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writingwithcolor · 9 months

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Creatures of Folklore Who Represent Cultures Preventing Wars Throughout History

Anonyomous asked:

Hi! I’m writing a story which is set in a fantasy version of our world. The main difference between our real world and my fictional version is that the spirits and fairies of each culture and folklore exist, and that the majority of them basically stop war from happening because they react very badly (and potentially violently) when invading forces etc try to start battles.

I’m doing a lot of research into the histories of the various cultures that will be featured in the books set in this world so I can hypothesise how they might have developed without, for example, violent colonialism, and where trade and so on might have flourished in its place. However, it’s possible for colonialism to happen through more insidious ways, such as assimilation. In one of my books, I’m intending to use this as part of the plot, where Japan will try to colonise the Ryukyuan Kingdom through assimilation, but will be stopped by the Ryukyuan Kingdom making allies with other nations (amongst other tactics), but I was wondering if you had any advice for respectfully handling the colonialism that very much did happen in real life in a fantasy setting where it didn’t manage to occur, without erasing the history and ramifications etc of what actually happened?

Do fox spirits have citizenship?

You mean well with this concept, but there are multiple key problems.

One major issue with cordoning off spirits and folklore creatures by “patron” culture and have them fight said patrons’ battles is that there’s a lot of overlap. It’d be hard for there not to be a conflict of interest.

For example, everyone knows about the kitsune fox spirit from Japan. But the story of the fox spirit was introduced to Japan and Korea by China, where they are called húlijīng. These foxes are remarkably similar, with their characteristics and stories almost borrowed wholesale. Are they all the same “species?” If so, when small differences emerge in the countries’ folktales, how do you resolve this? Do these spirits also morph and specialize, or does one interpretation win out? How about when kingdoms are unified, like the Korean Three Kingdoms–do separate versions of the kumiho reverse-evolve into a single variant? What side do they pick when these kingdoms and empires try to battle? If they live apart from humans or aren’t very friendly with them, why would they have a reason to care about invasions when they have no reason to be allegiant to said borders, or whatever name they’re called in whichever country whose land they live on?

Folkloric beings are never static, and are influenced over time by cultural shifts and exchanges, including shifting borders. Human history is stuffed cover-to-cover with events of what we called “conquest” then and “occupation” or “colonization” now. And through these changes, cultures diverged and came together, creating new stories. In other words: not even fairy tales are immune to colonization.

Leigh can explain the rest.

~ Rina

The Problem with Retconning War

A very simple question for you:

How are you going to rectify every single historical war that’s ever existed?

Like, the whole plot of the Trojan War as we know it is that the gods of the same culture were on different sides! And the gods made the war last as long as it did. Alexander the Great was a colonizer. Romans were definitely colonizers. Ottomans and Mongols, also colonizers. It wasn’t to the scale of modern colonialism, but it happened. If you look at census records from the 1800s of Indigenous populations in North America, you’ll find that the men 20+ have way lower numbers because they died in war!

I’m not of the opinion that the basic state of humanity is war and we are barely contained by base instincts. But I’m also not so far in the other direction that I believe humans lack any sort of warring instincts. It shows up in chimps and other primates, so it shows up in humans.

In a way, it sounds like you’ve taken a very Christian-fundamentalist-centric view of things, which is: humans need religion to be “contained”. That humans are amoral without some sort of religion or folklore or spirits telling them to not do a “bad thing.”

This is ignoring how people have been using religion to justify wars since religion was invented. As Rina said, there can be overlap in groups’ beliefs and deities so there’s the side-picking issue, which as I mentioned is the whole plot of the Trojan War. Even when humans write about gods meddling in war, they have the gods not all be on the same side.

Humans have war. Humans try to take over other groups because they want the resources that group has. Alliances shift. Territories shift.

This is also treating humans as a monolith—there are populations within the colonized groups that agree with the colonizers because they get benefits. Claiming that all colonized groups hate all aspects of their colonialism all of the time is deeply ahistorical and flattened. Sometimes the benefits were only for a small group, but sometimes the benefits were far-reaching. It’s in the India tag on WWC, varying views of the Mughals.

Also, how will you handle the Christianization of Europe? How will you handle all of this folklore that only got written down via monks and nuns making notes and modifying beliefs to fit the Bible? Will any area with only Christianity’s records written down not have folklore?

And how will you handle folklore drift? Religions are not static. If you look at Greek myths, there are ten to thirty versions of each story and those are just the ones that survived. Each city-state had its own mythology, using the same gods, modified to fit the local needs.

And what about folklore that deals with war and thrives in war? What about the gods of war and destruction? I know Norse mythology is Christianized beyond recognition, but even in its Christianized form half of it is about war. Would the Valkyries, whose whole purpose is to find valiant soldiers slain in battle, not want war? Their whole purpose is war.

Also, on top of it—how will you handle revolution?

You say yourself, colonialism could still happen subtly. Colonialism and injustice can still happen. Will these subjugated spirits force an already disadvantaged group to exclusively use a rigged system to try and politely ask for their rights back? Or would these spirits want to be free and support the means necessary to take it back?

War has happened to upend the divine right of kings. War has happened to free slaves (Haiti). War has happened for basic workers’ rights (some union strikes have resulted in war).

You’re basically removing a whole toolbox in the fight for a better world. Yes, not being able to colonize because of fantasy AU sounds fine, until you realize that pretty much all of human history from the Romans has been created via war to some degree.

You’re basically just saying “violence is bad and humans need fantasy babysitters to not dive into it”, which really doesn’t sound that great once you sit with it. It removes human agency, removes human nature, and ignores the entire history of the planet.

-Leigh (Lesya)

Marika interjecting here:

We had an ask (Linked here) envisioning a story set in a de-colonized Hawai’i and the socio-political issues with that. Same problem.

#folklore #fairy tales #war #Religion #worldbuilding #world history #colonization #colonialism #history #mythology #asks

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diegosouzalions · 6 months

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5 YEARS OF CONCEPT

These are the drafts of the pilot version of the three main Diamonds in the story, without these first concepts, the comic might not have the same current direction or even exist!

It all started when I was bored in a free class in 8th grade, I just created them for fun, I didn't intend to make a comic or anything like that, also the story I had created was something "private" and for the public it would just be gemsonas.

In the old version of the Color Diamond Authority, the Diamonds were divided because they did not agree with each other and thus, they would branch into 4 or 5 authorities: The Fruits, The Heavenly (Possibly Rainbow would be in that authority), The Colors and The Males.

Peach would be the leader of the Fruit Diamond Authority, Lime and Cherry would be its members. She would have a more boring and dry personality, she had no reason to be mean, differently than she has now. She would probably be a Rainbow fanatic in her early years and over time would lose interest in her creator. Rainbow had never appeared in form to the Diamonds, but she still communicated with them by voice through a shadow or dark cloud, and they would all know that they were created by her.

Hope would still continue in the original authority (which was later called the Heavenly Diamond Authority), along with Aqua, Sun and Moon. Her personality wouldn't change much, it would just be more expressive and cheerful. I confess that when I made her, I was in doubt about choosing the colors purple or white, until blue was the color chosen (and also because it was the same color as the original diamond). She would have no arms or legs or even hair, most of her body was made up of her aura, so she would have to feel hopeful all the time for her body to function.

Bi-Color would be leading the Colors Diamond Authority together with Gray. Her personality would be like Blue, only cheerful. Her first color version would only be 2, but then it went to 3 (with the colors pink, blue and purple), then it was changed again to pink, yellow and blue (which would represent the colors of the Great Diamond Authority). And to be honest, her first version always reminded me of Celia Mae from Monster Inc.

And finally Magenta, the first Diamond created that was later added to the Color Diamond Authority on January 1, 2019.

Magenta participated in the Spatial (or Spacial) Diamond Authority, however, after a conflict between me and the authority's creator, I decided to withdraw and create my own. (And I recommend not sharing the old comic, if you have seen it, cause there are Diamonds that are not mine, so it would be rude to use them on any occasion)

She would have a similar personality to White, but in a kinder way. She couldn't see imperfection in anything, she always saw things on the positive side, even if everything was going wrong. Unlike the current one, she would almost never feel sad, in addition to being more silly, and would ask a lot more questions.

As time went by she would become colder and would no longer be able to think about anything positive, she would see things more realistic and would become almost like an "antagonist" or an "anti hero" of the Rebel Gems, due to the traumatic moments she developed in the authority.

There are old script concepts that were used and will still be used in the comic. The current story has a direction almost similar to the old one in some points, but with drastic changes, it will be more explored and polished than before.

A curiosity is that Silver and Golden were only inserted later (I believe in March 2019), which added even more shine to the story, I don't know what the comic would be without them honestly. If the Peacocks and Magenta didn't exist, officially the Authority would split, just like the old concept, but it would be worked with the current Diamonds personalities.

#diegosouzalions2023 #steven universe #magenta diamond's origin #color authority diamond #comic #gemsona #peach diamond #hope diamond #bi-color diamond #magenta diamond #magenta pearl #au su #au #alternative universe #steven universe alternate universe #pilot #sketches

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fategoflatass · 6 months

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out of pure curiosity, I was wondering if you were able to read the Hamefura manga anthologies? (Mainly, I'm curious if you got to the Keith/Geordo kabedon situation...)

Not me coming back from a three-day Sims 2 spree to this!

Sadly, I don't think we've read the same anthology? Since, you know, I didn't find the kabedon scene (that, or I'm blind as hell). If you could send me the link, I would highly appreciate it.

But since you took the time to send me this ask, I shall give you my thoughts on the anthology as a whole (won't be long, I promise).

Hope you enjoy!

Our Secret Night Alone Together

This was such a cute story! I'm always down for anything that involves Katarina and Keith, so this one was perfect for me. I really liked how their dynamic was presented, and also his conflicting feelings (as well as Keith having to deal with such obliviousness).

Not gonna lie, I was expecting for Madre™ to come back home at the end and complain about some mess (maybe throw a chancla or two), but I still think it was really sweet!

(same bro, same)

The Duet I Play With You

WE 👏 NEED 👏 MORE 👏 ALAN 👏 CONTENT! Can't deal with how negligent the story tends to be when it comes to Alan. He's one of the best characters (in my opinion) and yet he gets little to no content! So I was really happy to see a story solely revolving around him and Kat. With a bit of Mary on the side, of course!

Memory of Friendship

This one was hilarious! I totally see Mary scheaming such a sneaky plan to get some alone time with Kat. And the way everyone decided to ruin it (to no avail, but stil)!

And the bookmark! God, I'm weak!

"Searching the top of trees" I'M DEAD

Let's Have Tea on a Busy Day

To be honest, I wasn't expecting a Raphael-centric story. It was really nice, though!

Again, he's one of those characters that I haven't seen much canonical content about, and I guess this is the closest to it I'll get for now (still can't get used to the LN).

I'm quite fond of his character. He's rather... different from the rest. I mean, none of the others had yet the chance to become workaholics, so this side of him feels like a breath of fresh air.

Enjoyment is Something We Share

I think this one might be one of my favorites! Especially since it reminded me of my best friend and I. We both like reading and watchign anime (besides her being a total sweetheart), so I can easily reflect us on them.

I loved this part in particular where Sophia says "I want even more people to know about this piece of writing I came to love" because, while it's not the same reason why she said it, that's exactly why I decided to get into translation. So!

Sora's Day Off

Sora's... risqué persona is, to me, what Raphael's workaholic-esque self; a breath of fresh air. The idea of his sole presence upping the series' rating is truly amusing.

What I also like about him is that his sensuality doesn't cover his entire personality. Yeah, he might be less naïve than the rest of the cast, but that only means there're just less things for him to learn.

And again, he has yet to deal with Katarina so...

Did I already tell you I have a weakness for these two?

My Goddess

This one I felt is was more chill than the others, don't ask me why. Might be because it's Maria-centric and she always brings me peace.

Anyways, it's always nice to read a good ol' sickfic. Even better if it comes in comic version! And even better if it involves MariKata! This is one of the (if not the most) fluffiest stories until now.

And I know I should include something involving them, but there's one thing at the end that made my day.

The Fateful Dance Party

Just when I thought we wouldn't be getting any Nicol content—and even better, is masquerade ball themed! It fits him so well!

The entire sequence with both of them dancing, and the scene where they reveal their identities—it all feels so smooth, so delicate, so precious. Which it might be because Nicol's my personal favorite, but I'd like to think his character was so well portrayed.

This is the content that we all need and deserve!

Geordo's Feelings

God, this one made me so weak. Not only because of the things that happened in it (which had their effect on me since, you know, now I think more highly about Geordo and all that), but because of the ending. That fricking ending.

The way he couldn't even get ten seconds alone to make her such an important gift! But again, that's part of the charm of this harem-turned-into-found-family.

