#this is so inconsequential and I say this as someone who likes meta
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Hello I’m here to talk about an opinion that isn’t so much unpopular because people don’t like it, but because it is splitting hairs and basically an argument based in semantics that sane people reasonably do not waste their time caring about it.
I am neither sane nor reasonable and therefore think about this a lot, and get ready to pull out a soapbox and type the Text Wall of China any time I hear people offhandedly contradict this opinion, and so I have come here today to die on this molehill, and write the over-long post of my dreams, because fuck it, it’s my blog.
Drumroll please:
Sauron is not The Lord of the Rings
The Lord of the Rings is the main antagonist though, so furthermore,
Sauron is not the main antagonist of The Lord of the Rings
I internally go insane every time someone says “Sauron, the eponymous Lord of the Rings” or “The antagonist never actually appears in Lord of the Rings” or uses Lord of the Rings as an penultimate example of having a flat ‘evil for evil’s sake’ villain. This is mostly in YouTube videos so I’m not calling out anyone here.
So who is the Lord of the Rings? Where do I get this shit? Why should anyone care?
I will tell you in far too much detail under this cut, because I told you I was gonna be extra about it and this is already long enough to inflict on my followers without their consent.
First and foremost, Frodo is not the Lord of the Rings either. Let’s get that out of the way. Gandalf explicitly tells us that in Many Meetings (the first chapter in Rivendell in Fellowship), when Pippin greets a newly awakened Frodo with quintessential Fool of a Took™️ swagger.
‘Hurray!’ cried Pippin, springing up. ‘Here is our noble cousin! Make way for Frodo, Lord of the Ring!’
‘Hush!’ Said Gandalf from the shadows at the back of the porch. ‘Evil things do not come into this valley; but all the same we should not name them. The Lord of the Ring is not Frodo, but the master of the Dark Tower of Mordor, whose power is again stretching out over the world! We are sitting in a fortress. Outside it is getting dark.’
So that’s my theory busted right off the bat! Gandalf straight up tells us the Lord of the Ring is Sauron (‘the master of the Dark Tower of Mordor’ which is Sauron).
But I already told you, this is a hair-splitting semantics-based theory! He said Sauron was the Lord of the Ring. Not the Lord of the RingS. Yes, this whole theory revolves around a single letter difference between the title of the series and Gandalf’s statement, WHAT OF IT?
But in all seriousness. Tolkien was a linguist. There was no way this choice was not deliberate, not on something so important to the narrative. And there is a very important difference between what he is referring to when he uses ‘The Ring” singular, and “The Rings” plural. The Ring that Frodo carried to Mordor has it’s singular nature highly emphasized by the language that surrounds it. THE definite article Ring, the ONE Ring. Just the One. Singular Singular Singular.
The Rings (plural) refers to the rings of power which Celebrimbor wrought, with Sauron’s help, but Sauron is objectively not the Lord of those rings. Not the three Elven ones at least, which he never touched and only suspects the location of. Without his One Ring he has no power over the Three, and a big problem with him regaining his Ring is that he would gain power over those rings, the ringbearers, and the safe realms that had been wrought with them, basically crippling those with the power to resist him.
Him NOT having the Ring, and therefore NOT having lordship over all the rings, is a pretty major plot point. Like, it’s not a reach to say Sauron not having the Ring is what drives the entire story. And he is NOT the Lord of the Rings without it.
And he never gains it, so is the whole series named after Sauron’s aspirations, that the main characters are trying to prevent? I mean, from an angle yes. But also no.
Because while Pippin and Gandalf’s exchange is the closest we come in the text to seeing the title, let me show you the only place within the covers that “The Lord of the Rings” is presented, at least in my beat up third hand 70’s edition. It may not be formatted like this in other editions, but I still think it says something about how we are supposed to read the title:
[Image ID: Masking tape can clearly be seen holding together my poor abused copy of Fellowship, open to the title page. THE LORD OF THE RINGS is written across the top of the page in all caps, directly below it is the Ring Poem, as if The Lord of the Rings is a the title not only of the series but of the poem. /.End ID]
The One Ring is the Lord of the Rings, not Sauron, who is the Lord of the Ring.
“What?” Say imaginary naysayers in my head, “How can a Ring be a Lord? And why does this matter, if Sauron is the Lord of the Ring, doesn’t that make him the Lord of the Rings by proxy? Why are you wasting your and my time making an argument about this?”
I’m glad you asked imaginary naysayer, let me speak to your first point. How can a ring be a Lord? Well, like any good first time speechwriter, I’ve turned to Miriam Webster, and asked it to define a word we already know, in this case ‘lord.’
[Image ID: Screenshot of the Miriam Webster definition of ‘lord.’ The ones that are relevant are 1: One having power and authority over others. 1a: A ruler by hereditary right or preeminence to whom service and obedience are due. And 1f: One that has achieved mastery or that exercises leadership or great power in some area /.End ID]
In the poem, it is the Ring that is spoken of as ruling, not Sauron. Sauron is actually listed in the same position as all the others who receive rings, “The Dark Lord on his Dark Throne” occupying the same place in the sentence structure as the “the Elven-kings under the sky” and “the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone” and “Mortal Men doomed to die.” It is the One Ring, not Sauron, who rules them all, fulfilling our first definition “A ruler by hereditary right or preeminence.” In this case it would be by right of preeminence, or superiority. The One Ring outclasses the other rings and thus dominates them, binding them to obedience and service. Gandalf calls it “the Master-Ring” when it is first revealed for what it is in Bag-End with the words appearing from the flame.
The Ring has it’s own will too. It’s repeatedly stated to be in control of Gollum when Gandalf is first telling us about it. I’m literally so spoiled for quotes about this that I was paralyzed with indecisiveness over what to use but let’s keep it simple with this one. It’s from Gandalf explaining why Gollum didn’t have the Ring allowing Bilbo to come upon it in the chapter “Shadows of the Past” from Fellowship:
‘It was not Gollum, Frodo, but the Ring itself that decided things. The Ring left him.’
So if Sauron is the Lord of the Ring, and the Ring is the Lord of the Rings, isn’t he Lord of the Rings by proxy? Yes, when he has the Ring. But also being the ruler of a lord doesn’t make the title of that lord your title, if that makes sense. People don’t call Aragorn the Prince of Ithilien, that’s Faramir’s title, Aragorn is King of the Reunited Kingdoms, he rules Ithilien, sure, but by proxy. Ithilien reports to Faramir who reports to Aragorn (I should be calling him Elessar since I’m talking about him as king, but whatever). If Aragorn lost the ability to contact Faramir or Ithilian, he would still theoretically be king there but he would have no practical control, just like Sauron with the Rings of Power.
Why does this matter? It mostly doesn’t. It does not change anything practically in the story at all.
But it matters to me, because it might help change perspective on the antagonist of LotR. It’s the Ring. Sauron is a force in the world, one the Ring is closely allied with, and from whom many of the obstacles come, but the entity that our protagonist is really fighting on every page is the Ring.
If Gandalf were the main character, or Aragorn, or almost anyone else on Middle Earth, Sauron would be the Primary Antagonist. But they are not. Frodo is the Primary Protagonist, and his struggle is NOT against Sauron, it is against the Ring.
If destroying the Ring had not destroyed Sauron, would Frodo have kept fighting in this war? NO! He had his task, and once it was done he was done, even if the world ended afterwards. Everything is driven by the Ring. The threat to the Shire comes from the presence of the Ring, so Frodo takes the Ring to Rivendell. The danger of the Ring is not neutralized by it being brought to Rivendell, so he continues his journey to destroy it once and for all. He doesn’t fight Sauron, he fights the Ring. He fights with himself to keep going in spite of the despair it levels on him, the poisonous words it whispers in his ear, the physical toll it takes on his body. He fights Boromir and Sam (not to the extent he does in the movie, but still a bit) and Gollum over the Ring. He negotiates with Faramir over the Ring.
And the Ring is SUCH a more interesting and nuanced villain to struggle with than Sauron. Sauron is representative of a force in the world. He controls events but never appears, because he acts as the source of all evil, it’s representation on earth (at least now Melkor is in the Void), but it is far more interesting to watch the effect he has on others than deal directly with a character that is so obviously in the wrong in every way. Making Sauron a physical character in LotR is like making the Devil a present character in basically any piece of media that deals with evil.
Evil at its purest isn’t that interesting, because it contains no conflict. Leaving Sauron as an offscreen player leaves us to see characters that are not pure evil struggle with that conflict.
The fascinating thing about the Ring is that it has no power outside of what you give it. But given enough time even the best people, like Frodo, will end up losing themselves to it, as it whispers in your ear with your own voice.
I want to go ballistic when people point to LotR and say it has a one dimensional villain. EVERYONE’S OWN VIOLENCE, DESPAIR AND THIRST FOR POWER IS THE VILLAIN OF LORD OF THE RINGS! Brought to the fore by a small unassuming golden trinket which just happens to also be the titular Lord of the Rings.
Honestly “The Ring is the Villain of LotR change my mind” should be its own big long post with lots of quotes and shit, the fact that the Ring is The Lord of the Rings just being a small point in it.
But unless you are a specific type of interested in story structure and stuff none of this is at all meaningful and it really, really doesn’t matter, so I’m gonna go.
Thanks for coming with me on this dumb journey.
#tolkien#jirt#lotr#lord of the rings#the one ring#Sauron#jrr tolkien#Frodo#story structure#long post… even for me!#hot take#Gandalf#look#I’m sorry ok#this is so inconsequential and I say this as someone who likes meta
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Okay, so, I don't know if I'm typing this out to make myself feel better because I can't believe THIS is the thing I'm gonna be right about in this fucking show BUT back in May last year, I added some tags on a post about how Buck is in Eddie's season 5 arc, so he would break up with Natalia pretty early on and Eddie and Marisol would go off to build stuff together (It's the only post I can find that proves I had the thought before all this because I don't know if I put that in a meta or not, I think I did on a post talking about how Buck and Eddie mirror each other narratively, but I cannot find it) but the thing is, season 6 for Buck mirrors season 4 for Eddie, which would put them in season 5 but from Buck's side. It was the main reason I kept saying I believed Natalia would have the same treatment as Ana, and go away early on in the season to open space for Eddie's journey of self-discovery, which is what happened, Natalia went away to open space for Buck's self-discovery journey. I was betting on a Buck breakdown, but bi Buck works. Why did I had that thought the second Eddie called Marisol in the s6 finale? Well, Buck and Eddie are literally running parallel to each other but slightly misaligned. You have tiny things like the way the first loss on the job for both of them is someone falling to their death, but Devon didn't want to live and the gross dude did. Or the shaky relationship with their parents that runs opposite because Eddie had too much responsibility placed on him while Buck was literally treated like he was invisible. Or more aggressive things like the way the well mirrors the lightning (set on that if you need help visualizing), with the way both of them volunteer into the rescue, the well is in the middle of nowhere, Buck gets struck in the middle of the street, Buck is in the sky, Eddie is underground, the rain aspect, the 118 as audience, they are even on mirrored sides of the frame, and I think even the way Buck needs to choose to get out of the coma mirrors the way Eddie saves himself. There's also the breathing things since Eddie almost drowns and Buck's lungs stop working. The well mirroring the lighting put Buck in season 4 for 6b, the "'I'm fine' *narrator voice* he wasn't fine" era, which would put Buck in season 5 now, the "I'm dealing with what makes me who I am" era, which he is, go Buck.
Well, this works with love interests on a ridiculous level. We have the ABSOLUTE MADNESS of the way Shannon comes back, next episode Ali shows up, Shannon dies, next episode Ali is gone, Eddie meets Ana, Buck keeps complaining about the struggles of being single (while Maddie totally sets him up with Josh, because now that Buck is canonically bi, the fact that they are in blue and green is too on the nose for me to ignore), nothing comes of Eddie and Ana, they both stay single, Eddie asks Ana out, next episode Buck is dating and Taylor comes Back, Buck starts dating Natalia, Eddie starts dating Marisol. The only ones who are not aligned are the breakups with Ana and Taylor, because Buck chooses to hang on for too long. We also the way they have the first love who left them and never really gave them the closure they needed, we have the inconsequential girlfriend they only got because people kept telling them they had to move on. Shannon works for Eddie the same way Abby works for Buck. Ana works for Eddie the same way Ali and I guess Natalia do for Buck. That means Eddie needs a Taylor. Someone he meets on a call who comes back later on. Check. Someone he's supposed to work with in theory but never had a real fighting chance. (I say that because if Taylor were as intense about Buck as she is about the job, they could've been a very interesting installment of golden retriever boyfriend/black cat girlfriend, but they never try). Something about their personal journeys is that Buck tends to take longer to learn, while Eddie tends to need a stronger hit. Buck's takes more time and Eddie's tends to be more intense in a sense. Like the way Shannon dies and Abby just leaves, but they actually kinda paint Buck as hung up on Abby all through seasons 2 and 3. Or the way Taylor goes away for a whole season, just to come back and stay for 3 half seasons. So the Marisol of it all. Taylor had more dept in the helicopter than Marisol has right now, but sure, let's say the point here is to make Eddie do something stupid in the name of not being alone. Because that's what Taylor is. The whole time, Taylor is about Buck being scared of being alone, even hooking up with her the first time is about how he didn't have Abby to hang on to anymore. Taylor and Buck are also fundamentally incompatible.
