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destielshippingnews · 3 years

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Edvard's Supernatural Rewatch & Review: 1x05 Bloody Mary

In this review, I’ll be discussing suicide, survivor’s guilt, and bad dialogue.

1x05 Bloody Mary enjoys a rating of 8.4 on IMDB. It’s a strong, atmospheric episode embodying the horror-show vibe the show was intended to evoke. It was originally conceived as being episode two or three of the show, and would have made a better episode two than 1x02 Wendigo due to its themes of guilt and bereavement linking into Jess’s death and Sam’s role in it.

Mirrors are one of the defining symbols of this episode, something made painfully obvious by the incredible number of mirrors the family owns. They are both the means whereby Mary kills her victims and the means whereby characters reflect on themselves. Sam’s info-dumpage that ‛mirrors reflect our soul’ should make it explicit to viewers paying attention that Mary is a metaphor for guilt. This guilt, however, is not necessarily the guilt that comes of commission of a crime or a moral evil, but the feeling of guilt borne of not being able to save somebody, or survivor’s guilt. A person burdened by such guilt looking in the metaphorical mirror must face a metaphorical Bloody Mary waiting to pass judgement.

Quite rightly, this judgement is not just, as indeed feelings of guilt, self-blame and survivor’s guilt are unjust. A discussion of the subject on Supernatural Therapy podcast raised the topic of self-blame when in fact one is not to blame: blaming ourselves is an attempt to feel in control of something and to understand it a little better. The deaths which the ill-fated father and Charlie blame themselves for are incomprehensible.

I can say from my own experience that losing a friend or loved one to suicide is impossible to understand. Grandparents dying of age is natural, and older relatives dying of long-term illness is understandable, though unjust. But when our driving instinct is supposed to be to stay alive, a friend’s or family member’s commission of self-murder undermines completely our comprehension of the world and our reality. It’s traumatic, and the mind seeks to understand and cope with something it simply can’t handle.

Returning to Supernatural Therapy, our feelings of guilt are misplaced attempts to control and understand, but they are more negative than positive. Thus Bloody Mary is an apt villain to don the role of avenging spirit in this episode, as she attacks people who feel guilty, regardless of whether or not they truly are responsible for a death.

This episode ties itself into the Sam’s character particularly closely, as Sam feels himself to blame for Jessica’s death. At first, his guilt is depicted as completely natural: he watched his possibly-pregnant girlfriend burn to death on his ceiling and was utterly unable to help her. Anybody in that situation would be dealing with guilt on top of bereavement and trauma, so he is naturally somebody Bloody Mary would go after. However, the revelation that he had ‛dreams’ (read: premonitions) about Jess’s death for days before it happened add another layer to his guilt.

That layer, of course, being his actual guilt in taking no measures whatsoever to ensure Jess’s safety. Sam is not a blue-eyed baby in 1x01: he is a man with deep knowledge of the supernatural world and was reckless to ignore them. It is never made explicit – unless something has slipped my mind – whether Sam had any experience or knowledge of humans with psychic powers, but it is clear that he knows about the paranormal. Any Muggle would be disturbed by having exactly the same dream of a loved one dying night after night, but would likely pass it off as stress, anxiety or some such. Sam’s no Muggle, and knows better. Was having a ‛normal’ life so important to him that he dismissed and ignored warning signs that the abnormal was coming for his lady? Is Sam partially responsible for Jess’s death here?

Knowing what I know of the circumstances surrounding Jess’s death, he likely couldn’t have stopped it, even had he called Dean and John for help. But he should have called them, and chose not to. If he had done so, she might have been saved. This is death by negligence.

What makes it worse is that he is aware that keeping his visions a secret got Jess killed, but at the end of the episode acts as though he is perfectly justified in retaining his secrets from Dean. Dangerous secrets overtly related to their mother’s death and the demon responsible for killing her, information which would be very useful to Dean and John if shared, but a danger if kept quiet. He learnt that not divulging his secret is dangerous for people around him, and elected to continue not divulging said secret to Dean. Please, dear viewer, bear this in mind in series 7, 8, 9, 15 and every other time Sam gets pissy at Dean for keeping things secret from him.

He even knows in this episode that keeping his secrets almost got Dean killed by Bloody Mary, but ‛just because we’re brothers, doesn’t mean I have to tell you everything’. Sam is supposed to be the hero of this piece...

Yes, some people are genuinely like that, but that doesn’t mean I have to like them, and I sure as Hell don’t like Sam. In the first five episodes, Dean is established as a flawed, contradictory hero who actually brings something to the table. Sam’s an entitled, spoilt prick who treats his brother like a joke and an embarrassment.

Returning to the theme of suicide and guilt, one thing that is not addressed in the episode is the dad’s own relationship to the mother’s death. That she overdosed on sleeping tablets heavily implies suicide, but for about half of the run time the viewer is expected to believe the father was somehow involved in her death, i.e. that he killed her, especially as the second victim was guilty of a hit and run where a boy died. What is never addressed, however, is that his guilt and the reason Bloody Mary targeted him is that he blamed himself for not being able to prevent his wife’s suicide. Charlie is allowed the catharsis of expressing her grief to Dean and Sam, but the father is not afforded the same opportunity.

Apropos Charlie, her precise meaning when she said her ex-boyfriend got ‛scary’ is left occult. He clearly suffered serious mental health problems, something which a lot of people simply aren’t equipped to handle, especially when the one suffering is a close friend or partner. Young male victims of suicide also tend to have been very good at wearing a mask to hide: did he try taking the mask off for her, and she didn’t like what she saw? From what little information she gives us, the implication is that he threatened her with violence or that he used hard drugs or something, but the viewer is at no point privy to what she means by ‛scary’ or to the man’s side of things.

Whether or not the young man intended to frighten and manipulate Charlie by threatening her with his suicide is also unclear. ‛If you walk out that door, I’ll kill myself’ can mean different things depending on tone and context, ranging from a desperate plea for help against an overwhelming mental illness to abusive, sadistic mind games. Having lost more than one man to suicide, the idea that someone would use it as a weapon is inconceivable, but without further information I simply can’t say.

From what little information we have, the man’s suicide was not Charlie’s fault. If we assume he was threatening her to keep her with him, she was right to run. Nobody should be mistreated or burdened like that, and no relationship should be built on a foundation of such abuse. She is important, too. Even if it weren’t a threat, the situation was intensely unhealthy for everybody involved and she was very justified in distancing herself. It wasn’t her fault, and I just wish Dean had told her that in the motel room, rather than simply talking about it to Sam in the car afterwards.

Speaking of said conversation in the car, Dean’s heart was in the right place as he tried to get Sam to stop blaming himself, but he perhaps revealed his own lack of coping tools whilst doing so. Dean is intelligent and empathetic, and far more caring than people give him credit for, but he was raised in an environment where he was not allowed to talk about his fears and anxieties. Nor was he provided any tools whatsoever to facilitate understanding and processing his traumas and illnesses; John wanted him as an emotionally-dead weapon to use in his war against Mary’s killer.

Dean feels, but with no healthy tools nor anybody to acknowledge and help in processing his issues, he bottles things up and pushes them aside as best he can. Of course, the best he can is not all that best, wherefore the drinks and the sex and the gallows humour. This is John’s echo in Dean: John silenced him, and Dean therefore is not best equipped to process his own trauma at the beginning of series 1, much less counsel somebody else (though this changes as the years go by and he learns how to act without John stymieing him).

He meant well in telling Sam he can’t carry on blaming himself for Jess’s death, but the problem is Sam can’t stop blaming himself. Nobody in Sam’s situation can stop themselves feeling what s/he’s feeling, and has to simply feel it. I knew my friend’s suicide wasn’t my fault, but grief, bereavement, and survivor’s guilt are not rational and can’t be controlled by the cognitive mind. The feeling mind is the one in control, all the cognitive mind can do is make suggestions and hope for the best.

Regarding grief and Sam’s situation, Sam’s nightmare and his conversation with Dean at the beginning of the episode are about as explicit as Sam’s grief for Jess gets int eh show, and it’s not much at all. They were together for maybe two years, she was possibly pregnant with his child and died on the ceiling above him, but he doesn’t do any actual mourning or grieving most of the time. That itself is okay as some peolel take years before they’re ready to process grief and bereavement, but Sam behaves like a slightly disgruntled, moody teenager which we’re supposed to interpret as him grieving Jess’s death, but we see next to no actual grief, trauma or expression of loss.

His discussion with Dean is supposed to give us the idea that this is a recurrent event, but it is very, very far from sufficient to genuinely make us believe that Sam is anything other than a little bit sad for Jess.

We have, however, already established that Sam is partially responsible for Jess’s death, but Dean doesn’t know that. In spite of it not being the most productive thing Dean could have said, it was valid. Grieving is natural and uncontrollable, but how we react to it is at least partially within the jurisdiction of the cognitive mind. We can’t resist grief, as even denying it acknowledges its presence, but rather we have to accept it as a natural part of life to be endured and felt, but not be controlled by it.

