Maybe it's a 'study finds water is wet' type of thought, but
considering it's an action movie whose overall plot is "immortal warriors Fuck Shit Up™️", I think it's significant that in The Old Guard the thing that makes Copley pull red strings through his Murder Conspiracy Board and say "[Merrick] doesn't care what [Andy]'s done with [her immortality]" is the people they save, not the ones they kill
Most of the Conspiracy Board is him circling random newspaper headlines and faces on old photographs to (more or less realistically) follow the immortals' treck through the world and big historical events. Which is, in-canon, not much different than putting portraits from different centuries next to a picture of Keanu Reeves and saying "they look the same, clearly Reeves is an immortal!"
But then there are the connections. A little girl holding Joe's hand in WW1 becoming the youngest (and first) woman to be awarded a Nobel Prize for Medicine (suck it, Kozak). Or the grandchild of a family that Andy saved from [something] helping people escape from the Khmer Rouge genocide in Cambodia.
They are warriors. They have fought and been in the midst of countless wars, major or minor, throughout history. They must have killed as many people as they saved... and yet.
It's not them taking out a random warlord or dictator or rabidly hateful politician that has tangible repercussions in history. It's the children and families they get out of war zones, save from accidents, protect from natural disasters. People to whom they give a second chance at life, and grow to change the world (or even just their own world), like a mysterious stranger once changed theirs just by holding out a hand or patching a wound.
I don't know I just think it's particularly neat
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btw not to make everything about My Fucking Guy but i honestly think one of the things that seperates q!phil out from the other islanders is the approach he takes to dealing with the lack of agency + control all the islanders have over whatever the fuck the federation's doing.
it shows up most prominently whenever tubbo is excitedly telling him about the 'progress' he's made with cucurucho or various investigations (ie: trapping him into a corner with the 'do you have free will' questions), and phil always shoots it down w an immediate 'that doesn't mean anything. curucuho will say anything to mess with you. you can't take anything he says as true.'
and it's not that phil is... a paticularly pessimistic character? he's just EXTREMELY practical. like, he's yet to give up on anyone EVER finding ANY answers (he was the one who initially gave the federation that one week ultimatum w the cage for a cage stream), he just doesn't trust the idea that curucuho is ever going to voluntarily give them. they're uncontrollable + senseless - you might as well argue with the weather.
and like, if that's how he sees the one (1) and only point of contact the islanders HAD with the federation for months, it explains a lot abt his characters lifestyle! ofc he sits on the wall all day, talking to his kids, and keeping his head down. he believes that the federation wants nothing more than to drag the islanders into sick games + tasks just so they can fuck with their head (ie: curucuho revealing he was the one cellbit gathered all that information for). and while he can't totally PREVENT any of that from ever impacting him, he can make sure his kids are well fed, well protected, and as happy + comfortable as he can manage. this is objectively not a perfect situation, there is a guaranteed amount of suffering + fear that he can't mitigate, but he can at least account for it.
like, he REFUSES to engage. whenever curucho shows up, he treats them with total ambivalence. he's not going to get riled up by anything they do, he's not going to get super attached to the guy, he's just gonna laugh it off and irish goodbye it when things drag on. the ONLY time he's strayed from that general guiding principle has been since he's lost his eggs, and can no longer afford to let the federation's fuckery go: those are his fucking kids.
hence the completely unprecedented levels of outward rage and sadness and terror he shows throughout the birdcage streams - almost all directed directly to cucurucho. it's all a completely fair + proportional response to the horror the islanders are being subjected to, but it feels so different bc until now, q!phil has been so dedicated to not reacting, and not giving the federation any sign that they're actually getting to him.