#hamefura #my next life as a villainess #overall i loved the anthology #this shit's way too sweet i cannot deal with it #thank you so much for letting me know about it!

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lunanoc · 3 months

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so probably against what should have been my better judgment, i went ahead and actually wrote “meta”, except it’s only borderline meta because it ends up veering off into crack theory territory and is also insanely long, but i figure since it’s now too long to be posted as a discord liveblog like it was supposed to be, i might as well just. post it here (in several parts because no one wants a 10k post lbr)

disclaimer: i like to be transparent about where i’m coming from, so just know that i have not finished reading all the books yet. currently i’m practically through everything, books and extras included, up until and including sand sea part III, so anything i talk about relating to that is my own reading experience. i’ll sometimes reference later books i’ve either read snippets of, or talked about with people who have (and verified the information as best as i could), but because i lack full context for those, any mentions of those elements are automatically grain of salt and relegated to crack theory. for everything i have read that i can grab quotes for, i’ll be providing clear references to the specific chapters of the books they’re from

also, blanket spoiler warning for the books

but that being said, let me actually get into this thing:

king shang of lu, the iron-masked gentleman, king mu of zhou, the queen mother of the west, how they’re connected, who they might be, and what that could mean for the larger dmbj narrative

PART I: KING SHANG OF LU AND THE IRON-MASKED GENTLEMAN

writing this shaved years off of me, the rabbit-holing was insane, and there’s still no clear answers in the end but welcome to the ride i guess

starting off here, the problem with these two characters is that we have conflicting information about them from three different sources that all give a different version of the same story, all of which are various degrees of dubious for different reasons. and you could say ok but really, who cares i do apparently about these two because in the larger plot they don’t really amount to much in the end

BUT

given both the things we learn by the end of sand sea (and elements that pop up in later installments) about all the various parties involved in what’s essentially a subplot, and the fact npss goes into so much detail with such a deliberate throwback to something all the way back in the first book, i don’t think the fact that the various versions of the story of king shang of lu sometimes blatantly contradicting themselves is a mistake, but is rather proof of deliberate obfuscation of the truth. npss tends to like revisiting sometimes seemingly anecdotal or trivial things from previous books to connect them with a subsequent revelation, or open the door to a different interpretation of them, so that he’d do it here isn’t all that surprising to me

the three versions of the story of “the emperor” (or the ruler of the state of lu), king shang of lu, and the iron-masked gentleman we get are, in order of appearance:

version 1 from a silkbook found in the purple jade box in “king shang of lu”’s coffin (Book 1, Ch. 26, Purple Jade Box)

version 2 from xiaoge himself who gives an opposing account to the previous one that he supposedly read from a warring states period silkbook he found in a song dynasty tomb (Book 1, Ch. 26-27, Purple Jade Box / Lies)

version 3 from the powerpoint lesson given by the wang family to li cu (Sand Sea Part III, Ch. 132, 133, 134, Lesson / King Mu of Zhou / Deception)

the first two accounts are both from book 1 and immediately follow each other, but neither of them quite fit with the last one, or at least it would seem so. you could argue this is simply because book 1 was when npss was still trying to figure things out both with his plot and characters, so the final account given by the wang family is a retcon, and while that’s always possible, like i mentioned, npss likes to connect things and tends to either incorporate these kinds of seemingly obscure and irrelevant details for a reason, or simply retroactively fleshes them out to revisit them at a later date and shed a new light on the bigger picture. so it’s more the fact we just don’t know which things he implements deliberately from the start and which ones he ties back to retroactively, but in the end seeing as the result is the same it doesn’t matter much. what does matter is that he does it pretty consistently, so it’s safe to assume he’s also doing it with this particular story (side tangent, but i like to think that npss has shown he’s a big fan of something called chekov’s gun and no i won’t elaborate on that or else i’ll be here for hours but google that if you’re interested it’s fun)

so tldr; i basically just want to argue that by intentionally bringing back this story with obvious divergences, it might be a way to shed light on something else that informs king shang of lu’s story while placing it as a puzzle piece in the bigger picture of dmbj lore

but let’s break down those three different accounts of the story of king shang of lu

the first account

i’m going to tldr; most of these for the sake of clarity, but i’ll be referencing the various chapters all these bits are taken from if you want to verify any of it

technically the first real account of king shang of lu’s story we get is what’s written on the stone slab in the hall with all of the coffins in the seven star palace that says that he was “born with a ghost seal and could borrow ghost soldiers from the underworld” (Book 1, Ch. 10, Shadow), but i’m not counting that as a full-blown version of the story because it’s not dwelt on all that much and mostly serves as a preamble for pangzi to later posit to wu xie that it’s a bunch of bs and was probably just an exaggeration meant to mythologize king shang of lu given that the tomb itself is a weird anachronistic mix of western zhou and warring states architecture (which is an important argument but maybe not for the reasons you’d think)

so i consider the first fleshed-out version of king shang of lu’s story we get to be the one wu xie reads off of the silkbook he and wu sanxing pull from “king shang of lu”’s coffin, and is one that very quickly gets debunked within book 1 itself multiple times, so while it may seem easy enough to write off, it’s not so much what it says that’s interesting, but rather why it exists in the first place

this version of the story essentially relates the life and deeds of king shang of lu, recorded on what’s supposed to be a warring states period silkbook pulled from the man’s own coffin. it talks about how he inherited his title from his father and was a lowly grave robber lord who was cruel and greedy, and how one day he gained from a snake demon/spirit in a tomb he excavated “two treasures” in a “purple and gold box” (this will be important later) which are never explicitated, although wu xie speculates one of those treasures to be the ghost seal as its acquisition is directly mentioned in the text. the snake comes to king shang of lu in a dream and promises to make him a high-ranking official and teach him how to use the treasures in the box if he spares its soul (he doesn’t). and so king shang of lu becomes a military officer under the command of the “emperor” of the state of lu. in his later years, however, he starts to get old and sick, and so the “emperor” demotes him back into being a lowly grave robber, and he starts to fear death, so king shang of lu goes to his military advisor, the “iron-masked gentleman” or 铁面先生 tiemian xiansheng, in search of a solution. the iron-masked gentleman then tells him that something called jade burial armor, a treasure from ancient times, exists, and that it can keep someone young forever. so king shang hunts and hunts and scours tomb after tomb until eventually he finds a western zhou dynasty tomb which will later become the seven star palace where he discovers a corpse wearing the famed jade buriam armor. iron mask takes the corpse out of the armor, subdues the blood zombie it turns into, and then helps king shang of lu fake his death in front of the “emperor” so he can be buried in the tomb he built for himself on top of the western zhou tomb he’d found (Book 1, Ch. 26, Purple Jade Box)

however

this version is quickly debunked twice in pretty quick succession, and then a third time a bit later, still in book 1, but before i get to that, a few extra little details i want to point out:

to be fair literally no one (who doesn’t speak chinese and is reading the original text anyway) would be able to guess either from the translation or merebear’s footnotes that “iron-masked scholar/gentleman” or 铁面先生 is not in fact necessarily meant to be taken literally. it’s partly an idiom. 铁面 tiemian is an expression that can mean “someone who is upright in character”, in other words someone with a positive reputation. so this man isn’t necessarily implied to have worn a mask at all (i think he did, but that’s also for later)

the purple and gold box that’s mentioned in this version of the story is the one wu xie finds in the hands of the corpse of the green-eyed fox (who’s also wearing the belt that has the qilin blood clot wu xie accidentally swallows can you believe, which is also another detail for later) that’s accompanied by a key in the corpse of a woman next to it (Book 1, Ch. 22, The Eightfold Treasure Box)

the second account

before we get into the first version of the story more, let’s briefly take a look at the second one. the first version of the story is first debunked by the second version of the story which is told in abridged format by xiaoge pretty much right after wu xie finishes reading the silkbook. he says that the silkbook’s account is incorrect because the person in the jade armor isn’t king shang of lu, but iron mask who faked his own death in order to escape the systematic execution king shang of lu enacted on all the people who knew about and/or helped build his tomb. he then snuck into the seven star palace and disposed of king shang of lu’s body before taking the jade armor for himself

xiaoge explains that he found this story in a song dynasty tomb he’d robbed a few years ago that contained a complete silkbook that turned out to be iron-masked gentleman’s memoirs (Book 1, Ch. 27, Lies). and you’d be inclined to believe this version of the story over the first one because it’s xiaoge telling it, and xiaoge usually isn’t one for intentional deception unless it serves a purpose, even less so if it’s verbal deception (literally the only time i can think of him openly lying rather than lying by omission is when he disguises himself as professor zhang). except even this version is called into question multiple times. the first time is by wu xie himself, who while choosing not to confront xiaoge about it, senses that xiaoge seems uneasy when wu xie presses him on the point that if it’s true that two people were pulled out of the jade armor in that tomb, then why is there no second blood corpse. xiaoge answers that he doesn’t know because iron masks’s memoirs only mention it briefly, and that maybe king shang of lu was pulled out early enough that he didn’t turn into a blood zombie. technically there’s the mummified body they find in the sacrificial ding cauldron next to the coffin with the monster at the entrance to the seven star palace whose head is cut off that could fit that description (Book 1, Ch. 9, Ancient Tomb), but in any case xiaoge according to wu xie looks like he’s lying. the second time this version is refuted is by wu sanxing, but i’ll get to that when i get back to the first account and how it also gets debunked

arguments against the second account

i already mentioned xiaoge isn’t typically someone who’s into overt deception as a course of action unless it’s strictly necessary (and even then). it’s always possible he was either acting on a compulsion from the heavenly gift or under some order from chen pi ah si (since he was working for him at the time, even if i doubt this to be completely honest) or even something else, so it’s mostly my own assumption that he’s not actively deceiving them by fabricating a story, because xiaoge’s deception usually relies on omission rather than a concentrated effort at producing an elaborate lie. so really, the only fact we can be certain of is that he has an “uneasy look in his eyes” when he talks about the lack of another blood corpse, and that wu xie gets the impression he’s lying, which is a sentiment wu sanxing apparently shares because they look at each other in that moment and silently agree. whether this means xiaoge was *actually* lying, or that wu sanxing was taking advantage of xiaoge’s unease to further his own deception (re: arguments against the first account i’m getting to in a bit) is really up in the air

however

i’d like to think if xiaoge was lying and there was nothing more to it than that, he wouldn’t make it so apparent that that was the case given he only ever really projects visible upset or discomfort at anything when it’s related to his memories or lack thereof, and only much later in the story does that start to extend to allowing himself moments of vulnerability, or just his own brand of open concern for wu xie and pangzi. but this is all happening in book 1 where wu xie, as perceptive as he is about people, doesn’t know xiaoge yet, and so doesn’t know his tells. therefore that he can tell xiaoge is visibly emoting when it’s xiaoge is noteworthy in itself. also, given that book 1 takes place at a time when xiaoge’s memory was still very much lacking and fragmented, and he was likely still working for chen pi ah si partly to search for his memories, i wouldn’t be surprised if his unease was visible because the confrontation of both the first and second versions of the story started triggering his memory in some capacity, or it might have even triggered the heavenly gift senses into letting him know that there was something of importance in these stories since the particular episode of it he’s going through at the time gets a bit fast-forwarded from the seven star palace onward seeing as not too long afterwards xiaoge goes into the gate at the end of book 3

something else that’s worth mentioning is the logic behind these memoirs of iron mask even existing. why it would be in a song dynasty tomb is up for debate and probably irrelevant (although it does to be fair align with king mu’s motives of perpetuating grave robbing for deliberate dissemination of information), but mostly i question how he could have written his memoirs if he faked his death and slipped into the jade armor himself shortly after, unless he waited a significant amount of time before doing so and lived his life in hiding, which is also possible given there’s nothing more we know about him. but more food for thought

arguments against the first account

let’s go back to the first account from the silkbook for a bit and take a look at the other two times besides xiaoge’s second account where this version is debunked:

the second debunking comes from wu sanxing as he and wu xie are waiting around in jinan while panzi is in the hospital, and wu sanxing comes back outraged bc when he tried to have the silkbook they brought back from “king shang of lu”’s coffin, he was apparently told it was a forgery because the gold in it was too pure to have dated back to the warring states period, and so was necessarily more recent, though how recent is never specified (Book 1, Ch. 29, Purple-and-Gold Box). he then suggests to wu xie that he thinks it’s xiaoge who snuck into the tomb ahead of them, and with his skills successfully planted a dupe to trick them. i’ll get back to this eventually, but again, while it’s not impossible, it feels unlikely to me that xiaoge would extend so much effort in deception unless it served a clear purpose he agreed with, which is why i’m not convinced he would have blindly been following orders from someone like chen pi ah ai. and xiaoge would likely not have gone to the trouble of making a fake silkbook either, so the idea would have to have come from chen pi ah si, which then brings into question what motive chen pi ah si would have had to go to such lengths to deceive wu sanxing. again, really the only time we ever see or hear of xiaoge making an effort at deliberate deception is when he disguises himself as professor zhang, and while we never get an explanation for the reasons behind that, that’s more likely to have stemmed from feeling like he had to conceal his identity rather than wanting to deceive if that makes sense. in any case, i don’t know what tangible reason xiaoge would have had to deceive wu sanxing and his team with a fake silkbook even if he’d been acting on chen pi ah si’s orders, because would chen pi ah si have had a reason to go to the effort of creating a fake silkbook to deceive wu sanxing with details so specific that you quite literally have to have been in that tomb before to know them?

