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lyledebeast · 4 months

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It's been a minute since I've written a post about The Patriot, but what better time than the next to last day of the year while recovering from covid?

A while ago, another parallel between Benjamin Martin and the titular character in my old, bygone fandom the BBC Robin Hood occurred to me. How many times does Robin threaten to throw in the towel on being the peoples' savior for reasons that range from his love interest being murdered to some townsfolk having the audacity to hold him responsible for the consequences the Sheriff of Nottingham doles out to all of them in response to his actions? A lot of times across the show's three seasons, it turns out. And it would be one thing if the point being made was that no one can save the world alone. Everyone gets overwhelmed sometimes and has to rely on their friends to pick them up. Considering that every time Robin quits, it is a friend who brings him back, that would be an excellent point to make. But it's not. It's Robin's name on the tin, and the show never lets us forget it.

Although "the patriot" technically refers to Martin's son Gabriel, it is Benjamin who is consistently presented as the movie's hero even as he is ready to give up every time something he failed to foresee happens or his solution to a problem does not immediately work. He gives up on reasoning with ALL British officers after his efforts with Colonel "Fire the house and barns" fail, resulting in massive carnage. He gives up on mounting any kind of offensive against the Green Dragoons when sends everyone home after arriving too late to save one family. He packs up to go home again after Gabriel dies. His momma raised a quitter for sure.

In some respects, the series is more grating because the arc over which the complication arises, the hero throws in the towel, his friends talk him out of it, and he eventually triumphs plays out in multiple episodes with no variation. But, there is another comparison to be made between the two. In Robin Hood, Sheriff Vaisey and Guy of Gisborne are both trying to increase their own power and wealth in different ways over the course of the series, and Robin is foiling them. Catching Robin is not the end goal for these antagonists that catching Martin becomes for Colonel Tavington. And Tavington, unlike his historical inspiration Banastre Tarleton, never gives up in all the months he spends in this pursuit. His response when General Cornwallis berates him for his failure to deliver Martin is simply "Thus far."

The final fight between him and Martin provides a particularly stark contrast. Tavington, by that point, has been violently thrown from his horse (deceased) and shot in the arm by Martin, not to mention that he is still recovering from being shot in the side by Gabriel a few days earlier. He doesn't care. He picks himself up, literally. He tells himself "Be Gay and Carry On," or "Keep Calm and do Crimes," and he attacks. Initially, he and Martin are evenly matched, and Tavington takes some more damage. He decks Martin in the face and slashes him with his saber. Martin, outraged, head-butts him and stabs him in the tit. Again, Tavington doesn't care. He is a bad bitch, and this is a typical Tuesday in the British Army. He rallies and slashes Martin on the back and legs and . . . that's pretty much the end of the fight as a fight.

(I must make an aside here that I was adamant at the outset of writing this that as soon as Tavington touched Martin, he was done. Martin was How Very Dare You? Don't You Know Who I Am? and just falls apart. That isn't quite true, but he certainly doesn't have the resilience of someone who has not had triumph handed to him again and again. Rewatch the source material when you write meta, folks.)

After punching Martin in the face and slashing his arm, Tavington, who has been fighting with only his saber up to this point, drops to one knee, picks up the bayonet that eventually ends up going through his neck, and rises with a menacing grin. Apparently, he wants to be evenly matched with Martin more than he wants to take advantage of Martin's loopiness from having been hit for the first time in twenty years with something more than an emotional blow. The slut. Of course, what also happens is that he gives Martin an opportunity to recover that Martin certainly does not give him (conduct of a gentleman be damned). And as we all know, it's certainly not the last time this happens.