Again, I know nothing about Marisol. They gave her no dept beyond being a glorified babysitter. Nothing in her relationship with Eddie so far has been about Eddie and her. Even their dates seem to be something that will be about watching other people. I don't wanna say buddie canon, because Lucy is her own category (I miss her) but, Eddie looking at Buck and Tommy and making the very harsh decision of asking her to move in "I'm gonna die alone" moment, I don't wanna say makes sense, but could work, even more considering that the Buck/Tommy/Eddie/Marisol date seems to be mirroring the colors of the Buckley-Diaz family + Taylor dinner in outside looking in, and the next episode is a madney episode. It's the same progression of events. I doubt Eddie is gonna cheat and panic ask Marisol to move in, but they are not so on the nose with the actual storyline parallels. I don't have the brainpower to come up with any theories about what he might do, but considering how rocky his relationship with Buck could be, considering the last episode, I can absolutely see Buck triggering that (that would make me accept I am right and Eddie is aware of his feelings and I won't give that up even if the show explicitly says he wasn't) because Eddie's abandonment issues make him overcorrect. And that's never a good thing. Do I think Marisol is going past the season finale? No. Eddie's understanding arcs are usually shorter than Buck's. How would she leave? No clue. The fact that Taylor hurt Buck's family, in a literal sense with Chim, and the focus on her relationship with Chris as someone taking care of him, also the ominous shots of Chris and the whole theory that Chris would get hurt last season makes me scared tho. It could be something that's not her fault that she doesn't reach Eddie instantly, like, Chris cuts himself or something and she doesn't call, that can even work to push Buck and Eddie closer, and put buddie explicitly in a parental role together. My brain keeps saying appendicitis for some reason, but no idea why, maybe I just don't want to believe the show would make someone purposefully endanger Chris. Eddie kind of snapping in a hospital makes sense? Let's say Chris gets sick while at school and someone calls the house trying to reach Eddie because he's not answering and he chews her off. But that's just like, the only thing I can come up with with the correct energy.
So, yeah, Marisol is Taylor. I'm too tired to keep typing, but I can't believe the one theory I don't fully type out is the one the universe is gonna give me oaksoaksoaksoaksokasa
If you read this I love you. I don't know how this made you feel, but I hope it makes sense.
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okay actually i rewatched potd the other day and. i have so many gripes with that episode. so many. but what really got me is how like. inconsequential 13's death feels, and not inconsequential in the right way.
honestly 13's regeneration feels a LOT like 10's, but missing all of the beats that made 10's work. let me explain:
(under a cut because HOLY SHIT this got long. don't let classicists write dr who meta)
both 10's and 13's regenerations are prophesied to them. ten gets the woman in planet of the dead, carmen, who says "he will knock four times." thirteen gets the Literal Incarnation Of Time telling her, "beware of the forces that mass against you. and their master."
both their regenerations happen after a short-ish period of time, at least for a time lord. 10 regenerates after only a handful of years, a decade at most, and 13 spends the majority of her life in prison for decades. that's nothing!! 11 and 12 both had centuries.
ten cheating regeneration with tentoo and then regenerating a few episodes later anyway 🤝 thirteen cheating regeneration after being forced into being the master and then back again and then dying almost immediately after anyway
they both almost make it out!! but they don't, and it's heartbreaking!
what's different between them, to me, is their reactions to their deaths. a lot of people who don't like rtd era/ten complain about the scene where he has a breakdown before saving wilf, complaining that he's being whiny or whatever, but in my mind, he has every right to be whiny and upset. regeneration is a death, as established earlier in the episode. it's hard, starting over again and again and again, becoming someone new, especially when he's only had this body for a couple of years AND he believes his next body is his last.
yknow why he's upset in that scene? because he could just walk away. he could just let wilf take the fall, let one, inconsequential old man die, and go off and have adventures forever. but it's not a choice for him. because he's the doctor, and the doctor would never, ever take the other choice. he was always going to save wilf. there's no world in which he didn't.
but he's scared of dying. he's scared of change. he's lost everyone he's ever loved in this body, often in horrible, unchangeable ways. and it's a sad story. but it's an incredibly narratively satisfying one, because it's a culmination of ten's entire arc. he lost his way, broke all his own rules, and was punished heavily for it, but in the end, he still does the right thing, because at their core, the doctor is a good person.
there's a running theme in just about pretty much all of doctor who from 1963 onwards that every single person is important and every life matters. 9 dies to save rose, but is also prepared to die permanently to save the human race. 10 dies to save wilf. 11, after centuries of running away from responsibilities and problems, settles down to protect one town on one planet, accepting he will die for good there. 12 dies to save a handful of people on a ship--"maybe not many, maybe not for long"--accepting all of this might be for nothing, but he does it because it's the right thing to do. because it's kind. the doctor does these things, lays down their lives one right after another because they are fundamentally a kind person.
13 lets people sacrifice themselves for her. multiple times. like. four different people she BARELY knows sacrifice themselves for her (i.e. the derry girls grandpa in "the timeless children" and the one pirate guy in "legend of the sea devils"). and she LETS them. i'm not saying this as a gripe against her, but rather, the writing that doesn't consider those lives important.
people sacrifice themselves for other doctors, of course, it happens all the time. to keep using ten as an example, river is one, and that prickish kid from the sontaran episodes, but he doesn't LET them. they don't give him that choice. and when he IS given that choice, to let someone "inconsequential" die in his place, he doesn't take it.
and then the way 13 does die just feels so... nothing. the master's angry at her, so he aims a large and slow moving Beam at her, and she basically stands there while it hits her. and that's it. honestly i would have been much happier with it if they said it was a product of the forced regeneration from earlier. that would have made a lot more sense. but the whole thing with the qorunx (is that what it's called??) just feels so... last minute. like they forgot that she needed to die at the end of the episode so they just shoved something in. it feels like an afterthought.
yaz's exit feels the same way. you're telling me she fought for four years in the past to get back to the doctor, and now she's just leaving because the doctor is regenerating? it feels like yaz and the doctor both had endings because the narrative said they needed endings, not because their character arcs had come to a satisfying close.
they deserved better. yaz deserved an exit that was fair to her as a character. the doctor deserved a death that mattered. and she deserved to be more upset about her death.
she gets a little bit, just a taste, of an emotional moment: "No. No. That's not right. I need more time. I want more time!", before immediately accepting her death and coming to terms with it. "And I have loved being me," she says. but me, as a viewer who cares about characterization and storytelling, asks, "have you?"
because 13 spent more time of this life IN PRISON than out of it. her life outside was never easy, either, she rarely got moments of true happiness. hell, in this regeneration, she found out her entire life was a lie!
...but she loved being her?
i think 13 should have gotten to be angry and upset that she wasn't given those moments of peace or happiness. she didn't get a lot of time being her, and the time she did get was fraught and difficult and painful. she should have gotten to be upset about not having more time for more than 0.2 seconds. she should have been allowed to be afraid of dying. or at least upset about dying.
i don't know. i don't know if this post is at all coherent but i'm just really disappointed in potd and my rewatch really cemented that. it didn't have the emotional resonance that i wish it did. it felt rushed, overstuffed, and, much like the rest of chibnall era, not well thought out.
#obligatory disclaimer that me criticizing chibnall is not me saying i think rtd or moffat are perfect#because they are most certainly not#but their writing resonates with me emotionally much more and i like examining why#doctor who#doctor who meta#power of the doctor#doctor who crit#meta
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The opposition to rewrites in the FNDM is just so goddamn weird to me, given that one of the cornerstones of another fandom I'm in is a rewrite of a canon storyline that had some really cool ideas but dogshit execution. I see people saying that the rewriters are arrogant for thinking that they can do RWBY better than the official team, but no, in my experience even if they are arrogant it's equally possible that they're right. Official doesn't mean "The Best" or even "Good", just official.
Exactly. Ultimately it shouldn't even matter whether rewrites are "good" or not because
a) That's a highly subjective interpretation no one will ever agree on
b) They're written by amateurs for free as a hobby - with "amateur" meaning someone who does not produce RWBY writing in a professional capacity, not someone who is automatically "bad" at the art - and thus rewrites would be at huge disadvantage even if we did want to judge their quality
and c) That's just what fanfiction is?? Transformation??? The writer's motivation is inconsequential. Whether they're producing this because they think they can craft a better story than canon, or whether they simply want a creative means of celebrating it, the end result is still the same: a new, unofficial RWBY product that readers will inevitably compare to the original, favorably or otherwise
So yeah, it's wild to me. I've literally never seen another fandom so anti-rewrite. It's usually the opposite - as you say, a cornerstone of fan engagement - where fans, both jokingly and not, talk about how sometimes fic is a love letter and sometimes it's a "FUCK YOU STRONGLY WORDED TELEGRAM TO FOLLOW." Despite RWBY appearing unique at first glance (from my perspective, anyway) I wonder if part of this is due to larger fandom trends? Meaning, RWBY is comparatively young as fandoms go and I've noticed in recent years a prioritization of canon that hasn't been around before, particularly when it comes to shipping. Some of that is good imo (like the push for queer canonization) and some of it is just downright odd (what do you mean I'm not "allowed" to ship them just because they haven't spoken to each on screen? Since when is THAT a requirement?). Though RWBY is definitely an extreme case, there seems to be this generalized move from, "This is our canon and it's great, or maybe it sucks, but either way it's a spring board for all of THESE cool things" to "This is our canon and it is scared. It is perfect, flaws and all. If you're going to add to it I need a detailed proposal for how this fits into the established world, encapsulates the original author's vision, and maintains characterization even though I'm too young to know what OOC stands for." Certainly in RWBY's case, I wonder if part of it stems from the rise in social media and, as a result, fans "personal" relationships with the actors and writers. When you're seeing a creator's tweets all day and feeling like they're your online friend, you might be less inclined to "mess with" their work; as opposed to seeing an actor/writer at a con once a year, going home, recognizing that they're a complete stranger outside of any fantasies, and then getting on with playing in their sandbox because why wouldn't you? They're never going to know. This is the age of fans sending their fic to actors to read aloud and tweeting at writers that such-and-such had this to say about the show. Though this was done in a cool and positive light, I have legit had a meta of mine tweeted at a OFMD actor and, if the like he gave is any indication, he read it... which is a weird thing to think about considering he was not the audience I had in mind while crafting it. Those kinds of interactions has got to have some kind of impact on fans' perception of what they can and cannot do with the material...
Anyway, today's PSA is that if you want to do a rewrite of any story - yes, even RWBY! - you are absolutely allowed to do that regardless of how "good" it supposedly is. Go forth and get creative. Get messy. Do whatever the hell you want and if someone in the fandom tries to make you feel bad about that, tell me and I'll manifest a Lego in their shoe.
After all, it's not like the entirety of RWBY is built on transforming others' stories or anything :)
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This is such an extremely dumb detail to analyze but when I’m out of things to analyze this is what I do. I was always under the impression that Fred is like 15 (pre time skip). Like no more than 16, but then the characters birthdays came out and even though Fred doesn’t have one listed (still sketch to me) it has 18/19(?) as his supposed age which is kind of weird to me because it feels like he’s younger? Like people who talk about “this kid” being in that type of work and yeah he is young but if he is technically a legal adult why would people be surprised by the line of work he is in? Also it was probably just a comedic moment but I remember the whole bond situation and Moran being weirded out about bond changing with them and he comments “she has a bust .. Fred’s too young to see that.” Again, why would Moran think an 18/19 yr old is too young to see nudity? I know all this pretty much amounts to “it’s not that deep bro” but these are the things that plague me.
So, I think you've gotten a little caught up here in your assumptions having led you very astray from canon:
I cannot remember a single time anyone referred to Fred as a kid or were surprised someone his age was in his line of work. I'm not going through 20 volumes of material at 2am to check, but if it does happen once or twice, it's fairly inconsequential and from someone who doesn't know Fred well.
Moran never, ever says that Fred is too young to see nudity. This one I did check because it was easy to find that scene, and Moran actually just says that Fred didn't want Bond in the changing room either (and Fred was unimpressed and unamused by being dragged into Moran's brief foray into transphobia). The English translated this one a little funny, but he didn’t actually comment on Fred’s age directly in Japanese.
My assumption that his age comes with a question mark and a lack of birthday is because he doesn't know exactly when he was born. While birth certificates and records were quite common in the time period, I think it's a massive assumption to assume everyone knew the exact details of their birth, especially someone like Fred who seems to have come from poorer origins.
But the actual reason I'm answering this right now is actually this one specific detail: Fred, at 18 or 19, is not a legal adult. Not in Victorian England (where the age of majority was 21) or in modern day Japan where he's being written (the age of majority in Japan is currently 20).
So, he's the youngest on the team by a few years, and, yes, he's actually the only minor in the on the team.
But I think he comes across as "younger" than the others because he's initially less entrenched and more in doubt of things, and he's much more openly kind and hopeful than the others. He doesn't have the same angry jadedness. And even in Baskervilles, his warm heart is compared to William's own. He is the one with the same love and idealism as our disaster boy. So that probably contributes a lot to the impression.
So anyway, I think this is a reminder that fanon is fun and gut instincts make sense, but sometimes it's important to double check canon before getting too caught up in something not making any sense, 'cause sometimes we forget or misremember things. I know I have, and sometimes when I'm writing longer meta, I've got to double check myself because my memory is good but not infallible.
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why do you dislike astarian?
I'm sure if I answered truthfully I'd get mountains of lectures telling me why I'm wrong and awful for not liking the fandoms darling but heres my attempt to articulate my issues. This is in no particular order.
1. It actively makes no sense in character for any version of Tav to keep Ast*rion alive.
A good aligned Tav would likely attack him after he attacks them when they meet and if we assume we give him the old "OK we'll forgive you this time but don't do it again" once he tries to snack on us without consent while we sleep that reasonably should be his last straw.
An evil aligned Tav should have even less reasons to give him second chances cause killing should be nothing to them. And it isn't till later we really know how his worldview would align with an evil Tav
The only real reason to keep Ast*rion is if you are roleplaying a pushover OR you are being Meta because you the player find him attractive. Even Lae'Zel who starts the game really mean (somewhat justifably so since shes put in a cage and racially abused after being put through what her people claim is a fate worse than death), has a good reason to be kept around, she claims to have a cure for the parasite and will share it with the rest of you. Ast*rion offers nothing other than trying to stab you when you meet and then trying to drink your blood without consent while you sleep. Realistically his luck should have run out like if it was Wyll or Karlach or Lae'Zel in charge and you didn't control them he'd be dead. Probably even Shadowheart and Gale would as well.
