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non-plutonian-druid · 2 years

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hello all i have an absolute monster of a meta essay for you that I like to call “The Umbrella Academy is so close to saying something about the concept of nuclear families and if the writers are doing it on purpose its going to be beautiful”. Its almost 2k words.

For the record, since i think its relevant and greatly informs my thoughts, i am a nonpartnering aromantic person and i strongly believe that the idea that a family is a pair of romantic partners and their children needs to go. Thats uh. Bigger than the scope of this essay. But it does inform a lot of my thoughts on this particular theme in the umbrella academy so there you go.

First, some semantics: technically the only family member to actually get to the point of “nuclear family” is Allison, who then divorces her romantic partner. Only her and, technically, Diego, have kids. Most of the others have love interests but because of the beauty of being different people with different life experiences, their particular romances often do not fall specifically into the the box “nuclear family”, though some could eventually given time (and some may not ever). That being said, associated with the term “nuclear family” is a pattern, historically, of children growing up and finding a romantic partner and moving out into a single-family home, where they have children raised only and specifically by them and their romantic partner, and they thus grow apart from their siblings and parents. This is a pattern that is held, at least in America, as The Best pattern, and anyone who does not achieve it is failing in some way. And that pattern, of leaving behind the family you grew up in to make a home and a family with a romantic parter? That’s everywhere in TUA. I would argue that the tension between the siblings’ urges to follow it, and between their urge to reconnect with each other, is one of the main themes and a main source of tension through all of the show.

Pre season 1, most of the Hargreeves build their own lives after escaping from Reginald, but only Allison creates her own family. Then, in season 1, a few relevant things happen

One, Allison is separated from her daughter, and desperately wants to return to her. Returning to her daughter inherently and repeatedly means separating herself from her siblings and returning to a family unit that does not involve them. I am not arguing that this is a bad thing, or that Allison should not be with her daughter; I am pointing out that the family Allison has with Claire is separate from the one she has with her siblings (There is one notable exception to this, based on my memory; Allison asks Luther to join her on her flight to LA in the Day That Wasn’t, after they rekindle their romantic relationship).

Two, Viktor begins a relationship with Leonard, who deliberately isolates him from them, which does fit the pattern but is kinda unfair to use to serve my point lol

Three, Klaus meets Dave. Klaus has the power to return to 2019 at any point he wants, and could even bring Dave if he so chose, but remains in the 60s away from the modern day and his family with Dave until Dave tragically dies.

and Four: the world threatens to end and the umbrella academy tries, badly, to fix it by coming together once again. Allison is constantly torn between wanting to help save the world and wanting to be with her daughter, Viktor is manipulated away from his family (not that the hargreeves probably needed the help lol), and Klaus breaks away entirely to spend months away from them with a man he falls in love with. Bad things? Not necessarily, apart from Viktor’s shitty boyfriend being abusive. But the beginning of a pattern.

Season 2. The Hargreeves have all had months or years in Dallas, and many of them are beginning new lives with new families.

Allison, once again, is married. Viktor has a blossoming relationship with a woman he loves and is devoted to taking care of her son, who he loves too. Diego has acquired a love interest as well (Lila my beloved), Klaus is trying to prevent his past-future boyfriend from enlisting, and Luther is trying to figure himself out. Obviously a major tension in this season is between Five trying to round up his siblings, and his siblings’ prioritizing their lives in Dallas, which they’ve built with hard work and are just getting used to. This does not involve a tension between a nuclear (or nuclear-ish) family and their siblings for all of them, but it does for Allison especially, and Viktor, and to an extent, Klaus. An important thing to note here is that the siblings are not averse to reuniting, as they often were in season 1. They have been worried about each other! They have been looking! and yet even once they reconnect their little lives stay separate. They talk about it, but do not invite their siblings into their lives. They meet love interests offhand, but do not integrate. All of them, even when trying to reconnect, still have two separate lives that they have to choose between.

Season 3. Oh boy.

perhaps not “oh boy” for the reasons that you think. The reason its “oh boy” is because there are three parts to how i will talk about s3: The romantic interests-slash-nuclearish families, the way the hargreeves talk about their own family, and The Ending.

First, Allison again. Allison begins the season once again wishing desperately to find Claire, and mourning leaving Ray behind. She leaves almost immediately, and gets to LA only to find that Claire does not exist. Getting to a world where Claire exists, or Ray exists, or both, becomes her motivation for the rest of the season, pitting her against multiple of her family members. Fair! She is more worried about the family she has lost than the family that is right in front of her and fine, which is perfectly reasonable. And obviously, she is considerably more invested in her toddler’s well being than her adult brothers’. What I point out is that once again, her family with her siblings and the families she’s made are separate entities from each other, and this fact is forcing her to choose between them.

