#there is nothing up to interpretation with the walker family’s dynamics

[ty-talks-comics]

Best of DC: Week of October 30th, 2019

Best of this Week: Tales from the Dark Multiverse - The Death of Superman - Jeff Loveness, Brad Walker, Drew Hennessey, Norm Rapmund, John Kalisz and Clayton Cowles

We all know the story of the Death of Superman.

It was one of the few times that Superman fought a threat that pushed him to his limits, ultimately meeting his “end” before a triumphant return after he had been presumed dead. However, what would have happened had Superman not come back as soon as he did? What if someone wanted revenge for his death and saw his passing as a failure on the part of his friends and allies? What if that person were Lois Lane, fueled by the anger of losing her loving husband, enraged enough to become the change the world needed without its greatest hero?

The book begins with Tempus Fuginaut questioning why the darkness keeps returning, why it seems to keep attempting to poison the rest of the multiverse and he is at a loss. He breaks when he mentions worlds that are already dark because of tragedy and get darker still. We then cut to Superman’s battle with Doomsday and his eventual death right up to Lois cradling his body. Where the original story sees her crying and appreciating all that the rest of the heroes were doing while the fight was going on, this book sees her turn to them in fury. She asks why none of them were there for him, why none of them helped him fight.

Brad Walker does an excellent job of conveying Lois’ emotions. Here, she is shown to be far more angry, her eyes showing a pain that honestly, I don’t think we’ve ever seen from her character. Her tears are well detailed, dripping down her cheeks with maybe some bit of mascara mixed in for effect. Her brow furrows and she lashes out at Batman in particular once he tries to comfort her.  

What’s most interesting about this take is the idea that those closest to Clark had been shunted to the side in favor of the League who Lois saw as attention seekers with no regard for his real family. In the original story, Lois and the Kents were in the forefront and were absolutely devastated at the funeral. In this story, Lois is barely able to see the proceedings as the crowd blocks her and some members of the League stop for photos (maybe, Hal Jordan stops and waves at someone). Lois is further disgusted as Lex Luthor (with luxurious long, red hair) unveils a golden statue of the Man of Steel and promises to “live up to the hope” of what Superman believed humanity was capable of. Lois feels that Clark would have found it all s disgusting.

Time goes by and the world turns back into the cesspool that it was before Superman even lit the sky up with hope. There are headlines that crime has skyrocketed and Lois can do nothing but look at it all with despair. Lois Lane had always been a giant beacon of hope, even before she met Clark, but something about his death and the way that world handled it just broke her. Her body language at her desk and later, Superman’s grave give off heavy feelings of sadness and depression. She can’t even have a good night's rest without thinking about him and the shoddy state of the world after his passing. Superman gave so much to humanity and they’ve all just pissed it away from her point of view.

She visits Ma Kent and comforts her as the Kents couldn’t even go to their son’s funeral to say their goodbyes. As they embrace, Martha tells Lois that Jonathan fell into a coma after a heart attack and you can feel her brokenness as she laments that “her boys are gone.” It rips at the heart to see, a testament to Brad Walker’s emotional art and Loveness’ amazing script. She stays with Ma Kent for an unstated period of time before making her way to the Fortress of Solitude to deliver Superman’s cape back to his Kryptonian home. 

She puts herself in a fetal position before the statues of Jor-El and Lara Lor-Van and suddenly the form of Eradicator appears before her. John Kalisz is given a ton of space to shine as this is one of the most visually dynamic sequence of pages in the book. Eradicator shimmers with a bright and vibrant shade of red accentuated by a white form. Energy surges around him in the form of circular marks, like bubbles as one exhales while swimming underwater. Even without a mouth, his eyes emote for him. Showing his own anger and lament after failing to save Superman in time. 

Lois, with tears in her eyes, offers her body as a vessel for his power as he cannot sustain it in his current form. He is reluctant at first, thinking that her body wouldn’t be able to take it, but upon seeing her resolve and want to finish Superman’s mission, he allows her to take his power. She is then showered in his energy in a bright blast as he dissipates into her. The Fortress of Solitude is destroyed with the red of the explosion contrasted by the blues and whites of the ice. Things simmer down for a moment before another single beam of light shoots out from the ice, revealing Lois in her Super-form. 

Her costume is amazing. Mirroring the bloody logo that made the Death of Superman story feel so visceral, she already feels like a different “hero” altogether, choosing to forego bright colors in favor of a black bodysuit and Superman’s torn cape. She vows to make the world better, to make it a world that deserved Superman. The way that she goes about it very similar to Injustice Superman’s approach, but instead of raising an army, she is the army. She takes down predatory banks, ends wars, feeds the hungry, kills the corrupt and does so without a hint of remorse. She begins to wonder why Clark never used his power in that way. The questions swirl around her mind as she wonders if Clark was truly naive or if he was just afraid of truly Saving humanity for whatever reason.

Many have asked similar questions over the years with the only real answer being that Superman wants humanity to advance on their own with him being a guiding hand, but not a firm one. Lois, only fueled by revenge, doesn’t have the same restraint. Eventually she finds Lex Luthor, knowing that he’s been the cause of all of the world’s troubles since Superman’s death. He doesn’t bat an eye as he admits to his heinous crimes; funding wars and conflicts, struck down climate regulations, created child soldier and even murdering his secretary just because he could. He expects Lois to bring him to justice, claiming that he owns far more judges than she could stop.

In a terrifying moment, she bursts through the glass window separating them and grabs him by the throat. Luthor is unable to speak, unable to stop her at all and the motif of tears continues as she tells him that Superman was Clark Kent. Luthor’s face, abject terror mixed with the loss of breath is both horrifying to see and absolutely gratifying considering his actions. She flies him past Earth’s atmosphere as quickly as she can, burning him to ash and bone in her hands before continuing her mission.

These are my favorite pages in the book. Loveness wrote it in such a way that all of the emotion is able to be carried by with little dialogue and the few words that are spoken were powerful. Walker made sure to draw these pages with an amazing amount of depth to them. Lois’ boiling anger is painted on her face through her tears, her body language indicates that she feels her actions are righteous and the ease that she’s able to keep hold of Luthor as she destroys him shows a level of control over her new powers and it is amazing. Kalisz makes no bones about showing how Lois’ inner darkness has taken over, showing her shrouded in fire and feeling nothing about what she has done.

