Tumgik
#even if things dont always go right for him that doesnt dampen his spirit and like <3<3<3
pherre · 7 months
Note
Oh, i dont mean to overstate potters cruelty or agency in this matter- he cant let charles or klinger go at all and its true that charles is a prick. But to me there always felt like there was a tension to me as a viewer where the show invites you to laugh at charles's and klinger's expense when they make attempts to leave that potter stops. Cus the show knows charles and especially klinger are very well justified in their desire to leave. To me it brings about this sort of intersting disonance, not in a bad way so much as a complex and interesting way that enriches the text. Potters the voice of reason and the authority figure the narrative defers to, especially in the later seasons, but his general feeling on these matters is resignation. "It is what it is" "it cant be helped." That resignation certainly isnt wrong or bad- hes being practical. But its hard to sympathize with it over hawkeye or klinger or even charles's rebellion.
As for going awol as an immoral act i suppose i was mostly thinking of various episodes in which people encourage a soldier to return to the front. I believe mulcahy encouraged a young man whod stolen a dead comrades identity in order to escape the army to return to the front. He also spent a whole episode trying to convincea kid who was trying to come home after his fiancee left him that he needed to return to the front. The show always shows characters being reluctant to do that sort of thing, but later on in the show i feel a real sense of resignation to that status quo. Idk if thats making sense but ive been thinking about it a lot. I feel like MASH's castwide emotjonal arc as a whole often concerns itself with the tension between rebellion (which runs the risk of being unrealistic or dangerous) and resigning yourself to reality (which runs the risk of being callous or despair inducing) i personally feel that the show tends to strike a really good balance, but theres something really interesting to me about the fact that, in my opinion, potter (who is loved by pretty much the whole staff and is generally considered the voiceof reason and wisdom) is also the most ardent voice of resignation if that makes sense? Hes wonderful and smart and more often than not hes right- rebellious acts are unrealistic theyre dangerous they cant be done without serious repercussions, the best way to do good is within the system and slyly- not because its the best way to do it but because it is the most effective way to do it without being destroyed by the powers that be. Him being smart or empathetic or reasonable doesnt make him any less oppositional to the spirit of spitfire rebellion that hawkeye embodies it. Potter dampens that. Perhaps thats by necessity for fear that hawkeye burns out, but to me that sort of effect feels more complicated than good or bad. Potter's mediating presence is an expression of care- he is a buffer between his unit and the cruel beurocratic military machine. But making the weight of the armys control easier to bear normalizes it- it puts a kind paternal face on the military authority they are all bring crushed by. The fact that he truly cares and is working within the system in the manner his is doesnt really lessen thar to me- which doesnt make potter villianous or wrongheaded so much as it complicates his approach at least to me. (Sorry a million billion words. Poter thesis to me- i love him i think hes great and his ideological position in the show is rlly interesting)
i don't think the narrative defers to potter as thee authority figure necessarily - he's the "good" army man and the show has to marry this with hawkeye's (and, in turn, the show's) anti army sentiments, which it does with various degrees of success
i do agree with everything else you said though! the mulcahy thing has always confused me a bit too, like sometimes they give him this black and white thinking and sometimes they give him complex moral problems (if i remember correctly, his opposition to the soldier who stole a dead man's identity was that the dead family won't ever learn that the man died, not that the soldier won't return to the front). and there's the episode where he tries to shelter a soldier who's AWOL simply because the soldier requested sanctuary
7 notes · View notes
tenshindon · 3 years
Text
yamcha’s confidence  🥰 🥰
12 notes · View notes