#which ended with them genociding the entire race and taking their powers for their after a long arduous war

[valkyrie-of-the-rising-sun]

Gotta love how a feud between two ancient civilizations can transcend space and time

[genericpuff]

And with that, 2000 years of history and 10+ years of an animated adaption later, Attack on Titan is over.

I wasn't planning on making an essay post about this but like all of my essay posts, it got crazy out of hand, so here we are. I have a lot to say on it and the more I wrote, the more I realized exactly what the Attack on Titan finale was about. It's cathartic. It's also kind of a big shitpost but not for the reasons you might think.

Spoilers for the Attack on Titan finale ahead! CW: DISCUSSION OF WAR AND GENOCIDE AHEAD!

Now for anyone who knows what I'm about to talk about (and anyone who follows my stuff here), I'm sure you're wondering , what side do I fall on in regards to Attack on Titan's ending? Am I about to talk shit about it? It's very divisive and somewhat inconclusive. It followed the exact ending in the manga which, while expected, was still disappointing to many who had hoped the anime would take some other path.

But I have to ask, could there have been any other way?

Eren committed mass genocide, bordering on extinction of the entire human race. There was no way that he was gonna come out of it redeemed or as a hero, and he knew it. He went straight up Walter White core here and like Walter White, he is not a hero.

The fact that the Marlayans have been constantly going to war with other countries using Eldians as their personal soldiers goes to show that for countries that seek out conquest, there's no target too small or insignificant that can't be marked as an "enemy", and we see that reflected in Eren as well, in his pursuing of "freedom", an ever-moving goalpost that can never truly be satisfied.

The Jaegerists were hellbent on creating a new empire on the bloodshed of Marley - 'an eye for an eye', so to speak.

Nothing was ever going to truly satisfy either 'side' in the conflict of humanity vs. Eldians because such conflicts' origins have been obfuscated in hundreds of years of history, propaganda, and generational trauma that has repeated itself for so long that many don't even know what they're fighting for anymore, aside from one thing - that they don't want to suffer, that they shouldn't have to suffer for the actions of their ancestors, that they want peace and happiness but don't know where to start with taking the first step.

I think people are disappointed in this ending because, let's face it, it's anime, and it's an anime adaption that took years to finish. We always want to see some kind of vindication from stories like these, but I think in having vindication, it ultimately removes the point altogether of what's being said.

As much as we may try to fight it, try to deny it, the course of human history travels in a circle. Conflict will always arise. History is written by the victors, and those victors will be seen as heroes by whichever side they're fighting for regardless of what heinous acts they may have committed to justify their salvation. And after all of that conflict, regardless of the result - time goes on, and new conflicts arise.

But I don't think that means we have to succumb to grief and suffering and that's a point that I'm seeing missed in a lot of the discussion around the finale. There's a very powerful scene between Armin and Zeke, in which Armin talks about how he was born to run up the hill with Mikasa and Eren. He recognizes fully that if his life isn't meant to be long, he can still cherish those small moments that he thinks back on fondly, the moments that defined his life with the people he cared about.

And that's really all life is. Small moments and experiences that stick with us until the end. The very act of being born in and of itself is a cosmic miracle that gives us the chance to experience things that bring us joy and stay with us forever - however short or long that 'forever' may be. We take these small moments for granted when we're comfortable, but we look for them the most when we're suffering.

If I can relate all this to another piece of media that says the same thing - albeit with a much brighter ending - FF XIV: Endwalker also asks a similar question to Attack on Titan - is the only meaning in life to suffer and die? Of course, by its end, we learn that while death and suffering is an inevitable part of life - not something that should be avoided - it shouldn't persuade us to give in to fear and despair as a constant state of being. And I think Attack on Titan goes for a very similar approach, albeit slightly more as a cautionary tale - a nihilistic reminder that ultimately, the losses and victories we find in our current point of history are still just that, a single point, a blip that will be forgotten until it's ultimately repeated, and there's no escaping that.

It cautions us that freedom cannot exist without constant vigilance for war and conflict. It cautions us that our values and core beliefs for attaining freedom, love and happiness can be twisted into a weapon to cause harm, vindication gained at the cost of another. It cautions us that when left in the wrong hands, power can and will be abused by the ignorant while propagandizing itself as "the greater good".

So why not just find the joy that we can? The friendships, the little moments, the things that bring us happiness even if only temporary. Conflict is inevitable, suffering is inevitable, but that doesn't mean life isn't worth living. "Happiness" is not a tangible end point - it's the side effect of living a meaningful life that's true to yourself.

Attack on Titan is over. Some will argue the ending was the only way, others will argue that there could have been another way and that the anime adaption had the chance to change it but still didn't for reasons beyond their comprehension.

But isn't that the whole point? We'll argue. We'll bargain. Many of the arguments made will reinforce our own beliefs further rather than sway us. Many of us will insist there had to be another way, just as Armin insisted that this couldn't have been the only way, that humanity must have had another option. Meanwhile, many of us will acknowledge that at the end of the day, this is the story Isayama wanted to tell, and regardless of whether or not it makes him an idiot toying with his audience and admitting defeat by lampshading it in the penultimate scene of Eren admitting to his own idiocy, this was the power given to him and he used it in the best way he knew how.

Much like in any conflict, there's one thing that unites both sides - the human need for joy, connection, and freedom.

We might not agree on how Attack on Titan ended, but we can agree that it was a hell of a ride, and I hope we can all agree that it was worth riding, even if it wasn't satisfying for everyone in the end. It brought many people together regardless of their backgrounds, experiences, and differences, and connected them through something they all loved for over ten years. And despite how big a part of our lives it was, life will still go on, and we'll move on to other things to watch, enjoy, and argue over. Isayama will move on to whatever awaits him next, knowing fully well that his choice was his own, that he created the series he wanted to create regardless of how people feel about it. We'll all look for our own forms of joy and happiness as life moves on around us, as conflicts come and go.

Isn't that really what freedom is at the end of the day?

[atalana]

so i've been doing a doctor who rewatch with my flatmate, which is giving me whole new avenues to think about doctor who meta from

and i wanna talk about this moment

the dalek emperor asks "so prove yourself, doctor. what are you, coward or killer?"

and i think the full context of his response goes a little underappreciated

because especially if you know a lot about doctor who, this line seems fairly obvious. still poignant as hell, but we know the doctor, and we know he's the man who'd always make that choice, it's built into his very mythology

except this is nine

and the choice he's being offered is whether or not to use a weapon that will kill every living thing in its radius - it'll wipe out the daleks, but the range of it also includes the entire earth. you can finally stop the war, but you have to sacrifice a planet you've come to call home, and all of its people, in order to do so. and you'd better act fast, because the daleks are waging war right now, people are already dying - if you don't do something, they're going to wipe out the human race anyway

logically, he should. logically, he has to.

but this is a doctor who is fresh of the heels of making that same choice! he already did it! not too long ago, with his own world in the balance, he proved himself killer, once and for all. what's one more planet, compared to all that? one more planet, to prove it wasn't all worthless? if you let them go now, you killed your own people for nothing

i don't think he knew, until he got his hands on that trigger, what choice he would make. he was certainly planning to be able to do it. and it's not like he stopped being a soldier after the war, when he met that one lone dalek he did everything in his power to kill it, to make the war finally over, to make it worth it. nine doesn't want to be a killer, but he knows that he is. and he's proven it many times this season

until right now. staring down his worst enemy, his worst nightmare, knowing that if he acts with mercy here he'll condemn the universe to destruction, he does it anyway. throws everything aside to give the devil itself the kindness neither of them deserve

this isn't just the moment he declared himself the man who never would. this is the moment he became the man who never would

and time lord regeneration's a funny thing. same man, new man. same memories, new personality, new goals, new ideals. and sure, some aspects of that are random, but there's still a chain of connection. each new incarnation becomes who they are in response to how the last one ended. the 50th enjoyed going into the differences between ten and eleven, how eleven ran away from everything that the doctor was before, played up the childish and the trickster and never fully looked at all the horrors in their past, because ten couldn't help but take responsibility. he considered responsibility the only moral option, but at the end was still so angry that this weight never stopped dragging him down, that he could never make the selfish decision. the world isn't fair and i don't want it to end like this, i see so much of that in eleven

and that defining moment of nine's that birthed ten, that's right here

the man who never would is a line stolen directly from the doctor's daughter. ten is the doctor who holds up genocide as the worst crime someone can commit, no matter the circumstances. ten who will let a dalek go just to avoid causing another. ten who won't touch a weapon of any kind unless absolutely necessary. who doesn't even want to be in the same room as a gun. it all comes down to this moment, with nine against the end of everything, in the final hours of his life

handed an identical choice to the one that changed his life forever and saying never again.

[ultraericthered]

Why DB's story peaked at the Cell Saga

Inspired by another recent Tumblr post on the Cell Saga.

A lot of times when I've seen talk online about where fans believe the late Akira Toriyama should've ended the original run of Dragon Ball, thus the original Dragon Ball narrative (and this is a question at all because very few fans were really satisfied with where it actually did end, with a weird ass final saga and a really weak epilogue/ending), by far the most common refrain seemed to be that "it should've ended at the Freeza Saga." Not hard to see why this is, as that was easily the most iconic saga of the entire series in Japan, with Son Goku's transformation into a Super Saiyan and domination of Freeza (hyped up as the most powerful villain Goku could ever face and also the one responsible for wiping out Goku's people and why he was on Earth to begin with) in the fight that followed being considered the high point of Goku's entire story, thus of the series on the whole. Many who loved the saga took umbrage at the arrival of Trunks proceeding to completely undermine both the threat of Freeza and the significant uniqueness of the legendary Super Saiyan, which is cause for them to say this is when the series began to go downhill.

To me, of course, this is nonsense.

The argument that the Freeza Saga was laid out to be the perfect possible finale for Dragon Ball is one that requires tunnel vision in order to make. Specifically, tunnel vision on a single character - Son Goku himself. The Freeza Saga being a climactic one for the story of Dragon Ball and where Goku's character peaked is undeniable, as there's not that many more avenues you could explore with Goku's character following him becoming a Super Saiyan and fulfilling his destiny of avenging his race against the genocidal tyrant Freeza. But...what about everyone and everything else? Though Dragon Ball was always Goku's series, its setting and events always concerned much, much, much more than just Goku, and features a wide cast of characters that has many who are just as valuable. So where would the Freeza Saga leave them off were it to end the whole thing?

Gohan just returns to his studies while waiting for daddy to come back home, his own power and hidden potential never receiving any major payoff. Piccolo is back alive but stays on Earth rather than rejoin his people, leaving him seemingly aimless since he no longer desires to dominate Earth nor does he wish to re-merge with Kami. Vegeta is back alive and on Earth (which, if the Freeza Saga was to be the final saga, would not happen) and now wants to become a Super Saiyan to surpass Goku, Krillin's wished back to life but still hasn't found a girlfriend, and other characters like Bulma, Master Roshi, Kami, King Kai and the rest get absolutely nothing, after having had precious little to work with the whole time in this saga.

Now let's contrast with where things go in the Cell Saga:

GOKU, even after hitting his peak as a Super Saiyan, is presented with three new ideas and developments that actually challenge him. First is the idea that for all his strength and for all the fights he's won, he could end up passing away and unable to save the Earth from a new threat due to a simple heart virus, a disease that does end up attacking him and nearly costing him in the present. Next is the idea that there exists a level of power even beyond a Super Saiyan, which he has to put in a maximum amount of effort to ascent to. And finally, the idea of knowing when to walk out from a fight and pass the baton to someone else he knows can be depended on, in this case, his son Gohan. And even with that last one, how dependable Gohan actually is is called into question more than once, and so it takes Goku sacrificing his own life, dying a second, supposedly permanent death and lending his faith and fighting spirit to Gohan from the afterlife, for the fruits of his labors to be realized. Then, to spare his son any further dangers and fights for the Earth's safety, Goku opts to stay dead, leaving everything in the hands of the next generation from his son on down. To me, that's the most ideal end to Goku as the hero, and it would've sent him off with more dignity and heart than later entries like GT and Super would allow him.

GOHAN not only becomes a Super Saiyan himself, but his hidden potential is fully realized when he is the first to make the full, proper ascendence from Super Saiyan into a Super Saiyan 2. When his dad gives up his life to save everyone from something that was partially Gohan's own fault, it humbles him and almost breaks his resolve to fight back and protect the Earth from destruction at Cell's hands, but with encouragement from his father's spirit, he is able to, with only one functional hand, launch a Kamehameha Wave to counter and overpower Cell's, ultimately destroying the malevolent lifeform. It truly felt like a passing of the torch moment, so that even if Dragon Ball proper ended here, Gohan would be set to be the first new main protagonist in any future sequel and spin-off installments.

PICCOLO is finally able to recognize that in order to combat a threat to the world he's come to love as his home and protect the people he now cares for, he needs to re-merge with the Namekian his original self had split off from, Kami Sama. We were first introduced to Kami and Piccolo as two halves of what used to be a whole Namekian, so how poetic is it that Piccolo's arc be completed with him returning to Kami and Kami agreeing to give up his own existence to make Piccolo a whole Namekian once again? And Piccolo tellingly never got much in the way of character development following this saga.

VEGETA is able to become a Super Saiyan, then he becomes an Ascended Super Saiyan, he has a son with Bulma who even has a version of him who time traveled from the future playing a big part in this story, he shows he's able to care about others and fight in the Earth's defense in spite of remaining unrepentantly evil and prideful for most of the saga, and he gets a big redemptive moment at the very end before resigning himself to retire from a life of combat. Yes, he still has a lot more character growth and strides towards full rehabilitation of his character still to go, but for the initial Dragon Ball story, this still would've been a fitting place to end his character arc.

KRILLIN, from the start, got into martial arts partially to impress the ladies and get himself a girlfriend, but for years he was never able to find love. In this saga, he finally does. He and Android 18 don't quite make Official Couple status by the end, but he clearly loves her enough to think of her needs ahead of his own wants, and she's become pretty tsundere for him to, so the implication is still there.

MASTER ROSHI gets a small moment of reflection at one point here, about how he used to be considered the world's strongest man but now he's old, not of much use, and watching the current generation of fighters AND the generation after it leaving him behind, tying into the theme of torch-passing from the past to the future.

BULMA & CAPSULE CORP have a hugely pivotal part to play here, as Bulma is the mother of Trunks, the child she had with Vegeta, and played the Sarah Connor role to Future Trunks in the timeline he hails from. Her company's services and technology are also constantly used, all hands on deck from start to finish, right down to fixing up Android 16 (and removing the bomb inside him, regrettably so). Even the very final scenes of the saga take place outside Capsule Corp, and I can't stress enough how much sense it makes that Trunks exists and takes things in this direction. The series literally all began with Goku and Bulma, so now it (almost) ends with their offsprings - Goku's son mentoring Bulma's son in the future but dying in that world where Trunks eventually ends up killing Cell, and then Bulma's son allying with Goku's son in the present but he dies in that world where Gohan ends up killing Cell (though unlike Future Gohan, he gets wished back to life). It's poetry, it rhymes, it's perfect!

TIEN, after getting a bad deal in the Vegeta Saga and then being all but ignored, gets to have one last big moment where he stands up to Semi-Perfect Cell and hammers him with Tri Beam attacks over and over again so that Androids 16 and 18 can flee, almost losing his life in the process. It's a fittingly badass and noble deed from the guy.

KING KAI, having lost his relevance after the Freeza Saga, returns for the third act of this one...and he ends up dying for it when Goku transports himself and the self-destructing Cell to his home world!

The SUPER SAIYAN transformation peaked here. Goku, Vegeta, Gohan, and Future Trunks are the limit to how many Super Saiyans we needed to see, all of them end up ascending to a higher level of the form, and only one attains the Super Saiyan 2 form in the end. It made sense, did not feel too cheap or inorganic, and was used in moderation and applied to the right characters in the right situations. Post-Cell Saga is when these transformations got out of hand.