The training wheels are taken off by this point as Lois has seemingly gone on a tear through the rogues gallery of almost everyone; burning Intergang, Cadmus, Ra’s al Ghul, Ares, Black Adam, Deathstroke and finally the Joker which draws the ire of Batman. He confronts her about what she’s done, leading to them having a fight. Batman does his best, but she tells him how much Clark actually held back against him, even going so far as to say that Clark pitied him and wished that he would stop being Batman. Bruce looks at her with a seething rage, saying that “he doesn’t stop” to which Lois says that she knows. While we don’t see the aftermath of their conflict up close, we do see her heat vision make a huge blast before she flies away.

This stuck out to me because, unlike Injustice that went out of its way to show all of the brutality that Superman inflicted upon the heroes of the world, we can interpret similar actions from how she was able to easily kill Batman alone. We don’t need to see what happened to know that it was heinous and that she likely had cut a swath through the other “glory hounds” as well. As she looks out to the vast emptiness of space, she sees her own truth. Humanity can’t be saved because they don’t want to be. Batman was the pinnacle of that and now that he’s gone, she’s finally realized it. Batman was one of the greatest humans to exist, but he was too wrapped up in his own emotion and damn anyone that tried to stop him.

What would a Death of Superman retelling be without the “pretenders?” Granted, I think this bit of the story took some liberties, but it was still horrific to see. She goes after Cyborg Superman and immediately sees through his ruse. They have a tussle and as it appears that she’s about to lose, Steel and Superboy show up only to be crushed and heat visioned to death. I suppose Superboy’s clone DNA doesn’t make him as invincible as Superman, but I don’t think Cyborg Superman has the power to control metal at will to crush Steel either. Lois proceeds to fight Cyborg Superman for God knows how long, not caring about property damage or the amount of people killed.

She looks around, seeing all of the damage and suddenly, in a black suit, Clark returns. He apologizes for how long it took and sees that she’s been fighting Cyborg Superman, then he takes a look at the crowd of people and sees that they’re afraid of her and he questioned why. Unfortunately, this leaves him distracted enough for Cyborg Superman to blast the pair with a ray of Kryptonite Energy, killing him and leaving his face frozen with terror at Lois. She kills Cyborg Superman and cradles his body again, this time knowing that she’s the one that kills him.

I loved this book because it was absolutely masterful. Lois Lane is such a great character that rarely gets stories of her own these days, aside from her current ongoing series by Greg Rucka and Mike Perkins. She is always portrayed as a strong character and seeing her succumb to a weakness like rage is refreshing in a dark way. One criticism I could draw is that this story focused very little on her journalism, but in contrast, how often do we get a super powered Lois Lane? 

Brad Walker, Drew Hennessey, Norm Rapmund and John Kalisz absolutely killed it in the art department. It was brutal without blood and the motif of tears and fire was a nice addition. Waller has such a distinctive and sharp style that is accentuated by Hennessey and Rapmund's inks and elevated by Kalisz' colors. This book was high quality and beautiful. 

High recommend!

#dc comics #comics #tales from the dark multiverse #lois lane #superman #death of superman #dark multiverse #batman #lex luthor #jeff loveness #drew hennessy #norm rapmund #brad walker #john kalisz #comic review

[iramdie]

dio brando being adopted into the joestar family versus diego brando being hired briefly as their hot walker/stable boy raises some neat parallels even if i have to reach a bit. with the interpretation of au phantom blood diego (where mama’s boy diego, as a standoffish but relatively more empathetic/humble child than dio, could have been defrosted over 7 years of active nurturing after being given a better space to heal, and perhaps peacefully adopted to the manor without the sadism, insatiability, or vampiric god complex drama), i want to think a similar thought process regarding the nobility could develop in diego’s actual canon. "maybe the joestars [nicholas] aren't bad themselves** and i wouldn't go out of my way to harm them but they are still kingpins of classism and i still hate what they stand for" which lets me branch off to what johnny joestar will eventually mean to him. (** this does not include george; fuck sbr george, but nicholas and johnny are okay)

johnny has potential and i always hesitate to use the word ‘rival’ in meta because 99% the time it gets grossly distorted by fandom and warped into something disgusting or cheap. (this is usually a curtailment of their characters for the sake of making them obsessed with each other / with hating each other) but diego doesn’t have that kind of time. he doesn’t need to spite johnny. there is nothing in it for diego to spend seven years tormenting johnny joestar the way dio had tormented jonathan. diego is currently fixated on building himself up from the dirt and he doesn't need love/found family in his canon, he needs others who will drive him to improve (if not others he can cozy up with for social connections). aspiring jockey johnny joestar slots nicely with the first category of people, so this could translate to a loose 'rivalry' between him and diego if anything—but even then, i don't think it would ever get intense enough to be labelled as a ‘rivalry’. there is no pkmn rival dynamic per se, nor any kind of dynamic where they were ever directly butting heads—i would think they were just sort of coexisting in each other's orbits in the horse racing world, with one jockey making his name in the usa while the other is making his name in the uk.

however: it is entirely reasonable for johnny to hold fiercer resentment toward diego given how george constantly throws around diego's name, using both diego and nicholas as measuring sticks to hurt/belittle johnny. on diego’s end, i think diego is far more impartial/detached because he is simply so focused on his own ambitions—i don't really get where people conjure up the same vibe as phantom blood dio + jonathan where diego would have just abused johnny the whole time or some shit.

i think it's even reasonable to interpret diego as wanting johnny to thrive, in that loose 'rival' sense. diego would have respected nicholas as a rider, too. competence impresses diego; even if he was under the influence of ferdinand’s scary monsters, diego is shown being a surprisingly good sport to johnny. i genuinely feel like diego is just minding his own business until sbr and that’s fine. he’s still british though so some crimes can’t be forgiven

i don't think diego would have been incredibly friendly to nicholas/johnny (and i also know that johnny doesn't really know diego until the day of nicholas's accident but my city now i want them to be a semi-childhood trio of horsey boys) but diego is perfectly capable of critical thinking. he can weigh nuances like a champ, and even though he will always criticize what their aristocratic birthrights represent, he can distinguish the kinder nicholas/johnny from the people who spat on him + his mother, from what he truly resents about the upper class. johnny joestar my brilliant colleague when will you simply have coffee with me i just want to be friends johnny joestar

