i’ve seen a few people claim Philip stripped caleb’s jacket off his body after his death as some morbid memento, but we already have his memories on the matter and he had caleb’s jacket pre-fight and was wearing it when he first arrived.
even in his shadow form you can make out he’s wearing the coat.
Not to mention caleb is never seen wearing it in any of the memories on the isles
Nah, as much as i know people love finding new ways to make philip even more morbid, if the story holds any weight, and it probably does, it seems far more likely caleb left it back on earth with philip. There’s no evidence to suggest philip stole it or rid him of it, but that caleb ditched it when he left.
and when philip assumed a witch kidnapped his brother, he put it on, probably as a form of comfort and keeping his brother close at a time where he assumed the worst could have happened to him. Kinda in the same vein of how luz was wearing eda’s jacket to keep her close during their separation.
It seems to be quite an important object to him, being what looks like his only link left to caleb as he was on earth. With the thought he also grew his hair out to have a ponytail like his older brother it appears to be less like “Stealing” and way more like a sign of what was originally his admiration and love for his brother.
A strong desire to be close to him and be like him through his appearance, tho only the version of him that he remembers best, which was the one back on earth...not the one that left him for the isles,
(Which def fuels even more why he didn’t appreciate luz insulting it, because it was basically also insulting the brother he’s trying so hard to recreate, the one that didn’t leave him)
This isn’t even out of character that philip likes to keep mementos of his brother, he even seems to have taken his old childhood mask his brother made him to the isles judging by his memories. Tho i’m sure the jacket holds more significance because it was caleb’s first specifically.
I think it’s definitely easy now to accuse Philip of every bad thing ever, and his obsession with his brother screams serious attachment issues. But it doesn’t appear he had that jacket on originally for anything but genuine love and care for him, at first at least.
There’s no evidence to suggest caleb told philip he was leaving, or any evidence that he even tried to talk to his brother about what was going on with him. As far as we know, he left, and philip, from his pov, went out to save the person he considers his entire world from what he believes might kill and/or hurt him.
And if philip wasn’t the villian of the show, i think a lot more people would be willing to sympathize with that part of his character.
His relationship with his brother has both a lot of resentment for leaving him behind and alone, but also a lot of the original love and admiration for him he held for years.
But with the knowledge he only became a hunter because he felt he needed to fit in with society for survival purposes, combined with the fact caleb was his only family and caretaker...while only being a few years older then him at the very least....you can see how this probably fueled so many of his issues.
Wanted to make a post about this cause while he deserves the crap for the bad stuff he actually does, it’s at least worth mentioning at one point he was just a naïve child raised in a bad community who originally just wanted to keep the one person he loved the most....safe.
and at one point, that jacket was not some morbid prize he got for what he did, or something he seemingly stole, or him trying to steal his brother’s look, it was originally just something he wore....because he did love him.
And to this day, he still kept it.
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You know sometimes I think about that whole narrative tragedy around Huaisang where to get revenge for his brother on jgy he has to become more and more like jgy and turn into a person that his brother would hate. And yes the scheming and the lying and the making other people do your dirty work so you'll never get caught and have to face consequences for your actions is all very foils. Very tragedy. Love it.
But then I think back to nieyao in the fire palace and how it's not the spy thing Nie Mingjue is mad about, not really. He didn't know about it and changes his mind on trying to kill meng yao when xichen tells him but he's still mad and it's not the spy thing. However many cultivators he killed and tortured under Wen Ruohan's orders because he couldn't lose his cover are a factor but the crux of it? It's those last few. And specifically that Meng Yao had an out. A way for them to survive. And he used it. But only for Nie Mingjue. All the others got killed on the spot but Nie Mingjue got the out, got to live. And maybe (likely) if he'd tried to save the others Nie Mingjue would have needed to die but Nie Mingjue has been ready to die for his sect since he was 14 and if it meant defeating Wen Ruohan he'd be happy to. The fact is that those last deaths weren't to defeat Wen Ruohan but to keep Nie Mingjue alive and that is what he can't forgive. It's that after everything the thing he is so angry at Meng Yao for is choosing to value his life over that of his men.
And then I look back at Nie Huaisang who lied and schemed, yes, but who, most importantly, committed so hard to his headshaker persona that the Nie clan declined by the year, a shadow of its former self after only a decade of leadership.
And I realize that both Meng Yao and Nie Huaisang at one point looked at Nie Mingjue, and then looked at multitudes of Nie sect cultivators, and decided that Nie Mingjue was more important. And that's what he'd hate the most.
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Hey! i’m really into the dbch story and i was wondering if doc and xisuma ever tell bdubs the specifics of why etho lost his memories, cause if they do that is prime self blaming angst for bdubs
I’m inclined to believe they don’t. Actually (and maybe I should do a small comic for this so more people see it) I imagine, once a month or a few pass and they finally return etho to bdubs as reset, I imagine they are VERY serious about warning bdubs not to try to force Etho to re-deviate— they don’t go into specifics, but they probably tell bdubs that whatever happened had to do with something that was emotionally overwhelming, and that forcing him to redeviate/not letting it happen naturally could trigger the same error. They have no idea what could happen so bdubs needs to be very careful and let Etho find himself again on his own.
Whether or not bdubs gets impatient or can only go so long before he doubts it would be that bad if he tried pushing Etho in the right direction is another story.
But yeah. I don’t think Xisuma or Doc really… tell anyone that this happened. Etho’s error seemed like a very specific one-off scenario, so it’s not something the other hermits should be trying to avoid or be careful about happening to their own android friends, and the only thing telling people would do is make them worried about the situation. All they need to know is that etho was broken and that they need to be careful with him. I don’t agree with their decision to keep what happened to themselves but I understand it I think. Xisuma “i don’t want to worry the hermits” Void and Docm “eh this isn’t the first time I’ve replaced this arm, people won’t question it” 77
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I think another thing I like about starscream, yet hate that the fandom fails to acknowledge about starscream is that, a lot of his rotten personality and his nastiness comes from way before he meets megatron and way before he was a deception.
That’s not to say that a lot of the ways he acts doesn't mirror megatron and the mistreatment he went through. and that impacts how starscream heals, makes friends, etc., idw - like what megatron did still badly affects him and that's not something to be ignored, and it's still not fair that he doesn't get the same happiness megatron did.
But, I think that people do tend to act as if Starscream was perfect and uncorrupt before Megatron.
That's not true...starscream was also a rotten, manipulative and bad person before that. and a lot of that was in response to how he was treated and hating his own body/existence, and the caste system, etc. We see how a lot of people in transformers react to oppression and I think starscream is such an interesting case of someone who is so angry and furious at the system he was created in that he takes it out on others yet still fights for himself and only himself. It is sad, and it’s awful to see how his own existence and the caste system does destroy him, but I think its important to note and to understand to just see how oppressed people still have to fight through their own oppression and sometimes, because of that, because of the trauma they go through, turn rotten. And Starscream did terrible, sneaky, and awful things. He did shitty things to climb to the top and he hurt those around him, he hurt people he trusted him, and he was happy to be that way. No one made him evil, manipulative, or untrustworthy, he did that on his own.
I don’t like that a lot of the fandom tends to tie Starsream’s negative and problematic behavior and personality to megatron because it also takes away from a lot of growth, agency and discussion about starscream’s personality and why he is the way he is.
He wasn’t a perfect, innocent and shy person before he met megatron, or before he became a deception. He still did awful things and while becoming a deception was a way he could grow past the system that created him, he still did very much do so for power. Starscream was an ambitious yet a morally ambiguous person before megatron and he had to be to survive in his own mind. His life wasn’t perfect and happy before megatron, he was still fighting and he was still scheming to survive.
I really don’t like how people kind of take that away from him, and act like everything he does and every shitty way he acts is *because* of megatron. I know it’s not fun to have to admit that he wasn’t a good person before megatron met him, but I think it’s necessary to understand his character, and not a lot of people do. And when you don’t do that, you have people misinterpreting his character and being genuinely shocked when he does villainous things. Like for instance, sky bound starscream’s actions shock a lot of people because they don’t think that he is a villain - I remember a lot of ES critique is that earthspark starscream doesn’t need a redemption act- he just needs people to love and accept him. And I think you guys forgot that he was also a space fascist and enjoyed killing people on his own accord. And while megatron himself does impact how starscream acts and treats others - starscream still was an extremely problematic person eons before he met megatron.
I don’t think this negates just how badly Megatron’s treatment fucked him up, and made it so that it was difficult for him to form relationships even after, or find happiness. And I think that’s just something that cannot be ignored. But I also think starscream is more interesting as a character if the fandom acknowledged that he was this way before, that he wasn’t perfect or innocent, and that he reacted that way because he was unhappy with is life, his station, his caste, etc.
this also isn't a chance to come and try to excuse how megatron treated him, so pls don't do that on here.
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"Thrawn only joined the Empire to help the Chiss!"
Okay sure but have any of you bothered to self-examine why Thrawn chose to join the Empire instead of, say, the Republic, when that was still around? Or why he didn't chose to throw in with the Rebellion, put his tactical mind to use helping them overthrow the Empire quicker?
Could it be... perhaps... that maybe he values the Empire's military strength... more than he cares about the authoritarian tyranny with which it oppresses its own people?
Is it possible that he thinks the Empire's main problem is that it isn't effective enough, too much politicking getting in the way of sound strategy, but if he's around (and in charge) he can guide things so that those annoying little wrinkles (AKA the pockets of discontent and rebellion and fully justified anger at their rights and freedoms being trampled on) are all smoothed out and the overall Imperial machine is better, more in control of its assets, a stronger more unified bulwark against the outergalactic threat of the Grysk or the Vong or whatever.
Is it perhaps just a bit self-centered of him to only care about the Empire's ability to service his own goals and desires and be apathetic (at best) to the way it makes people suffer daily under its inherent systems? The Twi'leks and Wookies being constantly kidnapped and sold into slavery? The careless industrialization of arboreal worlds? The socialization and absorption of all private industry, forcing everyone to work through and with the Empire if they want to work at all? The systematic persecution of anyone remotely Force Sensitive? Is it not the mark of some kind of soul rot to be aware of all of that and go, "Yeah, but I don't care, they have the bigger guns, which is what I need."?
Maybe... just maybe... Thrawn has some Machiavellian tendencies and opinions and maybe this just might... make him not entirely a good person?
And maybe y'all should think about that before you come back and whine about his portrayal as a villain, as if all he has to do is explain to people that he did everything for a good reason and he gets an automatic narrative pardon for all of the shit he did while Grand Admiral that still needs to be addressed and answered for.
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