Similarly, Mary is herself a victim of trauma, having been murdered by her lover. Understandably, her mentis is significantly non compos after the experience, and killing people she deems to be guilty is perhaps her way of trying to process what happened to her. Referring once again to Supernatural Therapy podcast, Jovanna Burke (who played Mary in this episode) states she believed Mary saw herself as a vigilante trying to get restitution for people wronged by killing their murderers, but her world-view became so skewed and she lost all concept of a grey area. For her, things were black or white: guilty or not guilty. Dean as good as says that there is only guilty or not guilty for Mary: if somebody thinks their actions or lack thereof got somebody killed, that person’s guilty. Sam, after all, didn’t kill Jess, Charlie didn’t kill her ex-boyfriend and I don’t believe the father had a part in the mother’s death.

I would add to this that such thinking sounds like a trauma victim’s survival mechanism. If things are easily understood as either / or, good / bad, safe / dangerous, the risk of danger is theoretically reduced. Think wild animals assuming humans are going to kill them: it’s safest to assume and run away.

This has been quite the lengthy discourse on mirrors, but it’s time to switch from the metaphorical and symbolical to the more practical, that being the exact nature of how the magic works. Mary was bound to the mirror she died in front of, but as long as that mirror remained intact, she was free to wonder the mirror world when summoned. In the climax of the episode, Dean and Sam summon her to her mirror in the antique shop, smash it, then face her manifest form in the real world. Dean defeats her by showing her her own reflection in another mirror, whereupon her own reflection deems her guilty of multiple homicides and kills her.

Hawk-eyed readers will have noticed already, but if Mary’s power was bound to her mirror, how then could her own reflection have killed her when the mirror binding her was smashed? Was the source of her power in her, then, rather than the mirror? If so, then how would her seeing her own reflection killed her? A ghost in Supernatural doesn’t have the power to destroy itself like that: it simply can’t. A ghost has refused the Reaper’s invitation to pass on, and can’t therefore pass on, yet Mary does. I can’t make this make sense.

One more thing about that scene is that Dean’s eyes began bleeding, implying he is also hiding a secret where somebody died. Fans made a big number out of this at the time, and Kripke promised us we would find out in due course… but we never did. This is the first instance of one of Dean’s storylines getting dropped by the show, and it’s far from being the last one.

Kripke didn't like Dean. Dean was supposed to be the dumb, womanising popular guy who always gets the women but 'treats them badly' in comparison to Sam's sensitive nice guy act. Sam was Kripke's insert, and Dean was just a character the audience wasn't supposed to like either, so he didn't bother giving Dean his own storylines. Even series 3 is more about Sam's anger and 'grief' than it is Dean's.

Now that the main points are out of the way, there are more minor points in the episode to comment on. One is the lovely cinematography, especially during the cold open / prologue. I began this review by stating that mirrors are important in this episode, and the camerawork in the beginning really drive that home. Moreover, seeing Mary reflected in so many mirrors – and indeed seeing so many reflections – blurs the line between the real world and the mirror world.

The children’s sleepover is also pleasantly lit, with very dark shadows and lots of candlelight evoking the feel of a ghost story. The shot in the library with the rays of light shining on the boys also looked wonderful, and the visual storytelling in the antique shop at the end was impressive. Said visual storytelling refers to the close up shot of a blinking red light, followed shortly after by the headlights of the police cars drifting across the wall. This is intelligent storytelling that expects the viewer to be paying attention, and it’s definitely appreciated.

In spite of my apathy for Jess as a character, the final shot of Sam seeing her on the pavement was fantastic cinematography: as with the flashing lights, it told us a story without needing to tell us anything. Sam saw her, and then she disappeared. Coming at the end of an episode about Sam’s guilt, and roughly a minute after his advice to Charlie about not blaming herself, this strongly suggests something has changed in Sam: the guilt that he was holding on to has begun to ease, or even vanish. It is, however, just a suggestion, and Sam giving Charlie a therapy session he sorely needs doesn’t mean he’s going to follow his own advice.

I wish, however, that more had been revealed about the kind of pills the father was taking in the cold open.

Speaking of the library – which we weren’t –do you remember when Wi-Fi didn’t exist? I remember. Currently I’m sitting about two metres away from my computer which is tethered to my mobile phone, typing on a wireless keyboard, using a wireless mouse in a room with no working ethernet cable or modem, listening to sounds of an oil rig on Bluetooth headphones, but in 2005 none of that was possible. There’s almost as much time between now and then as there was between my birth and ABBA winning Eurovision in Brighton in 1974.

Which is a nice segue into the soundtrack of the episode. The music in the opening is effective, being both reminiscent of the prologue of 1x01 with its minimalistic, slow piano track building tension and unease, but with an underlying hollow, howling wind sound that I can only liken to the dementors in Harry Potter.

Less impressive, however, was Mary’s dialogue, showing a complete lack of effort put into it. ‛You killed them, you’re guilty’, ‛you did it, you killed that boy’.

I rewatched this episode for the first time in 12 years in December 2020, by myself in a silent flat very late at night. I was 29, and this episode still creeped me out, making me hesitant to look at the window in case my reflection moved. Whilst it’s not my favourite episode, it’s certainly a solid effort with a memorable – if dated – antagonist in a self-contained MOTW story. Like the pilot, it showcased Kripke’s initial conception of the show as being about American folklore (although Bloody Mary is very much a British thing, too), and boasts a very atmospheric miniature horror show. It also offers character development and growth, even thought Sam’s claim that he would die for Dean is laughable in retrospect.

After once more exploring folk tales in 1x05, in next week's analysis of episode 1x06 Skin I'll be looking at how the show expands its daemonology by introducing a series staple.

#Michael's Supernatural Rewatch #spn rewatch #spn 1x05 #1x05 bloody mary #classic supernatural #dean winchester #sam winchester #survivor's guilt #suicide #dean's abandoned storylines

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the--sound--of--rain · 4 years

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The Terror Of The Umpty Ums by Steven Moffat - A Review by A Lit. Student

Okay, I’m a little tipsy and very angry, but I’ll try my best not to make this into a rant and actually analyse critically. (Haven’t done that in a long time, since I’m procrastinating all my uni work atm.)

So, this is a short story. Like many short stories, it tries to bring across a certain message. What is this message? That stories can help us fight out inner demons. How do I know that? Right, because a character in the story states the message out loud.

“We’re all stories in the end. But do you know what a story is, David? It’s an idea. And do you know what an idea is? It’s a thought so big and so clever it can outlive you. It can fly out of your head, and into other people’s. Like I’m in your head, right now. Keeping you right. Never cruel, never cowardly. Always the Doctor.”

I’m just... how, how does he keep making this basic mistake? It’s the first thing they tell you in every writing workshop: show, don’t tell.

Let’s continue with the same quote: “We’re all stories in the end.” Really? Come up with new lines, Steven, please. I know, he’s using an iconic line to make the reader feel nostalgic, but it’s just so typically self-indulgent. Same with the last three (or four?) sentences. Let’s say it’s okay to do it once, for nostalgia purposes, but twice in one paragraph? Ridiculous. Also, I can’t help but wonder if those lines were strategically placed at the beginning and end of this paragraph in order to distract from the sloppy writing in the middle. Besides the fact that it is typical Moffat writing, where he’s tries to make the idea he’s trying to express sound like the most important thing in the world, it doesn’t even make sense:

Look at those two sentences: “It can fly out of your head, and into other people’s. Like I’m in your head, right now.” What does this imply? That David’s hearing the Doctor’s voice in his head is comparable to someone reading or hearing a story and then, knowing that story, i.e. having it in their head? David, a child with dissociative identity disorder (Moffat calls it dissociative personality disorder, which I’m not sure is the correct term?), not being able to tell real from unreal, is on the same level as someone enjoying a story? I’m quite sure Moffat didn’t think this through, but that really is no excuse; it’s such a sensitive issue and he writes for children, for god’s sake. (I’ll go more into this in a separate post since I don’t want to make this one too long.)

In connection with this, we’ve got the twist. Many short stories use a twist toward or at the end to either hammer home a point or shock the reader. Moffat chose not to use the twist to hammer home his point, as he had already put it into words so neatly (read with lots of sarcasm please) for the Doctor to say out loud. No, he chose to shock us. (What a surprise.) And to be able to do that, he chose a mentally ill child as his focaliser. Now, I am not saying this is a wrong thing to do. You’ve got to be careful when you do it, but - as with all risky choices - if done well, it can be brilliant.

So, what can/should be achieved by making a certain character the focaliser of your story? The reader feels close to that character and understands how they feel in a quite personal way. Especially with mentally ill characters, I think, perceiving the narrative through their eyes can bring across a very powerful message. Let’s look at the way Moffat showed us how it feels to David to realise he’s only imagining the Doctor’s voice in his head:

It couldn’t be true. It simply couldn’t. And yet as he stood there in the cold and the dark he saw that it was as true as anything ever could be. He took another breath of the freezing air and said the words out loud. “I watched you on television.”

Can you feel the weight of the realisation? Because I can’t. David’s mental state is not explored, but used for shock value; a cheap twist that has nothing to do with the message.

And this ties into another thing every writer should know: The form hammers home the contents. Meaning, don’t tell your story from the POV of a mentally ill person if it’s not about mental illness.

I know Moffat would probably say that the story is about mental illness (and how stories can help you deal with it), which, I have to say at this point, is a beautiful concept. But it is executed so poorly that the perspective of the protagonist, who is dealing with the issue the story is supposed to be about, isn’t even used to add anything to it.

