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snikt111 · 5 days

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hi hi hi hi I found out about Hal Jordan TODAY and am going so autistic over him it’s insane can you please give me a rundown on what his deal is I think you’re the Tumblr Green Lantern guy

omg hi, insane compliment btw, tysm! i'm glad to give you a rundown!! also definitely check out @katmaatui for more hal info, red is SUPER knowledgable abt him. @rillette, @catboyollie, @halcarols, @starsapphire and @yellowcorps (along with so many others that i cant think to tag off the top of my head) have some great hal takes too! (edited the post just to tag more ppl)

apologies if this is a bit rushed/messy, i'm doing this while i smelt stone in minecraft LMAO

that being said... i think this will be a long one, so more below the cut :3

(cw for light mentions of pedophilia, abuse, canon typical violence)

okay, so hal jordan is the first human green lantern of the GREEN LANTERN CORPS. it's important to note that there was technically a human green lantern before him (alan scott, originally from earth two/the justice society, but integrated into main DC canon after crisis), but his power comes from a different source- which is a whole different ballpark that would take ages to explain, lol, so i'll move on from that.

hal was originally introduced in a showcase issue in 1959, but ended up getting a solo run in the mid 60s because of his showcase issues doing well. he's been a test pilot, middle brother, compassionate, rule follower (although being surprisingly liberal for the time) with an interesting relationship with star sapphire carol ferris since those first appearances. for the first 20 odd years of his appearances we had no information on his parents, but we got a lot from other family members, such as uncle titus, cousin hal jr (aka airwave), younger brother jim jordan and older brother jack jordan. through the 60s and 70s those members of his family were developed along with him; with the audience learning that jim's wife sue thought jim was green lantern, rather than hal, and hal himself training his cousin, hal jr.

the most known version of how hal got the ring in the first place is probably based off of geoff john's rewrite in the mid 00s, reiterating the original story of abin sur crashing onto earth and dying, leaving hal with his ring to be trained by sinestro and the rest of the glc, while also changing miniscule details that had been developed in emerald dawn 1 & 2 (which was released in the 90s, more on that later). the main premise of abin sur's crash has stayed the same, but the story around hal's current life, job, family and stability keep changing. for instance, the original comic with abin sur in showcase only showed hal getting the ring, the guardians choosing him. the first rewrite i can think of was emerald dawn volume 1, published in 1989 and continued in emerald dawn v2 (1991). here we get the classic hal watches his father die in a plane crash with carol ferris beside him as a pre adolescent, and some of the biggest implications of the mistreatment from his father. we also get introduced to hal, despite his stick to the rules, straight edge attitude, making some serious mistakes and putting people in danger and even death- with the implication of alcohol abuse. the audience HAS known hal used to be in the air force since sometime in the late 60s or early 70s (sorry, i don't remember the exact issue!), but emerald dawn shows us that hal's moved on from the air force and into test piloting, and that his mother keeps having to bail him out for making mistakes. emerald dawn vol 1 shows the abin sur moment, followed by fights that cost hal's friends life, and is followed up by sinestro training hal in emerald dawn vol 2, where we get to see the iconic scenes of hal finding out about sinestro and his... dictatorship.

along with that; how the guardians and rings are treated and hal and the glc's perception of them is vastly changed over time. in the early days of gl in the 60s, the guardians were really never to be seen. hal was repeatedly summoned to them and then had his memory almost fully wiped- only leaving a vague notion of his orders. the guardian's called hal to them at seemingly the worst times, ending up with him almost getting injured, getting in trouble at work, and even ending up jobless and homeless. the chaos of being a green lantern has been around the WHOLE time, but originally, the green lanterns didnt really... fight it. the guardian's were their masters (and even father figures, to hal) and not to be questioned. the rings in the 60s were also much more powerful, despite the yellow weakness (the yellow weakness is the notion that from about the 60s to the mid 90s the green lantern rings were completely unable to be used against anything yellow). time travel, phasing, teleporting, etc were all very viable and common things- as well as forceful shapeshifting, invisibility, mind control, mind reading, etc etc. these days, writers have dampened these powers down to mostly shooting light and constructs.

