#and it's ALL just this arc. which i mean has a lot of *intentional* foreshadowing too but like. | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

elijahs-dumps · 2 months

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Cassandra and her villain arc; was it bad? Let's discuss... (Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure)

Just wanted to say before we dive in, I'm currently working on a piece about Gonzo from the Muppets and some Hazbin Hotel stuff too. So stay tuned;)

Cassandra was mainly portrayed as snarky, cold, and even a little rude. She's almost a perfect opposite to Rapunzel, which makes them interesting friends. And it's nice that Rapunzel has another girl she can rely on, since I personally believe female friendships are important in media. Within the TV series, Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure, Cassandra is often seen budding heads with Eugene or helping with Rapunzel's misadventures. And as the show goes on, we see Cassandra actively looking out for Rapunzel more and more.

Even though Cass states many times in the first two seasons that she loves and cares for Raps, their relationship is quite unstable through out the show even before she became a main antagonist. Let's take a look at their relationship pre-season two to get a better understanding:

For example, in The Challenge of the Brave (S1 E4) when Raps joins the challenge, Cass feels like Raps is being a bad friend by trying to win something that means so much to her. She's annoyed by Raps' ignorance, and jealous of the admiration Raps is receiving. Yet, Cass never even told Raps how much the contest means to her. So instead of communicating her feelings, Cass starts to act more snappy with Raps and actively tries to get Raps eliminated from the game. However, it's not unreasonable for Raps to be unaware of Cass' wishes, especially since she struggles with social cue. Regardless of the fact that Cass should've been more patient with Raps, I think this episode would've been nice foreshadowing to her change of heart in season three if they didn't try to paint Cass as the victim in this episode. I don't understand why only Raps apologized, when they both should've acknowledged their wrongs.

In Under Raps (S1 E9), Rapunzel tries to make Cass feel better about being single by making her things and showing her appreciation for Cass. When this happens, Cass sort of gets annoyed for no reason even though Rapunzel's intentions are sweet. She doesn't even really verbalize if Raps is pushing boundaries or not, she's just... frustrated?

This doesn't relate to Rapunzel directly, but in Great Expotations (S1 E8) Cass uses Varian to get what she wants. Even though she does make up for it, it's still a testament to her character. Cass often acts without thinking about how others might feel or think, and the way she treats Raps in season one is a prime example of that. She does take into account how naive and ignorant Raps can be, but she refuses to show any patience for it as Raps recovers from literally being isolated for eighteen years. And Cass is supposed to be Raps' best friend! It's the same with Varian. You see, Cass isn't really a bad person. She just wants her moment in the spotlight, her moment to prove herself. In these episodes, that's often what drives her to make these mistakes towards her friends. This would be a great character flaw, and an interesting writing concept. But this show keeps having Cass in this same situation again and again, and she never grows from it. It gets old very fast.

Not to mention, Cass also tried to force Raps not to tell Eugene how she got her hair back when it first happened. All because Cass "doesn't trust Eugene". I thought this was strange, because I don't really know what kind of friend asks someone to lie to their significant other.

In the flashback episode, Beginnings (S3 E6), we learn that Cass never wanted to be friends with Raps to begin with, and there was a lot of guilty undertones on Cass' part of the relationship at least in its early stages from what we can see. Raps clearly latched onto Cass way too fast, because she was still fresh out of the tower when they met. And Cass wasn't ready to be what Raps needed (which was therapy). Cass was Raps' first friend besides Pascal, and I don't understand why Cass would take on that role if she wasn't going to put in the effort to at least try and be compassionate and understanding with Raps.

Moving on to season two, Cass didn't really do anything of substance until The Great Tree episode (S2 E14) which is a little weird in hindsight. But I thought her insecurities about needing to prove herself and how she always feel second place to Raps were pretty justified. We saw a couple times through out the series that people preferred Raps over Cass, or gave Raps opportunities when Cass worked harder for them. Still, I don't feel like that's Raps' fault. Waiting in the Wings did a perfect job of illustrating Cass' feelings on this subject, and it even made me like her more as a character because it gave her so much more depth. Still, the song talks about how Cass is going to keep waiting until her moment in the sun arrives no matter what, which contradicts her villain arc quite a bit considering the fact she did not wait at all. Anyway, I think Cass trying to insinuate that Raps doesnt trust her judgement anymore in these episodes was BULLSHIT. Raps clearly loves and values Cass, and trusts her completely. All Raps did was mkae a call that Cass didn't agree with, I dont think this meant that Raps wasn't listening or wasn't trusting Cass. The two of them simply disagreed on it, which they do all the time.

Technically, the thing that pushes Cass off the edge is the fact that she finds out she's Mother Gothel's biological daughter. But there was one other incident that set this villain arc into motion before the episodes within the House of Yesterday's Tomorrows. Cassandra's hand wound from Rapunzel.

When Cass injuries her hand during the final fight within the Great Tree, she blames Raps for it even after they talk it out and apologize. I didn't understand this at all, because yes Cass warned Raps not to use the decay incantation. But it's not like they had any other choice! And Raps was not in control of herself or the tree when Cass got injured. Not only this, but Raps also told Cass to leave before anything even happened. Why is Cass upset with Raps for not listening to her when she wouldn't listen to Raps either?

The season three opening episode, Rapunzel's Return (S3 E1), shows us exactly what Cass saw in the House of Yesterday's Tomorrows. We learn that Cass is Gothel's real daughter, and this is a huge turning point in the series. Because in this episode, Cassandra's entire villain arc stopped being about her own struggles and insecurities and how she's felt second place to Rapunzel this whole time, it became about the fact that Gothel chose Raps over Cass. I felt like this was a lazy writing choice, to make it seem like Cass' feelings of being inferior to Raps are more justified. But honestly, I think her villain arc could've stood well on it own if they just planted to the smaller seeds of doubt earlier on, and didn't involve Gothel in it. Of all people. Gothel is a naturally selfish woman who would never do anything that doesn't serve some kind of purpose for her. I find it hard to belief she kept Cass around simply to do house work around her cottage instead of just dumping Cass at an orphanage of some kind.

I also feel the need to mention the fact that Cass was absent for almost 12 episodes in a row, during what is supposed her season as the antagonist and her moment to have the spotlight, probably has something to do with why her writing in season three came out so half-baked. Combining this with the fact that her change of heart was only really hinted at in maybe five out of the forty-five episodes, episodes in which the conflict involving Cass' character is always resolved by the end, makes her entire villain arc seem out of character at first glance.

This season went to great lengths to make Cass' actions and attitude as nasty as possible, especially by having her show no remorse or doubts after Be Very Afraid (S3 E9). This is on of the reasons her redemption arc fell flat.

In A Tale of Two Sisters (S3 E14), we see the last bit of Cass' doubt be outweighed by her need to blame someone for the way Gothel abandoned her. So, she blames Rapunzel. But Cass knows Gothel was sick and abusive towards Raps, and she also knows it's not Raps' fault she was kidnapped. After all their years of friendship, I didn't buy the concept that Cass would let her anger manifest in a way that would blame Raps for a traumatic event that happened to both of them.

While I'm well aware that Zhan Tiri has been manipulating Cass since the House of Yesterday's Tomorrows, it still didn't make Cass's villain arc anymore believable for me. It felt like the show's way of trying to excuse its own crappy writing.

Once a Handmaiden (S3 E16) is when Cass realizes Zhan Tiri has been manipulating her since the beginning, and begins to regret her choices. So Cass disguises herself as Rapunzel's current handmaiden to try and find a way to extend some kind of olive branch. This gives us a little more insight into the headspace Cass has been in these past few months, and it gives the audience more room to sympathize with her (especially in the play scene). Yet, when Zhan Tiri reveals Cass to everyone and the guards start attack her, Cass is quick to become incredibly angry, even though Raps was trying to call off the guards. Cass literally takes over the entire kingdom, almost killing hundreds of people after spending the whole day bonding with Raps like old times. While I have issues with the amber-firing machine Varian made, I feel like the switch up with Cass in this episode was absolutely insane.

Cassandra's redemption arc, if you can even call it that, completely fell apart because it was so rushed. It was similar to Varian's redemption arc in that sense, but even though Varian's redemption arc had flaws he was able to sort of get away with it. Varian's villain arc was shorter than Cass', his crimes weren't as bad as Cass'. and he served at least a year in jail anyway. Cass served no punishment for her actions and got to leave Corona scot-free. This also plays into the constant contradiction Cassandra goes through this season of soul-crushing remorse vs homicidal rage.

Considering Cass was one of our main three characters for the entire show, I just think she deserved better when it finally came time to give her some more depth and complexity. But what do you guys think? Do you think Cassandra's time as an antagonist was poorly executed? How do you think they could've fixed it? Feel free to let me know!

#tangled #cassandra tangled #rapunzel #tangled the series #tangled varian #tangled cassandra #eugene fitzherbert #analysis #moon cassandra #cassunzel #tts #rta #varian #rapunzels tangled adventure

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joys-of-everyday · 7 months

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SQQ(SY)'s character arc

Last time I talked about Shen Jiu's character arc, so this time, let's talk about Shen Yuan's character arc. Here's the theory of character arcs I'm working on for reference. If Shen Jiu's arc in SVSSS is an (abstract) redemption arc, then Shen Qingqiu (Shen Yuan) is an (abstract) enlightenment arc.

I say 'abstract' because I'm not talking about the spiritual enlightenment that 'enlightenment' often refers to, but the more general meaning of the word 'enlightened' aka. to have a better understanding or wisdom of something. Character arcs are often framed as 'goal-misbelief-truth' (good video on misbeliefs here) - the character works towards a 'goal' (which is not necessarily the 'truth'), is hindered by a 'misbelief', which is related to the 'truth'. Take Shen Qingqiu. His 'goal' is to get away from Luo Binghe. His 'misbelief' is that Luo Binghe wants to harm him. The 'truth' is that they love each other. When I say 'enlightenment arc', I'm referring to the specific way that Shen Qingqiu discovers this 'truth', not as a slow process of learning (a growth arc), but as a sudden moment of revelation. There are two points that this occurs - first in the dreamscape where Shen Qingqiu realises Luo Binghe's intentions, and second on Maigu Ridge, where Shen Qingqiu realises he's been hurting Luo Binghe all along.

Let's talk about enlightenment arcs

I made this up. Someone might have already done this (it feels like a natural thing to think about). If you've come across this/thought about this, please let me know >.<

To be clear, enlightenment arcs are not constrained to certain cultures, and are not that uncommon either. Here's a Western example: in the 2021 film Don't Look Up, Randall discovers a 'truth'. All along, what he cared about wasn't arguing with people online or hooking up with sexy news presenters; it was the time spent with his friends and family. The 'moment of revelation' is very sudden, probably less than 15mins in the film. Enlightenment arcs underpin a lot of romantic comedy, where the revelation is in the form 'A likes B'. Secondly, enlightenment arcs aren't just 'super fast growth'. They're structured in a way that is fundamentally different from a growth arc. Whilst growth arcs may have 'moments of revelation' where the truth fully hits the character (those 'power of friendship' moments), they're still building on things that the character has been discovering up to that point. Meanwhile, an enlightenment arc contains a fundamental turning point. An 'it was all a lie' moment.

But also, enlightenment arcs are arcs, not just moments. You can't just 180 in the middle of an arc and go 'so they discovered the truth and were forever changed'. That will probably leave readers severely dissatisfied. The 'moment of revelation' requires serious set up, some parts of which I want to demonstrate with Shen Qingqiu's arc in SVSSS.

1. The audience/reader should know your 'truth' well before the revelation

A twist without foreshadowing is... kind of just annoying. If in the middle of a sports story, the MC suddenly decides actually the industry is screwed and sports competitions are unethical, then rides off into the sunset with the love of their life having decided happiness and comfort is more important... well good for them, but it would be awful to read. By the time the revelation comes around, the reader should at least be able to acknowledge why the 'truth' is what it is.

For SVSSS, it is abundantly clear right from the start that Luo Binghe is madly in love with Shen Qingqiu. Luo Binghe might as well be holding a sign in red flashing lights which says 'I love you' at all times. The second revelation is... more subtle. From Luo Binghe's return from the abyss to the start of the holy mausoleum, we're led to believe that Luo Binghe is this yandere character who killed resident cinnamon roll Gongyi Xiao out of jealousy. But almost as soon as the first revelation (Shen Qingqiu discovers Luo Binghe is in love with him) is done and dusted, we're led straight into uncovering the second revelation.

In succession we learn that 1) when Shen Qingqiu tells Luo Binghe to leave him alone, he does, to Shen Qingqiu's surprise 2) Luo Binghe wasn't responsible for the sowers (start of Mausoleum) 3) Luo Binghe goes to great lengths to protect Shen Qingqiu (Mausoleum) 4) Luo Binghe wasn't murder boy actually. That was Zhuzhi-Lang all along (demon realm scene) 5) Luo Binghe is a sad wet puppy who needs a hug (tea scene in flash back) 6) Bingmei isn't like Bingge at all (end of flashback) 7) Bingmei has separation anxiety

All along the way, Shen Qingqiu's care for Luo Binghe is also reiterated. We learn that Shen Qingqiu is willing to go through great pain to protect Luo Binghe, and that he would rather face down the entire cultivation world than leave him. By the time Maigu Ridge comes around (chapter 21 in Seven Seas translation), the revelation is natural.

Note: the 'truth' can be ambiguous. In Everything Everywhere All At Once (great film!) 'truth'=googly eye. Interpret that as you will. (As in, of course all of this is alluding to something like 'human connection good' or 'meaninglessness and absurdity is fine actually', but it's felt rather than told.)

2. The character is completely missing the mark most of the time

In an enlightenment arc, before the revelation, the character is completely oblivious to the 'truth' and is often actively working against it for the majority of the time. This is what separates an enlightenment arc from a growth arc - the dissonance between the message the reader is getting from step 1, and the actions of the main character. You probably recognise the vibe: characters that are 'oblivious', 'frustrating', 'why are they so dumb?!!!! (affectionate)'. Or characters who are pitifully drowning in their faults/traumas and are pushing away the people trying to warn them.

Pulling this off is a technical skill. A Silent Voice does this in a really cool way, with dissonance between Ishida and Nishimiya's actions, combined with the eerie quality of the music, portraying Ishida's complete obliviousness to a really important thing that will soon hit him like truck. A lot of people have written cool posts about Shen Qingqiu's obliviousness to both Luo Binghe's feelings and his own feelings. I wrote a short post here on Liu Qingge's role in this for SVSSS. In summary, how to create romantic tension without telling your MC:

Have your MC obsessed with the love interest, but in an 'appreciating objective beauty' way

Have your love interest be obsessed with MC, but make MC allergic to sensible logical deductions

Wife plot your MC

Liu Qingge (with help from Gongyi Xiao)

3. But just before the moment of revelation, the character should be in a position to understand the 'truth'

Everything in an enlightenment arc is building towards a moment of revelation, but this moment is extremely fast. There is basically no time for character development, so you need your character to be ready for the 'truth' before the moment happens, e.g. maturity or life experiences or wtv. If you told Shen Qingqiu at the beginning of SVSSS that Luo Binghe will fall in love with him and he needs to look after him or cause pain, he would probably laugh in your face. Some maturing has to happen before he is capable of realising this. This kind of character development is the same as in any arc and there's lots out there on some of the ways to do it, so I won't go into this. However, in an enlightenment arc, this is uniquely difficult to pull off. Because for a long part of the arc, the MC is increasingly ready for the 'truth', but makes no progress towards finding it. (If they did, it would be a growth arc.)