The VILLAINS in this saga tied all the way back to the first real "Big Bad" villain(s) in Dragon Ball, the Red Ribbon Army. That alone was enough to give off a "full circle" feeling, but the obvious problem was that 5 different evil androids still just were not convincingly as great and worthy villains as a single Freeza had been. So we got the curveball of the saga's actual Big Bad, Cell, an artificially engineered lifeform made from the cells of all the strongest, most major fighters seen in the series up to this point, Freeza included, knowing all of their techniques, exhibiting many of their traits, and having a unique character progression that made him feel like the worst of all the past villains put together. His very existence marks this saga as the grand crescendo of everything Dragon Ball had been building itself up as during this time, his concept practically screaming that this is a "final boss"-worthy villain if there ever was one. And the final face-off with him did not disappoint of underwhelm, being grand enough to put Goku VS Freeza to shame (and no "longest 5 minutes ever" here!)

The STAKES felt even more personal compared to the preceding sagas. In the previous saga's climax, after everyone was revived and wished off of Namek with the Dragon Balls, the stakes centered entirely around Goku on a distant planet that was already doomed to explode. Whereas here, the stakes are for everyone on Earth, as the villain does not wish to rule over it like Piccolo or to exterminate its life and sell it like the Saiyans, but to blow it up, and in addition we get the threat of him being able to terrorize the rest of the universe so that countless other worlds would meet the same fate! The was more of a need to see this menace stopped than there'd ever been before.

The CALLBACKS that got made to just about all previous ones, right down to resurrecting the World's Martial Arts Tournament concept. Can't even begin to list them all here, but it's just very The Rise of Skywalker-esque in this regard (and it's even the 9th saga, too!)

The ENDING, as I said before, is outside Capsule Corp, and just look how it visually caps off the stories of Trunks and Gohan, and by that extension, of Bulma and Goku:

Those matching faces on Goku and Gohan. Simply beautiful.

Thus the case is made for why the original Dragon Ball ought to have ended at the Cell Saga. And when it did continue into one last saga afterwards, I will never forgive Master Roshi for selling me false hope

Fuck you, old man!

[opal-owl-flight]

Will susie and magolor ever end up as friends after back to zero? I think she probably needs to work on herself as well, along with realizing that obsessively trying to continue her father's legacy isn't the healthiest mindset

She did so much shit. I dont think Mags would ever forgive her. And I wouldnt, either.

She helped destroy an entire planet — an entire people. An entire culture. An entire history. Wiped away from the charts.

And shes still proud of it. She still thinks that what she was doing was right. It very reasonably makes Magolor upset and angry towards her. No one knew how deep it went until Mags started openly talking more about it.

More under the cut about how much of Halcandra was wiped. its…disturbing stuff about the invasion so be warned. (Tldr its colonization and genocide.)

Isnt it odd that there was literally no Halcandrans left? Youd think, that during the Mechanization war, theyd have sent some of their kind away, make sure the species survives. But no. The Haltmanns chased after them. They saw some sort of value from each and ever single one of them…its probably that sleeping magic power that theyve been suppressing/ignoring for generations. The Haltmanns…harvested that power? And then mechanized them. “Improved” them. (I havent finished Robobot, but isnt that what Susie does to Meta?) Set them back on Halcandra to catch more of their kin, harvest resources, and take important relics back to the Access Arc. Which the Haltmanns keep — obviously not out of respect for the culture that made said relics, but for the powers they hold.

Everyone knows Halcandra for its miraculous technology. Thats all that survived of it, after the Haltmanns were done with their invasion (which Susie calls a failure because a certain magician interfered with the plans and blew the planet to smithereens “before it was ready”). Thats the only thing the Haltmanns told about it. The only items that survived the invasion. The culture itself: the arts, the philosophies, the intimate, every day lives of the people, the language…all those intangible things. Gone.

(Theres more about the Ancients regarding these, than the Halcandrans. Its a near-full cultural wipe. The tech and ruins of other settlements can be found scattered all over the galaxy, but most are from a different age. Far from the culture that used to live on the planet itself. And well…most of the planet’s been blown up, and the mechanization process kind of buried many of the culturally important structures; old and new.)

“A shame that such technology was developed by barbarians. Oh well. Our technology was able to surpass theirs. Perhaps we should be the ones remembered for creating miraculous technology, instead of them.”

Its a sentiment that Susie still believes in. She still thinks that everyone is a lower life-form. Kind of like her father. But while her father saw everything as a means to profit, she (does too, but its second to— ) uses the business to “improve lives”. Improve lives according to her standards. She thinks she knows whats best for these lower life-forms. Shes helping them! If only theyd stop fighting back!

Halcandra’s culture survives on the lone mage. And after him, no one will follow. It causes Magolor great pain to think about how hes at the end of an entire race’s lifetime. (He doesnt want to have his own kits. He admits that hes not father material. What he wants are other Halcandrans to continue living the culture hes preserving/living out.)

He sees Popstar and all the other planets…he wishes that the Halcandrans were still around. Theyd enjoy sights like these. The songs that wouldve been made, the tapestries that wouldve been weaved…

It doesnt mean that a culture was heavily remembered for its tech means that thats all they had.

Mags, probably after Back to Zero, would focus on recording and teaching everyone about Halcandra. After…all those threats to his life, hes thinking of legacy. A way to be remembered — not just for him, but his entire culture.

He does not want everyone to forget about Halcandra the way he knows it.

And Susie?

Shes doing everything she can to stop him. Because its seriously ruining her already shaky reputation. Bad for business.

“So finish the job, bitch. I dare you. Point that gun to my head and end it all, right here, right now, if all Im doing is ruining your precious business.

Oh wait. No. Thats not what you did. Heeheehee!

You want Halcandran power? Youre looking at the biggest reservoir on the planet! The only reason I survived was because I was powerful enough to fight back! Go on. Take it. Take it and mechanize my body for your own ends. Let me join my people. Heartless bitch.”

(Man, going to have to mess with the timeline a bit after this. Make Mags old enough to have remembered things before the fall. Maybe Halcandrans age slowly? Kind of like what Meta’s species does?

Note, legends of Halcandra already existed even before the invasion; of its previous ages. The only things told about the “current” Halcandra are told by the Haltmanns. No one knew how it was destroyed until way, way later, with the appearance of Magolor in Dreamland.

Said it in the tags and saying it here too. Probably not going to write this out bc it touches on some really dark and sensitive topics.)

[gch1995]

The Sith genozide shows that the Jedi are just as willing as the Sith to cross very morally questionable lines for their cause KOTOR lore has recently been deemed canon by Lucasfilm (January 2020), so the Jedi’s genocide of the Sith species is therefore canon now

I mean, even if an SW fan knows nothing about the KOTOR video game, which, admittedly, I’ve never played either, everything we see throughout all six movies of the OT and PT saga and TCW pretty much confirms that the old Republic and Jedi Order are willing to cross every reprehensible boundary that they consider to be moral horizon events/deeds in their enemies. The only difference is that they have better PR in the galaxy backed up by the Republic government superpower and put in more effort to be more subtle about their abuse of power than the Sith because they care about being seen as “above it all.”

While Anakin is darker and less empathetic as Darth Vader in his methods, even by comparison to the average Jedi of his time because he’s learned to care less about being seen as a “nice” warrior “for the greater good” of the galaxy on the high of the dark side fueling his anger and his depression, you’ll also notice he’s actually more like the Jedi of his time in terms of how he compartmentalizes his guilt and justifies his crimes with that whole “greater good” and “necessary evil” excuse, rather than the typical chaotic evil Sith who is just evil for shits and giggles like Darth Maul. He falls into the lawful evil category instead.

The Jedi of the old Republic are only somewhat above him in terms of morality after he becomes Darth Vader because they still care about being seen as superficially “nice” to the general public of their recruits and Republic government, in spite of actually being just as ruthless as their enemies when they realize it’s easier to force people into submission to get their way from them “for the greater good” than taking the risk to do the right thing.

Anakin is still a Jedi of the old Order in mindset in the sense that he is convinced by both Sidious (a Sith who knows how the Jedi and Republic members think because he spent a lot of time with them) and himself that committing these crimes out of anger towards those who hurt him or his loved ones, a desire for freedom, fear of the unknown, fear of losing loved ones, and paranoia are serving worthy ends for protection of the Empire, Palpatine, his loved ones, himself, and the galaxy as Darth Vader, but he’s more brutal and less concerned about being subtle by playing nice in his application of that abuse of power over those he victimizes to do it on the high of the dark side, which is more Sith like.

However, in spite of being more subtle about it, I’d argue that most of the Jedi of the old Republic really weren’t that much better than most of their enemies in the Sith race. At least not after they defeated the Sith the first time around.,We spend the entirety of the prequels following the Jedi as they are basically plotting another genocide against the Sith race on their home planets. Yes, you can make a valid point that killing the Sith in self-defense when they attack first is necessary, but plotting to destroy their entire civilizations before and/or without offering them any sort of benefit of the doubt, any sort of opportunity to surrender peacefully, any sort of opportunity for rehabilitation, and any sort of warning ahead of time that they could get out of this if they stopped terrorizing the galaxy is not fair.

That is really fucked up, and we get no indication throughout the movies that the “peacekeeping” Jedi ever even considered any less violent and lethal alternatives to dealing with the Sith when their army attacked than immediate execution of them all

You’d think that at least Yoda would try to talk to the Republic Senate to find a more peaceful way to deal with the Sith. You’d think he’d consider trying to negotiate with them. He’s been alive the longest to have an idea of what the Jedi was like before the Sith. But no…He still thinks that mass murdering them is the answer.

It’s the same moral issue that U.S. government created when they decided to drop two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki Japan in WWII completely out of the blue in the 1940s, killing and/or injuring millions in the process, so they could force their army to surrender without offering them any sort of warning ahead of time or better options than this mass destruction of lives to the citizens of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

It’s the same moral issue that Palpatine and Dooku created when they plotted a genocide of the Jedi Order/Republic without any sort of warning.

Yeah, I know the Sith culture is deeply fucked up and violent on the whole, but they are still sentient beings. The children on their planets are still going to be innocents. They deserved to know they could have had an option to atone for their crimes, be rehabilitated, reform, or surrender peacefully. The innocent civilians kids didn’t deserve to have their lives taken from them as collateral damage of the Jedi’s elimination of the Sith.

For “peacekeepers,” the Jedi of the prequels before Luke don’t really seem to be too interested in taking the necessary risks and steps to create it by being brave enough to offer any sort of compassion, patience, or understanding for those who oppose them before going straight to murder as the answer. Anakin, Obi-Wan, and many of the other Jedi of the prequels develop a very similar mindset after being recruited, not just because their government is under the control of the Sith Lord in disguise, but because of how deeply dysfunctional the Jedi system was being run/implemented. They weren’t taught how to be normally functioning independent adults with a healthy sense of security, self-confidence, self-worth in their own personal agency and personal beliefs, how to have healthy relationships, or how to think critically. They were actively cut off, discouraged, and forbidden from having any sort of personal independence, personal hobbies, interests, relationships, occupations, or lives of their own outside of the Jedi Order because Yoda was too afraid of losing control over them and potentially facing the dark side by allowing them normal freedoms, relationships, and agency.

Anakin, Obi-Wan, Yoda, and many of the other Jedi of the prequels were taught to use an exceedingly hostile and paranoid black-and-white us vs them mentality in the Republic/Jedi Order and the Empire/Sith in regards to enemies, outsiders, and potential threats to the “greater good” of the causes they served, the safety of themselves or those they were loyal to within that cause, and their critical thinking skills, open-mindedness, and self-awareness diminished as a result.

When you can’t fathom the possibility of even trying to take the risk to use peaceful non-violent alternatives to dealing with enemies by allowing them the chance to a fair trial, hearing them out, giving them a chance to surrender, giving them a chance to atone, then that’s a serious problem that often ends up perpetuating a cycle of fear-driven systematic abuse, crime, distrust, resentment, and oppression more than necessary, rather than breaking it. You can’t really break a cycle of systematic abuse, crime, distrust, and oppression by enabling and perpetuating it whenever it’s safer than taking a risk to stand up for what’s right, especially when you go around calling yourself a “peacekeeper.”

That was Anakin’s, Obi-Wan’s, Yoda’s, Qui Gonn’s, and the majority of the rest of prequel era Jedi Order’s biggest personal moral failing. They became so afraid of facing conflict and opposition under these corrupt cult-like institutions and governments under these shitty circumstances that they ended up becoming willing enablers and perpetrators of the very same crimes they sought to destroy to fit in under pressure to try to remain safe at all costs because it was easier than taking a risk to be vulnerable that was required to ultimately be able to do better.

No, it’s not just their faults they ended up growing up to be that way. The Jedi Order and Sidious were abusive, manipulative, and isolating systems that seriously compromised their agency to be able to feel reasonably safe doing better through finding better escape and healthy support. The government they worked for was corrupt. Anakin seemed to develop C-PTSD, BPD, ADHD, and substance abuse symptoms that never got properly treated. The Sith army definitely did strike against the Jedi first a millenia ago, and most of them were very corrupt. However, Anakin, Obi-Wan, Yoda, and the other Jedi of the old Republic did still have enough sense to be able to understand what was objectively right versus wrong. They had consciences, and not every crime they committed were things they were coerced into doing by the Republic, Sidious, and the Jedi Council. They developed personally selfish and vindictive streaks, too. They eventually did stop trying after some time, so I can’t just pretend they’re wholly innocent either.

The biggest take away from Star Wars OT and PT sagas is how easy it can be for the fear under systematic abuse, crime, enemies, warfare, and oppression to destroy both yourself and others around you when you don’t deal with it healthily by taking the risk to be emotionally vulnerable and open, and instead continue the cycle of abusing power to try to deny, take control of, and/or eliminate those people and/or things that cause you fear instead.

If you guys want to comment, you can.

@tragicfantasy-girl

@yoghurtconsumer

@wingletblackbird

@mynameisanakin

@fanfic-lover-girl

@fanfictasia

[intrepidradish]

Tldr: John Crichton saved Scorpius's life

Spoilers for the end of Farscape and the Peacekeeper Wars

I always feel like my meta is shit, and proves I'm obsessive, but here you go.

Let's talk about Scorpius's revenge. At the start of the show, he's working for the Peacekeepers to find a way to slaughter all Scarrans. He has decided that the best way to do this is using wormhole tech. He then meets John, and he realizes he needs John to succeed in his ultimate goal, genocide.

However, he doesn't really achieve genocide. Instead he achieves a peace treaty. The Scarrans live. They don't suffer, and they have a brighter, less cruel future with the Eidolons. He seems content with this outcome, but how does it satisfy his hunger for revenge?

The Scarrans aren't punished.

Let's rewind a little. That article recently about Harvey and John Crichton's trauma got me thinking. Yes John is new to trauma but you know who isn't ... Scorpius. He's trauma incarnate. He has so much unprocessed trauma. His idea of processing what happened to him is work for years, possibly decades, possibly centuries(???) to murder an entire alien race.

Which, if you know the tropes about revenge arcs, will be ultimately unsatisfying. Murdering people doesn't heal the murderer even if they deserve it (and I'd like to point out that the entire Scarran race doesn't deserve it. They even showed us a nice scarran in the show. Farscape is too morally gray to make an entire race evil. It goes against the themes.)

Scorpius is a logical guy but he's got many many things against him. He tends to think in absolutes (*gestures to the genocide*) When he gets impatient, people suffer and often die (*gestures to Aeryn's death and the 10000 slaves*). He is woefully bad at recognizing his emotions outside of which ones make his body heat up and cause physical pain (*gestures to all the time he gets angry and then feels bad about later.*)

And his solution to his trauma is murdering the Scarrans. He is inflexible in this and that is absolutely batshit crazy delusional.

Crichton sees that. Whereas other people want to (ab)use that to its logical end, more accumulated power for themselves.

Let's play a game, imagine Scorpius successfully gained access to the wormhole weapon without John. He would use it. Destroy the Scarrans and then... probably kill himself.

If you're looking at me like wtf? Hear me out.

Who really killed his mother? Scorpius did. Rape didn't kill her. Rape made her go crazy. But giving birth to Scorpius is what ultimately killed her. If Scorpius followed through with killing all the Scarrans, the only person left to punish would be himself. He wouldn't have found another solution. He wouldn't have come to terms with anything but violence and hatred, I think ultimately would lead him into suicide or at least extreme risk taking behavior. Poetically, he'd probably die from the wormhole weapon. Nice and neat. Everyone that's guilty dead at once. Maybe the rest of the universe would go too. Simple.

The fact that John was so headstrong about Scorpius's fucking crazy plan gave Scorpius several moments of pause. After all no one else was going to stop him. His plan benefited them too much!