okay, it's parallax time. the emerald twilight arc from the mid 90s wasn't an arc that was as thoroughly planned out over a long period of time as it probably should have been. a lot of fans at the time (and even now) hated what happened there, and claimed it ruined hal's character entirely. i can understand why! but, at it's core, the parallax arc is a story about a broken man pushed to the limit, fully grieving his home and family (originally, he lost his brother jim in the destruction of coast city, along with a lot of other family members) and being goddamn fed up with how his "masters" treated him and the rest of the corps. the so called "perfect lantern" (no, he wasn't that much of a rebel, despite what johns wants you to think) snapped and essentially tried to gain as much power as he could to bring back coast city. when the guardians stripped him of his powers so he couldn't, hal became enraged and took down every lantern in his path, just to get to the guardians and that power. long story short, he kills the guardians and absorbs all the energy from the central power battery on oa, becoming parallax- essentially a god. this marks the start of zero hour, an event made by dc to restructure and reset; giving the comics a new generation of heroes. hal destroys the world and remakes it, but is ultimately taken down by kyle rayner, the new green lantern, with the help of the jla, jsa and associates. there are a few more run ins with parallax after this, before kyle convinces parallax/hal that he can make up for all of this by reigniting the sun after it went out- aka killing himself. hal does it, is stuck in limbo for awhile and then becomes the spectre to continue to make up for the horrible things he did as parallax. the spectre is the spirit of god's wrath and vengeance, a weapon used to drag sinners to their very own, self made hells, and scare the shit out of people. the spectre, from it's very first appearance, is a ghost like spirit that takes on a host, and is primarily described using christian terms and is used in a very... christian ideology. HOWEVER, the spectre 2001 confirms that hal is jewish (jewish mom, catholic dad) and that belief system, plus his personality as a whole, literally makes him change the spirit of vengeance into the spirit of redemption, for at least as long as they are bonded. the whole parallax to spectre arc is about grief, pain, cycles of abuse and terror, redemption and guilt. it is NOT about a fear bug that possess hal. (im so serious though, the spectre 2001 is one of the best comics ive ever read. amazing. changed my world view) but... geoff johns changed all of it, decanonized the spectre, and ruined the legacy of parallax and hal's growth as a person by releasing green lantern: rebirth in 2004/2005. this retcons hal's breakdown and journey through grief into him BEING POSSESSED BY AN ENTITY CONTROLLED BY SINESTRO THAT FULLY CHANGES PREVIOUS GREEN LANTERN CANON AND IMPLICATIONS. also, fucks up the importance of kyle becoming ion, but whatever. geoff johns writes hal (and even more so, carol) so very wrong, and change their stories so vastly in ways that go against the stories very meanings.

SIGH.

now... time to get started on some rougher stuff. hal jordan misconceptions. i'm saving that arc for last.

- hal jordan wasn't much of a rule breaker or rebel until the 70s/80s, where he BEGAN (very slowly, mind you) to be radicalized by oliver queen during denny o'neil's green lantern/green arrow. hal was painted as more of a conservative during this period (which, admittedly, kind of goes against previous canon... he's always been relatively central to liberal, not to any extremes like ollie though, lol) but gets more and more understanding of how power structures work and how lower classes are mistreated during this time- which ends up opening his eyes a bit to how shitty the guardians are. (this is helped by the guardians literally just. leaving. the green lanterns and kind of disbanding them so they can go fuck the zamarons, lmao). geoff johns tried to change this narrative into making hal a very... maverick-from-top-gun type of character, who punched his way out of the military (when, in reality, the original story during emerald knights in the late 90s was that hal had been framed for stealing a jet and was dishonorably discharged, which he took the punishment for because he knew someone had to) and hits on women constantly and gets ladies and allat (which, funnily enough hal was awful at getting carol to like him for a long time, since carol fell for green lantern rather than hal. not to mention the awkwardness of carol's proposals or hal's many, many failed relationships). hal has always been insecure and lowkey boyfailure, he is NOT a top gun maverick tom cruise sorta guy! fuck you jeremy adams!

- hes not that much of an idiot asshole. hal can be a real dick, he's had that going for him since the beginning, but he isn't what you read in batfam fics. he's not stupid and shouldn't be the laughingstock of the justice league. i assume this idea started from the obsession with batfam and the fact that the jla has quite the history of ignoring hal and his issues (as well as. all of their issues. theyre not so great at work life balance), but it's gone too far. hal isn't making fun of the robins and pissing bruce off bc of that. hal isnt fooling around on the job 24/7 (he takes being a gl and pilot VERY seriously, although he does enjoy some danger and high stakes) or slacking off to get girls. again. not top gun maverick.

- hal has not been a creep since the beginnings. hal was not weird with carol in the 60s. things were weird between them, yeah, but that's based off circumstance and the craziness of star sapphire and green lantern. he was NOT being horribly sleazy! i hate that i even need to say this, but i see this take too much not to

