Tumgik
#anyway hectors death was devastating
tzarina-alexandra · 2 months
Text
[in the Peter Pan books, there was this prequel called something like Peter Pan in Kensington garden and it shows his backstory. he was kidnapped by fairies as a baby and raised there. when he was old enough to figure out he was kidnapped, he flew back to his mum's house but she had another baby and completely forgot about Peter (probably assuming he died). this was devastating to him (and that's kinda how the prequel ends). I hated that book as a kid it made me cry]
Copied my own comment on some webtoon. Now that I remember this, it's kind of another example of me seeing/ reading the sequel/ prequel etc instead of the original, and this colouring my view of the series as a whole. For example it was this prequel that made me never want to get into the Peter Pan series (I don't think I even watched the Disney movie for that matter???). If in the original, Peter is not a very positive figure (he refuses to grow up and Wendy departs from him once she overcomes her own childishness), the prequel shows him completely as the victim (the fairies take him away from his mom and his mom completely forgets about him once she has a 2nd baby). If anything, the fairies are the real villains of this story.
On a slightly related note, I remember that since I first learned to read I basically only read classics cause that was available to me, and in hindsight, all of these old timey books about kids, the children endure horrible abuse. All of you guys complaining about 16 year old defeating the evil wizard or whatever. I'd rather have grown up on that than little kids enduring very real abuses that did happen in the eras they were written in. In hindsight I see that David Copperfield was never intended to be a children's book but a social commentary. No wonder I hated it as a kid haha. (As an adult I do see its value). Oliver Twist was kinda like that too except it had a bit more adventure to it I guess.
Even my very first book, Cuore by Edmondo de Amicis, was rife with all sorts of abuse that the children endured. (It was one of my fav books at the time tho. My actual fav book at the time was Alone in the world by Hector Mallot). I wonder what was about Peter Pan and David Copperfield that made the read unbearable compared to all the other books (all of which were rife with children being abused or suffering in other ways). Maybe the intentional parental abandonment?? Like in PP the mom replaced him with his younger sibling. In DC the mom got remarried and the stepdad was super abusive. Maybe it was the idea of replacement that offended me much more than the abuse which was pretty par for the course. Child death was also something I could not stomach at all at that age (I remember this one poem in a Christian poetry collection, with those illustrations of ppl with big heads seemingly without noses and thin blond curly hair and big circle arms and feet with frilly dresses and stuff. Anyway that was the art style. The poem itself was about a mom who lost her baby and the illustration was of a woman next to a big cross in a cemetery. And I legit never touched the poetry book ever again because I read it as a small child and the poem about the little baby dying affected me too much).
See this is why I'm glad my baby cousins (the girls in question are 11-13 now but I still call them that) grew up on Narnia and actual children's literature. And mom (who teaches primary school kids) is subscribed to this children's reading program and she gets new children's books every other month or so (she has her students choose a book from that subscription list to study for the extracurricular but mom gets one of each book on that mailing list. Plenty of new and interesting children's literature, I'm genuinely glad to see it.)
I think this kinda thing makes a child love reading much more than if the only books available are classics or cheap Party-approved kids series. In the latter case, reading becomes a chore (you read because you're assigned reading at school but as soon as that ends it's game over)
5 notes · View notes
tavi-the-rat · 2 years
Note
Since you’re really into Ancient Rome, do you know anything about emperor Nero? I heard his name mentioned in the book I’m reading, and i’d like to know more. :)
NERO LETS GOOOO
my second favourite emperor i want to put him in my pocket an carry around hehe
anyway, some facts!
i think you probably know this already but his name wasn't always nero. in fact, his birthname was lucius, but later in life he took up the name nero, which is latin for "stern". he was also the last emperor of the julio-claudian dynasty - he was a great-great-grandson of emperor augustus :)
despite his daughter claudia being only a few months old when she died, nero was strongly emotionally attached to her, he even gave her the title "augusta" before she died and it was essentially a title for high-ranking women in the dynasty (as "august" was a title for emperors only) so you can tell he highly valued her. he even issued a coin to be made to commemorate her and he was absolutely devastated and grieved a lot after her death. he loved his daughter a lot it makes me sob 😭😭😭
also, a lot of people think he killed his wife, poppea when she was pregnant but... i don't think it's necessarily true, especially since he really really wanted to be a father so killing his pregnant wife just... wouldn't make much sense
nero loved art, there are many depictions of him reciting poetry or singing with a lyre. he hosted art and sport competitions as he liked them better than watching gladiators fight but other romans weren't too happy with it as they liked to witness violence and bloodshed
while we're at it, he probably wasn't responsible for the great fire of rome (might've been the heat waves, especially since rome is located in the mediterranean area which is pretty hot)
greeks absolutely LOVED this guy bc he appreciated their culture a lot, he became interested in it as a kid and it contributed to him becoming an artist. he loved greece and its people, he often travelled to greece to perform :)
when he was a little boy he used to watch chariot racing with his friends from school and was a great fan of the green team. while he was talking with his buddies about the last race where the green charioteer was dragged across the field by his hoses, his teacher seneca caught them talking in class and little nero lied that they were actually talking about Iliad where achilles drags hector's body around with his chariot and seneca believed him without punishing them. this is such a cute story, it makes you notice that humans haven't really changed much 🤲💗
i think that more people should learn about nero as we all have the image of a "blood-thirsty cruel tyrant" which is... very far from true. also if you wanted to learn more about him my friend @/emperornero knows a lot as well :)
44 notes · View notes
meanwhilepoetry · 3 years
Quote
Hector loved Andromache so much, her fate was why he fought as hard as he did. The fall of Troy only terrified him because her destiny and his son's were attached to it. His greatest fear was the ruins of the woman he loved and his child because there would be no one left to protect them. Achilles loved Patroclus so much, he would have burned the entire world to the ground just to avenge his death. His grief was so mighty he would have ended the war single handedly had the Gods not intervened to stop him. Two loves that powerful clashed in the worst sort of way and only one of them could survive while the other died - and this is the devastating tragedy. The only lesson is look, look at what love can do. It can make you a hero or make a monster out of you.
Nikita Gill, Hector and Achilles
3K notes · View notes
elvesofnoldor · 2 years
Text
.
#mae overshares#i went to bed at around 3am and woke up at 7am. and i thought abt t//soa and i got really sad and i couldn't fall back to sleep again#im not supposed to feel this restless and awake with only three hours of sleep to show for#it was like going to bed with a sniffle and running nose. hoping it'd go away and wake up with a throbbing sore throat instead#next time i read a sad story again im not doing it alone. i gotta get it out of the system before it festers like this#but since ive done it alone. now im on tumblr dot com again. acting like a depressed clown of very little talents with words#i just...i had hope it wasn't going to be this bad. like. i knew the story of achilles and patroclus. it was common knowledge#and while i was still early on the story. when they were still at chiron's rose quartz cave. i kept telling myself 'remember they had this'#not everyone gets to grow up and live the most content and simple life with the love of your life. and they had that. and thats enough#what happened after this. is just life. with the mistakes. regrets and losses it will inevitably bring to them. as it did to everyone else#and it STILL hurt like a motherfucker when i read to the end of the novel. i feel very silly. it's a YA novel. doesnt seem to be worth it#there is so much i want to talk about in regards to the story. in regards to achilles' pride and selfishness#and how he's the real culprit behind his love's death. and how it is that knowledge and the pain it produces that drove him to madness#no sane person can handle so much pain and so much anger. it had to go somewhere. so it went to hector. it was pitiful#sure. grief is love preserving. but it will never explode the way achilles' did had it not been mixed with guilt#but anyways. it's been said a thousands times over. by other people. probably. i wouldn't elaborate further. nobody is reading anyways#i actually started reading t//soa because i couldn't keep reading lotr trilogy. that's what ive come to say. actually#now that everybody's stopped reading i can say it. im more embarrassed by the fact that i was not enjoying lotr#than i am by the fact that im emotionally devastated over a YA novel. im supposed to be tolkien fan#but you know what i love most about the stories tolkien produced? the legends left only in sketches and few lines of words#the ones left only in few broken manuscripts. in verses of lays of beleriand. in few lines of scribbled words. the elder days#as a child i always loved high tales. when i got annoyed at greek gods' cruelty and selfishness that's around the time i turned tolkien#the hobbits and their quaint way of life are fine. but they live in a time where all the tales i cared about are in the distant past#i just picked up t//soa at a time when i wanted a story like it. taking the matter of ancient songs and legends and make it flesh and blood#there are several tolkien fics i had in the planning stage. but the reasons i wanted to write them is because i want stories like t//soa#sure reading t//soa also inspired me to make improvements to my own story idea. it always happened when i read a story i really like#i started daydreaming my own manuscript. i instinctually started to imitate the style and the voice of the author#idk. maybe this time something substantial will come out of it. eventually.
1 note · View note
magicaththedemigod · 3 years
Text
an extensive analysis of “the song of achilles” by madeline miller
Or: things I noticed and couldn't keep to myself.
Because I just finished reading it and have many feelings about it, I've decided to compile all of them into a very lengthy Tumblr post.
This will be broken up into three parts:
1. Foreshadowing
2. Dramatic (and regular) Irony
3. Fatal Flaws
1. Foreshadowing
Miller does such a delightful job with foreshadowing. The number of quotes I could be spitting at you right now... but I digress. The main job of foreshadowing, especially in a tragedy like "The Song of Achilles," is to set the characters up for their tragedy.
What I like most about how Miller goes about it in this book is that she doesn't attempt to pull a shocking twist out of nowhere; instead, she takes an approach which allows the reader to fully marinate in their despair.
For example, this quote:
Achilles shook his head, impatiently. "But this was a greater punishment for her. It was not fair of them." "There is no law that gods must be fair, Achilles," Chiron said. "And perhaps it is the greater grief, after all, to be left on earth when another is gone. Do you think?"
Let's take a moment and unpack some of this. For context, this is a conversation between Patroclus, Achilles, and their mentor Chiron. They're discussing the tale of Heracles, who's driven to madness and ends up killing his own wife and kids.
From reading the book, (SPOILER ALERT) you know that Achilles' own pride and honor end up forcing Patroclus to impersonate him in order to save the Greek army, and in doing so is killed by Hector. The fact that Chiron directs this question, "And perhaps it is the greater grief, after all, to be left on earth when another is gone. Do you think?" to Achilles, who is left behind after Patroclus' death is such delightful foreshadowing that I almost threw the book across the room when I first read it.
Achilles slumps into such a depression after Patroclus dies (really, after he kills Patroclus with his own fatal flaw), that he even loses the ability to care about his fame or honor anymore. He feels the greater grief, so to speak.
Even after he dies, Patroclus is left behind, unable to rest properly because they never put his name on the tomb. In that sense, Patroclus is then the one left behind, experiencing loneliness and grief.
The book is full of little hints like this, and that's part of why it's almost torture to read as someone who knows how the Iliad goes. As I said before: the foreshadowing in this book is meant to have the reader in pain from the beginning because you know nothing is going to work out in the end.
2. Dramatic (and regular) Irony
Yes, that's right. I'm about to rip into your soul.
Probably one of the biggest parts of classical Greek myths is dramatic irony (the audience knowing something the characters don't). In plays, the ending is almost always announced before the play begins. In fact, the audience most likely already knows the story from previous tellings or just general knowledge. It makes sense that it would be one of the biggest players in "The Song of Achilles."
As usual, let's start with a quote:
His eyes opened. "Name one hero who was happy." I considered. Heracles went mad and killed his family; Theseus lost his bride and father; Jason's children and new wife were murdered by his old; Bellerophon killed the Chimera but was crippled by the fall from Pegasus' back. "You can't." He was sitting up now, leaning forward. "I can't." "I know. They never let you be famous and happy." He lifted an eyebrow. "I'll tell you a secret." "Tell me." I loved it when he was like this. "I'm going to be the first." He took my palm and held it to his. "Swear it." "Why me?" "Because you're the reason. Swear it." "I swear it," I said, lost in the high color of his cheeks, the flame in his eyes. "I swear it," he echoed. We sat like that a moment, hands touching. He grinned. "I feel like I could eat the world raw."
First of all: cute. Second of all: wow, so much pain.
