#and i kind of wanted to play with that theme. this is the parallels show so let's do some parallels. lots of things happen to characters | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

lxmelle · 30 days

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The man surrounded by the theme of love…

Geto.

Gege has made several writing choices to depict Geto as someone who was handsome and loved - arguably more than any other character in the series. Maybe Gege loves him the most - not complaining at all.

More under the cut - just a few visuals I’ve collected to demonstrate this. I’m certainly not alone in noticing it and there may be others who show this much better, lol. Tag me in if you want to share!!

My post does end with a not-so brief analysis which you can skip if you wish.

Geto, despite being cursed at birth with the technique to absorb the ills of the world, the very skill that led him to fight alongside Gojo as part of the Strongest Duo - by design, each others’ counterpart in so many ways - a twist of fate led them onto opposite paths, leading to complete imbalance, one that drove him into madness.

If Geto in some ways represented Love, it is truly the most twisted curse of all which played a part in his death.

Geto witnessed the most love confessions in the whole series - I found (and stole) it off twitter/now X:

The Japanese originals seem more compelling to me:

Riko says “daisuki” whereas Yuta uses a more traditional “Aishiteru” which, is quite embarrassing of a confession, and therefore almost hints at what could be Gojo’s last words to Geto, if it directly parallels Yuta & Rika’s relationship. And that expression Geto wears when he sees Riko and Kuroi struggle with separating?

That does not look like a person who cannot sympathise and empathise with people. Geto was a person who cared too much, and in search for a way to protect those he cared for, needed an outlet and something (in this case, lesser being, the humans) to blame. He descended into a mania and much like shinobu sensui from yu yu hakusho, seemed to develop some kind of mental disorder due to being unable to carry the conflicting ideals together. The dissonance the world presented to him was just too cruel, and he himself became a weapon to defend his ideals.

Before his defection, Geto was liked by his peers:

Haibara

Mei Mei

Loved by his family for and despite his ideals:

Mimiko and Nanako

Shibuya crew liked/loved him and carried his will/beliefs even after his death, in their own ways, as family:

Miguel and Larue in the most recent chapter to date:

Translations (rough):

Larue: You and me alike, we just wanted Suguru-chan to be King.

Miguel: Yea, I followed just because it was Geto. After shibuya, I trained Okkotsu and I don’t want anything to do with the country anymore. (Something along these lines; a little too complicated for my rudimentary Japanese)

Larue: You , me, Mimiko, Nanako, Manami, Toshihisa, everyone just really liked/loved Suguru-chan.

Canonically, he was known to be handsome and popular:

Takaba

Gege’s character book:

JJK popularity poll:

I do not have screengrabs of how Manami and Larue joined, but it was said to be due to how handsome they thought he was.

Maybe he was like Rika, who did realise how she came across in her life, and manipulated people, lol. But that’s a bit of a stretch to bring that parallel/similarity in. Geto was just quite a magnetic person, according to Gege.

And in the most roundabout way:

Gojo:

“my one and only”

“Love is the most twisted curse...” “curse me a little at the end.”

“I don’t need love to satisfy me” ... “if you were there I might’ve have been satisfied”

While love surrounds Geto, the theme that follows Gojo appears to be “the strongest” cursed; he was admired, revered, feared, and disliked by many. It truly breaks my heart, to think of what he had to give up to carry the weight of this for his whole life, until the very end.

This looks like the most dizzyingly lonely picture of Gojo. It was indeed ironic to have it all but to embody what it means to have an unlimited void by being totally different.

He suffered so much for his power and to have carried this strength. The sorcerer world was practically on his shoulders. The balance was up to him; everyone relied on him. Every time he tried to protect his love (geto) it seemed to fail. It worsened each time, ending with his own demise. But of course that’s just a dramatic interpretation - I don’t really mean/believe that, but it is one way to see the tragedy between Gojo and Geto. Strength at the expense of love; it plays out with the strongest this far as those identifying with this title are plagued by loneliness and do not know love.

They met before things got twisted within themselves, between them. Even after Geto left, Gojo seemed to be looking and waiting for him - to prove his trust for him almost as if he saw through his illusions and lies. Geto was the shadow (Yin) and Gojo was the light (Yang). Only the light can see through the dark. I’ll leave the gojo characterisation for another time / to other better writers.

For now, I’ll just say that I felt that he had planned for the possibility of losing to Sukuna (with the various things we see him do between scheduling the 24th and the actual day) and if he won, he’d just carry on the plan to cremate Geto on top of saving everyone and being a good example as the strongest. Worst case scenario, he would weaken Sukuna and I guess just die on the same day as Geto - idk, maybe as a form of redemption for one of his most painful experiences in life. Who knows?

I headcanon he was relieved to pass on, doing his part to defend the world that relied on him so much, with a big bang - a really fun fight.

And I’m glad they found each other at the end - the loved and the lost.

Back to Geto:

We don’t get much insight into what Geto wanted or felt aside from a world that was better for sorcerers, those he cared about. Even at the afterlife scene, or in subsequent chapters, we only hear from others rather than Geto.

Call me biased and delusional; I believe he didn’t kill the innocent despite saying he hated them all. He loved and hurt so strongly that he hated with almost equal force. He did want to force evolution and eventually extinguish all human kind, to him: the ignorant source of suffering, but I’m glad he didn’t manage to get Rika. I headcanon that he was aware he was losing himself by defying his own principles (to kill sorcerers) for his own gain. That, and Rika with a binding vow for a life, no less, was just too powerful.

In the official character book, Geto was described as someone who told himself that he hated humans a lot, like a reminder. He didn’t kill people indiscriminately. I’m sure he was well aware of how evil he had become but he had chosen, hadn’t he? He expressed to Yuta, that self-affirmation was incredibly important in his view. And the more he interacted with the students, I think the more his humanity fought back - I mean, he was standing there crying from being so moved by what he saw. He also let Yuta heal his friends. How villainous? Or how incredibly loving in spite of himself?

Geto has been shown to lie to others too: jjk 0: described having lied to the school about the conditions for obtaining a cursed spirit, and after defecting: upon taking stage for the first time, stating that the looking the part (wearing gojokesa) was important (ie lying). At his death’s door, he also prefaces with, no matter what anyone says - why would there be a need for that if he wasn’t telling a half-truth? He sought to avenge Riko (first person at the cult he killed after calling him onto the stage + cue mic throw) and the village represented a bunch of people who he slaughtered out of rage and ignorance. I’m definitely not defending him here - his actions are reprehensible. My headcanon view is that he didn’t know how to live with himself after snapping and that was the only path laid before him, which he ardently committed to.

I just think that he held onto a form of love/humanity still- Gojo and Geto both did. Without it, Geto would’ve become the Queen of curses due to Rika (uncaring about his family, or killing young sorcerors despite witnessing the students’ bond and yuta’s selfless power of love in jjk0) and Gojo may have focused on training at all cost without embracing Geto’s principles and becoming a teacher to change the jujutsu world - he could’ve become the next Sukuna and take the title of the King of curses instead - crowning them both King and Queen - instead of both the King and Queen contributing to their deaths. Anyway, I digress...

Geto appears very mother-coded in his protective and defensive relations to the girls, but also to Riko, Kuroi, and Gojo - especially after Toji had killed them. He was so fiercely trying to avenge and defend them, but failing that had a huge effect on him. Moreover, Haibara - innocent, glowingly positive - suffered an undeserved death. It weighed so heavily on Geto, that he didn’t defend Gojo when Nanami vented about leaving things to Gojo who seemed to take it all in his stride, almost insinuating that Geto, too, had little autonomy but to carry on that cycle of curse consumption he began to loathe.

Yuki also underlined the meaninglessness of the death / sacrifice / relationship rupture / suffering. And like the novel implies: Geto was too sincere for this world. He just loved too deeply and wounds cut him too painfully. At just 17... what inner resources were they forced to develop?

He was disillusioned by the system, but respected that Gojo had a place there. This is also SatoSugu indulgent: He never once attempted to talk Gojo into joining him, despite it being the most logical choice, but Geto was the emotional and loving kind - he prioritised Gojo over his ideals / himself. This man was willing to die trying to pursue his ideals, but didn’t want to try convincing his friend even if he know it might fail. What does that say about him? I think it says he loved Gojo. And Gojo loved him.

He masked like Gojo did : the infamous “yeah I’d win” and Geto’s “I’ve made my choice” and his face fell as he had his back turned, stating that he just needed to do it to the best of his ability. This may be headcanon but it does seem plausible to me. He was under no illusions about what he had done. To love was to turn away too. To love was to let the other go. Sigh.

Backtracking a bit: When Geto encountered the twin girls, who knows what entered his mind, but there was something that emerged from being horrified, enraged, and it gave birth to new meaning. He would take control and save them - from humans and the institution that made child sorcerors die. According to Gege, he became Papa Geto. (Kenjaku is also mum-coded but the antithesis of motherly love, with the womb protrusion domain and actually bearing children.)

This is of course not limited to feminine energy, as parents, both male and female, have protective instincts. But I’m not here to go into that discourse. Just stereotypically, and loosely speaking, Geto is very Yin energy. He is a big Mama Bear. With extreme maternal aggression. We see female counterparts do this in the wild more than males. And yes, of course both male and female are protective. Both geto and gojo were protective in their own unique ways. That’s for another post. Geto would rather die than have anyone come save him. In fact, the scripture behind him in the temple goes somewhere along the lines of “death to the weak”. If he had failed, he deserved to die. His family should live.

Gojo cares for others differently. And yes we know he died whilst defending others too. He is inherently more individualistic due to what he is with his gifts and noble heritage. He is less emotional and more cerebral, the only time we saw him lose his composure was due to Geto.

He allows his students to take risks and would allow them to fight in his stead, like in jjk 0 where Toge and panda were sent to be defeated by Geto. Tough love, as Gojo admits. This is also very Dad-like in the modern sense of the word.

In my subjective experiencing of the world, it’s almost like a husband who is only really emotionally vulnerable with his wife, and is otherwise the successful businessman, dad, and whatever else he is. Geto is much like a mum that he would walk away from her husband (lol, Gojo in this case) in order to protect them in a way she deems is best. Maybe I’m a little nuts, I don’t know. (Actually I am a little eccentric, but that’s by the by).

Now this is totally just satosugu indulgent: I headcanon that Gojo also “protected” / was possessive of Geto by making a deal with Miguel since the latter said he would curse Geto if he died, lol. Especially in light of the latest chapter where Miguel said he was spared by Gojo. (And i reckon Gojo was respectful of Miguel being Geto’s family, so he spared him for that reason too). I mean, Gojo had to kill his best friend, but this was his burden to bear, you know? It’s almost sickeningly intimate to allow someone to end your suffering, and be entrusted with that too. Ugh, ouch, my heart…..

Edit: I’m reminded of that scene where Shoko reflects on loving neither of them, like Gojo, Geto didn’t want anyone to be alone anymore either. Geto said he didn’t feel happy from the bottom of his heart. Gojo felt lonely (although he said it got better at the airport scene). They weren’t alone, but probably felt it… because of the absence of their true/first love? Larue stating in the panels above that Geto wouldn’t wish for them to fight seems like a nod to what Geto believed happened between him and Gojo. Gojo raised allies - be strong, don’t be left behind. Geto a family - get along, don’t fight. Just pointing out what my take is on the parallels I’ve observed.

That ends the brief analysis portion of what I wished to convey about what appears to surround Geto. He may not have been depicted much in the series, but his presence has been felt through the eyes of many. It made me wonder why did Gege do this?

This author deliberately wrote multiple people in the verse to love and follow him (and spare him a death sentence for 10 years) despite not agreeing to his ideals.

Perhaps it isn’t Gege’s focus, understandably, to give us a lot more insight from Geto’s pov, but there is certainly some kind of narrative he is pushing to depict how this man, cruel yet kind, is somehow one of the few he seems to portray in this way more than others within the sorcerer world at the very least. That his life was somehow a tragedy that he might not have really known the love at all? I wonder what Gojo’s last words were to incite such a heartfelt reaction - well done? Welcome home? You did well? I love you? My one and only best friend? Sigh, I guess it’s a secret between them.

There are others who have written metas on Gojo and maternal energy. If I find it I’ll link it! Otherwise, search through my reblogs! So many fantastic writers and thinkers out there!

Thanks for reading if you made it this far!

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cjrae · 20 days

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Stunted Love. Or: The Theme of MaoMao's little finger.

Maomao's little finger is a recurring motif in the Apothecary Diaries, and it receives even more emphasis in the anime's first season - it represents her belief that romantic love leads to pain and destruction. Spoilers primarily for the anime, but also the epilogue of light novel four and Chapter 15 of light novel six below.

