as capable. He and Lane are both monitored intensely by their government, and how they react to this informs the audience of their character’s and make them appear as thematic mirrors of the other. They both rebel against their government, in order to achieve their goals. Benji wants to help Ethan and take down The Syndicate even if he does not come to believe that the syndicate really exists at first.

Lane from the get-go seems to know about Ilsa’s mission to infiltrate his group but still believes in her potential, it is not until he realizes the disk is empty, that he truly turns against her.

In Fallout, Lane who is far more concerned with revenge, states this to Ilsa: “Ethan Hunt will lose everything and everyone that he ever cared about.”  And immediately after that, the audience hears Benji’s voice coming from the off-screen space. The editing is very intentional in setting up that Lane is not referring to Ilsa, but Benji.  The dialogue choice is very deliberate here. Because first off, the laymen will take “everything” to include “everyone”. The way Lane does this is very reminiscent of their conversation in the graveyard in Rogue Nation. “I’d like to see who you blame for what happens next.”

He is making it clear that whatever is to happen in the following encounter, it is her fault. If Benji dies his blood will be on her hands. This also makes it clear to the audience that Benji, is the “everyone” that Ethan cares about. Which is quite telling and functions on two levels in the narrative.

Firstly, Benji serves as a metonym of the entire conflict that Ethan has throughout the course of the narrative. His Team vs The Mission. Secondly, it reinforces that idea that Lane and Benji are forcibly connected.

Lane attempts to hang Benji, not shoot him or any quicker means of murder. No, he ties a noose around his neck and forcibly hangs him. Benji is the one that got away, the one who lived. Benji is the one Ethan’s attention was on, and how perfect it would be to kill him now that Ethan’s attention lies elsewhere.

The reasoning Lane has however also extends in his logic for tying Ilsa up. While it seems that His revenge is sole focused on quite brutally killing Benji, it isn’t.

Ilsa refuses to kill an ally or any innocent person. Her final test was based on killing both Ethan and Benji after Lane got the disk. Yet she refused. Because he has known her for a longer period of time he is able to use this knowledge in order to enact his revenge.

Vinter says something quite apt in Rogue Nation, that is “People break in different ways” and so the same logic applies here. Lane’s aim here is for Ilsa to be made to feel helpless, making her complicit in Benji’s murder. That’s why Lane gives his whole revenge speech to her. She is not meant to be included in the “everything and everyone”, she is just an observer, forced to watch Benji die, She is apart from them, and Benji, whom Lane knows Ethan would sacrifice anything for, is the one he sets his eyes on to be more brutal.

The Character dynamics between these four are very connected and reinforced through the narratives making them, if not mirrors of each other, then thematically linked at the very least. 

[nyangibun]

GoT S07E02 Thoughts

I am up at 2 in the morning for this shit and I don’t know how I feel about this episode. There was a lot happening and a lot not happening. But as always, here are my rambling, harebrained thoughts about the episode that may or may not make any sense whatsoever to anyone but me. Either way, here we go:

The scene with Dany and Varys continues to toe the line between Benevolent Hero Dany and Violent Conqueror Dany. I have never doubted Dany’s ability to care for the common folk. She is not an evil person; she has compassion for them, that’s always been clear from the start, but the question has always been, will her compassion win out over her desire for power? And this grey area feels really poignant in this scene with Varys when she’s pardoning him for once siding with another king who had tried to assassinate her.

While it looks like she’s showing him a great deal of compassion and demonstrating her desire to be loved by the people and bring peace to Westeros, I feel the conversation is actually quite foreboding. He’s already been by her side for awhile, so why was this conversation happening now? They could’ve easily cut this entire scene away and left us to continue assuming that Dany pardoned Varys when he arrived with Tyrion, but they chose to highlight it and have Varys give his whole speech about not caring who was king or queen of the Iron Throne and that his loyalty was to the people. This is important, as are these lines:

“If you ever think I’m failing the people, you won’t conspire behind my back... If you ever betray me, I’ll burn you alive.” 

Once again, Dany threatens people for their loyalty. In contrast, the previous episode when Jon Snow pardons Alys Karstark and Ned Umber for the crimes of their house, he says:

“For centuries, our families fought side by side on the battlefield. I ask you to pledge your loyalty once again to House Stark, to serve as our bannermen and come to our air whenever called upon... Yesterday's wars don't matter anymore. The North needs to band together, all the living north. Will you stand beside me, Ned and Alys, now and always?”