the third debunking of the silkbook version is ironically a reverse uno from xiaoge directed at wu sanxing when he, wu xie, and pangzi are stuck in wang zanghai’s tomb in xisha (Book 1, Ch. 63, Chain). xiaoge’s just recovered a massive amount of his memories related to the first xisha expedition, and very bluntly tells wu xie that not only is the silkbook from the seven star palace a fake, it was wu sanxing who planted it there. to which wu xie obviously responds with “wtf no you did”. to which xiaoge then replies completely deadpan as he does with “no, it was your sanshu, he and da kui dug a hole under the tree to do it, probably why da kui had to be silenced”. which leaves wu xie very torn about what and who to believe. and mind you this is also a little before they find the inscription on the wall from “xie lianhuan” accusing wu sanxing of murdering him. honestly it’s possible xiaoge is telling the truth if you consider that wu sanxing might have planted a fake if he knew ahead of time what the silkbook contained, what the seven star palace was, and basically faked his own way through the entire thing

it wouldn’t necessarily surprise me because he does sound very pretends to be shocked in the delivery of many of his remarks (but again, how much of that can you attribute to this being book 1), and while he did bring wu xie along because he was trying to ease him into the game with the wangs, it’s possible he was prudent enough that he would have made wu xie’s first tomb experience take place in a somewhat controlled environment. which doesn’t mean he’d necessarily been there before, just that as entrenched in the wang shit as he is, i wouldn’t be surprised if he’d known even vaguely what the seven star palace represented and what could be found in there. he did know about the snake cypress and about the stone used to subdue it, and while that doesn’t necessarily mean anything seeing as wu sanxing is a highly experienced tomb robber, it’s worth noting that the only times we’ve ever seen those trees is in the seven star palace and in the snake mine in gutongjing. in other words, always somewhere connected to longevity and The Secret and all the parties involved in that power struggle

but then again, we don’t really know how much wu sanxing knew about the wangs and the zhangs etc, so it’s all very up to interpretation. if he did in fact plant the fake silkbook though, it might have served the purpose of making sure there was something to string wu xie along to push him towards xisha and the conspiracy, but the copper fish ended up serving that purpose in the end. nothing really elaborates on this silkbook again, so we don’t know why xiaoge would speculate that wu sanxing was the perpetrator, unless it was because he’d just recovered his memories of xisha (but even then xiaoge doesn’t accuse people so firmly based on impression alone) or he literally saw wu sanxing do it

regardless of who did it, the bottom line is that it’s safe to say the silkbook was probably fake and was placed there intentionally, both because as wu sanxing points out, it is suspicious that wu xie would conveniently only be able to understand what happened to be key portions of the silkbook relating parts of king shang of lu’s life, and because it mentions the purple and gold box in it, which when opened, wu xie discovers contains the first snake-eyebrowed copper fish

to me this actually pushes suspicion more heavily onto two parties in particular: wu sanxing and the wang family. because to be able to forge a silkbook that would specifically contain passages tailored to wu xie’s knowledge of old chinese and not run the risk of him either knowing more or less than speculated, you would have to have extensive knowledge on wu xie as a person on a personal level. and to be fair, this idea hinges a lot on the silkbook being put into that coffin for wu xie specifically ti find, so i’m working on assumptions again, but if this were the case, then only wu sanxing and the wangs qualify to fill that role, and in some ways the wangs even more so because this kind of covert manipulation is very much the way they do things. xiaoge would not have known wu xie to that extent in book 1, if at all, and while wang zanghai himself is a tempting possibility, he was obviously in the seven star palace long before any of this took place, so it can’t be him. in fact, the only thing that ties wang zanghai to any of this at all is the purple and gold box containing the copper fish, since whether or not the box had originally been there and he simply emptied it of its contents or brought it in from outside, he’s the one who placed the copper fish in it

as to why if it was wu sanxing who planted the fake silkbook he would shift the blame onto xiaoge, my theory on that would be that xiaoge was another convenient means of stringing wu xie along into the xisha expedition mystery by virtue of him being zhang qiling and therefore both highly mysterious and suspicious, as well as personally involved. part of me wonders if part of the reason wu sanxing went to chen pi ah si to hire xiaoge specifically because he was added insurance that he would have the means to trigger wu xie’s curiosity, and provide a first clue to lead him into the It conspiracy. wu sanxing did use the picture of the expedition team to explicitly tie xiaoge into it along with the copper fish story, so there’s that to consider

the third account

which finally brings me to the final version of the king shang of lu story, which is the one given to li cu during the wang family powerpoint lesson. this particular version also overlaps with the story of king mu of zhou and the queen mother of the west, but i’ll get to in another part of this meta. so this version of the story is mostly ironically both the version that most blatantly contradicts the first two, while also being the version most accurate to the tiny introduction we get to king shang of lu at the entrance of the seven star palace that says he was “born with a ghost seal and could borrow ghost soldiers from the underworld”. the only real issue with that this third version has it’s told by the wang family to li cu, so just by virtue of it coming from obvious wang propaganda, it’s immediately suspicious by nature

going back to speculations about who planted the fake silkbook version of king shang of lu’s story in the seven star palace, it then also raises the question of, if the wangs were the ones who did it, what motive they would have had not only to do so, but to tell the story in that particular way, only to then tell a completely different one to someone they consider a candidate to join them. in my opinion, the only thing that makes this third version hold water is that given how it’s explained to li cu, and how wang xiaoyuan (the girl who passes by the window during the lesson) has the same version of it, the wang family believes this version is true, and by virtue of that, it gains a little more credibility, bc suspicious as they are and twisted by their own biases their version of history may be, the wang family is nonetheless well-informed for the most part. not to mention because the narrative has the wang family consistently mirror the zhang family and the way they function so perfectly it’s almost eerie, it stands to reason that the wang family also dabble in historical revisionism when they can, so putting out a fake version of history onto a fabricated silkbook seems up their alley

i’ll get into king mu of zhou separately because that’s a whole other can of worms, but this final version of king shang of lu’s story begins between the “emperor” of the state of lu and his advisor, the owner of a fox mask “with ancient patterns that often appeared on bronze ware” (Sand Sea Part III, Ch. 132, Lesson). the “emperor” asks his advisor “around 1000 BC” (fyi the original says 一千年上下 which amounts to “around 1000 years” but it’s more of an approximation and can technically encompass the warring states period too) as a hypothetical whether or not it’s possible “to prevent people from dying”, to which the advisor answers that he himself doesn’t know how, but he does know where to find something that can “beneath the loess inside the mountains”. he then goes on to tell the tale of king mu of zhou to the “emperor”, and of how he was given an elixir of immortality by the queen mother of the west that he likely hid inside of his tomb centuries ago

it very quickly becomes apparent to the reader that this story is an obvious ploy by the owner of the fox mask, who in sensing that the “emperor”, while tempted, is reluctant to cast all appearance of morality aside to deploy his troops to rob king mu of zhou’s grave, calls a “strange man” to the court who’s “believed to be a descendent of the zhou emperor” (that is to say king mu of zhou) “who was able to communicate with the underworld”. the ruler of the state of lu thus gives this “strange man” a jade seal and seals him in an iron coffin deep in a well for 49 days, saying that if he can come back up from it with the ghost seal in hand after having successfully spoken to king mu of zhou, then it would be proof of king mu granting him permission to rob his tomb and take the immortality elixir from it. and so this “strange man” does, in fact, come back, not only with the ghost seal in hand, but with an imperial edict written by king mu of zhou himself that granted him the title of king shang (殇 shang meaning to die young or at war) as well as all the contents of his tomb

the ruler of the state of lu then uses this to make several leaps in logic to justify being in the right if he deploys his troops to rob king mu of zhou’s tomb, because if this “strange man” can communicate with the underworld and was given a title relating to dead people, then surely that means that this strange “king shang” is likely dead himself, and that king mu of zhou chose him as his heir after he’d died. it’s a very convenient out for the ruler of the state of lu to say that he’s only helping an esteemed deceased elder to recover his birthright if he makes him a general and lends him troops to go find king mu of zhou’s tomb (Sand Sea Part III, Ch. 133, King Mu of Zhou)

it’s also quickly obvious to the reader that the owner of the fox mask and this newly minted king shang of lu are in fact working together, given it was the former who referred the latter to the state of lu’s court in the first place, which is something i’ll come back to in another part of this meta. from here, under the ruler of the state of lu’s orders, king shang and the owner of the fox mask, together with more grave robbers who also wore fox masks (as according to the wang family, foxes would live in graveyards and grave robber’s tunnels at the time, and so grave robbers associated their imagery with the profession), began their search for king mu of zhou’s tomb and the immortality elixir it supposedly contained. while this version of the story of king shang of lu more or less ends here, you could assume the rest of it might follow along the same lines of the first two versions, and maybe it does. you’d then assume that the person king shang and the owner of the fox mask (who’s by then inferred to be iron mask from the previous two versions) find in the western zhou tomb is king mu of zhou, who they then divest of the jade burial armor to take for themselves

however, one very important detail in this version compromises this assumption: king mu of zhou isn’t actually dead, and he thus gave king shang the edict personally (Sand Sea Part III, Ch. 134, Deception). what this means is that the ruler of the state of lu was duped presumably not by two, but three people, all of whom were working together to find the jade burial armor for who appears to be king mu of zhou. in other words, where the other two versions of the story have two key players, this final version suddenly introduces a third one, and that changes things. how much it does is what i’ll be getting into in the next part on king mu of zhou more specifically

(tbc in part II and part III of this madness)

#dmbj #meta #dmbj meta #dmbj novels #i cannot believe i actually wrote this this was not planned #like at all #this was meant to be an unhinged liveblog mini thing #not whatever this is #i guess the crack theory conspiracy theorist is going public #if you don't know where i'm going with this that's ok i don't either

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giveamadeuschohisownmovie · 10 months

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“Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” review:

Short review

“Uncharted 4” hit the same story beats, but better. I’ll give the movie a 6/10.

Long review

As the final chapter in Indiana Jones’ life, I have mixed thoughts. Is it because of the time travel? No, I was actually fine with that. Indiana Jones has always had some element of weirdness, ranging from the supernatural to literal aliens. My issue with this movie is that, as the final chapter in the series, it felt…underwhelming.

It’s strange because the movie was sorta hitting all the points it needed to hit. They had the emphasis on Indy being old, the passing of the torch to Wombat, the return of other classic characters like Sallah and Marion, bringing the Nazis back as the villains, and so on. James Mangold was hitting the points he needed to hit, which makes sense since this is the guy who gave us “Logan”.

But the problem is, Indiana Jones isn’t Wolverine. I think Indiana Jones, as a character, is unsuitable for the type of somber, deep character study that the movie was trying to do. This is a character who was made to represent light-hearted escapism, and you could see that by how the first three movies never went too deep or too serious with Indy. Even “Crystal Skull”, with all its flaws, didn’t do that. So now we have “Dial of Destiny” trying to shift gears into darker, more dramatic territory and it just doesn’t hit.

For example, the reveal that Mutt Williams got killed in the Vietnam War. It’s a reveal that’s too dark and sudden to really leave a lasting impact, especially since the next scene afterwards is a thrilling dive to a shipwreck. You just want the movie to slow down and let these moments sink in. But the problem is, if the movie slows down, it stops being a fun Indiana Jones movie.

So, we got a problem here. Was there ever a way that the writers could’ve solved this clash of conflicting tones?

Now I will say, I think there’s a version of this story that COULD HAVE worked. Like I wrote, James Mangold was hitting all the story beats he needed to hit. It’s just that the story needed:

Yup. I’m gonna say this with full sincerity; “Dial of Destiny” would’ve worked if it was centered on Indiana Jones and Marion Ravenwood going on one last adventure. You can keep Mutt Williams dying, because that would mean the story would be about Indy and Marion reconciling with each other. Going back to my short review, the more I thought about it, the more that “Dial of Destiny” felt like James Mangold’s attempt at making an “Uncharted 4” movie.