Here's two techniques to make this work.

The first technique is to withdraw information from the MC. They might be ready for the truth, but they don't know it because.... they just don't know. For Shen Qingqiu's first revelation (Luo Binghe is in love with him) he finds out because Luo Binghe kisses him. This is information he didn't have before (that Luo Binghe wants to kiss him), so when he gets it, that forces a change in his world view.

But one has to be extremely careful with this - since you need the readers to be aware of the 'truth' and the MC to not be, this can rapidly devolve into the hated (badly done) misunderstandings trope (misunderstandings can be done well. This is an easy way to do them badly).

The second technique is to distract your MC. They are too stressed/traumatised to think straight. ('aaah he wants to kill me' -> 'he's in love with me' is obviously a big leap and the 'aaaah' feeling is hard to get out of) They are too focused on their goal and the rewards that this is giving them to stop and think. (For Shen Qingqiu Operation run away from Luo Binghe/stop Tianlang-Jun takes too much precessing power while they're in action) Or maybe their misbeliefs cause them to shrug off evidence of the 'truth' and diverts their thoughts to other things ('he doesn't like women' + 'protagonist can't be gay' -> 'he must be asexual' ...??? I love the SQQ logic)

This is used for both of Shen Qingqiu's revelations, but relies on it more heavily in the second half (in part because of practicalities. The second revelation is also largely about Shen Qingqiu's internal feelings, which is not something an external event can give you information about). Note that as Shen Qingqiu gets closer to the final revelation, the 'distractions' get stronger. Regret of Chunshan causing Shen Qingqiu to feel humiliation and embarrassment. Tianlang-Jun threatening to destroy the world. Luo Binghe's declining reputation and increasingly unpredictable behaviour. All of these are work to prevent Shen Qingqiu from self-reflecting on his relationship with Luo Binghe.

This kind of escalation is important for an enlightenment arc, because that's how tension is built. Think of it like a spring. The more energy you store in it, the more dramatic the release is.

4. Making your 'moment of revelation' hit home

In an enlightenment arc, absolutely everything rests on a single moment. Get this wrong, and the whole arc falls flat.

I say moment of revelation, but the 'moment of revelation' might be an entire episode or chapter, or even longer. A moment of revelation is a transformation, and here it is 'very fast growth'. Actually discontinuous character arcs aren't usually advisable, so there should be a natural sequence of things happening that get you from A to B. Often, there is a external driving force (or 'small scenario pusher') which forces the MC to confront the 'truth'. Alongside this, there may be a series of thoughts the MC has, dispelling the misbelief and arriving at the 'truth'. In visual media, moments of revelation can be given impact by having a definitive moment where an actual thing happens e.g. Music changes, symbolic cues, use of colour palettes and lighting etc.

Some popular forms of 'revelation' include

- a conversation, where the MC is told the 'truth'. ('I love you!' proclaims the love interest. 'Oh wow who could have guessed,' says the main character.)

- a conversation, where the MC is told the 'misbelief', but dramatically counters it with the 'truth'. ('you're just like me,' says the villain. 'No, I'm not!' says the hero.)

- an event, which forces the MC to question and disregard their 'misbelief'. ('I'm all alone' thinks the MC, but when they wake up in hospital, they are surrounded by friends.)

- exposition (often used in writing, for first person, or third person limited) where the MC's thought process is explained

MXTX leans very heavily into exposition, and the second Shen Qingqiu revelation is all of chapter 21 (Seven Seas), which includes like 10 paragraphs of straight text (in the original serialisation, this was chapters 78-81). This long 'moment of revelation' is a good opportunity to dissect one way a 'moment of revelation' can unfold.

1. The doubt. The closure of Tianlang-Jun's story (a story of hatred and betrayal turned to one of love and sacrifice) works as a final bit of foreshadowing, while Luo Binghe's descent into madness shakes Shen Qingqiu terribly.

Upon hearing him admit to his lunacy, Shen Qingqiu's heart spasmed with a dull pain. "Binghe, get away from that sword first," he said quietly. "The farther the better."

2. The realisation. Next we have Yue Qingyuan's reveal (a story of loyalty and sacrifice gone wrong because of miscommunication). Shen Qingqiu has an 'oh fuck' moment in the middle of this, then immediately after starts to throw off his misbeliefs and starts making his deductions towards the 'truth'.

Everyone said Luo Binghe had gone mad. Even he himself had smiled and admitted it. Xin Mo, which Luo Binghe had finally managed to suppress after a million words of struggle in the original work, had gained the upper hand in this struggle and invaded Luo Binghe's mind. This wasn't a result of one or two events, but a slow accumulation over time, until finally it had completely erupted. Numerous signs had long since made themselves apparent, but Shen Qingqiu had never noticed. Or perhaps he should say that he'd never realized that Luo Binghe was actually so insecure, to the point of having an inferiority complex.

3. The reflection. With this realisation in hand, Shen Qingqiu continues to think about all the things that he's done that has hurt Luo Binghe and seeks to fix the wrongs, ending with the (in)famous Maigu ridge papapa.

Why hadn't he told him earlier? It was just like Shen Qingqiu and Luo Binghe. Why hadn't he told him earlier? If he hadn't been so cavalier, so full of conjecture, Luo Binghe might never have darkened. He could have remained the sweet and bashful disciple he'd been on Qing Jing Peak.

4. The big truth reveal. And finally Shen Qingqiu's 'truth' is made clear. He loves Luo Binghe, has always loved Luo Binghe, and wants nothing more than for him to lead a happy life. And in turn, Luo Binghe loves him, not in dark yandere demon lord way, but a child who wants security, having been thrown away so many times.

Shen Qingqiu made sure to emphasize every word. "If I were her, no matter how venomous that drug was, I would have drunk it down without hesitation, then escaped the Water Prison. Afterward, I would draw all its effects into my own body. No matter how agonizing the process, no matter if the price would be complete destruction of my marital aspect, no matter if it meant a horrible death: I absolutely would not allow my child to suffer even an ounce of harm."

He'd only ever been a child. Walking the world alone, tripping and stumbling countless times. Wanting only those few things, yet never able to grasp them. If only Shen Qingqiu had realized this earlier, he thought, he'd have definitely... definitely...

5. The acceptance. With the truth out, Shen Qingqiu's mental crisis is over. He accepts the change, and is happy to die with Luo Binghe.

"Dying together" also included a "together". It didn't seem that bad.

((Completely for fun, and if you're HxH fan, let's see how this template works in a different story. In HxH (big spoiler alert!). Meruem in the Chimera Ant Arc has an enlightenment arc. (You can tell because there's 6 panels where everything goes white.) The 'moment of revelation' starts quite slowly, and ends with a 12 page climax (in the manga). 1. Meruem doubts Pouf and suspects he is missing something important in his memories. 2. He is suddenly reminded of Komugi 3. Meruem recalls his time with Komugi and has Big Feelings. 4. Meruem's feelings are acknowledged. 5. Meruem walks off, having not killed a traitor, indicating he has no more desire to lead the Ants.))

Summary

I hope I have convinced you that Shen Qingqiu's character arc in SVSSS is an enlightenment arc, in that the discovery of his 'truth' is a sudden, dramatic reveal, and that this was interesting run down of some of the ways MXTX makes this work :3 As ever, comments/complaints/suggestions are greatly welcomed.

Acknowledgement

All this theory on character arcs was heavily inspired off these video essays on character arcs:

Hello Future Me's video on redemption arcs

Schnee's video on madness arcs

#svsss #svsss meta #shen qingqiu #shen yuan

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hamliet · 1 year

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Hi! Can I ask your opinion on Cinder X Jaune as a ship?

As in, do I like it, or do I think it has any canon basis?

My answers are basically fun crackship and then not at all, respectively.

For my personal tastes, the only RWBY ships that fill me with feels are Rosegarden and Emercury. I do like Bumbleby, Arkos, Renora, White Knight as they've been written. Cinder/Jaune is like Nuts n Dolts to me--I see why people like it and mad kudos to them. It's just not for me.

The ship, as best I can tell, is based on the fact that Cinder and Jaune absolutely do have a role to play in each other's arcs, and Jaune is absolutely going to be pivotal to Cinder's redemption. The fandom does often sleep on this. I can see why people would have a lot of fun exploring it. Enjoy!

Insofar as canon goes, I think that it has no basis because to interpret their roles in each other's arcs as romantic means misinterpreting the context of the story and the coding of their roles within said story.

I will explain more under the cut because I know I have followers who like the ship and please do enjoy it.

By coding, I do mean age coding. But not in the way antis mean it, not at all. Age gap wise, Jaune and Cinder don't have anything extreme--in fact, it's pretty negligible. That said, to take their ages literally only works in the context of fandom arguments, and so ship to your heart's content!

Within the story, though, Cinder is coded as an adult. Jaune is coded as a child. Coding in stories is not to be taken to extremes like, say, antis or anti-antis take it. There is such a thing as child-adult coding, but it's not the creepy thing people make it out to be. For example, look to Bungo Stray Dogs coding Dazai as a mentor/adult above Akutagawa even though there are only two years between them. There's nothing weird about shipping it, but the story is using this coding for a reason--to tell you about the particular dynamic and what to expect. The story will obviously never go there. Yes, it's a coming of age story like RWBY, but the point is that they aren't coded as peers.

In RWBY, Emerald and Mercury are presented as peers of RWBYJNPR in the Vytal Festival, and Cinder is presented as being above them, as a mentor, as a parental figure, at each and every turn. The reason this matters is not to say that Jaune and Cinder can't be shipped without creepiness (it's not creepy at all), but it matters because coding can tell you a lot about the intentions of the writers.

There's also alchemical coding, in which opposites should unite. Opposites, like say Bumbleby and Rosegarden and Renora, are:

Gold, red, heart, sun, hot and dry, fire, air

Silver, white, mind, moon, cool and moist, water, earth

So, if you left Jaune as he was at the start of the story as white, moon, silver, etc., he would actually work with Cinder, but at this point he's clearly not those anymore. He worked with Pyrrha precisely because of this. However, regardless of whether or not Jaune ends up with anyone, he's becoming red, gold, fire, and sun. His name also foreshadows this (jaune=yellow). He got blasted with fire this volume. He took on a white trait this volume (the streak of hair) but that's a symbol of union after a chemical wedding, which was not with Cinder.

Besides, Cinder is also gold and red and fire. I don't think this is remotely debatable. Her name is literally a reference to fire. She's introduced to us shooting flames and she relies on fire throughout the series.

Plus, in the very first episode of RWBY, Cinder's golden eye is highlighted with a specific frame that contrasts her gold eyes with Ruby's silver (like, the very next scene has Oz mentioning Ruby's silver eyes). Cinder is gold.

So what is Jaune and Cinder's actual connection? Well, it has to do with other red characters: Pyrrha, Penny, and Ruby.

Pyrrha's final act of love was saving Jaune and telling Cinder that destiny exists. That even if things are cut short, even if your very life with all you wanted is taken from you, you can still impact the world in a powerful way. This is precisely the connection between Jaune and Cinder: he is going to pass on Pyrrha's message to Cinder. Destiny is real, and she can choose it (because choice is the final relic/theme to be explored).

Lastly, Ruby is actually Cinder's prince, and has always been since the ball. Ruby is the one who will probably save Cinder from her Grimm arm, showing her that being a human being is enough to not deserve to be consumed by chaos. Being a human is enough.

So then, what is Jaune? He is the Maiden of Cinder's story. He will embody the message of Pyrrha and Penny, two maidens, to help Cinder reach individuation, the archetype of the self that Ruby also embodies. Cinder's ultimate choice will be to be a Maiden, but not in the way that she's been so far--in a heroic way. Cinder's arc has always intertwined the supernatural/goddess imagery with that of a lonely child, and so in the end she will be both human and heroine--because through embracing humanity, people can transcend weakness and impact the world.

If there is romance for Jaune, it will be with Weiss. It should be, considering they've set up the crush, explicitly paralleled White Knight with Arkos, Bumbleby, and Rosegarden, and you shouldn't set up crushes without following them up. It's a story, not real life; if it's mentioned, it should matter. (Okay Black Sun but... I would hope the writers have like, learned from that. Plus we do have a Black Sun parallel, and it's Weiss and Neptune.)

Lastly, I don't think Jaune is dying at all, and I don't think Cinder's chances of surviving are much higher than say, Eren Jaeger's in SnK. This isn't me saying it's what I want to see or that I think she shouldn't live; it's just looking at the story thus far, seeing how it's treated say, the Curious Cat, and examining patterns.

See, in alchemy there is something called the Deaths that mark the end of a color phase and the transition to the next. I'm going to use Harry Potter as an example not to be gauche but because it's extremely obvious:

Black Death/Nigredo: Sirius Black

White Death/Albedo: Albus (means white in Latin) Dumbledore

Red Death/Rubedo: Harry Potter himself in the presence of Rubeus Hagrid

Most stories don't use the Yellow phase (it's subsumed into Red) but RWBY does. We have:

Black Death: Pyrrha, death at Beacon at night surrounded by black Grimm

White Death: Weiss Schnee at Haven, although Jaune revives her

Yellow Death: Penny Polendina at Atlas, when Jaune kills her via a weapon (Crocea Mors) that literally means "yellow death," in case you weren't sure.

So, yeah. RWBY is using deaths to mark passage. I do think Cinder will be "saved" from her Grimm arm at Vacuo's climax by Ruby and be given Jaune's message, but the odds of her not dying back at Beacon (even if she does die, it will be to save the world) are not great. She could revive as well, but... we've already used revival and stories do like to keep that special. Plus, RWBY's message on death is clearly not that death is a punishment. It's a tragedy to be mourned, but it doesn't have to be the end of any story.

#ask hamliet #rwby #ships #rwby ships

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suchine-toki · 1 year

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Hey can i ask u something? I just finished rereading gintama again and read the final chapter, and kinda stumbled to ur blog. Do you think in the end Takasugi kind of ressuracted, reincarnated, or not? It's really bothering me since he is my fav character and besides lackness that i felt towards his story, his 'death' chapter was delivered... so great, and i dont think ressuraction was needed:( isnt that mean he becomes immortal, again?

