Sometimes I think about Louise Hobbs for too long and start going a little crazy.
Garret Jacob gets all the attention on the show. Abigail gets it from fandom. The absence of Louise is almost invisible. She’s not there. We don’t think about her.
We don’t think about her, of course, because she’s not in canon in the first place. She has no lines. Her name is not mentioned in dialogue. She only barely appears on camera.
Here is Louise Hobbs alive and well. Striking about this bit, once I was looking at it: she doesn’t look towards the camera, she doesn’t look towards her family members, and her family doesn’t look towards her. They move around one another and don’t directly interact. Look at it: Abigail and Garret Jacob Hobbs are communicating, here, in a way that she’s entirely cut off from.
(And, ok, listen, I’ve gotta sidebar. Even before Abigail actually picks up the phone, GJH is keeping track of where she goes. There are no clear frames of this tiny interaction, but look:
he’s keeping tabs on her. The minute she moves, he’s checking over his shoulder to see what she’s up to. By contrast, he doesn’t look at his wife even once.)
(One other thing about this tiny little scene of them playing house. GJH has absolutely no chill. He is tense and intense even before he gets on the phone. It’s not really possible to tell what Abigail is thinking through all of this--we know from later that she’s a pretty good liar--but Garret Jacob Hobbs is not subtle. He’s jumpy as fuck, and he’s probably that way all the time.)
Continuing.
The next time we see Lousie, she’s being shoved out the front door. Think about that. GJH didn’t kill her immediately. He’s not interested in seeing her dead. He’s using her to buy time in the kitchen with Abigail because he knows he doesn’t have any left.
The way I remembered Louise dying was with a cut to her throat, but look at it. She’s got wounds on her arms, on her torso. He wasn’t careful, or quick. He didn’t hold out his hand to her and ask her to come closer. He attacked her, shoved her out the door, and slammed it behind her.
That is the end of Louise Hobbs.
Hobbs family dynamics just. Absolutely fascinate me. (Too much.) I so desperately want to know what it was like to be Louise Hobbs. I want to know how much she knew, how much she suspected, and how much she refused to let herself understand. She’s the cannibal the show cares about the least. She’s the one who dies so that someone else can have a little more time.
The show constantly returns to the idea of murder as a way to break or make families. Besides the Hobbs family, there’s the children and foster mother from Oeuf, Gideon killing his wife in backstory, Lawrence Wells who killed his own son, Margot and Mason, and of course Dolarhyde’s obsession with killing families together. Louise Hobbs’s is a murder to break a family. She is, very literally, cast out.
We do see her one last time:
It’s interesting that, when Abigail sees this, Alana is the one who becomes her mother. Whatever you want to say about the long-term feasibility of the Murder Family, it’s indisputable that Hannibal was never interested in planning a future with Alana. She’s there nearly by accident. Holding a place meant for Will. She is not part of the plan.
If Abigail mourns for Louise, she does it off-screen. We see flashbacks to her interactions with Garret Jacob, but, after this, Louise never returns. We’re left to wonder, or to forget, all on our own.
1K notes
·
View notes
You've mentioned Zuko's "inability to kill" before, so could I ask you to elaborate on that?
sure. zuko is banished for, essentially, committing treason. he says to ozai that he was banished for "speaking out of turn," but simply speaking out of turn is not actually why ozai banished him. zuko said that people shoudn't have to die for the sake of further empowering the fire nation, and that goes against their nation's entire ethos. zuko lacks, as azula puts it, that "killer instinct that is just so fire nation."
while zuko does set fire to suki's village in his quest to capture aang, and you could argue that he may have committed other such acts offscreen, we never actually see him outright kill anyone. unlike zhao, who kills the moon, and azula, who kills aang in a manner that would have ended the entire avatar line had katara not revived him, zuko threatens and intimidates and harms, but when it comes down to it, he does not actually kill, because he simply cannot.
he threatens to kill zhao, and if he had killed zhao, no one in the audience would fault him for it. zuko does not even burn him upon winning their agni kai, going against custom; zhao calls him a coward for it. zhao tries to kill zuko on multiple occasions, including when he blows up zuko's entire ship. but, when the ocean spirit is dragging zhao under, zuko still extends his hand in a futile attempt to save zhao. contrast this scene with sokka arguing to leave zuko for dead in the same episode. he legitimately does not have a problem with letting zuko die, because, as he says, zuko would do the same thing to them (at least, sokka seems to think so).
