thegrandmemester

[thegrandmemester]

(via : @/drinklakehour); Wyatt Russell and his assistant Tommy in Wyatt's trailer on the lot where there filming The Thunderbolts doing a "masterclass" on how to start a business.

#wyatt russell #plot twist this is actually a John Walker fit in the movie

[thegrandmemester]

Accidentally deleted this post from here 😶,

Anyways i just wanted to add that as much as i like Olivia and John, i would like to see some strain there. Olivia mantaining care for the 4 of them constantly (most of it solo since i imagine being 'US Agent' is demanding) and constantly wonder if John will return home, and begrudingly factoring in that he won't, mentally planning what she might do in that scenario but it probably wouldn't go so smoothly since olivia herself would need to grieve if this scenario happened, which might turn moments with the twins half hearted or she'll become overbearing trying to protect the only part of John that's left.

#just thinking

[thegrandmemester]

Outfits meme!

Send an outfit + a character to the artist who reblogged this, and they'll draw them in that outfit!

[thegrandmemester]

#Bojack Horseman

[thegrandmemester]

Wyatt Russell | Overlord (2018)

#wyatt russell #lewis ford #corporal ford #overlord (2018)

[thegrandmemester]

#my artwork #re upload #i have a need to draw her once more 🩷

[thegrandmemester]

I LOVE HIM SO FUCKING MUCH GRAAAHHHHH

#captain laserhawk #bullfrog #assassin's creed #ubisoft #netflix

[thegrandmemester]

Sam Fisher and Marcus Holloway from Captain Laserhawk are ready to fight against Eden.💚🖤👊👊👊

Man, this was the most complex fanart I have ever done, a lot of details (the backgrounds are screenshots from promotional images from the series, but to accommodate was a challenge) and both characters took more layers than ever (the colors especially). Hope you like it.🥺🌹🌹Sharing love to this two characters.🥺🥺🥺💞💞💞💞

#splinter cell #sam fisher #watch dogs 2 #marcus holloway #captain laserhawk #captain laserhawk: a blood dragon remix

[thegrandmemester]

Probably won't watch if i hear more bad reviews than good, like i love Watch Dogs but i'm not putting myself through a bad movie.

I don't care if it's potentially a flop in the making but i can't wait to track The Watch Dogs movie being made since it's my favorite game

[thegrandmemester]

John Walker written by a writer of Bojack Horseman will be so peak.

#yes. i'm stuck on this fact even though Joannas more recent stuff is good too 😅 #john walker #thunderbolts

[thegrandmemester]

There Are No Dominos || Stones Unturned

#Mafia III #Mafia 3 #Lincoln Clay #and my other favorite John. No defense for this one.

[thegrandmemester]

You don't need to like people with these issues but you should at least try to put in the effort to understand why they're like that instead of just assuming things.

John Walker 🤝 Aiden Pearce 🤝 Victoria D

Having PTSD that doesn't fit peoples ideal aesthetic of it, the "scary" kind of mental health, and being instantly disliked or labeled psychopath for it.

[thegrandmemester]

John Walker: a study in story framing, character archetype, established canon details, and audience manipulation

There’s been a ton of discourse surrounding the character of John Walker, everyone has a lot of opinions. But having read many articles, posts, tweets, and watched reaction channels and video essays, I have found a common theme among them: a fundamental misunderstanding of the character due to the story framing.

In fact, the character of John Walker that exists in fandom discussions is more of a projection of what people think he is and what people want him to stand in for rather than the actual canonically established character that exists in the story of The Falcon and The Winter Soldier. This is why I have decided to write this post along with an episode-by-episode breakdown, because I think John Walker the character has been completely eclipsed by John Walker the symbol, lost underneath the iconography that he’s been associated with and not really given a fair look as an individual person.

I should make it clear upfront; it is not my intention with this to tell people how they should feel about a character. Whether you agree with my points or not doesn’t really matter. My hope is that this at the very least provides you with a different perspective on the character and his motivations. Maybe have you consider him in a new way.

So, let’s start from the beginning.

——————————–

EPISODE 1

Story framing is important, it effects our perspective as an audience, and it is deliberately controlled by the writers and filmmakers to manipulate certain emotions and impressions out of us. The Falcon and The Winter Soldier expertly does this from the very beginning by framing John Walker immediately as someone whom we should not want.

Because the music is mournful and ominous despite the celebratory occasion shown on TV.

Because Sarah is upset.

Because Sam has his fists clenched and is unhappy and suspicious, and then closes his eyes in upset.

Because when dialogues like this is delivered, the show is purposefully playing into real life iconography and feelings that already raises our hackles.

Because Sam retired the shield and the hero position, so when someone else seemingly carelessly and casually steps in waving like a propaganda piece with a gun on his hip, and a grey flag symbol that looks so close to the thin blue line flag used by cops, there is something unsettling to us even if we didn’t consciously pick up on it, we just know that it goes against what we want and what our main protagonist wants. 

Because this strange person in a Cap costume winking looks like a jerk. We didn’t ask for this. 

As it’s always said, first impressions are important. How someone first perceives you decides how someone might judge anything that you do. If someone thinks you’re an arrogant jerk, then anything you do will be colored by that impression and they will never think well of your intentions. But if their first impression of you is kind and caring, then any mistakes you made is automatically given leeway because your intentions would be well considered. And in one fell swoop, the show firmly planted into the minds of every single person watching that John Walker is an arrogant jerk espousing propaganda no one wants and everything he does is automatically suspect and questionable. 