No, rather than actually trying to write well, let’s drop about 50 complex-looking technical terms to show that this is a Science-Fiction-Story, can you tell? (Except it’s not, because it’s all in David’s head) and then throw in another ‘The Doctor is so great, he is the greatest being in the universe’-speech, just for good measure. “The oncoming storm, the bringer of darkness, the imp of the Pandorica! The final victor of the Time War.” Uuh, wow, never heard all that before, have we?

And then there’s the fact that most of the dialogue is cringey and completely unnatural, which I understand it is bound to be, because the situation is unnatural, but then maybe it’s not the most brilliant choice to let the story be led by that dialogue. Although I understand why he did it, because the non-dialogue parts...

Karpagnon steeled himself and opened the door. The cold air filled his lungs. The wind rushed in the trees, and distantly there was the sound of traffic. The sky was packed with clouds but the moon peeked through.

Remind me of the way I used to write when I was about 13. I won’t go into detail on this, but just note that three sentences in a row start with “the” and the only two linkers used are “and” and “but”. For the sake of fairness, however, not all those parts are that bad.

But there’s another thing, that just made me go... What?

You see, that’s the story of the music, I always think. The Umpty-Ums, that’s the noise of the monsters. But then it goes Woo-Hoo. I think the Woo-Hoo is me riding to the rescue.”

The whole music-analogy. What does it add to the plot or the message? What does it even mean? And why, why, is it in the title?

He then proceeds to base the very last line on this same idea:

“I get very scared sometimes,” he said.

“Woo-hoo,” said the Doctor.

I think what he is trying to convey, here, is that the Doctor is riding to the rescue. But it seems so forced and strange, it reads a bit like the ending of a first draft.

To sum up, Moffat had a nice idea: He wanted to express that stories can help us through difficult times. And although he certainly isn’t the best writer with all the skills, I’m fairly convinced this could have been a touching story - were he not so insufferably arrogant. He didn’t take the time to think about how he could bring across his message in a meaningful way and instead wrote it out in a half-baked dramatic speech. Doing this, he did not consider the weight of the topic he was discussing, leading to implications that are outright insulting to people struggling with mental illness. He favoured horror over sensibility and far-fetched metaphors over a strong core, resulting in a difficult-to-read mess.

A piece of advice to all young writers (and this is more important than any other tip I’ve mentioned): Do not take your work - and yourself - too seriously and never stop trying to be better. Believe me I made this mistake too; when I was starting out, I thought I was the writer. I only started really getting better when I accepted that I wasn’t perfect; most of the time, I wasn’t even good. All art is flawed. If we accept that, we can create something beautiful.

Feel free to bring up anything to me that you disagree (or agree) with; I love discussing views and interpretations. Have a good day and stay healthy xx

#Steven Moffat #moffat #Moffat writing #the terror of the umpty ums #umpty ums #doctor who #the doctor #Steven Moffat short story #doctor who short story #dw short story #the terror of the umpty ums review #Steven Moffat review #thirteenth doctor #the 13th doctor #Jodie whittaker #literature review #literature #writing #Moffat review

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thefloatingstone · 5 years

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The whole “they’re just evil” is ableist too though. It’s basically saying well, we thought they were mentally ill, but no, they’re just evil. Similar to how people will say “you’re not depressed, you’re just lazy.” And the whole “evil child” trope can be dangerous. Some child abusers “justify” their actions by framing their neurodivergent (mentally ill, mentally disabled, autistic, etc) child as being evil or unnatural. “creepy” behaviours in movies are common in ppl that are neurodivergent.1/2

I think what it comes down to is that the horror genre is about intent in its subject matter.

The reason I like horror is because when horror is done well, it represents very clearly the fears and paranoias of the era the movie was made in.

Early horror movies (before the hayes code) had a LOT of subtext where the big fear usually was caught up in sex in some way or another. And not in an exploitative way. Movies like Cat People and Dr. Jekyl and Mrs Hyde are to do with young people who are engaged and, because it’s the 30s, are not sexually active with each other yet, but they WANT to be. And a lot of early horror has to do with sexual repression.

And then you have zombie movies which came into their own after Night of the Living Dead in 1969 and became a genre in the 70s. Zombie movies being a cultural fear of losing control of yourself and getting assimilated into a group which is slowly devouring your way of life. This can be a metaphor for immigrants, other religions, a change in social climate and old societal structures no longer being embraced by the younger generation (Zombie movies became super popular in the 70s, after the Vietnam war which was extremely protested by the younger generation, as well as racial tensions in the US rising as African Americans were coming more freely in society following the abolishment of America’s segregation in the 60s)

But some horror movies deal with fears which are universal and not contained in one one era. The fear of death is a big one but rather vague in of itself. And when framed in a movie can be rather shallow (like a slasher movie) or very deep and complex (like Jacob’s ladder or Masque of the Red Death). Other universal fears are things like war, home invasion by a criminal, being hunted (either by an animal or another human), the unknown (this often taking the form of “evil” in terms of ghosts and demons and possession etc etc), one’s own body succumbing to disease (which is where body horror comes from) and the loss of control of oneself (this is where mind control and possession and other dehumanising tropes are used, although these can cross over into the trope of cultural tension. The Invasion of the Body Snatchers is all about loved ones being replaced with unknown enemy creatures and was made (twice) during the US’ cold war with Russia)

One of the great universal fears is the concept of not being in control of one’s own mind. It doesn’t matter if you’re neurotypical or have a form of mental illness, the core concept of losing yourself to your own mind is a horrific one (and I mean this in terms of the concept, not the reality) so I feel horror movies that deal with this trope WELL, understand how to channel that fear into an effective story that resonates with its audience, regardless of who they are. However, this is VERY different than the much easier and lazier method of just claiming a bad guy is “crazy”. Because the neurotypical audience will still nod and go “yes it is very scary to think of people being crazy like that or even of myself losing my mind. That is a scary thought.” but it does NOT use the trope with the complexity and depth it needs to properly express that dark fear.

The other great fear, and one used FAR less frequently in horror movies simply because it is disturbing, is the innate fear parents have that a baby who they wish to love could have “something wrong with it.” not out of stigmatism, but because (most often) parents wish for the best for their children, and the concept of a child having a problem the parents can’t fix is terrifying. This is where movies like Eraserhead come from, however it also ties into the fear of mental illness.

There is also the thing that having mental illness within the bad guy character gives to horror but which is not only reserved for mental illness, and this is where the “evil” explanation comes from; and that is the horror that comes from the idea that a bad person is not someone you can recognise in the street as a threat. That you cannot see someone and immediately go “oh well they have horns so I KNOW they’re dangerous!” but that threat and danger and harm can hide in the nicest, kindest, most ordinary looking people. In modern times we now know you don’t need mental illness to be a threat and look normal, but I feel this is why mental illness is often used.

This brand of horror is also very important because it asks the audience “what is the difference between the person in the movie doing terrible things, and you, the audience member, who probably assumes themselves to be a good person?” Mental illness is a good answer to this because it gives the audience the uncomfortable thought of “if I had the same mental struggles, would I be doing terrible things like this too? What makes me “a good person”? Am I any different than the bad guy at all?”

Horror is a good genre because it shines a light on fears and insecurities and paranoias of human beings. Either culturally, or psychologically. And I feel the problem is that so often complex ideas and reasons BEHIND the horror is lazily boiled down to “oh well they were just crazy. That’s all.” which makes the audience not have to worry about it because “oh of course. They’re just crazy. Not like me. I’m not crazy at all.”

But this is…. this is bad writing :/ and as the previous post said (if you are the same anon) it is the using of the trope in a lazy way which reinforces itself as harmful. And you often see this in cheap horror movies who are NOT trying to say something about humanity’s deep rooted fears, but just want some teenagers to scream in the theater for 90 minutes at some fake blood and a “scary bad guy”.

I agree that modern movies should not reinforce bad stereotypes of mental illness as we often see in badly written lazy horror films, but I don’t think it’s a topic that should be untoucheable in terms of story telling. Because I feel then we deny a huge part of the human psychology.

hmmm…. how do I put this…..

Ok maybe this’ll make more sense.

Silent Hill 2 is a game where the entire subtext and plot is about depression. Without it being a plot point in any way, the game feels like it is trying to EXPRESS depression. And it expresses depression in the form of horror visuals both in terms of monsters and scenery. Depression is never mentioned and nobody talks about the symptoms of depression (not counting Angela’s suicidal thoughts but that’s not really the point here). Silent Hill 2 is a story about depression and fatal illness and suicidal thoughts. It is a game about the horror of those feelings… And you could even easily say the game even features a character with depression who is a murderer… but the game is not presenting depression as an “explanation”. But it is a game ABOUT depression. Through its visuals, sound design, atmosphere, music, it all builds together to present itself AS depression.

And I feel we need stories like that. It presents mental illness in a horrific light… but it’s… it’s different, you know? And I feel having the ability to tell horror stories about mental illness is important because then we can have stories like Silent Hill 2, which in a weird way becomes comforting if you’ve ever experienced depression. It’s like you go back to Silent Hill 2 when you’re in a depressive state and you just feel…. a little better? like “yes…. this is the emotion I am feeling. This is what it’s like. Somebdy else understands it, and this story resonates with me. And I am not alone.”