As you know, Achilles is the opposite of happy at the end of the book (well, maybe after they die, but we'll get to that later). Though he swears it here with Patroclus, the two of them make decisions that ultimately lead to their downfall: Achilles decides to abandon the Greeks after they slighted his honor, Patroclus decides to help them even if it means risking his life, and Achilles lets him do it.
So let's talk about dramatic irony. The irony here is that you know, maybe just from this exchange alone, that Achilles isn't going to be the first happy hero. You know there is a war coming, know that Achilles and his famous heel will get himself killed. You might also know at this point that Patroclus will die first and send Achilles spiraling into grief before that happens.
It's painful, truly. Achilles spends his last days in utter agony, wanting to die but unable to kill himself, and Patroclus can only watch on as a ghost (spirit?). Even when Achilles does die and his ashes are put into their urn (seriously, how did any scholar ever think they weren't lovers?), they still have to wait to be reunited.
But there's still more. Consider these lines:
Hector's eyes are wide, but he will run no longer. He says, "Grant me this. Give my body to my family, when you have killed me." Achilles makes a sound like choking. "There are no bargains between lions and men. I will kill you and eat you raw."
Sound familiar? That's right: "I will kill you and eat you raw" sounds an awful lot like "I feel like I could eat the world raw," doesn't it? Another parallel from Miller: one from a time of happiness, the other from a time of extreme grief. However painful it is, I really live for connections like that.
And I've got one more for you:
Achilles shook his head. "Never. He is brave and strong, but that is all. He would break against Hector like water on a rock. So. It is me, or no one." "You will not do it." I tried not to let it sound like begging. "No." He was quiet a moment. "But I can see it. That's the strange thing. Like in a dream. I can see myself throwing the spear, see him fall. I walk up to the body and stand over it." Dread rose in my chest. I took a breath, forced it away. "And then what?" "That's the strangest of all. I look down at his blood and know my death is coming. But in the dream I do not mind. What I feel, most of all, is relief." "Do you think it can be prophecy?" The questions seemed to make him self-conscious. He shook his head. "No. I think it is nothing at all. A daydream." I forced my voice to match his in lightness. "I'm sure you're right. After all, Hector hasn't done anything to you."
See where I'm going with this? I don't think I need to explain this one.
3. Fatal Flaws
That's right, one of the most essential pieces for a tragedy: hamartia. For those who might not know, hamartia is the fatal flaw that ultimately leads to the downfall of a tragic hero or heroine. In every single piece of classical greek writing, if the story is a tragedy, the main character will have a fatal flaw that makes it so.
Take Achilles:
I looked at the stone of his face, and despaired. “If you love me-”
“No!” His face was stiff with tension. “I cannot! If I yield, Agamemnon can dishonor me whenever he wishes. The kings will not respect me, nor the men!” He was breathless, as though he had run far. “Do you think I wish them all to die? But I cannot. I cannot! I will not let them take this from me!”
You probably already know what his fatal flaw is: pride. He needs the fame, needs the glorious memory of his deeds to live on forever, so badly that he is willing to sacrifice his life and what might’ve been a fulfilling and long life with Patroclus out of the limelight. His fatal flaw is what spurs each of his actions in the later half of the book, including the moment where he decides to leave the Greeks to their deaths for slandering him.
Even Patroclus has a fatal flaw: his love for Achilles.
That night I lay in bed beside Achilles. His face is innocent, sleep-smoothed and sweetly boyish. I love to see it. This is his truest self, earnest and guileless, full of mischief but without malice. He is lost in Agamemnon and Odysseus’ wily double meanings, their lies and games of power. They have confounded him, tied him to a stake and baited him. I stroke the soft skin of his forehead. I would untie him if I could. If he would let me.
Though riding into the center of the fighting, especially dressed as Achilles, will make Patroclus the prime target, he decides to do it anyway. And not out of fear for Achilles’s life; he knows how important his pride and reputation is to him, and out of desperation will do anything to keep Achilles from being devastated when it doesn’t work out for him.
(Honestly, this is the part where I start to hate Achilles for doing this to Patroclus... it’s like he doesn’t even consider Patroclus his equal and does everything without consulting him.)
Of course, Agamemnon has a fatal flaw as well. He is like the mirror image of Achilles, so proud and stubborn, righteous and arrogant. However, he is the darker image, the one that revels in taking things by force and, of course, raping women like Briseis. He serves as a poignant foil for Achilles, highlighting all the ways the traits they share can easily become corrupted. It’s part of why this novel works so well.
I hope you all enjoyed this book as much as I did. Truthfully, I did have a few problems with it, but I wanted to trying picking it apart anyway. And if you haven’t read the song of achilles... what are you doing reading these spoilers?? 
101 notes · View notes
honeyedsunlight22 · 4 years
Text
not to mention that hector's death was one of the saddest. he knows he's already dead before achilles even kills him. in his final moments he just wants to do a great deed to make people remember him, but then he just,,,gets killed without achieving any feat.
there was something so Hopeful about trying in spite of being doomed, as well as his hope/joy when he thinks deïphobus came outside the wall to help him. (that was such a dirty trick from athena!) i'm glad he finally recognized it was a trick from the gods though, because if he thought his brother genuinely abandoned him i could not have handled the devastation. although for a split second he probably did believe he had been abandoned...
but anyway the Futility of it all is just heartbreaking. he tries to do something valiant because what other choice does he have? it's just a very Human thing and i think that's why it hits so hard. all of us know we'll die and our only consolation is hey maybe i can do something meaningful! and seeing hector being denied that in his last stand is just unbearable. (btw his life before that definitely had meaning. his kindness went a long way. just in his final moment he had no control over what he could do)
12 notes · View notes
fandomfourever · 5 years
Text
In Defense of Alvin Murphy
I’ve been having thoughts ever since watching Z Nation. Twice. And I had to get this all off my chest. But, I’m just gonna put this under a read more because this will probably be super long.
So, as I said above, this is mostly just something I needed to post about so I can finally think about something else, lol. Most of what I’m writing is based on canon, while some sections (which I’ll try to make obvious) are educated guesses based on what we do know, and what makes sense (to me anyway). I’m going to try and keep it in some kind of order, but it might get a bit ramble-y.
While it obviously isn’t everyone, there are a lot of people who just really hate Murphy. And while everyone’s entitled to their opinions, sometimes I feel it’s a little unjustified. Not only that, he gets a lot of hate in the show from various characters. Now, I’m not going to claim Murphy is a saint who can do no wrong—he’s done plenty wrong. But this post is basically about putting things in perspective. If this interests you, please continue reading. Otherwise, move on I guess?
Sometimes it feels as though people seem to forget that Murphy has some major PTSD. Many of the characters do, but here’s the thing: those characters are often treated with sympathy, where Murphy is not. Example: Murphy panics in the elevator when they’re looking for McCandles, and Warren smacks him and tells him to stop (paraphrasing), but when Warren has a panic attack in the box in the labyrinth, Sarge helps her out and people are sympathetic. Not that they shouldn’t, but it’s a stark difference between similar moments.
Let’s not forget that Murphy was in prison for Postal Fraud. Not murder. Not rape. Not terrorism. Not drugs. Postal Fraud. And he was sentenced to 3 years, when the maximum can be up to 20 years with a $250,000 fine, unless it involves a “presidentially declared major disaster or emergency” which can land you 30 years and $1 million dollar fine. AKA, whatever Murphy did, it was really minor. (You can find info and the quote if you google Postal Fraud)
In the flashback we see of him in season 2, Murphy sees his first zombie; a dude shanked by another dude. Chronologically, Murphy is then given the vaccine during Black Summer. When we see Murphy in the pilot, he’s got a full beard, meaning some time has passed between seeing his first Z and being vaccinated.
Here’s where a bit of educated guessing comes in: we don’t see what happens to him between those two times. It would make sense to me that, if there’s been a zombie outbreak and food/water is going to run out, prisoners would be kept in their cells indefinitely (or almost so). Which would then give a pretty good explanation to Murphy’s claustrophobia. Whether he was in the cell alone or not, that’s a tiny space, and can you imagine the kind of terror that would come with that? Probably hearing other prisoners turn? All it would take is one guard getting bitten by mistake and the whole place would descend into chaos.
Back to what we know for sure. At some point after seeing his first zombie, he is then forcibly taken to the prison lab to be experimented on. Murphy, strapped to a table, has to watch two other prisoners die after being injected—one of which seized so hard he broke his own neck. Then he’s injected, and left behind, where he’s mauled by zombies and is awake and experiences them tearing into his body.
Then, to add insult to injury, Murphy is led around for a year by Hammond—you know, one of the people who abandoned him to be bitten—to try and bring him to California where he will be, once again, experimented on. We see how Hammond treats people, especially Murphy. He yanks and shoves him around, and we see he even treats people he views as human kind of like crap; Murphy is just a “package” to him. In fact, Murphy is called “the package” by just about everyone.
Tumblr media
(remember that Hammond hauled Murphy from the truck and demanded he show Warren and Garnette the bites. Against his will.)
So, Murphy’s been traumatized, experimented on, and treated as less than human by the military, and then he’s taken in by people who also view him as less than human. Is it really any wonder he acts like an asshole? I doubt any normal person would be nice and friendly after all that.
The first person that actually tries to ask about what happened is Doc, but Murphy has no reason to trust him and lies about having volunteered to do it (I doubt Doc believes it, but he doesn’t ask further about it either). So yes, Murphy could have told Delta X-ray Delta exactly what happened, and maybe that would have gotten him the sympathy he deserved. However, they all know he was bitten eight times, so you’d think that alone would be enough to be treated with some kindness. But nah, they all are happy to push him around and tell him to shut up and again continue referring to him as “the package”.
It only gets worse as Murphy starts to turn blue. Not only does Murphy have to deal with the fact he’s being dragged across America to be experimented on by Dr. Mercy again, he then has to deal with the fact he’s, literally, falling apart.
Yes, Murphy takes water from that family and lets the husband inside. Yes, that was an awful thing to do. But, Murphy’s natural inclination is not to be a murderer (if they actually died). So I was thinking about the situation from Murphy’s perspective. The mother and daughter were hiding out in a building waiting for the husband to return. When he took the water, neither fought back, which can get you killed in the apocalypse. Even if he hadn’t taken the water, how long would they have lasted? Especially if they waited there for the husband to come back and he never did? They likely would have starved or died of dehydration. As Murphy leaves, he stops, thinks, then lets the zombiefied husband inside. I think it’s entirely possible that, from his prospective, he was helping in a way. The mother and daughter wouldn’t die wondering what happened to him, and could be viewed as a twisted sort of mercy. Again, not a good thing to do, and I’m not excusing him. But it’s a point to ponder.
Next I wanted to talk about Cassandra. Well, when Murphy bit her. Like with 10K, we never actually see the bite happen. What we see is Murphy going past everyone who’s devastated by Cassandra dying, and then entering the room and looking at her. Now, up to that point, Murphy had only bitten/infected four people, and controlled three of them sort of. The first person he bit, that guy at the Fu-Bar, died and didn’t turn. Now, based on the fact that even Murphy seemed surprised by Cassandra’s return, and her strange behavior, my guess is that he bit her to keep her from becoming a Z. He knew she meant a lot to the others, and despite his outward behavior, I think it’s safe to say Murphy does care about them at this point. So it would make sense to me that he would assume seeing her turn into a zombie would be heartbreaking to everyone else, and therefore bit her to prevent that, not knowing she would become a Blend and come after him.
In the final episode of season 1, Murphy sees what became of Patient Zero. He sees a man melted to a table, still alive, and begging for death, and knows he could become him. Then he learns Dr. Kurian isn’t who he says he is and could be wanting to kill or torture him (like the other experiments in the lab). (An aside: Dr. Merch worked in that lab, meaning she had a hand in those experiments.)
So again, I don’t find it unreasonable that Murphy, triggered by his trauma and impending kidnapping, fled. Flight or Fight, and we know Murphy prefers not to fight. So he ran. Someone in that kind of head-space is not going to be thinking of other people, and it would be unreasonable to expect that.
Then the beginning of season 2 is marked by people hunting Murphy down. People who are completely willing to break his legs to get the bounty. Again, he was being treated as less than human. The only bright spot in his life was Lucy, who he felt like he had to give up because he believed the group would hurt her. Considering the way they talked about him and her, and the fact they’re totally okay with allowing a baby to be experimented on, he wasn’t wrong to be worried.