Just like “Dial”, the fourth “Uncharted” game centered on an aging Nathan Drake getting pulled out of retirement for one last adventure. That game managed to actually be BOTH somber and lighthearted. You’d have scenes where Nathan is riding around a motorcycle and spewing one-liners, followed up by Nathan having a deep conversation with Elena.

But here’s why I feel “Uncharted 4” worked while “Dial” didn’t. Naughty Dog knew that in order to bring Nathan’s story to a proper close, they needed to center it on the main cast. In fact, one of the best sequences in the entire game is literally just Nathan and Elena driving around the jungle talking about their lives.

“Dial” doesn’t work because the story is centered on Indy, his goddaughter who we’ve never seen before (and whose father is a new character), and this random kid who was pretty much Short Round 2.0. And it’s frustrating because the BIGGEST dramatic reveal of the movie was Indy talking about his dead son and his divorce. Sorry to Phoebe Waller-Bridge but that scene should’ve had Marion as the focus. In fact, it gets even more frustrating since Mutt’s death means little to Wombat as a character. She didn’t know the guy, the most she could’ve felt in that scene was, “Sorry for your loss, goddad”.

Even the presence of Wombat and Teddy are frustrating. Wombat could’ve easily been rewritten as Marcus Brody’s daughter (or if you wanna be spicy, she was Willie Scott’s daughter with Indy, making her Mutt Williams’ half-sister). Teddy could’ve been Sallah’s son. These may seem like small changes, but at least there’d be a stronger connection to the past. Since it’s Indiana Jones’ last journey, this movie should’ve been more rooted in Indy’s past adventures, even if the connections are more with legacy characters.

So, yeah, it’s a mixed bag. “Dial” is a movie that is supposed to be closing the door on Indiana Jones as a character, but doesn’t really accomplish that due to its detachment from the past movies. It’s a movie that’s too somber to be a lighthearted adventure, but too lighthearted to be a somber character study. And what does that mean for the end result? A movie that’s just okay, but doesn’t really justify its existence. Could’ve been worse, but you wish it was better.

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moltz23 · 8 months

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Three Houses Trivia (& Analysis): How the writers roadblocked a Revelation-like route with impunity.

It’s no secret by now that Three Houses has no Golden Ending/Route where everyone lives and/or the big conflict is solved without the involved factions taking huge casualties, much to the chagrin of fans. IS & KT were even asked about it in a developer interview back in 2020, mainly because a previous entry in the series did feature one: Fire Emblem Fates:

In all four routes the player can go through, each story ends with Fódlan at peace, yet somehow there’s still this air of sadness. In Fire Emblem Fates, Revelation served as the all-encompassing “route” that wrapped up the games’ story. Was there any reason you didn’t make something like Revelation again?

Kusakihara: If we had created a route for Three Houses like Revelation was to Fates, that route would have definitely ended up being perceived as the “correct” route. In Three Houses, each route is its own history, and we wanted players to be able to decide that for themselves. In this game, the leaders of the three houses have their own unwavering beliefs and worldviews that are unique to themselves. We wanted to model the story and its themes after a dilemma that was grounded in reality, so from the beginning there were never any plans to make something like Revelation.

Yokota: I actually really love the big all-encompassing finales, but Kusakihara-san was so passionate about not including it we decided not to go with it. I also felt like we might just end up doing the same thing we did in Fates… I was pretty worried about it, so from the beginning I had decided I’d just go along with Kusakihara-san’s decision.

From a writing standpoint, I haven’t seen much talk about the specific decisions made for this purpose, which is why I wanna tackle the topic here.

To make things more interesting though, the focus will lie in how the Silver Snow route (the first story written for 3H) handles the conflict. After all, if there were truly no plans to make a definitive story branch, then we should be seeing some cues of it on this path alone.

Oh, and I know this is a given, but there will be spoilers for Three Houses (and almost none for Revelation).

With the introduction out of the way, let’s set the relevant context:

Fire Emblem Fates, and Revelation

Fates' artwork was something else man...

Fire Emblem Fates was released back in 2015 in Japan, and 2016 internationally for the 3DS. One aspect marketing made sure everyone would know about was its branching story. And while before Three Houses, Fire Emblem was no stranger to the idea (given games like Binding Blade and Sacred Stones had branching paths which converge later), no game beforehand had previously based its entire narrative on this idea.

Fates was advertised with two main routes which, unless you had the Special Edition, Korean, or Digital version of the game, were sold in separate cartridges: Birthright, in which Corrin supports the Japanese-inspired Hoshido opposing Nohr’s invasion; and Conquest, where instead Corrin’s loyalty falls to the Western-themed Nohr seeking to invade Hoshido. A third path, Revelation, was also announced ahead of time, but not much was said about it beyond being a third option where Corrin sides with no one, and players would need to pay for it sometime after Birthright & Conquest’s launch unless they got the Special Edition (good luck getting it through legal means nowadays, given the E-Shop’s dead and all).

Either way, regardless of the story chosen/bought, the plot’s main goal always lies in finding a way to end the war between the 2 main factions. Of the three stories, Revelation is the only one where by the end, the solution reached allows both sides to come out relatively unscathed, while also directly dealing with the main source driving the war. This is why in the developer interview quoted, the devs talk about Revelation being perceived as the correct path.

In contrast, Three Houses has no such solution, nor were the developers - by their admission - interested in making it happen. As a matter of fact, I dare say that if one analyzes all the key pieces and the nature of their involvement with the game’s conflict, we can find instead three roadblocks complicating the possibility of a Revelation-like route ever happening.

These, for those wondering, are the following:

1. Edelgard: Agency, and Rise to Power

She who commands her crimson destiny.

Silver Snow’s starting point from a story perspective is the conflict between Byleth and Edelgard (according to the game’s director), with the latter going from a big ally and deuteragonist during the first half of the story, to a major antagonist. Edelgard’s character, and her circumstances in which she assumes this role, is the story’s first identifiable roadblock.

As a quick backstory recap: In Imperial Year 1174, Thales (post body-snatching Lord Arundel) leaves the Kingdom along with Edelgard, and establishes a public partnership with the Adrestian Prime Minister Ludwig von Aegir under his Arundel disguise. With the assistance of House Vestra, Ludwig – in secret – had Edelgard and her siblings captured, and allowed his Agarthan partners to experiment on the Hresvelg children for the sake of, in Edelgard’s own words, “create a peerless emperor to rule Fodlan”, all while the actual Emperor was unable to do anything due to previously losing a power struggle vs Ludwig and the Adrestian nobility 3 years prior.

With only these events at hand, it’s clear Edelgard was intended in-universe to be a puppet emperor/super soldier hybrid meant to have the Empire wage war and conquer Fódlan. In any other instance, this context gives the narrative an easy way out for defusing the war; first by rescuing Edelgard, and then by spending the rest of the story dealing with Ludwig + Thales & their allies. That way, Edelgard is able to rise to power at the end and bring official closure to the conflict.

It’s right here however, where Edelgard’s own agency in the story shows the cracks with the idea, as the Black Eagles Route’s first half establishes:

Edelgard has her own bone to pick with the Church - one of the enemies she would inevitably face during the Empire’s conquest - and the social system it helped cultivate in Fodlan under Rhea’s leadership. Also-

Edelgard has been in talks with some of Ludwig’s own allies behind his back to ensure she reaches the Imperial throne on her own terms (which leads to her surprise coup from Ch. 11). And it’s all but stated this is possible because-

Edelgard has no qualms with waging war as long it’s a means to an end (see point 1), to the point she even assumes a secret persona - the Flame Emperor - to stage attacks against the Church before her coronation.

At many points in Part 1 of Black Eagles, Edelgard is even seen testing the waters with Byleth, confiding a bit on her ideology and plans for the future to see if they would be willing to stand by her side once the time comes, before finally relenting and continuing her plans as previously established before Byleth came into the picture.

These facts flip our understanding of the conflict and the key players driving it on its head. And this is considering only how Edelgard factors into everything, because with our other two parties involved, it gets even more complicated:

2. TWSITD: Scheming Outside Their Comfort Zone

Credit to sageofanys for their interpretation of Cleobulus btw.

In the context of Fire Emblem, “those who slither in the dark” stand out like a sore thumb due to how alien they are. For the sake of this post however, I will only focus mainly on how the group’s used in the narrative they were originally created for, as it showcases our second roadblock.

The group assumes the role of the puppeteers behind the scenes, having already infiltrated the antagonistic faction of the story (the Empire) and using them to achieve their goals, while also playing a noticeable role in the backstory of some key players of the conflict. And given the archetype they follow, it appears there’s a clear cut way to stop them: just deal with them directly - while avoiding their puppets as much as possible - and bingo. Problem solved.

…Which would be a viable solution, if it wasn’t for Three Houses complicating the slitherers’ job, forcing them to work outside their comfort zone:

Remember when I mentioned Edelgard did some deals behind Duke Aegir’s back? Well, the Agarthans were part of those deals too due to utilitarian (manpower, assets and tech) and practical reasons (Edelgard is not in a position to get rid of them normally), foreshadowed and implied midway through Part 1. This results in-

Having the puppeteers lose much of their agency in the story once Edelgard assumes the Imperial throne. As mentioned earlier, the “puppet” in question gets control of the Empire once she assumes the antagonist role, and has her own reasons to wage war and conquer. This begs the question: How much control do the slitherers even have in the story once the war starts? Their uncertain input is even compromised further because-

Their success is entirely dependent on Edelgard winning. The slitherers have no trump-card nor a “revive this ancient evil” button freely available which could potentially make the need of a war pointless, meaning that once Edelgard and her Empire is taken care of, they have no choice but go into hiding to scheme again in the future, which is what happens in the story. Lastly-

They are acting on borrowed time. In spite of all their bravado, smugness, hi-tech toys, and hubris (heck, partly because of it), Edelgard, thanks to their established alliance with TWISTD and her own spies (ie. Hubert.) eventually gains the info needed to get rid of the group once their assistance is no longer needed, proven through Hubert leaking Shambhala’s location to Byleth after him & Edelgard are hit with a sudden case of death. Meaning that by the end, any potential win the slitherers gain is bound to become a pyrrhic victory.

So to wrap up this part, TWSITD’s purpose in Silver Snow’ main plot can be summed up as the following:

Remove Jeralt from the story, which leads to Byleth fusing with Sothis while also (unintentionally?) foiling Rhea’s plan for them in the process, which would otherwise never happen without their involvement.

Give Edelgard the means to remove Rhea from the story between Chapter 13 and 19.

Wound Rhea lethally near the end of the story, unwillingly setting her up as the Final Boss.

And speaking of which-

3. Rhea: Snow in the Crimson Gardens

Not so immaculate as she wants you to think.

All I have covered so far comes from the antagonist-side of things. But because Three Houses' story is not done throwing wrenches at our understanding of how the war happens, it seems natural it would add one last, final roadblock within the main supporting roster of characters. And who else to give it than Rhea: Archbishop of the Church of Seiros; leader of Fódlan’s main religion; and Byleth’s boss for all of Part 1.

Within the narrative, Rhea’s role in the plot is very straightforward:

In the Academy Arc, she gives Byleth missions in the story for them & their class to do, while also delivering exposition whenever necessary.

Then in the War Arc of Silver Snow, she has to be rescued from the Empire, delivers one final piece of exposition the story teased late into Part 1 (what is Byleth and what’s up with their mom), and then becomes the Final Boss though circumstances beyond her control.

None of this is really a problem for writing a definitive 3H route. The crux at hand however, comes when we learn about Rhea’s character, painting a different looking picture:

She’s quite secretive, being her reasons for hiring Byleth as a teacher the best example of it in the story, as her vague justification for it puzzles Seteth (her right hand man), Jeralt, and even Edelgard.

As the story goes on, it’s also clear Rhea’s preparing and testing Byleth for something, later revealed to be their status as Sothis’ new vessel - with having them sitting on Sothis’ Throne the intended final step - which, not only doesn’t pan out as planned, it’s also something she kept everyone in the dark about on purpose up until it was too late.

Her answer against insurrections and direct threats against her authority is execution.

She is willing to cover-up truths if it means safeguarding the reputation of Crests and Nobility.

The last two points in particular stand out a lot considering that in Black Eagles’ story, these facets of Rhea’s character are often highlighted right next to Edelgard’s in adjacent events, further showcasing their differences.

