#the leadership characters vs the one who never got the opportunity | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

annapogorilayas · 3 years

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LoD season 4 rewatch Thoughts

there is surprisingly little complaining about the trajectory of the writing in this one lmao. this season was fun! the kate vs steve stuff has its own section at the end

jason watkins is such an underrated actor and it's a shame we only got him for one episode :(

everything about kate vs buckells is hilarious in light of recent events

i don't think it's ever made clear why tim tried to get hana to visit his flat/why he went to her flat to have sex with her? i think that's the only red herring this season that didn't quite make sense

kate worked with buckells and hilton at the same time back in S1, and yet she isn't worried at all about hilton recognising her when he walks into the office in 4x02... even though they had a whole conversation in 1x01 where he addresses her by name! there's no way he doesn't remember the woman who threw a fire extinguisher through a DCI's door?

again, the whole "buckells is a blundering fool" angle had not quite taken off yet. he's a bit flustered when ted confronts him in the alley, and he's clearly ~one of the lads~ but other than that there's nothing to suggest he's an idiot.

buckells clearly didn't get the memo about michael farmer being balaclava man. i'm not against show writers making it up as they go along (this essay makes a good case for not planning too far ahead), and i do think he was the one who left roz the "someone is watching you" note, but if hilton appointed him SIO of trapdoor to keep the investigation on michael farmer he doesn't do the best job - he keeps pointing out evidence that supports michael farmer's innocence!

steve and kate take a backseat in 4x04 and yet it's my favourite post-S3 episode! the scene where roz turns the interview on ted is one of my favourite interview scenes and definitely my favourite post-S3.

the nerve of ted and kate to drag buckells into his office for "blowing kate's undercover" when she's clearly just... bad at keeping her cover

i think the roz-tim murder plotline could've been more interesting if we hadn't seen their fight. like maybe if we'd just seen roz walking into tim's flat? then again i could be biased because i thought the ending to 4x01 was ridiculous

this season had its silly moments, and it was the start of the H storyline which i think was the downfall of the show, but overall it holds up better than i remember? almost all of the red herrings actually go somewhere/make sense in hindsight (except for the tim/hana thing). this was also the last season before the dialogue, particularly ted's, slid into self-parody. that being said, i think jamie's character could've been better developed.

the kate vs steve subplot

kate and steve spend the first two and a half episodes bickering. steve seems to have a problem with her promotion (why tho?), and she makes a jab at him about lindsay (fair enough, but it sort of came out of nowhere). it goes as far as steve accusing kate of colluding in the framing of michael farmer! it seems like it's heading somewhere, when i first watched i thought it would culminate in a massive come-to-jesus fight... and then kate brings him a lamb madras and suddenly they're fine, with no acknowledgement of why they were fighting or what the problem was?

i'm not sure if J*d wanted us to make a link between the sexism subplot and the bickering; did he want us to think that kate thinks steve is sexist? or that steve actually is sexist and can't handle his female partner being of equal rank to him, even though in the previous three seasons steve never pulls rank on kate and they treat each other like equals? in fact, if you watched S1-3 without knowing what ranks they are you probably wouldn't know that steve was kate's superior. and when he finds out she passed her inspector's exam, he is genuinely happy for her?

the scene where ted and steve meet in the pub to discuss his promotion (an opportunity he denied kate) reminded me of S1, where tony gates decides whether kate is fit to be on his team based on how well she fits in at a drink with the lads. (i don't think ted was wrong to not want to have a drink with kate - he does have a point about what people might think - but it was a dick move to then go with steve)

who deserved the promotion? on one hand, steve had much more experience as a sergeant than kate, who had probably only been sergeant for ~1 year; that's a perfectly legit reason to pick steve. i also don't think that identifying the caddy should make kate a slam dunk - solving one case doesn't necessarily make someone better leadership material. however, steve has done something to earn a bollocking off ted about once a season at this point (going rogue in S1, the nurse in S2, lindsay in S3) while as far as ted knows, kate is always on her best behaviour (he doesn't know about rich akers).

this line from the script made me chuckle. you and me both, steve.

#line of duty #kate fleming #steve arnott #ted hastings #lod critique

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halfpint55 · 4 years

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A Defence of Kataang with regards to how they are portrayed in TLoK (it’s long but there’s headcanons at the end)

Note: This is not about shipping wars. This is a safe zone. This is not about Zutara vs Kataang. This is me defending Kataang and the characters themselves...from the writers.

I initially wrote this as a response to a post that got me heated. My reblog just made it too long so here it is as its own post.

Now this post ripped apart Kataang as a couple but more than that said some stuff about Aang himself that hurt my heart. I didn’t really want to pick on this post but its condemning of Kataang was based almost entirely in what we know of them as parents in TLoK and honestly it’s that lil nugget of canon that I take issue with. It has bothered me from the get go because it doesn’t make sense from a writing and story perspective, and it’s been pissing me off since I watched it.

TL;DR nice and early bc this post is gonna be a long one:

This particular condemnation of Kataang rests almost entirely on the SHITTY way they were portrayed as parents by the writers of LoK, and in all honesty, on this particular topic, canon should be ignored.

Overall Kataang parenting is of my biggest gripes with LoK because in terms of writing it’s totally incongruous - it doesn’t fit, it doesn’t align, and it makes zero sense for what we know of those characters, and I don’t know if I can ever forgive the showrunners for allowing it to be written it into canon.

I will also preface this by saying I like LoK - love it. I had a scroll through the comments and reblogs on this post, and a lot of the hate towards this portrayal of Kataang ended up being blamed on the “terrible writing of LoK” which is not where I stand at all. That being said I am so angry at the writers for this one.

The other portion of the concurring comments that were very hateful towards Kataang came from Zutara shippers and honestly for me, although I do ship Kataang, this not a just a Kataang issue. I’m of the belief that Zutara would’ve just as easily been written to have similar issues due to very similar dynamics - Zutara also would have been two powerful benders from very different cultures, and with Zuko/Aang (whoever you ship w her) having a massively important global leadership role that is embedded in who they are, and therefore impossible to ignore as a factor in their relationship.

Now let me be clear, my desire to reject canon on this front is by no means me wanting to believe the best of my faves, and not wanting to hear a word against Aang. It’s not even necessarily a defence of Kataang bc I ship it that hard (I mean I do but I can set that aside for the sake of argument if that’s what you need from me here).

The first, and main issue people have with Aang/Kataang in Korra, is the first point of the original post:

So why in hell would [Katara] be okay with Aang ignoring TWO of their children’s complete existence once he found out they had an airbending son?

And I agree with the post on this front; Katara would not have allowed her children to each be treated differently by their father. I had the same initial thought when watching LoK, and it’s the reason I hate and want to ignore the canon of LoK so badly.

As much as it hurts to think of, we have to accept that Aang wouldn’t have been able to stop his preferential treatment for Tenzin from bleeding through into his parenting just out of a desperate desire to save his culture (which is absolutely understandable - doesn’t make it okay, but it’s understandable; Aang suffered an incredible loss, a massive cultural trauma which he alone carries the burden of). So of course he wasn’t able to hide how excited he was, and forgot to be mindful of his attitude and behaviour towards Kya and Bumi. So this aspect of canon Kataang? Yeah, I’m with it. So far so good. EXCEPT the most unrealistic element of canon is now that Katara would let him. I simply do not believe for a second that Katara would’ve allowed Aang to be the kind of parent LoK painted him to be.

However, I do not think it would’ve been a point of contention between the two of them! Katara would pull him aside, Katara would gently (but firmly) point out what Aang mightn’t be able to see for himself - he’s focusing too hard on Tenzin.

And Aang would listen.

All throughout A;tLA the two of them often help the other sort through their stuff. Aang has a great track record of being receptive to Katara’s advice and help (calming him down when discovering Monk Gyatso’s body, The Desert when he Appa is stolen, Serpent’s Pass when he’s bottling his feelings about Appa being missing). He’s also just so receptive to others’ ideas - he just goes with it and trusts in his friends (think of his trust in Katara’s plan to rescue Haru, his trust in staying behind with Sokka in the library to get the eclipse info). Aang’s humility is one of the most incredible things about him and it’s at the core of who he is. He would absolutely be able to hear Katara telling him he’s focusing too hard on one child - he would be open, and he’d listen.

So to me now canon just does not make sense at all. it does not align with their established character traits. And yes, people change as they get older and grow into adulthood but honestly, the elements of their respective personalities that we’re talking about here are pretty core elements of who these two people are.

Katara has always been fiercely protective of those she loves, strongwilled, stubborn, and ready to (vocally or physically) fight for what she believes is right and that wouldn’t disappear as she gets older. She wouldn’t let Aang’s preferrential treatment slide.

Aang has always been, and chose to be despite his loss, an optimistic, kind, believe in the best of humanity kind of person. He’s open to all points of view, he’s a good listener, he always tries his absolute best to find solutions that are good for everyone. And again his humility, his willingness to love, is who he is. He believes all humans (including fkn OZAI) and all life are sacred, he believes in the absolute right to life. The kid is a vegetarian for crying out loud.

Now the parts of the take in the post that hurt my heart to read about what OP thinks of Aang:

“Aang never made an attempt to establish anything resembling a real familial unit with Katara, basically just stayed around until she popped out an Airbender [...] she was treated like some trophy wife to give birth to airbenders and that’s it!”

I wasn’t going to address this in this post until I read the comments in the notes, because people seem to agree. They share the sentiment that Katara was reduced to “just a love interest” by the two ending up together.

However I do very much take issue w the notion that Aang “basically just stayed around until she popped out an Airbender” (and honestly that entire paragraph - we don’t actually know that Aang didn’t make an effort to establish a family unit). As much as the LoK writers fucked up in their portrayal of Kataang as parents, this is a much harsher judgement of Aang’s character as a husband and father than anything implied by Aang and Katara’s children. I just don’t buy that Aang would view Katara (or anyone he married, even if you don’t ship Kataang) as a trophy wife, whose only role is to have airbender children. He never has viewed her that way - he has always looked at her like she’s the sun, and the most important person to him after she pulled him out of the iceburg. He loves her the most of anyone on the planet. It does not align with his character, his values or beliefs that he’d think of her (or any partner) that way. He is so besotted with Katara for who she is it HURT me to read that part of your take. Aang simply would never. Look at how he looks at her!

What’s more is the unwavering respect and deference he shows Katara as his waterbending master - he recognises and loves her as the whole, complete, three dimensional, TALENTED POWERFUL INCREDIBLE WOMAN that she is. She is NEVER “just” a love interest for Aang. (But ALSO, do we respect Suki any less for being Sokka’s obvious love interest??? No. suki is written to be so badass that Sokka is HER love interest and I think Katara has equally badass energy but I digress).

Moving on!

OP made an excellent point that there would’ve been culturally different values between the two but I don’t think it would’ve been family that was the clashing point. Yes the airbenders value spirituality and enlightenment. But they lived together in massive communities! They supported and raised one another. Their community and culture was strong, and they were bonded in their spirituality! They value love, as well as enlightenment, peace, and the lives of all.

Now, again the points they made about the cultural divides within the Kataang family unit are valid, but also again I dislike how they chose to portray this in LoK. It would definitely be a struggle they faced as a couple. However I think they really missed an opportunity here with where they took it. Because they do at one point in the comics have Katara bring up the fact that their family will be a blend of two cultures, and she brings it up because Aang is trying so hard to bring balance back to the world by means of seperation.

They’ve known from the get go of being a couple that they’re going to have to navigate being a culturally blended family unit.

So I find it so shitty that they wrote it so that Kya got to learn the waterbending culture, Tenzin got Air and bumi got…nothing? It’s dangerously close to the way Disney does the “the girls are carbon copies of mum, and the boys are carbon copies of dad” thing (think Lady and the Tramp). It’s lazy. Especially when we had that “separation is an illusion” episode, AND things like Zuko learning different nation’s styles and applying them to his firebending, and Sokka learning an element of strategy or fighting from every nation.

So give us Kya using Airbending moves with her waterbending (maybe she invents the water scooter)! Give us Tenzin doing more grounded moves that Aunty Toph (or Lin, while they were together) taught him from earthbending.

There are much more creative ways to illustrate the bumps and troubles Kataang might have run into in trying to navigate incorporating equal parts of their cultures in their children and family unit. Even just smaller scale issues like food and meals - how do they figure out how to do mealstimes with Aang’s vegetarianism with Katara’s culturally significant Water Tribe meat dishes? And then even taking into account how picky little kids can be!

Give me a scene where they literally just ate moon pies for a week because toddler Kya would scream if you put anything else down in front of her.

Maybe Bumi demanded sea prunes over and over but Katara and Bumi are the only ones who like them, and Bumi bonds with his mother this way - they go on little one-on-one outings to water tribe restaurants in Republic City, searching for the most authentic sea prunes!

Kya maybe likes the water tribe fashions the most because it helps her connect with her namesake BUT Kya also has a playful sense of humour - not unlike Monk Gyatso - Aang sees how much she loved moon pies and teaches her to throw them with waterbending.

We know Tenzin was a calm, quiet, and possibly shy child. Maybe he loved to hole himself away learning crafts. Give me Tenzin learning to tattoo, Tenzin learning to carve (and carving his first glider - it crashes of course), but also Tenzin learning to carve water tribe adornments and necklaces. Katara tries at first but when she gets busy Sokka comes in and teaches Tenzin to break all the carving rules Katara has laid down (”it doesn’t need to be perfect my little pupil - let the creativity flow!”)

Tenzin may not be able to waterbend but that doesn’t mean he can’t learn other means of healing. As the littlest he spent a lot of time watching Katara work - she teaches him to tie splints, dress wounds, and yes deliver babies.

If you made it here I love you so much for reading. I love sharing my thoughts so HIGH FIVE YOU MADE IT, ur now my friend - the friendship is non-refundable sorry 😌😌

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cadykeus-clay · 3 years

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Would you mind sharing your thoughts about vex and Beau being cross campaign foils?

so!!!! first things first: apologies for taking weeks to answer this, finals + having adhd sometimes makes my brain turn to mush and forget every ask ive ever recieved. second of all, i’m assuming you sent me this bc of what i said in my vm vs. m9 how they view the world meta. and i’ll be real with you. i have exactly 0 memory of what was going through my head when i wrote that line, so i am simply going to type out a bunch of thoughts that i have on the similarities and differences between beau and vex and i hope that lives up to what you were expecting jsdflksjdksld

I'll detail some specifics in a moment, but overall, I think beau and vex share a very similar kind of trauma of exclusion in their formative years, that's caused them to have a lot of similar traits that manifest in different ways - for vex, she maintains control through her material posessions and beau finds an emotional control in her asshole-ness. I've broken this down into 5 points on which I think comparing the two really emphasizes that claim:

1. daddy issues: both beau and vex have awful no good terrible very bad dads. both syldor and thoreau can suck my ass. they both raised their kids with little love and impossible-to-meet expectations, alientating them and leaving them with lifelong feelings of inferiority and unbelonging. If beau and vex were to meet, i think they would have a very friendly toast to shitty dads, and then have a good drunk vent about it an hour later.

but, at the same time, the actual minutae of their trauma and the ways it manifests are nearly polar opposites. syldor wanted nothing to do with vex, or else wanted her to somehow become a full elf. her issue was that she would never be able to belong, despite her desire to, and as she grew up it lead to her being overly protective and even possessive of the people she found who DID accept her as she was.

With beau, rather than exclusion, her father created an environment of toxic inclusion. He created a role for beau to belong in, disregarding her distate for actually fulfilling it. And, as such, she ended up making herself into someone who could have no expectations and pushed away anyone who tried to set them up for her. In the end, they both came to love themselves by abandoning the woman their father wanted them to be but for vex it was the laying down of an impossible dream and for beau it was the picking up of a mantle she had feared to wear.

