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sonofthesaiyans · 2 years

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Serious question about Gabi Braun (And the Warriors)....

At what point do you draw the line between FORGIVENESS and PUNISHMENT?

Because the entire time Gabi has existed, it’s her fucking AGE that has been used as an excuse for her not to receive anything for her actions against Sasha and her role in the Rumbling. And her various other war crimes and acts of violence committed since the second she was introduced. Her worst defenders act incredulous or laugh at any notion of Gabi receiving punishment or even death because she’s a goddamned child. All of twelve.

Well reality doesn’t really service this overly simplistic logic being peddled by Isayama. There are in fact children younger than Gabi Braun who in reality have committed unspeakable atrocities, and they did it consciously without prompting. Just as Gabi has killed without any prompting on her own accord, against the warnings of her peers even, some of them the same people who played a part in her indoctrination. And where has age ever been used as an excuse for murder in reality? At best, that sort of shit would get you institutionalized even if you are not charged as an adult. And even that line gets skirted in many real life cases of particularly horrific actions.

It is enormously and offensively unrealistic to portray all of Gabi’s contacts from after her time on the island as so goddamned forgiving of her murder of Sasha. Mr. Braus, his wife, Kaya, fucking Niccolo, Connie Blockhead Springer, Mikasa, at what point do you say that a person is beyond forgiveness? Because nothing she does can give that family their daughter back. So to make peace with her....She may have been misled all her life, but she committed an unspeakable offense against them all. It’s like forgiving every soldier or mercenary who ever took a life in every war ever fought. They may have been acting on orders or propaganda, but do you forgive them for the lives they destroy or disrupt?

There’s absolutely zero excuse for treating Gabi Braun as a special case, especially when you got Falco Grice who points out repeatedly it’s their own fault Paradis struck back at them. If anything, Gabi consciously choosing to follow what Falco wised up to is why she should absolutely get worse for what she did, and for what she put him through. Falco should probably also receive punishment too, but I am pretty positive his body count is significantly less than Gabi’s. In fact who did he outright kill consciously who was innocent? (Porco Galliard doesn’t count, 1) not an innocent and 2) He was a mindless Titan)

And this extends to Reiner, Annie, and Pieck. WHERE do you draw the line with them? All with countless thousands of deaths to their names, and consciously continuing a war they knew was wrong out of pure cowardice and with the same unyielding brutality. They were brainwashed children! Where do you draw the line with them?

Why do they deserve any more understanding than Garbage Braun? To LIVE for that matter! One of the many things wrong with that offensively misguided finale, is Isayama implying mass murderers like them (And Eren Yeager!) deserve understanding? They should face nothing because they were misled? No fan I’m sure wants to answer that question, but it’s a question that needs to be asked to challenge all these idiotic defenses they keep putting up for these particularly awful characters. Their circumstances are not the same as the members of Eren’s immediate band, they killed countless masses of innocent lives out of racist aims and conquest. We should condemn every Yeagerist for adopting a similar mindset as the Marleyans, but the members of the 104th and the fallen members of the SC Corps do not fall under the same bill. Or Falco Grice. (I’m being very generous guys, I’m sparing your sweetheart Falco because while I don’t give a shit about him, I will not deny that he’s got his head on straight and would rather watch him than that bitch he loves)

Where do you draw the line? I think after a certain point, you aren’t owed any understanding. If we applied that sort of flimsy, one-dimensional logic to all real life killers and war criminals, we’d have a society resembling something out of The Purge. Maybe that’s a bit extreme, but you should at least get where I’m coming from.

After all, this is the manga who’s ending capped off with “You became a mass murderer to save us”. Need I say more?

This story ended with the Ocean. And Gabi Braun? The only thing you are owed is the same mercy that was extended to Bertolt. (One of the only death scenes that felt RIGHT in this story.)

Try not to take this too personally, but it’s a question that more of the series’ most obsessive fans should be made to answer.

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advocaado · 3 years

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Fiction does not exist in a vacuum and absolutely can and does affect reality.

HOWEVER

Before you pin on your thought police badge and march off to start attacking people on the internet for the media they consume and create, let’s take a minute to talk about nuance and identify some actual problematic trends in media which have real life consequences.

The big question you need to ask yourself before you decry a person or piece of media is: Is that person/piece of media promoting, validating, and normalizing trends or acts that hurt real people? Or is that person/piece of media exploring a dark theme in fiction/harmlessly indulging in a kink?

Below are some examples of cases where “problematic” content in fiction is a danger to real life people, and many where it isn’t. This will not be an exhaustive list. I don’t have endless amounts of time to sit here and talk about every problem in fictional media, and even if I did, I wouldn’t, because there are many more things I’d rather do with my time.

Disclaimer: No media is 100% problem free. No human is 100% problem free. Engaging with others online to discuss problems in media is totally fine. If you don’t like something, it’s your god given right to bitch about it. Bitch to your heart’s content. Just don’t be an absolute ass cloak about it.

Example 1: Huckleberry Finn

This book famously contains racism. Is this a problem? No, not really. Listen. This book is literally about how racism is bad. The message is to not be a racist piece of shit. That’s the takeaway. If you got any other message from this book you need to work on your reading comprehension. Books that teach lessons are good things and impact society in positive ways. This book does literally the opposite of normalizing, promoting, and validating racism. It’s taught in schools for this exact reason. It’s not sugarcoated and that’s exactly what makes it powerful.

Example 2: Fairy Tail

The famous complaint about this and other works by Hiro Mashima is that the women are overly sexualized. Over sexualization of women is a big problem in media across the globe, but particularly in the media that comes out of Japan. It’s a problem that absolutely does affect real women. More on that later. But is Mashima really the big perpetuater of the kind of gross male reader voyeurism that has such a fierce grip on the anime industry? Actually, no. Not really. Yes, almost all the female characters in Fairy Tail are hot and have big boobs in a way that appeals to men. However, the lens through which Mashima tells his stories is not voyeuristic. He doesn’t go out of his way to draw panty shots or sexualize female characters nonconsensually. 9 times out of 10 the women are sexy because they want to be and do it in a way that is empowering for them. There are occasional exceptions, but by and large Fairy Tail is not the big offender of female objectification in anime. Moreover, almost all its male characters are hot and have six packs and idol hair in a way that appeals to women. Everyone is hot. There is no deeper meaning here. Enjoy this series if you like to watch hot people having fun and going on adventures together.