I know that is a completely different thing than what we were talking about regarding “bad guy characters in a horror movie have mental illness” but I feel it’s an important point…. because Silent Hill 2 is literally about a guy who killed someone and has a mental illness…. the difference is he’s not framed as a bad guy, but as sympathetic. WITHOUT condoning his actions.

And as for “evil” like “oh he’s not crazy he’s just evil”, I understand what you mean but I think of it more regarding either tied to religious beliefs which is a more personal fear and varies depending on who the person watching the movie is…. or the evil which is like…. Ted Bundy…. and I don’t really want to talk about that because it legit makes me incredibly uncomfortable.

(also Horror is AMONG my favourite genres or sub genres. But it depends on the film. But it’s a genre I legit am fascinated by, enjoy depending on the film, and have watched and read and own WAY too many books about).

A big function of horror movies is to acknowledge the fears humans carry within us, as well as the darker sides of humanity as a whole, and horror movies gives us a way to confront that, and not simply try to ignore it while it festers away in the back of our minds.

So it’s difficult because you can’t say “you can’t make a horror movie about x” because it ends up being more harmful than good…. but at the same time reinforcing stigmas that hurt oppressed groups is also something which should NOT be done.

This is why I tend to judge horror movies on a case by case basis X’D and also consider context, era, country of origin etc etc.

And it’s why I’m talking about this topic in such long posts. Because I feel it’s a complex problem.

But I fully agree we need a public ed campaign in teaching people about the context in which older horror movies were made and to understand how to be critical of their themes while still being able to be entertained by them.

….I didn’t even go into how monster movies like King Kong and Creature from the Black Lagoon are about cultural paranoias about people from different ethnicities and cultures “coming to steal our women”, and why you are seeing a lot more “monster fuckers” these days as our culture is slowly learning to be more empathetic to “those who are other”. Like…. I didn’t even go INTO that part of it.

…..I like horror u guys.

#C-Puff answers #Horror tropes #Anonymous

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brujebutchdraws · 6 years

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this post features talk of abuse, ableism, pathologization, ABA therapy, forced medication and dehumanization. please do skip it if this might put your mental health at risk. the r slur will be spelled as such “r.t.rd”.

spoilers for the Undertale game have to be looked out for too.

links will be in bold.

[three images of the video game Undertale’s character Toriel, one being a gif, and the two others being the same images, but transparent and composing the gif. Toriel wears an all-red outfit, a short sleeved dress with a flame print on it, with crimson red heels. she also carries a small plastic bag with stimtoys in it. a grey sealion squishie, a green handspinner, a black and green music and sound-concealer headphones, a purple chewerly necklace, and a book of her child’s special interest, knights. she first holds her free hand to where her soul rests, eyes closed with a calm smile, and then she extends her free arm to her right, and ignites a flame in which a puzzle piece is scorched black. her eyes are also open with her mouth, in a friendly expression.

upside of her is written the tag Go Red Instead. downside her is written the tag actually autistic. both are in big red letters. on her left is written “support autistic people” followed by “by being good allistic parents”, and then to her right by the following:

“by rejecting the ‘suffering but courageous Autism Mom’ ableist fetishistic narrative and all of its variations.”

“by accepting your childd as they are by nature and stopping the pursuit of ‘cures’ when there is no disease.”

“by acknowledging your past mistakes and growing from them.”

“by reassuring your child that their worth is not defined by how ‘normal’ they appear to their peers.”

“by telling them ‘I love you’ without ‘even if you’re...’ following behind.”

“by learning to adapt to your child, and not have them to adapt to you, the advantaged adult.”

“by subsiding to certains of their needs/desires, even if they’re unconventional or unrelatable to you, so long they aren’t dangerous, of course.”

“by considering them as people first, your autistic kid(s) second. You are the only one able to truly protect their agency as a person in their formative years.”

“by letting them be the teller of their own story. if not vocally, sign language an alternatives exist. please use them.”

the phrases are all preceded by upside-down red-lined hearts.]

this is april month, autistic people awareness’ month, so i’m here to teach anyone who’d listen a bit about smtg from autistic people.

#(Go)ReadInstead is a movement of the autistic community against autism speaks’ “light it blue” movement. autism speaks promotes the idea that autistic people are sick, compare us to cancer patients, and “light it up blue” to “raise awareness about the Bad Autism we must seek and destroy out of our children”. it is a logic of abuse apologism and ableist conceptions of a neurodivergency that is no illness and neither lethal nor dangerous to anyone, caused by old myths and outdated fears of demons and faeries/changelins.

the character Toriel is not hinted at, coded, or canonically autistic. she is, though, canonically the mother of Chara, a character who i interpret as being autistic. Toriel is far from being the perfect mother, in fact she made huge mistakes that failed her child. however, she is able of wisdom and humility, and i believe that given the chance, she would learn to be an excellent parent to an autistic child, even with their trauma on top of that. that’s why i deem it best to illustrate my point with this caring goat monster.

i don’t know much about good parenting from a carer’s point of view, i’ll admit, because of personal trauma. i do have insights from the child’s position. but first, i’ll quote an helpful fellow, who i will be calling C :

“from experience, I can tell you that the worst thing you can do for you autistic children is to prioritize managing their behavior over raising them in an open minded and loving environment that addresses their needs.

like if you have a kid that moves around a lot to stim and you pull the "quiet hands" bullshit to try to get them to sit down instead of giving them other opportunities to let out energy and teaching them to manage their own movements, for example.

bad parents, they don't care about their kids, they only care about garnering sympathy for themselves because "OH IT'S SO HARD BEING THE PARENT OF A DIFFICULT CHILD”.

well that's some stuff about bad parents but a good parent of an autistic child, or any child for that matter, would be able to not only address their child's needs but also would care enough to make adjustments to themselves and the way they approach a child care if this is something they're totally new to.

though in this day and age, even parents who don't have any autistic family members don't have any right to not know autistic kids and people exist.

basically look at Autism Speaks and do NOTHING that they do.

support groups that only deal with supporting relatives of people with autism and not communicating with autistic people themselves are bad news.

stay far away from any counseling or pediatric resources that treat children showing traits typical of autism as showing "symptoms" or try to determine of kids are "at risk".

you can either help them grow into an environment where they're allowed to achieve their potential for independence and happiness.

or you can suppress them into submission and condition them to not be an inconvenience to you, which is unfortunately what a lot of parents try to do, whether out of malice or ignorance.”

i don’t have much to add, to be honest. i asked for advice and they made a point by point explanation that just did the whole job.

the keyword is also ACCEPTING. not just tolerating. no, fullout, entire acceptance. and never trying to “cure” your kid. because they’re okay, in that aspect. sure, they’ll have a difficult life in a world that doesn’t want to acknowledge them, but by trying to suppress their very nature, you’d just be playing by this world’s rules. that makes you an executioner, simply put, not a saviour or a protector.

reject all movements linked to autism moms. you are no mom or dad or pam of autism. you’re an allistic parent of an autistic child. you do not have a special parent status. you have allistic privilege over your child. use it wisely.

or you’ll get a child like me: actually unable to function properly due to traumatic pushes for me to be all-time allistic passing, an indigo child, having learned self-destructive behaviours to take out the frustration on myself, an extremely bad self-esteem, and anger issues, and a fear and hatred of authority without explanations, and ultimately, a broken adult who loathes their parents more than anyone else in the fucking universe, and disowned them.

you don’t want that. and the only alternative to my outcome of anger because of allistic abusive parenting is a scared, hiding child, who is bound to be a dead child, by suicide, exhaustion or murdered for not being good enough.

because only my anger saved me. taking the path of dehumanizing your offspring can only result in them destroying you, metaphorically, or destroying themselves. no in-between of miraculously not autistic anymore youth.

consider that.

do not just support the autistic people that you can control to make yourself look good, do not think of us as little mindless things to direct according to your allistic narratives. value us all, respect us all and support us all.

companion pieces about autistic people: Papyrus, Chara, sans.

companion pieces about allistic allyship: Frisk, Grillby, Flowey.

Thanks you for your attention- Uidelsib E.N.

i invite you to course through my #actuallyautistic tag on my main, elitigre, for more insight on many things autistic.

my askbox on said blog is also open for you to ask some things on being autistic. do keep in mind i’d be answering on my free time, not as a job.

the character Toriel, from the video game Undertale (2015), belongs to Toby Fox.

this post is not invitation for debate on the autistic spectrum being an illness, harmful, or how Actually Autism Speaks Is Good And ABA Saves Lives.

all attempts to do so will be blocked. Go Read Instead.

#GoRedInstead #redinstead #actuallyautistic #undertale #ut: toriel #FuckAutismSpeaks #FuckLightItBlue #fanart #digital art

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hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger · 7 years

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Not sure if ya’ll have noticed but talks about representation in superhero comics has been ever so slightly popular these days.

Sarcasm deactivated.

In all seriousness, yes there should be more though I have problems with certain approaches adopted by Marvel and to a lesser extent DC in recent years and the way a lot of fans have handled the situation on both sides.

