#fuck the monarchy i guess

[elnotwoods]

me, watching eps 1-5 of yr s3: WHAT ABOUT SOME MEDIA TRAINING FOR SIMON AND THE ROYAL COURT SITTING HIM DOWN AND EXPLAINING THINGS TO HIM

#like i know the royal court is shitty and jan olof looked like he was smelling shit when he was at simons #but how have they not expected any of this? #how did they not see that a 17 year old boy who never was in the public eye wouldn’t know how to handle this? #like what the fuck were they thinking? #fuck the monarchy i guess #well simons got that one down for sure #young royals #young royals spoilers #young royals season 3 #young royals s3

[rotteneldritchhorror]

My parents are watching the coronation while I’m in the room and I’m here to report back:

It’s just as gaudy and white and crusty as you think it is

#also my mom fully implied he’d die soon anyways #can I say that I wanna commit arson right now? #specifically on a specific building #with specific people inside #or is that treason? #uk politics #england #king charles 3rd #king Charles #coronation #uk #UK news #I guess #politics #monarch #monarchy #monarchism #fuck the monarchy #british royal family #idk what else to tag

[presiding]

a doctor turned serial killer turned doctor again, an actor who paints, a gang leader, a mining baron, and a vice overseer walk into the room.

oh yeah and they lead karnaca now.

dishonored 2 is my fav game but i think it's mid, story-wise. here's why dh1 works and why dh2's overarching story sorta misses

tl;dr: story integration is critical for gameplay that offers audience payoff, but emily's personal arc from dishonor to honor is inconsistently demonstrated in the story, and is not an interactive part of the gameplay.

essay/long version under cut >

recap: what's dishonored's deal

[skip if you want] dh1 is an underdog story: corvo is an honorable man swept up in the machinations of a callous city, so his canonical ending being 'this child will rule over an empire' isn't about the child's rule but rather about corvo's reputation being restored in a more hopeful city, due to his & the player's rejection of the violent connotations of the tagline 'revenge solves everything.'

similarly, in dh1 DLCs, daud's story arc is that of an anti-hero: a dishonorable man who realises too late he has done irreparable harm. he sees the error of his ways after a single monumental death, and eventually a single life redeems him when he/the player stepped in to circumvent a terrible fate for a child, enabling her to rule unfettered.

daud & corvo come to a satisfying conclusion within the extent of their narrative arcs. it doesn't matter that a child on a throne isn't really a fix for a decaying empire - the player's actions throughout the city of dunwall was what mattered - and these stories could be framed as parables. in that sense, young emily as a ruler is a metaphor for a hopeful future for the city & empire.

dishonored 1 & its DLCs are also great examples of storytelling with perfectly integrated gameplay - you, the player, worked towards the outcome that redeemed the protagonists.

in your efforts to save young emily, you either achieved a good outcome (corvo) or prevented a worse outcome (daud).

bringing us to dh2 -

what's emily's arc

emily's arc is a coming of age: we're introduced to a reigning empress who questions her role & skillset ("am i the empress my mother wanted me to be?"), then her titular fall from grace occurs. from there, she learns to reject the violent, selfish connotations in 'take back whats yours' tagline (a la daud & corvo!) while rediscovering why her rule is critical to the empire.

emily's rule is no longer metaphorical, but:

a literal thing for audience assessment (is emily a good ruler?) AND

the crux of her storyline.

at the beginning of dh2, emily is introduced as a disengaged leader ("i wish i could just run away from all this;" "i dont know if whether i should sail to the opposite side of the world, or have everyone around me executed"). the antihero has a precedent for the dishonored series in daud, so it's not at first glance an issue*, however, the fact that emily has ruled poorly reframes corvo & daud's endings as being less than ideal (a moralistic retcon) *we could talk here about how ready an audience was in 2016 for a flawed women as a protagonist, hell, even in 2023,,,

throwback to the beginning of this essay when i said:

'this child will rule over an empire' isn't about the child's rule but rather about corvo's reputation

emily's story arc, unlike for daud & corvo, is literally about the quality of her rule. we're no longer in metaphor territory (ironic phrase): a parable-style ending doesn't work.

does emily become a good ruler

we know she becomes a good ruler because the game says so. it is narrated to the audience via a (literal) word of god in the space of 30 seconds, after the final boss. the outsider tells us that emily becomes known as Just & Clever.

drawing a distinction here - this narration is not the same as the player actively being involved.

the player does not throughout the game become aware that emily has made political allies. during the game, she doesn't talk to these characters about saving karnaca or being a better ruler to the empire (there's a few lines might imply it, but you need to be actively looking and being careful to wait for every voice line. it's a far cry from daud & corvo's fight to save emily being unmissable - even though daud doesn't know at the beginning that's the goal).

how does the game show it

you can coincidentally not kill most of your subjects and never be aware that emily is looking to restore karnaca by means of instating a council - it's never brought up. it *couldn't* be brought up, because that council serves under the fake duke (armando), who is the last person she speaks to before she leaves for dunwall. its her suggestion that he rules karnaca, but armando's condition is that he will rule as he sees fit.

to back up a bit, emily's canonical method of restoring karnaca is by banding together key allies - hypatia, stilton, [byrne &or paolo], pastor, under a council beneath the duke's body double. they are passionate people who would each individually make worthwhile advisors, but if you think about those characters sitting at a table trying to reach an agreement, it feels like an assortment of people that emily didn't kill along the way and doesn't feel organic (up to interpretation). it's not stated if emily herself banded this council together, but logically she must have (worth a mention these are mostly characters that you as the player had reasonable rationale to kill during a high chaos run, except pastor). the underlying concept may be that karnaca's power is returned to its people - which is interesting given that the monarchy remains and armando's decision is final.

this overarching solution could also be taken as a critique to dh1's 'put your kid on the throne,' which is another reason its worthwhile looking at how emily was shown to be a better leader. obviously my point isn't that her solution was bad given the circumstance, but i mean she has very little agency here in all. if emily was shown to be more controlling as a leader, this could be interpreted as character growth, but that's not the case.

coming of age

how do you learn & grow when you can't specify your failings? emily doesn't really touch on her shortcomings as an empress. she non-specifically worries delilah makes a better empress than her. it's hard to argue her worries are meaningful when someone good at their job will still worry when lives are in the balance.

emily's best 'aha' moments (eg. crack in the slab comment about gaining perspective) are consistently undercut by a conversation with sokolov or meagan afterwards in which she demonstrates she hasn't learned anything (before the grand palace, emily condemns 'toadies sucking up to me' and is reminded by meagan that she's part of the problem). the story is confused about what it's trying to say about emily's progress, and when she's meant to show progress, if she was meant to show any progress at all. it could be argued that emily was never even a bad ruler, she had just been fed misinformation about the problems in karnaca and been the victim of slander by her political enemies. the game doesn't make this clear - it's easier to argue that the opposite is true given that her allies only have criticism.

worth a mention here that the heart quotes about armando - a fake ruler - interestingly mirror emily's character concerns. "see how he sighs? his life is a gilded cage." but this essay is already long.

while corvo & daud spend their games (and through the gameplay) 'earning' their redemption, emily is being led by the NPCs around her to a conclusion and a fix for the political mess in karnaca: meagan & sokolov guide emily to her missions, and there's no recurring quest for emily to investigate possible allies. she is able to gather the people she hasn't killed to herself by manner of... post-game narration. during the game, she's primarily concerned with getting her throne back.

an easy fix: if there had been less dialogue & narrative focus on emily's failings perhaps the ending would have felt more satisfying. it has the feel of cut content, but i don't know what was cut to be able to comment on it.

so what went wrong?