I don't know where Scorpius started to wake up to the idea maybe he didn't want to kill everyone. We don't get a lot of insight into his thought process. I'd like to think something changed before he went looking for Aeryn, his boarding ticket for getting on Moya in Season 4. That would be after being "killed" by Grayza and buried in a ditch. Maybe he did some self reflection for once. Maybe he soured on the Peacekeepers a little. Maybe he took a look at his own fragile morality and thought 'This isn't the peace I'm looking for.'

Because on Moya, suddenly he's fine with any solution to the Scarran problem and it's less about his revenge and more about the galaxy's safety. He's also trying to appeal to John's human morality (a foreign concept for him). He's still a manipulative bastard. But he came around to this altered plan, didn't he?

Peace with his enemies. Not death .

John helped him consider alternatives. Scorpius found peace regarding his mother's death and gets to live now. How's that for some healed trauma!

[aikoiya]

LoZ: OoT - What I Think Happened in the Child Timeline

I see a couple people getting up in arms over the King of Hyrule having executed Ganon just because a couple kids told him to.

And, honestly, I don't think that's what happened. At least, I hope it wasn't.

I think that it's more likely that Link's presence likely just convinced the King to have Impa investigate Ganon. Not because he believed either of them like, "oh, this little green-clad kid with a fairy says my daughter is right, therefore it must be." Because what kind of lunatic would think that? It's more likely that he had Impa investigate Ganondorf just to reassure his daughter & his new friend or, alternatively, to get them to be quiet. Depends on what kinda dad we wanna depict him as.

He wasn't expecting Impa to actually turn up real evidence of a plan for an actual coup!

Which is another thing, the Gerudo actually were planning to take over Hyrule. Hyrule Castle Town was destroyed, the king was dead. They took over. This wasn't some kid being racist because if it was, then Ganondorf wouldn't have attacked!

It's also unlikely that the king would let the fact that it was a couple kids who brought this to his attention out, as if he did, it'd paint a massive target on his daughter's back.

It's also extremely unlikely that Ganondorf was captured there at the castle. More than likely, he escaped then there was an all-out war between the Gerudo & Hyrule, which would've inevitably ended badly for the Gerudo. The reason being that the Gerudo didn't have as many people or as many resources as Hyrule, which is likely why Ganondorf elected to try to conquer Hyrule by means of subterfuge first.

Like, yes, Ganondorf's methods during the actual game were indeed effective, but that's only because he caught his enemies by surprise & struck strategically.

I just don't see this Ganondorf winning in an all-out war.

---

I also see fans upset at Hyrule having committed mass genocide & having taken over their temple to turn it into a prison.

For the genocide theorists, that obviously isn't the case as, judging by the Child Timeline, which is the same timeline as Twilight Princess, the Gerudo were actually exiled from Hyrule as per Four Swords Adventure. It's likely that only the Gerudo who actively followed Ganondorf wishing to take over Hyrule were executed.

I have no excuses for Hyrule turning the Temple of Spirit into a prison. I won't even attempt to.

However, I feel like execution of the terrorists while the rest of the actual thieves were simply banished, was actually a pretty fair sentence.

After all, Hyrule could've actually had the whole of the Gerudo people executed or even absorbed the Gerudo entirely & it wouldn't have been anything unusual for a kingdom in the medieval time period to do. Back then, conquest was just the way of the world & wasn't really seen as wrong. So, this would've just been an example of a failed colonization attempt.

---

In a lot of ways, I think OoT Ganondorf brought his people's near destruction upon himself.

The fact of the matter is, he & his people were invited to the castle, even got a meeting with the king. This means that, in one way or another, the Hyrule King was willing to give the Gerudo the benefit of the doubt despite being a race of thieves that likely gave his kingdom issues.

If he'd tried, Ganondorf, as Gerudo King, could've actually gotten a legit alliance out of this & his people could've prospered, but his thirst for power & control ended up nearly dooming his people.

---

I also see a lot of people get up in arms over the Gerudo being a "marginalized group" & looked down on by the inhabitants of Hyrule & "they only stole because they live in a desert wasteland with no resources"... & I just don't think they were paying attention. For one, the Gerudo were thieves, like, actual thieves & have likely been stealing from Hyrule for a good long time. It's also very highly possible that they've killed Hyruleans in their raids. So, my question is, why would Hyruleans have any reason not to think badly of them?

As for them needing to steal to survive. Ya'll, regular-ass humans have been able to survive & even thrive in deserts for thousands of years without need to steal to do so & you're telling me that these beefy warrior women who are somehow able to wear silk bikini tops in full desert sun, can't figure out how to do so themselves?? Tell me you think the Gerudo are stupid & inept without telling you think the Gerudo are stupid & inept.

Also keep in mind that the Gerudo are implied to not actually be native to Hyrule. My evidence being that the only hint of them we got in Skyward Sword was the name of a dragonfly. The desert wasn't even named Gerudo at the time of the game, it was named Lanayru & it's shown that 1,000 years beforehand, the desert was an ocean also by the name of Lanayru.

If the Gerudo actually are native to that desert, then they came to be after Skyward Sword, meaning that the Hylians, who are implied to be legitimately native to Hyrule, were still there first as they had been on the Surface before Demise's sealing.

As such, when Ganondorf took over Hyrule, he was the colonizer & the Hyruleans were the marginalized group.

Just because the Hyruleans are depicted as white & the Gerudo have certain qualities in common with either Africans or Middle Easterners, doesn't mean that the Gerudo are the poor unfortunate oppressed class & the Hyruleans are the evil racist plantation owners.

Hyrule didn't even seem to have plantations. The closest thing they had was a ranch & that was entirely manned by Hyruleans.

Just... please don't superimpose real world race dynamics onto the peoples in fantasy games...

LoZ Cultural Masterlist

[loopy777]

So another couple of meta questions for your opinion for my Sauron goes west AU.

I've gone over my plans for the Elves in this AU, Where the magic never really faded, if not exactly regained the shine it had in the previous ages, but what of Tolkien's other races?

The ents would obviously would survive in a world withouth sauron and his genocidal campaigns against the entwives, but that atill leaves Dwarfs and Orcs.

Now we don't exactly know why Dwarfs went extinct sometime between the fourth age, and the beginning of recorded history, but tolkien was very clear that they did. With that in mind, was their final end a result of declining magic in the world? Or just terrible luck with the misty mountains sinking into the sea, and they didn't manage to survive elsewhere in the long term?

Now with a more stable, flat world, the Misty mountains would not fall into the sea as tolkien noted it was beginning to do as the fourth age began, so do you think this would in the long terms save the species as a whole?

Personally i think durin's bane would still drive them from Moria, Smaug would still be a terrible danger to any lonely mountain colony, and while sauron might not be around, the great evil empire that would take his place(An imperialistic, if not human sacrificing Numenor) would still affect them severely.

On the other hand, without a dark Lord to drive them, would the Orcs ever manage to dislodge the Dwarfs from their other big kingdom in the Misty mountains, Gundabad?

Not to mention that without sauron, i don't really see the Dwarf kingdoms in in proto africa and asia failing. And of course there's the dwarfs in the Blue mountains, which lies closest to the great eleven realm in western middle earth, and thus be filthy, filthy rich through trade.

But what do you think?

And as for the Orcs, i imagine that without any dark lords to force them into unity, they would exist as lesser, petty kingdoms and realms, ruled over by local strongmen in the wilder parts of the world.

Probably in constant conflict with their neighbors.

I don't really see any shot at true redemption from within, so if there would be any hope for them as a species beyond continuing to be evil, or eventual extinction, i can only see two possibilities.

Firstly they could be conquered by force of arms by an emerging empire of man, forced into becoming vassals, and send their men to fight for them war, their children taking the customs of their overlords over time, and eventually becoming a part of that empire's overall culture in some way(Think the way Rome Romanized the people they conquered).

Alternatively, i imagine if they manage to hold on until the coming of the messiah(Which will take place 4000 years after the end of the point in the timeline where Sauron was defeated in LOTR), I imagine the power of christ(Or whatever the son of man would be named in this timeline) dying for the worlds collected sins, would probably serve as some sort of catalyst for a grand change in a race defined by the sins that infused them with evil.

Honestly, the fact that Tolkien were clearly meant for Eru to be the judeo-christian god, and was going to have christ eventual coming be an in universe prophecy at some point, complicates this timeline a lot, but that is a way bogger topic for another ask.

Regardless, i would love to hear your takes on the Orcs. Do you agree with mine? Disagree? Mayhapd you think a dark lord to lead them would rise regardless in some kind of form even withouth sauron or another maia to be the one?

For the Dwarves, I recall an aside from 'The Hobbit' that Hobbits are still around but never/rarely seen by people because they hide from us and our clumsy ways. Adhering too strictly to stuff from 'The Hobbit' can clash with LotR and the associated prequels/lore, but to me that says magic doesn't entirely disappear from the world, it just retreats from human areas of dominion, and it's enough to maintain a non-human species. So from that, I'd extrapolate that Dwarves could have theoretically survived, and I'd go with the idea of various disasters and their impacts being the culprit behind the extinction. I'm not knowledgeable enough of Tolkien lore to pin it to a specific sequence, but your idea of making the loss of the Misty Mountains the fulcrum works for me.

I agree that we can probably blame the rise of a Dark Lord or other Morgoth-related force for the major losses of Dwarven strongholds to orc attacks. Granted, we don't have a lot of examples, but by my recollection, we never see orcs actually drive Dwarves out of their cities, it's always a Balrog or a dragon or something that can overwhelm the usual fortress-like defenses, and then orcs come along to help out or afterward. Even the Dwarves couldn't take back Moira on their own through battle, despite being better warriors than orcs, so I think their cities are just that good at repelling invaders.

You raise an interesting point about humans becoming the orcs' overlords, but I'm not sure I'd relegate them merely to vassals who eventually become ugly Lite Humans. Again, going back to 'The Hobbit' and the quote about goblin engineering ability:

"They make no beautiful things, but the make many clever ones. hey can tunnel and mine as well as any but the most skilled dwarves, when they take the trouble, though they are usually untidy and dirty. Hammers, axes, swords, daggers, pickaxes, tongs, and also instruments of torture, they make very well, or get other people to make to their design, prisoners and slaves that have to work till they die for want of air and light. It is not unlikely that they invented some of the machines that have since troubled the world, especially the ingenious devices for killing large numbers of people at once, for wheels and engines and explosions always delighted them, and also not working with their own hands more than they could help; but in those days and those wild parts they had not advanced (as it is called) so far."

I can see them being conquered by the Numenor Empire or whatever, becoming vassals, but then taking human science and technology and- well, maybe not improving it, but are the driving force behind an industrialization that makes them into something like a partner nation. An orc nation can rise where the primary employment is in factories that supply human nations. Those orc nations might even become hotbeds of research and development, overseen by human leaders, where the nasty work of breaking scientific barriers can be out of sight and out of mind of most of humanity. Perhaps orc mercenary companies also become a major way of waging war. (Am I making Numenor too much like America? XD)

As far as Jesus's involvement, I like how the published version of The Silmarillion handles all the religious stuff by saying "that's not part of our history and it's all mysterious to us." Of course, the Silmarillion is meant to be Elvish history, so that makes sense, but I lean towards continuing the spirit and saying that the whole "Son of Man" thing Jesus has going means the whole thing is humanity-oriented. So orcs wouldn't be included since they're either corrupted Elves or something else.

But, on the other hand, if orcs become a conquered sub-nation to humanity, maybe they would get dragged into an opportunity for salvation?

Story-wise, if I was going to do a redemption of the orcs, I'd want to link things back up with the Elves, taking them back to the beginning and their uncorrupted state. Perhaps the coming of Jesus eventually cuts the orcs off from the humans, leading to something involving the Elves?

(Now there's a sentence I never expected to type. XD)

[walkfromhome]

Lyran Wars and Humanity’s Genetic Origins

1. It may be hard to fathom that in this moment in the metaphysical realms we are re-living the seed of the first wars of the Anti-Christ that began in Lyra. This takes us into our true Galactic history where this war further spread into the Orion constellation, when divine humans were seeded upon our first home world, 5D Tara.  There were those that were so terrorized by the pure eternal light of the forces of Love we carried in our crystal heart, that in fear they tried to eliminate us from ever incarnating again into this Universe. We are again at that same juncture in time where we have to make a decision moving forward into the next cycle of evolution, to learn from and move beyond our past history. We must call upon our true humanity, the power of our eternal sacred crystal hearts, and put all of our best efforts upon the altar of serving humanity, God and spirit. We stand at the precipice of great transformation and positive change in the possibility of making choices that integrate great forces of spiritual healing, health and harmony into our world, in order to end the great Galactic War cycles that began in Lyra, from continually repeating the same destructive events of human genocidal agendas and planetary cataclysms, once and for all.

During these critical events happening on the earth now that have opened access into previous timelines, we are going back in time to observe humanity’s original seeding and genetic ascendancy that is sourced directly from the Cradle of Lyra and the Lyrans. Through trans-time connection, if we can do our part to stay out of fear and continually choose love and peace, we can create a link through time in which our present timeline can phase lock into the future timeline of the Christos realignment where spiritual freedom and human freedom have already manifested. These destructive events of human genocidal campaigns and holocaust which have haunted our race for millions of years in the Galactic history will lose their power over our future destiny and will cease to manifest in this present time.

The Lyran Wars are the very first seed of anti-Christ conflict recorded in the Universal Time Matrix, in which the black hole entities intended to conquer the entire Milky Way system. This resulted in the first Galactic war intended as a rebellion over the Lyrans creation of the 12D Christos template human seedings that first began on Planet Tara. This is the original timeline in the Solar Logos Avatar Matrix where the first electronic wars and time rips were used as a genocidal campaign for committing the first Christos human holocaust when the neighboring black hole entities attacked the Royal Houses and destroyed the Lyran Gates in order to sever the Milky Way matrix from its Mother Universe, Andromeda.

The aftermath of the destruction caused by the Lyran Wars resulted in the Milky Way time matrix digressing into a Fallen Universe, in which these original Lyran coded fragments were used to form the Phantom Matrix and the Base 10 Artificial Tree of Life, that essentially became the new home for the invading forces of the NAA. After the destruction of the Lyran 12th Stargate and Lyra-Aramatena, the Emerald Order Lyran-Elohim-Feline races were appointed to serve as the primary Universal security team to repair the timeline architecture, but also to carry out the reclamation of the Christos mission and assist the many other fallen races in order to be able to continue a path of evolution to Ascension. These fallen races have been partially or fully assimilated into AI programs, black hole technology that was historically used both as a technological weapon to enslave other living matrices, and to pull them into phantom matrices where those captured would be consumed and eaten. The point of AI infection of this black hole technology ripping holes into our matrix and infecting our system began during the Lyran Wars, which was also intended to stop the seeding of Founder and Christos races.

The first lineages of the main original Lyran-Elohim-Feline humanoid races were also called the Anuhazi of the Emerald Order. The Anuhazi embodied as the liquid light biological forms of the original Christos races in this Universe existing in the Solar Logos fields of Lyra-Aramatena and are the Founder emanations that embodied the architecture of the Cosmic Sovereign Law of One, which includes the ancient builder templates of God creator code. The Lyran-Elohim-Felines were supervising the Sirians to host the seeding of 12 Strand DNA genetics on the 5D planet Tara for Christos race embodiment. After the Fall of Tara, the Anuhazi down stepped themselves into the lower dimensions through the Azurites and Oraphim 24-48 DNA strand template to create the Interdimensional Free World Councils. This was to protect and embody in the Universal Stargate locations to repair AI damage, and to reassemble and protect the Royal House of Lyra’s original genetic library which was the source code design for Christos forms.

2. The Trinity of the Emerald Order, Gold Order and Amethyst Order incarnations that were seeded in the fourth Harmonic Universe in the Lyran Matrix are known as the Royal Houses.

The Emerald Order of Elohim seeded the Anuhazi Feline Elohim races through the Lyran 12th Stargate, Aramatena. They are also known as the direct founders of the Christos races, the Eieyani-Essene Grail lines that include the Oraphim.

The second light manifestation of the Gold Order are the Gold Ray orders of Seraphim, Cerez Avian bird people and Aeithan lines that are the Solar Rishi which incarnated in the fourth harmonic universe on Lyra-Vega through the 10th Universal Stargate.

