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impact801 · 2 years

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Anne v. Andrias: The Battle of Hearts

“Andrias Leviathan, Lord of Amphiba, Peacekeeper of 1000 years and first of his name” was introduced in “The Plantars Check-In” only 45% into the show's run, and he wasn’t known to be the main antagonist to Anne until True Colors pretty much 70% into the show. But with True Colors and the rest of Season 3, it was clear that these two were destined to fight one another. And even with so little screentime between each other, the Amphibia Crew did it, they made a Hero-Villain dynamic that was so great that it rivals some of the best, from Batman and the Joker to Luke and Vader I truly believe Anne and Andrias belong in those ranks, and Anne v.Andrias demonstrates this amazingly.

To understand why this fight matters for Anne and Andrias it’s best to understand their character arcs until this point. Andrias being either friend or foe, was up to debate ever since he was teased in “Marcy at the Gates”, while he came off as this fun-loving king there was a lot we didn’t know about him or Amphibia’s history, that clearly, something was up. By the time TC came around, it became clear where he stood for our heroes, becoming our Main Antagonist going forward. It also established, after seeing Andrias’ backstory, parallels between him and Anne. Both characters we’re betrayed by their two best friends and seemed to be the heart/glue of their friendships. Season 3 has been expanding on their parallels, with the episodes like “The Core and the King” showing Andrias, just like Anne, had a toxic influence controlling his life, that being Aldrich/The Core. After all of this Andrias has chosen a path of resentment, self-hatred, and isolation, but even with Anne experiencing similar things, Anne has chosen a different path.

By the end of season 1, Anne has learned to understand the toxic mentalities she and her friends have, Anne breaks away from those mentalities and starts to define herself in Season 2, and Season 3 is all about Anne struggling to be her best self. 3A was great for Anne's development because it gave her some time to build herself back up after TC. Her time on Earth taught her to trust others again from characters like Dr.Jan and her parents, opening her heart once more and allowing others to support her. Anne has decided to forgive instead of resenting her friends, she chooses to look at their friendship with nuance, choosing to forgive Sasha and Marcy as she did with HopPop, instead of hating them. Finally, Anne has a chosen path of self-love thanks to her time with the Plantars, realizing the truth, that she is someone who is just as capable and talented as Sasha and Marcy, and she shouldn’t be treated like crap by anybody because she is someone worth defending and has value.

The reason why this fight matters so much for Anne’s story is that all her time in Amphibia, all the lessons she’s learned of self-love, forgiveness, and trust, must be proven to be the right path. In order to do that Anne must defeat, the antithesis of this path, Andrias. Andrias is Anne's worst self come to life, and defeating him, proves Anne’s lessons and journey in Amphibia were all worth it. So with all that out the way, I’ll be dissecting this battle into 3 major segments:

The Build-Up, The Clash of Philosophies, and The Letter.

The Build-Up:

One of the things that makes this fight stand out to me as Anne’s true final battle, is how her antagonist finally starts to respect her. Everyone from Mr.X, Sasha, and even Andrias(which he admits here) all underestimated Anne. Sasha in Reunion, is always seeing herself as above Anne, even when they have to fight each other Sasha is always looking down on her, and every time she does this she’s severely punished for it. In Season 3 everyone from her parents, Sasha, and everyone in Amphibia recognizes that she is this awesome person who deserves their respect and attention, and now all that comes full circle here. Andrias is not making the mistake everyone else, including himself, did, he is recognizing that Anne is his equal and he is not going to hold back. This is demonstrated by this being the only fight Anne ever had a hard time when using her Super form. All of this truly makes this feel like Anne’s true final battle.

The Music when Anne comes down, this badass orchestrated version(here’s the track) of her theme is, SOOOO GOOOD, seriously it makes it sound like she came into the final boss room, the music for this whole fight is so well done gotta give props to TJ Hill, he knocked the whole score for this episode right out of the park.

The Clash of Philosophies:

This part of the fight has Andrias and Anne have a bit more of a back and forth dialog-wise, something we haven’t really gotten since Froggy Little Christmas. The crew uses this time to the fullest, and it’s one of the greatest aspects of this fight and something Amphibia’s biggest battles haven't had since Reunion. Before we get to this 2nd part Andrias says:

“When you walked into my throne I underestimated you. A scruffy little girl with one shoe and leaves in her hair, yet underneath it all, a true warrior…such a brilliant deception”

Anne:

“Speak for yourself, you went from Santa Claus to Supervillain pretty quick there”

This dialogue exchange is the start of both characters starting to get one another, with both of them realizing to there is a lot more to each other than means the eye. Anne was once considered a goofy, selfish, pushover, who would just follow anybody, but turned out to be this strong, selfless, hero. Andrias who to all of Amphibia was a peace-loving King is revealed to be a conquering tyrant ready to do anything to achieve his goals. The characters are understanding each other, and seeing themselves in one another and it leads to the second part of this fight Andrias says:

“Why fight it Anne…everything you love will eventually crumble, your world, your friendships.”