Then we get the lovely episode The Collector. You know, the episode where Murphy was electrocuted multiple times. If you take a look at ScriptTorture like I have—specifically their electrical torture tag—you’ll see just how bad even one shock can be, let alone however many he got there. Being shocked with electricity can cause: heart attacks, muscle spasms enough to break bones, someone biting their own tongue off by mistake, death from falling because of muscle failure, burns, and bruising. While we know Murphy didn’t experience those (luckily) it’s still torture, and still incredibly painful for him. And let’s not forget he got shocked with a cattle prod back in the first episode of the season, and that he later gets repeatedly shocked in that episode with the Zuggalos.
The end of the episode leaves us with Murphy asking Warren to promise him she won’t let him be alone when they get to the CDC. And she does. Until a few episodes later, anyway. During the flashback episode, we get a scene where Murphy tells Warren he’s scared and that if she was his friend,  she wouldn’t leave him alone at the CDC. What’s Warren’s response to this? “I’m not your friend” and “There are some things we have to do alone, even if it hurts.” Like, wow, nice, so glad you don’t care you’re breaking Murphy down further.
Tumblr media
And then to find out Dr. Merch and the others on the sub weren’t even going to save humanity, just the rich people on Zona? To know he’d been subjected to all that shit for nothing? Yeah, Murphy had every right to be upset and to try and take matters into his own hands. A persona can only take so much before they snap, after all.
You know what’s ridiculous? That Warren & Co (minus 10k) were totally fine with Hector/Escorpion hanging out with them despite, you know, torturing Vasquez, killing multiple people even before the apocalypse, trying to kill 10k (the ep where he was with Sketchy and Skeezy), being part of a Cartel… But Murphy being snarky and occasionally an asshole is just so much worse, I guess.
Now I want to address Murphy biting 10k. Like with Cassandra, we don’t see what happens, just the before and after. But let’s think back on some things. Murphy bit Cassandra because she was dying. Murphy did NOT bite 10k when the Collector ordered him to because there was another way out. Murphy did NOT inject Warren & Co when they were with The Zeros, when he had the opportunity and even motive to. So then we have 10k on the sub, shot in the stomach. We last see 10k (pre-bite) stumbling off the table in the sub. Despite being bandaged, he didn’t look like he was doing too well. When we see 10k later, he has no memory of the bite happening. Murphy can do a lot, but we’ve never seen him erase someone’s memories. Now, looking at Murphy’s past actions, and what we see going on with 10k, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to assume that, perhaps, 10k fainted or was knocked out. Falling to the floor or against a wall could have very easily re-opened his stitches, causing him to bleed again. Now if Murphy saw this, he could have easily thought that 10k was dying and bitten him.
All that isn’t to say Murphy wasn’t in the wrong for trying to control 10k, because he was, but I find it hard, if not impossible, to believe it was a lie when Will said that Murphy cared about him and didn’t want to hurt him.
Honestly, season 3 feels kind of like a mess when it comes to vilifying Murphy and trying to make it seem like Warren is in the right. I’m honestly glad when Murphy calls out her hypocrisy, because Warren keeps saying freedom is important, and free will is important. But apparently when the people go to Murphy of their own free will to get his cure, that doesn’t count. Warren was totally okay with slaughtering a bunch of people (with the help of the Red Hand who are also a bunch of murderers), because they felt safe with Murphy. And why wouldn’t they? He made them immune to Zs, got them fresh water, functioning electricity, and food.
Which brings me to another point I want to make. People love to call Murphy a narcissist. While he does act arrogantly, he’s not a narcissist. To be classified as a narcissist, a person must exhibit 5 or more of the following symptoms:
A grandiose sense of self-importance
Preoccupation with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love
Belief that one is special and can only be understood by or associate with special people or institutions
A need for excessive admiration
A sense of entitlement (to special treatment)
Exploitation of others
A lack of empathy
Envy of others or the belief that one is the object of envy
Arrogant, haughty behavior or attitudes
A grandiose sense of self-importance: Nope. Murphy frequently said he didn’t want to be The Savior, that he wanted to be normal and die like everyone else. When he does refer to himself as The Savior, it’s highly sarcastic or to stay alive.
Preoccupation with fantasies of success, power, etc.: Again, no. The closest he gets is saying he could have been an action news anchor if he’d applied himself.
Only associating with special people and institutions: No. Murphy associates with everyone. Does he get a little close to this with Zona in season 4? Yeah, but since it isn’t exclusive it doesn’t count as this.
A need for excessive admiration: Nah. You can see him get visibly uncomfortable when his Blends act overly obsessed with him. And guess what? Murphy gives them all credit for getting the power working. Not once does he claim that all the good things they have is because of him and him alone.
A sense of entitlement: Sometimes. But I’d say considering the shit he’s been through, it’s not unreasonable.
Exploitation of others: Yeah, he does do this.
Lack of empathy: Whoo boy, you’d have to have not been watching the show to think this. Murphy, despite his outward behavior, gets attached to people so fast. It only took one card game with Doc for Murphy to call him his friend, and to feel devastated when he thought Doc had been blown up. He has full empathy for Zs, and just because they’re dead doesn’t mean it doesn’t count. Especially when we know from both Murphy and Lucy that they do still feel things. Murphy and Lucy’s storyline as a whole disproves this one.
Envy of others/Thinking one is envied: No, we don’t see any evidence of this.
Arrogant and haughty behavior: Yeah, he does this too.
So, 2 out of 9 symptoms. Murphy’s not a narcissist. Case closed on that one.
Now, back to my main points. So we have Murphy creating a beautiful room for Lucy, intending to find her and bring her back to raise her properly. Warren tells Doc and Addy to get to Lucy first, so she can be the new cure. Because it’s totally fine to experiment on babies. And yeah, we know now that Sun Mei would have likely only taken a little bit of blood, but we didn’t then, and neither did Warren & Co. And even still, it’s experimenting on a baby. Truly, Warren was the hero of season 3 and Murphy was pure evil.
Luckily in seasons 4 and 5, Murphy is treated a lot better. Well, mostly the end of season 4 and season 5 in general. The way things are framed, it seems like Murphy doesn’t care about anyone not on Zona, but it’s crucial to remember that 1) He was told everyone was dead and 2) it’s been 2 years for him. And then when he’s reunited with Lucy she snubs him and hangs around with Warren, who acts all pleased about it. It’s not like Murphy loved Lucy more than anyone, even himself, and had tried so hard to get her back, thought she was dead, and just wants a chance to be a dad. And, because Murphy hasn’t suffered enough, Warren’s sense of self-importance about her mission to “stop” Black Rainbow got Lucy killed. Just saying, if they’d just gone to Newmerica, Lucy might have lived.
Also, how can your heart not break even a little when, at the camp, Doc gives Murphy a hug and Murphy says “At least there’s one person who’s happy to see me”? Like?
The last time we get Murphy being treated super unfairly is by Addy in season 5. Like, yes, Addy traveled with Lucy and cared about her, but Murphy was her father and might have been able to raise her if Doc and Addy hadn’t gone to kidnap her first. But she just has to get in a dig at Murphy not being around for Lucy. Like he totally would have had he not been abducted by Zona.
As long as this post is, I hope those that read it can see my point. Murphy is not perfect, but the way he’s treated is vastly out of proportion to what he’s done. He definitely deserves more sympathy than he’s given. If we’re ever given a season 6, I hope he’s treated a lot better.
If people would like to talk about this, whether you agree or not, please do. But also please be nice about it. I’m all for respectful discussions.
80 notes · View notes
ella--cooper · 4 years
Text
Reconciliation | A Big & Little Bear Conversation
mentioning: @evieblmnt @franmellina
“I want you to walk me down the aisle at my wedding.”
The words were out of Ella’s mouth as soon as she set her eyes on Hector. After the weekend she had finally decided to stop avoiding him, to stop punishing him for something they had no real control over, especially not when she was engaged and getting the kind of happiness she had been craving. So she had gotten up that morning and skated her way over to Fran’s house in Kings Park, knowing he’d be leaving for work soon, and she was right as she caught him in the driveway heading out to his truck. 
Tumblr media
“I’ve been..avoiding you, obviously. Because I’ve been trying to wrap my head around all of this shit, you know? I mean,” she took a deep breath and shook her head, “It’s like okay you get the experience of being there for a pregnacy for your kid but this is also supposed ot be my experience being a mom and like we’re sharing it and I’m selfish, I-I can’t help it. But it’s stupid, because you were gonna be in this baby’s life anyway. A-and..its like,” she sighed, chewing at her bottom lip a bit as she tried to get her thoughts together, “I love Evie and I love that you two get along but it’s like...sharing you is hard to, you know? I mean Hec you...you’re like everyone’s dad and big brother but for me, you were always there. I mean you were the one who gave me girl advice, who always picked up the phone when I called from college, who stayed with us for weeks after my parents died and I..I was angry, that all of our worlds got tangled up in each other because I just..feel like everything’s changed and I look at you and it feels..different. And I hate that but I’m..I’m getting over it. And I love you, dude. Like a whole fucking lot. And my dad loved you, like you know he always wished you were his son, so, that makes you my brother. And I can’t think of anyone else who I’d want to walk me down the aisle, even if I am totally marrying your baby mama. But like you and Fran are good and me and Evie are good so, I want us to be happy, you know? I want us to help this kid never feel unloved or uncertain. But also like make mistakes like a normal human being. I want us to just, not spend the rest of our lives trying to wade through the awkwardness and I don’t want our kid to know anything other than us being the fucking coolest, weirdest, hottest, most brilliant parents there are. All four of us. You, me, Evie and Fran, because we all know she’s fucking supermom and also she can throw down in the kitchen pretty much equal to you and I have a lot of respect for that. So, is uh, is that cool with you?” 
Hector had been caught off guard to say the least, having struggled to even get out the house this morning. Since the family dinner he really didn’t know what to do with himself. He had said his peace but his family was everything to him, being without them, looking at his sister differently, it was uncomfortably devastating. But there were pockets of goodness, in finding out he was having a son, in spending time with Fran and Bree, in being grateful for the home he now had and was becoming more and more comfortable in. And then came Ella..
Tumblr media
“Y-you want?” Hector let out a deep breath, wanting to laugh at how perfectly Ella this was. He knew she took a long time to think things through, always acting dramatically and emotionally and then coming back to her consistent kindess and forgiveness. He knew this about her and yet still had worried that he had ruined things between them, that she would never look at him the same, the little girl who used to follow him around the block, always wanting to try what he was doing. The girl he taught how to drive a car and how to throw a punch, the girl who’s wedding he’d 100% be sobbing at. 
“Fuck yeah, you know I will. I mean that means I gotta get an even nicer tux but I’m there, I’m so there.” His expression softened and he took a few steps forward, his arms opening as she took quick steps to wrap her arms around him and held onto him tight, his own wrapping her up as he closed his eyes.  
“I’m sorry,” she mumbled and held onto him a little tighter. 
“I’m sorry, too, kid. But also I’m not cause, little lime is gonna be a boy, that’s gonna be a hell of a kid.” He laughed softly and kissed the side of her head before pulling back, shaking his head as he sniffled. “I’ve been crying too much these days, you’re not helping.”
Tumblr media
She laughed and shook her head, reaching out to punch his shoulder lightly. “Hate to break it to you, old man, but you were always a cryer. It’s that Aquarius energy,” she joked, feeling lighter now that she had gotten off her chest. “You know what you look like?” She waited for him to ask before smiling. “You look like a dude who needs to say fuck work, let’s go smoke up, get some good ass food and go to the fucking batting cages. You’re driving.”
Hector’s smile widened easily, remembering the days after the Coopers death where he would take Ella to the batting cages to get her rage out and they’d always end the day with a big meal and his stupid stories. So much had changed for them and yet, so much had stayed the same and he was grateful for that, grateful for a chance to do as much right as he could. “You got it, champ,” he told her, moving to the drivers side as Ella hopped into the passenger seat.
“So,” Hector started, as he pulled out of the driveway, giving Ella a cheeky grin, “What do you think about Hector the third?” He let out a laugh at her expression and as she reached out to his his arm, not hesitating to mess with his radio, their laughter filling up the car. And they both knew, they both felt it, and they both finally made peace with the fact that everything would be okay, it always would be. 