Love In A Cage

The motif is first introduced in "The Unsettling Matter of the Spirit" - Concubine Fuyou's story. Maomao has already noted the parallels between the red light district and the Inner Palace, but here we see what happens when romantic love is introduced into the mix. On paper, Concubine Fuyou is a literal object of pity. Her personhood is being gifted to an officer who recently distinguished himself on the front lines, discarded after having failed to please the Emperor. It's telling that this is one of the first times we see Jinshi interacting with a consort where he is completely serious, without bringing his charm to bear. We never hear him say anything, but it's clear that he's communicating the Emperor's order with respect and understanding the gravity of the consequences for Fuyou.

As the events of the episode unfold, the parallels between courtesans and consorts get stronger as Maomao introduces the concept of having a contract bought out - if a man wants a courtesan enough, she is also an object to be purchased, albeit at potentially astronomical price. At first glance, it would seem like these women have absolutely no power in these scenarios - but by the end of the episode, Maomao shows us the feminine side of this transaction - how a woman can manipulate the system she is trapped by in order to get what she wants. All she has to do is lower her value - a rather counterintuitive measure that can go horribly wrong all too easily, as we see later.

And what Concubine Fuyou wants is to escape the Inner Palace to be with the man she loves - a task that she succeeds at. She has played a long, patient game in the service of freedom. Trapped in the cage of the Inner Palace herself, Maomao holds her scarred finger against the freedom of the sky and wonders what kind of medicine love would make.

Devotion

We see further flashbacks to Maomao's past through multiple episodes, but the next time the concept of love is brought up is when Fengming is confessing her role in the death of Consort Ah-Duo's baby in "Honey" (episode 11). Maomao is brought up short by Fengming's confession - she flat out says to the audience that she's never loved anyone with that depth of devotion Fengming displays toward Ah-Duo, so she doesn't know how Fengming feels. But if she doesn't have empathy to offer, she does have a rough kindness. Another person might have said that Ah-Duo deserved to know why her son died, that the knowledge might have provided closure. Maomao, however, believes that knowing the baby's cause of death would only cause more pain (it's never the crime and always about the cover-up) without providing any actual benefit.

With these two episodes framing her early character development we see that, whatever Maomao's natural inclinations are (and I will leave discussion of neuro divergency to those better qualified to discuss it), there is a certain distance between Maomao and her emotions most of the time. It is implied that this distancing from her emotions is a trauma response as the image of a woman holding a knife above her head while kneeling on a bed is shown but not explained (it is the only recurring image during the montage before the discussion about her potential execution with Jinshi).

Lakan and Fengxian

In "Lakan" (episode 18) the motif begins recurring more often as Maomao's parentage is revealed. We've caught glimpses of the sick woman in the annex before, but as the camera pans over the bed, it's clear that this is Maomao's mother (as always in anime, the hair is a dead giveaway). We've seen Maomao in this room, always curled in a fetal position, staring with blank eyes, but here we see Maomao actually caring for a woman who she describes as driving her out over and over again. The camera's focus is on Maomao's eyes as she watches her mother continuing to deteriorate - they're blank yet again, echoing her earlier line of "This is stupid. She's gone."

This is not the look of a girl who genuinely doesn't care about her mother. The image of her mother with the knife upraised is straight out of recurring nightmares that wake her gasping with terror and continue to haunt her after she's returned to work. While there is no AFFECTION involved, there are certainly very strong emotions here. Later, in the bath with Meimei, Maomao wonders if Meimei's in love - and immediately shies away from the thought, insisting that "love is an emotion I'm sure I left behind in the womb."

Interestingly, this is immediately belied as the Three Princesses (the women who took on the maternal role that her mother discarded) begin to pamper Maomao in the bath, and she relaxes into their touch, flushed with belonging and pleasure at their attention.

Confrontation

In "Blue Roses," (episode 22), everything has built to a head. By hiding Maomao back into the Rear Palace, Jinshi is acting as her shield - and Lakan responds with a power play. Both he and Jinshi are aware that Lakan knows his true identity, so Lakan provokes Jinshi with a political test. "Nothing is impossible" for a man with Jinshi's power - so providing some blue roses at a garden party in early spring should be simple, right? It's a near impossible task and Lakan knows it - even if Jinshi were to figure out how to dye the roses to be the appropriate color, they're still out of season.

Up until now, Maomao's response to Lakan has been to hide. But, with Jinshi's reputation on the line and seeing how worn out he is, Maomao has finally had enough. So she takes Lakan's challenge on and, while she's in the process of growing the hothouse roses so that Jinshi can best Lakan, she diverts unwanted attention from the Crystal Palace's handmaidens by showing Xiaolan how to do a manicure - something that draws attention to the deformed pinky on her hand and changes her perspective of the damage to the finger.

The art should be paid attention to here - we see close up shots of two other people's hands after having the manicure done - Xiaolan and Consort Lihua. In both of these shots, there's some subtle detail paid to their little fingers as well - Xiaolan's is ever so slightly crooked rather than perfectly straight, while Lihua flexes her fingers so that the pinky is extended as she looks at her hands. In the next shot, Maomao has done her nails as well - and when Jinshi draws attention to the fact that he's surprised she would do her nails (like Hongiang, Maomao usually prefers work over fashion), she looks at the finger and remarks that, even though her little finger is twisted and scarred, it looks better than it did before - an acknowledgement that the finger is not actually a hindrance, but a piece of her identity.

Healing

Giving Lakan the opportunity to finally do right by Fengxian is the most grace and forgiveness that Maomao can extend to either of her parents. Their romantic love is certainly sympathetic to an outsider, but Maomao was shaped by the consequences. Lakan's carelessness and Fengxian's willingness to break the rules of the pleasure district in order to deliberately lower her value so that she could be with the man she loved, is the guiding cautionary tale of her life.

But Maomao has also grown over the season. She is neither the terrified little girl, abandoned by mother and father alike (however unintentionally on Lakan's part) nor a teenager full of fear fueled rage at Lakan's persistence. She is Luomen's daughter and proud of that fact - she has found her family and a place in the world. It is with that more adult understanding of the world around her that she dances atop the wall of the Rear Palace, giving her parents the only thing she can, which is her blessing and best wishes for their short future, as she sends her mother off.

Sure enough, who is watching her as she takes a step toward a more mature identity but Jinshi? Other characters have provided a shield between Maomao and Lakan - Verdigris' madam, Meimei and even Luomen. But it is on Jinshi's behalf that Maomao decided to face Lakan herself. She loves her adoptive dad and granny and sisters with all the affection she never received from Fengxian, but Maomao's actions have always spoken much louder than her words - Jinshi protected her and she, in turn, chose to face her childhood bogeyman to help him.

Is it stating the obvious that Maomao tripping and Jinshi catching her is an obvious metaphor for falling in love?

As she dances on the wall, we see the two seemingly disparate sides of her identity coalesce into a whole. The moment she lets down her hair is a uniquely Japanese moment of eroticism (this is why maiko and geisha use the oshiroi that bare the nape of their necks), even as she's also deliberately reapplied her freckles.

The moment she realizes that Jinshi truly sees all of her in a uniquely emotional moment, she trips and is made terrifyingly vulnerable as she nearly goes over the edge - only to be caught safely in Jinshi's arms.

Safely back atop the wall, the little finger comes up one more time - except that this time, instead of looking at the damage inflicted and seeing the scar, Maomao looks at her pinky and shows it to Jinshi, telling him what sounds like a strangely gruesome medical fact. That a fingertip can regrow if cut off. For all the trauma that her biological parents caused her, for all that her pinky will be scarred for the rest of her life, the wound did heal. Maomao has healed - she is capable of friendship, loyalty and love that can inspire devotion - even if she rarely displays open affection.

Love Creates Fear

This motif comes back again, at the end of light novel 4 (what will be the end of Season 2, if the studio continues to stick to two light novels a season for pacing, which I expect they will). Jinshi has officially cast aside his cover as a eunuch and stepped into the political limelight as the Imperial Brother. Maomao, as a result of their adventures, has returned home, to her apothecary shop and, as she works she thinks about how everything has changed.

"Jinshi must have finally gone back to being whoever he really was. Maomao didn't know his real name: she couldn't have used it even if she did. The worlds they lived in were simply too different…Anyway, now that Jinshi was no longer a eunuch, he couldn't get away with keeping some lowborn girl around him…So it was for the best, really, that Maomao had come back to the apothecary's shop in the pleasure district."

As Maomao ruminates to herself about how she will never see Jinshi again, she retreats to what she knows best - medicine. She's got her emotions under lock and key and she's begun experimenting, working on creating a more potent painkiller. However, her pain tolerance is too high to work with her previous methods.

Or, to lay the metaphor bare, Maomao has dealt with abandonment before, but not like this. Her usual methods aren't working - so it's time to up the ante. What she does next is extremely telling.

"'Got to cut deeper if I want to be sure'. Maomao looked at her left hand, then tied some string firmly around her pinky. She stood and took a small knife from a cabinet. 'Here goes!'

Just as she was about to bring the knife down, a beautiful voice interrupted her: 'WHAT are you doing?'

Without a word, she turned to see a man in an unusual mask standing in the entryway of the shop…'Done with all your work?' Maomao asked, undoing the string around her finger and putting the knife back in the cabinet."

The thought that she and Jinshi are now living in such different worlds that they will never see each other again is painful enough that cutting her finger off in a thinly justified experiment is preferable to feeling her own emotions. What Maomao wants in this moment is a return to the emotional numbness of the past - only this time, she will do the damage herself.

But Jinshi is not Lakan and abandoning Maomao for any reason is simply not an option. Just as he caught her on the wall, Jinshi catches her again. A prince is standing in an apothecary shop on the edges of the red-light district, a place where he should not be - except for the fact that it's where Maomao is.

Connection and Communication

Finally, as a callback toward the end of light novel six, Jinshi and Maomao are beginning to reconnect after Jinshi screwed up and lost a lot of emotional ground in light novel five's epilogue, and he does the following.

"She reached out for the package, which Jinshi had put behind his back, but he planted a palm on her belly to keep her from sitting up and she couldn't reach it. She kicked her legs from sheer frustration and this time he grabbed her ankle. She was just trying to decide what he might be planning when he brushed the tip of his pinky finger along the back of her foot.

'Hrk?!' Maomao choked, squirming...The back of her foot, and her back as well, were hopelessly vulnerable to a gentle brush of the fingers.

'M-Master Jinshi...That's...not...fair!'"

While Jinshi is still the instigator in this scene, this is the the first instance of romantic and sexual contact that Maomao accepts, eventually bursting out laughing - and when he gets that laughter, Jinshi also immediately backs off, accepting that he has pushed her as far as she can go right now. But that first contact was via that tiny fingertip representing love.

His hard-learned patience is rewarded when Maomao is finally willing to speak to Jinshi about how she's feeling about his desire to marry her, first obliquely as they discuss the plot of a very familiar tragic romance, before she addresses the issue directly.

"Instead of answering, she murmured, 'I don't want to be an enemy.' Jinshi gave her a sidelong look as if to ask whose enemy she meant. 'To Empress Gyokuyou,' she said.

Would Jinshi understand what she was saying? If not, that was fine, Maomao thought. There were things even he didn't know.

'You - '

He seemed about to ask her something else when a horse whinnied outside..."

Maomao may be hesitant, she may feel very confused, but she finally gives Jinshi something to work with here - communicating to him not that she simply doesn't care about him that way, but that she has a very real, concrete fear about what a romantic relationship with him would mean, not only for them, but for everyone else around them.

That's a lot to balance on the tip of a pinky.

#kusuriya no hitorigoto #the apothecary diaries #maomao #character analysis #jinshi and maomao #jinshi x maomao #jinshi #long text post #apothecary diaries meta #jinmao

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amuseoffyre · 7 months

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I can't think of many shows that use both the original orchestrations and the songs with as ruthless and beautiful efficiency as pirates. I know a lot of shows who give it some of the focus, but it has been so solidly consistent across the board for every. frigging. episode of OFMD.

The songs they pick not only tie in perfectly, but the tone, style and mood carries across into the scene. And are even incorporated into the filming of the scene as well, to make sure they get exactly what they want.

The way they used The Chain is quite frankly mind-boggling, knowing that they filmed it with the music playing on the set at a higher speed, so when they slowed it down, they had pinned beat-by-beat every single shot of that scene to exactly the point they wanted in the song. The drumbeats matched up with the British drummers and having Frenchie on his lute knocked flat right as the guitar cuts off. It's just... AAAAAA.