i can't help but wonder if arkane were worried they would lose a certain demographic if corvo wasn't playable (may have been deemed too much of a risk - 2013 was a different time), and so they had to take out story elements that were unique to emily's growth as a character/empress, because the usual storyline/gameplay integration had to work for both characters - in other words, gameplay that made sense for both corvo & emily was prioritised before emily's story & character development. which is a silly problem to have in a game that added character voices for the sake of improving characterisation - maybe emily's tale would have felt more akin to a parable if she had less lines that betrayed her ignorance (to the disdain of those around her).

i wish more care had been taken with emily's story. most players will never really notice the large variety of different endings - they're not particularly satisfying in and of themselves.

it's ironic that one of Emily's complaints is about her father/protector being overbearing, when his (parallel universe) presence in the gameplay may be one of the reasons her own narrative arc falls flat.

what are the upsides here

changing tune from what didn't work - don't you think the concept is fantastic? it's a great idea overall - can you imagine if the coming of age storyline was better integrated into the game?

it's valuable to talk about the integration of story and gameplay and characterisation from a craft perspective. dh2 genuinely is my favourite game - it's beautiful, the imm-sim design philosophy makes the world a delight to explore, the combat gives endless creative options for tackling any fight, there is a far greater diversity of cast in an in-text canonical way. there's loads to love!

i love emily as a dodgy leader, to me it adds interesting dimensionality to the outsider's narrations - of course in dunwall there's never a neat happily ever after! emily, like the outsider, both work well as characters who hold ultimate power but aren't necessarily worthy of it - and this makes perfect sense for the dishonored universe's morality & critiques of power. however, within this grey area there's still plenty of room for a satisfying ending, which isn't what we ended up with, whatever the true reason for that was. and also, damn, emily's a marked assassin empress, if she can't lead well then who can?

while dh1 was criticised for its narrative simplicity, dh2 in contrast and in hindsight shows us that simplicity isn't so bad - there's satisfaction in gameplay achieves a clear, simple narrative goal.

#are you a dh1 enjoyer but less so a dh2 enjoyer? #have you ever wondered why you don't love dh2 as much? #here's 1.8k words that might articulate some of that. #light reading.i guess #this essay wasn't meant to cover everything - just the core of the plot and why its important to integrate story & gameplay #and to compare dh1 & 2 #dishonored #dishonored 2 #dishonored 2 spoilers #emily kaldwin #daud #corvo attano #this week i'm cracking things out of my drafts! #<333 don't get me started on doto. #some of this might be contentious. idk i try to live in a bubble #the meme version was easier to read i know i know #this essay would have been a lot longer had i integrated more references from the game #i know a few others have said this but imagine if they went a different way with emily #like she realises shes not fit for the job and maybe no one is and says fuck the system cause shes got a rebellious streak #and does a kickflip on the monarchy and institutes something else. i dont even care what. make it funny #and then for the sake of continuing the trend we spend dishonored 3 undoing the horrible leadership emily instates <3 #i think they really loved emily as a character. i FEEL the love i believe its there.but didn't think enough bout how she would be perceived #there's a good couple comments from baldur's gate 3 devs about how much work goes into writing women to account for sexism #there's more that i could have added to this essay but for brevity's (ha.ha) sake i'll leave it there #other textposts about this game that i see around tend to romanticise dishonoreds story a little more

[degreeofdisorder]

as someone who's both a staunch anti monarchist irl and yet is obsessed with fictional modern royalty stories, it is truly one of my greatest pleasures to know that they all end with the same conclusion: monarchies are unsustainable in the modern era and they're bad for everyone involved. and the happiest ending possible is freeing the royals from their shackles. bonus points if they abdicate for love. it's just so good. i eat it up every time.

