#it's less storytelling than a theory
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My interpretation of William Afton's origin of villainy is that he never grew up with much control over his life. I imagine he was an only child, and that his parents were the sort to spoil him but do nothing else that was memorable, so he never had anyone for emotional support or to hang out with. He probably was liked at school due to his intelligence and natural way of speaking, but never gained any close connections.
Maybe when he thought something good was about to come for him, something big happened, like a big move. Maybe he gets a girlfriend near the end of highschool, finally, but never feels that closeness he expected, compared to how everybody else described their love life. Then they have a kid unexpectedly, get married, though it was way more impulsive than anything. This was worse than he thought. Now this wife and their little boy Michael was controlling his every waking moment, just as he finally gained the powers of adulthood, too. She was considering having another kid, meanwhile William was considering running away. Everything was out of control.
But then, he finally sees his way out. By coincidence, he meets a man, Henry, who he saw flickers of himself inside. He was lost, desperate for connection in such a crazy world, with a lack of affinity for other people. This was his chance, and he wasn't letting that go. Sure, he did push a few people out of the picture, out of Henry's life, but it was necessary. He started a business with him, watched as this man created life from nothing all day long, and then he would go home to his family at the end of each day. He liked the idea of robots. You could make them do anything you wanted and they wouldn't even bat an eye. He wished everybody worked like robots.
Their friendship turned sour, at one point. First, he was envying him, then it became an obsession, and Henry never noticed a thing. He thought he was winning the game, but William knew who was playing it. It felt powerful to be able to be on the other end for once, to be in control of somebody else's actions, so he took every little opportunity he could to do so. It seeped into his other relationships, which were definitely already affected by this but it became much more noticeable starting then. His wife, whose love for him was dimming, and his three children, too, Michael, Michael's brother, and Elizabeth. He just never knew how good it felt until now.
His pent up anger boiled over when he felt he was losing that control once again. Maybe the two men have some sort of disagreement, or maybe he's spending too much time with his own family, something like that. Their business was booming in popularity, why was he backing down now? He couldn't handle this properly, since he never learnt how to express his feelings with others, so it came out explosively in a burst of colour and fading light.
After being out all one night, he sped his way back to the restaurant. He didn't know what was going to happen when he got there, but he was shaking with anger and needed an outlet. When he arrived, he slammed the door behind him to see... Charlotte? Like, Henry's daughter Charlotte? The hell was going on!? He was confused, but still very very angry, so he threw her aside and went to open the door. But she tugged on his arm, wanting to come in with him. He didn't know what came over him at that moment. First they were out of sight, then he was trying to get her to stop crying, then breathing, and then he was staring down at her on the ground. He fled, knowing he had killed her, but he didn't seem to care at that moment. It felt freeing. Not only was Charlotte now gone, meaning that's one less person Henry was with, but it also meant the latter would come running back to him.
The world was in his hands.
#fnaf#five nights at freddy's#it's less storytelling than a theory#but this is how i reckon it worked based on his personality overall and a few lines of stuff from the movie and novels#william afton#purple guy#mrs. afton#michael afton#mike afton#henry emily#cc afton#the crying child#elizabeth afton#charlotte emily#charlie emily
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Ilu. Info dump about something you like. The bee swarm is listening 🐝
oh boy where do i start
i have OPTIONS. Most of them are video game lore.
gonna be honest, i used to be able to spout every scrap of fact about the zelda series. Middle school my beloved/beloathed
buuuuut seeing as this blog is slowly turning into a fnaf blog lets just talk about that one and why i absolutely do not like the idea of vanny and vanessa being the same person
Reason 1. I'm probably just butthurt that my theory before the game's release wasn't really substantiated. They were just being so heavy handed and obvious about the fact that Vanny and Vanessa were the same (that. goddamn. freddy voice line in lasertag. it bugs me) I THOUGHT IT HAD TO BE A RED HERRING. And, like, surely I wasn't the only one
We don't really know what the original story would have been, but in the trailers it looked like Vanessa was going to help us, voice lines and all. It would have been a cool story if she was trying to both help and hurt Gregory, but again, I don't see it happening
Reason 2: LOST AND FOUND. Seriously. Guys. Why the hell would Vanessa record herself talking at a random child, threatening to call the cops, then edit it and smash cut to her being in a bunny suit. What would be the point. This is stupid for so many reasons, mainly, that would do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to help her plans! If they were the same person, why try to make an enemy out of both of them? Why not make Vanessa look good if the plan to kill Gregory in there didn't work, and why make the video AT ALL?????
Reason 3: Non lore related things. Things like having different voice actors, having completely different models with different heights and shapes, THAT STUFF
Reason 4: The tapes. Okay, me covering my hate but begrudging acceptance of SOME Gregbot theories will have to wait for some other time, but personally, I don't think that Greggy m'boy is patient 46. I also don't think Vanessa is. Vanessa has her own tapes, separate from patient 46 (if they were the same person, it would definitely be listed as the same patient, even if it is some alter ego), and we get some physical descriptors from both. One sits comfortably in the chair, one looks uncomfortable. One likes the flowers and the light, one doesn't.
And the backstory. People will often say that Vanessa doesn't have a dad named Bill, there wasn't an insane, traumatizing custody battle that drove her mom to do something even more traumatic, that it was all an act. I don't buy that. People say that because they think patient 46 is Vanessa, but the pure response that we hear Vanessa say in that therapist's tapes, that doesn't sound like acting. And if it is, give Vanessa a gig as an actress, because that would have to be a damn good and convincing performance, especially against a licensed therapist.
Now, you may all be saying that the writing in this game makes no sense anyway, which is fair! It totally doesn't! I could probably create a bottomless pit from all the plotholes it has, but there are conscious decisions made. The models and voice actors, who had to read the lines for the final draft of the game. Both of the voice actresses had multiple rolls, and while it would be unfair to take one and give it to another, it would make sense if they were the same characters.
So who is Vanny? Patient 46? My guess would be the Reluctant Follower from Help Wanted. Doing the bidding of PeePaw, watching, perhaps even tormenting Vanessa. I do think Vanessa is related to the Aftons (possible theories on that are complicated, though i may well point out that she has the same voice actress as Elizabeth and i do have my ✨opinions✨ on it), and that's mainly because of HOW Vanessa got hired, but I digress.
One last thing, while im as tired as everyone else about PeePaw, I wanna touch a little bit on the upper management. People often say Vanessa got her job from someone on high speeding through the process for her specifically, and say that it was Afton. Then, I would ask, HOW? My dude has been a rotting corpse for well over 30 years at this point and the company was left to it's co-owner Henry, who gave a badass speech then promptly died, so that leaves one question;
Who the fuck hired Vanessa?
#long post#shut up mono#or i guess SPEAKETH YOUR TRUTH MONO#this kinda had me rambling for a while sorry#literally took me half an hour#I’d like to think that there’s someone in upper management just as deranged as William#and not that it was the Afton virus#because everything can be explained by the Afton virus and not in a good way#i tend to try and think of security breach in a vacuum and how it would make sense#probably because the story isn’t well told anyway and it just in general feels separated from the other games#i wouldn’t mind writing a few more of these because again I have ✨opinions✨#I’d probably have to put my head through the wringer to do gregbot tho cuz that one#that one makes me legitimately angry for no discernible reason other than how stupid it fucking sounds#and also the evidence against it yadda yadda#i am a strong supporter of glammike if only for storytelling purposes#i want to see Bonnie so bad too you guys do not even know#all my Bonnie things are less theories and more just me making shit up#anyway point is#i have very strong feelings about the theories in this game specifically
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The Supreme King Judai vs. Dark Deku: How To Do a Dark Deconstruction of your Shonen Hero!
Think of this as less me complaining about My Hero Academia, and more me taking a closer look at the writing of the Dark Deku arc and why it failed to achieve what it set out to achieve.
I like to look at writing on a deeper level than Thing Bad, and Thing Good. Imagine a story is a car engine that won't start, in order to find the problem you've got to disassemble all the pieces and look at them one by one to see what pieces aren't working. That's the kind of criticism I'm talking about, break storytelling down into different tools like parts of an engine, plot, world, characterization, ideas, actions and consequences and then look if the author is using those tools effectively to sell a story.
In other words we're talking about the difference in ideas and execution. All works of fiction have ideas, even bad anime can have good ideas inside of it. The idea in question is Judai's case is can exploring the dark side of a hero. Can a hero's positive qualities also lead them down a dark path? Yu-Gi-Oh Gx answers this in a satisfying way, and My Hero Academia I'm going to argue does not.
IDEAS VS EXECUTION
One piece of writing advice I heard from Brandon Sanderson of all people that always stuck with me is "Ideas are cheap. You can always come up with more ideas."
All works of fiction have ideas and themes no matter what the Game of Thrones guy say, but some works are better at communicating their ideas than others. I want to quote a Homestuck Ending analysis of all things to explain what I'm talking about.
When you are a writer you can write anything you want. But if you want to write a story that people want to read you have to follow the rules of good storytelling.
There are reasons why storytelling rules exist. A story is a bond between author and reader, readers to other readers. It is a communication between humans and humans work in a certain way.
Storytelling rules are rules of communication. Rules for handling expectations and saying what you intend to say without it being misheard. Rules for tugging at emotions and pulling heartstrings in a good way rather than a bad way. Storytelling rules are lessons learned by authors of the past that failed to communicate what they needed to. They are not that subjective.
Chief among these rules is buildup and payoff. In fact one of the most basic techniques of storytelling is foreshadowing, in screenplays you usually foreshadow one important twist, then add a reminder so the audience doesn't forget, before finally paying it off.
To simplify build up and pay off I like to refer to it as question and answer. Usually a story will ask its audience a question, and usually by the end that question is answered, unless the point is to leave that question unanswered / ambiguous.
Character arcs are examples of buildup and payoff too, a lot of characters, especially in serialized media are sold on their potential future development. Here's an example, how may people got invested in Dabi years in advance because of the Dabi is a Todoroki Theory? That's an example of good buildup and payoff, because the author sewed just enough hints to build up an audience expectation and then paid it off. People became invested in the story, because they thought their investment and theories would pay off eventually and it did - so hooray!
Both MHA and YGOGX dedicate an entire arc to trying to deconstruct their main protagonist. They also seek to deconstruct the "Hero Complex" or "Saving People Complex" that each protagonist has, and ask the question if those traits are really a good thing.
This post puts it better than me so I'm going to quote tumblr user rhodanum.
‘Hero complex’ or 'saving people complex’ — an obsession with rescuing people in the face of danger, often to the exclusion of all higher thought processes. All too prevalent among shounen main leads, especially hot-blooded shounen main leads. Yuki Judai is certainly no exception. What is interesting in his case is that the writers follow the consequences of his rash, reckless, often thoughtless actions all the way to their heartbreaking logical conclusion.
For those not fully in the know, it involves spiky black armor, an army of sycophants and a fall from grace that caused as much damage as a thermonuclear bomb. Don’t make perky, happy shounen protagonists snap, people. First rule.
I'm going to quote another video too, to add onto the above quote. It's from this video, starting at around 39:52
"GX is kind of famous among fans for taking its happy protagonist and stripping him down to all of his worst qualities. And that's fun. So Judai is a character who's really interesting. He's definitely open to a lot of interpretation, and you know we're gonna be leaning on my interpretation of him. Sorry. It's my video. I think he's commonly referred to a "very typical shonen protag" probably one of the most shonen protag of the yu gi oh protagonists. He is headstrong and loud, and (makes punching noises while air boxing), he is a type of character who's like I'm gonna be the best and brings everyone along on the ride. He's the kind of protagonist that everybody loves him they're all fighting over him, and Yu Gi Oh Gx really puts him up on the pedestal, of like THIS GUY. THIS GUY DOES IT ALL. Then season 3 rolls around and dares to ask: but what if that's selfish behavior?"
That's the question both MHA and YGOGX are asking in Dark Deku arc and Season 3 respectively, what if all of those behaviors that make them the typical hot blooded shonen protagonist are actually selfish? Is their hero complex really a good thing?
Each arc is tasked with exploiting the main character's flaws, until they reach their emotional breaking point and lowest point in the story. Let's see how each story treats their main character and from comparing that I want to make a point about what makes effective storytelling.
The Supreme King Haou Arc
Instead of recapping the entire arc to you, I'm going to touch upon what ideas the story setup in regards to Judai's character and how it paid off those ideas. What are the questions the story asks and what answers does it give us?
I'm going to focus on the two questions I outlined above. Is their hero complex a good thing? and What if this is selfish behavior?
Yu-Gi-Oh GX is an anime where instead of using super powers, the main characters fight each other with a magical trading card game. Besides that fact there's a lot of similarities between GX and MHA. They both take place in an academy setting where the main characters learn about using their quirks, and playing the card game better respectively. It is a shonen battle anime where almost everything is solved with a shonen fight, they just use cards instead of flashy superpowers. The main characters are all students who have to grow up and enter the adult world.
Judai and Deku are both characters that deconstruct the "hero complex" of shonen main characters. Judai is themed entirely around heroes, he has an elemental hero deck where every hero is based off a hero that appears in popular culture, he is the best duelist in the school and the one everyone calls on to save the day over and over again. As stated above he is the most Shonen Protag to ever Shonen Protag, he's a warrior therapist who makes friends and saves the day because he's really good at the card game, and will always show up to fight for his friends.
For the first two seasons Judai is built up on this pedestal of the ideal Shonen Protagonist, and praised by basically every single character for being "childish" and "pure of heart" however when Season 3 comes around the narrative stops heaping endless praise on him and starts to challenge him. However, this doesn't come from nowhere there are signs of these personality flaws of Judai, they just get swept under the rug the first two seasons.
There are several moments such as the climaxes to season 1 and season 2 where Judai fails to grasp the stakes of the situation, saying things like "Oh, this card game is really fun" when he's dueling with lives on the line. Judai in fact has a pattern of "only wanting to duel for fun", he fights because it's fun to him not because it's the right thing to do. However, he's continually forced into high stakes situation where he has to fight for others just because he's the strongest character - and constantly having to carry that on his shoulders starts to weigh on him after awhile. Judai will show up to fight and save his friends every single time they need him, and that's the source of his hero complex because after a certain point his friends start relying on him too much.
In general he also doesn't have deep thoughts of what heroes are, he admires heroes but it basically boils down do "Heroes are cool." He's kind of like Goku where he doesn't really fight for any idea of justice or to save others, just for the thrill of fighting itself. He also has a tendency to be insensitive to other people's feelings and take things for granted. For example, in Season 2 like three of his friends get possessed and Judai doesn't even do anything about it for half a season because he's too busy participating in the dueling tournament.
In general though it's a pattern of Judai only wanting to "duel for fun" and him being forced to duel to save others instead, and be responsible for other people. Judai will show up to fight for his friends, but even then he falls back on just "dueling for fun" because always having to fight for others is too much responsibility to put on his shoulders.
There's a lot of hints of Judai's flaws, but they also tend to get brushed off because shonen protagonists are just like that. Like, Judai can say some insensitive things to his friends sometimes and be oblivious to their feelings, well he's just a book dumb shonen protagonist. Judai should be taking this fight seriously, well he's just being a happy go lucky shonen protagonist, etc. etc. A lot of these things are also just swept under the rug as him just being a child, a boy-at-heart like most shonen protagonists are supposed to be.
However, season 3 starts looking at Judai not as a shonen protagonist but as a person, and it all starts with the suggestion that maybe Judai remaining a child at heart is a bad thing, especially when his friends around him are all growing up. It all starts with the introduction of this guy right here - Johan Anderson.
Johan shares many things in common with Judai, he can see spirits, he's a duelist who loves to duel, he has a strong connection with his cards. However, the more you compare them the more you notice that Johan has a lot of things that Judai lacks. They are so similiar that they become almost instant best friends, but even then Johan himself notices there are a few things off about Judai's behavior.
Sho: Bro... I thought you would have something to say to me.
Johan: He seems lost. I think he just wanted you to give him some advice.
Judai: SHo will be fine.
Johan: Judai, you're colder than I thought.
It takes someone completely new to the dynamic between Judai and his friends, who likes Judai but hasn't spent the past two seasons idolizing him to realize that some of his behaviors are kind of off. That Judai isn't really the most empathic, or even that good at understanding other's feelings.
Johan is the one to point this out because he has the emotional intelligence that Judai lacks. We've been told Judai is our shonen protagonist for two seasons, only for the real shonen protag Johan to step up out of nowhere and show them how it's done. Johan is good at seeing other people's emotions, and he becomes a near instant pillar of emotional support for Judai. More than that, he also is the first person to treat Judai like an equal, he never asks Judai to save him like all of Judai's friends do, if anything they both save each other.
Johan also exists to show what Judai is lacking, mainly a reason behind why he fights.
Judai: I do it because it's fun. Or because of the surprise and delight, I guess. Well, I guess that comes down to "because it's fun", huh? Sorry, I guess that's an awkward question to ask out of nowhere.
Johan: What's wrong, Juadi?
Judai: Nothing, really.
Johan: I have a proper goal.
Judai: Don't tell anyone. Even if people don't have the power to see spirits, they can still commune with them. That's why, for those people as well... (I want to be a bridge between humans and spirits).
Judai is someone who will always show up to save his friends when he is asked, but he doesn't really have a concept of what being a hero is or the repsonsibilities it entails, he just admires heroes in a pure hearted way. Johan on the other hand has a reason to fight and that's to help humans and card spirits get along, and Judai expresses admiration for Johan because he has a goal.
At the same time this is happening, Judai gets picked apart by two villains for his lack of reason for fighting. Judai has been praised to death for two seasons for being pure of heart, but now the villains are challenging him by saying he has no "darkness of the heart". That without it the reasons that Judai fights are superficial and frivolous.
We have something that you lack.
Judai: That I lack?
Yes the darkness of the heart that slumbers deep within a duelist. The burden that a duelist bears in his heart. Judai, you have none of that.
Judai: A burden in my heart.
I have nver, not even once, dueled for myself. I doubt someone like you, who only thinks of himself could udnerstand that.
Judai: What would be fun about a duel like that?
It isn't fun at all! You must bear other's expectations while remaining strong. That is what it means.
Judai is a bit of a blood knight, he will be dueling with his friends lives on the lines and stop to go "Wow, this duel is really fun" and it's usually just dismissed a shim being a shonen protagonist until suddenly it isn't.
I'm gonna draw a deliberate parallel between Deku and Judai here that I'll reference later on, they both don't understand "darkness of the heart" and they need to understand it in order to grow as people.
There's also the underlying notion that being a hero is not all it's chalked up to be, to be a hero, to fight for other people's sake means also taking on their suffering. As noble as that may seem suffering is suffering.
Cobra: Fortune would never smile on a fool like you who fights while prattling on about enjoying duels.
Cobra: You are certainly a talented duelist. But you have one fatal flaw.
Judai: A fatal flaw?
Cobra: Yes, your duels are superficial. Someone who fights with nothing on his shoulders, cannot recover once he loses his enjoyment. What a duelist carries on his shoulders will become the power that supports him when he's up against the wall!
Cobra: But you have nothing like that! Those who go through life without anything like that cannot possibly seize victory.
Cobra: But I know that nothing I say will resonate with you... because you have nothing to lose but the match.
Judai: I...