2. By changing how DnD Vampire Spawns work they made his plot actively very confusing.
OK so Vampire Spawns are meant to not have any control over themselves, their master is meant to be able to control them. We briefly see this when one of the Spawns goes to disobey Caz*dor later. The issue with that is if Caz*dor can control them.... why does he need to punish them into submission? Ast*rion says he almost escaped once but why did Caz*dor ever give him enough freewill to even attempt that? Is Caz*dor just a sadist? If so they don't do a good enough job portraying that. They make the hunger and bloodlust that Spawns feel seem almost.... inconsequential for Ast*rion after that first feeding scene, they basically plays so fast and loose with the DnD Vampire lore but still used the lore to justify every bad thing Ast*rion did under Caz*dor so that he doesn't have to admit any fault like no don't bend the lore into a pretzel but then still use the lore for justifying and exonerate Ast*rion.
3. I don't get the impression he changed as much as people claim.
Like does he grow through his romance? Sure he starts to see Tav as more of a person and less of a tool. That's great. But Lae'Zel and Shadowheart both have fantastic development OUTSIDE of their relationship to Tav. The bar was set too high for you to hide his development behind a romance route I have no desire to do. I'll admit this is an issue Gale to a degree suffers from as well, less so that he doesn't change if you romance him but in his case more so his very examples of his growth are hidden in his romance scenes.
But with Ast*rion I did not think he really self reflected in the ways I would have liked. Even right before fighting Caz*dor he was still claiming he had no reason to feel guilty about what he did as a servant of Caz*dor, like yes the game wants me to believe you had no control, but someone with a conscience would still feel guilty about it. Also everyone else provided you've been pushing then towards good throughout the game will choose to make the right decision on their own accord when given the chance in game, every version of the Ascension scene I've seen requires a persuasion roll for Ast*rion, meaning he doesn't choose to not do the ritual himself he always needs to be persuaded not to whereas provided you've pushed Shadowheart towards good the whole game she will choose to save Dame Aylin on her own, Lae'Zel will choose to turn against Vlaakith on her own etc. The only way he doesn't need persuaded is if 1. He never learnt about the ritual from Raphael, thus he is only there to kill Caz*dor anyway or 2. You kill one of the Spawns in the battle thus the ritual can't be complete
4. He was favoured by the developers at the detriment of other characters.
It's insane that there's literally proof from some of the people who worked on this game that they favoured Ast*rion over other characters when it came to content. And some of his fans think this is somehow a good thing? When all this does is show the rest of the fans (who let's remember the most recent stats the majority of players are not Ast*rion Girlies, they are very loud within fandom but fandom is not everyone who bought and played this game) that we are not as valued by Larian and that's gonna breed resentment.
Wyll got absolutely shafted compared to other companions and everyone got shafted compared to Ast*rion. When the game had to cut out content for Wyll and Karlach but was able to add in like double the amount of romance scenes of Ast*rion when compared to the next companion with the most scenes then we need to start asking why this was allowed. We'd all rather have a complete story for everyone than an extra sex scene with Ast*rion that doesn't add anything to the plot.
5. His fans are obnoxious
Now.... I will be the first to admit all the fans of each of the characters are kinda obnoxious (except most Wyll fans, you guys are cool, I like you). I love Gale and even I know that his fans can be overly defensive at times (sometimes justifiably so, other times they just need to take a step back and realise not every joke at Gale's expense is hateful). BUT because Ast*rion fans are so prominent in fandom spaces you are more likely to run into obnoxious Ast*rion fans than the rest. Like if a post doesn't mention him, don't bring him up in the comments, if someone says "I'm role-playing a Lawful Good Paladin etc. I need a Rogue cause my character wouldn't bring Ast*rion along" don't spend the next hour of your life trying to twist yourself into a pretzel to justify why someone who is Lawful Good should be OK with having the man who disapproves of you helping slaves around. And stop throwing the "canon" word around. This is an issue I have with fandom in general nowadays but "canon" doesn't matter much. BG3 will NEVER canonise a love interest for Tav, they might never even canonise a class or race for Tav. So stol trying to argue that because Ast*rion x D*rge got so much extra content that it's canon to try and win some silly Internet war. All you're doing is annoying people.
What's kinda sad is... I found Ast*rion to be incredibly charming early on, not my type for romance but I enjoyed having him around for the snarky commentary. But whenever his plot came up I found myself rolling my eyes cause the rest of the game Ast*rion seems so self aware that he's kinda an asshole yet when his plot scenes happen he seems to lose that self awareness and it just soured the character for me. But hey, by most modern day gaming standards he's still basically Shakespearean in comparison so this will likely be the only post I make detailing my issues unless I'm asked something more indepth.
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tell me your pip headcanons and/or clyde :3333
Why not both?
For Pip:
Sexuality Headcanon: Gay, no doubt about it. Idk where else to put this but an interesting tidbit is that in the 19th century left-handedness was a sign of homosexuality, and Pip uses his left hand as his dominant hand a lot in the show, so make of it what you will.
Gender Headcanon: Cis, never really thought about it tbh.
A ship I have with said character: Bip, my soon-to-be 9 year old OTP, aka Butters x Pip. I have a lot to say about this ship but I'll make it brief. This ship,while seemingly saccharine on the outside, is extremely bittersweet not only in a meta context(Butters indirectly killed him not only in a meta sense, but also in being the first one to draw attention to Tom Cruise in 200), but in-universe as well, in the sense that even if they get beat up,insulted or abused, they still have each other, but how long until Butters realizes he wouldn't be getting so much mistreatment if he wasn't dating Pip in the first place?How long until Pip lets Butters take his repressed anger out on him because "there's no other way", or maybe he'd let him do anything because he's that desperate for attention, any kind of it?There's just a lot of things you can do with it and you could nurture it into a good ending against all odds or a gritty grimdark ending. Also it'd be funny to see Butters' parents react to seeing him date a more passive version of him.
Besides Bip though,Cartip aka Cartman x Pip is just a very entertaining ship for me, purely because their scenes together have a lot of dom/sub tension to them and also for its comedic value.
A BROTP I have with said character: Pip and Dougie are a good pair and it'd be fun to see what interests they could have in common, but it's super weird that they didn't interact once in Two Guys Naked in a Hot Tub, though that's probably because Dougie's kind of a third wheel in that episode. Pip and Stan might be very unlikely and Stan wouldn't want it for the life of him but I can see it as a one-sided thing.
A NOTP I have with said character: I really don't have one I think?
A random headcanon: His parents were killed in a home invasion by a frenchman, which is why anything french related is a trigger and why he hates french people so much, to him they took away his one chance at having a decent life, though he doesn't remember that his own parents hated him too.Also it'd be super funny if he was a Barbra Streisand fan so yeah.
General Opinion over said character: Pip's tied with Butters(my opinion on him is pretty complicated though) and Dogpoo as my favorite characters, so there's a lot to unpack here. He's a repressed Victiorian orphan child put into an uninhibited 90s setting, someone whose purpose is to be really cringe and annoying,but on the other hand the cringiness is what makes the gimmick with him funny, how deep can the cringe go and how much will his abuse escalate, and what does he truly think about it?(tbh this entire gimmick with him would most likely culminate in death so that was pretty obvious in hindsight)At the same time there's a sense of pity or worriedness about him as well,and it's really nice when he actually has friends who like him back in Butters and Dougie. In terms of his death it's so inconsequential and blink and you'll miss it that I normally don't think about it much when analyzing him, but ig it's interesting to think about where he'd go after dying?(the obvious fanon answer would be Hell, but Heaven was recruiting more people in season 9, but also his death was unnatural so maybe Limbo?)
Now onto Clyde:
Sexuality Headcanon: I'd say Bi but knowing Clyde he'd label himself as Questioning or Heteroflexible for a very long time.
Gender Headcanon: I view him as cis though maybe he'd question his gender identity too?I could see that but can't pinpoint exactly what he'd question himself as, maybe agender idk.
A ship I have with said character: Cryde, I'm really a sucker for "doppleganger" ships so this one fits the bill, but also if you look deeper into it you'd see that amidst the superficial similarities they have a lot of differences too. Also I really just love the bro vibe they'd give even after they'd start dating, they seem like they'd just be super chill together and wouldn't have many worries about big arguments. I think both of them could also benefit from one another?Clyde would let his insecurities go after he sees that Craig has no problem with how he actually is, and Craig'd probably like being with someone who doesn't mind being mundane.
A BROTP I have with said character: Cryde again, for the bro energy that I mentioned above, but also Twyde, they can be conspiracy bros together and talk about how the government wants to control everyone, though Tweek would be on the more supernatural side(like the Underpants Gnomes) while Clyde would go for the more sci-fi side(he didn't believe in supernatural zombies existing but had no problems believing Covid and QAnon conspiracies).
A NOTP I have with said character: Nobody really, at this point idk if I have NOTPs anymore lol, but Tyde when used just for the "Pair the Spades" trope maybe?But that's just how I feel about people doing Pair the Spades in fics in general.
A random headcanon: Even though Clyde is a naturally emotional person, his mom's strictness over rules made him supress said emotions and indirectly made him ashamed of being emotional and not the Cool Popular Guy he wanted to be(that and probably toxic masculinity in general). Because of this, he idolizes Craig, especially his attitude and coolness, and he's his ideal on what the Cool Popular Guy should be, so even though he had his own brand of deadpan and snark before, he started to imitate Craig's mannerisms more in an effort to seem cooler.
General Opinion over said character: Even though he's kinda inconsistent in the show, Clyde's a pretty interesting character to talk about and analyse on, I like him a lot though my interpretation of him is probably more of an Outsider Artist's view on things. For me, he's someone who is more middle of the road academically and socially, not that smart but not that dumb either, and even though he can be easily misled into a fall from grace and said downfalls might cloud his judgement until someone knocks him out of it, he's normally not ill-intentioned. However, he often lets his insecurities and self consciousness get the best of him, so he's at his best when dealing with said issues(Lice Capades is definitely my favorite Clyde episode).
#thanks for the ask <3#south park#clyde donovan#pip pirrup#pip pirrip#south park meta#south park analysis#sp cryde#cryde#bip#butters x pip#cartip
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i dont really agree with your post about white people in fandom not talking about race, partly because i dont feel like online fandom discussions of these topics are particularly nuanced or productive in the first place and throwing white people who dont feel confident or educated in what theyre saying into the mix and are posting out of social obligation is the opposite of helpful, but mostly because of the inferences you made about the willingness/unwillingness those people have to learn. definitely some of them are uninterested in learning about the topic enough to discuss but ive known plenty of people who preferred to sit back in discussions of race where it wasnt vitally important that they speak up precisely because they were still actively working on unlearning racism/transphobia/etc and didnt want to say something that would hurt me or someone else they cared about by saying something careless, and i really dont see a reason to issue a blanket discouragement of this instinct that i would say most people who care have, especially just to get them to engage in something as inconsequential as fandom discourse.
oh yeah no i definitely agree! that post tho was more abt character analysis and metas and not like, discourse and drama. like basically it was the “if your interpretation of a character doesn’t consider that character’s race, your interpretation is incomplete” convo, i wasn’t trying to say “white fans should jump into every fandom discussion abt race ever.” bc yeah ur definitely right, sometimes it’s better to sit back and work on unlearning shit before we try to insert ourselves into certain conversations!
but also when it comes to the specific convo i was commenting on aka Character Analysis… i mean, white is a race. like, this is an ofmd blog, so i’m gonna relate this to ofmd: there is a LOT to dig into when it comes to whiteness in ofmd, imo most prominently with the main character (stede) and the main antagonist (izzy) but definitely in other characters and throughout the entire show itself. i see no reason why white ofmd fans should feel so insecure in their ability to discuss race that they won’t make surface-level observations abt how race effects the white characters. so that is the kind of situation where im rolling my eyes when fans say things like “i don’t want to overstep or make a mistake, so i just don’t talk abt race in X media ever.” which i HAVE seen, manyyyyy many times, over many years.
ngl it’s been kinda weird to see that kinda oldish post start randomly getting all these notes, but im glad at least that the version w my reblog is the one that’s circulating bc honestly that’s the only part of the post that really matters, imo. i mean, it matters bc it’s a much bigger point than just fandom stuff, it’s advice for pretty much. all of life.
you are allowed to move on and try to do better without everyone forgiving you for messing up! nobody is obligated to forgive you, ever, but that doesn’t mean you should give up on growing and learning! not everyone in the world is going to love you, and that’s okay!
^important stuff for pretty much everyone to learn, me included
#ask#anon#mine#txt#og#fandom crit#disclaimer also that i myself am white and have also fucked up before when talking abt race#i’m not trying to encourage all white fans to barge into every fandom convo abt race. altho ig i wasnt v clear abt that in the post#but yeah that post was abt a specific gripe i have when it comes to metas and stuff#not blanket statement rec for all white fans to do all the time
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THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE EXTRA MATT. you write him so perfectly annoying
THANKS I LIKE HIM MORE THAN HE DESERVES.
Out of all the superheroes I've written in that series he's the first one I actually, like, enjoy and care about, so I had to make him the most insufferably annoying man physically possible. Most of his annoyingness in the final draft was shifted onto the next chapter, since he ended up being used more for plot reasons than anything else, and I we didn't end up with as much of him as I wanted. He might need a side story (for peak annoying). I have a whole-ass backstory and tons of meta for him that I can't share until after the next chapter's published, so check back in then and I can talk more about the ninja industrial complex.
The thing about Daredevil comics is that 60% are mediocre and boring, 30% are good and boring, and 10% are by Waid, Soule, or Zdarsky (so, both good and fun). Miller and Loeb are probably the most influential DD authors, which tells you all about how fun and occasionally questionable the DD status quo is.