#diego's only crime was being british which is fair #*** #diegooc * #okay i exaggerate but diego's animosity toward johnny really is just so.............inflated by fandom idk #this meta is not entirely polished but that's okay it's for me anyway #im gonna click post and be done with it #diego did NOT release the white mouse on the day of nicholas's accident btw idgaf #but the fact that johnny could end up associating diego with this traumatic event in his childhood is absolutely valid #i've chewed on that interpretation before but i don't think i care for it and unless i pull a social climbing plot out of my ass #there's no reason for diego to do that ESPECIALLY IF HE WANTS HORSEY RIVALS???? YALL????? #diego lacks og dio's sadism and that is a whole new meta post i'll die on that hill forever #johnny being diego's first/only 'friend' in like the loosest sense when they were both young and fameless but #whether johnny ever considered diego a friend (later on; diego just turned into a concept that george kept pushing) is a different story too #diego just always does his own thing anyway tbh #he's calculated and vicious but he also just does not have the time #'dio the invader' where dio specifically invades the joestar household versus diego who is infiltrating high society #diego causing problems for johnny on purpose??? more like johnny beats the ever loving snot out of peppa pig asmr #also: diego not comparing johnny to nicholas or framing johnny in his older brother's shadow #JOHNNY JOESTAR WHEN WILL YOU COME HOME AND BE MY FRIEND #me saying this but me mainly writing part 5 diego au like

[hopelesstvaddict]

The Last of Jon and Sansa

[No review for the series finale - I don't know if I want to write one - but suffice it to say I may be in the minority that was satisfied. For now I'm back to writing on interesting aspects I take out of the episode. This should be short. Shorter than my combined review of Episodes 3 and 5. I hope]

A lot has been said about the series finale. Most critics and most viewers have been left disappointed which was predictable. Jon as a character in particular was a big contentious point. The episode seemed to cement this idea that he really was a lovestruck fool in the end. That, all this time he really loved Daenerys. And yet the behaviour viewers have seen is at least as erratic as Dany's changes of mood. The previous episode seemed to point at the last of their relationship as news of his birthright spread and he couldn't return her affections, which was part of what set her on her path to her barbecue fiesta in King's Landing. So naturally what everyone expected was the final Dance of Dragons i.e. the final clash between the last two Targaryens. A bit late in the endgame but due nonetheless. The first part of the episode even seems to point in the right direction as Jon wearily witnesses Dany's speech to her armies and guesses nothing good is going to come out of it, especially when he hears her utter the name of Winterfell. He's again agitated when she sentences Tyrion, upset at the carnage, the useless slaughtering of prisoners and worried as she looks past him - with a look that carries nothing of love there, as the distorted version of Truth plays - and enters the ruins of the Red Keep. So in that first part of the finale, both Jon and Dany still seem to be consistent character-wise.

And then suddenly they don't. Jon visits Tyrion who has the greatest difficulties to swerve Jon into doing the right thing when the Jon viewers know would not hesitate and would absolutely know what to do. One could argue that the resurrected Jon is less certain, more doubtful of everything that's not White Walkers- related but come on. Is it love ? Fear ? We don't even know what it is that restrains him. He certainly doesn't seem to know either. And Dany is no better. The next time she sees Jon, she's all of a sudden all over him again. Bad writing ? Or maybe she feels so elated over her victory that she feels in a good mood ? Enough to forgive his betrayal ? He did betray her, per her own words. And she was angry with him. And as Arya pointed out, she knows her claim will be threatened as long as he lives. Well she seems to forgive him. But not the others. She goes on about wanting them to rule side by side and for a split second I thought ‘oh she's gonna off him’. That's the big twist. He's not killing her, she'll make an attempt. Except no she really was in love all over again. Consistency ? Think again.

How does Jon respond ? With his favorite sentence. ‘You are my queen’. Duty duty duty. But no ‘I love you’. Thank the Gods. Because that at least leaves room for interpretation and is a remnant of consistency carrying over from Jon's behaviour from Seasons 7 and 8. For those who cling onto the lovestruck fool theory, it works. The general audience stopped there. And for those who wish to find a way to tie all of this, it leaves just enough to try and understand Jon. As everyone pointed out, blocking his point of view was a huge mistake. Strangely the show tries to satisfy everyone but ends up frustrating everybody instead by relying too much on the fans' ability to figure everything out themselves and expecting them to find the truth. Sometimes just spelling it loud and clear works better. Anyway Jon protects himself by appealing to Dany's sense of entitlement. And proceeds to do the deed. His reaction to it and how he fares for the rest of the episode is thankfully consistent with who he is as character. Kit Harington really played it well. Once again, it works whether or not he really was in love with her. If he really loved Dany, the tears and the angst and the guilt all work themselves out on their own. If he didn't, it still works in terms of the man he is and what he has done - a man of honor who has committed the highest treason, a protector of the innocents (this plays into his final fate as he returns with the people he spent so many seasons trying to protect) who has murdered an unarmed woman (to save thousands of innocents but still...) Too bad Jaime isn't around anymore to give him a prep talk.

But what's interesting there - and I finally get to the main point of this - is the presence of Sansa despite her physical absence. If there are so many downsides to this way of making fans analyze and guess instead of simply telling it the way it is, it is still amusing and interesting to try decoding and admiring it when it's properly done. Per their own admission, Sansa is one of the producers' favorite characters and they have done her mostly right - certainly not perfectly, not even admirably, but she fares much better than the rest of the cast. The relationship between Jon and Sansa has been one of the most important on the show, ever since they reunited back in Season 6, retook their ancestral home as a team and ruled it as a team. The dynamics established between them has been an important part of Seasons 6 and 7 as it was shown that they were often at odds with each other as essentially two strangers rediscovering themselves but that the partnership could potentially lead to greatness if allowed the time to develop. Unfortunately it didn't achieve its potential. So much foreshadowing, so many Ned/Catelyn parallels... All wasted away. Or was it really ? Game of Thrones has always been about the be-careful-what-you-wish-for trope. And not fulfilling the potential of Jon and Sansa as a ruling team also works with the bittersweet ending which basically denies everybody their wishes. At best, the characters end up with satisfying situations but not perfect ones. Perhaps it was best to leave Jon and Sansa in this state rather than explicitly declare them in the end. We all saw what happened with explicit relationships. Sure it's frustrating but Jon and Sansa were always about the subtlety of subtext, analysis and interpretation. In that regard, if indeed the producers were trying to set up the pair during Seasons 6 and 7, then Season 8 did not destroy them - which is more than can be said for the show's flagship pairing - but it didn't exactly prepare the ground the way the two previous seasons did. Subtlety was still the keyword but it largely took a step back compared to the rest. Blame it on the shortened amount of episodes.

