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squireofgeekdom · 3 years

Text

hi im squire and i’m having a normal one about the flash

observe

s1 finale

versus S5 finale

(squire i thought you stopped watching the flash in the middle of s3? yes i did but also. also there was an eobard plotline in s5. and yes i knew how it ended which already made me angry and i knew it was a recipe for disappointment but. listen. i am not immune to ‘eobard mentors a kid and shit’s complicated’ so i eventually went and watched just enough episodes to follow the plotline and i both a) was more emotionally invested in it than i expected and b) more pissed about it than i expected because they somehow managed to tunnel under the bar of my expectations which was already buried six feet under but that is neither here nor there (nora west-allen got fucking narratively shanked by the writers’ room and i’m not fucking amused) ANYWAY MOVING ON)

S5 finale

I have a lot of questions, 90% of which are why, for the love of pete why, why were yall doing the superspeed blur effect on Eobard for the entirety of that scene. why. why would you do this. this makes no sense and i hate it

but

the other 10% are trying to work out what the heck chain of rationalization has been going on in eobard’s head between point a and point b here

obviously despite knowing that the doylist answer is ‘inconsistent writing and also this whole season 5 exchange was shoehorned in in the name of using it later as part of the justification for the stupid-ass decision to have cisco give up his powers because we can’t have a member of the team be that much more powerful than our title character, apparently ¯\_(ツ)_/¯’ but as someone who likes to take up residence on the fire escape above the burning dumpsterfire that is eobard thawne’s brain and take notes on what’s going to explode next i would like to work out the chain of bullshit rationalizing here from the watsonian point of view

(please picture me pacing through my apartment, making basically these gestures. this is how i spend my wednesday nights i guess) because we have point A, right?

- I’m not sorry that I killed you because I’m sure I had a good reason - I am sorry that you can retain traces of alternate timelines - That means you got powers from the particle accelerator, which means you have a great and honorable destiny - which is gift (from me*) given out of love *even though I wasn’t even sure you got it until right this minute

so like, clearly the bullshit rationalization train is already moving within this conversation, where Eobard goes from ‘I wasn’t sure you were affected by the particle accelerator until just now’ (though, admittedly, it’s later implied that he had at least a strong suspicion in that direction, though... ehhhhh) to ‘these powers and the great and honorable destiny and grand adventure of your life that comes with them were a (deliberate) gift of love from me’ in like. under a minute.

if the powers are part of a great and honorable destiny, what is Eobard saying he’s sorry for? the painful parts of what comes with whatever he thinks he knows of that destiny from his timeline? specifically the ability to retain traces of alternate timelines? specifically the fact cisco remembers being murdered and the pain that went with that? ‘hey, if you had stayed dead those painful memories would have been so much dust in the wind, so sorry you have to live with them, that sucks for you’ - eobard, probably

AND THEN we fucking get to fucking point B, season 5′s finale

where eobard has fully leaned into ‘your powers are great, definitely, so glad you got them from ME’ except now he’s attributing cisco having powers to having murdered him - and implying they wouldn’t have happened otherwise, which is clearly just. bullshit of the highest order, because if eobard’s supposed to know of cisco’s great and honorable destiny from his own timeline, that’s a timeline where eobard never interfered and so that murder would have nothing to do with it. like maybe in this timeline (or group of timelines? how many times has barry changed time so far) that was the alternate timeline anchor point that was strong enough for cisco to realize he had powers but it’s obviously not the case that he wouldn’t have realized them without it

so like, he’s on the rationalization train to justify the murder, right?

but. BUT.

he already did? he has already justified this to himself in like, seconds after finding out about it with ‘I’m sure I had a good reason’

and he also specifically denied being sorry for it already

so why come back to it? why come back to rationalize it?

hey! hey! flash writers’ room! can we stop for a second and acknowledge this? no? we’re just going to use it for the dumb decision you made about cisco’s powers? okay i’m gonna go on about it anyway

why do we get ‘I want to apologize for - but’ which is like, the pinnacle of bullshit non-apology psuedo apologies, and the gesture is such a dick move because it’s a) no. just no. b) you’re not even going to own up to it in words, are you?

you’re not going to even say it are you?

yeah. yeah.

he could just as easily have been like ‘oh good job with those powers i gave you, how are you enjoying your gift of life from meeeeee’

and on the other hand he could have as just as easily been like ‘hey remember how i killed you, i could totally do that again’

like, is there absolutely a read of this that’s just pure calculated psychological warfare? yeah sure absolutely. that might even have been what’s intended idc. the doylist intepretation is already inconsistent writing.

but being of the school of ‘it makes more sense to me and i have more fun (and by fun I mean suffering) with the assumption that eobard is rarely entirely lying about who he says he cares about and that he’s really not as good at being a perfectly calculating supervillain as he would like to think he is (and as he would like everyone else to think he is)’ like. like.

has this been gnawing at the back of his brain, the knowledge that he killed cisco and he doesn’t know what his reasons were at the time, for however long it’s been for him that he’s had to re-rationalize it? that he’s decided he wants to apologize for it? (with a but, with a non-apology - etc) to cisco? hey? hey? what? hey? hey??????

hey eobard? what the fuck is going on in your dumpster fire of a brain, i have questions. and feelings. mostly pain, honestly.

#squire in star labs #r: i can help you #watching this is like watching someone bake a delicious cake #cut one slice #and then forever more get by with just scraping the thinnest layer of icing off the top #writing fanfiction is of course breaking into the kitchen and cutting a slice of cake yourself #this meatphor may have gotten away from me #i know That Scene is That Scene but i swear there's more to this than just #referencing it endlessly #yes i have a normal number of thoughts and feelings about these two #*shoves reams of fanfiction into a bag* these aren't mine #don't even talk to me about 'it warms my heart to see you again'#love that eobard just shows up #points at cisco like 'science child'#and cisco just beats his ass it's great #punt the dickhead like a football #obviously this episode ends with cisco kicking eobards ass #along with nora #and then nora and cisco go for milkshakes #and have a joint 'fucking SUPERVILLAINS am i right' vent session #this is the correct ending accept no substitutes

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