Example 3: Goblin Slayer

Oh, boy, Goblin Slayer. Now here’s a can of worms. Many upon many have decried GS for its inclusion of rape scenes and mentions. The goblins in GS have no females of their own species so they must impregnate human women to continue their race. This sounds utterly awful and it is. But is this finally our shining example of a dark theme in fiction that is problematic in a way that is dangerous to real people? Sorry, but no. Firstly, the concept of a fantasy creature who needs to use humans to reproduce was not invented by Kumo Kagyu and is in fact common in folklore around the world. He didn’t make it up as a way to condone rape. Could he have? Sure. But that’s not the reality of the series. The assault by goblins on human women is not treated as a good thing by Kagyu. It is shocking and horrific and has big consequences within the narrative for both the goblins and their victims. It isn’t treated lightly and does not serve to normalize, validate, or promote rape in real life. The reader/viewer is meant to be disgusted by the goblins, and these scenes, which are few and brief, serve their intended purpose. Nobody is going out and assaulting women in real life because they thought it was cool when the goblins did it in GS.

Oh, but Goblin Slayer, I’m not done with you just yet. Because while it would be a huge stretch to label the inclusion of rape in the series a danger to real life people, there’s something else that you don’t need to stretch nearly so much to identify as such. Remember when I talked about the voyeuristic male gaze being a concerning trend in anime? Well, GS has that in spades. The normalization of sexually objectifying women in non sexual situations is very much present in the series. Describing in loving detail the chest size/shape of every female character often and with gusto is a big part of the light novels. Kagyu loves to describe what a girl’s boobs are doing while she’s sitting at a table eating or doing any other mundane thing for no reason other than to sexualize her for the reader. He made the intentional decision to make Sword Maiden, a rape victim, very overtly sexual for the male gaze without the character having any agency in it. Sword maiden isn’t trying to be sexy. She doesn’t own her sexuality. Hell, she’s blind. Being sexy doesn’t empower her. She’s just fap fodder for the male reader. These things normalize objectifying women and are part of a longtime trend in anime which have real world consequences for both women and men. The sexualization of nonconsenting women is a huge problem in Japan and very much promoted through their media. Anime and light novels continue to send and perpetuate the message that objectifying women is okay and natural for boys to do, and while Kagyu certainly isn’t the worst offender, he’s happily hopped aboard that trolly because he doesn’t see anything wrong with it. And he can’t, because it’s been SO normalized.

Example 4: The Birth of a Nation.

This movie, while entirely fictional, is straight up anti-black propaganda intentionally made to spread hate and fear of black people. Obviously this is incredibly problematic and harmful to real black people. This movie was designed to be that way. The message is very clear. It’s a movie meant to rally whites against blacks, and it did. Horrifically so. Typically media containing hateful messages is less overt about it today, but abusing stereotypes and caricatures of real groups of people and otherwise intentionally perpetuating harmful ideas through fiction is a shitty thing to do and should be wholeheartedly condemned. (Note the keyword “intentionally”. If an author does this out of ignorance, which is all too common, rather than condemn we should seek to educate. People are capable of learning and growing and canceling them for mistakes made in ignorance is every bit as shitty as the mistake they made in the first place.)

Example 5: Fanfiction and shipping

At last, we come to fan media. This is where “don’t like don’t read” becomes the golden rule. Indulging in a kink or exploring dark themes in fanfiction is harmless 99.9% of the time. Fanfiction simply doesn’t have the reach, and thereby the influence, that mainstream media has. If someone wants to write something really fucked up, that’s their choice and nobody is making you read it. Unless the author is outright condoning harming real people, it’s really not your business what they choose to write about. Furthermore, deciding to read fucked up fanfiction does NOT make you a bad person. As stated before, the human psyche is messy and the world is not squeaky clean or a safe place. People are drawn to dark things and there’s really nothing wrong with that so long as real people aren’t being harmed. If something makes you uncomfortable, don’t engage. Protect yourself. You’re not making the world a better place by harassing people online. You’re just being a jerk and honestly doing far more harm to real ass people than that 20 year old writer on AO3 who wanted to write a story about Sasuke having sex with Naruto’s son because of 10 years of repressed sexual impulses toward Naruto.

I could say more but I’m tired and ready to celebrate my Friday by getting drunk. Feel free to interact if you want, just do everyone a favor and don’t be a dick.

TLDR

Things that make you a bad person:

Murdering people

Sexually assaulting/harassing people

Having sex with children

Creating or indulging in porn of real minors

Harassing and sending death threats to real people over the fictional media they create and consume

Espousing, condoning, or perpetuating hate toward marginalized peoples

Espousing, condoning, or perpetuating hate toward anyone tbh

Using fiction as a vehicle to promote, validate, and normalize causing harm to real people

Generally being an ass cloak

Things that DON’T make you a bad person

Consuming media that contains problematic elements

Creating media that contains problematic elements so long as you aren’t promoting, validating, and normalizing harmful acts toward real people

Writing fanfiction

Reading fanfiction

Shipping whatever you goddamn want to ship

#there’s been so much discourse surrounding this that I finally needed to weigh in #pro ship #we’re allergic to nuance here #tumblr I love you but

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strawberry1212 · 3 years

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Kdrama Sexist/Toxic Male Lead Tropes

(originally made this post as part of another post about Run On but it got to be so long I just thought I’d made this list it’s own post)

-Possessive and easily jealous, and this is often played off as romantic. For a large portion of kdrama watchers who are younger, and for the majority of us who aren’t chased all the time by hot men, this toxic trait can easily be sold to us as an exciting and flattering trait. But this is in fact not respectful of the female lead’s autonomy. I enjoy the little humorous jealousy moments, (I am reminded of Crash Landing on You) but too often this leads to the classic “two male leads each grab the innocently wide eyed female lead and glare at each other” trope. Women are not ropes to play tug of war with! If jealousy over the instances like the girl simply having a conversation with another guy rupture into real problems in the relationship it is not romantic, but possessiveness is often mistakenly portrayed as an expression of love, when really possessiveness is just that: possessiveness over an object.

-Uses violence to solve problems. This is another thing that can be easily seen as flattering--someone is willing to go to great lengths to protect you/defend your honor/whatever the reason is for the male lead to use violence. This trope was deconstructed in the American movie 500 Days of Summer, where the male lead punches a guy “to defend the honor” of the female lead, but she when she is upset and embarrassed at the situation, he gets angry at her for not being excited over his violent sacrifice.

-The typical “tsundere” narrative of abusive language, but paired with romantic gestures, usually the Grand Romantic Gesture trope. I see this all the time, where the guy berates the girl, sometimes to point of just full on bullying, but then he throws his jacket at her when she’s cold, holds the umbrella over her while he gets wet, etc., In other words he may be verbally abusive but it doesn’t matter because he Truly Loves her. And that she should accept that and understand that about him and not expect him to be polite and respectful.

-He treats everyone but the female lead like trash. Well...he often treats the female lead like trash at first too, but this quality is also marketed as flattering. He treats everyone badly but you’re different! In reality this is super toxic. In fact, it is essential that a person treats *everyone* with decency if they are to meet the baseline requirements of being a person capable of giving and receiving love in a healthy relationship.