Take Chapter 3, for example:

“Even if our enemies are the gods themselves... we must never lose sight of our goal. [...] Really, I'm just like Lonato. I, too, will be the sort of ruler who's willing to risk the lives of my citizens in service of a higher cause. It's not possible to change the world without sacrifice. Dying for the greater good is not a death in vain.” - Edelgard in A Harsh Reality

“I heard some of the students were...hesitant about fighting militia. However, we must punish any sinner who may inflict harm upon believers, even if those sinners are civilians. I pray the students learned a valuable lesson about the fate that awaits all who are foolish enough to point their blades towards the heavens.” - Rhea in Report: Garland Moon

And Chapter 5:

“I have already heard Gilbert's report about what happened. See to it that you keep what transpired at the tower to yourself. People would lose faith in the nobles should rumors spread of one using a Relic and transforming into a monster. All regions of Fódlan would fall into chaos. We must avoid that at all costs.” - Rhea in The Lance of Ruin

“People believe Crests are blessings from the goddess, that they're necessary to maintain order in Fódlan. But the people are wrong. Crests are to blame for this brutal, irrational world we live in. Their power is granted only to a select few, whom we elevate and allow to rule the world. Have you ever wondered if the only way to create a truly free world is to dispense with the goddess and the Crests?” - Edelgard in Crests: The Good and the Bad

The more the plot progresses, the more it becomes clear that both Edelgard and Rhea are not on the same wavelength, are up to their own devices, and that neither is willing to show their cards before their plans have reached completion. This ultimately causes tension, telegraphing to the player that both sides will eventually crash against each other, but without making certain when and how it will happen (one can guess Edelgard will throw the first stone, but…?).

Thus, with these 3 roadblocks set in stone, the seeds of Fodlan’s main conflict are allowed to blossom unopposed, setting the blazes of war loose.

… And all this is just as far as it goes in Silver Snow. Due to my self-imposed restriction, I deliberately didn’t cover stuff like:

Edelgard’s beef with the Nabateans and their involvement in Fódlan (which Silver Snow hints at but never elaborates upon).

The circumstances in which Dimitri’s rage and madness is unleashed towards Edelgard and the Empire.

The complicated relationship between the Alliance and the Empire.

What’s up with the TWSITD’s “Javelins of Light”.

What’s up with Nemesis coming back only in Verdant Wind.

And all the stuff that Warriors: Three Hopes shows, elaborates upon and makes clear with little room for ambiguity (like the fact Duke Aegir and Thales have history together), plus how the war happens in its timeline.

As a conclusion of sorts, I wanna say that: while I appreciate and see the potential of an hypothetical Revelation-like route in Three Houses, to me, it’s abundantly clear that’s simply not the kind of story IS and KT ever intended to write. Considering the sort of roadblocks at play, a major rewrite is required to even start entertaining such an idea, which would need to drastically shake the foundation of its story, lore, and characters as it currently is, to the point it’s worth raising the question if it would be far more practical to just start from scratch and create a whole new universe altogether…

#fe3h #silver snow #fire emblem: three houses #crimson flower #edelgard von hresvelg #rhea #church of seiros #adrestian empire #those who slither in the dark #twsitd #golden ending #golden route #fire emblem fates #revelation #trivia #analysis #story analysis

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maple-writes · 5 months

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My attempt to introduce Bristlecone:

Details subject to change without notice as I think of better ideas lol

Tagging @concealeddarkness13 since they said they were curious!

Text version under the cut:

Slide one: Bristlecone!

I am trying yet again to edit this story

Slide two: ... Bristlecone?

An older wip (finished last draft back in 2018)

Not sure if I’ll keep the title Bristlecone but I don’t have any better ideas either

I’m finally getting back to it (hopefully)

It’s editing/revising time now

Setting – fantasy with wild west inspiration (simply because I thought it would be neat)

Kind of a murder mystery, kind of a general mystery, kind of an adventure

Which means one of these characters could be the culprit… Or not… It’s a mystery…

Slide three: Viper (one of the POV characters)

That’s not her real name

Deputy of the Aristata and unofficially Winter’s girlfriend (They act as more than just working partners but neither has said anything to each other to acknowledge this)

Observant but tends to ignore her gut feelings

Loves horses, and is in charge of training them

Is unable to speak to people she doesn't know, and then can only manage a whisper

Has had a rough decade or so before joining the Aristata to say the least

Slide four: Honey Davis (the other POV character)

That’s not his real name

Was training to take Cecil’s place as a Mortician Mage until recent events stopped that

Newly recruited as a mercenary to the Aristata

He has some… Secrets (some of which he himself doesn’t even know)

Orphaned as a child when his parents were executed (for good reason)

Something off about him. Eyes shine at night like a cat.

Kind, gentle, and would have made a very good Mortician Mage

Slide five: Winter Balfouriana

This is her real name!

Leader and founder of the Aristata

Viper’s girlfriend

Last surviving member of fairly powerful/noble family of demon slayers

Prior to the “disaster” which killed her family, her mother had trained her in enchanted metalsmithing

Tenacious and strategic, and genuinely cares for her mercenaries

Respectful and fair

Slide six: Stark Jiang

Sees the best in people and tends to treat people as friends unless proven otherwise

Tbh to the point where it’s easy to forget he’s just as deadly as Viper

The first person to join Winter as a mercenary, before their little group even had a name

Pretty hard to rattle him and most of the time he’s just vibing

Very reliable and very trustworthy

Slide seven: Other people

Cecil Davis – Wayton’s Mortician Mage and the man who took in Honey after he was orphaned

Taiga – Cecil’s weird dog

Lady Alabaster – Countess of Vindale. She hired the Aristata to settle a conflict with a neighbouring Lord

Ren Alabaster – Lady Alabaster’s son (he’s gone missing)

Annie and Theo – The other two members of the Aristata

Slide eight: Stuff that's going on

Basically, Lady Alabaster’s son goes missing in the middle of the night

That same night Winter finds Honey alone in desert

The Aristata agree to stay under Lady Alabaster’s employment to try and find her son

So what happened to Ren Alabaster?

Is he even still alive?

What’s the deal with this Honey kid?

Could it perhaps be an issue that Viper doesn’t like to accept what she knows to be true and instead deny to avoid recognizing uncomfortable truths?

Who knows, could be anything!

Slide nine: ~worldbuilding~

It’s fantasy loosely based on wild west aesthetic

There are demons, there are gods and there are fae (technically all three are the same thing but it’s complicated)

Most of the story comes out of a place called Vindale, governed by Lady Alabaster

#wip intro #bristlecone #viper (character)#honey (character)#Winter (character)#stark (character)#trying to add character to the tags as to not get mixed up with actual snake posts or honey etc...

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ganondoodle · 1 year

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I only just found your fancomic and art now and I’m really curious as to where Farore, Nayru and Din fit in with your AU, and where Courage fits in with it all too; is the first Link/hero that Hylia chose supposed to be the reincarnation of Courage?

Well, you see, i kinda took the zelda lore and remixed it until it tasted good to me uwu

actual answer is i rewrote the lore .. or put it in a different context so it might be confusing at first and i dont know just how much into detail you want me to explain bc .. theres alot .. like ALOT

to sum it up rly shortly:

in my AU/comic the gods (here a rough sketch i did last time i redesigned them, tho this is only nayru, actually all three are one entity but also not, like three bodies melted together at the hips down)

-each created a world, and once life started to thrive there they chose a mortal to call them to come to them, the gods then killed them and used the mortals spirit to create a deity, not mortal, but no god either, as their servant

"Courage" (not actually their name, just a word to call them since their language is long lost) is the first one to be created, but fails the purpose the gods had intended for them rather quickly; so they abandon them and flood the world until nothing but Courage survives, out of madness/desperation Courage then destroys the ancient statue of the gods and promptly discovers a path to another world through it

and that is the second world, in which "Demise" (also not his actual name) resides, he is the deity of that world and has so far succeeded, although not quite like the gods intended; he was told essentially the same prophecy we hear in the intro of skyward sword (invasion of a monster etc.) this monster is in this case Courage, who attacks Demise, who in turn seals Courage away quite easily, which isnt how the prophecy went, he was supposed to die, which makes him doubt the whole plan and starts intentionally delaying working further on it, so long in fact that Courage, now mishapen (similar to the imprisoned) and mindless, breaks free of the seal Demise then kills them, but loses one of his blade spirits in the fight (he used to have two here in my AU), now that the gods plan is not doable anymore (since Courage is dead) they abandon him and his world alot of stuff happens here, inclusing mortals turning to war, then against him, and him destroying his version of the triforce as he saw it as the source of the conflicts; but in the end his world dies a slow death by drought, just like Courage he destroys the ancient statue of the gods in his world and woop theres a path there

which is Hylias world, so, Demise is taken by wrath and grief as this world was allowed to thrive while his own died seeks to reach the the gods in revenge by all means necessarry but is quickly stopped by Hylia, who instead of sealing him like she was ordered to, spares his life, bc who she encountered was not what she was told, and wishes to know why that is, why the gods would lie to her

this is where the comic itself starts, the first encounter of her and demise is the first chapter :3

it is a theme that courage is very similar to link and demise to ganondorf (tho my hylia not that much to zelda hmmmm) but here it has no ACTUAL connection, and the triforce trio as we know in canon has no actual great lineage, no reincarnation, just mortals manipulated by the gods to make them do their bidding after all three deities revolted against being used as the gods puppets

as you can see, im very bad a summing anything up, i hope this didnt sound too lame or something, there is alot of thought and heart put into this story (i even have the background stories of each deity from before they were deities, even tho it doesnt come up in the comic) and i hope i will keep my motivation and passion for this giant project alive enough to get at least more than one chapter done (i have a bad track record of failed comics, im horribly afraid of abandoning this one too bc i put so much more work and love into it already, i guess it depends on the support from you guys how far i will be able to go qwq)

feel free to ask me anything about it, cant promise to respond right away but i cherish nice asks to a point that i dont want to post answers bc then its gone from my inbox lmao

anyway, its 3 am, goodnight and perhaps ... hopefully this gave you a rough idea of what im going for >o<

#ganondoodles answers #long post #i wrote alot of stuff here that i dont think i mentioend before #sorry if this is spoiling too much #but if im not too bad of a writer perhaps this didnt ruin it for everyone #if you cant tell im self doubting my art alot #but my writing even more

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takearisk-xo · 5 months

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Hey Hannah, could we get some headcanons of Hinny in TPFY and AG? I just want to see how they differentiate between the two stories.

it's so funny to me that this time last year i was asking myself this exact question. but i haven't done this little thought experiment for quite a while because pretty quickly the two ginnys solidified into very different versions her and they definitely take up very different headspaces throughout the stories. honestly even in my own planning and perceptions of them.. they are two very separate people. that sounds so weird because in theory they ARE the same character, but at the same time i did have to find some differences to make the fics unique, and for the prose and narration to sound fresh.

with that being said, this is going to be so disorganized and disjointed. i already know half of it isn't going to make sense to anyone but me, but life is nuts, it's where my head's at right now, and i can't change it.

here goes nothing

i guess i can start with how they are similar? in both stories, the seven books are canon. they are a great foundation and framework for me to work in, i know each book like the back of my hand and i really had no desire to try to tweak or change anything in the original text.

HOWEVER, the main difference between the two, is the path from you is not epilogue compliant. and that was born from several questions that haunted me for about a decade before i even had the idea or the inclination to write hp fanfiction. but the main two i wanted to explore and answer were 1) did ginny really know it was harry that walked past her on his way to the forest? i'm pretty sure she did. so how does she react to something like that? how does that fit into their relationship arc and how does him not stopping parallel other things in their relationship? and 2) what happened to her at hogwarts in her 6th year? how did that affect her in the weeks, months, years afterward?

so why do those questions need to be explored and answered in an canon (read: epilogue) divergent setting? mostly because i didn't really like the epilogue (🤷) but also because it seemed like a two birds one stone situation. i needed time and space between 'the end' (chap 1, which really exists as a prologue?) and 'the beginning' (chap 2, which is when we pick up after the time jump). for maximum angst, tension, and storytelling potential.

so in short, tpfy!ginny is defined by her reaction to harry's march to death/faked death, and her reaction to her own experiences (trauma) during the occupied year at hogwarts.

once i had that story/plot idea in mind. i really started to try and shape ginny into a coherent personality. i mean we have the framework, right? we know what she's like at school, we know what her family and what her classmates say about her, and we know how she acts and interacts when she is in scenes with harry. but how does that become a person. i settled on five (ish) defining character traits (which are basically just a textbook enneagram 8)

Ginny is self-reliant and self-confident. she want's to prove her strength and resist any weakness, she wants to be important in the world, she wants to be a decision maker in her own life/situation, and she wants to be in control of those situations.

the main conflict then became, the way tpfy!ginny feels about harry makes her feel out of control, or another way of putting it, is she can't control how she feels about him. it's instinctual, overwhelming, and it scares her a bit because she doesn't feel like she is in control of her decisions when it comes to him. loving him, caring about him, putting his needs before hers, are all things that she does that don't feel like conscious decisions. this is directly at war with her base personality.

which i've got to say, has been so fun to write. i just torture her, i know i do.

moving on

already gone was born from a place of curiosity and literally took on three or even four different forms before it was an amenesia fic. i had spent nearly a year working on the path from you and was trying to find ways to piece harry and ginny back together again in this altered timeline, and one night i was just like.. 'how the fuck did they do this right away??' i really honestly just wanted to figure it out, for my own peace of mind. how did they get back together within a canon (read: epilogue) compliant timeline.

so i started brainstorming, and i wrote a really angsty post-war oneshot for @hinnyfied's birthday and i thought... this might be something. i might have something here.

but then i was like HOW is she different from tpfy!ginny? because she has to be... but she also still has to be ginny!? but for all the wonderful characteristics she possesses, those same traits can be her own worst enemy (which in tpfy they are)

so in already gone, what is the catalyst that sends her down a different path? i decided it was mostly pretty simple... ag!ginny, didn't make the connection, or at least didn't know for sure that harry walked by her on his way into the forest. the rustle she heard was just that, a rustle. i also decided that the events during her 6th year maybe weren't as horrifying(?), trauma inducing (?), specific to just her(?), as they are in tpfy.

but these were all decisions i made when i was just attempting to write a summer '98 a story.

i really didn't settle on the amnesia plot until two or three months later, because as much as i wanted that summer to be an angsty will they/won't they... it just wasn't. harry and ginny took on a completely different relationship arc than what i had planned and it became, not a story of reconciliation, which i so desperately wanted, but a story of mutual dependency, and the idea that home for them isn't a place, but a person. their relationship (and i do mean both of them, this isn't exclusive to just harry) post-war wasn't born out of shared interests, and sense of humor, and similar values, but of a deep understanding that some wounds don't heal, and some grief can't be quantified. but with that understanding, they can still move forward and live with it. as long as they're together.

so then i was a real bitch and i took it away.

whoops.