1 note · View note
clodiuspulcher · 6 years
Note
Can I ask what draws you to Agamemnon? He's often kind of a difficult figure to grapple with. Sincere question btw, not meant to sound mean I swear :)
NO NO this isn’t mean at all it’s uh. yeah I know it’s an unpopular Take / Opinion and I really do … care deeply about Agamemnon as a character, so thanks for giving me a chance to explain! it’s complicated, he’s complicated… This is gonna get long
I: APPEARANCE Let’s first put the shallow aspects on the table: he’s big, he’s powerful, he’s My Type (physically), I’m gay. This never comes through in film adaptations (although you know what? 1962 Electra Agamemnon comes close, although he’s overshadowed by the hot Aegisthus) but look at how he’s described in the Iliad: He’s compared to 3 gods, canonically Agamemnon is the most handsome man Priam’s EVER seen in his like one million years of life (a list of men which includes Aeneas , Hector, etc). (this post). When Priam says he’s “Every inch a king”, baby, you know what that means-Anyway , @kashuan‘s art is VERY good for conveying how I imagine Agamemnon based on these descriptions. and he’s drawn like exactly my type there. It’s a lot to reckon with.He’s big. He has big arms and big thighs and could kill me if he wanted and he’s powerful and his aristeia is badass and i’m gay. thanks. II: PERSONALITY Now this part is. more about Agamemnon’s character. first, Agamemnon in the Iliad is in fact deeply flawed- he’s imperious and arrogant and shortsighted and short-tempered, he’s stubborn and selfish and ALL OF THE THINGS PEOPLE HAVE SAID HE IS but there’s also a complexity to his character that tends to get flattened - I think because Agamemnon’s at his worst in book 1, people adhere to this AWFUL first impression and don’t bother to look beneath the surface / take the rest of his behavior / his character into account / use this as the baseline of their understanding, but there IS MUCH MORE to him than that behavior even in the Iliad itself, as detailed in THIS POST. He’s a powerful warrior in his own right, and his failings reflect both the internal flaws of his character and the weight of his responsibilities; we see his concern for his men, for the army, the people, in books 4 and 10 (when he can’t sleep because of his anxiety about his men, about Hector). He DOES however, learn and become better, he grows, he’s dynamic: he and Achilles finally make up (book 19! book 23! They’re good now!) and the Odyssey also ends with their ghosts talking as friends.
(Side note I wonder how this works out when Agamemnon’s son kills Achilles’s son but… that’s for another day).
There’s complexity in Agamemnon’s characterization in the tragedies as well, each tragedian has a different portrait of Agamemnon but he’s never one-dimensional.Euripides’ Hecuba has Agamemnon as concerned about his image and his reputation, anxious (and almost insecure) about his authority, but also concerned with justice and the rule of law, even towards one’s enemies. Sophocles’ Ajax portrays an imperious, proud, stubborn Agamemnon who refuses to realize he’s in the wrong but is able to be convinced by the council of Odysseus and eventually, again, comes to an understanding. Seneca’s Trojan Women shows Agamemnon as a Stoic voice of Reason, urging Pyrrhus not to be too violent/hubristic in their victory, and I love both the presentation of Agamemnon as a tired old man wanting to go home and the sort of man who gets into arguments with teenagers about war crimes. As usual, Seneca excels at this subtlety of characterization, this is like the epitome of the Dichotomy of Agamemnon, sympathetic and infuriating, a good leader and a stubborn, proud man, stoic and short-tempered, as present in the Iliad, is here too, and I love it , and him. Seneca’s Agamemnon almost reverses this (HE REALLY SAYS “What can a victor fear”) but I still love that play, and there’s something to be said for the characterization of Agamemnon as someone who learned ABSOLUTELY nothing from victory.
Overall, it’s true that we get, mainly, a portrait of a hard, ruthless, powerful, embittered man- remember how he destroys that one guy Menelaus wanted to save in the Iliad - but he has a sort of “aggressive charisma” as Kashuan once put it and I REALLY see it, and honestly that in itself has some sort of an appeal to me. But with this portrait of his personality, his softer aspects, the moments of gentleness we see, are more striking, they really stand out and indicate the extent of his feelings. In the iliad, for example, we clearly see he loves Menelaus and while he’s almost laughably over-protective (MORE ON THIS LATER), his care for his brother is evident, touching, especially juxtaposed with his shortsighted selfishness. Just look at what happens in Book 4, when Menelaus is barely wounded and Agamemnon is practically writing his eulogy. Right afterwards, also, “Noble Agamemnon showed no reluctance, no cowardice or hesitation, only eagerness for the fight where men win glory”- he rushes in to fight (but not before first taking out his anxiety on his men by demanding more from them. Cannot do anything appealing / good without mitigating it with irritating behavior. love this fool). It takes him like 9 books to finally apologize to Achilles but he defends Menelaus from Nestor’s reproach in book 10, is anxious about Menelaus being in danger if he’s picked to go on a night raid with Diomedes (HERE) and is endearingly not-subtle about it, frets over him in book 4, when he’s wounded, etc.
The love for his family is something that continually stands out and is perhaps his main “redeeming” trait. In the Odyssey, as mentioned, he ask Odysseus desperately about Orestes with heart-rending choice of words especially when one considers Orestes’s Actual Fate: “Come tell me, in truth, have you heard if my son is still alive, maybe in Orchomenus or sandy Pylos, or in Menelaus’ broad Sparta: that my noble Orestes is not yet dead?”. Agamemnon’s no longer a king- he’s a worried father, he regrets the most not being able to see Orestes before he’s killed; it is this pain, of not being able to be a father to his children, which seems to cut the most deeply, which he speaks of multiple times to Odysseus. Then they just cry for a while, with each other. (I like these tender aspects hidden in a big mean man.. but I also like his big meanness).
the Tragedies take this to another level, of course, to drive home the PATHOS required for his death to have an impact but his love of his family is very much on display there. Iphigenia in Aulis in particular provides us with some agonizing demonstrations of this love: Iphigenia reminisces about an exceptionally tender moment in their relationship, when she was young (you used to ask me, “I wonder, my darling, will I get to see you married one day, married and settled happily in your husband’s home, your life ever blossoming, making me proud of you?” And I’d touch your chin, my father, hang from your beard, father, like I’m doing now and say, “and what about you, father, will I get to see you, father, an old man, visiting me at my house, ready for me to repay you for your hard work in raising me?”) an image hard to reconcile with the merciless violence and stubborn arrogance Agamemnon displays in the Iliad (BUT AGAIN, THAT’S THE APPEAL). Clytemnestra assumes he’s crying because he’s sad to see Iphigenia leave them, Agamemnon’s messenger tells him the arrival of his family will cheer him up: even his subordinates know how important they are to him.
I’d need a whole nother post to talk about his relationship with Clytemnestra but please peruse these crumbs I picked off the ground (HERE). they Had something, tbh the tragedy ONLY WORKS if they did and I will DIE on this hill. In Aeschylus, Clytemnestra calls Orestes the “mutual pledge of their love”, he calls her a “great-hearted woman”, she shirks in Aulis at his curt, demanding tone towards her, noting it as something out of character, she takes charge anyway, knows he can’t or won’t actually force her not to be involved in the Iphigenia marriage preparations-All of this creates an image of a man whose imperious, ruthless, stubborn character is balanced with a surprising capacity for tenderness, a genuine fondness and love for the members of his family, which makes the fact that his hand, albeit forced, aids in its destruction, that much more devastating.III: PSYCHOLOGY/HISTORY
Where things get especially interesting for me, character-wise, is when one thinks about his lineage, his past, and his childhood with respect to his current character. This section is about the House of Atreus in general.
Agamemnon clearly bears the scars of his environment: he was born into the House of Atreus and IMO that informs everything he says and does, all his thoughts and feelings, the way he perceives both the world and his place in it. Seneca’s Thyestes is a horrific portrait of what Agamemnon (and Menelaus’s) childhoods must have been like, ATREUS is their father, they were old enough during this event to almost be accomplices which means they’re clearly old enough to remember it. Speaking of that, Atreus isn’t worried that participating in his god-crime schemes will turn his sons evil because, in his mind, they were born evil (Ne mali fiant times? nascuntur. God GOD). Agamemnon and Menelaus grow up in a nightmare house, adjacent to atrocity, under the almost comically cruel hand of Atreus who sincerely believed his sons inherited said cruelty as if its on the same chromosome as the “house-curse” gene. It’s genuinely a miracle Agamemnon and Menelaus grew up to be functional fucking human beings, in my opinion. It also gives a lot more weight to his relationship with Menelaus and the hard imperious cast of his character; their bond was forged in fire, Agamemnon likely protected Menelaus from the worst of Nightmare House being the older brother, and being as protective as he is. There’s this one Iliad adaptation, I can’t think of it off the top of my head though, where when Agamemnon’s freaking out about Menelaus being Barely Wounded he says “don’t die… for you are all I have” and that’s absolutely  how I think about their relationship in this context- Menelaus WAS all he had for so long, they clung to each other, they preserved their humanity in the face of horror BECAUSE OF each other.
But functional like.. .for a given value of “function”. Agamemnon is clearly deeply affected by these events, the weight of the Curse of the House of Atreus clearly impacts him. Take Iphigenia in Aulis, where he says “each one is born with his bitterness waiting for him”, the fact that a Son of Atreus would say that, I think, speaks to the innate, unspeakable fear of the certain destruction of his world, of the tragedy that awaits him, at his own hands, of the House-Curse waiting perched on his shoulder to strike just when he thought he’d created something impenetrable. The tragedy of Iphigenia in Aulis is Agamemnon’s realization that he has locked himself into this, that he has no other choice (see: this post about the Odysseus impact, there is in fact a point when it’s inevitable, although he still made the first move which makes it even WORSE he created this, etc) and all he can do at this point is watch as the life he so carefully built for himself and his family collapses around him, just like he must have always dreaded it would. (Also in the Iliad It’s Agamemnon who says “We must toil, in accord with the weight of sorrow Zeus loaded us with at birth” and that reminds me of this aspect of him too: Good Things Never Last, Bad Things Never Die, etc.)
It’s made clear that the story of Atreus and Thyestes is widespread, familiar; Teucer in Sophocles’ Ajax and Neoptolemus in Seneca’s Trojan Women both call out Agamemnon for trying to reference his lineage as a source of authority because it is a HORRIFIC lineage. “I know about the famous family of Atreus and Thyestes”, Neoptolemus says. And THEREIN LIES A CONFLICT: Agamemnon’s sense of self comes from his authority, his kingship, his position of power and his social status as a member of the nobility, of the class of royalty BUT. It’s all undercut by the fact that this power, authority, indeed his very identity is based in cruelty, violence, and crime; Agamemnon is descended from the most ignoble nobility, which he knows all too well.
It’s Interesting that Agamemnon’s relationship with his identity, status, family, power is brought up in Ajax, of all plays, primarily concerned with the destruction of Ajax’s identity- reminding Agamemnon of the crimes of his house genuinely cuts him down. I see Agamemnon as a man who genuinely fears his past, who dreads the legacy of his father and in his desperation creates a crisis for himself (as happens in tragedy).
We (I) laugh at Agamemnon “forgetting” about the god-crime shit before he pulls rank by referencing his Authority and Status but there’s something in Agamemnon continually being owned by forgetting about the House….  Agamemnon wants to distance himself from the “legacy” he inherited from Atreus, but he can’t without disavowing his power, his authority, his identity. Whether he likes it or not (he does Not), this is fundamental to who he is. I feel like that knowledge too lurks in his mind, rises to the forefront occasionally at his lowest points-
Clytemnestra in Aeschylus’s Agamemnon pretty clearly sees him / his actions as the next link in the god-crime family chain, a continuation of the house -curse, heir to his father’s throne and his crimes, hence her belief that killing him is the only way to end it/ stop the cycle of violence (spoiler she is wrong but there’s another post coming eventually about how they are Very Similar Characters short version the Etruscans Understand).
IN short, I think there’s a lot of complexity in Agamemnon people overlook, or don’t get to see since they don’t read the peripheral plays. Agamemnon seems to me a man in conflict with himself, a Man of Contradictions, who defines himself by his authority and status while fearing the source of it, whose devotion to his family contrasts with the horror of his childhood, and with his own agonizing role in its destruction, a man who willfully ignores or cannot bring himself to fully interact with the legacy of Atreus, who tries to distance himself from the crimes of his house and the cruelty of his father while being reminded of both every time he’s called by the epithet Atreides.
