#alt carb liveblog...2!

[butchniqabi]

honestly a lot of altered carbon feels like theatre, the second season much more so than the first. in season one you had takeshi and rei (and quell, poe, and elizabeth) who knew they were in a greek tragedy and spoke and behaved accordingly, with tak soliloquizing multiple times per episode until it gets down to the wire at the end. others in season one were much less so, im thinking of ortega and elliot especially who despite being caught up in the drama of it all, dont recognize the theatre of it and i honestly think that has to do with age primarily. takeshi and rei are Old and know that the very nature of existence when you are that old and have that many experiences that life becomes a play, where the stakes are dramatized because youre desensitized to common acts of violence and betrayal. though not just age but experience, like with poe and lizzie, makes them recognize their places in the tragedy and how they function as moving parts within it.

and then the second season, everyone is speaking like its theatre. in part because many of them are meths and therefore old as hell, but also because it takes place on harlan's world and that planet is seeped in tragedy. it was founded on it. greek, roman tragedy. the whole second season is about how false everything about harlan's world is, and how its fakeness doesnt lessen any of the impact it has on life. everyone has Witnessed things, everyone has Experienced things, no one is free from the all encompassing devastation. even lila, a minor character and no more than maybe 30 years old, speaks in that sort of shakespearean cadence because she has witnessed horrors beyond what most can imagine and has prepared herself accordingly to one day be on the receiving end of them. its like somehow everyone just Knows that their life is a play and they are players within it. if you havent noticed ive been posting many many more quotes from season 2 compared to 1 because its like theyre embracing the theatricality of the functionally immortal half-life.

and then theres Quell! she is a warrior, a hero, a villan, a love interest, and a ghost. season 1 she functions primarily as an extension of takeshi's tortured psyche, but her own words are just as, if not more, poetic. she embraces her status as the Tragic Epic Hero and she performs. and she does it well, so well she can convince most people that shes just like that. but with takeshi that falls away a little bit, they speak to each other like lovers in a play but somehow its more grounded, less grand, more real.

anyways i could be COMPLETELY making this up but i noticed the difference in conversations and flow during this rewatch because of how quotable the second season is without losing any of its overall impact. anyways.

#altered carbon #alt carb liveblog...2! #sorry i couldnt start episode 5 witout getting this out there

[butchniqabi]

social media discourse in the altered carbon universe: just because someone works at a clinic that specializes in virtual reality torture in order to get information out of people, doesnt mean theyre a bad person! there are many jobs that dont involve them facilitating torture, secretaries and accountants arent responsible for hurting or killing those people. blame the person who made it not the people who work it! >:(

#alt carb liveblog...2!

[butchniqabi]

"stay alive long enough and theres nowhere you can go that isnt haunted"

#alt carb liveblog...2!

[butchniqabi]

why does everyone have fucking open concept showers arent you cold babygirl...

#alt carb liveblog...2!

[butchniqabi]

rei offering to give takeshi quell back and he says no...he wouldnt have betrayed flint in the forest

#alt carb liveblog...2!

[butchniqabi]

"you are the weapon. you are the killer and destroyer." if renée elise goldsberry said that to me id while holding a knife to my throat become an intergalactic terrorist too

#alt carb liveblog...2!

[butchniqabi]

dichen lachman is completely naked in this fight and yet she looks absolutely terrifying...wow! the power of women!

#alt carb liveblog...2!

[butchniqabi]

god the guy who works at the torture factory saying "i just work here D:" like...bitch you work at the torture factory and you think the person you just tortured Wont kill you??

#alt carb liveblog...2!

[butchniqabi]

"when did the world get so complicated?"

"when god put people in it"

#alt carb liveblog...2!

[butchniqabi]

"we set out like ancient seafarers to explore the limitless ocean of space. but not matter how far we venture, the worst monsters are the ones we bring with us."

#alt carb liveblog...2!

[butchniqabi]

dig doing everything within her power to stop takeshi prime from getting information from her despite being an ai and, like he said, "we never made you to be free". crying and gritting her teeth like she's being tortured....ais and people is the same

#alt carb liveblog...2!

[butchniqabi]

when tak said to the elder "we're both ghosts, but [quell]'s not! let her go!" and when quell said to tak "we are the problem. getting close to you was my mistake." and when tak said "maybe we all died for nothing, maybe you died for nothing." i dont know where im going here but my brain is moving

#alt carb liveblog...2!

[butchniqabi]

so harlan's world, the Elder homeworld, is surrounded by orbitals that blast anything non-Elder out of the sky and is where they keep their nursery, their next generation of Elders. archeologues assumed that Elder's were a militaristic species because most of their symbols (aka language) depict war, but this seems more like a move of victims of war than instigators of it, ykwim? because when the founders arrive to the soon-to-be-christened harlan's world, there are no Elders and no indication of them having been there recently, so what happened to them? there are a million and a half ways to speculate, but i think they were killed by ???? idk another alien culture and because the nursery planet was so protected they just moved on to kill other people. of course its possible that Elder's were warmongers but it seems almost...out of sync with their portrayal? yes theyre big and scary but Thee Elder in quell (the Quellder if you will) was not only willing to compromise, but made an effort to show what she was doing and Why she was doing it. it seems like a much more nuanced approach than if they were conquerors, yknow?

#alt carb liveblog...2!

[butchniqabi]

danica harlan is honestly such an interesting villain bc she has like 20 plots going on at once and even when one of them fails she has contingency plans for her contingency plans and always manages to come out on top like she can very much play people, i honestly think thats what she excells at and the only reason she ultimately gets Got is because she cant outsmart or play a literal alien and she doesnt understand why she cant do that even at the end

#alt carb liveblog...2! #like im not there yet but she successfully staged a silent coup against her own father and then played on everyone's sympathy #as the dutiful and mourning only child of Such A Great Man Whose Legacy She Cant Live Up To #and she KNOWS that she doesnt wield the same power as her father which is why she manufactures the war #which 1. shifts suspicion away from thoughts of a coup and 2. gives her something that the planet can rally behind #that will ultimately end with her being on the winning side which will secure her as a leader who not only fought for and Wanted peace #but one that eventually secured it and Grew Into her role as governor of harlan's world #ANYWAYS......IT DIDNT WORK OUT OBVIOUSLY LMAO

[butchniqabi]

quell asked trepp to kill her in the event she loses herself but the first time it happens trepp lets go of her hold on the gun and calms quell down from her panic attack

#alt carb liveblog...2!

[butchniqabi]

"will it hurt?"

"if i wish it."

"it would be no less than i deserve."

"none of us gets what we deserve."

#and he has a peaceful and painless death...like falling asleep #alt carb liveblog...2!