BUT THEN THE REALLY FUN PART STARTED HAPPENING

because while i like to assume ginny is deeply affected by her experience with the diary, by order of the phoenix she has either buried it so deep in an effort not to process, OR processed it enough that she can hide any lingering thoughts or actions that might still plague her because of it. she is not defined by her trauma. she has outwardly overcome.

she is also in her peak "i am over harry potter" phase.

like c'mon. that's hilarious. because she wakes up married to him.. and she is also thrown back into an (outwardly) well-adjusted mindset. which could possibly (i will neither confirm or deny this at present because spoilers) throw a big wrench into her relationship that is rooted in shared trauma and the understanding of that trauma. cannot stress this enough, already gone harry and ginny were and are co-dependent. but i sort of love that for them?

ANYWAYS

i've rambled enough. i hope this makes at least some sort of sense. and thanks so much for reading both stories!

#this is so fucking long i am so sorry #tl:dr tpfy!ginny is defined by her trauma and ag!ginny is defined by her lack of it #also i just realized your question asked about hinny and i sort of just rambled about ginny so if you want more details about harry hmu #thanks for the question! and for reading!!!!#it made my day when i got this ask <3 #anon #answered

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the-modern-typewriter · 2 years

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Any advice on how to write enemies-to-lovers relationships? I have these two characters (one is a heroine/ protagonist and the other is an anti-villain/ antagonist) that I imagine to start off as enemies and slowly fall in love, but I am afraid that they’re incompatible/ the chemistry between them won’t work. And I don’t want their relationship to be forced.

I did a post here on writing conflict in a romantic relationship:

Much of what I say there applies to enemies to lovers and is a good way to start thinking about the characters you have.

If you know you are writing enemies to lovers from the start of your story, the way you set up and create the characters is typically different to when you just write characters who aren't intended to get along ever.

Background bits that are relevant when I talk novel advice

For background reading, generally, if writing a novel, I would recommend familiarising yourself with some common story structures such as The Three Act Structure, The Hero's Journey or Savannah Gilbo's romance-specific take on the Seven Point Story Structure.

Also, this thorough guide on character arcs by K.M Weiland.

I feel it's important to throw this in, because I'm ultimately doing a quick tumblr post, so my tips aren't going to do dig super deep. I'm just hoping to get you thinking about your characters/offer perspective and hopefully clarity.

Now onwards, to enemies and lovers...

I personally like to think of enemies-to-lovers romance characters (though, let's be real, also my protagonists and antagonist generally) as a set. They don't have to match, but they are designed to comment on each other - be that through reflecting the worst or best (in a happy romance, they reflect the best) of each other.

E.g. for me they are often narrative foils or mirror characters. This means that the characters contrast in a way that they highlight each other's qualities, be it how they are different (foil) or how they are the same (mirror).

A romance story in particular is often all about answering the question 'why are these two great for each other?' 'Why should they be together?' 'Why is it worth fighting for this love despite all the obstacles in the way?'

In an enemies to lover's story, one reason is often because they have a unique perspective/ability to challenge each other to reassess their own attitudes and stances (see where this is going back to foils and mirrors?) and thus further each other's character arc.

Foil route:

A simple version of this is, 'hero' character must learn to look out for themselves and not just other people, 'villain' character must learn to not just look out for themselves in order to be truly happy. Bam, collide, and somewhere in the middle of these two extremes you have an actual healthy approach to life, which they end up landing on through interacting and learning from each other. Thus, despite being fundamentally different, they both make each other better, happier people, and this is the basis of opposites attract. They complement each other flaws.

The mirror route:

The characters, despite having opposing goals, learn as they interact with each other that they actually have a lot in common, value similar things, and so a bond forms between them because of this as they realise that, oh no, they actually like each other. A lot. The internal conflict of the novel is reconciling their growing fondness for each other with their still separate goals.

This also means that, for me personally at least, the two sides of your enemies/lovers romance need to be somewhat balanced. I.e. your antagonist cannot be unredeemable monster with no valid points to make, and nothing for your protagonist to reasonably attracted to in them. Similarly, your protagonist cannot be always right, completely wholesome or perfect or...what do they have to learn from the antagonist? What do they have in common?

Obviously, add attraction on top of this + specific reasons to be attracted to each other that fit your characters. Like, as many reasons as you can give why yess, these two, the better.

I don't know your characters, so I cannot tell you if they are incompatible or not. So take-away question, do your characters have the potential to support each other and make each other better? If not, then you may have great tension as a protagonist/antagonist dynamic and they may have sizzling antagonistic chemistry, but that does not necessarily mean they should be in a romance together.

#writing talk #enemies to lovers #writing tips #writing advice #hope this helps #writing

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gothamxwattpad · 4 months

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Writer’s block doesn’t have me stuck.

I have me stuck.

I have multiple directions I want to go but can only pick one because each one changes what happens next.

One direction has me writing from the POV of a character that doesn’t really hold a lot of weight in the story, I mean, she does play her part. She’s the daughter of a former gang leader who still holds great power and influence over the other gangs in Uptown and Midtown Gotham. He did a thing (no spoiler) that got innocent people killed to save him and his own family. He’s had to live with that guilt and now his daughter has to live with it too.

Another direction has me jumping to the main character’s best friend’s plot line, (that was very wordy, my apologies). Him being the street art & comic book loving little punk he is, that would send him down a rabbit hole, (pun intended- no spoilers), which would skip ahead to present conflicts. I’d actually like to save that for a little later on.

Or I can continue on with my chapter three being in the same POV of my main character from chapter two. I’d like to go ahead and post chapter two but not until I’ve figured out what I’m doing with chapter three. (Again I apologize for the word soup, it’s been a long day).

After writing all of this, i didn’t even consider I have other characters I can play around with, after all, my biggest issue with rewriting was how many characters I have and that I kept trying to write it from one POV, the main character’s, and it wasn’t working.

I’m not pantsing, (you know, writing from the seat of my pants), I am following the same storyline I already have, just trying to do it better. I have another version of my fic, GothamX, on Wattpad and Archive of Our Own(AO3) and it’s okay. It’s not great and it needs a lot of organizing and editing and some love and affection. THAT was me pantsing.

But I’m trying and I keep reminding myself that little progress is still progress and this project is not work, it is art & fun & for myself. I wanted something different from all the other Harley Quinn and Joker fanfictions on Wattpad.

If you can’t find what you want to read in fanfiction, make what you want to read. Because chances are, you’re not the only one that wants that story.

(sorry, I’m derailing again)…

I really wanted to be close to done with part one by the end of January. Part One is the first night. It sets up the basis for everything else to come. The First Night. The First punch thrown. The First storm…

If I can get through part one, I can branch out more on the other plot lines with my other characters.

Welcome to my Tedtalk and thank you for letting me ramble on. Feel free to ask questions and such.

Tagging @dyrewrites since you said it was okay to brain dump on you😅

All of this was actually pretty helpful. I should brain dump more often.

#fanfiction #original story #writing #writeblr #wattpad #fanfic #brain dumping

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jankillbride · 1 year

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[ID: three digital sketches of Kim Dokja holding Lee Gilyoung in various positions. In the left most sketch and the top right sketch, Lee Gilyoung is held in something like a princess carry. In the bottom right sketch, Lee Gilyoung is perched on one of Kim Dokja’s arms and the other arm is supporting him, as if he’s sitting on a chair. End ID]

true fact, i searched up “ben affleck.holding dog like sack of potatoes” to get this ref

this is just orv thoughts since i’m reading it for the first time and the tags maxed out on me :( so i’m moving all my predictions and whatnot here. it does exist in my annotations but i want to group them together. if you decide to read pls don’t give spoilers, i only just finished ch 50.

absolutely would die for gilyoung. each time kim dokja goes ‘this kid is cute’ i’m like yes he absolutely is. also wish i started a counter for how many times he pats gilyoung’s head/strokes his hair cause that man is fond.

also i wrote a fic where people were like. comparing one aspect to it to orv and now that i’m getting deeper into yoo joonghyuk (ish) i can’t wait for this man to go through agonies

it’d be interesting if a regression did happen and then we’d get kdj’s narration as it was in the beginning of the novel, though yjh would act differently cause he’s interested in this new prophet. also he did try to recruit gilyoung at a point, and gilyoung might’ve said yes if there was no dokja. so.

also let’s talk about bugs. because in the beginning humans were compared to insects. and that puts me in mind of the three body problem. but more relevantly, gilyoung’s ability is with bugs, and gilyoung is most definitely supposed to at least be a parallel to dokja. so it’s very inch resting

also the re-occurance of a maternal-son relationship. (maternal as in someone is fulfilling that role somehow) and how deficiencies in that have different outcomes. there’s gilyoung and the woman on the train, dokja and his mother, the mother and child at that one place where she encouraged her child to kill (i actually forget if the child was a boy but i think so), and jung heewon with her slightly younger brother (she had to fulfill the parental role (at least she had to force him to go to school) when her mother didn’t do that).

secretive plotter. so i think that they’re either a young yoo joonghyuk or some version of him. i used to think it was young/alt version of dokja partially cause he’s a reader and secretive plotter. but my friend who knows the ending said it wasn’t him. there is an author character though, so maybe it’s a version of her? or wait, one slight spoiler i know is that she was the original writer but dokja thinks she plagiarized off of someone else, and that someone else could be secretive plotter. which would make more sense considering all the scenarios follow ways of survival and so some outside force should be enacting this.

i think dokja might become a constellation in the end. i know people are conflicted about the ending and kdj possibly ends up separated from everyone but it’s happy for him? anyways becoming a constellation would lead to that. and becoming a constellation would mean he has the power to remain a ‘reader’ if he chooses, by watching the streams. but at the same time he can choose not to. he can no longer participate in this story. he can leave the narrative and i think that’s nice. it’s also part of the reason that i thought he could be secretive plotter, since there’s the potential for him to become a constellation, and perhaps in a parallel universe, a young dokja lives through ways of survival and watches orv dokja to see how he would’ve been in another world, had he had the chance to grow up and know what the apocalypse would be like. it would also serve as an additional parallel or foil to gilyoung because gilyoung doesn’t have the choice to grow up in a non apocalyptic world

#orv #omniscient reader's viewpoint #kim dokja #lee gilyoung #jkb.art #orv is appealing to me so much and i love it more each time i remember that dokja is literally. dressed for work this entire time

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horsesarecreatures · 1 year

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The Mahabharata tells a story of a king who had three daughters as precious as diamonds: Amba, the eldest; and the twins, Ambika and Ambalika. Amba was bound in a pledge of marriage - as was the fate of most women - to King Salwa, a man she neither loved nor hated.

One day a sudden blinding light engulfed the royal court. There was talk of a theif in a chariot, a ghostly presence. Amba and her sisters had been abducted, and the whole court was aflutter because none but the great warrior Bhisma could have managed such a feat. While the epic tells us that the fates were kind to Ambika and Ambalika, who went on to perpetrate the Bharata line through their sons Destarastra and Pandu, Amba’s life took quite a different turn.