78 notes · View notes
Text
Artemia Falkenrath
Age 22
45 questions to flesh her out that @odric-master-swagtician did like 5 eons ago but hey
1- What do you know about this character now that she doesn’t yet know?
She will eventually be accepted and loved.
2- What is this character’s greatest flaw?
She has a lack of self confidence and thinks she is not as good as she actually is.
3- What do you know about this character that she would never admit?
She’s a lot stronger and braver than she would ever believe.
4- What is her greatest asset?
Her magic is up there. With a weakened version of emrakul’s distortions, she almost has a solution for every problem.
5- If she could choose a different identity, who would she be?
Someone who isn’t regarded as an abomination
6- What music does she sing to when no one else is around?
She knows a lot of bardic lyrics by heart and tried to learn how to sing when she was younger.
7- In what or whom does she have the greatest faith?
The only thing she has faith in now is herself and what she can do. Other people are either weak or liabilities.
8- What is her favourite movie?
No movies in the multiverse.
9- Does she have a favorite article of clothing? Shoes?
Her distorted armor of the eldritch rose makes her feel safe whenever she wears it. She says it's one of the few good things she got from her curse.
10- Does she have a vice? Name it.
Her anger can overtake her but it is very rare. For a while after her brother’s death and during her time with the legion of dusk, she was listless and had difficulty finding pleasure in anything.
11- Name this character’s favorite person (living or dead.)
Hector Falkenrath. Her brother who sired her into the vampire family. Both were born humans.
12- What is this character’s secret wish?
She wants to wear an extremely extravagant dress to a party she is invited to.
13- What is this character’s proudest achievement?
Beating the legion of dusk soldier in combat. It was the first time she was able to use her powers without killing someone. That and it made her beautiful armor.
14- Describe this character’s most embarrassing moment.
15- What is this character’s deepest regret?
That she couldn’t save her brother and her home. Another regret was that she couldn’t save her parents.
16- What is this character’s greatest fear?
That she will never be in control of her powers and kill someone she loves.
17- Describe her most devastating moment.
Seeing her brother die in her hands after turning her into a vampire. His wounds were deep and he choose to let his sister live instead of stealing her life for his.
18- What is her greatest achievement?
Her new armor and the personality that is spoken of in rumors has caused a ton of people to regain their hope.
19- What is her greatest hope?
That she’ll be able to understand how to have full control over her powers.
20- Does this character have an obsession? Name it.
Learning about plant life. Her mother was an alchemist and she wanted to follow that path until her mother died. The more plants she learns about, the more possible alchemical formulas she could create.
21- What is this character’s greatest disappointment?
The legion of dusk. They are too hyper focused on taking back the immortal sun to fully understand how to fix their problems without it. They sacrificed actual humane qualities for their own wants.
22- What is this character’s worst nightmare?
That her powers get stronger without her ever being able to control them. She misses the feelings of others and refuses to touch them unless she is fully in control.
23- Whom does she most wish to please? Why?
The memory of her family. She was extremely talented in alchemy and without someone to push her on, it stagnated and her ability diminished.
24- Describe this character’s mother.
Artemia’s mother was a well known alchemist that lived out of the Kessig woods. She used to be a priest of avacyn and knew a multitude of basic emblems and chants to prevent spirits from attacking their home. She and artemia’s father were both killed by a werewolf with 6 limbs.  
25- Describe this character’s father.
Her father was a great hunter who slew a multitude of vampires, zombies and werewolves that invaded their home. His blade is still lost to this day but Artemia has pledged to find it.
26- If she had to choose, with whom would this character prefer to live?
She would choose her mother since she lived with her more often anyway.
27- Where does she fall in birth order? What effect does this have?
She is the first daughter and youngest of two siblings. She was babied more often and up until her parents passed away, she was the trophy child. She still struggles to do things by herself.
28- Describe this character’s siblings or other close relatives.
Hector, her older brother, was a hunter in training with his father but fell in love with a vampire. The vampire sired him and Hector protected his sister after their parents died. When the dronepack came, he sacrificed himself to keep artemia alive.
29- Describe this character’s bedroom. Include three cherished items.
The bedroom she had as a child was neat and tidy but fairly minimal. Her most treasured possessions within it were her mother’s gloves, that were slightly too big for her, a knife her father brought her and a silver necklace her brother got her. Due to the vampirism, she can never wear it again.
30- What is this character’s birth date? How does this character manifest traits of his/her astrological sign?
I’m going off normal calendar so bear with me. She was born on the equivalent of december 30th. She’s condescending, expects the worst out of every situation, disciplined and unforgiving to herself.
31- If this character had to live in seclusion for six months, what items would she bring?
Several sets of warm clothes and a basic tent. She knows how to live alone and finds it relaxing for a few weeks. She’s learned to do basic distortions so food isn’t as much of a problem.
32- Why is this character angry?
She’s been treated like garbage, her home and brother are both dead, everyone assumes she is weak and her powers are usually a problem to everything.
33- What calms this character?
Tea. Although blood is the main source of life, she had tea a lot as a kid which helps her to rest her nerves.
34- Describe a recurring dream or nightmare this character might have.
The monstrous roar of the 6 limbed werewolf, the blood that coated the walls of her home, the faces of her dead parents, her decision to leave the house.
35- List the choices (not circumstances) that led this character to his/her current predicament.
Joining the legion of dusk, Learning about her power instead of fearing it with all of her being and her willingness to live longer than her brother.
36- List the circumstances over which this character has no control.
Nahiri bringing Emrakul to Innistrad, the legion of dusk’s organization and the way she was brought up.
37- What wakes this character in the middle of the night?
See 34.
38- How would a stranger describe this character?
Closed off, Distant, quiet, a wallflower.
39- What does this character resolve to do differently every morning?
She always says she will use her power more today to control it but still refuses to use it.
40- Who depends on her? Why?
The remaining normal sects of the falkenraths treat her as a protector and several people on innistrad think she is actually a human knight who lives to destroy the corruption of emrakul.
41- If she knew she had exactly one month to live, what would she do?
Destroy as much of the eldrazi corruption on Innistrad as she possibly could.
42- How would a dear friend or relative describe this character?
Reserved, steadfast, slow to anger.
43- What is this character’s most noticeable physical attribute?
Her silver eyes. First thing most people see.
44- What is this character hiding from him/herself?
An answer won’t fall into her lap, she has to go out to other planes to learn how to control her abilities. She has to talk to other people to learn.
45- Write one additional thing about your character.
Artemia is 5’8” and tries to avoid wearing anything with heels.
5 notes · View notes
feheroestips · 7 years
Photo
Tumblr media
Quick overview
Ike’s CYL appearance certainly is something. 36 base attack is HUGE along with 35 defence and considering the skills he comes with it synergies nicely but what makes him different from regular ike you say, despite being a Axe unit. Well first is that he has slightly more res, its still not good res but still more, and yet has worse speed. 28 is below what you want and means  if you invest in speed its not going to be that worth it besides increasing his life span. However his weapon does compensate for this with a flashy damage reduction on consecutive attacks. However Ike faces problems in what to inherit and if its worth using Urvans effects and like I said SPEED. Still he’s one of the best green units out there.
Base kit
So Ike has Urvan his fathers axe which gives a reduction on his charge time meaning his Aether for example is actually a 4 turn cool down rather than 5. Its pretty nice but also comes with a passive which reduces damage from consecutive attacks. The attack from the second one onwards will deal 80% of the actual damage. Aka its a brave weapon counter. It may stop reinhardt but your res is so low certain builds will OHKO him. And tbh His defence is incredibly high as is, so it may actually be for naught. Still its a nice extra to have. He then comes with Steady breath which grants +4 defence when attacked and a reduction on his special. This makes Ikes defence 39 on enemy phase meaning he will take very little damage.Not only that, that 4 turn aether? Now 3 turns when attacked and if you include the combat actions he will always proc aether in a round of combat.. This is incredible if used with another skill I’ll mention later. Beorcs blessing regardless of if it makes you a super effective threat to beast rider and fliers alike, ignores their buffs. Not going to lie its a really bad skill for the most part, the idea is cool but for the most part you’ll want something active 9/10. Finally threaten defence is threaten defence and the best one for him.
Since he comes fully Jacked out the best assist to give him is reposition or swap. Theres not much more I can say.
Suggested build(s)
Two for flinching
+Atk/def -res/hp
Urvan, Reposition/Swap, Aether,Ignis
Steady breath/Close defence 3, Quick riposte 2/3, Threaten defence 3
So this set aims to make a tank, much like Lukas except Ike comes with Aether and Steady breath, (tho I guess you could give them to Lukas) but essentially the added defence from steady breath and Aether make him into a devasting unit who with quick riposte can Get of a Aether every single round of combat he’s initiated on, and the best part is, Aether recovers his Hp so he’s able to keep himself topped up. However if you want something more standard Close defence + ignis works the same way. You can use Ignis with Steady breath but you essentially waste a turn of charge. So the choice is yours. Threaten defence ensures Kos on many of the cast. This sets only real weakness is too well mages. Keep him away and he’ll do fine
Brave mercenary
+atk -res/hp
Brave axe +, Reposition, Bonfire/ Luna
Death blow 3, Axebreaker 3, Threaten defence 3
A set designed to make him double and make ike a nyoomike (was that a bad joke I know someone will find it funny) however it means giving up his legendary weapon. You may find this better if you want a more offensive green unit. Deathblow compensates for the lost mt and axebreaker gives him the most KOs over, including beating Hector. He’ll also still be able to handle physical threats well. Bonfire is the best special due to his high defence but if you have no bonfire Luna is a solid option.
Just l-ike Hector
+Atk/def -res/hp
Urvan, Reposition/swap, Ignis
Distant counter, Quick riposte 2/3/Vantage 3, threaten defence 3
THREE SETS? lucky you right, well anyway probably the least viable of the three and a budget version of hector which requires.. hector. Distant counter kinda stops some of Urvans ability in two range weapons may not feel the effect since ike can interrupt but like I said before, Mages will normally kill him in two hits, or he’ll receive very little anyway from arrows. Quick riposte or Vantage is your choice. However you can only have one so pick which you prefer. ignis is the best special due to a reduced cool time and insane damage output.
102 notes · View notes
painpro · 6 years
Text
tfk episodes 35+36!
im on twitter now all the time but i thought id post a LIL UPDATE on here for posterity on whats going on in our crazy dnd game. we’re in REAL endgame now boys!
Episode 35: Best Served Cold
The KC says their goodbyes to their friends in King's Watch, leaving the city in the hands of Cezall and the remnants of the King's Watch Guard while they wait for Patron Du Fois and others from Stratham to arrive. Starcrest keep is full of their old guards and a new friend, the girl Bell had resurrected. With everything squared away for now, Yunah treestrides the group to the pine forest just outside of Icemeet. While walking, the group has a day and a half to themselves to semi-relax. Barnabas and Yunah seem to hit it off. Cik initiates a snowball fight, which escalates to nearly the whole group (minus Orna.) Keen pegs Bell with one right in the face, Yunah is accidentally extremely accurate with her hit on Selxi, and Cik hits Maedis with a snowball in the back of the head. Maedis retaliates with a rock, and the snowball fight is effectively over. After camping for one night, the group comes upon Icemeet- the town that had been the stuff of legend for years. There is a deep red barrier around it. The group crosses over to see a dilapidated town full of shambling zombies- each with a glowing red heart in their chest. The KC infers this is how the barrier is kept up. In search of Xavia, the King's general that is behind all this, they meet a semi-coherent zombie named Hector. Hector tells them he can show them where Xavia is in her study. Bell, despite his reservations on undead, believes him. The group is lead by Hector through the town to the building that is Xavia's study, where she is supposed to be. However, Cik makes use of his clairvoyance potion and finds there is no one inside, to Hector's surprise. The group holes up inside anyway to stay out of the open. They find a book on Soul Stones, two of which Cik has from long ago, and strange notes that Keen infers detail how many zombies make up the population of Icemeet. After they leave the study, Bell looks Hector in the face and asks if he wants to die. Hector does not respond, but meets Bell's eyes. Bell casts Turn Undead, and Hector turns to dust. With everyone in disgruntled spirits for various reasons, they decide to just walk around the town until they find Xavia- and find her they do, perched on the rooftops. She tells them that the Frozen King has already set Vysanthys the Cold Death loose, and that it is heading towards Arcomb first. And with that, and old enemy appears...Rathys, seemingly back from the dead after previous being melted by Orna. In shock, the KC begins their battle with undead under Xavia's control swarming the streets. Barnabas and Keen spend most of their time holding off the horde- while Selxi, Seraphina and Yunah attempt to cut through to get to Rathys and Xavia. Rathys casts a devasting Feeblemind spell on Orna, which causes the group to lose most of their advantages they had due to her spells. Cik uses his scroll of Time Stop- stopping the flow of time for everyone but himself so he has enough time to run and climb up onto the roof where Rathys is. He manages to land two solid hits on them before...Rathys casts True Polymorph on him to turn Cik into a mouse. Yunah is downed multiple times by Xavia's arrows, and Seraphina soon follows. Maedis uses the Arachnid Cloak, gifted to him by Cik (which was first stolen off Rathys) to reach Rathys and attack them. In retaliation, Rathys drops mouse Cik off the building. Rathys sends Selxi hurling through hell once again, then encases Cik in a Forcecage. Maedis, having enough of this, lunges forward at Rathys with his dagger- stabbing them in the neck and face, finally killing them a second time. Yunah casts a thorn whip to grab Xavia by the leg and pull her closer to the ground. Cik jumps off the roof and casts Enlarge on Seraphina's direwolf form, turning them from Large to Huge. Seraphina then leaps off the roof onto Xavia and rips her head off in their jaws. Keen applies Banisher, and Xavia is defeated. However, even as they loot, they know that Xavia had alluded to a much larger looming threat in the form of an ancient white dragon the group had faced before...