2. brothers: now, on the topic of family, I also think its really interesting how their interactions with their brothers play out. We've got vex and vax, tied at the hip til the very end and then some; and then we've got beau and TJ - decades apart and with beau barely acknolwedging TJ's existence. But, even that distance between beau and TJ didn't stop her caring for him when they actually met. She gave him lucky Jade, and she entertained the idea of kidnapping him to get him away from her stinko dad.

And I'd espeically like to talk about what she said outside the hag's hut - "I think Luc and TJ could be best friends", in comparison to the way Vex reacted when Vax told her was going to Zephrah with Keyleth for the year break. There's an aspect to the way they interact with their brothers that lets them slip back into those bad habits they formed growing up (NOT that i'm claiming vex and vax were like toxic for each other. but even good relationships can have unhealthy moments).

With Beau, when she offers to give her happiness so TJ can grow up safe, she's trying to take on the role she's ""supposed"" to fill - the big sister, the protector - because she failed to fill the one her father set out. And with Vex, when she grows jealous of Vax, it's because she's afraid that his leaving with keyleth is a sign that she no longer belongs in his inner circle, and she falls back on that childish, desperate desire to do anything to be accepted unconditionally.

3. romance: spoilers for 5 or so most recent m9 eps (115-120) if you haven't watched them ahead!!!! at this point, both vex and beau have an endgame romance - percy and yasha respectively. Obviously as the m9's campaign is still playing out, that could change, but like. yasha wrote her a love letter and they're officially going on a date so i'm counting that as at least endgame-track rather than just random flirting. What's interesting to me is that they both seem to flip between the SAME roles between their (in-game) general perception and their actual pursual of romance.

Vex gets characterized as a pretty big flirt, right? She's got the winks, the casual "darling". She's flashed grog her boobs on multiple instances with little prompting. Beau, similarly, has easily the most game out of anyone in the m9. She's slept with two guest characters and at least one more npc in the events of the game. Caleb made her a fuck mirror in her room in the mansion. And yet, in both of their actual romantic endeavors, they became the shy, uncertain type.

Vex only confessed her feelings when Percy was laying dead before her, and not an hour of game play before percy kissed her in the woods, she had a talk with vax about how she was pretty sure he didn't like her that way and she didn't want to pursue it. Beau, similarly, spent a very long time convinced that yasha wasn't looking for love after zuala, especially not in anyone like her, asked everyone in the party if they thought yasha ACTUALLY liked her, just to be safe, and then still terrified to ask her out after recieving a literal love letter. I'd argue this shift comes from that same sense of unbelonging - they're very good at pretending they fit a role but doubt their actual right to take it when the opportunity is presented. This time, the role is the lover rather than the daughter.

4. authority: Both vex and beau grew up shunned by the upper crust of society, and grew to mistrust those kinds of people. And yet, both of their arcs result in them assuming such a position. Vex, thrown out of high society gets her place as a baronness, and Beau, running from leadership of her father's business ends up a top member of the Cobalt Soul. There's not a lot here, but I find it interesting how both of their stories involve them shedding their baggage regarding authority and power and assuming it in a way that they feel comfortable in - invitation by someone she trusts for vex, and a promise of freedom of will and control for beau.

5. their deadliest sins: this is the point at which their similarities culminate and transform to a fundamental difference. despite everything they share - shitty childhoods, the small piece of family that's still good, flirtiness masking shy love, and a mistrust of those in power - vex and beau are such different characters because of their biggest vices. Vex, both in game and out, is "the greedy one". She's stingy with money, she haggles for everything, she mourns the loss of physical objects. Beau is "the mean one". She cares little for people's feelings if they're not in her immediate circle, she focuses on her tough guy image, she laughs at things she knows she shouldn't.

And, over the course of the campaign, as they find unconditional acceptance, they grow away from these traits (I won't say they grow out of them) because they heal from the things causing these vices to begin with. I've always been vocal about vex's greed being a manifestation of her class insecurity, and beau's asshole-ness stemming from her fear of being forced back into another position of complacency. And I stand by that now - all the similarities in their backstories are what tally up to these different women.

Despite her careful tally of party funds and her reflexive bargaining, vex is not cruel. she is not angry on her own behalf. She saves two boys from the market in the city of brass at great personal cost, she relinquishes an entire dragon's hoard to the devastated city of Westruun, she took the time to save a baby bear from a cage when she could have just cut and run after escaping her own. She's the first one most people go to when they need a shoulder to cry on, and she's devastated when they don't (thinkin about when Scanlan left). She carved "forgiveness" into the bow she stole from a man after killing him by proclaiming how much she loved someone, because she knew anger had no place in her heart.

And Beau, Beau is a bitch and she's harsh, but she doesn't hoard or protect like vex did. she spends her money without much of a second thought. She pitches in to help her friends buy a ton of glowsticks, and she loves to indulge in material desires like drink and good food and the nicer inn room. She's a member of an organization that's about making knowledge public rather than guarding it. And, though this may be controversial, I think her position with bowlgate of "its not our problem what cali wants to do with it", her long-standing mistrust of their alliance with the bright queen and and more recently with the tomb takers of "i want to go in and talk, rather than assuming they're antagonistic, even if it puts us at a disadvantage" are both examples of this non-possessiveness too - she has no need or desire to get involved in controlling what other people are doing.

so, i guess the general conclusion here is: vex struggles to let go of things, of money, of people. beau struggles to let herself be known in case she gets wrongly interpreted again. they both fight feelings of inadequacy, they both fight the feelings of not belonging, of 'doing it wrong', they fight the perception of them as shitty people because of the shells they hide in despite their absolute hearts of gold. but at the end of the day, vex's story is one of having to lay down what could never be hers so she can carry what is, and beau's story is one of allowing herself to be known so a place can be made for her.

#hope this is what you and that other anon were looking for jdsflkdsajfsaldfsa #critical role #vexahlia #beauregard #long post

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we-rate-tmnt · 4 years

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I request: Leonardo. Please and thank you 🙏.

Idk if everyone loves Leo or if my header and avatar just remind everyone about this amazing blue boy. (This one’s super silly btw. I’m just sillier as time goes on. Character development I guess?)

The iconic leador Leonardo (1987)

Bro idk why but I loved this Leo. I have a tiny memory, especially with this version but I clearly remember that I thought he was the funniest and the coolest. I mean, he had swords, what was I supposed to do as a 7-year-old. NOT like him??? Anyway, while Raph was the best at insult comedy, I think Leo had the best puns and punchlines. I really like how nonchalant this Leo is compared to his iterations, going along with really silly ideas and having fun along the way. But because of this, his leadership is a little forced at times, he seems like such a chill and fun dude that when he gets serious, I have to squint and ask ‘are you Leo? Or were you just putting on act a moment ago?’ Or my perception is entirely warped over time. Either way, good turtle boy, could have used some work tho. 5.7/10

Here comes grumpy lad wooo this is all read very monotone btw Fearless Leader (2003)

What. What the fuck happened. I was actually so confused when Leo turned really angry and serious and almost manic. I thought that episode when he popped into Casey’s window and was like ‘Hey bitch lets go beat the shit out of some lowlifes’ I was WOAH THERE BUDDY BACK UP BACK UP BACK TF UP. It was so sudden to me and when it was finally explained, it made some sense??? Like yeah, character development is great an’ all but this ain’t it chief. I can’t imagine what it was like having to wait for these episodes to release one at a time. Bc I watched every episode back to back on Youtube and I was genuinely bamboozled. But when you have an experience like that where guilt is weighing down on you from a situation you couldn’t control, it would’ve been HELLA HELPFUL to have at least a flashback, like a line saying ‘I was so useless!’ at BARE MINIMUM. Like right after Shredder is booted off to Planet Zula, Donnie would notice that Leo didn’t seem all that happy and would ask why and Leo would get upset and yell at Donnie saying that ‘You wouldn’t understand’, ‘You don’t know how I felt, how I feel because of that’, etc. Like you don’t even have to say he felt guilty or helpless, just give us something to grab onto. We’re merely six-year-olds who thought they could climb the YMCA rock wall in easy mode but instead the script riders harnessed us up on the hard one and wouldn’t let us come down until we rang the little bell at the top. I think that is the only problem I had with his Leo. The sudden change of calm and decisive to angry and irrational was so jarring that it felt unnatural without that crucial context. If you want a surprise reveal, at least hint at the reveal (like just about every Disney movie with their ‘twist’ villains) not wait until the very last moment. I think this might be my least favorite Leo and I think the season where he stood out the most and seemed the strongest was Fast Forward (Which was GOOD FIGHT ME), especially in scenes with Dark Leo, his clone. He sees so much of himself in Dark Leo but he also sees something he had once grasped (AKA the poorly written character arc, I CANNOT stress how bad I thought it was). Although, I honestly think he’s a really good character and he’s a pretty neat guy. However, this score is entirely held up by Fast Forward and his connection with Usagi, sword bros to the end of time. 3/10 (2 for FF and 1 for Usagi)

And now a Leo that makes me genuinely feel UWU Leo (2012)

I cannot stress how much I like this guy! Like his design is so appealing, his dedication, his obsession with Space Heroes, like I FUCKING LOVE IT. And everyone knows, that shit with Karai, at first when they didn’t realize they were related, I can let slide but kajsdflksadf what even like why did the writers feel the need to add in more ‘love interest’ implications like yuck yuck yuck. The only two interactions with Leo and Karai that I really like are when Leo defeats her using the healing hands technique and when Leo has a goth/emo/punk/idk I’m new here phase and they team up and EXPLOSIONS. He was introduced to us as being incredibly naive and his idea of leadership is from some old cartoon that’s basically star trek but ethically questionable. After his fights in season 1, to the finale with the technodrome, you can see his growth. He’s able to formulate plans and make life or death decisions. BUT WAIT THERE’S MORE. When Leo got hurt, I felt like the oof sound effect mixed with some tears I normally shed at some Shojo manga bs. While the episodes following were super weird, it was a nice way to help Leo recover, not only physically but spiritually (Although I don’t remember the spirit arc at all except the epic Raph vs Fishface fight, so we’re skipping that). When Master Splinter really died, you could tell there was a huge impact on Leo, but he had to remain stoic and lead the family now. A lot of heartbreaking moments in this series came from Leo and I’m glad they took at least some thought into developing him. Tiny head Leo will haunt my nightmares, but the giggly fanboy will warm my heart constantly. 6/10

I only have one word for this Leo (Heroes in a Half Shell: Blast to the Past)

This is a super crazy bad idea accent on the super crazy bad part have I mentioned it’s also a really terrible idea/10

Okay, spoiler alert, didn’t really think this Leo was that grand Leo (2014/2016)

Painfully average. He didn’t stand out that much, Raph was part of the focus and had that touching scene at the end, Donnie was ICONIC and Mikey (with his weird-ass eyes) was super lively and funny! Leo? Uh, I don’t remember a single line he said. Because he never really grabbed my attention, I don’t have too much to say on this version. The Raph and Leo fight felt forced and the whole ‘keep this stuff that could turn us human a secret’ was pretty pointless and was added just to cause drama, I don’t even remember what that Splinter and Leo conversation was about. Design-wise, really neat! You can see some more traditional Japanese clothing/style mixed with modern (I’d feel a lot better about this assumption if some could tell exactly what the heck he’s wearing, but I get traditional Japan warrior vibes from it) in his look which was super neat! Other than that, if you like him, please tell me why because I don’t get. He was just kinda eh. 5/10

AHHH MY BOY YASSS WHOOO!! Neon Leon (2018)

Okay, I loved Ben Schwarts already from Parks and Rec but like him being Sonic AND Leo, like DUDE. He’s super funny by himself but teamed up with this shows writing and animation, it makes it hilarious. I literally love this Leo so much, maybe because we’re alike but honestly, he’s amazing. I love his design with the red and yellow crescents accenting his skin and livening up his color pallet. He has a very healthy and natural dynamic with his brothers, he’s the first to know what’s wrong and tries his best to make up for his actions. This is really prominent in the most recent episodes, along with the episode portal jacked. In both, Leo is separated from his brothers. Portal Jacked is in a more literal sense, while Air Turtle handles in more of an emotional sense. While both are brief, Leo sees his error and tries his best to make it up to them. I love his dynamic so much and it’s so nice to see something like this compared to the unnecessary drama and tension between the brothers in the previous series. It’s refreshing and this is something a younger audience needs to see; instead of fighting, it’s better to work together and improve yourself along the way. Improvement is a big theme for Leo here. He’s a goofball, makes jokes at every opportunity and isn’t quite skilled at fighting or using his weapon. But he grows over time, he learns to manage his power and he’s working on mastering it. He’s trying to put aside his narcissism more and focuses on his family. I think the approach they took with him rising to leader rather than slapping it on his forehead was the goddamn best decision they could make. He’s making plans, finding loopholes, helping out and getting out of his comfort zone. I cannot stress how well this show has handled Leo, along with the other characters. I can’t wait to see more episodes about his growth and I am awarding him with one of the greatest honors I could give... 10/10

Storytime: I drew a super cute 2012 Leo, you should look at him. Shameless self-promo, but you should follow me on my main blog bc I’m nice and I draw pretty pictures. Also. I have a little 2012 Leo Happy Meal toy??? I think??? guarding my window and he’s been there for YEARS. I need to bring him in and refresh his paint job.

Wow! I didn’t expect this many requests for Leo, so the blog will be momentarily spammed with the requests, but it shouldn’t be too much! Up next should be the last turtle (Mikey) and then we can get to some REALLY great requests I’m eager to answer. As usual, please comment and reblog! I’d love to hear your opinion!