And now we're in S2, they're doing the same brutally perfect scalpel work with the themes from the score for the first season. I've yelled about it before, but I will yell again about these three in particularly coming for my throat:

when Stede shows Ed around the Revenge and shows him all his cool things, there's a jaunty little harpsichord melody playing. That melody came back when Izzy showed Stede how to be a pirate and do cool pirate things

when Izzy crawls away from the crew, the solo cello notes that are part of the Blackbeard theme start playing

when Izzy opens his note from the crew, letting him know he belongs with them, he starts crying to the piece of music that plays over Ed's mum telling him "we're just not those kind of people"

It's such perfect understated parallel story-telling, demonstrating that something similar is happening to the characters without having to say a single word, and I am hoping against hope that we get either "Do You Concur?" or "Be a Lighthouse" back again in the next 3 episodes.

ohhhhhh if we get Ed and Stede doing a fuckery together with Lighthouse over it, I might actually cry. That is far and away my favourite piece on the entire OST because their signature instruments switch and alternate between harmony and melody and it's so perfectly them.

(However, if we get Ends Tonight again, I might bite someone)

#ofmd s2 #ofmd #music

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freuleinanna · 6 months

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I'm still confused about Verna.. I thought she was a demon?? Because why would Death be going around making a bunch of deals with people? After Verna told Pym she decided to go "topside" I thought she was some kind of crossroads demon since it implies she came from below (hell)

Oh! I feel you, and I struggled with that a lot too. She does seem a lot like a demon. I'm not saying I'm 100% correct in my thinking either, but here's why I personally think she's Death. Kind of a long post, sorry. I hope I make myself clear, but feel free to follow up!

So, Verna. An anagram for Raven, that much is established. Ravens are wonderful - symmetrical even - creatures. Bringers of death in a wide understanding. Bringers of good luck in many cultures. The duality is amazing. To me, that also leans majorly into the theme of death being a concept of duality: an enemy for some, a friend for others. Each greets her differently. I'm not talking about the characters here, but people in general.

There's a proverb I came across a while ago that reads 'Death is a great leveller'. Meaning, everyone's equal before her. You have no leverage or buffer against death, and it doesn't matter if you're poor or blindly, feverishly, grotesquely rich (like our folks here). Everyone pays the last bill. For everyone, there's a day of reckoning. It's a major theme with the show, at least. Verna also says 'Buy now, pay the bill later' - although it can still read very demonic, I agree.

She's obviously ancient, and I was leaning toward the demon theory based on all of her talking. Yet - she also keeps ranting about Egypt and pyramids and Cleopatras and such. What's the one thing with Egyptians everyone knows of? They honored death. Death may have been a bigger part of their lives than life itself. The Usher Twins' obssession with all things Egyptian, antiquities, jewelry, swords and such, plays a nice parallel here too, because they're just collectors. They have no grain of honor for the real thing, for what these things are tied to. Kind of a nice thought, I guess.

Anyway, back to Verna. She says on multiple occasions how intrigued she is with us, 'adorable little things'. She saw the pyramids, the expeditions, and she wanted to see what else we do, she wanted to see what Roderick and Madeline will do (in her own words). It's all an experiment to her. She makes an offer just to see what we, people, do.

Here's where my beef with a demon theory comes in. No demonic creature I could think of, be it an actual demon, a trickster, or something else, is that sincerely intrigued. Something something death loving life something something.

Demons, in my understanding, are most interested in winning the deal. They come up with incredible challenges, they enjoy torture, emotional or physical, they never let anyone win. Verna has never once expressed this. Quite the opposite. She gives everyone a chance to step back. Even when the ink has dried and everything's decided, each Usher sibling is conditioned to make a choice: push forward, or step back. Neither of them steps back. Neither of them takes a long hard look at themselves (except Tamerlane, both literally haha and figuratively, as she's the only one to have realized how lost she was in her way - just at the end, when it didn't really matter anymore, but still). Verna is kind to those she takes (sincere pet names, regrets of having to do it this way, making sure they know it's not personal, etc). She grieves with them, just before. Grieving - 'The Raven' being about an expression of grief and trauma - ravens as synonyms for death... you get the gist. Oh! Except Freddie - cause Freddie struck a cord. Infuriated her. So he doesn't get an expressed choice. And he would've blown it like coke anyway, so meh.

And then Arthur Pym. Oh, Arthur Pym. I honestly couldn't imagine a demon kneeling and thanking someone who's refused them.

About Arthur Pym, by the way. It's the one story I hadn't reread, and I should have, it turns out! haha Anyway, a few notes about his travels:

In the story, Arthur Pym is expressedly afraid of white color (North Pole, yada yada, white being the absense of colors/life, and the absense of life is death).

Verna enumerates the moments she witnessed of his travels. Someone getting left in Sahara. Someone getting shot in the Arctic. Something bad that was done to an Inuit woman. Why would she follow Arthur so closely? She didn't know him, he wasn't her favorite. I think it's because she came to collect those deaths. If she is death, she would've been exactly there, where people died. She would have also seen Arthur not partaking.

Aaaaaaaand it makes her 'You saw me' line sound better, because he had sure seen death along his travels.

I think the part about a place of out-of-time, out-of-space creatures and hollow Earth was a bit unnecessary, BUT I can try and tie it in this way:

It showed us how Arthur might have coped with what he saw, and he 'saw a lot', even in his 70s it's difficult for him to recall, and it made him think of humanity as a virus, literally;

He might have thought up that ethereal realm simply because he was in an expedition? Exhaustive conditions for both body and spirit? Traumatic experiences? If he saw Death, he might have cloaked it in his mind to cope with it, thus came his stories;

Verna going 'topside' may just mean that she had to go take a look herself, actually be willingly present for the events - to see the brave little humans conquer the earth. 'Topside', as in, 'visible, present, participating'. If Death exists, I doubt it bothers with our boring human realm but lives downunder, among all threads that weave the world.

So that's that on Arthur Pym.

A few other references my mind is too exhausted to tie in nicely:

Death takes Lenore. THE Lenore from 'The Raven' (mostly) and 'Lenore' (secondary). That happened. Also, death talking to a child of life? Regretting having to take her? Not very demonic of dear ol' Verna, in my opinion.

Her mourning veil, her last toasts to the Ushers at the cemetery? Demons don't tend to grieve their players. Demons don't respect and love them enough, and 'what is grief, if not love persevering'?

Death is the last threshold. Before death, we look upon our legacy (major theme with the show), we remember our losses and loves (Annabel Lee!!!!! love the poem, brilliantly done), we get heavy with regrets. We face death as an enemy & fight, like Madeline did. As a friend, like Arthur did. We confess, like Roderick did. All that is too significant to me overall.

And the last thing. It's Edgar Allan Poe. The whole Death tribute is a giant, incredible, thought-through-to-the-bits hommage to his literature where Death, figuratively and literally, takes the throne.

I hope I managed to express myself alright there. Thanks if you read it through, and as I said before, feel free to follow up or elaborate on some ideas. There are oceans to discuss. <3

#tore a few veins typing it out ughhhhh the poetry #asks #long post #the fall of the house of usher #tfothou #tfothou spoilers #tfothou tv #netflix #carla gugino #verna #meta post #the fall of the house of usher spoilers #edgar poe #edgar allan poe

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mllenugget · 4 months

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Hello I mcyt fandom-ified la Team du Lundi members and wrote a shit ton of text about it

After exhausting myself on trying to catch up on the current QSMP lore I got a sudden craving for a more familiar and fast paced kind of minecraft content and ended up rewatching all the Team du Lundi's SMP best of's I could find

And while doing so with my brain still hazed in fandom brainrot, I started picking up on minor details or info the players casually dropped, and drew parallels to the French speakers' QSMP counterparts This is going to be a long wordy post I don't even know what I am rambling about and for. Three things you need to be aware of about la Team du Lundi before reading :

Baghera, Antoine and Etoiles are the only QSMP players that are part of la Team du Lundi

As far as I remember the only two elements that suggest that la Team du Lundi's SMP could be canon to QSMP are Antoine being pressured into building another Tower of Shit, and Baghera's infamous fountain being mentioned when she was asked if her character remembers anything from her past before the island

La Team du Lundi's SMP was NOT a roleplaying server, it was just a private survival server for a small circle of friends casually playing together. So whenever I quote someone in this specific post, it is the streamer : there is no character other than the persona the streamer is usually showing on stream, but I just thought it would be fun to interpret certain situations while keeping in mind the QSMP lore. And here goes :

Baghera claims that when she was a kid she strongly believed that she could breathe underwater. The others joke about her having fins

Antoine jokingly tells Baghera he doesn’t need oxygen at all

Antoine claims he will still be alive thousands of years forwards

Antoine’s voice shifts when he wants to appear creepy

Baghera built an aquarium at her place, then helped Antoine build one at his tower, then built a giant swimming pool, then a fountain, then a waterslide- do you see a theme ?

Baghera knows that her skin is actually that of a chick and not a duckling, and calls it so here

Chat said that Baghera has a middle child syndrome, justifying that she bullies Angle Droit because Etoiles bullies her in the first place (Etoiles has also called her « little sister » in a derogatory way)

Etoiles has repeatedly asked people to play Valorant with him at least once

Here's a clip of Etoiles getting languaged in french and owing "a gifted sub in the swear jar"

Unrelated random clip of Etoiles because it creates happy hormones in me brain

Etoiles is regularly refered to as "the warrior"

Etoiles guided the whole group during an expedition to the End and he was literally glowing doing so (enchanted arrows effect) Everyone called him "the guide"

Baghera was the one who gave the final blow to the Enderdragon (and died from magic right after)

Etoiles spent most of his time adventuring in order to bring stuff and gear back to everyone for their builds

Etoiles asked Aypierre for help in order to design a redstone door for his cave which could only open upon solving a puzzle (which was egg & arrow related) (Aypierre was not a member of the server)

Etoiles built a nightclub with the walls and ceiling covered in wardenblocks making it look like a starry sky. He also rehomed Allays holding golden apples inside claiming them to be the souls working for him and that they lived there peacefuly

Etoiles jokingly talks about Antoine acting jealous and violent towards him because Etoiles told him he wanted to go and visit Kameto (who also was not a member of the server)

Baghera (along with Horty) had a rivalry with Joueur du Grenier (host of the server with admin powers) after he decided to build a massive parking lot right next to their house. They countered by covering the whole thing with dirt, followed by JDG building a factory and the two parties went back and forth. Baghera argued that it was stupid because they didnt even have cars to begin with (which is a sentence she reused when talking about Forever's roads) Also she tells JDG that he could've built a seaport instead, which makes JDG contemplate the thought of building an airport (and though he ended up never building it, I am side eyeing the French's plane crash)

At some point JDG wonders about what a roleplaying minecraft server would look like (RPZ 2), to which Baghera replies that she has a hard time picturing the thing "We'd all just build things you see ? I don't think we'd create stories, we would all just be like "I'm a builder, ah you too ? Well awesome, builders, cool"" and I find this to be hilariously ironic (fun fact : Baghera had no idea that QSMP was a roleplaying server when she first joined and often claims she would've taken a different approach with her character had she known right off the gate)

As I was finishing to write this down, these fuckers (/lh) decided to host a closure night for the server as they've never really officially did it, everyone just sort of deserted the server after a while. Baghera, Etoiles and Antoine kept referring to QSMP throughout the night, mostly talking about how weird it felt without mods. Among other meta commentary things

They mentionned Cellbit and Bad multiple times as the group was trying to solve enigmas. Antoine talked about "the cultural sharing" between communities as he taught insults to each others with Mike, Roier and Maximus in their respective languages Multiple more players were namedropped (including eggs) while Antoine was talking about how the server functions

Yes, Baghera and Etoiles kept their QSMP skins. Etoiles with his code corrupted purgatory one, and Baghera with her fading pink disheveled hair (with the addition of her cubito wearing Horty's merch)

Baghera admits that going back to this small familiar vanilla server feels like coming back home to your family during the holidays

Team du Lundi's cameos in QSMP :

Though Pomme has never canonically met JDG (even though most of her parents have talked about him to her at least once), she occasionaly breaks the 4th wall to refer to him. She once compared one of BBH's "vacation" flower shirts with his, and when Foolish and Bad asked her to elaborate (obviously not getting the reference) she proceeded to play JDG's music theme with the flute instead (Also I really feel the need to once more point out how mindblowing it is for your average french speaking viewer to have JDG's intro theme being added to the mod they use in the QSMP because of how anchored it is within french internet pop culture. Like this shit has been existing for 14 fucking years, it's part of the childhood of a lot of us, so to find a clip of British hardcore player Philza peacefuly listening to Mexican egg admin Tallulah play this theme on her flute feels like a multiverse fever dream)

Horty has been on Quesadilla Island through cc!Baghera's account, but neither of them really wanted to justify it RP wise. Baghera just wanted to give her best friend a tour of the island. Horty only got to meet Richarlyson who gave her a tour of Cellbit's castle and made her pick a room (she chose Chaos). She also chatted with Etoiles who tagged along for a bit and (this is obviously justified by it being a one-shot out of roleplay filler episode kind of night) they both already knew each other and were on friendly enough terms to bicker with one another Also she was part of the French speakers Quackity reached out to to invite on the server, but she had to decline because she was very busy at that time (and also not interested) Also also she was Baghera's teammate for that Formula 4 event, and Baghera has discussed it and showed pictures to a couple of islanders, including Richas who was very hyped about it

Another player the viewers were hoping to see on Quackity's server is Mynthos. He exists within the server with the picture of him that hangs in Pomme's art gallery, the cursed animation video that used to play in La France, as well as with Aypierre's health potion factory that bears his name

Angle Droit and Zerator are sometimes namedropped when the French speakers talk with their chat. Angle Droit frequently raids Baghera's and Antoine's streams, and though it has never been confirmed, a lot of viewers theorized that she was the +1 player Baghera and Etoiles wanted to invite on the server had they won the elections.

