#this turned into a “why SWK V MK is gonna happen” meta | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

imminent-danger-came · 9 months

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So- we all agree that MK will at some point fight his friends.

But what do you think would cause an actual fight to break out? I can imagine a CONFRONTATION. Arguing, a small scale brawl or scuffle. A full blown, all out, cataclysmic battle however? HOW???

Yeah, MK did lash out at Macaque when he was pretending to be Wukong. MK was definitely upset, but the thing that made him want to straight up fight Wukong was Macaque antagonizing him and hitting him where it hurts.

Mei and the real Wukong wouldn’t do that. They love MK too much. And vice versa. I just can‘t imagine them fighting eachother while fully aware.

Do you think it would be a loss of control situation? That MK‘s too powerful to contain? Brainwashing 2.0? Golden Circlet? Someone pretending to be MK and leaving the real one to deal with thr consequences? I‘m just listing all the different tropes at this point oof

Or do you have a specific scenario in mind that you think could realistically happen or hope for?

So! I think it'll be a combination of a loss of control, good ol' fashioned manipulation, and MK learning something that pushes him over the edge.

Like, you know in 4x13 where MK says things that distinctly don't feel like MK—"We'll alright then", "Oh there's nothing mindless about me friend"—and he's smiling and very much unhinged, and it's all kinda scary? I feel like there's gonna be a lot more of that next season, all aligning with MK and his fate vs what he actually wants. Like:

Subodhi: “Who or what you are, even I do not know the answer—but of one thing, I am certain: fate has plans for you! Great plans, or foul? Time will tell.” MK: "I- I can't be! I'm just MK!" Subodhi: "The Monkie Kid?" MK: *Gasps*

(4x06 Show Me the Monster)

"Great plans, or foul?" - "Remind me how this 'game' is supposed to convince me I'm not destined to turn into an evil monkey demon thing again? Cause every option I pick takes me to this same screen!" - Aka, despite your choices the final outcome is inevitable. MK wants to be MK, but he's also the Monkie Kid, and he can't separate himself from whatever he is—i.e. MK is gonna have to reconcile the different parts of himself, including the parts of himself he refuses to acknowledge.

The conclusion Macaque helps MK come to at the end of s4 is that no one can decide who MK is for him ("Only you get to decide who you are kiddo."), and what I LOVE to point out is that the person who decided who MK is, who he will be, was in fact himself—or at least the curse version of himself:

(*sigh* this wasn't supposed to be super long and then it was. The rest under the cut!)

Curse MK: “Haha, seriously? You still think we’re just some, noodle delivery guy? You can’t remember where we came from, and we got ALL this power, and you never once thought, WHY US? What are we? What is our purpose?”

Curse MK: “You can’t escape it, this thing, whatever you are, embrace it. Embrace your destiny.”

Curse MK: "You can see it, can't you? This is your fate. Your friends will turn on you, seeing you for the monster you will become. They will destroy you, harbinger of chaos."

(4x07 Pitiful Creatures)

It's this interesting mess, where it seems like MK is spiraling towards becoming something else, something he doesn't want to become. So let's add a little check mark next to the "loss of control" box for why MK is fighting his friends next season—I'm not sure he'll be entirely "himself" if you catch my drift (maybe a kinda Samadhi Fire Mei situation, similar to the way she loses control).

Next point: good ol' fashioned manipulation.

So, just like LBD we got another puppet master on our hands, the person who was pulling the strings and released Azure.

AKA whoever the fuck this guy is:

Hooded Figure: "There will of course be an inquiry into how the scroll of memory was stolen in the first place, and what is to be done now that the Jade Emperor has been dethroned. The universe is perilously close to tipping into chaos. If it comes to light that any of this party were involved, you can believe the consequences will be dire—but only a fraction of the price compared to what shall come to pass should you succeed."

