#makes analysis feel like discourse when that is NOT what i am trying to do

[lgbtlunaverse]

Could someone tell me where the interpretation that, in book canon, the promotion Nie Mingjue gives Meng Yao made Meng Yao's life worse than it was before, came from?

I have seen that claim made multiple times now and I've looked at the text over and over trying to see where the basis for it is and I. Can't find it? Don't get me wrong, it absolutely spells out that it does not and cannot fix everything for Meng Yao, but the idea that it was actively bad for him?

Lacking other evidence, I kind of have to assume that it comes from cql canon being sort of projected backwards onto book canon. In cql canon, meng yao is suffering active and explicit bullying and abuse from the captain while under the nie, and does so because the capain believes he has risen above his station via nmj's promotion of him. (In book canon this... isn't happening. It happens with the captain in Langya instead) However, in cql canon he has also been with the nie for years and is openly close to both Nie Mingjue and Nie Huasiang, whereas in book canon he has only been working with nie mingjue for a few months (though has, in that time, apparently become close enough to him for Lan Xichen to explicitly state Meng Yao is able to calm nmj down in ways no one else can? Ofc he does this... Right after that stops being true. But. Food for thought. Not what this post is about tho.) So, if you project the much more explicit abuse from the nie sect captain in cql back on novel jgy who has a presumably much less stable position in the sect overall you get... a meng yao for whom the promotion only means a bigger target on his back and virtually no protection from nmj, who we must assume he can't trust to talk to his about because he never mentions it. (This also explicitly violates book canon when it comes to meng yao's general behaviour, we'll talk about that in a sec)

And look. We all do frankencanon in this house. I get it. And for fanfiction that is very fun. But for a serious reading of the character, his situation, and the actions that lead from that this... doesn't make much sense, in my opinion.

So. Why is that? Why did I say this was out of character for the novel? Because Meng yao spoke up about the jin captain mistreating him. Multiple times! It's just that none of it mattered because no one cared to listen to him. This is a pretty important line for his character because it flatly shows that meng yao is not and has never seen murder as something trivial. He's not trigger happy. He will only do it if he sees no other way out that doesn't end in himself being seriously harmed. (Whether he's right or justified in these cases is not the point of this post.)

If anything remotely similar was happening in the Nie sect, he would have said so. Cql Meng Yao doesn't do this because cql Meng Yao is a different character, and also the plot wouldn't work if he did. Cql Nie Mingjue, by extension, comes off as a fundamentally less trustworthy figure in cql Meng Yao's life because apparently for whatever reason, he cannot be trusted with the information that the deputy he has already publicly defended is still being harassed, and doesn't notice even when it is really blatant. The assumtpion the audience is given is that, like a middle schooler getting the principal involved when being bullied, it would only make the harassment more viscious.

This... actually has a somewhat solid basis in the book. Because after nmj yells at the bullies in question Wei Wuxian says this.

And it is important to keep in mind that this is Wei Wuxian saying this. Not Meng Yao, not an omniscient narrator. Wei wuxian is drawing on his own experiences, likely from the Jiang family, to conclude that if someone is angry at you and thwarted by someone defending you, this generally does not make them less angry at you.

This is leaving out two crucial things, though.

Firstly, this worry isn't about the promotion at all.

The promotion hasn't even been brought up. In the novel it doesn't ctually happen immediately, it takes another few battles where meng yao continues to do his job well and nie mingjue continues praising him for him to eventually go "yeah, you deserve a raise."

This is another aspect that is being projected from cql canon onto book canon I presume, because it does happen quite quickly there, and it's a throwaway line in the books so it's easy to miss. I can't be mad about anyone forgetting the difference, but it is important to mention for this particular analysis.

Which is the second point: change in status

Wei Wuxian couldn't exactly change status within the Jiang family. (And if he could, that would just fuel rumours that he was jfm's bastard even more and make madam yu even angrier at him, etc etc.)

This isn't comparable to Meng Yao. The worry Wei Wuxian is talking about is explitly about Nie Mingjue's initial very loud defense of him. Before he has any idea Nie Mingjue is going to promote him.

Promoting him would likely decrease his chances of cultivators coming after him because now he was in a higher standing in the sect than they were. If applied to that earlier metaphor of middle school bullying it's like if the bullied kid suddenly got hired as a teacher. Which. Doesn't work with the metaphor at all. Touché. But what I am trying to say is that any payback they would have planned for him relied on the fact that they could make sure that Nie Mingjue wasn't going to be within very convenient earshot a second time, and as a random disciple Meng Yao couldn't just go complain to him every time.

But as his right hand man? Who spends most of his time working directly alongside him? Lmao. Good luck. Oh, sure, it is very likely that they feel offended a son of a whore has been raised in status above them, and many will continue to do so as jgy rises through cultivation society (in fact, Wei Wuxian's observations are absolutely on point for how Madam Jin will be treating jgy later on). But as we can also see from the way jgy is treated and how he treats others throughout the story: you can be upset all you want, but if that person is higher than you in status there's jack shit you can do about it.

If I am correct and Wei Wuxian is basing this on his experiences with the Jiang family, it makes sense why he'd miss this. Madam Yu gets to be way angrier at Jiang Fengmian as his wife than some random disciples can be at Nie Mingjue. Insulting Meng Yao, suggesting that he didn't deserve his promotion or that he earned it through less than proper means (you know who is mother is) is also an insult to Nie Mingjue and the way he chooses to run his sect. They can't do that.

Another thing I see brought up in this regard would be the tea scene. There may be no explicit harassment like in the show, but cultivators still don't respect him! The disrespect is just quieter and more subtle.

Tiny detail: these are actually not Nie cultivators

They're cultivators Lan Xichen is escorting with him, making a pitstop in heijan.

The book confirms this by basically outright stating that this is the first time they see his face, and recognize him as Jin Guangshan's bastard son.

Now, just because there is no proof that it happened doesn't mean it definitely never happened. Mdzs is a novel that often leaves stuff out or up to interpretation. Similar stuff to the tea situtation could very well be happening in the background. But I do think it is pretty significant that there is no mention whatsoever of Meng Yao having any negative treatment from Nie cultivators betwen him and Nie Mingjue meeting and him executing them while spying for Wen Ruohan, and the most we get is Wei Wuxian's personal speculation, after which he immediately goes to wax poetic about how surprised he is that Meng Yao and Nie Mingjue are getting along super well.

And, again, novel Meng Yao would have said something. He doesn't say anything about the tea scene. - Or? Does he? Notably 3zun have some very long in depth conversations that Wei Wuxian zones out from because he's busy thinking about Lan Zhan again. But let's not rely on what-ifs. Let's say that neither he nor Lan Xichen find it worth bringing up. Major reasons for that would be that a) these are not nie cultivators, nie mingjue wouldn't really have the authority to scold them. Especially because b) it's such a subtle offense it could easily be handwaved as coincidence. "They just always brush their cups clean like that!! It's wartime you know, and they were traveling! They're used to drinking from vessels that aren't thoroughly washed everytime! It's just a habit!" And would therefore not be worth reporting.

But anything worse than that? A "price tens or hundreds of times greater" like wwx mentions? He'd report it! I do understand that "well if it was happening why didn't he say something?" would, in real life, be victim blaming. This is not real life, and I am not talking about this in a matter of blame. If Meng Yao was being mistreated in the Nie and stayed silent about it, it would still not be his fault. I am talking about this in a manner of character consistency.

His admission of seeking help in the Jin sect shows that at that time and prior to it (a very good argument can be made that he loses faith in this idea) he believes that if he is being mistreated and someone with the authority to say something about it takes his side, things can improve. If Nie Mingjue standing up for him in Qinghe only made things worse, he would not have tried to ask for help in an even more hostile environment. You can call Meng Yao many things, but naïve isn't one of them.

Meng yao's later habit of completely isolating himself and lying to everyone around him comes from the fact that revealing his suffering would mean explaining several horrible things he's become complicit in and he does not feel safe admitting to that. But he's done nothing wrong here!

The reading where he says nothing would imply an either correct or incorrect belief in Meng Yao's eyes that Nie Mingjue did not much care for his wellbeing or safety. Oh sure he defended him once but doing so again multiple times would be such a bother. This also contradicts his later behaviour, where he banks solely on Nie Mingjue's protective instincts to seal his qi and escape during the confrontation in Langya. After having been caught murdering a man, he is still convinced Nie Mingjue will immediately try to help him when he is in serious danger.

And even if you very badly want to characterize Nie Mingjue as a blundering idiot who is apparently less trustworthy in Meng Yao's eyes than the jin cultivators who had already resoundly rejected him by the time he tries to ask for help with the langya captain. He doesn't say anything to Xichen either! Lan Xichen, who has explicitly and exhaustively been portrayed as kind and understanding to Meng Yao's circumstances and very willing to talk to Mingjue if Meng Yao wants something from him he doesn't otherwise think he'd get. The conversation Mingjue overhears where Meng Yao's new position in the Nie is explictly brought up would be kind of the perfect time to go "yeah I've been promoted but I'm not treated well by other soldiers" aaaand. Nothing. So unless you come to the conclusion that Meng Yao trusted the Jin he told about the captain's abuse more than Lan Xichen you kind of have to conclude that Meng Yao's treatment after his promotion improved significantly. And that even if people still disliked him they could not openly do anything about it because he was high enough in status for that to be socially inappropiate. Which is, explicitly, one of his main motivators over the entire course of the story: Avoiding mistreatment by getting high enough on the social ladder it doesn't matter what people think of him, they can't hurt him.

And I'm not sure how to reconcile that character journey with the idea that he would, at any point, have preferred to keep his head down and stay where he was. When he was so desperate to crawl his way out.

#the main tragedy of his character- of course- being that he keeps achieving that status and it is never enough #he achieves standing with the nie and the favor of a major sect leader and it's not enough for his father to even give him the time of day #he kills wrh amd becomes a war hero and gets acknowledged by his father!! #and all it gets him is nmj's constant distrust abuse at the hands of his stepmother and complicity in mass murder by his father's orders #he gets to the HIGHEST POSITION SOCIETY HAS. LITERAL CHIEF CULTIVATOR. And the moment he stumbles everyone turns on him immediately #like they were all just waiting for him to get low enough again that they could kick him further down #it's a rise-fall-rise-fall-rise-fall journey with every step up being a desperate fight and every tumble down being way too quick and easy #but! that rise still needs to be there!! for the story to work!! #the tragedy of qinghe for meng yao is how easily he loses nmj's fsvor. NOT that having it was bad in the first place #I understand that this reading is mainly done to put nmj in a bad light but I do genuinely think it does jgy a disservice #people more often apply this to him becoming jin guangyao which does in a lot of ways doom and trap him #and yes fuck jgs fuck that guy all the way to hell #but the key is that meng yao can't just get a happy ending by refusing power #he's not power hungry. what he wants is in fact reasonable- he's just willing to do a lot more than most to get it #'things would've been better if nmj didn't promote him/didn't send him to langya' #feels as reductive to me as the 'why can't he just be xichen's house boyfriend and join the lan instead' takes. #mdzs #meng yao #jin guangyao #mdzs meta #? sorta #feels too ranty to call meta #this is what i was talking about in my past post about how frustrating it is to base metas around disagreeing with others #makes analysis feel like discourse when that is NOT what i am trying to do #long post with long tags

[suffersinfandom]

Alright, I’m gonna talk about Ed and abuse.

“Why, V? Why are you spending your precious time on Earth typing about some dumb fandom stuff when you could be doing literally anything else?”

In short, seeing all of these “Ed is an abuser who’s inevitably going to hurt Stede” takes have been driving me absolutely bonkers since I first noticed them. They’re not going away, so I’m going to bang out an essay. 

In less-short: it’s because abuse is a serious thing and, as someone who’s experienced it, I get a little feisty when it becomes a topic of discourse in my silly pirate fandom. It’s because it’s upsetting to read meta after meta accusing an indigenous man of being an abuser. It’s because a lot of the abuse discourse in the fandom fails to separate real-life abuse from violence in a show. It’s because the vast majority of the abuse talk only acknowledges physical abuse which, while terrible, is not the only kind that hurts people and utterly destroys their lives. 

It’s because calling Ed abusive or insisting that he’s a future abuser can harm people who are like him -- people who have suffered abuse or get angry sometimes or have hurt people when they were hurt. Victims of abuse, especially those who dealt with it in childhood, often fear becoming abusers themselves. They bottle up their anger for fear of hurting someone. They hurt themselves in a misguided attempt to protect others. They don’t need to see fandom meta that enforces their fears.

And it’s because, frankly, I am unemployed and I promise I’ll stop if you give me a transcription or copyediting job, please and thank you.

Before I get into it…

I may as well come clean and say that I’m on team Ed absolutely isn’t abusive and it’s weird that people are getting that from a show that’s full of violence. 

Plenty has been typed in Ed’s defense by POC in the fandom, so I’m not going to go into how deeply unfortunate it would be to make an indigenous main character an abuser. I’m just going to say that, when you consider OFMD’s genre and attitude towards violence, it seems clear to me that you can’t call Ed abusive without calling out other characters (unless you have some kind of bias against Ed). His actions are deplorable in the real world, a bit much in OFMD’s world, deeply unhealthy, not okay by any means, and shitty and traumatizing for his crew, but they aren’t abusive.

I’m going to try to keep things polite and respectful. I’m also going to try to stick close to what the text is trying to say; I truly do want to present an honest, earnest analysis of something that I love. 

The arguments in favor of Ed as an abuser.

We can’t defend an idea without knowing what we’re arguing against (with brief counterpoints that I hope to expand on later). For this section (lol, sections, that feels pretentious and weird and I’m sorry), I’ll be lightly rephrasing things and omitting sources.

“Ed has anger management issues that disqualify him from being a romantic lead.”

Counterpoint: Ed does not have anger management issues. (Even if he did, I can think of a few very successful franchises with shitty and violent romantic leads. Ew.) He gets angry sometimes, as we all do.

“I defended Ed making Izzy eat his toe because that was a single instance and abuse is a pattern. Season two made it an explicit pattern.”

Counterpoint: First, feeding people their toes isn’t a biggie in this universe. Second, Ed fed Izzy that initial toe because he stepped out of line and demanded Blackbeard; it’s likely that additional toes were the victims of Izzy not being obedient. (I’m not saying this is right or that it’s cool to feed people body parts when they disobey, btw. I hope that doesn’t need to be said.)

“The first two episodes of season two set up the cycle of abuse so well, but the show never follows through. It doesn’t even acknowledge that it set up that storyline. If they’d wanted to end the season on a happy note without spending a lot of time fixing Ed’s relationship with the crew, they could have just made Ed’s behavior in the first two episodes less dark and abusive.”

Counterpoint: Ed’s behavior in the first two episodes isn’t abusive. It’s a bit over the top and it hurts people, yeah, but Ed’s definitely not following in his abusive father’s footsteps and systematically abusing his crew.

“Season two gives us straight up abuse. It gives us Stede, still soft around the edges, being deliberately headbutted during their reunion.”

Counterpoint: There is no abuse between Ed and Stede. The headbutt was not a case of a violent person intentionally hitting their passive partner; it was a confused, unwell, and nonverbal man reacting to the presence of someone who hurt him. Also? Stede has no problem setting boundaries or speaking out. Good for him!

“As bad as the season finale was, I’m glad the crew’s safe from Ed. Now that Izzy isn’t there to protect them, any little trigger could set Ed off and lead to him hurting them. Stede, though… Stede’s stuck with Ed and the corpse of Ed’s last victim, and it’s only a matter of time before Ed destroys him too.”

Counterpoint: This take is so far removed from the text of the show that I don’t know how to address it quickly, but here we go: Ed is not a threat to the crew after episode two, Izzy did not protect the crew from Ed’s moods, Ed does not have a hair-trigger temper, Izzy is not Ed’s victim, and -- vitally -- Stede is in absolutely no danger. Ed is not destined to be an abusive partner in season three.

And an overriding counterpoint to everything is this: Our Flag Means Death is a comedy with tons of over-the-top violence. If your theory is unrelentingly grim or looks at violence and its consequences in a real-world light, consider stepping back and remembering what genre the events of the show are happening in. If you think that only the violence committed by the indigenous lead is abuse, look at the actions of the other characters and ask yourself why Ed doesn’t get the same grace you’ve granted the others.

With that quick and dirty rundown of the arguments I’ve seen, let’s move on to the next important step in building an argument: definitions.

What is abuse in the real world?

In the real world, abuse is extremely serious and not something to be taken lightly. But what is abuse? We can’t say much about it in any world without knowing what it is in ours, so here’s a simple explanation:

Abuse “includes [a pattern of] behaviors that physically harm, intimidate, manipulate, or control a partner or otherwise force them to behave in ways they don’t want to. This can happen through physical violence, threats, emotional abuse, or financial control.” (1)

“Emotional abuse includes non-physical behaviors that are meant to control, isolate, or frighten someone. These behaviors are often more subtle and hard to identify but are just as serious as other types of abuse.” (2)

It’s important to emphasize that not all purposeful harm to another person, physical or otherwise, is abuse. “What abuse really means is control. When a truly abusive situation exists, it’s because one party is seeking to control the other through abuse.” (2)

To summarize, abuse is a pattern of behavior that involves one person intentionally harming another. That harm is meant to control, and it can take on more forms than just physical. 

That said, I’m mostly concerned with physical abuse here, as that’s the only kind that I’ve ever seen discussed in relation to Ed. Going into mental and emotional abuse will involve talking more about a specific non-Ed character and I don’t want to go there. Possibly ever.

In our world, all abuse is terrible. Vitally, our world -- and this is very important, so underline it twice if you’re taking notes -- does not operate by the rules of a pirate rom-com.

Okay, so what is abuse in the silly pirate world of Our Flag Means Death?

First, we have to understand what the show is. @piratecaptainscaptainpirates lays it out nicely:

“1. This is a rom-com.The central romance between Ed and Stede and comedy are therefore the two most core parts of the show, with Ed and Stede's romance taking priority over everything else. That's not to say OFMD doesn't have dark themes, it absolutely does; it's to say that comedy is always important to how the show is written, acted, and filmed.

“2. This is not a subtle show. That's not to say it's a simple one [...]. It's amazingly layered and emotional responses by characters are often extremely complex. However, when the show is trying to tell you something, it's not subtle and it never tries to hide it.” (3)

Did you jot that down? Our Flag Means Death is a romantic comedy with one core romantic couple, Ed and Stede, whose story takes priority over everything else. It can be dark, it can be serious, but it is, at its core, a comedy, and not a subtle one at that.

Some things are just funny and that’s it.

As a rule, the most obvious reading is going to be the one to go with. The show’s meanings aren’t hidden under layers of red herrings and subtext; if you’re compelled to bring out the conspiracy corkboard, you’re probably in too deep.

But this isn’t just a rom-com: it’s a pirate rom-com, and that comes with gratuitous violence. Here’s a short, fun list of examples of things that we can consider canon-typical pirate violence:

Tying hostages to the mast and letting them cook a bit

Wanton murder during a raid (“Note the gusto!”)

Pirate A threatening his crush at gunpoint until Pirate B gutstabs him

Whippies and yardies

Cutting off toes and feeding them to people “for a laugh”

Pirates who are madly in love stabbing and poisoning each other

Literally any violence directed at a racist (this violence is, in fact, good and encouraged)

There’s also the pirate-typical killing of other pirates. Duels don’t seem entirely unusual, and Izzy outright tries to get Stede killed at several points in season one. When Chauncey Badminton and the English navy show up after being summoned by Izzy, Stede’s life isn’t the only one on the line; the rest of the crew is also put in potentially life-threatening danger. Izzy is forgiven, so I think it’s safe to say that attempted murder is the kind of thing that pirates typically move on from. Eventually. If the attempted murderer is pathetic enough.

In short, Our Flag Means Death has a lot of violence, and very few instances of violence (looking at you, Hornigold) are treated as anything other than socially acceptable. But do you know what’s really important in the show?

Feelings.

The way characters feel as a result of something is given an immense amount of weight. All of the show’s subtleties are in the realms of the mental and the emotional, and that’s where the real pain is too. 

Nigel Badminton’s death was bad because it was emotionally and mentally devastating for Stede. Ed’s father’s murder was bad because it hurt him and forced him to create a monstrous alter ego to cope. Both of those men -- Nigel and Father Teach -- are totally acceptable casualties; their deaths would be net positives if they hadn’t had such strong impacts on our leads.

Feelings are everything in Our Flag Means Death, and the feelings of our leads are the heart of the show. That’s where the story is; that’s where the complexity and ambiguity is. 

So what is abuse in this context? The casual treatment of physical violence and the seriousness of emotional distress tell us to adjust our own moral judgments accordingly. Physical violence is everyday, straightforward, and often comedic; emotional violence is devastating and complicated. Physical violence is cartoonish and, half the time, part of a punchline. Emotional violence is real and raw and not a joking matter. Attempted murder can be shrugged off; ditching your boyfriend after experiencing a traumatic event is more complicated.

When we ask ourselves if something in OFMD is abuse, we have to consider the act in the context of a rom-com that’s all about the feelings of two guys, set against the violent backdrop of piracy, and absolutely packed with people getting maimed and murdered in casual, comedic ways. 

Awesome! Now we’re a little clearer about definitions and genre and how we should adjust our expectations! Unfortunately, we haven’t jumped into the real meat of whatever the hell this essay is…

Is Ed abusive in the context of the show?

No.