Cobra: Afraid aren't you? Right now, you have nothing to support you.
In the context of this scene, Cobra has told everyone that he's currently enacting his evil plan out of the vain hope that he can somehow revive his son from the dead.
As insane as "I think I can revive the dead" is as a motivation, fighting for the sake of your dead son is a much stronger motivation than "I think duels are fun."
Judai doesn't have an appropriate answer as to why he fights when he's questioned by the villains, and instead of coming up with his own answer he relies on the answer Johan provided for him.
Johan: You idiot. Why are you so shaken Judai? You think you have nothing on your shoulders? Give me a break! You always bear other's expectations on your shoulders. When you have other people's expectations riding on you, it means they've trusted you with their hopes! Don't you always carry those? If you lose what will happen to us here?
Johan's words snap him out of it, but this isn't Judai coming up with an answer himself it's just taking the one that's provided for him.
This is also the point where we get start to develop an answer to our question. Is Judai selfish?
In action he's not. His actions are selfless. Judai is always fighting for others, even when he only wants to duel for fun. He will show up and fight if you ask him too.
However, in motivation he is selfish. His motivations are selfish. Judai isn't fighting out of some selflessness, but because fighting for the sake of other people gives him a purpose. He keeps fighting for his friends, because he's built all of his friendships around being the one to solve their problems. It's why he Johan's answer suits Judai so well, because he thinks that's how friendship works that he has to keep carrying everyone's burden for them.
Not only does it lead to unhealthy friendships (he sees his friends as burdens) but also it's unhealthy for Judai himself (he can't keep carrying other people's burdens without getting weighed down).
Judai's hero complex, this pressure he feels to save everyone around him arises from two things, it gives him friends when he'd been a lonely child before that, and it gives him purpose. Playing the hero is how he made all of his friends, and now it's how he keeps them.
However, in spite of doing all this to keep his friends, Judai's relationship with his friends is so all give and no take that he's practically fighting alone until Johan shows up. Judai doesn't form a healthy and stable relationship with Johan however, Johan just becomes a crutch.
In Summary:
Judai's actions are selfless.
His motivations are selfish.
Judai's purpose is to carry everyone's burdens on his shoulders.
Judai's friends exist to be saved by him.
The following arc is roughly divided into four sections. Everything I've covered above happens in the first section the Cobra Arc.
Cobra Arc
Zombie Survival Arc
Dark World / Supreme King Arc
Oh Shit, Yubel's Back
The cobra arc is the introduction and it sets up the basic ideas of Judai's character that I listed above, in addition it focuses on the question of if Judai is selfish, and the idea that being a hero is a burden. There's also the third question where Judai is called to understand darkness of the heart, something Deku will also be called to do.
The Zombie Survival arc is an arc where the school is teleported to another dimension and they have to survive for several days with a limited food supply, everyone fighting, and an outbreak of zombies.
The main setup of this arc is to show how everyone is working well together as a team, even in a high stress situation. Alexis, Judai, Misawa, Kenzan, all pull together with the help of new students Johan, Austin O'Brien and Jim Crocodile Cook.
However, I'm brushing over this arc because Judai doesn't actually do much this arc. If you analyze who does what, it's mainly Johan and Austin O'Brien who are in charge of the entire school. Johan demonstrates leadership skills, calls on everyone to pull together in a time of crisis, and most importantly emotionally supports Judai all throughout.
Even when Judai is confronting the main villain of this scenario Yubel, it's Johan who shows up to support Judai, and it's Johan who wins the duel at the sacrifice of his own life. Everyone gets through the zombie arc unscathed, but it's because Johan is the hero of this part of the arc, not because of anything Judai really did.
Judai who having gone on so long carrying other people's burdens to the point where he's made saving others his purpose, has for the first time experienced someone helping him carry those burdens only to disappear and Judai does not react well to it.
This is when the story has finished setting up all the dominoes that are about to fall. We have one mini-arc drawing attention to the dark side of Judai's personality and how he doesn't understand his own darkness, and one mini-arc showing Johan being a much more effective hero and leader than Judai, demonstrating everything Judai lacks.
You Either Die a Hero, or You Live Long Enough...
Yadda yadda you know the rest. A character being undone by the same traits that made them a hero, is classic tragedy 101. It's called the Hamartia or the fatal flaw. A character's greatest strength in some situations can be their greatest weakness in others. The Supreme King Arc is a masterclass in showing how the traits Judai had that led to his success in the first season, can lead to his total ruin, and even to him becoming the villain of his own story.
Hero and Villain are much closer than you'd realize, and this becomes especially true in the relationship between Judai and Yubel. Judai shares an extremely close relationship to his antagonist foil, just like Deku does with Shigaraki.
However, in Judai's case he's the reason that Yubel turned evil. While it's not entirely his fault, Judai's decision to abandon Yubel when he was a child, made Yubel go through ten years of painful torture all alone, which is the reason behind their current madness.
To summarize Yubel and Judai's story briefly. Yubel is a card spirit, the thing that Johan wants to serve as a bridge between card spirits and humans. Judai had an incredibly close relationship with Yubel as a child, but Yubel was overprotective and used their powers to harm anyone who came near Judai. Judai launched Yubel into space hoping the righteous space rays of justice would calm Yubel down (I know that sounds stupid just go with it) but instead Yubel was hit with the light of destruction a corrupting force that made them endure years of torture. They called out for Judai's help in their dreams only for Judai to eventually forget about them with a psychologist's intervention. Eventually the satellite they were trapped in made it's way back to earth, and they almost died burning up on re-entry. When they finally crawled their way back to Judai, they found Judai had been living the past ten years happy and surrounded by friends, while they had been tortured in space and nearly died all alone.
At which point Yubel snaps, hard.
While it's not Judai's fault entirely because he was a child and he didn't know what was going to happen, he still made the decision to abandon Yubel and stuck them in that situation. Judai's actions creaeted Yubel, and now Yubel is here broken and hurt and determined to hurt all of Judai's friends.
Judai doesn't know how to cope with the guilt or responsibility for either of these things. Both for creating Yubel, and for the fact that because of Yubel Johan might now be dead.
I'm the one who made her what she is!
This is where the show starts demonstrating that understand in darkness of the heart is necessary, because Judai can't understand two things, number one the fact he might have hurt Yubel, and two how to deal with the sense of responsibility he feels towards Yubel becoming what they are, and for Johan's apparent death.
He just feels a lot of guilt, and as someone who's only been the carefree hero up until this point he doesn't know how to deal with that guilt.
Judai makes a very similiar decision to Deku. He decides to go out and hunt for Johan by himself, leaving his friends behind so he won't risk their safety. Unlike Deku however, his friends immediately follow and insist on coming along.
This is when the problems start appearing, because the second everyone enters the Dark World to look for Johan, the show starts demonstrating clearly how different Judai's leadership is from Johan.
All of Judai's flaws start popping up, he's tactless, self-centered, and doesn't consider others feelings, and most importantly of all he doesn't look before he leaps. These behaviors that could earlier be swept under the rug, just become aggravated in a high stakes situation where everyone's lives are on the line. Judai came together with everyone to look for Johan, but he keeps acting like he's alone.
Another user's meta post here summarizes Judai's actions in the Different Dimmension, more succinctly so I'm going to quote them.
Shit Judai’s friends signed up for when they went into the Different Dimension with him:
searching for Johan
working as a team
deciding as a group what risks they’re willing to take
risking their lives together, on an even playing field
Shit Judai’s friends didn’t sign up for when they went into the Different Dimension with him:
having their input thoroughly ignored
being left behind while their friend recklessly charged ahead
having essential information kept from them (Judai didn’t tell them about the fatal consequences of dueling in Dark World)
being kept from dueling without their opinion on the matter ever being taken into account
having their physical, mental and emotional well-being be completely ignored by the de-facto group-leader
being relegated to secondary importance in comparison to Johan, in Judai’s eyes
having their group leader outright break the promises he made to them
To name a few things Judai does while in the different dimmension. Almost immediately after entering the dimension he runs away from the rest of the group, forcing Austin O'Brien to follow before anyone has even gotten their bearings or investigated where they are. Make an agreement with everyone to rest and wait for Dawn to search for Johan, only to run off into the middle of the night without telling anyone. Run off ahead of the group leaving several of their members behind, and when O'Brien tells Judai that members of their group are missing and that he should go back and search for them, Judai asks O'Brien to just do it instead.
Judai doesn't see the flaws in this behavior because it's how he's been acting all along, he always runs off into danger head first and he always fights on his own. Judai's never been good at considering the feelings of others though because he's a tad socially impaired, so he just doesn't seem to notice everyone's growing concerns with how he's acting.
Once again we are asked the question, is Judai's behavior selfish?
Judai deliberately abandons his friends three times, and the third time everyone stops to discuss his behavior.
Kenzan: True, we did come to this world to save Johan, saurus...
Fubuki: He did find some minor clues as to Johan's whereabouts, so I suppose it's only natural, but...
Asuka: But right now, I feel something is different about Judai.
Menajoume: That's right. He got us all riled up about this, and now he's totally forgotten the comrades who came along with him.
Kenzan: That's really irresponsible, Saurus.
Fubuki: I don't mean to be a wet blanket, but I wish he'd realize the anguish he's putting us through.
Asuka: Judai isn't doing this for Johan or us now. It's for himself. He just seems to be rushing forward, headlong, to forget the responsibility he bears on his shoulders.
The answer now is yes, his motivation is selfish because it's no longer about saving Johan, but just to stop himself from feeling guilty.
The stress of the situation is aggravating Judai's worst qualities yes, but Judai's always thought about himself first before others, he's always viewed his friends more as burdens / people to be saved rather than equals.
This all leads to a situation where Judai messes up big time. The same way he abandoned Yubel, he abandons the rest of his friends to run ahead and search for Johan.
They are all kidnapped - and it's Austin who notices they are missing Judai isn't even paying attention. Austin says they should head back and look for the others, but Judai asks Austin and Jim to handle that alone so he can keep searching for Johan.
Jim: The others haven't arrived yet. Something might have happned to them on the way.
Judai: I see. Sorry, but could you go back and fetch them?
Jim: What? You mean you don't care what happens to them?
Austin: Don't forget these are the friends that are in this with you. To fulfill our objective in this dimmension we need everyone working together. You wait here until we return.
Judai: Okay, I will.
Austin and Jim agree to go back and search for the others, if Judai promises to wait for them here instead of going on ahead. A promise which Judai immediately breaks.
Which is how Judai walks right into a trap.
Judai abandons his friend so they get kidnapped. He doesn't go back to look for them, so he misses out on a chance to save them. He doesn't wait for Austin and Jim to come back, and because of that he wanders all alone into a trap.
That trap is a sacrifice ritual where the leader Brron challenges him to a duel, and every time Judai attacks one of his friends are sacrificed. Judai is forced to attack and each friend dies one by one.
Judai didn't want to attack, he didn't choose to sacrifice his friends, but he did make every decision leading up to that. The trap was easily avoidable if he 1) didn't leave his friends behind 2) went looking for his friends after they were left behind or 3) waited for Jim and Austin to come back.
Judai didn't mean to sacrifice his friends, but it's a result of his own bad decisions. It's the culmination of an arc where he's been selfishly taking his friends for granted. It's a consequence for Judai just choosing to recklessly barrel forward because he can't cope with his guilt.
Judai's lack of darkness of the heart really dooms him here, because he was blind to his own flaws until it was too late. This isn't even the part where Judai does the bad thing, Judai's careless actions lead to four of his friends dying but he doesn't learn from his mistakes. He snaps, hard.
Judai: But at least I avenged them. Sho I'm really glad you're alive.
Sho: Those words... they're just lip service. Bro... bro, you're selfish. Before now, I thought of you as the sun. Someone who gave others energy and made the impossible possible. But, I was wrong. All you care about is getting your way. You don't care who you sacrifice. You'll do anything in the name of your goal. Avenging them won't bring back the people you sacrificed. You're just dueling to satisfy yourself.
Judai: O'brien!
Austin: I thought I told you to wait.
Judai: Are you saying what I did was wrong?
Austin: Think it over for yourself.
Judai: Why? What did I do that was so wrong? I... I did the right thing! And yet... everyone keeps leaving me! What... What is wrong with me?
Supreme King: Yuki Judai. To be willing to be evil to defeat evil. This world exemplfiies survival of the fittest. It must be ruled with power.
Judai: Power? I don't have that much power...
Supreme King: You hold the Super Polymerization card in your hand. Defeat the spirits that stand against you. Breathe their lives into it and complete that card.
After this point Judai decides to sacrifice everything else for power, and to complete the Super Polymerization card he's already sacrificed four friends four.
It's the culmination of an arc where Judai's only been praised for his strength and his ability to win duels. Where he constantly has been called to win duels to solve problems, until that stops working. When everyone is gone, all that's left is his strength. He had to keep winning to keep people safe, but even that wasn't enough, he was still missing something.
He knew he was missing something, that there was something wrong with him and he didn't know where to look.
Conclusion?
He needed power. If he had power, then he wouldn't have lost. If he had power then everything would have turned out alright. He didn't have the strength to carry everyone's burdens for them, that's why he lost, so what he needs is more power. He's been demanded to win, win, and win again so now winning is all that matters.
Now we have our second question: Is Judai's hero complex a good thing?
That's a definite no, because the pressure to always win, to always save everyone and carry their responsibilities has now completely broken Judai. To the point where he now believes that the only thing good about himself is that he's powerful, but he now is willing to sacrifice others to gain more power.
My name is the Supreme King.
Now here's the best part about Judai actively having a villain arc.
He does bad thngs. He does a lot of bad things.
It turns out when you're abandoned and left alone to suffer you do bad things, crazy that, I'm sure Yubel would have a lot to say about that.
Judai is also not being possessed in this scenario. They state it several times. You could say he's Shadow possessed in a Jungian sense. The supreme King is the symbolic embodiment of all of Judai's flaws that he's been ignoring until now. You could say Haou is representative of Judai's subconscious that has been repressed for so long until all those flaws finally surfaced, and that the Judai we see on a day to day basis is his ego, that the relationship between the two is a metaphor for conscious and subconscious.
Jim does a deep dive into Judai's mind, where we're shown a symbolic sequence of what the inside of his head looks like. Judai witnesses his friends appear in mirrors before they shatter one by one, all while he mumbles about how he needs to get stronger.
These are all storytelling devices to show Judai's fractured psyche, but Judai is still in control of his actions. Judai talks and responds to questions when he's addressed. Judai's friends confirm that it's still Judai, he's not a puppet or possessed.
Misawa says later to Judai's face that he and the supreme king are the same person. Judai later is able to use the Supreme King's powers and maintain complete control, because the Supreme King isn't a split personality. Judai even says when Amon is sacrificing someone he loved for power, that he was doing the same thing as the Supreme King, sacrificing everything for power.
We later learn that the ritual that sacrificed four of Judai's friends was a part of Yubel's schemes, but that's the only thing Yubel set up. Judai made every bad irresponsible decision that led to his friends being captured. Judai was the one who snapped and decided to complete Super Polyermization after it was completed. Learning Yubel was behind the sacrifice ritual doesn't take away any agency from Judai at all, because Judai is responsible for his own decisions.
What it does do is create another parallel between them, because we learn the reason Yubel set up the sacrifice was to make Judai walk the same path that they did.
Judai is hurt, abandoned and isolated and in that situation he ends up lashing out at everyone around him in a similiar manner to Yubel. When Judai is put through similiar trauma, he doesn't overcome it in some heroic way because he's an innately good person, no he succumbs and behaves in ways that are incredibly similiar to Yubel.
Even when Judai's friends selflessly try to help Judai, he resists them every step of the way. He ignores their constant calls to him, their comfort, and he even fights them. Judai is eventually reached by the efforts of Jim and Austin combined, but they both die in the effort. Judai is saved because Jim and Austin were way better friends to him than he was to them.
Judai is effectively snapped out of his destructive spiral, but he's left alone with the sobering realization of everything he's done and the blood of two more friends on his hand.
When it's time for our hero to finally face Yubel, he no longer has the moral highground. Now when he faces Yubel it's not as hero and villain, they're just two sides of the same coin. Two people who when they were abandoned, lashed out and hurt everyone around them.
The question is no longer can Judai save Johan. The question now is whether Judai can live with the guilt he's carrying within him, and for that matter can Yubel live with the guilt of what they've done now too?
By this point Judai's been completely deconstructed. He's no longer the hero of the story, he's just a flawed person who needs to fix his flaws. He has the choice to live with his mistakes, and the biggest conflict now is whether he's going to save his villain foil Yubel, or strike them down in order to save the rest of his friends (the three that are left).
This also creates a much more compelling reason for Judai to save Yubel. Not just because Judai is responsible for Yubel's creation, but because they've both made the same mistakes, they have the same traumas and the same scars. Jim and Austin were willing to risk everything to save Judai even when he didn't deserve it, and didn't want it. Now is Judai capable of doing the same thing, of reaching Yubel the way he was reached, not for the sake of saving the world but for helping a friend?
I just want to save my friend. That's all.
This is to me a very compelling setup for the challenge of whether or not Yubel can be saved. Judai's not really saving a helpless victim, he's not acting out of a sense of duty to sacrifice himself for the world, he's being challenged to save someone who suffers from all the same flaws that he does. Judai and Yubel are so similiar at this point it's really just Judai saving himself.
The Dark Deku Arc - Setup
This is the part where I'm actually going to praise MHA. Shocking I know. Season 1 and 2 of Yu-Gi-Oh GX are about 105 episodes in total. The Dark Deku arc begins at about episode 131 with Deku's decision to leave the hospital by himself to hunt down Shigaraki and AFO alone and try to understand villains better.
The 130 episodes up until that point are much better build up, than the first 105 episodes of Yu-Gi-Oh GX. To put it frankly GX is paced like ass. There's far too much filler, and because of that the plot points the anime is trying to make are delivered less efectively. In fact 105 is a good example of what I said above, that ideas are one thing and execution are another.
Season 2 especially is a season filled with good ideas and weak execution due to pacing. Here's one I use as a go-to example. There's a character named Edo Phoenix who's on a quest to find who killed his father. The ending of his plotline is he discovers that in a twist, the man who adopted him is the one who killed his father, and he's been encouraging Edo to investigate because it lets him spy on the police investigation and keep it off his tail.
That's a good twist - however that twist happens in the same episode that Edo's adoptive father is introduced. The audience is given literally no time to even get to know Edo's adoptive father, or get invested in their relationship so the twist doesn't hit at all. A better paced story would show Edo's relationship to his adoptive father early on, get you invested in them, only to pull the rug out from under you so you would feel the shock of that betrayal alongside Edo.
GX establishes its character cast, and yes the filler does give the cast time to breathe and they're all well characterized but because the plot around them is so poorly structured, none of the plot points really hit. Okay, Edo's adoptive dad is evil. Next! You can have good characters, but if you don't put them in a strong narrative framework that challenges them then those characters are just gonna kinda sit there.
The first 105 episodes of Yu Gi Oh GX does succesfully characterize most of the main cast, but it also feels like everyone's just goofing around. In comparison the first 135 episodes of MHA much more successfully builds an escalating conflict. Each new arc either introduces you to a new facet of the world, makes the amin characters more complex, or adds to the conflict.
