#i always really really like herawell whether thats romantic or something more like queerplatonic

[sammygender]

michelle agresti on maxwell ( + her relationship with hera): transcript from wolf 359 ama #3, 1:41:00 to 1:49:00

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qz95mRZ7VMg&t=4642s

watching the ama and was very struck by these eight minutes of conversation about maxwell so... started writing a transcript for my own future reference + to maybe link to on the wiki so... thought there's no better place to post it than here. for the most part it's transcribed exactly as spoken but there's some repeated words, hestitations etc that i obviously didn't write in. ive bolded specific parts that really interested me (also all this starts capitalised properly but then as i fight to keep up with the speech i stop capitalising... sorry abt that in advance)

this starts with the question: "*slides michelle agresti a $20* tell me absolutely everything about dr alana maxwell. especially hera and maxwell's relationship"

(1:41:00)

Michelle: So first I'm going to say something that I wanted to talk about. So first when I was cast Gabriel wrote a backstory and sent it to me and I was thrilled because, I don't know how he did it, but he somehow nailed certain aspects of my high school and middle experience? that I'd never revealed, at least to Gabriel-- [laughs]

Gabriel: I promise I did not stalk you-

Michelle: It just, it talked about how Maxwell very quickly- how it was very quickly evident in her small country home town that she was brilliant, brilliant in an academic way let me clarify, brilliant at school, and she- and that's kind of like the coat tails that she rode throughout her life, and she achieved things very early, like she went to high school early, she went to college early, she went to grad school early. Because she was so focused on this academic part of her life - and because she kind of like, was skewed in social things, like we know she's got a restraining order on her family, like she kind of has skewed social relations to some extent, or at least what we consider 'normal' standard relations with people, so she kind of- and she was younger than everybody else so she kinda like grew up and reached puberty in a surprising way to her, and it was like she was considered in more of an academic sense, as like a brilliant child and a brilliant young woman for so long that like, all of a sudden, she was now a sexual being, and people looked at her that way, and she didn't know how to deal. And I think that shaped a lot of Maxwell's personality. It was like, one day, she was treated differently and she didn't know how to use it, and Maxwell is a person that uses everything she has. She's a person that uses the tools that are available to her - I think this can get morally shady, but she's on her own moral compass. That's something that was probably initially- I mean I was always a little bit Alana Maxwell because we had a lot of direction in steering these characters and I kind of like immediately seized upon like the idea of ‘she's the only girl in a team of boys and she's totally brilliant she's younger than them and she's probably smarter than them’ [laughs] but that backstory really, like, sealed the deal for me, and I sent an email to Gabriel about it being like HOW DID YOU KNOW??

Michelle: as for maxwell and hera... the relationship between the two of them. take it back to that concept of personhood. maxwell has a very interesting and a different relationship with AIs. they're her passion they're her life's work. i don't think she considers them to be equivalent to humans i think she considers them something different but of equal or more value. i also think maxwell has trouble interacting with humans... which is why her relationship with jacobi is so important. so the relationship between hera and maxwell... i mean i can speak for what i think hera is to maxwell is that there's someone who can finally talk to her not like she's a person. i think the humans on the spaceship interact with hera like she's a human, like if you look at the episode ‘am i alone now’ where hera talks, like people are always like 'hera can you hear me' and she's like i can always hear you... or if you look at the memories in memoria or even the last episode... like maxwell would've known at that funeral that hera doesn't really know what death is. because maxwell knows that hera isn't really a person- i mean human, let me make that distinction clear, she isn't really a human. so... i think there was this like very special and almost- and immediate deep trust between the two of them and has been pointed out hera is a very impressive ai so maxwell respects that and i mean you're kidding yourself if you think maxwell doesn't know that hera tried to escape i mean like maxwell knows this. so i think- maxwell uniquely respects hera as an AI and i think she understand's hera's sudden deep relief that she's talking to a human who knows what's going on - not entirely, but someone who is sympathetic and somebody's who's aware that they're different from her.

Gabriel: who can treat her on her own terms, who's not just projecting the terms and the needs of herself on her but who can understand her--

Zach: so... not a burrito loving buffoon

Gabriel: [laughs] sure

Michelle: no but i mean i think that relationship's valuable in its own way

Zach: right right-

Michelle: it's just that i mean if we're talking about blind spots-

Sarah: it's also that this is the first person who can speak her language like literally she speaks her language

Zach: yeah exactly right right that was an insensitive jokey way of saying like ‘here's somebody who gets her in a way that no one else has before’

Michelle: yeah

Zach: without like obvious malintent (cough cough pryce)

Michelle: yeah, pryce and maxwell... yeah but no i think the fact that maxwell truly understands that she's different and does not have the same experiences as hera makes them much closer, makes the relationship really special. as for- i feel like this was like asking something about romantic aspects kind of ish? i mean, that was never addressed and i think for myself as an actress and maxwell it's kind of a relief, i think, that because it's an ai human relationship that like this sexual... that like maxwell isn't being judged or seen through her body in a sexual way because that i think-- i mean that i know is very difficult for maxwell to deal with when it happened as, you know, that happens, so... yeah i think was really important for maxwell and i think that's also why she likes dealing with ais because they don't have bodies

(1:49:00)

#wolf 359 #i transcribed this instead of doing revision for the life-altering deeply important french exam i have tomorrow #alana maxwell #hera #herawell #w359 #transcript #i just found this whole section so deeply fascinating #i fucking love alana maxwell thank you and goodnight #and the end bit about herawell is also something really interesting to consider #i always really really like herawell whether thats romantic or something more like queerplatonic #its just... its a very special relationship #idk