-He chases her one sidedly. Oftentimes he chases her even when she rejects him, which shows that dominating, male persistence is a behavior to be rewarded. Again, this is a fantasy easily marketable when many of us aren’t chased around by hot men. It is flattering for a person to be so interested in us that they are incredibly persistent, but this fantasy had very unhealthy, and even harmful real life connotations. There is a very important line between friendliness/respectful attention/flirting, and creepy and domineering. I think it is also equally important to note that in this toxic trope, it is important to teach both men and women that no means no and yes means yes. Not that you can’t have playful/teasing banter, but playing hard to get when you really want to be gotten, is an unhealthy coping mechanism for cowardice in relationships.

I think for this one as with other tropes on this list, it appeals to our childish, insecure, and relationship-immature side of ourselves that would rather have everything fall into place than be honest, vulnerable, and have agency in our romantic interactions. What I mean is, the fantasy of a hot male lead persistently pursuing us after a destiny meet cute is a fantasy where we don’t ever have to put ourselves out there. Where don’t have to consciously try to meet new people, express interest in others, set boundaries, i.e. do the hard work of negotiating our place within other people’s lives.

The hallmark of a bad drama for me is when the give and take between the male and female lead is: the female lead has to put up with the meanness and constant mistakes of the male lead as he hurts her (usually in tangent with the Noble Idiocy trope, where he breaks up with her and steps all over her “for her own good” for some bs reason), but in return she gets the Grand Romantic Gesture, and the male lead does most of the chasing. In a healthy relationship, there aren’t constant hurtful arguments, and both do an equal share of the “chasing,” or a better term would be meeting each other halfway in expressing interest in the other.

-Power imbalance. It really disturbs me how Kdramas fetishize power imbalances between male and female characters to create the helpless/incompetent/somehow indebted but also plucky/cheerful/abuse-taking female lead. This can manifest itself very overtly in the many Kdramas between CEOs and secretaries, which I still cannot believe are popular in 2021. Secretary Kim did a better spin on the usual trope--the secretary holds the power of being very good at her job, and therefore indispensable and respected in her own right, but it remains a mystery to me why these super narcissistic and childish CEOs are played off as “adorable manchilds” that always need a little soothing of their ego. But to return to the power imbalance, besides obvious power imbalances of wealth/power/etc., oftentimes the guy has supernatural powers, or by nature of his job has abilities that render him the “protector” in the relationship (My love from another star, descendants of the sun), or the girl is infantilized in some way to need to protection from the male lead (legend of the blue sea, she is a mermaid and therefore dependent on the male lead for guidance in the human world, bring it on ghost as well). I think these latter power imbalances are constructed into the setting of the story because more overt forms of power imbalances are frowned upon now, but they serve the same patriarchal purpose.

This power imbalance inevitably leads to the female lead putting up with some abuse from the male lead because she “needs” him for some other end, and him holding his power over as a way to keep her close. It fits very well into the enemies to lovers trope in this way, especially some contractual enemies to lovers, where due to the power imbalance he is able to exploit/use her in some way, and keeps her close, and she hates him but has to put up with it for her own survival in some way, but they slowly fall in love. It’s super toxic and not at all romantic because they didn’t choose each other at all, they just were pushed together by circumstance, but again it buys into our fantasy of falling in love due to circumstance, rather than our own agency.

-Overly protective (OP) vs respectfully supportive. (RS) Essentially I can divide Kdramas into these two categories, OP and RS. OP romances can commonly be found in love triangles (where jealousy flourishes) and high school romances (where characters usually have less of a personality lol), and RS relationships are more common in working adult romances, where each character is pursuing their career/dreams and they support each other in those dreams. OP relationships infantilize the female character, render her as just an object in need of saving, and power dynamic between the leads is usually he constantly needs to save her, and in return she “softens”/“heals” him which, under deeper analysis, reveals itself to be quite an insidious and harmful stereotype, the kind of psychology that keeps women in domestic violence relationships. RS relationships are also better in that the leads have something going on outside of their romance, and are motivated beyond just ending up together. My favorite of RS relationships are Miss Hammurabi (two judges that work together to confront injustices in the judicial system), Run On (two leads from v different career fields, but they take interest and support each other throughout career ups and downs), and Hello My Twenties (probably my favorite example of an RS male lead--Sungmin supports Song as she uncovers her past traumas and stands up to an abuser, but does so following her lead and not doing her work for her, but rather simply staying by her side supportively).

Conclusion

This is not all the toxicity in the kdrama world--this is just what I can come up with off the top of my head as my least favorite tropes that disempower women and glorify toxic men and toxic relationships. And of course this is not a problem unique to Korea, and is by no means a condemnation of Korean culture, etc., but I simply happen to enjoy the aesthetics and innocence (compared to American shows haha) of Kdramas, so that is the entertainment world I am familiar with, and feel able to comment on.

#miss hammurabi #run on kdrama #jtbc run on #hello my twenties #feminism #kdrama #kdramas

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gascon-en-exil · 3 years

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This past weekend I picked up another Steam dating sim, Full Service. I don’t think I could do a complete write-up like I’ve done for some others, but it’s worth mentioning some highlights and lowlights.

The Good

A lot of content for an indie erotica game, with seven primary love interests, over 200 CGs, and over twenty endings running the gamut from tenderly romantic to wildly kinky to dubcon/noncon scenarios. There’s more actual gameplay here than any of the dating sims I’ve previously talked about, with some light scheduling and resource management and a gifting/heart level system comparable to Fire Emblem support ranks or even more so heart levels in those old Harvest Moon games (are those still a thing?). The second playthrough adds more story content to better explore certain character motivations, and there are even after stories - epilogues, essentially - unlocked after perfect endings that catch up with the characters some time later and feature brief animated sex scenes. In the tradition of most gay dating sim protagonists that I’ve come across, Tomoki is fully vers, and his love interests are evenly divided by favored position: three tops, three bottoms, and one fellow vers with a little additional flexibility for certain scenes/combinations. Speaking from extensive personal experience I consider this much more reflective of how the gay/bi male population as a whole approaches anal than something like To Trust an Incubus contorting itself to ensure that every single guy is vers.

The premise is that all the love interests work at a spa/massage parlor that specializes in happy endings. All of them could be considered sex workers, and some of them have alternative sources of income in a similar vein, ex. modeling. This is not the easiest subject matter to write well without being either overly glorifying or overly preachy, and I was pleasantly surprised to discover that for the most part Full Service walks the fine line between the two. It doesn’t shy away from the potential dangers and hardships of sex work (especially in some of the bad endings) or from the issues it can create with forming romantic connections, but it also remains generally sex positive and never condemns its characters for what they choose to do with their lives or suggest that they’d all be happier doing something else. The most judgmental the game ever gets seems to be a projection of Tomoki’s own prudishness...which comes off as deliberately hypocritical considering all the raunchy things he can get up to over the course of the game.

