WOAH WOAH I NEED RECEIPTS FOR THESE NEW JOSHUA STUFF 😭😭 I THOUGHT WE ONLY GOT THE COVERS

Oms nonnie, I went back to look for the post but op deleted it 😭

I reread the post about your favorite characters/ relationships and I realized that we pretty much have the same favorite characters and relationships 😄 always nice to meet someone who shares the same opinions and thoughts as yourself. I also read your post about Ope and Jax’s friendship and you had some very good thoughts and you explained their relationship very well. Thank you!

I’m glad you sent another ask, because I made a post in my drafts answering all of your asks so I could post them all in one response, but then like an idiot I deleted all of your asks forgetting I needed to answer one of them with the post I’d made from my drafts haha.

So just to let you know, in this response, I’ll answer all of the asks you’ve sent, so this is gonna be a long one.

Yeah, I remember that we had a lot in common from before and I was surprised because I have some weird preferences when it comes to ships and favourite characters etc. so it’s great to speak with someone that shares similar views.

And I’m glad I gave you some insight into Jax and Opie’s relationship. I always think it’s interesting to hear someone speak about a character/relationship you don’t like or understand to see what others see in them.

This response is to when you asked me to expand on Gemma and Jax’s relationship and my comment on them being the biggest love story on the show in a way (sorry the question got deleted so I couldn’t copy and paste it).

When it comes to Gemma and Jax’s relationship, it’s probably one of the only main relationships that was introduced in the pilot and remained a central aspect of the show until the finale.

I think because a lot of the time Gemma was manipulating Jax and trying to control him, people probably dislike their relationship or perceive it as toxic, which it was, but it was still a very loving relationship. There’s an endless list of things I can drag Gemma for, but how much she loved her son isn’t one of them. I don’t necessarily think she was a good mother given everything she did to him, but I do think she loved him with all her heart and soul. She was just so messed up that she didn’t know how to be a decent mother. Jax was different in that respect and he always seemed to understand that his sons shouldn’t be growing up in the outlaw life, he wanted better for them and in the end he died with that being his final wish. He just wanted them to get out of Charming and escape the life he led but for Gemma it’s like all she wanted for Jax was for him to be president of SAMCRO and a big bad tough guy that goes around killing and being the most powerful man of them all. I’m not saying Jax didn’t want that too, because we all know he did, he spoke about the fact that all he wanted since he was a kid was to have a Harley and a khut. But it never sat right with me that Gemma was always pushing him deeper into the club and wanting him to be more criminal, more cold.  

I think a big part of why Gemma and Jax were so close had a lot to do with JT and Thomas. Gemma lost her young son and that’s a pain that no one but a parent who has also suffered that can understand. It’s natural that she would cling to Jax and keep him closer and I really think that’s why she sought to control his life so much - she was terrified of losing him. And for Jax, losing JT meant that he grew closer with Gemma as his only remaining parent. When a family of four goes down to a family of two, it’s to be expected that the remaining two are going to appreciate each other in a new way and bond in an even deeper way.

They had a very complex bond whereby Jax really looked to Gemma to be his constant support. Again, I think it’s taken forgranted that Jax probably wouldn’t have made it through all his hardships without Gemma. He seemed to draw a strength from her and particularly when it came to doing the harder things, Gemma was the one that pushed him. That’s not necessarily a good thing, because often she would have been pushing him to murder or hurt someone, but from Jax’s POV he had to do those things and Gemma made sure he did.

In a way Gemma loved Jax too much and that’s what got her killed. When she killed Tara in the sickest and most twisted way, it was an act of love. She believed Tara had betrayed them, betrayed Jax and she just lost it. If that had been any other person besides Tara and she hadn’t of betrayed Jax, I honestly don’t believe Gemma would’ve gone to the extremes she did. But because Tara was Jax’s wife, she couldn’t let that betrayal go and she went full-blown mama bear mode. I don’t think she was thinking of the consequences of her actions, she was only thinking, “You hurt my son and I will make sure you never get to do that again.” Of course, it doesn’t justify what she did at all and it’s the one thing I will never forgive Gemma for of all the awful things she did, but the point remains that she did commit that murder because of the twisted and intense love she had for Jax.