Aaaand we’re done!

Joking, joking. Obviously I’m going to pick out the examples of “abuse” that people cite and discuss each one, but first: we need to talk about Ed, violence, and anger. 

Ed is not a violent person. He’s not full of rage that’s threatening to erupt at all times, and he’s not some kind of sadist that revels in hurting people. The violence of Blackbeard is a fuckery: the theater of fear, an illusion of cruelty calculated to terrify enemies into surrendering. 

Ed has his whole thing with murder that's rooted in childhood trauma. Killing his (canonically, decidedly) abusive father to protect his mother scars him so badly that he distances himself from the situation -- blames Father Teach’s death on the Kraken -- and can’t bring himself to directly kill anyone else after that. Blackbeard orders murders and causes deaths and maims and maintains his image as a bloodthirsty murderer, but Ed doesn’t do “the big job” himself until the end of season two. When Stede’s life is in the balance, Ed can kill to protect him. 

Edward Teach kills only to protect.

But that’s killing, and we’re talking about general violence. Ed is casual about the day-to-day violence of piracy. He participates in it, incites it, and doesn’t feel bad about it. No one does! It’s part of the job! 

That leaves us with the "anger problem." Ed is frequently characterized as an angry person who lashes out when enraged, and I don’t think that canon at all supports this interpretation. Ed gets mad, yes, but his anger is always at least understandable. It isn’t a constant, simmering thing that turns him into an abusive monster when he’s triggered. He doesn't always deal with his anger (or any of his other feelings) in a good and constructive way because both of our leads lack emotional maturity, but I think it's a mistake to characterize him as an angry person.

Hopefully I can elaborate on this idea -- the idea that Ed is only violent and angry in a normal and canon-appropriate way, and anger is by no means one of his defining characteristics -- by doing a run-down of all of the times Ed is accused of being abusive or showing signs of being an abuser.

Sooooo...

Ed loses his shit on a falling snake during his nature adventure with Stede (S1E7). In this scene, he’s embarrassed about the whole treasure hunt thing and annoyed by the very existence of nature. He is not relaxed. When nature takes him by surprise by falling on him, he stabs the crap out of it in a scene that is played for comedy. There’s the important part: this is comedy. Ed is grumpy and his childish tantrum is harmless and silly. It isn’t a red flag. Overreacting while irritated isn’t an indicator that someone will be abusive.

Ed punches Izzy after the English have taken the Revenge, captured Stede, and turned Ed over to Izzy (S1E9). Honestly, I think the fact that Ed lets Izzy talk before punching him demonstrates a great deal of restraint on his part! This is justified anger and fear for Stede’s life. This also isn’t some sign that Ed hits Izzy on the regular.

In his post-pillow fort era, Ed is cleaning up his cabin when that one highly contentious Izzy scene happens (S1E10). Izzy insults Ed, tells him that he’d be better off dead than as he currently is, and says that he serves only Blackbeard (Ed better watch his fucking step). Ed reacts by grabbing Izzy by the throat and telling him to choose his next words carefully. This, in my opinion, is a valid way for a pirate captain to react to insubordination. At the very least, it doesn't tell us that Ed is Izzy's abuser; there's no indication that this isn't a one-off provocation and reaction.

Which takes us to The Toe Scene.

In real life, it would be extremely fucked up for a boss to remove an employee’s toe and make him eat it. OFMD is not real life. One episode earlier, Ed was talking about the life he was glad to leave behind -- the life where The Toe Thing was done “for a laugh.” Not as punishment, but for fun. It’s set up as something that’s gross (“yuck”), not a grave punishment. When Ed feeds Izzy his toe, he gives Izzy what be asked for: he gives him a violent captain. He gives him Blackbeard. He gives him the guy who fed people toes for fun.

But what’s important here is that Ed is not having fun. He’s having a hell of a lot less fun than Izzy is, going by their expressions in the scene. This isn’t who he wants to be, but after having the possibility of a better life snatched away, Ed throws himself back into the sure thing. He becomes the Kraken -- the captain Izzy wants, the violent monster that Ed thinks he is and tries to distance himself from, and the only thing Ed thinks he can be. It’s sad. It’s desperation, not anger and abuse.

In the second season, Ed headbutts Stede after he’s revived from his coma/death (S2E4). In the next scene, Stede is holding a cold steak to his face and calling it an accident. Roach says “that’s what they all say” -- a line that alludes to domestic violence. The thing is? It’s not, and the crew has expectations of Ed that Stede doesn’t.

Ed is freshly out of a coma (or newly alive). He’s nonverbal. His brain is, medically speaking, couscous. He still has one foot in the gravy basket. When he sees the man who left him hovering over him -- the man he loves, the man who just appeared to him as a mermaid -- he tries to say something then, when that fails, resorts to a headbutt. This is a single violent action perpetrated by a confused and hurt man who doesn’t know what to do with all of his feelings. He can't talk. He can't push Stede away.

Stede understands all of this, even if the other characters don’t. He sees the headbutt for what it is: a bit of a bitchy move. He isn’t afraid of Ed. He never is. 

Stede also isn’t afraid of Ed when he acts out later that episode (S2E4). When Ed learns that Stede went back to Mary, he excuses himself from the dinner table, smashes a chair against the wall, and knocks a vase to the ground. In this entire episode (this entire season, tbh), Ed is having intense feelings that he doesn’t know how to express or work through; the reveal that Stede returned to his wife is the final straw. He takes his tangled feelings out on an acceptable target (a chair, a vase) instead of Stede because he doesn’t want to hurt Stede.

This looks a little like displacement -- when “an unacceptable feeling or thought about a person, place or thing is redirected towards a safer target.” Displacement is an “intermediate level coping mechanism.” That is, it’s more sophisticated than the ways children deal with intense issues, but it’s still not entirely mature. In an adult, it indicates a level of emotional immaturity. (4) Ed is emotionally immature, not inherently violent. He gets overwhelmed by his feelings and lashes out -- not at a person, but at something that can’t get hurt. 

Displacement is not an indicator that someone is an abuser. It’s a coping mechanism. It’s an attempt at emotional regulation. It’s not the best coping mechanism, but it’s definitely not a sign that someone is going to go into a rage and assault people.

Stede cringes when Ed smashes the chair and sends the vase crashing to the ground, but he’s not afraid of Ed. He is never afraid of Ed because he knows that Ed isn’t a real threat to him. He cringes because sometimes that's what a person does when a loud thing happens. That's what people do when chair shrapnel starts flying. Also? It's kind of embarrassing behavior on Ed's part. They're guests enjoying a mediocre dinner! That's no way to act!

And this leaves us with the first two episodes of season two, which are an absolute mess.

Ed is fully in his Kraken era. He has no hope that Stede will return, he no longer trusts the crew, and he feels trapped in a life he absolutely doesn’t want. He thinks that he has to perform Blackbeard until death sets him free. He sobs in his cabin when no one’s looking. Publicly, Ed fades into the role of remorseless and bloodthirsty pirate captain.

Needless to say, this makes for a shit work environment. Ed works the crew too hard. He drinks and does drugs and runs everyone ragged. He’s an absolutely terrible boss, but he isn’t abusive.

That isn’t to say that the crew left on the Revenge isn’t traumatized. They are! They’ve been thrown off balance by the sudden change for the worse in someone who was their friend, and they’re traumatized by the neverending violence that the constant raids -- raids that were bloody and deadly, not the fuckeries of the past -- demanded of them. They’re traumatized by that final night in the storm when Ed did everything in his power to goad them into killing him, almost murdering everyone in the process. They’re traumatized by their own attempt at murder.

In S2E4, Blackbeard’s crew has flashbacks to the violence they perpetrated under the Kraken: Jim fighting Archie, Fang breaking a man over his knee. They’re also haunted by guilt about what they did to Ed, as evidenced by their Lady Macbeth-style scrubbing. Their own violence is a significant part of their trauma in this episode.

No, that doesn’t absolve Ed. He drove the violence -- demanded it of both the crew and himself. He hurt other people because he was hurting, and that’s terrible. 

Ed’s behavior in the first two episodes of season two is horrible, but he’s not abusive. Not all bad or violent behavior is abuse.

(We also have to ask ourselves just how bad Ed’s behavior really is. Archie, someone from the pirate world who has no idea what the Revenge was like pre-Kraken, tells Jim “that’s how these things usually go” at the height of Ed’s violence. She doesn’t act like she experienced anything out of the ordinary which is, if I may be honest, kind of worrying. But ultimately, whether or not Ed’s actions when he was at his worst are normal for pirates doesn’t matter a ton here.) 

But what about Izzy, I’m sure you’re asking!

What about Izzy indeed. Ugh. Okay, let’s just… let’s walk through the first two episodes.

One of the first things we see Ed do in season two is shoot a man. At first this seems like the show telling us that Ed is embracing the kind of violence he couldn’t manage before, but if we pay attention, we can see that he’s still following his “not a murderer on a technicality” logic. The man he shoots has a sword through his chest; he's as good as dead. He also falls offscreen before Ed shoots, making the action less impactful.

OFMD is not subtle and this is a quick way to communicate what’s going on with Ed. He’s not doing well and he’s more violent than he was last season, but he’s still himself under the Kraken’s makeup. He hasn’t done a moral one-eighty. If the show wanted us to think that Ed's a monster, they would have made him a hell of a lot more violent.

So. Izzy.

Immediately after Ed tells Izzy that he’s replaceable in S2E1, we reach the scene that people point to and say, “That’s domestic violence!” This is where Izzy breaks down because he has just been told in no uncertain terms that he’s not Blackbeard’s special little guy. That’s devastating to him, and he cries when the crew shows him kindness. 

Jim tells Izzy he’s in an unhealthy relationship with Blackbeard; Frenchie describes their relationship as “toxic.” 

A toxic relationship is “any relationship [between people who] don’t support each other, where there’s conflict and one seeks to undermine the other, where there’s competition, where there’s disrespect and a lack of cohesiveness." (5) And you know what? Yeah, Ed and Izzy definitely have a toxic relationship. Well-sussed, Frenchie! And is their relationship unhealthy? It sure is -- for both of them! But the crew is, understandably, more sympathetic towards Izzy because they’ve never been present when Izzy was hurting Ed. 

(Only tangentially related, but the crew must have really liked Ed pre-Kraken. As far as they know, the man went dark with no warning or cause. They deal with his bullshit for approximately three months (assuming one raid a day), and he has to go so far before they put an end to him. Remember when they were ready to toss Izzy overboard after, like, twelve hours under his command?)

Even though they only have one side of the Izzy and Ed story, the crew isn’t accusing Ed of domestic abuse. The term doesn’t apply to the mutually fucked-up thing that Izzy and Ed have and, beyond that, the scene is played for laughs. Jim and Frenchie use comically modern language; the whole thing feels like an intervention for a stressed-out middle manager with a shitty boss. It's funny. It's a comical thing in a comedy show.

Moving on.

Izzy returns to Ed and tells him that the crew won’t throw treasure overboard to make room for more treasure. Ed says, “And that’s another toe.” Losing a toe is the penalty for failing the captain.

Which is more likely: that Ed cut off Izzy’s other toes on a cruel whim, or that Ed cut off Izzy’s toes after other perceived failures? I’m going for option two. It’s obviously not okay to punish an underling by taking toes, but we’ve already established that toe-removal isn’t a cruel and unusual pirate punishment. It’s done “for a laugh.” 

(Specifically, toe-chopping is the cost of Izzy’s failure. Frenchie disobeys and lies to Ed in his short time as first mate and he doesn’t lose a single toe. Izzy bears the brunt of Ed’s cruelty because he’s the one who demanded it.) 

This is not who Ed wants to be, but it’s who he thinks he has to be. It’s who Izzy told him to be.

Izzy makes the mistake of invoking Stede and Ed storms above deck. He holds the crew at gunpoint, one by one, and asks them if they think that the vibes on the ship are poisonous. No one gives him a positive answer and Ed turns the gun on himself. He works himself up until Izzy interrupts and the following exchange happens:

IZZY: “The atmosphere on this ship is fucked. Everyone knows why.” ED: “Well, I don’t. Enlighten me.” IZZY: “Your feelings for Stede fucking Bo--”

 [Ed shoots Izzy in the leg. Ed steps over him on his way back to his cabin.]

ED: “Throw this shit overboard and get suited up.”

I don’t want to go into speculation about the true cause of the fucked up vibe on the Revenge (it’s clearly not just Ed’s feelings for Stede) or why, exactly, Ed shot Izzy. What’s important for this post is this: Ed's actions are not unusually cruel for a pirate captain who considers his first mate out of line. This is the kind of thing that the idea of Blackbeard that Izzy worships does to maintain his reputation.

Fang cries when Ed shoots Izzy because he knows Blackbeard. He has been with Blackbeard longer than anyone else, and this isn’t Blackbeard. Blackbeard doesn’t work his crew this hard. Blackbeard doesn’t disregard the deaths of long-time crewmates like Ivan. Blackbeard doesn’t shoot his own crew. Fang is off-balance and distraught because his captain of twenty years is acting far, far more cruel than the Blackbeard he knew.

This is not Ed as he usually is. Ed at his worst is breaking all of his past patterns. He’s behaving like a different person. His actions at this point in time are not typical of his past actions or predicative of his future actions.

When we reach S2E2, Ed is chipper. He’s cleaning up, he’s tying up loose ends, and he has decided that, no matter what, this is the day that he dies. He’s determined. First, he’ll give Izzy a crack at killing him; next is the storm, the destruction of the steering wheel, and taking increasingly desperate actions to get the crew to stop him. He tells Jim and Archie to fight to the death. He goes to blow the mast away with a cannon and doesn’t react as nameless crew members are being washed overboard. 

Ed is stopped only by Izzy’s reappearance and the violent mutiny that follows.

None of what Ed does here is abuse. This is desperate violence. This is an unwell man begging everyone around him to send him to doggy heaven.

And finally, we have the big murder party in the season finale. A surprising number of fans interpret Ed’s willingness to cut down naval officers as a sure sign that he’s gotten worse and he’s more violent than ever. This is, in my opinion, a take that completely ignores everything we know about Ed and his relationship to violence.

I said it before, but it bears repeating: Edward Teach kills only to protect. He murdered his father to protect his mother. He mows down colonists for Stede. He kills for love, and by the end of season two, he has made some kind of peace with the Kraken and his own capacity for violence.

It’s sweet. Like, it wouldn’t be sweet in the real world, but in this world? In a world where physical violence is funny more often than it’s serious? In a world full of pirate characters who all have hefty body counts? It’s growth. It’s Ed healing.

Ed is doing better. He’s not a threat to the man he loves, and now he’s not a threat to himself either.

Anyway!

No, Ed is not abusive. No, there’s no indication that Ed will become abusive in the future.

“Okay, but many abuse survivors take issue with the irresponsible message that Jenkins is subtextually sending with Ed’s story!”

That’s fine. Take issue with things. Feel whatever you want to feel, but remember that abuse survivors are not a monolith. Consider, just for a moment, that the abuse you think you see in the show is not textual. Ask yourself if Ed is truly worse than all of the other characters or if you have some bias warping your view of him. 

Finally: please keep in mind that I’m not trying to present The One True Interpretation. I’m just rolling all of my arguments and thoughts into one big ol' ball and throwing it out into the wild. You don’t have to agree with me but, if you don’t, I hope you’ll at least have a bit of a think.

If you read this and liked it, please consider validating me with a like! If you read it and didn’t like it, I’m sorry for wasting your time. If you skimmed the first part and decided to dismiss me as soon as I said I don’t think that Ed is abusive… idk, peace and love and goodbye.

#ofmd #ofmd meta #edward teach #long meta #like too fucking long #abuse #tw abuse #cw abuse #me typing things #fandom critical #kinda?

[familyabolisher]

Sorry to ask something somewhat related to the recent discourse, but do you have any advice to someone trying to teach themselves lit analysis or lit theory? Seems like most online advice ends at "get an English degree lol"

first of all sorry for leaving this for so long, between work and various other Demands in my life i didn’t really have the time/energy to sit down and write up a proper answer for a while. anyway: imo, what’s more important than working your way through a long list of critical theory is honing an ability to respond to a text yourself; being able to take notice of your emotional responses, being able to ask questions about what the text does and what it responds to and whether you think it succeeds or fails. questions like ‘what is the text about?’ are often too vague, and assume that critical practice is a task limited to investigating the ‘correct’ metaphysical properties of a text that we have to uncover, as well as presenting literature as wholly utilitarian (under this framework, a text becomes a vehicle for a ‘theme,’ and nothing more.) in the list below, i’ve tried to be a little more precise about the kinds of questions that can help you become a more confident + critical reader.

[disclaimer: i am not any kind of expert, i have studied english lit at degree level and i do read a lot / make a habit of talking about what i read, but i would not consider myself especially ‘qualified’ and nor should you. i’m explaining a process that works for me, not providing a one-size-fits-all solution to the question of analytical methodology.]

the essence of literary practice is that a text has a terrain where it has to be met with, and where it will be accountable to forces that are often beyond its control or beyond its immediate borders, and a terrain where it asks to be met with, and towards which it will attempt to navigate the reader; the reader’s job is to meet with it on both terrains, synthesise them, and respond to them. so, some of the questions you should be asking about a text include:

what is its context? this can mean a lot of things: when and where was it written, and how might the conditions contemporary to its creation be informing the inner working of the text? is it considered part of a particular literary movement; how does it interact with the core characteristics of that movement? does it invoke other works; if so, how does it respond to them? what biographical information about the author might be relevant to the piece? some books will come with an introduction which, if written well, would cover at least the outstanding details on this list; you can also have a look on wikipedia or other such websites to get a feel for the conditions under which the text was created.

how does it respond to this context? rather than assuming a text to be a passive body onto which its external conditions are exerting their unilateral force, we should always understand a text as being in active dialogue with the context that shaped it. what are the questions typically posed within the movement or genre to which it belongs; how does it answer these questions? does it build on its predecessors in any way? if it’s a responsive text (ie. consistently invoking an earlier text), what does it have to say about the text to which it responds; how does it develop or contravene the template from which it was building? how might it be responding to the questions of its time; which paradigms are challenged? which are endorsed, actively or tacitly? what goes unmentioned? i emphasise critical engagement with context so heavily because it’s often where the meat of the text can be found. 

what are the conditions which made this text possible? this is a little different to questions about context, which have a far broader scope; this is a question which seeks to treat a text not as a thing that came into existence of its own accord, but as a thing that emerged as a result of a process of material production that depends upon particular conditions. is it a mainstream publishing house, or an indie press, or self-published? how does this affect its authority, or the standard to which we hold it? how does this affect its relationship to narratives of cultural hegemony? what can that tell us about what hegemony can and cannot absorb? this is me being a big marxist about it but i think this question is woefully neglected in literary studies lol

why did the author make the choices that they made? one of the most important things to remember when it comes to literary analysis is that every choice made in a text is deliberate; every choice about what happens, what a character says and does, what a character looks like, how particular characters interact, how scenes and objects and settings are described, what prose style is employed, what word is used in a sentence, etc., is a deliberate choice being made by an external agent (ie. the author, sometimes/arguably also the editor, also the translator if a text is in translation), and those choices are accountable both to the deliberations of the author and the external cultural narratives with which they necessarily enter into a dialogue. ‘why does a character behave in a particular way’ is not a question that invites you to treat the story like a riddle for which you can find an ‘answer,’ but a question that engenders the following: what does their behaviour reveal about the character, and how might this be situated within the discourse of the wider text? does this behaviour reveal any biases on the part of the author? what sort of expectations does this behaviour establish, and are those expectations met or neglected or subverted? the same process can be applied to themes, settings, plot beats - anything, really. why is this particular adjective used - does it have other connotations that the author might want to draw attention to in relation to the object being described? why does this chapter end here and not here? nobody in a novel has agency that extends beyond the boundaries of the novel itself; part of the practice of analysis means discerning which choices were made and why, and whether those choices were good or bad. 

what is your response? analysis is a misleading term for this practice; it’s less about dispassionately picking at a text in search of an ‘answer’ and more about evaluation - assessing the text’s successes and failures and cultivating your personal response to it, which means paying attention to your responses as you go along. some people would argue that ‘did you like/dislike this’ is a juvenile question, but i would disagree - knowing whether you liked or disliked something and being able to describe why it evoked that reaction in you is crucial to an evaluative practice. a text can be conceptually excellent, but falter if its prose is clunky or uninspired or unimaginative; being able to notice when a text isn’t engaging you and asking why that is is an important part of this evaluative process. similarly, what do you make of the themes and developments present in the text; does it dissect its themes with precision, or does it make broad gestures towards concepts without ever articulating them fully? is it original? does it have sufficient depth to it? do you agree with it? are you compelled by it? if you were asked the questions that the novel tries to respond to, what would you say; do you think that the novel misses anything out? has it challenged your own perspective? what are its limitations?

literary analysis is a learned skill, but by its nature of being a skill it gets a lot easier over time, and some of these questions will become intuitive. a good way to hone the skill and develop a greater intimacy with a text is through close reading; this refers to the practice of selecting a passage (or even just a sentence) and picking it apart line by line (word by word, even) to describe in intimate detail exactly how the sentence(s) came to be formed in the way that it/they did. i’ll use the first few sentences of daphne du maurier’s rebecca as an example.

Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again. It seemed to me I stood by the iron gate leading to the drive, and for a while I could not enter, for the way was barred to me. There was a padlock and chain upon the gate. I called in my dream to the lodge-keeper, and had no answer, and peering closer through the rusted spokes of the gate I saw that the lodge was uninhabited.

so a close reading of these sentences might identify:

‘last night i dreamt i went to manderley again’ is in iambic hexameter; this rhythmically satisfying invocation makes for a smooth opening sentence, and contrasts with the longer, more complex sentences that follow on. the change in rhythm through such a contrast helps to maintain momentum throughout the paragraph.

the first sentence also introduces a few key pieces of information - that this story is being told from the first person, that we are opening with a dream (and that the narrative places stock in the significance of dreams), and that the speaker is going to manderley ‘again’ - ie. that this is opening after an event in which manderley was significant. that the speaker going to manderley ‘again’ in a dream holds importance implies an exile from manderley in the ‘real’ world; this already gives us hints at the broader shape of the narrative. 

the speaker’s intimacy with manderley and disregard for ‘telling’ the reader what it is (we do not get, like, ‘manderley is a house’ or something - the passage continues as though we know what manderley is already) helps to develop our sense of immersion in the dreamscape. it also sets manderley up as a place of immense significance.

both ‘it seemed to me’ and the later ‘i called’ have a matter-of-factness to them, a certain dry reporting of the events of the dream which, rather than situating the reader within the texture of the dream itself, refortify us as outside of it, listening to it be explained after the fact.

‘for a while i could not enter, for the way was barred to me’ continues the theme of implied exile that the first sentence gestured towards. the iambic trimeter on ‘the way was barred to me’ creates a lilting cadence which, along with the use of the passive voice, detaches the speaker from an emotive response to this being ‘barred’; it is a reported dream that will not consciously acknowledge the speaker’s feelings about being exiled from manderley at this time. (we instead infer these feelings through how the chapter develops.)

‘there was a padlock and chain upon the gate,’ as a short sentence, falls into the same matter-of-fact register as that which i alluded to above, partly through the use of the passive voice, and - as i explained earlier - varies the length of sentences such that the paragraph retains a particular buoyancy. 

the development from the speaker calling to the lodge-keeper to not getting an answer to seeing that the lodge is uninhabited tells a story wherein the speaker at first has authority such that a lodge-keeper would respond to her and let her in; this authority is negated by the lack of response; the lodge-keeper is found to be absent in a development that took place whilst she was herself away, presumably in the state of exile that we have inferred her to be in. ‘uninhabited’ is the kind of word you would expect to be used for an area of land, often with a colonial connotation; this introduces a theme that this chapter (& the book as a whole) goes on to develop, of manderley being a site of colonial decay; as reinforced by the ‘rusted spokes.’

in my experience, close reading is a technique best practiced on poetry, but it’s a very helpful skill to develop in general, and implementing it with prose can elucidate the nuances of a text far more clearly than you might initially realise. in a well-written novel, language is very deliberate and precise!

i think the best thing you can do to develop your skills as a critical reader is to read carefully, and to keep track of your responses to a text as best as possible. keeping a note of what you think a text achieves and how you respond to it each time you read one can be a good way of sorting your thoughts into something coherent and developing your ability to articulate a response. anyway, hopefully this has provided something resembling a guide for how to develop the thought processes that go behind critical practice!

#ask #long post #resources

[glamaphonic]

i don't post a ton about izzy hands bcs, being real, i just don't care that much about him, and frankly, i find the obsessive fixation on him both predictable and annoying.

but it's my blog and i have thoughts that, because of the person that i am, are going to be expressed in the form of a character breakdown. i promise it is as discourse-free as i could possibly make it, but obviously if you don't want to read my examination of izzy hands' motivations as a character then...don't.

i feel like there's a very widespread misapprehension of said character and motivations, and indeed it's a misapprehension that i predicted way last year, and one that helps contribute to a wealth of repetitive arguments and discourse about the character that i am assiduously attempting to avoid in this post. (i am not, btw, proposing any sort of "solution" here; people can argue about whatever they want.)

in short, there's a tendency in meta and fic to take a singular aspect of subtext (izzy is into blackbeard) and center it as the character's primary (and often sole) motivation. and then, to work from there to recontextualize and reimagine and reinvent everything around that assumption.

but the show and the character straight up stop making sense when you do that. because izzy's primary motivation is categorically not desire for blackbeard.

his primary motivation, textually, is that he wants to be captain.

if i was at work and breaking down his GMC as an antagonist in s1 it would be:

g(oal): get rid of stede so that ed can retire

m(otivation): become captain

c(onflict): he is continually prevented from getting rid of stede, primarily by ed

and as happens in well-constructed narratives everything he does for most of the season revolves around this gmc.

to slide into the character section: izzy is, fundamentally, both hungry for power and bad at actually wielding power. izzy cares, more than anything, about his job and being at the top of the field in that job.

in 1x04, he tells ed to his face that he thinks ed's a washed up has-been who izzy has only continued to work for because of the clout that comes with working for the legendary blackbeard. this is because, as we've seen him mention to fang and ivan, he reads ed's increasing disinterest in and boredom with his job, and potentially the attendant depression, as ed having gone "half-insane" and no longer living up to that ideal. izzy later takes this back when ed has once again proven himself capable of pulling off a typical blackbeard miracle, of being the master of the work that izzy venerates. and then ed dangles izzy's heart's desire before him. if ed can retire, then izzy no longer has to suffice with being second-in-command to the biggest, baddest pirate. he can have the mantle passed to him. he can be the master of the work.

but of course, necessary to this plan, as ed presents it, is that stede must die.

and that's what izzy spends the rest of the season trying to accomplish.

to suppose that izzy is primarily acting against stede out of jealousy over thwarted romantic hopes, as the point of a love triangle trying to get rid of his rival, as someone who is desperately trying to have ed's attention redirected at him, is to suppose that he is actively seeking an end-state directly in opposition to his own goals.

because if stede dies, things don't return to the status quo, izzy doesn't get ed "back" to continue alongside him in perpetuity, and he certainly doesn't get the affection and adoration that ed has never before demonstrated towards anyone (nor do i think he even wants it, but that's a whole other analysis). the terms as they were laid out and as izzy continuously pushes ed to fulfill are that stede dies, ed goes away forever, and izzy gets a boat and a captaincy. that is what izzy explicitly wants.

and yes, as ed falls in love with stede, izzy is disgusted by what he sees as ed being corrupted by someone beneath him, turned into some "thing" that deserves to be put down. and yes, he wants to avoid the legendary blackbeard being brought low, be it by stede bonnet's influence or an english ambush. and, yes, repressed gay jealousy is definitely an aspect of izzy's overall dislike of stede, in particular.

but these things are secondary and tertiary, respectively, to izzy's immediate motivations and goals.

he stays in 1x04 because ed offers him a captaincy. he pushes ed to kill stede in 1x06 because it's the plan that will lead to him being captain. he narks to the english because they will give him a boat and a captaincy for it (plus he swore to make ed regret not following through with the original plan that would give him a boat and a captaincy). and he's happy as a clam in 1x09, even though stede isn't actually dead and ed has undermined the legend of blackbeard by signing the act of grace, because his primary goal has been fulfilled. izzy is now captain of his own boat.

and in 1x10 the sole alteration in izzy's motivation all season occurs. he realized his power-hungry dreams, but his regrettable incapacity at wielding power comes back to bite him. after he's mutinied in short order, and his life is saved solely by ed's presence and authority, he's left with limited choices (within the scope of his characterization).

he can leave and go it alone; attempt to climb the ranks again elsewhere, and eventually perhaps meet that same end he just narrowly avoided.

or he can try to go back to how things were before, try to once again achieve the highest strata he ever had: right-hand man to the legendary blackbeard. secure in the knowledge that not only is this a top position in the field, but that, barring all else, blackbeard's power and authority are sufficient to keep him safe from the machinations of the crew.

but of course, in izzy's mind, for all that to happen blackbeard has to actually be blackbeard. and well we need not rehash his opinions on that.

so yeah, gay jealousy over ed? definitely a thing izzy feels, imo, if deeply repressed.

but is it his actual motivation for almost anything he does throughout the season? demonstrably not, or else he would've made some very different decisions.

anyway this is all basically just a rehash of this conversation, but i was noodling on it so.

#ofmd #ofmd meta #izzy hands #long post

[inkblackorchid]

What the hell happened with Crow: an autopsy (Part 3)

Trying my absolute damnedest to finish this one and part four sooner now that I've finally covered the Pearson backstory. *Ehem* Hello again! I hope you're ready for more yelling about a certain spiky-haired Blackbird aficionado, because I sure am.

To get some things out of the way first, though, here come the usual disclaimers:

This is part three of a series of posts about hpw Crow's character was handled during 5Ds' whole run. You can find part one here and part two here. Reading them technically isn't required, but things sure will make a whole lot more sense if you do. (Bring snacks, they're long.)

This post isn't meant as a Crow hate post, nor is it meant to convince people who didn't vibe with his character to change their mind. This is my very long winded-attempt to analyse the writing decisions surrounding his character as best I can, without too much bias. That said, full disclosure, I do personally like Crow, so there's a good chance that will shine through whether I want it to or not. But also, I'm trying to have fun here, so please cut me some slack.

In case you haven't read my previous Crow posts (no shade there) and/or still believe the many, many production rumours that have been haunting the 5Ds fandom since the show's original run, please let me burst your bubble(s) with some insanely comprehensive research by someone over on Reddit (thanks again to @mbg159, who's also here on tumblr): No, Crow was not meant to be a dark signer, or the final boss of season 1, and his spike in screentime has nothing to do with his cards. And also, No, Aki didn't get less presence in the narrative because her VA got pregnant. What if you don't have the time to read either of those long posts? In that case, please take away this simple, very easy rebuttal of why the above theories are bullshit: Their would-be "key points" don't line up with the 5Ds production timeline. At all. Not even vaguely. So please, ditch them, let them die, seeing them still talked about makes me feel like I'm gonna break out in hives. And for the love of god, don't use this post or in fact anything else I post to pit Aki and Crow against each other. Both characters have their strengths and their reasons to love them. I am not the least bit interested in starting any character discourse. So please, spare my sanity. Ok? Thank you.

And now, we can get to the good part at last. In my previous post in this series, I stopped my analysis at episode 95, a.k.a. part two of the Pearson backstory. In this post, I will thus be picking up right after, at the very start of the WRGP—with the Team Unicorn match. The goal for this post is to analyse Crow's part in this particular arc, then provide some food for thought/ideas on how things that rubbed some people the wrong way could have been improved.

More below the readmore, and I give you not just my usual warning, but an extra warning, too: The universe will not let me write short things, so tread with caution, stay hydrated, and expect a veritable dissertation below, because this post feels long even to me, who has long since lost her sense of length when it comes to text. (But I'm well aware this is the result of me refusing to split the WRGP part into two separate posts, so I take full responsibility for that.)

Since we left off right after I chewed through all the issues with Crow's rather belated backstory and especially Black-Winged Dragon last time, we jump right into the thick of things now, with episodes 96 and 97, which serve as the preamble to Team 5Ds' first WRGP duel against Team Unicorn. Crow only gets two major things to do during this short stretch of episodes, the first being that he's Team Unicorn's gateway into roping Yusei into a duel during practice, which helps them set up a ruse that baits the 5Ds gang into sending Jack as their first wheeler because they think Jack's deck is best suited to countering Andre's—which, as it later turns out, it is not.

(Arguably the screenshot where Crow gives off the strongest Youngest Sibling Vibes during the entire show. Look at him, all chastised.)

Crow's second role is an odd one that I argue only he out of the main three guys could fulfill at this point: He's the one to get injured right before the Team Unicorn match, rendering him unable to compete, which leads to Aki offering to take his place for that particular match.

(Pictured: Bird Boy regretting all his life choices up until that point simultaneously.)

Here's the first moment I have to talk about in greater detail. See, the thing is, I don't know what the fandom consensus on Crow getting injured here is, but I argue that this moment was a (rare) strategic decision made by the writers at this point. Crow's injury accomplished several things: 1. It sets up the mystery of why his back wheel locked up out of nowhere, which is later paid off through Team Catastrophe's shenanigans. 2. It organically allows Aki to take his spot without introducing any argument about which of them is "worthier" of having that third spot. 3. Through this, it also allows him to actually bounce off Aki for once (a point I will come back to below, during the Team Catastrophe section). And 4. It allows the show to (TECHNICALLY) pay off the setup they did in letting Aki get her turbo duelling license and train with the boys. (Generally, Crow's and Aki's character writing intersects a bit during the pre-Diablo incident WRGP section, something I'll touch on below.)

Moreover, I think this is also the only match where they could have done something like this, and the reason for it is very simple: Team Unicorn are one-off opponents whose presence in the narrative is only relevant as far as it concerns the WRGP, and they are also one of the first teams the 5Ds gang faces. If we think about the opponents Team 5Ds has after this, it becomes very obvious why Crow could only be injured during this duel: If they had tried pulling this stunt later, it would have forced the writers to pull Aki centre stage during a much more plot-relevant duel than this one (which they were apparently allergic to, but let's not go there), not to speak of the fact that it would have forced them to sideline someone they were definitely trying to sell as the third portion of their protagonist trifecta, which would have probably been awkward. (If not for the fact that they literally did this to Crow later in the show, but I'll get there. Yes, I know there's a lot already that I'll still be "getting to".)

The thing is, whether or not it feels like an awkward writing choice to make so early in the big tournament of this arc (you be the judge of that), Crow's injury finally allows him to have a few interesting character moments for once. For one, there is his immediate disappointment about being forced to stay on the sidelines. Aside from the fact that this is a human and relatable reaction to his injury, it stings even more for the character than it does for us as the audience, because Crow got a moment where the Satellite orphans he previously took care of cheer him on for the tournament literally within the same two Team Unicorn preamble episodes.

(Say what you will, this is just stupid cute.)

So when Aki eventually offers to take his place during the match, he's understandably apprehensive—and again, this is human. It may seem mean in the moment, but from a character writing standpoint, it's a natural response. Plus, it's certainly more interesting to watch the group have a bit of conflict among themselves, rather than everyone immediately jumping straight to acceptance. It introduces tension, and, for however brief a moment, raises the question of whether Crow might refuse to let Aki take his spot. This is also the point where Aki and Crow's character writing officially intertwines, at least for the stretch of episodes between the Team Unicorn duel and the Team Catastrophe duel. And you know what? Say what you will, but I think it does a world of good for both of them. The 5Ds cast, as lovely as it is, doesn't get a lot of room to bounce off one another where it concerns personal matters anymore, once the WRGP starts. Arguably, they get little time to bounce off one another outside of plot-related discussions at all once this portion of the show comes around. The characters are treated as "fully developed", and thus, the writing largely doesn't take the time to show us how the group naturally interacts with one another anymore, especially not with how many side characters (chiefly Bruno and Sherry), antagonists, and duels the show now has to juggle. So Aki and Crow getting even a smidgen of personal conflict here is honestly a breath of fresh air. The interaction kicked off by Crow's injury isn't completely plot-irrelevant, like most character interactions during the pre-WRGP were, but it's not something that feels like it's only there to explain the machinations of the antagonists to the audience, either.

Let me go through this in a little more detail to illustrate my point.

So, episode 97. Crow storms off after Aki offers to take his spot, while Aki heads out to prepare her runner, intent on helping her team. The personal motivations here are already very nice and reflective of these characters as we've gotten to know them up until this point: Crow's angry and disappointed (mostly at himself, which is noteworthy!) because he can't compete. And specifically, he's angry because not being able to compete in the first match means he can't show the kids his duelling like he wanted to. Then there's Aki, whose offer to take Crow's place is every bit as much of a strategic suggestion as it is a bid for acceptance from her. Acceptance, which is the thing she's been all about ever since she was introduced, basically. So she pleads with her friends to accept her, see her as an equal, and allow her to duel for the team, which they do. And Crow initially throws a fit, but then...

(Listen. You have no idea how much Crow and Aki getting to actually be friends means to me.)

He comes around to the idea and not only gives Aki his express permission to take his spot, he even coaches her a bit right before the match. Moreover, as his text states above, he literally entrusts her with the kids' hopes, as well as his own. This quickly brings both of them full circle: Crow, who already has a theme of legacy attached to him, passes the torch to Aki for this match, and in so doing, offers her the acceptance she asked her teammates for. (Frankly, stuff like this makes me wonder why on earth people were so eager to pit these two against each other, when their shared moments are actually some of the best-written during the often rocky WRGP arc.) So, though this injury pulls Crow out of the duel, it, funnily enough, ties him better into the story and to the other characters.

From there, we then dive into the Team Unicorn match proper. And well, being injured as he is, Crow doesn't exactly get a whole lot to do there. However, since we're in the portion where his and Aki's writing overlaps a bit, I do need to go on a quick tangent about what Aki's portion of this duel means for Crow.

(Sigh. Okay, buckle up for a quick and rough detour.)

First, something I need to get out of the way and off my chest: I have made no secret out of the fact that I hate Aki's portion of this duel, save for the moment where she summons Stardust. Hell, this duel segment is pretty much universally hated by anone who has even a smidgen of sympathy for Aki. It's regarded by many as the very moment the writers axed Aki's character, and for good reason: After all the buildup surrounding her getting her turbo duelling license, the supposed "payoff" of it all is that she gets to duel against Andre for a depressing four turns before being defeated immediately, which leads into Yusei's frustrating portion of this duel, which, to my knowledge, isn't regarded any more kindly by fans than Aki's segment. It's a massive let-down, simply put. But the thing is, it's not just a let-down for Aki. After all, the brief character conflict she had with Crow about taking his spot here can and should be regarded as part of the setup for this moment, and as such, it can also be considered to be wasted the second Aki leaves the track after barely making an impact whatsoever.

However, I do need to mention that I have a theory on why this segment was handled the way it was, mostly because I feel like Crow's later interaction with Aki, shortly after she's out of the duel, underlines it (mind that this is just my personal theory, though, after having watched the show perhaps more times than can be considered sane): I think there is a cultural aspect to this duel. See, the word ganbaru, which anime subtitles often like to translate with "do your best" or something along the lines, has a greater significance than the translation implies. Though it's not inaccurate per se, there's more than just the idea of doing your best behind ganbaru, because it's something like an umbrella term not just for doing your best and succeeding, it's also the idea that you have to keep trying, even if you don't succeed. It's related to tenacity, to persistence, even in the face of terrible odds. And make no mistake, I don't mean the Japanese equivalent of "if at first you don't succeed, try again" here. I genuinely do mean "you have to keep trying, even if you fail". There is no guarantee of success here. And for that reason, the idea behind ganbaru is also that it's not simply the success that has value, but the effort made in the attempt to attain it, regardless of the result. (Side note: I tried to scrounge up a resource I could link to that nicely explains this concept, but unfortunately, all the promising articles were paywalled and the ones I learned it from require institutional access to lecture materials.) And this is where I will posit the tentative theory that this is exactly what the 5Ds writers were going for with Aki's segment of the duel—it was very much meant to be the payoff for her turbo duelling license setup and her plea to take Crow's place, but it wasn't so much her success that was meant to be valued, as the effort she (and by extension, Crow) made for and during this duel. And this is where Crow's little pep-talk with Aki after she's out of the duel comes in, because it feels like it supports exactly this interpretation:

(This is essentially the whole sequence. Note how Crow, despite so fervently entrusting Aki with his and his kids' hopes prior, doesn't admonish her for making a bad showing in the slightest.)

I don't think it gets any clearer than it is here. During this sequence, Aki is painfully aware of how poor her performance was against Andre, especially after she was so insistent on duelling at first, and despite having been entrusted with Stardust by Yusei, to boot. Yet, Crow doesn't have a single word of criticism to offer her. Instead, he even tells her she did well and that nobody's perfect. It very much reads as valuing Aki's effort over the result she achieved to me, and thus seems perfectly in line with the idea behind ganbaru.

However, if we assume I'm correct about the intentions behind this writing choice, we come back to why Aki's segment of the duel is so hotly debated and why it may have arguably been a disservice not just to her, but to Crow, too, character-wise. Because the majority of non-Japanese watchers of the show culturally don't have a 1:1 applicable concept like ganbaru, this writing choice was more likely to fall flat for them, because to someone who wasn't raised to understand the idea behind it, Aki's portion of the duel doesn't register as a payoff; it registers as a massive disappointment, because it feels like the writers, who had so much setup already done for her, let her fail on purpose, just to later let Yusei attain his arguably dumbest victory of the entire show. Thus, they also essentially waste the conflict she had with Crow about whether she would be allowed to take his spot in the first place, because with how little she achieved during the duel, she may as well not have gotten on the track. (Figuratively speaking. Please Do Not take this to mean I would prefer a version where Aki hadn't duelled at all. That would be worse. It would be infinitely worse.)

(Also, side note: If this post reaches anyone who's actually Japanese and still remembers this duel, I would genuinely love your input on whether my interpretation is feasible or just wishful thinking. Did you interpret Aki's part of the duel the way I did here? Or did it fall flat for you, too? If what I'm saying here feels like an absolute reach, please tell me. I'm honestly just trying my best to make things make sense here and remembered this concept from some classes I took in Japanese studies at uni.)

With all that in mind, it doesn't come as a surprise that some people were just as frustrated with the way Crow was barred from duelling here as they were with Aki's segment or Yusei's later victory. But it is what it is—the Unicorn duel concludes the way we all know it to, and with that, the show begins setting up the following duel with Team Catastrophe.