Like saying Miles Morales shouldn’t exist is not okay but nor is saying Peter Parker should be shelved for his sake. Writing Titania in Jane Foster’s book as having solidarity with Jane because she’s a woman stepping into the role of a male hero is not okay (because seriously, Titania’s main enemy is goddam She Hulk and she despises her) but nor is saying sexist shit about Jane (who lest we forget was awesome long before she became Thor, arguably moreso).

But most of the time I personally feel disabled and mentally ill characters don’t get talked about as much whenever discussions like this pop up. Representing women, black people, gay people, etc, etc happens all the time but not so much with disabled and mentally ill characters.

What’s even stranger though is that on the occasions where those types of characters are discussed people seem to not recognize a lot of the ones among the classic established heroes.

Oracle, Daredevil and Xavier get brought up a fair amount but Tony Stark had a heart condition that early in his series required him to hide a great big metal chest plate under his clothes which then compromized his former playboy lifestyle. Among the truly mainstream and major Marvel/DC heroes Tony Stark genuinely was the first physically handicapped hero (unless I’m getting my dates mixed up and X-Men preceded him, even then though Xaiver was a mentor more than the lead).

As for mentally ill characters, whilst people will cite Deadpool and Harley Quinn as mentally ill protagonists within the Big Two (and you could arguably put Wolverine in there too due to his legitimate anger issues, though they are contextualized as part of his bad ass appeal so...maybe not) both those characters are fun, wacky, violent former villains who even when they aren’t on the side of evil still do amoral things. They’re mental illnesses are rarely treated with too much gravitas. In fairness their core concepts is for them to be wacky and fun (at least nowdays) so it would be possible in a debate to argue there is a certain amount of justification for not going too deep with their problems and touching them lightly.

Meanwhile you have Tony Stark and Carol Danvers who are both alcoholics. And if you know anything about that illness (and it IS an illness) you know it’s not one you really cure so much as manage.

However multiple runs of Iron Man since the iconic Demon in a Bottle storyline have at best touched upon it rather or else avoided it altogether. From what I’ve seen of Bendis’ run it’s mentioned but off handily and wasn’t a focus before Tony died. Maybe creatively you could justify that too but technically speaking Tony is a mentally illl hero due to that illness so if you want representation viola it’s right there if writers bothered to make use of it outside of showing him relapse or something.

The same is true of Carol Danvers except in her case it’s worse because you could be forgiven for simply being wholesale unaware Carol was ever an alcoholic since multiple runs don’t even bring it up (I suspect because people legitimately forgot). Nevertheless the female hero Marvel is most keen to promote and who will be getting her own movie soon enough is canonically mentally ill. That should be brought up more but I can see why people who ARE aware of it might not want to count her because like I said it’s hardly touched upon.

Which is why the next character I’m going to talk about is so important.

He’s never been a legitimate villain.

His mental illness(es) are integral to his character and impossible to ignore because of that fact.

He’s got a history of physical and emotional abuse which led to his illnesses and isn’t thrown out as cheap backstory or motivations for his character.

His illnesses have been showcased to ostracize him from wider society who often fear, hate and hound him either out of a desire to exploit him or else because they simply do not understand him. Which sadely echoes the experiences of a lot of mentally ill people.

He’s portrayed sympathetically with the hardships and tragedy of coping with mental illnesses showcased routinely (albeit often on a metaphorical and not strictly accurate level).

And most importantly he’s been repeatedly showcased as a truely heroic and caring figure in spite of his illnesses, even using them for the benefit of society as a whole when given the opportunity and right help.

I am in fact referring to...the Hulk.

Bruce Banner canonically was physically and emotionally abused by his father and developed serious anger issues and issues of self-worth because of that treatment. All of which led to him eventually developing Dissociative Identity Disorder, also known as Multiple Personality Disorder or more commonly referred to as having a ‘split personality’; and INCORRECTLY referred to as schizophrenia.

That’s not me interpreting anything or extrapolating either. That is an objective in-universe canonical FACT about the character. In fact he first ‘hulked out’ when he got mad and attacked his father...BEFORE he encountered any gamma bombs. In one iconic issue he even tried to resolve his problems via therapy where the different sides to his personality were integrated together.

Whilst it involved superheroics and super powers and happened after ONE session that is the real life goal when it comes to helping most people who have DID/MPD.

Whilst there is so much to talk about with canon Hulk let’s just use the MCU as a microcosm of the Hulk’s character.

Bruce Banner in the MCU is so depressed over his condition (which involved being incapable of physical intimacy and constantly monitoring his stress levels) that he tried to commit suicide...only to discover he was physically incapable of doing so due to the Hulk’s healing factor.

As Banner he wants to find a cure for himself and as Hulk he wants nothing but peace and solitude. But he gets neither because representatives of the government seek to exploit him and neutralize him as a threat as opposed to trying to HELP him. And the guy spearheading things is straight up an old guy who doesn’t want Banner ‘consorting with his daughter’.

At any given time for reasons beyond his control Banner can become dangerous to those around him despite not wanting to truly hurt anybody, and yet he has been shown to be capable of managing his illness for altruistic ends, such as defeating the Abomination.

When given help and support from the Avengers (who with his CONSENT employ mental exercises and when NECESARRY use non-lethal equipment to keep him under control) he’s been shown to be an invaluable force for good. His brains help resolve dilemmas and provide vital intelligence and as Hulk he is the Avengers’ biggest gun against physical threats.

Which is why Age of Ultron was so heartbreaking. Once more he got exploited and hurt people without meaning to, looked upon in fear and scorn as a monster by those who just don’t understand him. So distraught was he that he opted to just go back into isolation.

Of course Banner’s condition doesn’t realistically line up with real people who have MPD but when understood the character exists for drama and also deals with anger issues the character is actually an incredibly (heh) well constructed character and the legitimate (though relative) representation he provides should be celebrated.

In fact I would argue it’s actually MORE important than the Asian representation Amadeus Cho provides because there are definitely more Asian protagonist characters than mentally ill ones. And also, though this sounds harsh...being Asian isn’t as compromising to your day-to-day quality of life as the kinds of illnesses that Banner/Hulk are analogous too.

Of course that isn’t saying we shouldn’t have more of both but...taking away one character who represents an even more marginalized group who frankly suffers in worse ways (even if wider pop culture fails to appropriately recognize him as representing those people) for the sake of a group that comparatively speaking has it better is not a good thing. It’s made worse when you consider the shitty way Hulk was treated just before and during Civil War II.

Bottom line: Let’s celebrate the old characters who represent mentally ill and disabled people more than we do and not throw them under the bus for other characters...especially the Hulk.

#Hulk #bruce banner #The Incredible Hulk #incredible hulk #marvel #marvel comics #civil war II #Daredevil #dc #dc comics #oracle #barbra gordon #tony stark #iron man #Carol Danvers #Captain Marvel

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thercoon-blog · 6 years

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Liliana, Crumbling Oppressor

Let’s move on to another one of the nu-Origin five walkers, one that takes on the role of Persecutor in our Karpman Drama Triangle. Here we dive into the seriously mentally ill persona of Liliana Vess, whom I can find numerous mental health parallels in history, most notably in John Nash, the famous Mathematician. In order for the Drama Triangle to arise, a person must take on the role of Victim or Persecutor. Our first example of this occurrence is between our focus character, Liliana, and future Victim, Jace Beleren. Persecutors typically blame everyone else for everything, insisting something is their fault. Persecutors are typically controlling (Liliana has successfully bent the Gatewatch to her desires), blaming, critical, oppressive, angry and superior (we know Liliana has a serious god complex stemming from her dabbling in the dark arts). Each participant in this triangle takes on their role by acting upon their own selfish needs – something Liliana has done since day 0.

Let’s begin.

Liliana grew up on the most important (arguably) plane in the multiverse, Dominaria. Her father was a general and ruler, possibly for the Forward Order (a load of chaps fighting some dark force, possibly Belzenlok’s cabal). She had a name for herself as a bit of a hussy (that’s slang for hoe), and because of daddy’s extremely high ranking profile, this would inevitably bring on family meetings of “you’re bringing shame to my name”. Liliana cared little of her reputation, so from her absolute origins, we’re told she pretty much doesn’t care about anyone or anything other than herself. We also discover she’s a somewhat gifted sorceress/wizard whatever you want to classify her as. Possibly a cleric, I guess? She learned the healing arts from a lass called Lady Ana, similar to Gideon’s Hixus, however being the blasé cleric that she was, she thought necromancy would assist in her healing career. It’s an odd parallel to draw between two opposites but then I know nothing of the dark arts or restoration so who am I to judge her conclusions. She wanted a shortcut to be better, because that’s just Liliana. The shortest and simplest solution is always best, a self-destructive behaviour that will follow her and essentially rule her life from this point onwards.

Her father’s enemies corrupted her brother Josu with some sort of curse. Now this is where a crackpot theory comes in. If indeed her father’s enemies were the cabal under the rule of Belzenlok, then it ties one of Liliana’s four demons into her storyline long before she makes her pacts with them. One might posit that Liliana’s life had already been woven by a scheme spanning her entire life. This leads her to a test by Lady Ana, which in turn leads her to the Raven Man. That leads her to Bolas, who then brokers the deals with her four demons, including Belzenlok, which then follows on to the Chain Veil storyline where the Raven Man then takes charge of her future interests. So whose scheme is Liliana’s life led by? Bolas, or this mysterious Lim DulRaven Man? Anyway, Lady Ana tells her she needs to acquire Esis root to cure her brother. Her father’s enemies have conveniently burned down the grove where this tree grows.