The Matt I wrote was closer in tone to Waid, Soule, etc than the status quo Matt, lining up further with Waid's general 'massive troll' energy. This was actually a bit dishonest of me, as Waid's Matt is less a Fraction/Aja style reimagining and more 'this is our normal status quo Matt + one absolute mental breakdown as a result of canon events'. Taking Waid's >:3 Matt wholesale without consideration of the actual root of why he acts like that (Miller Loeb & Bendis induced mental breakdown) does disservice to why the portrayal was interesting. On the other hand, >:3 Matt is fun to read and write and status quo Matt is not. I decided to just pick up on the important lesson from that - that Matt's history is a history of intense pain, that he is somebody who is just so intensely sad constantly, and that it is absolutely best to write him as somebody who is so sad he decided to go apeshit insane.
Anyway, Matt is the other part-timer helper-outer with the Heroes For Hire, and like Jake he feels a sense of superiority over them. He thinks arguing is fun and will argue about anything for absolutely no reason. He didn't really intend to set himself up as someone with no light perception (NLP) and entered college meaning on passing himself off as moderately visually impaired, but when absolutely everybody assumed that the cane and glasses meant you had NLP he just started going with it and things snowballed from there. Foggy is the only one who knows that he's ok at distinguishing objects and spatial perception but that's just because Foggy was the only one who asked. He has his life together in every standard way and is only a disaster at keeping girlfriends alive. Matt, Foggy, and Karen all go clothes shopping together and help each other buy clothes. They color coordinate and Matt doesn't know this. When he was a kid he felt constantly guilty about inconveniencing others and as an adult he's decided to inconvenience everybody around him as much as possible. If you ask him any personal detail, no matter how inconsequential it is, he will lie about it. Responds to most criticism by saying 'can't help being a Libra'. Is a Capricorn.
The best depictions of Matt remember that he is blind. Check back later and I'll describe how he's an accredited yet nonlicensed ninja.
#my writing#reason why I was so into Matt as a kid was because I liked disabled superheroes and Matt was what we had#and reading Waid was the first time I had actually felt like I was reading about a blind character!#almost nobody fucking wrote matt as a blind guy and it was massively lame#I had like one criteria and nobody but waid ever met it#man typing this out I'm realizing that I really didn't get the oppertunity to get into what i would have liked to get into#the intended physical handshake mental disability connection never got drawn#hmmmmmm#issue is you want to do things#and then you have to go 'okay but would matt and jake ever do this'#and they wouldn't so they don't#i might have to write a matt side story too dang.
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You know that flavor of ppl who aren't like homophobic by the strictest definition. Like they don't hate queer ppl and are even enthusiastic to co-exist with them but are like. Weird about it. Not in the "I'm fine with queers i just dont want them shoved down my throat" bc thats just homophobia but like the gluten free version of that.
This phenomenon is more harmful irl but im pulling examples from fandom bc thats where i spend most my time online these days and shipping is inconsequential enough to discuss. If a boy and a girl interact at all in one scene theres immediately a whole community for their ship and no one bats an eye. But shippers of gay ships that dont interact are filled with ppl who lord them as their "uwu gay babies" and shippers who are normal about it get plagued with ppl asking them for "proof theyre a couple." And when you do the same for a straight ship ppl retort with "this isnt hurting anyone so leave us alone" which could be a reasonable argument. But the same ppl using that for their straight ships are also the ones asking for cited sources that the author didnt intend for characters in a gay ship to be entirely straight.
Same with other queer headcanons. Trans hcs will have ppl saying that "i PERSONALLY never saw them as trans your headcanon is valid but i need you to give me an essay on your reasons bc WHY WOULD THEY BE TRANS." Ace headcanons are similar except with ppl also telling the hperson with the ace headcanon that they ship this character with someone. And ofc theres the "arent characters allowed to be friends" argument which again. Is valid. But the ppl making that for queer headcanons also often parade screenshots where a boy and girl in a show look at each other and say "this is proof theyre canon."
And maybe its just bc ive been into more queer media lately but these kids of ppl are worse when the media actually has canon queer characters? Ppl flock to the safe and canon gay ships and use that as a shield against accusations of bias. They CANT be homophobic or even biased against queer people because look! They thought it was cute when these two secondary girls held hands! This character has gay dads and this person supports that! They just want you to write an academic paper to justify your ship existing because YOURE the crazy one whos bringing shipping into everything. No one has to reexamine their implicit biases whatsoever. It feels performative.
Ofc this also extends to other biases. The main character of this book is black so the fandom cant be racist. Thats why its perfectly fine for them to hyperfocus on the angsty white boy in the secondary cast and ignore the main poc characters. No one needs to think about why that consistently happens in every fandom like this. This main character is a girl! And shes also a Strong Female Character whos quirky. So we dont need to think about how the fandom lauds around the male villains as sexy and write pages of meta on their motivations and then call female villains "bitches" and talk about the graphic ways they should be killed and maybe sexualize them if theyre conventionally attractive but in a more dehumanizing way than the male villains. And ofc if you call fans out for this, they jump behind the shield of "liking diverse media." Which makes them immune to accusations of bigotry. This is also true for creators of media btw.
Anyway its like. I would rather deal with these kinds of ppl than actual homophobes, especially regarding non fandom topics that actually affect irl ppl. But also these people are so much more annoying than actual homophobes. Bc like. If you tell me you support queer ppl then act like it, you know?
#shut up pandora#dropping this rant in time for pride i guess#homophobia#does that go in this tag?#also dont come at me with fandom drama#the fandom thing is just an example#my point is people will use their support of specific queer ppl#especialy those who fit within heteronormative ideas except they married the same gender or have transitioned#and dismiss all criticism bc they think this keeps them from being homophobic#supporting queer ppl isnt just letting them date of present as the gender they want you also have to change your heteronormative mindset#because otherwise youve just created the same system of oppression but with rainbows#irl this would be the argument#im not homophobic i have gay friends#pride
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MAJOR spoilers for the C2 finale of Critical Role so read at your own risk of you haven’t caught up!
I have so many feelings regarding Caleb and Essek’s intertwining character arcs I needed to explore, so strap in folks, you’re in for a bit of a ride!
(But seriously though, this is like 4000 words long, I basically wrote an essay 😂)
At the start of the campaign, Caleb Widogast was dripping in guilt and self loathing and refused to believe he could ever absolve himself of his sins. Essek Thelyss was a cold, aloof individual who betrayed his people for selfish goals, and their differing yet mirrored narratives have been an absolute delight to watch unfold.
In the beginning Caleb truly hated himself. He shot down any attempt at a compliment, described himself as a ‘disgusting person’, outright rejected the idea that he was worthy of love, and never let the blame shift from him for what he’d done. When Beauregard and Veth/Nott pointed out that he was coerced and manipulated into killing his parents, he reacts in an incredibly visceral way, and I’ve seen several comments likening it to a victim of child abuse who was groomed into believing they were as responsible as their abuser, and I think that’s exactly how it was meant to be read. He doesn’t see himself as a victim, only a murderer, and punishes himself for it every day. We see this in the way he presents himself, dirty and unkempt because in his mind he doesn’t deserve to feel good about himself in any way. Other than Nott/Veth and Beau to a certain degree, he purposefully isolates himself from the rest of the group and it’s a long time until he feels relaxed enough in their company to drop his defences a little.
(Speaking from a purely meta point of view, Liam did an absolutely phenomenal job of showing this through body language and I’d love to see someone do a compilation video of it. He starts off very hunched and guarded, leaning his body away from the closest person to him and avoiding eye contact and physical touch; but by the end stands tall and sure of himself.)
Early on there were a few moments where he had the option to do some pretty dark shit, and I’m sure there’s a possible timeline where he gave into his desire for revenge and really lost his way, but I’m glad he stuck it out and worked through his trauma in the way he did. His PTSD and disassociation when casting with fire was tragic, but over time he was able to work through it thanks to the constant love and support of his friends who kept him from going off at the deep end.
Molly’s death was the catalyst for change in a lot of the party, and Caleb is no exception. On the verge of leaving the group prior to his death, the grief they shared, combined with their frantic attempt to rescue the other half of their party put things in perspective and gradually he learned how to be a person again, to care.
Altering time to save his family had been Caleb’s only goal in life, and so when Essek and by extension, dunamancy was introduced, you could see his eyes light up at the possibilities.
A huge turning point for him is aligned so closely with Essek’s redemption arc which feels quite apt I think. When Essek confesses to his crimes, Caleb delivers a beautifully iconic piece of dialogue where he acknowledges their similarities and how much he himself has changed as a person since meeting the Mighty Nein. (Source - CR wiki)
‘You listen to me. I know what you are talking about. I know. And the difference between you and I is thinner than a razor. I know what it means to have other people complicate your desires and wishes. And I was like you. Was. I know what a fool I have been for years. You didn't account for us. Good. That is life. Shit hits you sideways in life and no one is prepared. No one is ready. These people changed me. These people can change you. You were not born with venom in your veins. You learned it. You learned it. You have a rare opportunity here, Thelyss. One chance to save yourself, and we are offering it.’
This is not the same Caleb we met back in the Nestled Nook inn way back in the first episode. While not yet fulfilled or entirely convinced of his own worth, he knows he’s on the right path. That alone is progress enough, but that he uses his own experiences to help another escape those same chains of guilt says such a lot for his development. When he tells Essek that his ‘venom’ was learned, he’s also talking about himself and his own history of being manipulated and gaslit, with the implication being that it can be un-learned just as efficiently.
Caleb Widogast is selfish no more, or at the very least, doesn’t let his goals undermine anyone else’s anymore. Contrary to what he himself might still think, he is in no way a bad person. He loves fiercely and cannot abide seeing those he cares about in pain.
Early game Essek is what Caleb could have been if he’d rejected his friends and focused solely on his own selfish goal to undo his mistakes. Both are impassive at first and see the Mighty Nein as means to an end...until they get to know them and then their fate is sealed. The Power of Friendship wins once again!
At the beginning Caleb said he wanted to ‘bend reality to my will’ (sic) and in the end he does just that, though not in the way he originally intended. Destroying the T-Dock, and by extension the one thing he’d been building towards from the start, the chance to go back and change time, for me personally was the absolute peak of his journey. I rewatched the scene where Caleb revealed the truth about his parents death today, and it was really jarring to see just how far he’d come since then. It made me oddly proud actually.
I always felt like his plan to save his parents was the one thing holding him back from truly accepting their deaths, which is why the final scene of him in the cemetery with the letters for them hit so hard. He never truly gave up hope that they’d be reunited, but ultimately he realised he was merely postponing the inevitable and never allowing himself to live his own life. While time travel shenanigans would have been incredibly interesting to explore in game, choosing to let the past lie and not go back for them finally allows him to grieve and move on, and perhaps most importantly of all, to forgive himself at last.
I know some people were annoyed by Caleb’s decision in the finale to spend the rest of his life teaching rather than continuing to adventure, but I see it as the natural conclusion to his whole arc and his own personal victory.
He looked Trent Ikithon in the eyes, a man who he’d spent years wanting to kill and run from in equal measure, stripped him of his power and his voice (and ultimately his ability to harm anyone else) and finally spared his life so he had to live with the indignity of his defeat for the rest of his miserable existence. You couldn’t have asked for a more damning rejection of everything he’d been brainwashed into believing as a child. His dismissal of Trent’s position in the Assembly played into that as well. He never really wanted power for the sake of it; he had no desire for politics, he just wanted his family back, and while he didn’t get the one he started with, he made a new one for himself in the end.
As Caduceus once very wisely said:
‘Pain doesn’t make people; it's love that makes people. The pain is inconsequential; it's love that saves them.’
Caleb gets to break the cycle of abuse and teach a new generation of mages the way he should have been, with kindness and respect, and I’m pretty sure he’d have introduced a handsome drow as a guest lecturer from time to time. 😉
Speaking of...
Essek described himself as selfish and as a coward, forever putting his own wants and desires first, yet over the course of his journey with the Nein we see his priorities change drastically.
Having friends gives him people to care about, something he’s never had before, and it changes his outlook on life completely. For me, the first time we really see this is when he joins them for dinner in the Xorhaus and stops levitating. It’s a subtle thing, but meaningful. He explains that it had become an expectation of him, a quirk he’s known for, and so to feel comfortable enough around the Nein to drop that pretence is quite bold I think.
Much later, when he chooses to destroy the mini beacon they discover in Aeor in order to give everyone a long rest before the final confrontation with Lucian, he’s essentially giving up everything he betrayed his people for, just to keep his friends safe. The existence and context of that single artefact could have had an earthshattering impact on the Dynasty’s entire culture, forcing them to reevaluate their entire belief system and attitude to the Luxon, something he’d wanted from the start, something he helped start a war for, but he offered it up as a sacrifice without a second thought.
I’d say that’s a pretty big morality shift, and I’m super interested to see if Matt reveals if his alignment changed in the post campaign Q&A. I have a feeling he set him up as a potential BBEG but the party was like ‘no, you can’t have him, he’s ours now’ and that was the end of that. 😂
I think it says so much about the other characters too, that they befriended this person they barely knew, and when he was revealed to have done such terrible things, their first reaction was to give him comfort and an opportunity to atone. Jester held his hand while he confessed, and afterwards, while they didn’t immediately forgive him, they saw the good in him and wanted him to be better, which ultimately feels like what the entire campaign was about, leaving places (and people) better than they found them. It’s obvious that he’s never really had many friends before and has therefore never had the opportunity to be emotionally open with anyone, so seeing him gradually warm up to the Nein and allow himself to soften around them was really lovely to watch.