Hello! Thank you very much for your question. Sorry for the late reply, I didn't see your message because I was on hiatus due to the end of Gintama lmao

I consider the death scene very beautiful, and it shows that there was a lot of love behind it. In fact, Sorachi himself admitted that he cried while he was drawing it (didn't we all?). However, I think when Takasugi's death is judged only by the scene itself and not also by the context, you miss the forest for the trees. (I previously talked about his death in this post.)

Other people and I have discussed the ending as such, so I’ll now address the circumstances surrounding the end of Gintama before delving into Takasugi’s possible resurrection. I'll try to analyze what happened from other angles, including information both inside and outside of the series, like the fanbook released some time ago.

The prolongued ending

Damn Manabe you could've done a better job. And I blame you for all the Utsuro crap, even if it wasn't your idea, you should've stopped it!

Weekly Shōnen Jump, where Gintama was published, has a system in which it’s announced half a year in advance when a series is about to end, to give it a conclusion in that time. Nevertheless, Sorachi exceeded this deadline, and for three years was unable to finish the series. Faced with this, they moved it to Jump Giga, where he would’ve three extra chapters with more pages and more time as it was a monthly publication. But once again he was unable to finish it and ended up concluding it through the Gintama App.

Even though at the time we all laughed at it, in hindsight the series did suffer from this. Especially if we consider that Sorachi's intention was to defeat Utsuro in Weekly Shōnen Jump and then use the other magazine just to have an epilogue. Even in the last chapter uploaded to the application they made him cut four pages. This denotes that it was a turbulent period, and the end was extremely hasty.

I think what happened in the end was Sorachi's attempt to squeeze ideas into a short amount of time. Takasugi and Zura weren’t present to defeat Utsuro, despite foreshadowing it. Thus, because he didn’t pay enough attention to the relationship between the members of the Shouka Sonjuku, the second part of Silver Soul arc emerged, in which Utsuro/Shouyo was revived and there was a greater focus on the connection between Takasugi and Gintoki. I explain this to emphasize that there wasn’t enough planning to properly develop and conclude what happened to Takasugi.

Takasugi's fate

The last page of the manga referring to what happened to Takasugi strongly suggests that he revived, due to the presence of a newborn baby in one of the dragon holes (places where altana veins sprout), along with dialogue from Sakamoto expressing, essentially, the high probability that Shouyo intervened to save him from death when his corpse was sucked into the terminal’s altana.

However, in the fanbook, a page is dedicated to what happened to Takasugi. Sorachi is frank, revealing he intentionally left it vague to avoid giving a clear answer that might disappoint fans. Also, once again he alludes to the fact that he didn't have more pages to delve into what happened, so he opted to just put more jokes, thinking that was enough.

In said fanbook, Sorachi chats with his former editors about various topics, including Takasugi's death, which he repeatedly avoids talking about. He says it's weird having to explain everything. Nonetheless, the others insist with questions. Among the most important things to salvage, he clarifies Takasugi’d already been sort of dead when he lost Shouyo, and he was just looking for a way to die. He also indicates he doesn't consider that Takasugi needed to be saved because he already was. Instead, he was going for the image of saving the Kiheitai beyond whether or not the baby was Takasugi. This gives me the impression that Sorachi didn’t actually plan to revive him.

I fundamentally disagree with the above point of view. Although I'm not a fan of resurrections, I think his rebirth would make sense, given that it's an element already introduced in the series. Also, I believe it's necessary because it didn't make sense to kill him in the first place, both for consistency on a character level and on a series level.

Now, regarding his possible immortality, I really wish he isn’t. Since it was never explained how that or the altana worked, I can't say for sure. But, considering the dialogue of the master protecting his disciples, it wouldn’t be logical for Shouyo to sentence Takasugi to live an immortal life. What would make the most sense is for Takasugi to live in a normal body with his own memories, experiencing both suffering and happiness, just like everyone else.

Regarding his growth as a normal human or abnormally by the altana, it’s even more difficult to discern. I think if he kept his memories, it would make sense for him to grow at an accelerated rate just like Shouyo, until the altana runs out at some point.

Deliverance from sin?

Goddammit Manabe it's all your fault!

Since the concept is used on several occasions, I would like to comment on what is meant by “salvation”, a term closely related to religious beliefs. The perspective I’ll take in this part is that of Shinto and Buddhism, the predominant and deeply connected religions of Japan.

In both cases, the most common path after death is reincarnation. In Shinto, the concept of salvation is based upon the belief that all living things have an essence, soul, or spirit known as kami. This lives among us rather than in Heaven or Hell. Buddhists believe in reincarnation after death, known as rebirth. Depending on the actions a person has done during their life (karma), they’re more or less likely to be reborn as a lower or higher being. If one has a multitude of good actions, one is likely to be reborn as a human.

In Buddhism, anyone who understands Buddha's teachings can attain salvation. This includes the understanding that since suffering is a part of life, one must find ways to overcome it. In this regard, I don’t consider that Takasugi has been “saved” in the more traditional sense of the word, quite the contrary. As referenced, the true way to find salvation isn’t to die to stop suffering, but to continue living despite it, as Gintoki has shown.

From now on

Sorachi explains he’s aware that the people who liked Takasugi aren’t as happy with how he ended up, and hints he knows the ending could’ve been better. This, coupled with the fact that he's been inactive for so long after Gintama ended (despite declaring his intentions to start another series) makes me think there might be more Gintama content in the future.

Could it be wishful thinking? Absolutely. But it’s true that Sorachi is interested in making money, and what better than to return to his star series with a question that interests many fans? Maybe it's something he didn't plan on doing. Do I take it? Without a second thought.

The next Gintama festival will take place on March 19, 2023. Perhaps nothing will happen. But hope is the last thing that dies. Being a successful franchise, I think it's very likely that in the near or distant future they’ll release more material showing what happened to Takasugi.

TL;DR: I think it would be more consistent with the character and the series for him to be resurrected, keeping his memories, possibly growth-accelerated by the altana until it finally fades from his body. This would allow him to keep a mortal body. But no one can say for sure what will happen.

#Gintama #Takasugi Shinsuke #Sakata Gintoki #Yoshida Shouyo #Utsuro #Hideaki Sorachi #Ask #Analysis #Text #my post #I cut a lot of content #I kept repeating myself JUST GET TO THE DAMN POINT lmao #although I still deviated a bit (｀-_ゝ-)#but I think it was relevant to say it #I hope this gives more insight on the matter #Thanks for reading!

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new-lorien-artist · 7 months

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I really would like to pour myself over the series again one day and read it purely for analysis on what everything means, why it's out there, what biases were at play in the execution of the story (both realized by the writers and not) and for what reason did everything happen the way it happened. Not just looking at everything the characters said and did and judging on that like "wow yeah that's an ass move, if I wrote this that would not happen" but instead like "okay how does this move the story, what does this tell me the reader about the character"

Like okay, the series has plot holes, the series went in a completely different direction that betrayed everything that was set up in the beginning, a lot of foreshadowing went down the drain, the writers having a falling out or switching through ghost writers did a lot of damage to creating a cohesive story. And yet, we still have a working series spanning 7 books and 18 novellas, with a whole spin-off trilogy and novellas that expands on where we left off, all while creating compelling characters of super contrasting personalities and backgrounds that branched off of one cataclysmic event that spiraled their whole lives and led them into the same situation

And each of those personalities is representative of reactions to traumas and livelihoods, and the characters who represent these facets are tools meant to forward the message and themes the writers were putting into the books. What kind of messages and themes are those? Is the series addressing trauma and how it fucks up children in super intense situations? Is it criticizing the hero trope and how heroes are unequivocally expected to be good people by default? Is it a message on the traumas of war and child soldiers? Does the series mean to break down fascism and unfair systems that create bad people who had good(?) intentions? Is the series supposed to be about healing as the end goal, and is this performed through a "the end justifies the means" approach or "self-preservation comes with a moral code?" What is it, I wanna know

And it's undeniable that a lot of choices in the series feel very off to us one way or another, because the writers made that decision in order to push the reader into thinking one way or another about certain characters or events. Some of these choices were made on biases, ultimately harmful ones at that, which should be recognized and analyzed because this series does display a lot of questionable writing choices that have twisted so many moments and character arcs in blatantly antagonizing ways, notably when trying to differentiate characters in their moral standing (which is already a hot topic to debate on when the premise and rating of this series intend to explore a lot of dark topics and heavy nuance)

#do i need a tag for this analysis junk #idk I'll figure it out later

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onewomancitadel · 1 year

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on your thoughts on knightfall becoming canon ( how high do you believe thats possible like if this was gambling how much stock would you put into it)

I think it's worth emphasising that I constantly make note of my own personal cautiousness about the matter, mostly because I think that's just part-and-parcel of the analytic procedure. Lol.

By nature with works-in-progress you can absolutely never account for authorial whimsy, even if at a minimum you accept that there needs to be canonical intelligibility to any given fan theory - and authorial whimsy can be anything from realising a better idea actually works to draw out your original intentions (this is why the appeal to the 'original pure idea' is usually wrong, because it's not really one-way like that) to actual handovers or conflict of creators/creative vision to it simply being revealed they had very different ideas than what were originally conveyed because it took time for that to come through to simply being kind of stupid.

What's frustrating to me is that a lot of naysayers think that the conversation begins and ends with, 'It's not that deep,' or 'it's not that smart'; it's an easy position to argue from because people assume it's an argument which doesn't necessitate evidence. You don't need to think that hard. What you actually need to do is demonstrate where it isn't thoughtful, and where I would generally agree that, say, the White Fang has poor execution, in terms of its thematic ideas (which in part contribute to some of its tone-deafness), it is actually totally thematically consistent. But most of the fandom doesn't think that a nonviolent solution to the conflict with Salem is possible or even on the cards, so they're never going to be reading these broader ideas into an earlier plotline in the show, and they're never going to connect the redemption and reformation of the White Fang to the redemption and reformation of the bad guys in the story who are all deeply hurting in their own ways (no, Adam was not set up for a redemption arc and is a corrupting force), and I think most people would tell you that the reunion between the Faunus and humans comes off tone-deaf to a lot of modern social justice movements - but it's describing individual psychological harmony - and to be totally fair, I do think that they misused the allegory in a serious way. It's the danger of allegory. Once you introduce magical animal people, I don't think a social justice allegory works, but I think this is a case of where they prioritised the ideas they had (nonviolence, psychological harmony) over the execution proper, and then in addition to that were clumsy and yes, perpetuating racist - and everything else - ideas about the way people are supposed to fight for their freedom.

But I also wouldn't say that the Faunus storyline runs counter to the ideas of the story in any way. Not at all. I think that's where you can identify the fallout.

So the question isn't even necessarily grounded in, 'Is this story stupid?' but, 'Is this story coherent?' which don't always mean the same thing and don't always speak to the same sort of quality. Because I find the friendship is magic stuff bullshit, and at first I thought it was just stupid, but with Cinder and Ruby's respective development, I am basically led to believe it is stupid. It is stupid, and that's coherent - the overemphasis of it has led to a refusal to confront and accept the necessity and transformation of pain, and the beauty which grows from that. This is why I don't really think Pyrrha is the stickling point for the pairing, since her and the Fall of Beacon - which makes the abstract personal for Jaune - basically sets the romance up.

But the point I was working towards is that it needs to be demonstrated where the story is not thoughtful. The difference with RWBY is that most of it is thoughtful. Character arcs are basically connected, basic narrative events are foreshadowed, the romances have thematic- and plot-work to do in the story, the allusions have meaningful employment most of the time. All of it's beholden to Ozlem. It's actually working towards some greater idea and it has specific goals in mind about resolving Salem and Ozma's conflict and about situating Ruby in the story (particularly across this volume). Why her? What's the point of all the little heroes in the story? Of course, what you're fighting uphill against in this fandom is that a lot of angry people online don't appreciate basic storytelling tools. They have a severe case of the narrative cynicisms and literalism, and frankly, this is an ideology which gains traction in the world of outrage and easy clicks and contrarianism just for the pure sake of it. This is more extreme than just, 'Why does the good guy always win?', like asking fundamental and interesting questions, but more like a complete rejection of character transformation. A lot of people view static character as being logical, and especially power fantasy as being logical, which means a total rejection of most events in the show. Or then you've got simple tonal mismatch where people think it's the bestfriendsforever show.

I'm making this case here because it's not actually a simple question. Jaune/Cinder is a serious polemic. It's not a twee power fantasy romance, it's not guy gets the girl as a reward, it's not hero/villain for the sake of it because it's hot, it's actually much more than that and if you came to the ship through that reasoning, that's fine, but that's not the angle I'm arguing from and it's not the angle that I think it's being argued through in the show either.

The case you have to make for Jaune/Cinder is both a thematic one and a character one, because even amongst people who believe in Cinder's redemption, most of them would tell you that job belongs to Emerald, and others might say Ruby. Why would romance be relevant here? Why would Jaune not just end up with Weiss or whichever female character gets relegated to narrative obscurity? It's a positive case which has to be made because what you're relying on is RWBY having some sense of intelligible, consistent (consistent) storytelling, which is thematically motivated, with specific ideas it needs answered - why is the power of friendship the one to fail, why can no one reach Cinder? - which doesn't lean into puerile self-insert power fantasy or the easy, lazy answer, or just the guy waiting patiently until the pretty princess notices him now he's a good boy with almost zero narrative consequences. The much more radical idea to me is that Jaune's character development actually has serious narrative consequences in respect to Cinder's character arc and redemption. You've tied the romance to a major turn-the-tide event and now you've got justification. It's not there for shits and giggles or because it would make a handful of Redditors happy.

(Yes, I do think the interactions Cinder has with the Maidens are calculated, and they have done work to tease out Cinder's specific growth over the past few volumes. But I do think it can be said that every redemption arc so far and yes, every romance has had specific people involved for specific reasons).

But the problem here is that I think the average naysayer would say RWBY isn't that smart (or that Jaune/Cinder is problematic, but you're watching the wrong show if so). Of course, that's why I refer to the canon romances so, and especially the prominence of Ozlem in the story. No other romance best realises Ozlem in such literal reversal. It is curious that Jaune/Cinder mirrors Ruby/Oscar interactions. It is curious that Jaune/Weiss mirrors Blake/Sun in the time of a Volume 4 reprisal-ish when V5 followed on with a serious volume-finisher indicating Blake/Yang and oh yeah, that very one also had the best interaction of all time in the show with Jaune and Cinder. It is curious that the canon romances all in some way line up in ways that Jaune/Weiss doesn't, and even curiouser that Jaune/Cinder does. The romances in RWBY are embedded in the plot. They realise specific ideas. This is foreign to a lot of people who think romance is when people blush at each other and make funny jokes and kiss. Good, interesting, justified, passionate, transformational, heart-moving, soul-touching romance is more than that, and it's part of what I like about RWBY's execution of the romances, because it speaks to a sensibility I appreciate. This isn't radical stuff necessarily, it's just radical to paint-by-numbers understandings of storytelling.