It was established clearly that Sansa plays an important part in Jon's life. Season 8 reminds viewers of this in the season premiere. Unfortunately, it does not seem to explicitly go anywhere. Except, once again, we are supposed to look deeper than what we see on screen. Astute fans have deduced that Jon's dismissive behaviour towards Sansa was really his own way of protecting her against Daenerys. That again is brought up in the series finale where both Arya and Tyrion mention Sansa as a potential dissident to her reign - the notion of how Jon will deal with protecting his sister from her. Dany has low-key threatened Sansa several times and certainly does not view her favorably - she blames her for Jon's treason, for Varys and she does not like her relationship with Tyrion, she knows Sansa wants the North to secede from the rest of the Kingdoms and she knows how much the North respects her. All of this points to Dany targeting Sansa next had she had the opportunity. This was a running theory throughout the entire season and even the potential snapping point for Jon, were he to choose between his family and Dany. None of it happens but the eventuality of it is adressed in the episode. Daenerys mentions Winterfell in her opening speech and tell me that your minds did not automatically switch to Sansa. Not Bran, not Arya. Sansa. Because Sansa is now representative of Winterfell and the North more than any other person still alive at this point. Even absent from the entirety of Episode 5 and the aftermath in King's Landing, Sansa's specter looms over Jon - and Jon in particular. He definitely thinks of her when he hears the name of Winterfell. The show established their relationship such as she's now closely associated with him in a way neither she and Arya or Jon and Arya are. That's not to diminish Arya's bond with her brother and sister but Seasons 7 and 8 have established that she is a changed woman, whose relationship with her sister and brother may be still loving but there's a melancholy to Arya that pushes her towards other horizons, to seek her purpose beyond mere revenge.

‘Try telling Sansa’, Arya says. To which Jon says nothing because he knows Sansa will never bow. Not after something like this. He himself knows as well but he is trapped. He's hopeless for himself but the main focus is Sansa. Not even Bran or Arya who's standing there in front of him and who's certainly not about to bow either but no, once again Sansa is the focal point. Sansa really permeates the first part of the episode while being absent. Too bad the recently released script [good thing this thing waited in my drafts for so long] does not make it explicit but it is not hard to connect the dots. Next, Tyrion resorts to mentioning Jon's family as a last attempt to sway him. Both 'sisters' are mentioned first before Tyrion zeroes in on Sansa - perhaps because he knows her best - but still it works. This time Jon plays the obedient subservient version of himself and says she doesn't get to choose. The switching between seemingly Political!Jon and Dumb!Jon makes it hard to keep tabs. Then finally the big moment between Dany and Jon. And again, Sansa is present without ever being physically there. Jon adopts a similar pattern to Tyrion in his attempt to appease Dany. First the question of the rightness of the massacre in King's Landing, the forgiveness to prove that she is not only fire and blood and finally, family. Jon does not explicitly mention his siblings but really, the 'everyone else who think they know what's good' is for Sansa mainly. It also works for Arya, for Bran, for Sam, all potential opponents to Dany, but really it's all about Sansa, who is the last ruler in Westeros competent and loved enough to hold the power necessary to pretend to know what's good. Dany implicitly targets Winterfell - and Sansa. Arya mentions Sansa. Then Tyrion. Finally Jon implicitly asks Dany ‘And what of my sister ? What about Sansa ?’ Her response ? She doesn't get to choose. No matter how competent she is, no matter how loved and respected she is, no matter that she's the Lady of Winterfell, commandant of the largest Kingdom in Westeros, allied to many Great Houses, no matter the fact that she is Jon's own family. If she dares oppose, she doesn't get to choose. She'll bow or she'll die. And that's finally the turning point for Jon. He kills Dany to protect those who also think they know good. On this, the script at least acknowledges the people whom Jon ‘loves the most’; perhaps - and most likely - an unintentional contrast but a contrast nonetheless between Dany, the woman he loves and Sansa, Arya and Bran, the people he loves the most.

The rest of the episode sets Sansa as indeed the last competent ruler of Westeros and I thought for a moment that she would get the Seven Kingdoms. But she settles for the North, the only Kingdom she cares about. Sansa makes it clear that she still stands by Jon; the implications of her short statement about the thousand of Northmen ready to fight if Jon were to be hurt are huge. Upon hearing her brother’s imprisonment, Sansa commandeered the remaining armies of the North (still amounting to thousands of men) and marched south, ready to start another war to save her brother. The girl who’d suffered so much in that city returned to a place full of traumatic memories for her brother, the girl who’d prayed for someone to do exactly that, when places were switched and who didn’t get her wish, decided to do the work herself. Of course, these implications are really just that and are glossed over by the final script but they are legitimate, interesting deductions we can make on the character. This again plays into the subtlety and underlines how strong Jon and Sansa’s relationship is. The guy has threatened and killed for the woman, waged war at her behest; and the woman has worked every way to protect the man, and she’s ready to start yet another war if it means saving him. Her sister is fully on board with the plan by the way.

Then the constrictions of the story call for Jon to go back to the Wall, never mind that the Wall is in the North, now an independant Kingdom under the rule of a Stark, his own kin, or that the Wall is under the jurisdiction of the Starks. Never mind thus that Sansa could legally do whatever she wants with Jon. The coronation scene was beautiful however and it really felt satisfying to watch Sansa be crowned and reflect on her harrowing journey. Sometimes, it is hard to believe when you see the writing and what they put the poor girl through that she is one of D.B. Weiss and David Benioff’s favorites; but I believe that whatever fault there was, it was either demanded by the story, or it wasn’t done with the full intention of hurting just for the sake of hurting. It was merely the result of biased views and opinions. But every one is entitled to that. In the end, Sansa comes up on top, crowned Queen in the North, [a big middle finger to the haters], the sole master of her own agency, and she has earned the respect of everyone, no longer a pawn, no longer a simple player, but a full-on force to be reckoned with on the board. Her hair and costume notably are the final steps to becoming her own person while also not losing this habit she has of incorporating the influence of those around her into her clothes. As such, for the first time, she lets down her hair completely, free from any braid and thus free from trying to emulate Cersei, her mother, her aunt, Margaery... She is Sansa Stark, First of her Name, Queen in the North. By contrast, her coronation gown pays homage to those who loved her and shaped her - Jon, Arya, her parents and deceased brothers, Bran... - and you can especially notice that finally, Sansa reverts to the blue-ish colors of the North and ditches the black dresses. How disappointing then that for a House that liked to hammer on us that the pack survives, they are all separated and no one we know is by Sansa’s side when she is crowned. But while I was personally upset about it at first, I’ve come to view it as a logical evolution of the story. ‘The pack survives’ was Ned’s motto and he imparted it to his children, who have tried to follow it as best as was possible. But this is not Ned’s story anymore, it’s his children’s and now, they are ready to properly live. Now that they have defeated their enemies, now that their world is ready for peace, they can let go of these words if they wish to do so. Each of them has gone on their own formative journey that has enabled them to be able to stand on their own. They don’t need one another to survive. Because the time is not for surviving anymore. Now is the time to live.

