Who Is Scout's Ma?
She's a character we know extremely little about, however when you stop to consider the IMPLICATIONS of what little we DO know, things start to get interesting:
1. She lives in the roughest part of Boston ("if you were from where I was from, you'd be dead") but dresses quite elegantly.
2. She had 8 boys, all of whom she raised BY HERSELF, and yet somehow she finds the time to maintain this impeccable appearance.
3. Scout clearly loves and admires her to a point where it's one of the few things he'll drop his "tough guy" act for, and dialogue in the comics like "Ma's gonna kill me if she finds out" implies he also still fears her disapproval, despite being a fully autonomous adult.
4. Spy, despite what he likes to pretend, is clearly head-over-heels for her. He even had her likeness engraved on his fanciest gun! (Note the distinct hairband & hoop earrings) For a man who avoids attachment to the point where he never lets anyone see his face, that's an unusual degree of infatuation.
5. None of Scout's brothers left Boston while he was growing up, despite a few of them presumably being adults by then. Not only this, they were still all getting into fights together, implying they were both continuing to live with or near their mother and brothers, AND had reasons to brawl with others beyond just some adolescent street scuffle.
My Theory:
Scout's Ma is the matriarch of a Boston-based crime family.
It explains her elegant appearance, how she and Spy were able to meet, why their bond clearly goes beyond a one-off fling, why she was able to be in Scout's life so much despite the financial burdens of being a single mother of 8, and why all of said 8 were continuing to get into fights with other locals. They weren't just some street gang, they were enforcers. It also explains why/how Scout got into mercenary work, his many mafia-themed weapons, and why he continues to fear her ire even as an adult.
Plus, take a look at this unused angle of the last photo from Meet The Spy:
You'd THINK a single mother from the rough side of Boston wouldn't appear so in-her-element on a fancy date with The Spy, and yet her appearance and demeanour here just SCREAM "confident and in control."
Scout's Ma is Boston's Godmother, and I desperately wish to see someone draw her as such.
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What does the pre-Fall scene actually mean?
I’ve been thinking about that first scene, with pre-Fall Crowley. We are all swooning over how sweet and innocent Angel!Crowley is, and how smitten Aziraphale is, but on reflection there is something odd about this scene.
The action takes place before the rebellion, before the Fall, when bad things hadn’t even been invented yet. So why is Aziraphale already worried about Angel!Crowley getting into trouble for asking questions? Shouldn’t he also be a cute innocent bundle of fluff without a care in the world?
There is a meta that examines this (sorry, I can’t find it, I’m useless at this), which comes to the conclusion that Aziraphale later on is suffering from guilt (that he might have unwittingly prompted Crowley to seek answers and hence fall), but this still doesn’t explain why Aziraphale knows that asking questions might be a Bad Idea, and Angel!Crowley doesn’t. After all, Angel!Crowley has apparently been working “very closely with Upstairs”. Shouldn’t he be a bit more clued up?
This leads me to think that there are 2 possible explanations for this.
1. Angel!Crowley has been so far out of things playing with stars that he really is clueless about everything (possible but doesn’t really match up to the Crowley that we know today).
2. This is not a true record of events.
Either: it is one of Aziraphale’s memories, but coloured by what he knows today, so the conversation that actually occurred might have been quite different. Maybe it is because of Aziraphale’s less than perfect recall, or maybe the memory was tweaked (e.g. by the Metatron) to emphasize the innocence of Angel!Crowley and the injustice of his later fall.
Or: IT NEVER EVEN HAPPENED AT ALL. Their true first meeting was as S1, on the walls of Eden, and it is all a false memory planted by the Metatron. (This could also explain why we don’t get to hear Angel!Crowley’s name. It’s not actually known, so can’t be added to the ‘memory’). Why would he do this? It could be to make Aziraphale think that Angel!Crowley was so full of joy that he should be reinstated to recapture that innocence.
There are plenty of theories about the other flashback episodes in the series, all of which could be interpreted as showing off Crowley’s 'good' side, to make the thought of his reinstatement as an angel more plausible or even necessary to right an ancient wrong.
If any or all of this is the Metatron’s doing, what is the motive? He clearly loathes Crowley. Maybe reinstatement as an angel would automatically wipe out his memories of being Crowley and all of his Earthly experience, so you would end up with a cute innocent (and ultimately useless) angel with no memories of his friendship with Aziraphale. Or perhaps it was a way to get him to come up to Heaven where he could be ambushed and imprisoned.
Or maybe the Metatron always knew that the very concept would go down like a lead balloon and that its aim was to make Aziraphale and Crowley part in such a way that they would be less likely to try to contact each other later.
There are so many pieces to this puzzle. Just when I think that a couple might go together I find others that don’t fit with the patterns already made, and which sometimes seem to belong to a different puzzle altogether. I’m sure that I already have 5 corner pieces.
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My thoughts about which deadly sin each Usher represents.
I would like to say that they all could easily represent more than one sin, but only one sin was deadly to them and that's what I'm using as a parameter.