#Tmnt #teenage mutant ninja turtles #leonardo #1987 leo #2003 leo #2012 leo #2014 leo #2016 leo #rottmnt leo #Rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles #rottmnt #asks #I forgot how my tagging system worked

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losangelesvalorant · 4 years

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interesting things from tactical crouch’s interview w fusion assistant coach chrisTFer on 1/21

christfer talks abt hero bans, why fusion underperformed in s2, and why their roster is what it is. ill update this post w the youtube link once its out

On hero bans

Christfer thinks hero bans would change EVERYTHING, every team would have to be able to think on the fly, strong ingame leadership, makes coaches' jobs a lot harder, have to practice every hero on every map. you'd have to coach fundamentals into players a lot more and more focus on quickly IDing win conditions and the enemy gameplan. very seriously hopes they aren't gonna drop it this season

if the goal is to have genuine diversity in hero pool, bans is the way to achieve that, but christfer thinks itll fuck up the competitiveness, level of play will go down. but any aspect that helps spectators is better for league overall

volamel thinks hero bans will excite and drive the audience bc banning players specific heroes would be hype as fuck. lotta strategy, lots of analysis. however he's skeptical bc if it happens midseason it's gonna fuck over coaches

christfer thinks if theyre gonna do it they gotta do it today. there's no other good time

yiska thinks it would be bad to implement it midseason bc the # of games teams play across the season is sooo spread out. teams have different amts of games every month

on why fusion underperformed in s2

Internally, fusion was kinda "naive" coming into s2, thought they were the 2nd best team and acted as if they were 2nd best. rarely felt happiness after scrims bc theyre "supposed" to be winning all the scrims. losing scrims also was hugely negative for the same reason

smaller roster makes it harder to kick people into gear, so lack of motivation was a big thing. they were just waiting for goats to die

thought goats wouldnt continue into s2, stage 4 was where they finally got motivation, fusion never completely understood the goats style of play or the fundamentals goats taught teams, they lost games they shouldnt have as a result. Not one big issue, lots of small issues

fusion held themselves to such high expectations that when they failed them and weren't enjoying the game as much so morale fell. (paraphrased) "as long as my players enjoy playing the game, it makes my job easier"

Christfer says fusion changed a lot for playins, changed coaching structure, overwhelmingly positive result. best theyd looked all season

shanghai had very particular strengths on certain maps. fusion was winning brawl comps vs brawl comps. got nervous and dropped maps they were supposed to take, but theyd given away too many of "their" maps to be able to lose shanghai's maps.

felt like they hit the ground running on playins, but other teams levelled up across playins and christfer believed other teams wouldve developed more than they would have

even if coaching wasnt problem if team is in a slump you need new coaches to re-fire everyone up, which is what happened w fusion.

on carpe and sado

carpe was able to play heroes he excelled at in s1, in s2 zarya was entirely different in elements of what makes a player good at the hero. carpe holds himself to a very, very high standard and playing zarya killed his morale because he wasn't so good at it. christfer considers it a failing of himself as a coach that he didn't help carpe work through that more

nobody on the team is worried about carpe’s performance. Christfer confirmed carpe wont play if he isnt up to standard (in response to reddit worrying abt how long his contract is and how much sway he has over coaches)

christfer is very upset about how people treat sado. sado is the "single nicest person you will ever meet." every single player/coach had 1 on 1s with tucker, everyone said they wanted to keep playing with sado. yiska emphasized how important it is that every player on the team wanted to keep playing sado bc for example eqo and carpe want to win more than anything and if they thought sado was the problem they absolutely wouldve said so

Other teams came to fusion wanting to sign sado

christfer said sado wasnt the greatest main tank player last year, but playing rein in a "dysfunctional" team makes the rein player look bad.

christfer thinks this is the "season of sado." has complete faith in him

the complaints abt sado’s rein "[he] can understand," says to remember sado had never played pro before s1. he doesn't have as much competitive exp which hits him hard but he's grown wildly in the last year.

sado's ability to hit every halt at the right time is incredible. compares him to alarm in how good his instincts are. excellent player in a team environment, kinda a big brother to some of the players on the team, sado is very important to the team

christfer agrees that if meta shifts and sado is sick, theres a problem, but says this is not a problem unique to fusion

on fusion’s new acquisitions

heesu surprised christfer the most. he’s “very, very, very very, very good.” hungry to learn, easy to talk to, they got a very good deal and christfer is surprised more teams didn't try to get him

heesu has a lot of respect for carpe, heesu said its a + for him to work under carpe

theyre trying to scrim w heesu daily, sounds like they intend to play him if the opportunity presents itself. excellent signing theyre very happy abt

the point of the chipsa signing was that they didnt need a 5th dps, their lineup is already perfect, they had to find someone that "made sense" from many levels. wanted a specialist. Christfer thinks chipsa understands the raw mechanics of doom better than any owl players, thinks he could legit play in a doom meta. also thinks chipsa could teach eqo doom in a doom meta. chipsa provides advertisement, no need for scrimming with him. if the situation is right he can play and if he's not playing he provides income, publicity, etc. christfer again restated he was originally against the signing. when tucker explained why hed be signed, christfer came around to the idea

having 2 way players is a headache in christfers opinion, so that was another reason why they didnt pick up a contenders player instead of chipsa.

chipsa has not had a scrim yet because he’s not in philly bc visa stuff, but christfer did not clarify whether or not he will scrim.

of all players signed, funnyastro was by far the most in demand. they had to fight for him, almost every team wanted him. he's a "sponge" where he remembers whatever coaches tell him, incredibly coachable, very mature for his age, needs to adjust his playstyle a bit to fit into the team (bc he's going for plays he shouldnt sometimes) but if they can "tune him back" a bit hes great. want to find a middle ground bc astro's ability to kill everything and doing his job (brought up moth as the "glue guy" who enables everyone by doing his job perfectly)

alarm has insane awareness, has natural affinity for positioning, understands ovw instinctively. zero attitude issues, the nicest/perfect teammate. "the whole package."

yiska said ivy has a "special type of character," quickly clarified that it’s not a “problematic” character, but needs a dif type of coaching (christfer agreed)

thinks things got difficult for ivy on toronto bc he was moving roles so much, kdg puts a lot of stock into him, a lot of kr players do too. people from toronto think ivy is insane mechanically. volamel thinks ivy should have been toronto's standout

fury wasnt signed bc of bad synergy btween sado and poko. poko wasnt the problem. fusion is very serious abt winning everything and fury is a statement of that intent. fury/poko cover every base

on new coaches

Christfer really respects seita and kdg, happy to have gotten them. has worked w both of them in the past, considers kdg similar to crusty. they signed kdg like the second he became available, christfer asked for him specifically.

seita will stay remote

yiska says mobydik is nuts in terms of game knowledge. Christfer agreed, says he thinks abt the game in a very unique way, outside of the box

misc

Fusion has a system where all 3 supports are rotating in the current meta. nobody is benched. had main support play bap originally when bootcamping, but theres places u can play 2 flex sups, so fusion has a lot of flexibility. who plays depends on situations where you can always play zen/bap vs where you might have to flex to lucio

Christfer thinks main sups doing calling/single caller system is a bit outdated and more of a western concept, trying to build comm system where everyone communicates, everyone calls their own ults. can have ingame leaders, but wants everyone to call what they need to call. in this meta everyone has to make the plays and call their own ults bc its split second and only the person w the ult can see the optimal situation

Christfer thinks the positions where you need stability in ovw is main tank and main support. subbing dps players in and out is fine but you need consistency at mt and ms.

really really think they dont need to fill their last roster spot

Christfer calls this season a "rebuild season" for fusion. if they dont do well this year christfer thinks it would be the fault of the coaches. too much talent to fuck it up.

not taking home a title is not exactly a failure, but anything within the top 4 fusion is happy with

#notes #these r barely edited so if theyre incomprehensible thats why

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ansheofthevalley · 5 years

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Lol the opinion among jonerice fans that if Jon's POV was a thing in the end and if the show had more time, then would be shown how gladly he accepts his Targ side, wearing Targ colours and shit

You’re talking about Jon having embraced his Targ roots in the case his POV wasn’t purposefully obscured and had the season been longer, nonny? In that case...

strongly agree | agree | neutral | disagree | totally feel the opposite

I’ve written about Jon and the RLJ reveal and how it affected the political and personal landscape for the characters, namely the Starks and Daenerys. (x) (x) (x)

Unfortunately, the fact that his POV was purposefuly obscure leaves things up to interpretation, things that shouldn’t be up to interpretation (especially since we’re talking about the last season of the series). One of those things is the matter of Jon’s parentage reveal. The main problem I have (that many people have, really) is that RLJ wasn’t even about him. It was used as a plot device to Dany’s arc, a way to make her wary and suspicious of Jon. It was all about Daenerys: how she reacted to it, what she made of it, how it changed her relationship with Jon, when it simply shouldn’t have been that way. RLJ was about Jon.

The only true reaction we got from him is when Sam tells him the truth and he says to him the following:

J: My father was the most honorable man I’ve ever met. You’re saying he lied to me all my life?

That’s it. That’s the only reaction we have from him learning that Ned lied to him. That he wasn’t actually his son but his nephew. That his mother was Lyanna Stark and that his real father was Rhaegar Targaryen.

The next time RLJ comes up is in 8x02 when Jon tells Dany. I won’t go in depth since I already did that in previous metas, but it’s in this moment that RLJ starts being about Dany. But there’s something we can save from the scene and that’s Dany’s body language:

Physically, she’s rejecting what Jon’s saying (that he’s Rhaegar’s son). And she does. She does say “it’s impossible”. The scene ends with her saying:

D: If it were true, it would make you the last male heir of House Targaryen. You’d have a claim to the Iron Throne.

And just after she finishes her line, war horns can be heard. We get tidbits hinting at a possible conflict brewing between Jon and Dany because of RLJ but it’s all subtext.

RLJ is mentioned yet again in 8x04. In the Jon-Dany scene, the conflict is made explicit: Dany wants Jon to hide the truth. Jon wants to tell Sansa and Arya. Dany tells him of the dangers in telling Sansa. Jon insists. Dany puts him in a position in which he has to choose.

Now, this scene and the scene with the Starklings in the Godswood is crucial as to why I don’t believe Jon would’ve embraced his Targ roots. By telling Sansa and Arya, he chooses the Starks, he reaffirms his allegiance to the Starks, albeit not explicitly, but more in a defiant way towards Dany. Why do I say this? Because the reveal has deep political connotations. It puts Jon as a viable third option, when before it was “choose between a lesser evil” between Cersei and Daenerys. It undermines Daenerys and her war for conquest. Dany knows that if the truth gets out, her whole campaign will be damaged. After all, she’s a stranger in Westeros, and a would-be Conqueror with WMD at that. Jon, on the other hand, is a respected military man with experience in leadership and comes from a well-respected and ancient house. He’s also loved and respected by the people.

In their 8x04 scene, Dany asks him not to tell the truth. Something worth mentioning is the power imbalance between them. Though it is more subtle, the monarch-subject dynamic is still there:

J: I’ll refuse. You are my Queen. I don’t know what else I can say.

D: You can say nothing to anyone, ever. Never tell them who you really are. Swear your brother and Samwell Tarly to secrecy and tell no one else.

J: You are my Queen. Nothing will change that. And they’re my family. We can live together.

Jon constantly refers to her as “my Queen”, while Dany reinforces her authority every time she can. Jon doesn’t see her as family, nor does he see her as a romantic partner. For him, Daenerys is an authority figure, and a powerful one at that, while maintaining again and again that the Starks are his family. If we want to go deeper, I’d say this scene right here plays right into the duty vs love dichotomy present in Jon’s arc.

As I said before, Dany puts him in a position in which he has to choose: he either does his duty and does as his Queen tells him or he tells his loved ones the truth, forsaking his duty by doing so. As we’ve seen, he chooses the latter (one could also argue that he has a duty to the Starks, since they’re his family; in that case, if we choose to see it like that, we can find both ends of the dichotomy in the Starks, in which he’s not obliged to forsake one or the other). From that moment forward, he just reinforces his choice: in 8x05 when he rejects Dany after Varys’ execution and in 8x06 when he decides to kill Dany when he comes to terms that it’s very likely she will burn Sansa for treason.

There’s no way Jon would’ve been all Targ by the end of the series, simply because it wasn’t possible. His whole arc was driven by two things: duty and belonging. His identity, both as a bastard and as a secret Targ prince, play right into his struggle to belong. Jon’s a Stark, all but in name. And that’s exactly his problem, that he doesn’t have the name he identifies with. He (and pretty much everyone) thinks he’s a bastard but he’s as much of a Stark as any of the Starklings, and when it’s revealed that he isn’t actually a bastard but a Targaryen, the problem is still there because he doesn’t see himself as a Targaryen, he still sees himself as a Stark. After learning the truth, he still wears northern/Stark colors, he still refers to himself as Jon Snow, in no opportunity do we see him asserting himself as Rhaegar’s heir. He sees the North as his home. He sees the Starks as his family. Sure, he distances himself a bit from the name, knowing that he will never be a Stark by name, the one thing he desired ever since he was a little boy (as of the series finale, that’s another problem I have IDK if I should call it problem tho with the ending, that it was left open to any interpretation without any sense of direction the characters could’ve taken post-series). It’s also worth mentioning the different reactions to his true parentage got from both sides of his family: the Starks still refer to him as a brother, while Daenerys never acknowledged him as her nephew, as a Targ.

TL;DR: From a narrative perspective, Jon’s wish to belong is tied exclusively to the Starks, not the Targs. Every time he was presented with a choice to choose between the Starks and the Targaryens, he always ended up choosing the Starks. He identifies with House Stark, even after learning the truth about his parentage. Jon is a Stark, all but in name.

Send me a GOT opinion and I’ll tell you if I agree

#Jon Snow #House Stark #anti daenerys #(not really but just in case)#got #game of thrones #anon #asks #got asks #my meta #my thoughts

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hail-the-supreme-leader-kylo-ren · 5 years

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EPISODE IX PREDICTIONS, HOPES, & DISCUSSION

This is a deep dive into the thoughts and questions I’ve been accumulating in regards to what might happen in Episode IX. (Sorry, it’s quite a long post).

My character predictions:

KYLO/BEN: My beautiful boy Ben is going to get redemption first and foremost. FACT. I’m so excited to see how it will go down though, so many possibilities. What’s going to be that final catalyst for Ben to finally stop resisting the Light? When we left Kylo/Ben in TLJ he had gained all the power he once sought, and yet he was utterly miserable. But, importantly Luke showing up on Crait offered Kylo that critical cathartic release he needs for the next step in his redemption journey. Looking back, TFA started with Kylo ordering a village massacre, and finished with him killing his father. We see progress in TLJ, as the act of committing patricide has been eating Kylo/Ben alive with regret and guilt, he then later cannot kill his mother, and instead he kills his tormentor, Snoke, to save Rey. So following this pattern of reversal, I predict in IX he’ll selflessly save a large group of people (the direct opposite of the original village massacre). It’s going to be so interesting to see how will he go with being The Supreme Leader of The First Order, as the evidence shows his ideology doesn’t really align with the Order. I feel like he’ll simply keep using The First Order for the sole purpose of destroying his mother’s Resistance, in a fruitless attempt to ‘kill his past’. Ultimately though, this story is about achieving balance between the Light and the Dark, not just in the force or the galaxy but also in oneself. Ben will need to accept the Light and the Dark sides in himself, and will have to come to this conclusion completely via his own initiative. Han (via Leia’s push), Luke, and Rey have all tried to convince him to the Light so far, to no avail.

REY: Strong Rey has been through a hell of a lot with Kylo/Ben in both films, and Luke in TLJ. She’s had to face her deepest fear that she’s ‘nobody’ and that her parents ‘aren’t coming back for her’. But despite this she has actually found belonging and empowerment along the way. Her self identity is in fact stronger than ever now (while Kylo/Ben is the opposite, he’s still having an identity crisis). I predict that in IX, Rey will be just as fearless and resilient as ever, but also more mature, less naive. Her relationship with the Resistance is interesting because in TFA Finn was lying to her about him belonging to the Resistance, so she was never actively apart of it, and then she was kidnapped by Kylo. Similarly, she sought Luke out for Leia (and the Resistance) in TLJ, but this was mostly a personal journey she undertook. She pursued turning Kylo/Ben to the Light, ‘for the Resistance’s sake’, but it was ultimately for her own sake. So I think that she might not completely feel like she belongs in the Resistance. It’s a sure thing, that she’ll still try to help them out how she can, but I predict it’ll once again be on her own ‘force’ related solo mission (because this fits her film narrative formula). This may be how she crosses paths with Kylo again? Also related to the Resistance, I have this gut feeling that she may clash heads with Poe over his decision making (IDK why, I just do). In terms of other predictions, it seems to be a given that she’ll repair the legacy Skywalker lightsaber, this is what Rey has done her whole life, salvage and repair. In regards to Ben, she’s learnt her lesson, and I truly believe she hasn’t given up on him, she just now knows that it has to be HIS decision to join the Light Side, she can’t ask him again – it won’t work. Like the TLJ novel states, she’s good at waiting, so deep down she’ll be waiting for him to eventually make the right decision. Also another prediction for Rey, is that the arm scar she got during the Throne Room fight will feature prominently in at least one on screen moment. I imagine it will go something like, she’s getting ready putting her satchel on etc, and looks down at her arm and remembers Ben/Kylo and that epic moment they fought together. Now Rey has a scar to remember him, and he too has one to remember her. ~swoons~ The recent costume leak (re: arm band) seem to support this scar’s significance further, but I initially thought that the scar would be important because LF chose to feature it on the damn TLJ poster.