Episode 36: Reprise
The group heads north of Icemeet into the Blackton mountains in hopes of cutting off Vysanthys before the white dragon wrecks havoc on Arcomb and other towns after that. They camp the night in the mountains, waiting for Vysanthys in a snowy clearing- and Vysanthys lands to fight them. The dragon unleashes a devastating cold breath that would have killed Bell once again had it not been for Yunah giving him cold resistance. Barnabas, Selxi and Cik rush Vysanthys, each dealing hefty amounts of damage to it. Cik gets knocked down once but is almost instantly brought back by Bell. Halfway through the fight, the Silver Lady suddenly shows up- transforming out of her human form into her natural one, that of an ancient silver dragon. She locks in combat with Vynsanthys, nearly killing him. Seraphina lands the final blow, their boomerang lodging itself in the dragon's skull. Afterwards, the Silver Lady informs the KC of the King's armies moving towards the south- she plans on stopping them while the party moves forward to deal with the King directly. She gives them a bit of a ride on her back through the mountains, to Cik's great delight. The Silver Lady drops them off at a ravine- she says her goodbyes then wishes them luck, flying off to do her part in the effort to stop the King. The party continues on for about another half a day, finally stopping to camp at the edge of the ravine. During the night, Maedis and Keen go hunting, and the rest of the KC and Barnabas enjoy a heartfelt fireside chat. Cik and Bell work to finally complete his new prosthetic hand made of metal. Late at night, Maedis enters Cik's tent and offers him wine from Jirahn. Cik takes a sip and suddenly finds himself reeling from poison- Maedis grins, and Cik quickly realizes that it is not Maedis at all but the Rakshasa returned, back from the Nine Hells and reformed. After poisoning Cik, the Rakshasa moves on to Seraphina's tent and attacks them. Seraphina manages to wake up in time to avoid the worst of it, and Cik rushes to their aid- landing a hit on the fiend before the Raksha turns and casts Dominate on Cik. Cik is told to kill his friends, and all he can do is oblige. He attacks Barnabas who woke up due to the commotion, and Yunah then casts Hold Person to keep Cik from hurting anyone else. Keen and the real Maedis arrive near the end of the battle- Maedis freaks out at seeing the Rakshasa wearing his face. Selxi wakes up, runs into the fray, and slices of the Rakshasa's head- now putting her on it's shit list as well. Afterwards, Seraphina informs Selxi of what she has just gotten herself in to, then scrys on a peaceful Klang to ease their pain. Cik apologizes to Barnabas, who easily accepts and has no offense taken. Maedis tries to talk to Cik and comfort him, but isn't very good at it. After the great disturbance in the night, the KC and friends finally settle down again, knowing that as each day passes they grow closer and closer to fighting The Frozen King himself...
7 notes · View notes
dukereviewsmovies · 5 years
Text
Duke Reviews: Furious 7
Hi Everyone, I'm Andrew Leduc And Welcome To Duke Reviews Where We Are Continuing Our Look At The Fast And Furious Films By Talking About Furious 7
This Film Sees Dom And His Crew Having Their New Peace Shattered By Deckard Shaw (Played By Jason Statham) Who Kills Han And Destroys Dom And Mia's Home When He Seeks Vengeance For What Dom Did To His Younger Brother, Owen Shaw (Played By Luke Evans) In The Last Movie. This Film Marks The Last Appearance Of Paul Walker, Who Died During Production In A Single Vehicle Crash On November 30th, 2013, His Death Devastated The Cast Greatly Including Vin Diesel Who Is Still Devastated To This Day. Walker's Brothers, Caleb And Cody Finished Up Their Brother's Scenes And Script Rewrites Were Made To Complete Walkier And Brewster's Character Arcs (That Is Until Brewster Wanted To Come Back For The 9th One Coming In 2020)...
So, Let's Find Out How They Say Goodbye To Brian O'Conner As We Watch Furious 7...
The Film Starts With Deckard Shaw Who Is Visiting His Comatose Brother, Owen Shaw (And Yes That's Luke Evans Playing Him In A Coma) In The Hospital To Tell Him That He's Going To Settle The Score With Dom As We See A Nurse And A Doctor Cower As He Says Before He Leaves To Take Care Of Owen Or He'll Be Back...
While The Opening Credits Roll We See Damage All Over The Hospital That Deckard (Most Likely) Caused As He Walks Out Of The Hospital...
After That Cool Scene We See Dom And A Still Amnesia Ridden Letty, Driving In The Middle Of The Desert Which Leads To Our Title Card!...
Asking Where They're Going, It Turns Out That Dom Is Taking Her To A Familiar Place, Namely Race Wars, Which Has Become A Worldwide Event Since The First Movie...
With Letty Racing Some Guy, She Wins When The Guy Blows Out His Engine Which Leads To Everyone Congratulating Her, Even Iggy Azalea But With Everyone Crowding Her, The Pressure Gets To Be Too Much For Letty...
Which Leads To Her Punching Hector From The First Movie (Yes, He's Back) Before Driving Off...
Meanwhile, Brian Faces A New Challenge....
Parenthood...
Finding Letty At Her Grave, Dom Goes To Smash It, But Letty Stops Him Saying That It's The Truth That's When Letty Died And That's When She Was Born. Saying That Despite The Memories That Dom Has Shared With Her, It's All A Blank Slate And That If She's Ever Going To Discover Anything Now, She's Got To Do It Herself, She Walks Off...
Meanwhile At The DDS, Neves Take Off For Night, But Before She Goes Hobbs Gives Her Something, A Letter Of Recommendation But As He Returns To His Office, He Finds Deckard Shaw In His Office Who Says He's Looking For The Team That Put Owen In The Hospital, Hobbs Lies Off Course Saying That It Was Him But Shaw Knows He's Lying Which Leads To A Fight Between The 2 Men And Neves Who Tries To Save Hobbs...
youtube
(Start At 1:23)
With Hobbs And Neves Blown Out Of The Building Only To Land On A Car, We See Shaw Leave As We See Who He's Going After First, Han...
Back At The Toretto House, Brian Gets Ready To Take His Son, Jack To School As Mia Talks With Dom About How Brian Is Having A Hard Time Adjusting To Being A Dad Which Leads Mia To Tell Dom Some Good News, She Is Pregnant Again But She's Afraid On How Brian Will Take The News...
Getting A Box From Han In Tokyo, Dom Gets A Call From Deckard Shaw (Which Is The Same Scene From The End Of Furious 6) Which After He Hangs Up, Causes The Box To Explode, Destroying The Toretto House...
Getting A Call From Neves, Dom Visits Hobbs In The Hospital, Where He's Eating Jello And Watching The Bill Bixby Hulk Series While His Daughter Keeps Him Company...
(Dom)You Kidding, Kid? I Almost Killed Your Dad With A Wrench....
(Hobbs) Thank God She's Gone, She's Been Begging Me To Sing You're Welcome For Hours...
(Dom) Hey, If That's Anything, Brian's Kid Likes It When I Say I Am Groot...
Asking Who Was Behind The Attack, Hobbs Tells Dom About Deckard Shaw Who Was A British Special Forces Assassin Before His Own People Turned On Him, Making Him Basically A Ghost...
Asking Hobbs How To Find Him, Hobbs Says He Doesn't, Asking Dom To Stay Out Of This But Knowing That Dom Won't Hobbs Asks Him To Do A Favor For Him When And If He Finds Shaw....
youtube
(Start At 2:42)
Sending Brian And Mia To Stay With A Friend In Monte Cristi In The Dominican Republic, Mia Gets A Call From Dom Who Tells Her That The Sins Of London Have Followed Them Home, Knowing That Dom Will Need Brian With Him Mia Decides To Hold Off Telling Him About The Baby As Dom Tells Mia To Tell Brian That He'll See Him In LA In 2 Days As He's Going To Tokyo To Bring What's Left Of Han Home...
Talking With Brian, Mia Tells Him To Be Careful As She Makes Him Promise That After This It's Over...
Oh, God Not This Song Again! If They Knew They Were Going Back To Tokyo Drift Why Didn't They Use This Song?...
It Would Be A Hell Of A Lot Better Than The Boring Piece Of Crap Song They Chose...
Anyway, We Get A Rehash Of The End Of Tokyo Drift, As Through Old Footage, We See Twinkie Tell Sean And Neela That Close To Han Wants To Race Him Which In Tokyo Drift Leads To This...
youtube
(Start At 1:04)
But After That Scene We Get New Footage As We Hear About Sean And Dom's Race Where It Sounds Like Dom Kicked His Ass. Anyway, Sean Gives Dom Some Stuff He Found At The Crash Scene (Which Was Never Seen In Tokyo Drift But Still) Including A Picture Of Giselle And The Cross Left By Shaw When He Killed Han...
Wait A Minute, Sean! Someone Says That Your Friend Was Killed And You're Gonna Do Nothing About It At All? Then Why Did We Have You In This Film If You Weren't Going To Join Dom's Team Whatsoever When They Get Revenge For The Person You Called Your Friend?!? Hell, He Doesn't Even Attend The Funeral In The Next Scene I Mean If Harley Keener Can Attend Tony Stark's Funeral Then Sean Should Have Attended Han's Funeral, Thanks For Nothing, Sean Thanks For Nothing!
So After That Pointless Scene, We Cut To Han's Funeral, Where Dom Vows Vengeance Against Deckard Shaw As Brian Promises To Tej And Roman That After Shaw's Funeral There'll Be No More Funerals...
But As Brian Says That Dom Notices A Silver Car Which Somehow He Knows That Shaw Is Driving Which Leads Dom To After It...
youtube
(Start At 1:11)
Shaw Leaves After He Gets Under Attack By People Who Look Like SWAT Or Military But Turns Out They're Run By Somebody Else, This Is Mr. Nobody (Played By Kurt Russell) Who Is There On Behalf Of Hobbs To Tell Dom That When Him And His Team Arrived In London They Walked In The Middle Of A War Between Shadows And Ghosts Like Him And It's Now Followed Them Home...
Which Leads Nobody To Buy Dom A Drink Before He Tells Him That He Can He Can Help Him Nab Shaw...
Travelling To A Covert Base In El Secundo, Nobody Tells Dom About A Terrorist Named Mose Jakande Who Recently Kidnapped A Hacker Who Goes By The Name Ramsey Who Has Created A Device Known As God's Eye That Can Basically Hack Anything That's On A Digital Network (Every Phone, Satellite, ATM And Computer) Simultaneously...
But Allow Me To Put It In The Way Nobody Puts It, It Took Them A Decade To Find Osama Bin Laden But With The God's Eye They Would Have Found Him A lot Quicker...