- going off of what was said above, lets discuss the arisia arc. if you want to be a real hal fan, this is unfortunately something you need to know about. in action comics, after crisis and the guardians left to go fuck the zamarons, most of the green lanterns fell apart and seperated. a small group went to earth- led by hal and consisting of hal, john stewart, katma tui, kilowog, salaakk, ch'p and arisia rrab. (also sometimes guy gardner, but that's complicated) previously to this arc, hal treated 14 year old arisia like a beloved little sister, welcoming her and leading her into the corps just like everyone else. things started to change once the timeline gets closer and closer to crisis, where arisia starts showing that she has a crush on hal (who is roughly 30s at this point). any advances made by arisia are shut down by hal at the beginning, because she's a child. now, it's unfortunately a common thing to just call hal a "pedophile" because of what happens in this arc- but it really isn't that simple. still weird and icky, but definitely not to the degree of which some fans like to act like it is- esp to attack hal fans for, which is... an odd choice regarding how many fucked up things every character (esp male characters) did back in the day. arisia ends up using her power ring to artifically age herself up, making her body AND MIND into that of a young adult (the comic makes this very clear). once this happens... hal stops rejecting her. they get together, they kiss. the only person in the group of green latnerns who actually has an issue with it is john (salaakk is meh about it, but he just doesn't like human-esque romance no matter what), and katma even directly encourages their relationship. kilowog ends up crushing on arisia as well, and guy gardner hits on her repeatedly throughout the whole period. eventually, hal and arisia break up, but this legacy (thank so much englehart, for wrtiting this. /sarc) is a big controversy among the comics crowd. "is hal jordan a predator?" personally, and i know a lot of friends/mutuals/other gl fans choose to erase the arisia arc entirely (versus how canon ended up retconning it to be 14 earth years is equal to that of an adult and she didn't really get super ages up, or whatever) and go with the familial relationship between hal and her. that's my preferred version! i know red (@katmaatui) has explored that version as well as an alternate version where the arisia arc did happen, and how it affects arisia in particular, which is really depressing but super interesting. anyway, it's complicated and weird and nuanced, but that whole occurence doesn't mean hal's a bad character or person (cause yk. retcons) and it's certainly not bad to like his character. (definitely ignore any guy gardner fans who try to bitch about this arc. cough cough. guy was ALSO into her and hit on her repeatedly. smfh) most people who bring this up to demonize fans didn't even read the arc, and don't know the nuance or the other weird shit that happens in it. (hal is not a horse, sigh)

OVERALL NOTES!

hal jordan is a super complicated character with an extensive history spanning from the 60s to his worse written appearances in modern age. it's okay to like any version of the character, but it is important to note the changes that have been made, the storylines butchered and lost, and more. he has quite the legacy, and he's particularly interesting as from a moral standpoint. hal's a real sweetie though, when it gets down to it! he's neurodivergent coded (imo at least.. his dad very much gets onto him for being disrtracted, hes kinda shit at social interaction (and then amazing at it the other half of the time) etc etc. "spacecase") and his dad is an abusive asshole, who he desperately doesnt want to be like but thinks he NEEDS to be like!

#i really dont know how to fit this last stuff in so its going in the tags #hal has quite the homoerotic tension relationship with his nemesis (but also close friend) sinestro #they repeatedly come back to each other and long to be alongside eachother #despite all the shit they hate about one another and their respective organizations #check out more of red's stuff for sinhal for sure lmao #for other hal relationships...#hal has a complicated relationship with his brothers and mother (at least when they were all alive)#hes very close friends with oliver queen (and dinah lance by proxy) and quite a lot of fans (me included) think theres some tension there.#homos!#he has a niece (helen jordan!) who is featured in the spectre and who he loves very much #hal and john are proclaimed best friends and care deeply for each other #hal and guy fight a lot but theyre in a similar boat #kyle looks up to hal quite a lot and hal is.... complicated about kylre #a lot of people ship hal and barry and i get why. its cute #not my fav though i think its overdone #hal jordan and carol ferris are so fucking important to eachother its SO important.#they need eachother in a wya thats confusing and sometimes toxic #idk what else to say feel free to ask more questions #sorry for the rant #and sorry that i mostly focused on 60s to early ish 00s thats my expertise #mordie answers #mordie speaks #hal jordan #green lantern #ch: who has time for heavenly things #uhhh #hal explanation #ok bye #hal jordan analysis #gl

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ofbreathandflame · 1 year

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im sorry im breaking my anti fast for this bc its literally the most idiotic thing i have ever seen.