We basically go from arc 1 "The hero high school is fun" to Arc 2 "The villains are a serious threat" to the Camp Arc "Oh shit, Shigaraki is learning and the villains are getting stronger."
When Bakugo is kidnapped at the end of the camp arc, the tension is ramped way up with the appearance of AFO, and All Might's retirement.
After that point we're introduced to the Overhaul arc, which not only again makes the League of Villains more complex and sympathetic, but also introduces the audience to All Might's more flawed side - the fact that All Might literally worked himself to death saving others and it still didn't work.
Then My Villain Academia -> The Villains are now a threat and they have an army.
Each arc builds on a previous arc, the characters and the world grow more complex, and it feels like you're learning about these complex issues alongside the characters. It just makes Yu Gi Oh Gx look like the silly card games show by comparison, by setting up this very layered world, and conflict, and heroes that challenge the protagonists on what it means to be a hero and what it means to be a victim.
Then all of that great setup.
We are side by side with the proagonist. We, like Deku now want to see if someone like Shigaraki can be saved. We, alongisde Deku want to better understand the villains and learn to see them as people. We want to know if the corrupt hero system can be salvaged.
However, these are too many questions so let's boil it down to two once more, because this is looking at Deku's character.
Deku and Judai are in some ways different as night and day. Deku is an introverted nerd and the victim of bullying, and he starts out with no quirk at all. Judai is a self-confident, charismatic prodigy who instantly seems to charm and befriend everyone around him. Deku desperately wants to be the hero and works his way up there, whereas Judai is just kind of thrown into the school hero because he's the best at dueling.
Judai is kind of a mix of Bakugo and Deku's traits, he's a self confident prodigy who always wins, but he's also someone obsessed with heroes and who has a hero-complex where he's continually forced to save others.
The Dark Deku arc, like the Supreme King Arc looks to take a darker, more introspective look at Deku's character, while also exposing Deku who is a sheltered kid to the a very grey on grey world. It also seeks to deconstruct Deku's suposed "hero complex". Despite the many differences between Deku and Judai I believe the two questions an be boiled down to the same thing.
Is Deku Selfish?
Is Deku's hero complex a bad thing?
These are the questions the series itself is asking in the deconstruction of Deku's character. Deku himself is asking if there's a better way to save villains tha just beating them down or outright killing them, but we'll discuss that later.
Just like Judai there is some setup before this to give a previously very one-note Shonen protagonist mor depth. Deku and Judai are both people who fit the determined, punchy, solve everything fist fight shonen protagonist to a T, on top of being the one to always show up to fight for their friends. Just like in the beginning of season 3, we do have some hints before this that there's something wrong with this attitude. That there's something about Deku that's not entirely there.
There's a flashback of All Might talking with Bakugo where Bakugo discusses that the fact that Deku never takes cares of himself or factors himself into the equation when he always puts others first deeply bothers him and there's "something wrong with it" that's made him always push Deku away.
This flashback also leads into a scene where Bakugo pushes Deku out of the way of one of AFO's attacks, telling him to "stop trying to win this on his own." In an attempt to make Deku see that he's not fighting alone this time.
Deku has also been warned repeatedly about the way his power destroys his own body when he uses it, warnings he's repeatedly chosen to ignore. Saving others isn't just a goal for Deku, you could arguably say it's a method of self-harm and that's what unnerves Bakugo. Bakugo even gave a similiar speech in the past, about how someone like Deku shouldn't take all of the bullying that Bakugo has given him over the years and still try to be his friend afterwards. At this point it's not really like Bakugo's done anything other than tone down the constant insults a little bit, he hasn't apologized or anything but even this early in the manga Deku has a tendency to just let Bakugo's treatment of him go. It's not like they were super best friends forever before the bullying started either despite what the shippers might tell you. Bakugo is saying it's weird that this kid just takes it, and takes it, and takes it without fighting back like he doesn't care about how people treat him and Bakugo is right... that is weird!
Deku either has such low standards for how he's treated that he just lets Bakugo get away with it, or he just doesn't hold a grudge when he is mistreated because his pain and his suffering just always matters less. Either way it's not healthy, and it could be indicative of a deeper problem hiding behind the surface.
Either way there's setup here, because on one hand you have everyone and their grandma praising Deku for his "drive to save others that eclipses all common understanding."
While at the same time he's criticized by Bakugo for having no regard for others. This could be the setup for the character trait that led to his earlier success leading to his downfall later. In Judai's case, everyone praises his purity of heart, but then that purity is later criticized as childishness, naivete and a refusal to grow up.
As for Deku...
How can you protect others if you can't even bother to protect yourself? How can you save others if you can't save yourself? That's the question Touka asked of Kaneki in Tokyo Ghoul when she rightly called out his desire to protect everyone at the Anteiku Cafe as just a roundabout way of getting himself hurt by acting recklessly.
In Kaneki's case he's not trying to protect anybody, he's just picking battles against the doves and getting himself hurt. He's acting out a hero complex in the sense that if he feels like he didn't fight his friends battles for them like Judai then he wouldn't have any friends to begin with. That's why Touka also says "Besides that, everyone doesn't belong to you. You have no business protecting us."
Is Deku fighting for the same reason? Does he harm himself to protect others because he views himself to be worthless and the only way to demonstrate his worth is try and fight to save others?
We don't get an answer for that question. Judai thinks duels are fun, and he's really good at them, and because he's good at dueling he's made friends. He think to keep those friends he has to keep dueling for the sake of others.
Deku's not motivated by the idea of protecting or keeping his friends, that's a secondary motivation. All we have on Deku is that he feels a strong desire to save others, and that he worshipped heroes like All Might growing up but has a naive idea of what a hero is supposed to be. However, his lack of motivation could be the "something that's missing" just like Judai has.
The GX writers did some hardcore digging into Judai's character by focusing on how shallow he was in motivation compared to everyone else, and showing that to be a symptom of his childish naivete.
There's also the potential parallel between All Might and Nighteye's breakup, and Deku's decision to leave all his friends behind to hunt for Shigaraki himself.
Even if Deku doesn't have a deeper motivation than just "an unnatural drive to save others" then you could show the effects of Deku walking down the same path that All Might did, the belief that he has to be the one to save everyone singlehandedly and if he rests for a single moment than someone might die, leads to him not only destroying his body, but also doing permanent damage to all of his social relationships.
Even if Deku's motivation isn't too deep, you could still have the traits that led him to earlier success now driving him to ruin as the story punishes Deku for his excessive selfishness.
This is also where we finally get back to Deku's goal of understanding Shigaraki, and contemplating whether or not it's possible to save villains without killing them.
I draw a parallel between this and Judai's enemies calling him out on lacking "darkness of the heart" and that without understanding that darkness he can't win.
Judai's lack of darkness of the heart means two things, he's not mature enough to understand the reason why his enemies are fighting, and he's also not mature enough to se the darkness in his own heart which is why he ends up blind to his own flaws and making pretty severe mistakes later on.
For Deku, it's mainly a lack of understanding of the motivations of the villains he's fighting again, villains he's only ever really beat down with his fists until now.
However, for Deku lacking darkness of the heart you could also re-contextualize that as meaning because of his idealization of heroes he's never once looked at the darker sides of hero society that might have driven people into becoming villains.
Deku's lack of inner darkness may just come from the fact that compared to the villains he's fighting against, he's gotten to live a pampered life. Without understanding that darkness, he can't be a full person because he'll still be a naive sheltered child, and not an adult wise to the way the world works and the moral greys he inhibits. Either way, it's just as necessary for Deku to gain an understanding of "Darkness of the Heart' as it is Judai.
So here's all the setup for the start of Deku's Dark deconstruction arc. As different as these characters and scenarios you can still boil it down to those three narrative questions about Deku / Judai, is there behavior selfish? Are there hero compelexes a good thing? Do they need to understand darkness of the heart?
Before moving on I'm going to summarize Deku's setup as thus:
Deku's actions are selfless.
Deku's motivations are also selfless (a desire to save others).
Deku does not benefit from saving others in any way, if anything he actively harms himself in order to do so.
Bakugo finds this behavior incredibly disturbing.
All Might destroyed his body and burned all bridges because of similiar flaws to Deku.
So the answer to the first question is Deku selflish? No. Is his hero-complex a bad thing? Potentially.
While Deku himself decides that he needs to understand darkness of the heart in order to better understand villains. Deku is actually more set up to contemplate darkness of the heart than Judai is, because Judai charges into the dark world blindly with only the motivation of saving Johan not even caring for Yubel, while Deku has the explicit motivation of trying to understand the little boy inside Shigaraki.
DEKU LEFT THE HERO ACADEMY
Deku begins the arc by leaving alone to go searching for Shigaraki, with hand-written letters addressed to all of his friends that tell the truth about One for All and also say Goodbye. He makes the deliberate decision to leave them behind so they don't get targeted alongside of him. It's a pretty classical superhero motivation, I need to cut myself out of my loved ones life in order to protect them. Of course this sort of ignores that everyone in his class has super-powers too, but you know heroes they're all such drama queens.
Is this selfish behavior?
This is going to be the only time I'm going to solidly answer yes. Deku clearly did not take his friends feelings into account. His desire to protect them, is more important than their own agency. They also might want to fight alongside him, they'd be upset if they saw him die or get hurt trying to protect them. Deku thinks of his own feelings of wanting to keep them safe and not being able to handle the emotional burden of protecting him, more than he does their own personal feelings.
This is also something that All Might did they permanently burned all of his bridges with his sidekick and friends, and deeply hurt his sidekick who was just asking him to take a break so he did not get himself killed and quit because he didn't want to watch All Might slowly kill himself by inches.
Deku is being selfish here, and later on when he does face his friends he even acts pretty condescending belittling them and insisting they can't fight on their own or keep up with him.
However, I need to ask a secondary question.
Is there any lasting consequences for this selfish behavior?
Besides the fact that it hurt his friends feelings for a little bit, no. I spent a much longer time covering this in Judai's sections because Judai's selfish behavior led to character conflicts. Judai disregarding his friends led to everyone starting to resent him in the Dark World, and their once tight-knit friend group further falling apart.
Judai on three seperate occasions makes impulsive decisions to run ahead without consulting with the group. The second time he outright lies to the group and sneaks ahead without them. THe second time all of his friends are captured when they go after him and try to follow him to give their support because they're worried about him. The third time he makes the decision to run ahead, he knows about the danger they're in and the risk of getting captured and he just blatantly ignores them. When Austin notices they're missing Judai doesn't even go looking for them because they're not a priority at this point - saving Johan is.
This is something that has very real and lasting consequences in the story, they're captured because of his recklessness, and sacrificed in front of his eyes. Even though they technically come back in season 4, the trust between Judai and his friends is all but gone and he's alone for a lot of Season 4.
Judai's decision to abandon his friends has direct and lasting consequences. He is being punished for his hero complex. Running ahead, and fighting alone against the bad guys is what Judai has always done and what's worked before, but now in a more complicated world it's not cutting it and Judai is being challenged for his flaws.
Deku hurts his friends feelings a little bit, but even in that case the focus is on how sad it is for Deku, how hard it must be to be a noble hero fighting alone.
Deku's Mary Jane and Spiderman bullshit never impacts his friends directly, other than the fact that they find it slightly condescending. His "I need to keep secrets from my loved ones attitude" is challenged because his friends want to fight alongside him, but there's never any narrative punishment delivered to him. It's just solved with one fight scene and a character holding out their hands. Whereas, the consequences for Judai's rash actions last two seasons.
I call it "Mary Jane and Spiderman" Bullshit, because Spiderman keeping his identity a secret from all his loved ones is a big conflict in the comics. Something that got Gwen Stacy killed, because Peter Parker never told her his identity in order to protect her, and then that just ended up with Norman Osborne finding out about her anyway and kidnapping and killing her.
You might have heard of the "Death of Gwen Stacy" it's a pretty famous moment in comics. It's also a case where it shows that the Hero's failure to communicate honestly with their loved ones in the name of "Protecting Them" can actually get them killed.
There's even consequences in MHA itself for heroes choosing to sacrifice their personal lives to help complete strangers. Shigaraki literally made a whole speech about it. Kotaro Shimura is traumatized for life over his mother's decision to abandon him instead of giving up on being a hero. Nana Shimura believed she was doing something selfless in sending her child into foster care to keep him out of AFO's clutches, but that was shown to be wrong as AFO just found Kotaro's household and then destroyed him later on in adulthood anyway.
So in the story we are shown scenarios where choosing to abandon your loved ones in the name of "protecting them" can have disastrous and lasting consequences, but as for Deku himself, the decision to leave the school has basically no consequences whatsoever.
Well, Deku making the decision to fight alone is something that might lead to some consequences. After all, Judai's breakdown came about because he always felt the pressure to fight alone and carry everyone's weight on his shoulders until he couldn't.
Perhaps, with Deku fighting alone to protect everyone we'll reach a similiar breaking point. Just as Judai couldn't handle carrying everyone's burdens, looking for Johan, and leading his friends into the Dark World all that the same time and eventually broke down maybe we'll see Deku break down because he just like All Might can't carry the burdens of an entire nation - oh wait nevermind he's working with the Top 3 Heroes.
Even the premise that this is Deku leaving the school, to become something like a vigilante wandering the countryside trying to fight AFO on his own is just incorrect because Deku is receiving government assistance right now.
In the Dark World it was really just Judai and his friends, so every single bad decision Judai made had consequences because they were well and truly alone. Deku has backup so he's not even really "alone" in the arc that's supposed to be about him fighting AFO and trying to understand Shigaraki alone.
ALL YOU'LL FIND IS BLOOD AND VIOLENCE
Let's briefly focus on questions two and three, is Deku's hero complex bad, and does Deku need to understand darkness of the heart?
Judai's hero complex was based on the idea that if he wanted to have friends he needed to fight for them and solve their problems for them.
Judai got in such an unhealthy negative feedback loop, that he had to carry his friends burdens in order to maintain his friendships with them, but at the same time he couldn't receive any help from them because he made their friendship all about him carrying their burdens. He was operating underneath an amazing pressure to always win until he lost. The very thing he did to try to maintain his friendships, keeping his friends at arm's length and fighting alone is exactly what ends up driving them away and leaving him alone.
But, still...!
They're all... They're all gone. There really was something missing in me. But what is it? What was missing? What should a duelist burden themselves with?
Judai paradoxically fights alone in order to keep his friend group together, which only ends up with him losing four friends and being abandoned by the rest when they're disappointed for him in his selfish behavior. Judai screams out why, realizing he did something wrong here, that something went wrong because he's been winning duels, he's been fighting the same way he did before only to end up with the worst option possible. The realization that he is truly alone breaks him down entirely.
Judai's hero complex unwravels when simply charging ahead to fight doesn't work for him anymore, because the situation becomes more complicated than that. Darkness of the heart can mean many things. Judai not understanding his own personal flaws. Judai not seeing how his flaws are affecting others. Judai not looking at other people's emotions, he doesn't hear or respond to criticism when his friends start trying to tell him how is selfish decisions making is making them feel.
I can't just stay and wait. All this time I've run on instinct, never second-guessing myself. If I just stand still now... I'm sure I won't be able to start running again. And I won't be able to get to Johan.
Judai's hero complex has a clear source - he believes he has to keep running ahead and fighting for his friends the same way he always has in order to keep those friends and if he stops he'll lose everything / succumb to the guilt he now feels about being uanble to save Johan. His Hero Complex also has clear consequences, him running ahead without thinking gets all of his friends kidnapped and used in a sacrifice ritual that could have been avoided if he had made different choices.
Spiderman kills Gwen Stacy because Peter Parker deciding to not tell her about his secret identity to protect her backfired and made her an easy target to the Green Goblin.
Heck, Spiderman's entire character is about how the burden of being Spiderman and his Hero Complex constantly sabotages any attempt he makes at having a personal life. Miguel O'Hara's catchphrase in the incredibly popular Spiderman movie is that "Being Spiderman is a sacrifice" and he's not wrong either.
SO, is the narrative punishing Deku's hero complex in any way?
Well, the one warning he did receive that if he kept fighting he'd lose permanent loss of his arms turns out to not matter anymore because his body is just stronger now.
So, even the phyiscal toll of fighting alone that's a consequence for Deku doesn't actually apply here.
I keep talking about consequences but what do I actually mean? Am I talking about strictly punishment? Do bad things need to happen to characters in order to get their lessons?
Not necessarily.
When I say "consequences" I mean in terms of actions always having consequences in a story. The best stories are succinct, that means you basically cut down in as many frivolous details in a story as much as possible so everything that happens onscreen is something that matters and contributes to the whole. Therefore, every action should have a consequence directly seen onscreen in story. Stories are all actions and consequences, the choices the characters make should have direct impact on the plots and the other characters because it makes those choices seem like they matter.
If the story constantly draws attention to the fact that Deku is afraid of ducks, but the story takes place on the moon and there are no ducks living on the moon then that's a wasted plot thread because there are no consequences. If a character does something bad, other characters should discuss it, or it should negatively impact them in some way.
When Judai decides to run ahead without all of his friends for the first time after they all agreed on a plan, the result is the next episode they all start talking about their shared doubts with Judai when he's not around. If they all just swept Judai abandoning them under the rug, then Judai running ahead and leaving the others alone doesn't feel like an impactful character flaw.
There's no lasting consequence for Deku's hero complex. It doesn't drive him to any kind of breaking point like it does Judai.
I think the reason why is because there's no real moment of failure for Deku. When he tries to ask Muscular why he fights, and Muscular rejects him and says that he was just born evil and has no deeper motivations, Deku's not frustrated at all.
Deku who feels a "unnatural desire to save others" isn't really bothered by the fact that Muscular insists that he can't be saved and that they can only fight. Despite this technically being a failure, Deku has failed to talk a villain down, failed to find a way other than fighting and also failed to understand the darkness in someone's heart it's of little consequence because it's not framed as a failure.
Deku just punches Muscular, back to the drawing board.
There's another manga called Choujin X running right now, where the main character is on a similiar quest trying to see if there's a way they can save the big bad Sora Shihouhin, and when he is forced to fight against a villain who won't back down, de-escalate, or listen to reason he has a complete emotional breakdown.
This is the reaction of someone who's genuinly invested in the idea of saving the villain, and frustrated with the reality that he might not be able to save her, that he can't talk to the villains or convince them to back down. Tokio's not even characterized by an unnatural desire to save others like Deku is, so why is he the one breaking down and not Deku someone apparently so selfless that he wants to save the mass murderer that's trying to destroy society?
If Deku's desire to save others is so strong why doesn't he show frustration at being unable to talk down, or understand Muscular?
Judai is stuck in a negative feedback loop where he's forced to fight for others, because he believes he has no worth to his friends otherwise. All we're told of why Deku feels the need to save everyone around him is that he's just like that, he just feels like saving everyone no matter who they are the moment they come into view.
If we're choosing to characterize Deku that way, then number one he should be attempting to save everyone, and number two the stress of having to save everyone is something that should get to him. His "Hero Complex" should be what's breaking him down at the moment. The unnatural desire to save everyone around him that led him to so much success should be what's punishing him this arc.