(Obviously, from a realistic moral perspective, he still fucked up big time. He’s still a godsdamned war criminal and really should have been put on trial for what he did, but I think from a narrative and personal point of view, his redemption arc was far more satisfying, so I’m glad it happened the way it did. (And not to derail but the rest of the gang have done some pretty horrific stuff as well, though perhaps not quite on the same scale)
He has a few moments towards the end that I absolutely love because they show that beneath the guilt and anguish, there’s an incredibly sweet and sensitive soul in there, just wanting acceptance. His dry jokes which often don’t quite hit, (the ‘I will punish the bakery’ line is such an under-appreciated one 😂) his simple joy at learning to garden in the Blooming Grove, and realising that he’d never been asked what his favourite food was before was actually kind of heartbreaking, because it highlighted how lonely his life must have been until that time. There was a moment pretty early on I think when he cast disguise on the party and Jester asked if he could cast it again to change the look of her outfit a bit and while he seemed to find it amusing, he refused, not wanting to waste a spell on such a frivolous request. Cut to their time in Aeor where he burns a fly spell just so he and Caleb can flirtatiously swoop around each other for a couple of minutes, all the while trying to beat Lucian to the city.
His breakdown when Molly’s resurrection failed really cemented to me how much he’d grown as a character. He never met Molly, his only knowledge of him was secondhand, through the eyes of his friends, but seeing it fail just broke him because he knew how much it hurt them to go through it all over again.
His comment to Caleb about not admitting defeat and wishing he could do more did get me wondering at the time if he was going to try and do something crazy, perhaps sacrificing himself via the Temporal Dock to make amends or somehow forcing another reroll, but I’m glad he didn’t. The conversation following that with Fjord was one of my favourites- he shows him acceptance and belief in his potential for the future, something he’s lacked for a long time, and when Caleb bluntly affirms afterwards that he is indeed an official member of the Mighty Nein, it’s the start of the rest of his life, and something he’s exceptionally grateful for.
It all leads to that final moment in Aeor with Caleb, when, presented with the opportunity to alter time and undo everything, he chooses to accept his decisions and carry the weight of his sins for the rest of his long life. That’s...huge.
He’s essentially choosing to live the rest of his existence as a fugitive, forever on the run, with no guaranteed peace or safety. He chooses to spend his life making up for his deeds, rather than looking for an easy way out.
I think that may have had a big impact on why Caleb ultimately made the same decision, as if Essek had been up for altering his timeline I think he’d have struggled to resist it himself. The conversation they had earlier in Aeor about their priorities and resisting temptation really comes to mind as well.
Now, to the relationship.
It was subtle, and not as ‘in your face’ obvious as the other characters, but I’ve been watching and hoping for a long time and I must say, it feels good to be vindicated.
(And if you have any doubt, both Matt and Liam confirmed on Twitter that their post finale relationship was 100% romantic)
I’d been hoping that Shadowgast would be a canon endgame relationship for a while, so the finale, and the aforementioned T-Dock scene in particular had me quite literally shaking with emotion as I watched live. Here you have two men, both damaged and guilt-stricken in their own ways, who find in each other a kindred spirit and a path to redemption.
They’re both very guarded and closed off people, but Essek in particular has a definite shift in the last arc of the campaign especially when it came to his interactions with Caleb. At the start he was quite aloof and stoic, though charming, and they had an instant connection through their shared love of the arcane, (anyone who couldn’t see them making heart eyes at each other when Essek was describing the different types of magic he could teach Caleb was clearly blind) but by the end he was incredibly open to showing his vulnerabilities and that takes a lot, especially for someone whose primary focus was to stay in control of every aspect of his life. The ‘Caleb, I’m scared’ moment during the Trent fight in particular made my heart ache.
No, we didn’t get a dramatic declaration of love or a cinematic mid-battle kiss, but I’d argue that their relationship was just as, if not more intimate than any of the other main characters were. They understood each other in a way the others didn’t, their shared guilt, feelings of inadequacy and their obsession with magic forged a deep connection from the get-go. Neither of them are big fans of PDA I think, though Caleb is tactile as hell (forehead touches and kisses, oh man, I’m so weak for those 😩👌) and some of their most iconic moments have them putting themselves in harm’s way to protect the other. Essek shaking off his forced guilt trip immediately after the now infamous forehead touch in ep140 was beautifully poetic, as was using his fortune’s favour to pull Caleb out of the rubble moments before. Caleb trying to include him in his Sphere of Invulnerability in the finale and Essek staying close to him the whole fight despite being obviously terrified of Trent was the icing on the cake. It’s clear that they care for each other a great deal; whether by the finale they’d consider it love is up for debate, but we know that’s eventually where it ended up and honestly, I love that. I deeply appreciated the fact Matt and Liam both emphasised that they took their time with their relationship, letting each other heal in their own way before they took the next step. All too often in media, and real life too sadly, a romantic relationship is seen as some kind of quick fix, and that a lover will somehow complete you or make all your problems vanish. They knew this wasn’t the case here, and that made it all the better.
While I would have *loved* to have seen them together as a couple right to the very end, the change in their relationship felt right, if bittersweet. I doubt they ever stopped loving each other, and if anything, choosing to shift to a deep and lifelong friendship over a romance that would cause them both so much pain is one of the kindest things you could do for someone you love. After all, friendship isn’t a downgrade, just another way of experiencing that same love, and it wasn’t as though they broke up and never saw each other again, it was pretty strongly implied that they remained a major feature in each other’s lives, they just changed their label slightly. Caleb would hate to have forced Essek to watch him wither away, and although his eventual passing would hurt Essek regardless, incompatible lifespans being what they are, having a period of time to adjust to it, to give them a buffer between the inevitable heartbreak was actually really sweet.
Their romance was no accident, they knew going in that it had a time limit, that it wasn’t going to be forever for one of them, and the fact they did it anyway says so much. They began their adventure wholeheartedly believing that they were both, in their own way incapable of love, only to later find it with each other. Whether their relationship lasted for a couple of years or multiple decades is irrelevant, what matters is that while it did they had a happy and fulfilled life together.
I know some folk wanted Caleb to use the transmogrification spell on himself so he could live on with Essek as another elf, or make him human instead, but that would have been way out of character for both I think. If they could have backwards engineered one of the rejuvenation stations in Aeor and used it to extend Caleb’s life by a hundred years or so, so he’d have a similar lifespan to Veth, now, I could have seen him possibly doing that, so he could spend more time with his best friend too, but nothing further I think. He longed to be reunited with his parents too much to postpone death unnaturally like that.
That both Caleb and Essek ultimately chose to live with their mistakes and make peace with themselves was incredibly cathartic, and I couldn’t imagine it playing out any better.
The fact Matt has explicitly stated Essek is Demi too means so much to me personally because the latter is a label I’ve been identifying with a lot recently, and it’s so rare for aspec relationships to get any representation! It has honestly given me a lot to think about over the last few days, and I really appreciate it.
To conclude, here’s a bit of shameless self promotion. I wrote this after watching the finale and honestly feel like it sums up my feelings on the nature of their relationship pretty well.
‘A casual hand on a shoulder, a waist, a wrist; a gentle kiss placed on a forehead is common between them now, an intimacy born of trust and mutual affection. Over time it grows, like a fire born of seasoned timber; gradual and steady, no spluttering kindling that flares and sparks, but a slow burn, one which lasts.
Their love is embroidered into every aspect of their lives together. Acts of service, of comfort, of understanding.
Sometimes a kiss leads to more than a kiss, sometimes it doesn’t. Either way they are content.‘
So yeah, I love these two wizard boys so very much and I couldn’t be happier with the conclusion of their stories. ❤️
#Critical Role#Critical Role Spoilers#CR Spoilers#shadowgast#Essek thelyss#Caleb Widogast#C2ep141#C2ep141 spoilers#critical role finale
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The Voyage So Far: Alabasta (Part One)
east blue (1 | 2) || alabasta (1 | 2) || skypiea || water 7 || enies lobby || thriller bark || paramount war (1 | 2) || fishman island || punk hazard || dressrosa (1 | 2) || whole cake island || wano (1 | 2)
(this is a repost, i deleted the first version of it by accident cause im Idiot)
the entry into the grand line is such a great sequence. it feels like such an ending- a triumph after they’ve spent pretty much all of east blue struggling to make it here, and at the same time the beginning of a new adventure, the biggest yet, one that has yet to end a solid two decades later. they all look so happy to have made it here- it makes me smile.
whiskey peak is one of my very favorite short arcs, and i think of the whole first half of the baroque works saga its the one that hits and maintains a tone best (almost certainly because its so short, admittedly, but still). i love the repeated shots of the moon, the reveal that the cactuses are actually covered in graves, the way everything seems far too good to be true at the start and the sense of suspense that creates.
zoro’s extended fight scene in whiskey peak is so great- it’s so creative and so dynamic and the odds are stacked so high against him and yet he’s clearly having so much fun. i do miss this sort of scrappy, improvised fight, cause its largely absent from later one piece but its SO much fun to read- zoro cutting holes in rooftops for people to fall through or shoving ladders to the ground as bounty hunters try to climb them.
i’m a huge fan of fight scenes that use the environment to their fullest, and this is such a perfect example of it. it makes the fight feel a lot more real and exciting, in my opinion.
i’ve never liked zoro and luffy fighting at whiskey peak, its always struck me as frustrating and contrived and kind of out of character for both of them, but i will say that i do like how on the same page they are even when they’re trying to kill each other.
the entire first half of the baroque works saga basically serves to introduce and endear us to vivi so we’ll be invested in the alabasta conflict, and that starts here in whiskey peak, when we get our first glimpse of her actual personality rather than the act she was putting on as miss wednesday, when she bites her lip hard enough to bleed in order not to break down at igaram’s apparent death.
watching robin’s actions with the added context of later one piece is one of the great joys of rereading alabasta. she does a fantastic job of appearing to be crocodile’s most dedicated and capable and dangerous employee while quietly but consistently sabotaging his efforts; saving luffy, sparing pell, sparing igaram, not telling crocodile anything about the strawhats despite meeting them here at the very start of the saga.
little garden has some really cool and striking panels that really put the scale of things on the island, the dinosaurs and giants alike, into perspective, and i love it.
i’m a huge fan of the depth of in-universe lore one piece has. just having little details like this, quotes from books written in-universe, go so far towards making the world feel like a real and wondrous place with mysteries to be solved and details to be uncovered.
i still think sanji is firmly at his best when he’s being a sneaky bastard, and i will never cease to be delighted by how thoroughly he manages to fuck crocodile over with nothing but a phone and some quick thinking not once but twice.
i really like dorry and brogy! for minor characters who’ve only appeared in one relatively minor and inconsequential arc so far, they’re not only very fun and memorable but also leave a hell of an impact on the story, not only in usopp’s new dream of eventually visiting elbaf but also in how they and their crew just keep coming up, first in enies lobby and then even further down the line in dressrosa and whole cake island.
i’m really excited for when we eventually get to reach elbaf, because this plot thread has been so thoroughly and subtly built up over such a long time that i can’t wait to see how it ends.
this is one of my favorite little moments to really drive home how much the strawhats care about each other. they all fell asleep on the floor rather than leave nami alone.
the whole introductory scene to drum is a really good summary of who vivi is as a person and how she contrasts with luffy, and it’s something i’ve written extensively about in a past meta. here ill just settle for saying, vivi is chronically selfless, and always the sort of person to sacrifice herself for others, and these traits which save the strawhats here are the exact same ones that bring her and luffy to blows later on in alabasta.
a good thing to remember when writing characters is that traits aren’t really inherently good or bad, they’re just traits and can have positive or negative consequences depending on the situation, and i think oda is really good at this. vivi’s selflessness, usually a positive thing, becomes reckless self-sacrifice when she’s pushed to her breaking point.
‘kindness begets kindness’ is a pretty consistent theme throughout one piece, though luffy is most often on the other side of it. someone (rebecca, law, tama, etc.) does something for him without really expecting anything in return, and gets paid back a hundred times over. this is a case of the opposite- luffy helps someone offhandedly, and is later saved by their gratitude.
i think luffy wearing his fingers bloody as he climbs the drum rockies is the only time one piece has ever made me cringe back from the page. this sequence is absolutely brutal, and it’s so well-done.
the way luffy decides chopper should be his crewmate is precious, and also reminds me a little of his recruitment of sanji (ironically, given he’s talking to sanji about chopper here). in both cases he sees someone do something good without even really knowing the full extent of their abilities and makes a snap decision that they are awesome and are gonna be part of his crew, no matter what they have to say about it.
i really, really enjoy the way the drum island flashback is set up, with the cutaway right as luffy is about to punch wapol’s lights out. the cut back to that punch finally hitting when the flashback ends is by that point infinitely more satisfying, since you’ve just read chopper’s backstory and therefore have a deep and abiding desire to see wapol eat shit.
hiriluk’s final speech is definitely one of the best and most memorable quotes from one piece, and effectively the crux of one of its biggest themes. one piece is all about inherited will. all of our main cast and a solid percentage of the supporting cast bear the legacy of at least one forebear on their shoulders, from kuina to corazon to otohime. the entire setting of the story is defined by roger’s legacy.
all those people are dead, but they’re sure as hell not forgotten- how can they be, when their legacies are actively shaping the world as a direct result of their lives and influences?
i really, really like the use of flags in one piece. flags are how you declare loyalty or war in equal measure, and flying a pirate flag is a declaration that you’re choosing freedom, come what may, over the laws of the world government. it’s just a really excellent running motif, and a great symbol of what one piece’s definition of piracy means.
this scene is also one of the ones that gets even more extra weight behind it when you know luffy’s full backstory with sabo, which i love.
chopper’s recruitment scene sums up one of the reasons luffy is really great. he just doesn’t care about a lot of things other people would normally take notice of. occasionally that gets him in trouble, but other times it leads to him responding to a situation exactly right, like here. chopper is listing off all his insecurities and reasons he can’t go with the strawhats, and luffy just flat doesn’t care. he wants chopper on his crew and he knows chopper wants to be on his crew, so as far as he’s concerned, there’s no issue at all.
it really is wild that the will of D is named this far back in the story, and has consistently been referenced and built up ever since in very slight ways, through comments by characters like robin and corazon, and yet we still know basically nothing about it.
and a toast to a new crewmate!!
continued in the next post, which covers alabasta arc proper.
