really love how throughout a lot of smith and jones martha is really skeptical and apprehensive towards ten (+ one of my favorite exchanges between them - "what, people call you 'the doctor'?" "yeah?" "well, i'm not. far as i'm concerned, you've got to earn that title."), not taking everything he says at face value, even doubting the fact he's an alien until over halfway through the episode.. And like. i really truly think the thing that wins her over isn't him kissing her or any of the other insane mixed messages he manages to send, it's this scene here, where he /earns that title/ in her eyes:
(+ david's bit in the commentary, where he says: "[the doctor] has actually sacrificed himself, and - i would say, that that final act of selflessness is what finally, eventually, welds martha to him. [...] and she now returns it. she returns that act of selflessness.")
this is what their relationship is built on. it isn't about martha being the second-best replacement to rose or a rebound or whatever. bc it isn't really about rose. it's about doctor-in-training martha meeting someone (quite literally, "the doctor") whose ideals she aspires to, and doing her best to be the same person to him as he is to everyone else. it's about ten in return admiring her intelligence and inquisitiveness and how she cares for human life, recovering his compassion, letting himself lean on her for support - and then remembering at the most inopportune moments that he's supposed to not need anyone and be on his own forever. And around in their little nightmare loop they go where they save each other over and over until one of them breaks
i've seen ppl look at martha and go "why she does she admire/why is she so in love with ten if he acts like that to her?" or something along those lines and like. it's not just the fact she's in love with him (in fact i'd argue she actively tries to push it aside post-gridlock). it's the fact that she knows he's the kind of person to put everyone else's lives/well-being over his own. she trusts him to save her when she's in trouble even though it's been like two days at most that they've known one another bc she recognizes that same "deep all-encompassing drive to help others" in him. and she also recognizes, much much earlier than him, that he needs someone to save him, especially when he's unwilling to save himself. and yeah for a bit she thinks he returns her feelings and is just playing hard-to-get, but she realizes pretty early on that this probably isn't the case, and i think that realization fully solidifies here:
(this is when she's listening to ten talk abt gallifrey). And idk it might just be me but i think this expression isn't just her empathizing with his loss. it's also guilt, for wanting something from him that he's clearly unable to give when he's wracked with so much grief. (and you see it in the next episode, where tallulah asks if they're together and martha says for certain that they're not, and that he doesn't know about her feelings for him. she keeps everything to herself bc she now knows that when he shut her flirting down at the end of 3x01 it was the genuine reaction of someone who a) isn't interested and b) is scared of getting close with someone else again)
freema described their dynamic as "she's keener than him" and i think about this all the time. martha doesn't really take what ten throws at her. what she does instead is constantly poke holes in his already-failing front of "i will show someone the wonders of the universe so i can ignore what is wrong with me". what she does is stand up and fight him when he tries to go off on his own. what she does is put aside her well-being in favor of helping someone - just like what she saw him do for the people in the hospital when they first met. tldr, that's the doctor and his doctor and rip martha you would've loved who's gonna save u now by rina sawayama
366 notes
·
View notes
Yo if it’s okay, for the character bingo can you do Kogoro, the sleeping detective himself?
OH SURE I GUESS IT'S OKAY
Yeah no big surprises here. I don't even know if I can articulate why I like him so much. He's one of the main characters (although you'd be forgiven for thinking he wasn't) so he's in the show a lot, and there's a lot of little breadcrumbs to work off of even if he doesn't get Big Stuff too often. Like most of the time he's just a drunk dumbass dad who sucks in every way, and btw he's a godlike shot. He's a judo expert. He can place Time of Death super precisely somehow. He's willing to chase down an armed robber with zero regard for his personal safety.
He's such a stagnant character in canon that he's one of the most fun to Do Shit With. Like what if he knows about Conan's identity? What if he found out? What if he's not as stupid as he seems, at least not all the time? What if he found out about the black org? What if he's the black org boss???? (Ridiculous but an interesting thought experiment.) What if what if what if-- Because there's all these little pieces of his character that have made him compelling I'M PRETTY SURE BY ACCIDENT. Making him one of the show's best shooters right under Akai is a fking insane detail and it was made up for Movie 2 when Gosho wanted to make him bad at that too, like he likes to make Kogoro bad at everything.