I'm not saying that Jaune/Cinder will be canon. I'm not a gambler. It's really hard to make predictions based off of a work in progress because you have an incomplete synthesis of ideas which can recontextualise everything that's been said.

It's kind of like how most people didn't twig that Cinder is sympathetic up until they made it really obviously textual until Volume 8 to most people (in my opinion it was the end of V7, but in terms of reaction that's when it was). It changes all her previous characterisation because now you understand there's an intended complexity there. Ironwood's fall casts his previous characterisation in a different light in addition to casting more ambiguity over Ozma himself and what Ozma had to handle with Lionheart - it makes Lionheart's loss more profound. I can say that right now Jaune/Weiss doesn't and didn't mirror the canon romance developments, and across this volume it hasn't, but the only point that seriously makes me question it is her casting him into the abyss. Whilst I can identify that as a parallel with Raven-Cinder (Vault fight) and Oscar-Ironwood (Vault fight) where it takes place in a magical place which can reach back into the normal world (a reverse of the Vaults), on the other hand it's the only thing that's given the pairing any remote complexity/drama which is a necessity for all of the pairings (think Blake leaving Yang and the Adam problem, Ren/Nora's backstories and Mantle/Atlas, Ruby and Oscar with the Ozma curse and lying to Ironwood, and then for Emerald/Mercury - well, need I say?). On the other hand, I was really weirded out that Weiss was never personally made uncomfortable with the Penny situation, and at present it seems more like something to inject complexity into Ruby's partnership with Weiss and further influence Ruby's disillusionment. Then once you get into Ruby-Cinder parallels, right now, Jaune being able to help Ruby who is remarkably paralleled with a certain Fall Maiden... does set him up for something else.

But the point I'm trying to make is that even if I could say to you, oh, Jaune/Weiss has almost no development and no paralleled development to the other canon romances crossvolumes, if the present development with Weiss hurling him into the abyss by accident actually addresses that, then you can mark up the Jaune/Weiss development to inconsistency and/or an about turn. Authorial whimsy. They might've changed their mind, or they might've not have wanted to draw scrutiny to the relationship at all until Jaune aged up and was more 'mature' for the pairing, or they might've considered the barren interaction of the awakening of his Semblance sufficient development until then... which it was not, especially because we never got anything between them and Weiss' development with her family in Atlas. Jaune's familial struggles should've come up in respect to that. That is so obvious it hurts! The Arc and Schnee inheritances should be central to the pairing. They've not abandoned either idea with them - in fact who Jaune is 'supposed' to be is one of his central character wounds, which hurts him, in respect to the way Weiss actually wants to reform her family name. Jaune wants to get away from it, Weiss doesn't. So why isn't and hasn't there been any development there whatsoever? Why is his initial crush on her actually tied up in something which hurt him, especially as this volume revisits this idea of the made-up hero he can't be? (Of course, that he's a real yet imperfect hero is the point).

They might've even just thought it'd be funny to put Jaune and Weiss together.

Because Jaune/Cinder hinges on narrative relevance for both Jaune and Cinder. It's giving Cinder a romance when most people don't think about that in respect to her except as a fetish thing which squarely puts her in a position of redeeming Ozlem and addressing her own character wounds (the truth is that nobody's ever loved you). It means that Jaune's presence in the story is completely justified by virtue of being the one to reach out to Cinder when it seemed impossible and seemed absolutely absurd and heretical (yeah I'm pulling the Joan of Arc allusion out here). He's not just here for the laugh of it; there's a quiet little love story between them against the backdrop of the epic spectacle. Ever since Volume 1 people have speculated over their narrative connections. I remember people predicting Cinder was going to be the one to kill Jaune, and I remember shock at the fact that it was Pyrrha and not him.

So I find it beautiful that such a curiosity was warranted, but it's actually contextually realised differently. It's because they'll fall in love. It's a positive subversion.

Is their romance and their respective character arcs actually that relevant to be in question since Volume 1? I think you can make the case for Cinder more because of her redemption and because of the Maiden power, and honestly with this volume, yes, I do think it's easier to make the case for Jaune now than it ever was before, especially as they didn't dismiss the aftermath of Penny but actually broke him even harder than I thought they would. Critically, their romance involves the Crown of Choice (a confrontation over this is near-inevitable, they're the last two survivors of the Beacon Vault), which seems maybe the only certain prediction I can make if their romance is canon.

If you weren't thinking that hard about his character? You would write Jaune/Weiss. If you weren't thinking that hard about Cinder's redemption, and you just finangle its evolution at the last minute? You wouldn't write Jaune/Cinder. Jaune/Cinder by necessity involves carefulness. It doesn't necessarily speak to a perfect execution, but it does speak to coherency, and it does speak to the fundamental ideas to the story, and yes, it does speak to idealism being valued in the story. Resolving Cinder's wounded idealism and prioritising nonviolence and seeing and not just looking and getting the missing side of the story even when she is someone who has broken you (and has the capacity to build you back up) is a tall order, but it's also magical and it does rest on validating fairytales in the story, but in a complicated way, because the dragon and the maiden are one. Why does there have to be a bad guy? Why is Cinder the bad guy? Can they meet in the middle? Jaune and Cinder is about meeting in the middle, even when it's deeply questionable to both sides and would potentially compromise them both.

The question of Jaune/Cinder isn't simply about my dollies kissing - it is about that, to be fair, and I'm not ashamed of it - but to my eyes, it is also what I find valuable about RWBY. It reaffirms RWBY's best ideas. It affirms its ideas, its playful storytelling, its particular intentions with the romances, its sense of transformational redemption. So I think Jaune/Cinder has the possibility to be canon insofar as it follows through on what's it set up and it's coherent and its character development is purposeful and actually, everything about it is purposeful. Jaune has hijinks this volume with team RWBY, sure, but it's also the Old Man and the Four Maidens. It's hard to read his interactions with the Winter Maiden as romantic, especially as she's the first to get through to him, so he can finally go find the Fall Maiden who's run away. But then why make Jaune so obviously and painfully Ozma-coded? Is it because there's a certain, other, actual Fall Maiden, not analogue, who herself has a Grimm curse much alike to Salem? Is it purposeful? Am I supposed to be thinking?

I don't pay much attention to Jaune/Cinder naysayers (and there are a lot of them) because I like RWBY. I like what it's got going for it and I think it's fun and joyful, and I like its sense of spectacle, and most of all I think it's sincere. I don't think Jaune/Weiss or any other Jaune ship is sincere and it would mean that I probably really had no reason to trust in any of Jaune's development or even really the other romances, because what's the point? Once you break what makes them all special, I don't see why I should be invested. Because you can only make a coherent argument for Blake/Yang throughout the show on a basis which conflicts with Jaune/Weiss or indeed even Jaune/Pyrrha.

I also think it has the potential to be the greatest, most thrilling, unexpected yet totally sensical romance of all time. So sue me. I think it's fucking clever, and if that cleverness isn't there, then I don't know if I have any specific reason to care about RWBY.

I couldn't tell you whether I'd gamble on it. I tentatively hope. But deep down I'm a cynic and I've been burnt before and my trust in something so good happening just isn't there - and this is why I hate people telling me this, because I already think it.

But then there's that terrible part of me which can't help but wonder, and I guess that's why I keep writing posts even when it's a controversial ship... I want characters like Jaune and Cinder to see their hopes reaffirmed. I'd like a hopeful story. I'd like a story which gives a shit. I'd like my own hopes to be affirmed, I suppose, even when it seems impossible.

#seraphina's asks #user: megashadowdragon #knightfall #seraphina ruminates over V9 #rwby9 #and yes I wrote this post with the full knowledge you've repeatedly messaged me about blake/sun; please don't message me about it again #if you want to argue for blake/sun then I think you should get used to the idea of jaune/weiss #long post

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strangertheories · 2 years

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Well, I seriously thought your post was very good (and it sounded like a serious discussion of the show, not a fluffy headcanon post of course), which is why I was so surprised you brought up that "Ronance should be canon if the writers weren't cowards pm just like Byler" implication out of the left field.

I really think Ronance canon would be horrible, not that they are not cute together and have fun scenes and chemistry - which is why it is a fine meme ship, but 1) I would seriously have to ask myself if Nancy can connect to a human being on any level without fucking them. Evidence of that would be zero. 2) Robin too has apparently never met a single girl she didn't want and has no platonic friendship with a female - but 3 love interests. I don't think her touching Nancy's hand for reassurance would be cute any longer in that context. At least, unlike Nance, she can have male friends, which brings me to 3) This would be ridiculous cruelty to Steve. I don't ship Stancy and think he should move on, but that storyline would be over the top humiliation and would need to be explored.

Now those issues could go away if there were endless new seasons. As it is, it's bad (time jump or no time jump) and would pretty much ruin the show and definitely ruin the impact of Byler. Everyone would justifiably say they just made everyone gay out of the blue for shits and giggles and you can't take it seriously. 4 seasons and they never bothered to hint that Nancy might be into girls, what was all the hard foreshadowing work with her brother for then? For nothing. All we need is two actors being cute together.

And for the comments under the post: That's the thing, you can't have it both ways: Are you peacefully shipping characters you think are cute together in your corner or are you discussing the show analytically? If it's the former, have fun, if it's the latter people might respond that no, this makes no sense in canon. No matter if it's about a gay ship, a straight ship, a villain arc or parallel universes.

Just to explain. I mean no pressure to respond if you're tired of it! Peace!

Ok thanks for the ask. I disagree with you and I'm going to explain it a little bit more if that's ok. I still maintain that I feel the same way about Byler as I do Ronance because I want them both to be canon but won't be surprised if the writers don't do that which is still how I feel. I doubt that Ronance is going to happen, your points on why it won't make perfect sense, but I think that it should happen. It's not me having a fluffy headcanon, it's me talking about what I want to happen in S5 and I still think I'm right about that and I'm going to break down some of your points. Your fine not to ship it and I think you make some alright points, but I don't think you can say it's objectively bad because I think it could work and I guarantee a lot of Ronance fans would back me up on that one.

So first of all, the point on Nancy. I get where you're coming from as Nancy got with both Johnathan and Steve but I don't think that's why people ship Ronance. First of all, I'd love Nancy to have more platonic relationships and not be so centred around romance. I'd really like platonic st*ncy to be honest with you, and Nancy and Barbara seemed to have a good relationship without me wanting them to bang. I also don't think she wanted to bang Fred. I don't think it's the fault of Ronance, I think the writers just need to writer her better platonic relationships in general. That being said, I don't view her relationship with Robin as platonic and personally, I don't think anyone would say that if she was a guy. I think it's intention from the writers was platonic, but that's not how I personally like to interpret it.

Secondly, Robin has never met a single girl she didn't want? What about Steve? Has he ever met a girl he didn't want? Is that an issue? I think people overly criticize queer representation and this is the perfect example. No, not every lesbian is attracted to every girl she sees and I'm not saying Robin is either. I just think she has a crush on Nancy, Tammy and Vickie, which is three girls out of the entire female population. If you've read/heard Rebel Robin, you'll know she has platonic relationships with other women. I get saying 'oh lesbians can have female friends too' but what about men? The only platonic male female friendship in the show has a lesbian in it and at first, it was a romantic thing on Steve's part. But I'm not saying it's bad writing that he's attracted to every girl he sees. Plus that's also really not why I ship it. It's not because I don't want friends to exist, it's because I think they have a really good dynamic and I want to see two characters I love get together.

And the final point, I don't care about what Steve thinks. Steve is not dating Nancy. Steve is her ex boyfriend. And I know getting with your friend's ex is a faux pas or whatever, but the whole thing with Steve is that he needs to move on from Nancy and her being with Robin would force him to do that. Not to mention this is way harder on Johnathan, her actual boyfriend. They're also characters and not real people so it's not hurting anyone. I get the point you're making but honestly, I think Steve would be supportive of their relationship and if they decided to make it canon, the writers can just write it that way? Like he's sad but he knows he has to move on and he wants Robin to be happy so if Nancy is what makes her happy, he'll accept her. And if I was writing it and it was canon, I'd also make them get together after the time skip with a J*ncy breakup just before it, meaning they have a two year cool down or so.

Now onto your next paragraph. It would ruin Byler? Look I'm a big Byler shipper and I'm really rooting for Byler canon, but you can have two queer relationships. Is Robin and Vickie going to ruin Byler? And yes there's no build up in terms of Nancy liking girls but sometimes you just meet a girl and you like her and that's it. Byler can be a slow burn childhood friends to lovers. Ronance can be faster and less angsty. You can want Byler to happen and also want Ronance to happen, it isn't mutually exclusive.

Do you wanna know another character who wasn't hinted to be gay pre coming out? Robin. And having a faster coming out with less build up doesn't diminish the values of a slow more painful journey to come to that realization. So having Nancy like a girl doesn't mean Mike coming to terms with liking guys is any less valuable. Queer representation isn't an equation, it's not like having more of it damages the existing stuff you already have. Byler and Ronance can coexist happily.

Also saying Ronance shippers like the ship because the characters are cute together is a bit dismissive. You don't know why I like their relationship and you can't tell me it's because I think it would be fun and lalala. I think it would be good for Nancy because of how male centric she often is. I think it would be good for queer representation. I think it would be nice to see a well loved, original character come out, just like you'd like to see Will and Mike come out. Do I think it's a cute relationship? Yes. But that's not why I'm rooting for it.

For the bit on the comments, we're not saying it's going to happen. We're just saying that we want it to happen and that we think it would work. Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it's "objectively shit writing". There are plenty of metamorphis shippers who could write an essay on why Byler is bad, would you stop shipping it? No. You can absolutely criticize it and I respect that, hence why I've replied. I don't tend to give rude anons the time of day but I genuinely don't think you have bad intentions. I also think it's a little blunt to say no this cannot work because again, that's a very objective view when stuff like this is ultimately down to personal opinion.

But also, you're creating this drama between Byler and Ronance shippers that does not need to exist, coming from someone who ships both. The commenters seem to be more talking about how you said me wanting Ronance to happen is insulting to Byler which is a weird ship war, which shouldn't exist, and how most people who want Ronance to be canon and think it could work don't think it's actually going to happen and that it'll probably just be fanon. But I'm not angry at you and I think you can definitely disagree with me as long as you're respectful, if that makes sense.

Sorry if this was a bit long! I hope I make sense to you anon and for now I'll just agree to disagree. If you send me a response, I'll read it but I can't guarantee I'll respond because I don't want this to be a bigger thing than it needs to be. Thanks for the ask and thanks for your thoughts (:

#stranger things #st5 #ronance #robin buckley #nancy wheeler #byler #nancy wheeler is bisexual

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2n2n · 2 years

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found one of your posts and then started reading all of your other posts and now i feel so. empty. but in a good way. like when you open a water bottle and pour all the water into something else all in one go and its so satisfying.

