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princeescaluswords · 4 years

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A Line Too Far

Yesterday, I had a spirited discussion with some anti-Scott individuals, including a BNF. One of the things that stuck in my mind in that exchange was how one of them, at least, viewed the Some of Us Are Human speech in Lies of Omission (5x09) as something good. They tried to defend it by saying that Stiles was praising Scott, setting him up on a pedestal.

And it mystifies me, because this speech is the primary reason I have serious problems with Stiles on a fundamental level. I don’t hate the character, but he would never be my favorite simply because when dealing with people he’s supposed to love and care about, he had no boundaries. And I’m not just talking about breaking into their houses, listening in on their phone calls, reading their mail, and making decisions about their lives, I’m talking about when dealing with them in a relationship, there was simply no limit to what he would do to achieve his goals. This particular speech, in my opinion, embodies that, as it is frankly the cruelest speech I can remember one television character giving another television character that they’re supposed to love. Let me reproduce it for you as reference:

Stiles: Scott? Where did you get that?

Scott: This is yours? Why didn't you tell me?

Stiles: I was going to.

Scott: No, but why didn't you tell me when it happened?

Stiles: I couldn't.

Scott: You killed him? You killed Donovan?

Stiles: Well, he was going to kill my dad. Huh? Was I supposed to just let him?

Scott: You weren't supposed to do this. None of us are.

Stiles: You think I had a choice?

Scott: There's always a choice.

Stiles: Yeah, well, I can't do what you can, Scott. I know you wouldn't have done it. You probably would've just figured something out, right?

Scott: I'd try.

Stiles: Yeah, because you're Scott McCall! You're the True Alpha! Guess what? All of us can't be True Alphas. Some of us have to make mistakes. Some of us have to get our hands a little bloody sometimes. Some of us are human!

That wasn’t praise; it was sarcasm, Stiles self-proclaimed ‘only defense.’ It wasn’t an acknowledgement that Scott was superior to him, it was an attempt to change the topic from Stiles’s behavior to Scott’s. It was false, it was strategic, and it was cruel. Under the jump, I’ll talk about exactly why.

The only way for me to possibly think of this speech as praise would be to extract it from all context and history. It should be clear from what was happening during the scene that this was an attempt by Stiles to protect himself by attacking Scott in the most vicious way he could imagine – by attacking the basis of their friendship, by arguing that they simply weren’t equals anymore, and that he should be granted leeway because of it.

While I think the setup was badly handled – in my opinion this scene would have been 20x better for the production and better for the character of Stiles if he had actually beat Donovan to death with a wrench during the attack -- the writing wasn’t awful, mostly because Stiles’s behavior was consistent from previous seaons. He did something very similar with Lydia in Master Plan (2x12), when he shouted at a grieving girl, “See, that's the problem. You - you don't care about getting hurt. But you know how I'll feel? I'll be devastated. And if you die, I will literally go out of my freakin' mind,” in order to change the topic from what she desired to what he did. He did something very similar with Derek in The Overlooked (3x10), when he tried to make himself feel better at Derek’s expense, “Are you telling me what to do now? When your psychotic, mass murdering girlfriend... the second one you've dated, by the way...” in the middle of a highly dangerous situation. And finally, he did the exact same thing to his father in The Girl Who Knew Too Much (3x09) with “You just don’t believe. Mom would have believed me.” Stiles sacrificed this emotional link with his father – his mother’s death – to get his own way. These are all previous attempts to use cruelty to control people he supposedly cares about. Stiles lashing out at Scott can’t be seen as anything else but another instance of the same.

And this speech, to me, is extremely cruel, especially when you take the context of their friendship into account. I can go through it line by line and explain the mechanism of its ruthlessness.

Yeah, because you're Scott McCall! You're the True Alpha. This is not only cruel, it’s hypocritical. Who was one of the people who pushed Scott into becoming a True Alpha? Who said “Look, you have something, Scott. Okay? Whether you want it or not, you can do things that nobody else can do. So that means you don't have a choice anymore. It means you have to do something” to Scott? This was after Stiles had literally tortured Scott for not doing the right thing. It was a seminal moment. For Stiles to turn on Scott after setting him on this path is simply disgusting. It’s not being delivered as a compliment. It’s being delivered as an accusation, especially when you see what comes next.

Guess what? All of us can't be True Alphas. He shouts this at Scott and he knows damn well that Scott’s never demanded anything like that of Stiles before. In Night School (1x07), in Venomous (2x05), in Battlefield (2x11), in Chaos Rising (3x05), in Silverfinger (3x17), Scott has always been aware of Stiles’s limitations. I mean, there was this exchange in Battlefield (2x11):

Stiles: It's going to be bad, isn't it? I mean, like people screaming, running for their lives, blood, killing, maiming kind of bad?

Scott: Looks like it.

Stiles: Scott, the other night seeing my dad get hit over the head by Matt, you know, while I'm just lying there and I can't even move, it just - I want to help, you know, but I can't do the things that you can do. I can't –

Scott: It's okay.

Stiles knows that Scott doesn’t expect him to be a True Alpha or even a werewolf. He never even offered Stiles the Bite until it was possibly the only thing to keep him from dying of frontotemporal dementia. Scott never expected Stiles to be anything but what he was: a human being. And expecting a human being to tell the truth and not to murder people isn’t outrageous behavior.