She learns this when a curious man appears with the information. He then encourages Liliana to use her necromantic powers to revive the tree and make a potion out of it. Seems legit. It is at this point we can conclude Liliana is quite young and naïve, since undoubtedly a present day Liliana would have easily seen past this and probably let her brother die before raising him as a servant. Unfortunately Liliana loves her shortcuts, and loves to prove people wrong, so despite warnings from Lady Ana, she uses it on her brother. It cures him, but basically turns him into a shambling horror.

Pause.

A late teens early twenties girl, with little to no care for reputation or anyone but herself, zero desire for strict rules and guidelines, has taken her first massive shortcut. This in turn has forced her to witness her own family in a state of undeath, then forcing her to kill said undead brother. This is akin to you saying “damn the doctors” and giving your big sister cancer with the “best intentions”, then being forced to euthanize her. That is entirely fucked up, and very much easy to gloss over as a reader interpreting fantasy fiction. She sparks, and ends up on Innistrad – plane of zombies, stitched abominations and general gloom and doom horror. If any plane epitomises a person’s past nightmares, it is a perfect fit for Liliana. But she embraces it instead of running away. Despite her trauma she remains headstrong, it seems.

She studies under vampires and liches, becomes a master necromancer, but she stops short. They recommend she joins them in death fully to master necromancy, but the trauma of what her brother became stops her from fully committing to her path. She is not entirely without sense, and like Tezzeret, is living life by pure instinct for survival.

Eventually Sorin discovers she’s on Innistrad, and Sorin is a very old, very powerful and very solitary planeswalker that suffers no fools. He utterly stomps Liliana, to the point he deems her too paltry a threat to deal with. He allows her to be a guest on his home plane and play nice, or he’ll kill her. Just ask Nahiri how that goes. So the plane she’s adopted as her home is now yet another metaphorical set of rules that will remind her of her father. She returns to Dominaria after she’s confident she’s powerful enough to take on the Raven Man, but he miraculously escapes. Yet another failure for Vess.

Between then and Ravnica, it’s revealed that the mending happened, and Liliana is no longer all powerful, or immortal. Being the vain, shortcut taker that she is, she mixes up with Bolas and brokers a deal with a demon for more power. She uses that deal to make another, and another until her soul is eventually beholden by no more than four demons. In exchange for youth and power, she must serve the demons, and this is where she gets her tattoos from, eternally reminder her and everyone else that Liliana sold her soul for life eternal.

After some time, Liliana becomes mixed in with Bolas’/Tezzeret’s Infinite Consortium, sort of as a freelancer I suppose. After Jace defects from the group, Liliana is tasked with tracking him down. She befriends Jace and his accomplice Kallist (whom Jace will later swap consciousness with), and then has an affair with Jace. She stays loyal to Jace through a number of bizarre happenings, including ye olde consciousness swap story. It’s then revealed she was using Jace in order to remove Tezzeret as the leader of the Infinite Consortium. Liliana had sold her soul to Nicol Bolas of all people (just ask Tezzeret how that went), and this was one of her many tasks.

Liliana is altruistic. She dislikes rules and regulations, but now finds herself under the thumb of a 25,000 year old elder dragon planeswalker, and four demons that lay claim to her soul. In true Liliana fashion, she has ideas on how she can most easily escape said deals in the bluntest ways imaginable, but she hasn’t quite had the push to get her ego that big yet. Enter Kothophed and the Chain Veil.

Kothophed calls in a favour, and Liliana must obey. She’s sent to retrieve the Chain Veil, and ancient artifact from the now extinct Onnake civilisation on Shandalar. On her way, she’s attacked by one of Garruk’s Packleaders and kills it. My main man Garruk witnesses this, and decides she’s a target. Liliana retrieves the Veil and then Garruk attacks. Using the surprisingly powerful artifact, Liliana very easily sends Garruk on a Shandalar escape trajectory, and begins to muse at how much power is at her fingertips now. She wanders to a fortress on a random plane and utterly annihilates it, because the best way to test an artifact belonging to a race that is now entirely dead is to use it to wipe out another. She considers, and the urges to release herself from the thrall of Kothophed is too great, so she planeswalks and blast the demon to high hell. Her tattoos begin to bleed, which disturbs her somewhat. In true “simplest solution is best” she resolves that in order to make this pain stop, she’ll just kill the rest of her demons.

So, Liliana has gone from accidentally killing her brother with good intentions, to an egotistical maniac hell bent on returning her old power to her by any means necessary, even if it means permanently scarring her young but otherwise immortal body. That includes senselessly dispatching a demon that had a claim to your soul. Long term plans are not Liliana’s strong suit. Unlike Bolas, Liliana is a very short sighted, short term planner. What makes Liliana different from every other oldwalker is that she simply wants to be left alone to her own devices. While she doesn’t initially crave for the rule of planes or infinite power and wiping out all other rivals, she does want to live forever and be beautiful at that. She just wants to do what she wants as and when she decides to do it. Liliana Vess of origins is what we’d call a sociopath. Liliana Vess of post mending is what we call a psychopath. The key difference? Sociopaths don’t know what they’re doing is wrong. Psychopaths do, they simply don’t care.

Concerned by the bleeding of her tattoos, the Chain Veil, and her fate thus far, she returns to the plane of the Onnake. She resurrects the body of an old wise man who knew of them. The town is none too pleased with a necromancer, and do what any other old time populace would do: they chase her into a pile of wood (a barn) and burn it down. The man she raised begins speaking cryptic riddles about Liliana while preventing the flames from taking her. Just as she’s about to release her body to the sweet abyss, the corpse is revealed to actually be the Raven Man. He uses what appears to be the same potion as the one Liliana used on her brother, and her tattoos all turn the same colour and she is healed. In typical grateful Liliana fashion, she thanks the Raven Man by stabbing him and planeswalking away with the Chain Veil. I mean, stabbing your saviour is a bit of a dick move.

Liliana, enthralled by her experience decides to annihilate some more demons because she doesn’t have a better idea right now. She heads back to Innistrad to kill Griselbrand but can’t find him since he’s stuck in the Helvault. Garruk shows up and tries to splat her, but Innistrad isn’t short of local meatshields, so she sends a few dozen zombies to keep the guy occupied and escapes. At this stage Garruk is simply a nuisance in comparison to her other problems. Like a big, meaty bad penny with an axe the size of a tree. She heads to Thraben for answers while its under siege by the duo Gisa and Geralf. Mikaeus the Lunarch has already been killed in the battle, and so with her usual respect for the fallen, Liliana raises him from the dead to get her answers. She learns of the Helvault.

Flavourfully black cannot do anything to artifacts unless your name is Geth. It can however demand sacrifices. Liliana casts a spell that forces Thalia, the acting commander of the defence of Thraben, to either sacrifice her soldiers, or crack open a cold one the Helvault. Being the white-white character she is, Thalia smashes open the vault and all the demons (and Avacyn) are freed. Oh and Nahiri. Yeah, you can blame memerakul on Lilana kind of. Liliana tracks down big old G, slaughtering everything in her path (including angels, Liliana really hates angels). Using the Chain Veil, Griselbrand is no more. Easy? Nope.

The Chain Veil starts whispering to her, and this is when our all-powerful necromancer begins to remind me of the woes that beset John Nash. Now John Nash was a peculiar bloke in the beginning, but he was also a mathematical prodigy. This led him to massive success in his field, but the guy strived for more. Eventually people began approaching him for some pretty wild and exotic uses of his services, and wanting more to his life than occasionally teaching and working on cryptography, he agreed. This went on for many years, until eventually he was committed. It turned out that all these years, he had been working for people in his mind, doing jobs that didn’t exist, even imagining up his own roommate who he talked to and about to others frequently. He was utterly convinced that these people were real for years. Imagine having a best friend for a decade and then being told he didn’t exist. After stints in an out of psychiatric help, he maintained his sharp intelligence, but was besieged on a daily basis by his own brain, trying to convince him these people were real and these tasks he wanted to work on were a fabrication. Now, John Nash wasn’t aware of this until somebody else told him and convinced him. He had work colleagues, doctors, and a wife. Liliana has nothing, nobody. She’s hearing voices from the Chain Veil, she keeps seeing this Raven Man, so she’s convinced that the spirits in the Veil are real, and the Raven Man is some kind of planeswalking capable asshole of some kind. Like John Nash, Liliana is powerful, driven, and convinced of herself.

She heads back to Shandalar to find her own answers. She’s then confronted by an angel guarding the entrance and basically melts the thing, all the while it mumbles than Liliana has become a vessel of the Onnake spirits wanting to release themselves. She then has a vision of the Onnake’s extinction event, again seeing the Raven Man as an architect of their destruction. She indicates to the spirits talking to her that she’d quite like to learn such a spell. Her cockiness only grows from this point. She reaches the alter where she found the veil, but her own body refuses to put it back. She raises an Onnake skeleton to obey her command to return the artifact, but it also refuses to comply. Upon de-animating the skeleton, it throws the veil back onto her. By now Liliana should probably recognise when her body is being hijacked. An Onnake spirit materialises in front of her and tells her she’s the vessel of the veil of deceit. She tries to kill the spirit using the Chain Veil, and at long last realises that the thing is slowly damaging her body. Mentally defeated, she planeswalks away. For once, Liliana accepts her fate. Briefly.