Speaking of sex positivity, it’s actually impossible to go through a full playthrough and only have sex with one person, and the fact that around half of the love interests’ development occurs outside plot events means that it’s quite likely that Tomoki will sleep his way through half or more of the spa’s masseurs before all is said and done. Furthermore, despite what I said in my Chess of Blades review about a poly relationship being beyond the scope of a typical dating sim this one pulls it off with one pair of love interests that Tomoki can potentially end up with at the same time.

While she’s not a love interest, there’s a trans woman in the supporting cast. Her full story isn’t revealed until your second playthrough owing to her major role in the plot, but I appreciated the depiction of someone who discovered her gender identity/presentation through her sexual relationships with men. Thara may not be the sort of trans character who would appeal to typical fans of either yaoi or bara, but having explored feminization kink in the context of sex work myself I thought she was a nice addition.

The Bad

So...voice acting. Most of the game goes for vocal work in the style of Fire Emblem Awakening and Fates, short clips that only somewhat match up with the text on screen and are meant to be more suggestive of what the character is saying. Those are fine enough if not always exactly on point, but then there are the perfect endings which are fully voiced. There’s a fair bit of variance in this game’s vocal talent and even audio recording equipment in one or two cases - sadly one of my favorite love interests has a noticeably lower recording quality to his audio, and it’s no more evident than in his perfect ending where suddenly he’s voicing full lines of dialogue - and then there’s the recurring problem these games have with fully voiced sex scenes and how generally silly those come off. I really have to ask: does anyone genuinely feel that full or even partial voice acting adds anything to the eroticism of such scenes? Props to the voice actors for doing their best with the material, but the sounds of sex are just not easy to vocalize unless you’re actually doing it - at least not without sounding ridiculous.

Harping on lack of realism in gay sex scenes has become rather passé, and I can overlook things like everyone being muscled and well-endowed, no one wearing a condom, or there rarely being any mention of artificial lube. However, there is one glaring issue that over and over shattered my suspension of disbelief, because it comes up in like 80% of the game’s sex scenes: these men have no refractory periods, at all. Almost every scene has all characters involved cumming twice, with only one or two lines of text between CGs as a break. Even worse than the inherent absurdity of a man cumming and then being hard again five seconds later is that it leads to the scenes coming off as quite predictable. With only a handful of exceptions sex scenes in Full Service consist of two NSFW CGs: a foreplay CG - oral, rimming, or some light kink like bondage or nipple or armpit play - and then an anal CG. There’s a lot of variety in positions and (tame) kink elements on display, but it’s undercut when almost every encounter follows this exact script.

On some subjects Full Service flirts with a particular kind of kink but can’t find it in itself to commit. Tomoki’s romance with his boss Rald is almost an instance of this, although they do end up having one of those (allegedly) scandalous workplace romances with its kink potential left intact. Less fortunate however are the twins Oki and Okan, who Tomoki can romance either individually or together in the aforementioned poly ending. The twincest is indeed hot, but it’s explained in supplementary material (if not necessarily the game itself) that two really aren’t twins or even related which annoys me as the same sort of cop-out as Coming Out on Top’s teacher/student romance. Here it’s a bit more forgivable as the reason Oki and Okan are more or less RPing as twins is tied into the plot.

The...Eh

Full Service’s setting is difficult to pin down. It’s clearly somewhat inspired by Japan and takes place somewhere in the real world as various other ethnicities get referenced throughout, but it’s all rather vague. I honestly can’t even tell if the developer is Japanese or Western, as there’s signs pointing to either.

There’s an annoying mascot character who runs a gacha for gift items - in-game currency only, thankfully - but the script knows how silly he and uses him sparingly in the plot and heart events.

One of the love interests is (so I’ve read) the protagonist of a completely different indie game, recognizable because he looks like a JRPG protagonist and has plot-convenient amnesia. He’s not a bad character by any means, just a big bundle of genre clichés.

With both Chess of Blades and Coming Out on Top I pointed out that best friend romances were a tricky business and tend to end up lighter on conflict. Full Service really yanks the rug out on that one, but it’s impossible to say any more without heavy spoilers. Suffice it to say Tomoki does have a best friend romance, but it’s hidden and hard to obtain and figures into the main plot in a thoroughly unexpected way.

What I said pertaining to second playthrough reveals also brings up another serious issue the game attempts to tackle, this one with more mixed results. It’s sex trafficking, which indeed ties into the larger sex work premise but in my opinion doesn’t land nearly as well as the rest in large part due to it being treated as a mystery and the centerpiece of many a lategame reveal. There are worse ideas for a source of conflict independent of who Tomoki ends up dating, but I’m still not sure about the overall execution.

So in summary? It’s not entirely my genre and there’s a lack of polish in parts, but a lot of gameplay for a dating sim and so, so much porn. Kind of middle of the pack for me.

#Full Service #Gay dating sims

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skinfeeler · 5 years

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I watched Joker (2019) at the cinema last night. It induced in me a lot of thoughts about the film, but also about the nature of criticism and art in general. Because I respect people’s time and general sensibility, I’m putting the rest of this post under a cut. Content warnings surrounding discussion of (sexual) violence, and obviously a number of spoilers.

I left the room feeling uncertain how to interpret what I had just watched, and for this reason (and others) quite uncomfortable. As a narrative the film seemed disjointed and overly metaphorical, certainly as a movement of set-up, crescendo, climax, and denouement the film made no sense because the film for the most part utterly denied itself a clear and uninterrupted line in events. This was because of certain scenes in the film that can with certainty be said to not possibly have happened in the way they did on the screen, even with suspension of disbelief intact, but also in general the solipsism of the film— Arthur Fleck seemed like the only character in the film with everyone at most taking a rather symbolic, flat, role (Thomas Wayne) or only purposefully serving as a source of narrative unreliability and confusion (Penny Fleck). Most characters, however, were simply part of an unindividuated antagonistic bloc whose sole purpose seemed to truncate both its own humanity and Arthur's— perhaps this is what we could call 'society', or something.

It took me a moment of talking to friends to find a method through which this film perhaps not quite become intelligible, but at the very least that I could get something out of it. This method is one of doing away with the narrative and instead, trying to view it as a character study.

Certain parts of the film become immediately more palatable when viewed this way, or at least, easier to parse as meaning anything at all. For example, we don't have to accept the pop criticism analysis of that his relationship with his neighbor is something Arthur hallucinated and then realised he hallucinated. Instead, we can take each of the scenes in which she is present as something that tells us something about Arthur even if not extant in the ‘real narrative’— while he is truly and actually maligned by society, it can't be said that Arthur himself is particularly sensitive to the complicated humanity of those around him. For example, when it comes to Penny, he seems to have absolutely no regard for the simultaneous plight and guilt surrounding her character, that of a woman who, yes, let him be abused by her boyfriend but who herself was also being abused by him and presumably had her own troubled past.

