as a jew, seeing what all of these israeli leaders have said is sickening. as a jew, anti-palestinian rhetoric is sickening. as a jew, zionism is sickening.
how dare my people -- a people who've been massacred, ethnically cleansed, dehumanized, forcibly removed, and discriminated on religious grounds for their entire existence -- do the same to another people? how dare we turn our backs on them, when they suffer like we have?
i understand that so much of us have been fed zionist propaganda our entire lives; the same happened to me. i understand the desire for a homeland where we don't have to fear antisemitism at every turn; i want that too. but it doesn't take much thought to understand that a homeland for us, which actively oppresses and kills another people, is antithetical to what we want.
if you, as a member of an oppressed group, believe that your freedom and safety can only exist when you oppress another group, you are acting no better than the people who oppressed you. such a belief is horrible, and cynical, and wrong.
as a jew, i want jewish people to be happy and safe and connected to our heritage; as a jew, i also want other peoples to be happy and safe and connected to their heritage.
don't call the palestinians "amalek". you are turning us into amalek.
doesn't the torah tell us to have empathy for those beaten down by the world? doesn't the torah tell us to make the world a better place? doesn't the torah tell us to free people of their shackles and help them escape oppression?
i have so many israeli aunts and uncles and cousins; i fear for their safety. of course, my parents do as well. i'm worried that this fear, in addition to anything they were led to believe earlier in life, is placing my parents even deeper in the zionist camp. but it doesn't have to be this way! my relatives' safety does not rely on the continued oppression of gaza!
it is easy to be uninformed, to be swayed by propaganda, to blindly hope that israel was founded in good faith -- but we can't lie to ourselves. a world steeped in senseless hatred (which we are now promoting!) could never be a home for us. none of us are free, liberated, equal, until all of us are.
as a jew, to other jews, i implore that we stand with our palestinian siblings. i want us all to be happy and safe. i want us all to live in harmony -- in the holy land and around the world. that is what we all deserve. <3
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A previous post of mine re Jon's resurrection has been doing the rounds lately so I think I need to clarify a few things (because some people seemed to misunderstand what I was saying - thought tbh I'm a bit surprised).
I was not - and have never - made the argument that Jon is going to walk away from his assassination (whether he actually dies or is just severely wounded) - with no ramifications. Obviously there are going to be many mental and physical changes. For one, he's basically become a human pin-cushion. And given that his heart will probably stop, we might see other things like his fingers and toes turning black. There's also a popular theory that he might lose an eye (to complete the Odin symbolism/parallel). Then we remember that he has been betrayed by his subordinates which is obviously going to cause severe trauma. Anger, hurt, and maybe even resignation will be emotions that he has to grapple with. And let us remember that Jon spent five books (but most of all ADWD) ignoring the magic within and around him. So that's even more trauma because he now has to come to terms with the magical changes within him. It's a lot to deal with. His chapters are going to be depressing af. I think most of us, and most of us Jon fans, can agree on this.
But here's the problem: recent fandom discussion re Jon's death has been very narrow and one sided. To certain communities, he has to turn evil or villainous. This view is actually what led me to making that post. Because there has been an uptick in bad faith arguments brought on by people saying "well my fave is held to an impossible standard so I have to make straw man arguments for why we should willfully misinterpret Jon's arc/situation to make him be the bad guy for a change". And this is so incredibly annoying because it achieves nothing except bring in even more bad takes re Jon. I didn't want to point any fingers and I won't do that here because I don't really believe whataboutisms will do us any good. Really, I'm more interested in dispelling the idea that Jon has to turn into some one dimensional, unthinking, evil zombie because that suits a few fans' narratives; and given that I'm a Jon Snow fangirl, I have to defend my boy here.