The difference between them is quite clear. One demands loyalty, while the other asks for it. 

And the focus of this scene with Dany and Varys being on how the people of Westerosi will receive her feels greatly foreboding and not in the good way for her. This scene was shot and chosen for a reason; this dialogue was written for a reason. And nothing in Game of Thrones is so black and white as this scene’s purpose only being highlighting how good and forgiving Dany is. 

Anyway, I know people will call me biased for reading the scene this way and perhaps I am, as I still believe Dany’s narrative is of a fallen hero, but these are just my thoughts anyhow. 

Moving on!  

What was interesting to me in the scene with Melisandre was how Dany’s face lit up when she thought the prophecy might be about her. Oh, and the line: 

“The prophecy belongs to me.”

Loosely translated to mean that the Seven Kingdoms belong to her. These people and their love belong to her. She is the one who was promised because it’s her destiny, her birthright. In direct contrast again, Jon reiterates in the same episode that he was chosen as their king, but he didn’t want it and he didn’t ask for it. 

The way Jon and Dany rule and see the world are literary foils of one another. And I feel like as the season progresses, the more this will become apparent. I also don’t like the implication of Jon bending the knee to Dany or to anyone, but we’ll see. 

Now back to Winterfell. The shot of children having archery practice while Jon and Sansa are atop watching over them is, as has been mentioned before, almost a direct parallel to Ned and Catelyn overlooking Bran’s archery lessons in Season 1. Like I’ve always said, nothing in this show is shot without a purpose, and it’s not the first time parallels between the two have surfaced. Whether it just means they’re supposed to be a formidable co-ruling pair in the North or a future marriage/romance between the two down the line still remains to be seen, but we all know what basket I’m placing my eggs. Both. The answer is both. 

Still, I really love the way Jon looks immediately to Sansa for her opinion on what to do with Tyrion’s request for him to come to Dragonstone. Considering last week’s episode, this is a good sign they’re learning to communicate better, and I think it’s also telling how he’s asking her for her opinion on Tyrion because as he says, she knows him better than anyone, when last week he was dismissing her despite her firsthand knowledge of Cersei. It’s growth. 

And actually I’m not going to go chronologically by scene now, so I’m going to skip ahead and address the moment in the Great Hall. When Jon says he’s going to accept Tyrion’s request to come to Dragonstone, he looks back to Sansa – yet another sign of him seeking her approval and support. But it’s more than that. The whole scene I kept noticing that even when Sansa wasn’t directly in focus and when Jon wasn’t looking at her, the shots of him more often than not had her in the background to his side. All of this really made them resemble a king and queen. This is only further emphasised by the following moment:

“I’m leaving both [the people and Winterfell] in good hands.”

“Whose?”

“Yours. You are my sister. You’re the only Stark in Winterfell. Until I return, the North is yours.”

Sansa may not be by name, but she is his queen. I don’t even mean that romantically. Jon sees her as his equal partner with equal right to the kingdom (so to speak) as he does. She is his most trusted confidante. This is such an incredibly significant moment in their relationship. While Sansa’s learned to trust him fully, Jon struggled with reconciling the woman she has become and the girl he once knew, but this feels like a momentous step forward as it clearly shows he’s accepted the woman she is now and that person is someone he trusts. 

I also think Sansa’s immediate glance to Littlefinger is also important. She knows it as well. She is exactly where Littlefinger wants her, as the ruler of the North, as a queen, and we all know he wants to be her king. Sansa’s concern is therefore rightly placed. She may know what he’s up to, but he is still Littlefinger and as cunning as he is creepy. The question is, will she be able to outplay him? He is her proverbial beast to slay. 

Now onto my favourite scene: Jon choking out Littlefinger. I actually had to edit this back into this post because I wrote it on a different document and forgot to place it back in, but here we are. Look, this scene is everything. We don’t get a farewell scene between Jon and Sansa beside from Jon’s little awkward wave towards her and her wave back, which is, by the way, so adorable. I know we were hoping for a Weirwood scene (and #treebang) but considering how tentative their newfound relationship is, this fits. Awkward, adorable and completely filled with unspoken words. That’s Jon and Sansa right now. It makes sense, as much as I hate it. 

But instead of that, we get this scene: 

““I love Sansa as I loved her mother.” 

“Talk to my sister and I’ll kill you myself!”