I criticized Sera for being Good At Everything and Canon Kogoro is the opposite, he's made bad at everything as a joke, which makes the strengths he's allowed to have shine brightest. Because it makes you question how he got those skills, and how he still turned out like this. Can he ever get better? If not for himself, then for someone else?
50 notes
·
View notes
hi!! so there are a lot of improbabilities that make this hypothetical unlikely but: if kabru had met toshiro first & recruited him (toshiro being so passive + not with a clear goal would have helped there & kabru is ptsd-driven but very noble in his goals which can be explained) AND they got all the way down to the bottom (idk if i believe in them...but hypothetically!) would the winged lion find either of them to be a good target for next dungeon lord? one over the other? im thinking kabru has the intensity and complexity of desire necessary but i can't imagine what it would look like if he became lord of the dungeon. do you have any thoughts?
Good morning. This is a very fun thought experiment!
(side note: I got a second anon this morning with a very similar request? not sure if related. I'm gonna let this answer speak for both of them)
Toshiro sure would have had a different time of it if Kabru had gotten to him first, huh? On the one hand, Toshiro seems to like Kabru; I think it's sweet that Kabru seems to gravitate towards hanging out with him when he isn't with the rest of the main cast. So they probably would've been good in a party together.
On the other hand, Toshiro never would have met Falin and fallen in love with her. Even if she didn't reciprocate in the end, I don't think he regrets anything that happened. Even his difficult friendship with Laios was ultimately positive (for both of them!).
They definitely would not have made it to the deeper floors, I think Senshi is crucial to achieving that ... but this is a hypothetical.
I'm puzzling over the question of Toshiro, because he is a secondary character and there's only so much we know about his motivations. His big one in canon is to save Falin, even if it means all he can do is put her to rest. Without that, without her, what sort of desires does he have?
Toshiro originally came to the Island because of a demand from his father: for one of his three sons to find "something interesting" enough on their travels to bring back home that would convince their capricious bastard father to make them his heir over the others. So they're all off on their separate training journeys with their respective retainers with the added caveat that they can't return without something to impress their father. It's implied that after falling in love with Falin, Toshiro had wanted to bring back home a wife.
Since he's said to inherit the family after he returns home without her anyway, I've been assuming that the "thing" Toshiro ended up bringing to Toshitsugu Nakamoto was the story of the dungeon, the demon, and his friend Laios, king of a risen country and Devourer of All Things Horrible.
Anyway, the things we know about Toshiro's home life are kind of fucked. It's amazing he turned out to be so nice. He's always been a shy, sensitive person, and he was sickly as a child; Maizuru cared for him despite her spymaster duties and ended up filling a motherly role for him, even though Toshiro's mother is still alive. Historically, it wasn't uncommon for noble children to be raised more closely by their governesses/household retainers than their parents, so perhaps something similar was happening here (disclaimer that I don't know much about feudal Japan specifically).
We know that Maizuru loves Toshiro and dotes on him, but she's also very strict and frankly terrifying; she used the same Hag summon that she was monitoring Izutsumi with on Toshiro as a child just to keep him from wandering off. We also know that when he found out that Maizuru was having an affair with his father, it put a distance between them. Whether this is because he felt betrayed on his mother's behalf or because he dislikes his father that much, or something else, is unclear.
Toshiro was childhood friends with Hien, but as they got older, she had to take his place as one of his retainers, which seems to have severed that closeness. Canonically, he isn't close to his two younger brothers either. Toshitsugu literally bought Inutade and Izustumi (the latter as a drunken "gift" for Maizuru!). We see that Toshiro is uncomfortable with this, but doesn't know how to approach the issue. He lets Izutsumi go the second she's out of sight for five minutes, which implies to me that he really wanted the excuse to do so. Inutade is harder, because she loves being with the Nakamoto family and hero-worships Toshiro's father.
...all this to say, Toshiro has complicated relationships with his family and household. There's love there, but also a lot of coldness enforced by the upper-class need for propriety. Toshiro falls in line and acts as the proper stoic samurai, but he chafes at this; he envies Laios's gift for feeling and expressing things openly and readily. I think that's what the Winged Lion would prey on, given the chance.
I don't think he would be prime dungeon lord material, but if it came to that, I could see the Lion tempting Toshiro with a kinder vision of his life, one where he and his little brothers weren't pitted against one another, where his family was warmer, where there weren't barriers of class between him and his retainers, where he was allowed to be more himself.