Like what I am trying to say is!!! I love the way you are picking this manga apart!!! Idk if it's just me but, I feel like people often just get stuck on "hananene is cute♡" and refuse to elaborate or see further than that or to admit that the relationships in this manga are so weird and complex in ways that are not usually found cute or interesting, yknow? So I am glad someone is making long textposts with links to other long textposts to talk about one (1) weird thing this manga does and be like "and that's so cool and interesting!!!!!" because its true!!!! This manga is so interesting!!!

im probably not making much sense, your posts good♡

TT~TT That makes me most happy…..!! You're…. right! I couldn't really find much meta about the relationships, themselves, either… there's a good deal of meta digging into the meanings of names, Japanese mythology or cultural notes (which I adore and need like vitamins), but that's often it… it almost feels taboo to dive into the definition of love, and the peculiar nature of relationships in AidaIro's vision, BUT THIS MANGA HAS THE MOST INTERESTING IDEA OF ROMANCE I'VE EVER SEEN….! bonkers stuff…..!

Most shounen… do not get this romantic! To the point that most people have to be thrown off by a bizarre out of tune epilogue where seemingly random characters are paired into marriages! There are plenty that are lead by their central romance-- but JSHK has a lot of intercorresponding romances which overlap in emotional beats, contributing to a very concise theme…. and said theme isn't even incongruous with their older works together, so it's as intentional and honed as it gets. I don't feel as if any pairing is just servicing a trope or archetype, I'm really eager for each and every one to help explain an aspect of want/need/selfishness/love/selflessness…….!!

It's really, REALLY REALLY INTERESTING!!! And it's so incredibly obviously planned from the very start, there's constant foreshadowing …. I never feel like I'm facing a monster-of-the-week or this-arc's-league-of-7-villains. To the point that hating any one pairing in this manga feels erroneous. It all folds into a singular, decisive vision. WHAT are we going to have to say about love, by the end of this all?!!? Is Tsukasa right to want to see Hanako "stop holding back"???? can Nene love the Hanako who isn't "holding back"????????? CAN WE LOVE HIM ???????? I mean I will, but I'm a Tsukasa, I don't know about everyone else. Good luck.

I'm happy you expressed yourself so thoroughly at me ^^ and any time anyone else out there recognizes and appreciates the weird romances going on, I feel a little warmer. Isn't it all so captivating? It feels like anything could happen.... !!!!!

#avvy's JSHK

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umbraastaff · 2 years

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[Images contain descriptions]

Crystal Kingdom Accidental Foreshadowing Compilation

#are there any i missed because i swear to god.#taz balance #the adventure zone #crystal kingdom #taz crystal kingdom #mine #sb tagged about one of these on a diff post and i was reminded of how fucking MUCH there is #and it's ALL just this arc. which i mean has a lot of *intentional* foreshadowing too but like.#most of these dont even happen in the vicinity of the intentional ones.

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moiraineswife · 3 years

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Autistic Allegories in Renarin’s Arc - Meta

s’up y’all, your favourite local rambler is back at it again. Diving straight in to this one. The motivation for this post is something that might be controversial, and I’m going to try and explain it as clearly as I can and make my intentions clear, but I get this is the internet and things get misinterpreted to fuck.

So, since Renarin was confirmed to be a queer character, I’ve seen a lot of posts and takes on pretty much every platform I frequent that equates all of Renarin’s traits/struggles in canon as being foreshadowing/parallels to his queer identity and experience.

I get this. I’m also queer. I understand the instinct to take, say, Renarin’s corrupted spren bond and his desire to keep his nature as a Radiant hidden/his lack of understanding initially and assume it to be queer foreshadowing/parallel. I big get that. And that’s not a bad interpretation.

The problem is, this is the ONLY interpretation people put forth. They ignore things explicitly said/connections made in canon to Renarin being autistic and say ‘this is it. this is what this means. it’s about him being gay’. When, actually, a good chunk of it is about his experience as an autistic man in an allistic society. Which I think is what Brandon wants to explore/has set up in the text.

So I decided to look at this in more depth from an autistic perspective - some of the moments that most clearly parallel Renarin’s autistic experience and explain how and why this is a thing, and hopefully just highlight this aspect of his character and explain things to folks.

Renarin’s Blade Screaming

Jumping right into it then: Renarin’s bond with Glys is very clearly paralleled with his autism. The text outlines this connection multiple times throughout the series, and explores it in interesting ways.

First up, Renarin first revealing himself as a Truthwatcher makes this pretty clear:

“And the Shardblade,” Dalinar said, stepping over and taking his son by the shoulder. “You hear screams. That’s what happened to you in the arena. You couldn’t fight because of those shouts in your head from summoning the Blade. Why? Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I thought it was me,” Renarin whispered. “My mind. But Glys, he says . . .” Renarin blinked. “Truthwatcher.” (WoR)

“Adolin,” he said softly. “I … um … I have to give you back the Shardblade you won for me.”

“Why?” Adolin said.

“It hurts to hold,” Renarin said. “It always has, to be honest. I thought it was just me, being strange. But it’s all of us.”

“Radiants, you mean.”

He nodded. (Oathbringer)

Renarin didn’t explain to his father or the others what was happening to him because he thought it was part of his autistic experience.

Being autistic you get used to experiencing a lot of in-brain things and not realising that other people don’t experience them, too. I have hypersensitivity to sound. I can hear things other people don’t, because their brains naturally filter them out - like electronics whining.

The experience of having a Shardblade scream inside your head is actually a pretty great parallel for sensory overload. It’s something intense, something frightening, and overwhelming, and even painful. But Renarin just endures it without comment because that’s what we’re conditioned to do.

“A group of shellheads tried to seize one of the bridges, Brightlord,” the bridgeman said softly. “Brightlord Renarin insisted on going to help. Sir, we tried hard to dissuade him. Then, when he got near and summoned his Blade, he just kind of . . . stood there. We got him away, sir, but he’s been sitting on that rock ever since.”

[...]

“I just stood there,” Renarin said. “I wasn’t frozen because of my . . . ailment. I’m just a coward.”

When Adolin hears about Renarin freezing up he assumes that he had a fit. Renarin corrects him on this, once he’s verbal again, but says that he was just a coward.

He froze up once he summoned his Blade. Because it would have started screaming in his head and this was overwhelming. When other Radiants have experienced this on-screen the screaming has been so intense they immediately dropped or dismissed the Blade, unable to hold it.

From this, I infer that Renarin believes everyone experiences this when they fight with a Shardblade. He doesn’t realise that it’s strange for him because he’s a Radiant. He thinks everyone experiences it, but they push through and overcome it. He can’t, and instead of thinking something strange is going on, he assumes that it’s a weakness of his and that he’s a coward.

This is a fairly common autistic experience. Why can’t you just get over this? Why is that overwhelming you? Just ignore the sound. Just ignore the lights. Stop being so weak/oversensitive.

That’s what Renarin thinks is happening. That’s why he doesn’t examine his experiences more closely, and realise he’s a Radiant. He thinks it’s part of him being autistic, and that he’s just being overly sensitive, until Glys is able to communicate with him and explain he’s a Truthwatcher.

The Rhyshadium Don’t Fit

“They don’t fit, you know.”

“Don’t fit?”

“Ryshadium have stone hooves,” Renarin said, “stronger than ordinary horses’. Never need to be shod.”

“And that makes them not fit? I’d say that makes them fit better.…” Adolin eyed Renarin. “You mean ordinary horses, don’t you?”

Renarin blushed, then nodded. (Oathbringer)

This, for me, is one of the most direct and obvious parallel between Renarin’s experience as an autistic man, and his experience as a Radiant.

Firstly, he comments on the Rhyshadium ‘not fitting’ with ordinary horses. They’re different. They have different hooves, which means they never need to be shod, like regular horses. In this case, being shod is something all horses do. It’s something natural for them, and the Rhyshadium not having it makes them stand out. This is similar to Renarin’s experience in society and in life.

The Rhyshadium are sometimes called ‘the third shard’ - they’re tied to the Radiants and to Stormlight. Renarin aligning himself with them, and his not fittng with them not fitting, mirrors his being Radiant stopping him from fitting in as he wants to.

A big part of his arc is his desire to fit in somewhere. His integration with Bridge Four is a huge boost to his confidence. He asks to join them to try and find somewhere to belong. The bridgemen are outcasts. They’re people who don’t fit in society, either, for various different reasons. Renarin fits with them, therefore, because he doesn’t fit elsewhere.

When he starts becoming a Radiant, and a different type of Radiant to the others, he starts to worry again. He worries that, yet again, he’s different for reasons he cannot control, and he’s worried the bridgemen will abandon or reject him as has happened frequently in noble society.

“So why are you embarrassed?”

“I’m … not?”

Adolin gave him a flat stare.

Renarin dismissed the Blade. “I simply … Adolin, I was starting to fit in. With Bridge Four, with being a Shardbearer. Now, I’m in the darkness again. Father expects me to be a Radiant, so I can help him unite the world. But how am I supposed to learn?”

Adolin scratched his chin with his good hand. “Huh. I assumed that it just kind of came to you. It hasn’t?”

“Some has. But it … frightens me, Adolin.” He held up his hand, and it started to glow, wisps of Stormlight trailing off it, like smoke from a fire. “What if I hurt someone, or ruin things?”

The conversation continues, and further solidifies the connection between the Rhyshadium not fitting with other horses, and Renarin not fitting in with other people.

He had become a Shardbearer, and was starting to fight and do what an Alethi man is expected to do in society. Go to war with Shards, with glory, etc etc etc. That didn’t quite work out.

For Renarin, whenever he gets closer to assimilating with the standard society and expectations, something happens to stop him. Initially it’s his epilepsy. He has fits, and his chronic illness makes him generally weaker and more frail, meaning that he can’t fight.

Once he’s given Shards to help mitigate those factors, he can’t use the Shards because his Radiant bond makes them scream inside his head. Again stopping him from fighting and becoming a soldier.

He then goes on to tell Adolin that he doesn’t really know how to Radiant. And Adolin says that he thought it would just come to him/he would instinctively know, but he doesn’t.

This is, again, a very classic autism thing. We struggle with doing things that allistic people find instinctive, and don’t need to be actively taught - such as reading and projecting the correct body language.

Adolin, who takes very naturally to all this stuff, just assumes that Renarin’s Radianting would just come to him, and Renarin has to explain that actually no, it hasn’t. This literally cannot get any clearer in forging an obvious link between his autism and his Radiant abilities.

Renarin’s ‘Corrupted’ Bond:

“What’s wrong with me?” Renarin asked. “Why do I see these things? I thought I was doing something right, with Glys, but somehow it’s all wrong.…” (Oathbringer)

[...]

“Does it strike you as cruel of fate, Father? My blood sickness gets healed, so I can finally be a soldier like I always wanted. But that same healing has given me another kind of fit. More dangerous than the other by far.” (Rhythm of War)

[...]

Lopen called out, asking Renarin to “look into the future and find out if I beat Huio at cards tomorrow.” It seemed a little crass to Dalinar, bringing up his son’s strange disorder, but Renarin took it with a chuckle.

[...]

It would be so much easier if he were like other Radiants. (RoW)

[...]

“And a blackness interfering, marring the beauty of the window. Like a sickness infecting both of you, at the edges.”

“Curious,” Dalinar said, looking where Renarin had pointed, though he’d see only empty air. “I wonder if we’ll ever know what that represents.”

“Oh, that one’s easy, Father,” Renarin said. “That’s me.”

“Renarin, I don’t think you should see yourself as—”

“You needn’t try to protect my ego, Father. When Glys and I bonded, we became … something new. We see the future. At first I was confused at my place—but I’ve come to understand. What I see interferes with Odium’s ability. Because I can see possibilities of the future, my knowledge changes what I will do. Therefore, his ability to see my future is obscured. Anyone close to me is difficult for him to read.”

“I find that comforting,” Dalinar said, putting his arm around Renarin’s shoulders. “Whatever you are, son, it’s a blessing. You might be a different kind of Radiant, but you’re Radiant all the same. You shouldn’t feel you need to hide this or your spren.”

Renarin ducked his head, embarrassed. His father knew not to touch him too quickly, too unexpectedly, so it wasn’t the arm around his shoulders. It was just that … well, Dalinar was so accustomed to being able to do whatever he wanted. He had written a storming book.

Renarin held no illusions that he would be similarly accepted. He and his father might be of similar rank, from the same family, but Renarin had never been able to navigate society like Dalinar did. True, his father at times “navigated” society like a chull marching through a crowd, but people got out of the way all the same.

Not for Renarin. The people of both Alethkar and Azir had thousands of years training them to fear and condemn anyone who claimed to be able to see the future. They weren’t going to put that aside easily, and particularly not for Renarin. (RoW)

Sorry for the quote barrage, but there was really no other way to do this, and I think it makes a nice little arc in how Renarin sees himself and his bond to Glys and, by extension, his autism.

In the temple, with Jasnah, he considers it to be something wrong. He’d thought he was finally fitting in, being like everyone else, doing something “right” but it turns out his bond is of Odium, and while he thought he fit with the others, he doesn’t. Again.

The RoW segments are what’s most interesting to me, because what we see here, I think, is Dalinar experiencing Renarin’s ‘disorder’ as he calls it and processing it/coming to terms with it in a way a lot of parents approach their kids’ autism. But this is a bit more approachable/less painful to look at because he’s considering him being a weird glowing power ranger, and not an autistic kid. Easier to examine more honestly.

So first of all Renarin, again, calls a direct link between his bond and his autism. The ‘healing’ that came with his bond gave him another kind of otherness. Another way he can’t be a soldier - which, for Renarin, in Alethi society, means him being like everyone else. I was going to go into this more here but this thing is already long as fuck, but in a nutshell being a soldier is Renarin’s dream because that’s him being “normal” and being like everyone else, which fate always conspires to stop him from being.

In Alethi society the peak of masculinity and of fitting in to the social order, which revolves around war and glory and battle courage blah blah blah - is being a soldier and fighting. Which Renarin has never been able to do. Which his father has always wanted him to do - wihich Renarin knows.

A lot of allistic people, especially allistic parents, think their autistic kids won’t pick up on their blatant ‘oh my god I wish my kid was normal’ vibes. They do. BELIEVE ME they do. This is a good little nod to that. Dalinar has never outright looked at Renarin and said ‘I want you to be a soldier to be worthy of my love and respect’ but it’s what Renarin grew up knowing and seeing from him.

The evolution of that through exploring Dalinar’s attitude to Renarin being bonded with an Odium-aligned spren is...Utterly fascinating, to say the least.

Here, for example, Dalinar sees it as a “strange disorder”. When Renarin calls a spade a spade and just goes ‘yeah no that weird thing right there that makes you comfortable? That’s me, buddy, get used to it’. Which is just. Absolutely effervescent. There’s a big instinct allistic people have to dance around autistic people. So many innuendos. So many fluffy phrase that I hate. “On the spectrum.” “On the autism spectrum”. “Differently abled” “Sees the world differently.” Just call me autistic and let me move on with life I do not have time to deal with your internalised issues.