But where the open ending works in our favour is that nothing prevents us to imagine Jon and Sansa seeing each other in the future and indeed, it’s hard to imagine they won’t. While Arya is sure to come back at some point, once again, she and Bran are the farthest away and we are back to a similar situation to Seasons 5 and 6 with Sansa in Winterfell and Jon at/not far from the Wall. They are geographically the closest and Sansa being Queen, can indeed do as it pleases her regarding Jon. Jon seems content to peace out and settle down with boyfriend Tormund - another ginger - and it makes narrative sense that he would go North, the ‘real North’ that he has in his blood in Tormund’s words, and that he would go with the Wildlings, the only people who accepted him exactly for who he was and won’t even bother about his parentage, or about what atrocities he did in the South. For them, he will always stay the crow who saved them, the Lord Commander who opened the Wall for them, the only man who ever united the Wildlings and the Northmen to stand and fight together. He can be himself with them. But should he sometime want to come back to Winterfell, you can bet your money that Sansa is not going to forbid it. Keep also in mind that when the series ends, these characters are just beginning their life; they are in their bare twenties. They have their whole life ahead of them. Sansa, who was so focused on love and motherhood when she was younger, has her life before her now to think about it with all the freedom she wants. Jon can rest, enjoy life, fall in love again if he wishes (Tormund, hem...)

[Yes that is a very disturbing thought when you think about it. Westeros was torn over while the big boys and big girls played - the Eddards, Roberts, Tywins, Cerseis of the world - and then they were gone and it was up to the surviving children to face off the end of the world. Arya killed the Night King and she is only 18. Bran is King of the Six Kingdoms at 17. Sansa and Jon, the eldest, are 20 and 23 and have waged war and endured much trauma. One of them was raped, the other killed and resurrected. Daenerys conquered the world and saw her short life end in her 23rd year.]

And finally, we get to the last goodbye. Here again, there is lot to observe, especially in light of the released script which differs from the final screen version. First off, Jon stops and inhales a sharp breath when he sees his family. Interesting. Personally, when Sansa apologized, I also thought it was for spilling Jon’s secret. Thus the script “confirms” this and Kit Harington seems to play by it as he seemingly looks conflicted and still a bit resentful. A callback to their first reunion with a repeat of the ‘there’s nothing to forgive’ would have been lovely - I immediately thought of it when I first saw the scene - but I understand Jon’s point of view. Daenerys’ unraveling stemmed in part from the repercussions of Jon’s parentage spreading out. Again, the finale tries to appeal to everyone. Jon/Dany lovers can read into this as Jon being angry he had to kill the woman he loved. Another interpretation is Sansa apologizing for Jon’s exile to the Wall. It also works because the scene comes shortly after Tyrion explaining how Arya and Sansa tried and failed to fight the final decision.

But what’s really interesting is the final goodbye. Jon doesn’t respond to the apology but Harington makes a slight - perhaps involontary - movement of the head which can be read as a nod. A comforting thought for those who wish Jon and Sansa to part on good terms. But then Harington graces us with just that and more. He instead tries to change the subject and finally, openly validates her as the best leader the North can hope for. Sansa spins this back to him and makes it clear she still considers Jon as the King in the North. The script does not dwell long on Sansa and Jon’s goodbyes, instead focusing on Arya, Jon’s favorite sibling. While explicitly stating that Jon knows Sansa loves him, it then just reads ‘Jon and Sansa embrace’. The final screen version gave us much more as we see Sansa embrace Jon, and Jon’s initial resistance to the hug crumble as he gives in and fiercely hugs her back, burying his head in her shoulder in the process. It’s very interesting that in every hug they share we get to see both Jon and Sansa's faces. It really allows us to see the full range of emotions on Sophie Turner and Harington’s faces. This particular part was not scripted and is either the choice of Harington or the choice of the directors, David Benioff and D.B. Weiss themselves. In any case, they kept it. Another interesting thing to note : the cue Winterfell that starts roughly as Jon and Sansa hug also played during their most emotional scene in the sixth season finale The Winds of Winter.

The writers of Game of Thrones have been the target of much scrutiny following the backlash of the final season and I’m not going to argue that the writing was sometimes sloppy. However, I will give credit where credit is due and for all its faults, the episode was not that bad. Benioff and Weiss were thrust in an impossible situation where they became the scapegoats of every single default singled out in this final season; but it could have been much worse and we need to remember that screenwriters and authors do not have to answer to fans. They write the story they want to tell, we’re just here for the ride. Whether we’re satisfied or not is ultimately not their main concern. Back to Jon and Sansa, Benioff and Weiss have in my opinion written the pair beautifully and kept them consistent to the end. If indeed they were subtly trying to create an item out of the two or to point them as a potential couple, they did it properly during the sixth and seventh seasons; come Season 8, it was about following G.R.R. Martin’s guidelines. Maybe in the end, it was really the tragedy of Jon and Dany. But still, Benioff and Weiss wrote Jon and Sansa well, exploiting the chemistry between Harington and Turner to give us all too rare but important scenes full of subtext. I’ve written about the season premiere Winterfell about how much could be read into Jon and Sansa’s interactions. I personally think that The Iron Throne is perhaps the second most-charged episode this season in terms of analysis regarding to Jon and Sansa. The subtlety of the relationship is kept until the end and we’re still left satisfied and unsatisfied at the same time. Jon and Sansa love each other as siblings ? Of course. This scene establishes it. Jon and Sansa maybe love each other as more than siblings ? Well... not explicit but the scene does nothing to deny it or the possibility of it in the future. Especially when Kit and Benioff and Weiss include yet another unscripted tidbit. After Jon has finished his goodbyes, the script just states that he steps on the boat as his family watches him go. In the final episode, we see a shoulder-shot of Jon looking back one last time, distraught. Who is he looking at ? Well of course, you guessed it. He’s looking at Sansa, whose right shoulder was framed into that shot. Then he looks in the direction of Arya and Bran and then, one last time, back to Sansa. And as if to confirm it, as we move on to the next shot of the Starks watching him go, who appears first ? Well of course, you guessed it. Sansa, who’s also looking very distraught.