This is what led me to specifically calling out the idea that Jon will be Stoneheart 2.0 or like Varamyr. The Varamyr comparison was especially jarring because the argument I was going against implied that Jon would be like Varamyr morally. I don't think I need to go too much into why that's a bizarre argument that has absolutely no basis in the text. Before his death, Varamyr had be a local homicidal tyrant who had spend much of his life terrorizing the wildlings beyond the wall. He did not die, warg into an animal, and then go crazy. He was already severely messed up to begin with. So no, it makes no sense to compare him to Jon because they're on two opposite ends of the spectrum morally. Jon is not and will not turn in to a raping, murdering, maniac with no regard for humanity around him. In fact, the one thing that drives Jon's arc is having to make moral choices to do the most good for everyone. GRRM is not going to suddenly change that and turn him evil.
But we can use that ADWD prologue chapter to infer what could happen to Jon in other ways. Varamyr's chapter tells us that a warg who spends too much time in their bonded animal begins to lose himself/herself over time. And most people accept that Jon will become more "wolfish" by spending an extended period of time warging into Ghost. But here's the thing, we do not know how long Jon will be out of commission. And we do not know the rate at which one begins to merge with their familiar. So it also doesn't make sense to say that Jon will completely lose himself to Ghost because there's still so much that's up in the air.
Another thing that often gets overlooked is that there is a spectrum in regards to how resurrected beings function. There are those whose psyches are near permanently damaged and there are those who are relatively high functioning.
Ice wights - the most severe case of mental degradation that we've seen so far. They can hold a grudge (i.e. the wights that attacked LC Mormont) but we haven't seen them communicate or function in any way that's similar to regular humans.
Patchface - on the severe end of the spectrum. We don't really know too many details about what happened to him but the prevailing theory right now is that he is a "wight" brought back through the machinations of the drowned god. Patchface can't communicate normally so he has to do it in cryptic rhymes (which are most certainly prophecies). And let's remember that he had also been dead, with no place for his soul to go, for a few days before being brought back iirc.
Catelyn/Lady Stoneheart - closer to the severe end of the spectrum but I wouldn't say she's the most extreme case. She's singularly focused on getting revenge on the Boltons and Lannisters who were responsible for her family's downfall - more recently, her son's murder. Her body is severely degraded as well. But I wouldn't say she's on the same level as Patches just because the only reason she cannot communicate is because her throat was cut through. Still she can form thought, lead a group (the BWB), and if fan theories are correct about a RW 2.0 coming, she's even capable of carrying out semi-large scale conspiracy. But as I outlined in my previous post, Catelyn isn't doing the revenge thing because dying and being resurrected automatically turns someone into a "crazy monster". Catelyn, quite literally, watched the last of her line die right in front of her. And, she had also been severely depressed by her husband's death and the news of Bran's and Rickon's deaths prior to the RW. So as she was in her last moments, she was clawing her face with her own nails, screaming in anguish. Which led to her murdering Jinglebell!
Beric - pretty high functioning. Can lead a group of people, can fight, can communicate well enough with those around him. However, he cannot eat, sleep, his blood has turned back, etc. He also loses his memories. BUT let's remember that he was brought back several times which means that there were more adverse effects with each resurrection; and he became so tired of it that he gave his breath of life to Catelyn the minute he got the chance to. And Beric was not some unthinking zombie wrecking havoc across the Riverlands, killing everyone he could get his hands on. He did not lose his morality, nor did he lose his sense of purpose (well, he is singularly focused on carrying out the task delegated to him by Ned Stark). There's obviously a sense of loss (again losing human anatomical functions and also the memory loses) but he hasn't become some one dimensional character.
Coldhands - we don't really know exactly what brought him back (most likely COF magic) but he's relatively high functioning. Sure, he is like Beric in that he doesn't eat or sleep but he can think, he can plan, he can function mentally with little to no constraints. He's not going around murdering people willy nilly and being a menace to society. He is focused on doing something beyond the wall but we don't know too much about him. But we have hints that he is a skinchanger(!) and that could've helped him maintain his faculties.