Telling Dom That This Device Could Be Disasterous In The Wrong Hands, Dom Realizes Why Nobody Needs Him But The Question He Has Is Why Does He Need Nobody And The Answer Is Simple...
Shaw Lives In A World That Doesn't Play By Dom's Rules And Like It Or Not He's Part Of That World Now, So, He Tells Dom That If He Gets The God's Eye, He Will Dom Use It To Find Shaw Until He's Arrested. Dom Accepts Nobody's Offer On The Condition That He Does It His Way With His Team (Which Nobody Has Already Gotten)...
With Ramsey Being Taken By Armed Motorcade Through The Caucasus Mountain Range, Roman Thinks That Their Plan Is Absolutely Crazy To The Point That He's Ready To Walk If They Don't Let Him Make Some Leadership Decisions And..They Do...
youtube
(Start At 1:06, End At 1:18)
(Mimicking Roman) Aw, You Know I Wasn't...You Know What Roman? Zip It!
youtube
(Start At 0:03)
But Despite Me Thinking That Roman's Being A Pain In The Butt Here He Does Come Up With A Plan Despite DJ's Partner/Ex-Boyfriend From Fuller House Shooting Him Down At Times...
So With The Plan Set, The Team Is Finally Complete As Letty Arrives Saying That Despite What She Said Earlier, Han Was Family And She's Gonna Help...
Dom Tells Brian To Get Long Travel Suspension And Limited Slip Differentials On All The Cars While Works On The Demon Love Child Of Cars...
Which Tej Says Will Only Slow Him Down But Dom Says That This It's Not About Being Fast...
With The Team In Their Cars Talking, Nobody Tells Them To Be As Low-Key As Possible As A Door Opens To Reveal They're On Board An Airplane...
With Each Of Them Backing Up, They All Go Flying...
However, Roman Is Having Second Thoughts About This...
youtube
(Start At 2:42, End At 3:33)
With Everyone Except Roman Losing Their Parachutes, They Find The Motorcade Near The Caucasus Mountain, Where They Use Tej's Car As A Shield To Knock Down 2 Cars With Gattling Guns, Brian And Tej Drive On The Side Of The Bus To Place Charges On The Back But They Have More Guns On The Sides Of The Bus...
But With The Charges Set, Dom And Letty Launch Grappling Hooks At The Back Of The Bus In Which After Brian And Tej Blow The Charges, Dom And Letty Pull Down The Back Of The Bus...
With Brian Going In, He Fights The Men On-Board Before Finding Ramsey Who Is A Woman (Played By Game Of Thrones Nathalie Emmanuel) But After Brian Frees Her She Jumps Onto Dom's Vehicle However, There Is Another Vehicle Approaching That Is Being Driven By Deckard Shaw That Is Trying To Prevent Dom From Getting Ramsey...
But Back On Board The Motorcade, Brian Is Being Attacked By A Guard Named Kiet (Played By Tony Jaa) Who Brian Ends Up Fighting But As Dom Finally Gets Ramsey Inside His Car, He Ends Up Going Off Road With Ramsey And Jakande's Forces Behind Him...
As Brian Continues Fighting Kiet, Kiet Accidentally Knocks Out The Driver Which Causes The Motorcade To Turn On It's Side, Sliding Toward A Cliff...
With Kiet Trapping Brian While He Escapes, Brian Ends Up Using The Front Of The Vehicle Which Is Now Hanging Off Of A Cliff. Roman Reappears To Help Dom With Shaw's Vehicle As Brian Escapes The Bus By Climbing The Front And Running Up The Side Of The Bus Before Jumping Onto Letty's Car...
(Letty) Brian? You Dead?
(Brian) Ya, Mon...
(Warning: The Following Was A Cool Runnings Reference For The Following Scene And I Am Not In Anyway Shape Or Form Making Fun Of Paul Walker's Death So Please Do Not Leave Me Bad Comments For Believing That I Am Making Fun Of Paul Walker's Death When Really I Am Not We Now Return You To Your Regularly Scheduled Review Already In Progress)
With Dom And Roman Returning To The Road, He Tells Roman To Find The Others While He Leads These Soldiers Off However, They End Up Cornering Dom Where He's Confronted By The Man Himself, Mose Jakande (Played By Djimon Hounsou)...
youtube
(Start At 2:11, End At 2:38)
I'd Actually Like Dom To Give Him His Name So That Mose Would Go...
Tumblr media
(Laughing) I Had To Do That In A Movie With 3 People That Have Appeared In Both Guardians 1&2, I Just Had To Do That...
Telling Ramsey To Put On The Helmet Under The Seat, Dom Creates A Sandstorm Before Driving Forward To Go Over The Cliff...
Tumblr media
It Would Seem That Way As No One Could Possibly Survive That! But Surprisingly Only Dom Could As The Reinforced Metal Frame Was Enough To Save Both Him And Ramsey...
Asking Her Where The God's Eye Is, She Tells Them That It's With A Friend In Abu Dhabi, Brian Is Surprised She Told Them So Easily But That's Because She's Not As Dumb As She Seems...
Back On The Plane, Brian And Dom Talk About How He Kind Of Missed Getting Shot At But Dom Tells Him That The Bravest Thing He's Ever Seen Him Do Is Being A Husband To Mia And A Father To Jack...
Stopping By A Hotel, The Team Relaxes For A Few While They Wait For Ramsey's Friend...
As We Get A Bikini Shot Of Ramsey (Because She Was In Game Of Thrones?) Her Partner, Safar Arrives To Talk With Ramsey About The God's Eye, However, It Turns Out That Safar Accidentally Sold It A Jordanian Prince Who Lives In The 3 Towers Who Said He Wanted To Use It For His Supercar...
Asking Where He Keeps It, Safar Tells Dom In Tower 1...
Uh, Quick Question, WHICH ONE IS TOWER ONE!?!
With Tomorrow Being The Longest Day Of The Year, The Prince Is Throwing A Party Tomorrow Afternoon And Yes, Safar Can Get Them Up There But Not Dressed Like That...
So, Putting On Their Sunday Clothes, Letty And Dom Have A Moment In The Elevator Where We See Letty Getting A Little Of Her Memory Back But Not Much, Which Leads Them To The Party..
With Tej And Ramsey On The Lower Floor, Everyone Scours For Security, The Prince And His Bodyguards But To Get To Where The Car Is In The Vault, They Have To Tap Into The Security System Which Is In The Prince's Bedroom, Which Letty Goes To Handle...
Shutting Down The Security, Roman Distracts Everyone With A Dumb Birthday Thing While Dom And Brian Sneak Into The Vault So They Can Find The God's Eye In The Prince's Car...
Meanwhile, Letty's About To Leave The Prince's Room When She Is Confronted By The Prince's Bodyguards That Are With His Head Of Security, Kara....
Tumblr media
If It Was That Kara Than This Fight Would Be A Hell Of A lot More Interesting...
No, This Kara Is Played By Ronda Rousey Who Is In My Opinion, In A Role That Should Have Gone To Someone Else...
Honestly, This Is An Embarrassment To Her Skills, With How Good Of A Fighter She Is, She Deserved A Better Role And If They Wanted Her So Badly They Should Have Waited Until She Wasn't Doing Any Fighting For The UFC And They Should Have Waited When She Wasn't Making Any Other Films (Cause At The Time She Was Working On Expendables 3) Because If I Were Casting This I Would Place Her As A Partner For Either Mr. Nobody(Kurt Russell) Or Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) Like Gina Carano Was Before She Betrayed Them...
With Kara Locking Down Security, Tej Tries To Get It Back Under Control While Letty Fights Bodyguards Before Eventually Fighting Kara...
(Start At 1:30, End At 3:00)
With Tej Losing The Final Gate, Dom And Brian Decide To Drive Through It, But As They Do Guess Who Shows Up?...
Shaw!
Realizing That This Car's Bulletproof, Dom Decides To Run Over Shaw Before Driving Out The Window...
Discovering That This Car Has No Brakes, Brian Tries To Find The God's Eye While Dom Flies The Car Out Another Window
Tumblr media
Finding The God's Eye, Dom And Brian Abandon Car While It Goes Tumbling Out The Building Like Wile E. Coyote Falling Off A Cliff...
Tumblr media
Returning To Safar At His Garage They're All Encountered By Mr.Nobody Who While Upset About Them Not Being As Low-Key As The Last Mission Isn't Really As Upset Because They Got The God's Eye. So, Keeping His Word, Nobody Gives Dom The God's Eye Along With Command Of His Forces So He Can Use Them To Find Shaw Which He Does With The Help Of Ramsey...
Finding Shaw's Location, Dom Is Ready To Go As Soon Everyone Except Nobody And His Men Are Asleep But Brian Expected Dom To Pull This And Decided To Stay Up...
Entering Shaw's HQ, They Find Him Eating Dinner, However, He's More Prepared Than They Think He Is...
Turns Out That Shaw Is Working With Jakande...
During The Fight, Nobody Gets Injured And Jakande Gets The God's Eye...
With SOCM Medics On The Way, Nobody Tells Dom And Brian To Leave Him On The Side Of The Road Even Through Dom Doesn't Want To Leave Him But Noticing Helicopters On Their Way To Their Position, They Respect Nobody's Wishes And Leave Him On The Side Of The Road...
Realizing That War Is Coming, Dom Decides To Fight It On The Streets That They Know Best, Meaning The Streets Of LA...
Standing On A Hill Overlooking LA, Tej Comes Up With A Plan To Plant A Virus In The God's Eye, But The Only Problem Is That They Can't Hack Into It Unless They're Within A 2 Mile Range, Which Leads Brian To Suggest A Game Of Keep Away With Ramsey...
With Dom Taking On Shaw, Letty Worries That She'll Never See Him Again To Which He Gives Her The Necklace Found In Near Han's Car Stating That He'll Be Back For It...
That Night, Brian Calls Mia Telling Her About The Plan And That If She Doesn't Hear From Him In 24 Hours She's To Move On With Jack, But Telling Him About The Baby And That It's A Girl, She's Unable To Accept That...
Telling Her To Kiss Jack For Him He Hangs Up With Them Both Saying I Love You After...
Heading Home, Dom Unveils A 1970 Charger, Which Leads To A Montage Of Dom, Brian And Shaw Preparing To Go To War...
With Jakande Activating God's Eye, They Find Dom With Shaw In Pursuit...
Searching For Ramsey Now, She's With Brian And With The Helicopter In Range, Ramsey Starts The Hack But Unfortunately They Know About It Which Causes Jakande To Release A Big Drone Called The Predator To Go After Them...
With Dom And Shaw Finding Each Other, Shaw Follows Dom Across The City Until They Reach The Top Of A Parking Garage Where They Come At Each Other...
Tumblr media
With The Predator Coming After Brian, He's Like Schwarzenegger Going "Come On, Kill Me! Here I Am"
With Roman And Tej Coming In, Ramsey Switches From His Car To Roman's Car While Jakande Blows Up Brian's Car Just As Brian Jumps Out Of It...
Discovering Ramsey Is Still Alive, The Predator Is Now Following Roman's Car While Hobbs Sees What's Going On And Decides "Hey, I'm Part Of This Movie Too!" And Loses The Cast So He Can Suit Up...
Oh, My God, The Manliness Of This Scene Is Over The Roof! I Repeat, OVER THE ROOF!
Finding Where They're Piggybacking The Hack, Jakande Destroys The Antenna To Break The Connection, This Leads Brian To Head To Another Signal Tower So They Can Reroute It To This Location, But Overhearing That, Jakande Sends Kiet To Stop Brian...
But While Brian Gets There Let's Check Back On Dom And Shaw, Who Have Gotten Out Of Their Cars So They Can Fight...
With The Drone Behind Them Trying To Kill Them, Tej And Roman Drive While Arguing What It Is, Luckily, Letty Is On Her Way...
With The Drone Locked, Ramsey Gets Ready To Jump As Jakande Blows Up Roman's Car But Luckily They All Got Out Before It Blew And Switched Ramsey To Letty's Car...
Arriving At The Tower, Brian Is Confronted By Kiet And A Few Soldiers, While He Manages To Deal With The Soldiers He Has To Fight Kiet Who Does Some Serious Parkour In Order To Catch Up With Brian But Eventually Brian Defeats Kiet By Connecting Him To A Heavy Rope That Brian Kicks Down The Elevator, Taking Kiet With It...