Both of these low-pain-and-disappointment-tolerant heroes have the reputation of being great fighters, but I feel confident in saying Robin deserves his far more. Pretty much every time someone gains the upper hand over him, that person is fighting dirty. In The Patriot, let's be honest. Benjamin Martin is the dirty fighter here. He is very good at jumping out from behind trees to kill people who didn't know he was there one second before, but he sure as hell can't take a hit. Ultimately, his triumph is even more annoying than Robin's for several reasons. Robin's longsuffering, under-appreciated friends are usually able to get his ass back on track before peasant casualties accumulate iirc. Martin's inaction contributes significantly to the movie's very high civilian body count. For this reason, along with his being a bitch of a completely different kind than Tavington, Martin does not deserve to be bailed out of situations where he is so ready to embrace defeat. Moreover, I think Tavington deserved a little bit of triumph. Not too much; he is a child-murdering war criminal. But he deserved to take Martin out with him. He certainly worked a lot harder for it than Martin did.

#the patriot #bbc robin hood #benjamin martin #william tavington #fucking heroes

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deanismysavior · 2 years

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I think y’all are confusing headcanons for canon. CANON: Mike and Eleven are dating and are madly in love. He’s loved her since he first saw her in the woods. They have difficult moments like all couples do but they have been together since season 1. Will has a crush on Mike but knows it’s likely unrequited. He is sad. Mike can be awkward around will sometimes. He is a teenage boy.

HEADCANON: Mike Wheeler is actually madly in love with Will and repressing his homosexuality or whatever. I know this because I got drunk on kaypeace theories and theories from beepbobop and Hawkins school counselor or whatever. He doesn’t love El, he only kissed her because she looked like a boy. Don’t you see how he gazes into Will’s eyes?

Like. Guys. ‘cmon. I get wanting more queer rep (even though y’all already have Robin but whatever), but you can’t write essays and make up theories and then get upset when the show doesn’t follow the headcanon you literally made up. Mike and El are CANON. Mike and Will are a theory.

Watch the show.

Okay sure, let's entertain this frankly homophobic take for a minute.

1. Mike and El are not madly in love. Mike literally could not say it or write it after having dated El for over a year. The only time he's been able to say he loves El is when she's about to die, both in s3 and in s4. He loves El, for sure. He cares about her and doesn't want her to die. Is he in love with her though? Look at the context clues here.

2. That boy did NOT love her at first sight. Like we've said to death at this point, he literally wanted to send her away upon meeting her. This is a fact. This happened in the text of the show. This is not me stretching or manipulating the evidence. This is apparent in the story.

3. Yeah, El and Mike do have couple troubles, troubles that they have not come back from. That have not been sorted through. They keep lying to one another and none of that has really been resolved. Their trust is still shaky at best after the confession. Also not me stretching, since we explicitly see Will and Mike talking about how El hasn't really spoken to him about anything that's been going on with their relationship post-confession.

4. Yeah, Will has a crush on Mike. But why is it "most likely unrequited" just because we haven't seen Mike date another guy? It was the 80s. Homophobia was rampant and his parents are Republicans. They live in a conservative town. Of course if Mike's interested in men he's not going to be out and proud about it.

5. Okay, sure, maybe repressed gay Mike is a headcanon, but there's a lot of context clues that point to this being a strong possibility. What's not explicitly said in media can sometimes be more important than what is. If you've ever taken a film class, you know the importance of symbolism and imagery, tone, narrative dissonance, parallels, allusions, metaphors, etc. so treating this specific "headcanon" as if it's just us making stuff up is to not be taking a critical read of the information the show is giving us.

6. Robin is a great character. Nothing about my love for Will and Mike's dynamic changes or overshadows how I feel about Robin. But you can't seriously tell queer people that we should just be happy and satisfied with the only queer character to get a real relationship and a happy ending to be a side character.

7. Mike and El are canon, but why am I not allowed to be mad about perpetuating an unhealthy relationship dynamic and romanticizing that? Why am I not allowed to be mad if they used Will as a plot device and didn't follow through on the narrative they set up all season? Pretty sure anyone would get mad about poor writing and a poor ending to a t.v. show they liked. Why is it only somehow a problem when people are frustrated about something that is narratively hinted at and supported when it has to do with queer people?

Anyway, I'm not going to answer any more of these anons coming to me with the same tired takes. I've backed up all of my takes with plenty of evidence from the show's canon, and you can look at them all here.

Anyway, have fun watching the show. Argue with the wall.

#tired of this #not gonna tag this as anything bc they honestly don't deserve the attention #ask

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