For Jax, I think his love for Gemma was pretty similar to the love most of us have for our mother’s. He knew of her flaws but he accepted and loved her because she was his mom. He probably relied on her more than most adult men would be expected to, but I put that down to Gemma wanting to do that rather than Jax needing it - although I do think he needed it too. I mentioned it before, but that whole conversation with Nero about Gemma in the finale breaks my heart everytime and it’s so easy to sympathise with Jax even having never been in a position like that. Here’s his mother, the one woman he’s supposed to trust no matter what, the one who is supposed to protect him and do best by him and she’s murdered his wife in cold blood and now he has to kill her. And whilst he loathes her for what she’s done, he cannot help but still love her because she’s his mother and the thought of killing her breaks him. It’s made clear that after killing her Jax wouldn’t be able to go on living and I think that’s very telling of how much he loved Gemma.

“ she stayed with him as long as he was president and had his power, but the second it started to wane, she abandoned him because he was no longer of any use to her. Again, I think she genuinely loved him, but her relationship with Clay was a lot to do with the power he had and how she could control him to get the best use out of that. She seemed to be obsessed with tough and powerful men” Agreed. But what about Gemma/Nero? Nero is sort of everything Clay isn’t and different than JT too I assume

I think that Gemma and Nero was a relationship that happened because Nero was everything Clay wasn’t. After the drama and heartbreak she went through with Clay, she didn’t want that again and I think she knew she would never get to that point with Nero.

At the beginning of the series Gemma wouldn’t have looked at a man like Nero twice, but after what she went through she needed a man like him that was more relaxed, kind and gentle. I think the love she had with Nero was much more nurturing and she needed that, particularly since she was in her 50′s. What woman at that age wants to be caught in a turbulent and unstable relationship? It’s too tiring and no one that’s middle aged is going to want that. But I do think that Gemma didn’t love Nero as much as she loved Clay. That could just be down to the amount of time she knew Clay in comparison to Nero, but I think it’s that typical cliche of bad boy vs good boy. Clay was the bad boy, he was dangerous and violent, strong and passionate and he challenged Gemma and kept her on her toes, which is what she loved. Gemma wouldn’t have wanted to be with someone like Nero in the beginning, she would’ve needed more excitement than that. But I think when someone has had that kind of relationship and it’s gone bad, it drives the person to seek a partner that’s at the opposite end of the spectrum - someone that they trust to remain level-headed, who will care for them and just love them in a simple way. That’s what Nero was for Gemma and I think that’s why she fell for him so quickly.

Since we never saw JT on-screen or his relationship with Gemma, it’s hard to imagine what he was like as a husband and the nature of their relationship. But Gemma did say that JT was the love of her life and part of me believes that. The thing is with Gemma, just because she had an affair with Clay and plotted with him to kill JT, it doesn’t mean she stopped loving JT. Look at what she did with Clay, she betrayed him and set him up to be killed when she still loved him. For Gemma love wasn’t the most important thing, power was. If JT was weak and Clay was strong, she would’ve gravitated to Clay regardless of how much she loved JT in her heart. I actually think from things we heard about JT he was probably a balance between Nero and Clay. He seemed very sensitive and passionate like Jax, but that he also had a temper and violent streak. It’s hard for me to separate JT and Jax in my mind in terms of their personality, because their characterisation is so similar. Gemma even says to Jax, “I loved your dad. More than than I’ve loved any man. Great lay. Smart. Big heart. And very complicated. Sound familiar?”