The instantaneous primal reaction is just so fascinating to me. Jon completely loses his cool the second Littlefinger says he loves Sansa. He’s been fairly restrained up until that point. Such an instant reaction requires zero thought; it’s based purely on feelings and it’s evident Jon feels a primal and fierce need to protect Sansa. I don’t doubt he’d feel that way about Arya or Bran too, but there’s something so underlying about framing his fierce protectiveness over her after Littlefinger confesses he loves Sansa.

Take it what you will, but I got my shipping goggles on for this scene and I love it!

Back to the rest of the story, we’re given a scene of Cersei decrying all that Dany’s done. She talks about the murders and burning of those masters, trying to appeal to the Lords over how cruel and savage Dany is, which we all know is quite ironic considering she burned down an entire septa of people out of vengeance. Perhaps there’s a reason why we’re being led by this scene to compare Dany and Cersei’s actions. 

Either way, the reappearance of Randyll Tarly makes me extremely nervous. There have been quite a few speculations going around about how the Tarly will play a role in the upcoming season, or more specifically, how Dany’s dragons are going to end up killing all of the Tarly’s, including Sam’s mother and sister. Randyll’s appearance here and his subsequent scene with Jaime about where to place his allegiance seems to support this theory. The death of the Tarly’s will put Jon in a very precarious situation, especially if he bends the knee to Dany, which is a plot line I hate and loathe as it is so completely uncharacteristic for Jon – yet for the greater good, I could also see it happening as Jon is the most self-sacrificing numpty in Westeros. 

Speaking of Sam, I really hope he doesn’t die from treating Jorah. And also, why in the gods’ name do they keep giving Sam the most disgusting scenes? Seriously, that was so gross. I am curious though as to what role Jorah is supposed to play in the future and whether his being cured by Sam will have any significance, especially if he runs along back to Dany and she orders the kill on Sam’s family.  

Missandei and Grey Worm!!! 

Look, I know people are going to dismiss this entire scene altogether and say it was a waste of time because no one cares about these two, but you’re so wrong. I care. Maybe I’m one person out of a million, but fuck it, I care so much. There has to be a reason that recent seasons have started to flesh out Missandei and Grey Worm more and not just as characters who are unfailingly loyal to Dany, but as individual people. It’s been a subplot that’s been building for a long while and I don’t see why they would waste the precious time on a subplot for the sake of having some ‘romance’ between two of Dany’s most loyal subjects. What’s the payoff for that? 

I personally doubt they’re both going to survive this upcoming war and I think the loss will either drive a huge wedge between Dany and the surviving character or cause reckless behaviour that will turn a significant plot a different way. Either way, I think there has to be a payoff for building them up for so long. Or maybe it is just some silly romance made to satisfy the audience who are so the type to want romance in their show. 

Finally onto Arya! What can I say but YES SHE’S FINALLY HEADING BACK TO WINTERFELL!!! I was so worried for her going to King’s Landing just as the war was about to begin, especially if Euron is around. I couldn’t imagine her surviving if she did, but with Arya heading back home, I feel more at ease that she’ll survive the season for some time yet. But what killed me was her reunion with Nymeria. I practically squealed with joy then cried when Nymeria walked away, but what confused me was Arya saying “that’s not you” with a (if I’m not mistaken) smile on her lips. That was Nymeria, wasn’t it? And does she mean that Nymeria is not her pack, signifying Arya’s final journey back to her real pack (ie. the other Starks)? 

Also, can we please appreciate Arya and Hot Pie together again? I love that whole conversation about how she’d been baking. Made me chortle. 

Lastly, we have to talk about that final scene and my screaming thought of ‘what the fuck, Theon?’ because WTF THEON! I don’t know how to feel about that. On the one hand, as soon as I saw Euron attacking I knew he’d win, and considering how his actor said he’d make Ramsay look like child’s play, I was so worried for Theon and am glad he got away. But him abandoning his sister like that? It was so disheartening and sad to see. After how he helped save Sansa, I honestly thought he found that piece of himself again, but then it is a very unfair thing to say about a man who has been repeatedly tortured and abused. Although the Theon before Ramsay was a coward, so I don’t know. I just don’t know where his storyline will go from here on out. 

But speaking of Euron, I just knew his gifts to Cersei would be people and I am so bloody worried about Yara, Ellaria and the last remaining Sand Snake. I hate how weak the show continues to make them look and I hate that we’re about to witness more brutality done upon women on this damn hell show. I couldn’t stomach Ramsay with Sansa and I really doubt I’ll be able to stomach the upcoming scenes with Euron and these women.