#yr livenats #and I guess also rwrb related #I never wanted henry to abdicate bc i wanted him and alex to have the worst most obnoxiously expensive and gay royal wedding in the planet #but I think it could have never worked for the type of person that he was #and I always wanted wille to abdicate (but in a way that toppled the swedish government #not just giving it to august) but I didn't really see him doing it bc it felt like the monarchy was too embedded within him #and anyways HE DID IT #FUCK THE MONARCHY #IN ALL THE POSSIBLE INTERPRETATIONS OF IT #yr s3 spoilers #young royals spoilers

[lesbiansandgayssupporttheminers]

Is it just me who thinks the queen looks really odd in this picture? Almost like a photoshop job or a wax work?

Time to resurrect the rumours that the queen is dead?

#uk politics #the queen #queen elizabeth II #the queen is dead #liz truss #i guess #fuck the monarchy and fuck the tories

[nailgunstigmata]

just opened my wip again and saw all the „“ quotation marks and had a dennis destroying the sextapes montage moment

#actually im gonna keep doing it because i will probably forget #and also because i dont know how to make my keyboard stop and im too lazy to find out #and also uhh fuck the monarchy? something about that i guess

[flustersluts]

damn, u from the UK? good luck with whatever the future holds for your country /gen

DFSHKJDFHS this ask is so funny i assume it's abt the queen dying? but it cld also be abt the energy crisis or the fucked up summer droughts weve been having the uk is slightly going thru it right now

#if its abt the queen i personally do not care all that much but i guess it could lead to abolition of the monarchy in the long term which #would be p good ig #the other two things are slightly more fucked 😔😔 #this is funny though thank u anon #flusterasks

[prettypangolins]

top made-my-soul-cringe-and-skin-crawl moment of the bauble toppening: a hindu performing part of the protestant ceremony by reading christian scripture

top made-my-blood-boil moment of the ceremony: talking about the 4 languages of the UK then saying they're the languages of his kingdom

#the whole thing is utterly surreal #there were other bits that made my teeth crawl but here are the highlights i guess #trying to put into words what sets me off about the language thing but not managing rn #like feel free to promote them and use them etc but they're not - in my mind - part of this fuckin monarchy not yours you fucks #also funny moment: 'now the prime minister will blah blah blah' and i couldn't remember who the pm is rn #but yeah idk welsh people how you feel about the song in welsh?

[glitterhoof]

pippin cheerio and crumpet the corgi is best friends with cafe ole and burrito burro.

#they have tea together . cafe ole shows her how to make killer birria . pippin learns there are spices other than salt #Burrito burro and crumpet corgi play together in the strawberry fields and discuss the status of the monarchy #pippin and cafe go to the British museum and the security tries to seize cafes donkey for archival purposes #I Can think of so many funny scenarios. I ironically do not know many British stereotypes #Other than [ insert colonizer joke ] and ‘ watah bottah ‘ #Oh and their teeth are bad. And they drink tea and call cookies biscuits #Why would you do that by the way. Biscuit is a cute name sure but cookie is in the name. Ok maybe it should be called bakie #Candy floss is also cool I guess. But cotton candy makes more sense #I refuse to call fries chips you guys are fucking crazy for that #‘ can I ave a fish n chips ‘ SAY IF CORRECTLY. CAN I ORDER FISH AND FRIES. ALLITERATION PEOPLE!!!!

[anghraine]

A short version of my sideblog rambling about where Gwen, my anti-aristocracy human PC from the streets, is now at in the personal story—

Countess Anise sends a letter:

Gwen: 🔪

But she goes to the royal court and she agrees to act as advocate for Queen Jennah in deciding how to keep innocent villagers from being mauled by undead. The greater good etc.