As I said, it’s hard to gauge exactly how Gemma felt about JT since we never really saw them as a couple, but I think she definitley loved him very deeply and that of the three main relationships we knew her to have - JT, Clay and Nero - JT was probably the balance between Clay and Nero. But what I said in the first ask about her obsession with power is something you see in all of her relationships. Though we can say that Nero was the least violent and softest of the three men she loved, he still had a certain authority and strength. He had his own business, he knew how to handle himself and I think Gemma recognised that he had a different kind of strength that was inward. Just because he didn’t go around beating up every single person that ever crossed him, didn’t mean he wasn’t strong and powerful. In fact, it probably means he was more so in comparison to Clay who was so insecure and afraid of losing his power that he used violence to try and keep hold of it.

“in season 5 he attacked Wendy and injected her with drugs, something that was actually one of the most disgusting things he could’ve done in my eyes.” I agree! I honestly Jax for doing that or I hated that he did it. I also don’t really get the hatred he has for her when she comes back in season4, (I mean I understand that he’d have some hard feelings towards her for almost killing Abel) But when she went off to rehab in season 1, they were on pretty good terms with each other

Ditto. I love Jax, but I honestly couldn’t believe that he did that. I’m not trying to place the blame at Tara’s door, because Jax made the choice to do that himself but I think he definitely did it because of Tara. Tara was the one that had raised Abel, she was the woman Jax loved and she reacted so negatively to Wendy’s return. And I think his fierce protectiveness over her and his family meant he saw Wendy as a threat to that and reacted in the way he usually would to anyone else that was a threat to him. He didn’t seem to really take the time to think about what he was doing or how important Wendy was as Abel’s mother. And the way he treated her in the later seasons was a million miles away from how he behaved in season 5. In season 1 he loved and respected her and he wasn’t even really angry with her about what happened with Abel because he understood she was an addict that needed help and he actually placed the blame on himself because he felt he should’ve been there for her, which is true. In season 7 he reverted back to that and he seemed to have such a deep respect and love for her as his ex-wife, friend, family and mother of his child. I just don’t understand why he went to those extremes in season 5. Wendy did get a little ruthless in season 5 in her pursuit of Abel, but she’s a mother that just wanted to be involved in her child’s life. She actually went to Tara first out of consideration to talk to her about it and in reality, why should Wendy have to do that? Yes, Tara had been raising Abel, but Wendy was still his mother and Abel was her baby. She had every right to want to be in his life and I don’t think she was unreasonable at all. But like I said in the ask before, I don’t understand why Jax took to injecting her, when he could’ve just worked something out. Wendy would’ve been happy just to be able to have visitation rights, to be able to pop round the house and see him a few times a week and maybe take him out to the park or something. But it was just easier for Jax to get her out of the picture and that’s why he did it.

“As vice president it was easy for him to criticise and question Clay’s decisions, because he wasn’t the one in charge with everyone looking to him to keep things together. But when he was president he soon realised that actually most of the decisions Clay made were necessary and that sometimes you have to do the worst things imaginable to keep control.” Do you think Jax ended up as bad as Clay? Or even worse than Clay?

Hm, this is a hard question to answer. I think he 100% ended up as bad a Clay, but I don’t know whether he was worse. I feel like if I sat and tallied up every single bad thing they both did, Jax would probably have a longer list. However, my instinct is to say Jax wasn’t worse than Clay because I always saw his humanity no matter how dark her got, whereas with Clay most of the time I saw not even a shred of compassion in him. I also think the fact that Jax identified he’d changed for the worst and got in too deep in some ways makes him better than Clay. Clay kept on manipulating and fighting for his power until the end, but Jax didn’t. He could see how evil he’d become and he knew that he was toxic for his sons and everyone he loved, so he took himself out of the equation.