Anyway, these are my thoughts. So sorry it’s so unbelievably long and rambly. What did you guys think?

[stuffandsundry]

Lemme preface this with a big hello there! I didn’t actually expect anyone to reply to this post, and so comprehensively either, haha!

dynamojacks replied to your post: Alt. P5 Justice Confidant

Hrrrrrmm. Can’t say I agree with all of this. It’s not like ‘being foil to the protag’ is the flaw with the interaction - or characterisation, of all things - it’s mostly the way said interaction is framed. Also, he’s less of a direct foil to him and more an 'equal and opposite’. Goro isn’t supposed to relate to the protag entirely, that’s kind of the point. He envies him. But he’s on his level, so to speak. It’s that aspect that draws him to him.

I think we’re using foil in a two different ways here. I use it as shorthand for “we, as third parties to this story, are supposed to compare and contrast these characters”. So, yeah, he’s set up as an equal and opposite you are totally correct there, but Goro aint the one relating to the protag, we as the audience are the ones comparing them. And that’s when problems arise, because quite a bit about the protag is so open to interpretation.

He also kind of KNOWS he’s special because he’s.. seen him, and Morgana, in the Metaverse (see: pancakes ‘gaffe’). It’s not just a one-sided perception, he’s absolutely right and this is a big fuck-off hint that he’s a wildcard in hindsight.

yo what seriously? i thought that the pancakes thing happened in the hallway of the TV studio how the hell did i misremember that badly holy shit

I agree that this should have been dealt with better, and that we needed more interaction with the PT to build a collective bond. A WHOLE, WHOLE lot more. I live and breathe any writings that bring them all together, like really. But to narrow the issue down to the protag being foil just seems flimsy. They ARE fated rivals per se and for good reason, it’s just that this aspect was shafted to buggery when it got down to it.

It’s not protag being foil that’s the problem, it’s “protag is the foil, focused on almost exclusively to the detriment of any meaningful interaction with the rest of the cast.” like, yeah, it does work, to a point. but it also could be a lot better, by giving the others a chance to shine.

The ‘god’s game’ apparently meant nothing in the grand scheme of things. That was exceptionally bad writing. To build up shit like that, but for Goro’s role as wild card to mean next to zilch.

Oh yeah, that resolution was very much so missing, which is a massive pity. Like you said, the whole fated rivals chosen to duke it out by god is a pretty interesting concept. I’m interested to know more about why you think that Goro’s role as a Wild Card mean zilch, though. Personally, I’ve been looking at it as: “Goro did had the potential to choose many different paths that could shape the world around him, signified by the Wild Card, but he locked himself very quickly into one path where he was simply being used as a tool by Shido. This, in combination with him holding everyone at arms length, meant that he didn’t form any significant bonds either aside from the real fucked up one with Shido, and so he inadvertently crippled his own Wild Card ability from the beginning” Actually, on that note, maybe he couldn’t have formed confidants. Whenever you initiate a Confidant in-game, it’s Lavenza’s voice that you hear, not Caroline + Justine. Would Lavenza have reached out to Akechi? Hmmm...

Also regarding Goro and fame, he’s not as hung up on it as Ryuji is/was, not NEARLY as much. One, mistranslation (not ‘public image’ or 'celebrity’, but 'reputation with adults’ and 'charisma’), and two, he knows his fame is fickle and dangerous in itself, having lived it for long enough. Ryuji romanticises it, Goro does not. Goro resents that those people do not know him for who he is, Ryuji thinks that fame will make him beloved.

Yeah!!!! This right here!!! This is a great contrast to have, they’d be amazing foils!! Ryuji and Goro are practically complete opposites, but they also share a lot of similarities too despite that. I spent like 5 min on this section the first time, so these are just the things that instantly popped into my head, but you could also draw parallels btwn the fact that Ryuji’s dad being in his life made it worse, while Goro’s being absent made his worse, or they way that Ryuji always had his mother with him vs Goro who’s mother left him alone, or the way that Ryuji is very bluntly honest about everything vs Goro who tries to keep everything hidden behind a veneer of politeness, or public perception of ryuji as a no good thug even if he honestly just wants to do the right thing vs the perception of goro as the person who would uphold justice/stop the breakdowns even if he was the very same person who was causing them, but DESPITE ALL THIS CONTRAST, ryuji is one of the most empathetic members of the team and absolutely would have tried to help Goro if he’d only known sooner what kinda trouble he was in (re: first impressions of makoto as a prick vs jumping in front of a car in order to rescue her)