The only other, non duel-related, noteworthy thing that happens between the Unicorn and the Catastrophe match is a brief appearance at the Poppo Time by Sherry, who admonishes the signers for celebrating their victory early and warns them about Iliaster. Why do I bring this up? Because it's one of less than five times that Crow is in the same room with Sherry. Remember, Sherry. The girl he later, during the finale, talks out of working for the big bad evil guy because he suddenly seems to have such a deep understanding of her motivations and character that he can accurately deduce what argument will make her understand that working with Z-ONE won't give her what she's looking for. So, does Crow get a meaningful interaction with her during this scene, then? Nope. Not even in the slightest. Crow says exactly one sentence that is aimed at Sherry during her appearance, and that sentence is this:

(What a meaningful conversation!)

And yes, I will come back to Crow and Sherry's dynamic in particular. But we'll save that for the Ark Cradle arc post. For now, just keep it in mind as we move along to the other WRGP duels.

So. Team Catasrophe.

During the duel against this team, which was previously only hinted at ominously, the writing for Crow and Aki overlaps again, and this starts with the writers essentially doing a complete switcheroo of what came before: Instead of Crow getting injured and being unable to compete, it's Aki who crashes, ends up in the hospital, and is thus forced to give up her spot during the duel. (This also goes hand in hand with her suddenly losing her powers, which we are given absolutely zero explanation for, but let's not talk about that clusterfuck here. If you're interested in my opinions about that particular trainwreck, I have a rant for you.) Additionally, it's during this stretch of episodes (103-105, which is a whopping four episodes less than Team Unicorn got) that we find out that not only Aki's crash, but Crow's previous one, too, were both sabotage, caused by the rather unscrupulous Team Catastrophe by way of a special card that can cause real damage even when there is no psychic duellist present. (A card we also find out was given to them by Placido/Primo, but this is irrelevant for both Aki and Crow.) Crow's reaction to this piece of information, particularly once Aki gets injured due to the same thing, is where things get interesting for him again, because he gets pissed, to say the least.

(A moment I imagine firebirdshippers must have been positively delighted about.)

Here, I have to reiterate an earlier point: Think what you will of Team Catastrophe, of Aki's crash, and of the sequence where her powers suddenly don't work, but this moment here, where Crow gets angry on her behalf and swears to duel Team Catastrophe into submission—not because he wants his kids to cheer for him, or because he wants to prove himself, but as revenge for his friend—is one of sadly only a handful of moments the writers use to show the strengthened relationships between the individual members of Team 5Ds after the dark signers arc. It's one of the precious few scenes that actually shows, rather than tells us or lets us search for scraps in the subtext, that the signers, and the members of Team 5Ds as a whole, care for each other outside of revolving around Yusei like planets around the sun. Even if it's laughably small, it's at least a hint that there are individual friendships between the other signers, too, that they all stick around one another for reasons beyond gravitating towards Yusei for one reason or another. And for that alone, I'm grateful that they put this here, even if Team Catastrophe was otherwise so ridiculous and made such a bad showing at their actual match that they could barely be taken seriously as antagonists at all.

Speaking of which. The actual meat of the matter. The Team Catastrophe match. What does Crow do here? Well, he duels! Even though he wasn't supposed to, for injury-related reasons. What both his participation as well as the actual duel accomplish, though, are that they not only showcase previously established character traits of Crow's again, but they also make a (possibly unintended) callback to a previous, major duel Crow took part in: His dark signer duel against Bommer/Greiger. Where and how? Let's see.

Firstly, Crow's participation. The reactions of the other characters to this make it very evident that Team 5Ds did not plan for this, with Yusei and Jack even going as far as to say they "had no choice" but to let Crow duel, because he insisted. This is perfectly in line with the stubbornness we already know from him at this point—a stubbornness that was also a major reason for why he took Bommer on and later continued his duel with said man, despite Yusei showing up and telling him he shouldn't be duelling a dark signer.

Secondly, there's the manoeuvring thing, and here's where I can call attention to a fun tidbit: The WRGP isn't what introduces the concept of manual mode during turbo duels to the audience. It's Crow. During his duel with Bommer. Being crafty and a bit shrewd as he is, Crow, during said duel in the DS arc, purposefully switches to manual mode when he duels Bommer, because he figures that attacks that can deal real damage can probably be evaded if you actually have control over your runner and aren't stuck in autopilot.

(Don't believe me? Here it is. And frankly, it is somewhat hilarious, yet also very fitting that Crow is the only one who thinks to do this during a duel with a dark signer.)

The reason this particular bit is relevant during the Team Catastrophe duel is because Crow essentially repeats this trick here. Of course, it's a bit less impactful now, given that manual mode is standard for WRGP duels, but still: Due to Hook, the Hidden Knight, Crow is forced to pay attention to the track and manually evade the monster's attempts to make his back wheel lock up during the duel, mirroring how he thought to manually evade Bommer's attacks during the DS arc.

Thirdly, there's the revenge angle, and this one is a particularly juicy callback. Remember, Crow's major reason for taking on Team Catastrophe, despite being injured, is that he wants to get revenge for Aki. This directly parallels how his major reason for duelling Bommer during the DS arc was that he wanted revenge for his kids, whom he believed to be dead at that point in time. (It also, interestingly, establishes a bit of a connection to his deck, which boasts a fair amount of revenge effects, but I'll not get into that here, seeing as I've talked about Crow's cards a bit before.)

Keep in mind, despite all the things listed above that this duel accomplishes, it's also by far the shortest WRGP duel. It lasts a whole six turns, total, which is ludicrous compared to the likes of 27-turn Team Unicorn, 26-turn Team Taiyou, or 25-turn Team Ragnarok. And I don't think it's controversial to say that the Catastrophe guys are probably the most forgettable WRGP Team, too. Yet, somehow, despite all its shortcomings in terms of memorable antagonists and plot relevance, this is one of the best duels of the WRGP where Crow's character writing is concerned. Now, I'll be perfectly candid: Coming into this post, I did not expect the Team Catastrophe duel, of all things, to end up being as good at actually showcasing Crow's character and his ties to other characters (who aren't Yusei) as it was, but here we are. And we had better hold on to the good the Team Unicorn - Catastrophe segment did for Crow, because the next thing that's coming up is a harsh break from the WRGP, starting with the sudden appearance of Placido's home-engineered army of killer duel robots. And what does Crow get to do during this part?

Uh. Well.

(Pictured: Bird Boy being demoted to benchwarmer while the city's being ransacked by murder duel robots.)

Nothing. A whole lot of nothing, is what.

During the duel robot invasion, we only ever flash back to Crow to ascertain that he is, in fact, useless during this part of the show, something he shares in common with Ruka, Rua, and Aki here, because all of them get pretty much nothing to do while Yusei finally gets the hang of accel synchro. Granted, Aki gets to save a little girl at the hospital, but in comparison to Yusei's lengthy, plot-heavy duel with Placido, this feels like a consolation prize. And for once, Jack is only marginally better off, too, because sure, he gets to beat up a couple of robots, but that's it, really.

Where Crow is concerned, his plot relevance doesn't actually resume once the Placido duel finishes, though. (And neither does Rua's, Ruka's, or Aki's, while we're at it.) Because wouldn't you know it, the next big thing directly after the duel robot invasion are the Red Nova episodes, where three out of five signers (Crow, Aki, and Ruka, unsurprisingly) are removed from the screen almost in their entirety again while Jack gets his much-needed dragon upgrade so he can keep up with Yusei, in order to uphold his status as a classic, almost-evenly-matched yugioh rival.

Speaking of upgrades and dragons, let's make a quick detour while our protag and rival duo take their express vacation to the Nazca plains. It is, of course, no secret that no signer outside of Yusei and Jack ever got a dragon upgrade within the anime. (No, I'm not forgetting about Life Stream Dragon. But that one, unlike Shooting Star Dragon and Red Nova Dragon, was a.) teased all the way back in the DS arc and b.) didn't have a unique summoning method or some other gimmick that made it an "elevated" synchro. So I'm discounting Life Stream as a "proper" dragon upgrade on purpose.) Is this the point where I start arguing that Crow should have gotten one, then? Well, not quite. Not with the writing the show canonically gave us, at least—after all, with how late Black-Winged Dragon was introduced, it would have been bonkers to upgrade him here already, if even at all. However, I do argue that the way the show hands only Yusei and Jack upgrades seems a bit... off. Now, I know why only those two get upgrades, or at least I think I do. After all, they're the central protag/rival duo, and within the framework of the character archetypes the larger yugioh canon has created for itself, this would have always made them the first, if not the only candidates for dragon upgrades. What feels a bit off to me, though, is that specifically the 5Ds cast feels like it... chafes a bit against those character archetypes, for lack of a better word. The problem is this: The signers, as far as the first two arcs are concerned, are sold to us as equals who all have very powerful ace monsters. Yes, Jack and Yusei are still undoubtedly the best duellists among them, but not on account of having uber-powerful extra special monsters that were acquired through supernatural means that are categorically inaccessible to the other signers. However, with the appearance of Shooting Star and Red Nova, this changes. While Yusei and Jack were previously and would have always been the two guys who had a Special dynamic with a capital "S" on account of their character archetypes, their acquisition of the dragon upgrades—and even more so, the lack of upgrades their fellow signers receive—now decidedly puts them in a different power bracket and skews the balance between previous, supposedly "equal" characters. (Which, unfortunately, is yet another thing that makes everyone else easier to sideline.)

Why do I bring all this up in a post dedicated to Crow? Because this new power imbalance arguably impacts him more than the other signers—because he's Team 5Ds' second wheeler and doesn't miss another WRGP match from here on out. Thus, that power imbalance is felt in the upcoming duels, where Yusei and Jack bust out Shooting Star and Red Nova like it's nothing, while Crow is left manoeuvring with the somewhat underpowered Black-Winged Dragon and whatever else he can come up with. This is also why I claimed that the show did sideline Crow in some aspects further above. Because while some parts of his writing go to great pains to establish him as part of a protagonist trifecta that is now supposed to take centre stage before the other characters, he also permanently lives in Jack and Yusei's shadow, ultimately barred not just from reaching equal status as a signer (due to his late and rocky introduction and dragon acquisition), but also barred from becoming the equal of his foster brothers as a duellist. Frankly, I'm surprised the show didn't make this a plot point, because the first thing my mind jumps to when I think about this is whether Crow felt left behind after his brothers acquired such immensely powerful, special cards. But more on my personal writing ideas later. For now, let's just put a pin in the power-imbalance thing.

So, when is Crow back on screen in any meaningful role, then? (Note that I mean this as literally as possible. As per my discussion about "screentime" and my gripes about it in part two, I gloss over the parts where Crow is on screen, but could be traded for any other signer or even a lamppost without affecting the scene at all.)

Well, the next thing Crow gets to do isn't exactly glorious, but it sure is funny.

(I want you all to remember that he has to wear this costume and play this part in Team 5Ds' absurd plan to capture Yaeger/Lazar because he lost at rock-paper-scissors. This will never not be funny to me.)

Ignoring the hilarious outfit and Crow playing the bait at a fabricated cup ramen promo event meant to lure Yaeger in, bird boy does actually get something that's not just for funsies to do during the two episodes where Team 5Ds is trying to get more information about Iliaster: He gets to have a duel revanche against Yaeger, who, if we remember the DS arc, ditched him the last time they squared off. Much like the Team Catastrophe duel, this one, too, calls back to previous duels Crow has had: For one, it's the obvious conclusion to his unfinished, first duel with Yaeger. And for two, Crow repeats a "trick" (for lack of a better term) here that is also unique to him: losing on purpose, which we remember from his duel with Lyndon.

(Identical-looking clown family jumpscare be upon ye.)

And again, much like getting injured for the Team Unicorn duel, I argue that this story beat here is something that could also only have been accomplished with Crow. Because he's the only one who has previously duelled Yaeger, firstly, because not wanting to make a child cry by beating their dad in a duel makes sense for him as a character due to him being a family-oriented person who loves children, secondly, and because losing on purpose in this scenario is a tactic that would seem out of character from anyone else, thirdly. (We recall, the only times Jack and Yusei, respectively, ever consider/offer to lose on purpose is when the lives of people close to them are on the line, in the shape of Carly/Rally. As for the others, aside from not being present, Aki, Rua, and Ruka are so heavily sidelined at this point that they would have never been an option for this. And if his writing is anything to go by, Bruno is mostly purposefully forbidden from accomplishing Plot Things, especially through duels, while he's Bruno.) But hey, due to the way this episode is set up, losing on purpose works out for Crow, because it convinces Yaeger to stop hiding and actually share his knowledge about Iliaster. This, by the way, is the second scene where Crow gets to be in a room with Sherry for a longer stretch of time. And look, him joking that Sherry might kill Yaeger if he doesn't spill the beans about Iliaster soon is fun and all, but in light of the Ark Cradle duel later, I have to point out that he, again, doesn't get to have so much as a shred of a meaningful conversation with Sherry here. Again. But moving on. The scene with Yaeger at the Poppo Time then leads us first to the small sequence in the arcade where the gang has to win a simulated duel to get Yaeger's encoded intel, then to episode 116—the Moment Express episode, where, due to this being a Yusei, Sherry, and Bruno-focussed episode, Crow gets nothing to do again. (And also doesn't get to interact with Sherry again.)

Congrats! We've survived the WRGP break. This leaves us with three more WRGP duels before shit hits the fan and the Ark Cradle arc commences. And full disclosure, I'll be doing a bit of a quick-fire round of those three duels. Why? Because despite them all having their merits in their own rights (they're the better liked duels of the WRGP for a reason), there honestly isn't that much focus on Crow during them. He duels, yes, and I've seen people point this out over and over again as the supposed smoking gun that shows how Crow had so much more relevance and screentime than Aki and yadda, yadda. We've been there. And it's not that I can't see where this argument is coming from—I'll be the first to tell you that it's a travesty that Aki never got to duel in the WRGP again outside of the Unicorn match. But I want to use the final three matches to dig into how the way these matches—and especially the opponents to go with them—were set up made it nearly impossible for Aki to replace Crow again during any point of the WRGP finals.

First, episode 118. This is the only preamble episode we get for the first two WRGP finals teams, and here, our group is split in two: Yusei, Bruno, and Rua introduce us to Team Taiyou, while Jack, Aki, and Crow introduce us to Team Ragnarok. There isn't much to say here, because the only thing this episode does for Crow is a shallow repeat of what the Team Catastrophe duel did: By putting him in a group with Aki and Jack, and letting them decide among themselves, independently, to check out the exhibition match, it implies that he voluntarily spends time with signers who aren't Yusei. Thumbs up. Gold star. You made an effort (I guess). Then, the real fun starts.

Round one. Team Taiyou.

(Pictured: The sweetest country bumpkins to ever grace this earth. Yes, I'm biased.)

So here's the deal with Team Taiyou, from a narrative standpoint, as best as I can grasp it: They are a callback to Team 5Ds' roots. Specifically, to the boys' Satellite roots. The Taiyou boys come from humble origins, have only one, mostly home-engineered duel runner, and play using old cards that are widely considered shitty, as 5Ds canon tells us. They are essentially the non-signer, countryside version of what Jack, Crow, and Yusei once were, which is why this is the first duel where the duellist constellation on Team 5Ds' end couldn't possibly have been altered. Team Taiyou is there to remind us where our boys started, so it has to be our boys duelling them. This also goes for Crow, even though this duel otherwise doesn't accomplish much for him, character-wise. Instead, it's more of a narrative wink at the audience, as well as providing a breather between otherwise extremely tense, plot-focussed duels. But yeah, Crow's part in this match isn't much to write home about; he doesn't get any verbal interactions that are very meaningful to his character, can't get so much as a scratch in on Zushin, even with Black-Winged Dragon, and is defeated so Yusei can take out the legendary giant.

Round two. Team Ragnarok.

(Behold the pizzazz of at least two contenders for Haircuts With The Most Spikes in the show.)

Though this duel is framed as being even more so aimed towards bolstering Jack's character writing than Crow's, given the inclusion of Dragan's personal history with Jack, Team Ragnarok gets significantly more interesting for Crow again than Team Taiyou did. This is, of course, mainly because of Brave/Broder. Where Team Taiyou were a callback to the 5Ds boys' roots, Team Ragnarok are their narrative foils. Dragan is the duellist who lost his pride to contrast Jack, who's brimming with pride at all times, and Harald/Halldor is essentially the rich, "destiny isn't bullshit, actually" version of Yusei. Meanwhile, unlike the first two, who highlight our 5Ds boys' characteristics by contrasting them, Brave acts as Crow's mirror. Through Team Ragnarok's flashbacks, we see that he gets almost exactly the same, lovable-rogue-type backstory that Crow did during the DS arc, just in a different setting. The only, major difference between them is that while Crow is more down-to-earth, Brave likes to be pretty flashy.

(Keep in mind that he's doing this on a runner. Is there such a thing as courses on how to do acrobatics on your runner? Like there are courses for vaulting on horseback irl? I'm overthinking this again.)

Unsurprisingly, the duel thus ends up addressing the similarities between Crow and Brave, mostly through two things: One, the duel essentially becomes a contest of who can out-trickster who, culminating in the famous, ridiculous-in-the-good-way sequence where Crow activates a trap from his graveyard, to the shock of pretty much everyone present. And two, despite being on opposite sides, the two bond over their concern for the children they took care of and their concern for children in general, which is expressed most clearly in the scene where Crow's kids, in an attempt to hold the poster they made for him higher, very nearly fall over the barricade in the WRGP stands. Despite the hefty length of the full duel, these are pretty much the only things actually related to Crow's character that come up, though. They're good, don't get me wrong, but in a duel that is otherwise this dense with plot, Aesir shenanigans, and Iliaster foreshadowing, it's no surprise that the duel doesn't add that much to Crow's character, outside of giving him someone he can bounce off very well and relate to. Again, though, we are faced with the same situation as with Team Taiyou: Due to the way the members of Team Ragnarok are written, meant to contrast/parallel one male duellist each from Team 5Ds, nobody other than Crow could have taken the third spot here, either. It would have felt awkward from a narrative standpoint (as much as I would have loved to see Aki duel more).

Now, finally. Round three. Team New World.

(Welp. Here come the robots.)

I had to check to make sure I wasn't misremembering this, but due to the way this duel was set up so José/Jakob could bust out Meklord Emperor Granel with a ridiculous amount of attack points, Crow gets a resounding four turns total in this duel. (Gee, I wonder which other character got this treatment during a WRGP duel.) During those four turns, there are only two things he accomplishes: One, leaving behind two combo pieces Yusei later uses, and two, showcasing the shrewd tactics that earned him the label of "trickster" during the Ragnarok duel by bringing out a non-synchro monster that can take advantage of a synchro monster's attack points and effects—Aurora the Northern Lights. And arguably, this is a very smart play, moreover, it's the only time anyone in the show has the bright idea to not use synchro monsters against the known and feared synchro-killer Meklords. Unfortunately, as smart as it is, the narrative doesn't reward Crow for this play—José all but shrugs what could have been a turning point in the duel off, then proceeds to steamroll Crow the next turn, leaving Yusei to score the win, as usual. To get back to the "Crow got so much more screentime than Aki during the WRGP" thing for a second, of all the duels in the WRGP finals, this is arguably the one where Aki could still most easily have taken Crow's spot again, because here, it doesn't matter whether it's him or someone else, as this duel isn't tied to his character in any way. Unfortunately, due to the Granel-steamroller-strategy, this is also the duel where letting Aki take his spot again would have been the biggest shot in the foot, because unless they had changed Team New World's strategy, Aki would have gotten brutally guillotined here, same as Crow—something I can't imagine anyone, not even people who hate Crow, being happy about.

With that, though, we've finally made it through the WRGP. So, what's the bottom line here? Frankly, speaking from my own interpretation, Crow occupies an... odd spot during this tournament, to say the least. Though he does get to duel the majority of the time, few of the duels actually cater to his character in any way. Moreover, he only gets to be the star of the show in a WRGP duel once, during the by far most forgettable match against Team Catastrophe. And mind that I use the term "star of the show" very loosely here, because the problem the WRGP arc as a whole has, in my opinion, is that the rather lame Team Catastrophe duel is the only one in the whole tournament that isn't won by Yusei, which categorically means that any of the other character's big moments are usually undermined by the fact that they ultimately still need him to save the day. Thus, moments like Aki summoning Stardust Dragon and Crow using an anti-synchro-killer strategy that for once actually forgoes synchros are somewhat cheapened by the fact that they're not actually the turning-point moments they're initially painted as, because ultimately, Yusei always has to be the one to save the day. What's worse is that this almost feels like a bit of a non-issue that could have easily been fixed—given that the show tells us that teams can shuffle around their line-up for a match any time. But unfortunately, the writing never interacts with this as a possible strategic element, nor does it ever seem to consider letting Yusei lose, or forcing him to give up his spot for a match. I feel the need to say that I don't put the blame at Yusei's feet here, though: This strongly feels like an oversight by the writers, and perhaps a disproportionate need to have a nigh-infallible protagonist (on the duelling side of things) that their audience would never run the risk of calling "lame". For Crow, though, this chiefly means one thing: In any duel other than the Catastrophe one, it was always clear that even if he partook, he would never finish the match. And yes, this is technically an issue Jack has, too. But this is where the character writing outside of the duels comes into play, too.