As for Zera, Etoiles went AFK on QSMP a couple of times in order to test some of Zerator's TrackMania maps (which he later discussed with Pac). I also remember a very trivial conversation Etoiles had with Mouse and Aypierre where he laughed about hurting his back very badly after carrying a fellow streamer during a caritative event, said event was hosted by Zerator (he's also the one judging them with concern from his desk)

I'm done.

Bonus alternative design for Angle Droit because at first I thought she was a fox then it turned out she was a corgi but then she changed it again to a fox and woop

#I wrote down a whole other post just as long as this one to explain my individual thought process behind each designs #Took me weeks to write- had a couple of clips to back up my headcanons #but then I was reading the post again checking for mistakes before realizing #yo just #that is so many words and for what #just let your designs speak for themselves hey trust yourself let there be room for interpretation #if people turn out to be curious well i guess thats what ask box was created for leave it be thats enough #(not) fun fact : I drew those Baghera Etoiles & Antoine designs back in june and the files got corrupted and I lost a week worth of work #if we are mutuals on discord youve mightve heard me whine about this one #mcyt #team du lundi #qsmp #angle droit #hortyunderscore #baghera jones #zerator #etoiles #mynthos #joueur du grenier #antoine daniel #serveur du lundi #my art

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vampiresareqt · 8 months

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WHY Iñaki HAS BEEN Luffy SINCE THE BEGINNING!!!

A summarised history of Iñaki Godoy Jasso and his parallels to Monkey D. Luffy

I'm sure Iñaki tried to keep his composure so hard. (Our Cry Baby) But on his way home he broke down in tears and laughter (Such a Joyful boy)

Just to make this video even stronger; Iñaki's goals as a child were to make people laugh and to use his genuine smile to make others smile. He CRAVES freedom too!

And at one point he even wanted to become a competitive eater, 'cause HE LOVES FOOD!

REACHING HIS GOALS

Source: [x]

How much did he want to reach his goals? He was once bailed on by one of his partners in a play where he had the role of the mischievously grinning Cheshire Cat (Also fitting wtf) He was like 8???

And while he was panicking at first, he improvised his way out of it, saw the smiles and laughter of the crowd and DID NOT WANT TO GIVE UP. He felt the freedom of acting and expression and the joy of seeing people laugh. He literally said he wanted to continue acting CAUSE OF FREEDOM!!!

He later pursued comedy, 'cause of his love of cheering people up...

If you don't really remember the significance of "freedom" when it comes to Luffy,

youtube

"Sometimes, an honest smile is more than enough."

He values smiling and making others smile. And just like Iñaki, one of Luffy's key assets is his wide smile! So when Iñaki did his research on Luffy he didn't want to make it too complicated at first. He narrowed him down to that smile we love and aimed to perfect it. And of course, as the smiley person he is it came naturally.

This also kinda parallels Luffy's "Don't care about the story, just get me to do something." mindset. In this case, Iñaki going for an audition kind of blind, then simplifying Luffy's character and then building on it with 100% determination is so reminiscent of our boy. He ended up appreciating and admiring Oda-Sensei so much after getting involved. And making him laugh came naturally to him as well.

Helping people is important!

He loves doing charity things. Especially knowing his little sister endured a lot of hardships, he as a young child did a campaign against bullying and to raise awareness... "The Jasso-Godoy Family are the group leaders of CAP Grupo Mexico in Mexico City, Mexico and their own non-profit!!!"

"Mia is beautiful the way she is. Any way she is, I'd still love her. If there is someone at school... or anywhere, be nice to them, okay? I am her brother."

Watch the heartwarming video below!

He is very flexible in ways he can do so many things, versatility, but also physically, he loves jumping around and doing tricks and even when he gets hurt he smiles, cause he learned from it and had fun...

In this video he is introducing himself and talking about his versatility. Saying "Whatever you want me to do, I'll be at your service." So if you have goals in your movie or show, he will do his utmost best to make it a reality.

Hope I translated it correctly...

Always a Pirate

He has also always had something with the sea and pirates... Foreshadowing

In the same TikTok he was talking about his mischief he showed us a pic of him as a kid, where he is wearing a pirate themed Spongebob T-Shirt. EVEN THE POSE IS VERY LUFFY!

In one of his Insta posts, while he was on his 80 day trip around the Caribbean he posted an even older pic of him and his sister Mia WEARING PIRATE OUTFITS.

I immediately said he bares a striking resemblance to young Luffy smiling.

UNCANNY!!!

So in the end...

Even without mentioning any of these childhood things Iñaki experienced before finding One Piece. Just that short audition clip made Oda laugh instantly and overwhelmed Oda with Luffy vibes. JUST FROM IÑAKI'S GENUINE ENERGY!!!!!

So people saying Oda's Haki predicted Iñaki is like... I could kinda believe that. Or maybe the reason why the Live Action did not start production till about 4 years later, is because we had to wait for Iñaki to grow up to the same age as Luffy, 17, for Oda to meet the person who best represents his beloved main character.

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sp-ud · 11 months

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I'm trying to imagine what other Showfall Media shows are like.

Like, it seems like the section ran by the Puzzler is probably often a part of it, as he mentions doing this for 30 years and it's likely the Showfall employees who played his Rats are the ones who built the memorial to him.

Which I think means that the Puzzler is an example of what a 'sucessful' character becomes. I mean, just look at how Hetch describes what would happen if the audience chose "live".

"Rescripted, repurposed, and recast." But how'd he get a role as a mastermind who was aware of the behind the scenes? Well of we take what Hetch says about how the show usually goes...

It sounds like Hetch often uses this "reality breaking" as a theme in his scripts, and perhaps it depended on how a character reacted to their reality being shattered if Hetch would deem them worthy or not.

It's not really clear what counts as "being worthy" but I'd imagine it counts as being entertaining, both to Hetch and the Audience... and maybe the Founder? The Founder's motives are super unclear, why does he want these shows? Why did he decide to test this world's Audience in a new experiment like this? Why did he give Hetch this role? How did he-

Ahem. That seems like a different rabbit hole for another time, maybe once we get more Generation 0 stuff (as it's been hinted to be about the origins? Of the Founder). Let's get back to what this might mean for what the usual show Hetch would run could be like.

It definitely involes horrific games and the characters reality slowly breaking around them. But I get the feeling Hetch and Showfall are rarely so explicitly involved in this.

And I think this might be because they werent broadcasting to any of their usual Audiences, they were testing this world for the first time. An Audience who has no idea who or what Showfall Media is.

I'd imagine whatever usual Audience Showfall broadcasts to, is probably either

a) from a world where real people dying for the sake of entertainment is fine, maybe not everyone enjoys it or think it's morally okay, but enough people like it and it's not illegal to watch people literally get physically and psychologically tortured on TV

b) are under the impression it's also fake. They still see the whole "reality breaking" things. But it's presented as completely fictional, maybe Showfall even let's the more successful characters live semi-normal lives in their off-time to give the full illusion all these people are really just actors.

c) a world that's not even remotely parallel to our own in any form, maybe not even inhabited by humans. After all, Hetch makes references to the fact he runs this show for years far longer than a natural human lifespan

d) all of the above separately, we are being told we're getting a viewpoint into infinity. And Hetch clearly has all the time in the world to make any kind of show he wants, as long as it fulfills the purpose the Founder have him.

And ah shit now that I'm reading this again I just noticed they refer to our world as "one of the few we can entertain". Nope not unpacking that here, I still only gave 3 possibilities and when compared to literally "infinity" that still falls under "one of the few".

#i once again just started brainstorming #generation loss #genloss #genloss tse #hetch genloss #showfall media #spud originals

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cellarspider · 2 months

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7/?? germs.

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We return to a movie that disrespects the archaeological importance of roads, Prometheus.

I am still not over that. I will never be over that.

This time, content warnings for continuing frat boy archaeology, cringeful application of racist terms to lily-white androids, me screeching about site contamination some more, and Apollo’s dodgeball striking this movie with a glancing blow about masking.

So, back in the theater in 2012, I had already lost sympathy for the cast. They were being set up as stock horror movie characters, they were doing their jobs in a way with a certain flair for the incompetent.

And one of them, I suspect, the movie intends to make into a “flawed but you feel for him” kind of guy. Or, I hope they intended to make him “the guy in the slasher movie who you hate and want to see die”. That’s Holloway, one of the two archaeologists. He’s robot racist.

Like, seriously robot racist. The whole crew is, David literally gets referred to as “boy” here, which isn’t so much a dogwhistle as a tornado siren. No wonder David is quietly starting to show his disdain for the human crew.

“They're making you guys pretty close [to human now], huh?”

“Not too close, I hope.”

One of the few themes the movie handles halfway competently is the parallel between the humans stumbling all over themselves as they rush to go meet their makers, while David is already experiencing the disappointment of actually meeting his, and finding out they’re a bunch of clueless assholes. Are we supposed to believe the same of the Engineers? I don’t know. They definitely think of humans as lesser, though. More to come on that later.

Because right now, an expedition is barrelling toward the alien structure–again, driving all over the FCKING ALIEN ROAD–and they’re doing it with only six hours of daylight left, because Holloway literally says “It's Christmas [...] and I want to open my presents.”

I cannot communicate how heinous this character felt. The actor did a perfectly fine job playing him, but if Charlie Holloway was real, his name would be said with the same venom as that of the man pictured below: Heinrich Schliemann, the man who found the real, actual city of Troy, and immediately dynamited a trench through the royal palace, destroying who knows how many artifacts from the period the Iliad was based off of. Yes, I picked out the most assholish-looking photo of him I could find on purpose.

Also, Holloway’s an anti-masker, apparently.

I’m going to step back for just one second and list the one practical, movie budget reason why characters might take their helmets off. The costume designers did an admirable job coming up with something that fits the general requirement of a helmet in major studio releases, prior to The Mandalorian: make the actor’s faces completely visible, because without actors with a strong sense of physical presence and voice acting, you’ll lose connection with the audience.

They did a great job with that. Unfortunately, shiny helmets are a bastard to digitally edit film crew out of.

It’s not impossible to place lights and crew so that the audience won’t notice them. Alien certainly pulled it off. Clear plastic elements in helmets also mean other logistical challenges, though: fogging being the main one. This, and cooking your actors in a fishbowl under studio lights.

Both problems can be simultaneously combated by installing A/C fans within the helmets, but because these helmets are entirely clear, you’re limited to hiding them down near the neck, and anybody who’s done similar for a cosplay or suit will know that it’s potentially noisy and not always effective. You can actually see condensate on the helmets in the movie, though whether that’s from the actor’s breath or a deliberate choice, I don’t know.

All this adds up to increased time resetting actors (i.e. cleaning sweat off of them without disrupting their makeup), more exhaustion from said actors, and the worry that the highest-paid, plot-critical actors may decide they don’t want to do a sequel if the shooting experience is too physically unhealthy.

And then there’s also more time spent carefully arranging crew and lights to hide their reflections, or more time making some poor VFX artist erase a transparent, curved reflection from frame and replace it with something else, or make the actors more comfortable by adding the glass in later with CGI, at the potential loss of some realism. The average modern movie studio would choose one of these VFX-driven options and demand it done in a week, which is why VFX artists need to unionize.

So. I understand at least a few logistical reasons why you don’t tend to make actors wear helmets for too many shooting days. But it has to be balanced with the story. It has to feel believable. It has to fit the story. It has to not make your characters look like mud-witted morons.

As soon as they find liquid water and the oh-so-deadly CO2 levels start to drop, Holloway takes his helmet off.

“Don't be an idiot.”

“Don't be a skeptic.”

Flames on the side of my goddamn face.