He kind of comes around on it and gives him the whole “you might be a different Radiant but you’re still a Radiant to me, son”. Replace the word Radiant here with person and you’ll have a conversation I’ve experienced so many times. “Just because you’re a weird person doesn’t mean you’re not still a person!” Why thank you for pointing that out. I hadn’t noticed....Thank you for validating my humanity to my face?? As though I needed you to do that?

Contrast this with Renarin’s cheerful acceptance (ABSOLUTELY STUNNING DEVELOPMENT, HELL YES) - ‘yeah no that weird thing right there is me’. I cheered, dear reader, I CHEERED. It’s a little thing but it’s also a very very big thing.

So is Lopen making light of things - in a way that laughs with Renarin and not at him - wanting him to predict the outcome of his card game. Renarin laughs at this, and is obviously comfortable with the jokes and the camaraderie. Dalinar winces at this and thinks that it shouldn’t be made fun of this way, that it’s crass or wrong, Renarin has a disorder, it makes him weird and delicate, people shouldn’t joke around him with that, it’s not right. But Renarin is comfortable with it, and the Bridgemen are comfortable with him, which Dalinar obviously isn’t - though I get that he’s trying to go there.

Then, again, we draw a very direct parallel between Renarin’s Radiant experience othering him socially and autism othering a person socially. Absolutely exquisitely done mister sando, very nice indeed.

Renarin notes that there are ways to go through society. It’s nice to be like Dalinar and have the clout to buck the expectations, and not do what you’re supposed to, and still get away with it. Isn’t that nice? Bitch wrote and published a book and he’s still seen as masculine and worthy of respect and being yielded too.

Remember that Renarin can read and write as well - he learned so he could interpret his visions. But he hasn’t shared that with people. Because he knows that it won’t be accepted the way Dalinar was.

Sanderson sets up this idea rather nicely in Oathbringer, actually, with the scribes meeting.

Renarin glanced at his father. Dalinar responded with a raised fist.

He came so Renarin wouldn’t feel awkward, Shallan realized. It can’t be improper or feminine for the prince to be here if the storming Blackthorn decides to attend.

This part has always made my heart happy. Because it’s not just about Dalinar validating Renarin’s societally ‘feminine’ tendencies - which he gets subtly bullied/mocked for during that meeting by one of the other women in attendance. It’s about all of his differences, it’s about Dalinar validating his autistic experience as well, and helping to fit him in to a society that continually rejects and ousts him.

This idea evolves through RoW, however, with Renarin understanding that Dalinar can do things that he won’t be allowed to get away with. Dalinar isn’t so much breaking down barriers with Oathbringer as he is stomping through them because he has enough social privilege to do so, for the most part, unscathed.

Renarin keeps his reading a secret because, even after what Dalinar has done, it’s not going to change things for most men, and certainly not him.

Renarin has learned, throughout his life, that him being different is not going to break down any barriers. People are not going to change their world, or their worldview, for him and his differences. He knows that he has to adapt, and he knows that he won’t be afforded the same luxuries as others.

He’s more comfortable with this now. He’s learning to be himself, and learning that the world won’t fit itself to him, he just has to do what he’s going to do anyway, and find the places where he fits, rather than trying to change the ones where he doesn’t. It’s actually a really beautiful little arc, and I’m strongly tempted to look at it in more depth at some point. Renarin and Dalinar’s dynamic is actually incredibly deep, layerd, and complex, and it’s something I’ve been meaning to look at for a while. HOWEVER. NOW IS NOT THE TIME FOR THAT.

TL;DR: Renarin’s Radiant experience is a direct allegory and parallel to his autistic experience. This is explored and made blatant by canon repeatedly, throughout the series, and Renarin’s experience as a Radiant is clearly a vessel by which Sanderson intends to explore his autism. Stop erasing and ignoring this when you talk about Renarin and analyse his arc. His autism is as intrinsic to this as it is to identity. It’s part of him. Stop erasing it.

I’m not saying you can’t find parallels or comfort in Renarin’s arc as a queer person. I’m just saying you cannot look at it in isolation. As though the text is ONLY making a parallel between his queer identity and his bond. Because it’s very fucking blatantly not. His autism is obviously and canonically tied to his Radiant bond and this is something that MUST be noted whenever you talk about this aspect of Renarin’s character.

Note: if anyone has any questions or comments on this, I am happy to engage and to clarify what I meant/add further detail and supporting evidence for various different aspects. There’s only so much I can cover in one post! For my sanity as well as yours...But there’s absolutely more, and I’m happy to look at that as well.

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bugaboo-and-kittynoir · 3 years

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Mega Leech: Adrien isn’t a sentimonster.

The Adrien is a sentimonster theory is not a secret—the creators are well aware of it. I’m thinking this clip in Mega Leech is either an intentional mislead on the creators part, or an unfortunate consequence of the episodes airing out of order. Either way, I theorize that the creators are letting us see Gabriel’s perspective here: and it looks like he believes Adrien is a sentimonster.

While Adrien being a real sentimonster is an intriguing theory (that i am not opposed to), there are too many holes in the story for him to be a full-fledged sentimonster (and now that we have this blatant “foreshadowing”, i’m even less convinced that this theory is true tbh).

As for the aforementioned holes…

If Adrien is a sentimonster, then why can’t Nathalie sense it?

This would mean Nathalie is aware that Adrien is a sentimonster. Okay, makes sense. She’s in on everything else Gabriel has done, why wouldn’t she know this too? After all, she is the Peacock Miraculous holder. But, um, issue:

If Adrien is a sentimonster, why can’t Nathalie sense that Chat Noir is too? Wouldn’t she put two and two together and realize Adrien and Chat are the same person? Or at least use this to her advantage?

The answer is yes yes she would. Nathalie can sense any and all sentimonsters, even dormant ones (Feast). Don’t you think Hawkie and Mayura would use the fact that one of their enemies is a fucking SENTIMONSTER to their advantage? The answer is yes yes they would.

Maybe Gabriel told Nathalie that Adrien is a “sentimonster”, but Nathalie knows the truth: he’s not. She’s emphasized her care for Adrien so many times, and it’s clear that she would defend him at any costs, even against Gabriel. I think it’s possible that Nathalie would protect Adrien like this.

How do Emilie and the Graham de Vanilys fit into this?

Regardless of what the audience should think, it is clear that Gabriel knows some significance regarding the Graham de Vanily rings. To me, the rings being twins clearly indicates Felix in this mess as well (who tf knows with that though, i can’t even theorize about it at this point it’s so messy. Who knows, maybe if Adrien’s not a sentimonster, Felix is. No I will not expand because I simply cannot).

Maybe this will be apart of Emilie’s redemption/hero arc. If Adrien isn’t a sentimonster, but Gabriel thinks he is, wouldn’t it have to be Emilie who was protecting Adrien all this time? Who else would’ve convinced Gabriel that Adrien was a sentimonster?

Issues

What would Emilie’s motivation be for lying about Adrien being a sentimonster? I can see this question getting answered though.

I am a pretty strong believer in Gabriel redemption (not that I want it or that he deserves, I just think it’s likely) and I find it hard to see a path to redemption for someone trying to literally control their son.

This is a children’s show and this seems like a lot of messy, but I wouldn’t put it past them tbh. Especially this season, which is being specifically geared towards older audiences.

Alternatively, maybe Gabe thinks Adrien (and Felix) are sentimonsters, but the true sentimonsters are actually Emilie and Amelie (see this post by @thesquipproject for more wonderful thoughts)

And finally, i present you with this thought:

Mega Leech is the episode right after the oh-so-anticipated Episode 9, Gabriel Agreste.

#yeah if i have to sit with that so do you #i’m looking at you episode 9 you’re sus as hell #regardless of what we get in gabriel agreste i just know it’s gonna breed a million theories #this is such a long mind puke post i’m so sorry if you read this whole thing #asks are open as always though #ml spoilers #mega leech #miraculous #miraculous ladybug #ladybug #mlb #adrien agreste #sentimonster #miraculous s4 #chat noir #adrien is a sentimonster #gabriel agreste #nathalie sancoeur #long post

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theenderwalker · 3 years

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re: DSMP "unsolved mysteries"

I've seen lots and lots of posts about the "unsolved mysteries" on the Dream SMP that focus on the TNT on top of the prison and the missing nukes. One of those I am very confident was implied canonically to be Ranboo, and the other I'm confident in my theory that it was him. Putting it under a read more bc its fuckin Long, but its worth the read! Word count: 2482

First: TNT at the prison.

This was implied to be Ranboo across a couple different streams, albiet subtly. I'm not surprised it went a little bit under the radar, but it's simply untrue to say we have no indication of who it could be.

This point doesn't hold true across everything of this nature, and if it did, it would be a dead giveaway, but I think it's relevant here for a couple reasons: Ranboo was online at the time of the explosions. Tommy tends to reflexively open the tab menu during his lore streams, almost as a nervous habit, so we saw multiple times that Ranboo was online, and would seen it have even if Tommy had chat turned off. Online at the time were Sam, Dream, Tommy, Foolish, and Ranboo. Foolish could not have been the culprit, as he was live at the time. In the case of this incident, it would have to be manually triggered by someone. Afterwards, when Tubbo was doing his "interrogations", his first bit of evidence was checking who was online when it happened. For these reasons, I feel this is a valid point for this incident.

That night, Ranboo was live on the SMP. This stream is notable for most people because it was when Ranboo did the odd code in his inventory, that read "He is in control" (or he is in control of me, if you count the to do list). Many people focused on this as a indication that Dream controlled Ranboo to set off the TNT, but this line of thinking was abandoned over time, especially as we saw the implication that the message was actually referring to the Enderwalk, talking about Ranboo stopping himself from doing anything to save Tommy from the prison during that week. However, other details in that stream also hinted it was Ranboo. Most notable to me was Ranboo reading chat or a dono asking him what he had done that day, and him answering that he had "probably gone mining," with some uncertainty. Later that same stream, he went down into his mines , found no ingots in the furnaces, and commented "maybe [he] didn't go mining", and that he wasn't sure what he had done that morning. This comes across to me as an indication that he had a blank spot in his memory that day--that he had been Enderwalking. He drew attention to this here, where he otherwise wouldn't, because it implies he was Enderwalking while he was visibly online, on Tommy's stream, where he would have been able to set off that TNT.

Ranboo was one of the only people on the server with a positive relationship with Dream, of any sort. It is true, especially at this time, that many people had negative opinons of Tommy, but Ranboo was the only one who didn't outright hate Dream... in his Enderwalk state. (with the sole exception of Punz, if you think the vault confrontation was staged, but that's definitely theory territory.) Dream has repeatedly stated that he finds Tommy "fun" and enjoys fucking with him. Tommy was locked in the prison after Ranboo could no longer visit, so assuming he has no supernatural means of communication with Dream (which is likely, as we have no real indication otherwise), he would have been acting without instruction. What better way to help Dream out than getting him his 'plaything' for at least a week?

Alternatively, you could frame it as a distraction or a break in/out attempt... which also doesn't make sense for anyone but Ranboo. Either way you frame it, Ranboo is the only person who makes sense without having to stretch their relationship with Dream into something it isn't.

Tubbo's investigation was the only real in character investigation into this incident we saw. He started out investigating people who were online, which is why I believe it's uniquely relevant to this incident. As I mentioned earlier, Foolish's alibi was that he was live. Ranboo's alibi was that he was mining. If you recall, the day Tommy was locked into the prison, Ranboo acknowledged that he did not know what he had done that afternoon, and that he distinctly had not been mining. This investigation didn't get much further than this because Tubbo refused to acknowledge that Ranboo could have done something like this. Because Ranboo has hidden his enderwalking so well, no one has any reason to believe he would do something to intentionally hurt one of his friends, or to help Dream.

Canonically, there isn't much evidence outside of Ranboo's comments to the audience because the characters absolutely cannot find out that it was Ranboo. He cannot be revealed as a traitor, narratively. Not yet, at least. So all of the evidence has to be directed towards the audience, which leads to it falling into subtext more often than not. The Enderwalk arc has the potential for an absolutely disastrous reveal at some point, where others discover exactly what he has done. It's unlikely that something like this will be confirmed explicitly until that point, but I believe the details I have explored above are foreshadowing, and will be explored again at this reveal. This point applies to the nuke, as well--perhaps even more so for reasons I will explore below.

Second: The missing nuke.

This one treads a little more into theory territory, but I think some of the subtextual implication is in this one too, it's just a bit further apart. Instead of being implied in streams the day of the incident and one week later, these implications are a little bit further out. I don't think I'm necessarily stretching by making these connections, though I can see why someone may think it's a stretch.

Ranboo was not online during this stream. This is why I think that's only conditionally applicable to the last point--Tubbo does not check tab habitually, and he had chat turned off intentionally. The tab list isn't necessarily canon to this stream. If we go by that, Jack Manifold is physically the only person who could have taken the nuke. The only other people online were Philza and Foolish, who were both live. Since this wasn't taken into consideration for the investigations, it's not relevant here.

Out of character, Jack took the nuke. Jack did not stream his perspective of this incident, he hung behind when Tubbo went ahead to start building the silo, and when the two came back together later, it was gone. This was intentionally done, as Jack usually streams his perspective for lore like this. If he had been the one to take the nuke, we likely would already know. His secret plans are not a secret from the audience, they are a secret from other characters--this leads me to think that in character, he did not take the nuke.

Very few people knew about the nukes, so we already start with a pretty small pool of suspects. One of these people was Ranboo. Even if Ranboo did seem to forget what Tubbo told him, the nuke would have been taken while he was Enderwalking--y'know, when he remembers everything, or at least remembers more.

The backbone of this theory, and the reason why I even began to consider it, is that Ranboo has a very solid and clear motivation to want the nuke. Ranboo has been helping Dream. The nukes were made specifically to be a deterrent/protection against Dream. If Ranboo takes one of the nukes, Dream now has access to that nuke, and the playing field has been re-balanced. Essentially, it's creating Mutually Assured Destruction between them. To take it one step further, only one of the nukes went missing. Tubbo was left with one nuke, and Ranboo and Dream have one nuke. Why not just take both? Well, leaving both parties with a nuke essentially ensures neither side will use it. It protects Dream, but it also helps to maintain (a semblance of) peace. Neither side can use their nuke without the other retaliating in kind. This leads to tensions, but prevents outright warfare from either side. It's not pretty, but it aligns with Ranboo's broader goals of keeping the peace.

So we've got the motivation, it makes sense. But that's not enough to make the claim on its own. What's the evidence?

This is a touch convoluted, so I get why it doesn't necessarily come up in relation to this as evidence often, but it's pretty solid to me. Especially compared to how vague most of Ranboo's subtext can get.