#the voyage so far#arc: reverse mountain#arc: whiskey peak#arc: little garden#arc: drum island#one piece#opmeta#not japanese#long post
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On the importance of MianMian: musings on the differences between the novel and CQL (PART 2/2)
If you haven’t already, please read through part one first, otherwise this will probably not be very cohesive or comprehensible. There is also some bonus meta because I keep having thoughts about MianMian.
In part one, I contrasted MianMian’s first appearance in the novel and the web series in order to show how MianMian’s characterisation and position within her society were established quite differently in both works. In this post, I will explore the domino effect of those adaptation choices, as well as consider how the two subsequent appearances of MianMian in the novel got translated into a visual format in CQL. Through this exercise, my goal is not only to illuminate the depth and significance of this minor character in the novel, but also to argue that the way her scenes were adapted in CQL ultimately reduced the impact of the character and excised many of the nuances put into her portrayal despite increasing her presence in the work.
(although kudos to CQL for casting Ann Wang because I do not get tired of looking at her face: look at that smile 😳)
The Servant’s Daughter Valued Jin Cultivator Standing up to a Room of Powerful Cultivators
In the novel, we meet MianMian for a second time after the Sunshot campaign has ended. Cultivators from the main sects and allied sects (including some who used to be loyal to the Wens!) are discussing at Jinlintai Wei Wuxian’s actions after he protected the Wens and set up residence on Mass Grave Hill. By that time, it appears her position in her sect, and even her sect’s position, has grown. We can speculate as to why (my personal take is that MianMian proved herself during the war and that her sect is one of the sect who pledged loyalty to the Jin and gained influence as a result). What is important is that she goes from someone who is so inconsequential she might have not even have been a disciple yet when we met her to someone who stands next to a sect leader (who we can safely assume in this context to be her sect leader). A lot is hinted about her character and what she experienced since we last saw her through that small and innocuous detail.
Suddenly, a careful voice interjected, “It’s not killing indiscriminately, is it?”
Lan Wangji seemed to have entered a realm of zen that blocked all of his senses. Hearing this, however, he moved, looking over. The one who spoke was a young woman with a fair face, standing beside one of the sect leaders.
I will not repeat here the entirety of her speech, which highlights the hypocrisy and the bad faith of the sects, and particularly the Jin sect’s unwillingness to shoulder any blame for their deplorable treatment of the Wens. Instead, I find important to highlight how the other cultivators present react to MianMian based on her positionality.
First, MianMian’s opinions are undercut by the people present due to the fact that she is a woman. Her motivations for speaking out are reduced to the irrational ramblings of a maiden in love.
“You can stop arguing,” someone sneered suddenly. “We don’t want to hear the comments of someone who has other motives.”
The woman’s face flushed.
“Explain things,” she said, raising her voice. “What do you mean, that I have other motives?”
“There’s no need for me to say anything. You know deep down and we know too. You fell for him back in the cave of the Xuanwu just because he flirted with you? You’re still arguing for him, calling white black no matter how irrational it is. Ha, women will always be women.”
The incident of Wei Wuxian saving a damsel in distress in the cave of the Xuanwu was indeed once a topic of conversation. Thus, many people realized immediately that this young woman was ‘MianMian’.
At once, somebody murmured, “So that’s why. Explains how she’s so desperate as to speak up for Wei Wuxian…”
“Irrational?” she fumed. “Calling white black? I’m just being considerate as it stands. What does it have to do with the fact that I’m a woman? You can’t be rational with me so you’re attacking me with other things?”
Then, when members of her own sect disparage her for speaking up, they suggest that her place in the discussion, in this palace of gilded power and privilege, is ultimately illegitimate or at the very least incredibly easy to render illegitimate.
“Stop wasting your time on her. That this kind of person actually belongs to our sect, that she was even able to find her way into the Golden Pavilion; I feel ashamed standing alongside her.
Many of those who spoke against her were from the same sect.
In this situation, not even her fellow sect members are willing to come to her defense or to give her the benefit of the doubt; she is to be shamed and separated from them, lest her actions reflect badly on their own standing.
MianMian’s choice to leave her sect behind is meaningful because she is not privileged. She does not have anyone powerful in her corner to back her up. She does not have many options; people act like she should be glad to even have made it this far, and we can infer that she only achieved her current position due to her skills and hard work. It is also meaningful because she is making that choice while knowing that she’s giving up on the privileges of the social position that she has worked to achieve. The fact that she is giving up on something big is highlighted by the reactions of many cultivators after her departure, who think she will come crawling back to find once more the security and privilege of the position she left behind.
Saying nothing, MianMian turned around and left. A while later, someone laughed. “If you’re taking it off, then don’t put it on again, if you’re so capable!”
“Who does she think she is… leaving as she pleases? Who cares? What is she trying to prove?”
Soon, some began to agree, “Women will always be women. They quit just after you say a few harsh words. She’ll definitely come back on her own, a couple of days later.”
“There’s no doubt. After all, she finally managed to turn from the daughter of a servant to a disciple, haha…”
Beyond what it means for her characterisation and the themes explored in the novel, this moment is significant because there are clear parallels between how she is treated in that moment and how WWX is talked about for protecting the Wen remnants and, later, for ‘deserting’ the Jiang sect. In fact, just before MianMian speaks out, sect leaders call WWX a “servant” and the “son of a servant” when underlying the ‘nerve’ of his ‘arrogance’ toward the sects with his actions.
One of the sect leaders added, “To be honest, I’ve wanted to say this since a long time ago. Although Wei Wuxian did a few things during the Sunshot Campaign, there are many guest cultivators who did more than him. I’ve never seen anyone as full of themselves as him. Excuse my bluntness, but he’s the son of a servant. How could the son of a servant be so arrogant?”
These passages are also reminiscent of the way WWX is discussed by cultivators celebrating his death in the prologue:
“That’s right, good riddance! If the YunmengJiang sect had not adopted him, educated him—this Wei Ying would have been a mediocre scoundrel all his life, nothing but riffraff…… what else could he be! The former head of the Jiang clan treated him as his own son, but what a son! [...]”
“I can’t believe Jiang Cheng really let this arrogant manservant live for so long. If it were me, when this Wei first defected, I wouldn’t have just stabbed him; I’d have cleaned house straight away. Then he wouldn’t have had the opportunity to commit all those deranged acts later. When it comes to these sorts of people, how can you even take sentiments like ‘same clan’, ‘same sect’, or ‘childhood loyalty’ into consideration?”
Due to the circumstances of their birth, even people who manage to achieve a higher position in society hold a tenuous grasp on the power and respect they have gained: their legitimacy is fraught. And even if they play the game right, the lines of legitimate belonging are always ready to be renegotiated by those in power. Despite the “few things” he did during the Sunshot Campaign that aligned with the interest of the sects, and despite being raised among the gentry in the Jiang sect and being perceived as a gongzi, WWX remains in the imaginary of the cultivators who see themselves as the legitimate holders of power as someone who needs to “remember his place”, someone who should be grateful and loyal as he has been “allowed” to raise in influence and be treated well in society despite being the son of a servant. And so when he stands against the interests of the sects, he’s not just betraying them: he betraying the social order which gives them legitimacy. This is directly tied to MianMian’s treatment in this scene. In the novel, MianMian is not only shamed and dismissed because she speaks out against the sects: it is also, if not primarily, because she did not, in the process, “remember her place”.
The scene as it is presented in the novel thus goes out of its way to set up a clear parallel between WWX and MianMian, not only in regards to their righteousness, but also in regards to how they are perceived and treated for being the children of servants. It also takes pain to underline the unfair treatment of women in that society. Moreover, if we’re only considering MianMian’s characterisation, it says a lot to see her have reached this level of importance in her sect despite her circumstances and then for her to let it all go.
In CQL? You’ve probably guessed it; all of these nuances are evacuated from the text. On top of the fact that MianMian continues to be established as a valued member of the Jin sect, the scene is cut short and a lot of the censure sent her way is excised. There are no mentions of her ‘having made her way’ into the room of powerful people who are allowed have an opinion on the state of the world. No mentions of her low social background and no mocking that she will crawl back to her sect after realising she can’t make it into the world without their influence and support. No dismissal of her based on the fact that she is a woman, or suggestions that she is standing up for the YLLZ only because she is enamoured with him. The scene is turned into a pale shadow of its original.
Instead of these elements, we do get a gasp from JZX (which becomes a dangling plot thread because he does not stand up for her nor does he reach out for her even though she’s supposed to be his good friend, nor do we see him being conflicted about being unable to beyond his gasp) and MianMian telling JGS that she is leaving his sect, which I’ll admit is pretty baller. But it does not even come close to having the significance and thematic implications of the scene as presented in the novel. CQL!MianMian stands up against the organized smear campaign against WWX and the sects’ unwillingness to accept their faults, and is only disregarded for having spoken against them: not because of who she was while she was raising doubts about their evaluation of the right and wrong. And that is significant, because it undercuts the discussions the novel explores through so many other characters about the impacts of being considered inferior by others.
The Travelling Rogue Cultivator who Stayed Home
Finally, in the novel, we meet MianMian once more when her daughter, Xiao MianMian, stumbles upon something she should not have seen while accompanying her parents on a night-hunt. The reason their paths cross is that, just like Wangxian, MianMian feels compelled to pursue night-hunts other cultivators disregard for their lack of glory in order to help the common people. This is her life mission as a travelling rogue cultivator: differently put, she goes where the chaos is. This set-up serves to highlight that MianMian and Wangxian are like-minded and share the same definition of what it means to be ‘Righteous’.
He asked, “Did you come here to night-hunt as well?”
Luo Qingyang nodded, “Yes. I heard spirits are haunting a nameless graveyard on this mountain, disturbing the lives of the people here, so I came to see if there’s any way I could help. Have you two cleaned it up already?”
The night-hunt also serves to reintroduce the theme of deception and rumours, and the ways in which MianMian is a character who is not swayed by public opinions but knows how easily others may be.
Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji exchanged a glance. “This was a lie too. No lives were lost. We looked it up. Only a few villagers who robbed the graves were bedridden for a while after being scared by the ghosts, and another broke his own leg when running away. Apart from these, there were no casualties. All those lives were made up for dramatic purposes.”
“So this was what happened?” interjected Luo Qingyang’s husband. “That’s absolutely shameless!”
“Oh, these people…” sighed Luo Qingyang. She seemed as if she remembered something, shaking her head, “They’re the same everywhere.”
This is because in the novel MianMian is tied to many themes, and always in a positive manner. Like WWX, she represents the good that is stifled by an unjust social order. She also represents the people who choose to defy and deviate from this social order to pursue a righteous life rather than trying to find vindication and power within that very social order (ie JGY or XY). Like the juniors, MianMian is a character that represents hope for the cultivation world, the potential for small but significant change. Like WWX and LWJ, she represents integrity in the face of the corrupting influences of power and politics, as well as the desire to protect the common people. Like Cangse Sanren, she represents the courage to make her own path in the world, and to marry for love with no considerations for social status or conventions, and the decision to becoming a travelling rogue cultivator.
On top of all these great things this scene accomplish, it is also just incredibly cute. After their talk, their parting is described like such: “Soon, the group had gone down the mountain, and Wei Wuxian could only say goodbye to them with some regret, continuing on another path alongside Lan Wangji.” Honestly, my ‘WWX and LWJ become Xiao MianMian’s shushus’ agenda is alive and well and I will not accept anything else.
In CQL, however, the reunion happens by pure coincidence. The scene is in actuality a mash-up between the reunion we have in the novel and another scene that takes place earlier, in which fugitives WWX and LWJ enter the home of strangers as they are looking for some water (and end up frolicking in hay).
Simply by changing the circumstances and the setting of the reunion, something is lost of the thematic connection between WWX/Wangxian and MianMian, even though viewers still get told that MianMian is someone who night-hunts. Without entering into the specific debate of whether show don’t tell is the only acceptable storytelling strategy, I think it’s fair to say that it is more effective to run into MianMian as she is night hunting based on the same rumours of hauntings as Wangxian instead of seeing her get home, pull a sword willy-nilly after hearing something suspicious in her backyard and finally getting told that she was out night hunting.
Moreover, having to recreate most of the beats of MianMian’s last appearance into this new context seems to have been quite confusing to the CQL production team, and seems to have breed, as a result, a lack of internal coherence to the scene (cut between the end of ep 43 and the beginning of ep 44), regardless of any of its other pitfalls as an adaptation.
In the CQL version, when we meet the family on their way back to their home, Xiao MianMian had been running around and her father chastises her by telling her something along the lines of “Don’t run around, what if you had gotten caught by the YLLZ?”, thereby suggesting that MianMian’s husband believes what is said about WWX. To this, Xiao MianMian replies But Mom Says he’s a Good Guy Though. Obviously, the intent of the writers was to show that MianMian had never bought into the rumours about WWX. However, this exchange makes seemingly no sense if one thinks about it for longer than a second. It suggests that MianMian had never talked about this topic with her husband or that he had never heard her talk about the YLLZ with their daughter. Considering how dangerous the YLLZ is said to be, and that they were night-hunting while he was a fugitive, I don’t see how that would have not come up even if for some unlikely reason she had until then only talked about the YLLZ with her daughter. Of course, one could suggest that MianMian’s husband says this to tease their daughter, fully aware that the YLLZ’s reputation of swallowing children is a tall tale, but the tone is not quite right? And it does not jive with the fact that MianMian is not on board with defaming people: I don’t think she’d be okay with her husband knowingly using the myth of the YLLZ to scare their kid into obedience because it’s convenient to do so? A miss.