Now, this is the moment a lot of people lost sympathy for the human characters, even back in 2012. It was a dumbass idea even then, in the pre-’rona years. Sadly, Millburn the biologist isn’t written smart enough to punch Holloway in the nuts over even thinking of doing this, because we have two problems with what Holloway’s doing here: Biology, and biology.

First, biology.

(https://www.turbosquid.com/3d-models/13-viruses-virus-3d-model/1071200)

Obviously, they don’t know if anything’s in the air. He could find out that humans are deathly allergic to alien dust mites. He could have just caught himself a case of space covid, which he and the lemmings that follow him can then transmit to the entire crew if he’s not kept in quarantine. They can sterilize the sealed suits, but they can’t sterilize the inside of his lungs. Yet.

Second, biology.

Specifically, Earth biology. Do you know how carefully modern space agencies sterilize anything that’s headed for Mars, or anywhere else that might have a biosphere of its own? A lot! They sterilize everything a lot! Because microbes are hardy little bastards. We’ve never found extraterrestrial life, only precursor molecules that show the capacity for life to develop in other places. How are you going to verify you’ve found alien life, or even those precursors, if you can’t prove that your samples are uncontaminated? What happens if microbes from Earth manage to survive the trip and establish a foothold somewhere? What if they destroy native life?

This movie’s characters treat this with only a fraction of the gravitas that the cinematography does, which is part of why this remains so jarring throughout. The practical sets, the art direction, and the camerawork are all excellent. The editing continues to do its best, though it almost feels like things were cut very tight through this to speed things along and to give more time, unfortunately, to what the characters are doing.

their crimes against my sanity are not done yet

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As a side note, rounding up some discussion from a previous entry: The most excellent artist @noordzee pointed out that the clashing artistic style of the moon and stars slapped onto the carving of Kʼinich Janaab Pakal I. In the previous post, I focused on the link between that carving and its use in ancient aliens conspiracy theories. But let's dig a bit into actual Maya iconography around celestial bodies instead.

Now, I am not an expert on Classical Maya stuff. Not in the slightest. And there is a lot of information on their art that is linguistically inaccessible to me, as a non-Spanish speaker. But out of the Maya art and writing that survived the book-burning conquistadors, we have some iconography for the moon and stars, and they don’t look like what’s in the movie.

I wasn’t able to find any specific pieces of art that contained stars, but I did find the glyph for star, ek’.

I was only able to find depictions of a crescent moon in the context of the moon goddess, where she tends to be sitting on the crescent like a chair, or one part of it is shown behind her, almost like a tail (though I can’t be certain whether that’s due to chipped paint).

The moon by itself was somewhat harder to find. I couldn’t find any Maya depictions of it with my limited poking around of the spanish internet, but I did find a (much later) Mixtec depiction of the moon, complete with a lunar rabbit! Much like East Asian cultures, the darker markings on the moon are culturally interpreted as a rabbit shape.

Thanks again to nordzee for pointing out the dissonant art style, because the real mesoamerican art on this subject is phenomenal.

Next time, the movie will hurt me more, so if anybody else has fun facts to share or details to point out. PLEASE. Ease my pain.

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Alt text citations:

None this time. Many ramblings, though.

#prometheus 2012 #prometheus (2012)#I work in a place where quite a lot of people have to put on clean room suits to go to work #their rooms are behind airlock doors #and that's just to make sure outside germs don't get in #to keep things clean #we don't even have the REALLY scary containment rooms that a few biological laboratories have #I'll ramble more about the logistics of that later #when the movie gets around to breaking laboratory safety standards as well

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mythicalartistx · 4 months

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KH3 Worlds ACTUALLY Matter and show Major Parallels and Foreshadowing through Sacrifice and Separation

The worlds in KH3 are often seen as just retelling of the Fairytales but with added Sora and his friends or Organization members. Because of this they're often disliked especially when there are some sections that are scene for scene and Sora and the others might not be present for this.

However, if you get passed the fact it's a retelling of the movie and get into how it connects with Kingdom Hearts story, they actually play a major role.

Olympus: Sacrifice

Olympus shows themes of sacrifice and love. It shows that Hercules didn't think and all he knew was that Meg was in trouble and threw himself in harm's way to save her. He sacrificed himself by doing that but also sacrificing his godhood to be with Meg. He would have to be separated from Meg and that's not the kind of life he would want to live.

Later on Riku ends up doing the exact same thing. When Sora feels powerless and all alone he sacrifices his being and life for Sora. And I could also argue he does it out of love because when he does this he doesn't necessarily think of his actions but does it to his devotion to Sora and protecting him like he always promised Terra.

Corona: Sacrifice

In the Tangled world, Rapunzel is willing to sacrifice her freedom to save Flynn's life and become separated from the outside world she's grown to love forever.

However, Flynn decides that her freedom is more important and sacrifices himself by cutting her hair which could make her lose the power to heal.

Rapunzel is also compared to Riku because they both so desperately felt trapped. Riku felt trapped at the island and wished to leave and explore other worlds with Sora and Kairi to point where if the raft didn't work out, he would open the door to darkness. I'll also like to include they both felt that someone they were close to left them for others.

Toy Box: Separation

In Toy Box, we learn of how Woody and Buzz among a few other had separated from half of their group. However, they are later seen that the world was split in half and are separated from their beloved friends. They realize at the end their friends who they've been separated from that they are always connected through their hearts.

And this goes back to how Sora will soon be separated from everyone and become stuck at the Quadratum. It also shows that he is always connected to them through his hearts and that's how he uses/and abuses the power of waking through that connection.

Arrendale: Sacrifice

When Elsa is about to get slashed by Hans' sword, Anna who is in the brink of death rushes in and saves her by taking the hit instead. She freezes at the same time and makes it so the sword shatter from her entire body becoming ice. She sacrifice her life for her. Elsa manages to thaw her and the cold weather by the act of love.

Which Riku then does the act of love when he sacrifices his life for Sora. Riku is also compared to Elsa on how they both pushed the people they loved/ cared about away to protect them.

Monstropolis: Separation

In this world, Sullie goes through separation of being away from Boo. They have to separate so Boo will be safe.

This also refers to how Sora ends up in the Quadratum from bringing back Kairi and abusing the power of awakening by using it too many times.

100 Acre Woods: Separation

In this world, Pooh talks to hope they're growing apart and that he misses Sora. Sora feels sad that they're not as close. The eventual outcome is that he'll always be in his heart no matter what.

I feel like this refers to him and Kairi not being as close as they were before. Ever since KH1 things changed between them and she changed. She's no longer the Kairi he knew and they are slowly growing apart. (Which is honestly sad). It also shows that even if he's by himself in the Quadratum he'll have everyone in his heart no matter how far away they are.

Fransankyoto: Separation + Sacrifice

Unlike the others I decided to say this world shows both. In the past, Hiro's brother separated from him when he sacrificed himself to try to find and save the teacher. This is also reflected in the past when beymax also stays behind to sacrifice himself so Hiro can then leave.

It helps shows the connections that no matter how far they are away, the people you love and care for will be in his heart. This shows that to help save everyone he used his connection to his friends to bring them that. It furthers that he won't be alone in the Quadratum and that Riku was able to go to him in MOM because of this.

PoTC: Separation

Finally in the pirates world, we show separation. After Will gets stabbed and he is made Captain of the Flying Dutchman, he faces separation from the one he loves Elizabeth. Only every 10 years are they able to see each other.

This foreshadows both being separated from the ones Sora loves and bringing back all his friends' hearts when Will's life almost gets taken when he gets stabbed. Being apart for 10 years also could lead to how it will take at least a year to find Sora in the Quadratum.

#kingdom hearts #soriku #riku #sora #kh analysis #kingdom Hearts 3 #kh3 #discussion post #analysis #kh parallels #kh foreshadowing #kh worlds #there is so much foreshadowing towards their separation #and the parallels between the other games #showing that riku sacrifices himself because he wasn't thinking and he just knew he loves Sora #as Hercules said #sacrifice foreshadowing #yeah Disney worlds matter #they are important and show various parallels and foreshadowing

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jemmo · 1 year

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ive been thinking a lot about age in the eighth sense, in terms of age gap and the roles of hyung and sunbae and dongsaeng and the behaviours they entail, and the label of the country mouse, and how, with the events of the end of ep 6, they are paralleling jihyun against jaewon’s younger brother with the accident and how I think there’s a crux at the heart of this that is jaewon needing to see jihyun as not his younger brother. and i get that’s weird and kinda yucky considering the nature of the relationship between the two, it’d be very weird if jaewon simply thought of jihyun as a stand in for his familial little brother, but I don’t think it’s like that, it’s not as simple as that.

I think it’s very clear jaewon misses his little brother, plain and simple. and perhaps that extends into missing having a little brother figure in his life, and when I say little brother, I don’t mean familial. that’s why that initial ‘dongsaeng’ messed with our heads in the first place, bc it can be familial and not, so here, and from now on, I mean not. this is not weird incest territory, don’t worry. I think he misses having someone younger, someone to look after. he misses being an older brother. maybe that’s why he so quickly befriends jihyun. attraction aside, maybe he wants someone to care for, and a freshman, a country mouse that knows nothing of the city, being his friend, teaching him city life and uni life, that’s the kind of thing you’d do with a younger brother, and that’s an experience he’s missed. and I think a sense of responsibility also plays into this, bc that’s probably something he feels he lacks after losing his brother. he was supposed to be responsible, supposed to look after him but he couldn’t, and so now he wants to feel like he can be that responsible hyung, he can look after someone, not so much to redeem himself or prove something, but more for himself, to fill an emptiness by fulfilling that role. idk, I don’t think this is something he does consciously, but his body language, his constant touching and how it’s guiding and comforting, at first I thought it was just a desire to touch and filtered through this acceptable closeness between men, especially from someone older. but now i think there is a sense of actual brotherly-ness to it, which I think adds to this confusing want to be close jaewon has that to some degree comes from jihyun filling that younger brother space jaewon has had empty for so long. again, i think people are tentative to approach this topic bc it does get into weird territory, but I think this whole thing is more… how do I say… it’s like how people say you get with someone like your parents, like how often is the phrase “she reminds me of your mom” said between a father and son in movies and tv. it’s not that you want to date your mom, it’s more that you like and value traits that are similar, they bring you comfort bc you’ve literally been raised to be comfortable around someone like that. it’s not incestuous. and I think a similar thing is happening here, even though I don’t think it’s a driving force, I think it’s part of it. which is important, and I like, bc of how this theme progresses.

as the show continues, we see jaewon’s mask slip more and more, and we see jihyun become bolder, which are two important factors that lead into what I think jaewon ultimately needs to realize. jihyun is not his little brother, and he needs to separate the two. there is this obvious path leading from ep 6 where jaewon thinks jihyun’s accident is his little brother all over again and he regresses and distances himself and blames himself, but what he needs to see is that the accident is different. he needs separation. and that comes in the form of jihyun, jihyun becoming bolder and more confident and forthcoming and, most importantly, responsible. at the end of the day, he is not a child, and in that ocean he is responsible for himself just as much, if not more, than jaewon is. he goes into that ocean knowing he’s not the best swimmer and still does it. is he swept up by jaewon and emotions and the kind of heightened vibe of the day? yes. but is it still his decision? yes, and it’s a bit reckless. he can say no to jaewon when he offers to surf and catch the big waves instead of the safety of the shallows where they were before. you’ve seen him bite back and sass and poke and joke with jaewon before, he is not a cowering little mouse (more on that in a sec), and he still agrees, so he has to take responsibility. maybe jaewon was responsible for his little brother but he’s not responsible for jihyun, an adult with their own mind. and jaewon seeing that, that he can’t blame himself when he’s not responsible for anyone here, might just be the thing that helps him get out of that mindset.

and it’s not like jihyun is adverse to this. If anything, I think in this next ep we will hear jihyun blame himself, accept the fact that what he did was maybe a bit stupid and he should’ve thought first. bc we see time and time again jihyun not wanting to be that innocent, naive country mouse. just think about how much he refutes it time and time again, like in that library scene. he doesn’t want to be that person. that’s why he came to the city. It’s why he’s trying new things and being brave, he wants to grow up and be responsible. and I love that this becomes almost a reversal of the classic hyung and dongsaeng roles in later eps, as jihyun becomes more confident while jaewon regresses into himself. jaewon shows his weaker side and jihyun, the younger, looks after him instead. look at ep 6, how he initiates both conversation and physical contact, something we saw jaewon do in earlier eps. I love it both in terms of this theme but also just for romance sake. as an extension of these roles, you expect the older to make the moves and such, but I love that there are equal moments in this show that jaewon gets to be the one getting hit on, be it the scene where jihyun teaches him to draw or calls him cute when he’s drunk. you’d so typically expect to see a hyung doing those things to someone younger, but it shows equality in their relationship that counters those stereotypes in the simple and subtlest ways and I adore it.

this show has a strong theme overall of what’s expected vs how people actually are, be it from drinking etiquette to romance, but just like in that first scene with jihyun’s bar owner, one thing may be expected, but what people actually want, what makes people comfortable, can be something else. and by jihyun so simply not conforming to the country mouse persona initially put on him in such simple but outright ways, he acts as such a great challenge to jaewon, who wears his mask of expectation so frequently. it may be what’s expected, but have you ever considered that it’s not what people actually want? that they might actually want the real you, and all the so-called imperfection of it? bc when does that mask stop being a burden and start being a safety blanket, that shields you from the pain of actually being hurt in a genuine relationship, that hurts more than the pain of pretending. jaewon says over and over again that he’s tired of wearing the mask, but the mask is, ultimately, self inflicted, and as much as you can blame society and parents for expecting things from him, there’s a point when you become an adult where you get to decide for yourself who you are. again, he said it himself, just as he was afraid to leave the safety of the military, he’s afraid to leave the safety of uni, the bubble where what’s expected is clearly defined and can be performed. after that, the rules aren’t as clear. so much more of it depends on you. it’s the process of becoming an adult, of growing up. it’s a process jihyun is on, but jaewon, to be at least, seems further behind in. maybe bc he never got the chance at a fresh start like jihyun and is trapped by preconceived notions the people around him have of him by knowing him for years. maybe it’s bc of the loss of his little brother, and feeling trapped in that time, and a fear of growing up out of that person he was when his brother was there. maybe it’s bc he still feels trapped under his parents thumb, bc despite becoming an adult, you can never really be free of your parents.