King Salwa sent an army to retrieve his betrothed, but his men were no match for Bhisma. By dawn the next day bones were broken, and the heads of half the king’s army were floating in the river. Meanwhile - and this is the part the book only ever hints at, and which we must flesh out - Amba had fallen in love with her captor, and he with her. But the depth of this feeling frightened Amba: it was a feeling more powerful than she’d ever felt. Overwhelmed, she entreated Bhisma to return her to Salwa. Bhisma recognized the longing in her eyes and, for fear of its repercussions, took no time in returning the princess to her designated suitor.

King Salwa, however, would not take Amba back. He told her that she had dishonored him. His pride was too immense, a mountain from which he ruled. She had worn her love for Bhisma like a mask; it had altered the contours of her face, and it was plain for all to see. Disgraced, the distraught princess had no other recourse but to return to Bhisma, her last hope of saving her honor. But how could she have known that Bhisma had taken a vow of celibacy long before they met? Devoted son that he was, Bhisma had sworn chastity so his father could marry the woman he himself loved. Always quick to reward duty before self, the gods had granted Bhisma the power to choose his own death; until such time, he would be invincible. Invincibility, of course, meant nothing to a man in love; yet more than any man, Bhisma knew where man ended and history began. When Amba arrived to beg him to marry her, he shook his head and turned away. But even the trees and the birds could taste his grief.

As Amba was shuttled back and forth, eventually abandoned, alone, her heart turned to stone.

In the next life Amba returned as Srikandi, one of Prince Arjuna’s many wives. In the Indian version of the epic, Srikandi is known as Sikhandin, a male warrior who had once been a woman. It was also foretold that she would be the one to bring down the indomitable Bhisma.

At the battle of Kurusetra, the great conflict between the Kuruwas and the Pandawas, Prince Arjuna was sure to have his warrior wife beside him. From her chariot Srikandi let fly scores of arrows, like a flock of birds set loose upon an island. In the Indonesian version of the epic, Srikandi’s femaleness so disarmed the gallant Bhisma that he yielded, not even two finger’s breadth of his body left unpierced by her arrows. In both versions, Srikandi made the same choice, to kill Bhisma and save Arjuna, as though it never occurred to anybody that there might have been another way, an outcome less brutal and more merciful, a solution that didn't so inextricably intertwine their fates like the red and white of the Indonesian flag - so heavy, so weighted with destiny.

................

Now, it is important to understand that the Javanese are careful with the names they give their children. They understand all too well the great history and burden of a name. Either your life does your name justice or you might as well not have been born at all. The elders have a phrase for this: keberatan nama. It means a state of being burdened by a name too great, or too portentous.

And so, Amba killed Bhisma, thus ending the battle of all battles. The sheer glamour of which, surely, makes the princess ripe for eternal veneration: a heroine from antiquity, a role model for the feminist movement.

And yet this is not what happens. The name Amba, far from being heroic, still reminds folks of the worst of all women, a woman twice spurned, a woman discarded by not one, but two noble men, and one whose legacy is not defined by her brains or by her skills or by the quality of her heart, but by her burning desire for revenge. And there is nothing more shameful than a woman who does not gracefully accept her fate, justified or otherwise.

Yet every so often people dare to chose a culturally unpopular name for their offspring. They do so because they have a different take on mythology's influence on human lives, or they are prepared to challenge the notion that a name makes a person. Sometimes it simply feels right, because no other name will do.

For is it not true that all stories exist to be written anew? - Laksmi Pamuntjak, The Question of Red

#amba #what's in a name

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chibivesicle · 1 year

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Scoured youtube, reddit, and twitter for reactions to episode 9, and was shocked at how the vast majority sympthatized with Nai. The old anime never could convince you Knives made any sense in his motives, let alone agree with him. So to see innumerable old and new fans now actually feeling a lot of sadness in the tragedy of the twins splitting apart, and that Knives now has a POINT (that plenty wholeheartedly agree with!), it's pretty refreshing.

Hello there,

In my opinion out of the three versions of Trigun; '98 anime, Trigun Maximum and Stampede, the one which gave Knives the most clear motivations was Trigun Maximum hands down. Which makes sense seeing that the original anime had no material to go on and the backstory with Rem wasn't until volume 7 of Maximum. Legato was clearly the better villain in the original anime and Knives was just a hands off bad guy whose character would not be fleshed out many years later. The manga really goes into the mindset behind Knives actions, how he asks for forgiveness with what he is about to do/undertake at times and how he thinks that his course of actions is the best one. He's obviously asking for forgiveness from some sort of higher power/authority since the scenes are him alone or it could be that he's asking the other plants for their forgiveness for his own use or abuse of them. Either way, he's frequently aware that he's doing bad things but always for a cause. Some could and have argued it is almost too sympathetic with Knives . . .

However, as I stated in my episode 9 review; I do not think there was any emotional weight or feeling behind Knives (or Vash for that matter). Nor did I feel like there was the same level of emotional tension between the brothers in Stampede. '98 anime Knives was a shallow villain, but the scene where Vash shot him and ran off screaming was very much in character. The manga goes way more into depth at how they process what happened to Tessla in completely different ways and how their inherent nature allows for them to draw completely different conclusions from the exact same facts. Ultimately, Knives chooses revenge with a scorched earth policy to all humans while Vash will always forgive and look beyond bad actions and behavior.

Just because the ending theme song is around the conflict and falling out between two brothers doesn't mean the story is supporting that with its narrative. It sort of mentioned that in the beginning, but dropped the idea until the last two episodes. I had originally predicted this was a theme but it was then lost from episodes 4-7 and with how short this is, not good for pacing.

I guess if you compare Stampede to the '98 anime, Knives being more active could be seen as a win. However, the characterization and storytelling in Stampede being so poor and knowing that the manga had more things which would have been nice to include. But not using them. That's a big disappointment. They had the entire finished manga to work with and for the most part, Studio Orange has been cherry picking bits here and there with little clear vision of how they fit together.

But at the end of the day, I'm here on the internet voicing what is my opinion amongst a sea of other opinions. I keep hoping that Stampede will get more people to go back and read the manga and that Darkhorse will get the act together and do another print run of Yasuhiro Nightow's works. I really want to read Kekkai Sensen and for them to pick up the Back 2 Back tankobon set.

#trigun stampede #trigun manga #trigun maximum #trigun anime #vash the stampede #millions knives #ask #answered ask

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aspoonofsugar · 2 years

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Weiss’s Forest Animals

Once upon a time in midwinter, when the snowflakes were falling like feathers from heaven, a queen sat sewing at her window, which had a frame of black ebony wood. As she sewed she looked up at the snow and pricked her finger with her needle. Three drops of blood fell into the snow. The red on the white looked so beautiful that she thought to herself, "If only I had a child as white as snow, as red as blood, and as black as the wood in this frame."

White, red and black are Snowhite’s 3 colors, that are referenced in Weiss’s Vale looks:

She is clearly designed to resemble a snowflake, but her outfit is red on the inside and it has a little black just above the heart.

The juxtaposition between white and red is very interesting:

Weiss superficially appears white and cold as snow, but on the inside she is red of passion and warmth.

It is just another way to convey our Snowhite’s duality, which has been there since the White Trailer:

Weiss is both the Heiress and the Huntress, the Queen and the Knight, Snowhite and the Prince.

She must appear white, ladylike, the fairest of them all to complement the finest of them all Schnee Dust Company. She is not just that, though. She is childish, spunky and has an aggressivity that burns within her.

Her challenge lies in reconciling these 2 sides, which can’t be done unless she faces her own version of the forest animals:

youtube

In the Disney movie, Snowhite meets the animals in the forest and befriends them through singing. RWBY takes this moment and declines it in 2 different and complementary ways.

On the one hand the Heiress sings to the Atlesian elites to navigate her society, which is just as insidious and lonely as a forest. On the other hand the Huntress fights the Grimms, kills them and brings them to her side thanks to Glyphs.

It means that Weiss must overcome her society, inspire her people and family to be better and maybe even befriend the Faunus. However, she won’t be able to do that until she fights her own beasts, accepts them and incorporates them into who she is:

Winter: Excellent form! Now think to your fallen foes! The ones who forced you to push past where you were, and become who you are now. Think of them, and watch as they come to your side.

This is how black finds its way in Weiss’s color scheme. She wears a white mask of perfection and coldness, which must be cracked to show the feelings burning inside (the red blood on the pale skin in the trailer). Going under the surface, though, also means to face the shadows in one’s heart (the black Grimms).

By going through this process, Weiss stops being the Schnee Heiress and finally becomes “Weiss”, which still stands for white, but not like snow (Schnee), but as a synthesis of all the colors and shades she is made of.

So, let’s run through her Snowhite allusion step by step to discover how Weiss tames the forest animals and what each Grimm means for her development.

MIRROR MIRROR

Mirror, mirror, on the wall,

Who in this land is fairest of all?

Snowhite’s story starts with the Evil Queen asking the magic mirror who is the most beautiful woman in the kingdom. Weiss’s story instead begins with her wondering:

Mirror, tell me something, Tell me who's the loneliest of all?

The Evil Queen is obsessed by her exteriority, while Weiss can’t piece together her interiority. This works because mirrors are symbols of both the outside and the inside. They reflect people as they appear, but they are also linked to self-identity.

In general, exteriority and interiority should not be seen as opposites, but as 2 complementary parts of the same person. The persona adopted to interact with others and the hidden feelings are equally important to build one’s sense of self.

The problem arises when these 2 parts are separated and in conflict with each other:

Everything my mind wants In conflict with my heart Fighting back surrender But every day I'm falling more apart Mirror what's this thing I see? Who is staring back at me? A stranger to my heart has filled my mind Mirror Help me Who am I?

Weiss’s magic mirror does not work well because instead of connecting her 2 sides (the mind and the heart, the Heiress and the Huntress, the white and the red), it separates them becoming a limiting barrier. Its magic turns into a curse.

The only solution lies into destroying the barrier by bringing the inside out. This is not easy and we see Weiss struggling with it throughout the whole story as her coping mechanisms evolve and change.

Initially, she finds balance in the act of singing. As stated above, singing is how the Heiress tames the fierce animals around her. To be more specific, there are 2 beasts Weiss is trying to subdue with her voice:

You were the one Who held me down and told me I was heading nowhere

Mirror mirror Tell me something Can I stop my fall?

Weiss sings to Jacques and to the Mirror, so her songs are meant to pacify both her father and herself.

On the one hand she sings on her father’s orders. She acts as a cute pet he can exhibit and make profit of. On the other hand she uses her songs to convey her feelings. She discusses her loneliness and insecurities in ways she is usually forbidden to do. It is both a performance and self-expression. It is exteriority and interiority combined.

What breaks this initial balance?

Like in the fairy tale, what starts the protagonist’s journey is an unexpected image appearing in the mirror:

You, my queen, are fair; it is true. But Snow-White is a thousand times fairer than you.

I'm the loneliest of all

The Evil Queen sees a Snowhite more beautiful than her, while Weiss sees a Snowhite, who is cold and lonely. Both dislike what they see and arrive to the same conclusion. To make that image disappear, they must “kill” Snowhite:

THE HUNTRESS AND THE BOAR

The Evil Queen tries to kill Snowhite by ordering a Hunstman to finish her off, whereas Weiss heads to Beacon to become a Huntress and shatter her Schnee Heiress persona.

As a result, our Snowhite ends up in a wood full of wild animals :

The poor child was now all alone in the great forest, and she was so afraid that she just looked at all the leaves on the trees and did not know what to do. Then she began to run. She ran over sharp stones and through thorns, and wild animals jumped at her, but they did her no harm.

She finds 7 friends:

And learns what’s like to live as a normal girl instead than as a princess:

The dwarfs said, "If you will keep house for us, and cook, make beds, wash, sew, and knit, and keep everything clean and orderly, then you can stay with us, and you shall have everything that you want."

"Yes," said Snow-White, "with all my heart."

In this new environment, she kills a Boarbatusk:

Just then a young boar came running by. He killed it, cut out its lungs and liver, and took them back to the queen as proof of Snow-White's death. The cook had to boil them with salt, and the wicked woman ate them, supposing that she had eaten Snow-White's lungs and liver.

In the fairy-tale, the Evil Queen tries to assimilate Snowhite’s beauty by eating her, but fails because she actually consumes a boar, which mirrors her inner bestiality. Weiss instead makes the Boarbatusk a part of who she is through her semblance:

It might not be one of her most iconic or even most useful summons, but Weiss’s Boarbatusk is still important:

Port on Weiss killing the Boarbatusk: Bravo! Bra-vo! It appears we are indeed in the presence of a true Huntress-in-training!