(4x14 Better Than We Found It)

The thing about this guy who wanted Azure to become the Jade Emperor and lose control—perhaps they wanted the Jade Emperor's power without a host so they could use it for their own purposes?—is that we don't know what their plan is, but we can assume it's going to include MK ("Great plans or foul?", MK as a "harbinger of chaos" with this mystery person trying to tip the universe into chaos, etc.—I'd argue they're the next stand in for destiny)

Which gets me to my point: our hooded figure is going to manipulate MK the same way they manipulated Azure, and the same way LBD manipulated MK before, which means gettin' all up inside MK's head. Making him doubt both himself and Monkey King and his friends.

And well, people trying to turn MK against Wukong has had a track record of MK absolutely losing his shit and going into Monkey form before (which admittedly may be the very thing the hooded figure wants):

1.) The very first time MK glitches into Monkey Form is after the curse insists that "We're just like Wukong—a fraud! A trickster! Destructive! Why would our legacy be any different? Actually, no no- the chaos and destruction we'll bring upon the world will make Wukong's past look like nothing."

2.) Then, first time MK fully enters monkey form is after the curse insists that "It's just like the Lady Bone Demon said—all you'll ever do is cause pain and suffering!", which in itself is tied to the words Mei says to Wukong in 3x10 "Don't you see you're hurting the people who care about you the most?" which is ALSO tied to 4x08 with the reason MK decides to run off to begin with—he's afraid of hurting the people he cares about (just like Wukong) and that perhaps he really is only destined to cause pain and suffering.

3.) After 4x07 MK goes into his Monkey Form again in 4x08, but this time it's after Azure tried to destroy MK's faith in Wukong ("Monkey King's a hero he wouldn't just-" "You saw it with your own eyes! His betrayal his brutality, he took the only friends I had from me."). MK really starts to lose it after he learns Azure won't release Wukong from the scroll ("I won't let you take Monkey King away from me again!").

4.) Next, in 4x09, MK starts glitching into Monkey Form after Macaque insults Wukong ("Or, he was just doing his usual Wukong thing and being a lazy peach eating idiot—ignoring all the worlds problems."). It's also directly after MK wonders why Wukong stayed on flower fruit mountain all those years: "You think Monkey King ever felt like this? Maybe that's why he stayed up on this mountain, just having a good time with you guys. You know cause- cause he knew he'd be out of the way where he couldn't hurt anyone he cared about."

5.) Next instance of Monkey Form isn't until 4x13, but I'd argue it's the most relevant of the bunch. For the entire special MK hadn't flickered into Monkey Form once, but he does after Azure starts insulting his loyalty to Wukong: ""After all Sun Wukong has put you through, how much he has let you down, you would STILL meet your fate trying to protect him? He doesn't deserve such loyalty, yet you insist on learning the hard way, just as I did. I should have never trusted the Monkey King! The false sage, equal to NOTHING!"

And then after this we have the scariest instances of Monkey MK I ever did see:

MK is ripe to be manipulated in all the wrong ways, specifically around his relationship with Monkey King—and perhaps even his friends if the situation gets bad enough (though I would imagine it being something more like MK trying to leave to protect them [again] and the gang not letting him) (Other side note: there are literally 5 examples of MK going into Monkey Form because of how his relationship/view of Wukong is being called into question, all at the end of s4. That is so many).

I think a la 2x05 and 4x07 MK will also have his perception of himself pushed to it's limits via our new antagonist. So rather than Wukong or Mei antagonizing MK for him to lash out, I'd say our puppet master will be the one to antagonize MK. To push him towards whatever they need MK to be for their plans.

And with that, I'm checking off box number 2 "good ol' fashioned manipulation".

Now onto point number 3, MK learning info that pushes him over the edge (which will be helped by point number 2 and lead to point number 1, FULL CIRCLE BABY).

So the special definitely set up the fact that there's more both MK and the audience don't know about Wukong's past, particularly around Macaque:

Macaque: "Every choice has consequences kid, for someone." MK: "Okay come on man! What happened between you two, for realzies!"

MK: "Seriously! Come on man I need answers!"