The third light manifestation of the Amethyst Order are Violet Ray orders comprised of Cetacean, Avian Pegasus people, and aquatic Braharama seeded in the fourth harmonic universe on Lyra-Aveyon through Universal Stargate 11.

The Royal Houses collected advanced genetics from many metaterrestrial Founder races which were used to generate the original eternal light diamond sun body held in the Christos template. During the Fall of Lyra these Royal House genetic records were placed in the Emerald Founder Records and hidden in and out of time. Early on, these were recorded on holographic plates and taken to be stored in Sirius B, which became the hall of records repository for holding the historical timelines and genetic records of the root races seeded on Earth, Tara and Gaia. Human being’s DNA records and genetic ascendancy lineages hold the accurate historical timeline records for the entire Universal system. This means that original human DNA template records hold the actual and true events in the history of all timelines that exist in the entire Universal Time Matrix.

When a Christos architect can retrieve original divine human 12 Strand DNA pieces that have fragmented from trauma or can read a human body at the DNA level, the architect can read the energy signatures of the timelines from within the DNA record, which reflect the true and organic history of the planet, Solar system and Universal matrix. Each individually incarnated human being holds a specific and special DNA record of the timelines from their soul extensions and monadic family, which should lead them directly back to the Royal Houses of Lyra. The NAA have intentionally fractured human souls with SRA methods with the intent to override and alter these histories, with holographic inserts and AI technology attached through inflicting trauma and lightbody damage and that process is what inserts an inorganic AI record. This is a strategy used in alien hybridization and genetic modification, in which the human being has no awareness of their original genetic ascendancy and Lyran history. However, Christos Starseed architects can learn to sense the difference between organic records and inorganic records, and this is also directly a part of the timeline wars as the NAA do not want us to see what really happened in the timelines. Remember they have stolen our memories and mind wiped us on the earth to make us forget who we really are. They want us to believe we have been abandoned on earth or are the product of Annunaki, Yahweh or other supposed False Alien Gods. As more humans awaken to activate their inner Christos template, some will be able to perform this function. This is also why those of us on this path can be harassed and attacked to prevent us from realizing this is our purpose and mission, to help recover original memories and help ascend or transit humanity.

Because the divine human genetic origins are sourced from the Royal Houses of Lyra, our original diamond sun genetic template and physical body is referred to as being “Royal”, which means that in the angelic human DNA the record exists that we are connected to the Founders or Gods of this system via our genetics. This has made humans the secret enemy of those hidden entities in the NAA who covet and desire our DNA and the use of our physical bodies.  Instead, the nonhuman imposters stole our identity when they invaded and then promptly made themselves the Gods and rulers of this system.

The Royal Houses were constructed upon three white holes in the core of three prematter planetoids in the Cradle of Lyra that reflected the Solar Logos Body of the 12D Lyran Sun from the combined unified threefold flames of the Cosmic Trinity. These were liquid light prematter forms in a spherical domain, which in its entirety held the architecture for the Solar Logos and the living matrices for the Christ mind, Buddha mind and Avatar mind. When aspects of the Cosmic Trinity passed through the white hole, the unified consciousness was broken down into the lower dimensional vibratory frequencies which make up each dimensional spectrum. Each dimensional frequency band had originally experienced itself as fully unified with Source and whole, and this process created a different point of consciousness awareness located in another spectrum of frequency.

Within the dimensional spectrums of frequency were the building blocks of creation, the positive polarity, the negative polarity and the integration point back into neutral, which generates the zero point. When a consciousness chooses to learn and grow by being aware of the existence of both polarities, they will organically evolve and grow towards integration, achieving inner energetic balance with the zero point. This is the path of consciousness expansion and personal growth which ultimately leads to integrated spiritual ascension. Because this is the primary design of the time matrix and our personal DNA template, the path of polarity integration supersedes artificial intelligence signals and inorganic machinery, and renders it ineffective against its living target. It is the lower polarities that exist in the negative ego structure that are attuned to the mind control of AI signals, and when uncorrected, lead to the proliferation of reversal polarity currents.

Additionally, the goal of creating multiple stations of identity was to experience evolutionary themes throughout time and space from the perspective of many points of consciousness located throughout the dimensional spectrum, that would eventually return back to integrate all aspects into wholeness at the end of the time cycle. The way back home is polarity integration which returns us back into zero point and wholeness, which happens much faster at the end of Ascension Cycles.

The most powerful Universal Gates in our system which relate to controlling the operational functions in our time matrix are those located in the Cradle of Lyra; 12D Aramatena, 11D Aveyon, and 10D Vega, along with the 8D Orion Gates.  The Lyran gates were destroyed during the Lyran Wars, which destroyed the architecture for the Solar Logos Christ Body in this Universal system, and then the black hole entities went to Orion in order to secure the 8D Metagalactic core as a military base and AI command control center for themselves.

3. The most powerful Universal Gates in our system which relate to controlling the operational functions in our time matrix are those located in the Cradle of Lyra; 12D Aramatena, 11D Aveyon, and 10D Vega, along with the 8D Orion Gates.  The Lyran gates were destroyed during the Lyran Wars, which destroyed the architecture for the Solar Logos Christ Body in this Universal system, and then the black hole entities went to Orion in order to secure the 8D Metagalactic core as a military base and AI command control center for themselves.

4. The Founder groups involved in this Christos blueprint seeding and ongoing DNA rehabilitation are called the Lyran-Sirian High Councils, which are down stepped emanations of the original Cosmic Trinity of the Milky Way system. The Emerald Order lines are the Founders of the Interdimensional Free World Councils, as the result of the Paliadorian Covenant to ensure that all souls lost in the Phantom Matrix as the result of the Fall of Lyra, that led to the Fall of Tara, are eventually recovered and returned back to the God Source.

The Sirian High Council serves as the administrative body for the Interdimensional Free World Councils (IFWC) Task Force to maintain freedom based evolutionary agreements and agendas between all Star Nations. These Krystal Star Guardian Groups are from the God Worlds and oppose deception, mind control and slavery of all life forms, and thus protect spiritual freedom. Recently, the planet has received changes in appointing more Guardian Defenders and Krystic facilitators from the IFWC at every dimensional level of access. They are responsible for the recovery platform, which services the rehabilitation and education towards Service to Others, and teaches basic Ascension mechanics. There is Cosmic Law being carried out in this system in several tribunal councils that answer to the IFWC, through the witnessing of the actual events in DNA records of those with the intention to be complicit with or commit genocide of humanity, that is actually being organized now upon multiple planes of reality.

5. The aftermath of the destruction caused by the Lyran Wars resulted in extreme damage to the timeline architecture during the phase that the consciousness families had already begun their descent into the lower densities, that were gradually blending with the AI signals and corrupting the blueprints. After the destruction of the Lyran 12th Stargate and Lyra-Aramatena, the Emerald Order Lyran-Elohim-Feline races were appointed to serve as the primary Universal security team to help repair the timeline architecture and eradicate the AI infection through multiple evolutionary rounds.  They also carry out the reclamation of the Christos mission and assist the fallen races infected with AI in order to be able to choose to continue a path of evolution towards rehabilitation and Ascension.

6. The Guardian Alliance is directed by the Elohim Emerald Order Breneau who support the Guardians incarnated on the earth that are connected to the lineages of the Christos Founder Races. These are Starseeds and Indigos that have incarnated specifically to restore the Emerald Covenant, or reclamation of the Christos. The Emerald Breneau Founders specifically incarnate into the Lyran-Sirian lines that originate from Sirius B, as the blue Azurites and Oraphim. The Christos Founder Races mission includes supporting the pathway of disclosure that leads into planetary liberation and Ascension, and providing the records for witness testimony on behalf of the earth and humanity to be freed from their AI alien oppressors and to gain access into the Interdimensional Free World Council.

It is important to be aware of the fact that for many years, the Emerald Order Guardians were being replicated in an extensive AI hologram network that was used to trick or subvert Indigos, Starseeds and Christos people from awakening and preventing them from actualizing their heroic probability or Christos mission. Many reconnaissance and repair projects purposed to dismantle these inorganic structures with AI timelines, were found strewn in phantom pockets and hibernation zones. Both AI holograms used to project Christos DNA creator code into false timelines and false holograms that used usurped Emerald Order DNA, appeared to be first stolen during the Thothian (TEE) hijack that led to the Essene massacre and breeding programs for alien hybridization on Nibiru. These are the stolen records which were in the Emerald Tablets that held the codices for deconstructing all the information recorded in Emerald Sun DNA, specific to planetary staff and permanent seed atom schematics in all of the four planetary rounds making up the Universal Tribal shield.

This has been an ongoing journey to identify these extensive AI projections used as imposters of the Emerald Order that were communicating with earth humans via false channelings or image projections. The Emerald Order recon mission reached a crescendo in obtaining access to quantum supercomputers used to upload Emerald Order DNA code that is then projected into computer servers and transmitted through AI signals, that which was used to create AI Emerald Order DNA structures throughout the matrix. Guardian teams recovered a massive amount of AI hardware, in terms of the alien machinery used to power up these AI holograms, that were running artificial Emerald Guardian holograms and Emerald Order DNA code projections. This was used to attempt overrides on all organic Emerald Order coding, perverting the architecture into the Thothian coded gestalts that are designed to control all of these AI distortions. Thoth was uploaded into an AI brain, so this is not the actual original Luciferic being, but the AI version of himself uploaded and downloaded all over the fabric of the Universal Time Matrix.

7. During the Lyran Wars, the destruction created rips and tears in the fabric of space-time generating severe damage in the time matrix which further resulted in an unnatural black hole system, which appears to have made our fallen time matrix easily susceptible to this mass AI infection.  The unnatural black hole was exploited by the NAA to build their artificial realities into the phantom matrix, an AI system that siphons energy from living things. The Phantom matrix is set to run on reversed polarity currents fed through the Victim-Victimizer (V-V) polarity software, which then mutated itself into several dimensional layers of AI programming. The infection began at the point of the Lyran Gate destruction and with the Solar Logos body fragmenting its consciousness into the lower particle dimensions, while this AI infection of the V-V was put in each dimensional layer as a trojan horse that would generate extreme polarity reversal and gender splitting in each of the down stepped spectrums of frequency.

8. The goal of the invading entities which brought on the Lyran Wars, was to destroy access between the Universal Gates, Lyran Gates and Andromeda, to prevent any metaterrestrial Founder races from gaining access into the Milky Way system, and preventing the future seedings and incarnations of the Christos Founder Races DNA. But soon the Lyran Wars spread to the constellation of Orion and through the Metagalactic Core, where it became a war with those who wanted to dominate others in this system based upon the Victim-Victimizer fear-based mind-sets. This can also be called archetypal enemy patterning. Entities with the Service to Self ideology were attempting to enslave or eliminate those who followed the Law of One, with the ideology of Service to Others that held love-based mind sets.

9. The Bourgha from the black hole system inserted this virus with AI programming into our matrix creating a time rip with technology called Victim-Victimizer software. These entities were introduced to the mainstream as the Borg, in the Star Trek franchise. The Borg are cybernetic organisms linked into a hive mind called the Collective. The Borg co-opt the technology and knowledge of other alien species into the Collective through the process of assimilation; forcibly transforming individual beings into drones by injecting nanoprobes into their bodies and surgically augmenting them with cybernetic components. This AI infection corrupted the organic macrocosmic architectural structures that formed the Law of Polarity (Gemini) and the Law of Gender (Pisces), which were automatically generating reversal polarity current and as a result of reversal polarity, further generated gender reversals in the planetary body.

Think for a moment what the plandemic and virus is actually representing in our world today, that is directly mirroring this original event from the Lyran Wars and is replaying in this timeline. It is showing itself as a manifested thing to amplify the fear of V-V in the current timeline of the physical realm. How do we stop it? We refuse to play the victim-victimizer games!

The Victim-Victimizer programming appears to be sourced from the original polarity experiments that many races from other neighboring systems in the lower creation realms were setting up to incarnate into their time matrices, to better understand the challenges and pitfalls of existing in extreme polarity consciousness. Over many millions of cycles, these entities found themselves losing control over their polarity experiments from committing ongoing power abuses and forgetting about their connection to the God Source. They became dependent on artificial black hole technology and this generated time rips, unnatural black holes and AI viruses, which spread damage throughout many other neighboring systems, including our Milky Way Universe. These black hole entities were using time rip technology to gain access into neighboring matrices to vandalize, assimilate and consume the energy of living things. They reduced themselves to parasites that had to hunt down living energy systems from which to siphon energy, in order to ensure they would continue to exist in the same entity form and have power and control over other living things.

During the Lyran Wars, this victim software was also intended to amplify and reverse the creation code in the natural polarity system in order to create mind slaves, specifically targeting the Christos humans inhabiting the Milky Way system. It is designed as an anti-Christ AI software used to infect the genetic template of the original Christos blueprint with gender splitting and metatronic reversal (death spiral) architecture.  The Victimizer program has become the primary mind control software that the multiple predator races use to inflict the Archontic Deception Behavior and its divide and conquer strategies between all humans, essentially it works well for creating mind control slaves. The only way out of the Victimizer program is to study it in order to comprehend the consciousness damage it generates and refuse it by staying neutral, while choosing to integrate the polarities through unconditional love and zero point, not playing into the victim and blame game.

Essentially, this mutation is responsible for the reversal polarity AI spectrum that holds the human race seed memory which contains the timeline when we lost contact with our genetic equal, the loss of our species ability to achieve sacred marriage and Ascension. This is why the red wave spectrum of survival consciousness, where they run the AI victim consciousness, is so painful to human hearts and can destroy our personal will. This unnatural extreme polarity mutation introduced by the black hole entities generated distortions in the male-female balance in our diamond sun genetic template, and was a contributing factor in gender reversals and extreme polarity competition that led to the conflicts that happened during the Fall of Tara, and many other tragic fallen histories.

Let’s go back to examine the painful history which led to the Fall of our First World, and draw the parallels of the current spiritual crisis we are living through at this time, in order to see our task at hand and come into full completion of these destructive histories haunting our world from the past timelines.

10. Many millions of years ago, several Founder metaterrestrial races from this Universal system and beyond into the Omniverses, came together at the Royal Houses of Lyra. This meeting was for the purpose of contributing their most advanced genetic material in the creation of our First World, which is known as the planet Tara. The Cosmic Trinity are representations of the first, second and third emanations of the God Source and thus, are the Universal Founders of this particular time matrix. The Universal Founders are nondimensionalized Solar Body expressions from outside of the time matrix located in the pre-matter fields.

The Cosmic Trinity protects the promise of Ascension for all living things travelling in the Universal Time Matrix, by ensuring they eventually are able to return to their source frequency and spiritual home at the end of evolution cycles. Returning back home into the zero-point field after completing the time matrix evolution cycles are the areas of nondimensionalized realms, where the free Cosmic Christos Citizens travel and live in the highest creations that exist in the eternal God Worlds. In the Fifth Harmonic Universe there is no dimensionalization into matter forms, therefore there is no planetary body or human form. In the fifth density there is no time, and as the consciousness does not manifest into matter forms, this area is called pre-matter.

To oversee the creation of the First World, the Universal Founders created a race in which to seed their consciousness through onto Tara, and this race is the Lyrans. The Lyrans utilized the genetic library of the metaterrestrial races to design the core manifestation template for the first seeding of the original human 12 strand DNA prototype, which was designed to be the Guardian lifeforms intended to protect the planet Tara. The Lyrans further down stepped their consciousness into the next lower density in the third harmonic layers by creating another identity, and these race lines were designed to exist within the dimensional layers of the monadic spirit plane. This race was created by the Lyran Founders to specifically oversee the projects of the Lyran-Sirian genetic seedings occurring on Tara, and these particular groups are known as the Elohim. Further, the Sirian Council was organized by and then appointed by the Lyrans to be the main overseers of seeding life on the planet Tara in next lower dimension, the second harmonic universe.

The Lyrans and the Sirians brought the metaterrestrial genetic material together to create the first diamond sun template body in matter for the original Tarans, which is the original angelic human body that all earth humans are actually genetically descended from. The Elohim acted in a supervisory role of protecting the Taran creation from the monadic spirit plane, while in the soul planes, the Sirian Council orchestrated the genetic seedings from the second harmonic timelines. As the root races of planet earth were originally seeded into subraces that sourced from 12 Tribes, so it was the same for the first seeding on Tara. 