To make matters worse, when WWX later asks MianMian is she’s back from night-hunting, Xiao MianMian says that they are back from searching for the YLLZ. First, there is a clear lack of coherence with the previous exchange between Xiao MianMian and her father. And again, it’s hard to get to the meaning of that exchange: is it implying that MianMian was looking for WWX to offer him her help? She certainly doesn’t once she does meet him, so that appears unlikely or at least it’s a plothole/dangling plot thread. But why be looking for him, if she knows he’s not the monster the rumours make him out to be? Clearly, the writers wanted to tell the viewers that MianMian is a rogue cultivator, and figured that having her back from a night-hunt would be enough: but why this line by Xiao MianMian about searching for the YLLZ? Is it just the fancy of a kid, who makes up her own stories while her parents pursue other cases (especially since MianMian says she was looking for puppets)? But then Xiao MianMian does say that ‘we’ were searching for him...
I can’t figure it out. I find it even weirder that, when WWX asks Xiao MianMian whether she is scared of the scary YLLZ (although she’s literally just said moments before that she was not scared of him in her exchange with her father that WWX certainly heard), Xiao MianMian starts replying that she is not scared and MianMian cuts her, apologizing to WWX that he daughter is too young and naive. What is she apologizing for? How is her daughter naive for not being scared of the YLLZ? Or is she apologizing for her daughter suggesting they were searching for the YLLZ? If so, why cut her now and not when she suggested that they were searching for him?
What’s happening in this scene?!
Also, even an attempt to keep lines as close to what they were in the novel ends up backfiring with the new context. In the novel, out night-hunting, MianMian asks “ 什么人” when she sees WWX come out from the direction of a graveyard (she has not seen LWJ yet). Knowing that she might suspect him of being a corpse or a spirit considering that it is night and that he is leaving a graveyard said to be haunted, WWX responds “不管是什么人，总归是人，不是别的东西 “ (No matter who I am, I’m a person after all, and not something else). In CQL, when MianMian hears a sound in her backyard, she asks “ 什么人” and, after LWJ comes out and is recognized by MianMian, WWX still responds (??) with a similar yet slightly different sentence: “ 不管是谁，反正是个人，不是东西 “ (No matter who I am, anyway I am a person, not a thing). This exchange in the context of the scene in CQL baffles me because: why would there be then an expectation that they would not be a person in this situation? Why would he say that after MianMian has seen and recognized LWJ, thus knowing full well that it is a person and not a spirit or a corpse? As well, why change “ 别的东西 “ (something else/different thing) for “ 东西 “ (thing) since MianMian’s question does not imply by itself that she thinks they are not people since she asks "什么人” (literally: what person?), making WWX’s statement that he is “not a thing” completely come out of nowhere? And it’s so much more perplexing than his original statement that he is not “something else” from a human.
I’m spending time on these two lines because I find them to be a sort of microcosm of some of the questionable adaptation choices made in CQL: at times the web series chooses to keep things from the novel even after changing the context in which these elements unfold without understanding how these no longer work within their new context. Yet, at the same time, it feels comfortable making what appear on the surface to be minute changes without thinking through the implications of them, and thus changing the point of these elements through these minute modifications.
Aside from these elements which prevent this moment in CQL to give us a scene that is internally coherent, let’s further interrogate some of the adaptational changes made between the novel and the web series, and their impact on the themes and characterisation.
One change that conflicts with the characterisation and the thematic discussion regards WWX inquiring about MianMian’s husband. Unlike in the novel, where WWX engages him in a little bit of chitchat and then feels forced by conventions to ask to which sect he belongs, CQL makes it seem as if it is an information WWX wants to ask because it’s literally the first thing he says to him, not even after a salutation or a “well met” (I will be magnanimous and believe that that choice to do so was for the sake of brevity and not because the preceding dialogue had not been written in the novel and the CQL writers couldn’t be bothered to come up with something). This, however, makes it look like WWX puts a lot of importance in knowing someone’s allegiance to a sect, which is the exact opposite of how he feels about it.
She pulled the man up, “This is my husband.”
Noticing that they held no malicious intent, the man softened visibly. After some chatter, Wei Wuxian asked out of convenience, “Which sect do you belong to and which kind of cultivation do you practice?”
The man answered frankly, “None of them.”
Luo Qingyang gazed at her husband, smiling, “My husband isn’t of the cultivating world. He used to be a merchant. But, he’s willing to go night-hunting with me…”
It was both rare and admirable that an ordinary person, and a man at that, would be willing to give up his originally stable life and dare travel the world with his wife, unafraid of danger and wander. Wei Wuxian could not help feeling respect for him.
Of course, without WWX’s thought process provided to us in the narration, the implications of MianMian’s husband being originally a merchant are a little bit lost in CQL, even if CQL!MianMian provides that piece of information. Of course, CQL could have chosen to include WWX’s musings, since it does include in this very scene some voice-over thoughts earlier. It is a shame though, that it does not, since MianMian and her husband are clear parallels for WWX’s parents in that regard: his father also left a stable life to travel the world with his wife.
Although, to be fair, CQL!MianMian is no longer a rogue cultivator who travels the world, so it is not like her husband made the decision to travel the world with her. Indeed, by frankensteining the two scenes from the novel, MianMian is by default no longer a rogue cultivator who travels the world: she is a rogue cultivator, sure, in that she does not belong to a sect, but she is a rogue cultivator with a home she clearly needs to inhabit during the day, what with the fact that they raise animals (we see little chicks in the background and there are piles of hay), and who night-hunts close enough to her home to be able to come back home in the morning. Moreover, without the context of meeting MianMian at the same glory-less night-hunt as Wangxian, it is harder to express the idea that MianMian is someone who chooses, like them, to do so for the common good and not for any prestige or rewards. MianMian is no longer another cultivator who goes ‘where the chaos is’ and, in terms of positive female representation, it is truly a shame. After all, the novel frames this as a positive and admirable trait which we see in our two main (male) protagonists: to have a woman follow, independently, the same path as them is meaningful.
Finally, instead of the scene closing with a regretful parting that hints at the sense of kinship between MianMian’s family and Wangxian, we get a truly (imo) patronizing ending. In CQL, their conversation is disrupted by threatening sounds. LWJ then instructs MianMian to stay in her home and protect Xiao MianMian while LWJ and WWX take care of things. So feminism..... such empowerment... To be honest, if CQL meant to change things and put MianMian in scenes where she wasn’t originally, why not have her go with Wangxian? Why not have her be there for the Mass Grave Hill Siege? Why not have her leave her daughter with her husband and let her be a badass? Instead, they conveniently check her out of the action after putting her directly in the middle of it. Instead of having MianMian be away from the sects and doing her own rogue cultivator thing as the events of the novels unfolded in WWX’s second life, explaining her absence, CQL reintroduces her just before an important moment but chooses to send her away once more, to stay home and protect her daughter, probably because they did not want to take the time and energy to figure out how and where she would fit into these scenes in which she had not be written in the novel. This is the kind of adaptational choice that makes me question why people consider CQL a more progressive work of fiction with regards to its treatment of female characters.
Final Musings: sometimes, less is more
Does an increase to the number of appearances of a character shape their impact on the audience? Or, conversely, does it dilute their meaning within and their impact on the text? There is not a simple answer to that question. Certainly, repetition is in itself a literary device, and many readers need salient and blunt reminders to get a message across, the likes of: the important characters are the ones you see the most often. Likewise, having a character feature more often in a work can provide the necessary breathing space to explore more and in more depth their psychology, motivations, past, actions, etc. However, the simple act of increasing the presence of a character does not inherently increase their impact on a work of fiction nor does it increase the nuances and depths of that character.
It is possible to adhere to a cynical or optimistic perspective regarding CQL’s decision to feature MDZS’ female characters more prominently. It is not hard to divine why the decision could have been made solely for the financial incentive of “pandering” to a female audience who dares to want to see themselves on screen. Conversely, one can imagine a production team animated by good intentions, who simply want to give more limelight to these female characters. Whether purely motivated by a profit-based logic or solely well-intentioned, or at a vector of both motives, it is clear that the CQL production did not increase the screen presence of MDZS’s female characters out of a desire to tell a stronger, more effective version of the original story they were working with. And that is why the urge to quantify good representation will always end up failing us in my opinion.
While it can be productive to consider trends, it does not give us a better media landscape or better individual works of fiction; it does not necessarily give us more impactful or better written female characters. This type of analysis urges us to see female characters as female first, without truly attempting to understand their purpose and treatment within the story. While MDZS has fewer female characters, these characters showcase different personalities and occupy different positions within the social world of the novel; they have arcs and thematic resonance and they cannot be simply replaced by a “sexy lamp” without disrupting the plot completely. They are also often given a surprising amount of depth, if readers are willing to pay attention to all that is found in the text and in the subtext.
For such a long novel, MDZS is able to remonstrate a certain amount of restraint wrt its storytelling. The timespan it wants to cover is expansive, its cast of characters not insignificant, and the story it aims to tell is ambitious. It is easy to imagine a meandering version of MDZS where many more characters are present, including many more female characters, or where the existing female characters get an extended presence within the narrative. But would those female characters have been more impactful? Would the story told have been a better one? The way the CQL production team chose to adapt MianMian hints that this is not a done conclusion.
(+ bonus MianMian meta)
#mdzs meta#mdzs#mianmian#luo qingyang#cql vs mdzs#mo dao zu shi#modaozushi#IT'S FINALLY DONE!!!!!!!!!!!!#this is my manifesto
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idk if ur the right person to ask for this but: I was thinking of pulling for ayato bc his skill and ult seem really useful especially in the spiral abyss. but other players say his icd is too long/his scaling is trash/ he's not worth it etcetc. do you have any thoughts on this?
starting this off by saying that i am in no way a meta player, i play how it's comfortable to me and how i'm used to, i'm not an expert and also lol sorry for the long ass response but i wanted to get as specific as possible, and also it kinda doesn't make any sense so forgive me for that lol
first i wanna say i disagree with the scaling is trash point because i think his scaling is pretty average for a sword dps as far is im concerned, besides that:
if you listen to people who talk about "meta" endlessly, then you're gonna end up not pulling for any character. i've been playing genshin since 1.1 and as far as i'm concerned almost every single limited 5* character was deemed "trash" either before or when they were released, the only exceptions i'm aware of that didn't have any major controversy, negative or even remotely dubious response were itto, xiao, hu tao, ayaka i guess but she was a special case, maybe venti and klee (initially)
idk if you're a new player, but if you are you'll be surprised to find out that raiden shogun was deemed unusable, ganyu was called "cryo amber", albedo was completely overlooked, i'm not even gonna get into the zhongli discourse because i'd have to write an entire book about it
my point is "xyz is trash because [1 flaw that they have]" are comments you shouldn't pay too much attention to, especially if the character is still in beta and hasn't been released
if you play only to 36* abyss then honestly, i don't think you should pull for ayato only for that, but i also think you shouldn't just play for spiral abyss in general. if you're a newer player then uh unless abyss gets a big rework you're gonna have a tough time 36* starring it (i kinda gave up on it :p)
if you play to have fun, then ayato seems to me a perfectly viable hydro dps, sub-dps or even support that could potentially work well with a lot of different units as far as i'm concerned; ICD is a problem that's not unique to ayato and it is kind of annoying, there's not much that can be done about that honestly and you just have to deal with it. and also. god. for the love of god. for the sake of everything that is holy in this world. look at me anon. repeat it with me:
-> vaporise is not the only reaction <-
the only reason why i would tell you to rethink pulling for ayato is if you have childe already since their kits are extremely similar as they're both very team oriented (as opposed to hypercarries) (but even then i'm still pulling for ayato even with a childe in my roster like idc)
i'd say if you're unsure then wait until he's released (if you can and weren't planning on otherwise pulling for raiden or kokomi in a couple of weeks), do his trial, if you have the patience you can even wait to see what other players think in the first few days, and then make your decision
but please, and i mean this genuinely, don't skip a character just because someone on twitter called them trash, pointing out flaws in characters is perfectly valid criticism and i watch videos about characters' flaws all the time, but you can't know for sure until the character is released and you did a test run with them outside of beta
TLDR: if you like a character and you want to play them because their kit looks genuinely fun to you, pull regardless of meta, there is no PvP in genshin so which unit you play is absolutely inconsequential outside of spiral abyss
i feel like i've definitely missed some stuff but that's what i think, at the end of the day ayato is not a badly designed unit in my opinion, he's balanced enough that whatever he lacks can be filled in with other units in my personal opinion
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Chapter 2-Project “Ma” –Eve–; Scene 6
Original Sin Story: Crime, pages 56-69
One of the cities that made up the Twelve Royal Capitals was the city of Asmouse.
This town, managed by senate member Ceci Vaju, was the place where the historical backing of the Twelve Royal Capitals was most pronounced.
The people who had once began the excavation of the god’s legacy in this area—Senator Vaju was a descendant of theirs, and he was also a very passionate researcher of artifacts.
Fumbling for a way to more effectively utilize these artifacts, Senator Vaju founded the Royal Research Institute in Asmouse with permission from the previous queen. He entrusted the position of first director to a friend who shared his passion, Horus Solntse.
As their initial goal implied, the Royal Research Institute’s research wound up contributing greatly to the development of Leviantan engineering, weaponry, and living wares. The artifacts could be made to work with magical power, but Horus and the other researchers progressively discovered more effective operating procedures, and brought yet more glory to the Magic Kingdom.
Meanwhile, Senator Vaju and Horus also used the institute to pursue a different avenue of research.
That was “to deliberately create people who have strong magical abilities”. In other words, it was to make a candidate for the next queen be born under the domain of Senator Vaju, and was also necessary research for him to obtain the position of the next senate head.
But that research had proved to be much rougher going than anticipated, and Horus had passed away from illness before they could achieve any results.
Horus had an adopted son named Adam, and he was, too, a skilled scientist. For that reason he was hired on by Senator Vaju as the new head of the institute, and he also inherited their research—the “Next Queen Project”.