Unlike Jack, who actually gets to do something during the Diablo invasion (albeit very little), who gets his very own dragon upgrade and who gets a very personal, pre-duel plot with Dragan, the show's writing doesn't bother giving Crow a lot of plot- or character-relevant things to do, once the WRGP starts. This is also why I was so surprised at how much the Unicorn and Catastrophe duels embrace his interactions with Aki—compared to the later duels in the finals, this portion still makes Crow feel genuinely relevant and interwoven with the other characters. Meanwhile, out of the three final duels, only the Ragnarok one actually tries to establish a connection to his characterisation, through Brave. The Taiyou duel only sets itself up in such a way that Aki partaking instead of him would have been awkward. Meanwhile, the New World duel just has him being treated like a floormat in a sad parallel to Aki during the Unicorn duel, seeing as they both get a nice moment where it looks like they might turn the duel around (Aki summoning Stardust Dragon and Black Rose Dragon onto the field at the same time; Crow summoning Aurora the Northern Lights, which couldn't be absorbed by the Meklords), only to have their hopes dashed as they're mercilessly cleared off the track. Outside of the duels, many scenes sadly give the impression that they may as well not have included Crow, though—he often gets so little to contribute to a moment or even to say at all that substituting him with a cardboard box seems like it would not have impacted the scene in any way. And that's without addressing his non-existent connection to Sherry, which feels extra glaring, given his later interactions with her on the Ark Cradle.

All in all, the WRGP feels like a very mixed bag, where Crow's character writing is concerned. His belated backstory, which I talked about in part two, is front-loaded and asks as many questions as it answers. Then the tournament commences, gives him some actually decent character interplay with Aki for once (at the cost of letting her succeed in the tournament, it seems), only for him to be basically irrelevant during the WRGP pause again. And once the whole thing resumes, it becomes this hot-and-cold thing where some duel aspects seem tailored to him, while others treat him as completely expendable. The end result is an arc where I'm left wondering why exactly the writers felt the need to make it seem like Crow made up one portion of a protagonist trifecta, if they never actually bothered treating him as equal to the other two. (The answer, I believe, lies somewhere between the fumbled setup they did for him during the Fortune Cup and DS arc, and the way yugioh in general treats its character archetypes. But that's just speculation on my part.) The one, saving grace the WRGP (outside of the Pearson backstory) has for Crow is that it at least doesn't introduce any new character- and/or timeline inconsistencies. In fact, his character stays remarkably true to form once the tournament begins.

Okay, onto the final bit, then. As I've done in both previous posts, let me delve into completely subjective territory and offer some ideas on how this arc could have been handled to make it seem a little less all over the place with Crow. And since his writing here canonically intersects with Aki's several times, let me try to do it while offering the best of both worlds to both characters, if I can.

As far as Crow's backstory is concerned, I've already offered my solutions to that in part two. Now, to stay consistent with my own suggestions, I'll try to branch off what I wrote in the last post. This means that, as per my previous two analyses, we're dealing with two scenarios again: One, Crow stays a signer and we try to touch canon as little as possible. Two, Crow isn't a signer and we adjust canon in whatever way we need to to make him feel interesting and necessary despite/because of that.

First, though, let's get two adjustments I personally would have made in both versions out of the way:

The way the WRGP is structured puts every character that isn't Yusei at a massive disadvantage, where character moments in duels are concerned. Thus, I propose an overhaul. Among the changes I think could have benefitted the characters (yes, all of them) are: One - Aki actually getting to accomplish something during the Unicorn duel (she can and should still have her moments with Crow, but maybe let her portion of the duel end in her thanking him for coaching her, creating a more upbeat scene that strengthens their friendship, which could double as good setup for their later double-duel against Sherry). Two - letting the Team Catastrophe duel actually play out properly (as in, they become more meaningful as opponents by having a better strategy, for example, and Crow could stick it out longer against them, in order to make this more so his win than Jack's. Also, why not let Aki actually see him get back at Team Catastrophe for her?). Three - giving Crow an actual character moment during the Taiyou duel (what if one of the country boys had played a card or two of the ones he learned to read from? It could have helped drive the parallel between the two teams home.) Four - letting Crow's anti-Meklord strategy get at least a little payoff, if only for two turns (show us at least proof of concept, damn it!). Yes, the Ragnarok duel is the only one I wouldn't rewrite (unless special circumstances are introduced, see below). Additionally, let Team 5Ds alter their line-up more than once, damn it. Let them actually strategise about the duels, let them take into consideration who should go first when and whose deck might be better suited to which scenario. Also, remove Yusei from at least one duel. Doesn't matter how, just let him not partake once. Perfect setup to let Aki duel again, and would also allow for spicy character interactions. (Arguably the best duels where this could have been done would have been any of the final duels, though it would have also required rewriting the antagonists somewhat in any case.)

For the love of god, give Sherry and Crow some setup. Let them actually interact, let them introduce their philosophies to one another, just do something, anything to make Crow understanding and talking sense into her during the finale seem earned. A few chance meetings, or maybe even a tiny side-plot could have done so much here. And if you can't let them interact outright, at least let Aki and Crow talk about Sherry! Double whammy! The two characters who end up duelling against her are made to seem even more like a team, and Crow actually gets to find out what Sherry's deal is on-screen. Just. Set. it. up. I beg you.

There we go. Now, onto the two branches.

Option A: Crow stays a signer and obtained Black-Winged Dragon.

Seeing as Crow's signer status, funnily enough, isn't all that relevant during the tournament itself (save for two notable exceptions), there aren't that many fixes to be made here. Crow can still get injured, miss out on the Unicorn duel and be the star of the Catastrophe duel. But giving him something to do during the duel robot invasion that isn't standing around and hoping Yusei will fix everything would also be nice. It's fine if he can't drive out there and duel, but why not let him do something else? He's a crafty guy, why not let him find, say, a way to fry the Diablos' runners, taking a few of them out even from a semi-stationary position without duelling them? He could at least get as much of a consolation prize scene as Aki got with her saving that child. Then there's Team Taiyou, which, save for what I proposed above, is a duel that doesn't feel like it needs changes. Crow does his thing here. That's it. The same goes for Team Ragnarok, especially given that they're specifically written to oppose an all-signers Team 5Ds. Finally, there's Team New World, which, if I'm being completely candid, I would personally overhaul to change the cyborgs' strategy entirely in order to actually let all three members of Team 5Ds shine. But this is the version where I touch canon as little as possible, so... Aside from what I wrote above, no changes needed. Just make Crow seem a little more relevant, make his strategy have at least a little payoff, even if Granel's back out and menacing literally two turns later.

Option B: Crow, as per my previous posts, isn't a signer and doesn't have Black-Winged Dragon.

This is the version that would categorically require heavier changes, though they honestly don't arrive until the break in the tournament. Unicorn and Catastrophe stay the same, I would still propose that Crow gets to be a little more useful during the Diablo invasion. But! In this version, seeing as he never acquired BWD, the break in the WRGP would be an excellent spot to let Crow acquire an upgrade for his beefy Blackwing ace monster of choice. Give him a little side-plot, too, something to do, something where he proves himself. Maybe let him run into Iliaster here, or maybe call back to Pearson again and introduce the new Blackwing upgrade as a treasure Pearson stashed away before he died (maybe this could have even been the card Bolger was actually after; the world is our oyster here). Then he's beefed up, too, and actually feels a little more on the same level as Jack and Yusei. The tournament recommences and again, the Taiyou duel could stay mostly the same, I think. Ragnarok and New World are where it gets really interesting, though. The way I see it, Ragnarok could go two ways with Crow not being a signer: Either he partakes as he did in canon and his non-signer status is called out as a peculiarity by our Swedish boys who happen to be obsessed with fate (which would make his performance against Brave seem all the more impressive), or, due to this being a duel all about destiny and celestial pissing contests, Crow's spot is given to Aki again for this duel due to her signer status (this would, obviously, require rewriting Brave, perhaps even switching him out for a Ragnarok lady instead). As for Team New World, this duel would honestly be a lot more juicy with a non-signer Crow, because much like he was for the dark signers, a non-signer Crow would essentially be an unknown in their plan for the cyborgs. He would be the guy who's Not Supposed To Be Here. Granted, he would still be beaten, but he could still get an excellent moment where his out-of-left-field anti-Meklord strategy genuinely seems to turn the tables for a bit, angering José and providing even stronger setup for Yusei to win later.

Aaaaand that's that. Somehow, I get the feeling the WRGP had the least things that needed fixing because it also had the least actual character writing. But that might just be me. It's late and I have been writing for A While. But hey, I got out part three faster than part two! I consider that an achievement.

Now, while I get my talking points in order for part four, I hope you'll have fun chewing on this one. See you in the grand finale to my Bird Boy dissertation.

#yugioh 5ds #crow hogan #ygo 5ds #5ds #yugioh meta #team unicorn #team catastrophe #team taiyou #team ragnarok #team new world #holy shit my brain is smoking #so. much. stuff to talk about. #the irony that I'm posting an analysis of this length about crow #on a blog with an aki theme is not lost on me #listen I love them both. they are so good. #and tbh I think I made it abundantly clear that I do here #they are friends. they don't need to fight. #also again if anyone wants to use my fix suggestions as fic premises #please do and tag me if you publish it #anyway *yeets this out into the wild* take it

[bthump]

I’m not coming from a place of hate at all, I enjoy your takes on Berserk homoeroticism and appreciate your refreshing ability to make well informed, intellectual analysis so accessible for other fans. It is an important resource to have when dudebros try to make their homophobic bias sound like good arguments. However, when it comes to your analysis of Casca, I find myself disagreeing with almost everything you say. I’m usually only reading your blog quietly because I enjoy the discourse, but I feel like I need to add my two cents. I agree that Cascas writing falls flat to a degree, but I can’t help but think that you’re downplaying her character and arc because you don’t enjoy the parts of Berserk that aren’t about homoerotic tension between Guts and Griffith. Their homoerotic tension is also what is most interesting to me, but it’s not what Berserk is inherently about. We could dismiss Casca by saying ˋMiura can’t write women´, but then again characters like Farnese exist who have an entire complex thematic arc tied to religious extremism, authoritarian character and freeing herself from dogmatism and Berserk as a story is not punishing her or asking for redemption and is instead inherently ridding itself from moralizing judgements of characters. She’s allowed to evolve by herself. As a queer person, I see myself in her. Theres so much queerness and comphet in her story, I’m sad that there’s not many meta posts about her on here. Does Berserk have ideological streaks of conservatism and misunderstands women because Miura has a misogynistic bias? Yeah, unfortunately. But the story and many of the main characters are too complex and ambiguous for me to write them all off based on how some of their arcs are not feminist enough and could need improving. Imagine writing such a complicated and long story with so many characters as just one simple Japanese dude who never leaves his house and who was born in the 70s or whatever. Like, I get separating the story from the author and impact versus intent, but dismissing Casca because of her flaws in writing is dismissing all of Berserk because of some thematic flaws. It sounds like you’re expecting the perfect story for her to be a valid female character and that’s just not possible. I for once made peace with her flaws and am not rejecting her. I think Cascas story works for what it is and I empathize with her as someone who has experienced misogyny and SA. Farny and Schierke working through her trauma magically was a nice metaphor for solidarity between women and it’s rare to see that coming from a male author, I don’t think it’s less valid just because Miura has some gender bias. Casca still experiencing PTSD afterwards is also realistic and shows that Miura is willing to give Casca enough agency to work through that by herself without magic some time in the future of the story. Her story is uncomfortable and her character arc is long and flawed, but that’s what makes it impossible for me to dismiss her. I’m a bit disappointed that so many fans on the tumblr side are willing to basically rid Griffith from all his wrongdoings but then empathize the flaws in Casca and don’t understand that maybe they also have some internalized misogyny that doesn’t make them understand that bias. Especially with the argument that I often see with She Should Have Died. Why? Because she’s uncomfortable? Maybe explore that within yourself. Other than that I am happy to have this queer part of the fandom where we don’t judge each other for liking Griffith and enjoying GriffGuts as a ship. And I hope that you don’t think too harshly of my criticism, for it is only to improve our fandom discourse culture and not to throw stones. Thank you for existing!

Okay look, while I do appreciate the appreciation for my non-casca blog content, I can't look past this coming hand in hand with a lot of pretty insulting, and frankly baseless assumptions about my motives. I'm glad you're not coming from a place of hate, but from the sounds of it you're coming from a place of presumptive judgement, and I want to address that.

I've always been very direct and clear about how I don't think someone's tastes or opinions about a story reflect on them personally. I don't judge someone's character by their fictional interests, I judge it by their words and actions.

If you're going to be interacting with my blog, I'd appreciate being extended the same benefit of the doubt.

You seem to see someone who doesn't enjoy Casca's storyline and make assumptions about why, rather than taking the reasons I provide at face value. I have explained why, very thoroughly, quite often, and quite recently, while constantly referring back to the text and to Miura's comments to justify my conclusions. I literally don't know how I can possibly be more direct about how I am discussing the narrative of a story on its own terms without going full dry academic language lol, come on.

I like to think I'm also very clear about when I'm expressing my subjective opinion (eg i dislike het romance; I'm super into romantic betrayal as a trope, etc) vs when I'm analysing the story based on direct textual evidence (eg casca has no active involvement in the narrative post-eclipse; casca's sexual abuse is eroticized; etc). I certainly try to be. And frankly it is genuinely pretty insulting that you think I'm incapable of judging Casca's story on its own merits or lackthereof, and must be over-emphasizing the flaws of her narrative because I only care about griffguts.

The truth is I genuinely believe that Griffith and Guts' relationship is the thematic core of Berserk, based on the text of the story, and I also genuinely believe Casca's storyline sucks ass in most ways. And it's okay to disagree with one or both of those takes, but yeah I'm gonna take a little bit of offense at the insinuation that I'm too biased by shipping or misogyny or both to analyse the story.

If you love Casca's story despite its flaws, good for you. I'm happy for you. I have no desire to argue with you to make you change your mind. And I don't think it makes you misogynist or ableist or racist, even though I think Casca's storyline contains all of the above to some degree - but if I was going to respond to you in the same vein that you've responded to me, that would be fair game as an assumption. It would also be fair game to assume that you only like Casca and are dismissive of or blind to many of the story's faults because you're projecting or you ship gtsca or you think good feminism is all about stanning certain designated fictional characters regardless of their actual depiction. And I think that is something wrong with fandom culture. I think those are all shitty assumptions to make about someone based on which fictional characters they enjoy reading about most. So like, straight up, you're the only one throwing stones here.

So I want to ask you: why is it that someone discussing offensive fictional tropes makes you assume they are the real misogynist? Why are you equating criticism of writing with criticism of real women, as though media trends and narrative framing don't exist? Why do you think it even matters if I "reject" a fictional character because I don't like how she's written lol?

This strikes me as the same line of thinking that leads to shutting down all criticism of misogyny in media - how dare you say this outfit is unrealistic for a martial artist, some women like to wear high heels! How dare you criticize the average husband/model-esque wife trope, some beautiful women love their average husbands! How dare you criticize comics for fridging the girlfriends of superheroes, women sometimes suffer horrible fates in real life! How dare you criticize the born sexy yesterday trope, some women are naive! etc etc etc.

And this is why it's important to have at least some understanding of narrative framing and greater media trends when discussing media on any level beyond headcanon and projection. Casca isn't real, and as a construct she is not a sensitive or realistic depiction of a traumatized woman, regardless of whether someone identifies with her. She's not a sensitive or realistic depiction of a disabled women either. There are literally "funny" cartoonish background gags involving her shoving random things into her mouth. She gets sexy fanservice while regressed to the mentality of a toddler. She is sexually assaulted by and then shipteased with the protagonist. I could go on all day lol, lbr here. I should not be obligated to brush all that aside and pretend it doesn't irritate me and sometimes offend me in order to valorize a woman who doesn't like, yk, exist.

You and anyone else are free to project on her and relate to her and sympathize with her and love her, and I think that's great and what fandom is all about, but that still doesn't make her writing strong. And I think it's worth discussing how and why her writing fails, the same way it's worth discussing any other flaw of Berserk, like Guts' character flattening with the Eclipse, or Farnese's sudden personality 180, or the awkward pacing, or the prominent scary black man trope, etc, all of which I've also discussed plenty. If you feel like I've disproportionately focused on Casca criticism, then there are 2 reasons for that: 1. I respond to asks 99% of the time, so it's what the people are asking about. 2. Casca's storyline is the most prominent bad and offensive writing in the story, like it's the number one thing that's likely to drive new potential fans away, so of course people are going to want to talk about it.

Also I've written like, a lot of meta and speculation and headcanons etc about Casca beyond criticism of her narrative lol, so if you're sad about the lack of discussion and meta about her it's ironic that you're coming to me with that complaint. Be the change you want to see in the world, start your own Casca centric blog if you want more meta about her to exist, or read more of what already exists. I'd say I'm doing my part as far as I'm concerned lol, but I don't like the way that phrasing implies that anyone has an obligation to focus their interest on any particular fictional character.

I'm glad you enjoy other aspects of my blog, and if you stick around after this admittedly irritable response I hope you continue enjoying them. But if you feel the need to engage with me to defend a fictional character from my criticism again in the future, I'd appreciate it if you engaged with that criticism directly and analytically, rather than speculating about my character and motives.

#and with that i'm closing the book on this casca drama lol i think this says everything that needs to be said as far as i'm concerned #(i mean okay technically i have one more baity ask i want to briefly respond to soon but that's not technically casca related) #(sorry to anyone who prefers these asks to be ignored. i ignore and block most of them tbf but sometimes like i got shit i wanna say) #and i only block really trolly responses not what i think are earnest if misguided and mb unintentionally insulting attempts to engage #ask #anonymous #a #b #theme: fandom #theme: opinion

[metanarrates]

honestly how are you so smart? How do I become smart? My entire life I was put in the gifted classes and I really think it made me think I was smarter than I am. I'm "intelligent", sure. But I'm also really dumb and it's a huge sore point for me :( I'm always falling victim to believing anyone who sounds the most convincing and I never have my own opinion. It's like those discourse posts where I'll have whiplash reading them thinking "OK this is the most morally correct stance on the matter got it!" And then there'll be a new response and I'll go "OK scratch that! This is what I should believe and parrot back!". I'm really worried that I don't have any firm stances on anything and I'm a sheep who just follows the most ""correct"" sounding take. Sorry to dump this on you, I'd just like to hear your thoughts on it!

that sort of thing is more common than you think, anon. lots of people have trouble not following a herd mentality. it's scary to go against the grain! and i do think the educational system can reinforce that in certain people, since having the "correct" thought as determined by educators is prioritized more than a student having their own independent opinions.

my advice is to start small. if you see a post on your dash talking about a certain topic, really take a moment to step back. does this argument seem convincing? does it seem accurate? if so, why? do you have all the information? if you don't know enough about a topic to formulate your own opinion, maybe you should do some research!

and im not saying you should by default disagree with everything you see. that creates its own host of problems. I'm saying that whether you agree OR disagree with something, you should take a step back and evaluate why. can you explain your own opinions to others outside of "people I want to agree with have this opinion?"

it's also perfectly fine to not have an opinion on certain topics. if you don't know very much about something, there's no shame in waiting to form an opinion until you have more information. don't be afraid to ask questions. don't be afraid to investigate the trustworthiness of sources!

but if all that is overwhelming, and stepping in discourse sounds scary, you can even try this with fiction you read or watch. (im primary a media analysis blog, so i really do think fiction is a great practice ground to practice your analytical skills.) how does this story make me feel? can I identify why it does that? do I like this character? why? can I pick up on any subtext here? can I identify any literary devices the author is using? small questions like that.

in my opinion, a lot of my seeming intelligence comes from my ability to know and explain myself. I spend a lot of time reflecting on why I hold certain opinions, and seeking out further information when I don't understand something. you're probably here because you like my opinions on media analysis - those opinions are formed by not only reading and watching a wide range of things, but by seeking out different lens of analysis, and yes, seeing what other people have to say, and evaluating whether or not I think their opinions are well-supported. I try my best to expose myself to a lot of different types of thought. and I try my best to understand my own mental mechanisms, and to challenge them when necessary. I do think that's crucial to being an independent thinker.

I am sorry if this comes across as a lot. this stuff is overwhelming! you don't have to take all my advice at once. if you can pick even one suggestion from this post, and make an honest effort to try it, you'll start getting better at confronting your fear of being wrong, or the odd one out. over time, it will get easier for you to understand yourself as an independent person.

#narrates #i don't give out general advice very much so i do welcome feedback! if you don't understand something feel free to ask me

[reflections-in-a-critical-eye]

Hiii, miss me?

Now you want to kiss me (or have to? Wasn't there a song like that?)

This month my blog turned two years old. I got the notification in my email. Last year I made an entire celebration post by publishing the funniest/ridiculous asks I got. There were good times back then. Still. Not so much afterwards.

I wasn't the nicest presence in the last few months leading to me abandoning the blog. And I wasn't too discreet about it. Although there was more to it, a lot more. But I'll get there.

First things first. Why am I here when on the 24th of March I dramatically declared that I'm leaving forever? Well, that was a very emotionally-charged post and the result of a few factors. I'm not entirely proud of how I made my exit, but it's also a true reflection of my personality so there's no point in making excuses. Nevertheless, I will explain as much as I can (I still care about privacy, just like before).