sokka kills combustion man, toph kills yu and xin fu, and neither of them have any regrets. conversely, katara cannot kill yon rha, and aang cannot kill ozai. like sokka and toph, they are justified in killing these men, perhaps even more so (since yin and xin fu did not actually attempt to kill toph, "only" kidnap her), but they ultimately choose mercy. like zuko on kyoshi island, aang and katara's actions, such as blowing up the factory in jang hui, may have had indirect casualties (i don't count aang being merged with the ocean spirit because he was not truly in control), but they are never able to kill directly, because when faced with another human being, regardless of how much they may hate them, their pathos prevents them from delivering that killing blow.
zuko, as a foil to aang and katara and the deuteragonist of the narrative, is also someone whose instincts prevent him from being the cold-blooded killer his nation expects of him. it is why, unlike the rest of his family (including iroh), he is unable to produce lightning; he is too sensitive to become the perfect weapon his father wants him to be, which is why azula's reveal is so thrilling and terrifying to the audience, because she is what ozai wants in a protege, unlike zuko, who try as he might, fails at embodying the fire nation values of ruthlessness and power at any cost.
280 notes
·
View notes
Say Yes
They saw it before the hero answered.
No. A simple word that could shatter the villain entirely if they weren’t quick enough to intercept.
“I see.” They said, rising from their kneeled position and snapping the box shut, the light from the shining ring dying.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, but we can’t.”
“Can’t or won’t?” The villain asked with a raised eyebrow.
“It isn’t like that!” The hero reached for the villain, but was left stranded when their counterpart stepped back. “It isn’t like that, Villain. I love you, I do.”
“Not enough to say yes.” They shot back, being sure to keep the distance.
It was just, wasn’t it? Of course it couldn’t happen, of course they would say no. A hero and a villain—it would never work.
“I’ll have my things out by tomorrow. We clearly don’t have the same goals anymore.”
“No, no!” The hero began to chase after the villain. “I don’t want your things out, I don’t want you gone!”
“We don’t always get what we want, Hero, if today was any indication.” They shrugged away each time the hero reached out to them.
“Believe me, I do want this, I want you for the rest of my life–”
The villain whipped around, hurt written across their features. “Then say yes!” They laughed. “If I have to beg…goodbye, Hero.”
“I’m not allowed!”
The villain stopped. “Not allowed?”
“To be married. To be in any sort of relationship, actually. I’ve been in breach of contract for the last few years.” The hero wiped away their tears quickly. “The most wonderful years of my life and I couldn’t tell anybody.”
Breach of contract?
The villain wished they could have been confused, but everything made sense, so much sense. All the closed off behaviors in public spaces, the way they shut down if they thought they heard a camera shutter, never visiting friends, even the way they compulsively closed the blinds.
They were going to lose their job as a hero if any sign of a relationship was seen.
“Hero.” they spoke softly, not knowing exactly how to feel.
Anger? Mild betrayal? Apologetic?
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I didn’t want you to feel like a secret. And if we were married,” They smiled at that, only to lose the feature just as quickly, replaced by mourning. “If we were married, nobody could know. I couldn’t have any big wedding with you, couldn’t invite my friends, family, couldn’t wear that gorgeous ring, and couldn’t legally record it. They have everything on me, all my personal documents, that would include a marriage license.”
This time, the hero succeeded in grabbing the villain’s hands. “I can’t marry you because I will lose everything.”
That mild betrayal roared to life, even as the villain gently caressed the hero’s face. “But me. You would lose everything but me.”
“And if I asked you to give up being a villain, to settle into civilian life, would you?”
They both stayed in their embraced position, still and silent, thinking.
“You’re right.” The villain conceded after a moment. “I’m sorry. Damn a marriage license to hell, Hero, damn a big wedding, damn the ring. Yes, I want to marry you and let the world know that you are my partner as I am yours.”
“Please say but.”
“But none of it really matters, so long as I have you with me.”
The hero let themselves melt into the villain’s arms.
“Alternatively,” they began, voice muffled. “Hypothetically, I mean. Say there were no contract, say any hero business suddenly turned free range, say a hero such as myself wasn’t connected to any organization.”
The villain started to laugh, only to realize that this hero in their arms was serious.
“Are you suggesting villainy? Please say yes.”
“Yes.” They drew themselves up again, staring their love in the eyes. “Yes to everything. Give me that ring. I want the biggest wedding of the century.”
If you like this post, consider buying me a Kofi?
807 notes
·
View notes