Judai felt pressure from two aspects, first the pressure to carry everyone's burdens, and second the lack of understanding of darkness of the heart. Unlike Judai who doesn't want to understand darkness and who avoids it as long as possible, Deku goes into this arc actively seeking to understand how his villains think.
Deku and Judai also suffer from a lack of darkess in their own hearts. This leads to them having empty motivations. Judai has a childish desire to enjoy fun duels. Deku has a childish desire to save everyone. Neither of them have tried to grow or change or even question those motivations in any way and because of that they're stunted people.
Judai doesn't know why he fights. He doesn't question why he fights. He just takes on the burdens of others to give him something to fight for. This all together leaves Judai blind to his own personal darkness, and also because of that blindness he can't grow in any way because he never evaluates himself, he never looks at himself and tries to change.
When he's on his knees and at his breaking point he screams at the top of his lungs, "WHY? WHAT AM I MISSING? WHAT DID I DO WRONG?" simply because Judai's never thought about these things.
Deku's asked these same questions both in the Dark Deku arc, and hundreds of chapters later he's asked what he's planning on doing as a hero in order to make things better and Deku never materializes an answer.
Pre-Dark Deku Arc, during Dark-Deku Arc and Post Dark Deku arc, Deku always solves his problems by recklessly jumping in and saving others. There's never any point where he's punished or criticized for this behavior in any significant lasting way. He never has to self reflect and develop a reason on why he wants to save others, or eve think about how he's going to save others, he can just keep acting as the rash, impulsive hero.
Judai and Deku are both characters who are empty, and lacking in motivation but Judai is ruthlessly criticized for that until he reaches his breaking point and is forced to look at his motives.
This once again comes from a lack of failure on Deku's part. Deku never fails the way that Judai does. There's a scene where you could have easily had Deku fail. The entire Nagant vs. Deku fight where Deku fails to give her any substantive answers to his questions.
Imagine if Deku's simple philosophy of always extending a helping hand failed here. Imagine if Deku actually got deeply ivnested in the idea of saving Lady Nagant, and did his beset to talk and reach out to her but his answers weren't enough and because of that she just chooses something like suicide. Imagine he has her by the hand, and she's dangling off of the roof and he thinks that his impressive move to save her should have been enough - he's reached out a hand like always. He thinks this should have won her heart over, by showing her that someone still cares in all of her despair.
Then, Nagant in one final spiteful move lets go. The person he heard her entire backstory, the person maybe he once was a huge fan of her when she wasa hero, the person he wants to save the same way he wants to save Shigaraki chooses to let go and fall to her death because dying would be better than living in whatever kind of corrupt world that Deku is trying to build.
This could be Deku's Gwen Stacy moment. Spiderman carelessly webs Gwen Stacy whe she's falling to catch her and for a moment he thinks he's saved her because he's overconfident and has caught people falling like this a thousand times, only to find out he's snapped her spine. His overconfidence, his hero complex making him believe everything magically would work out led Gwen Stacy to her death. This could show the simple act of just offering a hand out to someone in need isn't enough, without empathy and understanding.
Instead, AFO just blows Nagant up in Deku's face.
Except, that isn't even a failure bcause Nagant turns out to be just fine! There's no point in blowing up Nagant except for the spectacle of it, because she turns out to be fine five minutes later and even shows up to fight in the next arc.
There's no consequencs to anything that happens in this scene. Deku doesn't suffer any consequences for being blind to the faults of society. (He's working right alongisde a killer cop just like Nagant and he doesn't even care.) Deku isn't forced to reflect on what saving people or making society better would even mean. He also isn't punished for his lack of understanding the way that Judai is.
Afterwards, Deku denies help to a very mentally-ill Overhaul, who is apparently not one of the villains that Deku wanted to save. There's a whole buch of asterisks on that "Deku wants to save everyone***" goal. This also isn't framed or used to paint Deku in a bad light because Overhaul is unworthy of salvation in Deku's eyes for hurting Eri.
Is this action part of an arc? Is Deku reaching his limit with trying to sympathize with villains only to see people like Overhaul and Muscular fighting him every step of the way and telling him they don't want to change?
Nope, this scene is never brought up again.
Deku never fails, and he never does anything wrong. Even when there are situations where you could argue he does do soemthing wrong, like denying the armless, mentally ill Overhaul help - he's not painted as being in the wrong.
The entire arc is supposed to be about criticizing the protagonist for their hero complex, and their lack of understanding of the darkness of the world but for Deku there's no criticism to be had here.
Compare this to the sacrifice ritual in the Supreme King Arc, where not only does Judai fail to save his friends, but the friends that survive ruthlessly tear into him aftewards for his selfish behavior. THe actions of one protagonist matter, have consequences in the story and are criticized. The actions of another protagonist have no real consequences and are never criticized.
The whole mansion blows up and... nothing happens. No one's injured in the explosion. It may as well have not happened in the story because there are no consequences for Deku just continually choosing to blindly run ahead like his hero complex tells him to.
There's evena moment where Deku winds up in a similiar situation to the dark ritual. After receiving information from Nagant, he blindly wanders into a mansion in Haibori woods believing it to be AFO's base, only to find out it was a trap and AFO was waiting for him to blindly charge in all along.
THAT'S WHAT MAKES US HEROES AND VILLAINS
This is where I'm going to talk about another big similarity between Deku and Judai, and also the biggest point of divergence in the Dark Deku and Supreme King Haou arcs.
Deku and Judai are both character foils with Shigaraki and Yubel respectively. This is where I'm going to praise MHA again, surprising everyone.
The foiling between Shigaraki and Deku is masterful. They both started out in relatively the same place, as boys with dreams to become heroes who were softly told no by their parents. Tragedy struck Shigaraki and he killed his family on accident and wound up alone wandering the street for days until he was found by AFO.
They're both the students of the greatest hero and villain of the last generation. They both end up being surrounded by a group of close Nakama that they want to protect. They're both continually challenged to grow up, and show how they're going to be better than their predecessor for the hero and villain sides respectively. They both have to prove they are worthy successors. Shigaraki has all the heroic spunk and determination that Deku has but on the villain's side, and while Deku loves heroes, Shigaraki is hero society's critic wants to bring down the hero system that didn't save him.
You get the feeling that Shigaraki really is Deku just in a different situation, a same person on the opposite sides of the conflict kind of character foiling.
As the biggest Yubel stan here, in some ways the foiling for Shigaraki works better than the foiling for Yubel because Shigaraki isn't just Deku's foil, he's the foil for all of society. Yu-Gi-Oh Gx takes place in a society run where everything centers around card games, it's not really that deep. In My Hero Academia you have that 100 episodes of great setup where Deku is not only learning to look at the darkness within himself, but also the darkness within hero society around him.
Judai's narrative as much as I love it, is entirety about Judai.
Not only could Dark Deku arc develop Deku's character, it could also say something deeper about the world it's taking place it, because Deku has all these connections to Shigaraki, who also kind of represents the orphaned boy failed on all levels by the society around him.
Shigaraki is the shadow of -> Deku, but also Shigaraki is the shadow of -> all of society.
Yubel is the shadow of -> Judai, and only relates to Judai's personal growth.
Yubel is Judai's personal villain, and was created by his actions as a child. His decision to abandon Yubel into space, led to Yubel being tortured and their later madness.
Yubel is also Judai's shadow. They carry all the same flaws, but those flaws are obvious in Yubel and repressed in Judai. Yubel's belief is that Judai is someone who purposefully enjoys hurting their friends, and that's how he shows his love. While that's twisted it's not hard to see how Yubel came to that conclusion. After all, Yubel loved Judai so much only for Judai to abandon them and turn a blind eye to their suffering. In the Dark World, Judai abandons his other friends continually in order to search for Johan, and they wind up suffering too.
While Judai doesn't sadistically enjoy hurting others as Yubel put it, there's an element of truth to Yubel's criticism. Judai does abandon people, Judai isn't as empathic as he seems to be. When Judai is subjected to the same kind of isolation and abandonment that Yubel has endured for the past ten years, Judai loses his mind a whole lot quicker and starts lashing out at everything around him the same way Yubel has. Judai without the love of his friends starts to hurt everyone around him in his lashing out, the same way that Yubel desperate for love starts to inflict pain on the people she loves. Even before the ritual happened, Judai was unwittingly hurting his friends with his own selfish behavior.
Yubel's stated criticism is "of Judai is "Anguish and sorrow born from loneliness. That is the nature of love as you taught it to me" and further beyond that "When you forgot about me, I suffered. It's hot. It hurts. I am in pain. Why? You know how much I love you? Why did you do this to me, Judai? In that moment I realized that was how you showed love. Because you loved me, you hurt me and made me suffer."
That sounds crazy, but hasn't Judai been hurting the people he loved for his own selfish reasons this entire arc? Is it that crazy then to conclude that neglect and abandonment must be how Judai treats everyone he loves, so surely he loves me.
One of the biggest criticisms of this arc is how Judai's behaviors impact his relationships, so of course his most personal villain and foil is his jilted ex nonbinary dragon lover. On a less joking note, when Yubel was displaying troubling behavior as a child, Judai's first response was to abandon them. Which is ironic for someone like Judai so paralyzingly afraid of being abandoned that he became everyone's workhorse and worked himself to death solving their problems for them. Who when abandoned by those friends finally, snaps just as hard as Yubel did when they were abandoned.
Do you see the parallel I'm drawing here? Judai is slotted into the spot of the protagonist who's friends with everyone he meets, who loves and fights for his Nakama. Yet under closer scrutiny he's shown that he doesn't really understand what love or friendship is or how to give and receive love from others in a healthy way. His antagonist is his former childhood best friend, who is obsessed with love and demands that Judai love them back. Judai's lack of understanding of relationships and love takes a dark twist with Yubel, their shadow, foil and antagonist.
These are once again very personal challenges to Judai, society doesn't really factor into this equation. Though, Judai is somewhat challenged as a hero because there's an irony to Judai plunging into the world to save his best friend Johan who he's known for like three weeks, but not really lifting a finger to save the antagonist of the arc Yubel who he's known since childhood and is personal responsible for putting through torture.
That hypocrisy there too, is a personal challenge to Judai that paints him in a less heroic light. He wants to save Johan and ignore Yubel because it's easier, because saving Johan relieves him of his guilt. He doesn't even know what to do about Yubel, so he doesn't try and falls back on his previously established behavior of playing the hero.
The hero is really just a mask for Judai at this point, something the story has ripped right off of his face by the time it comes to face Yubel.
There are two ways in which Yubel serves as an ultimate foil to Judai.
Yubel acts like a callout post to all of Judai's flaws
Yubel represents a dark path Judai could have taken.
This second one is what Shigaraki and Deku have in Common with Judai + Yubel. There's something deeply tragic about the idea that while Deku was making friends, getting taught by a loving teacher like All Might, Shigaraki was all alone being pushed by a ruthless manipulator like AFO into becoming the worst villain.
Judai and Yubel's lives follow the same tragic parallel path. They began in the same place as childhood friends, but after abandoning Yubel, Judai spent the next ten years growing up, making friends in a healthy and safe envirnoment while Yubel the one who was abandoned was alone in space desperately crying for Judai to come save them only to be ignored because Judai has long forgotten them.
However, there's a striking difference there too. Yubel is created directly by Judai's neglect and actions. Whereas Shigaraki is created by the neglect of all of society, it's not Deku's fault directly.
#1 Shigaraki acting as a callout post to Deku's Flaws
However, this is where Shigaraki's callout post comes in. Shigaraki gives a long speech on how the existence of heroes itself, creates villains like him.
"You heroes pretend to be society's guardians. For generations you pretended not to see those you couldn't protect and swept their pain under the rug. It's tainted everything you've built. That means your system's all rotten from the inside with maggots crawling out. It builds up little by little, over time, you've got the common trash all too dependent on being protected. And the brave guardians who created the trash that need coddling. It's a corrupt, vicious, cycle. Everything I've witnessed. This whole system you've built has always rejected me. Now I'm ready to reject it. That's why I destroy. That's why I take power for myself. Simple enough, yeah? You don't understand because you can't understand, that's what makes us heroes and villains."
To break it down simply, heroes look away from the faults in their society, they intentionally ignore the people they cannot save, and when those people turn into villains the heroes beat them down hard. The villain attacks then convince the common people of the need for heroes, and the cycle perpetuates itself. This is all powered by the people's blind, uncritical faith in heroes.
Deku is a person who has that same blind, uncritical faith in hereoes, and until this point has never thought of Shigaraki as anything more than a villain to be punched until he stops. Which is why this is still a callout post that applies to Deku, because Deku's blind admiration for the Hero System is part of the problem that enables the very flawed hero system.
Deku does not understand darkness of the heart, therefore Deku does not understand that heroes could possibly be bad, and he could possibly be supporting a bad system until he's slapped in the face with it.
However, is there a lasting consequence for Deku's blind support of the hero system?
Nope.
I just described up above what could have been a consequence, if Lady Nagant refused to have faith in Deku since he didn't back his words up with action.
Deku also clearly does not want to break away from the corrupt hero system that created Shigaraki, because the heroes that he brought along to fight with him are Endeavor, Hawks and Jeanist, a child abuser, a state sponsored murderer, and a guy who makes bad puns. He doesn't change any of his bahavior that enables the corrupt system to stay in power.
Not teaming up with the Top 3 heroes, and deciding to go full vigilante would have at least have been breaking away from that system.
This circles around to a big underlying problem in this whole arc in that Deku isn't really doing anything different from what he was doing before, and he's not punished for his character stagnancy either.
So we're left with.
#2 Shigaraki represents a dark path that Deku could have Taken
This is where Judai / Yubel succeeds and Shigaraki / Deku falls flat on its face.
When pushed to his absolute limit after failing repeatedly, Judai snaps. With no friends left he decides that all that matters is power. This path seems natural for him because we've already seen what being abandoned and left alone can do to a person and how it twisted Yubel. The story hints again and again at Judai's blood knight tendencies, and that he thinks the only thing he has of value to offer others is strength by fighting for them.
He loses his friends and the fighting is all he has left.
At the point of despair he decides to just embrace power. If he cares about nothing more than strength, at least that will give him some sense of control over his life after the out of control tragedy that happened to him.
"Yuki Judai. In order to defeat evil, one must become evil. In a world with the law of the jungle at work, one must rule with power."
"Power? I don't have that kind of power."
"In your hand lies the super polymerization card. Defeat any spirits who may oppose you, and combine their lives into it to perfect the card."
Supreme King is just a villain persona that Judai adopts to as a protetive blanket for all the hurt and pain they've gone through, just like ding, ding, ding, the villain persona Shigaraki Tomura is for Shimura Tenko.
Judai snapping under such intense pressure shows us that if even the faultless hero can snap, then how much can we blame the villain for snapping under similar circumstances? Maybe the reason both the hero and the villain fell is because they're both equally human and to fall down is human.
Deku never falls down as hard as Judai does. He doesn't even fall down and scrape his knee. There's no instance where he fails to save anyone. There's no instance where his actions hurt anyone. There's no instance where he takes things too far and hurts a villain. I kow it's unlikely for Deku to turn into a villain, but he could have at least gotten so frustrated he turned into a punisher style vigilante! Is that too much to ask?
There's not even a single moment where Deku goes too hard in a fight and injures or even kills a villain. They could have pulled an "I thought you were stronger" moment like in Invincible.
I don't know why this is called the Dark Deku arc because there's no darkness in Deku's heart for him to exploit, nor is he actually called to better his understanding of the darkness in others hearts. Judai understands Yubel's darkness because by the end of his personal arc he's been there, he's not the hero he's the atoner. He can either punish Yubel, or hold a hand out to help Yubel atone.
Deku's arc might as well be called the "My Little Pony Friendship is Magic Arc" because he never does or confronts anything dark. His worst crime is not showering. All that isolation and his repeatd failures in hunting AFO down should have worn Deku down, but it didn't because he's just that special of a boy!
Deku's hero complex also is completely uncriticized from beginning to finish. Judai's hero complex is an unhealthy behavior that utterly destroys him. Deku's hero complex is a job interview flaw.
FRIENDSHIP IS MAGIC
Just to hammer my point in I'd like to compare these two scenes. One is in the middle of the Supreme King Arc, the sacrifice ritual scene where all of Judai's friends are blaming him for the fact that they're about to be sacrificed while he's still trying to save them.
The second is the climax of the Dark Deku arc, where all of Deku's friends are showing up to fight him and convincing him to accept their help.
Just look at how vastly different these two shows treat their shonen protagonists when it comes to his flaws.
For the ritual sacrifice scene. This is immediately after Manjoume wakes up to find that he has been chained and kidnapped with Judai standing right there.
Judai: Sit tight! I'll save you soon!
Manjoume: Wait, is he dueling? JUdai you damned idiot! Weren't you going to save Johan with us!? Getting yourself all flared up. You didn't even stop to think about us at all, did you?
Judai: That's not it.
Manjoume: That's just how you are! You were the only one in your kingdom from the get-go. We were the idiots for getting all motivated with you and feeling some sense of friendship with you being like that!
Then Judai watches helplessly as Manjoume dies. His other friends don't fare much better.
Kenzan: Big Bro? Why'd you want to save Freed's comrades when it meant sacrificing us-don!?
Judai: You're wrong. That's not it.
Fubuki: It's painful. This pain isn't just physical. It's the pain of a friends' betrayal that I have tearing my soul. apart.
Asuka: I'm being betrayed and sent away by you. To think that I'll have to bear a sadness like this.
All of Judai's friends die spitting on him and telling him what a terrible friend he is and that this is all his fault. Which it is, because his decision to abandon them got them captured and led up to the sacrifice ritual.
Now, what scathing criticisms do our heroes have to give Deku after he left them all behind to fight Shigaraki alone?
Denki: Midoriya! We get that all for one is really importnat but you got something even more important in your life! Me and you we aint'g otta ton in common, but you're still a friend! Even if we gotta force this friendship down your throat.
TodorokI: What a look you have on your face. Is this resposnibility so much that you can't let yourself cry? Seems like a burden you should share with the rest of us.
Uraraka: The thing is Deku, we don't want to be protected by you and reject who you are and what you're doing, we just want to be with you (this part is narration).
Deku is told that none of his friends are mad, they want to be by his side no matter what, and that it's okay for him to cry.
I should also mention how underdeveloped this supposed nakama group is in the manga itself. The entirety of Season 3 of GX is tha the bond between Judai and his friends are more shallow then it appears, but he's also spent two whole seasons bonding with a group that consists of: Asuka, Sho, Kenzan, Fubuki, Manjoume. That's six people total including Judai who serve as is primary friend group. Their friendship is more unhealthy than it appears, but Judai has spent the past two seasons hanging out with one small friendgroup.
Meanwhile the entirety of Class 1-A shows up to tell Deku how much they love him and how much he means to them, and Deku's hung out with maybe like... four of them?
You have one bond shown to be how shallow it is, and one shallow bond treated like it's the deepest, most loving friend group in all of fiction. Deku doesn't even receive some lgiht criticism for how inftantalizing it was for him to abandon them for their own protection, because no one resents Deku or is capable of holding any negative or critical emotions towards him whatsoever. He's just told how much everyone loves him and wants him to come home.
And yes, Judai also does get two characters sacrificing themselves to try to reach him when he's the Supreme King.