And of course, the lingering look Jon glances even as Sansa is framed in the shot is a well-known storytelling device. The trope of people looking back to their loved ones, whether with an established love or one still in the making, is a very common trope that has been used several times in the show, and even once already for Jon and Sansa. So yes, I will still support Benioff and Weiss at least on this; they might have ruined Jon’s character in surface; they might have written the story better; perhaps they could have done even better by Sansa. But they have done her right and they did write Jon and Sansa well. I would not also exclude Martin still hiding some final aspects in the books or asking them not to explicitly show everything to keep some kind of secrecy on the last books despite the show being completed. He has said that the show would end like the books. That doesn’t necessarily mean that all will be shown; that is pretty much a given when you see all the substories and deviations from books to show. How much of a stretch is it then to suppose that Martin told Benioff and Weiss to subtly prepare Jon and Sansa - thus explaining and validating all the foreshadowing in the books and why they have said that their relationship was ‘crucial to watch’, all the ‘they skirt around the true tension between them’, ‘all is subtext’ and why the relationship was explored over three seasons - but in the end, told them to just commit to subtlety instead of a full-on reveal, so as to keep that secret amongst others for the books as part of the full story?

Whatever the truth here, Benioff and Weiss allowed those unscripted additions that help shape Jon and Sansa more than they were in the original script. What exactly prompted these changes, why and whether it was on Harington or the directors, we may never know. But Harington has already acknowledged the chemistry between Turner and himself and stated he’d like to partner with her on screen again. Add this to the list of unexplained acting choices he made during the past seasons. Puppy eyes, big sighs, long forehead kiss... Let’s take a trip back down memory lane. Oh and of course, they both failed geography.

#jonsa #actuallyjonsa #jon snow #jon x sansa #sansa stark #got #game of thrones #got thoughts #game of thrones thoughts #got meta #game of thrones meta #jon snow meta #sansa stark meta #sophie turner #kit harington #tormund giantsbane #daenerys targaryen #emilia clarke #jonmund #got analysis #game of thrones analysis #arya stark #bran stark #tyrion lannister #jon snow x tormund

[ma-sulevin]

002 for Hazel and Asha, 003 for Dot!

002 | Hazel Shepard/Kaidan Alenko

When I started shipping them:

Literally before I started playing the trilogy. I went in with the intention of romancing Kaidan and BOY did I ever.

My thoughts:

I have... many, many thoughts about them. I love how supportive Kaidan is, how he’s her rock, how he handles his own shit so he can be the best man he can. I love how he flirts and how serious he is and how he flirts with her during her house party by saying “you’re the boss, except when you’re not... and in that case, uh, find me later.”

He’s husband material 100%

What makes me happy about them:

How they fight through everything to be together again

What makes me sad about them:

How much they have to fight through to be together again :(

Things done in fanfic that annoys me:

When Kaidan is really jealous and mean and controlling? Absolutely not. He’d gnaw his own arm off before he acted like that.

Things I look for in fanfic:

Good, solid interpretations of Kaidan. No other male characters being assholes about it. Raunchy smut.

My wishlist:

For me to finish this stupid post-Destroy fic I’ve had in the WIP folder for like two years.

Who I’d be comfortable them ending up with, if not each other:

I like Kaidan with Cortez a lot a lot, honestly. In Avery’s AU, they end up together, and have a brief cameo at James’ going-away party.

Hazel would work out with James, especially once he gets past the hero-worshiping stage, but if Kaidan hadn’t rejoined the Normandy (and if James never made a move), she’d have ended up with Sam. She gets all nervous and tongue tied around her for the same reasons I would RIP

My happily ever after for them:

Hazel survives the Citadel, Kaidan makes it back on the Normandy, they reunite and live happily ever after with the dog. Sometimes Hazel gets to top Kaidan instead of the other way around. You know.

002 | Asha Trevelyan/Cullen Rutherford

When I started shipping them:

I think Asha was my second Inquisitor when I started playing the game? I made her with the intention of romancing Cullen, so, like, before I even started playing.

My thoughts:

I need DA4 to come out so I know what’s going to happen to them after they “retire” to South Reach.

What makes me happy about them:

They compliment each other really well in a quiet, reserved kind of way. Asha’s changed a lot since I first came up with her character; we’ve both grown up together and she’s less loud now. They go very well together.

What makes me sad about them:

It takes them for-fucking-ever to get together, like longer than in the game. Asha tells him she wants to be together and he’s like “but the miSsIOn” and she’s so mad at him she doesn’t talk to him for days, and then he feels guilty but doesn’t know what to do about it, and it isn’t until she starts to cry in front of him at the Winter Palace that he’s like “oh shit” and they actually do anything about it. Like, come on guys. Time’s wasting!

Things done in fanfic that annoys me:

I don’t think Cullen is naturally dominant in bed. He is with Asha because she likes it, and because she clearly explains and communicates her needs. I don’t think he’d start that himself with an Inquisitor.

Things I look for in fanfic:

No lyrium! Good sex. I’m thirsty.

My wishlist:

DA4.

Who I’d be comfortable them ending up with, if not each other:

I still like Dorian/Cullen, except I just remembered Dorian’s with Asha’s brother so I guess that wouldn’t work lmao. It’s been so long I’ve forgotten my own convoluted canons. Um... I also like Cullen/Josephine a whole bunch. I think Asha would do well with Blackwall or Bull or possibly even Krem.

My happily ever after for them:

I don’t have a solid answer for this like I have one for Cullen/Rose. I know they have a daughter (Maisie) and move to South Reach after the Inquisition is disbanded, but they don’t really get to relax and settle down. They have to keep working to save Thedas even though they’ve already done and sacrificed so much.

I’d like them to be able to truly retire, enjoy their little family and each other, and just be at peace knowing nothing terrible is happening in the world beyond their reach.

003 | Dot Gnomeface:

How I feel about this character:

My first D&D baby! I still have her sheet in dndbeyond because I can’t fully commit to her retirement.

Any/all the people I ship romantically with this character:

Her wife Sylvie of course! I maintain that Madrigal ( @long-liv-prairies) would have made a good girlfriend for them, but it never worked out.

My favorite non-romantic relationship for this character:

Torvald ( @ladydracarysao3 ), hands-down. Their dynamic was so adorable.

My unpopular opinion about this character:

Eustace the Cursed Sword was a fucking phenomenal idea on Walker’s part and I loved every second of having it.

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon:

She hated that she wasn’t able to stop the cult from killing Jinzael.

Favorite friendship for this character:

The whole gang, really.

My crossover ship:

None.

#oc: dot gnomeface #asha treveylan #oc: hazel shepard

[twdmusicboxmystery]

Predictions for the Finale (Sort of)

Let’s talk predictions. I said yesterday that there’s a structural dynamic that gives me a lot of hope that we’ll see Beth in the finale. So let’s dive right in..

On Sunday, after the episode aired, I tried to get on the app to watch the trailer for next week. It wasn't there right away, but the sneak peek was. The one a lot of people are posting where Daryl asks Carol what she sees when she looks at him.

In terms of TD symbolism, what stuck out to me was Jerry talking about the coming storm. He called a “mother of a storm”. Even though this is a snowstorm rather than rainstorm, I couldn't help but think of the big storm in Them, which happened right before the music box woke up. I didn’t think too much more about it right away. But...

About half an hour later, the opening minutes for next week's episode appeared on the app. Basically, the opening minutes show the Kingdomers abandoning the Kingdom for the winter. 

It's falling apart around them and they can't stay there over the cold season, so one of the other communities will take them in for the winter. We see them all gathering their things and moving out and we hear a voice-over of Ezekiel talking about what's happened.

It’s stated in very general terms, but he's obviously talking about Henry's death. He talks about how they tried to make it work, but everything is broken now. Then we see them leave the kingdom, with Ezekiel looking sad and casting glances back at his home.

This is when it all sort of came together for me. They're basically doing a retelling of S5. Obviously, Henry's death—along with all the others—would represent a parallel to Beth's death (and Tyreese’s). Because this opening part focuses on Ezekiel and the Kingdom, I’ll frame this in terms of them, though of course it extends to all of TF. Henry's family is losing their home, Ezekiel looks sadly over his shoulder as he does so. It reminds me of the prison falling, Carl looking back, and Rick saying, "Don't look back." 

But then we have Henry's family on the road, wandering as it were, and essentially homeless. Kind of like TF was in Them, 5x10. 

And then there’s this huge storm.

And while it’s snow rather than rain, we also have all the Christmas/Santa Clause symbolism which might have showed that the storm preceding the music box waking up for real (in other words, preceding Beth’s arrival) would be in the winter. In other words, a snowstorm.

Remember in the barn in 5x10, we saw a Beth walker. In the background, there was a calendar flipped to the month of November. 

We’ve tried to interpret that November all sorts of ways over the years and we’ve always been wrong. Maybe we were overthinking it. Maybe it's just a matter of showing a storm (like the rain in 5x10) that will come in November. Therefore, it would be a snowstorm.

The point is, after the storm in 5x10, the music box woke up. So I'm wondering if after the snowstorm, Beth will arrive.

Also in the opening minutes of next week, we see Ezekiel talking into a radio that looks and sounds a LOT like the one from 5x09. You know, the last episode Beth appeared in?

All that said, I don't want anyone get your hopes up too high. I'm trying not to get mine up to high (yeah, I know, good luck with that, right? 😆)

I've said this before, but it really depends on how far we get timeline-wise in the episode. If they make it through the snowstorm and into the next morning (or whenever the storm ends) I think there's a good chance we’ll see her. On the other hand, they might do a cliffhanger-y ending in the middle of the snowstorm, in which case we really may not see her into until 10x01.

I think it's more likely that we'll see her in 9x16, or at least it makes a lot more sense from a narrative point of view. More on that in a minute.

I could really turn these Them parallels up to eleven, guys, but I won’t. I will say one more thing, though. In the barn, Rick told the story about his grandfather’s experience during the war. He talked about how in order to survive, his grandfather pretended to be dead.

I actually talked about this before the season began, because I wondered if the “war” Rick talked about with his grandfather perhaps foreshadowed All Out War. If the war in Rick’s story symbolized AOW, the maybe Beth would return after AOW ended. I still think I could be the case, honestly. Even though it hasn't happened yet, and even though they did the time jump, this is still the season right after AOW. If we see her this season, it will still be a matter of her showing up after the war.

In thinking over the stuff I mentioned above, two more things occurred to me. 

1) The war Rick mentioned may have foreshadowed the Whisperer war rather than AOW. I assumed AOW because that's the major war story line everyone talks about, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's what the writers were going for. It still COULD be, but I’m just throwing another possibility out. 

2) Rick talking about his grandfather pretending to be dead. That sounds like an analogy for the Whisperers. They walk around with the dead and pretend to be them. Especially with all the emphasis the season on people wearing masks and wolves in sheep's clothing and how deceptive they can be, it very well could be that this was a foreshadow of the Whisperers we simply never picked up before. And again, after the big storm, which TF worked together to survive, the music box woke up. Now we have TF heading into a snowstorm.

One other thing: I’ve been told that other members from the fandom (non-TDers) are also getting Them vibes from the footage from 9x16, so it’s not just us. I mean, look at these two pictures:

TTD:

1) Gimple made an extremely random Christmas reference. It makes me happy because it shows the Christmas theme is the thing that were heading into the snow season, and campus spoilers do tend to pan out further than others.

Chris Harwick was giving Gimple a hard time about never giving any spoilers and called him “No Spoiler Gimple.” Gimple laughed and repeated it but called himself, “No Spoiler Building and Loan.” I immediately recognized that reference because it comes from the classic Christmas film, It's a Wonderful Life. It’s one of my and my dad’s favorite films. I grew up watching this show at least once each Christmas season, so I’m very familiar with it.

The Building and Loan is the name of George Bailey's bank. This was significant to me because this is a story where George Bailey is given a chance to see what the world would be like without him. It's a fairly common story line, but this is a very classic instance of it. Basically, George dies in that he never lived, but he comes back to life at the end and reunites with his family.

And remember that random hints like this that have come from Gimple have panned out in a big way in the past. Need a refresher?

I’m sure most of you remember back when S6 ended and everybody spent the hiatus trying to guess who Negan’s victim was. I actually guessed wrong. I didn't think it would be Glenn and Abraham, because that seemed too obvious to me. The thing is, Gimple actually told us in a really, subtle sneaky way who it would be.

On the TTD after 6x16, Gimple talked about how he knew everybody would be examining the footage from 6x16 trying to figure out who it was. He knew they’d be looking at the angle of the trees and the lighting and everything trying to decide who it Negan killed. He encouraged fans to do that, saying that he wanted people to "Zapruder" that thing. For those who don’t know, Zapruder is a reference to the footage of Abraham Zapruder. He was a man who was taking a home video on the day JFK was shot. He caught the assassination on film because his camera happened to be pointed at the president when the shot was fired.

The reason Gimple said this is that people looked at Zapruder’s footage over and over and over again. They played it backward and forward and looked at every possible angle, trying to decide where the shot came from. It's the classic conspiracy theory about whether the shot came from the grassy knoll or not.

So, Gimple threw this reference out, and then it was Abraham who died. There's no way that's a coincidence. He purposely drops these little hints. And this was a very specific hint. Because of course Glenn died too, but it wasn't him we heard die at the end of 6x16. He didn't die until later, after Daryl punched Negan. So this was a hint at who we actually heard get killed at the end of the episode. Of course, we couldn't know that was the case until 7x01 when we saw who died.

So now, consider this Christmas movie reference from him. Why would he say “Building and Loan?” It has nothing to do with anything. It makes no sense in the context of what Chris was saying. There was absolutely no reason for him to call himself that on TTD. I think this is something Gimple said very purposefully and I think it's a big hint that there's going to be some sort of resurrection around his Christmas theme.

2. Gimple also hinted at interesting things to come on FTWD. While explaining that there’s a lot going on in the TWD universe, and that they have several projects in development, he said that in the first half of this coming season of Fear, a story will play out which the fandom is familiar with and which will affect the TWD story/universe moving forward.

Now, we saw a huge amount of this same Beth-related symbolism in Fear this past season. Many of us have theorized that she might show up first in Fear. So, my group got super excited thinking that this really might be her. 

I instantly formed the theory that maybe she would show up as a cliffhanger ending at the end of 9x16, then we would see her back story play out in FTWD over the summer. It really seemed plausible to me.

Then somebody realized that we already know (because AMC announced it) that Dwight is moving to Fear. Since we know he's going there, and the fandom is already familiar with him, more than likely he's the one Gimple means.

So, I don't want to get anyone's hopes up and have them be disappointed. However, just because he was talking about Dwight doesn't preclude the possibility of Beth being there.

In fact, many of us also theorized that Dwight may have something to do with Beth's return. Two major reasons for that.

1. Because there's a big emphasis on Daryl letting Dwight live so he could go find "her." Obviously, in Dwight’s case that means Sherry. But remember how heavily they paralleled him with Daryl, to the point of even using Daryl’s crossbow, riding his bike, and wearing his clothing. The fact that it’s Daryl who told him to go “find her” and make it right, makes it seem like, at least symbolically, this extends to Daryl in some way. 

This emphasis really can't be ignored. So we were thinking that maybe in finding Sherry, Dwight might also run into Beth. That, coupled with the fact that we've theorized that she might show up in Fear, and that we know Dwight is moving to Fear, makes this even more plausible.

2. The other reason I would like to see Dwight find Beth and either direct her or bring her to Daryl is thematic. Daryl really wanted to kill Dwight and fully planned on it. And honestly, after everything Dwight did — think Denise — Daryl had every justification for doing so. The fact that he let him live showed mercy (which was the title of the episode; not only did Rick showing mercy to Negan like Carl wanted, but also Daryl showed mercy to Dwight, which is what Beth would've wanted), but also showed an inherent faith in people, which has to be a remnant of what Beth taught him.

He had to have faith that Dwight really had changed, wouldn’t go back to his bloodthirsty ways, really felt sorry about Denise, and that he would go find his wife and make things right. So, I would absolutely love it if because Daryl showed mercy to Dwight, that's what brought Beth back to him. It would show that if he had been bloodthirsty, more like Negan and old Dwight, he never would've seen Beth again. I think that's a powerful theme and powerful message. I would really love it if they did it that way.

Of course, all this remains to be seen. All conjecture right now.

One thing we haven't talked about in terms of Emily cancelling her tour dates is whether she was, perhaps, not filming for regular TWD, but maybe for Fear. And then there was that random filming that went on at Grady Memorial Hospital some months before filming for TWD S9 began. This spoiler site didn't pick it up because it was outside their normal filming season, but several people posted about it on social media and believed it was TWD filming there. So, it’s possible she was filming, not for the main series, but for Fear instead. Just wanted to throw that possibility out there.

Ozzy and the Highwaymen:

One last thing and then I'll wrap it up for today. When we first met the highwaymen, I said I was 50/50 on whether they were good or evil. At this point, I'm officially convinced they are/were good. Two reasons.

1. Well, they're dead. If they had some sinister agenda, it would only make sense to tell us about before Ozzy died. It wouldn’t make sense structurally for the writers to suddenly go, "oh, by the way, they were super evil." I mean, not to sound harsh, but at this point, who cares? They're dead. Or, at least, two of them are, and they’re the only two the audience has any kind of connection with.

2. Siddiq’s story about them actually says a lot about their character. The highwaymen found the people in the barn and ran in to save them. If they were evil men with a negative agenda, it simply wouldn't be in their nature to risk their lives to save people they'd only just met. They would've been more likely to go find help and bring it back to the barn. Instead, they charged in like heroes to help and died for it.

So, I said we were a little mystified by why the highwaymen were introduced and then killed so quickly. There must be a reason for it. Especially given all the Beth symbolism around them. Well, my group has collectively come up with a theory.

Remember in the note Ozzy sent to Ezekiel, they asked for 40 novels, but no romance novels. That's Beth symbolism to begin with, but we also never saw Ozzy or any of his men actually reading a book. They don't really seem the type to sit around reading novels, whether romance novels or not.

So we’re thinking maybe they were getting novels for someone else. Maybe there are other people who were once part of their group out there and if someone will come looking for them. After all, who would specifically not like romance novels? Perhaps someone for whom things simply didn't work out in the romance department? Say, a blonde who lost two boyfriends and then got separated from her entire family, including a certain redneck with a heart of gold?

It's just a theory we’re throwing out there (and the creds for it goes to other theorists in my group, not me) but I can totally get behind it. After all, there must be some reason for the Highwaymen and all the weirdo symbolism around them. 

So yeah, I think that's it for today. Oh, except I said I’d talk about why it would make more sense to see her in 9x16 than 10x01. We’ve said many times that it would be a genius marketing tactic to have her show up in the finale. That way, the entire hiatus would be full of fans talking about it and getting hype going.

On the off chance that we’re right about her showing up on Fear in some way, it would also boost Fear’s ratings, which are nowhere near as good as the main show’s. So it just makes more sense that we’d see her this week rather than next season. But of course, the writers don’t always do what we want them to do 

so we’ll just have to wait and see.

Crossing my fingers that will see her this next week. What are your predictions?

#beth greene #beth greene lives #beth is alive #beth is coming #td theory #td theories #team delusional #team defiance #beth is almost here #bethyl