Over many millions of years, two distinctly opposing seed cultures emerged as infected by the AI programing of the neighboring Bourgha, the victim-victimizer software, which was designed to amplify extreme forces of polarity that were particularly effective for harvesting loosh energy. The Law of Polarity was governed by the Gemini constellation, which down stepped mental body creations that were being generated from the AI mutations forming to reverse polarity signatures. Mutations started to form in which one group of Tarans started to be genetically slanted towards more aggression, domination over others and service to self. This group formed into what eventually played out as the Atlantians, a patriarchal dominating culture that was very mentalized and scientific. The other culture was much more passive, spiritual and willing to capitulate through service to others.  This group formed into what eventually played out as the Lemurians, a matriarchal culture that was very balanced with nature and was following the Law of One.

These cultural differences amplified into greater energy disturbances which came to be the polarity schism, which was generating Taran genetic digression into the patriarchal group that wanted to fully dominate the others. Then, their scientists began dangerous experimentation with the planetary core power source, ignoring warnings from the others. To help restore unity consciousness to the planet and help harmonize the growing extremes in the divergent cultures, the Sirian Council set up the Council of Mu. The Mu council devoted themselves to the ancient wisdom practices which were in alignment to the Natural Laws, the Law of One.  They spoke of the necessary attunement to nature and natural laws, and the need for polarity integration back into the zero point. During the last stages of the conflicts which ultimately led to planetary destruction, a rebellion of several smaller wars broke out in protest of the decisions made in governance by the Sirian Council, that had been responsible to administer through the Council of Mu. At this time, the technological implications of the mind control being used by neighboring entities to convert humanity into slavery, and the impacts of the AI viral infection of victim-victimizer was not understood.

These are the histories of the Sirian Rebellions that generated rifts between the Sirian Annunaki and the Sirian-Elohim’s who based their oversight and decisions to be aligned with the Law of One. The Sirian Rebellions and the Annunaki lineages refused to acknowledge the authority of the Founders or the Law of One, and this led to the cataclysm and the sequence of events which eventually destroyed the planet Tara. During the final stages of destruction, the planetary consciousness held within her exploded fragments were pulled into a black hole and came out the other side into an area which is effectively the lowest creation realms, the underworld layers of the Milky Way system. The entirety of the planet Tara’s fragments and all her species were pulled into the lowest density of the time matrix, and reformed themselves as they emerged into the instruction set which formed into the solar system pattern which includes what we know of today, as the planet earth.

Earth and all of her consciousness is the composite total of the exploded fragments of our first home planet seeded with divine human beings with 12 Strand DNA, Planet Tara. Without intervention from the Founder races, our metaterrestrial family and those Christos races that serve the Law of One, the consciousness fragments of the world soul of Tara, all of her root races and species would remain permanently fragmented and stuck in the lowest density, the underworld layers of the time matrix unable to evolve, ascend or eventually return home to the God Worlds. Today, we are on the earth to continue this same archetypal journey for the sake of returning collective humanity back to their true spiritual home, reaching the same apex in the end of cycle timeline, where we are at the crossroads of evolution and making a choice for the direction of the future timeline.

11. The beginning and the end all return back to Lyra.

12. After the Fall of Tara, the Lyran-Sirian Council, Elohim, Pleiadeans, the Priests of Ur and other concerned citizens in the second harmonic universe contacted the Emerald Order for assistance, and a rescue mission was planned to retrieve the Souls of Tara.

This agreement is the reclamation of the Christos Mission that sources directly from the original Paliadorian Covenant that was set into motion millions of years ago.  The Paliadorians agreed to be the first line of supporting evolution and reclamation of the Inner Spirit for all humanity, awakening in the first waves of the ascension plan to help lead the Taran souls on earth back home. Many of them are known as the Starseeds, these are a variety of spiritual families that are directly under the protectorate of the Emerald Order, and as a result have specific frequency based signatures that can be recognized by other entities. These signatures serve as a warning of defenses of deflection to be utilized in full extent of what applies to the service of upholding Cosmic Order.

13. Finding the inner integration point means allowing all levels of experiential being as co-created from us, whether negative polarity or positive polarity, to ultimately witness the mirrored expressions of the whole and know that we have all the power to heal and be transformed, when we choose love over fear. This means we must let go of our fear which keeps us in denial of seeing and knowing the truth. If we allow conscious action to accelerate our integration process through holding neutral balance in the presence of extreme polarities, we will naturally allow integration to take place inside of our body, mind and spirit.

To stop the vicious cycle of feeding the hatred that exists in the archetypes of the victim or the victimizer, we must find the courage and bravery to restore energetic balance within ourselves. Digging deep for the personal strength, asking help from God-Christ spirit every day to prevail no matter what the circumstances. All change begins within the self. As each of us holds value for all life, while developing our self-worth and self-love, we are empowered to be a positive force of spiritual transcendence that restores energetic balance. Love is the force that restores balance and harmony to all things.

In the interpretation of restoring energetic balance through the Law of One, is an egalitarian philosophy for an evolving humanity who is consciously choosing to move towards humanitarian goals. Ascension study is an evolutionary model for valuing our planet and all of humanity. The main focus is upon the inner spiritual study, reflection, and the personal commitment to expand one's consciousness and benevolence towards life, even while present in fields of hatred.

(Source)

[linkspooky]

Eren Jaeger’s Final Words

So there are many people unimpressed with the final statement given by Eren’s character, either finding it inconsistent with the build up to this point, or too ambiguous a motivation for trampling all over the world. I’m not really here to talk about the quality of the story, whether it was good or bad, because I don’t really care. However, I think it’s fascinating what the text is trying to say about Eren’s character and his motivation. 

This is why, “I don’t know, shrug” is both an answer and not an answer to why Eren did what he did in the end. For making my point in this analysis, I’ll be talking about Eren’s character from Marley on showing both the Eren that appeared before Reiner, the one that talked to Zeke, and finally the one Armin saw are all the same person. 

1. And Now for Something Completely Different

Before I even begin though, let’s talk about something entirely different. My favorite episode of Doctor Who is from the 4th Doctor Era, entitled “Genesis of the Daleks” first broadcast around 1975. What makes this episode my favorite episode is both the premise, and the question it asks. If you haven’t watched Doctor Who the basic premise is the main character is a time traveler who can go everywhere and everywhen in the universe. One of his common enemies is the Daleks, a race whose goal is to kill everything else in the universe. The Time Lords order the Doctor to go back in time to the era the daleks were created, and prevent their creation in order to prevent every person they would eventually kill. 

He goes do the Dalek homeworld, and meets the scientist who created them Davros. Eventually, the doctor fails enough that he’s not able to prevent their creation, but he could, wipe them out when they were just newly born children and completely innocent. The doctor decides not to kill them right then because that would be a pre-emptive genocide, and the Doctor is a pacifist. When Davros witnesses him making this choice it prompts this conversation one of my favorite in all of television. The link to the clip is here if you’re interested. [Source.]

Davros: "Now, future errors will be come victories. You have changed the future of the universe, Doctor." Doctor: "I have betrayed the future. Davros, for the last time, consider what you're doing. Stop the development of the Daleks." Davros: "Impossible. It is beyond my control. The workshops are already fully automated to produce the Dalek machines." Doctor: "It's not the machines, it's the minds of the creatures inside them. Minds that you created. They are totally evil." Davros: "Evil? No. No, I will not accept that. They are conditioned simply to survive. They can survive by becoming the dominant species. When all other life forms are suppressed, when the Daleks are the supreme rules of the universe, then you will have peace. Wars will end. They are the power not of evil, but of good." Doctor:"Davros, if you had created a virus in your laboratory, something contagious and infectious that killed on contact, a virus that would destroy all other forms of life, would you allow its use?" Davros: "It is an interesting conjecture." Doctor: "Would you do it?" Davros: "The only living thing, a microscopic organism reigning supreme... A fascinating idea. Doctor: "But, would you do it?" Davros: "Yes... yes..." [ Davros raises a hand as if holding the metaphorical capsule.]

Davros: "To hold in my hand a capsule that contains such power, to know that life and death on such a scale was my choice. To know that the tiny pressure of my thumb, enough to break the glass, would end everything... Yes, I would do it! That power would set me above the gods!

Davros’ motivations seem at first brush look one-note and evil, just another mad scientist playing god. However, what makes the conversation great is the context it takes place in. Here is the choice offered to the doctor, kill a race that he knows will go on to make war and kill innocents in the future in their infancy before they have done anything wrong, or don’t kill them and ensure the future you know will happen. 

The Doctor isn’t saying that his choice is the right one. He’s not saying he’s doing good by choosing not to slaughter an innocent race. He’s saying, he can’t bring himself to make that choice. In that situation he chooses not to choose, because it would be against his pacifist believes to choose either way. Which Davros at first, takes to mean the Doctor siding with him. However, when they begin to debate it, notice how they’re not talking about what is the philosophically correct choice to do. The doctor hammers in this point, would you do it? Would you do it? After getting Davros to admit that yes, he would do it, his motivation becomes much clearer, he doesn’t actually care whether his actions result in a good thing or a bad thing, he simply wanted to be the one who got to choose. 

What does Davros want? The power that surpasses a normal human being’s ability to choose. Davros himself is basically written to be pure evil, but his desire itself is a little more complex. Davros is a person lacking in agency, if you tear him away from his support system he’ll die within thirty seconds. He designs what he believes is the perfect race capable of conqueringthe universe which are reflections of him. They’re soft little squid creatures in mechanical shells which are inpenetrable. Davros himself cannot seize that power, he is inferior because he’s attached to the life support system (in his own mind), so the power he wants instead is the power to make the choice to unleash them upon the world. 

If the Doctor by failing to make that impossible choice in the situation, by not wanting to even hold the capsule in his hands and have that ability to choose remains a man, then Davros chooses to throw away his humanity (which he ties to his inferiority and weakness) and becomes a god instead. To tie my long tangent which just shows how much of a geek I am back to Eren, Eren’s choice wasn’t actually about bringing a good result or a bad one at all. He simply wanted to choose. People who are lacking for agency, who feel powerless and inferior to tend to grasp for it. They try to fix external circumstances instead of internally facing what is within them, because they can’t bear to face it (hence the complex about being inferior in the first place). 

People often compare Kaneki from Tokyo Ghoul to Eren because their stated motivation bears some resemblance “we were doing this all to protect our friends”, however, it’s important to grasp that Kaneki and Eren are liars and unreliable narrators both. Their stated motivation isn’t necessarily true. I don’t think the final chapter is as clear as it could have been in nailing down the finer points of this, but Eren does in fact change his stated motivation from “I was doing it all to set up you as heroes of the world” to “I would have done it anyway even if you didn’t come to stop me” to “I don’t know. I just wanted to.” So, the fact that Eren will directly lie about his motivation and try to rationalize his actions and even switch stories in the space of one conversation is at least established. 

So to bring the comparison back to Kaneki, both Eren and Kaneki lie about their external motivations that they are doing this for their friends when really they act because of unacknowledged internal motivators. They are secretly selfish, while presenting their actions as some kind of great sacrifice they’re making for the sake of others. The deepest we ever dig into Kaneki’s head he makes this statement. 

I’m going to do something that will make everyone love me. Good, bad, it could be anything. After that, I wanna die heroically!

Eren and Kaneki aren’t the same because they’re brave people who fight for their friends, it’s because internally they’re pathetic and unlovable. They’re so starved for agency and attention that they’ll do anything for it, and they just don’t care about the consequences for their actions. Kaneki also, later on in the manga engages in mass slaughter for once again what is a pretty bad reason. It’s not to protect someone or for the sake of someone else. It’s because he’s lonely and wants comfort. 

Kaneki doesn’t care about what he’s doing or the consequences of his actions, he’s desperate and wants to do what will immediately gratify him in the moment. He doesn’t even realize what he’s doing will unleash mass slaughter and have greater consequences because he’s not thinking about that. 

Compare this to the doctor’s choice. The doctor knows the direct result of his actions, if he does not abort the daleks he will fail to prevent the deaths of innocent people. Knowing those consequences he says he still won’t make the choice because he believes his pacifist principles are something he won’t bend on. Kaneki, and Eren both have on principles, or no reasons. They just do whatever in the moment, and make up a reason after the fact. For Touka, For his friends, because he wanted to, because of freedom, because why not? 

Kaneki and Eren can construct no good reason for their actions, and no principles behind their actions, because unlike the doctor, they don’t have a developed enough and they’re not capable of making measured choices. They steal away agency because they’ve been deprived of it, they want the feeling of power and control that comes with making the choice, but they don’t want the responsibility for it. The doctor knows if he doesn’t choose to wipe out the Daleks he’s responsible for that choice, but can’t bring himself to kill. His actions are pacifistic. However, Eren and Kaneki choose to kill in the same situation, and their actions inevitably cause the conflict to accelerate. The Doctor remains a man, Kaneki and Eren do not. 

What kind of person would want to become a god anyway? 

A person pathetically, incapable of feeling alright as a human being. 

That’s why Kaneki and Eren make the choice to become monsters, because they’re incapable of living with themselves, or their actions as people. Either way they can’t live with it, hence why, Kaneki’s stated motivation is I’ll make everyone love me and then I’ll just die. Hence why the person who is making this statment is a childish version of him. 

There is no good reason for what Eren does. That sounds like a cop-out answer after making you read all this long, but what is a good reason for killing people? This is a lot of rambling but I hope I’ve at least established that Eren’s internal reasonings make no sense, his internal mechanisms at least do. The reason he doesn’t come up with a reason is because he didn’t actually care about the result of his actions, he just wanted to be in the position to choose. He wanted absolute agency because he was denied agency like a child, and as a forever stunted child, he never grew up to realize that most people in the whole world eventually make compromises and live on with sadness instead of getting to do whatever they want. 

Words that Eren was told again and again but failed to listen to. He’s not the only person that suffers in the world. He’s not the only person that’s lost people. He’s not the all-suffering protagonist of reality, he’s just one personin the greater scheme of things. However, the ability to compromise like that. To realize that other people exist besides you, that they have feelings separate from yours, that you are not the protagonist of reality is what an adult does, and what Eren can’t do. It’s easier to become god apparently, throw his whole life away as a child soldier making the ultimate sacrifice then just try growing up. 

What’s the point of writing a character with such a pathetic motivvation? It’s because it’s human. 

To badly misquote Jung, most people assume they are nice people when really they are in fact jerks. The reasons can be very complex, but sometimes it’s just as simple as not being able to look past your own ego and understand people feel differently than you do. Eren cannot accept other people, whether they be his friends, the comrades he’s fought with this entire time, the adults trying to guide him, he is just so incapable of accepting them that he regresses into a child making selfish demands of the world. It seems inhuman but imagine Eren in a completely different setting. What if Eren were just a shut-in? Just a teenager who didn’t leave his room. A fundamental ability to accept other people would sabotage all his other attempts to grow up and leave his room, and he’d choose to remain a child forever. The stakes are different, the situation is different, but the internal mechanisms are unmistakably human. 

2. All Erens is the Same

Okay, here’s where I actually try to prove that Eren’s character arc is consistent with the story. What was revealed in 139 at all wasn’t a 180, and wasn’t a reveal that secretly Eren had good intentions all along. He never had good motivations, or selfless one. From beginning to end he was a selfish child, and his reasoning was always that of a stunted individual unable to understand the feelings of others but placing his own feelings as far more important.

What Eren does in 139 is rationalizing and changing his answer, which he has done several times before that point anyway, and is therefore consistent with his behavior up until that point. It’s important to acknowledge that Eren models himself, not after Grisha, but rather Eren Kruger. The foil to Grisha and the reaction to Grisha’s bad parenting is Zeke. The person who Eren makes similiar choices to is Kruger says the reason he picked Grisha is the eyes he possessed in childhood. 

The thing about Kruger is, textually, Kruger fucking sucks. He says it himself. He claims he was doing it for the sake of helping others, and yet, all he ever felt like he was doing, was torturing people, and throwing them to the dogs. He kept saying he had good motivations, but his actions were repeated brutal violence, over and over again. He contributed more to the conflict than he helped to resolve it. 