Melisandre - no on page confirmation yet but the popular theory is that she is some form of fire wight (she doesn't need to eat, sleep, etc, like Beric and Coldhands). However, Mel functions as well as anyone else. And no, she's not burning people because she died - meaning that all people who die and are resurrected get really into human sacrifice. Mel's religion (and even background since she's from Asshai) is already heavily marked by these practices; just like Varamyr was already a morally degraded man before the ADWD prologue chapter. Mel is also decidedly NOT one-dimensionally evil, and GRRM has said before that she's his most misunderstood character.
As evidenced above, there's quite a few differences with the people brought back. There's no one-size-fits-all shoe for everyone. So no, Jon won't become Beric 2.0 or Stoneheart 2.0 or Coldhands 2.0 because that's just not how it works. He'll be his own being, something new.
But here's the thing, Jon is already different from all of these people in life. As @swordsandarms has had to point out multiple times (to a point where I'd imagine it's become quite the chore for them), Jon is a completely new entity by virtue of him being a magical being - something that neither Catelyn Stark nor Beric Dondarrion were. So even if we accept that they establish a lot of the changes that wights face, we should also make sure to point out that there is a massive difference between them and Jon. Saying that the effects on Jon are going be less severe due to him spending some time in Ghost is not at all saying that he'll get away scot-free. Pointing out that Ghost is not some savage animal but a direwolf who displays human-like characteristics and intelligence (that is quite ahead of his siblings) isn't saying that Jon will face no changes. You'll be hard pressed to find anyone in fandom who argues that Jon will just get up and resume life as usual.
And lastly, something else I want to call attention to is that we should be looking to already established precedent among other wargs and skinchangers. Because here's the thing, Jon's death and rebirth is going to be a massive event in the magical realm; I mean so many practitioners of different magic systems have seen it in some way or the other. From a Doylist perspective, Jon's death serves as a vehicle to bring him closet to magic. By the time he gets back he'll be a more practiced and powerful warg, he'll possibly be on the receiving end of more powerful and frequent prophetic visions, he could also gain the ability to wield fire magic (e.g., making his own Lightbringer a la Beric and as foreshadowed by his ADWD dream), and he's certainly going to become a fully fledged skinchanger. We know this last part to be true because of precedent set by Bran and Arya - Bran who had a near death experience and Arya who lost her eyesight - and I'd argue that we can throw Jojen Reed into the mix as well. So when we talk about the changes death will bring, we should also talk about these characters who obviously serve as foreshadowing as well.
(@daenystheedreamer gonna tag you for visibility since you tagged me in a previous post. Really sorry I didn't manage to reply in time but I think you deleted the post. Hope it's ok tho but long story short, you didn't misinterpret that post at all and what you said was exactly my point. But yeah, just letting you know that we're in agreement lol).
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You have to choose love. I'm sorry, I know. I know it hurts. I know you're upset, you deserve to be outraged. Your pain is real and deeply unjust. But you have to. You have to choose love.
There's too much hurt in the world. Too much bitterness. The powerful have built an inconciecable machine that turns all human suffering into unimaginable wealth, and it us hurting all of us. It has taught us to hurt each other.
We can't let it continue. We can't keep lashing out at each other. We can't keep making enemies of our siblings in pain. We have to choose love. We have to.
We have to forgive each other. Not entirely, we don't have to forget our pain, but we have to forgive enough to see each other as more alike than separate. We have to forgive each other for being taught to cause hurt.
I'm not your enemy. You aren't mine. There are people poisoning our planet en masse, killing our mother earth, erasing whole cultures, stripping human rights to keep us disempowered. We can't let ourselves become each other's enemies, even when we hurt each other.
Your pain is real. You deserve better. We all do. But we'll only achieve better if we save our ire for the real bigger fish. We can't keep fighting over the details, we all already agree on the most important part: we deserve better.
Language will always be muddy, we won't all speak the same meaning into the same words. We're gonna step on each other's toes, hurt each other deeply, even when we mean to be gentle. We're going to make mistakes along the way, we'll be misguided. But we have to forgive. We have to choose love.
