#this shit is exhausting; both emotionally and because Writing Longposts

[angorwhosebabyisthis]

i think probably the core issue of lorien legacies, beyond anything to do with individual characters, is the mixed metaphors.

more specifically, about politics.

[longpost after the cut; a lot of talk about racism, xenophobia, fascism--including ecofascism--genocide, and all of the above being poorly handled. also some deeply upsetting anti-indigenous awfulness wrt the w-word.]

the writers try to make the series Heavy-Hitting and Deep and Socially Conscious by addressing real-world political issues like racism, fascism, religious fundamentalism, dictatorship, colonialism, genocide, and so on... and instead of trying to build it into a coherent dynamic with any kind of real statement about any of it, they just blindly grab at every political issue they can find and slap it together into a jumbled mess.

they don't actually understand any of the things they're talking about. and the most disturbing part is that they don't even limit themselves to drawing on bad neoliberal takes, and/or captain-obvious shit like 'genocide bad.' they ALSO draw on the politics of fascists and racists--sometimes unironically, sometimes putting it in the mouths of random protagonists without reason after establishing that it's supposed to be a bad thing, sometimes doing shit that strawmans itself into confirming the Bad Guy Fascism and what have you--and often they mix those metaphors in ways that are anywhere from bizarre to horrific.

('ya so the great replacement theory was completely right actually! the people you're genociding a hundred percent have dedicated their entire life, purpose, and remaining culture to exterminating yours. it doesn't matter if their survivors are down to the single digits, if you fail to kill even a single one of them they WILL successfully wipe you out. they will literally have your last few survivors rounded up and put into prison camps. three cheers for them!' jesus fucking christ.)

(don't get me started on shit like tossing blatant racist caricatures of north korea and its political issues into the mogadorians at some point, because why the fuck not, and then piling on the anti-japanese racism with a dump truck at the end of the first series and throughout the second. internment camps.)

(jesus fucking christ.)

and like. people don't react to this shit the way they realistically would. you cannot tell me that not a single one of the majority-POC cast in the second series would not rip a black hole into nine's irl-racist and scifi-MAGA, white-man-in-a-position-of-authority ass, or the shit that john's white-man-in-a-position-of-authority ass brings about himself under the guise of ~kindness and peace.~

and there's no logic to the kind of shit people will say and do about this stuff, especially in the sequel series. sometimes they'll express, like, basic antifascist/anti-racist/humanitarian/decent-in-general beliefs, and other times the most absolutely wild shit will come out of their mouths which either directly contradicts things they've said before--and might say after--or pulls from other blatant parts of that same horrific ideology. there is no rhyme or reason to most of it. it's just a clown car of racist/fascist/xenophobic nonsequiturs. what the hell.

and when i say nine is irl-racist in reborn i mean he casually calls a native american child the w-word as a '''lighthearted''' punny joke about his legacy. the kid is not even from any tribe whose culture they originate from; they never specify, because of course they couldn't be bothered lol, but miki is from alaska. on top of that, they had the dick ass and balls to have him randomly throw in a Very Special Episode scene where he talks about how his family are the direct-action variety of activists who he got separated from when they blew up an oil pipeline.

and he does not fucking blink at this. he doesn't say anything about it, he doesn't uncomfortably not say anything about it, he just goes on with the friendly conversation about his legacies which nine just called him a w-word for without missing a single beat.

and the ecofascism. good unholy fucking god the ecofascism. probably the most fundamental driving force of the entire first series is that if you don't ~take care of your environment~ your entire race/ethnicity/culture deserve to suffer and die slowly in the results. yes, all of them. it doesn't matter who was responsible. every last one. including the masses we see protesting on mogadore in flashbacks/visions.

also did i mention the Great Fascist Cult Leader who is responsible for the loric's genocide is a race traitor who took charge of wiping out his own? because that is a thing. it's a thing.

like. man i could go on. i could go on. and in other posts i probably will, because WOW is there a lot to unpack here. but it really does all come down to the fact that the writers wanted to sound meaningful and important and socially conscious, because that's what seems to be hip with the youth nowadays, and they don't have anything to say.

it's just gibberish. gibberish that arranges in some very telling ways as to the beliefs of their own that they are putting into the books. but gibberish.

and it pisses me off in a different way to have realized this, but god damn does it make it less tear-my-hair-out distressing than racking my brain trying to figure out what in the goddamn fuck am i looking at here.

(capitalism. capitalism is what i'm looking at here. and also racism, antisemitism, xenophobia, and just plain being fuckin stupid.)

lord.