Likewise, we can state that if his neighbor were to be present in the scenes in which she couldn't possibly have been (since it would defy all plausability of that relationship developing in that way), Arthur would actually have seen her as how she acted in those scenes: A symbol, at most. An anchor. Something without particular agency or drives or motives of her own, which she only reclaims in the final scene that she's in, where she is concerned with the safety of her daughter and Arthur leaving her apartment. The disparity between her as a an agent and the scenes in which her presence was imaginary (as opposed to unreal) tells us something about Arthur, even if it tells us nothing about the narrative.

When it comes to Penny, perhaps it doesn't matter so much to Arthur whether she had her own complicated reality of pain and powerlessness. In the moment where Arthur killed her, he was simply reclaiming a kind of power he never had. Arthur has no social means to power, so he resorts to presocial means, or really just only ever one, which is murder. And not just any kind of murder, not the kind of violence of slowly strangling someone, or beating someone into a pulp until they pass away as a combination of factors such as lung failure, neural trauma, and internal bleeding, but the kind of violence with a huge power differential where the moment he decides someone dies, they're already dead, a wish spoken to remove someone from this world that one immediately grants oneself. A terminally ill woman can't defend herself against smothering, and even an able-bodied adult man stands no chance in the second between the revolver being unholstered and being shot in the head.

Hypnotising, really. In particular that moment where the third businessman who was first harassing a woman on the train and then beating Arthur up is now slowly limping away as Arthur casually follows him, you can see every aspect of his fear, the sheer realisation that the social dominion he enjoys means nothing when faced with a cartridge of sufficient caliber.

I feel that this is significant somehow, the fact that Arthur is both traumatised into being unable to parse the very intricate and individual drives of the people surrounding him, and the fact that he recognises that this is happening to him, constantly, and acts very purposefully to circumvent it through means which in turn allow no resistance in any sense whatsoever. All of this can, of course, be attributed to trauma as an aspect of the character study of the film, and for this reason I believe that the scenes-that-couldn't-possibly-have-happened and the very real violence he enacts are part of one and the same network of themes.

The fact that for most of the film Arthur is simultaneously treated by the narrative as the one person with humanity (but having this unrecognised by society) but Wayne and everyone else is portrayed as not possessing it (but at the very least conditionally having some of it bestowed upon them by those around them) is an important part of this conceit.

The inherent hypocrisy of Arthur’s character as maligned but having no qualm with truncating the subjectivities around him shows us both that the way he views things is disturbed and that he is legitimately cut off from others, that he genuinely cannot conceive of why he should not act as he does, but the harm he does is real. It’s obvious that we know Arthur did not have any choice in becoming the kind of person he ended up being, but also that he's not in particular a 'good person', if that means anything at all. One could possibly draw parallels to Brad in LISA: The Painful RPG, but to anyone who has played that game I shouldn't have to explicitly draw the links.

Furthermore, this baseline of the ineluctable unpleasantness of Arthur's character helps us differentiate between the parts of the film where he can meaningfully choose what to do, actions he undertakes without the force majeure of trauma and mental illness making any other options not even appear in his head. From here we could possibly draw a parallel to the utter meaninglessness of Alex’ actions in A Clockwork Orange post-Ludivico, a film in which this particular theme is much more explicit, although there’s a contrast of the ability to be compassionate being truncated as opposed to the ability to be cruel.

(To be clear, I'm working with the framework of "what could you reasonably expect from someone who has had their psyche malformed like that?" whether it is the lack of 'good' deeds from Arthur or the lack of 'evil' deeds from Alex as opposed to a blanket condemnation/sanctification of character.)

This is where directorial fiat starts meaning anything, or from a more in-universe perspective, what little agency Arthur himself has left— Watsonian or Doylist analysis, who gives a shit, you know what I mean.

There are a couple actions Arthur took that were completely unwarranted, which were neither reactions to imminent threats or reactions to people who had wronged him in the past. In particular, I am referring here to him sexually assaulting his neighbor — even if not a real scene within the narrative, it still tells us something about Arthur as within the aforementioned parameters — and later the woman on TV.

Were he not to have taken those actions, a meaningful moral judgement — a positive one but in particularly the negative ones — could not possibly have been ascribed to him, because all of his actions could have been conceivably reduced to simple learned traumatic behaviors and reactions to impending harm. The story of Arthur could have been one of a gun cocked by SOCIETY and then exploding in its own face.

However, since not all of his actions can be placed within this framework, we can say something about Arthur for certain that I don't feel we could unequivocally have before: He is not the hero of this story. There are actions of his to which morality meaningfully applies, and in a negative light— as opposed to not being a bad person, the 'not' here referring to the futility of trying to ascribe morality to the actions of those who have certain faculties truncated from their psyche. But why opt for this in the script?

If Arthur could possibly have had all of his actions justified or at least hypothetically justifiable, he would have been the hero of the story. And 'the hero of the story' implies 'story', it implies 'narrative', it would have meant a regression to the narrative structure that the film explicitly seemed to be avoiding, at least most of the time. Joker (2019) wouldn't have been a character study, it would've regressed to a relatively standard narrative with an antihero. Thus, I think it makes sense to insert these actions as a diversion of the baseline of things which could really not have been any different in any categorical way (the killings in self-defense, general acts of revenge, the general insensitivity to the humanity of all others).

All of this is very complicated and challenging, perhaps in particular to those who aren't familiar with the larger lines of the subjectivity that is Arthur: One of a kind of mental illness that not even provisional accommodation exists for, particular economic dependence and destitution, and a general sense of being cut off from the world soul or whatever metaphysical metaphor you would like to use.

(The reason I want to use a metaphysical metaphor is because the longer you are both stuck in and at odds with society, the more everything that happens feels like a presocial fact, something that is intrinsic to you, rather than something that is occuring for reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with you. One could choose to draw a distinction between saying that all of it is absurd, that the very construction of value in a Marxist sense creates an impersonal system of domination upon us all, or that the reason why things are as they are is the result of the enforced interests of certain blocs, but this doesn't really matter here. The fact that this reality is rapidly occluded from those who are subjugated to it remains, and that education to circumvent this occlusion and being reminded of what one knows by oneself and others is necessary to not keep returning to a mindset where one feels like something is intrinsically wrong with oneself rather than with society or whatever.)

All art produced by humans, even mass-produced art, is the result of the labor of those who even if they have no particular personal creative input, still levy the aspects of the contexts they are embedded in within the film. No film about a truly alien universe is possible, if it were, it would intrinsically not be possible for humans to conceive of and portray on any medium. Thus we have to conclude that this film, too, says something about perhaps all of us, and those around us.