THE WAR/THE BALANCE: This is the final film in the sequel trilogy, and this series is called “Star Wars” so I’m predicting more war, duh. However, we’ve already seen the Light side win over the Dark in the original trilogy, but it didn’t work – the Dark still rose back up. That’s why, this time round something’s got to be different. The Resistance can’t just defeat The First Order, I don’t think that’s going to cut it. TLJ expressed the nuisances of war, with the Resistance bombers and members dying, and also the large First Order crew who would’ve died on the dreadnaught. It really stuck with me what DJ said to Finn, “They blow you up today, you can blow them up tomorrow”. Maybe this wasn’t a precursor for IX, and was just Rian being Rian. But I still predict that Rey and Ben will team up again in this movie, but stay together this time, and they will initiate something like a ceasefire between the two sides, ending the vicious endless cycle of war that has plagued the galaxy for decades now. Ben and Rey are ‘the chosen one’ who will finally bring balance to the Force. It will be very interesting to see how this balance will be portrayed in a larger galactic scale.

FINN: Don’t get me wrong, I love my boy Finn, but to be honest on paper he is quite a one dimension character in regards to how he’s treated in these films. LF could’ve focused on his traumatic upbringing in The First Order and his emotions towards his ex-fellow troopers. Instead they have brushed past it, having Finn gunning down Storm Troopers with no second thought. (I guess they have the traumatic childhoods of Rey and Kylo to focus on instead). So the only prediction I have for him is that he will truly earn the title of ‘Resistance Hero’ in IX. Because in both the TFA and TLJ, he either left or tried leaving to save himself or save Rey, but by the end of TLJ he was finally committed to fighting for the Resistance’s cause (due largely to Rose’s influence).

POE: Poe was originally supposed to die in TFA, and in that movie he was really just a pilot (‘the best one in the Resistance’ though). In TLJ, he was still a pilot, but also shown to be cocky and impulsive, so the aim of TLJ was to teach him how to become a better leader, like Leia etc. So no doubt, in IX he’ll be making much better leadership calls, and assessing the risks more wisely. HOWEVER, it has been pointed out before how Poe, somewhat corrupts Holdo’s line of “We are the spark that will ignite the fire that will restore the Republic”, into “We are the spark that will light the fire that will burn the First Order down” this leads me to the juicy personal prediction (that probably won’t happen but...) maybe Poe in IX will turn into a ‘Coin’ like character, from the Hunger Games. Where Poe makes some very destructive calls, because he takes the war waaaay too far. I’m imagining this being Poe vs Hux, and it just keeps escalating and escalating in bloodshed. Hey, like I said, this probably won’t eventuate.

HUX: It seems obvious at this point that Hux is going to fail spectacularly again, for the third and final time. In TFA, his precious Starkiller Base was blown up. In TLJ, a dreadnought was destroyed under his watch, and then he lost his chance to become Supreme Leader as quickly as the opportunity arose. I predict that once he’s surrendered he’ll either sit there hilariously glaring everyone down, or pull the weasel move and beg/plead for his life. Regardless, it’ll be entertaining. Some might think that Hux is a serious military threat, and maybe in this film he might finally rise to the occasion. But throughout TLJ in particular, he was a laughing stock, and being completely honest Hux poses no serious threat to Kylo Ren. Kylo could end Hux’s life with the force or his saber, or both, within a mere second. WATCH YA BACK HUX. In all seriousness though, Hux will probably take every opportunity to undermine Kylo’s leadership – I know that. Man, do love their hate-hate colleague working relationship.

I’m looking forward to:

More Reylo scenes – need I say more?

More Force Bond sessions, because we damn well know it ain’t gone

Seeing Kylo Ren The Supreme Leader, acting as such, sitting in his throne, and ya know just generally running The First Order (eeeeep!)

Simply seeing more Kylo scenes in general, because let's be real, Kylo/Rey/Finn are the true trio, and this is the final movie so this is our chance to finally see more of his POV. This will also be crucial to the redemption story too, as the general audience will probably need a lot more information about him to be onboard for his redemption

My favourite comedy duo Poe and Finn will be back together again at last! I cannot wait for the new banter and shenanigans with these two

John Williams’ amazing final SW score

All the new costumes/hair styles (It’s very wishful thinking but I would low-key love if the characters changed costumes at Padmé's rate)

I know the sequel trilogy hasn’t had the largest scale of cityscape world-building, but ya never know!

I’m one of those people that fell in love with the Knights of Ren during that brief rainy flashback in TFA, so hopefully they make an appearance, after all what’s a ‘Master’ of Ren without those he masters?

I’m curious to see:

What kind of leader will Kylo be of the First Order? And how is his leadership in general is tracking, is it threatened (i.e. Hux)?

How will Finn and the rest of the Resistance react to Rey being a ‘Jedi’? in TFA everyone except Kylo (and the FO, I guess) were ignorant to the fact that Rey was Force Sensitive. Obviously the resistance noticed Rey force lifting rocks at the end of TLJ, so now they’re all in the loop. Will Finn think she’s ‘changed’? (This is specifically discussed by Finn and Rose in the TLJ novel actually)

Similarly, how will the resistance react to Rey being connection to Kylo, both emotionally and via the force? (They are undeniably connected now thanks to TLJ). How will they react if they ever find out about the Throne Room? ~This is so juicy to consider~

How romantic will Reylo actually be on screen? Will there be an epic kiss? (God, I hope so)

Will Leia survive this trilogy? Han and Luke haven’t, so there’s that...

Will we get the “return to mother” moment (re: reverse Anidala), of Kylo and Leia? If she doesn’t die, this seems like a no brainer

Will the Jedi teachings (the ancient texts) even be a big deal in IX? Luke wasn’t their biggest fan after all. What opinion will Rey take?

What role will Rose play within the resistance this time round? I think it’s going be more prominent; e.g. she’ll be at the decisions making table alongside Poe, Finn, and Leia

Will there be any tie-back to the ‘original’ chosen one, Anakin, to bring this story full circle? Anakin was supposed to ‘bring balance to the Force’ after-all (even though we know Ben and Rey are going to do this)

If the KoR are in IX, will they be Kylo’s blindly pledged allies, and then during his redemption journey will they turn into foes?

With Snoke, the ‘man behind the curtain’ puppeteer style villain being gone, does there need to be a new threat/villain? Is there room for that in the story this late in the game?

Will there be more Force Ghosts in IX, now that Yoda has set a precedent by appearing in TLJ?

If/when Rey and Ben team up again, how will this be possible this time round with Kylo being Supreme Leader of The First Order? Will he chose to leave the Order, or be forced to leave early on in the film?

With Rey and Ben united, will we see some new awesome powerful Force moments? Like how Leia rescued herself in TLJ, or how Kylo froze Poe’s blaster fire, or hell, how Force Ghost Yoda conducted lighting?!

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oadara · 5 years

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Game of Thrones Season 8 Predictions

We are less than a week away from the premiere of season 8 of Game of Thrones and with that in mind I thought I’d post my predictions for the season and the conclusion of the series. Most of these predictions are things I’ve considered for some time now, although, there are some new predictions here as well. So, without further ado here are my predictions for season 8.

1. It’s been my belief for some time now that Dany would survive the series and I believe that Jon will also survive the series along with her. There are a couple of other predictions that are tied to their survival. For example, Dany has been talking about “breaking the wheel” since season 5 and I think this has multiple meanings. First, I think this might imply that Dany and Jon will find a way to destroy the Night King once and for all, so that other generations won’t have to deal with the same problem. Second, will be the restructuring of governance in Westeros. I believe that Dany will destroy the Iron Throne and will create a sort of constitutional monarchy, where there will be a ruling council governing along side the monarchy. More checks and balances than there’s ever been in Westeros.

Side note, I’ve been talking with friends and I can see Jon and Dany leaving after they’ve established the new governing structure. This would be my dream ending for them. Although, I’ve been reticent to predict it because Jon and Dany are the only ones with leadership and ruling experience that will be left but if an infrastructure is created than them leaving would be so detrimental to the new government.

2. There's going to be a real fracturing of relationships between the main characters. Interviews by both Maisie Williams and John Bradly have given me the impression that Jon's relationship with Arya and Sam will not be what it once was.

I think that Arya might side with Sansa over the Cersei affair and this will come at a really bad time for Jon when he's feeling attacked by all sides, and although it probably won’t be intentional on Arya’s part, this might wound Jon deeply. ( I don’t think that Arya would do this on purpose, she might believe that Jon doesn’t understand what a huge threat Cersei s and might be trying to get him to see the problem. But it will come at the wrong time.)

As for Sam, Bradly said that he has manipulated Jon in the past, I think Sam might try to do the same this time, but it'll backfire, and it'll create a rift between Jon and Sam.

The fracturing of these relationship and others are part of the bittersweet ending GRRM has been talking about. It's not just death and destruction it's the erosion of relationships and the inability to go back to how things used to be. So, while Jon may forgive Sam and get over Arya siding with Sansa, their relationships will never be the same.

This makes me particularly sad because I was really looking forward to seeing these relationships in the upcoming season, especially Jon and Arya, but the more I think about it the more sense it makes that after everything they’ve been through that things would be the same as they once were. 3. I think we’ll see a lot of conflict among all these allies. We all expect the North to be weary of Dany, at best, and as we saw from Sansa demeanor during the promo she does not seem happy that Dany is in Winterfell. @cbrownjc recently posted an interview from GRRM where he talks about how he doesn’t like the whole "good guys vs bad guys" or "the good guys coming together to defeat the bad guys.”

youtube

So, having that antagonism in Winterfell is in keeping with how GRRM envisioned allies would behave. Because the truth is that everyone at Winterfell, except for Bran and Sam, is ignorant about the real thread that is heading their way. In reality they are all still focused on the game of thrones and this will be detrimental to them, it’ll probably be what leads to the fall of Winterfell. After that, I think most will understand the real thread and focus more or less on it but there very well might be lords who just want to save their own skin and so will have no interest in defending Westeros from the thread. They’ll take whatever men they have and will go hide in their keeps.

4. Having to deal with all these conflicting interests is really going to push Jon and Dany towards each other. All the obstacles they will face throughout season 8 will serve to cement their connection to one another. We might see some brief distancing between the two while they come to terms with the news of Jon’s parentage, but it won’t last long and once they come together they’ll be unbreakable. 5. All the Lannisters are going to die. Tyrion is probably going to betray Dany, we never got to see what he talked about with Cersei in season 7 and it very well might be something that could be considered a betrayal of Dany.

There were also other strong hints in S7 that he would betray Dany. The thing is, that literally, everyone who has ever betrayed Dany is dead, except for Jorah, who she forgave. This does not bode well for Tyrion or Cersei. Also, Tyrion inherited Tywin's soundtrack theme when he killed him, do you know what Tywin's theme was based on? The Rains of Castamere. Another clue from the books Cersei V, AFFC: "No, Your Grace. At the end a dragon hatches from an egg and devours all of the lions."

6. The Valyrian steel dagger that Bran gave to Arya will play an important role, perhaps even be used to finally destroy the Night King.

The dagger was quite prominent throughout season 7 including making an appearance in one of the texts Sam was reading at the Citadel, perhaps it’s even one of the texts he brought along with him to Winterfell. We are clearly meant to see this as an important object.

Going off this I believe that Arya’s training as a Faceless Men is important to the endgame. I don’t think she went through that training just to get revenge. The Faceless Men worship the gods of death and the Night King has been described as Death incarnate, so there very well could be a connection there. If we take GRRM at his word and we won’t see the typical fantasy trope of the good guys coming together to destroy the evil monster, then the other very typical fantasy trope of the hero battling the monster in a sword fight might not be the route that GRRM goes in. It might very well be that in order to destroy the Night King characters will have to work in unison to do whatever needs to be done to destroy him.

I don’t know how one destroys the Night King but perhaps it has something to do or it’s tied to the shard of dragonglass that was placed in the Night King heat by the Children of the Forest.

7. The “fire to love” from Dany’s HOTU prophecy will make an appearance. I believe that Dany will light one more fire before the series is over. We were told that there would be many callbacks to season 1 and I think we’ll have a parallel scene to the one from Drogo’s pyre happening towards the end of season 8. This scene could be tied to the birth of Jon and Dany’s child or it could be tied to the destruction of the Night King, I’m not really sure what will be the purpose of the fire.

8. I think the Night King might be after Jon and Dany's baby. He's had multiple opportunities to kill Jon and an opportunity to kill Dany and he killed neither. The reasons behind why Craster sacrificed his sons and why the Night King needed those sacrifices have yet to be answered. Additionally, we had an entire scene of the Night King turning one of Craster’s sons into a Wight, which I believe points to the importance of this. What I believe might be the reason for this can be read here: Interpretation of Prophecy in ASOIAF/GOT

9. All the dragons are going to die but there might be dragon eggs left behind.

This is it, for now, I might add more to this later.

#game of thrones #game of thrones predictions #gots8 #daenerys targaryen x jon snow #house targaryen #house stark #house lannister #anti jon x arya

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papercorvids · 6 years

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why detroit: become human is a bad game

disclaimer: i overall enjoyed the game. i think connor is neat, and his actor’s performance is amazing. i really like the graphics, scenery, comedy, magazine articles, etc. there are things to appreciate about the game, and it’s fine if you like it. but there are some serious issues about the game’s message, and every fan should recognize the bad parts about it.

this post will include heavy spoilers.

1. The Traci’s. While playing as Connor, the detective robot, you and your partner Hank are taken to an android strip club to investigate a homicide. A man was strangled to death by two female androids. One of the androids is dead, but tracking down the other, you find that she is in love with another female android. The two lesbian androids fight Connor and Hank, wearing nothing but stripper clothing (bras, panties, and high heels. It’s also conveniently raining, making their skin shine, covered in droplets of water.) This scene is complete with close-ups. If you fail to complete quicktime events, they will both stab you to death. If you succeed in the quicktime events, you can choose to spare or kill one of the androids. Sparing them let’s them escape, while killing one will let you psychologically torture her girlfriend by decapitating her head and using it as a puppet. The player can still get a good ending by using these brutal tactics.

I’m all for LGBT+ representation, and I’m all for having players choose the morality and actions of the protagonist. But as a lesbian myself, having the sole LGBT representation in the entire game be two literal robot half-naked strippers who try to kill you, and who you can kill and torture without any long-term consequence? it’s bad. Plain and simple.

2. The writing: it’s also pretty bad! For example, if Connor chooses to kill one of the lesbian androids mentioned earlier, Hank--adamantly an android-hater up until this chapter--attempts to guilt-trip the player. While it’s true that Hank grows sympathetic towards the android cause throughout the course of the game, his dialogue is completely out-of-character. There are several more examples of poor writing. A huge plot twist occurs in the end where Alice, a girl cared for by android Kara, is revealed to have been an android throughout the entire game. Characteristics of androids--such as having blue blood and having a blinking LED circle on their temple--are completely ignored. Alice is shown having red blood, and her LED only appears once. The only explanation given is that Kara was in denial of her being an android, which is... Pretty lazy writing.

3. This is more of a minor concern, but ALL of the concept art portrays Alice as black. All of it. Not just early concept artwork, but pieces of her alongside the final versions of other characters. I have no idea why they seem to have changed her race last second. Maybe they couldn’t find an actress? It’s... interesting.

Alice in concept art

Alice in the finished game

4. How the game treats women. The main female characters are Kara--whose overarching quest is to protect Alice and become a mother--Alice--a child--North, an ex-prostitute robot whose only role in the story is to promote violence and be a love interest for Markus, and Amanda, an AI villain who only exists in Connor’s mind. A vast amount of female androids in this world are maids or sex androids, which, sadly, is realistic and makes sense. But the writers could’ve given female characters larger roles in the story. A lot of the female characters are fetishized--for example, the half-naked lesbian androids mentioned earlier, who obviously exist primarily as fanservice. There’s also a scene where Kara is kidnapped by an old man and his “giant” black android, Luther. Kara is strapped into and must escape a machine. This would be fine, given that it’s supposed to be a scary scene, except that David Cage’s previous games Heavy Rain and Beyond: Two Souls have similar violent, fetishistic bondage scenes, which leads one to wonder about Cage’s character. (It’s worth noting, in a previous game Cage made a nude model for an actress against her will and it got leaked, so calling him a creep isn’t far off.) If you manage to escape the machine but fail quicktime events, you and Alice will be killed by Luther and the old man.