I know this is preachy, I know this is vague, I know this is corny. I know. I'm just.. scared. I'm terrified. Every day I see so many like-minded people on here who would sooner tell one another to kill themselves than agree to fight for our common causes because of deeply held presumptions of character built on superficial things. I see people declaring anyone who finds joy in the wrong things, the wrong labels, to be as good as an abuser, as the very people who've put the boot on our necks in the first place.
I see so many people see the state of our world, the abysmal status quo, and respond by pouring a deep righteous passion into delineating who of us is a worthy enough aly and who is effectively a walking incarnation of their ideological enemy.
We'll never be able to achieve the unity we need to take our rights back if we're so quick to make teams and choose sides. I know, I know that a lot of these things actually matter, I'm not trying to dismiss the significance of any of these things.
What I'm saying is that, despite these conflicts, we need to swallow our differences and choose to love each other enough to focus not on the ways in which we are divided, but on our unity in oppression. Every LGBT person is threatened by any of us having our rights taken, we are a family. Every internet user, proship, antiship, vanilla, kinky, artist, lurker, all of us are threatened by attacks on privacy, by the advancement of censorship of any kind.
We can sort out our grudges when there's time. But I can't help but think too much is too dire for us to let ourselves choose to fight each other as enemies when we're all in such similar need of better.
We need humility in the face of error. We need to let go of the fear of being wrong, of having believed the wrong things, fought for the wrong causes, of having hurt other people. We need to release our guilt, for no amount of it will ever heal a wound inflicted, reverse an error made. We need to see even our enemies as human, even the worst of us as human. We need to remember that we, and others, can always make a choice.
Everything is so, so goddamn scary. It's hard to know what to believe, and who to trust, and who and what and where is safe. And I think that the answer has to be love. We have to love recklessly, we have to be kind no matter what. We have to trust ourselves to change, to be capable of change, of being accepted for changing, we have to trust each other to mean well, to accept us when we try to improve. We have to give second chances, we have to seek the humanity behind each other's actions, and seek to connect with it.
I love you. I want to make a better world with you. Even if we believe different things, I want your life to be easy. I want food in your fridge, I want joy to be an old friend you can always count on being in your daily life. I want rest for you. I want sleep to come easy, I want you to feel safe. I want you warm in the cold, and cool in the heat. I love you.
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Can't send asks from my sideblog, but this is @chewing-the-drywall
I feel like much of s2 fell into Frenchie's "we put it in the box and then lock it and don't open it again" in the sense that it set up A LOT that I was intrigued about how they would address it, but it either never was mentioned again or was handled poorly.
Examples range from light, like how I wish we saw more of the crew interacting with each other in ways that built on their characters from S1, where in S2 they didn't feel any more developed, or even regressed. (Example, Fang used the word Fingies 2-3 times through S2, and it felt like they were using it almost as a shorthand for his character, rather than making him feel more real and multidimensional as a character.)
100% @chewing-the-drywall. When I first heard that line I had I was so excited for the story to prove Frenchie wrong. Or show how important it can be to put aside problems to stay alive in the moment. But in the end, this one line summarized how the season handled everyone, besides Stede and Ed. Below, is an in depth discussion on where this season decided to spend it's limited amount of time. Instead of focusing on the characters and plotlines they'd already established.
This season had so MANY ideas it wanted to touch on.
Izzy trying to deal with his unrequited love and opening up to a new way of living. The traumatized 'Revenge' crew trying to adapt to a softer way of life again. The abandoned crew learning how to help their traumatized friends. Introducing new characters like Zheng, Auntie, and Archie into our main group. Setting up a conflict to resolve in season three. Along the way, referencing Pirates of history like Ned Low, Mary Reed, and Anne Bonny.
Notice, I've said all this and we're not even at our romantic leads.
Which is fine. Stories are fluid things. As long as the story knows how to flow from our leads to our side characters. Which leads us to how I feel this show took a lot of time away from establishing our central crew-
[Warning- this will be a controversial opinion- I want to know what y'all think about this] Zheng/Oluwande. This seasons habit of retreading old plotlines and referencing scenes from S1.