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no wait wait wait hear me out about how the four beads is a truly devious and smart addition
so starting off with four beads from the dryad establishes a few things:
1. getting out of the underworld wasn’t something they really thought about yet (too many steps ahead, I also have ADHD I get it)
2. poseidon HAS thought of that problem and has made the beads in preparation to protect them
3. poseiden thought about rescuing sally when planning how to get everyone back safely, not just percy and his friends
2 & 3 plant the seeds (a long with the dryad’s words and hermes’ comments) that poseiden really does care about percy (and sally!). yes I know I know, bare minimum to care about your kid etc. but considering this is a show and we don’t get percy’s internal monologue it kinda makes sense to have a little more details that make poseiden seem better to the audience
[read more break to not clog up the tag. I promise I get into the angst shortly]
all these little bits that imply poseiden really does want to be there for him but can’t, that he’s been watching from afar because he didn’t want zeus to find out he broke the pact and take his anger out on his son and former love (yes, love! this is the man/god that wanted sally to be his queen with him in his underwater kingdom!!!). I actually really like the idea of those posts about how he has been helping out in little ways over the years because. let’s be real for a second. NO WAY does sally afford that apartment AND have the ability to send percy to specialized boarding schools with the salary of a CANDY SHOP EMPLOYEE. I get it I get it, the gods are deadbeats, but I’ll admit I kind of like the idea that he’s been doing what he feasibly could without getting caught by making extra money appear in sally’s bank account or sm
making him seem (and possibly be) more sympathetic is another reason that fuels percy to change the system rather than join luke to tear it all down. he knows the system is bad but he sees hope and truly believes it can be changed for the better. that is something that can be saved, not destroyed
4. this is kinda irrelevant but I like that it is the dryad that agrees to give percy the pearls after poseiden says for him and his friends to go back to camp because she wants him to have a chance to change things. gives her a little bit more agency. (also y’all she’s SO pretty in gay but moving in)
so. four beads.
if we want to keep the dilemma and character growth that comes with there only being three beads and someone having to make a sacrifice, something needs to happen: one of the beads breaks or someone loses it
is it percy? who has realized they need four beads for EVERYONE to come back and is horrified that they now only have three, meaning either he himself or one of the most important people to him has to be left behind in actual hell in order for the world to be saved? think about the dread and self-loathing that would come from that
or is it annabeth or grover? where the horrifying realization is the same but now there is a gut reaction from percy to be upset with the person who loses/breaks it. he loves his friends and can’t stay mad at them but now they are in this impossible dilemma to choose who stays behind and it’s killing all of them. the impossibly guilt of the person who breaks/loses it knowing that it’s their fault someone doesn’t get to go home, someone has to stay behind in the underworld
and when does this happen? early on, and we spend the episode watching them all try to figure out the dreadful problem of who gets left behind. looking at each other thinking, I can’t leave them behind, I can’t. they’re my family. but we can’t leave percy’s mom behind either.
or does it happen right before they have the chance to go, and they all think everyone is going to make it and sally is in percy’s grasp only for everything to fall apart and now everyone is looking at each other thinking, who is going to have to be left behind? who has to be the sacrifice?
anyways, I think there is something truly devious about them KNOWING there NEEDS to be four beads and HAVING THEM only to have something happen and the option of everyone going home safe being ripped from their grasps
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but genuinely you can’t be doing the whole ‘oooooh two divorcees looking for emotional connection after heartbreak!’ and ‘I believe in romcommunism’ and ‘is it Ted that Rebecca is texting on banter???’ and ‘watch as they grow independence and self love but constantly with the feeling they’re intertwined in some lovely, chosen way’ just to go ‘actually they never get to together and Ted fucks off back home to the place that is now shaped by not great memories’. The fuck??? I’m bisexual, I was so there for the deeply unlikely TedTrent but I always thought TedBecca would happen because it makes more narrative sense. For two whole seasons they orbited around each other with this impending sense of collision, this hope they could find love in the strangest of conditions, in a stranger they’d never have chosen, only for that to be completely ignored??? This isn’t about ooooh heterosexual couple didn’t kiss (I will die on the bi4bi or at least Bi Ted hill fuck you) it’s about the fact that now, tons of moments are stupid as fuck! You played that with a hint of romance! You played that like something was going to happen! You wouldn’t shut up about Rebecca’s love life and Ted’s need to let go and have somebody else handle it all for him, they seemed made for each other from the start and you went ‘nah fuck it’????? WHAT IS THIS????
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