Some of us have to make mistakes. This is a key line. Stiles has been there for all of Scott’s mistakes as a werewolf and a leader. He’s been critical of Scott for his mistakes, in Heart Monitor (1x06), in Formality (1x11), in Frenemy (2x06), in Alpha Pact (3x11), in The Divine Move (3x24), in The Benefactor (4x04), and in Parasomnia (5x02). Stiles has never hesitated when pointing out when Scott has made a mistake and has often mocked him for it. So this isn’t praise; it’s sarcasm.

Some of us have to get our hands a little bloody sometimes. Again, Stiles knows this statement isn’t true. He was there in Night School (1x07) when Scott confessed that he wanted to kill people, Stiles included. He was there in Motel California (3x06) when Scott confessed “every time I try to fight back, someone gets hurt.” He must have been told that Scott held a dying Allison in his arms after leading her into battle in Insatiable (3x23) and he was present when Aiden died trying to fight for his cause in The Divine Move (3x24). Does anyone think that Stiles didn’t learn about the fight with the rogue hunters in Monstrous (4x10) or Berserker Scott stabbing Kira in Smoke & Mirrors (4x12)? Or that Scott didn’t talk to him about his failure to save Lucas in Condition Terminal (5x04)? The idea that Scott has never gotten his hands bloody was untrue. Stiles knew it was untrue, but Stiles was seeking to change the topic from Stiles’s actions to Scott’s beliefs.

Some of us are human! And this is the ultimate cruelty. He knows that Scott’s been afraid of losing his humanity since the night he was bit, a night Stiles played a role in. He’s been there for every dark moment in Season 1 and for the manifestation of that fear – the shadow alpha -- in Anchors (3x13) and More Bad Than Good (3x14). Does anyone believe that Stiles didn’t interrogate Scott about his dreams in Time of Death (4x08)? Stiles – as he habitually has with Lydia and Derek and his father – homed into his best friend’s weakness and struck at it with tactical viciousness.

This was the scene that made me realize my problem with Stiles would unfortunately, never go away. Some people talk about the dog bowl scene or the assault in the hospital and those are all instances of terrible behavior, but all characters make mistakes. To me, the final line was crossed in this speech. This wasn’t about Stiles ‘showing love.’ This wasn’t even really about Stiles defending himself. This was about Stiles’ expectation that he had the right to cross any boundary and Scott would still be his friend, which mostly seemed to consist of Scott doing as he was told. The line was crossed not just because Stiles said these things, but because all the characters’ response to him saying these things was … nothing. The characters never mentioned it; the production never mentioned it. This decision gave tacit approval to Stiles’s terrible behavior. Oh, that’s just Stiles, the show was saying. He gets like that when he’s upset.

Yep. That was just Stiles. And that’s my problem.

#teen wolf meta #anti stiles stilinski #scott mccall defense squad #lies of omission

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funtillyougettoknowher · 4 years

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The last 4 episodes have made me go for certain Shea was endgame and happy about it, to certain Shea is endgame and kind of sad about it. I’ll explain:

The biggest criticism of Lea as a character is she’s just a manic pixie dream girl, because in season 1, that was true. (But I still loved her even then because tropes exist for a reason, they can be fun sometimes!) Lea got much more development in season 2, but that’s not saying much since she’d only gotten 2-3 lines of characterization in season 1. The writers still barely scratched the surface of who she is outside of Shaun’s friend/roommate. We got a little more perspective on her family, her life in Hershey, her interests, and her job. It broke her out of the MPDG trope and started molding her into her own person. It was a start.

Lea has barely been in season 3. I remember seeing a comment saying how Carly being Shaun’s girlfriend had basically made Lea’s role in the show irrelevant, and I don’t disagree, because the writers always wrote Lea as Shaun’s love interest and not her own person. But, I still had hope that if/when Shaun and Lea became a couple, that would lead to more development for Lea, especially after 3x16.

Then, 3x17 backtracked the one aspect of Lea’s character that has been fully fleshed out since we first met her: that she’s a caring person who doesn’t see Shaun as less than because he has autism. Are we suppose to think Lea has secretly viewed Shaun with prejudice this whole time and we fell for a trick? Or is this new? Did the writers even think through what this means for her character, or just went with it because they wanted to explore what Shaun’s reaction would be? I have no idea, but I was still holding out hope for more Lea development as the Shea storyline progressed, until 3x19.

I keep seeing people say how sweet beautiful the way Shaun talked about Lea showing him how to enjoy life and making him “more” was. How that proved how much Shaun loves her. It’s strange to me. Like, did we listen to the same words?

Shaun didn’t say anything about Lea as a person that makes him love her. He listed things she does for him that’s caused his personal growth. Nothing about Lea’s personality, insight, or even physical appearance.

The critic who brought the MPDG trope to audience’s attention described this character’s purpose as “to teach broodingly soulful young men to embrace life and its infinite mysteries and adventures." AND SHAUN JUST ADMITTED THAT’S HOW HE SEES LEA. So any character development Lea got in season 2 that helped her out of the trope was just killed.

The optimistic side of mw wants to say that this will be explored. Shaun will learn to truly love Lea for who she is and not just what she gives him. That Shaun and Lea will grow together and use their experiences to cultivate a healthy relationship. But, come on, this is TV. They’re going to be thrown together without proper communication and Shaun wanting a MPDG instead of Lea as a person will never be addressed.

(This is without even getting into my thoughts on 3x18, which was such a hard episode to watch. I went into it questioning if I still liked Lea and left it deciding that I don’t like Shaun anymore. Season 3 has been a trip.)

#the good doctor #lea diallo #shea #shaun murphy #shaun x lea #season 3 #manic pixie dream girl

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