What S1 did so well was paralleling the side stories with what was going on with Ed/Stede. Usually, highlighting how well Stede/Ed worked by showing how much Ed/Izzy DIDN'T work. Or general hijinks that tied into the plot (Oluwande and Frenchie on the French ship).
Season 2 chose to parallel our main story with what was going on between Zheng/Oluwande as a budding romance and Izzy's slow recovery. The reason Zheng/Oluwande scenes felt like a waste for me in that the story was JUST a retelling the story we watched from S1.
A frustrated first mate(Auntie), and a legendary captain(Zheng) fighting over the captain falling in love with an idiot(Olu). In season 2, much like every callback for me, it felt like it slowed down the plot by pulling us out of the story. Like...yeah, you did the thing again, do you want me to applaud you for it?
I LIKE Zheng and Oluwande as a couple! I like that Oluwande was debating leaving Stede and taking Jim and Archie with him. But at the same time, I didn't care about Zheng until episode 7 when she beat up Stede, showing that yes. She's not just some all powerful woman taken down by a mix of love(the crew in ep3) and thinking that she was above it all (ep 7). She's fast on her feet, smart, and willing to stab someone who gets in her way. She's her own person. But.
Every other scene that established her was about her romance, felt like we could have put Rhys and Taika in there. It didn't feel...unique. It's as if the show only knows 1 way to write a romance between a badass and a bumbling idiot. Again. Oluwande in season 1 wasn't dumb in the same way everyone else was. He was protective of Jim, a bit nervous overall, but he was the person the crew chose to lead them. The season just dumbed everyone down a bit and called it a day.
This comes to the larger issue. When we only have eight episodes I don't want to rewatch the exact same plot beats with different characters. Time spent here ends up taking away from other stories we could have told about trauma and growing as a family and other forms of growing as a family. We didn't need another romance plot line. Imagine taking this time instead to show Lucius reaching out to Pete AND the crew for help. Or Frenchie finally feeling safe enough to play his lute. Or Roach helping Fang get over his thing with cakes-you get my point.
The fact we took all the found family stuff from season one, and pushed it onto only Izzy in S2 means when he dies, all the found family shit falls away. His death makes us realize we've been ignoring the central family we were supposed to care about. Because in so many words, their trauma was ignored.
[I even theorize if Izzy was alive and sailed away with them. Showing how he was taken in and loved by his crew, the ending wouldn't feel so hollow. This crew doesn't feel like a caring family. The person who protected them for months died, wasn't mourned, and then they threw a wedding the same day. Not even a full day to mourn. The 'New Revenge' feels like a heartless crew of characters we barely recognize because they aren't a family like they were at the end of S1. More like coworkers who sometimes fall in love with eachother.]
Trauma, Timelines, and Tonal issues when jumping from Episodes 1-3 to Episodes 4-5.
When the crews meet up, the story chooses to focus on the fun plot. Ed and Stede recovering their relationship, only dipping back into that serious tone when Izzy or Lucius come on screen to 'make things sad' again. I don't think the transition from 'serious' to 'comedy' was handled well.
I don't have an official timeline of the events of season two. But from what I remember, everything happens within 2 weeks.
In episode 4, Stede ignored the vote of his crew- to let the man who was torturing half his 'FAMILY' for at least 80 days- back aboard. This rubbed me the wrong way, as it showed Stede being a selfish prick in a way that could seriously harm his crew. That's when I started to see how not adding a *single* time-skip mid-season would hurt S2.
Imagine if we had a one-week off-screen time skip between episodes 4 and 5.
Maybe it's implied that they stay in that town for a bit. Izzy would a bit more time to learn to move on his new leg and start to open up to those he already trusts. Include a scene of Izzy WITH the crew, maybe laughing about something with the old traumatized crew, even if it's just a 30-second opener. Imply that the traumatized crew would have more time to settle in with the family they miss. Show that yeah, the traumatized crew needs more time to heal. Imply at the start of the 'Ed apology' that Ed and Stede have had more time to talk their issues out.