--That “Next Queen Project” had now changed its name to “Project Ma”, and was proceeding under the supervision of Head Senator Miroku.
.
…Most of that was inconsequential to Eve.
The important thing was the fact that Eve was, at present, the strongest candidate they had for “Ma”.
Not having much interest in science herself, Eve could only conclude that the Royal Research Institute was a cold, unappealing place.
“Wish I could have had a more comfortable chair.”
Adam gave a slightly troubled smile at Eve’s complaint, handing her a cup with a liquid in it.
“We’ll give that a fix the next time we’re making a device to test magical ability. But for right now this is all we’ve got…Well, anyway, give this is a drink if you like.”
“…What’s this?”
“It’s a drink called coffee. It’s not spread much outside the capital, so it’s understandable if you’ve never heard of it.”
With Eve’s mood souring more under the impression that she was being made fun of as a country hick, she brought the brown liquid to her lips.
“—It smells good. But it’s a little bitter.”
“It’s got a lot of milk and sugar in it. Drinking it should help you calm down a bit.”
“I think I’d be a lot calmer if I could get these wires off my arms and legs.”
“We need them to get an accurate reading of your magic. …It’ll take a little bit of time, so please try to be patient.”
The measuring device they’d used in the village of Nemu was a simpler, portable model.
Though, it wasn’t the fault of that device that they hadn’t gotten an accurate result back then.
“That spoon…is also extremely curious to me, as a scientist,” Adam said, brandishing the blue spoon that Eve used instead of a staff.
“At a glance it looks like a normal, bland item….But it can increase or decrease the magical ability of its owner at will. In other words it can amplify magic and also temporarily put a seal on it—”
“My mother gave it to me.”
“Did she make it?”
“I don’t know. I never learned that.”
“This might also be a legacy piece…Well, we’ll deal with that later.”
Adam set the spoon on a nearby table, and then drew closer to a large box that was next to the chair Eve was sitting in.
“Well, let’s get started.”
He pushed up a lever that was attached to the box.
Suddenly feeling slightly dizzy, Eve fell back a bit in the chair.
“I’m…a bit nauseous.”
“It’ll go away. We have to check to see if that powerful spell you used in the forest…was because of the spoon, or your own magical ability.”
“How…long will it take?”
“Hmm…About an hour, I think.”
“That long!?”
“It’s not like you have to keep perfectly still the whole time. Though you can’t leave the chair. You can drink coffee, or if you’re hungry I can bring you something to eat.”
“Then—” After looking up at the ceiling for a moment, Eve continued, “Can I talk?”
“With me? …Of course, I don’t mind.”
“Then…I want you to tell me something.”
“What is it?”
“About the ‘Witch of Merrigod’.”
Adam’s expression stiffened. “Why would you want to—”
“She’s the one who murdered the father who raised me. Isn’t it only natural that I would want to know about her?”
“What will you do with this information?”
“…Not sure.”
Eve herself didn’t know the answer to that question.
But—
“I can’t just go on not knowing.”
“…”
“Assuming I’ll become queen someday, I mean.”
“…I see. Yes, perhaps…so.” After gazing fixedly at Eve’s face, Adam steeled himself and then started to talk. “The ‘Witch of Merrigod’—Meta Salmhofer was originally an ‘Ma’ candidate.”
“You told me that earlier. But you said she was discarded for being cruel?”
“Yes. If you go southeast of the capital—far, far further east than the village of Nemu where you live, there is a place called Merrigod Plateau. That area is a dangerous region, used as a stronghold by a certain group.”
“…You mean the ‘red devotees’?”
“No, to be accurate those are little more than a single unit of this group. The name for them as a whole—is ‘Apocalypse’. There are some people who say they’re a simple crew of bandits, and there are others who caution that they’re an anti-social organization that seeks to overthrow the kingdom.”
According to Adam, not even the royal capital’s information bureau knew the true situation.
“What we do know is that the leader of Apocalypse is named ‘Pale Noel’. And that he and Meta are lovers.”
“Pale Noel…”
“His age, his appearance…all of it is unknown. Actually, we don’t even know if he’s really a man. Whatever the case, she’s this person’s girlfriend. We needed to exercise extreme caution even to go see them.”
At the time, Adam, Seth, and a few other researchers had gone to Merrigod Plateau with a peacekeeping force led by Gammon following along.
“But…that was a mistake.”
Adam heaved a great sigh.
“We just ended up provoking them. As a result…a small war broke out on Merrigod Plateau. Though that wasn’t what we scientists had intended at all.”
“But that wasn’t the case with the peacekeeping force and Apocalypse…Right?”
“Indeed. Gammon is always looking for glory. It’s like he’s a big bundle of ambition. Even more so after he became the head of the peacekeeping forces. He likely figured he could use his position as bodyguard to crush Apocalypse.”
But his plan ended in failure.
“Meta is an ‘Inheritor of Gilles’. She controlled the soldiers of the peacekeeping force with her power, and they all started firing at each other. Even us researchers, who they were supposed to be guarding, got caught up in it….We had heavy losses. That’s why the institute is still completely understaffed.”
Eve had come along to the institute with Adam, but now that he mentioned it she realized that she hadn’t seen anyone else up to coming to this room.
“How…many scientists survived?”
Adam spread his arms in a grandiose gesture and replied, “Don’t be surprised. Just me and Seth! Though this facility wasn’t very heavily staffed to begin with.”
“I see…How awful.”
Eve had the home where she’d lived destroyed by Meta.
But Adam too had had his friends murdered.
“Yes…Some of them I got along with quite well, and some I frankly didn’t much care for. But none of them deserved to die like that.”
On seeing Adam’s bitter expression, Eve was reminded of her own grief.
“Hey…Just what is an ‘Inheritor of Gilles’ exactly?” she asked, trying to change the mood.
“R-right…An ‘inheritor’ is, well…To put it simply, it’s someone with ‘supernatural powers’.”
“’Supernatural powers’? Unlike magic?”
“In this country there are people who possess ‘special powers’ different from magical power. For example…the white army. We know from our reports that clan has the power of ‘Inheritors of Salem’, able to wield fire.”
“I see…So that was it.”
Eve had always thought that the white army’s usage of fire was through magic, but it appeared this wasn’t the case.
“Among the white army there are people who are magically impotent—that is, they were born without any ability to use magic at all. And yet despite that they are able to use their fire powers just the same as their fellows. …Though I’ve heard that research into the fundamental theory behind it hasn’t progressed very far at present.”
“Is that research conducted here?”
“No. Research into ‘inheritors’ is the purview of Lighwatch Temple. Sir Yegor Asayev, the head priest, is the expert on it.”
“Wow…”
“So, honestly I don’t actually know that much about ‘Inheritors’. Just that they’re divided up into categories by ability, like ‘Gilles’ and ‘Salem’, and that those are based on the names of the god kin—”
At that moment, the box set next to Eve—the magical ability measuring device, started to faintly shake.
“Hey…Is this working okay?”
Eve pointed to the box.
“Hm? …Oh, that’s fine,” Adam replied, gazing at the symbols that popped up onto the box’s screen. “Would you like some more coffee?” he asked her, turning around and noticing that Eve’s cup was empty.
It was a peculiar drink; Eve didn’t find it all that tasty, and yet she kept bringing it to her lips for some reason.
“Yes, please…But before that, one more question.”
“What is it?”
“…Why did Meta go after my father?”
“…That I don’t know.”
His eyes looked somewhat shifty.
Still, Eve couldn’t tell if Adam was playing dumb or not.
“Well then, a different question.”
“You’ve quite a lot of those. I actually have a lot of things I want to ask you, you know.”
“What does the royal capital…or rather, the military, plan to do about Apocalypse?”
“What do you me—”
“They’ve killed a lot of people, right? The people of the village of Nemu, and the people from this institute…’Sin must be punished’…Even I know the laws of this country.”
“…”
Adam took the cup from Eve and left the room without a word.
--In hardly any time at all, he had returned once more with a cup full of fresh coffee.
“Here you go. I put in more milk than last time.”
“Thanks.”
“…They are to keep careful watch over Apocalypse—That is what the military…or rather, the senate, decided.”
“--! Why!?”
“At present, Apocalypse has done no damage to the Twelve Royal Capitals. For the kingdom, the white army and the others are little more than barbarians at their border. The capital’s protection would be imperiled if they moved their security forces against them any further than they have.”
“So you’re saying that as long as the royal capital is alright, it doesn’t matter what happens to the others?”
“…I’m just a mere scientist. What I’ve told you now is just what I’ve heard from Gammon.”
Even if he was involved in a project of great importance to the country, he wasn’t in any position to say much more on the government outside of that—That’s likely what he meant.
Eve could tell that.
She could, but…
“That’s unreasonable. The ruler of a country needs to understand the suffering of its people…I think now I understand why my father hated politics,” Eve muttered, frustrated.
“…”
Adam looked upon Eve in silence for a short while, but eventually he shifted his gaze to the measuring device.
Then he took up the piece of paper and quill set on the desk and started to write something down.
--Midway through his work, Adam said, still not looking at Eve, “In that case…You should become the ruler.”
“…”
“It seems you have the qualifications for it.”
“So you mean…I can become queen? Has it come up with a result?”
“No, it’s still measuring, but…At this point I’m already seeing some impressive numbers. I think…your magical ability is much higher than that of your father.”
Even so.
No matter how gifted she was, Eve was still just a simple girl who knew nothing of governance.
Would anything change by someone like her becoming queen?
--Appearing to sense her anxiety, Adam set down the paper and quill and drew close to her.
“It’ll be fine, I know it.”
“…”
“I’m sure you can do it.”
“Can I do anything alone?”
“You’re not alone.”
“My father is dead. And the people of my village are gone. I don’t have anyone—"
“—You have me.”
Adam clasped Eve’s hands in his own.
…She couldn’t bring herself to brush aside the warmth in them.
“Do you dislike me?” Adam asked.
“…If I did, I wouldn’t be cooperating with all this…But, what about you?”
Adam had gotten close with Eve just because she might have had strong magic.
She was just a candidate for queen to him.
That was surely the reason for him being so kind to her like this—
“I wouldn’t be trying to have someone I disliked selected as queen,” Adam said plainly. “You’re an enchanting woman. I’ve thought so since the first time I met you.”
“…Didn’t you stab at me with a sword at first?”
Adam burst out laughing at Eve’s reply. “Pfff…Ah haha, that’s true. Please forgive me for that. I was desperate back then.”
“Are you good with a sword?”
“I’ve only learned enough to defend myself…Ah yes, speaking of swords.”
Adam shifted his gaze to a sword that sat in the corner of the room.
“We ended up bringing that over here.”
It was Raisa’s sword, the one that Gammon had thrown to him in the forest.
“It’s an unusual shape…Its current owner is currently in prison. Not much point in returning it.”
“Raisa is…alive?”
“Just barely. Though even if her wounds are healed, thinking on what she’s done…She’s not likely to avoid an execution.”
“…”
It wasn’t just Raisa.
The Witch of Merrigod Meta, and Pale Noel.
In this world, so much—
Evil had spread.
Even if Eve continued to fire lightning as the “Witch of the Forest”, she could never get rid of it all.
It was impossible for one person.
She would need—much more power.
And for that…
Eve chewed her lip.
.
--As though to mock the resolve that had begun to sprout in Eve’s heart, several days later something happened.
Raisa, the white fiend of Jakoku, escaped from prison.
There was no way that she could have accomplished this herself, being near death.
It was likely that an outside person with influence had pulled some strings.
.
Meanwhile, the magical potential measurement result…was suitable for queen candidacy, just as Adam had predicted.
Her M count was over 350…Eve didn’t know how much exactly, but at the very least it was more than enough to secure the agreement of both Adam and the senate.
And with that result, Eve could smoothly become queen—or so she had thought.
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Mark Gatiss 10th Anniversary Video
So, after hearing about this video for a while, I finally watched the video Gatiss put out of him portraying his character Mycroft for Sherlock’s 10th anniversary. And now I understand what everyone has been so upset about. I had read explanations, but watching the full context just made it even worse.
For anyone who hasn’t watched it, Mark made a video as himself as Mycroft talking about the pandemic, the 10th anniversary of Sherlock, and promoting (i think) a Chinese YouTube channel (someone correct me if I got that wrong). The part that caught everyone’s attention is where he says something like (and I’m highly paraphrasing here) ‘it has been 10 years since the televised story of my little brother came out. This was a mistake as an element of romanticism was added to it, much like adding a love story to the fifth act of Euclid’ (yeah, I know, I could find the video and quote it exactly, but the paraphrased version conveys enough). At first glance, this might not seem so bad, as it is almost a direct quote from ACD canon. However, the context of it matters a lot. The show has come under fire for queerbaiting, and, imo, rightfully so. That part of the video felt like it was addressing those claims, almost like he was trying to say that the show added, fabricated the element of romance between sherlock and john, that it isn’t real, that the show didn’t stick to the cold, hard facts like it was supposed to. I’ve also read others saying that he left out parts of the ACD quote his little speech comes from, and that the parts he left out seemed pretty deliberate. I don’t know enough about original canon to speak on this, but if it’s true, it’s even more disappointing.
I don’t know about others, but I’m always hesitant to make accusations and jump to conclusions. If there’s another explanation available, especially a probable one, I won’t rule it out completely. But, after watching the video, I have to say, I’m not optimistic. What Mark said seemed pretty intentional, especially considering the kind of show he worked on and how much attention to detail he had when it came to making the show. There’s 10,000 metas on this website analyzing what might seem at first to be totally inconsequential details that later have too many patterns to be a coincidence.
#sherlock#sherlock holmes#bbc sherlock#sherlockian#john watson#benedict cumberbatch#martin freeman#mark gatiss#steven moffat#sherlock 10th anniversary#queerbaiting#johnlock
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