This is very difficult. The morality of the film is so contradictory as to be completely reprehensible to anyone with any worldview at all, and trying to view it as a character study protects us from being impacted by it. It's a film about Arthur, after all, not us, a twisted person who does not deserve our sympathy. This contradiction doesn’t matter if we abstract Arthur away from ourselves.

I would call this cowardice, or at least, a kind of fear. There is a difference between consuming art from a critical, analytic distance, and really engaging with it. This is of course scary to most people, and I think many of us, even or perhaps especially those who claim to be hardcore critics and analytics are often unwilling to do this. After all, if we really open our minds and hearts to the art we interact with, we don't know how we will end up on the other side.

Will we come to question our preconceptions about who deserves sympathy? Does anyone, even, does the concept retain meaning in a world in which we are all traumatised? Does everyone, perhaps, which may be much scarier to some of us? Why do people behave in the way they do? It would be so easy to assume that the people we hate are behaving either irrationally or from a position of malice, and the idea that everyone has reasons to do what they're doing is a difficult one when we have been hurt by others.

There are a lot of questions like these that pop up when we truly take art for what it is, and I think most of us just can't be bothered. Certainly I couldn't while watching this film, or immediately after it.

This is why I think why a lot of both professional critics and more casual consumers seem to have trouble taking this film in. As a narrative, this film is obnoxious, frustrating, incoherent. As a character study, however, it is still painful, but if you dare to see it that way, you will get way more out of the film than you otherwise would. However, I feel even this is still a layer of abstraction too far removed from the meaning that the film could potentially confer upon us, but it’s one that people seem to be consistently refusing, judging by the state of discourse surrounding this film.

There are certain areas where analysis and ideology fail, or even if they succeed at a totalising idea of how to organise communities and lives, they don't suffice to let us truly perceive ourselves and others. There are certain things that can only be conveyed through art in this way, and at times, even the methodical structures surrounding art can prevent us from getting out of it what we can from nowhere else.

If Joker (2019) fails at any point, I would say it fails here, the parts where it fails to commit to disemphasising the narrative, where they return to the frame of a monomyth with an antihero, where it pulls punches about Arthur and why he does what he does, where it is altogether too subtle about the fact that there are more commonalities between Arthur and everyone else in the film than there are differences. Its cowardice makes it too easy for its audience to, in turn, also hide and scurry away from feeling what they could potentially feel, from having their psyches touched in a particular way.

There is, however, an artist whose work I feel consistently successfully eschews structures and their intrinsic problems, and whose art is extremely impactful as a result.

Play Vesp, by Porpentine.

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roxannepolice · 6 years

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Help me, Carl-Gus Jungobi, you’re my only hope

[prolonged deliberation on Goethe’s Faust effing up his task of achieving symbolic individuation equated with redemption by inserting himself for Paris with Helen I would love to know what CG would have to say about self insert fanfiction]

This is probably the deeper reason why Faust’s final rejuvenation takes place only in the post-mortal state, i.e., is projected into the future. [Psychology and Alchemy]

Taste that. Rejuvenation in the post-mortal state

Projected into the future

Hi, this here is Anakin’s son, daughter and future father of his grandson in one shot while Anakin appears as a force ghost.

Anakin’s redemption did not take place, it is taking place through his offspring – his future – and I’m afraid Ben is very much a part of it.

I’d argue that the main reason why the frequent belief that Anakin’s redemption needs a counterbalance in form of Ben’s ultimate fall is based on the fact that the redemption story most influential in western culture – that of humanity through death and resurrection of Jesus Christ – does have an unredeemed counterbalance – Judas (and a disclaimer: I do not refer to The Second Testament for any sort of religious agenda, I treat it as an influential cultural text it is – and a manifestation of collective unconscious, that’s why I can compare it to ancient mythologies). But that assumption is based on a false belief that Anakin’s redemption was complete rather than projected into the future. Redemption of humanity through Christ is complete as Christ’s resurrection is in soul and body.

Let’s take a look at two other mythical resurrections/redemptions – though I’ll allow myself to omit most of the context (I’m still sticking to the western world, because I believe it’s the most influential for most of SW audience but also because, confessedly, I cannot claim proficiency in other myths, if someone can share some themes, please do). An example of future resurrection balanced by damnation is Baldur vs. this handsome fella

For causing Baldur’s death Loki is condemned to lie under venomous snake’s fangs until Ragnarok and it’s only thanks to Sigyn, definitely the most underappreciated character of any mythology, that we don’t have permanent earthquakes. Now, this isn’t a damnation of the same kind as Judas’s, since Loki’s actual fate is the same as all other gods’ – to be destroyed during the Ragnarok you have to give it to the Nordic people, coming up with a mythology and ending it with everyone killing each other. BUT Baldur’s resurrection also isn’t as complete as Christ’s as it will only happen in the renewed world after Ragnarok, right now he’s sitting underground with Cate Blanchett. So, maybe Osiris vs. Seth? I would argue that’s the best parallel to Star Wars – Osiris is resurrected but stays forever in the underworld, but Seth also doesn’t suffer any eternal damnation. He’s an ambiguous deity in the fact that despite being an “antagonist” to Horus, after their fight is over he supports pharaohs’ rule and helps Ra keep away the monster of chaos (a hundred StarKillers anyone?). Granted, he becomes infertile in the process (attractiveness of force deprivation theme?) but that’s for trying to kill Osiris’ son, would make little sense if he was Osiris’ only offspring (btw, I’d argue that’s exactly why old EU gave Han and Leia two children, a good one and a bad one).

One could argue of course that Anakin’s redemption through the future can be done on the ideal level only – he saved Luke and Luke has now passed on the jedi tradition onto Rey. Yeah, that sounds attractive. But it wasn’t a jedi knight Anakin saved, wasn’t it? When fried by Palps Luke didn’t call upon Anakin’s jedi code only yelled Father, please. What’s more Anakin had two children. Luke has a sister Anakin asked him to tell he was right about him. And I believe Luke told this to Leia. But did she accept that? Confessedly, she had every reason not to. Oh, she could detach Anakin Skywalker from the sith lord who mind probed her and held her in place to watch the destruction of her home planet, but to accept Luke was right about Darth Vader?

In a way, Leia did the most epic Nooooo in Skywalker story.

Meme should continue through a meme and only can through a gene, but gene needs to continue through a gene, something the Skywalker twins did not accept and thus ended up with galaxy and their family again in turmoil. Luke – for it was Luke who’s the original Vader fanboy of this saga albeit unknowingly, not Kylo – badly wanted to continue the jedi meme (in its simulacric form, btw) through his nephew, the mighty Skywalker blood, which could be, can still be, but never had to be. Leia, on the other hand, thought she can have a child of Anakin’s meme and not Vader’s gene, which simply can’t be as it’s based on a lie.

So what, Anakin can get a redemption and other characters not because, what, he had children? Well, yeah. That’s a redemption through love at its symbolic best.