THEN have Ed apologize. You can even keep the bullshit corporate to show that Ed still has to work for this.
Healing takes time. Setting a series over the span of two weeks after half your cast was tortured by your lead love interest? After five of your main crew thought they would sail off into a storm and die after months of stress and life threatening battles? Why did that shit get shoved to the side so quickly?
Framing episode 5 as the START of Ed making amends with the crew, only to drop the plot by episode 7? Not a smart move. Because let's be honest, 'poison into positivity' in episode 6, referring to the fact that they sold all of Ed's loot to pay for the party, ignores the sacrifices the crew made to live that long. (The death of Ivan, and intense trauma they all need to work through). In a way, Ed throwing this party was him asking the crew to start putting everything away in that imaginary box.
It's Ed retroactively letting himself say 'hey, that time I spent torturing my captives was worth it because we got something good out of it' while still ignoring his own guilt. Ed needed to take accountability for his actions. No more 'I took 'a' mans leg' bullshit. The reason his arc feels so unsatisfying is that the plot easily forgives him. Fuck. I hate what they did for Ed's arc, but that's not the point.
Overall.
My issue with this season is not that it chose to do these topics, it's that it didn't think about the implications of what they were bringing up. It didn't dare to think 'maybe it's fucked if we quickly brush off a trauma like this'. Again. I know we have to blame MAX for cutting off two episodes. But I don't think 2 additional episodes would fix a tone problem seen going from episodes 3-4.
Fucking hell. Each member of the revenge had the potential for their own arc, so it's baffling to see them all reduced to 'well meaning idiot' when they all felt so fleshed out in S1.
When izzy gives his speech about belonging, there's a reason the only image in the show of the crew all together was from S1.
At the end of the day, Season 2 didn't let our surviving side characters grow. This is a mean spirited bit on how I feel the writers see the their own characters.
Stede and Ed are our leads. They won't die, not in this genera. Their shitty actions will be forgiven because it's a comedy, and as long as it's joked about, it holds no weight. They won't die. They won't get fatally hurt. Their trauma will be taken seriously, but it's a 50/50 on if they'll talk about it before breaking up again. They will eventually get a happy ending, their trauma looked at head on, because duh.
Jim, Olu, Lucius, Pete? Characters who used to have defined personalities in S1, but haven't been defined much beyond their relationships with their partners? Whose trauma might be mentioned, but will quickly be 'resolved' in one scene? Shame. Seems like they're only useful as set dressing, But we might make you useful as interchangeable side characters to riff against. Oh, and you're in love! Isn't that cool!
Izzy? I'll just quote Jenkins here. "To have him become a father figure to Blackbeard, and on some level to the rest of the crew, and to see him become the heart of why we’re giving pirates the chance to stand for being able to live how you choose. In reality, they’re thieves and criminals, but what our pirates stand for is a life of belonging to something larger than they are in the face of a crushing, slightly fascist normalcy." So...Is Izzy a pirate and accepted into the Revenge family? Or is he still an outsider? Jenkins gave us a romcom but still defines Izzy's character as that of one stuck in a drama/tragedy. Point and laugh, because tonally these two things clash HARD and will make an audience lose trust in it's writers unless well established. Leading us to the entire issue we've pointed out of not letting your characters actions hold in dramatic weight in your story.
Frenchie, Wee John, Roach, and Fang- Ah. No love interests again...shit. Well. Background actors it is... for now. We'll see. But we need 2 more scenes of the couple breaking up, so MAYBE you'll get some backstory hinted at in dialogue. You all have 1 thing your good at, so that's easy enough to put you where you belong.
Buttons and Swede? Well. They're still alive!! Don't be sad, fans :) The actors just couldn't show up anymore. We don't want our silly happy queer pirate rom com to not end on a happy ending! (Closes the lid of the trash can where they're keep Con O'Neill a bit tighter, thanking God Con was silenced by a strike this entire season from social media)
Do you agree, or disagree? Leave any lingering thoughts down below!
I'd love to chat down below.
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