On that Friday, I woke up excited. I took a day off from work (yes...I know), I listened to Face, watched the music video. All good. But I was also dreading a bit having to come here because I knew there was this expectation of me to come up with some thought-provoking analysis, say something smart and all that. I was exhausted on all levels, emotionally and intellectually. I had also promised to leave after the promotions were over, somewhere in the middle of April (who would have thought it would last 9 days? Not me), but the plans changed. Not to drag it too much, but on that day I also officially announced to some concerned parties that I'm changing career paths. You know, just something I thought I'd be doing until the day I die and I've been working towards for at least 10 years. No big deal. I was planning on doing it anyway, but actually saying the words and make it real is a different story. I felt extatic, full of adrenaline, so happy with my decision and at that moment, it felt the right time to close BMT. It was somehow directly connected. I made the blog as an escape and now I got the opportunity to turn the page over. It was perfect. Best day ever. I clicked post, I logged out, and then I sat. And after a while, the reality of my decisions hit me in the face. And I felt sad and empty because what the hell am I doing now and what is my identity? I closed my blog too which was my main hobby. And so followed some difficult days. And then it got better. And then bad again. And so on, because it's a roller coaster.

The thing is, I can change my interests, but I can't stop myself from being opinionated. And getting excited. And wanting to talk about it. And share all that on a public platform with some strangers that are interested in what I have to say. Or they used to. It's who I am.

This blog won't remain Bangtan Media Thoughts because I want more than that. I will rebrand this page. I could start fresh with a new blog, but this is still my space and I know some people were interested in reading about other things as well from me, not just BTS. I hope I can built something from that.

The blog won't reflect only a specific niche of interests, but everything that I like in terms of pop culture. From movies, music, fashion, gossip, you name it. Including Kpop. And if I feel the need to rant about Hybe after talking about Ryan Gosling's Ken, I will. Same about JM, JK or whoever I feel like it. If there is a good advice that I got in the last few months, is to adapt and not force myself to abandon something completely. Because it's not as easy as it sounds. And to be honest, it was easier to give up smoking than completely lose interest in kpop. It's a habit. Perhaps this new blog will reflect the way I try to deal with that. A bit more honestly, a little less discourse, certainly less essays because I don't have them in me at the moment. But never say never. This blog will be all me, not just BMT.

I will change the name and url 24h after I post this. This will be an opportunity for all my followers to decide if they want to stay or they are not interested in the new direction. Feel free to do as you please. I welcome new people and greet the old ones who didn't hit unfollow for some reason.

It will go like this:

Bangtan Media Thoughts > Reflections in a Critical Eye

New theme, new profile photo, new beginnings.

All the old posts will still be here. I don't plan on deleting anything. They are all a product of me and my brain and they have their place. I'll probably pin some new posts these days that have to do with the rebranding. It will be like a construction site, but it will be worth it.

One last thing though. After I abruptly left, I received some DMs. I saw them back then. I do feel sorry about those who wanted to check in with me or with whom I used to talk regularly. But I do hope that some of the things I said today will explain my behavior. I also won't start communicating again like that, at least for now. I always felt a bit pressured and I'm not the best at maintaining conversations in private. If that changes, I'll make that clear.

That's it for now. I'm excited. I feel like writing again so here's to another chapter.

My inbox is open and will be, just as usual. No more messages to BMT, but you can call me M. Like in the Bond movies 😉

#bmt blog #probably the last time I will use that tag

[absolutebl]

Do you think whether you watch a bl live or binge it affects your viewing experience?

Because for me, when i watch ep by ep, i am always left with time to consume, reflect, and expect... analyze and make theories... etc. Sometimes, i think this causes much more disappointment later on when certain things i thought were important end up simply not being anything, for example. With binge watching, on the other hand, i don't really have time to think much before jumping onto the next episode, so i feel like it doesn't leave a lot of room for criticism or analysis. I used to be strictly a binge watcher before i started liking to live watch for the fandom experience but it can be a bit draining for me to consume a show for a couple of months, especially that i tend to hyperfixate if i like something too much. Anyways, i was curious to know whether you might look at your viewing experience a bit differently as someone who avidly watches most of their shows live

Have a wonderful dayyy

BL Binging Versus the Weekly Watch

Yes! I have tons of thoughts.

It absolutely emotionally and psychologically impacts the experience.

@heretherebedork and I talk about this all the time

Whether you identify as a binger.

There are some people who just like watching one way over the other. They know themselves best. Bingers usually have to make the choice to wait and that takes will power I don't have. Also if they don't like spoilers, they gotta avoid bloggers like moi.

Whether you have binging thrust upon you.

Some of us have life, or access, or other issues. So some shows we must binge by default, and others we don't have to.

As a critic, I have to acknowledge that the means by which I consume a thing effects how I enjoy it. (I would include device and platform here as well.)

I actually like both ways of watching BL.

I don't really fall into either camp. I have no will power and I love gossiping about shows so I watch weekly, but binging is really fun too. Way more immersive. I still wit often pause it to take notes as I go.

But there are certainly times when I feel like binging (or not) effected my experience and opinion of the show - one way or the other. Usually I am more fair to a weekly and less fair to binge. My mind has a chance to be changed via discourse over a weekly show but NOT with a binge. Or someone's opinion foreshadows my binging enjoyment.

Personally: I try to watch weekly and then if I have time (and care enough) rewatch as a binge to be confident in my thoughts.

But the act of watching something the FIRST time is profound, so the initial mechanism of consumption really does matter.

Are BLs better binged or watched in intallments?

I think if the show was designed for cinematic release, then the creators intend it to be binged. So movies should be binged.

So what about those series KBLs that are repackaged as movies? What about KBLs in general, which run much shorter than most other shows? What about JBLs? That entire tradition started out with the movie mentality, and they still kind of have that attitude and approach - their series are structured a bit more like movies than episodes.

I don't have an easy answer.

I find that I enjoy re-watching KBLs because they are so short. I can squeeze them in in under a few hours, so I do tend to reach for them to binge after airing.

Conversely, I find that I rarely have the patience to binge Thai BL without skipping large chunks, side stories, or fast forwarding through them. I find the longer running series with longer episodes each, easier to watch as weekly installments.

Ironically this means I rarely rewatch the best of these. BLs like La Pluie and Step by Step have been sitting on my rewatch pile for ages, but not making it to the top because they're gonna take so much time because I want to rewatch them thoroughly from start to finish, no skipping.

That said, those BLs that have very short episodes but are airing weekly, are much more work to watch weekly, because so little happens it's difficult to remember what occurred in the previous installment.

Since it is all so complicated, I don't think you can make an objective call as to whether the length of a BL, or the country it comes from, predicates that the entire oeuvre be binged or not.

Are there generalities?

I I HAD to pick, I'd binge

Korean,

Vietnamese,

Pinoy,

and Taiwanese BL.

And those few Thai BLs that goes lakorn or historical (rare, but things like ICFYLITA or Manner of Death or Laws of Attraction).

Because Korean stuff is so short and tidy and because Taiwanese & Pinoy stuff (and Thai lakorn) is so long, untidy, messy, and frustrating, I hate waiting between episodes. Vietnamese stuff tends to be one or the other of the above styles.

I'd watch Thai BL and Japanese stuff in weekly installments.

Both require more patience and thought between shows.

Although some of my favorite JBLs were binges. (I Cannot Reach You and Seven Days).

So what they hell do I know?

#asked and answered #to binge or not to binge that is the question #thai bl #taiwanse bl #korean bl #japanese bl

[studiesof-fandom]

hello!!! I am a literature and arts scholar writing my undergraduate thesis on Tumblr's Goncharov Phenomenon.

I have a question about how to cite sources like Tumblr blogposts in the discipline of fan studies. I am planning to cite fanarts fanworks and tumblr text posts for my research paper on Goncharov Phenomenon. But in fan studies, the ethical concern is often that public open access works like fanworks are not public property that are open to academic scrutiny. So, taking permission from the Tumblr blog owners is the most ethical path that I intend to take in my scholarship. I am thinking drafting a consent form could be a good idea for this case.

But I just want to know acafan experiences on this ethical concern since I am quite new to this field and as an undergrad student this is literally my first foray into a research project that's entirely my own.

My first preference is to take consent from the blog owners to cite their works or quote their textposts. In case, they don't approve to use their actual blog names, should I change my methodology and keep the blog sites anonymous? But I feel that can be counterintuitive as typing in Tumblr textposts on google or using image search for a fanart can make that posts easily traceable. Any insights that you can offer regarding this?

I have read Paul Booth's Media Fandom and Fan Studies primer on ethical concerns and research methodologies in fan studies. But this research project primarily undertakes literary analysis and critical discourse analysis so I am not doing any kind of ethnographic work in this project.

Legally, I don't think (as far as I know) it's illegal in anyway to use public information for research - it's a risk any internet user has if they post publicly on Tumblr or any place.

Doing fandom research, however, is tricky, almost a minefield, so you should tread with caution. Many fans feel uncomfortable around researchers due to many reasons - I mean, it hasn't been that long since fans were seen by some academics as people with some kind of pathology. I don't know what you research, but depending of the topic and how you analyze it, some fans can feel judged or misrepresented. Fanwork, at the end of the day, is something people do to relax and/or to pour out their feelings - it's very personal, so it's much easier to upset people.

My advice is to always ask for permission and respect it if they say no. Don't become the researcher that doesn't respect fans - don't shoot yourself in the foot. If regular fans see you as someone untrustworthy, they won't help you when you need people for your research and you'll need them. Don't give them legit reasons to be wary of academic researchers.

The only time I think it's fine to use something without permission it's when the blog is complete inactive and you have no way to contact the author - you can even acknowledge this on your paper. But if the person is active on fandom, talk to them. Also, print your conversation and if they allowed you or not to use it. It's always good to be safe about this kind of thing - have everything recorded.

The consent form is a good idea and you should also explain your research and why you want that fanwork, reassure them you're trying to do everything in the most ethical possible way. Most of people will allow you to use it, believe me.

If you need any help, please send me a message!

#replies

[aemiron-main]

i just want you to know that your theories are what made me want to get into stranger things, and seeing you and your friends fall into this strange rabbithole has me feeling like watching a bougatti get in a car crash in slow motion. kinda feel sorry for you D: lol it's giving religious fanaticism lowkey...

anyways i come to say this: there's a reason you get bombarded on twitter and tumblr so often. it's because you're always being mean! like mean, in a mean girl, cliquey, looks down on other people kind of way. mean in an unprompted kind of way. maybe i'm hypocritical for saying this, esp on anon, but i feel like that's something you need to hear, even if i know you're just gonna laugh at it. it seems like that's all you and your friends do on here.

HELLO! Well, to start, I’m glad that my theories got you into ST! Second of all, I’m sorry that you feel that way, but I’m having a blast- going down this rabbithole of analysis has been a ton of fun for me trying to connect the pieces! There’s no need to feel sorry for me, I’m having a great time. Just because my content isn’t something you enjoy anymore/isn’t something that’s catered to anyone except me and what I’m interested in (because it’s my blog and I talked about whatever I want to), doesn’t mean that my content is bad/some sort of car wreck lmao. And regarding your weird religious fanaticism comment- so what? Who cares! I’m going to be as deep into something as I want to be! You’re really quite judgemental, arent you? Why should I be ashamed of enjoying something and being passionate about it? Maybe I should have Henry/ST crucifixes made or something…

And Anon, look, I get the criticism, I do, but I think there’s a lot of pieces that you’re missing.

If you want to talk about mean girl behaviour, let’s talk about the byler burn books and confessionals that were tearing into people like James, Stav, Bre and I just for doing analysis before we even started getting into any sort of discourse. Let’s talk about the people who lost their minds and accused me of glorifying eating disorders and told me how disgusting I was because I posted my own genuine, not snarky at all analyses regarding Mike’s eating disorder. Let’s talk about people sending me my legal name/deadname and province in my anon box over Mike Wheeler eating disorder discourse if we want to get into mean girl behaviour. Let’s talk about people like Dani accusing me of being a biphobic rapist apologist tonight and coming into my replies condescendingly/vaguing me before I even started having any sort of actual “beef” with her. Let’s talk about me and James trying to bury that hatchet with certain people on byler tumblr only for them to shittalk us again after we let our guard down & were being nice with them & thought we’d genuinely talked through and resolved any conflicts.

I do think you’re hypocritical for saying this on anon, but at least you acknowledge it LMAO! And what’s the problem with laughing at it? Like I said, 99% of the time, it’s other people coming at my friends and I and making very hurtful real-life accusations (calling use pedophiles/pedophile apologists/rapist apologists) and talking every five seconds about how stupid we are. It’s like, if you had people telling you every day unprompted how stupid you are even when you’re just posting your analysis with zero snark or sass involved, wouldn’t you start to get a bit annoyed with it?

And I also think that when I’m not obviously hateposting, a lot of my passion gets mistaken for anger or condescension. I am VERY EXCITED about this stuff, me using caps or asking rhetorical questions isn’t me being mad or sassy, it’s literally me being very Excited. I can come across as blunt/scary sometimes, but part of that’s also just The Autism and me structuring things like an essay/debate when it comes to analysis because that’s just how my brain works.

And genuine question for you- can you give me an example of a time where you thought I was unnecessarily mean? Because I can almost definitely guarantee that there’s more context to the situation that you’re aware of. Hell, even the things on twitter, like with Sapphicjopper, just started with me pointing out that Sapphicjopper missed a detail about Henry’s age and ended up with Sapphicjopper claiming that I was accusing them of a hatecrime simply because I said it was a bit weird to constantly try and ignore Henry’s canon age and claim he’s older in canon (not just like aging him up for an au or whatever) for the sake of shipping him with Joyce/other girls & making weird/flippant comments about any queercoding he has.

I’ve said before that I don’t have any judgement towards people who don’t understand theories- when I call somebody stupid (as I’ve said before), it’s not actually about how smart they are or if they agree with me or if they understand xyz theory, it’s instead about people who come at me unwilling to even be openminded at all. I’m stupid as fuck sometimes, I get things wrong all the time, but I do make a genuine effort to keep an open mind and admit when I’m wrong.

Thanks for the ask! Also, your ask comes across as very mean girl and backhanded and condescending at times, so maybe you should keep that in mind. Your attempts to be genuine are overshadowed by your condescension, judgemental and backhandedness, unfortunately.

#stranger things #st anons #em rants

[jaeheewillalwaysbemyfav]

How Obey Me Shot Itself In The Foot: Why Raphael is a Terminal Wet Blanket

MASSIVE WARNING FOR DISCUSSION OF RELIGION. Specifically of Abrahamic religions (Islam, Christianity, and Judaism) and their shared God. I am doing this in a media analysis context, not to shame any particular religion or anyone’s particular beliefs. If that makes you uncomfortable, feel free to not read this post, stop reading at any point, and/or unfollow/block me. DO NOT try to start religious discourse on this post or in my askbox/DMs, I will clown on and block you.

Also spoiler warnings for a ton of different Obey Me lessons.

Intro (X), Michael (X)(X)(X)(X), Conclusion (you're here)(X)

This is the conclusion of my setup to why Raphael should kill MC. Are you still reading this? If so, very cool of you. I should probably get tested for ADHD, but that's never gonna happen.

I think there are any number of combinations or mixes of these versions of Michael that could be interesting to explore in Obey Me. Unfortunately, I doubt we’re gonna get an especially rich and complex version of Michael in canon Obey Me.

Why?

Because Obey Me is an otome game first and foremost, and that means they won’t make any of their prospective love interests Too Spicy in a way that isn’t especially marketable. There used to be a bit more edge to the game (that’s where we get iconic shit like Asmo threatening to tear out our heart to see what’s inside, the brothers casually mentioning torturing and eating people, etc.) but with later lessons and the anime it’s much tamer I find. That’s not bad per se, but y’know. I kinda miss the reminders that we couldn’t be left alone at RAD lest we get eaten by a lesser demon, or the stark duality between Diavolo’s generally fun loving and easygoing attitude and the way he ruthlessly ordered Belphegor to be imprisoned and possibly executed for treason.

But Winter, you say, what about Lucifer and Belphegor?

Lucifer’s marketed as a hot daddy dom and, for season one, as a slow burn enemies-to-lovers antagonist. And Belphegor is (allegedly) a yandere, so his manipulation and killing of MC can be seen as fitting into that niche.

Threats and murder can be fun romantic foreplay as long as it all ends well.

The biggest problem with a darker interpretation of Michael is that a lot of his nastier elements involve possible grooming/indoctrination of Luke, which is, crudely put, not a sexy kind of dark topic. Lots of people like Luke, so making a prospective love interest (depending on how Michael is received by fans) a child abuser is… a lot.

And so, to Finally get back to Raphael! If Raphael is the Celestial Realm’s hitman, he has to be sent to the Devildom to go after a specific mark. It makes most sense for that mark to be either Simeon or MC. But if Simeon’s punishment is the revoking of his angelic blessing, there’s not really a point in sending an angelic hitman after him: he’s human now, he’s gonna die eventually anyway.

So that leaves MC, who is (mostly?) human, but has a shitton of magical power and no significant ties to the Celestial Realm, and is thus not under their control (unlike Solomon, whose ring of wisdom comes from Michael).

But who is sending Raphael after MC?

It can’t be Michael, who seems eager to meet MC (and again, while Belphegor did murder us, I don’t think the devs are going to use the murder-to-lovers card twice). (Unless Michael’s plan is to meet MC by sending their ass to kingdom come, which is honestly pretty funny to think about.)

And it can’t be God/Father, because portraying him as a major villain is a Big No-No for a silly otome game.

I guess Raphael could also be gunning for Diavolo, but when Dia can stop time at will, automatically know when people are lying to him, and has a time-travelling butler at his beck and call, it seems highly unlikely that that would work out in Raph’s favour.

So to sum up:

Obey Me’s subject matter deals with representations of Heaven and Hell, as well as God

It’s very, very controversial to play with depictions of Heaven and especially God, and because at the end of the day Obey Me is an otome game/dating sim, I don’t think they’re willing to go full out with any critical representations of the Celestial Realm or its inhabitants because that would get way too heavy for the game’s genre

The game has also lost a lot of its edgier/darker elements as time has gone on, and that plus the addition of new potential LIs suggests to me that the devs are thinking about marketability first and foremost, and so don’t want to make the new characters too unlikeable 

The devs have written themselves into a corner here by the nature of what they’re making.

At least, I think they have. But then again, I’m stuck at lesson 41/8, and Obey Me’s far from over it seems. Who knows what the future will bring.

(But also I think the devs have spread themselves super thin with the introduction of all these characters and are having a hard time juggling them all, so we get weird inconsistencies and unexplored elements — but hey, that’s what fandom is for!)

#obey me #obey me shall we date #obey me michael #obey me raphael #mine #How Obey Me Shot Itself in the Foot

[blue-chimera]

I've been working on something about the role of prejudice in cycles of violence & how we see that play out in Supernatural. Meanwhile, I've been having fascinating conversations here about sex, misogyny, consent, gender performance, etc. (especially in regard to Dean) that have challenged me to think more carefully about where I draw various moral lines, as well as the meaning/importance/function of accountability in society at large (what "counts" & why that matters).

After one of these, it occurred to me that I've been called an apologist in a lot of different contexts, & I wanted to reflect on what a critic might call my instinct to "make excuses" for other people's moral transgressions. Reflecting brought me to the conclusion that I see empathy & understanding as more useful products of discourse than accountability or allocation of blame, so I wanted to talk a little bit about the impact of these on character analysis as I see it.

[To be clear, I'm deliberately differentiating between impact in discourse vs. the role of these things in society, because that's a much more complex topic. So this is not directly related to any previous discussion — just a tangent off a tangent!]

I'm not sure if this is the most useful way to think about these kinds of things, but I tend to view allocating blame to others as easy. If you want to get biblical: we'll see the splinter in someone else's eye & miss the plank in our own. Or, to get more scientific, it's the Fundamental Attribution Error (FAE) at work. We see our own behaviors as primarily driven by our circumstances (I was just snappy because I was sitting in traffic for the last 2 hrs — not to mention this terrible headache. Anyone would be snappy after that!) & other people's behaviors as primarily driven by immutable internal characteristics (wow, that dude's impatient; geez, that lady's mean).

So, how does this impact our understanding of other people (real & fictional)? Well...

The FAE makes us feel like we're passing judgment appropriately & just holding others to the same standards we're holding ourselves to, but most of the time, without realizing it, we're passing judgments on others that we'd never pass on ourselves. It's the natural result of the fact that we have extremely limited knowledge of other people's circumstances (including both external factors, like an ongoing divorce, and internal ones, like feeling sick that day) and extremely detailed knowledge of our own circumstances.

So, when we judge ourselves, we do so in a holistic way that accounts for all these details (as there's no way to just set that knowledge aside). But when we judge others, we have to actively imagine (or seek out knowledge of) the circumstances impacting them if we want to judge them with the same ruler (and thereby possibly exonerate them). Meanwhile, because we don't have to do this "extra work" to comfortably exonerate ourselves, it can feel like it's not part of a fair judgment, it's "a reach," or that motivated reasoning is spurring that extra work, when it's really just an attempt to level the playing field.

To sum up the above: I think our natural instinct is to err on the side of attributing things to someone's personality that should be attributed more to their circumstances, and so I push a little harder than most people in the other direction to try to correct for this. Now, this perspective might lead me to ultimately make more mistakes, but it doesn't feel like I'm wildly overcorrecting. (Of course, how would I know?)