(Speaking of Makoto, she’s absolutely the person that has the most parallels to Goro, and she should have been his rival. Both joined the team through some form of blackmail, both have incredible pressure but on them by the adults in their lives, both very similar characters vis-à-vis approaches to life in general, actually wait one second i have a quote from a friend on this.... “But I think Makoto works really well in terms of how they’re narratively set up as opposites? idk, like Makoto’s approach to subterfuge is to orchestrate the people around her while Akechi’s approach to subterfuge is to manipulate the people around him, Makoto’s impulsivity means she can be prone to direct confrontation while Akechi is on guard until he’s literally right at the breaking point, I just think…. it would’ve been so much more interesting to explore more of this than putting the burden on protag to carry Akechi Interest”)

and oh god im babbling sorry I HAVE OPINIONS

As for Yusuke? Madarame’s exploiting of his talent to his own ends (check), Yusuke wanting to please him but also trapped and nigh desperate to leave (check), Madarame being essentially responsible for his mother’s death (check), Yusuke having to rely on him to survive, for roof over head (check), and would be ruined, and even die one way or another if he tried to escape (check, check, and double check).                                                                      A comment Yusuke makes in Okumura’s Palace is extremely telling- about how someone who is oppressed will ‘desire for it’ (paraphrase). What’s even more telling, is when Yusuke said about Goro, quote: 'had I not met you all, I would have turned out like him as well’.   Haru? They’re both puppets to their fathers. Both are manipulated for the sake of political goals. Both are actually sweet by nature- at least, not ruthless, and really have to be pushed to be (SIU Director’s comments about the plot to FRAME the PTs as being ‘too brutal’… imagine how much more actually KILLING would be..). And both started out with a naive(ish), idealistic core, if Robin Hood and his fixation on Featherman R is anything to go by.

Eyyyyyyyyy this is some pretty hella meta, kudos to you. Like yeah!!!! YEAH!!!!!!! GORO AND PHANTOM THIEVES INTERACTIONS.... THERES THE POTENTIAL FOR SOME REAL MEATY, REAL GOOD STUFF IN HERE....GIVE US MORE OF THAT PLEASE...

And part of the reason why opinion changed per se, was realising just how flimsy Goro’s own resolve was, and how vulnerable. He wasn’t hell bent on bringing disaster, he was clinging on to straws in desperation. Ryuji’s comment, urging him to realise that he was his own person, makes this much clear. Their ire was more focused on Shido at this point. Still, they did not really forgive Goro, and made this much VERY clear. In any event, the last point might have been down to cultural differences. I’m.. not sure, but to those who understood this scene, it didn’t come ‘out of nowhere’, so you can’t necessarily say that’s a writing flaw on it’s own.    

Mmmm, sorry if I was unclear, but the two times I used ‘out of nowhere in this post were in regards to how i dislike goro approaching protag with little prior warning? So.... im not quite sure what you’re trying to say here. Out of nowhere is too strong of a term to use for this scenario, so if its a thing I’ve said someplace else in regards to the last scene then sorry, I’ll clarify now. It’s not out of nowhere, however, it stands in stark contrast to the entire team’s opinions of Akechi up until this point. Not necessarily a terrible, awful choice, but it is certainly jarring in a way that is completely avoidable. Which, again, brings me back to “give Goro and the other PT a larger share of attention instead of focusing on Protag”. Sae’s Palace would have been a perfect place for Goro’s facade to slip a little bit, and give the rest of the team a little bit of an idea of how he’s like when he’s not constantly on guard. Instead, Sae’s Palace focuses on setting Goro up as smart which............. he’s a teen detective that works with the police. We know that he’s smart already. We should have gotten more characterization in there instead! Giving us some form of transition, like, “he’s an enemy of the Phantom Thieves” -> “hmm, there seem to be some circumstances that we can relate to that made him the way he is now” -> “we understand why you did the things you did. we still can’t agree with it, but we know now.” ...Granted, the reason that I think of it as an abrupt about face could have been due to the face that they never mention Goro again after his battle. A short scene after Shido’s Palace had been cleared to look back on the impact that Goro had had on the PT would have been a great help.

thank you for your thoughts! c: