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thekingofwinterblog · 2 years

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Amphibia Week - Day 7

What aspect do you like the most about Amphibia?

The relationship between Anne and Sasha.

My single favorite part of Amphibia, and the only part of Amphibia aside from it's humor, that i feel ever managed to actually surpass Avatar, is the relationship between Sasha and Anne, and just how Human this beautiful mess of a relationship is.

I have always liked character relationships where it is clear from day one that the characters truly, genuinely love each other, but they are constantly in conflict between that love and their personal flaws.

And in this regard, I used to hold Zuko and Iroh's relationship from Avatar, as the absolute pinnacle of just how great this kind of relationship can be when it is given the care, attention, and writing it needs to work.

However, in that regard i very much think Amphibia actually surpassed it with Sasha and Anne's relationship.

Sasha and Anne's relationship is such an amazingly well written showcase of two people who truly, totally, and completely love each other in the most intimate ways... But rather than just being able to embrace that, they are instead constantly undercut by their own, deep human flaws.

Anne and Sasha starts off in a very bad place, where Sasha has embraced the absolute worst parts of herself, and yet... As we see throughout Reunion, there is so, so much more to this relationship than just Sasha's horrible control freak abuse.

Sasha is capable of astonishing levels of cruelty and manipulation fueled by her own trauma, her desperate need for control and feeling like she has to be useful in order to have worth... But she's also capable of the opposite. Of pure expressions of love and humanity towards Anne, where the only thing she truly wants, is for Anne to be happy, where the only reward Sasha wants is for Anne to love her as much as she does her.

And that is what makes it so real. It's messy, it's complicated, it's both beautiful, and ugly. It is love between two people, in all it's best and worst forms.

And unlike so, so many relationships, it is NOT static.

Sasha and Anne's relationship constantly evolves through the series, even when they seem to have found an equilibrium, the show is always building it towards another, new development.

In season 2, the entire story was building towards Sasha's betrayal, her making the choice to try and obtain ultimate power and control so she will never have to fear things slipping out of her hands ever again.

Only for Anne to make it abundantly clear that by doing so, Sasha hurt her. Hurt her worse than anything, anyone has ever done before in her life.

And so, by committing to the path of control, Sasha loses the thing she wanted more than anything else. Anne's love, respect and adoration. And worst of all, as she learns later, she already had all of those already.

Sasha hurt Anne with this betrayal. Hurt her in a way that only someone you truly, passionately love can. She opened her heart, and Sasha, in her desperate quest for control, Sasha stabbed her right through.

And so, Anne, the heart of Amphibia, the embodiment of the morals of this story embraces all her worst aspects in turn.

During their confrontation at the gatehouse, Anne becomes much more angry and agreasive than Sadha ever was, trying her absolute damnedest to flat out murder Sasha.

Because Sasha hurt her so, so much, and in the moment, all Anne can think about is getting even. Just like Sasha, Anne is fully capable of giving into all her flaws, all of her deepest, darkest human desires.

Just like Anne was the one who always brought out the absolute best in Sasha, so Sasha is the only one in the world, who can bring out the absolute worst parts of Anne.

It is such a real, raw human reaction, that it is so, so easy to understand Anne, as she makes the worst decisions of her life, even as we know and understands why she's in the wrong.

But that is not the end of their relationship. Because Anne learns that Sasha was right. She fucked up. Hard.

The moment where Anne looks at a bound Sasha, is one of my favorite understated moments in the series.

In that one, single moment, having seen Andrias reveal his worst aspects, and having to see the consequences of her actions first hand, it suddenly dawns on Anne what she tried to do earlier.

She tried to kill her best friend, who she loves so much. She tried to murder her in anger, for a cause that she learns was flat out wrong.

It's such a bucket of cold water poured over her head, and it allows Anne to see clearly that she was capable of fucking up just as much as Sasha and Marcy was. She just did so in fact.

They are all horribly flawed messes. And id ahe deserves to be given a second chance to fix her mistakes... Why doesn't Marcy and Sasha?

Of course they ultimately lose the battle and are separated, but one thing i actually do like in 3A(Amongst other things in Anne's story i distinctly DO NOT) is the contrast.

Anne has committed to giving this relationship another chance. And so, she's able to act withouth it crushing her.

But Sasha, who does not know this, reaches rock bottom. She hates herself, and she thinks that Anne, the person she loves most in the world, now hates her too.

At this point, Sasha feels like her deepest, darkest fear has come true. Not only that she is unloved, but that she deserves to be unloved. That the voice in the back of her head, that's been telling telling her that she was never worth loving just for being her, ever since her parents broke her ability to love herself unconditionally was right all along.

Which in turn brings us to the most beautiful scene in all of season 3.

As Sasha has hit her lowest point, she finds Anne's diary. And through it, she learns a powerful truth about Anne. One she never was able to see and accept before now.

Anne already loved her. Even after the tower, even after everything, Anne still loved Sasha, not because she was useful, or needed her to get by, but because she was her friend.

Sasha never needed to prove anything to Anne. She never needed prove that she was useful. Her entire desire for control in order to make sure that Anne would continue to love her, was not only a giant waste of time, but also counterproductive, as the only thing it has lead to, is that(Or at least Sasha thinks so) Anne now hates her.

And so, she decides to do better. She makes a choice to commit to becoming a better person. To leave all the things that lead to her betraying Anne in the past. To become someone who deserves someone as wonderful as Anne in her life.

And she does. Sasha does change. She does grow. Not without issues, or new difficulties arising, but even so, Anne still loves her anyway.

Anne always loved Sasha. And she still does Flaws, warts and scars and all. The only thing she ever asked of her, was for Sasha to respect her.

And it's here, as Anne gives her back her helmet that Sasha is able to accept that fact. That she never had anything she needed to prove to Anne. All she had to do, was to treat her with the same kind of respect as Anne had for her.

That was the only thing Anne ever asked Sasha for in order to forgive her. And it's only now, as Anne hugs her in an embrace, that Sasha fully, truly understands, and accepts that.

And she gives it to her. Her love, her devotion, and at long last, all her respect.

But there is still more steps to take in this journey. Relationships are not static things, instead they are constantly changing.

And as Anne tries to help Sasha overcome her fears of forgiving Marcy and what that would mean, Anne, without even meaning to, or fully understanding Sasha's full issues, helps Sasha overcome one of her deeper scars.

Sasha is terrified of having to truly, totally open herself up again after betrayal. She has been for ages now, ever since her parents destroyed her ability to truly, unconditionally trust other people through their divorce.

That mess left her with a deep, deep fear of things "Going wrong", and so she would do anything, go to any length to avoid having to face that again.

Sasha after Turning point has overcome this flaw... But she hasn't healed. She no longer tries to dominate everyone and everything, but that is because she understands that it is wrong to do so.

Not because she is emotionally strong enough to trust other people to make those mistakes.

Anne does not fully understand why this wound sits so deep in Sasha's heart, as she thinks it's because of Marcy's betrayal, not understanding that the wound in Sasha's heart is much, much deeper than that.

And yet, she manages to make Sasha see, to understand what she means, just by being her lovable, kind, and honest self.

Opening yourself to potential risks and heartbreak is hard. It is scary. It is terrifying. Forgiving someone who hurt you can go wrong. It might not work out even if you do so.

But it's only by doing so that you can find true beauty in bonds with others.

Like the one they have now.

And Sasha, finally understands. She gets it. She is finally is able to truly commit to open her heart again fully. Not just to Anne, but in general.

It is only here, so, so many years after her parents divorce that Sasha is able to finally begin healing from the wound her parents gave her so long ago.

Sasha was a girl who at the start of the series felt like she needed to be useful for others to love her. That if the people she loved could get by without her, she had no value.

Anne told her something different.

And it is only now, that she is able to truly accept it.

Anne and Sasha have a wonderfull mess of a relationship. It is is ugly, it is full of heartbreak, of pain and betrayal. But it is also beautiful, it is kindness, compassion, and support, and full of all the things that makes life worth living.

It is love, in all it's great and terrible extremes, and it is by far my favorite part of Amphibia.

#amphibia #sasha waybright #anne boonchuy #meta #amphibia week #sashanne #relationship #love #hate #friendship #attempted murder #best part of amphibia

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livebloggingmydescentintomadness · 3 years

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Momdad, I know that this is internalized transphobia and being surrounded by TERF ideas, but sometimes I'm really sad about my identity as a trans man. Don't get me wrong, I'm happier than ever now that I'm on T, but sometimes I feel like I've become "lesser" somehow. The queer community loves and praises women so much. I feel like I've lost something in becoming myself. The love for women is so prevalent, and I like women too! But sometimes it feels like my own people (bi people in particular) treat men as such disgusting things that I feel bad about being one, and being a man with an AFAB body is so much more isolating than anyone talks about. Do you have any comfort or advice? I'm hurting and I don't really have anyone else I can talk to about this. :/ Thank you <3

hey there, sweetie, i'm so sorry you're hurting like this. i don't identify as a man, but i do feel like there's a masculine aspect to my gender and personality, and i agree that there is a lot of hatefulness towards men that really crosses the line.

i mean, i will vent about men as well, but there is a big difference between "men as a class oppress me" and "being a man is disgusting". to draw a comparison, i'm disabled and i will vent about abled people, but i would never say or even think that there's anything wrong with being abled. i'm queer and i'll make fun of The Straights, but i don't think being straight is a bad thing. i don't think anything is gained through degradation. i don't think cruelty for sport proves anything but that we, too, are capable of mindless hate.

the open hatefulness and degradation of men is pure radfem rhetoric, wherein everything that is feminine is Good and Pure, and everything masculine is Bad and Evil. and truly, in its way it's every bit as sexist as outright hatred of women, because by elevating women to goddesses who can do no wrong, you deny their humanity.

men and women are both human. we are both capable of kindness and of cruelty. we are both able to abuse and to be abused. we are good and bad in roughly equal numbers.

the truth is, women can be mean, bigoted, cruel, hateful, petty, selfish, cold, twisted, inconsiderate, shallow, arrogant, and every other normal human flaw. women can abuse, women can rape, women can beat, women can kill, women can oppress, women can commit every evil act.

we can acknowledge the good of women that has historically been pushed down, covered up, and dismissed, without denying their capacity for harm and unkindness. we can say "women are great" without going so far as to imagine women are inherently good and flawless. we can elevate women to the same level as men without overcompensating and putting them on a higher pedestal than men.

men are not inherently bad or abusive. men, as a class, have been allowed to exist in a structure wherein they have power over women with little consequences, and power corrupts. in an inverse situation where women had much power with little consequences, they would also abuse their power. they do, in situations wherein white women have power over men of color, abled women have power over disabled men, straight women have power over queer men, etc. this is not gender, this is just humanity.

word to the wise: be suspicious of any group who in all seriousness claims to be inherently superior to any other group.

anon, i know you can't control your emotions, but i do hope you will learn to take great pride in yourself as a man. the world needs good men. good men are an invaluable asset to the world.

i don't know what masculinity means to you, but when i've thought about my own masculine aspect, i've come to define it as "strength used to protect those weaker than me." not that women can't be strong or can't protect, but that's just what masculinity feels like to me. it feels like protecting and caring for others.

maybe it feels different to you - i think anyone who is masculine can define it their own way. but i think that masculinity, when it's healthy and not toxic, is a wonderful thing. i think that healthy masculinity is kind and warm and makes the world a better place. it is welcoming and strong, it is giving and sheltering, and it's secure enough in itself to not need to prove anything to anyone, to be open and soft, to grow.

being a man is neither inherently good or bad; being a woman is neither inherently good or bad. but men can choose to be good, and women can choose to be good, because humans can always choose to be good. and a good human is a truly beautiful thing.

every day that you choose to be a good man, you are also a beautiful thing. keep your chin up, sweetheart.

#trans issues #trans masculine #gender #feminism #rape tw #abuse tw #anonymous #ask #transphobia tw

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theggning · 3 years

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I'd love to hear some of your thoughts on Curie, if you have any.

Sure thing! Apologies in advance if I get any of this wrong, I don't personally hang out much with Curie so I had to do a bit of brushing up on her.

Curie's key role in the meta is another facet of the theme of "what makes a person a person." She single-handedly displays the differences between robots and synths and through her we get a lot of what we know about the nature of synths and how it feels for her to become one.

But before Curie becomes a synth, she's another example of a rather unique robot. She starts off quite sophisticated and unusually intelligent-- though unlike Codsworth, her unique personality and knowledge were programmed into her, not developed over time. The Vault 81 scientists loaded into her all of the great academic works they had on hand (she lists Kant, Einstein, Born, Darwin, Curie, Faraday, Turing, and Braun) along with her initial capabilities as a medic and a doctor. Also unlike Codsworth, she hasn't become accustomed to the wasteland, nor traumatized by it-- nor does she even have the capability. Curie has spent the past 210 years trapped in the secret section of Vault 81, and since the deaths of the scientists, she has been completely isolated from human contact. Thus, she is incredibly booksmart, while being... quite unprepared for the horrors that greet her in the wasteland outside.

My favorite description I've ever seen of Curie is "a doctor coming to the slow, horrified realization that nobody washes their hands." She has a picture of the world in her mind that's dictated by science, math, logic, reason, and ethics-- and as a still, quite basic robot, she's baffled when reality doesn't match up to this. Just like Sole, she emerges in a world that resembles what she knows and yet is completely strange and oftentimes very hostile-- she's just doing this with the capabilities of a robot reconciling observations against what was literally programmed into her.

I think there's a fandom tendency to infantilize Curie to some degree, or to play up her naivety to the point of farce. But Curie isn't clueless, or stupid. In addition to her scientific knowledge, she has a very firm set of morals and ethics and will speak up or push back if she feels the Sole Survivor is behaving poorly. She is one of the "good" companions who approves of kind acts, and she is a pacifist, if she can help it. She's philanthropic, but also more scientifically-minded than the other "good" companions-- notably, her approvals all lean in favor of helping scientists and supporting the advancement of knowledge. She supports the Minutemen and the Railroad-- but also the Brotherhood of Steel, since their knowledge and preservation of technology strike her as more important than their feelings on synths. She is pro-synth and disapproves of the enslavement or mistreatment of synths, but when the Institute is destroyed, she chiefly expresses sorrow for how much knowledge was lost. She disapproves of Dr. Chambers' cruelty, but dislikes it if you kill her-- cutting short any contributions to science she could have made. Curie is kind, but she's also ambitious, logical, and values "big picture" scientific advancement.

Really, if there was any companion besides X6-88 who could fit an Institute mindset, it's Curie. She has more compassion for people than anyone in the Institute does, but it's interesting to compare her logical, pragmatic beliefs to the faction that has taken them and twisted them to evil purposes. (Am I saying that Curie would make a terrifying villain if she were to slip too far down that road of logic and pragmatism? Maybe I am...)

This pragmatism extends to her desires to become a synth. Curie comes up with the idea mainly because she feels her scientific ambitions cannot be reached unless she feels inspiration, which she's not capable of as a robot. She insists that her new body will allow her to do good for humanity, and to her, this justifies any ethical problems around transferring her into the braindead G5-19 (Curie doesn't understand Glory's hesitation to let her friend's body be used in this way-- because as a robot, she's literally incapable of empathizing with her.) It's only after Curie opens her eyes in her new body that we understand what a stark difference it is, and how many new and frightening things she's feeling for the first time-- emotions, wayward thoughts, urges to breathe and eat and sleep-- hell, fear is a new concept for her. Her robotic brain worked in numbers and data and programming, and all of a sudden she's capable of all these other things that could never be replicated by data. Curie's transition clearly illustrates the difference between a robotic brain and a synth brain- a human brain, for all intents and purposes.

(I've always thought it takes a special kind of dingus to travel with and befriend and even romance Curie and yet still proclaim that synths are "just machines." You'll see PLENTY of them, but boy oh boy, that's quite a load of cognitive dissonance going on there. Or creep, depending on the argument.)

Which leads me to one of the hot-button topics when it comes to Curie: the romance. While Curie's romance does fall under the umbrella of the "Born Sexy Yesterday" trope, I think this aspect of it is a bit overblown. Like I said, there's a real tendency in fandom to infantilize Curie, or make her seem more clueless pwecious uwu cinnamon roll than she really is. But the difference between Curie and most of your standard issue Born Sexy Yesterday waifs is that Curie isn't helpless, nor childlike, nor incapable of standing up for herself. She's both extremely intelligent and fully confident in her morals and beliefs. She asks for the Sole Survivor's support with her emotional transition because she already trusts them as her friend, not because she has no one else or can't handle it on her own. From early on in her affinity convos, Curie expresses attraction to the Sole Survivor, and approaches learning about these new feelings with the same enthusiasm and curiosity that she does everything else. It's her attraction, not begun by the Sole Survivor manipulating her or tricking her into it. I feel like a lot of surface-level descriptions of the romance disregard Curie's agency, as though she's a bubble-headed innocent who's completely vulnerable and clueless about the mere prospects of attraction, romance, or sex.

Now, that said... did Curie have to transfer into the body of a conventionally attractive woman for her plot to work? No. Does her romance scratch the itch for people who like Born Sexy Yesterday? Yeah, probably. Is she designed to be Prime Waifu Material*? Undoubtedly. Is it my cup of tea? Nah. But different strokes for different folks**. I don't think Curie's romance is inherently bad or anyone should feel bad for enjoying it, or her as a character. She's extremely intelligent, cute, and wholesome, and if that's your type, then embrace her!

* Like oh my god, this is video games, Curie's entire character and romance could have been done so much worse.

** And seriously, I'm not about to judge someone for falling in love with the cute waifu-bait romance when I'm over here lusting over Strong Flawed Sad Tragic Himbo Whom I Can Save With My Love.

It ain't like they didn't cater to my tastes, too.

#fallout 4 #fallout meta #curie #gg answers #i don't travel with curie too much but it's nothing personal #it's the wealth of other 'good' companions that i'm already splitting my attention between

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ooops-i-arted · 3 years

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I honestly have too much this whole mess with Cara and Carano, but I saw your post about them and I really want to share my thoughts.

I absolutely love Cara the character, still do and always will. She’s a strong independent woman with a firing heart and burning soul, and as a character she’s beyond what I personally defined as a perfect heroic star. I have not been loving any female characters from any media types as much as Cara, and for me she’s not just a character in the Mandalorian but an element that helps making that world complete, and I’m sure at this point we can all tell how much it breaks my soul to see that we might never see her again on the screen.

As for Gina, I’m just really, extremely disappointed. Of course we know there are always people who think differently from us, whether be it right or wrong in society’s standards, and there’s nothing “wrong” for thinking in different ways because obviously we can’t control how one thinks about the world. Of course the rest of us knows the undeniable flaws and cruelties in her ways of thinking, but can you really blame one for having a certain point of view, no matter how twisted it is? What is truly “wrong”, for me, is how she completely ignores the other half of the world, who thinks differently than her, and demands that half of the population to tolerates her. When she cannot treat others with respect and dignity, she demands to be understood and uphold.

Especially as a public figure, she let her selfishness took over her logic, and mindlessly spread what deemed to be intolerable to the majority of the world, yet refuse to take the criticism and consequences resulted from her actions. I’m very much certain that not every public figures, or even everyone around us in daily life, share the same ideologies which we deem “tolerable”, yet while the others learn to stay silent and listen, and understand, maybe to even change, she chose to ignore the rest of the world like a selfish child.

I love Carano for bringing Cara to life like the perfect character she is, and every time I think of Cara Dune I will forever associate her face with her. But I hate her for being such a selfish human being who chose destruction over salvation, and slander over tolerance, and for letting herself ruining what so many of us love so much by the name of Cara Dune.

Whether Lucasfilm decides to recast Cara or to erase Cara, this first Cara Dune is burned too deep into my mind, and I know for a fact that I’ll never love another Cara as much as this one. Regardless of what Gina Carano have done, her actions have nothing to do with Cara Dune, and I will keep it that way no matter what

I pretty much agree with you. I know not everyone has the mindset, but I generally separate actress and character and I definitely want to in this case. I love Cara, she’s a fascinating character with a cool backstory and a great character design - how awesome is it to get a female character in appropriate clothes and with musculature for her character? Like I said, before I found this stuff out, I was impressed with the physicality Gina brought to the role, her stunt work, and what she said in the Gallery show about how important she felt it was to bring a non-waifish female character to the screen. Also ngl, those arms and that hair? She pretty. I personally have zero qualms about continuing to steal her face for Cara - but only for Cara. And I totally recognize that not everyone feels that way or compartmentalizes things the same way I do.

Cuz regardless of someone’s personal beliefs, it costs zero dollars to not be a dick. For example, if Gina didn’t want to put pronouns on her profile all she had to do was say “No thanks, I prefer not to” and leave it at that. She didn’t have to mock trans people; she could’ve chosen to instead learn about why displayed pronouns are important to that community. There’s a lot to be said about radicalization right now that I don’t want to get into since I prefer to use fandom as a break from irl shit, but at the end of the day she’s an adult, she should know better, and she’s capable of making her own choices.

As an educator I like to believe people can change and leave ignorance behind, so I hope once things cool off she takes the opportunity to better herself as a person. Right now though, I’m ready to leave all this behind and just enjoy the character without the mess behind her.

#not to downplay the behavior or anything just #media storms fuel things and i'm of the mindset that attention is a reward #bc right now her beliefs and behavior have a platform they don't need #asks #anon #gina carano

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linkspooky · 4 years

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Why is shinobu such a great character? I love her, shes my favorite pillar.

I think the single best thing about Shinobu’s character is that she’s a bitch. Wait, wait, no get back here I’m going to explain myself. I think what makes Shinobu great is that she’s THAT BITCH.

There’s a pressure for characters, especially female characters to be written with no real substantial flaws. At best they have job interview flaws, they are clumsy, oblivious, or they’re just too giving towards people. They’re too empathic. They’re too nice and they let people walk all over them, but to no real consequences.

Often characters are written to be likable, rather than to be complex and flawed. They’re written in a way that they will be likably received by an audience. Which is why the rough edges of them tend to get sanded down. I think this is a problem for both male and female characters by the way, that characters are reduced to bland characterizations as opposed to complex ones.

It’s like the difference between Uraraka and Himiko in MHA, a shonen manga that runs within the same magazine. Himiko as a character is far more developed because she is allowed to have flaws and get in the middle of bloody confrontations. Uraraka is a character who could be interesting: a hero motivated by personal greed, a child who feels that they burden they’re parents, someone perceptive and empathic but who always keeps her mouth shut for fear of tripping on other people’s feelings. She has complex flaws, but priority is given on making Uraraka look like a nice girl. Himiko isn’t nice, but she gets to like... do things.

Shinobu has flaws, and she holds onto the ugliest parts of herself, her anger, her desire for violent revenge, and refuses to improve as a person and ultimately dies to those flaws and that’s what makes her so unique and interesting. I’ll go over those underneath the cut.

1. Medicine and Poison

Shinobu’s entire character is written around this dual meaning: basically, medicine is something that both heals and hurts. Most people think of medicine as something that is comforting and nurturing, but too much medicine can become a poison that destroys the body instead. Often many drugs we use for medication are toxic in excessive amounts.

Shinobu is a character who toes the lie between a healer, which is how everyone expects her to act, and a poisoner which is what Shinobu regards herself as. She is someone capable of both. She can heal and nurture others, she can also destroy them with horrible poison. However, her arc in the story shows more and more that she chooses to poison and destroy because she doesn’t see herself as someone capable of healing.

Demons were once human. They are still capable of human feelings. They all have human desires and fell into demonhood for very human reasons.

Tanjiro is someone who ultimately rejects the actions of Demons, but also sympathizes with their humanity. He doesn’t want to kill. He acknowledges that he has to due to circumstances, but no matter what he cannot stop seeing the humanity inside of the demons he is fighting against. Tanjiro is a merciful killer.

Shinobu is introduced right after we see Tanjiro introduced to the idea that demons have feelings and motivations and grapples with that and his own empathy. Shinobu is presented to us as a character without any empathy for demons. She is a merciless killer.

Shinobu wants to repay cruelty with cruelty. She relishes in the chance. She likse feeling more powerful than the demons that victimized her. Tanjiro and Shinobu’s methods of dealing with demons are deliberately contrasted to show how different they are. Shinobu doesn’t see demons as humans, just as things, that need to be punished. She’s not wrong for thinking that demons need to be stopped and killed in order to prevent them from hurting innocent people, but torture is bad yo.

It’s even shown that Tanjiro is much more willing to accept demons who genuinely are repetant for what they did in the past like Tamayo. Whereas, Shinobu does work with Tamayo she mistrusts her and resents her the entire time. Shinobu’s view of the world is black and white, where she is the personal judge, jury and executioner of demons. Yes, that’s how most of the demon slayer pillars are introduced to us, but it’s especially drawn attention to in Shinobu’s case with her introduction, and her comparisons to Tanjiro.

Basically Tanjiro’s stance is I’m not going to belittle those who regret their actions, and see the humanity in demons. Shinobu’s response is I’m going to belittle the HELL out of them.

Shinobu mocks, teases and belittles because she’s someone incapable of being sincere. The main difference between Shinobu and Tanjiro, is that Shinobu’s sister is dead, and Tanjiro isn’t. Tanjiro still sees himself as fighting to protect someone whereas Shinobu only lives to pay back the damage that’s been done on the world.

Shinobu serves a dual role in the series. She’s the one who nurtures and heals everyone on the butterfly estate. She’s also the most remorseless killer of demons who physically enjoys the slaughter. She is medicine, but she is also poison.

Shinobu’s anger is a very poisonous part of her personality, but rather than deal with it, and attempt to be better she’d much rather put on a fake smile and let the poison flow. We’re given a reason why. Ever since her sister died Shinobu felt like everything that’s good about her died with her sister, and now she’s indulging in the worst of herself.

If Tanjiro is someone who fights out of their love for other people, then Shinobu is someone who fights out of hatred. She hangs onto that hatred because she feels like that’s the only real part of herself and she can’t be good like her sister.

There’s a reason that Shinobu is paralleled to Doma and it’s because everything that’s positive about her, her gentle nature, her smiling, her empathy is completely faked. It’s an act that she puts on to be more like her sister while holding her resentments deep in her heart. She could be medicine or poison, and chooses to be poison.

Shinobu could have chosen the path of healing or forgiveness, but she didn’t want to. She chose to die, angry and fighting instead. Her last action is tantamount to suicide. She chooses to die poisoning another, rather than try to live healing herself because she thinks she is incapable of living without her loved ones in her life. It’s not a happy ending, but it’s a powerful writing choice. The choice not to forgive. The choice to stay angry. Shinobu is a character written with powerful emotions behind her, hiding just underneath the surface which is all fake smiles and friendly pleasantries, and that’s what makes her a compelling character.

#Anonymous #metasks #kocho shinobu #shinobu kouchou #kny meta #kimetsu no yaiba #kimetsu no yaiba character analysis #kimetsu no yaiba theory #shinobu meta

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translationandbetrayals · 3 years

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Doki Doki Exit Music, the best mod for the controversial visual novel.

Clarification: I know perfectly well that Doki Doki Doki Litelature Club is not much of anime, but it is clear that the Japanese animation culture had a great influence in the creation of this game and its derivatives. It is similar to "Avatar, the Legend of Aang", it has more anime than not anime.

Have you ever wondered, how the story of DDLC would follow if it was part of a visual novel like any other, with a fixed story and with an ending according to the story, DDEM is the mod for you. Doki Doki Exit Music is a mod created by Oliver Norton for Dan Salvato's game, which, incredibly has the same effect on the player as the original game, it leaves you with a bad taste in your mouth, with that feeling of helplessness created by the story itself, and not by 4th wall breaking events. Well done Oliver Norton, you kept the essence of DDLC by changing the essence of DDLC.

Why is it considered one of the best? Simple, the storytelling. The way the story unfolds is superb, making the personalities and emotions of the characters come through in a commanding way. Like for example Monika. The essence of the character is kept, however they take it to the, creating a much more human character than in the original game; giving her problems within the continuity of the game, flaws, etc. Creating an atmosphere so recognizable to the player that his feelings can be conveyed even with a single word, with an "Okey".

The soundtrack (OST): Being in objective terms, practically perfect and counting with compositions such as Motion Picture, Daydreaming, True Loves Waits and Tinker Tailor Soldier Salior Rich Man Poor Man Beggar Man, DDEM's soundtrack allows to convey the feelings of each scene, the feelings of each character, and creates a perfect atmosphere for each scenario. Each song serves a purpose, happy moments, tense moments, sad, and finally, raw. I have to mention how powerful Motion Picture is, appearing until the end, the song makes you feel sadness, anguish, even a lump in your throat when you already know the context, and yet, it also transmits, serenity, love for someone, it makes you think that everything will be alright.

Premise In terms is story, the premise is simple, the mod starts on the day of the festival, but with a big difference. We, the player decide to go to Sayori's house before going to school, and that's when the MC discovers that she is about to commit suicide. In this MOD the player arrives in time to save Sayori from her fateful end and takes her to the hospital, when suddenly Natsuki appears covered in wounds and bruises, who, following her character's personality, decides to hide everything from us

The cruelty of the game The mod is what DDLC would be if Monika wasn't a psychopath capable of breaking the 4th, developing the game's story as if it were a normal visual novel, with a lot of drama and trauma, but relatively normal. The story starts as if the player has chosen the Natsuki route, and focuses on this, obviously and her relationship with her father, and how after a world full of misfortunes Nat finally gets happiness, with you, the player. So that in the end everything falls apart because of the fault of a certain character. The mod deals with rather sensitive topics such as depression, child abuse, idealization of perfection, obsession, suicide, and finally happiness.

Why it leaves you with a bad taste in your mouth? The mod allows us to make a really deep connection with a character and then just snatches it away, gives us that feeling of happiness, that everything is fine, but in reality, it's not. Literally, it's the last 30 minutes of gameplay where everything falls apart. And following logic, one would think that everything would end there, but that's what Oliver Norton wants us to think, the creator puts us the point of view of the protagonist, he shows us his pain, the pain of losing a loved one. And he makes us wonder if we will be able to bear it or not.

Conclusion DDEM is a totally recommendable mod, which is able to create its own identity and develop in a totally different way to how Dan Salvato established us in his 2017 game, it is a cruel story, where you do not know if there will be a happy ending or not, which will make you empathize and get attached to the characters in such a way that its denouement makes you feel totally helpless, nostalgic and sad.

Angel Pérez

#Japan #essay #submission

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k7l4d4 · 3 years

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Midnight Striga: Fairy Tail/Owl House Cross Fic Episode 3 Part 4

Hello, once again, to Midnight Striga, by yours truly! Everybody Clap Your Hands!!

Skara nervously ground her teeth against each other. A bad habit, really. One she constantly tried to break, and keep others from discovering. It was honestly something of a miracle that no one had figured it out already. These mundane thoughts did nothing to distract her from what was occurring not even four feet away; Boscha, a truly frightening grin on her face, holding a quivering Demon student by the neck of his hood. “H-hey, Boscha? Maybe we should head to lunch first, you know? I mean, it’s not like this guy is going anywhere.” Skara cringed at how obvious she sounded. Luckily, it looked like Boscha bought it. For now.

“Hmm… yeah, I could eat.” Boscha casually answered, heedless of her tightening grip on the poor Demon’s neck, as well as his increasingly urgent struggling, releasing exactly one second after he stopped moving, dropping him to the floor in an unconscious heap. It was all Skara could do not to visibly shudder at the sight. Violence was a common sight around the Isles, but that level of coldness and cruelty was usually reserved for the bitterest of enemies; it wasn’t meant for some random kid who didn’t apologize fast enough for bumping into you!!

‘Don’t think about Skara. Tuck it away, and don’t think about it. Boscha’s your friend, you look out for each other.’ She kept repeating the mantra, unsure of how much she believed it. ‘Just don’t think about it.’

Aloud, Skara replied. “That’s great! And hey, maybe afterwards, you, me and Amity can hit the town for a bit. You know, have a little fun?” She nudged her elbow against Boscha’s ribs, hoping the playful gesture would get a laugh, or a frown, or just ANY reaction other than that creepy, blank passiveness she’d had for the past few days, when she wasn’t brutalizing some Demon that is. ‘Don’t think about it.’ What Skara didn’t expect, however, was for Boscha to lift her off the ground by the front of her uniform, and bodily SLAM her against the wall!

“Don’t. Do that. Again.” Boscha growled out. Skara whimpered, barely getting out a confirmation, the pain in her back throbbing from the blow. As Skara slid down to the floor, the few members of their clique nearby watched in stunned horror. Then, to Skara’s morbid shock, Boscha’s face blanked out, cleared, and then shifted into confusion. “Why are you hanging out on the floor? Come on, let’s go eat.” Skara barely held back the tears threatening to break loose.

Shakily pulling herself to her feet, Skara did her best to enter her usual stride, following in Boscha’s footsteps. She willfully ignored the frantic whispers kicking up behind her. ‘Don’t think about it.’

Amity marched down the halls, dead set on finding Principal Bump. Surely he had some kind of answer to this!? Willow cheated. That was the only possible answer. Willow had no talent, it was an established fact throughout Hexside. That feat back in class was impossible! Gritting her teeth, Amity carefully pushed back her anger, letting her features smooth into their usual blank indifference. She wasn’t entirely successful, however, as her eyes were still narrowed, and her jaw had a harsher set than usual to it.

As she marched, she thought back to Willow’s claim. Advice. How cute. As if Advice was enough to generate such an explosive increase in skill. If that was the case, she’d be in the Emperor’s Coven by now!

As she muttered bitter things to herself, she brushed by some of the girls Boscha, and by extension herself, hung out with. They attempted to grab her attention, with one even trying to physically grab her. A glare and a few choice words sent them scurrying. She’d probably have to deal with that later. What a bother. As she rounded the corner, she spotted Willow, that kid she hung out with these days, Augustus, a new girl, and… Principal Bump!? There was no way in the Titan’s name she was letting this fly!!

As Luz and Bump traveled the halls, she wondered just what, exactly, he had in mind. She had caught a glimpse in his eyes, the look of someone who had just hatched a plan, and was very good at keeping it tucked away inside. Still, whatever it was, she could at least take comfort in the fact that it probably wasn’t harmful, or at the very least wasn’t fatal.

“Oh, LUZ! OVER HERE!!”

Turning her head in the sound of the shout, Luz caught sight of Willow standing some feet away, a vibrating younger boy standing next to her.

Bump shot her a wry glance. “I feel as though that is the student you were talking about, correct.”

Luz smirked. “Got it in one, sir.”

As the two strolled over, Luz saw Willow tense up, most definitely because of the authority figure by her side. Luz was not expecting the kid she was with to rush her, shoving his face uncomfortably close to her own.

“Oh, my Titan, A REAL LIVE HUMAN!!” The kid squealed, literally squealed!, in delight. “IS IT TRUE RAIN DOESN’T BOIL IN YOUR WORLD WHERE ARE YOUR GILLS HAVE YOU EVER EATEN MEAT RAW ARE YOU CAPABLE OF EXPELLING VENOM FROM GLANDS STORED IN YOUR NECK MEH MEH MEH MEH MEH MEH!!!!”

“Whoa!” Luz shouted, easing the kid back. “Personal space please.”

Bump gave a tired smile at the boy. “Hmm… I should’ve expected that reaction from young Augustus here.” At Luz’s questioning look, he elaborated. “Young Augustus is the head of Hexside’s Human Appreciation Society. Out of every being in this school, his knowledge is the least flawed.” Say what you will about his teaching style, but Bump was very much willing to admit to having gaps in his knowledge and understanding.

“Augustus, eh?” Luz grinned. “I think I’ll call you Gus. Easier for me to remember.”

“Gus? Gus!” The now christened “Gus” started shouting. “A human nickname!” He whirled towards Willow. “Gus! Call me it! Gus! Yes!”

Luz gave a confused smile to a tired-looking Willow. “He’s certainly hyper.”

Willow sighed. “Yeah, but he’s a great guy when you get to know him, and he’s stuck by me through everything.”

As heartwarming as this was, Bump knew now was the best point to head things off. “Ahem.”

As Willow and Gus refocused on the sight of their Principal, both snapped to attention. “”Principal Bump!””

“Oh, calm down children. Now, Miss Park, if I recall correctly, you are in the Abomination Track.” At her sullen nod, her expression gave Bump all the confirmation he needed. “My associate,” he gestured to a smirking Luz, “has informed me that your skills are being underutilized in your current class and that you wish to transfer.” He bent down slightly, giving Willow a better look at his face, and him a better look at hers. “Is this true?”

Willow hesitated for a moment, but at an encouraging glance from Luz, and a thumbs up from Gus, steeled herself. “More than anything sir. I just… I really REALLY hate being in Abominations.” She clutched her uniform, slightly embarrassed at the admittance.

Bump gave a warm chuckle. “Don’t fret. As your Principal, one of my duties is to see that all my students reach their full potential, and to see that they enjoy their learning.” The bright grins from the three youths elicited another laugh from him. “Now, let’s see what you can do, and then see what I can do, shall we?”

Willow’s eyes gleamed with excitement. “Oh Absolut-”

“Principal Bump!”

All present turned to see Amity striding their way, an irate expression on her face. As she pulled closer, she stopped herself, and pointed at Willow. “Willow Park cheated on her Abominations Project today!” The sheer certainty of her statement, and the boiling anger in her voice, sent the group rocking back.

“”WHAT!?”” The synched shouts of Willow and Luz rattled the windows.

Bump frowned, his earlier joy draining away. “Miss Blight, I hope you understand the severity of your accusation. This is not something to be made lightly.” He warned, hoping this wouldn’t escalate.

“Trust me sir, I am fully aware.” Amity stated, having rallied enough of her temper to present herself in a calmer manner. “Willow presented an Abomination today in class that was far beyond any prior recorded demonstration of skill, a jump far beyond what could be attributed to typical practice.”

“What!? Amity, that’s crazy, I didn’t cheat!” Willow cried, shocked and hurt at the accusation.

“Yeah,” Luz leapt in, more than willing to defend the girl. “I even saw her practice it myself!”

Amity gave Luz a flat look, before fixing her gaze on her ears. “I wouldn’t expect a human to get it,” she stated condescendingly, “but Willow has none of the skill needed to produce an Abomination of that caliber, such as it was.”

“Amity, I’m telling the truth, I just practiced!” Willow insisted.

“Practice doesn’t just magically erase years of incompetency, Park!” Amity shot back.

Luz stepped forward, glaring down at the mint-haired girl. “Don’t you dare call her incompetent, kid.” She snarled, fed up with the brat’s attitude. “I was the one who gave her the advice she needed to make that Abomination, and I watched her practice to get it just right. Don’t talk about things you don’t really understand.”

“Gave her the advice?” Amity murmured, before her face split into a nasty grin. “Oh, so you're the one who helped her cheat.”

“Cheat!?” Luz shouted.

“Of course.” Amity waved dismissively. “Willow always did like playing with plants, so it makes sense now how it turned out. She just slathered some vines in Abomination Goop and stored them in her pot. Of course,” she arched an eyebrow, somehow not quite concealing the anger in her eyes, “I never thought a human would understand the value of hard work anyway.”

“You...You!” Luz fumed ready to throttle the girl in front of her, but…

“I…”

The group turned to Willow, the tiles beneath her feet shuddering.

“Didn’t.”

Her eyes started glowing.

“CHEAT!!!”

With a scream of rage, a massive collection of vines ripped out from the ground, slamming Amity painfully against the far wall, a rough crack echoing from the landing. Panting for breath, eyes still burning with rage, Willow glanced down at her hands, looked back at Amity, and her eyes widened in horror. With a yell, tears streaming, Willow tore off down the hall, Gus rushing after her in worry.

Before she headed off to join them, Luz stomped over to Amity, a book clutched in her hand. With a stormy frown, she threw it at the girl’s feet. Amity hesitantly picked it up. “What is-?”

“Those are Willow’s notes.” Luz flatly stated. “Take a look. I’m done wasting time here.” And with that said, Luz took off like a bullet down the same hall as Gus and Willow, dead set on helping her friend.

“Miss Blight, I am deeply disappointed in you.” Bump stated, hovering slightly to the side of Amity.

“Principal Bump!?” Amity gasped, having forgotten his presence on the excitement.

“Indeed.” Bump stated. His face was flat and stony, his temper almost peaked. “I have always held you in high regard, Miss Blight, due to your dedication, skill, and commitment.”

“T-Thank you, Sir.” Amity shakily grinned, only for it to be wiped away by his next words.

“I now see, that was a mistake.”

Amity stilled. “What?”

Bump tisked. “Amity, your actions did nothing but disgrace yourself, based on supposition and your own jealousy of another’s work. You didn’t even take the time to test the Abomination Pot, did you?” Amity reeled back as if struck; she hadn’t, she had just assumed.

Bump turned his tired eyes to her, shame burning in his gaze. “I am afraid that I will have no choice but to inform your parents of your recent conduct. I hope you will reflect on your actions, Miss Blight.” With that, he headed off to see to his other students, one of whom had just been provoked by the girl lying behind him.

Solemnly, uncomprehending of what had just occurred, Amity turned her gaze to the book the Human had thrown at her, Willow’s notes apparently. With nothing better to do, and her usual calm utterly shattered, Amity slowly opened the book. Inside were the notes, scribbled all about, and Amity’s eyes widened. Some of these were the same kinds of notes she had taken over the years; no, some of these were Better! If Willow had been studying this diligently, then how was she struggling? Was she really a Half-A-Witch at all? ...Was what happened between them all for nothing? Shakily rising to her feet, wincing slightly at the pain it brought to her back, Amity stumbled after the others. She needed answers.

If anyone saw Boscha in the moment, they would’ve assumed she was in a bad mood, what with the intense scowl on her face. They would be wrong. She wasn’t in a bad mood, as that would imply she cared enough to allow this situation to upset her. Her fist tightened around her jewel, the edges almost biting into her hand. As the sheep scurried around her, Boscha held in an eyeroll. Such blatant weakness might’ve been welcome before, but currently? It just served to annoy her.

“Ugh, if even just one more of these pests gets in my way, I swear I’m gonna lose it!” Boscha groaned, running a hand through her hair. “It’s like they don’t have anything better to do. Right Skara?” Boscha asked, turning to look at her closest follower (friend), who was oddly subdued, hanging farther back than usual. If she was being honest, it… irked Boscha to see one of her friends so weak.

Skara blinked, dazed. “Wha? Oh! Y-yeah, totally Boscha. Totally!” She chuckled nervously, lightly rubbing at her collar. Boscha gave an eye roll to that. Just what was up with her today? She was acting like Boscha was going to commit a murder or something! Seriously, the worst thing she had done lately is put some vermin in their place, that’s all.

Grumbling, Boscha soldiered on, all the while, that voice in the back of her head, screamed it’s message; she was here.

#the owl house #fairy tail #owl house au #fairy tail au #owl house crossover #fairy tail crossover #luz noceda #willow park #amity blight #gus porter #hieronymus bump #boscha the owl house #skara the owl house #magic

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youngbounty · 4 years

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Getting sick of me talking about Manfred Von Karma yet? Heehee I’m going to do another one. This time, I want to talk about perhaps the best adaptation of Manfred Von Karma from the game. That would be the live action movie of Ace Attorney. I’ve always expected the live action movie to give me what I wanted, that is the best adaptation of a Phoenix Wright movie, but it went far and beyond. The actors did a fantastic job nailing the characters, but I have to give a hat to Manfred Von Karma’s performance.

The biggest issue with making Manfred Von Karma is how easy it is to fall into the stereotype or making him the biggest, most evil villain. It’s easy, because of the fact he is the mentor of Miles Edgeworth, who has become everyone’s cinnamon bun. I object to that! He is Phoenix’s cinnamon bun, but jokes aside, making Manfred Von Karma so vindictive that he becomes the abusive dad or mentor to Miles Edgeworth or Franziska Von Karma does not make him more evil. Anyone, who knows his character well, would know that can only go to Blaise Debeste. Seriously though, Manfred Von Karma is a little more complex than that.

What makes Manfred Von Karma as evil and twisted as he is, is the fact he’s human. He is a good father to his children, a good grandfather to his grandchildren, a wonderful husband that takes pride in his wife no matter how unprofessional she is at something, a great mentor to Miles and Franziska and much more. Manfred Von Karma was not the kind of guy you would hate. He’s the kind of guy you’d want to have dinner or go bowling with. Yes, he was strict, but if you were ever in a pinch, he was always the guy you turn to for protection. He didn’t take Miles under his wing to cover up his crimes, they were already covered up, but because he did see potential and wanted Miles to grow. It’s clear he knew Miles had issues with his phobias and trauma, yet was willing to take him in instead of letting him rot. That’s not something you’d expect the other Ace Attorney villains to do, because why would any villain want to help their enemy, unless it benefitted them? I’m looking at you Kristoph Gavn, Dahlia Hawthorn, Blaise Debeste, Damon Gant and the Phantom aka Bobby Fullbright.

Manfred Von Karma hits us hard, because he’s a genuinely good person capable of horrific acts of evil such as murder and corruption. In the live action movie, Manfred Von Karma was a genuinely good person that believed in perfection, because he wanted to rid the world of criminals. This is a very human trait each of us can relate to. When an injustice happens, all of us want to get rid of the one responsible for those injustices, whether it’d be murder, attacks on innocent people, animal cruelty, child abuse, police brutality, racism, homophobia, transphobia, sexism and the list goes on. Manfred Von Karma is the kind of person that would stand for those injustices. You heard me! But, that’s what makes him so twisted. In real life, many of the most notably virtuous people that consider themselves perfect and will stand for the injustices have done some of the cruelest acts of evil. People like Manfred Von Karma make themselves more evil than Matt Engard, because at least he has a façade. Manfred Von Karma does not. He’s both a genuinely good person and the most cruel human being on the face of the earth, no masks, façades or fronts he’s putting up.

In the live action movie, when Miles Edgeworth loses his first case, instead of chastising him like most fans often predict, his mentor Manfred Von Karma gives him words of wisdom or encouragement. When he first meets Phoenix, he’s very polite and even greets him with a smile and handshake. That doesn’t sound like the kind of person you’d expect to frame his star pupil for murder or murder his own father in cold blood. Yet, that is exactly what Manfred Von Karma did. His obsession for perfection had pushed him, because he believed that was the only way to punish criminals, instead of finding the truth. Phoenix’s speech about the truth being much more important shows both humility and why Manfred Von Karma is such a complex villain. His fault was thinking and doing things in his own way instead of admitting or reflecting on his own imperfections. Anyone, who sees themselves perfect and flawless, will always be blind to their own flaws. Those who see themselves too flawed will prove to be wiser than most.

Those of us that see Manfred Von Karma as the worst human being incapable of being kind have completely missed what makes him as evil and twisted as he is. He is kind and loving, but that’s all he sees himself as. Manfred Von Karma is not the kind of man that wants to be evil. He’s a man that wants to be good, but trying to be flawless and refusing to see his own flaws are what led to his downfall. They are what make him so twisted and evil, because that is how a majority of the most cruel human beings today are like. Aren’t hypocrites those that we consider more evil than the most evil of criminals? How is Manfred Von Karma any different? He is someone that is genuinely kind, loving and generous, but by refusing to see his own faults, he is someone that people would consider the most evil human being in Ace Attorney, even though he’s not. The fact he murdered out of the heat of the moment that would be considered Voluntary Manslaughter in the United States does not erase the fact all of us believe he deserves the death penalty, even if we may not believe in it.

Manfred Von Karma is one of my favorite villains just because he represents the true evil of today. Sure, you may have your crazies and those who want to do evil, but that’s only a small portion of them. Most of the most evil human beings today are like Manfred Von Karma. They are the politicians, Hollywood Elites and Bill Cosby’s that we look up to that turn out to be the most wicked human beings on earth for preaching to us what is right and wrong, while doing the complete opposite.

#ace attorney #manfred von karma #ace attorney villain

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hamliet · 5 years

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Reflections of Su XiYan in Scum Villain’s Female Characters

I did not realize it was MXTX ladies week until yesterday. :( So I want to do a post/meta on the amazing women in each novel (not without critique), so let’s start with MXTX’s first one!

Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System, which while it may have more obvious narrative flaws than TGCF or MDZS (it sets up some plot points it kinda drops later, whereas TGCF and MDZS pretty much maximize every single aspect of potential), I actually think is just as rich, clever, and coherent thematically as MXTX’s latter two novels.

The plot points that are dropped, though, are actually almost entirely related to the set up the female characters as deconstructing the idea that they were just things for Original!Luo BingHe to collect. While it does do this to an extent with Su XiYan, Ning YingYing, and Sha HuaLing, it kinda… dropped the arcs halfway through for Ning YingYing and Sha HuaLing, and sets up but never really begins Liu MingYan’s and Qin WanYue’s.

Su XiYan’s arc, though, despite it taking place in the past and being told to us, is entirely about refuting the role the men in her life ascribe to her... and all of the other female characters--all members of Original!Luo BingHe’s harem--represent a part of her. You could get, like, really Oedipal if you wanted to, but I’d rather not beyond simply saying it’s a pattern in stories that is definitely present here. Aspects of her story and character are reflected in each of the women who are love interests in Proud Immortal Demon Way.

Our first refutation of how men treat and categorize Su XiYan is through her foiling with Ning YingYing.

Shen Yuan notes that Shen Jiu sexually harassed Ning YingYing:

the original Shen Qingqiu had designs on Ning Yingying... [he] had dirty thoughts towards his lively and well-behaved disciples. Several times he tried to lay hands on them and almost succeeded at that.

Which is what the Old Palace Master did to Su XiYan:

He turned to focus his stare on Luo Binghe’s quietly sleeping face... nThe Old Palace Master gazed at him for a long while then sighed: “When you close your eyes, you resemble her the most. And also when you’re being cold.”

His eyes traveled over Luo Binghe’s face greedily. If he still had hands, he would have reached out to fondle as well.

However, the Old Palace Master never got anywhere with Su XiYan, because she fell in love with someone else and thereby refutes the idea that she’s his tool. In the original, Ning YingYing is rescued by Luo BingHe in the original. In the novel, Ning YingYing’s arc is about her discovering self-sufficiency. She doesn’t need rescuing from Luo BingHe; she can rescue herself, as is shown when she leads Ming Fan and the other disciples into a fight to protect Shen QingQiu’s honor after his arrest. When someone slaps her, she slaps back, twice--but Shen QingQiu gives her the energy. I would have liked (and think her arc was heading towards) her to grow to be competent on her own as well.

Next, Sha HuaLing.

Sha HuaLing represents TianLang-Jun’s assumptions about Su XiYan: that she was a deceptive seductress who would betray him for her own desires. However, in reality, like Sha HuaLing does in Proud Immortal Demon Way, Su XiYan betrays her race (for her, humanity, for Sha HuaLing, demons) for love.

Sha Hualing was a pure-blooded demon, cruel and ruthless, cunning and artful, but fell irrevocably for Luo Binghe. After getting together with Luo Binghe, don’t even speak about killing for him; she even dared to do an outrageous thing like betraying the demons for him.

Su XiYan, however, was never given the chance to fight back. In the actual novel, Sha HuaLing does much the same (betrays the demons), but Luo BingHe does not love her and she knows it. I think this is a good ending place for Sha HuaLing, assigned to fight against her father in the final battle (which she does), but we’re told rather than shown her development and we’re not told what led to this decision, which is a shame.

Sha HuaLing is perhaps most directly foiled both in Proud Immortal Demon Way and in SVSSS by Qin WanYue.

Qin WanYue, much like Su XiYan, is considered the perfect disciple of the Huan Hua Palace. Regarding Su XiYan, it’s noted:

“That woman had shocking talent, was intelligent and sensitive when making decisions, and she had the aura of a tyrant. The Old Palace Master loved and cared for this private disciple. He thought of her as a pearl that should be protected in his hands and trained her to be the next Palace Master of Huan Hua Palace. No matter where he went, he would bring Su Xiyan along with him. The importance that he placed in her was abnormal.”

Qin WanYue’s symbol is a pearl that lights the way.

Luo Binghe picked up Qin Wanyue’s Night Pearl that had fallen to the ground and raised it high, as though it were a beacon. It awakened those who had frozen in place.

Not to mention in the original novel Qin WanYue loses a child in a miscarriage caused by someone else (Sha HuaLing) much like Su XiYan almost lost Luo BingHe when pregnant with him. Qin WanYue clings to Luo BingHe after the loss of her sister as something who might be able to offer her happiness. She’s not much different than Luo BingHe growing up parents and clinging to ShiZun: she who lost her sister and then clings to the person who saved her. But in her case, Luo BingHe does not return her affection, and I really had hoped/ expected her arc to end with her finding her own path.

Qin WanYue is also tasked with an action beneath her (much like Sha HuaLing): taking care of the Little Palace Mistress, the Old Palace Master’s literal daughter and hence another foil to Su XiYan. Her defining trait is her pettiness and cruelty, the latter of which Su XiYan is also said to have been capable of, as she began spending time with TianLang-Jun in an attempt to bring him down.

However, the mistress isn’t really set up with the potential for an arc like Qin WanYue is.

From time to time [Qin WanYue] would cast a teary glance at Luo Binghe, as if expecting something...

[Sha HuaLing:] “how many times have you failed to seduce the lord yet still refuse to leave? If you don’t leave that’s fine, but you’re incapable of looking after even a single person. Her cultivation isn’t even as high as yours. You’re her senior martial sister. You didn’t stop her early and didn’t stop her late. All you did was to let her make this unreasonable scene in front of the lord. Who are you putting on this pitiful and wronged appearance for?”

Qin WanYue isn’t weak at all, but she puts on a weak act for Luo BingHe, hoping to attract a rescuer like she needed back then. I initially expected her arc to end with her accepting her strength and moving on form Luo BingHe (and from the little palace mistress). I still think it should have.

And then we have Qiu HaiTang, whom I don’t think is set up as much for development as the others despite having more backstory on her.

Still, Qiu HaiTang she was a woman mistreated and shamed by what had happened with her fiance Shen Jiu--just like Su XiYan was shamed for what happened with TianLang-Jun.

“That’s right, if she hadn’t been so ill-fated as to fall for Tianlang-Jun’s wiles, she would have had such a bright and promising future and be a person of great renown today.”

“I don’t care what fantastic rewards are promised to me━having an affair with a demon and getting knocked up with a monster child is just plain disgusting. This kind of merit, I wouldn’t accept even if it was served to me on a silver platter.”

“Su Xiyan was probably too ashamed to remain, and thus ran away from the sect master.”

The thing is, all these roles--perfect disciple with great potential, brave enough to betray everything for love, endearing and caring, mistreated--none of these really capture the complexity and beauty of who Su XiYan really was... which is represented in Liu MingYan, the noted female counterpart to Luo BingHe, the main female lead. Liu MingYan conceals her face, which is too beautiful to be seen.

Liu MingYan, like Si XiYan, remains mysterious; Shen QingQiu never sees her face uncovered, and the audience never really gets a clue as to what is going on in her head besides the mention that she cares deeply for her brother. Again, this is something I think could have and should have been developed more; she has the set-up for an arc with her conflict with Sha HuaLing being dazzled by her beauty and with her loyalty to her sect and brother, but it doesn’t go anywhere. She said to be “the number one female lead!” after all, and I think it’s entirely possible for her to maintain her aura of mystery and still... have an arc. Su XiYan did, after all, and she was dead before the novel began.

In the end, no one really can define whom Su XiYan was exactly, because she’s dead. What ultimately mattered, what defined Su XiYan’s legacy, was her final choice to save her son (and yes, it’s fair to critique that it’s again about a man, but it’s her choice). That’s why the story, in its penultimate chapter, has Shen QingQiu telling Luo BingHe:

“Su Xiyan risked her life to give birth to you...

“If I were in her shoes, I would not hesitate to drink [the poison for a fetus] regardless of how lethal it is. Then, after escaping from the water prison, I would absorb it all into my own body. Regardless of how agonizing and horrifying the process is, regardless of the price to be paid, regardless of whether it would be a painful death, I would never let this child suffer any harm.

“This is how I see it. You can take it as just an interpretation because there is no one who can tell you what Su Xiyan was thinking before she breathed her last. But if she really saw you as a disgrace, she didn’t need to do anything more. She could have just lowered you into the Luo River, on the coldest days of the year, in a harsh and frozen landscape━how could you possibly survive?... she also need not use the last of her strength and energy to put you in a wooden basin and push you away to safety…… You don’t even need to wait for someone to save you at all since you would have already become a wandering soul who met his freezing end in Luo River.

He’s healed, and he no longer needs to try to recreate his mother figure in over a thousand beautiful women like he did in the past. He can heal.

Imo, it would have been even more powerful if the women then stepped out of these roles more completely, and became their own people. But I really do like all four of the main women I discussed here, and someday I’ll write more for them.

#scum villain meta #svsss #svsss meta #the scum villain's self-saving system #bingqiu #luo binghe #su xiyan #shen qingqiu #shen yuan #shen jiu #sha hualing #liu mingyan #ning yingying #qiu haitang #qin wanyue #mxtx meta #mxtx #mxtx ladies week

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themattress · 3 years

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OUAT AND ME: IN WONDERLAND

Story - Because this spin-off series only lasted for one season's worth of 13 episodes, its story is simply the Wonderland Saga and nothing else beyond that, which is for the best given that the story reaches far too complete an ending for anything beyond it to make any sense. The story is about Alice and what transpired after she returned from her original journey through Wonderland as a little girl, leading up to her romance with a young genie named Cyrus as a teenager, their tragic separation, her commitment to a mental institution, and her return to Wonderland in order to reunite with her lost love alongside her friend the Knave of Hearts, all while facing threats from the Red Queen and Jafar who seek to use Cyrus’ genie powers to break the laws of magic in order to accomplish their own secret goals.

The Wonderland Saga is as tight as tight can be, with one chief setting (Wonderland), a relatively small cast of characters, and a 4-episode beginning, 4-episode middle, and 5-episode end. Of course, this wouldn't matter if it wasn't an engaging story with enjoyable characters, but thankfully it very much is. This series is the brainchild of not just Adam Horowitz and Edward Kitsis, but also of Jane Espenson and Zack Estrin, and because of this fact combined with its limited length, it actually surpasses the original Once Upon a Time when you stack the two completed shows up against each other. Sometimes, less is more.

As I said, the story is divided into a clear-cut beginning, middle, and end. The beginning focuses on the early part of Alice and the Knave's journey and establishing who they are and what their deal is, while Jafar and the Red Queen's goals and motivations are kept enigmatic and Cyrus is trapped in a cage for the whole duration of the time. The middle lets Cyrus escape, sheds light on Jafar and the Red Queen's goals and motivations, and explores the darker sides of Alice and the Knave as we see just how badly their past traumas have affected them. And the end is all about the alliance of Alice, Cyrus, the Knave and the Red Queen as they fight Jafar and his new ally the Jabberwocky to decide the fate of Wonderland. It's here that all lingering questions are answered and all character arcs are fully completed.

As far as stories go, this is top tier OUAT. I think I like the Dark Curse and Neverland Sagas slightly more, but the Wonderland Saga comes in at an incredibly close third place.

Characters - There are less of them than in the main show, so this will be easy.

* We start with Alice, played by Sophie Lowe as a teenager and by pre-Stranger Things Millie Bobby Brown as a child. She is a wonderfully multi-faceted heroine, capable of great love and great hate, great kindness and great cruelty, great ingenuity and great gullibility, and always treading the line between holding to hope and giving into despair. While her romance with Cyrus is the focal point of the story, I love that it's not the only important aspect to her character. We also delve into her fractured relationship with her father; her initially unsteady but eventually rock solid friendship with Will; her hate, fear and distrust of Anastasia up until she finally sees the girl behind the queenly mask and how very much alike they truly are; and even her internal mental and emotional conflicts with herself on various matters that sometimes go external due to how Wonderland works. And no offense to Emma Swan, who is great in her prime, but I feel like Alice is ultimately the stronger and more likable lead.

* Cyrus really impresses me, because being the romantic male object of the heroine's attention and a guy who spends the entire first third of the story stuck in a cage, he could have very easily been a boring character. But very quickly, he shows that good looks and magic powers aren't all there is to him - this guy is smart. His cleverness and ingenuity that allows him to affect the plot even when inside his cage is something to behold, and he only gets better once he's free from his prison and gets to play off other characters with more frequency. Add to this a backstory where we see he used to be a selfish con artist, and it being his love for Alice that changed the selfish part while repurposing the con artist part for the cause of good, and you have a character you can enjoy and a couple you can root for.

* The show's breakout character, for better or for worse (no, it's definitely for worse, as we'll see in the next post) is the Knave of Hearts / Will Scarlet. Played excellently by Michael Socha, Will was formerly one of Robin Hood's Merry Men but is now an outlaw all to himself in Wonderland. He's sardonic and quippy, selfish and yet reliable at the same time, eerily muted in his emotions due to having his heart removed from his chest and yet clearly possessing deep feelings within his soul that occasionally bubble to the surface. We watch him go from an untrustworthy, cowardly cad who refuses to accept responsibility for anything to a brave and loyal friend who will sacrifice his own well-being for those he cares about. And his love story with Anastasia honestly steals the show from Alice and Cyrus', as it's full of betrayal and heartbreak and fights and truces and reconciliations before its happy ending, and that honestly feels more human than Alice and Cyrus' entirely plot-based separation.

* Speaking of the Red Queen / Anastasia, she is the female villain with a redemption arc that Regina (and Zelena, to a lesser extent) wishes she was. When she first appears, the Red Queen seems to be a chillingly calm and poised sociopath without moral scruples, but she quickly starts displaying vulnerability, and kudos must be given to Emma Rigby for conveying this through her amazing performance. Her cool, haughty face is like a mask, with more and more cracks beginning to show until we see who she really is - Anastasia, a peasant girl who was misled into a life that was full of power and privilege but that was also lonely and way over her capability to endure in the long run, and who desperately wants to take it all back and return to who she used to be. Once she realizes that she won't be getting the magic shortcut she seeks and that in the process of seeking it she'd wrought even more damage to Wonderland, Anastasia fully commits herself to doing better by everyone that she'd hurt. Even horrific torture, temporary death and mind control doesn't stop her from aiding in the cause to save Wonderland! She's amazing and more than earns her happy ending with Will.

* I could gush about Jafar, the Big Bad of the story, all day long. Jafar has always been my favorite Disney Villain, but he's the villain of an animated musical comedy, so I guess I've always had the question in the back of my mind as to what he'd be like if applied to something with a more serious tone? Well, this version of the character, played to chilling perfection by Naveen Andrews, answers that question. Stripped of most of his caricatured and humorous elements, Jafar is a psychotic, power-hungry madman who will stop at nothing to get what he desires. There is no-one he won't manipulate or torture or murder in his quest to become all-powerful. And the show also gives him a feasible, compelling and incredibly dark backstory (he's the bastard child of an Agrabahn sultan who rejected him to the point of trying to murder him) that explains why he is the way he is but is never used to excuse him or entertain the slightest notion that he might be redeemable. This version of Jafar perfectly embodies what Roy Disney and Jeffrey Katzenberg said about the original: “Jafar is just pure evil. He wants to take over the kingdom and kill everybody in sight or enslave them, or whatever suits his fancy." "This is the guy that wants it all. You know right from the start that he is a desperate character, capable of doing anything and everything to get what he wants".

* The White Rabbit / Percy is a purely CGI character, and you'd fear that this wouldn't work, but the show embraces how cartoony he is and so it actually works perfectly. He's a very appealing character as well: very neurotic and cowardly, but also a family man whose heart is in the right place and who can be very brave when push comes to shove. A lot of his likability also comes from the fact that John Lithgow (yes, I'm surprised they were able to get him too!) does his voice, and I can't think of anyone else who could voice such a character better.

* In terms of side characters, we have many Wonderland staples reimagined for this show, such as the Cheshire Cat who is now a feral beast voiced by Keith David, the Caterpillar who is now a Jabba the Hutt-esque crime boss voiced by Iggy Pop (who sounds nothing like the voice from the main show, but I digress), Tweedledee and Tweedledum who are the Red Queen's manservants (one being undyingly loyal while the other is a spy for Jafar), the sleazy Red King who tempts Anastasia into becoming his bride, the Carpenter who is trapped in a drug-like haze in the Boro Grove, the White Knight who stands guard over an important pair of doorways, and the Jabberwocky, a monster in the form of a humanoid woman whose power is being able to see a person's greatest fear and use it to psychologically torture them.

There is also mention of Alice having met Jefferson the Mad Hatter when she was a child, and Cora the Queen of Hearts herself appears in the flashback that shows how she manipulated events so that Will became the Knave of Hearts and ensure that Anastasia remained the Red Queen, whom she taught magic and villainy to and treated like a daughter. Regina, Zelena, Anastasia...is there no young woman that Cora won’t attempt to ruin?

Other side characters from other realms include Alice's highly flawed yet ultimately repentant father Edwin, his bitch of a new wife Sarah and her precocious young daughter Millie, and the cold-hearted Dr. Lydgate all from Alice's Victorian world; Robin Hood, Maleficent (voice-over only) and Anastasia's mother Lady Tremaine all from the Enchanted Forest; Nyx the guardian of a sacred well, Cyrus' mother and Jafar's teacher Amara, Cyrus' brothers Taj and Rafi, and Jafar's father the Sultan and half-brother Mirza all from Agrabah. The Sultan, by the way, is a particularly interesting character, as he's introduced as Cyrus' kindly old cellmate and you really get to thinking of him as a good guy, only to then learn who he really is and just what an utterly horrible person he was in the past. His tale is a tragic one, as while he sincerely commits to repenting, it’s not good enough and thus he cannot escape fatal poetic justice.

And then there's one side character that just really gets my goat: Elizabeth aka the Lizard, a cute young thief who has a crush on Will. She appears in the 4th episode and doesn't really do much of anything, then disappears for a while. I thought maybe she was going to end up paired with that "Mr. Darcy" suitor of Alice's from her world and it was going to be a big Pride and Prejudice reference...but instead, she reappears in the 9th episode, becomes the now genified Will's master, and makes a wish that accidentally kills her in order to give Will man-pain. And then she isn't really spoken of again afterward. What was even the point of her!? You could cut all of her scenes and actions from this story and miss absolutely nothing!

Atmosphere - I would describe this show's atmosphere as light and dark, back to back. When it's light, it is much lighter than Once Upon a Time, being very whimsical and romantic and fluffy and hopeful to an even higher degree than its parent show at its best. However, this kind of lightness helps to make the dark elements come off as that much darker as a result. And while there's certainly some dark stuff where Alice in concerned, from an intended lobotomy in the premiere episode to the intense clashing she has with her father, and in the troubled pasts of Will and Anastasia, nothing comes close to the darkness of everything Jafar-related. It's a guarantee that he will do something horrible to someone at least once per episode, although it's usually more than once. The nature of his backstory as a bastard child whose father attempts to drown him plus the intensity of his depraved power-lust also make him a particularly dark character, as is his eventual partner, the terrifying Jabberwocky. Personally, I have always appreciated stories that can balance light and dark in this way and am able to handle both of them, so this show's atmosphere is very appealing to me.

Episode Quality - All I can say here is that there is only one dud in this series, and it's not hard to spot which episode it is. Like I said, while the beginning and middle portions of the show are 4 episodes each, the end is 5 episodes...and the first of those 5, "Nothing to Fear", is incredibly awkward and poorly executed. On top of being where the aforementioned death of the Lizard occurs, the plotline with Alice, Cyrus and Anastasia is also botched. Alice clinginess to Cyrus out of worry that he might become separated from her again and she wants to savor the time she has with him now doesn't really work in the context of needing to find where the freshly genified Will went ASAP, and it makes Alice look bad - Will went through "Bloody Hell" to help her reunite with Cyrus, and now that she's been reunited with him at the direct expense of Will, she doesn't give a fuck? She feels no urgent desire to pay her friend back and be as dedicated to helping him as he was to helping her? Also, the way she verbalizes her issues sounds too ripped off of Emma Swan from the similarly clumsy episode "The New Neverland", and what works for Emma doesn't really work for Alice.

Alice's distrust of Anastasia and dislike of working with her is also badly written, in literally every other episode the tense dynamic between these two has been handled with more care and nuance, but here Alice just comes off as a bratty child. Again, Will is missing and you need to find him quickly, so being able to put aside your differences with Anastasia maturely would go a long way in helping make that happen, Alice! Also, there's a sequence with angry peasants tying Anastasia, Alice and Cyrus to stakes to be eaten by nocturnal wolf-like creatures, and it's so thoroughly mishandled to the point of coming across as comical (Anastasia really can't fight back or escape her binding despite the skills we've seen her have before? Cyrus really thought an eloquent speech was going to instantly convince the peasants to do what he wants of them? The peasants act like they're righteous people who are getting justice against their oppressor and yet then tie two completely innocent people up for daring to go against the grain on the matter? And oh my God, those wolves look awful!)

The only good parts of the episode are the very last scene between Alice, Cyrus, Anastasia and (finally!) Will, plus all of the scenes with Jafar which lead up to the Jabberwocky's debut. Otherwise, this was a transitional episode that needed a lot of fine-tuning from its makers.

Overall - Once Upon a Time in Wonderland is now on Disney+, so if you have that streaming service and haven't watched it, please do so. It's a very well-made limited series that features a great story and great characters played by great actors, and is a definite part of OUAT in its prime. And again, when both completed shows are compared, this one wins hands-down.

#Once Upon a Time #ABC #OUAT and Me #Opinion #Analysis

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stevenuniversallyreviews · 4 years

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Episode 141: Your Mother and Mine

”You have it all wrong!”

We already know the story of Rose Quartz. We know she was a rebel who battled for many years against the forces of Pink Diamond. We know that she was “just another quartz soldier, made right here in the dirt” and rose to greatness by rallying fellow Gems to join her cause. We know that she was drawn to Gems that Homeworld shunned, wanting to make sure everyone had a place. We know that she ended the war by shattering Pink Diamond. And we know that after the war, her shield could only save two of her friends. So on paper, an episode that recaps this information is redundant.

But Your Mother and Mind isn’t about Rose Quartz’s history, it’s about her story. And the story is told by a character that can only reach her audience by impersonating the bearer of Pink Diamond’s gem.

Your Mother and Mine is a simple episode made fascinating by its proximity to the truth. It combines all the pieces of Rose’s story that we’ve heard over the course of the series to give us a definitive take on the narrative just in time for it to be undermined. We’re five episodes away from learning that Rose Quartz was Pink Diamond, and the episode after that is about Pearl correcting the version of events we hear right now. Which means that the episode’s major theme of truth versus fiction is something we can’t even comprehend fully without retrospect. Even if you already suspect that Rose is Pink when you watch it for the first time, the fact that it’s not written in stone yet means there’s still a possibility that Garnet’s story is true, and the episode only becomes great when you know for sure that it isn’t.

Garnet is the perfect narrator for the final depiction of Rose as we knew her before A Single Pale Rose. She’s one of the two remaining Crystal Gems that survived the war and isn’t bubbled, and we’ll soon learn that the other is bound to silence, so Garnet is the most capable character to tell this story and believe it. And her introduction in Your Mother and Mine hammers down why she believes it: when she’s excited about a cause that’s close to home, her enthusiasm overwhelms her usual calm. She’s so happy with the idea of misfit Homeworlders escaping oppression that she can’t step back and see that they aren’t handling her praise well until Padparadscha says it outright (for the second time in three episodes, she displays her ability to “predict” the emotions of the recent past on top of the events). And when she really gets going with her story, Garnet shows the exact same level of breathless, blinding glee. It can be hard to look for flaws in something you’re actively rooting for, that you’ve tied your whole identity to, so she doesn’t.

The distortion of truth that defines the episode is established by the Off Colors, who parrot three variants of Homeworld propaganda that mythologize Rose Quartz in the same way Garnet does, albeit for opposite reasons. They can’t even get their own stories straight, adding to the mystery of a figure that Homeworld would do anything to disavow and vilify, but the three main Gems in Steven’s life also have different concepts of Rose. Pearl’s is the most accurate, but she can’t tell anyone. Garnet’s is what she saw with her own three eyes, so she thinks it’s accurate, but she’s missing critical information. And Amethyst only knew Rose from after the war, so like Steven she had to learn about it secondhand.

And so, a question presents itself: what’s the value of a story that isn’t true? In this episode, Garnet’s false narrative galvanizes the Off Colors in the same way it galvanized her for thousands of years. It gives Steven a version of the shattering that paints Rose’s actions as heroic—Lars, whose first huge character moment with Steven involved insulting his “weird mom,” thinks she’s awesome for doing it. Regardless of the facts, it’s a great story, an honest-to-goodness legend presented gorgeously. So how much does it matter that much of it is wrong?

To Steven and Garnet, it matters quite a bit. But to the Off Colors? They need a confidence boost both in their general lives and in a moment of floating in space with a broken engine, and the story of Rose Quartz concretely helps them. That’s the tricky thing about legendary figures: if you model yourself off a literal interpretation of their actions, as Steven and Garnet do, it can only end in disappointment, but if you just view it as a story, it can do a lot of good. Fiction can be a wonderful thing—Steven Universe is itself an untrue story that has made the world a better place—but it gets rougher when the boundaries between fiction and reality are muddled.

While Rebecca Sugar has many times confirmed that the three lead Gems are based off elements of her personality, Steven is based off her brother, and characteristics of other real people are found throughout the show in the way fiction writers often flesh out their casts, Rose Quartz is different. In an early conversation with Hellboy creator Mike Mignola of all people, she was inspired by Babylonian mythology, especially Ishtar, in developing the show’s backstory, and Era 1 Rose Quartz feels more like an ancient goddess of love and war than a grounded human at this point in the show.

So Garnet tells us a creation myth. She introduces the Diamonds as gods, calling them “unique in their flawlessness” without an ounce of sarcasm, but like most ancient mythological gods, they do indeed have flaws: in this case, according to Garnet, Pink’s cruelty and cowardice. From these gods came Gems in their image, and for an untold sweep of time there was stagnation as all went according to plan, until a disrupting hero shifted this status quo to create the world we know today. Rose Quartz went from questioning her god to arguing with her god to warring with her god to destroying and supplanting her god, but because this is a pantheon, her hubris is punished by the other gods. It’s a story that works as well thousands of years ago as it does today.

And befitting that story, we get the most stylized flashback in the series, expanding heavily from the silhouettes of The Answer. Even if nothing else here worked, this would remain a beautiful episode, with simple but effective techniques to marry narration with aesthetic: transitioning from widescreen to fullscreen as Rose’s worldview expands, using stained glass backgrounds to keep the focus on characters instead of environment, and reducing colors in the foreground to make those colors pop. Eyes are out of the picture, a major handicap for showing how characters feel, but seasoned pros Katie Mitroff and Paul Villeco can convey emotion through body language and mouths alone.

Estelle certainly helps. Her commanding voice could make any story enthralling, even as she shifts from the fairy tale of her own origin to the legend of Rose. While she largely uses the same techniques here as in The Answer, the one noticeable change speaks volumes about Pink Diamond. When speaking for Blue, a far more personal foe for Garnet, she continues to narrate in her usual tone, and when speaking for Rose, her voice raises a little but it still sounds like Garnet. But when speaking for Pink, Estelle does something new: for the first and only time in the series, she vocally impersonates another character.

This is the second episode in a row featuring Pink Diamond, and the second in a row where she’s voiced by someone who isn’t Pink Diamond. Stevonnie shows the true version (a child), while Garnet shows the legend (a tyrant). And both halves of the Mindful Education duo are great at it! All Estelle needs is a few lines to shift that British accent into full evil aristocrat mode, and the special attention she gives to this voice highlights just how different this take on Pink is from the tantrum AJ Michalka provided. Even before we know the full truth, something is off about this cruel but newly confident version of Pink.

While the whole story gains new meaning when we hear the truth, the most compelling part in retrospect is Garnet’s stance on Pink Diamond calling for help. On top of providing the stunning header image as we pan from revolutionaries up to their oppressors, it’s this brilliant, awful moment where Garnet gets so close to the truth without grasping it, Blue Zircon style. Yes, Pink summoned other Diamonds to Earth, but it was part of her plan to save the planet: to make a big enough fuss that Homeworld would decide her colony wasn’t worth it. Garnet’s take is in line with the Pink we saw in our last episode, immature and seeking approval from her elders, and focusing on it here highlights how these negative traits could be aimed to help others when we see her real motives in Now We’re Only Falling Apart.

That said, Pink isn’t the only Diamond we see here.

White Diamond is different. She’s the only Diamond who isn’t named until her debut episode, existing only as a suggestion that fills in a massive gap. We’re restricted to her glimpses of her, mere hints of her ominous presence, like a monster in the shadows. The mural on the moon, the distant view of her ship on Homeworld, the actual white diamond that tops the insignia, that’s all we’ve gotten until now.

Here we get three images of her, even if she still goes unmentioned: the first shot of the four Diamonds together, the shot of the remaining three Diamonds after the shattering, and the Corruption. She remains obscured, more an idea than a character, but it’s clearer than ever that she’s the head of the group, and that she’s enormous, even compared to Yellow and Blue. Her absence is as captivating as her presence, as we see more of her than ever but still get the impression that Pink was only able to appeal to the middle sisters. It’s a great hook, a second mystery that overlaps Pink Diamond’s to show the audience that there’s more to this story than we might think, and even when we inevitably unravel Pink’s history, there’s a bigger threat behind the curtain.

The story ends with a brief scene in our regular style, showing that even if everything else was wrong, Rose Quartz did use her shield to save her friends. We return to a downcast ship, but Garnet supplements the power of fiction with the power of truth: that despite all the lies from Homeworld (and the lies from Rose, it turns out), the Crystal Gems and the Off Colors persist. No matter how much authority figures might try to hide it, diversity of lifestyle and identity is everywhere, because queer folks are normal folks. That’s the sort of thing a good story can make clear, especially when society constantly repeats a brutal and bald-faced lie.

And so the Off Colors trilogy of sorts draws to a close, with another call to adventure aboard the Sun Incinerator. But not before Steven and Garnet have a sit-down away from the celebrating crew, and the downside of a good story peeks out. It’s refreshing to see Steven verbalize his theory about Stevonnie’s dream so soon, given the necessary gap between The Trial and Jungle Moon to focus on his immediate concerns, but because Garnet only knows the story instead of the history, she replies with two truths and a lie: that his powers come from empathy, that his differences are something to be celebrated, and that Rose Quartz definitely killed Pink Diamond.

Steven will thus need another push to find the truth, rather than pursuing it on his own. Rose’s story does a lot of good, but it keeps Steven in the dark on his heritage and his inheritance, and makes him doubt the gut that he should be learning to trust by now. Self-doubt is just one of the many issues plaguing him in Steven Universe Future, but it remains a major factor in his identity crisis, and it’s rooted in moments like this: when a loved one who means well repeats a lie that makes him question what he knows in his heart.

The truth can be a dangerous thing, and fiction can comfort and inspire. The truth leads to clarity, and fiction can distort. This isn’t a convenient dichotomy, and Garnet herself will soon be ripped apart by the realization that the story she tells right here was a lie, but she wouldn’t be who she is today without that story, and for better and worse, neither would Steven. I’m not saying it isn’t important to seek the truth, and I’m certainly not saying that this show is telling us that. But I appreciate so much that the value of stories isn’t lost in that message.

We’re the one, we’re the ONE! TWO! THREE! FOUR!

Without the upcoming reveal, this is just an episode that I like. Great visuals and a well-told story, but still feels like a recap. But that reveal amps up Your Mother and Mine by both justifying the recap itself and by making the actual point of the episode clear. So up it goes!

Top Twenty-Five

Steven and the Stevens

Hit the Diamond

Mirror Gem

Lion 3: Straight to Video

Alone Together

Jungle Moon

Last One Out of Beach City

The Return

Jailbreak

The Answer

Mindful Education

Sworn to the Sword

Rose’s Scabbard

Earthlings

Mr. Greg

Coach Steven

Lars of the Stars

Giant Woman

Beach City Drift

Winter Forecast

Bismuth

Back to the Kindergarten

Steven’s Dream

Kevin Party

When It Rains

Love ‘em

Laser Light Cannon

Bubble Buddies

Tiger Millionaire

Lion 2: The Movie

Rose’s Room

An Indirect Kiss

Ocean Gem

Space Race

Garnet’s Universe

Warp Tour

The Test

Future Vision

On the Run

Maximum Capacity

Marble Madness

Political Power

Full Disclosure

Joy Ride

Keeping It Together

We Need to Talk

Chille Tid

Cry for Help

Keystone Motel

Catch and Release

Back to the Barn

Steven’s Birthday

It Could’ve Been Great

Message Received

Log Date 7 15 2

Same Old World

The New Lars

Monster Reunion

Alone at Sea

Crack the Whip

Beta

Back to the Moon

Kindergarten Kid

Buddy’s Book

Gem Harvest

Three Gems and a Baby

That Will Be All

The New Crystal Gems

Storm in the Room

Room for Ruby

Lion 4: Alternate Ending

Doug Out

The Good Lars

Are You My Dad?

I Am My Mom

Stuck Together

The Trial

Off Colors

Lars’s Head

Gemcation

Raising the Barn

Sadie Killer

Your Mother and Mine

Like ‘em

Gem Glow

Frybo

Arcade Mania

So Many Birthdays

Lars and the Cool Kids

Onion Trade

Steven the Sword Fighter

Beach Party

Monster Buddies

Keep Beach City Weird

Watermelon Steven

The Message

Open Book

Story for Steven

Shirt Club

Love Letters

Reformed

Rising Tides, Crashing Tides

Onion Friend

Historical Friction

Friend Ship

Nightmare Hospital

Too Far

Barn Mates

Steven Floats

Drop Beat Dad

Too Short to Ride

Restaurant Wars

Kiki’s Pizza Delivery Service

Greg the Babysitter

Gem Hunt

Steven vs. Amethyst

Bubbled

Adventures in Light Distortion

Gem Heist

The Zoo

Rocknaldo

Dewey Wins

Enh

Cheeseburger Backpack

Together Breakfast

Cat Fingers

Serious Steven

Steven’s Lion

Joking Victim

Secret Team

Say Uncle

Super Watermelon Island

Gem Drill

Know Your Fusion

Future Boy Zoltron

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Harry Potter and the Doctrine of the Calvinists

by Dan H

Friday, 17 August 2007

Dan refuses to just give up on the Potter articles already.~

A lot of people are mortally offended by the ending of the Narnia series, because it seems to suggest that Susan's absolute rejection of all the teachings of Christ prevents her from getting into heaven. I actually like it for exactly that reason: it's got a firm grounding in a genuine religious philosophy which I find significantly more interesting than the usual messages one gets from children's literature, or popular fiction in general.

This, of course, is why it seems so crazy to the secular reader. It's based on some profound assumptions about the metaphysical reality of the world, and if you don't believe the world works like that it doesn't make any sense. Many atheists (and a fair number of Christians, for that matter) have a hard time getting their heads around the idea that you can be a perfectly decent person, but still not go to heaven.

Even more difficult for atheists like me to get our heads around are the doctrines of the Calvinists. Very roughly (from my limited understanding) the Calvinists embrace fully the idea that it is impossible for any human being to be truly worthy of God's love. God is just that great and we are just that flawed. This is actually comparatively uncontroversial - it's just a firm statement of the idea that salvation comes wholly from the Grace of God, and not from your individual virtue. The Calvinists take this idea to its logical conclusion: that since obviously not everybody can be saved, God's grace will only fall on a small proportion of the population - the Elect. Since nobody can be worthy of God, whether one is or is not part of the Elect is entirely outside of one's own control. There are just some people who are predestined towards salvation, and some who aren't.

Now it would be easy here to score cheap points and say that this is just somebody using religion as a control mechanism, pretending that the reason he's so much better off than everybody else is because God likes him better. But that's actually not massively plausible. After all, when Calivinist doctrine was first developed, the Calvinists weren't exactly ruling the roost.

Calvinism is actually a fairly logical extension of one of the more difficult points of protestant doctrine: the idea of salvation by grace. People seem to be uncomfortable with the idea that drawing closer to a supernatural being who transcends all of the concerns of physical reality might actually not be the same thing as being nice to people. Perhaps it's just overexposure to classical mythology at an impressionable age, but I don't find it that hard to understand. I somehow can't imagine a classical theologian saying "but why would the Gods be so angry about Prometheus stealing fire? Why do we worship them if they're so mean?" or a Viking saying "I'm sure that Odin will understand that you wanted to die valiantly in battle."

I think that perhaps the reason people find the ideas expressed in - say - Calvinist theology, or The Last Battle is that, since we live in a secular society, we naturally divorce these kinds of ideas from their supernatural context. For example: burning at the stake was actually supposed to be a merciful form of execution, because it allowed the accused the maximum possible amount of time to repent. If you genuinely believe in an immortal soul, this is actually very sensible. Far better to burn somebody to death slowly, giving them a chance to go to heaven, than to cut their head off and condemn them to hell. To somebody who doesn't believe in an afterlife, though, it's needless cruelty.

When you decontextualise the doctrines or practices of a religion, you invariably make them into something extremely sinister and disturbing.

Which is why Harry Potter freaks me out so much.

JK Rowling self-defines as a Christian. More specifically, she was apparently raised Church of Scotland which, the internet reliably informs me, has strong Calvinist influences. If this is true, then it seems that Rowling has allowed her faith to strongly influence her work. Unfortunately she has also allowed it to become so decontextualised as to be unrecognisable.

Let us take the principle of Election, the notion that there are a fortunate few who, by grace of God, shall be called to salvation. In the Potterverse "Election" is called "Sorting" and instead of being controlled by Almighty God it is controlled by a hat.

Now I know Rowling pays lip service to the houses all being equal, but it's nonsense. Gryffindor is the superior house, all the way. Rowling herself declares not only that she would want to be in Gryffindor if she attended Hogwarts but also that she "hopes she would be found worthy."

So basically at the age of eleven, your fate is already sealed. Either you're Gryffindor, or you're evil, or you're chattel. You can't change, you can't be redeemed (unless you've already had the good fortune to fall in love with a Gryffindor) you are either Good or you are Evil or you Just Don't Matter and none of your decisions, none of your actions, mean a damned thing. No matter how much of a bullying little shit James Potter was, we are never really asked to see him as anything but a hero. Lily treats Snape like dirt, but is still the byword for selfless love in the series. And of course Dumbledore, our epitome of goodness, is a manipulative self-serving bastard who plots world domination and raises Harry to be a sacrificial lamb. But in the end we are expected to view all of these people as heroes because they were Gryffindors and therefore virtuous by definition.

Then of course there is Snape. After nearly twenty years of loyal service to Dumbledore, risking death or worse to spy on the Dark Lord, and incidentally building up a loyal fanbase who for some reason think that being smart is cooler than owning a flying motorcycle, JK Rowling eventually grants him the ultimate accolade. "Sometimes, we sort too soon." If a member of a different house displays courage, it shows that they must really be a Gryffindor deep down.

Rowling clearly subscribes to the philosophy that a person has a fundamental nature. That deep down a person cannot change. Deep down Harry is a hero, Percy is officious, Voldemort is Evil, Snape is a bully, Dumbledore is good but tempted by power. None of these traits will change, none of them can change. Rowling seems to believe it impossible.

This is most apparent, I think, in how she writes about Harry. It is never his actions. which win him praise, but rather the spirit in which he acts. This is perhaps most apparent in the seventh book, when Harry uses the Cruciatus curse on Amycus Carrow and McGonagall responds with the statement that it is "very gallant" of him.

Now I admit I might be a little bit behind the times here, but how is torturing your enemies "gallant"? Presumably in the same way that a single minded obsession with the personal destruction of your enemies has something to do with "love".

But my objections here are based on a false assumption: on the assumption that a person's moral character (their salvation, their redemption) is in any way affected by their actions. In Rowling's world it is not, and this is a deliberate and conscious theme throughout the books. Harry performs the same actions as other characters, but because he is by nature pure, his actions are actions of goodness, not of evil.

Even further proof that Harry's goodness is nothing to do with his actions - or indeed even his personality - but is instead some kind of elemental property comes from this rather interesting quote, regarding the fact that Voldemort had hope of salvation:

"Because he had taken into his body this-- this drop of hope or love (Harry's blood). So that meant that if he could have mustered the courage to repent, he would have been okay. But, of course, he wouldn't. And that's his choice."

Now there's two interesting things here. The first is that Voldemort's hope came literally from Harry's blood. Voldemort is not a person, Harry is not a person. Harry is a vessel full of Hope and Love in distilled form. No matter how many people he tortures or brutalises, he will always have Hope and Love in his very blood. It is physical contact with Harry's blood that gave Voldemort his one chance of redemption.

The second, subtler point is this one:

"But, of course, he wouldn't. And that's his choice."

Notice that she uses the words "of course" and "his choice" in the same sentence. And this is the point I find most interesting.

If you ever try to argue that JK Rowling is a slavering determinist, people always pull out two facts. Firstly, there's the fact that Harry "chose" not to be placed in Slytherin. Secondly, there's this extremely interesting line by Dumbledore.

"It is our choices Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities."

Now I hope it doesn't look like I'm being obsessive here, but I think it's extremely telling that Dumbledore uses the phrase "show what we truly are" and not " say "decide what we become." Dumbledore is telling us, quite clearly, that who we are never changes, that the decisions we make in our lives serve only to illuminate our natures, which are otherwise immutable.

So Voldemort could never have been redeemed. He was given the chance to "try for some remorse" but there was never any realistic expectation that he would be able to. Indeed we are told repeatedly throughout the series that Voldemort is not capable of love. Not that he hasn't known love, that he has never experienced love, that he is literally incapable of it.

A choice, to Rowling, is not a chance to control one's own destiny, but a chance to show your quality. The outcome of a choice is predetermined. Voldemort would never have chosen redemption, so he had no chance of redemption, no matter how much of Harry's Magic Blood he had pumping through him.

I started this article talking about Calvinist Election, and by mentioning that "atheists like me" find it a rather disturbing concept. I think a big thing that people find uncomfortable is the idea that "the Elect" get to strut around being all superior, just because some random fluke made them God's Chosen. This is of course not how it works. The whole point of Election is that no one man is more worthy of salvation than any other, that any who are saved, are saved by the grace of God, not by their own merits. Within Calvinist philosophy being "chosen" doesn't make you better than anybody else, it just gives you one extra reason to thank God.

Rowling's world, however, really does work the way atheists perceive Calvinist Election as working. Harry is arbitrarily singled out as being "special" or "chosen" and this literally does make him better than other people. Harry is as incorruptible as Voldemort is irredeemable. Harry's choices will always be the right ones, not because of his moral character but because the world itself will change to accommodate him. He can withstand the Imperius Curse, he can see into the mind of the Dark Lord, yet remain uncorrupted by it, he can unite the Deathly Hallows. Even when he actively seeks to bring pain and death to his enemies, it is somehow virtuous. Because Harry is Just That Awesome.

JK Rowling has said, in interview:

"My beliefs and my struggling with religious belief and so on I think is quite apparent in this book."

And apparent it is. The culmination of the Harry Potter series reads like the scrabbling of a Cultural Christian, trying to construct a moral framework out of fragments of doctrine she does not entirely understand or believe. Half-formed ideas about faith and destiny and redemption and death collide producing a result that is mostly simplistic, and occasionally sacrilegious.

The quasi-Christian overtones make some parts of the book genuinely incoherent. At times Harry's faith in Dumbledore is presented as almost akin to faith in God. He sets forth on his great journey, after all, knowing virtually nothing and Trusting That Dumbledore Would Provide. Indeed the Dumbledore-as-Divinity concept is a strong theme from the very start. It is very frequently Harry's Faith in Dumbledore that truly saves the day (most explicitly in Chamber of Secrets). The entire subplot with Dumbeldore's backstory is presented almost as Harry's last test of Faith.

And of course if Dumbledore is God, then this naturally casts Harry in the role of Jesus: walking amongst the unbelievers, spreading His word, facing persecution and ultimately death. A sacrifice made in perfect Love to redeem the sins of the Wizarding World.

Except that Dumbledore isn't God, he's just a guy, so having unwavering faith in him isn't laudable, it's blind fanaticism. And Harry doesn't sacrifice himself to save Hogwarts, he sacrifices himself to kill Voldemort. Hell, Rowling even admits that after book 6, if Harry looked into the Mirror of Erised he would see "Voldemort finished, dead, gone". His deepest desire is not to protect his friends, or even to live a normal life, but to kill the guy who killed his parents.

It's a mess, and the fact that it's a mess is probably the saddest thing of all. Rowling so clearly wanted to say something big about faith, about love, and about death, but all she has managed to do is communicate her own confuson.Themes:

J.K. Rowling

Books

Young Adult / Children

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Wardog

at 09:34 on 2007-08-17And obviously you have the whole sacramental thing of Voldemort receiving Harry's blood, or rather refusing the salvation contained within it... euw.

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Arthur B

at 11:11 on 2007-08-17I think you can also see attitudes towards predestination in her view of herself and her work. I was watching her original publisher on TV the other day talking about how he advised her to get a day job, because very very few people can actually make a living on children's books, and how she simply said she was very confident that HP would be successful. Which turned out to be right, of course, but there's no way anyone could have predicted exactly how much the HP books took off (and arguably they didn't become

really

massive until

Prisoner of Azkaban

). I know, I know, most authors probably harbour hopes that they'll be able to live off their soon-to-be-published novel and ditch the day job, it's human nature to be optimistic - but it's also human nature to harbour a deep-seated worry that your book might just flop. Rowling has never shown any evidence of the latter.

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Dan H

at 14:49 on 2007-08-17This is, I think, also evidence of Ms Rowling's deeply fucked up priorities. Having faith in yourself is one thing, but she had a fucking *kid* to support. You think she'd give some thought to how the poor bastard was going to eat.

Also: Fun exercise for your spare time. Re-read the chapter entitled "Horcruxes" in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. It's as fucked up as all hell. It's where Dumbledore explains that Harry Potter hating Voldemort and wanting to kill him is evidence of his deep capacity for love.

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Arthur B

at 16:08 on 2007-08-17Care to summarise? I don't have the Half-Blood Prince and don't intend to read it - as far as I can tell, it's the big waterslide that dumps the reader in the sewer of

Deathly Hallows

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Dan H

at 16:23 on 2007-08-17Lets see, choice quotes from that chapter include:

"If Voldemort had never murdered your father, would he have implanted in you a furious desire for revenge?"

And of course

"You have never been seduced by the Dark Arts, never, even for a second, shown the slightest desire to become one of Voldemort's followers!"

"Of course I haven't," said Harry indignantly. "He killed my mum and dad!"

"You are protected, in short, by your ability to love!" said Dumbledore loudly.

And

"Imagine, please just for a moment that you had never heard that prophecy! How would you feel about Voldemort now? Think!"

"I'd want him finished," said Harry quietly. "And I'd want to do it."

That's your shining beacon of love folks: an angry little man driven by pure hatred and the desire for personal vengeance.

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Arthur B

at 16:33 on 2007-08-17That's hilarious. It's like Dumbledore is dozing his way through a speech and isn't actually listening to what Harry is saying.

"So, Harry, what will you do if you defeat Voldemort?" asked Dumbledore.

"I will become an Auror and turn the Ministry of Magic into a terrifying machine devoted to exterminating House Slytherin. I will use Unforgivable Curses like they were party tricks. I will break every single rule regulating magical law enforcement in my pursuit of the Slytherin menace."

"Oh Harry, you truly are a fountain of love and forgiveness!"

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Dan H

at 16:38 on 2007-08-17It's even worse than that: he's paying absolute attention to what Harry's saying, but deep down he's thinking "bwahahaha, see how I have manipulated this boy into believing that his childish desire to lash out at Lord Voldemort is a noble and selfless act! Now he is certain to do exactly as I wish while I arrange his death!"

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Arthur B

at 16:47 on 2007-08-17Yeah. You know how I said how Harry walking to his own death in order to be the messiah was the act of a paranoid schizophrenic? I take that back. Orchestrating your own death and the death of your protege because you firmly believe that a) this will let you defeat the greatest evil in the world and b) this is how you think the Truest Love works is the act of a paranoid schizophrenic megalomaniac.

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lessofthat

at 01:04 on 2007-08-28If only it were. It sounds more to me like the act of a man with no discernible personality traits whatsoever. I wonder how the books would read if you quietly ctrl-H'ed every instance of the word 'destiny' with the word 'plot'.

Hemmens, you've skewered the woman precisely and with brio, and you deserve applause, but how in the name of fuck was all this - except the ugly suicide cult business you mention in the previous piece - not visible from the downslope of book 3?

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Arthur B

at 09:26 on 2007-08-28I think people still had some faith that Rowling would pull off some brilliant plot twist and the series wouldn't go in the direction that it was obviously going, and in fact did. To be fair, for the first four books she was able to surprise me with the endings - I didn't expect Bloke With Turban to have Lord Voldemort pasted to the back of his head, I didn't expect that Tom Riddle was anything other than a horrible sneak called Tom Riddle, I hadn't guessed that the Goblet of Fire would be a teleportation trap. The third book is the best example of this, where the climactic encounter with Sirius Black you're expecting is still fifty-odd pages away happens early, before our heroes are even slightly ready.

Book 5, conversely, is pretty much devoid of surprises. In books 1-4 the titular thing - the Philosopher's Stone, the Chamber of Secrets, the Prisoner of Azkaban, the Goblet of Fire - is a mysterious object, place or person which is the key to the mystery the book covers. The Order of the Phoenix, conversely, is carefully explained early on in book 5 and isn't really especially relevant or important.

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lessofthat

at 10:57 on 2007-08-28Even her critics admit that Rowling does a good plot, but her creepy ideology and incoherent philosophy - her apparent belief that moral goodness is something you're born to, like the aristocracy, or that happens to you, like celebrity - has been visible for years.

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Arthur B

at 11:41 on 2007-08-28True, but until now people could always console themselves with the possibility that the whole goodness-by-selection deal was meant to be a Big Lie which was going to be exposed in the last book. In fact, the bit in

Deathly Hallows

where Harry struggles with the new facts he knows about Dumbledore could have been an excellent opportunity for Harry's worldview to be seriously challenged, but Rowling squandered the opportunity by having Harry's worldview be the correct one all along.

There was plenty of reason for bile and invective to be thrown in Rowling's general direction after books 5 and 6, and several decent causes for complaint after 4. I think the reason the flood has happened now, as opposed to earlier, is that with the publication of book 7 there is now no opportunity for Rowling to redeem the series.

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Wardog

at 15:00 on 2007-08-28I'm not actually sure all this stuff *has* been visible; it's been *there* but that's not quite the same thing. A lot of people (self included, at least until 6) assumed it was all building up into something quite dark and interesting. And don't we feel like idiots now.

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lessofthat

at 16:05 on 2007-08-28The more interesting question then is "what rendered it invisible?"

What surprises me is that everyone here dissing Rowling seems to have reached the same conclusions as I did, and articulated them rather better than I ever managed to, but inexplicably read all the way to the end before doing so. What dazzled you in the meantime? Was it just the plot, or were there promises of complexity in Harry and his gang that I overlooked?

I'd particularly like to know because I might then be able to reverse-engineer some kind of cure and inject it into the friend who told me last week '[book 7] is a fucking triumph and we're lucky to have her'. Or at least understand what the hell's going on with that.

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Arthur B

at 16:24 on 2007-08-28For my part, I was assuming (until book 5) that Rowling was going to pull the same start with the overarching plot of the series that she did with books 1-4 - specifically, try her hardest to trick the reader into thinking that a particular thing was going to happen, and then pull the rug out from under them. Sure, it was pretty obvious that we were going to have a ludicrous final battle in Hogwarts between Harry and Voldemort, and that Harry would prove to be the Chosen One by virtue of his amazing feat of surviving to his first birthday, but in the early Potter books whenever something's

that

obvious it usually isn't true.

Rowling's a one-trick pony, but she's pretty good at the narrative misdirection trick. It's why you had fans suggesting with a straight face that Dumbledore was actually Ron from the future; people realise that Rowling often throws out sudden plot twists, especially when the plot seems to be fairly straightforward, and the fans had plenty of fun coming up with convoluted ideas of what would happen at the conclusion.

Rowling's biggest misdirection was tricking people into thinking that the things which were obviously going to transpire in the HP series would not, in fact, come to pass.

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empink

at 03:32 on 2007-08-29@lessofthat

I think that sometimes, you just don't *see* the bad points of a book for whatever reason. Everyone I know can speak to hating or at least disliking a book that they loved a while ago- it's the same sort of thing at work, or at least the same set of forces. For some reason, you may just want to enjoy a book so badly that you ignore its rough corners. Or you aren't yet adept at recognising those rough corners yet, so they pass you by. Or you weren't really paying much attention, and everything seems all right to your friends, and everything seems all right in (faulty) hindsight, so you jump at the next chance to read more from the same author.

All of that is far, far more pronounced when there is a lot of strong emotion sloshing around about a book or story or creative endeavour. You're either caught up in the hype to some extent, invest in it and suddenly realise it matters to you because your investment in it feels a lot sillier if it doesn't matter to you, or you're not and you wonder why the hell everyone's losing their heads over the whole thing.

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Wardog

at 21:17 on 2007-08-29Agreed, empink.

The first three books, at least, have advantages to balance their disadvantages. They're not great literature (but then, what is?) but they're reasonably well-written, tautly plotted, genuinely amusing and occasionally, as Arthur points out above, quite surprising. I remember being quite startled that Snape wasn't, in fact, the bad guy of book 1 and I was quite impressed at the rather morally complex position he occupied in what was obviously a children's a book: at that stage in the game, he's good but not nice which is interesting for a children's book.

Also, as empink observes, the problems aren't really pronounced enough to add up to anything coherently problematic. Dan could never have written this article based off the first few books. I remember Harry seemed rather bland but nobody cared - he was a hero and heroes are meant to Save The World not be interesting and they were plenty of nice secondary characters to shine well when set against Harry's lack of personality. And the fact that Snape *wasn't* the bad guy seemed to suggest that Slytherin - despite the bad press - weren't basically evil, again suggesting a potentially morally layered universe. As the books progresses the houses, for example, become more and more simplified. I always thought well of the potrayal of Cedric Diggory (from book VI). I mean, he's a Hufflepuff, but he's clever AND brave AND abmitious. I always thought that might be trying to say something worthwhile.

Of course it wasn't.

Also the later books are all about shutting down avenues of interpretation - the early books are a glorious free-for-all. Because they're not sprawling information dumps, the glimpses of the world they offer are subtle and intriguing - perhaps it's just evidence of how lame we are but we used to spend hours discussing Harry Potter in the pub, wondering what this and that meant, and what was going to happen, and who such and such a character was.

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Arthur B

at 22:11 on 2007-08-29Slytherin is a particularly good example, actually. From the very beginning, Rowling has been adamant that the Slytherins aren't all evil. The internal evidence of the books seems to correspond with that, right up until the end when whoosh! Basically every Slytherin student and teacher turns Quisling and helps the Death Eaters stomp all over Hogwarts. The one exception is Snape, and it's notable that at the very end Harry names his kid after Snape because of Snape's courage - the Griffindor virtue, not traditionally anything to do with Slytherin.

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lessofthat

at 10:23 on 2007-08-30Fair enough. Looking back, I can remember that sense that though the first three were flawed, there was something a bit different about them; the Slytherins had that aristocracy-of-hell feel that old guard Tories like Heseltine do (they may be scum, but they're engaging scum and you know where you are with them); Snape was, as Kyra says, not bad but not nice. I remember even being faintly impressed that Rowling knew what colour a philosopher's stone would be, but that she didn't feel the need to regurgitate all the matching alchemical background. It suggested she'd bothered to do the research but wore it lightly.

I wasn't that impressed though. I also remember reading a quote by some publishing type on the back of the first book way back in like '98, to the effect that future generations of children will talk about Diagon Alley the way past ones talked about the Hundred Acre Wood or, I don't know, Byker Grove or something. I thought that was ridiculous hyperbole. I suppose that's why he's a publishing type and I'm not, because how wrong was I.

@empink. The hype and social enthusiasm bypassed me, largely for reasons of grumpiness I suppose. So that's a powerful inoculating factor too.

Again, I guess that Harry's abject blandness was less apparent in his pre-teenage years. I don't really understand children, so absence of personality in them is less troublesome. I imagine that's true of other people too.

"the problems aren't really pronounced enough to add up to anything coherently problematic." I still disagree - I think the Choosing Hat alone is a particularly repellent embodiment of the English class system - but I think I have a better idea of why bright, sane people were distracted enough not to be bothered.

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Arthur B

at 13:16 on 2007-08-30On Harry's personality: half the reason book 5 lost me was that Harry became a repugnant, grumpy teenager. He was a well-observed repugnant teen, and I can just about barely remember what it was like being one myself, but there's a reason most people don't want to hang out with such oiks once they get over puberty, and that's because they're completely awful to be around.

In the earlier books his main personality trait was utter confusion and occasional amazement and wonder when regarding the world he'd been thrust into, which worked nicely with his role as the character we see the world through. It's a good device for the first three-or-so books, but it couldn't have been maintained for the entire series - nobody would have bought it if Rowling had tried to have Harry still be completely bowled over by the awesomeness of the wizarding world when he's lived in it for over half a decade - but it's a crying shame she didn't have anything particularly good to replace it with.

Re: the Sorting Hat - in the early books, I could accept the Sorting Hat as being a nice pastiche of the apparently arbitrary nature kids get assigned to classes and houses in secondary school. I could convince myself that the Hat essentially took a quick look at the students' personalities and flung them into whichever House seemed to have the most suitable internal culture for them, and the different characters of the Houses were a result of a self-perpetuating internal culture that the Hat just reinforced. It eventually became brutally apparent that the Hat is essentially a living filter for the Elect, and that being chosen as Gryffindor by the Hat is essentially an absolute vote of confidence in your moral integrity, but it took a while; again, it wasn't until book 5 that I realised that we'd never seen

one

single person who didn't fit in perfectly in their House, and

come on

: just because you're hard-working or brave or ambitious at 11 doesn't mean that's still going to be the case when you're 15.

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empink

at 13:19 on 2007-08-30@lessofthat I don't really understand children, so absence of personality in them is less troublesome. I imagine that's true of other people too.

SO TRUE.

I still disagree - I think the Choosing Hat alone is a particularly repellent embodiment of the English class system

That's what I would have said after reading it. I can't remember how many times I wanted to point at JKR's treatment of the women in her book (married, had babies, or wanted to, or died, or died regardless, or were ugly, unsexy and old) and ask people what they thought was up with THAT. Then again, I remember how much less that would have pinged me a year or two ago, when I was still supposedly not a feminist. Snape's "I see no difference" feels particularly apt in this case. Until you *do* see the difference, or have it pointed out to you in a way you can't bring yourself to ignore, you...don't. And to others who do, you either look like a huge, defensive jackass, or like Stupid of the century. And to others who don't, you are Sane McGrateful for the author's bounty. And even that's simplifying the whole thing, but really, that's how it seems to have worked in my corner so far.

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Dan H

at 00:40 on 2007-09-07Sorry I haven't commented: No internet.

In short, the reason that it took me a while to realise that Rowling was espousing a repulsive moral philosophy is that the series went through a massive genre shift between (roughly) books four and five, and assumptions which are perfectly acceptable in a boarding school romp have no place in a serious story about love and death and choices.

I always saw the Sorting Hat as being a metaphor for the cliques you get at school. The Slytherins are the privileged popular kids, the Ravenclaw are the swots, Hufflepuff are everybody else. Gryffindor - in the early books - was essentially just "the hero and his mates". There's comparatively little evidence that Gryffindors are *objectively* superior in the early books - there's just Harry's natural tendency to side with his friends. Indeed in the early books there's a fair number of dodgy Gryffindors (like Peter Pettigrew) and admirable non-Gryffindors (like Cedric Diggory and, arguably, Snape). In book five we even discover that James Potter was a bullying little shit. By the start of book six, things actually looked reasonably complex, and rather grown up. The last two books, though, took all of that apart. The Slytherins all leave in the final battle, James Potter wasn't a bully at all, he was just mad at Snape because he called Lily Potter a bad name, and we are asked to take Harry's desire for vengeance as evidence of his moral superiority.

Essentially I didn't find the early books morally repulsive, because I didn't think they were trying to make any kind of moral statement beyond "it is good to stick by your friends" and possibly "believe in yourself". The whole business with Sorting and predestination was just a convenient plot device to give the hero a set of allies and enemies. Early Potter doesn't advocate predeterminism any more than the Lord of the Rings advocates genocide.

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at 11:32 on 2009-08-09Aw come on Hemmens, don't you think getting that level of publicity could have turned your head like it did JKR's? I don't blame her for over reaching herself and her abilities given the phenomenal publicity she received. I shudder to think what it would have done to my mind!

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Robinson L

at 00:30 on 2009-08-11

I don't blame her for over reaching herself and her abilities given the phenomenal publicity she received. I shudder to think what it would have done to my mind!

Sure it's understandable for fame to go to her head. Doesn't make the results any less execrable.

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http://lunabell14.myopenid.com/

at 22:42 on 2010-07-27Actually, in Order of the Phoenix, during the sorting hat song, it sings this line (credit from Mugglenet):

For instance, Slytherin Took only pure-blood wizards Of great cunning, just like him

So basically, Rowling admits even earlier that Slytherins are all racist, and therefore the bad guys. I remember this kind of bugged me when I read it, since there is definitely no relationship between being cunning and being pure-blood. And you would think since Voldemort and Snape could by-pass the pure-blood rule, they would get rid of that criteria.

But honestly, I don't see how she can get credit for complex characterization when there such sweeping generalizations about Gryffindors and Slyterins. Especially when some of the good guys show what I consider some very questionable morality (such as Harry crucio-ing the Death Eater over nothing, Dumbledore being a manipulative dick, etc.)

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http://prue84.livejournal.com/

at 23:06 on 2011-02-20I've avidly read this articol and how hell, how you are right!

I admit I'm never been Harry fan (I'm a "Slytherin" person because I feel I fell in that house - not a fan because they're the evil!), but this articole make me even less fan of Harry.

I'd also like to point out what I feel about Draco/Malfoys and Ron/Weasleys: they are basically the same, as both the families are racist but, when Draco say something nasty about Ron (usually something about being poor), he is labelled as "evil" while when Ron says something nasty about Draco (and Slytherins in general), he is still the good guy (or the Chosen One's biggest friend). What always bugged me is that Slytherin's House has some qualities (if I remember right, the Sorting Hat explain them in the first book), and yet "all in Slytherin are bad". What, why? Why there can't be bad or asses in the other houses? Why there is no Death Eater's son in Rawenclaw? Why Slytherins' students are all "Death Eater's wannabes?": couldn't be that many of them have pressures? Couldn't be that many of these families are simply acting like nobles families had done during the centuries, acting in a way while they wanted nothing more than be free to hug, kiss and reward?

I'm going totally off-topic here, but...

Thanxs for this articole! I have read the one regarding Abused Woman in the media and I'll slowly made my way in this site: too many interesting analysis. :)

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http://shrek2be.livejournal.com/

at 14:05 on 2011-12-30I am not too intelligent to say that I understand what you have writtenabove in your post Daniel.I'll try to interpret DH and essentially HP in my own little simplistic way.

The problem for me is Rowling tries to keep Harry as Jesus and then convert him back to a human . Dumbledore ideally should be the Merlin/Gandalf figure (or like GOD with Harry being the son of GOD) but due to poor writing comes across as a bad human being. who shouldn't be preaching philosophy as he still believed in the greater good with the way he treated Harry.

I haven't read LOTR but have watched the movies and even Tolkien understands Frodo has changed irrevocably because he is no longer normal that he has to go to Valinor which I guess is the term for heaven. Rowling doesn't get this part at all. The epilogue validates how naive Rowling is terms of understanding religion. Harry's ideal character growth for me would be accepting that he has never been normal.

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http://ladylazarus1027.livejournal.com/

at 00:38 on 2012-07-12

I'm fairly sure Rowling didn't start attending the Church of Scotland until she was in her late twenties* -- at the absolute earliest-- but I can see why you wouldn't want facts to get in the way of your rant.

* According to wikipedia, she was born and raised in Gloucestershire, quite far from Scotland.

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Jamie Johnston

at 17:27 on 2012-07-13Greetings, unnecessarily sarcastic commenter! I don't know when (or whether) Rowling joined the Church of Scotland, but it's possible for her to have done so without living in Scotland. There is, for example, a Church of Scotland church near where I work in central London.

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Shim

at 20:39 on 2012-07-13A quick googling shows

this article from the Telegraph

which says she was raised as an Anglican. When she joined the Church of Scotland, I have no idea, and the Anglican church is very varied, so it's not that enlightening.

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Dan H

at 21:09 on 2012-07-13

Thanks for the clarification. To be honest, though, I'm not convinced that there is much difference between "was raised" and "was influenced by in her twenties" and I'm not sure whether that particular detail actually has much to do with my central argument, which is that the Harry Potter books present a world in which some people are predestined towards salvation and others not.

What Rowling herself believes, or why she believes it, or when she started believing it is distinctly secondary.

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http://fishinginthemud.livejournal.com/

at 02:54 on 2012-07-14I think people are tripping up on the idea that Rowling's terrible writing is due to her being a deranged Calvinist, rather than just a terrible writer. I don't think this article really pushes that connection very hard, but I can see why people who want to nitpick for the sake of nitpicking would jump on that.

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Dan H

at 10:34 on 2012-07-14I think that's probably the case. Ironically I think the article actually argues fairly strongly that Rowling *isn't* a deranged Calvinist, and that if she was her writing would probably be somewhat improved.

The problem I have with the attitude to Salvation in the Potter books is that it superficially resembles Calvinist Election without any of the theological underpinnings.

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Cammalot

at 11:38 on 2012-07-14

The problem I have with the attitude to Salvation in the Potter books is that it superficially resembles Calvinist Election without any of the theological underpinnings.

Yes, and I'd speculate that seems like that *would* be a product of a later-in-life association with the church, rather than early internalization of the doctrine.

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Ibmiller

at 11:38 on 2012-07-14Rather hilariously, I love this article, and I am a Calvinist (who some call deranged...) Completely agree that Rowling's world would improve from theological underpinnings other than "some people who are pretty are nice and some people who don't have noses are racist."

Hmmm...the Harry Potter series rewritten by a deranged Calvinist...if I were any kind of writer, I might want to take that up as a challenge...

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http://fishinginthemud.livejournal.com/

at 11:55 on 2012-07-14I think this specifically is what's getting people.

If [Rowling belongs to the Church of Scotland] is true, then it seems that Rowling has allowed her faith to strongly influence her work.

That implies a more direct connection than the one I got: that

Potter

and Calvinism both espouse a similar salvation-of-the-elect worldview, the difference being that Calvinists have put a bit more thought and indeed humanity and decency into their version. Their conclusions about how life works aren't the inadvertent result of an overlong fantasy series spinning out of an inexperienced writer's control.

Potter

would likely have ended up the same way if Rowling had never heard of Calvinism.

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http://fishinginthemud.livejournal.com/

at 12:02 on 2012-07-14

I am a Calvinist (who some call deranged...)

I actually don't think Calvinists are any more deranged than any other religious group. What would make Rowling's worldview deranged would be a conscious attempt to decontextualize Calvinist or most other religious beliefs into something secular, which I think everyone agrees probably did not happen.

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Ashimbabbar

at 14:27 on 2014-04-25• It's an extremely interesting and deep analysis ( not that everybody hadn't noticed, but now I have too )

• The "but of course Voldemort wouldn't repent" makes an interesting contrast with LOTR [ Tolkien being a Catholic ]. Here Saruman could really have repented ( after the Ents smashed Isengard ), it is not his 'nature' that prevents him too, only his choice ( I think LOTR would have been much better if he had but never mind that ). Gollum too could have if it hadn't been for Sam's hostility and his own reaction to it… they were really offered the choice.

• This "Rowlingian Calvinism", for want of a better term, sounds like a very good belief for the bad guys in a Fantasy novel…

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Daniel F

at 15:46 on 2014-04-25

it is not his 'nature' that prevents him too, only his choice ( I think LOTR would have been much better if he had but never mind that ).

I'm morbidly curious now...

#Ferretbrain #Harry Potter #J.K. Rowling #Dan H #Religion

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theseashellscenter · 5 years

Text

Joel’s Inferno

So I just cooked up this ludicrous Game Theory-tier speculation comparing The Last of Us to Dante’s Inferno and now all I can do spread it around for whoever cares to see. It’s long as fuck so I’ll put it below a cut. I don’t think it actually has any basis in the devs’ intent but it was a fun thought exercise and made more sense the more I wrote. Gets real melodramatic at the end. Waste your time reading it at your own risk.

Playing through the game recently I began to think about how the story is constructed and how a progression of events leads the characters to their eventual conclusion. Essentially, it occurred to me that Joel and Ellie endure a series of increasing hardships which tests and strengthens their relationship before ultimately emerging on the other side together. The thought came to me that this could be compared to a story like Dante's Inferno, where the hero descends into Hell and experiences its worst depths before returning.

Then I started to wonder, could the game's events be directly compared to the nine circles of Hell? For those who don't know, the poem Dante's Inferno depicts Hell as being made up of nine circles, each corresponding to a sin and getting worse (both in terms of the sin and the punishment for the sin) as they go lower. I decided the most fitting way to compare them was for each circle to correspond to people Joel and Ellie meet on their journey.

Keep in mind this is just a thought experiment. As you'll be able to tell from how far many of these had to be stretched to fit, I don't think it was intentional. But I still thought it was an interesting concept.

Limbo: the first circle of Hell, for those who did not sin enough to be damned but also didn't accept God in order to be saved. Among them are unbaptized children, too young to know God but too innocent to go to Hell. This is the prologue of the game, ending with the death of Joel's daughter Sarah, and thus Joel's entry into Hell.

Lust: The early part of the game with Tess. Tess chooses to die out of dedication to the cause of Ellie and her immunity, and Joel initially continues escorting Ellie only in honor of Tess and their partnership together. Notably, one of her last lines is “Look, there's enough here that you have to feel some sort of obligation to me.” What “enough here” exactly means is never made explicit, and they may only have ever been fellow smugglers, but it's clear that at the time when the game begins Tess is the person Joel cares about most. This “obligation” between a man and a woman is the closest the game comes to depicting Lust, and it leads to Tess's death.

Gluttony: Bill's town. Bill is the fattest character in the game (possibly the only person with an out-of-shape build in the entire game, actually), a characteristic which Ellie derisively comments on during their scenes together. Fittingly, this is also where Joel first encounters a bloater, the name of which speaks for itself (and is ironically fought in a high school gym). While obesity may not seem like Bill's most notable flaw, it indirectly symbolizes the isolation and paranoia that defines him, as his reliance on traps to keep others away and do the fighting for him would allow him to avoid exerting himself more than necessary and his careless appearance suggests his disregard for the conventions of outsiders.

Greed: This is Sam. Though not greedy in the traditional sense, Sam shows a form of greed by desiring more than he should in the scene where he attempts to pick up a toy, for which Henry rebukes him with the saying “We only take what we have to.” This greed is a shorthand for the flaws Henry sees in Sam, which Sam is insecure about. These arguments lead Sam to resent his brother and cause him to hide his infection when he is bitten. His final activity before death, counting cans of food while the others are relaxing, demonstrates an opposite form of Greed to that of the toy scene. Sam hordes these items not because he personally desires them but because he thinks his brother will approve, a reversal which is reinforced when he despondently throws away the same toy after Ellie brings it to him.

Wrath: Henry. Henry is characterized largely by his unhappy relationship with his brother, who he views as disobedient and incapable and who he frequently criticizes for his errors. Though this behavior is motivated by love for his brother, whom he wants to keep safe, Sam only sees it as anger. He also first meets Joel and Ellie when he attacks them on sight, and is occasionally aggressive when Joel expresses doubt toward him. His last words are spoken in irrational anger, blaming Joel for the death of his brother before killing himself.

Heresy: Tommy, who Joel goes to in hope that he will bring Ellie to the Fireflies, only to find that Tommy abandoned their cause a long time ago (making him a heretic to their “faith”) and has taken up his own community (whom Joel mockingly refers to as “born again,” a phrase with religious associations). While Marlene can be heard in the opening credits telling people that “When you're lost in the darkness, look for the light,” suggesting the Fireflies as saviors, Tommy has found his own source of light – the electricity produced by the dam his community has restarted. Joel also says his split from Tommy was due to a difference in worldviews (which is reinforced during their argument, where Tommy says they “ain't back in Boston” and that his time surviving with Joel “wasn't worth it”), making him a heretic from Joel's way of life as well.

Joel himself shows a sort of Heresy during this section by attempting to leave Ellie behind, representing a trial of his own “faith” — his love for his daughter. The picture Tommy provides him of his daughter (which he turns down much like he is trying to send away Ellie) is the most obvious suggestion of the connection between the two up to this point. Toward the end of the section with Tommy, Joel at first appears to completely abandon his bond with her by telling her “You're not my daughter, and I sure as hell ain't your dad. And we are going our separate ways.” However, he resolves to stay with her shortly after, claiming that he is afraid of Tommy's wife and encouraging Tommy to stay with her and his community. In a sense, Joel attempts to restore Tommy's faith in his cause in order to escape the difficulties of his own, but he ultimately chooses to be faithful himself and let his brother remain a heretic.

Violence: David. David's section of the game contains four significant instances of violence (which is saying something, for a game as generally violent as this one). First is Joel's impalement, which occurs during Fall but was caused by combat with bandits who David later reveals are part of his group. Second is the revelation that David and his people are cannibals, a form of violence even further than anything seen up to this point, which connects them moreso with the infected than with other humans. Third is Joel's torture and killing of two of David's men, perhaps the first time we truly see extent of the brutality and even cruelty Joel is capable of. Lastly is Ellie's killing of David, an act so violent it isn't shown on screen and the trauma of which seems to finally seal her and Joel's devotion to one another. It also acts as counterpart to Joel's earlier violence, showing the great lengths both will go to when the other is in danger.

Fraud: Marlene and the Fireflies. From Joel's perspective, their choice to kill Ellie is a betrayal. This is fairly clear-cut; while they promise to help humanity, Joel can only see them as trying to destroy what he loves most, making them dishonest in his eyes. Joel also sees Marlene as breaking her promise to Ellie's mother to keep her safe. The Inferno classifies the worst frauds as “Falsifiers, those who attempted to alter things through lies or alchemy, or those who tried to pass off false things as real things.” Joel sees the Fireflies as unworthy heroes for humanity (impostors), trying to convert a girl's life into a cure (alchemy/counterfeiting). Just as these frauds are punished with disease in Hell, Joel massacres the occupants of a hospital, doctors included, takes away the only hope for a cure and condemns humanity to the cordyceps plague.

Treachery: The last circle and the worst sin, Treachery, is embodied by Joel himself. In the final scene he lies to Ellie about what happened with the Fireflies — a lie which Ellie may or may not recognize, but which marks a point from which they can never return, the final stage in their relationship. Before questioning Joel's story and making him swear it is the truth, Ellie tells him about how her friend Riley told her they would die together after being bitten, but as Ellie puts it, she's “Still waiting for [her] turn.” Both Riley and Joel have told her lies, but where the former was an effort to reassure her told out of ignorance of the harsh truth, Joel's was created with full awareness of what really happened and serves his own purposes more than Ellie's.

In trying to protect her from the trials of Hell, Joel's love for Ellie ultimately condemns him to its lowest depths.

Much like in Dante's Inferno, the successive layers of Hell are each reserved for worse sins. Sarah is the most innocent and nonthreatening character in the game; Tess, though capable of violence, is clearly a devoted ally to Joel; Bill is also an ally, but of a more begrudging kind; Sam and Henry are both friendly but unfamiliar, not entirely reliable and eventually self-destructive; Tommy, though by no means hostile, outright refuses to uphold Joel's request at first while Sam and Henry had been eager to cooperate; David pretends to be friendly but turns out to be an unhinged antagonist with some particularly reprehensible traits; the Fireflies are far more sympathetic and civilized but want to kill Ellie immediately, whereas David was obsessed with keeping her alive. Finally, the player realizes that all along they have been controlling the most dangerous character of all — and as our control shifts to Ellie in the last scene, we know he will never let us go so long as he lives, for better or for worse.

#the last of us #tlou #dante's inferno #joel and ellie #neil druckmann

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