I said this before, but it’s just like how they both said they’re jealous of each other, but what they’re jealous of is a preconceived notion of youth and age, not-knowing and knowing, naivety and experience, when again they don’t match these stereotypes. jihyun is not naive, and jaewon doesn’t know everything. Life experience is not all it’s cracked up to be bc it can’t all be good, but knowing nothing isn’t the bliss ignorance is often expressed to be. I’ve rambled on and waxed pathetically poetic long enough about these two to be embarrassing, but as a show that actually involves an age gap, and neither hides away from it nor exploits it for it’s played up romantic tropes, I adore that they let this factor naturally play into the bigger story being told, bc age actually means nothing here, and more than anything, jihyun and jaewon strive to be equals to each other, in their world void of expectations.

#it’s 2am in the morning and I wrote a thing #I don’t even wanna know how many words this actually is but all this stuff has been gnawing at my brain for a while now #so I just had to get out out in a big luscious overly emo ramble #but I’d love to know what you all think about this #bc going into the territory of jihyun replacing jaewon’s little brother has always been weird to me bc of the whole romantic vs familial t #thing but this show seems to be doing something interesting with it and it actually plays into their themes and I think ultimately wants to #convey that it isn’t the case jihyun isn’t a replacement he’s his own whole person and someone in jaewon’s life that only he can be #and he can fill an emptiness that jaewon feels without having to fulfill an empty role #the eighth sense

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whetstonefires · 8 months

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The thing about the Shazam! (Captain Marvel but they don't have the rights to call him that) movie is that overall it's pretty good? Even if I question the pacing choices made in terms of screentime breakdown for '14yo boys making mortifying life choices and humorously failing judgment calls' vs. 'character development wrt to literally anything else about this fairly large cast.'

It's hokey; it should be. It's got some decent themes and fun character bits and set up good solid hero/villain parallels to subvert.

But.

But it massively clotheslined itself with a major storytelling fuckup connected to the opening hook mystery, whose resolution is meant to be the emotional inflection point of the whole film.

Because the thing is, this movie chose to be slightly interesting in how it approached its 'family' themes. In a variation on 'family of choice' (since your foster family are in fact assigned by the government and Billy not having a choice about living with them only about trusting them is a major story element) it went for the more nuanced and kind of interestingly grimy take that the people who are actually in your life giving a shit about you matter, if you let them, and that you need to stop giving the people who failed to love you power over your happiness.

Which is not a bad premise at all! As messages for a movie about a kid being sent to a group home go, that's the most upbeat you could possibly get and still be tied to reality.

The Vasquez couple are written and played well in these terms too because they really, genuinely care, and are making so much effort, but as system graduates themselves they never had competent parenting modeled for them and god does it show.

And the mental health problems of the kids who got enough characterization to have them were similarly...realistic in a best-case-scenario sort of way.

But! Still with the but! Even though they pulled off a lot of this fairly touchy premise rather well, there's a crack in the foundation that makes the whole movie kind of collapse on a thematic level.

Because the movie (following the prologue introducing the villain's backstory) opens with a juicy emotional hook where small Billy is separated from his mother at a Christmas fair and never sees her again.

Cut to some years later, establishing status quo scene, he's a Troubled Youth rebelling against the system in an endless quest to find his mother and go home. He is committing minor felonies to get access to police information about women surnamed Batson so he can go to their houses because eventually one of them has to be his mom.

His case worker after he's picked up again refers to his mother as 'someone who clearly didn't want you,' which Billy rejects as bullshit, and he's valid! Because that is not what you say when you have actual information. That's a surmise. That's a sentence that says Child Protective Services and the police couldn't find her either.

Especially because you don't immediately chuck a kid into foster care because he's found unattended. Maybe you do that later, after a lengthy period of oversight, depending on his mom's reaction to having him returned and her race and socioeconomic status and apparent mental health and so forth. But you don't just not contact her, and you definitely don't refuse to tell the kid about the result once you have.

The only normal situation where an accessible record exists of a kid's original parentage but it's denied to the kid is in sealed adoptions, which are a formal procedure that clearly didn't happen here. There is every indication in this opening sequence that his mom was never found.

Which means she's a missing person. Either because they located the correct Billy Batson and his adult never came back to their house (which would suggest foul play or some other drama) or because despite being old enough to be in school and knowing his own name, no one could find evidence that Billy existed prior to turning up at that street carnival.

Which would constitute a very mysterious situation! What is he, from a cult? Another dimension? Did someone (in the social worker's proposed scenario, Billy's mom) erase all record of her kid somehow? Was magic involved?

So: the way we're introduced to this scenario, there's a legitimate weird mystery here that none of the adults in Billy's life care enough about to do anything but tell him to write it off, the way they have. That his missing person clearly did it on purpose.

Billy's being ridiculous because if what he's trying would work then he wouldn't need to do it; his social worker could have arranged a meeting years ago. So it's a useless self-destructive behavior he needs to let go. But he's valid, in that he's being very obviously failed by the system and is doing the only thing he can think of to try to address his situation for himself.

And then! The Big Reveal is that his mom has been living under her maiden name in the same city as him this whole time.

Which the Gamer Kid Who Turns Out In This Scene To Be A Hacker (he's about 10) learned by. Breaking into a federal database.

So he goes to her house and it turns out. She'd been a teen mother and her babydaddy walked out after marrying her, and her parents cut her off, and she was depressed and felt like a bad mother so. When she saw the cops had her kid, she just walked away. And she wants to believe he's been happy and better off without her.

And the emotional arc of the film rests on how Billy comes to terms with this. With the fact that his past will never take him back and he has to learn to find joy in himself and his present situation and his future.

Having let go of that idea, he's able to emotionally commit to his gaggle of foster siblings and realize that unlike the villain, who was obsessed with punishing the people who never loved or accepted him, or the wizard who was focused on finding The Perfectly Worthy Champion, what you needed to be good and not lost was to be part of a mutually supportive group, like the wizard Shazam was before he and his siblings were betrayed. And then they can be a superhero team, woo!

And that part is actually depicted fairly well, all things considered!

But the problem is that the audience, to vibe with this properly, has to roll with the revelation that Billy was wrong to cling to the mystery of his vanished, beloved mother and the fantasy of going home again.

We have to be willing to participate in the idea that the Resistant Child Subjected To Foster Care was in the wrong.

And he wasn't! He wasn't wrong! His understanding of the situation was flawed but it should not have been flawed in this manner.

Because this scenario as it's depicted doesn't make any sense. The cops do not just keep your kid without following up if you fail to collect him from the baggage claim. CPS does not fail to provide a kid with the readily available evidence that he's been voluntarily surrendered to them, when he keeps running off trying to go home.

Why would they do that, after all? Billy's misbehavior was a huge hassle for them. They gained nothing by denying him access to his mother and the information about her that was, you recall, sitting totally available in a government database that could be hacked by a random 10 year old asian-american orphan. They just...made their own lives harder for no reason, while extending the suffering of a child in their care.

If the cops tried to return him back when and she said 'no i left him with you on purpose please keep him' maybe she gets prosecuted for child abandonment and maybe not, but either way, billy would know about it.

But if the screenwriters had made it clear early on that this information had been offered to him and he'd chosen not to believe it, they couldn't get a proper Reveal at the end because it would just be Billy being unable to continue pretending something the audience had known not to believe all along.

And they couldn't cram a good reason for the scenario they'd set up into the space they'd accorded it.

So they were just like, it's fine, if we cram enough cliches into this space people will react to the familiarity and go 'ah yes i know this one' and go along with it, and not notice that this isn't an actual coherent reply to the question that was set up an hour ago and therefore is emotionally unsatisfying somehow.

Anyway this is an important storytelling guideline: if you put in a mystery to control either the actual plot or, even worse, the emotional storyline, that mystery and its resolution have to make internal sense.

If you pull the Real Situation out of your ass, and it's not a matter of red herrings or That One Fact you didn't have that makes all the rest fit together differently, but in fact no one involved could have figured this out and especially if the people who did say this in the first place had no good basis for it, but still get narratively awarded the Correct trophy in a way that contributes to the thematic climax so the audience has to care. Then that will not get good results. It will make it hard to deliver on your intended themes.

Some people will not notice or care! This is true! But a lot of people will, and you'll get enough of a better punch even with the other folks, if the setup and denouement fit together properly and don't require reaching, to matter.

And when people do notice at all, rather than their naturally flowing along with the climax you're steering toward and experiencing A Story, there will be a tendency to notice you standing there placing roadsigns toward the Intended Emotional Response, and call you a hack.

People call out plotholes way too vigorously sometimes, so I want to be clear: it's not the lack of supporting logic I mind. It's that the active presence of illogic, of what's presented as a chain but is broken along its length, means the central character arc intersects with the core theme in a noticeably forced way. Which is bad craftsmanship on a meaningful level.

There is a loss of cohesion where you cannot satisfactorily resolve how the scenario we were initially shown came to be superimposed over the revealed truth, because that relationship between elements is very important to making a 'revelation' storyline land, you know?

In this case it's particularly vexing to me because the last-minute asspull and its thematic weight reaches back around and at the last minute moves the whole movie thematically to the other side of the line wrt whether it's approaching Billy, our protagonist, as a subject with whom we're supposed to identify or an object whom we're supposed to observe.

It makes all the high-school-freshman-posing-as-adult gags retroactively less funny because we were now more explicitly laughing at him, and takes a lot of the depth out of the emotionally sincere moments.

Up to that point I had really appreciated how, despite wavering that way, Shazam! hadn't actually fallen to the MCU Spiderman temptation to dehumanize its protagonist. Which seems to arise out of this weird tendency I've noticed to assume the natural sentiment of adults toward adolescents is bemused contempt, and that therefore if they ask their audience of paying grownups to empathize too closely with a teen hero instead of setting him and his Immaturity up as a clown for our amusement, they'll get themselves banished to the Children's Fiction ghetto.

And, of course, if they'd been fully committed to one side or the other of 'Billy is a protagonist the viewer relates to closely' or 'Billy is a protagonist the viewer relates to distantly,' they wouldn't have gotten snarled up about how much information to hand over when.

Committing to either option (giving us only as much information as Billy had and constructing a story that was solid from a being-Billy angle or giving us more information than Billy and operating confidently in the realm of dramatic irony) could have worked quite well. But because of the mixed signals and unstable narrative distance, they wound up with a distinctly weakened finale.

#hoc est meum #in real life things happen that you have no good reason to expect all the time #but in real life we know they happened for some kind of reason as in #causality exists and even in situations where we can't dig into the chain #we have cause to understand that it's there #in fiction they happened because they'd be convenient #so the rules of what information can be available and how you frame new information being revealed exist #to keep the audience from feeling jerked around #you have to earn people's trust and if you lose it #that limits the kind of results you can get #when writing fiction one of your tools is the reader's mind #if you give them reason not to allow you free use of it your composition contracts #screenwriting #shazam #and like in this case there's a profound betrayal of the protagonist and thus of the audience who connected with him wrapped up in it

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kindestegg · 1 year

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Collector, the Isles, assimilation, Luz, grief and escapism

Okay, as per promised the last post in which I went slightly into depth about how much Collector actually seems to LIKE titans, here's a much bigger one playing off of the idea that for all his care, this dynamic is incredibly flawed, and how that relates to his relationship with the Isles and how that parallels Luz eventually, as well as... another thing. (Buckle up. This is a long one).