However, as I stated above Jim sacrifices himself to help Judai because that's who JIm is as a person. Austin does it after Jim fails, both to honor his friendship with Jim, and also because of someone who got scared and ran he feels like he has to confront the darkness of the heart.
Jim and Austin O'brien's sacrifice is also a sacrifice. They died trying to save Judai, and Judai has to wake up with the knowledge that not only did he kill a bunch of people in his quest for power, he killed two more friends who were only trying to help him.
At the end of the arc, Judai has woken up with the knowledge that he has done bad things that can't be taken back and he's barely better than Yubel at this point.
At the end of the Dark Deku arc, Deku gets a speech from Uraraka about how amazing and selfless he is, and how he never gives up and how he always pushes forward, and how everyone at the UA shelter should appreciate him more.
The Supreme King arc exists to criticize Judai. The Dark Deku arc does nothing but flatter Deku from beginning to end.
Judai's hero mask is ripped off and he's forced to be a person. Deku's hero mask stays on, his hero complex is unchallenged, and he's praised for being teh greatest hero evarz.
I often get accused of not liking MHA simply because I expect it to be a different story than what it is. That I want it to be darker, when it's a more optimistic shonen manga.
However, here's my secret. I hate edgy superheroes. I don't like watching stuff like The Boys because it gets too dark for me. The oly reason I read invincible is because my friend told me that Omni-Man got a redemption arc. My favorite DC Superhero is Superman. My favorite Superhero of ALL TIME is Spiderman.
The thing about Spiderman though, is that it is hard to be Spiderman. The entire point of Peter Parker's character is that he has a terrible work/life balance and constantly loses people around him because being Spiderman is a sacrifice. The story doesn't bend over backwards to praise Spiderman as being a selfless hero, in fact it points out what a loser he is constantly. Peter Parker's friends are always frustrated with him and he's a wreck of a person.
Yet, the fact that being Spiderman is such a sacrifice and he keeps choosing to make it, shows what kind of person Peter Parker is, and that's just a person who does whatever he can to help out.
Even Peter Parker, the nicest, most well-intentioned boy ever has the Symbiote arc. One of the most famous arcs in comics dealing with Peter is when he lets Venom graft onto his suit, and even though the symbiote makes him violent, and makes his behavior change he spends the longest time not wanting to peel it off because the power boost the symbiote suit gave him made his life that much easier.
Dark Deku is an obvious reference to the Venom Suit, but a completely shallow reference because Dark Deku acts exactly the same as regular Deku the only reason he looks like that is he forgot to take a shower.
Superhero stories don't need to be Dark Deconstrutions, but they do need to be SOMETHING. They need to say something about the character. The problem with the Dark Deku arc isn't that Deku didn't experience a villain arc.
It's that nothing of consequence happened in the entire arc. Nothing changed. The story asked us if Deku's hero complex was a bad thing, and then it didn't deliver any answer. The story asked us if Deku needs to understand darkness better and then didn't answer that.
These are ideas that the audience promised were going to get answered. We were told Deku was going to get his development this arc that he was going to be pushed to the edge. The entire premise of this arc was that it was supposed to better help Deku understand Shigaraki and Hero Society only for Deku to not learn about either of those things.
Deku's learned nothing. We've learned nothing. Nothing has changed in the story itself. The only thing we've accomplished was wasting a lot of time that we could have been using watching Yu-Gi-Oh GX!
#mha meta#ygo gx meta#yu gi oh gx#yuki judai#judai yuki#supreme king haou#supreme king jaden#supreme king judai#yu gi oh gx meta#dark deku#ygo#ygx meta#ygo meta
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There’s been some discussions on Twitter recently about if Blaze’s dimension is worth keeping around and expanding on or if it should be ignored/merged with Sonic’s world thanks to a Bumblekast clip. What are your thoughts on Blaze’s dimension as a story-telling hurdle/ alternate setting? I personally feel like it wouldn’t make a difference if Blaze was a princess from another dimension or a princess from the other side of the world, it would just be easier for her to show up if she wasn’t from another dimension, but I also think it’s be neat to expand on Blaze’s world as a parallel to Sonic’s.
I think there's a whole cottage industry of Sonic fans who just like to take things Ian says out of context so they can rile people up on Twitter, and the fandom falls for it every time, and it's extremely tiring
But also I think Ian is right
This isn't something I've really shared, but I actually have a document where I've kept ideas for what I would do with a hypothetical modern reboot of Archie Sonic where I'm allowed to start from scratch and change anything I want. (I might share some of this someday, perhaps with some character designs, but for now it's just a thing for me. It's not like I'm gonna do a comic or anything.) For Blaze, I immediately decided that all of the elements from the Sol Dimension should be merged with the regular Mobius. I would just say that Sonic and friends have all their adventures on one hemisphere of the planet, and Blaze is from the other. I mean, the Sol Dimension already has a heavy Australia/Oceania vibe. It'd be really easy. This way, there would still be some level of separation, and Blaze would still have her own territory where she gets to be the main hero, but it'd be WAY easier to actually use those elements. Characters can just show up on whatever part of the planet they need to be on for any given story
For some reason people seem to think that Blaze being from a separate dimension isn't a storytelling hurdle at all, and I really don't know what franchise they're following, because it sure as hell isn't the version of Sonic I know. Yes, in theory it could be as simple as just using a warp ring to hop over to the Sol Dimension whenever. There are ways to write around it. I'd love to see that happen so that we could flesh out Blaze's world some more. Give Blaze some more allies and villains of her own! Give her more to do over there, and more reasons for Sonic and co. to visit! But clearly Sega isn't down with that, considering the Sol Dimension has only ever been in one game and, what, two issues of the IDW comics for maybe ten pages total? Sega's just sitting on it, and it's impossible not to see the fact that it's a whole separate dimension as the reason.
Even if we were getting more stories about traveling to and from the Sol Dimension, it'd still be a hassle. You want to use the Chaotix in a story in the Sol Dimension? Wanna use Marine or Johnny or whoever in a story set on the main world? Well, you'd better think up an airtight excuse for why those characters are traveling between the dimensions and pray that Sega approves of it. And right now that seems to be one hell of an obstacle, given how little we see of the Sol Dimension even though I know damn well Ian and Evan would love to explore it more. It's gotten to the point that Blaze is now on an endless "vacation" on Sonic's Earth so that they can actually use her in stories. People have been acting like merging the worlds would completely take away everything that makes Blaze special as a character, when it would just make all of her personal story stuff infinitely easier to work with than it is right now.
"Oh but what about the Sol Emeralds?" There's no reason the Sol Emeralds couldn't exist on the same planet as the Chaos Emeralds. We've already got other magic rocks like the Time Stones, the Phantom Ruby, and the Warp Topaz. "But what about Eggman Nega?" I could not give less of a shit about what happens to Eggman Nega and Sega doesn't even use him anymore, but also he's already supposed to be from Silver's future, not the Sol Dimension. "But what about the plot of Sonic Rush where the whole point was that they had to stop the worlds from being merged because they thought it was a bad thing?" Yes, because Sonic has always been a series that treated canon as sacred an immutable, and Sega would never do something that contradicted a game from almost 20 years ago
Anyway, all of this is a moot point. It's not like this is going to happen. Ian just brought up the possibility on the BumbleKast as an "if I could change literally anything" type deal. Sega is not going to do this. He is allowed to have his own opinions on Sonic things without fans having to take it personally and scream and cry about it. You don't have to agree with him on everything. I've certainly had points I disagree with him on! It's fine! That's normal! He's only human. Yes, Ian is on the Lore Team, but he's just one voice in the room. He's not even the boss of that team. If Ian could get whatever he wanted, we'd have seen the Freedom Fighters and Sticks by now
#nintendweeb#ask#tkp asks#this got long but i did in fact catch wind of this debacle while scrolling twitter on my phone when i woke up today and it made me mad lol
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“I have tried to show you what I am,” says Barb, the protagonist of one of the most controversial short stories ever written. “I have tried to do it without judgment. That I leave to you.”
Barb comes from I Sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter by Isabel Fall, a science fiction story about gender and imperialism. It was Fall’s first published story. There was no backlog of stories to analyze, and her author’s bio was sparse. Readers weren’t given any information about Fall’s gender identity, but that didn’t stop activists from speculating. “… this reads as if it was written by a straight white dude who doesn’t really get gender theory or transition,” complained Arinn Dembo, President of the science fiction writers’ collective SF Canada. The author Phoebe Barton even compared the story to a weapon against trans people: “Think of it as a gun,” she tweeted. “A gun has only one use: for hurting.” N.K. Jemison joined in, tweeting, “Artists should strive to do no (more of this) harm.” But Dembo and the hundreds of thousands of others were mistaken about Fall’s supposed cis identity. The publisher responded to the backlash by taking the story down and posting a statement about the author’s identity. Isabel Fall was a transgender woman, and self-identified activists for trans rights bullied her so mercilessly that she attempted suicide. Dembo later adjusted her criticism, saying “a lot of people might have been spared a lot of mental anguish” if Fall had made a statement about her gender identity. Meaning, Fall had a moral obligation to out herself as a trans woman. Both of Dembo’s comments reveal a preoccupation with the author that distracts from the text. The recent obsession with author identities is one of the great failures of contemporary liberal movements. In order to win liberation for any given group, liberal activists must focus less on who speaks and more on what is spoken.
Roland Barthes’ 1967 essay The Death of the Author argued that an author’s intentions and life experiences do not make the “ultimate meaning” of their text. The author might as well “die” once the text is in the reader’s hands. The text is “a multi-dimensional space” that one cannot simply flatten with biographical details about the author. Barthes has largely been vindicated among literary critics and theorists, but his idea has not been well-received among liberal activists. It is easy to refuse to acknowledge multiple dimensions of a text. Moralistic groups like liberation movements might even be tempted to sort texts into a simple dichotomy—“good” or “bad,” without any gray areas—on the sole basis of the author’s identity. That is exactly what Dembo tried to do: she suggested that Attack Helicopter was bad simply because of the author’s (supposed) gender.
I Sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter is not a transphobic story. Although an in-depth analysis would be beyond the scope of this essay, I can confidently say that Fall critiqued American imperialism, not transgender people. I think that would be clear to anyone who reads the story. But apparently, reading a story is no longer a necessary step in the process of interpreting it. Barton—who suggested her fellow trans woman was a “gun”-wielding transphobe—had not actually read the story. Jemison also admitted she had not read the story before tweeting that it was harmful. We now have a complete reversal of Barthes’ idea: this method of moralistic interpretation is nothing less than the death of the text.
Fall is far from the only queer storyteller to face backlash for allegedly not being queer. Becky Albertalli, Kit Connor (who was still a teenager), and Jameela Jamil all came out of the closet because they were harassed for telling queer stories as “straight” and “cis” people. It is a common talking point in activist circles that the government should not compile lists of queer people or forcibly out them. Why, then, do activists engage in the same behavior? It simply is not always safe to admit that you are gay, or trans, or autistic, or epileptic, or that you have had an abortion. The reason that we need liberation movements for these groups is the same reason that people might not want to publicly claim these identities.
You can read the rest on Substack
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Indirect Storytelling
@tayasigerson's recent (and amazing!) art of Sabin and Gau with Tiger Masks got me thinking about ways in which games can offer means of indirect storytelling that standard literature cannot.
I'm no expert on linguistics or the English language, so maybe "indirect storytelling" isn't the proper term. Or maybe I'm wrong about my assertion in the first place. But to me, the fact that only Sabin and Gau can equip the Tiger Mask feels like there's a character trait that is implied but never stated.
Why is it that only Sabin and Gau can equip the Tiger Mask? What is the commonality between the two that nobody else shares? What does this imply about their characters?
I have my own theories, of course - thoughts about how they both embody the idea of "wildness", both literally and figuratively; or maybe how they each have a connection to "nature" that is stronger than other party members; or maybe even their connection to each other has something to do with it - but the fact that something as simple as who can equip an item can be used to hint at character or plot elements is pretty wild, isn't it?
The Tiger Mask isn't even the only example of this in FF6. Probably the most famous example is the Memento Ring, which can only be equipped by Shadow and Relm, and to my immediate recollection is the only direct connection they share in-game. Everything else about their relationship is implied through Shadow's flashbacks (which only connect them by showing he was in Thamasa with a dog at some point in the past) and through Interceptor's uncharacteristic affection for Relm.
Because Shadow and Relm are not shown to have any real relation or connection, and in fact speak probably less than a dozen words to each other the entire game, the fact that this seemingly-random pair are the only ones who can equip the Memento Ring is really special (and easily missable). If everyone could equip the Memento Ring, it would lose its specialness, and we'd lose a key aspect of the Shadow/Relm backstory.
The Memento Ring also adds additional context by its description:
Ring blessed by departed mother's love. Prevents petrification, zombie, and instant death.
Most Relics in FF6 don't have as much lore behind them as something imbued with a "departed mother's love", so the fact that only Shadow and Relm can equip this strongly implies they each have a connection to this "departed mother". There are even fanfics (like this amazing one from @azurefishnets - A Nameless Memento) that use the Memento Ring directly as a plot element for the Shadow/Relm/Strago dynamic.
A third implication can be drawn from the fact that the Memento Ring prevents all instant-death techniques. Why is that? How and why does a departed mother's love protect against instant-death? What does that imply about the mother's own death?
In addition to the Memento Ring and the Tiger Mask, there are other items that can only be equipped by specific people. Here are a few choice examples:
Royal Crown (Edgar, Sabin)
Red Jacket (Edgar, Sabin)
Snow Scarf (Gau, Mog, Umaro)
All the "Suit" costumes, like the Moogle Suit (Strago, Relm)
Some of those make some sense - like the Royal Crown - but others are kind of open to interpretation. Maybe it makes sense that Mog and Umaro can equip the Snow Scarf, but why can Gau, and why can't anyone else?
What about the Red Jacket? Does that have some connection to royalty, or is there something else being hinted at? After all, red is not one of the Figaroan colors; it's the opposite of blue, which actually is one of the Figaroan colors. And why does it negate fire damage? Is there some connection with the desert heat?
Anyway, sorry for the rambling post. It just struck me how cool it is that gaming - and particularly FF6 - has this unique method of conveying story that is not possible with any other medium, and that's pretty cool! FF6 is also the only game that I can recall that uses equipment to convey (or imply) untold elements of the story like this.
As if I needed yet another reason to obsessively love the game so much.
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Life Series SMP/Eyes and Ears AU Thematic Discussion + Theorycrafting (pt. 1)
WARNING: Extremely long post
Kachow what’s poppin fellas, I’m back at it again talking about boomer block Youtubers and their surprisingly in-depth improv series. Now that the Life Series’ 5th season has finally concluded, I’m back on the lore train and poor Scar is left to suffer the consequences, and Martyn’s concluded yet another lore stream, I decided to compile a long master post of lore notes and theories about what we have so far.
Obviously all the ‘lore’ of the Life Series is purely unofficial; Grian has not approved any of it as being actually official/set in stone for what he intended the series to be. Most of it has been us in the crazy fandom extrapolating their really good storytelling, and also “semi-canonized” by Martyn in what he calls the Eyes and Ears AU (and this post assumes you are familiar with it). As someone who’s been a fan since the beginning way back in 3rd Life, I’ve pretty much hopped on the lore train since the beginning as well (if casually) and enjoying all the different extrapolations/analysis/angst written around the players. Rather than just theorizing lore details in a vacuum, however, I’ve always liked imagining the lore based around the reoccurring themes, symbolism and arcs we’ve seen across the series. I’d been bouncing my various thoughts and theories around these themes for a while, and finally I decided to compile my notes together.
This post is basically my imagining what the Life Series/Eyes and Ears AU story is “about,” as if it were a fleshed-out, long-running and story-driven tv show. Initially this post started as simply a gigantic “Eyes and Ears Theory,” me trying to sus out my own theories/ideas of what the Life Series’ mysteries were based on Martyn’s lore. However, considering that Martyn is ALSO writing the lore on the fly, and I have some details I would interpret differently or change, this ended up less a ‘theory’ and more ‘me writing an entire AU/interpretation of the Life Series as a whole.’ My intention is NOT to ‘correct’ Martyn’s lore, nor to claim my theory as the ‘right’ interpretation; rather, this is my personal interpretation of what the Life Series story is about, based on information shown in the original SMP and in Martyn’s AU.
One last disclaimer: I am ONLY drawing on lore details from the Life Series, Martyn’s lore streams, and Minecraft EVO, and also references to the iRL creators. I am not drawing on any story from other SMPs such as Pirates or Empires; there may be some Hermitcraft references here and there.
This is going to be very long, and a multi-parter, because I can’t summarize to save my life. And I promise I’ll come up with a proper name for my series of posts another time. If you’ve stuck around to read, I thank you.
Part 1: The Overall Plot + Understanding the Watchers
Recap of official lore details
Although Martyn hasn’t given specific details on the Watcher + Listener species (he hasn’t come up with a name yet), we know the following details for sure (from EVO, lore streams etc.)
Watchers + Listeners + The Council are all deity-like beings of the same species, and they all consume human emotions
The Council are the upper ranks/possibly leaders, whereas the Watchers + Listeners are separate factions
The Watchers are at LEAST two high-ranking members of the species (the two dots being outcast from the wider circle, as is their logo)
The Watchers were behind Minecraft EVO, where they gave all the players tasks (much like Secret Life) and eventually ending in them fighting the Ender Dragon separately
While the Watchers may not have been evil in EVO, they certainly became so AFTER, when they began to crave more negative human emotions, viewing them as “tasty” (Martyn’s words), s p i c y
They first kidnapped Grian at the end of EVO season 1, turning him into a Watcher to possibly have him join their ranks, but he’s gone rogue after realizing what their plans for the Life Series were, and plans to rescue his friends from them
The Life Series was the Watchers’ ploy to trap the players in an infinite death game where they betray and cause each other pain, all to harvest their negative emotions. Grian, in defiance to this, takes control as the ‘game master’ to make the whole thing…well, a game, so that his friends can enjoy, have fun and ease their anguish. In Martyn’s words, this is like “pouring ketchup all over the Watchers’ sundae.”
The Listeners (EVO season 2) are an opposing faction to the Watchers who disagree with their methods, although why is unknown. They’ve attempted to contact some players (e.g. Jimmy) before back in EVO in order to oppose the Watchers, but it’s not known how successful they were. They’ve also tried to swap in players in the Life Series before (e.g. subbing Lizzie and Gem for Pearl and Cleo in Lim. Life) in order to sneak them in and try to subvert the game. The Watchers kidnapping Gem for Secret Life is partially in retaliation to the Listeners. The Listeners may not be good and may have nefarious intentions also, it is as yet still unknown.
There’s potentially a third faction, the Speakers, but very little is known about them and Martyn doesn’t want to elaborate on them yet.
Okay, but what are the Watchers even after?
"Accept your fate."
From here on out is my real conjecturing/theorizing. The main question on my mind has been why are the Watchers doing what they’re doing? Obviously Martyn has confirmed that they are malicious deities who find negative human emotions tasty, but this raises further questions. Why exactly do they desire such emotions, or need them to survive (if they do, anyway)? Why do they favour negativity, when the other members of their species consume a wide range of emotions? They were confirmed to be outcast in some way from the other factions for this ploy, so what does that say about them then?