To cut a long story short, Ben Solo doesn’t have a husk of legacy to upkeep (that’s what he thinks, you know!), he has grandfather’s redemption to make real.

Master Skywalker or how I learned to nourish meme and love a gene

Battle of Crait is one of the most epic moments in Star Wars and I’ll fight anyone who’ll tell me otherwise. It is the most Luke Skywalker thing that could have happened, as it is Luke doing for himself what he has previously done for his father, if only temporarily – reattaching the meaning to the simulacrum, thus resurrecting the symbol. And symbols have great power, as they give us inspiration, hope and strength when we fall down. Luminous creatures we are, not that crude matter and to erase the symbols or identify them with simulacra is to make everything material only.

But there’s an extremely important thing – Luke could only rescue the Resistance and symbolically inspire new fighters, bring back the inspiring legend, because he reattached this legend to the man who failed his nephew – and that by admitting this failure, not denying it, as he tried to just a day earlier. To all out there who believe Luke was right to consider killing Ben, that the darkness he saw in him was a decided plan – why would he lie about it, to himself much more so than Rey? If he knew that what he considered was right and faltered by the softness of his heart, why not just come clean about it? But he knows that what he did was wrong and therefore, just for a moment, believes the only way for him to go back to rescuing the galaxy is to base it on a lie and hope for the best. Only Rey has already learned that what he told her wasn’t the truth and confronts him about it – notice that Luke is aggressively sending her away even though he wanted to go with her a moment earlier, precisely because he realises he’ll have to come clean. Now, Rey has no problem reconciling what he’s done with what she believes him to be, unlike both Luke and Ben – because they believed in a simulacrum and she believes in a symbol. Failures happen. But when she stretches Luke’s ls to him again – and remember right now she’s decided to go to Kylo, so I’d say what she’s actually doing isn’t asking him will you rejoin the fight? only will you go and confront him about what happened? it’s his legacy she’s stretching out to him in that moment! – he still can’t do this. In his eyes, he now gave up on the legend completely, it’s time to let the old things die, so he’ll go and burn the jedi tree along with the texts. But because his anger directed at the jedi simulacra is simply overclinging to them gone sour he can’t bring himself to even burn the tree. And it’s a nice tree isn’t it? So Yoda has to effing call a thunder from the afterlife to do that for him – but don’t forget, the books aren’t there already! It’s highly symbolic that Luke never bothered to read the texts, as exhibited by the most realistic padawan moment in the saga as he channels a student who was too lazy to do his homework for six years of having nothing else to do, he was sorta expecting them to have magic powers of their own?

But, in the end, he understands that his legend isn’t something inherently wrong but also that it doesn’t have to be infallible. His failure towards Ben and the way he apologised for that failure are his legend and legacy – just as the legend of Anakin’s fall and redemption he let start all those years ago. But again, Anakin’s redemption isn’t complete – and neither will be Luke’s (he dies in that moment after all) if his apology will have no influence on Ben.

Allow me to draw a timeline of Star Wars message:

after ot they become an inspiring story of hope and redemption

after prequels they become an overly selfconscious myth of redemption as the fall has been tailored exactly for the payment

right now they are a simulacrum of redemption as it became clear Anakin’s redemption was half-assed

It can be argued that the message can be carried on despite being false at a core. And does that sound like Rey growing to be a healthy good person basing on her denial of the truth about her parents? Yes, I think it should. There are characters like Galen, Bodhi or, again, according to some idiots, Finn – but they’re all incomplete too. Finn... really, his story isn’t a redemption, he’s not an evil man in need of paying for his sins, he’s a goddamn hero whose moral sense wasn’t killed by years of indoctrination and I want to punch anyone who thinks this beautiful jewel needs to get redeemed for anything. But Galen’s and Bodhi’s “redemptions” aren’t complete either – they both die, in Galen’s case so does his daughter, their redemptions are purely ideal in helping destroy the Empire. And complete redemption is in life, in soul and body. To say those other diamonds of souls needed redemption is a result of lie around Anakin, thinking his redemption was complete.

And that’s why I think there’s epic – though far from permanent – fall in store for Rey. But also that the sand castle of lies Snoke built around Ben can’t last.

The message of hope and redemption Star Wars are associated with doesn’t have to be carried by a Skywalker. But only a Skywalker can give them the message of hope and redemption, make it true. Meaning needs to be reattached to the simulacrum, gene to a meme, light to dark, ideal to matter and I could b*tch for hours about how they’ve been associated to male and female for thousands of years and their unison by marriage.

A rose is a Rose is a Tico – some reflections on symbolism in postmodern era

Sequels are also a great occasion to reflect on use of symbolism in modern epic (pop)art. Symbols have become so widespread, so conventionalised, that – again – it seems the right thing to do is throw away symbolic language as a dead husk or leave them be only as empty conventions. Now, there are some things which are conventional enough to be purely conventional and throwing them away gives them more value than they’re worth – think French revolutionists trying to do away with a seven day week or ask yourselves how many people you know still worship thunder on Thursdays watching Thor doesn’t count. But those are pure conventions of everyday life and epic storytelling should appeal to deeper levels of our psyche. There’s a danger in overreliance on symbols – for example, violence in the originals was symbolical to the point of seeming banal – but they’re still a useful way of expressing that which in conceptual terms would be too difficult or plain impossible. Nowadays there are loads of symbol dictionaries so it’s easy to think of them as something to be decoded – but symbols aren’t to be decoded only to be interpreted, depending on their context. “A bird” can’t mean a lion but it can mean swallow, sparrow, pigeon, eagle, vulture, etc. alike. TBH, that’s why I’d say reylos seem like we’re “reaching” – we’re interpreting, debating with the text, asking it questions rather than decoding separate elements I don’t want to be indiscriminate of course there are non-reylos who do interpret and many reylos just see two hotties to be together, but the latter aren’t accused of reaching. Intrepreting means asking a question of the meaning, not thinking the meaning is obvious. I don’t want to make another huge elaboration, so I’ll just take some examples of use of symbolism in Star Wars and how they should and shouldn’t be treated, as well as two simulacric husks which still need to be dug beyond.