In a post-hoot that's actually... a pre-hoot, if you think about it, Dana and a few others gathered to talk about For the Future and what was to come, Dana dropped some interesting commentary on how Collector's magic interacts with the Isles...

"Well, the Boiling Isles is supposed to be death and rebirth and rejuvenation like wrapped up in like, a kind of horrifying and beautiful set piece, which is kind of how I see nature as a whole, it's like that bug is horrifying but it's beautiful that it exists, y'know. Maybe that's a vapid observation, but... (laughs) It's something that I like exploring.

But for the Collector I wanted everything to feel the opposite it should feel (...) yeah, unnaturally vibrant, not so much unpredictable but factory made. Like toys, like so many plastic toys. It should feel the opposite of what the Boiling Isles feels, it should be so sugary, it should be so toy box that it hurts. (...) Unnatural. (...)

And I also wanted it to feel like what Luz thought she was gonna get in Season 1. She goes into this fantasy world and (...) you can see it in the episode, and in episode 2 you can see that, you can see some cute little cat villages, you can see all these beautiful fantasy tropes and it quickly gets smashed down because we didn't wanna focus on that too much, but the Collector's whole image was supposed to be growing from that. 'Oh, this is what Luz's dream is, but now it's a nightmare'."

She also says this juxtaposition ended up being overshadowed then by the Collector as a character coming into his own and being a character they enjoy writing so much, but I feel like this assessment could not be further from the truth. I and a lot of fans have caught onto this and very much would like to discuss these themes.

This quote is incredibly interesting to me because I feel like it relates on multiple levels to the themes if this show, the characters in it, and even external motivations in the writing decisions.

Let's start with what I promised first. In the earlier post I referenced at the start, I said although Collector doesn't act out of malice when it comes to changing up the Isles to his will, he regardless is still enacting a violence upon them. And I don't just mean through turning people into puppets.

When the hexsquad finally arrives back on the Isles and you see the state Collector put it at, they state that the Titan Skull is the normal part, but everything else is "wrong". During the entirety of For the Future, there is an emphasis on how unnatural Collector's magic is for the Boiling Isles. It shapes this place that witches and demons call home into something it never was.

Multiple times, we are made to see a clear juxtaposition between what the Boiling Isles is normally like VS how the Collector's magic interacts with it. Another line that stuck with me is Camila going "so the eyeballs on the ground are normal, but the little space cherub is the danger?"

And yet, despite all her negative reactions to the uglier parts of the Boiling Isles, she goes out of her way to try and understand why Luz likes it, and be supportive of Luz regardless. In a way, Camila's journey so far in the Boiling Isles is like a quick redux of Luz's own journey. At first, her daughter, too, had been weirded out by all the strangest in the demon realm, but it was her determination to find brightness in it despite it all.

It is in this that we find the meaning in Dana's words when she says that nature, in all of its weirdness and grossness, is beautiful. Because the Boiling Isles exists in its natural state, and not just that, but in a state that is culturally relevant and important to all witches and demons inhabiting it.

Luz was only able to learn her second glyph when she embraced that magic in the isles was different than just waving a wand and doing magic just like that. That magic was a gift from the isles, from nature. The way that witches connect to the isles is to giving thanks to the Titan, understanding and never forgetting their roots and that all of the bodily manifestations that life sprouts from are part of magic.

When Collector swoops in and covers it all in artificial glitter and plastic and toys, he takes away that natural part of the isles, he covers up the manifestation of the isles' culture that is meant to entwine so deeply with this nature. Regardless of how much he's liked the titans before and how much he doesn't think he's hurting anyone, he is still assimilating and erasing this culture of the isles.

Similarly, when he captures people to be his puppets, he does not just make them into puppets in their regular appearance, but also their appearance is changed, specially their outfits and hairstyles, which is a denial of their self expression and the way the Boiling Isles culture itself informs such choices. The style Collector enforces on the people he turns into puppets is not like anything we see the people on the isles usually wearing, but it sure as hell seems incredibly close to what Luz would have wished to see. We will definitely get back to that, specially with how that relates to Witches before Wizards, which is paralleled hardcore in this episode and even Dana points it out.

Point is: Collector is enacting a violence upon the Isles of a much subtler type than the already pretty damning "turning people into puppets and leaving the survivors to fend for themselves" thing. He is erasing its culture, running over its wildlife, reshaping the environment to his own wants. Regardless if he realizes how harmful this is to the Isles, it is extremely harmful, and I've discussed before in a more informal ask answer, but to me it seems like collectors in general parallel pretty closely the uglier parts of humanity, specially those relating to invading whatever lands we see fit and thinking we are justified in not only drastically altering the landscape but also forcing the people to conform.

Again, though, I feel wrong about going too close with the real world parallels here because I feel it isn't my place to speak on this. I can talk about, however, how once again the Collector is paralleling both Belos and his own ancestors here.

I've already discussed this here, but the way Belos introduces the coven system upon the Isles is a violence that he enacts onto its people to make them easier to control. He straight up rises to the top and changes the entire social norms and societal structure to benefit himself and creates a myriad of problems along with it, some I've discussed in that post like the fact the Emperor's Coven is made the strongest just to make it easier for him to establish his rule and benefit his power structure.

But there's more to this: I have not been the first one to point out that the way Belos denounces "wild magic" and the witches that used it as being in the "savage ages", to the point even historians such as Lilith were made to believe that venturing into an old Bonesborough before the established rule would be dangerous (which is interesting in and of itself: this signifies that the state controls even the historical material given to academics, and the implications here are horrifying) is also a form of imperialistic conquering and scrubbing the Boiling Isles of its original culture.

In this, it is also particularly interesting here to us to remind ourselves Collector very much did have a hand in the Day of Unity, and therefore, its connection to the coven system as well. We don't know how much of a hand it was when it comes to covens, maybe he suggested all of it or only told Belos he needed to siphon witches' magic through something and gather them all in one place, but the fact of the matter is that Collector's been implicated now in not one, but two instances of robbing the Boiling Isles - and its people- of its identity.

Like I stated in my analysis on cycles of violence, Collector is not just a victim despite having his own issues and trauma, he is very much a perpetrator as well. And once again, this is equally related to his upbringing with those of his own kind. Regardless of the fact he did change his mind and went out of his way to rebel and befriend the titans, he still spent a considerable amount of time learning from his family that collectors are meant to claim a world for their own to then take whatever they want from.

And because of all that, they are still very much in the habit of enacting a system of cultural violence upon those that they encounter. Even King, the one whom they consider their best friend, cannot escape this, as he is made to wear the same clothes as they do and denied the lifestyle he actually wishes for.

Once again, though, Collector does not seem to be doing this all out of malice. There is no indication that they are hunched over rubbing their hands laughing maniacally to themself about how they are finally making that ugly horrible Boiling Isles into something better and that with everyone turned into puppets there'll be no one to stop them. In fact... he rejects the very notion when Odalia brings it up that they could reshape the entire Boiling Isles...

And, as I have come to realize and discussed here, Collector doesn't actually seem to think turning everyone into puppets is the best end goal, he is most likely acting out of what he falsely understood the Owl House game to be. That isn't to say he regrets it or is doing so unwillingly, that's also a misreading, but at the very least, it's not something he would default to as a form of play, usually.

But that is just another incredibly important facet of this type of violence that we can discuss: most people who enact such erasure will not realize at first that what they are doing is wrong, they think that what they're doing is what's best for the culture they are bulldozing, and believe this to be just how the world works. While most of the time in real life this takes an incredibly frightening scale because it relates to structural oppression and concentrates itself in many powerful adult figures which are hard to empathize with, the Collector being a child in this sense lends itself to a different type of moral lesson here.

Put simply, this layer of his character and actions is there so that the audience may recognize that despite how he means well, he needs to change his ways. He is there for any members of the audience, particularly young ones, because, you know, this is still a show for kids, to project themselves into and understand that just because you think what you're doing isn't hurting anyone and everything looks prettier in your view, you're regardless still doing something very wrong by taking away what is natural and what is part of the identity of a people and a place.

To any younger viewers who may be just getting introduced to a concept like this, or even older viewers who have simply not given themselves the chance to think of these subjects for whatever reason and might be needing to, this is one valuable lesson to learn, and it is put in a way where you are made to understand that yes, you can hurt people in different ways than physically hurting them like Belos did, or even through direct but emotional abuse, and you can hurt people even when you think you're not doing anything wrong.

But, alright, we've discussed how the reshaping of the Isles by the Collector is important from a metanarrative standpoint. How does Luz fit into all of this? When does she come in?

I wanna get back to what Dana said in the post-hoot, about how this represents what was once Luz's dream becoming her nightmare. As I had stated before, it was only through Luz's determination of understanding and embracing the Boiling Isles as it is that she was able to have the adventures that she grew to love so much and meet the people she did and become the hero of the Isles and protector of its people.

But before she could ever do that, she had to be faced with the harsh reality that she couldn't will her journey to be better or more magical, that just because she couldn't find the world she wanted when she came into the Isles, doesn't mean that there isn't beauty to it.

In fact...

"Eda: The bones of the Isles. Up close, the Isles can be slimy—

King: And very stinky.

Eda: And gross. But if you look at it from a different perspective...

[The three of them look to the sky above the Titan's skull, where stars are beginning to appear. As they watch, a shooting star crosses the sky, there for only a moment.]

Luz: It's beautiful."

(Courtesy of the transcript from the TOH Wiki.)

This line from Witches before Wizards only cements what Dana said about the Isles showing the beauty in nature, in the cycle of life that we are all bound to. Luz's journey throughout that episode, and then adjusting through most of season 1, was coming to understand just that. And only because now she's learned to appreciate the Isles for what it is, she can denounce the violence that the Collector is doing to it as a result.

I think Witches before Wizards being such a parallel to For the Future that this latest episode ends up reminding us of such an early episode speaks to another one of the central themes of The Owl House: escapism.

The Owl House seems to have a great grasp of nuance when it comes to escapism. It simultaneously acknowledges exactly why someone like Luz might feel the need to elope to a fantasy realm where they may feel more understood, not shying away with themes of bullying, neurodivergence, and just in general any sort of alienation that can lead to seeking refuge in fantasy, while also reminding us that shutting yourself off from the world too much and refusing to deal with your emotions can be dangerous.

This is where Luz Noceda comes full circle, from a naive young girl whose dream of being a witch just like the pretty and powerful one from the books she reads guides her every action, to a now responsible and caring heroic figure who fights not just for her dream, but for the people of the Isles that she has grown to love to be able to live in peace, free from a controlling force attempting to overwrite their identities.

And it is also where our Collector's circle is about to begin. Collector, too, is enacting a form of escapism, not just through the Owl House game itself as it involves pretending they are the hero of the Isles along with King always by their side, not even just through the fact they are overwriting the identity of the Isles and its people...

But also they're pretending everything is fine, denying their own trauma. Let me explain.

So, some people have already caught onto this, but I'll just echo their sentiment: hey, isn't it really fucking weird that Collector seems to be so put off by their people's history, and also knows all of it pretty well, yet they still have King read that lore book to them before going to bed?

Well, let's analyze again what parts of the book Collector does want read and what parts he doesn't, and how does that line up with what we know of his backstory.

"Collectors live long, we watch things pass. To preserve, to observe, we must amass. What flies, what swims, be it predator, or prey, seal them up so they may never fade."

I think it's safe to say our Collector knows very well what this is and isn't too bothered by it. His eyes gets small and tired as he watches King read this, indicating he is comfortable enough hearing this part to fall asleep to it.

However, when it comes to this part...

"But should they meddle in our affairs, we’ll clean the planet and scorch the air."

That is precisely when our Collector gets incredibly upset, as if he is actively dreading hearing this be said out loud, and he begs King to skip over it.

This lines up a lot with his backstory and also his overall more explicit behavior in the episode. We know he wanted to befriend the titans rather than hurt them, and was likely upset when the other collectors killed off the last of his new friends. Many people have pointed out how upset Collector's expression gets when spying on King and hearing him and Lilith mention how the collectors wiped out all the titans.

And if you look at the edit that he made, claiming he fixed it...

"But playing is more fun, make friends instead, the others stink, boo!"

Hey, doesn't it seem like Collector is trying to make himself live out a fantasy in which he denies his past of having witnessed his species destroying the titans?