It is proof that she is a warrior that fights Grimms, so it is symbolic of her Huntress side, which she nurtures at Beacon and that becomes stronger with time. This growth is well conveyed through Weiss’s 2 Beacon songs:

Time for you to learn It's my turn I won't be held down any longer I've waited all my life and finally it's here It all begins A chance to win A dream that's been a lifetime An endless vast uphill climb The day I've waited for is drawing near

Some believe in fairy stories And the ghosts that they can't see I know that I could do so much If I could just believe in me Mirror mirror I'll tell you something I think I might change it all

Both It’s My Turn and Mirror Mirror part 2 highlight Weiss getting more active. She starts pursuing the life she wants and she reveals truths to the mirror instead of always waiting for answers. This development goes on until the Fall of Beacon where she receives a setback and is forced to go back to Atlas. However, Weiss has changed too much and can’t return to the person she once was. The boar has already been eaten.

This is shown during the Schnees’ concert, when she initially tries to wear her usual mask of perfection (The Heiress):

Only for her repressed feelings (the Huntress) to violently come out:

By this point, the Heiress is not able to tame the inner beasts anymore, not even with such a powerful song as This Life is Mine, that she performs at the charity event. Weiss needs a new approach to channel her wild side into a positive direction and who better than a Huntress can deal with rebellious animals?

Weiss: The Schnee family legacy isn't yours to leave. It's mine, and I'll do it as a Huntress.

SNOWHITE’S DEATH

The conflict between the Heiress and the Huntress reaches its climax and Weiss is on the brink of a metamorphosis. However, in order to truly transform she must in a sense “die”:

White as snow, red as blood, black as ebony wood! This time the dwarfs cannot awaken you.

At its root, Snowhite is a story of death and rebirth with the protagonist dying and coming back to life 3 times. Snowhite is killed firstly with a corset lace, then with a poisoned comb and finally with the famous apple. The deaths represent a change that involves body (the lace wrapped around the white skin), mind (the comb in the black hair) and heart (the red apple). Only after Snowhite evolves on all 3 levels she is ready for love and happiness.

As for now, Weiss has died twice. Firstly psychologically and then physically. Both times she metaphorically passes away, so that she can be reborn by unlocking a new summon, a symbol of her development and refinement:

A KNIGHT BORN FROM A MURDERED HEIRESS

Jacques: Which is why you are no longer the heiress to the Schnee Dust Company.

Jacques’s answer to Weiss’s wish to become a Huntress is to target her status as Heiress and to take it away.

Being the Schnee Heiress is what Weiss initially builds her self-identity on. She has contradictory feelings over her title, but she still perceives herself in relation to it. Having such a defining part of who she is stolen suddenly is a huge shock, that qualifies as a psychological passing. Weiss’s first death is the death of the Heiress.

After this trauma, Weiss finds herself trapped in her personal glass coffin:

They said, "We cannot bury her in the black earth," and they had a transparent glass coffin made, so she could be seen from all sides.

Jacques: From now on, I'll be giving you the full attention you require, starting by keeping you where I can see you.

Her room becomes a transparent prison where her father can always see and control her. It is a tomb for her to rot in.

However, Jacques understimates his daughter’s strength. Sure, the Heiress might be dead, but inside Weiss the Huntress is still alive:

She has more power and freedom than the Heiress and succeeds where her counterpart fails:

She is able to tame Weiss’s inner tourmoil by giving it a shape more refined than a beast. From an out of control boar to a ready to serve Knight:

Weiss’s Knight is her most famous summon and its meaning is complex and layered. First of all, it is originally an Arma Gigas, so Nicholas Schnee’s armour possessed by a Geist. Secondly, Weiss’s is able to summon its arm for the first time against an Atlesian Paladin-290, a robot overwritten to attack people.

These 2 details bring some thoughts. Weiss’s Knight is important both for her legacy theme (the Heiress) and for the girl’s indepedence (the Huntress). On the one hand Weiss purifying her grandfather’s armour from an Evil Spirit stands for her taking the family back from Jacques. It is a first step into making the Schnee legacy truly her own. On the other hand the juxtaposition between Weiss’s Knight and the Paladin shows that Weiss has no intention to live as a pawn. She is not a robot obeying orders, but a true hero that follows her mind and heart.

Finally, the Knight ties into Weiss’s duality by contrasting and complementing her Princess imagery. She is girly and wears a silver crown, but she is also a strong fighter that fears no opponent. Her initial battle against the Knight is about refusing the helpless little princess label. She is a full fledged individual and not a walking stereotype waiting to be saved. She is Weiss Schnee and needs no Knight in shining armor. As time passes, though, Weiss discovers she herself is a brave Knight and projects this part of who she is out through her semblance. This manifestation of her interiority becomes the Champion, who breaks the coffin and frees the Princess:

RISE OF THE WHITE QUEEN

Once psychologically free, Weiss is ready to physically leave home in order to explore the world as a Huntress. However, this new path is full of dangers:

The Queen Lancer embodies Weiss’s Royal Test and stands as the last obstacle between the girl and her new life. This is why our Snowhite’s fight against it is so important and pushes her to the limit. Throughout it she is asked to sacrifice a fighting style rooted in Dust and privilege (losing the cargo) and to embrace her new-found inner strength (summoning the Knight).

This battle is a physical test to Weiss’s determination to truly change. Will she manage on her own? Will she be fine without her family’s safety net? The whole conflict is really just a representation of the inner struggle between Weiss’s 2 halves:

There's a part of me that's desperate for changes, Tired of being treated like a pawn But there's a part of me that stares back from inside the mirror Part of me that's scared I might be wrong That I can't be strong.

And its resolution is not neat and tidy:

The Huntress defeats the beast, but fails to tame it, so her victory does not lead to integration, but only to mutual destruction. Similarly, The Knight kills the Queen, but does not save the Princess, who is instead kidnapped and threathened to be handed back to another “Evil Queen”:

Weiss: You're going to ransom me back to my father, is that it?

This happens because Weiss needs to prove herself a true Knight in order to escape the Evil Queen inside her once and for all. So, she is challenged over and over to define herself outside the Schnee name:

Vernal: Let's see what the Schnee name really means.

Weiss: I'm more than a name.

Vernal: Hm, prove it.

And she is negated any help from her family:

Weiss: What's going to make this complicated is when my sister finds out I didn't make it to Mistral. You know my sister, don't you? Winter Schnee? Special Operative of the Atlas Military? She's in Mistral now, and when she hears I'm missing, it won't take her long to find me - and you.

Vernal: Oh, I don't know if it's more funny or sad, but you're clearly out of the loop. Your sister isn't in Mistral anymore. No Atlas personnel are in Mistral anymore. General Ironwood closed the borders and recalled all his little troops and tin cans. No one is coming to rescue you.

These trials are to force Weiss to come through as her own person. However, this is not an easy process as it is obvious in Weiss’s fight against Vernal. There Weiss underperforms, can’t really find her rhythm and is mortally wounded by Cinder:

This is Weiss’s second death. Despite her determination and inner strength, the Huntress can’t survive such a cruel world completely alone. Luckily, it turns out this is not necessary for Weiss to truly become her own person. After all, self-identity is built also through the relationships with others. Even the bravest Knights need Princes:

Then the prince said, "Then give it to me, for I cannot live without being able to see Snow-White. I will honor her and respect her as my most cherished one."

As he thus spoke, the good dwarfs felt pity for him and gave him the coffin. The prince had his servants carry it away on their shoulders. But then it happened that one of them stumbled on some brush, and this dislodged from Snow-White's throat the piece of poisoned apple that she had bitten off. Not long afterward she opened her eyes, lifted the lid from her coffin, sat up, and was alive again.

Weiss dies, but Jaune saves her. The girl, who starts as a lonely Princess has now friends who love her for who she is. With their help, she can overcome everything life throws without depending on the Schnee name anymore. In this way, Weiss escapes her family’s control and can finally be crowned on her own terms:

The Queen that the Knight initially fights and the Huntress refuses is now purified of her negative traits and can appear in all her glory. She is not a tyrant or a ruler, but a protector that gains strength from her people and gives back twice as much. Not only that, but she is also a Lancer, a kind of Knight ready to fight side by side with her comrades. The Queen Lancer is then a synthesis between Weiss’s 2 initially conflictual halves. She is the Queen and the Knight, the Heiress and the Huntress, the mind and the heart. Weiss has finally become one:

Now this conversation's finally over, Mirror Mirror, now we're done I've pulled myself together now My mind and heart are one Finally one.

MIRROR MIRROR PART 2 - SNOWHITE’S QUEENDOM

Weiss leaves Atlas as a dead Heiress and comes back as a reborn Queen. This is why her new outfit looks so much like royalty:

It is like in the original fairy tale, where Snowhite becomes queen and meets her evil stepmother again:

Snow-White's godless stepmother was also invited to the feast. After putting on her beautiful clothes she stepped before her mirror and said:

Mirror, mirror, on the wall, Who in this land is fairest of all?

The mirror answered:

You, my queen, are fair; it is true. But the young queen is a thousand times fairer than you.

The Evil Queen stays a prisoner of the mirror until the end and fails to change. Weiss instead transforms and breaks the mirror in the process:

But I don't intend to suffer any longer Here's where your dominion falls apart I'm shattering the mirror that kept me split in pieces That stood between my mind and my heart This is where I'll start

Shattering the mirror is Weiss symbolically “killing” that side of her she initially despises. What’s surprising, though, is that this part is not really one of Weiss’s halves. Snowhite should not get rid of the Prince. The Knight should not murder the Queen. The Huntress should not cancel the Heiress. The point of Weiss’s story is to unify these contrasting facets of her personality. What really has to go is the barrier between them, so the mirror itself. But what does the mirror really stand for?

The mirror is a metaphor for abuse. It is the psychological prison Jacques has locked Weiss in since childhood, so that she would slowly grow into his reflection. Through this perspective, then, the mirror becomes the embodyment of Jacques himself and the image Weiss initially sees and doesn’t recognize is that of her father. As time passes, though, the Huntress faces her own shadows and integrates with them, while the Heiress slowly learns those undesirable parts of herself are actually Jacques. This is why in This Life is Mine she sings both to Jacques and to the Mirror, as if they were interchangeable. It is because she now sees they are actually the same.

Weiss pushes her father into the mirror, breaks it and finally exorcises him from who she is:

Weiss: Since Beacon, I haven't really had a choice. Father's view of the world no longer matches with mine.

In this way, the initially ad odds Huntress and Heiress discover themselves as one and defeat Jacques, not just psychologically, but physically too:

The Knight and the Queen work together and take their Kingdom back:

Robyn: What do you think a Kingdom is? The people, or just the chunk of land they live on?

Weiss’s Queendom is not the SDC, but rather her family, who was in pain because of the “Evil Queen”. Snowhite frees it and Willow, Whitley and Winter can now all start a path of forgiveness and reconciliation.

HAPPILY EVER AFTER

By the Atlas Arc, Weiss has fully grown into a powerful Queen ready to fight for her family and people:

Weiss: This is my home. And I'm not giving it up without a fight.

However, she is defeated by an Evil Stepmother even more powerful than Jacques (Salem) and by an older woman, who is envious of her (Cinder). Snowhite’s Queendom falls, Weiss’s family is left broken and she herself symbolically dies a third time:

It is still too soon to say if this is meant to be Snowhite’s third and final death or if we are gonna get some other reference to the fairy tale (like the famous and still missing apple). What’s sure is that our young Snowhite still has at least one more beast to tame:

The Nevermore is once again a representation of both the Heiress and the Huntress. On the one hand the Heiress is able to summon it because of her semblance (her legacy). On the other hand the Huntress has defeated it thanks to her team (her family).

In general, the Nevermore is an important symbol for team RWBY. It is the first Grimm they kill together and it keeps appearing in the girls’ respective arcs as a recurring motif. This has probably to do with the ideas and images associated to this specific Grimm. “Nevermore” is the opposite of “Happily Ever After”. It figuratively means “the end of all hopes” or a loss from which it is impossible to recover. This, coupled with the Grimm resembling a giant raven (an omen of bad luck), makes the beast a perfect metaphor for a bad ending. RWBY taking it on becomes then symbolic of the impossible odds they are trying to conquer.

Considering this, Weiss purifying the monster and turning it into an ally has the potential to be an extremely meaningful moment for her personal journey, RWBY and the story.

No matter how dark the situation might seem, the Nevermore will be changed into a Happily Ever After, the black will transform into white and Snowhite will be reborn once again:

The animals too came and mourned for Snow-white, first an owl, then a raven, and finally a dove.

#rwby #weiss schnee #rwby meta #my meta #semblance of the soul #once upon an allusion #snowhite #rwby snowhite

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