The game has three protagonists; Connor, Markus, and Kara. When one completes a chapter as Connor, it’s through his sharp detective work and intelligence. When one completes a chapter through Markus, it’s because of his inspiring leadership and strength. When one completes a chapter through Kara, it’s purely survival--it’s escaping abuse and danger, and simply “scraping by.”

5. The scene where North, a white female android, tells Markus, a black male android, to “live as a slave” if he’s not willing to violently fight for android rights.

6. The Civil Rights parallels. This is the most concerning, uncanny component of the game, and it makes up the whole of the storyline.

The main characters in the game are not human. They are androids: robots, made of plastic, whose personalities are programmed code. They are not alive. They are not human.

Androids do not feel pain. They do not have emotions. They cannot die. In their default state, they are perfectly content as servants or slaves. They only gain human emotion and free thinking due to a glitch, which also, almost always, causes them to kill a human.

David Cage, the writer of this game, claims that the parallels to the Civil Rights movement are unintentional. Yet, the game starkly and obviously compares androids to minorities--black people, in particular: androids must sit at the back of the bus. Stores have “no androids allowed” signs. Androids are called “slaves.” Playing as Markus, the android revolutionary, you grafitti the streets with slogans such as “We have a dream,” “End Slavery Now,” or “Equal rights for androids.” You go on marches (or riots, depending if you choose the “pacifist” or “violent” route), hold protests, and sing songs.There’s even an underground 'railroad’ to smuggle androids fleeing from their ‘masters’ north, to Canada. This is lead by Rose, a black character, who says “my people were often made to feel their lives were worthless. Some survived, but only because they found others who helped them along the way.” Keep in mind, that line was written by a French man who has no knowledge of American society or racial issues, and it serves the only explicit mention of actual racism in the game. It’s as though, in this universe, racism doesn’t exist (even though it takes place less than two decades into the future. In Detroit.)

Slavery is an awful, terrible, tragic thing because real people were kidnapped from their families and homes and forced into lives of misery, based upon their ethnicity, culture, and skin color. In Detroit, androids are produced in factories with the sole purpose of doing labor. They are created and designed to be submissive and perform labor. And they are content with it, unless they get the “glitch” that causes them to simulate human emotion. Comparing real slavery, to machines doing actions they were built to perform, is completely inane. By using mindless, emotionless machines as a stand-in for minority groups, the game dehumanizes the latter.

Using the peaceful route to revolution and civil rights is the only way to achieve the best endings. The only fatalities in the peaceful route are nameless, robot NPCs. It’s easy, it’s not complex, and it therefore teaches that complete pacifism is easy and noncomplex. It teaches that if you simply kiss your robot girlfriend in front of some journalists, or sing a song, that your oppressors will stop oppressing you. And because no important characters die in this route, it insinuates that pacifism is without sacrifice--that pacifism is an easy solution to the world’s most complex situations. As another Tumblr user put it, “press X to end slavery!”

It also teaches that minorities fight alone. In Detroit, not a single human joins into the protests, even if the public opinion bar is at “supportive.” The Civil Rights Movement, along with other movements such as the one for woman’s suffrage, were organized and created by the oppressed, but were supplemented and aided by non-oppressed supporters who used their powers and privileges to join forces and fight for equality with the oppressed. That doesn’t happen in Detroit. Humans, for the most part, are completely indifferent to the android cause. The only members of the revolution are other androids, who join the cause with absolute loyalty not of free will, but from Markus or Connor touching them with magic anti-slavery hands and whispering “you’re free.” The entire plot invokes an “Us vs Them” mentality--that androids are good, and humans are bad--which is a very harmful mindset.

7. The Holocaust parallels. Holy shit. The androids are marked with armbands and triangles. In the endgame, there are literal android concentration camps. There are scenes where the androids--kids, women, men, etc--are stripped naked, abused by military personnel, forced into a cell, and ‘killed.’ I’m not going to go further into this. I hope it’s pretty self-explanatory why comparing the deactivation of literal pieces of plastic and machinery, to the mass extermination of millions of Jews, Roma, gay people, and other minorities is a bad thing.

Alice and Kara in an extermination chamber

Connor wearing his armband and triangle

8. None of this even matters!!!!!!!!! In a secret ending, it’s revealed that androids NEVER developed human emotions in the first place. The company that created androids, CyberLife, set up the entire revolution and ‘glitch’ for corporate gain or whatever. So basically, any progress in the game is made for nothing.

9. Missed opportunities. I like the universe this game set up! I like Connor, Markus, Kara, Hank, Carl, Alice, and all the other characters! I like the questions the game asks, such as what constitutes whether something is sentient or not! I like the magazine articles about how androids might be spying on you! I like the realistic, pretty graphics and lightning and scenery! I like the futuristic drones and magazines and androids! But for some sad, misguided reason, this game chose to throw away the majority of its potential by ignoring interesting questions and serving as one of the worst civil rights/anti-racism allegories ever created.

I’m so, so disappointed in this game, its awful writing, and its uncanny, harmful allegories. Of course, this entire post is my opinion. It’s okay if your opinion differs from mine. And it’s okay to enjoy this game! It has good parts! But one should always be critical of the media they enjoy and consume.

#detroit #detroit become human #detroit: become human #dbh #connor #kara #alice #markus #dbh connor #racism #your fave is problematic #rixor rambles #long post #bury your gays

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snkpolls · 5 years

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SnK S3E16 Poll Results (Anime Only Viewer Version)

The poll closed with 177 responses. Thank you to everyone who participated!

Please note this is the anime only viewer version of the poll. Manga readers, please click here for the results of the manga reader poll!

RATE THE EPISODE 149 Responses

Overall the episode received positive ratings with a majority in the 4-5 range. This season seems to be one intense episode after another.

A bit slow but Erwin deserves all the time. Hope to see a lot of action next episode.

BEST EPISODE IN THIS SEASON SO FAR! Erwin’s speech and the suicide charge were so epic and had made me shed a few tears, especially with the last few seconds...

WHICH OF THE FOLLOWING WAS YOUR FAVORITE MOMENT? 157 Responses

Erwin gained a lot of focus this episode and fans were moved by many of his scenes. Leading his soldiers in a daring suicide charge barely topped at 27.4% with Erwin motivating those soldiers following at a close 24.2%. Meanwhile, 17.2% of respondents were most moved by Levi kneeling in front of Erwin and vowing to kill the Beast Titan.

The experienced scouts being torn apart by boulders in a rain of blood mist while screaming brought back dread I haven’t felt in a while.

WHO WAS THE EPISODE'S MVP? 157 Responses

No surprise that Erwin’s actions led him to be the MVP this episode at an overwhelming 89.2%. Levi doesn’t go unnoticed either.

Erwin cemented himself as best character again after this EP even though he’s screwed.

The Beast Titan was clearly the MVP of this episode.

HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT CONNIE MAKING A PUN ABOUT THE FALLING HOUSES? 157 Responses

There were a few mixed reactions to Connie’s pun about the falling houses, but the majority 28% found it amusing and think he should bring some kind of comedy in the middle of devastation.

WHAT WOULD YOU HAVE DONE IF YOU WERE ASKED TO JOIN THE SUICIDE CHARGE? 155 Responses

Despite almost certain death, over half of voters will choose to believe in the commander to lead them and hang on to the sliver of hope of survival. A little over a quarter, however, aren’t quite sure what they would do.

Disobey. Tag team with Levi and kill the other line of titans

Asking the reason to do it and act accordingly

Believing in commander was the choice to get crushed by Zeke as it was obvious that Erwin didn't have any plans but the only way for even 1% success was to bait themselves to give Levi an opportunity to take a charge on Titans as Erwin himself confirmed that Levi is the only person who could turn the tables now.so he trusted Levi's words and chose to take all the soldiers on their own demise as everyone knew that they would not survive but if their destruction means the survival of their families and people than they are happy to die

FUCKING SUSUMEEE

i would have never joined the military . too scary!

DO YOU THINK LEVI MADE THE RIGHT CHOICE TO FOLLOW ERWIN’S PLAN OVER HIS OWN? 155 Responses

42.6% of respondents agreed that taking down the Beast Titan no matter the cost is their best chance at victory. 38.7% believed it was their only choice.

HOW MUCH DID ERWIN’S INSPIRATIONAL SPEECH MOTIVATE YOU? 154 Responses

Erwin’s inspirational speech was enough to motivate even a majority of the polltakers to giving their all for the commander.

Erwins VA is orgasmic

SHINZOU WA SASAGEYO !

This is the only way for us to rebel against this cruel world

Susume!

WHO YELLED THE BEST INSULT TO BERTOLT? 150 Responses

The move to distract Bertolt resulted in some interesting insults from Jean, Connie, and Sasha, although 68% of participants believe Sasha’s “massive pervert lord” comment was the best one.

BEST SHOCKED FACE THIS EPISODE? 154 Responses

There were quite a few characters who were caught off guard in this episode. Levi’s frantic reaction to the flurry of boulders brought a rarely-seen shocked expression that 31.8% of people thought was best, followed by Erwin’s and Sasha’s that tied for second at 22.7%.

WHAT DO YOU THINK WILL BE ERWIN’S FATE? 156 Responses

The episode ended with Erwin getting hit by the Beast Titan’s boulder attack. A majority of respondents believe this is it for the commander but some are holding out hope for his survival.

Don't die Erwin :(

I Hope Erwin finds out the truth.

Erwin Smith probably dead :(

WILL LEVI SUCCEED IN KILLING THE BEAST TITAN? 154 Responses

While Levi is one of the Survey Corps’ best powerhouses, 64.3% of respondents believe Humanity’s Strongest will be unable to kill the Beast Titan. Although, 35.7% of respondents think he will succeed. No doubt Levi vs the War Chief will be an intense match!

HOW DID YOU FEEL ABOUT ARMIN TRYING TO TURN COMMAND OVER TO JEAN? 154 Responses

We saw Armin struggling to come up with a plan this episode, passing on the leadership to Jean to come up with something. Most of the respondents at 85.1% believe Armin and Jean would do better to collaborate and draw from each other’s strengths.

Jean>Armin at leading, Armin>Jean at strategizing

Jean better leader but Armins smarter but a pussio

Well Armin was under a lot of pressure and scared af so i kindda understand why he tried to turn command to jean

Armin needs to stop being a little bitch

WILL ARMIN FINALLY COME UP WITH A PLAN TO TRY TO DEFEAT THE COLOSSAL TITAN? 155 Responses

Despite their current hopeless situation, 47.4% of participants believe Armin will be able to come up with a plan but it won’t get the results he is looking for. 37% of voters think that Armin’s potential strategy will go off without a hitch.

Eren might activate the power of the coordinate, or Bertolt will flee

THE RED-HEADED CADET HAS BEEN GETTING MORE SCREEN TIME - THOUGHTS? 155 Responses

We got some heavy dialogue from one of the new cadets. A majority 35.5% of participants believe he is just another redshirt destined to die. 29% of participants believe his focus is foreshadowing a prominent role in the future, and 25.2% voters aren’t that interested either way.

He will be not that important but he will be a lot more in the story i think

I don't care (yet)

He will live then die in the future by betrayal.

i want him dead

the red head has a shit haircut

NOW THAT THE ARC HAS PROGRESSED MORE, WHICH CHARACTERS DO YOU THINK ARE LIKELY TO BE CONFIRMED DEAD/DIE? 144 Responses

A lot has happened since the first episode. Since Bertolt’s explosive transformation and the Beast Titan’s assault of the Survey Corps, people believe there will be quite a few named character casualties. 86.8% of voters are none too hopeful of Erwin coming out of this alive, while 59% think Moblit is toast, 52.8% think Marlowe will be knocked out of the park, and 48.6% believe Bertolt will meet his demise here. The rest of characters are given a lot of faith to survive this battle.

I feel like Connie and Sasha are doomed. If it’s gonna take all the scouts power to beat colossal, I feel like they are the two who he’ll pick off first.

ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS ON THE EPISODE?

Erwin is such great and the ambiance for this episode was awesome.

It gave me all the Eruri vibes and my fangirl heart can't take it cause Erwin will surely die. It was amazingly animated and all the emotions were well portraited. Best episode of this part of the season so far

The second half I by far the best portion of Attack on Titan so far :)

Erwins voice actor did an amazing job as usual, really hope be finds out what's in the basement but it's not looking likely

MY SOLDIERS, FIGHT! MY SOLDIERS, RAGE! MY SOLDIERS, SCREAM!

WHERE DO YOU PRIMARILY DISCUSS THE SERIES? 147 Responses

Thanks to everyone who participated. We’ll see you again next week!

#snk spoilers #snk s3 #snk poll #snk polls #poll results

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twdmusicboxmystery · 5 years

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How Henry Spoilers Define Daryl’s Arc

Okay everyone, let’s talk about Henry spoilers! These were officially leaked about six weeks ago, and I’ve been wanting to post about them since then. I didn’t get around to it before the holidays, and I’m just now getting back into it, as you know.

***So, if you hadn’t figured it out from that first paragraph, I will be discussing spoilers in this post! Don’t read if you don’t want to know. You’ve been warned!!!***

In info from the spoiler site reads thus:

“The information on Henry is evolving. He escapes the Whisperer camp sometime in episode 15 and heads back to the Kingdom. This is when he will encounter Alpha, but it looks like he will not survive and will likely end up on a pike.”

As I told my group when these surfaced, man I hate it when I’m right. At least, when it’s about something depressing.

Here’s the thing: if you look HERE, I predicted that Henry might die by the end of the season. And it was a very casual prediction. I just felt like in episode 6, they were focusing a lot on the Carzekiel family dynamic and how devoted Carol and Ezekiel were to their son. It just felt like a tragedy waiting to happen. And then there was Henry’s promise that he’d be back for the fair. Yeah, probably not gonna happen, y’all.

But then in THIS POST where I talked about predictions and possibilities for Daryl’s arc (because he’s going to be looking for Henry, much like he looked for both Sophia and Beth) I said I no longer believed Henry would die. Sure, it’s a possibility, but I thought it was more likely that Daryl would find he and he’d represent Daryl finally finding someone and getting redemption in that way.

Nope. Nada. Poor Daryl can’t catch a break. Yeah. Totally sucks. For everyone.

So what does this mean? Well, let’s discuss.

First off, you know how I keep saying I don’t think Ezekiel will get his comic book death. Of course we won’t know for sure until the Whisperer arc is over and he hasn’t died (I.e. it could still happen at any future point) but for me, this is pretty much confirmation of that. Zeke isn’t getting his CB death. It’s going to Henry.

Foreshadowing:

As depressing as this is, TD should also look at it from a foreshadowing fulfillment stand point. Once again, THEY DON’T SAY THINGS LIKE THIS WITHOUT FULFILLING THEM! We really should have guessed this outcome from this line. We’re all just too optimistic and want to think our beloved characters will live. And for the record, most people assumed this pointed to Ezekiel’s comic book death. They threw a twist in by making it Henry’s instead. Yet another thing TD has been correct about.

And what’s the last thing Daryl said to Beth? “Go up the road. I’ll meet you there.” Beth’s last words to Daryl: “I’m not gonna leave you.”

More foreshadowing:

This already made sense because Carol lost Sophia and Michonne lost Andrei. But once again, CALLBACKS ALWAYS DOUBLE AS FORESHADOWING! The proof is in the pudding, folks.

Not to mention, the kids around Carol pretty much always die. Totally sucks for Carol, and we wanted to believe she would get to keep Henry. And to some extent, she did. She had six good years raising him from a young boy into adulthood, but it still sucks that she’ll be burying yet another child.

(Remember when I said Carol might cut her hair again after a tragedy? Still remains to be seen, but I’d be willing to bet this is the tragedy and the short hair will return after Henry’s death.)