To Collector, the sweetest lullaby is one where the collectors learned to not trap everything on instinct and kill what doesn't agree, but instead, came to befriend the beings of this realm, and played with them in peace. One where he did not receive a horribly unjust punishment of fate for even trying to approach the titans and deny his own nature, but rather, where his best friend is a baby titan who reads bedtime stories to him.

All is well, echoes in his mind. All is well, so there's no need to think about what happened now.

Of course, I don't want to deny there is a possible counter argument to this. After all, if Collector is trying to escape his past, then why are there still pictures of the collectors vs. titans war hanging around the halls of the Archive House?

And to that, I can only guess that maybe this structure is not something he built entirely of his own conscious accord but is rather largely reminiscent of him trying to faithfully imitate what the original archives and structures collectors may have kept back in the day.

It does somewhat make sense: there are a ton of books being kept in the archives if you look at some of the backgrounds, and some of them even have further upsetting information. So I don't think Collector curated specifically every form of content in the archives, and it's possible he put those murals up due to a feeling of obligation, his collector instinct kicks in and tells him he has to catalogue his adventures up til then.

It's also worth noting that if we go with the second timeline suggestion, the one from Andy's post, it abruptly stopping when Collector meets the baby titans makes a ton of sense: he doesn't want to catalogue what happened after he met the baby titans, even though we all know that it didn't last.

Whatever the case, this form of radical escapism, one that denies even real life happenings to try and further close yourself off from allowing yourself to really feel any negative emotion, is something that is clearly unhealthy and has been called out before multiple times in the show, specially when it comes to Luz.

Dana has said in an interview that Season 3 would deal with themes of grief and how it affects our lives, and I can definitely see that with Luz and how she and Camila still process their grief over Manny, Luz's dad. Hence another parallel between Collector and Luz. Once upon a time, Luz, too, was using escapism as a way to cope with her father's death.

The Good Witch Azura was the last thing Luz's dad ever gifted to her. As such, it informed much of how she coped after his death, becoming an incredibly important comfort item that she treasured very much. Once again, this book very well represents the themes of balance in escapism: no one can argue that receiving the book wasn't incredibly important in helping Luz heal and cope well with her father's death, but eventually she also started having trouble realizing how her way of expressing herself might affect others and even having anyone to socialize with.

And listen, I know we all agree sending Luz to Summer Camp was kind of a bad idea on Camila's part that definitely scared Luz away, but we cannot ignore the motivation to want Luz to better herself was there. Because I want to talk about the fact that Demon Realm was Luz's Reality Check Summer Camp.

There is where she learned that even a fantasy where she could learn real magic and unlock her true potential world would not accommodate to her expectations, and that she would still have to work hard if she wanted to meet her goal. Not only that, but several episodes also focused on Luz learning emotional intelligence and responsibility.

We even had one episode that was exactly about trying to distract yourself from grief with games to the point you put people around you at risk! Reaching Out was literally about that! Do you understand! Do you see how Luz is literally just like Collector but older and given a proper system of support and not overpowered!

And yes, Collector is grieving. Just because the titans were not their actual family, doesn't mean they didn't care about them deeply, and so of course their deaths would affect them in a similar way.

Once again, we return to Dana's words about how the Isles encapsulates life, death and rejuvenation. Death is part of that. It must be accepted as a fact. And Collector's magic, once again, is one of keeping everything in plastic, factory made stasis. Denying this nature. Therefore, denying grief.

If the Collector is to grow as a character sufficiently to join our heroes, they will need to stop denying the past and covering it all up with sparkles and glitter and filling their time with only playing, and admit they are sad, they are grieving, and that they know horrible things were done to the Isles in their people's name. And that, even if they mean well, they are still continuing part of that when they mess with the Isles. Is this what the titans would have wanted?

And hey, who better to realize their need and call them out on it than Miss "Local troublemaker, nerdy bookworm, Azura fangirl, fanfiction writer, experienced grief-dodger" Luz Noceda?

#the owl house #luz noceda #the collector #toh analysis #toh theory #toh collector #for the future #Commander's orders #screamiiiing this took so long but its finally done #taking a long break from writing analysis after this one i promise

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raayllum · 9 months

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since Finnegrin sorta took Aaravos’s place in the rayllum development this season, was wondering if you had any parallels between the two figures specifically? :D

Oh yeah, for sure!!

There's the way they both have this almost gentlemanly, still too sinister to be entirely pleasant but like... calmer outer demeanour? But something cruel and volatile lurking right underneath when they get pissed that will be brutally unleashed if you dare disobey in a way that offends or presents an obstacle to them.

There's their associations with keys and threes (three quasar diamonds, three main mage pawns, three glowtoads, three keys to Finnegrin's door) in addition to being a clearly more rare kind of elf compared to the rest. There's the way they don't actually tend to fight their own battles, per se, but instead use vessels/pawns - for Aaravos, it's his collection of mages, and for Finnegrin, it's Elmer. Ownership and control go hand in hand with both of them. As Finnegrin says, "The chains are just for show," which feels very indicative of Aaravos' whole "I could just possess any of the dark mages in my collection, but I choose to bolster and manipulate them instead" and their reliance on fear.

But the big one, and the reason why I say I can swap them, is that the core prediction I had regarding Callum-Aaravos-Rayla just came true with Finnegrin swapped in for Aaravos - because Finnegrin is pushing forward and developing similar kinds of dilemmas I imagined along the exact same thematic axis those predictions were built off of: control vs freedom tethered together by love.

To me, Callum having a Key of someone who's imprisoned (and its majority negative associations in arc 1, i.e. being the symbol of temptation and dark magic in Callum's fever dreams) as well as Callum's own associations with freedom (wings like Icarus, the sky arcanum, emphasis in lines of dialogue, etc) seemed like an obvious through line of Callum playing into Aaravos' future machinations and setting the Startouch elf free, for some reason (or at least, foreshadowing being unable to stop him). People doing terrible things for love was a smaller undercurrent in arc 1 (largely with Claudia for her family, and Harrow out of grief with Sarai) and Rayla was the reason Callum had the cube in the first place, at risk to herself, so all those things compounded into Callum, under coercion, doing something he deemed terrible but necessary in order to save Rayla being held hostage/captive, no matter the risk.

S4 just added to this in major ways (and S6 could bring it, wildly enough, wholly to fruition - although I could see the 'captive' part be replaced easily with a fatal wound), largely due to the scene between Callum and Rayla in 4x07:

C: I'm not afraid [Aaravos will] hurt me. I'm afraid that he'll use me, to do awful things, or hurt people I care about.

However, it was always very clear to me that if it came to doing an awful thing or saving his loved ones, Callum would 100% always choose doing the awful thing to save his loved ones. And everything Callum was scared of here due to the lack of freedom and autonomy are things that literally happened in 5x08 thanks to Finnegrin.

Callum frames his relationship with Aaravos as one that's an inherent loss of freedom/control: "When Aaravos possessed me, back at the Storm Spire, I felt so weak and out of control." This is also the level of identity, of someone being able to use his body and strip away his voice - "I was his puppet".

Finnegrin's conversations with Callum centre around a similar theme, but he makes the initial mistake in trying to motivate Callum with his own freedom: "Just one dark magic spell, and you go free." He ignores Callum's obvious signs of 'weakness' ( "Tell me where my friends are") by assuming Callum is interested mostly because he wants to be free: "They won't be springing to your rescue" even when that's hardly what he cares about.

He identifies that Callum is deeply attached to his personal loyalties, but I can see Finnegrin thinking he's doing Callum some sort of twisted favour, in giving him the opportunity to sell out for his own freedom and leave his friends out to dry. (Love is weakness, after all. Shouldn't you want to prune yourself from weakness?)

The fact that Finnegrin is targeting Callum specifically because 1) Callum is a mage, 2) in relation to dark magic (when that was Aaravos' in, too) and 3) out of revenge (against an archdragon who's spared restricted him, and Aaravos wants revenge for his imprisonment & against the Startouch elves for also sparing but banishing/felling him) just furthers these thematic connotations between Finnegrin and Aaravos.

+ Bonus framing used to make it look like Callum is the one also in a cage, and a framing technique TDP has used before with always framing it so Claudia and Soren are the ones behind bars upon visiting their father in 3x03:

Then, much like Aaravos, Finnegrin baits a defiant Callum into a test ("those who fail tests of love are simple animals") that he's doomed to lose. Finnegrin's control is immediately set up to be exerted over everyone, yes, but Rayla in particular:

Because Finnegrin doesn't actually care about any of the other kids besides Callum. All he wants to do is break Callum's morale so that the boy will give up the information he needs, whether that's by trying to force Callum to pick someone to lose a hand (which the others remove as a coercive tactic) or by trying to get him to do dark magic again because as he says "You'll do anything for them."

But this, of course, is a false pretense. A lie. If Callum had done it here (and the show seems to imply he would have, or was seriously considering it), all Finnegrin would've had to do was use his blood spell to incapacitate everyone else. This is also an interesting point of note in some ways too, because technically... the episode could've just ended here.

Think of it this way: the overall structure of the episode is to get Callum's back against the wall so he uses dark magic, and accepts that he would use it, so he can gain a deeper understanding of himself and access the Ocean arcanum, leading to him throwing off Finnegrin's ice spell. Right? That's the Plot structure stuff that had to happen. If that was all that they wanted, you could do it in these scenes. The main cast would know Callum had done dark magic, which is the major difference, but surely wouldn't hold it against him. Callum could've done dark magic to get their chains off, could've had an impromptu Ocean arcanum realization, and things could've played out exactly as they do in the final scenes of the episode.

The episode could end here, but it doesn't, because well...

The writers chose to make him give up the information and do dark magic, specifically, to save Rayla. That's what they wanted. That's the relationship they chose to emphasize. Not the group dynamic, or one of the others (Soren or Ezran, mostly, as contenders), but for Rayla. Just like what I always expected Aaravos to prey upon too, even before and definitely after Callum and Rayla's talk in 4x07.

But Finnegrin still miscalculates, still not quite understanding that this isn't enough to keep Callum under control. If anything it spurs him further into continually more violent, escalating action: punching Finnegrin, giving up the spell (control), and when both of those prove futile, using dark magic to free himself (freedom) so he can save Rayla (love). And all of these lead him to the ocean arcanum: "To love is simply to know this: the tides are true as the ocean is deep [...] the Ocean arcanum is accepting there are depths you can't see."

Callum already didn't like doing dark magic, but as he says, "I had to, to save my friend(s)" and now he knows what that cost him: the threat of hurting his loved ones because doing dark magic has let Aaravos possess him. And here, as indicated by the intro change being the Callum pawn one, Callum has played into Aaravos' hands - at least marginally. He's accepted this darker side of himself, his willingness to do anything for the people he loves (including keeping secrets and trying to be "strong alone") - the part of him that Aaravos has arguably known all along. Remember those Tests of Love? Yeah Callum just passed one.

By and large, Finnegrin is a smaller, less smart stand in for Aaravos in 5x08. Revenge driven, focused on control and coercion, unnecessarily cruel, and willing to do anything to get what he wants - forcing Callum into the corner and subsequent choices for the person he Loves, as I predicted. (And there will probably be future parallels between Callum and Elmer regarding being pawns and breaking free and identity, but again: post for another day.) The fact that Callum's had this identity arc running throughout S4 and S5 ("Oh, I know [high mage] is my formal title, but you can just call me by my regular name" -> "I don't know how to feel about Rayla either" -> "I'm afraid, Rayla. What if I'm a path of darkness? -> "I have to go after him" "I know" -> "A lot has changed, but not everything's changed. I would do anything for you" -> "I'm not a dark mage" -> ?) and Finnegrin says that seeing Rayla in danger makes him Lose Himself (and Rayla's been setup to also Find Him & break him free of the brainwashing)? Love is a weakness, too, Callum's weakness (and strength). Finnegrin knew it, and I expect Aaravos knows it too, and that we'll see both of sides of the strength-weakness dichotomy come to fruition. TDP loves reconciling its dualities after all.

So yeah, we're in for a deep, wild, emotional ride.

TLDR; Finnegrin takes all of Aaravos' most direct thematic interplay (freedom, control, tests of love) with Callum from S4 and shores it up (pun intended) for the boy in S5, naturally pushing Callum further onto the "path of darkness" that Callum fears and Aaravos is relying on. After all:

Let's see just how far that anything goes, shall we?

#tdp callum #tdp aaravos #tdp finnegrin #tdp #5x08 #analysis series #the dragon prince #thanks for asking #anonymous #predictions achieved #theme: freedom #captain hostage exchange canon #tdp meta #analysis #parallels #s5 #arc 2 #this got longer than expected and idk why i Keep Being Surprised by it

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