At the end of his life, Kruger says once again he doesn’t believe what he’s done has changed anything, and doesn’t believe he himself hs changed. He’s still the child with hatred in his eyes. His reason for passing it onto Grisha is because he knew Grisha wouldn’t grow up either, and would keep that inside of him. Kruger failed to grow, Grisha failed to grow, in a way that mattered, in time to make an actual change. They only ever made things worse, and that is, the model we are supposed to parallel Eren to. 

Now this is at the same time that the Attack Titan’s future vision powers are shown to us. The question a lot of people are asking is if Eren had free will in his choice, or he was fated to make that choce all along. The answer is. No. Nope. Nope. Nope. Not at all. The fact that Eren was destined to do it, is yet another excuse, the like seventh change of motivation that Eren gives us. “I saw it happen in the future so I did everything I could to make it happen, but I didn’t think I had a choice this was the only way to make you guys hero,” Eren says, and then five seconds later. “I didn’t know what would happen , I probably  would have done it anyway even if I knew you guys were all going to die and fail to stop me.” 

Eren is once again making excuses, and avoiding all kinds of responsibility. If he is the chosen one, if his actions are controlled by fate, if he’s a god, if he’s a devil, he is not human and therefore he is not responsible. Eren wants the power to decide the fate for the world, but will do anything but accept responsibility for that choice. Eren wants to be Eren the bloody conqueror, but he’s not even self-aware enough to see himself as a bad person he can’t even own that so when confronted on his actions he reduces himself back to a child, and evades responsibility. Eren’s own motivation, his stated motivation is for no reason, however, the reasons he avoids the guilt like this are complex in their mechanisms as I wrote about above. The simple question is if Eren saw this future why did he not try to stop it? The simple answer is because he did not want to. 

There are a million and one excuses Eren has for why he thought the future could be avoided, but his actions tell a different story. He didn’t lift a finger to try. He spent the next four years making rationalizations for what he eventually would do. I will now establish, Eren was actually given several oppurtunities to stop, and then he just did not stop. 

In the Reiner and Eren scene while Tybur is speaking in the background, Eren is offered a choice. Quite literally, Tybur is narrating the same story that Eren wants to set up. Become the devil that tried to destroy the world, so the heroes (his friends) will defeat him. He’s given the chance to be genuine and talk things out with Reiner and what does he choose. 

He chooses to accelerate. He could have stopped. Remember how Reiner was practically begging him to talk things out? Not only that but Eren sees that Reiner’s stated motivations for doing what he did were, completely fake, just rationalizations made up in the moment. 

Eren is presented with the reality of who he really is, a child who hates himself, who wants to kill himself rather than take responsibility for his actions, and he chooses the narrative Tybur offers him. Rather than be hismelf, stop the story here, he chooses to move the story forward.And the conflict accelerates when they could have reconciled. Not because there was no other choice, Reiner was begging, crying, and holding Eren’s hand at the same time asking for peace and forgiveness but because Eren chose to accelerate the conflict. 

Eren’s choices are always that of an accelerationist. When given the oppurtunity to stop, he chooses instead, to always make the conflict worse. That is, the result of Eren’s myriad of choices made throughout the arc. Everything is worse now, and more people are dead. Nothing good is achieved through these means because Eren wasn’t trying for good. Eren didn’t care about good results, he just wanted to be doing something. Easier to be an all powerful demon, than a powerless child which is what he sees Reiner as in the moment.

The only time I believe that Eren was putting on an act was when speaking with Mikasa and Armin. The rest of it wasn’t acts, it was just who Eren is, who he sees himself to be. The thing is most people don’t read Eren’s kind of behavior, constant masculine posturing, war mongering, accelerating the conflict, throwing himself into fighting, as childish and toxic when it is. The point of Eren’s masculinity is it’s a performance. Reiner crying and begging in front of Eren is embarrassing and pathetic yes, but it’s also how he felt in that moment, it’s a human vulnerability. Whereas, Eren’s outer persona is entirely empty of love and vulernability, of every emotion besides anger, and violence. However, because it’s empty, he just acts, empty... Great wording there I know. Eren when posturing in front of others basically has no personality. He is just guy who fights. 

Eren performs the role of a ruthless soldier in front of others, because it prevents him from being vulnerable. Remember who Eren is posturing in front of, Reiner, and then later Zeke. What were they doing? They were both at the moment trying to appeal to his human side, Reiner by crying and begging for forgiveness a show of vulnerability, and Zeke by tryig to show Eren what their father did to them was wrong.

Calls for violence, posturing, warmongering and rhetoric, Eren’s every response when Zeke tries to examine his humanity. Eren insists over and over again, you see I’m not actually a human being. It was impossible for father to reach me because I was simply born that way. However, the kind of person Eren pretends to be is empty, someone incapable of feeling anything. The only way he knows how to be strong, is to simply not have feelings, to deny all human emotion and become something else and that’s just lame. We also know, that Eren himself is not like that because he contradicts his stated motivation that the only reason he killed those slavers was for the concept of freedom itself when he takes too long trying to look at Mikasa.

Eren denies himself empathy, he denies himself udnerstanding, and therefore no one will ever see his emotional wounds. That way, he can be invulenerable forever, but at the same time he denies MIkasa and Armin.

We return again to the motif of the story. It’s the same repeated image, someone tells Eren to stop, Eren says that it must not stop, the story must continue. 

Both of Eren’s foils and family members,Zeke and Grisha  tell Eren to stop this. That they do not want this. The whole world yells at Eren to stop, and he does not stop. Stopping would mean, accepting some measure of helplessness so Eren does not stop. 

To be honest, what Eren says in 131 is far more telling than literally any of the excuses he came up with in 139 which is why I think it should be interpreted not as the final word on Eren’s character but rather, showing what his waffling actually looks like to an outside observer - not heroic at all but rather pathetic. 

Eren’s childish desire to be this powerful, to stand up above everyone like a god while ignoring the suffering of the world around him - is pretty telling enough of Eren’s true motivations that he needs no further elaboration. Eren does not become god for the sake of his friends, he does not do it because he thinks it will make the world a better place, he does it because of childish delusions of grandeur and his inability to let go of his childish feelings of entitlement. The world isn’t the way he wants it to be and he can’t comrpomise with that in any way. Eren is more like a caricature of the most petty person on earth when you put it that way, but this is... a fictional story. Thematically Eren is a good example why ideals are ideals, and people are in fact, people, ulitmately very disappointing and falling short of those idealse. So once again moving past this. 

Eren, you can literally just stop. Eren is basically given every choice in the world to stop, everyone else in the story tells him to, and he just doesn’t. The author does go to a painstaking extent to show that Eren in fact could have stopped. Every single time he is given the oppurtunity to stop he instead chooses to accelerate the conflict.

It is interesting to show the one time Eren actually did stop though. It wasn’t for Mikasa, it was Mikasa’s decision. 

When Eren puts the decision on someone else, he can stop. Eren has feelings for Mikasa, but rather than confessing to her he makes her speak up about what her feelings are, even when everyone around him just, straight up tells him. 

Why is he capable of stopping when it’s someone else’s choice? In those cases, Eren succesfully avoids responsibility. When he makes the decision to run away in the possible alternate reality he’s doing what Mikasa wanted. 

The other time is when he decides to accept the result of whatever Mikasa decides. In both cases, Eren rather than accept responsibility for his actions and the results of his actions, just, puts it all on Mikasa. 

Is he doing this for Mikasa’s sake? To set Mikasa up as the hero of the world? No, he can’t even face Mikasa and explain himself or his feelings. Eren makes the choices to... put the ultimate decision on Mikasa, and run away without explaining himself because, that’s easier than taking repsonsibility for his choices. Every choice Eren makes, is to either make the conflict worse, because stirring the pot makes him feel powerful and in control, or throw control away to someonee else or some other reason (predestination whatnot) because he can’t bear the responsibility of what he’s doing. He wants to kill a bunch of people, but like... he doesn’t want to feel like a bad person about it (hence the excuse, he was doing it for his friends and yet later in the same conversation him saying that if he had killed his friends and they failed he still would have done it anyway). 

Therein lies the rub. Eren is not doing this for his friends, because he takes the one path that is guaranteed to take him out of their lives. He doesn’t do it for Mikasa because he does the one thing guaranteed to destroy her. 

I love this girl so much, that I created this elaborate scenario where the only way she could save the world was to horribly behead me, the one family member left from her childhood after she spent her entire life trying to protect me from fear of losing her family - yeah that sounds completely insane.

It is meant to be. Eren is thinking jack all about what his friends are feeling. His feelings for Mikasa, his desire to keep her safe and away from everything else trump everything even the idea that his love might be returned. He loves at Mikasa. He’s not in love with her, he’s projecting his love upon her. “Why didn’t he just tell her about his feelings if he secretly loved her all this time?” the point was, he couldn’t. Eren’s ego isn’t developed enough to love another person, that requires actually caring about their feelings which Eren doesn’t do to well.

 There’s a reason Eren and Mikasa’s connection keeps lingering back to the small kindness they showed each other as childhood,it’s because literally despite spending their entire lives growing up together, their connection hasn’t grown at all since then, because they can’t grown. 

At the end of the series however, Mikasa makes the opposite coice of Eren. If Eren’s choice has been to remain a selfish child all this time, to make other people suffer rather than face his own hurt feelings. Mikasa makes the choice of selflessness, to grow up, beyond the child who loved Eren into the adult who knows that even if you love people, one day you might lose them. 

Eren’s choices only ever make the conflict worse. Mikasa’s choice finally stopped the conflict that Eren kept accelerating. It didn’t save the world, it saved the world from Eren. 

I think it’s important to remember that Eren didn’t see what MIkasa was going to do, that her actions were going to end up breaking the curse. He literally had no idea what was going to happena fter the massacre, all he saw was the massacre and decided to do what he could to bring it about. 

“I did all of this for you guy.” 

Backtracking, five seconds later, and making excuses it all would have happened anyway. 

It’s the same behavior consistently shown throughout. Eren could have stopped. Eren did not stop. Afterwards, Eren wants to reconcile the guilt and believe that his motives were good, when his actions were the actions of a bad person. It’s the same as Reiner’s crying and begging after years of guilt and failure to reconcile his acitons with who he is. Eren can’t understand why he did what he did, he just knows he did it, and he can’t accept responsibility for any of it. So that’s why Eren throws the choice away. 

Eren can’t understand his father’s words, because in the end, being born, living his life, growing up, falling in love, making friends, losing some of those friends, growing older, getting weaker, all of those things are things Eren doesn’t want to do. Eren begins his life with “You were born into this world, you’re free to live hwoever you want” and ends his life wishing he was never born, and that’s the utlimate tragedy of his character arc. Not that it was inevitable he would eventually do these things, but beause it wasn’t and Eren chose to do them anyway instead of choosing literally anything else. Therefore, despite claiming Mikasa and Armin as the reason behind all of his actions, they weren’t, because he was inacapable of making the simple choice to be with them and grow up with them which is all they ever wanted from him. 

[jello-in-my-bello]

It’s time that we had a real conversation about Aang...

For the main character of a television series, Aang somehow almost always finds himself under-rated and dismissed in fans’ posts. You see all these posts and, when they do reference him, it’s usually accompanied by the phrases “immature” and “12-year-old boy.” I mean honestly, in some ATLA fans posts, it seems as if Aang’s name is almost synonymous with the word immaturity--and it’s been that way for years. I’ve always wondered why people discredited him. Was it because they saw his age and immediately ruled him out? Is it an excuse for Katara and Aang to have never happened? Was calling him the most immature character a way to bring up their favorite characters? Or did they simply get conditioned to think Aang was immature because everyone just... said he was? Well, I think Aang’s the most mature character (from start to finish) on the show, and Imma tell you why. 

I think that Book 1 Aang is the Aang that everyone has stuck in their head. We get introduced to Aang in a strange way: he’s a boy frozen in an iceberg, and the first thing he asks is to go penguin sledding. Then he boldly explores a fire navy ship after being told it might not be a great idea. This kid’s kinda stupid, we think. Why does he care about penguin sledding? Why does he explore something he is told not to? Then he stops at Kyoshi Island to ride the Unagi, then he stops at Omashu to ride the delivery service, and then he lets the gang stop at other locations—having mini adventures—without worrying about learning waterbending on any sort of timeline. Why does he choose to explore all these different places at first rather than master the four elements? Doesn’t he even care about being the Avatar? Ah... that’s right. He’s only 12. 

Except surmising his entire maturity (or lack thereof) to the fact that he stops for these adventures means that you are ignoring one glaring detail of the show: Airbender and nomad culture. Aang asking Katara to go penguin sledding instead of what year it was and taking his friends to all those random stops in B1 so that he can explore can not be chalked up to immaturity. Because then you are ignoring an entire culture. We don’t get to see a lot of airbenders, and I think that plays into the problem, but from what we do know, we learn that a critical part of their culture is that they travel. A lot. And experience different cultures. A lot. Think about all the different places he’s referenced going to 100 years ago in the series. Then think about all the friends he’s talked about having in these obscure places—and it always sounded like he visited them more than once. Traveling, experiencing different cities, and meeting new people was a part of him and a part of his culture. He wasn’t being a 12-year-old when he stopped to ride the Unagi or the delivery shoots in Omashu, he was being an air nomad

On a similar note, one of Aang’s most notable traits is saying, “Hey, check this out,” excitedly while doing some air bending trick that seems juvenile--like spinning marbles around or doing an air scooter.  People look at him doing this and his previously mentioned traits and go, “Oh, what a kid.” But here’s the thing: we can’t roll our eyes at his persistent need to show people marbles floating in the air or his air scooter. In the episode “Southern Air Temple,” we see Monk Gyatso—an extremely old, wise air bender—throwing cakes on other monks’ heads, and then we’re told throughout the series that Airbenders were known for their playful nature. Airbenders didn’t use their bending the same way other benders do. For example, Waterbenders might show off their skills by creating a giant wave and being like, “Look how cool!” (See: Katara, like every time she learns a new move.) We know Airbenders have some pretty powerful moves--we’ve seen the tornado Aang created, the air body imprint of Aang that slammed Zuko back--but they don’t show off those moves because they’re so combative and not so fun. They show off the good-natured side of air bending (ex: Gyasto’s staff surfing when he was a child).  So those marble/air scooter tricks can’t be watered down to 12-year-old immaturity. Because he’s not being a kid when he does those things, he’s being an Airbender. People also tend to look over the fact that he is a survivor of a genocide. You need to keep in mind that he is a living relic and the only example left of what his race was. So even later in the series when he continues to show people those tricks, he’s showing them not just for fun, but to keep his culture alive. And what do you think he’s going to show them: a tornado with random objects flying around in it or two marbles flying in his hands? Which is a better representation of Airbender culture?

Also, do not forget that Aang earned his arrows. Airbenders are not just regular benders; they are known for being especially enlightened. You don’t just need to be a master at airbending to get your arrows—you also need to be a master at their culture. Aang was an enlightened boi. Look at all the speeches that he gave as the series continued. He didn’t just magically become wise in the course of a few months because he had to fight the Firelord, he just tapped into what was always there and never showed. The maturity was always there, and the receipts are in the arrows. 

So, I’ve gone over why he’s not as immature as everyone thinks, but why do I think he’s the most mature on the show? It’s because his emotional maturity is freaking through the roof. He’s part of a genocide, his culture is mocked, the few things—his clothing and glider—that he had left from his home were completely destroyed, and he had to do something that severely went against what he believes in. And he almost never loses his shit. In fact, we only ever see him get actually upset (we’re not counting the Avatar state cause that’s a whole different thing) 3 times in the series: when he was telling Katara about how the monks wanted to take him away from Gyatso, the episode when Appa was stolen, and when he was explaining that no one understands the position he is in (in terms of killing Ozai). Think about how much we saw everyone else freak out over the course of the show? About even smaller things.

Katara and Zuko are generally accepted as the two most mature characters of the series. But why? Zuko is continuously snapping at everyone, and, yes, he matured. But he is not completely there yet. He still somewhat believes in revenge (See: Southern Raiders), and it’s only at the last episode of the series that he understands violence is not the answer. And Katara? She acts very mature towards everyone else, but when it comes to her own emotions? She’s a whole basket full of mess. (See: Southern Raiders, again. Or anytime she uses anger as her way to show she’s “passionate.”) A good way to showcase the difference between Aang and these two is realizing that all of them lost a parent from the war and analyzing at how they handled it. (For Zuko let’s focus on the idea that he never really had a father) Katara lost her mother, Zuko his father, and Aang his father, Gyatso. Throughout the series, losing their parent was a huge topic point for both Katara and Zuko so much so that it was as if they thought no one else had ever suffered. (Katara, we see you telling Sokka that he didn’t love your mom the same). Aang, however, acknowledges his pain, tells stories of Gyatso and uses him as an example of what he wants to live up to— eventually coming full circle at the end wearing Gyatso’s beads and an identical outfit. I can’t imagine a more mature way to handle what happened than that.