The whole species fundamentally do not understand human emotions (or perhaps do not even possess them)
This seems to me the most logical conclusion. These are powerful deities who can create miniature worlds/dimensions, life, and time to an extent (death loop). They should theoretically be self-sufficient, so I doubt that their consumption of human emotion is for survivability reasons (i.e. I don’t think Watchers will literally die if they don’t consume emotions, the same way humans die without food). What seems more likely is that human emotions bring them some benefit to their intelligence or power that they’d otherwise be quite non-functional without. (Think like the demons in The Promised Neverland, who regress to feral natures/lack of sapience if they don’t eat humans)
The Watchers’ powers and their lab-rat experimentation on the players gives a huge vibe of not being able to understand human emotions in an involved way, but only from a distance. They know methodically things like murder and betrayal cause panic and anguish, so they enforce these experiences through the game, mechanics like the Boogeyman, the Secret Tasks etc. But they don’t really know internally why these emotions come about the way humans do. Being above time, they probably don’t understand why the funny small animals have so much attachment to their transitory experiences and memories (more on this later).
world's angriest pumpkin
The Watchers are Losers, Actually
Going further, don’t you think the Watchers have a very misanthropic mindset all around? “Anguish and panic are s p i c y.” They conversely have a complete disgust for positive emotions, and can’t stand Grian making things fun for everybody. It almost feels like they have the mindset that only things like hatred and fear are exciting, bringing motivation and life to the humans, whereas things like happiness and fun are ‘useless’ because they don’t bring about the same results. Let’s also not forget their name – Watchers – and that Martyn’s confirmed them to be symbolically based off us, the audience. It’s almost like a commentary of the worst of the entertainment industry, of an audience who crave watching anything and everything to satisfy their own desires, even at the expense of the privacy and safety of the entertainer. Given the current state of the internet and social media, I don’t think I need to elaborate how awful things can get.
In other words, I believe the main motivation the Watchers are eating humans emotions is because they WANT to understand and ‘take into themselves’ such emotions. I don’t think they’re totally emotionless – Martyn does portray them with moments of glee and anger. But their understanding of emotions is superficial (self-centered, if you will) at best. As deities with no needs, being above time, they have nothing to be afraid of and nothing to feel sad or anguished over. It’s a boring, dull and empty existence. And that’s precisely why they’ve set up the Life Series game: by kidnapping a few humans and putting them through the artificially constructed wringer of panic and betrayal, they think they can create a human farm of such rich, complex and exciting emotions, all for themselves to enjoy at their own pleasure and fill the void they have.
(Listeners’ side note: If all that is the philosophy of the Watchers, it’s probably not difficult to see how/why the Listeners oppose them. The Listeners likely disagree that negative emotions are the most optimal state of humans, and unlike the Watchers do not think human suffering is just tasty popcorn one can eat at one’s pleasure. Their name – Listeners – implies they’re a more sympathetic faction, as in they listen to one’s troubles and heart rather than take delight in suffering at a superficial level. But if they are the same species, it’s very likely they have the same lack of instinctive understanding of human emotions that the Watchers do, and this could cause…problems.)
Why turn Grian?
All this is also why I believe the Watchers kidnapped Grian + turned him into a Watcher in the first place. Firstly, if they were going to concoct their plan to trap humans, they needed a collaborator from the humans in the first place. Secondly, and most importantly, this collaborator was going to be their only direct source of how human emotions work/feel like, and therefore what were the most optimal conditions needed to ensure their death game would generate the most pain and anguish. They picked Grian because he’s always the ‘leader’ of the SMP players, the person gathering and organizing everyone, so logically, he is the most ‘representative’ of the humans, and the one with the greatest ability to control them.
Of course, it’s also true that Grian was a little $#@% throughout EVO and actively rebelled against the Watchers’ tasks, so making him their collaborator might seem strange. Ignoring the meta reason that the ending was written to explain Grian’s exit from the series. But I figured in this case, they considered the benefits more than the costs. Grian’s chaotic nature is not unlike the Watchers’, considering how much he loves causing pranks and trouble to others. So, as a huge oversight, they think Grian is just like them: he loves to see people suffer, so they think. Additionally, the Watchers are desperate to understand how Grian gets his fellow humans to follow him and do what he asks with little effort. You’ll notice the Watchers have very direct, authoritative ways of trying to wrest control (e.g. the tasks, “do this or you fail”), and they get very petty and upset when people rebel against them (re: Scott’s refusal to be the Boogeyman, their motto is a very demanding “OUR WILL BE DONE.”) They see Grian’s charisma as yet another aspect of human emotions they fail to understand and thus WANT to possess for themselves.
Pictured above: The Watchers, coping and seething
Of course as we know, the Watchers believing Grian would help them is a major oversight. Becoming a god doesn’t just fundamentally change who Grian is, and he definitely doesn’t want to consign his friends to an infinite death loop of suffering. That being said, I don’t think Grianhas truly gone ‘rogue’ so much as taken as much advantage as possible of his ‘deal’ with the Watchers. We can guess the Watchers promised to him some kind of control/leadership over his friends’ circumstances as long as he worked for them, which led to them giving him the keys to the Life Series. In other words, so long as he fulfils their requirements of things being a death game that will generate ‘food’ for them, and lets them revive everyone each loop, he gets to decide how the games go.
And we know exactly what Grian’s done with this: he created the green-yellow-red lives system, he creates a fun gimmick each season, he inserts himself into the game as a player, all to bring out the best and most creative side of his friends rather than the worst. The Boogeyman probably is the only gimmick the Watchers added on their own initiative (re: Martyn’s POV in Last Life) in order to make things more spicy. Probably Grian’s conversation with the Watchers each time goes, “hey, I got an idea on how to bring out the most creative ways for everyone to cause pain in each other, [comes up with some bullcrap justification for the game’s fun mechanics].” I like to think the Watchers were going to make the death games even more vicious, cruel and competitive, but because of Grian’s wrangling he’s convinced them that a slow burn from joy to horror creates better results, and they tolerate it as long as they see him useful.
Memories and Emotions
There is also one BIG detail of the Watchers’ plan I’d like to mention: Martyn claims that the Watchers do NOT erase the players’ memories. At the end of each season, they consume everyone’s emotions so that there’s no more angst/ill will towards each other, and they start each season afresh. The players remember what’s happened in past seasons, but they don’t continue to hold the pain and negative feelings they had towards each other.
I don’t buy this, for numerous reasons.
For one, Martyn has confirmed the Watchers ARE capable of removing people’s memories. The one memory they have outright altered was the ex-EVO players’ (Martyn, Jimmy, BigB etc.) memory of what happened to Grian: they don’t remember that Grian was taken to be turned into a Watcher, and instead remember it as him either going missing or dying after the Ender Dragon fight. All this presumably to not give away the Watchers’ schemes and to ensure they still listen to Grian as if nothing ever happened.
More importantly, however, memories are vital to humanity’s emotional experience and mental health. I am not an expert by any means, but there are studies showing how people with amnesia, PTSD or other conditions affecting memories have flashbacks/emotional reactions to trauma they don’t remember consciously. The Watchers have (supposedly) done something far more simplistic yet fantastic by just eating up everybody’s emotions. All this, even though they see humans as emotion factories, constantly able to generate emotions just by existing, by their ability to draw and create meaning through emotional experiences, and by creating memories – the clearest embodiment of a mortal’s attachment to time (which if you remember, I believe the Watchers have no concept of).
You cannot just tell a human to stop feelingcompletely (under normal circumstances anyway), but especially not if they remember something very very traumatic.
Besides, there ARE clear instances when some of the players remember the events of past seasons and are STILL not over them! Impulse and Tango still being bitter/distrustful after Bdubs betrayed each of them separately, Cleo distrusting BigB for the same reason, Scott referencing Flower Husbands a lot, Pearl feeling betrayed by Cleo/Scott when they supposedly broke up the Gaslight/Gatekeep/Girlboss trio at the start of DL, Bdubs’ “I wanna be your favorite son” in Secret Life, the list goes on. Note that I’ve only listed negative/bittersweet instances; there are plenty more cases of the players remembering past seasons and alliances positively which the Watchers may have ignored. The point is, if the Watchers truly consumed everyone’s emotions to the point of a clean slate, they haven’t exactly been thorough. Nor do I think it’s very conducive for them either – don’t they want players to have enduring, unending, unresolved pain, the sweetest of all (to them)?
No, I think the Watchers HAVE been erasing/suppressing the players’ memories – they’ve just been very selective which ones. Martyn’s said that the Watchers do not care what families or connections they separate so long as they get the people they want and the plans they want. I’m going to assume the players in my theory/the Eyes and Ears AU are exactly the same as their CC counterparts. In other words: they’ve stolen Grian away from his wife. They stole Martyn away from his and his daughter. Ditto with Skizz, Impulse, Tango etc. They stole Scar away from his family. Joel and Lizzie are the only couple they didn’t separate, perhaps because they needed both for their plans, and also so they can inflict the most torture on them by ripping them away from each other, over and over again. And in order to ensure the complete submissiveness of the players to the game, the Watchers have taken away their memories of their past lives, their families, basically anyone who isn’t a fellow player in the game. The Watchers don’t erase the memories of bonds between seasons, because it’s a pain to have to teach the humans how to play all over again, but they erase any memories they find disadvantageous to keeping the game running.
They might even go one step further: while they haven’t erased the players’ memories of who each other are (so as to not cause confusion), they do try to suppress important memories. Things like how they met, the times they confided in each other after a bad day, cried on each other’s shoulder, laughed in each other’s successes, the times they hung out with each other’s families. Imagine the different alliances constantly gravitating to each other, but never being able to remember why they care about each other so much. Imagine Bdubs’ “Come on, you know you and I go way back!” when trying to justify taking Cleo’s stuff, and Cleo laughs back, even though she can’t quite remember what exactly Bdubs has done to warrant that. Imagine Joel or Lizzie trying to remember why they loved each other so much.
They fight and kill some of their friends, and protect others, because…because why again? It’s for survival value, surely, so the Watchers whisper. It’s because the strong must congregate with the strong and leave the weak to die, surely. It’s because Martyn’s always been a loner, and always will be, and should remain so. So they tell him. So they whisper, this is a deathmatch for a reason.
Grian’s Fundamental Rebellion
I think all this is the real reason Grian is rebelling against the Watchers. The most immediate reason is obvious: he wants to free his friends from this death loop. But the deeper reason as to why he’s rebelled is that the Watchers are torturing and robbing his friends of their humanity. They’re taking a tight-knit group of friends who love and would do anything for each other, and turning them against each other in a cruel and unescapable death game. On TOP of this, the Watchers have constantly messed with their heads in order to make them obedient and submissive to their schemes and the worst of their human nature, trapping them in fear, pettiness and paranoia. Of course Grian is upset. Of course he wants to save them from this fate. It’s an insult to who he knows these people to be.
This all leaves Grian in a pretty precarious position. While outwardly the Watchers want to make him a lackey as the “game master”, both he and they know he really wants to save his friends (they probably see it as their ‘cattle’ showing a bit of resistance, which once again they need to suppress). And while on one hand he’s making the games fun to ease his friends’ pain and bring the best out of them, this is just a hotfix rather than a real solution. In order to really rescue the players, Grian’s got to get them to rebel against the Watchers as well. Refuse to play by the rules, by the expectation that they must murder and kill without mercy, without any attachment to their alliances or past friendships. Make everyone like Scott refusing to be the Boogeyman, or Skizz constantly trying to be wholesome (until the bloodlust gets the better of him anyway).
Ironically in order to achieve this, Grian’s best bet is to try to jog everyone’s lost memories of each other and the things they lost, both good and bad. But ultimately, this is going to make them (in the short term) suffer more. This is where you can insert all your Desert Duo/Flower Husband/whatever alliance you like most angst. But more practically, I like to imagine when “the cameras” are not watching, when Grian knows no one will notice or catch him, he sneaks around to the different alliances, even the ones he’s not part of, to ask them how they’re doing, if they remember anything from the past etc. (in a meta sense, the players edit and cut stuff from their videos all the time; who’s to say he isn’t trying to catch a quick chat while everyone’s mining?!) It also reflects in why Grian is constantly trying to make alliances with different people instead of just gravitate to one person, he needs to check on everyone and capitalize on every single opportunity. (besides the meta reason, being that cc!Grian wants to be creative, and sticking to the same person all the time isn’t very entertaining from a content creator perspective)
One last detail about the winners: I don’t have much to say about the fragments yet, because Martyn (sneaky boi) hasn’t yet revealed the significance of the fragments nor of their healing, although he has hinted Bad Things™ will happen if a player gets too fragmented. But I do think the winners are important: with the game finished, they give Grian a very short window of time to talk to one person directly, without Watcher interference. They’re always the last to be killed/swept away/revived by the Watchers, and I can imagine there’s a brief period of time when their souls are being transferred to The Void w/e where Grian can step in and interfere. In my theory, Grian passes on some sort of clue/push to the winners, as like a subtle message about what they can do to stand up to the Watchers. I’ll detail on what I think these individual messages were in part 2. Needless to say, 3rd Life was a traumatic experience for Grian for many reasons, but the nail in the coffin was the fact that he won, and therefore there was no way for him to pass a message onto anyone.
Conclusion
Hooooooo jeepers that was long @A@; Thank you so much for your patience reading this if you made it to the end, I really appreciate it. As I said, I’ve had these lore ideas bouncing in my head for a LONG time, and with the end of Secret Life I couldn’t get out of my head the different trends/symbolism that was popping out of an improv series. It honestly speaks a lot to how genius our favorite block dudes are at improv, that they can turn their improv nonsense into a coherent narrative. I really wanted to try my hand at fleshing out such a narrative, and with Martyn constantly drip-feeding lore to the fans, I had more than enough material to not just put out guesses but construct something a full XYZ. As I mentioned, I enjoy workshopping themes and characters a LOT more than just worldbuilding or “what if this or that” details in a vacuum, hence why I’ve written all that I have, so this was a fun exercise for me all around!
Next time in part 2 I talk about Character Development™, or character specific notes and details I’ve noticed and extrapolated from what we’ve seen of each individual player, as well as what their different arcs across the seasons mean for them within the lore. Stay tuned for another wordbarf!
Bonus list of works I was inspired by for this loredump:
Log Horizon
The Promised Neverland
Danganronpa (ironic as I’m not really a fan of this franchise, but the first game has an otherwise solid premise which I found really similar to the Life Series)
The Fate franchise (when Martyn asked “what’s Fate?” on the latest lore stream, let me tell you I couldn’t stop laughing; NO MARTYN DON’T GO INTO THE WEEB RABBIT HOLE)
Various amazing animatics from the Traffic fandom: Earth, Bang!, most of Melloz Heist’s works, and of course all the amazing fanart
Way too many conversations with my friends about fantasy species
#what have I done#trafficblr#traffic life#traffic smp#life series smp#life series#eyesandears#eyes and ears theory#inthelittlewood#thematic discussion#theorycrafting#3rd life smp#last life smp#double life smp#limited life smp#secret life smp#long post
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The nature of Aziraphale & Crowley’s relationship (Good Omens)
So I know I have like 30 followers and probably no one gives a shit what I think, but the internet’s the internet and it’s free to post on Tumblr so who cares
I have gone back & forth a bunch on what I think of the “discourse” (if we can even call it that?) surrounding Aziraphale and Crowley’s relationship in Good Omens, and I think I’ve settled on something.
I am still very much for the “why does this criticism only seem to come up when the pairing in question is of the same sex (or played by actors of the same sex)” argument against the whole “why can’t they just be friends” criticism that comes up in response to a lot of queer media, however, I can see why it doesn’t necessarily apply here. At least not in the same way.
In the book, and subsequently in season 1, their relationship is entirely up to interpretation. The information we are given at that point about their past can absolutely either be seen as platonic OR the grounds for something more. I don’t think it’s wrong to say you think it’s one way or another. With the way that their relationship works at this point in the story, they have a lovely friendship and if that’s the point where the progression of their relationship ends, that’s all well & good.
However
Moving on to season 2, we get a little more. There are people saying that the romantic element that has been added kind of ruined it, and I would like to respectfully disagree with that. First of all, the surviving author of the original novel is directly involved with the writing, so I have to say I find it kind of hard to say that anything has been ruined when it’s still directly from the mind of one of the people who wrote it. He is writing it with what the two of them had planned originally in mind. (I believe he said at some point that season 2 is a sort of stepping-stone between the original book and the sequel that he and Terry had in mind)
Second of all, the romance didn’t exactly come out of left-field. As I said earlier, you can interpret their relationship in season 1 however you like, but the notion that their relationship may actually be more than just a friendship is an interpretation that was clearly explored in the second season. Neil Gaiman is not one to shy away from queer storytelling, so if that is the direction he wants to take it, that’s where it’s gonna go. It’s 2023, LGBTQ+ representation in media is far less taboo than it used to be, and so he has virtually no reason to filter their relationship into something that he doesn’t actually want it to be as the writer.
If you want my personal opinion, I think that season 2 being “quiet, gentle, and romantic” is foreshadowing for their relationship’s progression season 3, so I can definitely see the romantic undertones that have more or less been there the whole time (of course depending on how you interpret it) being brought out into the limelight. (I know he said that season 3 will most definitely not be those 3 things, but that’s not to say that none of those elements will be showing up at all)
All in all I don’t think it’s wrong or “homophobic” to interpret their relationship however you see it, but in terms of my own theories, I think that if the fact that the (once again quiet, gentle, and romantic) season 2 is a “stepping-stone” between seasons 1 and 3 is true, their friendship is evolving into something more.
#good omens#aziraphale#crowley#good omens fandom#david tennant#michael sheen#neil gaiman#terry pratchett#good omens meta#good omens meta post#good omens theories#lgbtq media
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dangerous words I fear but I’m craving some OFMD critical but civil discourse… s2 finale spoilers included below the cut. this is incredibly long FYI bc I’m truly desperate to get all my thoughts out
I want to preface by saying I loved S2. I think I loved it more than s1, I think there were some absolute GENIUS moments this season (the entire Calypso episode was *chef’s kiss* my favorite), and I think the cast, crew, and DJ deserve a lot of love and, of course, a renewal for another season.
I know there’s been a lot of anti-finale-critiquing posts out there (and yeah, I also don’t want to see baseless hate or, god forbid, people trying to interact with the cast/crew with anything less than love and respect) but personally, I think the biggest sign that I love a show is me wanting to pick it apart. I think digging into the writing and decision-making and characters of a show means you really appreciate the choices that were made even if you don’t agree with them, because you’re working to understand the story on a level most people only dive to if they’re forced to in an English class. No story is going to be perfect. No story is going to be written specifically for me unless it’s literally by me. But sometimes I still want to study it like a bug under a microscope, you know?
So here we go: I didn’t like the finale, and I didn’t think it fit very well with the rest of the season/show. Weirdly enough I didn’t feel a need to discuss online until I started reading the interviews DJ has been giving about the finale (specifically the choice to kill Izzy and Ed/Stede’s ending) and I’m so curious as to whether others interpreted things the same way. (Yes, they’re DJ’s characters. No, I don’t think all viewers are obligated to interpret things the same way as writers did—that’s half the beauty of storytelling and media consumption.)