She heads back to Jace to manipulate her Victim once more, trying to persuade him to help her kill her two final demons. Back to that old chestnut. He’s angry with the way she dealt with Garruk at this stage however, as he and Nahiri have separately tried to help the cursed beast master. She invites Jace to dinner, but it’s interrupted by Gideon begging for help on Zendikar. Jace immediately accepts, and then Liliana moans how he’ll spare time for his friends but not his wife – in essence. She’s furiously jealous that somebody else can manipulate him to their every whim. Jace informs her bluntly, that Gideon asked nicely, whereas Liliana tried to seduce him. Liliana’s façade begins to crumble from here on, and when a chronically narcissistic person loses the power of their fake front, things begin to unravel. They begin to see a need to reaffirm their role to themselves and others. As a necromancer and narcissist, Liliana is beginning to develop a god complex, and the combined presence of the Chain Veil and the coming Emrakul are only too keen to feed it.

Back on Innistrad Liliana is sulking in her mansion. Jace tries to escape two werewolves after arriving on the plane, and Liliana uses some zombies to drive them off. Jace informs her that he’s searching for Sorin, and being a human of pure survival, Liliana warns Jace that that may not be such a good idea. Jace goes to the manor, goes a bit insane, and then returns to blame Liliana for everything that happened. He tries to break her brain a bit, but the Raven Man that is quite obviously inside her head protects her and tells her to kill Jace. As it happens, the Raven Man is quite afraid of Jace, because of course he’s a mind mage, and might find him lurking inside Liliana’s head should he delve too deeply. Liliana then tries to get some generic geistmage to exorcize the Onnake spirits from the Chain Veil with a witchbane orb, but unsurprisingly it does sweet F.A. Honestly at this point she’s desperate, and I think even she didn’t believe it would work, but she’s willing to try anything to escape attachments to anything. Vess just doesn’t like to be tied down, unless it’s with Jace’s cloak. Giggity.

Emrakul arrives, and the Gatewatch and Thraben are under attack by masses of Eldrazi horrors. Convincing herself that she doesn’t need Jace, Liliana tells herself that she needs the Gatewatch to need her, so that she can use them to kill her final two demons. Realistically both of these are true. She’s desperate, but also an Oppressor. A team of four young neo-walkers are probably just as easily impressed upon as she was when she was younger. Equally four mages with their own specialties are a handy tool for killing demons and not getting your hands too dirty. That is how an Oppressor sees these people – tools. Liliana raises a colossal army of zombies to drive back the horrors and Emrakul, she even thinks so highly of herself that she can take on the titan, calling herself Innistrad’s “Last Hope”. As it turns out, she quickly learns that the Chain Veil isn’t quite that powerful, and Emrakul begins to overpower her. The Chain Veil as well as the Raven Man pretty much begs her to escape with her life, thinking that they can’t possibly win against this thing. Multiple personality disorder aside, Liliana chooses her own fate. Miraculously Emrakul uses Tamiyo to seal herself into Innistrad’s moon and the whole group survives. Jace asks Tamiyo to join the Gatewatch (she thankfully declines) and instead, as second choice, they ask Liliana to join. That worked out well didn’t it Vess? She agrees to their childish terms, knowing full well she has no intention of following their code unless it happens to coincide with some demons.

Liliana is short on patience however, and has a subtle distaste for wasting time on things that don’t concern her. The Kaladesh story comes to fruition, and Liliana notes a possibly entry into the good books of the highly impressionable and entirely chaotic Chandra Nalaar. The arrival of Dovin Baan triggers Chandra’s fury at the Consulate on her home plane, and Liliana plays on it. She takes Chandra under her wing, concealing the usual Oppressor tendencies, and instead takes on a role of Rescuer. She encourages Chandra to share her story, and then tells Chandra she should take revenge on Baral, Emperor Palpatine style.

They come across Tezzeret and Liliana pretty much flips her lid. She tells Chandra that Tezz is dangerous (and we know he’ll do just about anything to survive, same as Liliana), and they need to retreat. The rest of the Gatewatch arrive and scald Liliana for flying off with Chandra so fleetingly. Not wanting to risk her importance in the group, she heads back to her favourite tool and vouch man Jace, convincing him and Gideon to come to Kaladesh. Basically Jace will stick up for her when she does Liliana things. Who needs to convince a team themselves when they can have the defacto leader do it for them?

They join forces with the rebel scumrenegades and take on the consulate, blowing up some ships, confronting Tezzeret in the arena, only to have him escape and rob all the inventions from the fair. Liliana dispatches some troops rather too permanently for Gideon, he moans, but she snaps back at him as though he were a naïve child. You were like him too Vess, at some stage. She says she needs to strike at Tezzeret directly, because he won’t fight fair. She reveals that she’s a little more than weak in the knees for Jace, and wants to hurt Sucker-T for hurting Jace all those years ago. Liliana has somehow grown empathy. She heads off with Saheeli and finds Rashmi, the creator of the planar bridge, and brings her back to the renegades. The Gatewatch are now aware that Tezzeret has interplaner travel tech.

She convinces Gids to let her take on Tezzeret, as a cunning distraction for the Gatewatch to destroy the Planar Bridge. Suddenly she opts to use undead minions to “scare away” the consulate soldiers instead of killing them, leading us to briefly believe she’s taking the Gatewatch’s non-lethal approach some serious consideration. She makes it to Tezzeret and they then commence the most underwhelming planeswalker battle in the history of Magic™. Tezzeret initially believes Bolas sent Liliana to check on his progress. He then informs him He then tells Liliana Bolas is hidden on Amonkhet, where her third demon Razaketh is located. Before she can finish him off, the Gideon-Chandra missile hits and blows the whole fucking spire to bits. Tezzeret escapes with the core of the planar bridge. Liliana then suggests they head straight to Amonkhet to take Bolas on without giving him chance to prepare. What she actually means is, come to this god forsaken plane so I can kill my demon and escape while you all get fisted by the most powerful (known) planeswalker in the multiverse.

On Amonkhet more Chain Veil shenanigans ensue. Liliana gets eaten by a giant worm, but reveals to the Gatewatch that she used the Chain Veil to decompose the worm from the inside. What actually happened was the Raven Man assumed control over her body to prevent her death, using the power of the Chain Veil to kill it. They come across the gods, and the city of Naktamun, and she takes note of the mummified servants. She also derides the gods, as the only gods she knew were hubristic planeswalkers. She should know, she was one of them pre-mending.

The Gatewatch continues with the story, while Liliana… gets fed grapes and uses the mummified servants to her advantage. The Raven Man returns, warning her that she had gotten soft. The voice inside her head has noticed her change from egotistical psychopath to egotistical psychopath with a developing conscience. Jace approaches and he vanishes again, hoping to avoid his cover being blown. They follow one of Liliana’s shades and discover Razaketh’s true involvement in the afterlife and the plane itself. The mummies set upon them and they escape.

The gate opens when the Second Sun rests between Bolas’ horned statue, and Razaketh is revealed. This demon is vastly more powerful than the previous two. He can assume direct control over Liliana’s body (it’s become the town bicycle at this point). It’s a brutal reminder that Liliana is never truly free until every person involved in her soul’s enslavement is ended. He toys with her, but the Gatewatch come to her aid. They distract her long enough to raise some undead crocodiles and tear apart and eat the demon. It’s noted viscerally that Liliana actively relishes the act of consuming the demon via the animals she has raised, and brings us back to the harsh reality that despite all the pretence, Liliana is still cracked mentally. Bolas appears, whips the Gatewatch’s collective asses, and gives Liliana the option to betray her friends and await his command, or die. Liliana is a being of selfish desires, but most importantly, the raw desire to simply survive. She escapes, with other members of the Gatewatch as witnesses to her betrayal. A harsh reminder that she is not allowed attachments to potential Rescuers, and any attempts to do so will be met by harsh consequences. It’s also a blunt reminder that she is still at the mercy of Bolas and her remaining demon, Belzenlok.

She planeswalks to Dominaria to kill her final demon. As a writer, I am fully aware that the death of Belzenlok may not yield the results she hopes; in fact things may only grow more complicated for our psychopathic Oppressor. She is so singularly focused on one goal; she cannot see the forest for the trees. The only solution to the actors of the Drama Triangle is to deprive them of their payoff. Liliana’s superiority is crumbling, her authority is waning in the face of multiple actors within the group, and the blame has shifted significantly since their encounter with Bolas. Liliana’s role as an Oppressor is coming to an end. Three solutions remains – she leaves the triangle as a better person, she becomes a Victim, or, most likely, she ceases living.

#MTG MTG Story Dominaria Liliana Vess

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simplyoriginalcharacters · 7 years

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Grace Adams

Questions:

1. Is the character of Grace believable as an entity?

2. Is the backstory convoluted/too complicated? If so, or even if not, do you have any feedback on the background?

3. Do the other characters in the story come across as ‘props’? I’m doing my best to really flesh them out as well, but I don’t want them to simply be there for the usage of the main character to develop. Also, thoughts on the archetypes used as supporting characters? Are they too stereotypical/cliche given the context?