So I suppose I can argue Jax wasn’t as bad as Clay, even in the later seasons, but deep down I know that isn’t true. It would be impossible for me to recall every single bad thing Jax did off the top of my head, but I know he did a hell of a lot things. But more than that, he just became more like Clay in the way he handled conflict and threats. As I said, in season 1 he felt guilt and remorse for killing Kohn, yet in season 6 he killed Venus’ mother without hesitation. Clay was always like that - he acted immediately. If he saw that someone was a prick or a threat to the club, he would kill them without even blinking, but Jax wasn’t naturally like that. He always tried to find other solutions and sought for a way that didn’t have to resort to killing. The example with Wendy is again a very good one in this instance. He would’ve never have reacted to Wendy pursuing Abel by injecting her in the early seasons, that’s something Clay would’ve done. Clay is the man that beat on his wife, something Jax would have never have done, something he believed was unthinkable, yet he attacked Wendy and Ima in the later seasons.

I definitley think Jax became a lot like Clay in his presidency. He wanted to be president so badly because he wanted to implement change, but personally, I saw his leadership as being very similar to Clay’s. I think the only difference was that Jax had more established friendships with the others in the club which meant they respected and cared for him more, whereas Clay was their president and they knew it.

We both love Jax dearly, but what’s your take on Charlie Hunnam as an actor? From an objective point of view? Also have you seen him in something else than SONS? And since we talked about characters and how you were pretty neutral about the other characters, which actors do you think had the “best vs weakest” present on screen? I.e. I don’t think Theo Rossi (who played Juice) is a bad actor, but I think Juice was pretty flat as a character, he wasn’t really relevant until season 7 either…

When it comes to Charlie, I actually haven’t seen him in anything other than SOA, so I feel like I can’t really comment too much on his acting. I mean, it’s amazing on SOA, but often I’ve seen actors take on big roles in a TV series and thought they were fantastically talented, but then watched them in something else and realised they had no versatility. So even though Charlie was great as Jax, there’s a possibility that since that was his biggest and longest role he came to learn how to play that character perfectly, but isn’t necessarily good at playing different characters. But if I’m basing this just on his acting on SOA, I think he’s fantastic. Part of the reason I love Jax is because he feels like a real person and a lot of that is because of Charlie’s acting. The facial expressions he uses, the way he walks and talks, is all unique to Jax and if you’ve ever watched Charlie in interviews you realise just how much he worked on those small details to really make Jax a completely individual character with his own personality and mannerisms. 

There were quite a mix of actors in terms of ability. None stand out as being bad, I think generally the show had a very strong cast. When I think about actors that just owned it whenever they were on-screen and who held my attention I’d say, Charlie (obviously), Ron, Katey, Maggie and Walton come to mind. So for me, those are the best even if I don’t necessarily love the characters they played (e.g. I didn’t like Tara but appreciate that Maggie is very talented). But all of those actors were given great material to work with so that is probably a factor in how good their performances were. 

With the weaker actors, it’s hard to know whether it is weak acting or whether the characters are just poorly written, which is something you pointed out with Theo and Juice. Theo is definitely the one that comes to mind when I think of weak performances. I just didn’t notice him at all and even in season 7 when he had the whole plot with covering up Tara’s murder, I didn’t find him captivating as an actor or character. The SOA fandom on here isn’t huge, but from what I see Juice is a very popular and well loved character and personally, I just don’t see where that comes from because I found it impossible to connect with him. I also had the same issue with Mark (Bobby). But I wouldn’t say it’s bad acting, Bobby is a character that just wasn’t really given much to work with. He was always just there in the background, he occasionally gave one of the boys a pep talk but that was it. Tommy (Chibs) and Kit (Tig) had better stuff to work with as they had some emotional scenes which showcased they had an ability to show some more depth. But again, neither of them particularly captured me as actors. Chibs was a nice, funny guy but I never felt a particular connection to him and as you know from reading my most and least fave characters, I don’t like Tig at all. Even Ryan (Opie), doesn’t stand out to me as being a fantastic actor even though Opie had quite a lot of storylines over the season. I don’t think he really brought much depth to Opie, but through the writing there was definitely the opportunity for Ryan to deepen Opie’s character. So perhaps when it comes to Ryan it was weak acting.