Izzy’s Death
Let’s unpack the big one first. I think a lot of what DJ/finale defenders (if I may respectfully call fans who enjoyed s2e8 that) have mentioned is that Izzy’s arc was over and he’d served his narrative purpose. I’ve got a few different issues with this:
1. Part of what I love(d?) about this show is that I did not think this was a show that kills characters once they’ve served their narrative purpose, or a show that kills characters as punishment/retribution for mistakes/earlier actions. To me, OFMD symbolizes the idea that everyone is deserving of love, forgiveness, and second chances. I truly trusted that no one on the Revenge crew would die in this show, and to be proven wrong was a bit disheartening, to say the least. Will talk more on the suicide notion in the next bit because I think it was symbolic, but Izzy also now represents a suicidal character who finds the will to live again. I’d argue that a “full arc” for a character like that should be ending in happiness, not death (and especially not with a line like “I want to go” or whatever the specific words were).
2. DJ seems to describe Izzy’s role as being a mentor to Blackbeard, which I personally struggle to see at all. Despite the Captain/First Mate status difference, I think most signs have pointed towards them being roughly equals—the unrequited love Izzy feels for Ed, the way the two of them stand right up to each other when everyone else would be afraid to, the clear shared history and longevity of their friendship/companionship. (If anything, I’d argue Izzy takes on the mentor mantle for Stede in s2, though it’s a bit glossed over because of how crunched for time everything was.) I certainly have trouble seeing the “father figure” relationship that DJ mentions in interviews, because I think Izzy is the one crew member that puts himself on even ground with his captains.
But even humoring that, Ed’s story has been about shedding Blackbeard. And DJ has a great quote in the Entertainment Weekly interview where he says that Izzy and Ed are both Blackbeard, that the two of them together are what makes Blackbeard “happen.” So in theory, if we’re killing Izzy off to further Ed’s storyline, it’s to ultimately kill Blackbeard, right? Especially since his line at the end is to “just be Ed.”
Except we already have metaphorically killed Blackbeard, several times. I think S2E3 is a really interesting episode because in season 1, it can be argued (and is, by Chauncey Badminton) that Stede kills Blackbeard in his own pirate-y way—with kindness. The crew is also somewhat a part of this, as they all accept and love Ed for who he is and not only because he’s Blackbeard; the crew follows the example of their captain and it changes who Ed is as a person. S2E3 is a crew under Blackbeard, and they also kill Blackbeard following the method of their current captain—violence. And this “death” is, in my mind, the death of Blackbeard while Stede symbolically saves the part of him that is just Ed. (Bonus: we also get Ed trying to sink his leathers, and while it might just be because he’s on a damn boat, it’s interesting that Blackbeard’s clothes are drowned/sunk while Ed’s metaphorical comeback was being saved from drowning by Mer!Stede.)
So Ed’s half of Blackbeard is dead. If we stand by DJ’s idea that Blackbeard is half Izzy, we’ve still got half of Blackbeard left, right? Well, that would’ve been right immediately post-S1, but then they gave Izzy a beautiful arc that seems to be a shadow of Ed’s S1 track. Ed and Izzy are very similar characters, but in S1 Ed is on the receiving end of love, acceptance, and admiration—namely from Stede, but also from the crew. Meanwhile, Izzy is subject to contempt and hostility… once again, namely from Stede, and also from the crew. Ed blossoms under the love during S1 until that’s taken away; Izzy simply moves in the reverse direction. He continues to be an antagonist while being treated like one, but once others start treating him with kindness (Fang hugging him, Jim and Archie amputating his leg while Frenchie lies for him, the whole crew making him the unicorn leg), he too becomes a part of the family. And wouldn’t you know it—Izzy has a near death scene as well, a suicide no less. Izzy is the one who is responsible in S1 for “bringing back Blackbeard,” so the symbolism of him pulling the trigger on himself is huge. This is Izzy killing his half of Blackbeard! Because Izzy Hands continues to live, even if it takes him some time to remember how to live without Blackbeard at first, and his relationship with Ed effectively dies here.
(As a side note, this growth arc and the way Izzy fully transforms into a member of the Revenge crew afterwards—whittling Lucius a shark and talking to him about forgiveness, dressing up in drag and singing to the crew, cracking silly jokes about Ed and Stede’s relationship—are also why I find the “Izzy Hands is the symbol of traditional piracy and his death is symbolic of traditional piracy dying” argument to be weak. In season 1, he was that definition, but we’ve literally watched him grow out of it. He’s no longer symbolic of something stagnant that will remain the same or be destroyed—he’s symbolic of something that grows and adapts to the new situations, that survives when all of the rules change on him.)
And then we have the return of Blackbeard: Pop-Pop pushing Ed to go back to doing “what he’s good at,” Ed fishing his leathers out of the ocean, Ed killing a ton of people because he thinks Stede is likely dead or at minimum in captivity/grave danger. This bit seems to go against everything the season was building towards; Blackbeard was almost entirely gone, but Ed is now the one who brings him back because he thinks Blackbeard is the one who can save Stede. And that’s fair, but what does that have to do with Izzy at this point? Why does he need to die for Ed to put that part of him away again? While we’re not owed a main character having a death that serves a narrative purpose, I’d hope for that to be the case, and I struggle to interpret what happens to Izzy as beneficial to either plot or character.
3. I think the actual core arcs of the show are character arcs and not plots. I get that they might’ve been trying to wrap plots with Zheng and the British in case they aren’t renewed, but I don’t think it was necessary—the pirating has always been secondary to the rom com and the found family, IMO. In S1, we had two main characters, but I’d argue Izzy got enough focus and attention to be a third this season. Which left us with a great character-driven story: we’re watching all 3 of them come into their own and discover who they are individually, while also discovering that the changes in themselves are causing friction between them now that they’re growing into new people. Which is an amazing story to tell, if you ask me, but the fulfillment of that story requires all three characters to be there. The conflict to be resolved is how these characters can become the people they want to be and still coexist together, because on some level they’re family now. Notably each pair combination of these characters grows together or apart (or in Stede/Ed’s case, both) during this season. Ed and Izzy are growing apart because they hold each other back from becoming the person they want/need to be; to complete this narratively, I would’ve expected the next challenge to be finding a way to become friends again as their new selves while letting go of the fact that they used to have a toxic relationship when they used to be different people.
Ed and Stede’s S2 Ending
So Izzy’s death is the big talking point, but I also think DJ’s take on Ed and Stede was interesting. He said that they deserved a happy ending for the work they put in this season. I agree with him in theory, but I’m curious as to whether others agree that they put in a lot of work. I think Stede followed through with his goal to come back and tell Ed how he feels, and to stay instead of running away from his problems. I think Ed followed through with trying to understand who he is and what his needs are while also trying to find the courage to open himself up to love again. But critically, they never talk. E7 makes a point to highlight the miscommunication/lack of communication between them, and then in E8 they still aren’t shown talking.
(I realize part of the issue is the limited amount of time and the amount of plot shoved into episode 8. I get it; personally, I think the plot should’ve been sacrificed for the characters. At this point, we were 7 episodes into a very character/relationship-heavy season. Plot could’ve waited for a potential S3.)
What’s more—there’s a huge, glaring gap between where they left off and where they end up. Ed left in S2E7 after he begins panicking and realizing Stede is becoming deeper entrenched in pirate life just as he’s finally finding his way out of it. Not once do they talk about this, but suddenly they’re retiring together? And right after Ed says Izzy was his only family and Izzy calls the crew his family (which… is also an unearned line, as Ed and the crew have almost no bonding or forgiveness this season, since we focused mainly on Izzy with the crew and Ed with Stede), they leave the crew to do their own thing? They’re all relatively minor things that could be fairly easily addressed by dialogue, but they fact that they’re not only serves to underscore the way that Ed and Stede really aren’t on the same page.
I want them to get their happy ending. They deserve it. I’m just not sure that I agree that they earned it to the degree that it was received, with retirement alone together without their crew, if that makes sense.
Positivity Tax: Calypso Love 😊
I’ve probably got more to say but those were the big ones on my mind after reading the Vanity Fair and Entertainment Weekly interviews. Just to counterbalance some of the more critical things I’ve said, I wanted to share some loving analysis of the Calypso episode:
1. It’s a minor thing, but the way this episode shows that Ed’s actions as Blackbeard had consequences is amazing. Despite him arguably committing the more grievous wrongs in S1, he’s the one we get the least redemption for in this season (his apology to the crew wasn’t great, and most of his screen time is spent repairing his relationship with Stede), so for him to have to face something that happened because of his past actions is cool, especially because it was done in a way that doesn’t further damage his standing with the crew.
2. The way Stede saves the day is incredible. Competent Stede this season has been an absolute joy to watch, and his success in this episode is twofold: first he wins his way, with signature Gentleman Pirate flair. He listens to Ned’s crew, helps facilitate communication between them, and encourages them to stand up for themselves and demand better treatment. That’s a very classic Stede win. But then he wins in the traditional pirate way, and it’s absolutely glorious; he’s been working towards becoming a better pirate, both in terms of stomaching violence and building up the necessary skills. Ned’s crew can be taken down with kindness, but Ned himself is a pirate and will only be matched by another. I genuinely cannot think of a more perfect way to show that Stede is still himself while also showcasing the newer side of him that he’s been working towards this whole time.
3. Speaking of that newer side of him, the way this episode starts to open up Ed’s insecurities? The combination of seeing his least favorite parts of himself reflected in Stede as well as watching Stede grow into the career that he’s trying to leave? Amazing conflict development.
4. I’ve already talked so much about Izzy but the way this truly caps off the crew’s acceptance of him as part of the family is gorgeous. He’s an entirely new man at this point and there’s no jokes made, no friendly ribbing… just love and acceptance. It highlights both his newfound comfort and familiarity with the others as well as the extent to which they care about him.
5. Less analytical, but it’s also just a really pretty episode.
Considering the fact that I have zero OFMD mutuals and this was a whole essay (I’m on mobile and can’t see how long this is but I’m honestly scared), I would be shocked if someone made it down this far, but if somehow people are here and open to civil discussion… I’d love to know how you felt about this, if you thought DJ was right, if you were a little more on my wavelength and thinking things weren’t adding up, etc. Realistically I’m not sure if anything could change my mind as I’ve done a lot of stewing, particularly about Izzy arc, but new perspectives are always refreshing. Much love to the fandom and of course the creators, who hopefully never see this and get their s3 renewal 🤞🏼
#ofmd spoilers#our flag means death spoilers#our flag means death#sherlgrey.txtea#i am SO going to regret posting this aren’t i#i guess worst case scenario i delete#but I suspect most likely scenario is no one reads this lol
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I finally have time to talk about Lone Trail. I will be focusing on its depiction of science, technology and its progress. Will get a bit political, but funnily enough less than I imagined.
The thing that called my attention most in Lone Trail were the discussions on the nature of scientific progress. This is a theme that’s dear to me and the stuff I research about. It’s easy to think of scientific progress like an inevitable march forward, like an escalator. After all, we are much richer than we were before, right? Go to OurWorldInData dot org to play around with economic statistics in time – make sure to check the World GDP chart, from year 0 to 2000 and see it taking off like a rocket from year 1700.
What kind of Uncle Ted fan or neoluddite would go against that? Haha…hah…
Truth is that, although its effects are there, it’s not a clear if this is the little, neat process techbros want us to believe. It’s new and produces more, therefore it’s good, right? I could be writing this as a new wave of AI-generated NFTs pollute my algorithm.
That’s what makes the storytelling in Arknights so effective: it mashes together fantasy and sci-fi to really tell stories on the role of beliefs, technology, science and religion. The Rhine Lab saga is definitely an exploration of technology, with focus on the equivalent of the United States. During the period before the First World War, 1870-1913 (which is the one that Arknights draws most from), the world underwent through the so-called Second Industrial Revolution and I’ve read economic historians considering it the most innovative period in human history. I mean, obviously, there is an absolute number of inventions in our current age, but in relative terms 1870-1913 experienced a much larger number relative to the previous one.
The escalator narrative constructs scientific achievements as work of daring people (mostly men, but there were women like Marie Cuire), that combined science and technology to help mankind, like Prometheus giving mankind fire from the gods (in fact, one of these books is even named “Prometheus Unbound”); more than often they have to fight against the establishment. Remember Ignaz von Semmelweis? He just wanted doctors to wash their hands. Even I learned this standard narrative in the university. But that’s not the entire story.
The positivistic paradigm – of a science free of value judgements, made with the power of math – has actually helped build this escalator narrative. In reality, some scientists and scholars are horrible people. Later, I learned that Semmelweis, as much as he campaigned for the right thing, was a very arrogant person, who abused everyone around him, to the point few people went to his funeral.
Narratives focusing on one single hero are easy to sell and the ones building them are always on the lookout. Remember how ten years ago, a lot of people tried to push the narrative Elon Musk was going to create a new industrial revolution? Nowadays he’s just an arrogant loser who keeps dragging on his midlife crisis. The 1880s also had similar people like that, such as Thomas Edison.
Kristen Wright is definitely better than them both, because she is actually an engineering genius. But she’s also just like them, in the sense of unethical experiments, collusion with the military-industrial complex and being an overall superficially charismatic, but rotten to the core person. And she’s surrounded by a lot of people like Parvis and Ferdinand.
Breaking this line of reason, I have to say how much I hate Nietzsche’s ubermensch and master-slave morality, I hate Great Men theory, I hate Ayn Rand; these people are sheep who think themselves wolves. And before you say that Nietzsche didn’t consider himself an ubermensch, well, neither did Parvis and his reasoning was the same. For every person fancying themselves ubermensch, there’s a lot of those whom he’d call untermensch to clean up their messes. You have no idea of how times I stumbled upon people (especially libertarians) that advocate lower barriers to regulations that were written in blood, so that progress can happen quicker. Creative destruction works, as long as some people get “creative” and others clean the “destruction”. Deaths and injuries? Acceptable, just give them a pension (but fight tooth and nail in the court to not do it beyond the barest of the bare minimum, because it’ll lower the shareholder profit in 0.01%). Increase in inequality? Nobody will care in a few years, it’ll make everything cheaper anyway (look up Baumol’s cost disease to see how wrong that statement is, without being incorrect). I’m not exaggerating, sometimes the people saying that don’t even bother lacing it in politically correct language.
Because Lone Trail showed it “worked” – Kristen Wright broke off the ceiling over Terra and that will have consequences (especially with Endfield coming closer). The data from her experiments will advance science, the sight of a broken ceiling will inspire artists and prompt politicians to act. Was it worth it? Well, it will depend on who you ask (like, Ifrit or Rosmontis would have strong feelings), but it’s just there now. Serious history isn’t kind on this question as well – many technologies have a lot of transgressions, both legal and ethical, in their supply chain (both the American and Soviet space program come to my mind – guess who helped them); the difference between an entrepreneur and a criminal are contextual, because both are finding new opportunities of profit and both interlock frequently.
In the end, anyone can put an equation that has its uses, not mattering if it’s a good person or not. But that is no excuse to find good ethical practices. Silence saw everything with her own eyes and I’m really glad she’s leading the initiative for a more ethical science in Columbia – especially because people who are willing to break moral rules tend also to be willing to break research rules (this is why the “research” made in concentration camps is actually useless, it didn’t respect experimental rules). So I’m really glad for the Arknights writers for understanding these nuances and communicating them to the audience through one of the best stories of the game.
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Rwby beyond March 30th, any theories? What are you hoping gets explored? Please let me see team OREN, 🅱️lease
given how directly salient RH was to neo’s arc in v9, i expect the same to hold true for the CFVY novels in regard to the vacuo arc, and i think making that backstory more accessible to general/casual audiences is one of the core purposes of rwby beyond—giving cliff notes in a brief animated short is a lot less of a barrier than asking viewers to read two entire novels, even if the novels in question are quite short. a succinct recap of what went down with the crown’s insurgency prior to the broadcast and arrival of refugees from atlas + character-focused shorts giving some sense of what’s been going on with the vacuo coalition in the aftermath so that v10 can hit the ground running seems the most likely. a sort of after-credits “where are they now” for v8 but with the intention of setting the stage for v10 as opposed to tying off loose ends.
i anticipate it’ll be in a similar vein to the epilogue animatic—like a more narrative-driven world of remnant-esque series where it’s in-character exposition over a sort of slide show. (what i would ideally really like is if we got the same basic story told in a different ways by different characters, rashomon style, as a way of elaborating on the story’s themes about storytelling and the nature of truth.)
i am not holding my breath for anything to do with salem or cinder or summer, but i would be over the moon to get even the tiniest crumb of what’s happening over there given that they are Clearly Not in vacuo.
given the description of “untold stories happening in remnant during v9 and even beyond” i am wondering if the series will like, end around where the storyboard epilogue does—ie with the reunion after rwbyj return—again for the purpose of easing the narrative burden at the top of v9. i could even see it going as far as settling rwbyj into the New Normal in vacuo (as in, establishing up to the equivalent of where they’re at in rwby x jl pt 2), although that depends on how important the Explanations are narratively (the more important they are, the less likely they’ll be in rwby beyond bc you want to reserve critical scenes for the show proper)
the other possibility is that “and even beyond” means in the past, in which case we might get some “missing scene”-esque shorts set during previous volumes. which i think would be pretty neat.
i would love it if we got a spot or two focused on civilians rather than the main cast—for many reasons, vacuo is the ideal point in the narrative to start breaking down the hard boundaries between huntsmen and civilians and the CFVY novels focus quite a lot on non-huntsmen experiences, so i’m pretty optimistic that this will happen generally but i’d be stoked to directly get a glimpse through the eyes of an ordinary vacuan citizen or mantelian refugee with no connection to the plot whatsoever, and the relative low-stakes of an ancillary “untold (short) stories” series is the perfect place for that. fingers crossed.
in addition to the CFVY novels recap, i’m placing my bets on a short centered on qrow, oscar+ozma, ren, nora, emerald, winter and/or the schnees, robyn and the other happy huntresses, pietro+maria and whoever else is involved with converting amity into a battleship, arrival of aid from vale and mistral, glynda, (possibly) mercury+tyrian, and raven. plus tai if he’s left his cabin. that’s assuming like WOR-length shorts; if they’re longer then these can and probably will be combined more efficiently. but broadly speaking those are the important narrative gaps to fill in.