Basically, what I’m trying to say is, maturity isn’t based on how you have fun, it’s based on how you react to hard situations. And nobody, nobody reacted better in those situations than Aang. So if you watched Avatar and thought it was a story about a young boy maturing, then you misjudged. It wasn’t a story about an immature boy growing up. It was a story of an Airbender becoming an avatar. 

[pyreo]

Loreposting about Abaddon

Abaddon doesn’t get a lot of attention. As a deposed god he doesn’t seem relevant to the Guild Wars timeline after Nightfall. But I keep thinking about him because Abaddon is probably the most influential character Tyria ever had.

Let’s just go over where he appears in-game if you start off in GW2. Everyone knows the six human gods. They’re in statues, temples, personal shrines everywhere. The base game story makes you detour through a sunken temple dedicated to Abaddon, while the Orrian temples to the other five gods are still intact on the surface. This is not by chance. It’s also nudging you to notice that there are no Orrian temples to Kormir, because she replaced Abaddon only two centuries ago. This is reflected again later on in Siren’s Landing on the other side of Orr, where the Five, and Abaddon, each have a personal reliquary, and Abaddon’s is central, connected to all the others, and still intact.

Building on that refresher on human divinity, in Path of Fire you visit the actual place Abaddon was defeated by the other Five gods and pushed into a side dimension to keep him out of the world.

And when you visit the archives of the Durmand Priory, they have an imposing Abaddon statue towering over the stairs. Other than being reflected in three major environments, he doesn’t have a role in the plot. BUT.

As Kormir explains to you, the weakness of the human gods is that their excess of power keeps fucking up the world. The Desolation, a map that covers only a part of the sulfur desert, is completely uninhabitable because Abaddon was destroyed there. This happened because Abaddon, who was actually the most powerful of the Six and the leader of the group, wanted humans to share in the gift of magic. He was the god of knowledge, after all. This proved disastrous and the other gods reduced and compartmentalised the magic, and Abaddon went on a whole attempt to overthrow them and become one, single god of all.

The destruction of Abaddon’s temples and relics was intentional. He was wiped from memory. The pantheon was called The Five until Nightfall, wherein the existence of Abaddon was revealed as he tried to drag himself back into the mortal plane. As a god his spheres of power were water and knowledge. Erasing knowledge of him was what made him powerless. (Interestingly, the Priory’s special collections contains the Scroll of the Five True Gods, an ancient record of what the human gods knew about the Elder Dragons, but one dragon is missing - the water dragon, who like Abaddon, has a damaged and erased history. The six Elder Dragons and six human gods have many respective connections.)

When he lived, Abaddon’s followers were the Margonites, who believed him the only real god and worshipped him exclusively, unlike other humans who revere all the Six together. They were rewarded with transformation into etheral beings with an extremely long lifespan, and were imprisoned in Abaddon’s Realm, the Realm of Torment, when he was forced out of Tyria. As the god of knowledge he had a realm to himself, and when fallen, his sphere inversed. Knowledge became madness, the theme his realm embodies. Temples were sunk, records destroyed, because to remove all knowledge of the god of knowledge made him powerless.

I can’t remember where, but it’s implied that by Nightfall comes around a thousand years after his banishment, Abaddon is finally able to claw his way back into Tyria because people are starting to remember him. There’s one side quest that sticks out in my memory called The Search for Enlightenment about a scholar stealing scriptures from an Elonian library which leads to a massive raid by Margonites. The scholar was ‘babbling’ about a forgotten god. Proximity to knowledge about Abaddon seems to bestow insanity, the connection between Abaddon in his inverted realm and his hold over anyone who knows he exists. Though the Five Gods tried, they didn’t erase everything (hell, Trahearne and Sayeh al' Rajihd give you a guided tour of an Abaddon temple). Over a thousand years, relics popped up and people began to remember The Five was once The Six. As they did his influence returned until he was able to attempt to merge the Realm of Torment with Tyria and become a single, all powerful god in the absence of the others.

But wait how does that make a forgotten god the most influential character in both games?

Well.

Guild Wars lore is nothing if not completely linked together. Every single thing has cause and effect, every event is a domino. The story is consistent from Prophecies to this day. So let’s start with the first GW1 chapter, Prophecies.

It all starts at the Citadel of Flame.

It was built into the volcano Hrangmer. The charr had been displaced, pushed out of Ascalon by the successful expansion of humankind. 450 years before GW2 the Flame Legion found this volcano and, inside, Titans. You know how Mordremoth’s minions are Mordrem, Zhaitan’s minions are Risen, etc? Titans are Abaddon minions, left behind and hidden after his defeat. They change their appearance to suit their environment. In a jungle they’re vegetative, in mountains they’re made of ice, in the Realm of Torment they’re twisted constructs of flesh, in a volcano, they’re fire. The Flame Legion brings the Titans back to the charr, charr worship them, and in exchange, get immense fire powers. Flame Legion completely takes over charr society and makes it a theistic, misogynist nightmare with the Shamans at the top.

Abaddon has just restructured charr society.

Using their overpowered fire magic indirectly from a human god, charr, ironically, rally against the humans and nuke Ascalon to pieces. The few survivors escape to Kryta. Charr are now pretty much unstoppable and invade all the way to Orr. Vizier Khilbron used a powerful stolen scroll to repel the charr with magic, and it completely destroys Orr, collapsing the island into the ocean.

Abaddon has just wiped out two nations of the humans who used to worship him, with Orr as the final goal - to tear down the resplendent city of the Gods who betrayed him. This is referenced, if you know what you’re looking for, in GW2. You can scale the Vizier’s Tower, where he read the scroll that sank all of Orr, and on the wall...

A mural to the lost god, a testament to power that, a thousand years later, one who was expunged from history had a faithful likeness depicted.

Ascalon’s a burning hole and Orr is underwater. Now what? Those Ascalonian survivors in Kryta find the place is controlled by White Mantle. The White Mantle are committing mass murder via bloodstone sacrifice (bloodstones being the power curb the gods introduced after imbuing humans with magic) in order to halt the prophecy of a Chosen One opening the Door of Komalie. Vizier Khilbron turns up, shaking out some mysteriously wet boots don’t worry about that, and leads you against these genocidal cultists. Which, whoops, does lead to the Door of Komalie being opened - and it’s a doorway into Abbadon’s Realm of Torment, out of which Titans power through. This was the apocalypse planned for Kryta. Unlike the first two, this one is thwarted by the player. Kryta lives on. Vizier Khilbron is the final boss and turns out to have been a lich.

That’s 3 of the 5 human nations. What about Cantha and Elona?

GW: Factions is the Canthan chapter in which Shiro Tagachi, the emperor’s bodyguard, continually visits a fortune teller until she inflicts such paranoia on his mindset that he believes he needs to kill the emperor in self-defense. His defeat causes the Jade Wind that creates the Jade Sea. As a spirit, Shiro then engulfs Cantha in a plague that warps people into tumorous mutants. The fortune teller turns out to be an Abaddon minion whose task was the eventual destruction of Cantha. This one also is foiled by the player.

GW: Nightfall is the culmination chapter. Abaddon is now powerful enough, well known enough, to breach Tyria and try to come back. His agent is Varesh Ossa, who slowly transforms into a Margonite over the course of the game. The player confronts the breach between planes and finally enters the Realm of Torment, meeting the shades of Abaddon’s servants that came before, the lich form of Vizier Khilbron, and the spirit of Shiro Tagachi, before facing Abaddon himself.

And that’s the end of it. In Guild Wars magic cannot be created or destroyed, only transferred, so another god ascends in Abaddon’s place. They are once again The Six.

It’s Abaddon that ruined half the Elonian desert, Abaddon whose sinking of Orr gave Zhaitan the perfect mass grave to necromance, Abaddon who froze the Cantha sea into solid jade, and Abaddon whose final death and eruption of magic started waking Primordus, leading to the norn, dwarf and asuran alliance to stop it in 1078 AE-- introducing the norn and asura to the rest of Tyria, and making the dwarves extinct, cutting their entire race’s existence short. If it wasn’t for Abaddon, the charr wouldn’t have been taken over by their magic-toting shaman caste, only to come to their senses and rebel and ostracize the Flame Legion afterward. Hell, the current Flame Legion Imperators STILL style their horns in an homage to Abaddon, and probably don’t even remember why! To a human god, gone for over a thousand years, who used their race as pawns in a revenge attempt at wiping out every nation the humans had built!

And even after being thoroughly and completely destroyed, his magic STILL haunts Tyria enough for his statues to punish you for not showing the proper respect.

[devilsskettle]

oh man i have a Lot of thoughts about the autopsy of jane doe, both positive and critical For Sure, i'd be SO excited to see your analysis of it! definitely keeping an eye out for that 👀

thanks! i'm working on something article-like to talk about the film and i don't know what i want to do with it yet lol but if i don't post it on here i'll definitely link it. it's mainly a discussion of gender in possession/occult films in the same way that carol clover describes in men, women, and chainsaws - that there are dual plot lines in occult films, usually gendered masculine and feminine respectively, where the "main" feminine plot (the actual possession) is actually a way to explore the "real" masculine plot (the emotional conflict of the "man in crisis" protagonist). typically the man in crisis is too masculine, or "closed" emotionally, where the woman is too "open," which is why she acts as the vehicle for the supernatural occurrence as well as the core emotions of the film. the man has to learn how to become more open (though if he becomes too open, like father karras in the exorcist, he has to die by the end - he has to find a happy medium, where he doesn't actually transgress gender expectations too much. clover calls this state the "new masculine," and we might apply the term "toxic masculinity" to the "closed" emotional state). part of the "opening up" feature of the story is that it allows men to be highly emotionally expressive in situations where they otherwise might not be allowed to, which is cathartic for the assumed primary audience of these films (young men). another feature of the genre is white science vs black magic (once you exhaust the scientific "rational" explanations, you have to accept that something magic is happening). the autopsy of jane doe does this even more than the films she discusses when she published the book in 1992 (the exorcist, poltergeist, christine, etc) because the supernaturally influenced young woman who becomes this kind of vehicle is more of an object than a character. she doesn't have a single line of dialogue or even blink for the entire runtime of the movie. the camerawork often pans to her as if to show her reactions to the events of the movie, which seems kind of pointless because it's the same reaction the whole time (none) but it allows the viewer to project anything they want onto her - from personal suffering to cunning and spite. 

compare again to the exorcist: is the story actually about regan mcneil? no. but do we care about her? sure (clover says no, but i think we at least feel for her situation lol). and do we get an idea of what she's like as a person? yes. even though her pain and her body are used narratively as a framework for karras' emotional/religious crisis, we at least see her as a person. both she and her mother are expendable to the "real" plot but they're very active in their roles in the "main" plot - our "jane doe" isn't afforded even that level of agency or identity. so. is that inherently sexist? well, no - if there were other women in the film who were part of the "real" plot, i would say that the presence of women with agency and identity demonstrate enough regard for the personhood of women to make the gender of the subject of the autopsy irrelevant. but there are none. of the three important women in the film, we have 1) an almost corpse, 2) an absent (dead) mother, and 3) a one dimensional girlfriend who is killed off for a man's character development/cathartic expression of emotions. all three are just platforms for the men in crisis of this narrative. 

and, to my surprise, much of the reception to the film is to embrace it as a feminist story because the witch is misconstrued as a badass, powerful, Strong Female Character girl boss type for getting revenge on the men who wronged her, with absolutely no consideration given to what the movie actually ends up saying about women. and the director has said that he embraces this interpretation, but never intended it. so like. of course you're going to embrace the interpretation that gives you critical acclaim and the moral high ground. but it's so fucking clear that it was never his intention to say anything about feminism, or women in general, or gender at all. so i find it very frustrating that people read the film that way because it's just. objectively wrong.

there's also things i want to say about this idea that clover talks about in a different chapter of the book when she discusses the country/city divide in a lot of horror (especially rape-revenge films) in which the writer intends the audience to identify with the city characters and be against the country characters (think of, like, house of 1000 corpses - there's pretty explicit socioeconomic regional tension between the evil country residents and the travelers from the city) but first, they have to address the real harm that the City (as a whole) has inflicted upon the Country (usually in the forms of environmental and economic destruction) so in order to justify the antagonization the country people are characterized by, their "retaliation" for these wrongs has to be so extreme and misdirected that we identify with the city people by default (if country men feel victimized by the City and react by attacking a city woman who isn't complicit in the crimes of the City in any of the violent, heinous ways horror movies employ, of course we won't sympathize with them). why am i bringing this up? well, clover says this idea is actually borrowed from the western genre, where native americans are the Villains even as white settlers commit genocide - so they characterize them as extremely savage and violent in order to justify violence against them (in fiction and in real life). the idea is to address the suffering of the Other and delegitimize it through extreme negative characterization (often, with both the people from the country and native americans, through negative stereotyping as well as their actions). so i think that shows how this idea is transferred between different genres and whatever group of people the writers want the viewers to be against, and in this movie it’s happening on the axis of gender instead of race, region, or class. obviously the victims of the salem witch trials suffered extreme injustice and physical violence (especially in the film as victim of the ritual the body clearly underwent) BUT by retaliating for the wrongs done to her, apparently (according to the main characters) at random, she's characterized as monstrous and dangerous and spiteful. her revenge is unjustified because it’s not targeted at the people who actually committed violence against her. they say that the ritual created the very thing it was trying to destroy - i.e. an evil witch. she becomes the thing we're supposed to be afraid of, not someone we’re supposed to sympathize with. she’s othered by this framework, not supported by it, so even if she’s afforded some power through her posthumous magical abilities, we the viewer are not supposed to root for her. if the viewer does sympathize with her, it’s in spite of the writing, not because of it. the main characters who we are intended to identify with feel only shallow sympathy for her, if any - even when they realize they’ve been cutting open a living person, they express shock and revulsion, but not regret. in fact, they go back and scalp her and take out her brain. after realizing that she’s alive! we’re intended to see this as an acceptable retaliation against the witch, not an act of extreme cruelty or at the very least a stupid idea lol. 

(also - i hate how much of a buzzword salem is in movies like this lol, nothing about her injuries or the story they “read” on her is even remotely similar to what happened in salem, except for the time period. i know they don’t explicitly say oh yeah, she was definitely from salem, but her injuries really aren’t characteristic of american executions of witches at all so i wish they hadn’t muddied the water by trying to point to an actual historical event. especially since i think the connotation of “witch” and the victims of witch trials has taken on a modern projection of feminism that doesn’t really make sense under any scrutiny. anyway)

not to mention the ending: what was the writer intending the audience to get from the ending? that the cycle of violence continues, and the witch’s revenge will move on and repeat the same violence in the next place, wherever she ends up. we’re supposed to feel bad for whoever her next victims will be. but what about her? i think the movie figures her maybe as triumphant, but she’s going to keep being passed around from morgue to morgue, and she’s going to be vivisected again and again, with no way to communicate her pain or her story. the framework of the story doesn’t allow for this ending to be tragic for her, though - clearly the tragedy lies with the father and son, finally having opened up to one another, unfortunately too late, and dying early, unjust deaths at the hands of this unknowable malignant entity. it doesn’t do justice to her (or the girlfriend, who seems to be nothing but collateral damage in all of this - in the ending sequence, when the police finds the carnage, it only shows them finding the bodies of the men. the girlfriend is as irrelevant to the conclusion as she is to the rest of the plot). 

but does this mean the autopsy of jane doe is a “bad” movie? i guess it depends on your perspective. ultimately, it’s one of those questions that i find myself asking when faced with certain kinds of stories that inevitably crop up often in our media: how much can we excuse a story for upholding regressive social norms (even unintentionally) before we have to discount the whole work? i don’t think the autopsy of jane doe warrants complete rejection for being “problematic” but i think the critical acclaim based on the idea that it’s a feminist film should be rejected. i still consider it a very interesting concept with strong acting and a lot of visual appeal, and it’s a very good piece of atmospheric horror. it’s does get a bit boring at certain points, but the core of the film is solid. it’s also not trying to be sexist, arguably it’s not overtly sexist at all, it’s just very very androcentric at the expense of its female characters, and i’m genuinely shocked that anyone would call it feminist. so sure, let’s not throw the baby out with the bath water, but let’s also be critical about how it’s using women as the stage for men’s emotional conflict 

also re: my description of this little project as “a film isn’t feminist just because there’s a woman’s name in the title” - i actually don’t want to skim over the fact that “jane doe” isn’t a real name. of the three women in the film, only one has a real name; the other two are referred to by names given to them by men. i’ll conclude on this note because i want to emphasize the lack of even very basic ways of recognizing individual identity afforded to women in this film. so yeah! the end! thanks for your consideration if you read this far! 