Roderick and Madeline - Greed
The twins are Greed. For me it's pretty obvious they're Greed because even Roderick said so. No amount of money would ever be enough. Their greed for more was the beginning of their downfall when, decades ago, they decided to accept that deal.
Prospero - Lust
Another one that I find pretty obvious. His life was all about a luxurious and hedonistic lifestyle, but ultimately what caused his death was his decision to keep the orgy going.
Camille - Envy
I think Camille was envy because that's exactly what led her to her death.
Camille's resentment towards Victorine comes from having to deal with all the dirt from the family, but her sister who is just like her, as Verna said, gets to be their "Madre Theresa" just because she hid better. This is what led Camille to be so hateful of Victorine, her envy for her.
If Camille wasn't so envious of Victorine she wouldn't be so determined to bring her down, if she wasn't so envious she wouldn't be so personally focused on finding the dirty Victorine was hiding despise Verna giving her the chance to step back and not get inside.
Ultimately envy led Camille to her death.
Leo - Gluttony
Leo can easily be Gluttony because his over-consumption and over-indulgence of drugs and drinks it's exactly what led him to his death. Pluto was never dead, he was hallucinating because of all the drugs he took the night before. (I do believe the hallucination was especially so vivid because of Verna though. She disseminated the idea that led each Usher to their death but also gave them the chance to step back. She offers temptation and the chance to regret their choice)
Jules even let it clear, to us, the audience, the alarming amount of drugs he consumed. His drug-induced hallucination ultimately led him to his death. Had Leo not consumed too many drugs, he wouldn't hallucinated that morning and wouldn't have gone after a new cat that caused him to spiral into a deepening psychosis aggravated by the excessive amount of drugs he consumed on a daily basis.
Victorine - Wrath
Victorine for me represents wrath because that was her downfall.
She was rude to Verna when they bumped into each other for the first time, she was rude to her security guard after the conversation with her older siblings... That shows us how easily angry she was all the time.
She was angry that she needed to put more effort into her job because it was harder for her, a Usher bastard. She was angry that her older siblings got to grow up with her father figure around and with the "legendary Annabel Lee", the only woman Roderick loved enough to marry while her mother was just a nurse. She was angry that their father had thrown the food at them just to see them fighting for it. She was so angry at everything and eventually, that was going to blow up.
But anger it's not wrath. Wrath, by the Bible, it's when you get consumed by rage to the point of acting irrationally and immorally.
And in a fit of rage, blinded by the wrath that bubbled inside her all her life as an Usher, she killed her partner, went mad with regret, and when she realized what she had done she killed herself consumed with remorse.
Wrath was the sin that led Victorine to her death.
Tamerlane - Pride
First of all the sheer amount of mirrors in her house, it's a huge clue that she's Pride, but there are others.
She considers herself above Juno and even calls her "it", refusing to acknowledge that she's a human too. And why? Because she's a "junkie"?
Tamerlane considers herself better than her siblings too. She only stopped texting at their funerals because her husband stopped her. Their funeral meant nothing to her because it wasn't about her or her launch.
She thinks of herself above her husband too. Could be anyone there, any face, the brand would be a success. And why? Because she, alone, is behind it.
Just before her death, she could have given up her pride and called her husband. But she didn't. And she died completely alone because of it while destroying the last mirror and the last way she could see herself, her ugly self.
Pride was Tamerlane's death through and through.
Fred - Sloth
Fred is Sloth because he didn't demolish the building as his father ordered, he procrastinated. What led his wife to the orgy was his lack of attitude in their relationship, his lack of proactively in their life.
Fred tried to be like his father but he couldn't keep up with his rhythm, he was a cover band off-key, always a little slower.
If you look closely, all things are always delicated interconnected.
Fred's sin caused Prospero's death and his own. A full circle.
Had Fred stopped procrastinating and started doing his job, the building would not be there. Had Fred stopped being accommodated in his relationship, Morrie wouldn't be tempted to go to Perry's orgy.
Poetically the consequences of the sin that ultimately led Fred to his death were the slowest. Sloth is lazy after all. He was the first to sin, but the last to die. And he died laying down, without moving, representing perfectly his deadly sin and exactly how he lived his life.
Obs: Fred and Prospero are so interconnected, they are like a double ouroboros. The end and the beginning of the Usher's heirs massacre.
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God people don't remember what those early 2010s cartoons were like when watching them. Shows like gravity falls and adventure time didn't just waltz in as post apocalyptic fantasy series, they started out as just normal cartoons with hints of darker things that evolved into having complex plots.
Like, the later plot points and tone of these series were literally edgy fan theories and then they came true. The great mushroom was was a weird out there fan theory. The dimond authority was a weird out there fan theory. Stan having a brother and that brother writing the journals was a weird out there fan theory.
Like you have to understand how extremely weird as well as extremely cool this was. The fact that these were normal cartoons that evolved into having dark multi episode dramatic storylines is something that's so amazing, but gets kind of lost on people who go into it knowing what happened.
This is like if Ed Edd and Eddy was revealed to really take place in purgatory and they went on a well written dramatic arc dealing with demons.
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