With The Predator Right On Letty And Ramsey, It Gets Destroyed When An Ambulance Driven By Hobbs Lands Right On Top Of It...
(Hobbs) Terminate This, Mothertrucker!
We Have Levels Of Badassness, I Repeat, Levels Of Badassness! If This Movie Gets Anymore Badassness From Dwayne Johnson The Movie Will Explode!
Reaching The Top, Brian Reroutes The Signal, Allowing Ramsey To Finish The Hack So They Can Take The God's Eye Back...
With Military Inbound, Jakande Targets Dom And Shaw, Firing A Middle Which Allows Dom To Finish Shaw Off...
Getting Back In His Car, Dom Tries To Escape The Parking Garage But With No Way Out He Activates Some Nos To Use A Rubble Formed Lift So He Can Place Grenades On Jakande's Helicopter...
(Jakande) Oh, Shit!
With The Team Saving Dom From His Car, It's Not Looking Good As Letty Holds Him, The Others Decide To Back Off As She Says Something....
youtube
(Start At 0:27, End At 1:50)
So, With Shaw In An Inescapable Jail, Dom And His Crew Head To The Beach As They Watch Mia And Brian Have Fun With Jack, Realizing That This Where Brian Belongs with His Family...
youtube
(Start At 1:30)
And That Was Furious 7 And What Can I Say About It?...
The Story Is Great, But The Ending Is Sad Mainly Because Of Paul Walker And The Song At The End Sung By Whiz Khalifa And Charlie Puth. The Characters Are Good As Always And The Villain While Not Better Than The Last Movie Is Just As Good To Say The Least, And I Say See It...
Till Next Time, This Is Duke, Signing Off...
1 note · View note
beyondthedreamline · 7 years
Text
Ladies of Legend: Helen and Cassandra
References: The Greek Myths Volumes I and II (The Folio Society, 2003) by Robert Graves, Mythology: Myths, Legends, & Fantasies (Hodder, 2013) by Dr. Alice Mills, The Greek Myths Volumes I and II (The Folio Society, 2003) by Robert Graves, Mythology: Myths, Legends, & Fantasies (Hodder, 2013) by Dr. Alice Mills, Eyewitness Companions: Mythology (Dorling Kindersley Ltd.) by Philip Wilkinson and Neil Philip, A-Z of Mythology (Bison Books Ltd, 1990) by Peter Clayton, Greek Mythology (Michaelis Toubis S.A., 1995) by Sofia Souli, translated by Philip Ramp, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassandra, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_of_Troy
Trigger warning: references to rape and incest
It all began with Eris, the Greek goddess of discord and the original bad fairy at the christening – or in this case, at the wedding, showing up at the nuptials of Thetis and Peleus to make everyone simultaneously regret not inviting her and remember exactly why they didn’t by riling up the three most powerful goddesses in the Pantheon and starting one of the most famous wars in myth and legend. She brought with her a golden apple (never ever trust a golden apple) with an inscription on it reading ‘for the fairest’. Zeus, who might be all kinds of terrible but was smart enough to realise that was a mess he wanted no part of, hastily foisted the role of judge onto Prince Paris of Troy. Thanks to an ominous prophecy made at his birth, Paris was living as an anonymous shepherd at the time, in ignorance of his birthright. All that was about to change.
The three goddesses who felt the strongest right to the apple were Hera, Zeus’s wife and sister and queen of the gods; Athena, goddess of wisdom and war; and Aphrodite, the goddess of love. Each offered Paris an appropriately extravagant bribe depending on her governance. Hera promised power and riches, Athena assured him of good fortune in battle, but Aphrodite swore that he would have the most beautiful woman in the world as his own and Paris awarded her the apple – thereby making himself two implacable enemies, and an ally as fickle as she was powerful.
And who, might you ask, was the most beautiful woman in the world? According to Aphrodite, at least, it was the princess Helen, whose parentage was as mysterious as it was regal. In one version, Zeus took the form of a swan and came to Leda, daughter of the king of Aetolia and wife of King Tyndareus of Sparta, who fell pregnant from the union and bore an egg with three children within: Helen and her twin brothers, Castor and Pollux. Helen also had a mortal half-sister, Clytaemnestra, the child of Leda and Tyndaerus. Another version has Clytaemnestra (also spelled Clytemnestra) as Helen’s twin, originally married to Tantalus and later claimed as a spoil of war by Agamemnon of Mycenae, the man who widowed her. In yet another version, Zeus pursued the goddess Nemesis, who changed herself into a goose to escape – not that it stopped him. In this story, she gave her egg to Leda, who raised the children as her own.
Whatever her true origins, Helen had the blood divine and it showed. Her beauty rapidly became her curse. Before she was ten years old, Theseus (he of the Minotaur incident) had abducted her for a mockery of ‘marriage’ and her brothers had to come to her rescue. As she grew older, the number of her suitors grew to a number between 29 andd 99, which meant – in a neat mirror of Paris’s conundrum – that whoever eventually married Helen would have a great many resentful rivals to contend with afterwards. A solution was proffered by Odysseus of Ithaca: all the suitors would be sworn to accept Helen’s choice and support that man should the need ever arise.
It’s a serious oath. It is also an interesting indicator of Helen’s paradox. She had just enough choices to drown in, and none of them were offered for her benefit. Various versions of the legend give her up to five husbands over the course of her life: Theseus (ugh), Menelaus, Paris, Achilles and Deiphobus.
In the best known version, Helen married Menelaus, Agamemnon’s brother. How much of that was her choice and how much was Tyndaerus’s influence is dodgy at best; Tyndaerus once gave the brothers his support in overthrowing their usurping uncle and after the marriage, gave Menelaus his throne. In reward for his good advice, Odysseus was given the hand of Penelope, Tyndareus’s niece. All very neatly settled for the king, except for a tricksy detail: Tyndaerus was not offering Aphrodite her due worship (or what she considered her due, anyway). That’s a lot of marriages to arrange when you’re on the outs with the goddess of love.
Helen gave birth to a daughter, Hermione, and three sons, Aethiolas, Maraphius, and Pleisthenes. Clytaemnestra also had four children: three girls, Electra, Chrystoethmis and Iphigeneia, and a son called Orestes. Both women lived as wives, mothers, queens – perhaps happy with their husbands, perhaps not, but untroubled by great events. And then, of course, Aphrodite happened.
She kept her promise to Paris. When he came to the Spartan court and met Helen there, the goddess of love smoothed the way for a wildly inadvisable love affair. Menelaus sailed to Crete during the (by now discovered and royally acknowledged) Trojan prince’s visit, and while he was gone Paris seduced Helen into returning with him to Troy. She took her treasures and her slaves – but not her children. Possibly it was Aphrodite’s influence again that caused the Trojans to consider Helen as Paris’s wife, though her husband ensured his existence could not be swept aside and before long Helen wasn’t popular at all. Only Paris’s brother Hector and his father Priam saw that she was not to blame for the devastation that followed in her wake. The gods were bad enough at their own relationships. When they got involved with mortals, it could get astonishingly ugly.
But Aphrodite was not the only one with a promise to keep, and Menelaus was quick to call upon the former suitors to fulfill their oath, with his brother taking charge of proceedings. A seer told Agamemnon that he could win over the will of the gods…by sacrificing Iphigeneia. Agamemnon sent for his wife and daughter, telling them that Iphigeneia was to marry the beautiful young Greek warrior Achilles. Then he slit her throat.
It took ten whole years to assemble the Greek army, since most of them either didn’t want to fight over a woman they weren’t actually married to or (very understandably) didn’t like Agamemnon. But assemble the army he did. It would be another ten years before the war reached its bloody end.
Meanwhile, in Troy, let’s meet a woman with spectacular relationship problems of her own: Cassandra, daughter of King Priam and Queen Hecuba and sister of Paris. She was the one to recognise him as a prince of Troy, after he won all the events at a funeral games and Cassandra’s other brothers were humiliated enough to murderously bad sports. Paris took refuge in the temple of Zeus, where Cassandra found him and brought him home.
She had a veritable horde of siblings, actually, well over fifty. Her sisters included Creousa, Laodice and Polyxene; her eldest brother was Hector, followed by Paris, Deiphobus, Hellen (Cassandra’s twin), Polydorus and Troilus. Cassandra was beloved of the sun god Apollo. He tried to buy his way into her bed with the gift of prophecy – which she accepted, but she changed her mind on accepting him. Apollo, it should be pointed out, was exactly the type of male deity to use the term ‘friend-zoned’. Unable to withdraw his gift, he went with the path of maximum spite and swore that whatever prophecy she made, no one would ever believe her.
Cassandra foresaw that Paris and his love for Helen would bring about the destruction of Troy. When the Greeks, worn down by long years of fighting and relying once again on the trickery of Odysseus, placed their notorious wooden horse outside the gates of the city, Cassandra told everyone exactly what would happen. When the warriors concealed in the body of the horse sacked her home, Cassandra took refuge at the statue of Athena. She should have been safe there. She was not. The prince of Locris, known as the Lesser Ajax, dragged her from the temple and raped her. Athena destroyed his ship on his way home from the war and Poseidon personally drowned him – but while it’s nice to know justice was done, none of that protected Cassandra.
As a spoil of war, she was claimed by Agamemnon, who took her with him on his return to Mycenae. Cassandra told Agamemnon they would both die there, only to have her desperation dismissed as ravings. Clytaemnestra had to wait a long time for her vengeance, but once the murderer of her little girl was within her reach, she wasted no time. Having once been taken as a spoil of war, you might think she would have fellow feeling for Cassandra. Instead, she murdered her.
Agamemnon had fathered two sons with Cassandra, twin boys called Teledamus and Pelops; neither survived the savagery of Mycenae, dying at the hand of Clytaemnestra’s lover and accomplice Aegisthus.
So, what about Helen? A Greek queen all in the arms of a Trojan prince, her heart would be broken no matter which way the dice fell. During battle, Helen would stand on the city walls and point out the Greek leaders on the field; but Odysseus entered Troy twice, disguised, and she let him pass by. Though Paris was still a favourite of Aphrodite and subject to her formidable protection, all the gods had a stake in the outcome of this war. He shot down Achilles in vengeance for the brutal killing of Hector, only to be slain by an arrow himself.
After his death, Helen took up with his brother Deiphobus, but he was no incentive for her to stay loyal to Troy. Odysseus slipped into the city to steal away the Palladium – a holy statue of Athene held in Troy, weakening the goddess’s partiality to the Greeks – and Helen told him exactly how to find it. Yet even after that, she was not Odysseus’s ally. When his wooden horse was brought into the city and the Trojans were celebrating what they believed was victory, Helen approached the horse and called out to the warriors within with stunningly accurate mimicry of each of their wives’ voices in turn. Odysseus, master of the underhanded trick, kept his wits about him enough to prevent his companions succumbing to Helen’s voice and emerging from the horse.
After the fall of Troy, when Paris’s family had been slaughtered or enslaved – Deiphobus among the dead – Helen retreated to the temple of Apollo. Menelaus found her there. The story goes that Helen did not speak a word in her defence, simply bared herself for him to run her through, but as soon as Menelaus saw her breasts he was helplessly hers again. Which strongly smacks of Aphrodite’s influence, bawdy and unpredictable and cunning as she was.
So Helen went home to Sparta. The versions of her later life vary wildly. Homer’s Helen became a model wife, insisting that Menelaus come with her when she was deified. In another Zeus rescued her from the vengeful attack of Pylades, lover of Clytaemnestra’s daughter Electra, who blamed Helen for all the disaster that came from the war. A much more fun alternative has Helen hooking up with an Achilles who did not die, the two of them enjoying immortality on an island getaway in the Euxine Sea.
Other stories take a harsher view. Helen became a sacrifice, or was murdered by Achilles’ despairing mother, or even committed suicide to escape the guilt of the war. Because beautiful women are always responsible for the pointless cruelties of grown men, you know, and ten years is not a long enough time for said grown men to recognise that no cause in the world could be worth so much bloodshed, least of all a spurned husband’s pride.
Helen and Cassandra are opposite sides of the same impossible dilemma. The capricious love of the gods gave both women extraordinary powers and extraordinary grief – but they have always been more than the beautiful tragedies of Troy.
These stories vary wildly depending on time and teller – I work with the sources I have to hand but if you know an alternative version I would love to hear it!
Originally posted on Wordpress
0 notes