[skloomdumpster]

On The Defense of Bloom Peters

This is a long time coming meta. More than once, I’ve been asked why do I like Bloom. Why do I like her when she is a reckless teenager whose actions have caused so much chaos through season1?

It’s quite a simple answer: Bloom was doing her best with the cards she was given and, a shockingly hot take, I think she did one hell of a great job at that.

There is a lot of talk about “strong female characters” but if the internet has proven one thing is that it is just that, talk. Upon being presented a well-rounded character, with both flaws and qualities, with narrative purpose, goals and desires, it seems we freeze. Suddenly they’re reckless, selfish and dumb. There’s a favoring for characters whose personality never actually play out, simply because fandom latches on blank white canvases (emphasis on white) to project their issues. Do you need them to be witty? Character B, with very basic personality, can be witty in any scenario. She can be paired with the local hottie and given any conflict you deem interesting. That’s a treatment we see women receive often by fandom (I’m not even going to touch the beehive that is race dynamics in this, if you’re interested google misogynoir in fiction).

The surefire way of not having a fandom favorite female lead to give them personality, a conflict driven personality to top it off – such as Bloom’s – is sure to make them hated.

The show is told by a 3rd person, omnipresent, omniscient point of view. We, the audience, have more information from the get go (With Beatrix’s reveal on the end of the first episode, for example) than any of the characters do.

Riven doesn’t know he’s being manipulated by Beatrix, as far as he knows he’s just helping the one person who’s been caring about him all semester. Sky is being lied to by Saul and upholds an unrealistic image of his father, which we the audience know, but he doesn’t. We forgive Riven for his misdemeanors, how many fanfics have you read writing his “redemption” arc? Or just flat out ignoring whom he sided with during season one or, to top it off, his entire storyline with Dane? We forgive Sky for not immediately forgiving Silva for lying. We forgive Silva for killing his best friend and lying to his son for years, we forgive them all for genocide.

Yet we do not forgive Bloom for being selfish when she was under the impression everyone and their mother were lying to her, which we know they were.

In Bloom’s perspective, after hurting a loved person directly and realizing she lacks any control, she is approached by a stranger, who tells her there’s a place where she can learn to control her powers. We’re told, in no shortage of words, that this is ALL information given to Bloom.

She was not told she was a changeling, Farah didn’t speak with Vanessa and Michael, putting Bloom in an automatic disadvantage to her peers (if this was because Bloom asked her to not tell her parents or not, we do not know).

So Bloom joins this school, where she’s far behind her colleagues and with one goal in mind, the one she was told she would be able to achieve: Control, so she can return home and to her family. This is all information given in the first fifteen minutes of episode one.

Bloom’s goal: Going back home, to her family, redeeming herself from the pain she caused her mom.

She doesn’t fit in, though, and she’s given a ring that allows her to go back home and see her parents. Upon arriving there, though, she doesn’t have the guts to approach them and her mom says, “you do not belong here”. Said in a loving way, yes, but as Bloom stands outside wanting to come in, she realizes she will be the stranger at the window forever, now with the information she wasn’t born in this family and didn’t belong there from the very first day.

When she returns to Alfea her goal has shifted. She doesn’t fit in Alfea, it’s reinforced time and time again by the whispers, the gossip. She doesn’t belong in California, not only because she hurt those she loves, but because it was spelled out to her. So Bloom’s goal is “where am I from? Who are my parents? Where was I born?”

She’s obsessive, she’s goal driven, she’s got no qualms. If Bloom is selfish in this path, which she is, it’s not to those lying to her. Bloom’s actions toward Farah, facing her, demanding explanations, ignoring Farah’s orders, are all justified by the fact the teacher is lying to her and the more Bloom learns of the situation, the more she has to believe that Farah’s reasoning or any of the teacher’s for that matter, aren’t altruistic at all. And they aren’t. A genocide did happen, did get covered up, Farah did lie about Bloom’s origins twice. No, if Bloom is selfish, then the one person who deserves an apology from her is Aisha.

There’s a scene in the show, which I think highlights beautifully this rift between what fandom watches and what fandom sees. Bloom, helpless and hopeless, faces Farah about Rosalind, after being lied about Rosalind multiple times and now having seen the rubble of Aster Dell’s ruins. Farah gives her “Rosalind lied to us, we didn’t question, we should’ve questioned. If you are from Aster Dell, I can only apologize for the pain I’ve caused you”. She owns up to the harm caused and to the lies, which until this point she was still trying to convince Bloom were all in her head. Somehow this scene is often used to frame Bloom as a bratty, demanding teenager, and not a young woman who just found out her entire life was a lie, she’s the orphan of a genocide, which her mentor just owned up to after lying for the past weeks (or months, depending on how you interpret Fate’s timeline).

Another one, upon Beatrix’s arrest, Bloom is questioning. Who saw what happened? What they’re accusing her of, who saw it? Are our teachers jury and executioner now? It’s Beatrix’s words against theirs, and Bea hasn’t lied to Bloom as far as she’s aware, so why should she side with these other people? Because Terra said her father would never harm people? (spoiler, he did). What Bloom does, in this sequence, is actually the correct course of actions. If someone you knew got arrested without an investigation, shunned away on a baseless claim by people you already don’t trust, would you sit back and not question it? I don’t think so. I hope not.

So why? What is it about Bloom’s questioning, demanding, that makes her so hated by the fandom?

Well, I do have an answer to that. We come full circle: The show has a 3rd person, omnipresent, omniscient point of view. We hate Bloom, because despite her trying her hardest, doing her best, actually taking many brave, selfless decisions to uncover a mystery that can jeopardize her entire future, we KNOW all her decisions are wrong. At every step she takes, the narrative doubles on proving her wrong, but not to her, to us. So what we watch, actually, is a collection of Bloom’s mistakes, when they truly are just her trying her best with very little information that she is given.

[lochnessies]

@cockati3l the church isn’t ruling people from behind the scenes. even the devs confirmed that. the church in adrestia doesn’t exist, the church in the alliance is ‘toothless’ and nobody pays attention to them as said by lorenz, and the western church is in open rebellion against the central. also, when does the church control anybody in the game? nobody is forced to follow them and they even take on nonbelievers as staff.

once again, what corruption are you talking about? it can’t be what edelgard mentions in her speech because that’s been proven false.

it can’t be killing the western priests because they attempted assassination more than once, grave robbed, and attempted to kill students. not to mention are racist af

it can’t be changing history a little because in your own words “what the fuck so u want her to do?” humans killed her race when they found out the amount of power stored in their bones, blood, and hearts. at that time in fodlan’s history clans were fighting for power with the relics of her family and she had to find a way to broker peace as said by intsys: “seiros and co. meddled with history not in order to rule over humans, but to quell the flames of war and chaos as much as possible, and to also keep a steady balance about humanity.”

also yes, rhea was about to step down. she says so herself. even calling herself a “mere proxy” for byleth.

tell me how claude piggybacked off of edelgard’s war to further his own aims? the game tells and shows that he’s spending his time trying to just keep the alliance together.

she’s literally called the hegemon. there is no freedom under her rule. she centralizes all power onto herself and makes herself the supreme ruler. what she says goes and in order to achieve that result she murdered, lied, and stole.

she literally said “i have no regrets.” why? because she doesn’t. she may feel kinda bad about all the dying but obviously not enough to stop what she’s doing and find another path.

also her words about the followers of seiros are far from kind. she calls them “mindless” multiple times (even in her s-support). the faithful are forced to flee from her. people even lose contact with the believers in the empire, and it’s not even allowed to be one in the first place. not to mention in hanneman/manuela’s ending the church can come back but only under the empire’s supervision. so we have a state controlled church. look at all the freedom!

when does dimitri leave crestless people to get fucked? he literally talks at length that he believes that people with crests and people without need to work together and recognize each other’s strengths.

also the church isn’t the one behind the “crest system” (if you can even call it that since the way each house interacts with it is so different). crests/clans became noble houses because of their strength (aka the empire’s meritocracy in the beginning) and the strong aka crest bearers rose to the top bc in the 91 years it took to kill nemesis his elites had already started their own bloodlines and families. the nintendo interview says that rhea lied about the origin of the crests and relics bc she wanted the wars to end and the only way to have gotten rid of the crests humans had would be to genocide them.

with nemesis gone and the adrestian empire now in charge of the continent, a meritocracy started to form among the nobility. hanneman in his support with dorothea says this about the founding of the empire: “consider this. at its inception, the concept of nobility assumed that the greatest among the populace would rise to power. in my mind, i believe that those who value knowledge, those who strive for more, and wish to protect and guide their fellow man. however, in practice, nobility often serves to keep those deemed commoners down, segregated from those who, by chance, were born to a noble family.” this is also paired with ferdiand’s support with edelgard: “certainly, we must recognize the common folk who strive for greatness and attain it. but for those of us born into nobility, things are more complicated. from birth, nobles must excel. if we do not, we will be forced out of our houses. this environment breeds superior individuals, and they, in turn, recreate the rigorous environment for their own children. without that cycle, there would be no political elite guiding the world towards prosperity.” so from these supports we learn that the empire was founded on the idea of the strongest shall rule and they would be replaced if they didn’t reach a standard. however, over time, the nobility started to abuse this power of theirs and the idea of meritocracy was forgotten. which, ironically, is how it always works in the real world as well. that’s where the concept of nobles often bearing crests comes from. it’s comes from the empire not the church. and when faerghus and the alliance break off from it they kept the tradition. also, if you talk to rhea in verdant wind when she talks about zanado you can tell she hates crests. at the very least she hates the fact that humans have them due to how they were acquired. you know, through genocide. it’s also in the book of seiros that the reason the goddess left was because people were abusing crests and it saddened her and she went back to the blue sea star. so no, the church isn’t propagating anything. and they can’t force the noble houses to adhere to their religion so they don’t.

i’m not sure what you mean by “squander any rebellion”. i think you mean squash/stamp out? well the only rebellion we see in the game is from the western church and as i said previously, the priests were punished because they attempted assassination more than once, grave robbed, and attempted to kill students. not to mention are racist af. the church wasn’t the aggressor and only stopped the rebellions because they were dangerous and were also attacking innocent people. however, we do know that in crimson flower there are rebellions under edelgard’s rule and they are put down as well by the empire secret police aka hubert.

the devs also mention that azure moon was written to be a counter to crimson flower. and that is the route where dimitri has to learn to rely on his friends and work together with his people in order to usher in a bright future. in crimson flower edelgard berates people who lean on anybody else for support (all while taking some from byleth) and believes humans need to stand on their own two feet. in azure moon she says: “if after all of this you believe the weak will still be weak, that is only because they are too used to relying on others instead of on themselves.” to which dimitri responds: “yes. perhaps someone as strong as you are can claim something like that. but you cannot force that belief onto others. people aren't as strong as you think they are. there are those who cannot live without their faith... and those who cannot go on once they have lost their reason for living. you path will not be able to save them. it is the path of the strong, and so, it could only benefit the strong.” so yes, there is someone who represents human unity in the game: dimitri.

edelgard doesn’t make fodlan better. she’s the game’s hegemon (called this in three routes). there are rebellions under her. her people are starving (ashe says on cf), she attacked two nations she had no rights to, and defamed an entire race/religion.

crimson flower ends in flames and darkness. this is made VERY clear by the ending mural. unlike the others, which all show a very joyful scene; am has dimitri being loved by the people with archbishop byleth at his side, ss has byleth being held up in the crowd of people as it talks about how they are now the arbiter of every soul and mother of all life (which are the exact words used to describe sothis), and vw has claude talking with the people and the almyrans are visiting; which infers peace between the two nations. however in cf, we have edelgard standing on the flags of the nations she has conquered. she holds a napoleonic staff in her hands, and the mural portrays people with their heads bowed in obvious sadness and defeat. the biggest indicator that this is not an ending to be celebrated, but rather lamented, is the border. In all the other endings, the border is white and is accented by the color of the route. in cf you can see that the border is black. black and red: colors synonymous with evil or darkness. the epilogue also mentions rebellions against her rule that she has put down.

edelgard’s role in the story is that of nemesis 2.0. someone that is manipulated by twsitd and is fed false information to lead her to finish what nemesis started over a thousand years ago - the extinction of the nabatean race.

another massive red flag is what the devs have said about crimson flower being the supreme ruler route. “edelgard in "crimson fower", or rather known as the, "supreme ruler (hegemon) route" is something we honestly meant to be much more difficult to enter.” (they were talking about why it is harder to enter cf than ss). let’s focus on the word ‘hegemon’. the direct definition is ‘a supreme ruler.’ in another interview they mention the ‘hegemon’s path’ which is a chinese philosophy that goes along with the mandate of heaven that the devs have said that they based cf off of. there is a rule of the mandate of heaven: the right to rule is only granted if the ruler cares about his people more than he cares about himself, and if this is not the case, then the people rise up to overthrow the tyrant. we know for a fact that edelgard is this ‘tyrant/hegemon’ because she is called this in the game.

the devs have also said: “due to all the previous titles in the series, the thought/impression that the empire = antagonists is left upon the playerbase. when you think about the "empire", you usually get some sort of "bad/evil" image, i think. and as for the story, it really feels like it started from the romance of three kingdoms, but we force them all to take part in school life. In other words, a period in which there was peace must exist, before starting the fires of war. and because of that, someone evil (villain) has to exist, and so we had the empire bear that burden.” this interview also blew the common argument pro-empire fans had of fodlan not being at peace at the start of the game. they said themselves that the three countries were at peace. even the game states at the start that ‘these three ruling powers now exist in relative harmony.’

also even if other characters did some things wrong that doesn’t suddenly let her off the hook for her actions just like her’s don’t nullify theirs. if she wanted to peacefully change how things worked in her nation then fine. i don’t care. however, she invaded two other independent nations in order to change their systems and put them under her control. that isn’t morally gray no matter how you spin it. it’s tyrannical.

actually it was humans as a whole who fucked up the earth first. the agarthans are a race of humans that have been around for over a thousand years at the start of the game. when the goddess sothis came down from her home on the blue sea star she arrived in fodlan and took on a form that resembled humanity and lived among them. she used her blood to birth a race of children called nabateans. in the beginning, these two nations lived in harmony.

sothis and her children helped the humans advance their technology and weapons over time until the humans’ hubris grew to the point that they began to wage war on each other and eventually the goddess herself - the one who gave them the technology to do so. as confirmed by seteth, (who was there during that time) some of the weapons they used in the war are also seen in the game, such as the missile of light that destroys fort merceus. so basically, it was a ye olde nuclear war that almost completely destroyed the land and the humans. during this, a faction of humans left the surface to live below ground. they built a city called shambala and officially became known as agarthans. back on the surface, sothis used her godly power to try and heal the earth. however, due to the incredible damage done by the weapons, so much of her power was used that she fell into a deep sleep to try and recover. so no, sothis didn’t fuck shit up. it was the arrogant humans that took her kindness and decided they wanted to try and kill each other with it.

yes, dimitri and claude do have the rest of fodlan under their command at the end of the day. however, they way they achieved this was nothing like edelgard’s. they had no intentions of starting a war to unite the three under their rule. dimitri was given the alliance (the round table came to an agreement and willingly became part of faerghus) and when he kills edelgard the empire is now, by default his whether he likes it or not. same with claude. he defeats the empire which by that point had taken the kingdom. both are now without leadership and he doesn’t even stay. he fucks off to almyra. edelgard on the other hand started the war to put all of fodland back under her rule. it’s not comparable.