(4x11 A Lifetime of Mistakes)

Oh sweet MK, answers you will receive! They just won't be the answers you want. (The fact that MK is questioning Wukong's past at all, along with the curse saying "We're just like Wukong" as proof they were destructive, leads me to believe that uh, maybe your boy is having some doubts! One of the things MK is specifically upset at Azure about is that the Lion attempted to "turn him against his own mentor". That's all gonna lead somewhere)

Which, the implication is clear:

For undoubtedly some important reason, Wukong had to either kill Macaque or bring him to deaths door. But, MK over there who refused to abandon or hurt Mei even when she was going to burn away reality, who refused to abandon his friends even if it might risk unleashing the curse into the world, might not understand the nuances (hi "good guy" V "bad guy" binary mentality) of whatever happened between Wukong and Macaque.

Lego Monkie Kid is a show where plot points and arcs line up—the fact that MK's faith in Wukong is being questioned, the origin of SWK and Macaque's falling-out is just around the corner, and MK losing control is a very likely possibility, it all means I would be surprised if it everything wasn't going to be acknowledged at around the same time. All these things will build off of one another, and MK is going to spiral HARD (and SWK probably will too. Sorry boys)

The Macaque and SWK backstory alone would be enough I think, or WHATEVER other Wukong past plot points they want to introduce, but we also have the matter of MK's origins—his purpose. Why he was created and why he exists (again that who MK wants to be VS what fate has in store for him, and acknowledging the different parts of himself). MK, without any real knowledge of what he is, already believed that he was destined to bring chaos. Say, MK were to learn that he was either created for such a purpose or was something that caused chaos before (hello EAMK), this would absolutely RUIN MK's perception of himself.

So then combining all of these different problems and the culmination of MK's series long crippling self-doubt/identity arc, we're like, fucked? Honestly I can't imagine MK not having a full blown, all out, cataclysmic battle and breakdown.

There have also been certain things building up from s2 that MK never really talked about with Wukong. MK was willing to punch Wukong in 2x07 (the og "hey MK your mentor kinda sucks" episode). He was clearly hurt by Wukong's decision to leave in s2, Wukong proceeded to lie all through s3, and after Monkey King apologizes to MK in 3x14, he sort of brushes it off:

Sun Wukong: "I know I can never make it up to you. Honestly, I- I never thought I'd live as long as I have let alone be someone's mentor—turns out I'm not very good at it. I guess what I'm trying to say is...I'm sorry MK. For all of it." MK: "It's okay—I can always get another bowl of noodles."

Sun Wukong: "Wha! No! Not the noodles! Ugh! I mean, I'm sorry for being a bad mentor and making you clean up after my mess!" MK: "I know—sometimes I just play dumb to lighten the mood."

(3x14 Destiny Fulfilled) (Crying look at that face full of love. Oh my god. Fuck. Fuck me. How dare I write a meta on why these two are going to fight)

To me, this scene reeks of MK going "oh thank god things can go back to normal", and then trying to sweep everything under the rug without actually acknowledging or processing anything. He does something similar in 4x11, wanting to brush past Wukong's mistakes and rush to SWK's "path of the good guy" and "good life choices" so that he can move on.

When it comes down to it, MK doesn't want to have any issues with Wukong, but unfortunately there are very much issues. Wukong has tried his best to make amends and be better for MK, but MK isn't letting himself heal. He's running from himself, and he wants to pretend things are much simpler than they are.

And, once MK is forced to come face to face with how complex and messy both himself and Wukong are? I am expecting that kid to break and an all out fight to emerge. SWK V MK, Mentor V Student, Monkey King V Monkey Kid.

But, because Wukong is Wukong, he's not going to be able to go all out against his student (he couldn't even go all out against Macaque or Ne Zha), which, with how powerful MK is, that's not going to go well. That's where the gang steps in—they're going to have to try and put a stop to MK, and get him to see reason, to come back to himself. "Mend the fracture between [him]self and Wukong" if you will. Perhaps even Samadhi Fire Part 3 if we're lucky.

Or at least that's how I imagine it could go down!

#this turned into a “why SWK V MK is gonna happen” meta #woops #tldr: people will fight next season because they are absolutely miserable #just being put through the wringer #SWK V MK #lmk #lego monkie kid #monkie kid #lmk MK #lmk SWK #lmk meta #the light is no mystery #asks #god my poor legos #just so miserable all the time

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