However, even if I am, there might still be sufficient value in this approach to justify doing so. (More on this in Part 2: Who cares if we're "fair" to fictional characters? What's the value gained here, anyway — especially if it turns out that this approach does lead to overcorrecting?)

#long post #half-baked ideas #I legit thought this was going to be just a few sentences when I started #please feel free to respond to just a tiny piece of this if anything catches your eye as an especially odd or confusing take #although I don't honestly imagine anyone will wade through this manifesto #thinking out loud #also: it's possible that I'm unfairly conflating “accountability” & “blame” — something I plan to think more about #things I'm mostly just trying to clarify to myself for greater self-awareness & understanding of my own perspective/goals #gotta examine your own thought processes #maybe I'll pull out some excerpts at some point #spn adjacent #character analysis #manifesto #there's probably plenty here that's illogical #or just plain wrong #but hopefully there's something useful or interesting in here somewhere too!

[echinocereus]

Andor: An Analysis (aka AAA)

Andor (2022-), a Star Wars show based around Cassian Andor, a rebel who appeared in the movie Rogue One (2016),  has taken my mind by storm, leaving me with too many thoughts to keep without documenting. This will be my best attempt at a comprehensive analysis of Andor (7450 words), there will be spoilers, and likely some edits. And a quick disclaimer, no, these are not all original ideas, I am writing this as a combination of both my own brain and the brains of tumblr.

To begin, Andor, in my opinion, is not just a good Star Wars show, but a good show in general. The characters are well written, the pacing is well-executed, and it makes a clear argument. What truly satisfied me about Andor was the fact that it brought politics back to Star Wars. After the sequels (which didn’t happen, okay, they’re not canon, they didn’t happen, I think we as a society should just erase it from our memories), the shows Disney was putting out were decent, but despite the lore being entrenched in politics and political allegories, somehow managed to not really be political. Kenobi follows what happened to Obi-Wan, but doesn’t explore the early growth of the Empire. Boba Fett gave us what could’ve been a cool story of a power vacuum in a criminal underworld, if it was executed properly. It mostly fell flat and was all seemingly surface level thoughts. The Mandalorian was a compelling story about the importance of family, but something of a missed opportunity in The Mandalorian is the exploration of the consequences of a rebellion. Andor says “screw all that, Star Wars is political” and brings in everything the Star Wars canon gives us. According to the creator of Andor, Tony Gilroy, it’s allegedly “not supposed to be political.” Now whether this means that Andor was a fluke or if he said that simply to avoid being under fire from unhappy fans is a mystery (I personally think it’s the latter since… well you’ll see). 

Cassian Andor:

To begin, Cassian Andor. The focus of the show and the central character. Even though he is the main character and the show’s namesake, he never makes an attempt to make himself the center of attention. Time after time we see Andor hand off the spotlight of rallying people together (Kino in the prison, Maarva’s speech, Brasso leading the charge against the Empire). His main purpose is being a spy: this is how he is introduced in Rogue One and we see that that aspect of his character is true and constant (@kanansdume on tumblr). 

Cassian’s character arc has been of some discourse among some Star Wars fans. Some say that him starting off dismissive of the rebellion like Jyn is in Rogue One undermines his line in which he says he has been fighting for the rebellion since he was 6 years old. However, I disagree. I think Cassian’s character development makes his statement in the movie all the more meaningful. I will come back to this at the end of this section, but first I need to explain what this character journey was. 

“I think it’s all useless…It’s better to live. Better to eat, sleep, do what you want. You don’t know me. I fought in Mimban when I was 16.” - Episode 4, Cassian to Luthen. This quote shows Cassian in the beginning of the series, jaded by the Empire that he sees no purpose in fighting. He is self-centered and for good reason: all he’s ever known is struggle, all he is ever trying to do is survive. He is disillusioned by the fact that he feels as though he does not have any effect on the Empire at all. Even when he eventually does agree to work for the Rebel Alliance, he is working as Luthen’s mercenary. 

However during that heist, he witnesses the deaths of more than half the team. He still takes the money and leaves with his cut, but he kills Skeen. Skeen who seemingly has a very similar ideology to Cass. Skeen says that his rebellion is himself against the world, that he’s not one who has taste for the actual Rebel Alliance. From what we see in Episode 6, Cassian is the same way, so why does he kill Skeen? I think Cassian got spooked from how much he saw himself in Skeen. He saw the danger that Skeen proposed, realized this and ran from it because he didn’t quite know how to deal with it. But these little moments are so important to his overall development because they help explain the switch and changes in his character. 

So he goes back home and meets back up with his family to check back in. To his disappointment, Maarva says that she is not going with Cassian (something that will be further discussed in the Maarva section down below). He doesn’t understand this and voices his concerns but still he walks away without Maarva; he should not be judged for doing so, Maarva certainly doesn’t. He tells Maarva that he’ll be back, which becomes somewhat of a catchphrase. Cassian starts to establish that if there is someone his family and friends can rely on, it is himself.  Cassian has been looking for a vacation, a break from a war he never chose to enlist in since he was a child. He finally gets this opportunity and he seizes it, but the tragedy of his story is that the Rebellion is not something he could choose to escape, the reality of his situation of experiences is that he does not have the privilege to step away. He gets caught in a charge that has nothing to do with him, is imprisoned with a ridiculously long sentence, and he is not allowed to protest. 

Cassian gets shipped off to Narkina 5, a planet where the Empire has decided to keep some of its prisons. The prison he is sent to is a manufacturing one, later revealed to be building the Death Star (significance of this is discussed below). There the prisoners are forced to be barefoot, for the prison exerts control on its inmates with electrocution through the floor. The guards all have boots on to protect them from this, but they force all inmates to give up all of their shoes. I mention this because it adds to the futility of Cassian’s predicament. The significance to Narkina 5 and the prison arc as a whole will be discussed in greater depth later since there is a lot more to these three episodes (Episodes 7-9). The most important thing for now is that it is in this prison where we see the distinct turnaround of his mentality when it comes to fighting the empire. “I’d rather die trying to take them down, than die giving them what they want.” - Cassian to Kino, Episode 10. Here Cassian finally understands what Maarva was getting at when she refused to leave with him, what Luthen was trying to explain to him, what Nemik died for. This sentence is the thesis of Cassian Andor’s story, something we see even through Rogue One. Ultimately, Cassian dies for something he will never see come into fruition, and we see here how he gets to that point of faith. 

At the very end of the series, Cassian once again sets up everyone for success, leaving to deal with his own loose ends. As he is leaving, Bix reminds everyone that Cassian will come back and he reaffirms this. At this point of the story, Cassian is no longer a nuisance, but someone that the people of Ferrix can safely rely on to protect them. That, ultimately, no matter what happens to them, Cassian will find a way. This is Cassian’s M.O. He works in the shadows, he is there for Bix when she needs him, he makes sure everyone is set up to do what they need to do, and he makes sure everyone has enough information and resources to reach their destinations and goals. Cassian is a representation of the truest friend. 

Now to connect back to earlier about how this works for his story in Rogue One. Cassian has been fighting against the Empire since he was 6 years old, he just hadn’t realized it yet. That was what this show was for, we see him go through the process of realizing that the rebellion was something he was born into. In Rogue One, Cassian is a zealot, willing to do anything for the rebellion. We now know why. He’s lost so much to this cause, he’s lost so much because of the Empire. Jyn, on the other hand, is nearly apathetic. She doesn’t understand his passion. Just like Cassian didn’t understand the passion of Nemik or Maarva. I think in order for Cassian to understand and connect to Jyn he had to go through the same process of finding his belief as before. His radicalization is so important because politically, he was already radicalized, it was his faith in himself and humanity that he needed to learn. 

Brasso:

Brasso is the man in the background, a constant, a pillar of the community and a man the characters can consistently rely on. Brasso is the role-model for Cassian. From the beginning he is to his people what Cassian becomes: a man of reliability. Cassian comes to him in the first episode to use him as a cover story, an alibi. We never see Brasso need to do it, but we know that he would cover for Cassian in an instant. When Cassian is away, it is Brasso (and Bix) we see taking care of Maarva. When the Imperial officers zero-in on Bix, even then Brasso risks himself to urge Bix into action, to run. When Maarva dies, we see Brasso handling her funeral, making sure everything is running smoothly. When all the others don’t know how to comfort Bee, it is Brasso who’s there for the droid, being patient with Maarva’s grieving friend. Brasso is the one to lead the fight against the Imperial soldiers in Episode 12. 

There are dynamic characters and static characters, and I would argue that Brasso is a static character. However, that is not necessarily a bad thing—if done right, there is a place for static characters like Brasso. In Brasso we see the good of the world, we see that not everyone is bad, not everyone is corrupt. In Brasso we see strength in the devotion and loyalty towards family and friends, the power that small acts of rebellion can have. 

Brasso never does something completely outright aggressive until the time is exactly right, he waits for Maarva’s go to attack, but it’s his small actions that no one really sees that I think have the most meaning. He is the one to tamper with the ship in the first arc, that small bit of tampering sent home the message to the Corporate soldiers— never underestimate the power of community.

Luthen:

A man living two lives, one as a rebel and another as an eccentric shop-keep, Luthen is forced to make the difficult decisions. He is the one forced to call a hit on Cassian (at this point of the story, for all Luthen knew, Cassian could very easily take the vital Rebel information he had to the Empire, jeopardizing the movement). Luthen makes the decision to allow a group of rebels to die in order to protect the insider that he had within the ISB ( basically the Star Wars version of the CIA, further discussion of this provided below in the U.S. Government section).  Luthen is such a vital character for the Rebel Alliance, while I just discussed how Cassian plays puppet master and makes things happen, Luthen does just that on a much larger scale. 

Luthen doesn’t try to be palatable for the more moderate. When Mothma comes to him upset about Aldhani, he doesn’t flinch. When Lonni comes to Luthen, one of the first things he does is mention his daughter to him. The thing about Luthen is that if we didn’t know for a fact that he was on the good side or see any of his intentions, he could be an antagonist. His ways are not the cleanest, but he knows this. This is what he talks about for his sacrifice: in probably one of the best monologues of the show, Luthen explains how he has sacrificed everything from his potential happiness to his morals for the rebellion. He knows how far he’s gone and what that means for him, but we also know that if it’s not Luthen, then it’ll be someone else making those difficult decisions and living with the guilt. Andor doesn’t have morally gray villains, but it does have morally gray protagonists. Luthen and his operation is a prime example of that. Andor shows that, as aptly put by @captjynandor on tumblr, “when you live in a world where existing incorrectly can get you killed, sometimes you have to make the bad choice to survive.” We see this with Cassian, some of his first scenes showing him killing two Pre-Mor employees in order to survive. We see this most strongly with Luthen’s plan at Aldhani, his motivation to kill Cassian, and how he treats Lonni - objectively seen as immoral, but with a glimpse of the bigger picture, we see that it’s necessary. 

For all that makes Luthen great, some argue that one of his greatest flaws is thinking similar to the Empire. Meaning, he tends to look over the smaller people. He only looks for people that have larger personalities, like Mothma or Cassian. The realization of his flaw hit him during Episode 12 when he saw that simply the speech of an old woman brought down the strength of an entire town. He saw that the little people can make so much of the difference and saw the power of community. However, there is a different viewpoint on this scene provided by @kanansdume on tumblr. Luthen knows what he’s doing, he knows that what he does on Aldhani will anger the Empire, he knows that the Empire will cause more people to suffer, and he knows that means more people will be angry. He says this explicitly. What he saw in Maarva and the townspeople was not that she was able to accomplish what he didn’t, but rather showing him that his work and sacrifice had paid off. What truly shook him was that he never expected to be able to see the effects of his actions on people. He doesn’t know that Maarva was directly inspired by the heist on Aldhani, but here he sees that impact. It’s not that he never expected the common people to fight back or that he underestimated them, but rather the opposite. He was fully banking on it. He knew what the common people could accomplish, and for him to be able to see that first hand was likely unexpected. I personally like this interpretation better because it makes more sense for his character and story and the ideas that Andor is trying to present. 

Maarva: 

Maarva, the best mother Cassian could’ve had, is arguably the strongest woman portrayed in the show. She decides to stay and fight, she is the one that makes the decision that Ferrix needs to fight back, and she decides it when she knows she will not have the strength to see it through. Maarva is old, she says this herself, she can no longer afford the time to run, she’s too tired. At the very end, she’s had enough, and she is the one that rallies the town to fight the Empire. The last thing Maarva told Cassian (through Brasso) was “Tell him none of this was his fault. It was already burning. He’s just the first spark of the fire. Tell him he knows everything he needs to know and feels everything he needs to feel. And when the day comes and those two pull together, he will be an unstoppable force for good.” Maarva knows Cassian on such a deep level, she knows what he’s gone through and what he’s capable of. Maarva knew deep down that Cassian would be important to the rebels, and here we see a reference to what he is in Rogue One. Andor is before he realizes his full potential and before he “wakes up”, as Maarva says. In Rogue One, we see him take advantage of both his knowledge and emotions and is shown to be the zealot we know him to be. 

“Tell him I love him more than anything he could ever do wrong.” She gives Cassian unconditional love, showing him what love and safety feel like. Maarva took Cassian from Kenari to save him, then proceeded to show him what a home was. 

While similar to Brasso in passion and reliability, Maarva’s characterization happens most through her words whilst Brasso’s was through his actions. Maarva’s speech and her words to Cassian tell us so much about her and her relationships, as well as her importance to the story. She speaks out to the crowd, telling them it’s time to wake up. It’s a metaphor she uses often, she says “The Empire is a disease that thrives in darkness, it is never more alive than we sleep.” Her point is that for the oppressed, they cannot afford the time to relax. In order to win their freedom they need to use every chance they get, because the Empire will never stop. They are the oppressors and as Nemik says, it is unnatural and it requires constant upkeep (more on this later in the Nemik and Skeen section). There will never be a time where the Empire takes a rest because it knows it can’t afford it, so the only way to counteract that is by making them sweat, by stretching the Empire thin. 

Bee:

Bee, the lovable droid who means so much to those around him. He has been with Maarva as a companion since the beginning, and his physical deterioration reflects  Maarva’s as well. Maarva tells Cassian that she’s gotten tired and she can’t move around much anymore. We see that in Bee as well, he has aged and now constantly needs to recharge. I really like this aspect they show about the droids, because in the world of Star Wars, droids are basically another race. It ties into how they respect and acknowledge the emotions of the droids and treat them with dignity. It is clearly shown that the Empire only really respects humans. Any other species, including droids, are neglected and disrespected. Not even all humans are treated properly; we see the way the Empire treats the indigenous people of Aldhani, commenting on their smell and talking about controlling them. What Andor shows with Bee and how he is treated by those around him is that discrimination is something of the Empire. This is really important to show in Andor because in Rogue One, K-2SO was one of the main side characters who was pushing for the rights of droids. Here, with Bee, we see that Cassian and the Rebellion are always ones to respect other people. (Bee is not the only example of this, Commander Gorn’s treatment of the same Aldhani natives that the Empire disregarded is another good example.)

Bee is the one Cassian relies on, when everyone else relies on Cassian. When he tells Bee, “I’m counting on you,” Bee responds, “You always say that.” What does Cassian say? “And you always come through.” Cassian knows how important having someone who holds the heart of the group is. He saw how quickly Skeen fell awry when Nemik got gravely injured, and for Cassian, Bee is that heart. He is the one that keeps everyone going, the one that grounds everyone. When everyone is looking to Cassian for solutions and for help, Bee is the one he goes to to make sure that everybody he cares about is safe. Bee is the one he trusts. 

Nemik and Skeen:

Nemik’s one of the truest believers in the cause. When he said “Tyranny requires constant effort. Authority is brittle. It breaks, it leaks. Oppression is the mask of fear. Remember that.'' (Nemik’s manifesto, Episode 12), he was calling ordinary people to arms. Not ordinary people the way Cassian or of the others in the official Rebel Alliance are ordinary, but ordinary people who are not affiliated with any sort of organization. One of the beautifully shown parts of Andor was the way the small people did their own little things to fight back. From the sign language on Narkina 5, to Brasso tampering with the Pre-Mor ship, to the people of Ferrix making noise to psych out the Pre-Mor authorities, to Wilmon Paak building a pipe bomb to use against the Empire, none of these connected with each other besides fighting the fascism of the Empire. Nemik understands this, because he, like all of these people, have been radicalized from their experiences of just simply trying to survive the oppression (@spicysucculentz on tumblr). 

One of my favorite lines from Nemik is one of his last lines where he says in his manifesto, “Remember this. Try.” It juxtaposes one of the more famous lines from the franchise, from when Yoda scolds Luke, “Do or do not. There is no try.” Likely, the reason for this difference is in the supernatural. Yoda and Luke are connected to an external, supernatural entity— the Force. But for people like Nemik, normal people who don’t have access to the Force, they can’t afford the binary, the finality of “Do or do not.” They are simply trying to survive, to get through (@killsandthrills on tumblr). In fact, it is because of the average people that the Rebel Alliance was able to become what it was by the time of the original trilogy. The reason why Luke had the cushion of support was because of the efforts of people like Nemik. Luke needed to be able to succeed, fully, but the only way he was able to have that opportunity to finally win is because the Rebel Alliance was already built up by the people who were just trying to do whatever they could to survive. 

Skeen was fascinating to me. I originally wrote him off as a kind of bully: the man who would butt heads with Cassian, the guy who wasn’t fully bought into the Rebellion quite yet. Part of that ended up being true, he wasn’t bought in. But we only truly see this part of him that places himself against the world after Nemik is shown to be near death (with slim chances of surviving). We see a sibling-type dynamic between Nemik and Skeen where they’re friendly and playful. And maybe Nemik was helping Skeen start to believe in the cause near the end, but the thing that ripped it away for him was Nemik’s fatal injury.  We see their banter, but when Nemik gets hurt, Skeen starts to panic. He is the one cradling Nemik’s head and the one to convince Cassian to go for the doctor. “This kid— he is the reason why we are here” (Episode 6); Skeen knows that Nemik’s passion and ideas are important for progress, he knows that Nemik is the heart and soul of the group. When he started to believe in the cause, Skeen started to feel hope again after a long period of time. But Nemik’s death brought him back to his childhood of pain and fighting. This happens so clearly in front of us, where he went from panicking to cynical when Nemik’s at the doctor’s. Skeen says, “Yeah, luck. It’s what drives the whole damn galaxy.” He references how he doesn’t choose his life, the life of struggling when others were born into wealth and privilege. This is the moment where he goes back to what I imagine would be a younger, angrier Skeen. Convinced that he can’t do anything to change the world he becomes selfish, saying that the only rebellion he cares about is his against the world.  Even as he tries to convince Cassian to take the money for themselves, it sounds like he’s also trying to convince himself of what he’s doing. 

Mon Mothma:

Mon Mothma is a perfect example of someone who chose the rebellion. She was not born into it, she was raised privileged in a system that married her off young. Mon Mothma used the tools of the Empire against them, using her power to advocate for those being hurt by the Empire’s laws. She used her family wealth to donate to the rebellion, and she faked evidence of her husband’s gambling problem because she knows they’re listening to her.  On top of this, as @kanansdume on tumblr pointed out, neither Perrin (her husband) nor Blevin realize that Mothma could be lying. She has put up this front of being just a general nuisance, of being very worrisome and concerned about her image. “She showed the stone in her hand, but everyone missed the knife at their throat, just as she said they would.” 

Aside: The Empire is listening to Mothma but none of the smaller people because they make the mistake of forgetting that the small people can make a community and fight back. They don’t listen in to the conversations of the prisoners because, as Cassian says, they don’t need to. They have such a strong grip on the prisoners that they believed that they didn’t need to worry about them or listen to them. But that’s not the case with Mothma. She is a Senator, to their eyes, she poses the most danger. She has money and influence, and to the Empire that’s all that matters. However, in reality, the smaller people ended up being more dangerous to the Empire’s rule than Mothma did. Yes, she was funding the rebellion for some time, but when that fell through, Luthen made a way to get the money anyway. 

Mon Mothma is shown to reject some of the traditional values of her culture. Originally following these values, she married young to a man that she is now constantly butting heads with, stuck in a unsupportive, unhappy marriage Because of this, she has tried to encourage her daughter away from those values, but because she’s a Senator and almost always busy she ends up being a distant mother, and her daughter rebels against her. Instead, she is actively moving  towards those same values Mothma tried to pull herself away from (@rebelsofshield on tumblr). It clearly hurts Mothma to see her daughter doing this but she knows trying to further control her would also not work. And while she tries not to encourage it, her financial position and the rebellion have all but forced her hand into making a decision that she was not prepared to make. 

Kino and Melshi: 

We see Kino’s radicalization happen in the span of a single episode. Kino tries so hard to be an ideal prisoner, he follows the rules, keeps his men in line, and is banking on getting out of there alive. He has built his mind completely around the fact of obeying the Empire. He is so concerned about even talking about breaking out or musing about it because he’s worried that someone is listening in. The use of the line, “How many guards on each floor?” is used to show the process of radicalization. In the beginning of Episode 9, he refuses to respond or even humor Cass. The last lines of the episode are exchanged between Cassian and Kino - “How many guards on each floor?” “Never more than twelve”. Here we see a man angry and broken. He tried so hard to be a good prisoner but with the knowledge that they were never getting out, that when a man’s sentence is up they just send him to the other side of the prison, that is the thing that crushes Kino and makes him turn. He realizes even when playing with the rules of the Empire, there is no winning. When in a game where the other side is an empire, an organization so big as a government, playing by their rules means nothing to them. They will continue to hurt and commit atrocities and do injustice, and it’s only the act of disobedience that brings change. Going on peacefully changes nothing, it just makes you all the more easier for them to ignore. But if you cause a problem? If you are even a bit of nuisance, the slightest bit of a thorn? That is when change will come. 