It's in the lessons! The highest number of lesson we were given was 94, though when Ranboo was repeating it outloud, he said 93. He later clarified saying 93 was intentional. This stream was on April 23rd. 93 days earlier, to the day, was January 20th--the day Dream was locked in the prison. 93 lessons for 93 days. If we take this to imply the lessons were daily, starting when Dream was locked in the prison, each lesson corresponds to a specific day. March 26th was the day the nuke went missing. 67 days from January 20th is March 27th, the day after the nuke disappeared without a trace. Neither Jack nor Tubbo had any real leads on the nuke. Lesson 67, the day after the nuke was stolen... "Leave no evidence of what you have helped with." This EXACT thing is why the nuke is so hard to pin down. There was no real evidence left. This lesson lining up so closely to the nuke's disappearance is not a coincidence. Further, at this point Ranboo no longer had contact with Dream. He had locked himself out of the prison and couldn't visit. If the lessons are daily, the things he writes down are things he's figured out for himself. The lesson being the day after the nuke was stolen makes sense, when framed like that. He stole the nuke, left no evidence, and wrote that down because it worked.

All of the hints/foreshadowing for the eventual reveal of where the nuke disappeared to has to be done in retrospect, and it has to be either from Ranboo, or from some other source that knows more than the characters. Which leads into my second bit of evidence: the Tubbo Texts. Across like, a week of streams (starting on April Fools Day), spooky half transparency cryptic text appeared on screen periodically, that c!Tubbo was unaware of. Those texts have never been explored in canon, it seems that none of the characters are aware of them or of their contents. So they are posed directly to the audience. The second one in particular stands out to me here:

"Quick, I don't have much time. Stay away from the North. A strange metal weapon washed up. It poisons the nature, the water. No it's not. That's it, we are leaving."

The 'strange metal weapon' seems to refer to the nuke, the poison being the radiation. Geographical direction is rarely paid any mind on the server, but north is distinctly the direction of Techno, Phil, and Ranboo's house. I think I remember Ranboo telling Sam he lives "up north" while trying to visit the prison. The arctic commune is the only notable northward location. The nuke disappeared, and reappeared in the north, in the direction of Ranboo's home. The rest of the texts refer to the north as well. We don't know where Ranboo's base of operations is in the Enderwalk, but we can assume he has at least one, and we can assume the nuke is hidden there, if he has taken it. If Ranboo has taken the nuke, it makes sense for it to be in the North.

Ranboo has proven he can take things without any evidence left behind. Remember his first beacon, that disappeared like, a day after he set it up? He never tracked it down, just replaced it. Within a couple days, he made a comment about his pickaxe durability being suspiciously low... maybe because he was using the stolen beacon to mine far from his home base so it wasn't noticeable that he had been mining. That's beside the point. I mean this to say, he knows how to take and hide things, he knows how to keep secrets, and he almost definitely has at least one secret base we've never seen onscreen.

So maybe Ranboo took the nuke, maybe he set off the TNT at the prison, that's cool, but why have they abandoned the plotlines? Why have we never gotten more explicit answers? Why won't they come back to it?

Ultimately, it seems a lot of these plans have been pushed back and delayed for one reason or another. Beyond that, an untimely reveal of either of these things to other characters would be a huge letdown. The arc seems to be building to a catastrophically large reveal, and each thing that gets revealed before then makes it much less impactful. Keeping it subtle towards the audience, while still offering some hints, stops a certain degree of the chat spoiling "metagaming" we see sometimes, that makes some streamers have to fully ignore their chats during lore streams.

This part is very much my own opinion, but I don't believe the missing nuke plotline will be resurfacing until after Dream is out of prison. Ranboo has no reason to reveal he has it until it will be put to use, either as a nuke or as a threat, and that won't happen til Dream is out of the prison and the nuke is in his hands instead.

The TNT on top of the prison will be an insanely gratifying reveal if it comes out with the rest of the enderwalk stuff. Any of this taken out of that context just kinda falls flat. So people know Ranboo set off the TNT, or know he has the nuke. How does that propel the plot? Ranboo won't do much of anything about it. People will distrust Ranboo, sure, but they won't know the depth of the issue, and that just makes the reveal frustrating. It will be revealed in time, I'm sure, but I think the enderwalk arc has to reach a climax first, or it's just disappointing.

I agree with the general frustration that these plotlines appear to be dropped or greatly delayed, but it's a symptom of a bigger pacing issue than solving either 'mystery' on its own will fix. And the answers aren't as obfuscated as they first may seem, it just takes a little digging!

#dsmp ranboo #dsmp dream #dsmp tommy #dsmp tubbo #enderwalk #endersmile #dsmp analysis #dsmp #proud of this one tbh #it gets a little more meta than just talking about what happens on screen yk?#rbs appreciated!!

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psychewritesbs · 3 years

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Chapter 159: Justice is blind + Foreshadowing from chapter 6 and JJK0?

This chapter we’re introduced to Higuruma, one of the players in the Culling Game with 100 points who Yuji and Megumi will most likely target in an attempt to add new rules to the game.

As I mentioned before, JJK is the equivalent of Murphy’s Law on steroids and we are guaranteed for Gege to pull the rug from under our feet. For all you know, the odds that Higuruma agrees to help them without a problem are 50/50.

Onto this week’s theories... This is a long one so brace yourself.

Higuruma’s Shikigami is the stuff of nightmares

Higuruma’s Shikigami, if that’s what it is, is loaded with symbolism. Perfect for my Cursed Technique of reading between the lines and over-thinking every single detail.

What I love about Higuruma is that he is a man on a mission--sort of like a Shonen Protagonist. He is single-minded in his pursuit of saving those he sees as victims to the monster that is the Japanese legal court system.

Despite continuing to put himself on the line for the people he is trying to “save,” the oppressive system that they are part of makes it impossible for him to achieve his goals. And yet, he keeps trying to fight the beast that is the legal system even when the odds of him ever winning are .1%.

In the end, it isn’t the legal system itself that breaks him, but rather his own unwavering conviction combined with his frustration and the anger from those he promised a victory he was not able to deliver despite his greatest efforts.

The only thing granted to all is an unfair reality

Lady Justice has been depicted as blind since the 16th century. Her blindfold is meant to represent her objectivity and impartiality before the law.

But Higuruma knows that a 99.9% conviction rate is anything but objective and impartial. Keeping his “eyes open” is his desire to bring awareness to a system that is broken.

What I found interesting, however, is that while Higuruma is intent on keeping his eyes open, his Shikigami’s eyes are sewn shut, as though they are being forced shut by thread.

If there is anyone who is closest to embodying the ideal of blind justice, it is Higuruma.

This makes me wonder how we’re going to see Higuruma’s character evolve, especially as he comes across Yuji and friends.

Higuruma vs. Megumi/Yuji?

Remember I said Higuruma might be willing to help Yuji and Megumi add a rule? I don’t think that’s what’s going to happen, but it is still a possibility. He does seem like a fair (pun intended) person after all.

What’s being set up, I feel like (and I could be wrong), is a showdown between two opposing belief systems:

Higuruma’s blind trust in serving and facilitating justice vs Megumi’s self-serving justice.

Ironically, they both

want to save good people,

neither considers himself to be a hero, and

their sense of justice is self-serving... they just have different criteria for what that means

Higuruma wants to facilitate justice for people who are innocent but are victims of the Japanese Law system. He’s done the research and he believes these people to be innocent and as having done nothing wrong.

On the other hand, Megumi wants to facilitate justice for people he cares about no matter how potentially dangerous they are (and this last bit is really important).

I realized recently that despite Sukuna having killed a lot of people during Shibuya, Megumi has not attempted to kill him since the Cursed Womb Arc.

Remember, Megumi has said he’s responsible for those deaths since he was the one who saved Yuji.

In addition, not only does Megumi need Yuji’s strength to save Tsumiki, but I am going to go as far as saying that Megumi cares deeply for Yuji to the point he still doesn’t want him to die even after everything that has happened up to this point.

Which begs the question, how is Higuruma going to react to Yuji’s existence?

This brings me to the possible foreshadowing from all the way back in the Cursed Womb Arc and possibly even JJK0.

Foreshadowing from chapter 6 or Crack Theory?

When I first read the new chapter I was intrigued that one of the characters Higuruma is defending as an attorney has a similar backstory to Tadashi from back in chapter 6.

Although their face structure looks similar...

The circumstances are slightly different in that Tadashi’s case involved driving without a license and Higuruma’s client was drunk driving.

But if we’re willing to suspend judgement for a minute, this is important because, if it is, in fact, Tadashi he is referring to here, then this panel just goes to show that Gege foreshadows like a boss.

And what if that girl who got ran over happens to be Rika from JJK0?

There isn’t necessarily concrete evidence that Tadashi is the one who ran Rika over AND I would need to look at the timeline of events more closely, but if it IS the case... talk about butterfly effect in action.

But the foreshadowing doesn’t end there. Someone pointed out that in chapter 143, Megumi tells Yuji they aren’t heroes fighting for justice and that no one can truly ever judge JJS.

So... no one can judge sorcerers, unless judging is exactly what Higuruma has been doing to rack up points...

The fact that Higuruma has 100 points tells us he’s been on a killing rampage, and from everything we see him go through in the chapter and from that look on his face in the last panel, we should not be surprised that he’s gone off the deep end.

Honestly, characters who loose their shit (hello Feral Megumi) are one of my favorite things about JJK.

I am writing all of this because it goes to show that Gege does not show you anything in his story that doesn’t have meaning in the grander scheme of things. Which leaves room for interpretation about whether Saori and Yuko will have roles moving forward.

Right along these lines, in looking for a specific line from chapter 9, I ran into this little gem:

Is this foreshadowing about Tsumiki too?

Maybe, maybe not.

As I said before, half the fun is in going through the journey of JJK unfolding before our very own eyes, while putting the pieces together from all of the breadcrumbs Gege dropped along the way.

But the fun doesn’t end there. I am fascinated at how as a fandom we willingly get traumatized when Gege kills off everybody and their mom that you cared about, while simultaneously loving every single minute of it.

We know it’s coming, and we’re there for it.

That’s Gege’s Cursed Technique for you... he gives you what you didn’t know you wanted.

Gege setting up the stage for madness

All in all, Gege has been painstakingly setting the stage for the madness that is to come during the Culling Game and the hype just keeps on escalating. If the Culling Game arc is anything like Shibuya, we can expect, again, Murphy’s Law in full effect.

I was chatting with @darthdutton about how I started reading the Shibuya Arc only a few months ago and therefore I did not get to experience it as it was unfolding.

It makes me so happy that I now get to experience the Culling Game as it happens and I am both so distraught and excited for whatever comes our way.

And when I say “whatever comes our way” I mean that I trust Gege to continue to surprise me.

I am here for the hype but I stay for the story

I loved this chapter!

I thought it was the f*cking bomb.com because you can see Gege starting to tie loose ends from possible foreshadowing he shared at the beginning of the story.

Plus, we got to see his story-telling skills in action as he creates yet another relatable character.

I truly admire Gege as a writer--the fact that he can come up with a story on a week-to-week basis, execute on it, create very human and relatable characters, set up foreshadowing all the way back at the beginning, and drop breadcrumbs along the way is just mind-blowing to me.

God, I love Jujutsu Kaisen.

Anyways... this was a bit long but I just felt like I had a lot to say about this seemingly insignificant chapter. Hope you enjoyed it, and as always, I am looking forward to hearing your thoughts on it!

#jujutsu kaisen #jujutsu kaisen manga #jujutsu kaisen spoilers #god i love jujutsu kaisen #jjk theory #jjk ch 159 #fushiguro megumi #megumi fushiguro #yuji itadori #Itadori yuji #gege akutami #okkotsu yuta

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ilikekidsshows · 3 years

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The Marinette and Kagami Sub Arc Breakdown

Okay, it's finally done, the big analysis, where I tackle a topic I've wanted to write for simply because it's a topic I personally find interesting and fun, AKA, The Best Sub Arc in the Entire Series So Far, AKA, How Marinette Proved Without a Shadow of a Doubt that She'd Never Be Like Chloé And We Stan.

One of the most interesting parts of the Marinette and Kagami rivals to friends sub arc is that it's one of the aspects of the show that directly connects to Marinette's past as a victim of bullying and is, in a way, about her overcoming that past. Not many things in the show remind us of the revelation in 'Origins' that Chloé had been bullying Marinette for years before the show's timeline, especially since Chloé became pretty declawed as a school level threat as the series went on to the degree where I think many people watching forgot that she used to hold a lot more power, and Marinette used to be wary of her.

But, the reason why Marinette being a bully victim is important in her arc with Kagami is this: people who have been victimized don't necessarily recognize it when they're victimizing others, and I believe that Marinette shows signs of this mentality in the show, particularly in season three. I'll illustrate how Marinette's ex-bully victim mindset informed the early stages of her relationship with Kagami and how Marinette overcame her internal biases when it comes to Kagami and her behavior towards Kagami.

In 'Origins', when Alya quotes Majestia's by now immortal line, she also says something that is very much what someone who has been victimized would identify with: "That girl over there is evil, while we are the good people." While Alya was very accurate that she and Marinette are good people, she didn't really know much about Marinette at this point, so she was actually pretty much guessing. The reason why this line is important is because it relies on an assumption that a moral binary exists on the bully-victim scale, instead of these roles being dynamic and socially formed. If you’re a victim of a bully, the bully is evil and you are a Good Person.

Some people who've been systematically victimized think on some level that them being victims means that they can never be instigators, that they're automatically morally pure because the person who victimizes them is the evil one. This is a very typical argument in social justice circles, where a person who is victimized for one thing might say bigoted things about another group and claim that they can't be a bigot because they suffer from bigotry. The simplest example I can give is white women refusing to accept that something they've said about black women could be offensive to black women specifically, because "how could a victim of sexism be racist". Now, what happens between Marinette and Kagami in the show is nowhere near this level of victimization switcheroo, but it still has that false binary in that Marinette thinks that her actions have more moral justification than they actually do.

The interesting thing about how Kagami is introduced is that her future role as a love rival was downplayed in ‘Riposte’. Her Akumatization was because of family issues and the idea that she might be attracted to Adrien came from Marinette's jealous grumblings while she was rescuing him from Riposte (I'm mostly referring to the "She doesn't deserve you" line). Outside of that little bit, 'Riposte' comes across as a pretty standard Victim of the Week episode, instead of setting up a romance sub arc. As such, Marinette already viewing Kagami's Riposte form as a romantic rival serves more as foreshadowing rather than it actually forming their relationship.

Then we get to 'Frozer'. Marinette doesn't really know much of anything about Kagami at the start of this episode, as we can see in her mental image of Kagami as a cackling mean girl. Because Marinette doesn't really know Kagami at this point, when Adrien tells her he's thinking of asking Kagami out, her mind gives a placeholder mental image of her, seemingly based off of Chloé, another rich girl with a (supposed) crush on Adrien. This is the episode that establishes Kagami as a romantic rival to both the audience and Marinette, and Marinette’s negative mental image of Kagami establishes the idea of this rivalry being antagonistic. However, because this setup happens in Marinette's headscape, it's actually a one-sided antagonism.