Queen Jennah:

Gwen, internally: 🔪🔪🔪

#an anti-royalist pc can't really be reconciled with the canon dialogue but my headcanon will not be moved on this point #so headCANNON time i guess #she hates the aristocracy more and she doesn't think the middle of elder dragon problems is a good time for overthrowing the monarchy #but she needs all her blessings from lyssa to cover up how she actually feels #namely: i don't want you harmed but holy dwayna fuck off forever. viva la república! #anghraine babbles #anghraine's gaming #ascalonian grudgeblog #gwen velazquez #jennah critical #gw fanwank

[neonpigeons]

not to out myself as someone who regularly goes on tiktok but apparently on some people's videos where they're making jokes about the dead queen, people are trying to get back at them by making fun of 9/11?? examples I saw:

like that's not the comeback you think it is we already joke about it

#like. it was a tragedy for the victims and their families yes #but the over the top memorials every year as a tool for patriotism is despicable when so many other tragedies have been worse #like the people harmed in the middle east as a result #oh and all the covid deaths but i guess they'll just sweep that under the rug. whatever. let's talk about 9/11 more!!! #anyways fuck the queen im glad she's dead. abolish the monarchy and give the native peoples their land back #fuck colonialism and white supremacy #ari speaks

[nostalgia-tblr]

Look IDK the Asgard set-up but I do know enough about monarchies to know that if you tell your sons "Only one of you can ascend to the throne, but both of you were born to be kings" you're basically just asking them to try to kill each other come on I know how this is gonna end. And it's probably the blond(e) kid is the good one and the wee shifty dark-haired one (traits that always seem to go together in such stories) is gonna try to usurp the throne even though primogeniture is supposedly great which is how you know he's evil because the wee shit should just accept that and look forward to a) a career in the church or b) marrying some inbred princess from the other side of the continent, both of which are jobs that exist to prop up the one that actually gets the throne. I know people really hate Odin but at least on this issue they do have a point. Don't set things up so your kids will murder each other!!!

#thor film that i barely remember but i remember that bit and i googled the quote like an expert would #not actually the loki show but also it is but anyway #down with the monarchy etc #hela's probably just angry that any younger brother would instantly displace her so YAS QUEEN LITERALLY SLAY i guess #is the blond(e)/dark a folklore thing? i know i picked it up from somewhere #as a dark-haired child i knew i'd be the bad one put it that way #anyway that bit of the film is NOT subtle i think we all knew jealousy would show up and take over #but it's okay the cure for that is to fuck yourself (literally). #(I support your right to fuck yourself btw you do you as it were) #the thor film i guess #should have claimed thor's dad was an archer and got drowned in wine or however that went #is the wars of the roses a fandom? #i hate monarchy but even i am still bitter about stephen the usurper yes it was 1000 years ago BUT STILL #that quote about i'm not saying fratricide is good i'm just saying they had 10 rly good sultans in a row

[dymagamwedd]

not me learning the origin of mackem literal years before learning the origin of geordie lmao

#( * ooc. ) #in my defence. i taught my mackem girl the origin of mackem. she taught me the meaning of geordie. #why do we know each other's regional nicknames but not our own?? fuck knows. anyway. #apparently newcastle people are called geordie because they were simps for george II and the hanover dynasty! who knew. #mackem is so much cooler lmao it comes from sunderland's shipbuilding past #so i guess sunderland = cool rough and ready shipbuilders and newcastle = monarchy simps. god damn it.

[surfs-up-brian]

I have to go to London sometime soon so my mum can lay flowers for the Queen 😑😑😑😑😑😑😑😑😑

#literally me my dad and my brother are like 😐 fuck the monarchy bro #just my mum is into it i guess #im gonna be stood there like 🕴 while she does whatever shes doing #im gonna get food out of it tho so thats good #toby

[kingdom-falls]

Funniest fucking thing about Twitter is following someone who's like "What is wrong with you for celebrating the queen's death??" And like... Have you SEEN world history? There's a lot of reasons to celebrate the old hag's swan dive to hell!

#I unfollowed but they still follow me so I guess they'll just see the anti monarchy spam their timeline #Queen Elizabeth was a racist colonialist old bat who deserved the guillotine 30 years ago and it's a mercy no one marched onto the palace #Fuck the monarchist leeches who steal from the UK people in the midst of an energy and heat crisis #Cut them all off #And the person was French too it's like do you so easily forget your own country's history with monarchies?!?