Now ... Kabru.
Kabru is interesting because, since his ultimate goal is to seal the dungeon and eradicate monsters, I imagine that meeting a demon would be like a guy who's given a genie and wants to wish for no more genies. And if said genie is trying to take over the world via wishes, the genie is a bit screwed. I really think that Kabru is the character who would stump the demon(s) the most, despite his complex desires, because they are antithetical to the demon. Laios also had complex desires, but the Winged Lion lured him and set him up as the hero of a fake prophecy because a lot of Laios's desires revolved around monsters, so his wants aligned perfectly with the demon's methods. Oh you want monsters? That's great, they're the things I use to solve most of my problems anyway.
Even in the absence of prior knowledge of demons, I think Kabru's back would be up as soon as the Winged Lion tried speaking to him. Kabru's insight is almost preternatural, and he's well-versed in persuasive speaking thanks to his own silver tongue. He would mistrust the Lion immediately, especially considering its monster-like form.
Giving the demons bestial appearances is an artistic choice on Kui's part, so I don't think there's any indication that the Winged Lion & co can't look human, but the Lion might have been constrained both by Thistle's seals on it and the need to maintain the lie that it's just the innocent guardian deity of the Golden Country. If it could, I think it would try to look less monstrous, with Kabru.
Still, the point of the demons, I see, is that anyone can be tempted, anyone can be manipulated, because we are all full of buried desires that can be unearthed, and wanting things and having to defend them make you susceptible to manipulation.
Consider what Mithrun told Kabru: they keep the knowledge of demons secret because knowing the truth would not stop people from trying to have their wishes granted. After all, Mithrun was a Canary, but he fell for its temptation anyway. I've seen people characterize this as a sort of rock bottom decision, and maybe that's true, but I also pin it on his toxic inferiority/superiority complex. That's exactly the kind of thing that makes you think you're built different.
Would Marcille have stopped before unsealing the Winged Lion if Mithrun(/Kabru) had actually gotten to sit down with her for five minutes and explain why becoming dungeon lord would be a very bad idea? Maybe. Or maybe her desperation, and her own pride, would have made her decide that she knew better, that she'd be careful, that she'd go in with a plan and definitely get what she wanted with no dire consequences.
I think Kabru could be desperate enough to make a similar decision, even if his desires were antithetical to the demon. And the demons have an advantage over the aforementioned genie simile: their ability to eat desires.
If the Winged Lion were smart, it wouldn't let Kabru seal it away like Thistle. Given the opportunity, its best chance for dealing with Kabru would have been to immediately eat his desire to stop another Utaya.
I'm gonna plug this wonderful and tragic little one-shot someone wrote recently about the dungeon lord Kabru hypothetical: This place is not a place of honor.
44 notes
·
View notes
I think the interaction between Kaiser and Isagi at the end of chapter 203 is very important and foreshadows how Isagi and Kaiser's (and Ness') relationships will change soon. Especially since Kaiser had to admit that Isagi outplayed him at the end of the BM v MSC game, and Ness' following freakout.
Look at this panel of Kaiser holding ness by his hair, essentially making him bow down:
We've seen Kaiser do this on multiple occasions.
When Isagi loses consciousness, there is this (in my opinion) very significant panel of Kaiser simultaneously releasing Ness and grabbing Isagi's hair in the same exact way.
I see it as a sort of crude metaphor for exchange that makes believe think Kaiser will try to replace Ness with Isagi, who has now proven more interesting to Kaiser. Not just to entertain himself or act on any other sort of personal feelings he has towards Isagi, but, most importantly, to put him in his place (the same way Kaiser has Ness under his thumb).
This is idea is further established simply by how the last panel is framed:
Isagi, no matter the circumstance and how you put it, is on his knees in front of Kaiser.
Remember this?
He finally really has.
While it happened probably not how Kaiser had envisioned, he still has Isagi kneeling in front of him, proving his superiority as the player who endured.
But Kaiser did have to admit his (small, but nevertheless) defeat, and knowing how prideful he is, that must have been a blow. That makes be believe that he will be working very hard to somehow get Isagi on his side and crush him into submission the same way he has with Ness.
208 notes
·
View notes