Kagami isn't actually antagonistic towards Marinette in 'Frozer', but there is a certain assertiveness and physical presence to her in the episode that Marinette, as a former bully victim, might find imposing. Kagami gets in her personal space, because she's telling Marinette something she's sure Marinette doesn't want the boys to hear, but to Marinette, the body language could have come across as threatening. The way Marinette stares at Kagami throughout the scene with a deer-in-headlights look can indicate more general startlement or a sense of foreboding. And the episode ends with Kagami kissing Adrien on the cheek, establishing her as a threat in Marinette's eyes. From Marinette's view, Kagami's behavior in 'Frozer' confirmed her fears about Kagami, that she was a rich bully.

This interpretation of Kagami informs a lot of Marinette's actions in 'Animaestro'. Here we see just how much Marinette has started to view Kagami as the new Chloé in her mind. Even when the actual Chloé shows up, Marinette is more ready to side with her than Kagami. And why this happens is because Chloé actually accidentally enforces the idea that, because Marinette is a Good Person, any person who works against her happiness is a bully and a Bad Person. While we could argue that Marinette has no reason to listen to anything Chloé says, we have to remember that Marinette has been lowkey hoping Chloé would become a better person in episodes like 'Antibug' and 'Zombizou'. When they both agree that Kagami has to go, Marinette could have taken it as another sign that Chloé's not all bad, or Marinette could have simply come to the conclusion that Kagami is actually worse than Chloé, and so teaming up with Chloé to take her down is justified.

It's important to note that 'Animaestro' chronologically takes place right after 'Chameleon', another episode where Marinette thinks she's morally justified in practically bullying someone because they're acting in a way she disagrees with. Because Lila was revealed to be able to dish back the same, if not even worse, that Marinette could unleash, Marinette never learned that her behavior at the start of the episode was bullying and therefore bad. Lila "justified" Marinette's actions after the fact because she was actually a bad person all along, so Marinette doesn't need to feel bad about basically harassing her. If Lila had just been someone who fibs for fun, with no malicious intentions, Marinette's behavior would have been completely out of proportion.

This is why the approach Chloé and, by extension, Marinette take against Kagami is so vital. With Chloé hatching a scheme that was so much like one Marinette would put together, the lines between Marinette and Chloé were blurred in this episode. Simply because it was such a convoluted plan might have also been why Marinette didn't seem to realize the implications of what she was trying to accomplish. I mentioned during my liveblog of this episode that Marinette doesn't seem to consider that, since the plan was to publicly humiliate Kagami, the plan working would have meant hurting Kagami really badly. I also pointed out that, because the trap triggered for the wrong target, this fact didn't really register with Marinette completely, since she merely noted that of course Chloé would have a bad plan. The plan was bad because it failed, not because it was morally wrong.

However, even though we didn't see it happen in the episode itself, what happened at the movie premiere did alter Marinette's perception of Kagami. Most likely it was contrasting Kagami to the actual Chloé and realizing that she had been mistakenly attributing Chloé's traits to Kagami. The change in Marinette's perception is clear in her panic spiral when she realizes Kagami is her partner for the game in 'Ikari Gozen': "She's brilliant, strong, cute!" Marinette would never spell out all of Chloé's better features in such a way, which means her stance on Kagami has moved away from seeing her as The New Chloé.

Even though Marinette doesn't see Kagami as a bad person at this point anymore, she does still consider her strictly opposition. She refuses to work with her, preferring instead to sabotage her and her chances with Adrien, just this time without the attempted humiliation. This is mostly because Marinette sees Kagami and thinks she has it all: looks, confidence, influence, a connection with Adrien. Marinette is absolutely convinced that if they won the contest, all attention would be on Kagami and she'd be sidelined in favor of her. It's easy to think that a little bit of sabotage is okay when Kagami seems to have such an unfair advantage.

Unfortunately for Marinette's peace of mind, the point of 'Ikari Gozen' is to dissuade her of the notion that Kagami is fortunate in every way possible. We can see that Marinette thought that sabotaging the game was fine because Kagami had so many advantages because, as soon as she discovers that Kagami is friendless and has no connection to Adrien outside of fencing, she feels very bad for what she was trying to do. Marinette didn't actually want to hurt or upset Kagami. In 'Animaestro', Marinette didn't think about Kagami's feelings at all in relation to how Chloé's scheme might make Kagami feel, but this time she is thinking about them, she simply misjudged them at the start. She thought her purposefully throwing the contest would be a minor setback to Kagami, not what it ended up being: a betrayal by someone she was hoping to befriend.

I noted during my liveblog of this episode that Marinette's relationship with Adrien also started with a misunderstanding where Marinette first saw Adrien in a more negative light before that impression was proven to be false and they became friends. The development in 'Ikari Gozen' mirrors what happens in 'Origins' in that Marinette first has a false impression of Kagami, but is ultimately proven wrong in her assumptions and becomes friends with her. Marinette nominating herself as Kagami's friend even in her phone call with Tomoe suggests that Marinette recognized a similar need for friends in Kagami that she's seen in Adrien.

Marinette has gotten over seeing Kagami as an opponent in 'Desperada', where we see how Marinette reacts to Kagami and Adrien enjoying an inside joke together: she is miserable. Marinette recognizes the similarity between Kagami and Adrien and, rather than making her mad with jealousy, it makes her feel defeated. While Marinette's perception that Kagami was put together and perfect was taken down in 'Ikari Gozen', 'Desperada' shows us that she still thinks she can't measure up against Kagami, although now it's for the reason that she can see the connection between Adrien and Kagami and doesn't think she has what it takes to compete with that.

'Love Hunter' is the episode where this new sense of insecurity comes to a head. When Marinette's hair falls out of its usual style, it signifies her letting down her guard and enjoying both Kagami and Adrien's company, because Adrien and Kagami are both her friends at this point. However, when Marinette is reminded that there are things that Kagami and Adrien experience that she can't relate to ("It's not every day we can escape from everything they expect from us"), she hastily ties her hair back into the usual twintails, her insecurity forcing her to put her walls back up again.

Marinette is in emotional turmoil throughout the episode, allowing Adrien and Kagami to have what could constitute as an ice cream date alone at first, only to interrupt Kagami's attempt to kiss Adrien a few minutes later by whisking Kagami away to help solve the Akuma situation. This is why Marinette wanted André to pick the ice cream blend, because she started to project her relationships with Adrien and Kagami onto the ice cream too much. Marinette values her friends' happiness very high, high enough to stand aside when Kagami refers to their similarity as the reason she and Adrien are made for each other. Marinette does respond to Kagami that choices can be hard, so her standing aside is also about Marinette simply not acting at all, either to allow Kagami to go for Adrien unchallenged or to pursue Adrien herself. The choice between Adrien and Kagami was too much for her. Marinette being indecisive is of course a major character flaw I've discussed on this blog repeatedly, so the idea that it might have played a role here too makes sense from my perspective.

So far the Marinette and Kagami arc has been about Marinette learning not to subject other people to the kind of treatment she gets from Chloé, overcoming the temptation to turn into a bully to protect herself, and also making friends along the way. But there is still more ground that can be covered with this immensely interesting relationship. This is actually why I feel we really need to see Kagami and Marinette interacting after Kagami and Adrien break up. Because Marinette still has unresolved feelings about Kagami and not just Adrien after the season three finale.

#miraculous ladybug #miraculous tales of ladybug and chat noir #marinette dupain cheng #kagami tsurugi #ml meta #long post #popular

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hamliet · 3 years

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Twisted Skeletons of the Past, Masks of Justice, and Dreams of the Future: the Burden of Legacy

This arc has been heavily hitting us with the idea of legacy, and this chapter in particular shows Compress musing about Dabi and Shigaraki’s heroic legacies and Dabi exposing Hawks’ villainous one. So, let’s examine the foiling between Dabi and Shouto, and to an extent Deku, Shigaraki, and Hawks.

Hawks having to hide his identity to be a hero parallels Dabi hiding his identity as a villain, and hero society as a whole (cough Gran Torino cough) hiding Shigaraki’s true identity. Gran Torino claimed that he did this because no matter what Shigaraki’s heritage is, he’s still a villain:

Except now we know hero society is just fine with covering up a villain’s heritage to allow him to be a hero; they know heroes and villains aren’t just born. . It’s good that they allowed Hawks to be a hero (though questionable how much Hawks chose to be on his own since he’s more than once implied to be at the mercy of the commission). Still, they won’t let Hawks be himself as a hero because of his legacy, and thereby objectify him by grooming him into a tool. Now because the hero commission forced Hawks into a double-agent role that he did not want, now they’ve only hurt their own reputations when he killed Twice (this isn’t to absolve Hawks).

Hero society focuses on the present at the expense of the past and of the future. While putting on a face of only caring about the present, the hero commission is very concerned about maintaining present appearances, even if it means allowing skeletons to rot in their closets. They prefer to deal with villains heroes and everyday folk as they are, but pay no mind to what made them what they are, nor what they could become in the future. Only what you are at the moment matters. It’s a well-known platitude that is more often than not cheap and overly simplistic, and doesn’t have a place in determining fate.

Shouto, for one, has always been grappling with legacy as part of his arc, defining himself in opposition to his father rather than as an extension of his father (as Endeavor defined him for a lot of his life). Or so he claims.

I say “or so he claims,” because Shouto’s actions show that he is well aware he cannot just do away with his heritage, and seems to walk back this claim slightly when he takes an internship with his father not just once, but twice. On the one hand, he might be trying to learn from his past and that’s good, but on the other, he still clearly struggles with seeing his fire quirk as part of Endeavor, rather than his own. It’s fine if he wants to reconcile with Endeavor (and the series is clearly setting him up to do so eventually), but it’s hard to say this isn’t also symbolic of Shouto regressing after his fight with Midoriya.

After all, we have seldom seen Shouto use his fire quirk after that fight with Midoriya. He lost to Bakugou because he would not use his flames (and Bakugou was pisssssed because of it, thus attracting the attention of the villains who would then kidnap him). Shouto’s inability to use his flames thus helps bring Touya back into his life--and part of the reason Shouto then loses Bakugou to Dabi during the kidnapping is because, well, Shouto does not once use his flames.

So as much as Shouto says he believes this:

He needs to show it and live it himself, because he hasn’t done this yet. Yeah, there’s probably going to be an eventual “agni kai” between brothers, but I don’t think winning is the purpose. Touya is not just Endeavor and hero society’s shadow; he’s also Shouto’s, much as Shigaraki is Deku’s and Himiko Ochaco’s, and you don’t burn your shadow. You reconcile with it.

So regarding Touya as a shadow for all of these... as @linkspooky said in her brilliant meta last week, Touya believes his flames are Endeavor’s.

Through challenging Dabi that he can be his own person, that he doesn’t have to be defined by his abuse or even by his villainy, Shouto will likely himself reconcile with his own shadow side. Touya has always assumed his purpose is to be an extension of Enji, because that’s what Enji believed as well:

Touya still views himself that way, attempting a murder-suicide with Endeavor this chapter. Like, his comment about DNA testing likely refers to “test from my dead body” given his suicidal plunge this chapter.

Touya needs to learn he exists as a person, and because of this he can decide his own purpose, he can take responsibility for his actions (like how Endeavor will probably eventually by sacrificing himself to save Touya):

The irony is also that Endeavor’s legacy is still, indeed, likely to be defined at least in a major way by Touya. The paneling is brilliant this chapter: Touya is on the back of a mountainous giant monster that is very symbolic of what Endeavor is facing. Endeavor’s words about what he hoped Touya would become are likely foreshadowing: his legacy will be decided by what he does with Touya. Saving Touya might just crush all the frustration/envy/ugliness in Endeavor’s heart to dust. Well, not really. It won’t likely be crushed into nonexistence, because that’s not how the past is portrayed here and not how shadows work in stories. But it might well reconcile Endeavor with his family (this isn’t me commenting on whether I want this or not, just predicting based on what I see in the story).

Returning to the idea of existing as a person outside of legacy... let’s talk Shigaraki, who is literally being somewhat possessed by legacy right now. AFO is trying to control him, and Shigaraki refuses, keeping his agency... or is he?

Shigaraki is still driven by his own trauma, trauma that was used by AFO to groom him from Shimura Tenko into Shigaraki Tomura. Even before AFO tried to literally possess him, Shigaraki has not been allowed to exist as a person and discover his own purpose; he’s been groomed as a weapon by AFO since AFO saved him. (It’s also not a coincidence AFO is a long-past-his-time monstrosity: the embodiment of the worst of the past.)

Shigaraki struggling to wake up this chapter is symbolic on a few levels.

Being controlled by the past, even past trauma, leads to broken bodies and pain. It destroys you as well as the world around you. However, narratively it’s not time for Shigaraki to wake up to this reality just yet, though I believe Deku will get through to him eventually. Shigraki is yes, literally a symbol of the world in that the more he destroys the world the more he hurts himself, which means to save the world is to save Shigaraki.

Deku himself will have a decision to make. He literally carries the past One for All holders around with him. How does Deku want to define not just his legacy, but theirs? Because they certainly have not been perfect; despite good intentions, Nana hurt Koutarou who passed on that pain to Shigaraki. The past continues. The past is the present. Unless those twisted skeletons are exhumed, the future will be poisoned by them. OFA’s legacy is supposed one of saving, but because of Nana’s mistakes (even if instigated by All for One!) is also one of abandonment. If Deku really wants to carry on OFA’s glorious legacy, doesn’t he have to take responsibility for the pain this quirk has caused as well? If he really wants OFA to be used to save everybody, should that not include even the scariest of villains? Shouldn’t Deku confront the burden of having a quirk and being a hero in addition to the opportunity?

It’s your power, Deku. You get to choose what to do with OFA regardless of the hero commission’s wishes.

The thing about legacy is that it's complex. It will provide links that will likely help Shouto and Deku want to save Touya and Shigaraki, respectively. But it also objectifies, makes it difficult to see someone as a person rather than as a cog in a machine, a tool in a system. Because that is how the hero society views the kids, as we saw with Hawks. Legacy isn’t good or bad: like heroism, it can be used for good or bad, to empathize or to condemn (cough, all the takes good victim/bad victiming Shouto/Touya and Eri/Shigaraki). It’s up to you what to do with it.

Likewise, the characters can’t bury the past. But they cannot let it claim them, either. They need to decide what they want to do with it: to declare it doesn’t matter at all, the perspective Gran Torino, who was symbolically taken out during this fight, advocates? Or to reconcile with it in order to heal what it left broken and behind, and move forward?

It’s likely both Deku (with Bakugou) and Shouto (with Endeavor) will save Shigaraki and Dabi respectively by giving them the empathy they are both crying out for (and Ochaco giving Himiko empathy too).

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