Kino in the end never made it out of the prison, when all was done and everyone was running out, we find out that Kino can’t swim (we know that the prison itself is in the middle of a lake). He goes through everything, he rallies the entire prison, but in the end he can’t swim, he doesn’t make it out of there. It’s the theme of the show, sacrifice for a sunrise they’ll never get to see. This is Kino’s. 

Melshi, a man we see from the beginning who is already radicalized. He tries to give Cassian a reality check, which was so jarring especially after the introduction to the system, the game that was the prison. That the floors and tables that did the best would get flavor with their food instead of bland food. It’s portrayed as an upside to the prison, to make us think, “Oh this isn’t so bad, it could be worse,” until Melshi comes in and grounds Cassian. He tells him to never look at the numbers, because that is the way they control their prisoners, by giving them hope of freedom, by showing them the days passing and the number going down. Kino pushes Melshi back and tells him to shut up, because Kino is afraid of what those ideas will bring. As far as we see, Melshi is the only one besides Cassian to make it out alive, and we never know if Melshi was able to tell more people about the injustices of the prison. 

Syril and His Mother: 

Syril grew up in a system where he’s been so blind-sided, so steeped in propaganda, he genuinely thinks he is the good guy. Syril and his mother are examples of people who have bought into the lies of the Empire. He is one that believes that the Empire has genuinely brought peace, and that he is protecting that peace. He hasn’t known difficulty the way Cassian and any of the other rebels have, because his entire world was entrenched in the Empire and he’s known nothing else. Even when he gets screwed over by the system he is working so hard to protect, he still doesn’t try to think critically about this system. 

The way he latches on to Dedra in his mind as the one person who has saved him is telling. He is craving for someone to lead him and becomes near obsessed with her. He starts basically stalking her, and there’s some weird tension between the two of them in several scenes. (I have no idea why or what to say about this, it was an observation and an uncomfortable one. I have an idea for nearly everything else, except for this.)

Something that @captjynandor on tumblr points out is that those of the Empire aren’t morally gray. Typically, villains in these types of stories are morally gray, shown to have some other motive or intention that is better, but we don’t see that in Star Wars with the villains. Syril  grew up in an emotionally manipulative household but that isn’t portrayed as an excuse for his actions. He is very clearly shown to be an awful person because he wants that power and control over others and because he enjoys it. 

As Ben Lindbergh on The Ringer mentioned, Syril is a zealot who wants to stand out in a uniform for an Empire that stresses conformity. For most of the season, Syril doesn’t seem to be going in any direction--all we know about him is that he’s incredibly passionate about what he does. It makes us wonder: if Syril happened to be born to a different family, maybe one outside the Empire, how likely is it that he would’ve become a rebellion? If he hadn’t been born into a family and indoctrinated into the Empire, would he have been against the Empire? There was a period of a few episodes in the middle of Syril’s arc in which it seemed as though it was possible that he may become radicalized. We see him fall due to corruption (he knows it’s corruption), and we see him relatively unhappy in a job that is the definition of a corporate nightmare. But because he has a one-track mind (like Cassian sometimes tends to have), he doesn’t try to question the system but rather throws himself right back into it and begins to climb once again. Syril is a symbol of blind faith, the product of indoctrination and manipulation of the Empire. 

The Significance of Narkina 5:

The purpose of the prison was to bring down the prisoners to be only focused on fighting each other instead of the system, but it doesn’t work. Narkina 5 was built to control its inmates. They had several modes of this, the most obvious one being that prisoners were forced to walk barefoot on a floor that could be triggered to electrocute them at any point in time. However the other ways they tried to control were more subtle and  nefarious. First, they made a reward system to benefit  the most efficient inmate, in order to pit them against each other. The reward system? The winning table would get flavor. Flavor. Not something necessary, not something they cared about. All it was, was psychological manipulation. Not only this, but they would display each inmate's running total of how many days left in the prison they had. As they later learned, this number was arbitrary, once your number went to zero they would just put you on another side of the building. Seeing this number go down by one each day would give them a false sense of hope, some motivation to keep moving forward. 

However, this all failed. It didn’t work. The inmates figured out the prison system, then worked together as a cohesive unit to break out. No one turned on each other, they all knew one vital thing and that was that they were all either going to live together or die together. I think the fact that Andor did this, undermining all the prison tropes where the prisoners have to prove themselves, is wonderful (@horatio-fig on tumblr). There are no gangs, just a sense of brotherhood. And this is where the show disproves Skeen’s assertion. Skeen claimed that the way someone survives in an unwelcoming environment is by “climbing over the other guy to get out.” But with Narkina 5 we see that, no, in times of difficulty, the way to survive is by climbing out with the other guy, so that you both get out (@tiarnanabhfainni on tumblr). The prisoners all support one another, and that is human nature. It is not natural for humanity to fight one another, however it is natural for humans to bond with any group they can. 

Quick aside about Narkina 5, the planet itself. When Melshi and Cassian are escaping, they catch sight of an alien aircraft and they make a run for it to steal it. They get caught very easily by said aliens, but instead of them being hostile, they help the pair escape. This is such a good detail because it shows that Narkina 5 wasn’t always a place fit for prisons, it was once someone’s home. We don’t see a lot of aliens in Andor but this is such a beautiful representation of the fact that anyone who is not part of the Empire is against it (because the Empire has screwed over so many people) (@kanansdume on tumblr). 

The Significance of the Construction of the Death Star: 

As @captainofthetidesbreath on tumblr explains, “Yes, Cassian was forced to make parts for the weapon that would ultimately kill him,” but he also had a direct hand in subsequently destroying the very thing that would’ve wrought destruction, the thing he was forced to build against his will, and the event that turns the tides in favor of the Rebel Alliance. The time that he managed to stall the construction was crucial. In Rogue One, the margin of error they had was like threading a needle. The time that Cassian was able to stall the production of the Death Star, even unknowingly, was likely crucial in providing the time for the Rebellion to get the Death Star plans off of the planet. 

The Portrayal of Capitalism:

We see the importance of money from the beginning; in this system, no one can do anything or go anywhere without it. We see people in jobs, having schedules working around those jobs and still making time to fight a rebellion in between the times where they have to make a living. One of the first major objectives for Cassian is to get money.  Yes, in previous star wars movies they did mention money, but it never seemed to be much of an issue for the characters. It was never a legitimate barrier they had to cross. 

Not only do we see the effect of capitalism, but we also see the institutions. The place that Syril ends up going to for work has all the tell tale signs of a corporation. Hell, even before that, Syril worked for Pre-Mor whom everyone called the “Corpos”. He then goes on to work for the Empire in an environment that is so stereotypically corporate: “Everyone matters”, the cubicles, the monotony of the design, everyone wearing the same outfit, they’re all being constantly supervised, using previous familial connections to gain an upper hand, etc. Even the apartments that Syril and his mother live in have the signs of a capitalistic environment. The whole show is a testament to the consequences of oppression and this is one of the best ways they show that. The oppression of  capitalism is about benefiting the big man on top by using the time and labor of the little people below. It is a system built on keeping those born without privilege disadvantaged. And so how do we see them fighting back? Brasso using his job in the shipyard to tamper with the Pre-Mor ship, Salman Paak using his storefront as a cover for Bix to signal Luthen, Bix using her business as a cover for the fact that she’s buying and selling stolen Imperial parts - to name a few. They use the system that screws them over to fight back against the same people stepping on them. 

Similarity to the U.S. Government: 

Here is the illusion of choice, being told that you are in a democracy while there is a facet of the government that is essentially left unchecked.  The Senate in the Star Wars government is really interesting, because it is revealed that the people vote for those in the Senate, and while the Senators are allowed to make noise and advocate for change, we don’t see how they truly have any effect. Who has the most power? The ISB. And is the ISB regulated in any sort of way? Not at all. So what would the ISB equivalent be? The CIA. The CIA, something the people cannot control, known to have actively traffic drugs into black communities in order to control them (similar to the ISB leading along cultures in order to control them) and have recruited Nazis (similar to ISB and the Empire in general in how they treat other cultures and races that they see as “other”, and the genocide of several societies). When all’s said and done, if the government wants something done they go to the CIA (ISB) to do it, since they are technically not controlled by the people. 

If you do not let your prisoners vote, those in power now have strong motivation to imprison their enemies. This is a very basic rule in civics, something we see in both the United States as well as The Empire. The Empire is actively sending out people to capture Rebels and anyone who is remotely against the Empire, since they don’t let any news of what happens inside the prisons reach the outside and because they don’t allow their prisoners to vote. The reason why the levels of incarceration is so high in the United States is because slavery is legal in prison— this loophole in the 13th Amendment provided ample motive for the US government to imprison people of color or those who would stand against them. In a similar line of thought, the portrayal of the prison-industrial complex in Andor is brilliant. The prison-industrial complex is the idea of the relationship between a government and the various businesses that benefit from the institute of incarceration. We see that the government directly benefits from having people incarcerated, and not just because they are keeping supposed criminals, but because they are attempting to build something they will profit off of. They have incentive to imprison people for more petty crimes for longer sentences because they need to generate a self-replenishing workforce to build the Death Star. This sounds somewhat familiar because that is similar to what the CIA did with black communities. 

As mentioned previously, the 13th Amendment provided the loophole that slavery was legal in prison. Because they still wanted to use slavery, they needed to get people into jail. So they trafficked drugs into black communities, which destroyed them and stunted their ability to grow and heal. But the CIA didn’t stop there because they needed a workforce, so then they went on to criminalize drugs, and imprison anyone who was involved with anything drug related. But even if people make it out of prison, getting a job is near impossible at that point, and so they fall back onto crime in order to survive. And then they go back to prison where slavery is legal. It is a  vicious circle meant to cripple a population and profit the government. 

Not meant to be political, eh Gilroy?

The Tragedy of Rogue One

Cassian Andor goes through hell and back, orphaned at a young age and taken from his sister and home planet while the rest of his people are killed. His life is nowhere near easy, and time after time he is roped into rebel activity.  Eventually working for the rebellion on his own motivation, he goes through a whole character arc; again and again, he watches people die for a cause that they will never see come to fruition. He makes bonds with these people and gets close to them, only to see them die. Despite this, he learns that it’s worth it, is prepared to do the same (“Kill me or take me in”), and he realizes that everyone makes a difference, all of the small and big acts. And in the end, he does die for it. At the end of Rogue One, he dies. All of his friends die.

But the tragedy? He had finally, finally, reached happiness. After years of running and fighting in a war that he had no choice but to participate in, he finally finds love: Jyn Erso. And something we’re shown in the show is that he goes through trial after trial, just barely surviving. He survives the attack on his planet, then the attack on his home, then the prison break, then the manhunt- no matter what, he always survives. He always finds a way to keep going, even when things seem dire. Every single time. Except for one. Except for that last time on the beach, when they knew they were about to be killed by the Death Star, what did he do? He sat on that beach with Jyn Erso, and they held each other, knowing that this is the only time that they would be able to spend with each other as a couple. They sat there on that beach and faced death, together, peacefully, after succeeding. They won and they knew it and they knew they would never get to see it and they knew that they would never truly get to be together and that was okay.

#holy hell #thank you so much for reading #counter arguments welcomed #if i told you i was going to credit you and i accidentally didn't lmk #this show has a choke hold on me #sorry for the long post #andor #cassian andor #star wars #show analysis #aaaaaaa

[hoyatype]

does anyone else feel insane when they come across women/shaving/feminism discourse? in particular, when any assertion that having to shave one’s legs, pubic hair, etc is an unnecessary beauty standard and women should be FREE of this (my position btw)—

is immediately met w at least one woman saying: no, but i like it and i do it for me. statements like this don’t account for my particular situation where it’s not oppressive, it’s actually joyful! and i’m like…congratulations, you took a systemic analysis and narrowed it to your individual experience in an attempt to delegitimize it…thanks? it’s also deeply suspect that there are just so many women who have all independently and individually articulated a personal preference that conforms to what is normatively encouraged…starts to feel more like an enforced preference than an autonomously chosen one…

oh—and sometimes obscurely urgent reasons (it’s for sensory reasons and deeply important for this person’s neuroatypical existence) are brought into the discussion. i am sure this is sometimes true. but in many cases i also think people are uncomfortable with really facing their personal preferences and realizing that they’re not in alignment with their political inclinations, or uncomfortable having to own up to: well, i don’t have a defensible reason for this! so very often i suspect people are trying to invoke a Good reason that can elide critique…bc it’s uncomfortable to be questioned and reassuring to have a defense that forces people to drop any further questioning…

i genuinely would rather people be honest w themselves and say: i am doing this because i’m afraid of being socially and romantically and sexually penalized. it would feel more candid than having to obscure these behaviors as a personal preference.

and then we could have a real conversation about whether not shaving means that they won’t get the love they want.

personally: i’m not hardcore about this, i shave my legs when i wear shorts and skirts in the summer, but i just don’t agonize about my hair growing out a bit. it’s leg hair, everyone has it! and i’ve never ever ever shaved my pubic hair (sorry to burden anyone following me w this knowledge…) and i really haven’t had issues w this in multiple encounters and relationships with straight men. i am positive it DOES disqualify me for some straight men, but i don’t want to make a good impression on everyone, just an accurate impression of who i am and what my preferences and beliefs are. those guys are free to date women who are committed to spending $$$/month on waxing…i will never be that person and i am happy that no one i’ve loved expected me to be that person.

it’s not a terrible thing for someone to find you unattractive. it’s not the end of the world. it’s not a woman’s purpose to be attractive. and it is truly amazing and heartening that so many people fall in love with others who are not conventionally attractive! who are not dogmatically conforming to all beauty standards! “ugly” people can be loved and respected and cherished and i think that now, in an age of looksmaxxing femcel plastic surgery etc, we should remember this…

it’s funny how much i care about the Shaving Question bc in the grand scheme of things it’s a very small rebellion against beauty norms, but it is one i feel very passionate about and i really don’t understand why so many women are choosing to submit to it, spending significant time and money and effort plucking away all these hairs…especially when so many of these women, from my experience, are also constantly railing against the terrible chokehold that beauty norms and the male gaze have on them. (going to preemptively defuse a common objection here—that it’s different to defy a standard if you’re already very conventionally hot vs not—and note that the women i’ve been most perplexed by in this regard are cis white women who are fairly thin…they’re soooo close to hegemonic feminine beauty already and horribly afraid of losing out on any of it. i do think there’s some argument here that women who are already seen as ugly and unfeminine risk MORE by not conforming to beauty norms. but weirdly it’s woc, fat women, etc who are more likely ime to be the women who intentionally defect and choose their defections carefully. it’s almost like being on the wrong side of beauty standards encourages more criticality of it…)

it is just surprising and maddening to me. like. just don’t shave for 2 more days. or 2 more weeks. genuinely a lot of men do not notice and the ones that hold it against you are providing you with tremendously important insight into their expectations of women. and obviously a lot of women don’t care at all and you can be serenely unshaven together ❤️

i think it’s so important for women to defy feminine beauty/grooming standards sometimes, just for fun, just for practice—and when i say practice i mean it in the highest and most respectful sense: as a way of continually asserting your own agency against the onslaught of expectations for what it means to be a woman, to be “good enough”, to be “beautiful” (not to a specific person but in society’s eyes). i really do think women need to practice resisting beauty standards so that it becomes something possible and natural and even habitual. there is so much suffering present when you can’t escape these norms, and any act of defiance is a way of strengthening you against them imo

#i’ve finally gotten covid so now i’m in bed generating some TAKES to entertain myself #i don’t believe in choice feminism either #tradwives are so weird what’s up with them #i too would love to escape capitalism by having someone else engage in it on my behalf #but i’m not self-delusional enough to depict this as empowering or even strategically appropriate in 2022 #beauty #feminism

[earlgreytea68]

Okay, I really came over here to post about artificial intelligence and not algorithms but those are one and the same, really, and illustrate the shortcomings of artificial intelligence.

I had a couple of people ask me what I was writing about with artificial intelligence and the truth is that I don't know. I actually find it difficult to even read artificial intelligence discourse because it all just sounds absolutely terrifying to me wrapped up in "if you find it terrifying, it's because you're old." But this is also my field and I feel like to be a responsible scholar I should have coherent thoughts about artificial intelligence, and so I keep trying to make myself learn more. But I don't know if I am at all sensible or logical about AI or just an absolute mess.

So, anyway, I'm in the process of brainstorming what my thoughts are. I am THINKING initially that my approach isn't really going to be "is this good or bad" or "is this legal or illegal," because I think a lot of people who understand the tech much better than me are having those debates. What really caught my attention is how whenever people talk about the ChatGPT type of artificial intelligence, what they say is, "This is just what people do! People read stuff and then they take what they've learned from that stuff and create new stuff!" And yeeeees, absolutely, that is exactly what people do, but when people do that stuff, like, when fans consume a bunch of stuff and then make something new out of the object of their affection, traditionally the legal system has been like, "ewwwww, what lazy hacks." So suddenly we've all discovered that this is how people work? And we're all cool with it now because we've taught some computers to do it? Are we still going to be cool with it when people like fans do it? Or no? Like, that's what I think I kind of want to point out and highlight? Do we let machines get away with things we wouldn't let humans get away with? Is a machine even "like" a human in the first place? Why are we framing this discussion this way? Idk.

Other thoughts I've had while researching:

People analyzing AI tend to treat it VERY technically. Like, "Well, obviously using all these works for input isn't copyright infringement because technically speaking no copies remain because they get broken down into data points," blah blah blah. It's just VERY fine-toothed-comb, this kind of analysis.

On the one hand, people talking about AI are like, "This is just what humans do!" And on the other hand, people talking about AI are like, "This is a revolutionary tool that will change the world!" And, well...which is it? If this is just what humans already do, why is it so revolutionary? Presumably because of the speed and size and scale of it, that THAT'S what's revolutionary. But I also think it's wrong to be like, "AI is just REALLY FAST human creativity," because AI knows everything, and no human does, and at the same time I cannot shake the idea that humans are different from machines, but maybe that's me being hopelessly naive. BUT I think it's a different type of naivete to be like, "Exactly, humans are different from machines, so machines will never replace them!" because...there is literally nothing about modern society that makes me think every industry everywhere won't jump on the ability to replace workers with machines. (This might conflict with my "make people miserable" economic theory except no, depriving people of jobs they want will definitely make people miserable, which is why I suspect AI will only replace the jobs people actually want to do.)

Copyright law mostly only works if you presume that everyone is out to monetize all creativity at all times. Some people are like, "We don't need to modify existing copyright law, because AI will fit into our copyright law model," so that must assume that AI will also be inevitably exploitative. Which is probably right, let's be honest, this is a capitalist society we live in. But allowing people to break out of exploitative models (reach audiences with the gatekeepers of traditional publishing / music labels / movie studios) has caused humanity to explode with incredible amounts of creativity. So being like, "Let's just use AI to exploit things again" seems weird to me. At the same time, though, much of AI stuff right now is not necessarily exploitative and still seems to be harming artists, so maybe this thought of mine is going nowhere. But I feel this little nibble of suspicion that we'll land somewhere where AI will be legal / accessible as a tool only to those paying for it and thus extracting a price for the output in order to justify the cost.

People keep saying that artists will learn to use AI so it will all be fine. Idk how I feel about the best outcome we can imagine being "creative people will adjust the way they create to accommodate new machines." Like, some people will learn to use AI and they will love it and it will be exactly how they want to create, and that's great! But some people will never want to create using AI and we should make sure both ways are okay but we are generally not good as a society at doing stuff like that, so. And when people say stuff like this, they never say, "Some artists will adjust," they say, "Artists will adjust," with presumably that implication that artists who don't will no longer be considered artists.

I keep coming back to: Why did we ever need AI for creative purposes? Like, I get why we need AI to be chatbots or do algorithms or go through predictive data or all this other stuff which suffers from the human limitation of not being able to be 24/7 calculating all the human knowledge in the world. I guess I just don't understand what about creativity humans weren't handling well enough on their own, that we needed computers to do it for us. I saw someone say that AI is not going to be used to make our lives better. This goes back to my theory of capitalism: AI will not be used to replace the drudgery thoughtless tasks nobody wants to do. AI will be used to replace the creative work that people actually desperately want to do. I don't see any reason not to think that's true, Idk.

I also understand that there's no way that I talk about AI and don't sound like a hopelessly old person upset about the invention of photography or something, so I really try really, really hard to view it as positively as I can. I think that AI is probably incredibly useful for people who struggle with expressing themselves through words and so AI can help them with that, or struggle with drawing and so AI can help with that. And so I don't want to discount those positive aspects of AI, either. (At the same time, I thought about using AI to help me draw stuff, since I can't draw, and found the idea deeply odd, but that's probably because the reason I can't draw is because I'm not a visual thinker, period, and for that reason I just never felt confident that what the AI gave me would be anything that would come out of my own head? If that makes sense?)

I just feel like we're standing here on the precipice developing this incredibly powerful tool and we have a terrible track record with basically any incredibly powerful tool we have ever developed sigh.

So yeah, no coherent thoughts. Idk if I ever will have coherent thoughts lol. I might end up abandoning the project.

#long post