Second, Luther. Luther’s relationship with Sloane begins similarly enough to previous ones in the show- Luther is making a choice between a romantic partnership and his siblings, it causes tension, the romantic partnership and his siblings form two different units and never the twain shall meet. But. Then Sloane gets folded into the Hargreeves siblings- or rather the Umbrellas, since she’s a Hargreeves too lol. Sloane is... not a character, no offense, but I’m presuming that she is supposed to be integrated with the Hargreeves since that is the impression of the writers intentions that I get and for the sake of being nice to them I will pretend that they succeeded. Interesting! A romantic partnership that is integrated into their family, and not existing as a separate one adjacent to the rest of them! That has never happened before. Even Allison and Luther’s romance is not Part of the family formed by the rest of the siblings; it is, narratively, treated as something separate

Three, Diego. And Lila. Once again, a change of pace. Lila comes here for Diego only at first, but quickly is embroiled in the Plot and the Family. Lila has always been more integrated with the family than other love interests, if only because she has much more plot relevance than most of them, but even then her primary real interactions have been with the Handler, outside of the family entirely; or Diego, with the occasional exception of trying to murder Five. This season she is fully and completely part of the family, and has one on one, meaningful interactions with not only Diego but Allison, Five, and Klaus as well.

Two love interests in one season that arent separate from the rest of the family, huh?

So what about the way the Hargreeves talk about their family this season?

Allison begins the season once again wishing desperately to find Claire, and leaves almost immediately. Viktor encourages her to leave, believing that Claire still exists and that finding her will help Allison. To do so, he encourages her to find her “real family”.

Later, Klaus goes on a roadtrip to find his biological mother. On the way, he commiserates with Five about their lives, and they both wonder if what they have could even be called a family.

Contrasting, there are multiple scenes on multiple occasions in season 3 alone where Allison, Five, Luther-- all of them-- declare their love for each other. They’re a family. No matter what.

Hm.

Now The Ending.

The Ending is one of the saddest parts of the show to me, and makes me desperately hope that The Umbrella Academy gets a season 4, because The Ending leaves the siblings utterly divided.

Luther is searching for Sloane.

Diego and LIla are presumably going to build a life together with their future child.

Allison is all the way in LA, living an idyllic dream where both Ray and Claire are alive and returned to her.

Even the remaining siblings, who do not have lives laid out for them, have walked away from one another to return to normal, nonpowered lives. If the story ends here, in the tension between the family you grow up with and the family you build with a partner, the siblings have prioritized their own lives, and the family they’ve spent three seasons trying to reconstruct falls apart under the weight of.... living a normal life.

What I want from the Umbrella Academy, what I hope we get if there is ever a fourth season, is the Hargreeves figuring out what family works for them. They have constantly been pulled between their siblings and their own lives, and have almost never allowed the two to mix. I find the story of the nuclear family, where all people are expected to find a partner and have children and for that and only that to make a normal life, to be depressing and isolating. I desparately want the Hargreeves, who have been trying so hard to reconnect, to find a better story for themselves. Every season so far has been building a stage for this storyline. Season 3 is literally ending with many of the Hargreeves getting idyllic little family units while walking away from each other, and if that doesn’t spell “we’re going to be Dealing With That” then I don’t know what does. They really could be telling a story that says “Leaving the family you grew up in behind doesn’t have to be the only answer”. It could be so good. But do i trust the writers to realize what they’re doing, or is their writing just littered with unexamined assumptions about how families are structured? I just don’t know.

#tua #the umbrella academy #luther hargreeves #diego hargreeves #allison hargreeves #klaus hargreeves #five hargreeves #viktor hargreeves #i mention ben exactly zero times so he doesnt get tagged but hes here in spirit #ha #lila pitts #i dont think anything after the first five tags shows up in the main tags but whatever #writing this made my brain melt out of my ears and then i had to edit it? gross #i didnt have to edit it but i did want it to be like. readable and not complete nonsense #i could do an epilogue about five who also kind of has a little family off with delores #that is simultaneously necessary for his sanity and also always always second to his siblings #but i didnt really have anything to say about it other then 'thats a thing that happens!' so i didnt include it #not that this whole thing is THAT much more than 'thats a thing that happens!' but #anyway when talking about all this 'the little families they build with a romantic partner' and #'their lives they build away from their siblings that may or may not include a romantic partner'#are easy to get tangled up and i think i fell into that a few times #but im specifically trying to get at the common narrative of leaving beihind your old family to make a new one with a romantic partner #and how that doesnt need to be the only narrative to exist #you dont need to leave your siblings behind to build a family #the two do not need to be separate #they can be if that is what is good for your life #but they do not have to be #tua s3 spoilers #s3 spoilers #tua spoilers

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