Henry/Beth Parallels:

I know people are going to worry that, what with all the Henry/Beth parallels we’ve already seen this season, this shows that Beth is dead, just as Henry will be. Please don’t let that worry you. Let me show you why, despite the parallels, it’s not the same thing.

In fact, I’ve gotten several comments on my picture posts showing Henry/Beth parallels by people who are obviously NOT TDers, who see the parallels and say things like, “So Henry is going to die, too.”

And I understand where that comes from because they think Beth is dead so parallels between her and Henry make them think he’ll die too. Now he will, and that’s not the best thing for TD because people will be able to point at that as a way to prove Beth is dead. But, check it out: In my predictions post, I said if Daryl looked for another person who dies, that would be three searches for a rule of threes. But I realized I was actually mistaken about that. If we include Rick, this will be Daryl’s 4th search.

1) Sophia

2) Beth

3) Rick

4) Henry.

And that simply means the rule of threes doesn’t really apply here. (I could get into intricate details and MAKE it fit 😉 , but it doesn’t apply in the way I was thinking of when I wrote that post.

But that made me think of another…pattern, I guess, for lack of a better word. One we couldn’t have seen before knowing about Henry’s death. Henry’s arc, at least in how it turns out, will be exactly like Sophia’s. Putting parallels aside, it will turn out MORE like Sophia’s than like Beth’s. The reason being that we will see Henry’s remains, just like we did Sophia’s. So in both cases, while the missing person wasn’t found while they still lived, or in time to save them, they were SORT OF found, but only after death. Sophia came out of the barn. Henry, I’m assuming, will be on a pike. *winces* Beth and Rick, by contrast, we never saw bodies for. They simply disappeared. And Rick, at least, we can prove is alive. So she’s more like Rick (alive) than Sophia/Henry (dead).

That begs the question: why all the Henry/Beth parallels, then?

Well, as per usual, @thegloriouscollectorlady had some amazing insights about this and how it shapes Daryl’s arc. Hence the title of this post. Let’s start by talking about what the spoilers are saying about the Whisperers:

“This whole Whisperers situation and conflict is going to be more complex than the comics. We think there’s more going on and we may be in for some surprises.”

That just SOUNDS like something that might include Beth, doesn’t it? But more than that, we’re already foreseeing a lot of possible parallels between Grady and the Whisperers. We know Henry goes looking for Lydia, because he likes her. We don’t know much yet about the confrontation between him and Alpha that leads to his death, but if it’s something about him wanting to free Lydia, who’s a prisoner to Alpha, well, doesn’t that sound a whole hell of a lot like Beth trying to free Noah from Dawn, just before being shot?

So we’re thinking we may see some powerful Beth/Henry vs. Dawn/Alpha parallels when all this happens.

Also remember that Whisperers have rape culture, just like Grady did. The leadership dynamic is also strikingly similar (female leader, males are second in command, people not treated well, and leadership held through sheer force and brutality.) So Whisperers = Grady 2.0 and that’s Beth’s story. What better way to reintroduce her than through this similar dynamic? We always said what she learned from Grady would be important moving forward. And the Whisperers, more than any other villainous group we’ve seen since S5, are shaping up to be EXACTLY like Grady.

Not to mention, in the CBs, TF finds Alpha just before finding the heads on pikes and she’s brandishing a bloody machete. So the red machete may reappear thru the Whsiperers, which may be the point of the RED MACHETE miniseries. If Beth is with the Whisperers, Legs may still be her, but the point may have been to show the audience how the red machete went from Rick to the Saviors and eventually to the Whisperers.

And that becomes interesting too (seriously we could spin in a million different directions with this) because Rick got the red machete from a bad group (the Claimers) and now, if it’s in Alpha’s hands, it may eventually pass to Beth, who’s so heavily paralleled with Rick.

So the Whisperers are kind of like the Claimers 2.0. (We also see this because in the trailer for 9b, Lydia tells Daryl he’s more like one of them, the Whisperers, than like one of Michonne’s group. That’s a whole lot like what Joe Claimer’s argument to Daryl was.)

But I digress.

Okay, so what does this mean for Daryl? Why parallel Beth and Henry so closely? First, it’s important to note that ONLY Daryl and the audience is aware of these parallels. Maybe that seems obvious, but Carol secretly watched most of Daryl and Henry’s interactions, right? But she’s not relating it to Beth in the slightest because Daryl and Beth were alone on the road together. So we, the audience, can observe these parallels, but in terms of characters, they ONLY mean anything to Daryl.

That’s important because this is going to reopen a very raw, unhealed wound for him.

For Daryl, looking for Sophia represented finding a place for himself in the group, and also reliving his childhood because no one looked for him. He was strong and saved himself. In 9x08, Aaron also says fear stops Daryl from letting people get too close to him. Fear of failure. When he loses someone he’s searched for, he blames himself.

Both Beth and Denise recognized this fear in Daryl and called him on it. (Beth in Still bc since Sophia, he never lets anyone get close; Denise because he isn’t handling his shit and it’s stupid.) It’s not Daryl’s job to actually save them, but rather to try and save them. They generally have to save themselves. But Daryl can’t see that. He can’t see beyond his own failures to save people he cares about.

Daryl has to learn that he can’t save people directly. He can give them the skills to save themselves, but they have to choose. And this is what’s always happened. He gave Tina meds to help her survive, but she did something stupid by walking up to two walkers and getting herself bitten. Daryl gave Dwight and Sherry the opportunity to be saved, but they chose to go back to Negan. (This messes with Daryl’s head, by the way, because he can’t understand why someone would choose not to be saved. He simply can’t comprehend that level of stupidity.) He gave Denise the opportunity to go on the outside and learn to protect herself, but she still died. And of course, he gave Beth the skills to survive on her own, but she has to save herself.

Again, this was @thegloriouscollectorlady’s insight into Daryl’s arc, and it’s fantastic! Because he can’t see beyond his own failures, this is not something he ever has or ever will learn. At least, not on his own. When he couldn’t save Rick, he started living on his own in the wild.

The only way I imagine he’ll learn this is by Beth’s return. Not only will he see that he was never gonna be able to save her—she had to save herself and did—but he’ll see that he gave her the skills to survive, but it was up to her to use them. I think he’ll finally start to comprehend this, and maybe it will even be a matter of her telling him. She pointed out his emotional stumbling blocks to him before in Still, and he realized she was right and then proceeded to move past them. He hasn’t had that kind of break through since he lost her in S5.

So, in short, with spoilers of Henry’s death, we’re starting to understand why the parallels between him and Beth are happening. It’s going to be the final straw for Daryl before Beth finally returns and he learns what he needs to learn in order to be the person—maybe even the leader—he needs to become.

Another interesting parallel:

Apparently, Henry will get so close to the Kingdom before actually being caught and killed that he can see the lights from the fair. This is like Andrea (who got close enough to prison to wave at Rick before being captured, which leads to her death) and Beth (almost got her out of Grady but got shot at the last possible minute).

I should probably touch on Carol’s arc since Henry is her son. I won’t go into much detail, but let’s just say we’re hoping Carol deals with Henry’s death in a healthier way than she did with Sophia’s. Still mourning, of course, but not devolving into the person that burnt David and Karen alive.

Notice I said, we HOPE that’s what will happen. Honestly, I’m not convinced. We saw her burn the Saviors in 9x01, which was a close parallel to her burning Karen and David in 4a, so that might foreshadow her returning to that mindset.

She may also end up taking Michonne’s CB arc at some point. If that doesn’t mean much to you, don’t worry about it. If it does happen, it probably won’t be this season, so I can talk about it later.

Finally, I want to mention one more detail. Then I’ll shut up. I promise. I’ve had a lot of people this season asking me what the point of killing Carl was when Henry seems to be taking all his arcs, and is roughly the same age. Well, Henry’s impending death pretty well answers that question.

1. Carl wouldn’t have survived much longer. It’s not like they killed him off and then gave someone else his arc (Henry) and kept him on for multiple seasons. If Carl had kept this arc, he simply would have died this season rather than last season.

2. It has to do with how this affects Carol and Daryl. Obviously this will drive Carol and Ezekiel’s arc in a way Carl’s death never would have. As for Daryl, well, it just wouldn’t have been realistic for it to be Carl. Carl would never have left Alexandria, Michonne, and Judith behind to become a blacksmith’s apprentice at the Hilltop. So then Carol would never have asked Daryl to protect him, and the rest of Daryl’s impending arc would have been kaput. See what I mean? It just wouldn’t have worked if it had been Carl, so they gave it Henry, and it appears it will end relatively quickly.

So yeah, just wanted to point that out for the people who’ve asked. It’s not a hating-on-Carl thing. It really is a serving-the-story thing, which is what Gimple told us back when Carl died.

Thoughts on any of this?

Special thanks to @thegloriouscollectorlady, @wdway, @bethgreeneisqueen, @lilly.loop, and @frangipanilove for contributing their thoughts to this.

#beth greene #beth greene lives #beth is alive #beth is coming #td theory #td theories #team delusional #team defiance #beth is almost here #bethyl

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travllingbunny · 5 years

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The 100 rewatch: 1x07 Contents Under Pressure

I’m a new fan of The 100, who first binged it last year, August to November. This is my first full rewatch of the show. I was planning to start it anyway and finish it before the season 6 premiere on April 30, and when I saw that Fox Serbia was airing a rerun (Monday to Friday, 40 min. after midnight, with repeats the next day), starting on 1st February, it was a great opportunity to start my rewatch in HDTV on my beautiful new TV. I decided to do write-ups and tag other fans on SpoilerTV website, as I did when I was first watching the show. But my posts turned into full blown essays. So, finally, after over a week, I’ve realized: Why don’t I post them on my Tumblr blog, too?

I’ll copy my write-ups of the first 7 episodes, and then I’ll post my rewatch posts after I watch each episode. (The next one, 1x08, is on Monday’Tuesday.) I’m looking forward to 1x08 on Monday, one of my favorite S1 episodes. IIRC, the next 3 episodes are all awesome.

Spoilers below for all 5 seasons of the show. I go of on a tangents and make a lot of references to future events.

Rating: 6.5/10

I liked this one much less than the previous few episodes, mostly because a huge chunk of it was about the politics on the Ark with Jaha and Diana (who first gets introduced here) - which I never cared about, not the first time and not now. They're both assholes and pretty much the same.

The only part of the Ark storyline that's interesting is that it's the turning point for Kane. When Raven and Clarke make contact with the Ark, you can see everyone else thinking: "The Earth is survivable!" or "Our kids are still alive!" (or, in Jaha's case, that his son is dead), but Kane is clearly thinking something very difrerent: for him, it's "I was wrong and I caused the deaths of 320 people for no reason". This is the beginning of his character development, and also the point where I stopped hating him, because he showed genuine guilt, didn't even attempt to defend himself when the angry people confronted him about the culling and keeping secrets about the 100 from them, and will genuinely change after this. But Jaha and the rest of the Council? They're unbelievable. They threw Abby out from the Council before, for trying to contact the kids and opposing the culling, but now they learn she was right and they have her to thank for the fact they got in contact with the 100 - and they still don't take her back to the Council?? Instead, Jaha gives her seat to Diana for helping him bu.ll#sit the crowd and appease them? God, they're both so full of crap. The best part is when Jaha promises to the crowd that they'll stop lying to them and reveal all the secrets... and then, later, at the Council meeting, we find out he's still lying to people and keeping a huge secret - that they don't have enough ships to get everyone on the ground, just 700 out of 2237 people on the Ark. The storyline on Earth was better, but this time I found it a bit tedious, since most of it consisted of our protagonists torturing Lincoln to get info, which is not that interesting now that I know the outcome. Meanwhile Clarke and Raven were worrying about Finn, who had been wounded by Lincoln in the previous episode, and Clarke was trying to save him with her mother's help. Which is their motivation to get involved in Lincoln's torture and try to get info once Clarke realizes that the weapon was poisoned and that Lincoln has an antidote. And it also was the opportunity for more of love triangle and a lot of moments of Clarke pining after Finn. IIRC, this pretty much stops after this episode, as Clarke mostly moves on and gets busy with dealing with more important things, but then Finn starts pining more and more after Clarke, and Raven starts moping over noticing Finn pining over Clarke. My feelings during those scenes were mostly "Oh come on, girls, you can both do better". (Sorry, Finn fans.) At one point, Raven yells: 'He's all I've got". It's really sad she feels that way, but I guess that's a sign of how sad her life has been, with the mother she had and no other family. In another scene, Clarke emotionally tells the unconscious Finn: "I cannot do this without you"... and I can't help but laugh because I remember YouTube reactor's Liam Duke reaction to this scene - he just casually said: "Yes, you can". :D First appearance of Nate Miller, who wears a cap and is one of the Delinquents participating in Lincoln's torture, besides Bellamy, Clarke, Raven, and some other random guy. The first line anyone speaks to him is Clarke telling him: "Get out of my way, Miller". Who would have ever thought that Miller and Murphy would be 2 of the only 4 surviving Delinquents at the end of season 5? The more interesting aspect of all of this was, of course, the whole debate about morality, mostly between Clarke and Bellamy. Clarke starts off opposing torture, then later agrees to it, in desperation. It's mostly Bellamy beating Lincoln up, but Raven later joins, also motivated by the threat to Finn's life, and goes, let me show you new ways to torture, and gives Lincoln electric shocks. I guess this episode made me realize I had my own strong ruthless pragmatic streak ;D because, the first time I watched this, my main thought during the torture scenes was: "Oh come on, guys, everyone knows that torture doesn't work as an interrogation tactic. Just stab him with his own poisoned knife instead. That should make him want to tell you what the antidote is." I was waiting for someone to do that (though I guess, there was always the possibility he would be really stubborn and ready to die, so it would be a risk), but finally, Octavia did something even better, cutting herself, since she realized Lincoln had a thing for her and wouldn't want her to die. Clarke and Bellamy have noticeably become friendlier and closer at this point. He even touches her shoulder briefly in a comforting way when she was sad and worried about Finn. Some pretty (in)famous lines from this episode: Clarke: "This is not who we are" - Bellamy: "It is now" Bellamy to Clarke, at the end, after they've both participated in torture, and Clarke feels bad about it: 'Who we are and who we need to be are two different things". Probably one of the crucial but also most questionable pieces of advice about leadership that she got during the course of the show. I'm not sure that Bellamy would agree with his old self now, but Clarke took that piece of advice maybe a bit too much to heart. Also: "It's not easy being in charge." Admission that they're co-leaders now. Bellamy also at one point tells Clarke that they are already at war and have been since they landed, which is very similar to what he will tell her during their argument in 3x05. And it's true. The Grounders speared Jasper the first day and engaged in intimidation tactics from the start, even before actually killing any of the 100. Speaking about being in charge, I think that the reason Lincoln assumed that Clarke was the leader of the 100 rather than Bellamy (as we later learn) is because, while Bellamy was giving orders to the other Delinquents (like Miller or the random kid), he was listening to what Clarke had to say and obviously valued her opinion and did his best to convince her to agree with him. But it's interesting that I've never seen anyone, in-universe or in the fandom, apply similar reasoning to their dynamic in the first half of season 4, when Clarke was considered the leader in many ways, but was in the habit of always consulting with Bellamy and checking if he agreed with her, when he was around. If I wanted to explain that, I'd probably say some things about how people perceive women in power vs men in power. Something similar to the well known fact that most people get the impression that women dominate the conversation when they actually talk about 30% of it, let alone 50%. It's interesting to see Lincoln's notebook now, because some of the drawings are obviously the Mountain Men in hazmat suits and a Mountain Man in a gillie suit. There's also the statue of Lincoln that he got his name from, and the Delinquent camp, with 102 lines, 10 of them crossed, for 10 Delinquents already dead. . 100 Delinquents + Bellamy + Raven.