"some people hate sjm for the racism in her books"

yeah NO SHIT.

that has always been the point.

thats literally the entire point of being anti sjm posts. thats literally all we talk about in the anti tags. but shortsightedness and an unhealthy relationship with these characters has always blinded y'all to that fact.

you see this is why i could not stomach conversations because you guys constantly make a mockery of the problems in sjm's work and only acknowledge the problems for a 'gotcha' moment. EVERY SINGLE TIME we have talked about how the racism in sjm's work affects the writing of her characters you guys have made it into an anti feysand problem, and by doing that you have willingly separated yourself from the problems in the story. the reality is that the racism affects the way these characters are written -- including your favs. do not dare twist the main message of antis to fit some twisted little point you want to make toward specific blogs. i have been on my last account for over two years and EVERY TIME i -- or any anti -- has talked about the way sjm's racism bleeds onto the text we have been undermine, ran off our blogs, sent hate mail. so yeah it pisses me off to no end to be sent the dumbest post in the anti tags to ever exist. yall do not care about her racism, her misogynoir. if you did, you wouldn't be calling people brain dead for daring to dislike your favorite ship for valid reason -- i.e. the racism. we talked about the complexities of how racist the portrayal of the illyrians were -- and we were dismissed as anti feysand and therefore 'braindead.' we talked about the way women of color and the allusions of FGM (female genital mutilation)-- and we were called anti feysands and then dismissed. stay out of the anti tags -- especially if you are the ones perpetuating these dynamics. i was ran off my blog for discussing these issues for two years. y'all sent hate mail, called me tamlin stan -- called others tamlin stans -- for even daring to discuss the racism in sjm works. that's not even touching the nehemia situation, or crescent city. fuck off the tags. you literally have a blog dedicated to this woman and her racist ass characters, you shoot down any criticism of them because of it, and then yall have the nerve to come into the tags for the some hehe hahah tamlin stan bs??? double fuck off. the anti sjm tag has always been a place for that criticism. always.

addition: and these problems are not just valid when discussing characters you don't like. the illyrians are written to brutes, with the bat boys operating as the 'model minority'. the story justifies the lack of infrastructure, and the misogyny (misogynoir depending on how you classify illyrian women), the lack of progress.

'its a culture problem'

'rhysand has tried, but they wont listen'

like do you know how crazy it is to write a group of people as permanently mentally stunted? to classify their women as nameless entities that our main character can shift in and out of to satisfy her supposed 'man of color' sexually? feyre cosplays as a woman of color for SEX, meanwhile in FIVE BOOKS we've met one named illyrian woman and shes described 'interesting,' but not as pretty as opposed to nesta and gwyn, mor, and feyre who are the prettiest people to walk the earth. that don't sound CRAZY to yall??? these people of color are left without leadership, without infrastructure, no access to a golden city, no access to their high lord, are forced to breed out warriors who live and die without ever getting to enjoy the city of velaris, the house of wind for survivors. all of that so that the maincharacters can live out that power fantasy. its racist. thats what it is. please think consider reading comprehension b4 yall make these gotcha posts because it really stinks of weirdness.

the illyrians are treated like rabid animals by their leaders, by everyone and then the responsibility is on them to somehow progress when everyone is unwilling to give them nothing more than scraps. like there's a real life counterpart to this, and yall arguments are very real and very damaging.

they are written by the author to be a permanent second class deserving of their position because they're minds somehow cannot comprehend any 'progression.' all of these characters including rhysand, feyre, mor, az, cassian, tamlin, nesta say racist things toward them because THE NARRATIVE thinks they're justified in saying them. like the moralizing is wild in this case bc all of them are allowed to get away with it. its not just tamlin or nesta, not just the valkyries (which is an ENTIRELY different scenario btw). like the idea that all of the bad can be ascribed to the 'bad' characters and the 'good' characters somehow don't feed into those racist tropes is WILD. rhysand literally told us -- the reader -- the in the war against slaves and their oppressors somehow it was an equal battle. like?????? somehow 'both sides were at fault' ignoring that one side WAS LITERALLY SLAVES. like can u imagine if someone looked at the Haitian revolution and was like....yeah the side of the oppressors was somehow on equal footing when the other side WAS ENSLAVED? how can u acknowledge this author is racist and then pretend that the racism only bleeds over to the characters you *shockingly* don't like?? yes -- there is a problem with feyre wearing illyrian wings BECAUSE SHES THE HIGH LADY. she made herself that title. of course that carries a different weight. the racism is ingrained in the text, not just some little trinket to flash when you want to moralize bullying a small group of people with strawman arguments.

#anti sjm #anon girl im BLEW FOR YOU #like imagine trying to chastise the community that was literally BUILT to critique the problems #and for what????#a gotcha to the tamlin stans that don't even exist???#yall are arguing with air #like i literally just had to delete my blog for this stuff and here yall are #in the tags kekeing like people havent been bullied for it #like yall are the champions for adversity \#when yall are the ones propagating the nonsense to begin #ew ew #bc then its 'how could you not like feysand'#idk BC OF THOSE PROBLEMS #like did you think the author's bias was NOT going to factor into the way the characters are written?#it became 'pro tamlin this' pro nesta that #like the illyrians are r*cist to the T #and that was ignored for the sake of feysand #yall are real irra #but at least i know that yall understand the problems in these stories #yall just dont care #anti feysand #when we talked about the feyre wing situation yall went out of your way to mock it

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