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attempting to explain why mahiru did some things wrong actually
the "mahiru and her boyfriend were equally toxic" theory makes me want to become the real life joker so im going to talk about why i think it's Not the case and why i actually think it detracts from her character!
first of all, i think there's a massive difference in the way her boyfriend's affection is portrayed and how mahiru's affection is portrayed.
people cite the fact that he was feeding mahiru cake at the beginning (which later turn into rats when mahiru feeds him) as proof that he was also toxic. but i don't think the cake was Always rats and thus does not inherently represent toxicity - i believe it represents attention and/or affection. the way that the two scenes are portrayed are COMPLETELY different, in my opinion.
here, mahiru's boyfriend takes a small portion of the cake and holds it out for her to accept. he's waiting for mahiru to take the cake, and is not forcing it upon her. he tilts the fork towards her, and she happily moves towards him to eat it. he's fairly reserved compared to mahiru, but the portrayal clearly shows like.. a fairly balanced and loving relationship? he's waiting for her to reciprocate, and doesn't force anything upon her.
now, look at mahiru's portion of cake! it's big, it's got lots of frosting, it's got a nice strawberry on top - you can barely even see the fork! would this not fit mahiru's overwhelming style of love? if the cake is meant to be affection, then you could argue that her boyfriend was reserved in his affection, while mahiru (in true mahiru fashion) was overwhelming and indulgent. she's also making the move to feed her boyfriend the cake in the last shot when he is... very obviously Not reciprocating, unlike in the first shot where she is moving in to meet his fork.
i think the infamous rats are just a portrayal of how mahiru's love has become actively toxic. the fact that he looks sunken and is actively backing away from her does NOT change even when the scene flickers to the idealized version where mahiru is just feeding him cake. there is no reciprocation here, nor any illusion of reciprocation. he wants out, and mahiru is not letting him take that out. he cannot leave in this situation.
secondly, from a storytelling standpoint: what does mahiru being in a mutually toxic relationship add to her character? what purpose does it serve other than to make her seem less at fault for her crime? what does it add to the narrative?
mahiru's character is built up in a way to contrast her actions and her behavior. just look at the way she's portrayed in both trials! she's the ditzy lovable big sister in the first trial whose even described as someone "pure", and in the second trial they pull out ALL the stops to make you pity her as much as possible. they make her frail, on the verge of death, still clinging to her reason to living even as it's been crushed helplessly. they are doing EVERYTHING to make you see her as innocently and as pitifully as possible.
so, what's the point of that framing if mahiru didn't actually do anything wrong? if mahiru was a victim in her relationship as well, and if her boyfriend was treating her badly the whole time, then like... what, is she just meant to be a punching bag, or something?
mahiru is sweet and naive, and she is ALSO a person who did horrible things. she is kind, she is loving, but she drove someone else to suicide. those two aspects of her are not mutually exclusive, and the contrast is in fact what makes up the core of her character and conflict. if you shift the blame off of her, then what is mahiru's story meant to tell us? there's no intriguing dissonance between her behavior and her actions anymore! which conflict sounds more thought provoking to you: "can you forgive an otherwise kind and loving person for leading an innocent person to their death?" or "can you forgive this poor woman who was being abused without even realizing it for loving her abuser too much?"
thirdly, the theory just reeks of victim blaming . dear LORD i know her boyfriend was mid as hell but that doesn't mean he deserved what he went through somehow!! he is DEAD because of mahiru's actions !!!! "he was toxic too, so mahiru wasn't fully to blame!" mahiru is not the one who is dead here! mahiru is not the one who thought death was the only way out of the relationship! he didnt deserve this!!
in conclusion: i just think that, mainly from a storytelling standpoint, it simply doesn't make sense. it robs mahiru of all of her interesting and complex traits to make her seem more palatable and innocent. mahiru was flawed and toxic and did horrible things? nope, actually she was always a good person she was just mimicking her horrible boyfriend's behavior and he simply couldn't handle that! so glad that she is now the character equivalent of Plain Oatmeal and we can all rest easy knowing that she's never done anything wrong in her life ever ^_^
also don't even get me started on her views on kotoko. its soooo interesting how she views her but people just boil it down to "wow, she's a saint, she even forgives kotoko for attacking her!" when it's sooo much more fascinating than that but ive rambled on enough . That is not what this post is about . goodbye o7 never ask me for anything ever again
(disclaimer though, if you want more milgram analysis im Not the right person to follow for it . im an enstarrie who reblogs propaganda for my fave character 48 times a day. i dont even like mahiru at all shes my least favorite milgram character i just like analyzing her so dont follow me for more posts like this o7)
#melty rambles#milgramposting#milgram#milgram meta#mahiru shiina#sorry . I unwillingly rotate her in my brain because the fan perception of her makes me so so mad
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BSD: An Absurdist Analysis - Chapter 6
The Absurdity of Ranpo Edogawa
[Masterpost]
This chapter focuses on introducing Ranpo Edogawa to Atsushi and the reader, as our protagonist is forced to accompany this quirky yet mysterious agency member on a mission to solve a murder case.
Ranpo is presented as blunt and childish, and ridiculously so. He goes around telling everyone about how he’s the greatest detective and is better than them, yet Atsushi has to assist him on a case simply because he doesn’t know how the train system works.
The only thing I’ll say about the murder case itself is that it’s BSD’s earliest example of governmental and police corruption, a theme that will appear multiple times throughout the manga, especially in the Hunting Dogs arc later on. Corruption of this sort is in of itself an absurdity of life, and a very common one — and an organization like the Armed Detective Agency is a force that pushes back against this absurdity. In this chapter, Ranpo serves as the rebellious force doing so.
Detective Minoura is very dismissive of Ranpo and the agency, claiming multiple times that Ranpo basically an immature hack who couldn’t possibly solve the case. He’s clearly very frustrated by Ranpo’s presence and is very quick to assume the worst in him just because of his childish demeanor. This is played up for the sake of dramatic irony, but I also think it’s representative of Minoura’s (and the institution of police as a whole’s) tendency to overlook those who don’t hold power over them.
Dazai joins the gang once he’s pulled from the river, claiming to have been “enjoying the current” and seeking a woman to enact a double suicide with. I do believe this is a front, though, and he just needed an excuse to be a menace and to be involved with the case so he could point out to Atsushi later that Ranpo does not, in fact, have a special ability at all (although this is just a theory of mine).
The fact that Ranpo doesn’t have an ability but pretends he does is extremely important to his character. While I have not read the Untold Origins light novel, I did watch the adaptation in season 4 of the anime, and although I understand the anime adaptations of the light novels leave a lot out, it did emphasize Ranpo’s struggle to connect with others. He referred to himself as a “monster,” and was unable to relate to the people around him after his parents died. I bring this up because it's the reason he pretends he has an ability, it gives him an excuse for being different from others.
What absurdists often do in their storytelling is exaggerate something absurd about our reality in order to bring the reader’s attention to said thing, and the presence of abilities in BSD allows for that to happen. Those with abilities are often outcasts of society, and abilities are also the catalyst for conflict in the BSD world. Akutagawa in chapter 3 was a great example of this — because random violence does exist in our real world, but it was exaggerated and made even more horrific because of Rashoumon’s destructive power.
Ranpo’s non-ability ability is an absurd paradox, then.
Up until the end of the chapter, we’re made to believe that Ranpo is an ability user. While the idea that someone can simply solve a mystery in mere minutes because they have a magical superpower is already absurd, you know what’s even more absurd than that? The person in question just pretending to have a superpower and solving the case solely by use of their intuition.
Ranpo’s masquerade of having an ability is his way of combating an absurd reality because if he’s not an ability user, he’s a freak. But because he gets to pretend to be an ability user, he not only has an excuse for his crazy intellect, but everyone has to at least tolerate his odd personality. It makes him feel less othered.
Is it convoluted and a bit insane? Perhaps. But that’s kind of the point of embracing the absurd. The ways in which characters often revolt against the absurdity of life is by being somehow even more absurd, by doing something even crazier.
So why does Dazai make a point of allowing Atsushi to believe Ranpo is an ability-user for the whole case, only to reveal afterward that he is not? He could have told Atsushi from the get-go, or he could’ve not told him at all, so why do what he did?
Apart from the fact that it just makes for more suspenseful storytelling (remember, this is only the sixth chapter, Asagiri is trying to keep the audience engaged right now as he builds his character and world), I think that Dazai is teaching Atsushi to not take everything at face value. Ultimately, he’s training Atsushi to be a detective, and that means that he should be questioning everything, considering every possibility.
This idea lends itself to absurdism because if you don’t question the supposed truths of reality, you’re essentially giving in and allowing the absurdity to control you rather than pushing back against it. To Dazai, this is a way to train Atsushi to look at the world differently — he presents him with an apparent truth (Ranpo is an ability user) and then forces him to bring that into question, to expose the absurdity (that Ranpo is just ridiculously smart).
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#bsd#bungo stray dogs#bungou stray dogs#bsd manga#ranpo edogawa#atsushi nakajima#dazai osamu#bsd 6#bsd chapter 6#bsd absurdism analysis#soup rants
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The Ineffable Timeline of Season 2
Tuesday on Whickber street, The Tactical Turtleneck & The Clue.
DO NOT ASK NEIL ABOUT FAN THEORY
Monday - Tuesday - Wednesday - Thursday - Friday
Continuing right on along with my chronological break down of the present day events on Whickber Street with Tuesday! Just as a reminder, the length of Crowley's sideburns will be highlighted at the end of scenes he's present in simply as Long or Short. I'm not speculating on what they mean but rather just tracking their journey!
Let's jump right in to Tuesday!!
Tuesday aka Episode 2 aka A Companion to Owls
10:35 (Bookshop clock) - Episode 2 opens with a the Job flashback minisode and we begin present day events with Aziraphale seemingly coming to from remembering these events. Jim is clothed and shelving books, he startles Aziraphale and sings Everyday, giving our Angel his first Clue! We can assume it's the morning after the hiding miracle. The illustrated bible in this scene shows the artwork "Jacob's Vow"
Unknown Time - Crowley is asleep in the Bentley so we can assume it's still morning. Shax wakes him and says a miracle happened last night and they think Aziraphale is involved. THE TACTICAL TURTLENECK HAS BEEN DONNED. What is our lovely demon up to? Long.
Shax leaves, and Crowley takes off driving in the Bentley. The thing is... THE THING IS! If this truly did happen in the morning, he didn't see Aziraphale for another 5-6 hours, so where was he driving off to? What heist did he have planned?
10:35 (Maggie's watch) - Aziraphale asks Maggie about the song Everyday and gets a copy from her, as well as The Resurrectionist pub Clue.
10:45 (Bookshop clock) - The Archangels show up and ask Aziraphale about the 25 lazarii miracle. Jim gets to be a comedic fool. The illustrated bible is back to "Joseph Known to His Brethren", which it was for the entirety of Monday. Did Aziraphale flip the pages back? The timestamps would suggest he did not. He wasn't even near his desk when the previous scenes took place so I doubt he walked over just to flip the page then head straight to the record shop.
~ We then have no context for a good 5 hours of the day here for any of our characters ~
4:15 (Estimated time) - Crowley and Aziraphale go to the Pub and discuss love, diamond robberies, and Jane Austen. Long.
We know it's about 4:15 when they're at the pub because they immediately go to the bookshop after and the clock there shows 4:30. What were they doing the whole rest of the day? Where did Crowley speed off to after Shax woke him up?
They walk back to the bookshop. Short.
4:30 (Bookshop clock) - Crowley and Aziraphale ask Jim about Everyday and Crowley triggers his Job flashback/premonition. The illustrated bible is not closed and Aziraphale opens it to Job as we enter the minisode again. Long.
6:30 (Bookshop clock) - Aziraphale again comes out of the Job flashback, picks up the Everyday vinyl and Jim tells him Crowley left while he was lost in his thoughts.
6:35 (Estimated time) - Crowley asks Nina about sudden rain. Aziraphale shows up and tells Crowley about his Clue, and that he wants to take the Bentley to Edinburgh. Short.
-end episode, and tuesday-
SO!
A lot of This episode is taken up by the Job minisode, so we have a lot less in terms of the timeline of events for our characters but I think it's definitely worth noting that we're not seeing most of the day. Was Crowley up to something in that Tactical Turtleneck or just feeling a bit more cunty than usual?
We don't have evidence of any weird time skips, there is a small discontinuity with the illustrated bible, but the meaning behind "Jacob's Vow" shown at the beginning of the episode may be more of a storytelling device than a continuity device.
Continue the Timeline Metas:
Monday - Tuesday - Wednesday - Thursday - Friday
#good omens#aziraphale#crowley#crowley x aziraphale#good omens meta#michael sheen#david tennant#good omens clues#good omens clock#good omens theories#good omens 2
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Miscellaneous character design tips (that everyone could find useful)
- Feathers in hair, behind the ear, on the head, in some headress ect? Just don't. Unless you're indigenous I strongly, strongly advise against it, bc native people have criticized this design trope time and time again. Accessories and clothing like this can be very difficult to get right if you don't know what you're doing.
• Also! W*ndigos. Don't. If you wanna design a character that "looks like" (or is what you imagine when you think of a) W*ndigo, just. Design a character that looks like that and call it some other monster (Disclaimer: I'm mainly talking about things like those skull headed monsters with antlers ykno). These creatures have alot of deep meaning to the cultures they're from, and people are tired of them being appropriated and misrepresented. It will cost you nothing to just make a generic monster rather than butcher something from a marginalized culture. (Also, I've censored the word because in the past I've been told that using it's name is bad luck/harmful, so I'm doing this to be respectful)
(Natives/indigenous people are welcome to add on discussion about this if you feel like there's anything I could've said differently)
- Unless your character design is meant to be flexible, up to artist interpretation, or just messy, place patterns and decorative characteristics on distinct, memorable places. For example if your character has spots, put the most notable ones on places that're easy to remember and replicate, like on particular body parts. I'd also advise to make just a bit less of these patterns. Generally, if you're not aiming for a cluttered looking design, prioritize quality over quantity, when it comes to patterns.
- A character design's intent is just as important as the actual character design. You'll see me mentioning this on the previous point as well. Unless we're talking about offensive caricatures, there's teeechnically no such thing as a "bad" character design. Just rather a failed or unsuccessful one. What I mean by that, is that if your design is meant to look cliche, tacky, messy, or just plain unappealing, and it looks like such, that is a successful design! If you designed a character just to be something fun for you to draw, that's a successful design! I often see this point applied more professionally by other art advisors, to mean more like "You should be able to tell what kind of character it is based on the design", which is also true! But intent and purpose matters in storytelling. Obviously, not all aspects of a design need to be there for some very specific reason (looking at the people who ask "Why was this character made fat/gnc/black/poc?" and so on.) just keep in mind what this character is supposed to be. I think it's better to worry about if the character design does what it's supposed to, rather than if it's ""Good""
(And yeah, there are still things that just objectively don't look very good together, according to human perspective and color theory and whatnot, but again, if you're aiming for that, you go buddy!)
- Sorta coinciding with the previous point: Don't be afraid to use "ugly" traits when designing. I think the reason why is obvious (beauty standards can go suck a dick), but there's more to it than just radical acceptance! By giving more unique, weird, or "ugly" traits to your characters, you make them more memorable and distinct from one another. If there's a billion smooth faced perfect pretty characters who are the exact same kind of flavorless vanilla sexy, it gets boring, and they blend together! And please don't limit these traits to just villains or characters who are supposed to be disliked!! My other advice on this point, is, pllllease don't design villains "ugly" and heroes "pretty", I feel like that should be a given, but alot of people may be doing it without even realizing. And that's understandable, but I heartily recommend taking a second to think about it more deeply. Why is this visual trait "Bad", or "Evil"? I just feel like so many artists are deathly afraid of having their characters look the least bit unappealing or challenging. I could go on about this but I'll stop here to keep it concise. Don't beauty police your oc is all I'm sayin
- Reference! I don't necessarily mean take inspiration from other existing character designs, although that can also be helpful. I mean that look around you, think broadly! If you have a certain theme for your design, try to round up all the little things (items, concepts, colors, animals, traits) that could be associated with it! And try to reflect that in your character design. You can get a little wacky and experimental. You can literally just broaden your inspiration to things like everyday objects, a specific fabric texture, an element, or a fungi that lives in moldy houses. Anything! My main point is to try to think outside the box and consider more unconventional things to reference for your character design, you'll never know what might work and look really interesting. Often, a bland design is worse than a weird one. (Disclaimer: Unless you're aiming for bland ofc, per my prev points, but ykno). You can also just go by "Hmm, I'm making a character who is X, what does that remind me of?" or, what I also recommend "Hmm, so X kinds of characters remind me of these things. Let's ditch that and think what one usually wouldn't associate with X kinds of characters!". Ykno, defy convention, think about things you might not usually do. I know it can be easier said than done but once you get into a habit of trying to think more broadly, it'll come to you easier. Don't be afraid to get odd and unusual
- While I don't condemn designing a character in a way that just, is that way, because you designed it like that, I also recommend thinking about how and why the character is like that in-story. Might seem like an obvious tip, but I'll elaborate. I for example, have a pair of bug demon characters who grew up on the streets and didn't have the normal amount of nourishment for their age, so, due to that their mouth pincers and other buggy parts were left much smaller and more "plain" looking than others of their species. They never developed to their appropriate adult size. Things like this will reflect on a character design! And that's just one example. If your character has a habit of nervous picking, or sensory problems, or live in an area where certain resources for clothing aren't available, all of this will reflect on the design! Of course, you can also work backwards from a design and think "Hmm, what justification will I think of for the character having these traits (especially if they're uncommon for their story setting)?"
I may do a part 2 sometime later, I just had some thoughts I wanted to compile for now! Obviously you can have your own design principles but these are ones I consistently use (also the first one being as specific as it is, is just something I particularly wanted to say).
#Character design#for character design#Character design tips#character design ideas#Cultural appropriation#Ask to tag#design tips#Design ideas#Artists on Tumblr#monster design#Artblr#Important
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Going to give you my other unhinged theory that has zero basis in reality beyond my thinking it would be an interesting arc to put Eddie and Chris through
Things with Marisol seem to be going well for a little while except d Eddie himself isn't sure - things seem to fizzle out and they split. Only Marisol does't agree and we get a few episodes that show her obsession and her becoming increasingly unhinged and trying to win Eddie back - going so far that she becomes a stalker.
I think it would play perfectly into the whole never dating people you meet on calls thing. Plus they could play on the fact that Marisol just so happened to be in that hardware store at the same time as Eddie - perhaps it would turn out that she engineered that meeting.
Marisol was also introduced to us in 'Home Invasion' which we know the show likes to keep playing on episode titles fro the past so Eddies home feeling invaded by her would be an interesting play on it and makes sense to me.
And if I put my Buddie goggles on for a moment and explore the etymology of the name Marisol - It’s a specific reference to the solitude of the virgin Mary during the period before Jesus’ resurrection- if we take that into the fact they have been putting Buck into the role of Jesus (I wrote a whole meta about it - linked on my pinned post) - with his own resurrection etc then it becomes super interesting as a concept - that Buck hasn’t yet fully been resurrected (the whole he’s different than before etc etc) and plays into the idea that Eddie is in his solitude era - he’s seeking comfort in feeling alone at the moment and Marisol is a physical manifestation of that. Once Buck finds his way back to himself (essentially when he parts ways with Natalia as she is representative of death - i.e Jesus’s death before his resurrection) Eddie will be able to leave his solitude (namely leave Marisol) and they can then move forward and onto the next level together - Mary died in the same year as Jesus so they ascended to heaven more or less together.
Idk, that is probably not in any ay related to my Marisol is a stalker theory, but the way the writers are so deliberate in their name choices and then whole use of Christian iconography and storytelling around buck and by extension Eddie is fascinating to me - it’s super interesting and pretty cleverly done by the writers!
#its Kym is unhinged o'clock#posting theories wednesday 😂#I'm sure I could come up with some other reasons for my thinking that she's a stalker I just havent had the time to actually go looking!#911 spoilers#eddie diaz#anti Marisol#911 abc#911 theory#kym theorises#I'm going to bed now!!!!#before I go down the Bobby gets amnesia and becomes a mail man theory I have 😂😬😳
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