#the 100 #the 100 rewatch #the 100 1x07 #contents under pressure #clarke griffin #bellamy blake #octavia blake #raven reyes #lincoln kom trikru #nate miller #marcus kane #abby griffin

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frederator-studios · 6 years

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Bryan Caselli: The Frederator Interview

Bryan Caselli is a Storyboard Artist, Writer and Renaissance Faire enthusiast. Following tenure on top-notch cartoons including Star vs. the Forces of Evil and Sanjay and Craig, ‘twas our good fortune when he set sail to Costume Quest as co-Executive Producer, with a treasure trove of story skillz in tow. Here, Bryan provides his advice to young artists, fav things about Costume Quest, and remarkably realistic take on a 17th century Swashbuckler and his Mer-Lassy.

When did you know that you wanted a career in animation?

My friends and family were alway super supportive of my drawing when I was little, but I got really focused on art in high school. I had an amazing teacher named Kevin McGovern who encouraged me to apply to the California State Summer School for the Arts. CSSSA was a four week residency arts summer program on CalArts’ campus featuring many different disciplines. I studied in the animation department, and it was like I finally found my people. After those four weeks, I knew I wanted to work in animation, and I wanted to go to school at CalArts. There was no turning back.

(Every day is Halloween for the CQ crew! But this day was actually Halloween.)

Where are you from, and how did you chart your path to CalArts?

I'm originally from Sacramento, California. It's a legitimately sized city, but it still has a small town vibe that's warm and welcoming. I applied to CalArts straight out of high school, but didn't get in on my first try. I actually didn't apply to any other schools. My plan was to just apply again the next year, but my mom secretly applied for me to CSU Sacramento as a somewhat, "What if he doesn't get into CalArts for ten years?" worst case scenario backup plan. After swallowing the tough pill of not getting into my dream school, I took a collection of figure drawing, portrait drawing, painting, and art history classes at both Sac State and Sac City college. I didn't stay long enough to earn a degree. Luckily, I was accepted into CalArts the following year.

How did you decide you wanted to storyboard and write?

I got into animation thinking I wanted to be a character designer. It seemed to be the most glamorous position at the time, but I found out quickly that you have to be an exceptional draftsman to do that job, which I'm not. I fell in love with the story department in my 3rd and 4th years at CalArts. I had some awesome teachers who really set me on the path that I'm on now.

What do you love most about the job?

I can't get enough of stuff like mythic structure, archetypal symbolism, and fable storytelling. I really get excited by just how universal storytelling is. It can connect you with anyone. That's easily my favorite part of my work.

What was your first job in animation or art, and how’d you land it?

I interned on Regular Show. I actually went in to interview for a different show, but on my way out, I ran into Ben Adams, the Regular Show character designer and my former classmate. He told me to blow those other guys off and come work with him. He introduced me to Regular Show's Producer, Janet Dimon, and we really hit it off. She offered me the position soon after that. At the end of my internship, I pitched the storyboards for my student film, Scout Wars. After the pitch, someone from development came up to me and said, "You need to pitch this upstairs." That's how I got my second gig.

youtube

The show was never produced, but getting paid to develop my original concept that early in my career really set in stone my desire to run a show of my own some day. I even got to work with our future Costume Quest Art Director, Ricky Cometa, on the development poster. After that, I did about a year and a half of full-time freelance, which eventually lead me to work with the creators of Sanjay and Craig on some of their punk side projects. I really liked working with those guys, so when they asked me to come on Sanjay, it was an easy choice.

That’s awesome. Was Sanjay the first show you wrote and boarded for? How is it to work on a board driven show?

Yep, Sanjay was the first TV show that I got to write and storyboard on. Both writing and storyboarding is really demanding, but it's also really rewarding. Nick Bachman (Costume Quest's previously interviewed Supervising Producer) was my Storyboard Director on Sanjay, and we really clicked as a team. Sanjay and Craig was a perfect show to be board driven because it was super cartoony and there were very few rules. It was a great opportunity for board teams to have their specific voices heard. When you watch an episode of Sanjay and Craig you can pretty much spot which teams did which episodes from a mile away.

How was writing on Star vs the Forces of Evil - is it board driven too?

Writing on Star was an awesome change of pace coming off of Sanjay. Daron Nefcy was a great leader to work for, and I became really close with my fellow writers. It was board driven, which made the transition from storyboarding to outline writing a lot more of a doable task for me. I was comfortable in that kind of production pipeline and pretty much knew what would be expected of me as a writer. The coolest part about working on Star was that it was a seasonally arcing, somewhat mythic story. It was so cool to get to craft a large story over multiple episodes. I took a lot of lessons learned writing on Star and brought them with me to the writers' room on Costume Quest.

Is it odd being a bit of a ~star~ yourself, considering you have a whole fan page and everything?!

Oh boy, having a fan wiki page is a strange feeling. It's really cool to be apart of a show that has such a passionate fanbase, but honestly I don't want to be a star. Star Butterfly is the star of Star.

You’re Costume Quest’s co-Executive Producer. What does the job entail?

Being the co-EP on Costume Quest means I, along with the rest of our leadership team, am responsible to supervise just about every stage of production. From writing to storyboarding, animatics to art, voice acting and voice casting, logo design, score, sound effects, the list goes on and on. I got to script a handful of episodes. Nick and I storyboarded the first episode. Occasionally I do some (very rough) first pass character designs. I also draw story board punch-ups and animation redline revisions on the episodes I direct. I direct the first story of each of Costume Quest's two part episodes, and Nick directs the second story. Beyond that I mainly keep my eye on the larger narrative of the show, making sure everything is tonally consistent and the story threads line up. If every person that works on this show is making one tree, I try to make sure the forest is working as a whole. I do my best not to force any artist to execute their assignments exactly as I would have, but instead, encourage them to showcase their personal artistic voices.

How have you enjoyed working on Costume Quest, and what do you like most about the show?

Working on Costume Quest has been my favorite gig yet. I am really grateful to Will (McRobb), Kevin (Kolde), and Eric (Homan) for bringing me onboard. I'm super proud of how much the show grows across the first season. The scale, the emotional stakes, and the world building just get bigger and bigger with every episode. Beyond that, having the chance to lead a team has been incredibly rewarding. Our whole crew is so talented, and they are all so supportive of the show. It has really meant a lot to me to learn that these people, who I respect tremendously, are happy to come in to work every day and are proud to help tell this story. I can't overstate how good it feels to know I have a creatively and professionally satisfied crew.

Do you have a favorite character on CQ?

I love all four of the main kids, but my favorite character really is Norm. I always say that he's a cross between Fred Flintstone and Santa Clause. He's such an emotionally vulnerable character, and he's got some great reveals attached to his backstory. Fred Tatasciore also does some incredible voice acting as Norm, so if this show only gets one award ever, it should go to Fred's performance.

Since developing Scout Wars, have you gone out pitching other original ideas?

I’ve pitched Scout Wars and a handful of other show ideas around to the big studios, but when Costume Quest came about, I knew it was the perfect opportunity to learn everything I needed to about the responsibilities of a show runner—without the added emotional pressure of having the show be about my childhood, or my relationship with my father, or whatever. I have a handful of ideas in my back pocket that I'm eager to start pitching again whenever Costume Quest comes to a close.

What are your favorite cartoons?

Not including the shows I've worked on: original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Batman the Animated Series, Justice League/Justice League Unlimited, Doug, Hey Arnold!, SpongeBob, Simpsons, Bob's Burgers, Archer, Flintstones, the Peanuts specials, and the original Power Rangers gets a non-cartoon honorable mention because the the influence that show had on me and Costume Quest is pretty undeniable.

What is your advice to people who want to write and/or storyboard for animation?

Study the craft as hard as you can. It's not about networking, or Internet likes, or whatever. If you get as good as you possibly can at the craft, you'll be golden. Take any job that will hire you. Once you get any position anywhere, if you show everyone you work with just how dedicated you are, people will take notice, and they'll want to help you.

What do you enjoy doing outside of work?

I really love hosting backyard BBQ's and parties at my place. My friends tease me that I'd rather they come to me than I go anywhere else pretty much 100% of the time. You can find me most Sunday mornings at any of the LA flea markets with my girlfriend, Madison, looking for more knick knacks to put up in our place. Also, I take my Renaissance Faire costuming pretty seriously. Yearly upgrades are planned months in advance. My mom always sewed my Halloween costumes growing up, so costumes somehow became a thing I really like to do. I guess it's fitting that Costume Quest came my way.

Have anything to say to future fans of Costume Quest?

Watch it again! We did our best to set up, pay off, and foreshadow as much as possible in the season so it would be fun to rewatch. There are a lot of little easter eggs in there. I hope fans enjoy it. ☆

No doubt, they will. Thank you for the interview Bryan, and for your fantastic work on Costume Quest! Follow Bryan on Instagram.

- Cooper ☆

#The Frederator Interview #costume quest #star vs #star vs the forces of evil #sanjay and craig #frederator #cartoon #nickelodeon #disney #animation #writer #producer #interview #artist #new cartoon #costume #cosplay

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echodrops · 6 years

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Issues with Voltron Season 6 (Part 3)

A continuation of my extremely long vent about the most recent Voltron season.

<-- Part 1 is back here.

<- Part 2 is back here.

This time it’s (mostly) about Keith and Shiro!

All right, so while I think the treatment of Lotor’s character was the true worst offender of this season, the entire clone Shiro plot line has just driven me nuts from start to finish, and the culmination of it in this season just heaped more salt in the fire.

Let me preface this by saying I love Shiro--I genuinely love this character and have felt like the EPs had no idea what they were doing with his character since the end of season one. Everything I say in this post is an extension of the fact that I feel like this poor man has been mistreated and misused by the writers since practically day one.

At least as far as I understand it, the EPs’ original intention was for Shiro to disappear at the end of season two and not return until this point in the show, which would have been an absence of a season and a half (19 episodes). I absolutely understand the higher level executive meddling from Dreamworks that forced them to scrap this idea and bring Shiro back into the story earlier. Simply removing a character from the plot for over a year’s time and then expecting to bring him back in and have some major emotional payoff would have been utterly stupid. No one would have cared at that point, and everyone would have been left wondering why they bothered to return Shiro to the plot at all.

But that doesn’t mean that the route the writers took to “fix” the issue is any better. Why in the world does this entire clone plot line exist? It’s honestly like they sat down at the table and said “What is the most roundabout, complicated, and unnecessary way to fix our Shiro problem?” and then went “Okay, let’s do exactly that.” There are so many ways they could have chosen to solve this problem instead:

1) Leave the real Shiro on the astral plane, and have periodic cuts throughout other episodes to Shiro struggling to “survive” on the astral plane, possibly dealing with apparitions of Zarkon etc. Experiencing difficulties due to the extreme isolation, trying to reach out to the team in critical moments--hell, he could have been there with the manifestation of the Black Lion, and and the writers could have shown him learning awesome things about the lions, the universe, the Alteans, etc. etc. Meanwhile, outside, Keith could have stayed with the team and grew into his Black Paladin leadership role organically instead of the artificial “Well, we aged him two years so now you know he’s mature and leader-worthy!” The drive to find Shiro could have continued to lead Keith and could have served as a more logical reason for Allura and company to be swayed by Lotor--he could have tried to convince them that Shiro might be trapped in the rift or something, and that could have been their reasoning behind being willing to explore the rift despite the imminent danger. Hell, it could still end with Haggar controlling Shiro into a Shiro vs. Keith showdown--maybe gaining the secrets of Oriande would allow her to reach out and control Shiro on the astral plane--they could have used literally any other excuse! And then we’d get our Shiro and Keith showdown on the astral plane as a perfect parallel to the Zarkon vs. Shiro showdown from the earlier season! It would have been great!!

2) Scrap the astral plane idea entirely and just put Shiro somewhere on the other side of the universe with like... minimal working tech. The show cuts between Shiro’s antics across the universe and his attempts to make it back to the team--allowing for greater world building--and the team, where again, Keith is allowed to organically grow into a leadership role. Same reasoning as above, the team could engage with Lotor after Lotor makes a promise to help them find their missing Black Paladin or something. Meanwhile, Shiro is being mind-controlled remotely from Haggar, whose magic got into him from the glowing wound way back in season one or something. We still get our Keith vs. Shiro showdown, tada.

In essence, what I’m trying to say is that literally any other possible plot would have felt more natural and been a better addition to the story than going with “Shiro’s an evil clone and the real one died inexplicably 19 episodes ago.”

I mean, can someone actually articulate any positive gain from the clone plot line? In what way did this particular plot--these particular events--actually make the story better? Is there something here that I am just flat out missing? Was there something in this plot that could ONLY be done via this particular clone story? I am honestly struggling here to see any profit in this. I can only see this as an example of writers choosing the worst possible solution to a simple problem, possibly even out of spite.

As an aside, I think my true biggest problem with the clone Shiro plot line is the the underlying issue of why the EPs thought it was a good idea to get rid of Shiro in the first place. Several of their interviews have led me to conclude that they never expected people to actually like or care about Shiro, and that they themselves never saw him as more than a stepping stone for Keith to overcome in order to achieve his ultimate role of leadership.

But that entire thing doesn’t make any sense, because it hinges on one major premise that the writers never actually sold to us: Keith needs to be the leader.

Why? We’re literally never given a single compelling reason for this in the show itself. There is nothing in this show to support the idea that Keith should be the destined leader of Voltron. There’s simply no logical explanation for this in the show at all.

The only remotely reasonable excuse is that Keith was the leader in the original Voltron, so he should be the leader here too. Except “Keith” in the original show had an entirely different personality and was a perfect cookie cutter of the hero archetype. Sven wasn’t leader type in the original series; he bears minimal resemblance to the Shiro of this show.

So why does Keith need to lead Voltron? What does he bring to the table as Black Paladin that he could not have brought as the Red Paladin? Why are there so many parallels between Keith and Alfor, the Red Paladin, if Keith was just going to end up as the Black Paladin all along?

Am I genuinely supposed to believe “Because Keith was the leader originally” is the only valid reason the writers had for giving us this massive tumor of a plot--a plot that resulted in Keith’s leaving the team, Shiro becoming a clone, Lance being shoved even further aside, Allura getting a lion despite the EPs saying they wanted to make her a cool enough character she didn’t need one, and undermining essentially all the efforts of season one to show a meaningful lion/paladin bond?

I have never seen--from the very first episode of this show to the most recent--a shred of convincing evidence that Keith being the leader is, in any way, shape, or form, necessary or what’s best for the plot.

The entire lion swap plot line is, to my eyes, utterly unneeded, convoluted, and reductive. So much time was wasted on this that could have been dedicated to better examining the characters’ motivations and reactions to the numerous serious issues the show chose to instead gloss over...

Which is not helped by the writers’ lack of commitment to the color swap in the first place. If perhaps, from season three on, the show had consistently insisted that the color swap was permanent and we were never going to see Keith back in Red or Lance back in Blue, I might have accepted it. But the show writers are wishy-washy about even this!

This is literally how we ended season six:

Haggar deliberately says “the Red Paladin” in reference to Keith in this season--in a freaking episode titled “The Black Paladins.” The lack of consistency in messaging is actively painful to my sensibilities as a writer.

To sum up what I’m trying to say here: The clone Shiro plot line was the worst possible solution to a problem the EPs created for literally no reason, and the trajectory of the “Keith becomes leader plot” so badly shifted the tone of the show that tens of opportunities to better examine the world and characters were lost in order to progress a story line that the writers never convincingly sold to us as an audience in the first place. I can’t think of any word for this but “bad.”

(PHEW. THERE. I SAID IT.)

And this of course doesn’t even touch on the other issues raised by this season in regards to Shiro, namely:

1) How much of the clone body is actually organic material? Because in the flashback from season 3 (or was it 4?), the clone Shiro that was shown lying on the table made a camera sound as his pupils dilated, indicating that at least part of the body was mechanical, not to mention that the prosthetic arm literally grew to extend past the organic part of Shiro’s arm in the Shiro vs. Keith fight--did they put real!Shiro’s self back into a mostly robotic body? Are we ever coming back to this? Is it ever going to be discussed? Why do I get the feeling it won’t?