Andrias is trying to project this toxic mindset onto Anne, which isn’t too different from what he tried to do to all of the girls in True Colors. From him betraying Marcy and telling the girls the truth, Andrias is trying to break the friendship between the girls, and dropping Sprig trying to prove his point that friendships and opening one's heart is weakness. However, Anne who's secure in who she is bounces back saying:

“So what, I’m supposed to give up, stop feeling things, like YOU!”

With that Anne has read Andrias like a book, without even needing to know his whole backstory, she is able to realize Andrias is a man who’s chosen isolation, resentment, and closing his heart to everyone, something Anne almost did in 3A. I think this is the reason Anne pities Andrias instead of hating him for his actions, she can see a bit of herself in him. Anne has struck a nerve with Andrias and we get the K-Pop scene one of my favorites.

What I love about the K-Pop scene narratively is how well it proves Andrias’ mindset all wrong. Anne has chosen to open her heart and let others support her. If Anne had never told the truth to her parents and had handled all her responsibilities on her own as she was willing to do at the beginning of 3A, she wouldn’t have had the huge amount of support she has now. With all Anne's family cheering her on and Mr.X being able to provide the loudspeakers. It proves that Anne opening her heart, and not isolating herself as Andrias did was the right call, and gives her just the boost she needs to keep fighting.

The animation and music, from how Anne instantly powers up once the beat drops, to how smooth the animation is once Anne starts whaling on Andrias, the badass transition to Sasha’s part of the fight, everything is just done so beautifully, shout out to the animators here they did such an awesome job bringing this scene to life. The use of the setting throughout this whole fight is awesome, from Anne crashing into the buildings and glass, or their collisions creating shockwaves across L.A.

The Letter:

Anne is putting Andrias on the backfoot and he just can’t keep up, it looks like Anne will finally defeat her tyrannical opposite. That’s until her powers start to run out, something Andrias was banking on. Sprig desperately tries to find something to help out Anne and drops Leif’s Letter, with Mr.X being able to decode it. I love that Mr.X’s glasses can read the letter, it’s a great way of making Mr.X’s inclusion even more central and just pretty clever by the writers(also Sprig wearing Mr.X’s goofy nerdy glasses is really funny).

So Sprig using one of the Herons they were able to mind control and comes up to the building to read Leif’s Letter. Leif’s Letter is pretty much the whole message of the show, that change whether it be in relationships or just life as a whole is ok. It can be tough and scary because you don’t know what’s going to happen next, but that is ok, and embracing change is so much better than constantly clinging to the past. Leif’s Letter is there to finally give Andrias closure, letting him know she still loved him even after she took the box, and wanted the best for her friends. Leif wants Andrias to open his heart to others even after being burned before, and that’s ok for this friendship to end, that just because it’s over doesn’t mean it didn’t have value, and to realize that the Core/Aldrich’s mindset is toxic and wrong and to break away from it. Leif’s Letter is essentially Anne’s mindset just said out loud, while Anne proves this path is healthy by defeating Andrias, and Andrias realizes this himself through the letter.

Andrias after 1000 years without closure, finally breaks down, regretting all the choices he’s done throughout this whole show. Darcy gets wind of this during her fight with Sasha and starts to torture Andrias, spewing the same toxic mindset his dad did, saying that the Core is the only relationship he’ll ever have/need and can’t ever escape. Andrias reluctantly gets back up, and it almost looks like Andrias is going to go back to his old ways like Anne almost did in Reunion, but he looks down at the letter and finally follows his heart, and listens to what it’s been telling him for years, to end this conflict once and for all and he opens the mech suit letting Anne commit the finishing blow.

The Amphibia Crew was able to make Anne and Andrias work by not just working with the parallels established between these 2 in TC, but expanding upon them. They weren't just two people who were betrayed by their friends, they were 2 people with low self-esteem, and a toxic view of friendship imbued by the toxic relationships they had with others. While Andrias decides to stay within this mindset for the rest of his life, Anne doesn't. Anne choices to embrace change, to choose the healthy path, and proves it all to be worth it by defeating what she could've become. This fight is Awesome!

Thank You so much for reading, I really hope I made the case for why Anne and Andrias deserved to be in the ranks of iconic Hero and Villain dynamics. This one took a long damn time to write hopefully it didn't feel like me just going HOLY SHIT THAT WAS AWESOME the whole time lol. This essay was originally posted on Reddit but I'm slowly bringing all my essays here on Tumblr. Anyways, if you like this let me know in the comments, feedback always puts a smile on my face. Have a Great Day!

#amphibia #anne boonchuy #king andrias #all in amphibia #amphibia analysis

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