If you have any questions about the content of this post, or if I left out anything major, please let me know, and I will see if I can sort it out! Thank you!

Name: Grace Adams

Age: 23

Appearance:

Ethnicity: African American

Hair: Black, worn long and often tied back

Eyes: Black

Height: 5'6"

Weight: 150 lbs.

Fashion sense: understated and deliberately not ostentatious; generally composed of beanies, sweatshirts, long sleeve shirts, and leggings or jeans.

Cori here! Read the rest of this profile and review under the cut.

History: Born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Grace Adams was raised to believe in the merits of hard work, faith, and family by her welder father Joseph and homemaker mother Angela. Grace excelled in school and fostered a curious and often confrontational nature which was fostered by her mother but clashed against her teachers, religious leaders, and even her somewhat conservative father. When Grace was beginning her senior year of high school, Angela was diagnosed with lymphoma and was forced to spend months at a time hospitalized. This embittered Grace from her faith in God and further strained her already-tenuous relationship with her father. Burying herself in her studies, Grace graduated in the top 5% of students in her class and was accepted into the honors program of Louisiana State University. Despite her father’s request to take a semester off to help him take care the house and her mother, Angela encouraged Grace to pursue her dream of becoming an evolutionary biologist. Joseph angrily cut ties with his daughter, and Grace gained her bachelor’s degree in biology a semester earlier than expected, feeling as though she would be letting her mother down and proving her father right if she returned home before her degree was completed.

In the winter of 2018, the semester before Grace was to begin her Masters of Evolutionary Biology program at LSU, she received an email from a former professor informing her about an internship opportunity with Cambridge University that would give her more practical experience in her field and better prepare her for the program. Grace jumped at the opportunity to create distance between herself, her father, and her mother’s worsening condition and contacted Cambridge to make the proper arrangements. That May, Grace made her way to the UK and to the home/laboratory of the professor with whom she would be interning: Dr. Roger Renfield, PhD. Though initially not too concerned with the professor’s standoffish demeanor and nocturnal habits, Grace eventually deduces that the strange and grotesque experiments that Renfield performs are evidence of something sinister, and she discovers that Renfield is in fact a vampire who has been attempting for almost 150 years to discover a scientific remedy for his condition. After learning the truth, Grace surprises Renfield by showing not horror but genuine interest in his condition and his attempts to cure himself.

The story itself revolves around the attempts by Renfield and Grace to cure vampirism in a purely biomedical fashion as well as to catalogue the various other species of monstrous beings that exist in their world in a genetic compendium titled the “Manners of Beast”. This process often involves Grace going on location to take photographs, collect biological samples, and hear the stories of various monstrous characters in order to fully understand the ‘dark side’ of the world outside human detection while also coming to terms with the idea that reason and spirituality can and often must go hand in hand while interpreting the world, all the while crossing paths with nefarious bodies looking to capitalize on the division between human and monster.

Personality: Grace is, by her own expression, a skeptic: a person who takes nothing at face-value and does not believe much of anything outside of what can be perceived through observation or research. Grace’s main motivation is initially the pursuit of knowledge, really for its own sake, and she takes her role as ‘field researcher’ in stride for this end, even though this could potentially put her in danger. Grace is also confrontational and headstrong in her skepticism with a very ‘f*** your feelings’ attitude towards others that she sees as less educated or as being ideologically motivated by something like religion. This cold, analytical exterior begins to crack over time as she is forced into situations with others facing their own tragedies, such as a newly-turned vampire who she is forced to talk out of suicide by sun exposure and the struggles of a destitute family of monsters forced to turn to hunting humans for food. Grace has a tendency to bury her head in her field when 'the going gets rough’ and feelings become too involved, but when her field becomes very much one of feelings during her travels, she becomes more compassionate and even begins to sympathize with the creatures she and every other human had been taught to fear hiding in their closets.

Hobbies: Chess, debating, photography, reading, jogging. Most of her time is dedicated to her work, so she doesn’t have much time for hobbies.

Abilities: Unlike the various mortal and immortal beings surrounding her, Grace possesses mostly the same physical and mental abilities of a young human woman of her general age bracket. She is however an excellent debater, researcher, and detective due to her headstrong curiosity and general lack of fear in most situations. Later in the story, Grace learns how to channel basic levels of magical energy under the tutelage of a demonic companion, but she is unable to tap into any large amount of magic, limiting her to what a normal human would be able to do after extensive practice, such as minor protective charms.

Relationships (first established): Joseph Adams (father): Grace’s relationship with her father is initially very strained, as both of them have a tendency to retreat inward when confronted with hardship they do not know how to handle. Though they are very alike in personality, Grace resents her father for seeming to be weak in the face of Angela’s illness. However, Grace learns to forgive her father and empathize with him after her travels.

Angela Adams (mother): Grace tends to idealize her mother as this Amazonian standard of a woman before her illness, and she aspires to be the same ideal person someday herself. Grace deeply loves her mother and this feeling is reciprocated.

Dr. Roger Renfield: Grace initially regards the haughty and aloof Renfield with respect but also disdain. This feeling however begins to change into a more friendly mentor-mentee scenario once Grace learns of his condition. Renfield is metaphorically symbolic of the logical parts of Grace’s personality, blinded to that which cannot be quantified and defiant in the face of what it cannot explain on its own. This puts her at odds with Bethany.

Sister Bethany: The matron of the home for girls in which Grace initially stays during her time in England. A devout Catholic, Bethany tends to irritate Grace with her rituals and spiritualism, but Grace also respects the unending kindness that comes from the woman and her seeming peace with her place in the world. Bethany is symbolic of the emotional parts of Grace’s personality that she buries, seeking good in others and meaning in the world, and often disregarding that which she disagrees with as incorrect or unimportant.

Jude: A former drug addict and newly-transformed vampire that is 'captured’ as a specimen for experimentation on a cure for vampirism. Grace at first attempts to ignore the 'subject’s’ distress and sadness at his predicament and justifies it with the hope that their work will be for the betterment of mankind. However, Grace begins to grow close to Jude through her evaluations of him and learns of his inability to be near his ex-wife or young daughter for fear of harming them. Jude eventually becomes the main impetus for Grace trying to find the cure, and his eventual death at the hands of the antagonist Mina is what prompts her to continue her research with Renfield even after her internship has ended.

Before I get into the main part of my review, I just want to say that I REALLY liked reading about this character. I would read this book in a heartbeat if you published it. Now let’s get into it! My first point of criticism for you is that I’d really like to see more details in Grace’s ‘appearance’ section. When I inserted the Read More link, I was surprised to see that I’d actually isolated the entire appearance section. With all of the great details in Grace’s history and personality, I’m disappointed that I don’t have a better idea of what she looks like. The phrase ‘African American’ covers a wide variety of skin tones and facial features. What is Grace’s skin tone? What kind of hair does she have, and how is it styled? What shape are her eyes, nose, and face? What’s her body type? I’m going to jump to the personality section here–we’ll cover Grace’s history section in a little bit. I prefer to read about a character’s personality before I read about their history, because it makes the most sense in the context of getting to know someone. That said, I think Grace’s personality is well-rounded and her attitude seems to match well with her family history–she’s spent a lot of time distancing herself from her own emotions and expects other people to be the same way. I’d be interested in seeing a few more details here–for example, how do her confrontations with people who are ‘less educated’ or ideologically motivated go? How patient is she in attempting to make others agree with her viewpoints? How does that affect the way her other colleagues and friends see her? And speaking of friends–how willing is Grace to spare the feelings of someone she likes, but believes is ‘wrong’? I want to see how Grace handles her confrontational attitude and what kind of things she can let slide before it goes too far and makes her upset. Moving on! I don’t actually have a lot to say about Grace’s history, because you seem to have covered all of the important things. I don’t think it’s convoluted at all; it feels like a very realistic situation (especially for me, someone who’s butted heads with her dad all her life). I feel like I have a really clear picture of how Grace’s life has gone up to this point, so well done! I am curious about the relationship between her parents–if Angela was so keen on letting Grace follow her dreams even though Joseph wanted her to stay, how did that affect their relationship with each other? Was Grace hoping to keep things between herself and her father civil until he cut her off?

To answer your question concerning Grace’s relationships, I feel like they all present ways for Grace to learn about herself and grow as a person. If you’re concerned about them being too one-noted, my suggestion would be to give them a bit of nuance. I’m getting a little bit of that from Sister Bethany’s description–to Grace, Bethany seems to be completely at peace and her faith seems to come easily. But standing firm in your belief can be difficult at times, and Bethany’s probably had more than one moment where she’s questioned her life and her beliefs. I got a lot of that nuance from Jude, as well, so it seems like you’ve got a lot of good things planned for all your characters. For the sake of Grace’s profile, however, I don’t need a complete breakdown of each supporting character. The information you’ve already given me is enough.

All in all, this profile was very fun to read and I’m already imagining a ton of fun things that you could be doing with Grace’s story. If her appearance section had the same amount of attention and care as the rest of her profile, I would have very little to criticize. Good work! ~Cori

#SOC Critique #OC Critique #Backstory Help #Development Help #submission

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