Names and pseudonyms – a name is always symbolic of identity, though it should be remembered that they aren’t given like eye colour, they belong to the order of meme that becomes one with our identity as we grow. I think it’s pretty clear that Han has been literally baptised by the Empire and more importantly, never had a problem with that. He accepted this surname as it was an abstraction of what he was – alone, he didn’t have to throw it away because of being given by the bad guys I also think it’s not insignificant the imperial official is actually a pretty human character but that’s another matter. What I want to focus upon though, are the characters with two names, one for their selves and one for their shadows: Sheev Palpatine – Sidious, Dooku – Tyrranus, Anakin Skywalker – Vader, Ben Solo – Kylo Ren. I don’t want to delve into their ethymologies, but rather into their use. The difference between the two latter and two former lies in difficulty of switching between the two personas. Vader gets angered when Luke calls him Anakin, Kylo does react when he’s called Ben but doesn’t refer to himself this way – according to the novelization, in the throne room, while offering Rey the galaxy, he reasserts that it’s no longer his name. Now, one’s willing to view this as a manipulative play on his side, they think I should keep those names apart but I’m actually one and okay with it, but, just like with everything else in the throne room, he’s lying to himself not less than Rey, like a good setient simulacrum should. His manipulation is essentially innocent because he believes what he’s saying – compare it to Snoke who knew perfectly well Ben’s family loved him – and when he offers himself to Rey he offers her Kylo Ren, the simulacrum believing itself to be reality, just as he doesn’t say he’ll rescue the Resistance if she stays with him. What would be terrifying is if he wanted to be referred to as Ben, because that would mean his identity is as malleable as he’d like it to be. Such is the case with Dooku, who barely refers to himself as Tyrranus and why the hell should he, he’s a politician first sith lord second and more importantly, Sheev. Palpatine has no problems jumping between Palpatine, Sidious, Emperor and of course he’s all time favourite, The Senate.

Masks – I already explained how I think the bridge scene should actually be interpreted, but I bring it back as an excellent case of decoding vs. interpretation. Removal of the mask is decoded as revelation of the true persona and this is exactly what Kylo Ben thinks he’s doing. And yes, he reveals his true persona – only this persona is one feeling remorse for what he’s done.

Another good decoding vs. interpretation scene is Crait showdown – Kylo Ben is fighting a ghost, a shadow. Decoding is that it’s an expression of how ungrounded his anger is. But neither he nor anyone other than Leia and Rey (and possibly Chewie and porgs?) know Luke to be a shadow and that shadow has very real effect, this time positive in saving the Resistance. I would say Luke letting Leia know that he’s a projection is a symbolic explanation to his sister of what happened to her son. Of course, Leia still doesn’t know that Luke considered killing Ben, but now she knows he wouldn’t have actually done it – and I would argue before the scene is over, Ben himself gets a glimpse of this fact.

There’s also Anakin’s parthenogenesis to be reconsidered. To see that as a simulacrum of divine bloodline is the simplest thing to do – as well as one raising the most resentment, especially among those who think parthenogenesis is culturally exclusive to Jesus. But that’s avoiding the question of what actually took place. An embodied hierophany isn’t an origin of a special hero only an act of divinity’s direct intervention in linear historical time – thus, Anakin stops being the chosen one, one to bring balance to the force, but neither is it a concept to be rejected as some esoteric bs, but rather his birth sets in motion a series of events leading to that balance.

And lastly, decoding Snoke as an abuser isn’t equivalent with interpreting a twenty year long abuse, something which cannot be shaken off by killing the abuser. In this way I could argue Kylo Ben at the end of TLJ could turn out to be symbolic for oversimplified attitude towards stormtrooper rebellion – free them before they’ll want freedom and you’ll end up with them rebuilding the cage they’re used to.

A general rule I would apply is that non humanoids (moons, suns, planets, porgs) are rather reliable symbols. Characters may be trying to deceive each other and themselves but I don’t think creators are trying to deceive the audience. So if a kyber crystal cracks, either because of how difficult it was to make it bleed or because two characters who should be in tune are far from it – there’s a good chance things are not the way they should be. Again, symbolic language isn’t bad in itself.

Evil eyes – one of the arguments most frequently raised for bendemption is that Kylo has never had evil sith eyes. Now, you could say, neither had Dooku and he died but that’s another thing showing Kylo’s death would be a rehash, not his redemption. Another argument could be that Disney simply felt that effect was cheesy and decided to never use it again. But what should be done is to ask ourselves what do those evil yellow eyes actually mean. The way eyes look is symbolic of the way eyes see. Siths have venomous yellow eyes because they see the world through their hatred and lust for power, not because EVIL. Snoke has empty black eyes in TFA because he can see no depth in the world, sees only emptiness, and cold blue in TLJ as everything is coldly subjugatable to him. It has also been pointed out that the closest we got to sith yellow in the sequels is Hux during the destruction of Hosian system.

And I agree, it was a conscious move. As was this.

But lightsaber refelected in Kylo’s eyes is red, associated with anger – and anger is but a path to the dark side, not dark side itself. So, do I expect Armitage to get actual sith yellow eyes? No, not really, because it was a bit cheesy what matters is the visual effect, so it could be another light reflection. It could also be argued that force sensitives do perceive the world in a slightly different manner than others, there is a difference in their very souls which finds manifestations in their bodies. What could happen and make me totally flip if the trailers greeted us with evil yellow eyes... by Rey.

One of the husks I think Star Wars still has to shed and why I can see dark!Rey happening is that femininity has become overidentified with good. The only more or less fleshed out female villain in the main story so far is Phasma and she sure has room for improvement. Alternative, and that’s another thing which would make me flip, is epix giving us Rae Sloane, an evil matriarch, an anti-Leia, if you like. Preferably, both. And I want to underline I write that as a feminist, I’m just tired of watching infallible or driven to villainy by men female characters, I’m a woman and I effed up in life, Padme’s patience gave me more complexes than Barbie’s waist ever could.

And another husk to be shed is... democracy. That sounds bad, I know, so let me elaborate. Democracy has become an empty word, on Earth and in GFFA alike. It became an equivalent of good rule, interpretable to preference. You know what is a “Democratic People’s Republic”? North Korea. And if you tell me there has never been a good emperor, I call bs on your knowledge of history whereas if you stammer sth about SW being a metaphor to be abstracted from history then at best I ask you sweetly then what’s wrong with a good Renperor and at worst sue for calling me a nazi apologist over that abstract metaphor. Now, I’m not saying a point should be made that authoritarian rule is anything good – rather, seeing Renperor’s labour’s lost should make us reflect why democracy is the best regime anyone ever came up with though still the worst there is. Rise of sympathies towards authoritarianism (usually going by the name of “enlightened despotism”) is another phenomenon visible around the globe and not always among uneducated people in want of agency only those who see how mishandled democracy can go astray. Again, there have been good emperors, so alternative sounds better than trying to fix the fallible regime. To show such people how their symbols get vanquished by good democrats will only fuel their resentment as they will feel misunderstood (that’s not what they meant by their enlightened despotism) – remember, they’re the romantic rebels fighting globalist empire. To show them how such regime fails at establishing a lasting welfare could actually make them think.

Well, that sure was an experience. I have many thanks to those who have actually gone through all of my ramblings, congratulations on your patience. Hopefully, they provided you with some insight into postmodern popculture and how it doesn’t have to be husk running away from itself only can be actually a living organism

#star wars #luke skywalker #anakin skywalker #redemption #bendemption #postmodernity #symbolism #episode ix speculation #rey #kylo ren #ben solo #reylo

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