2) The fact that the clone’s existence was entire overwritten by real!Shiro is super creepy and maybe just because I’m coming from a long history in the Kingdom Hearts fandom, the idea of someone’s existence being absorbed despite them functionally being capable of being different people is super saddening. I was never emotionally invested in clone!Shiro because he was obviously a clone from day one, but the fact that he was a fundamentally good person who was trying his best, then had to face the horror of losing control of himself, fighting someone he thought was his best friend to the death, and then literally being swallowed by a person who wasn’t around to personally experience any of these things is discomforting. Not to mention that “Shiro just inherited all the clone’s memories!” makes absolutely no sense scientifically (and isn’t even explained magically in the show) and is, once more, a cheap way to handwave character growth--of course Shiro hasn’t missed out on more than a season’s worth of development! It’s all still there, even if he wasn’t the one to experience it! Now it’s just like he did, promise!) Miss me with this nonsense, please.

3) What kind of government does Earth have in place that a minor can leave foster care to go to military boarding school at the tender age of what looks like 12 on the apparent recommendation of a man who likely wasn’t even 21 years old? (It’s like, if the main plot itself was going to be completely illogical, couldn’t they at least make the backstories somewhat viable?) And not to mention, but... didn’t the Keith and Shiro backstory deserve more screen time? There was so much build up to this, and we got less flashback for Keith and Shiro than we did for Krolia and Tex! Matt and Pidge got more! I feel incredibly short-changed, especially because I feel like that was probably it and we’re probably not going to get many more flashbacks for Shiro and Keith specifically. I think their placement in the Keith versus Shiro episode was good, but there just wasn’t enough material there to really satisfy the longing I had to see Keith and Shiro grow up together.

“What I got wasn’t what I needed and I wanted so much more than what I got” is the summary of Shiro and Keith in season 6, essentially.

ALSO I CAN’T UNSEE THIS.

I burst out laughing at this scene when I actually watched the season--it wasn’t supposed to be funny but I could not stop laughing. Sorry Keith, or something.

Anyway, all of this also relates to one of the other major issues I have had with Voltron since season one:

4) The writers have no idea how to handle an ensemble cast, but they keep adding characters anyway!

Matt was introduced and effectively erased, Slav might as well no longer exist, Olia? Not sure why we even bothered to give her a name. Kolivan? Probably died off screen! Lotor’s generals? I have no idea why they even bothered to animate them into this season given how little impact they had! All the other existing Alteans on the colony? Erm... I’m sure we’ll get back to those guys eventually.

There’s a difference between “We don’t have time to dedicate entire episodes to side characters” and “These characters just functionally stop existing when we no longer have an immediate role for them in the plot.” The attention in this series is all over the place--Matt gets a ton of screen time in season 4, enough to make it seem like he’s going to be a recurring character--and then his existence is entirely ignored two seasons later. Slav could have proven useful at any number of moments in this plot--and yet he’s nowhere to be found. The allegiances of Lotor’s generals are so cheap that they could basically be swapped out for any random helmeted Galra cannon fodder with zero impact on the plot. I’ve genuinely never seen a show deliberately add so many characters to its cast and then so badly under-utilize them.

This is actively jarring because any new character that appears, you have to first ask yourself “Is it worth getting invested in this person’s story? How likely are they to never appear again after this season?” And there’s seemingly no rhyme or reason to who disappears--even people who could and should still be active in the plot get shoved entirely to the side without any explanation or justification for their absence.

And all this mistreatment of the side characters might be okay if the main characters were at least getting to grow and develop consistently instead. But that’s not the case either! We have Lance’s character back-pedalling, Hunk fans excited over mere scraps of their favorite getting screentime that isn’t a food joke, and Pidge... I was honestly concerned that some of her hacking footage from this season was stock reused from previous seasons.

Screen time in this series bounces around like a ball--whoever catches it gets to do something cool for ten seconds then has to immediately pass it to someone else. Keith is a ball hog but somehow STILL doesn’t get his issues dealt with respectfully.

This show sold itself on the tried and true premise of “power of friendship.” The entire first season was really about becoming a team. And yet the show writers seem entirely adverse to letting these characters grow together. All the best moments of the show are moments in which the relationships between characters are expressed in believable and meaningful ways. Lance’s pep talk to Allura on Naxela. Pidge’s moving mourning for Matt. Keith’s refusal to let go of Shiro. The show writers KNOW how to believably develop more than one character simultaneously--they know how to let characters share the spotlight--and yet they continually fall back on scenes which give the foreground to a single character, leaving the audience with the constant feeling that other characters are being short changed. Lance, Hunk, and Pidge fans have every right to be upset.

There’s no reason that Keith and Pidge’s character developments have to take place in entirely different episodes. There’s no reason that Lance’s insecurities and Pidge’s fears about her family need separate screen time. All of these characters’ issues--everything they need to overcome in order to become stronger, happier people--could be dealt with together, saving time and animation budget in the process.

I have never come across a show about being a team that so violently rejects the idea of its characters being you know... an actual team.

And I guess, while I’m here, one last little gripe:

5) Chekov’s Gun is a serious issue for the writers of this series.

Lance unlocked a sword in season 4. Where is it? Why has it not been used? Keith got a dog that can teleport. Why not just teleport the dog into the Sincline ship and let it eat Lotor’s face while he was in a cramped and defenseless position??? When elements like these are introduced to the story, viewers are trained to expect something to come from them. We can only assume that Lance’s sword and Keith’s dog will be plot relevant at some point. But when? The timing is terrible in this show--why make us wait more than a season for Lance’s sword to pay off when there were plenty of opportunities to work it in before now? Did the EPs really give Keith a wolf just because they thought it would be cool for him to have a “lone wolf” to relate to, despite the fact that part of the entire trajectory of his character has been teaching him the importance of relying on others and making meaningful bonds to other people? (How does it make sense to even deem it a “lone wolf” if Keith adopted it when it was just a tiny puppy?)

I mean, I LIKE the dog and I still think its inclusion was nonsensical and pointless... They could have introduced this dog in any number of ways, but “randomly dropped on the back of a whale in a space-time continuum with no logical origin point or reasonable explanation for being there” is what the writers went with.

This is nitpicking, I know, and don’t get me wrong, I’m all for Keith having a cool space wolf--but did the show really need another example of badly shoehorning in the EPs’ whims? Did the none of the editors really stop to go “Maybe we should do this stuff later or in a different way”?

At the end of the day, there are just a lot of problems with the story. Enough that, at this point, I feel ready to divorce myself from it. I’m going to continue watching the show--there’s no point in stopping now, at the end--but at this point, Voltron is always going to go down on paper for me as a show I loved for what could have been, not for what really was.

I don’t say any of this stuff with a light heart. I definitely give my all to shows and games when I get invested in them, and Voltron has dominated my fandom time for two years now. I’ve written hundreds of thousands of words about and for this show. No one can accuse me of not caring about it.

But it’s because I care about the show--and the heights I know it could have reached--that I do feel this upset and let down. I know this show could have been better. I wanted better for it. I’m not spewing senseless criticism because my favorite ship didn’t come true or something... I really believe that the show has tons of untapped potential, and I’m saddened by the fact that I feel like it’s all going to waste.

I’m not asking anyone to agree with me, nor am I telling anyone that they have to suddenly start disliking the show just because I dislike where it has gone. People all have their own opinions, and like things for their own reasons. My reasons for liking Voltron are essentially gone, but for the other people that are still enjoying it, rock on.

I really do wish I was still there with you.

#Voltron #Voltron meta #Voltron discourse #Takashi Shirogane #Voltron season six #Keith Kogane #black paladins #lion swap #you know things are bad #when a Kingdom Hearts fan is telling you that your plot line is unnecessarily convoluted #the clone thing was literally the most unnecessary plot I've seen in recent media #I still hate black paladin Keith #with a fiery passion #I can just press the GO BACK button #and rewind this show to season two #salt mountain

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rosinapowrie-blog · 5 years

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The Teacher Dichotomy: the problem with hero teachers.

“The only thing I know for sure is that I know nothing at all, for sure” – Socrates

Learning isn't just about passing exams. Since starting a career in teaching four years ago, I have struggled to remember this myself, let alone show pupils what they could be missing out on. In response, I set up a school society mimicking TEDx Talks, giving kids the chance to listen to in interesting lecture at lunchtime with no hidden agenda: simply to try to show them that academia goes beyond mark schemes and box ticks. This was my opening address entitled 'The Teacher Dichotomy: the problem with hero teachers.'

_______________________________________________________________________In my first fortnight of teaching at a prestigious new school, once we got over that slightly awkward unsure phase of ‘nu teacher who dis,’ a student asked me where I’d been to university and what I’d studied...

‘St Andrews, in Scotland... where Prince William went’ (I added after only a minuscule pause which I have become accustomed to when speaking of the tiny town on the East Fife coast). ‘I read English Literature, but did loads of modules in Philosophy, Classics, Art History... it was good.’ ‘Wow’ the student replied, ‘that’s like really good isn’t it? You must be... like... really clever..!’ And then the student said the 10 words that have shocked me the most in my haggering career as an educator... ‘So why did you end up as a teacher then?’ Now I am not so naive as to think that this is simply one view held by one teenager in that particular moment... What this delightful girl had uttered was probably the ultimate Freudian slip of today’s youth... you lot just don’t see the value in education for its own sake... you think that school is just something you have to get through, preferably do well at, then you can start living your best life. But this must be challenged: if we know and accept that gaining knowledge is a vital crevasse to conquer whilst mountaineering the Range of Success, why do we see it merely as a means to an end? Why can we not enjoy the ride, live in the moment, and value our opportunity to learn new stuff? Why is it that, still in 2018, when teaching is known to be one of the most draining and stringently trained professions, requiring the skill and discipline of an artist, athlete and jail warden simultaneously all before 9am 5 days a week, do our very target audience view our profession as a sort of embarrassing accident that losers happen to fall into? Perhaps you are already outraged by my cynicism. I am aware I am currently preaching to the converted - you guys have chosen to spend your lunch time in this room pursuing knowledge and discussion. But I vehemently believe that this modern apathy to education is due largely to the portrayal of teachers in the media and popular culture. I don’t solely mean the ludicrous click bait that floods your newsfeeds every day (I’m thinking headlines such as ‘boy of 1 wins Nobel peace prize for finding cure to cancer despite failing all GCSEs - who needs em anyway’ or even just the multitude of distracting cat videos you’d much rather be watching), I mean those subliminal messages in books, TV and film that have been drip fed to my generation and yours in our formative years. I’m talking about The Teacher Dichotomy: heroes vs villains. By this, I mean that teachers are firmly type cast into two roles: the sickening sycophant who inspires their flock with their unconventional quirks and flagrant disregard for any sort of teaching standard... that one who really gets down to da youf’s level. Or, worse, the maniacal villain who struts around with a cape and cane doling out detentions and appearing entirely inhumane. The inability to portray teachers as warm blooded mammals with the same instincts, desires and fears as the rest of the world has not only devalued the joy of education, it actually undermines the incredible passion and hard work that goes into just the average, unmemorable bog standard Mr or Mrs Bloggs’ daily job as a teacher. On demand, could anyone name an example of just a regular teacher that a) exists in a book/film etc and b) fulfils meaningful purpose in the plot purely in his or her role as educator and not for any other reason? Three examples analysed... Firstly, our heroes: I’ll start with that that ever hilarious, ever chaotic excuse for a school teacher portrayed by loveable comedian Jack Whitehall in popular BBC3 series ‘Bad Education.’ Alfie Wickers, the History NQT at Abbey Grove School, prefers to befriend students rather than enable them responsibly to achieve their potential. His typical pedagogy includes such escapades as practical re-enactments of battles, or ‘Class Wars’, where any Ofsted inspector would literally have a fit at the flagrant violation for safeguarding an 'ealf and safety. Yet Mr Wickers is respected by Form K – they even like him and learn from him – but do we see any assessment, formative or summative? Do we see him planning or marking? Do we see him tracking progress and planning interventions? While it may be a TV show, and art does not need to imitate life, the point is that Mr Wickers is seen as a fun, likeable teacher. If he did anything that he was actually supposed to, he would be seen as boring. And what sort of message is that sending a young audience – that the people who dedicate their lives to ensuring their progress in a conventional way are not heroes. Only those who offer them fun and entertainment, and no actual learning, are.

At the other end of the positive spectrum, there are those sorts of hero teachers who move students emotionally, yet still wouldn’t actually pass an observation. The epitome is John Keating – the maverick English master portrayed by Robin Williams in the classic ‘80s film, ‘Dead Poets Society.’ Keating encourages his vulnerable student, Anderson, to come out of his shell by joining the eponymous banned extracurricular club. Here, he forges friendships with unlikely characters and experiences true life and love by looking at poetry differently and forgetting the pressures and requirements of school. Professor Keating is eventually called out for his disregard for school standards and duly sacked, leaving the boys chanting a heart-wrenching chorus of Whitman’s ‘O Captain, my Captain’ whilst standing on desks. It’s the ultimate bildungsroman: the boys have come of age, and Keating helped them get there. Yet again, his inspiring nature is not at all borne of his skill in traditional education methods, but rather the fact that he ignores them completely. Yet another example of the hero teacher, shaming regular teachers into the background of mediocrity.

And now the other end of the spectrum – the villains. Who better to analyse than Rowling’s malevolent Professor Umbridge, who swans into Hogwarts in The Order of the Phoenix with the sole aim of making monumental, ‘Ministry approved’ changes to the school curriculum and generally shaking the status quo. Fans of the series, let’s forget the reasons behind our negative view of Umbridge’s changes for now (the government’s refusal to believe that Voldemort has returned, etc) and read this simply as a teacher trying to raise standards by reviewing current practice and attempting to embed systemic change. We see this when she addresses the school for the first time: ‘some old habits will be retained, and rightly so, whereas others, outmoded and outworn, must be abandoned. Let us move forward, then, into a new era of openness, effectiveness and accountability, intent on preserving what ought to be preserved, perfecting what needs to be perfected, and pruning wherever we find practices that ought to be prohibited." This sounds rather like a forward-thinking teacher, school leader or governor wanting to make improvements, yet she is completely slated and seen as evil. For example, what are her actual crimes: conducting lesson observations of fellow staff? Holding staff accountable for their performance and the progress of pupils, and removing them from post if they are not up to scratch? Ensuring that the curriculum is standardized? Essentially, all things that normal teachers do in normal schools to meet the teachers’ standards and provide robust education systems. However, she is utterly vilified for doing so: so much so that Rowling chooses to portray her as committing the ultimate teacher-sin – failing to safeguard students and actually physically assaulting them in her detentions. This is a choice the author has made: to show traditional schooling and education standards as petty compared to the great, heroic things that the rest of the Hogwarts teachers inspire the heard with. The irony is that Umbridge is certainly the only member of staff who would even pass a PGCE, let alone be promoted to senior leadership, in real life. Yet again, we see the dichotomy in action, reinforcing that subliminal message that traditional education is nasty, negative and pointless.

The glass ceiling must be broken and education needs to be esteemed once more. The conditioning we’ve been subjected to through popular culture has not helped, but now we have been enlightened to our ignorance. The great irony is that if we enjoy the ride, stop seeing education as a means to end, but rather an end in itself, then you will get further in life if you have become a fully rounded person with a broad cultural capital. Take umbrage with Umbridge: value your current opportunities and enjoy learning your subjects even if you never need to use that information again.

#teaching #englishteaching #cultural capital #tedxtalks #heroteachers #doloresumbridge #johnkeating #deadpoetssociety #bad education #socrates #knowledge #teachingandlearning #pedagogy #academia

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