In fact, they even go the extra step to make that very clear by how the cast credits is used. Notice the difference between the image of Walker in Episode 1 and Episode 2-6?

The red mark over his eyes, blocking him from us, not only feels foreboding, it feels as if it’s warning us. 

So, when I say that John Walker was from the beginning set up to fail, it’s because he was, the story intended for it to be. We have to hate, question, suspect, and think the worst of Walker in order for Sam’s eventual reclaiming of the shield to mean anything or have that emotional catharsis. Because nobody wants to see Sam take the shield from a nice dude, it would be bittersweet or even mean, but if the story tells us that this guy is someone we can dislike or hate right off the bat because there is something vaguely “bad” about him, then we would root for Sam to take that shield.

There is a reason we don’t get Walker’s perspective at all in his introduction. He’s just this stranger we’ve been programmed as an audience to hate. We are not treated to Walker waiting to go outside and feeling nervous, or Walker doubting himself or perhaps even not wanting to take up the shield at first when it was given to him. The purposeful lack of his perspective is done so we only feel the weight of emotions from the Wilsons being upset, because we must relate to the protagonists.

Walker is not the hero of this story, he’s not the protagonist of this story, if he was, then the story would have framed his unveiling as Captain America in a completely different way, and we would have been treated to a sympathetic look at what he was feeling about taking on the shield, we would have had an inside look at his mindset before he walked out there and looked into that camera and winked. But because we the audience lack that important context that was deliberately kept away from us, our views on Walker formed and solidified without it, and then we all stewed on those feelings for a whole week. 

By the time Episode 2 rolled around to open with Walker’s perspective, the damage was already done, it was too late, because people had already made up their mind about what kind of a person he was, and even those who might have given him a chance was just waiting for the other shoe to drop. 

The show had very clearly made sure that John Walker was always going to have an uphill battle in the eyes of the fans, however fairly or unfairly. And that deliberate and purposeful removal of his perspective and context would be the key to how the character will be misread. Because the reality is, Walker hasn’t even done anything wrong yet and people have already made assumptions just because of one wink, just because of his mere presence. There was no objective consideration that Walker winked because he understood having to put on a cheerful public facade, no consideration that he could have been told to play along nicely for the cameras and directed to look there and wink, no consideration that he didn’t ask for this job but was ordered to do so and is as much a “victim” of the government as Sam. Because the show had already used every trick in the book to make us feel bad and ominous about his presence, the audience would automatically assume the worst.

CLICK THIS LINK TO CONTINUE TO EPISODE TWO AND THE REST OF THIS 219 PAGES AND OVER 28K WORDS ANALYSIS

[thegrandmemester]

I’ve listed this video in my very long John Walker essay and in my post about his Medals of Honor but I feel the need to list it here again because it continuously bothers me how many people don’t understand or don’t comprehend what it takes for someone to even earn one Medal of Honor, much less three.

I need people to watch this video, fully watch the entire video.

The Medal of Honor is not some easy prize people just get handed to so casually, so many recipients only get the medals after they die because what entails one to earn a medal usually cost that recipient their lives. These are medals you earn for displays of bravery and courage and self sacrifice beyond the call of duty, beyond what is expected of your job as a soldier. These are medals earned for people would carry numerous wounds but still keep going to save lives even if it costs them their own. If the video link isn’t enough to show you what it entails and what sacrifices are made, then watch the entire Netflix docuseries they did back in 2018 about various Medal of Honor recipients from the world wars to present day called “Medal of Honor”.

This misunderstanding or inability to understand the sacrifices made by Medal of Honor recipients is why things like these comments from TVTropes site’s TFATWS recaps really annoy me.

Because shit like this ignores that a real life Medal of Honor recipient died in using a reinforced helmet (and his own body on top of the helmet) to try to stop a grenade. It ignores that even with reinforced helmets, there is still a danger and likelihood of death and thus it is a self sacrificing move.

And if Bucky’s question is about whether John would sacrifice himself for others like Steve did, then it’s even more bullshit because it literally ignores what it means for John to have THREE Medals of Honor in the first place. He didn’t get those three medals for skipping through a field of daisies. He got them for not just doing one thing that was so self sacrificing and brave, but doing it THREE TIMES IN ONE DAY. Likely having to drag his wounded self through hell to do what he needed to save lives even if it meant his own death. Having those medals literally is the clearest confirmation there is that John is willing to sacrifice himself to save others and has already done so numerous times. To claim that his similarities to Steve is only skin deep is literally ignoring his canonical service record and I can only surmise that whoever wrote this recap has no experience at all with the military or understanding of what entails to earn a Medal of Honor.

Because quite frankly, Bucky shouldn’t even have to ask. The fact that John has three Medals of Honor (which Bucky would have known from watching the GMA interview) should have already told Bucky about John’s ability for self sacrifice. It’s absurd that someone who’s a soldier like Bucky would even ask this of someone else who’s also a soldier with three Medals of Honor. It’s genuinely disrespectful. It’s the kind of shit soldiers would never do in real life. Hell, uniformed service members even salute Medal of Honor recipients regardless of the recipients’ rank because they all know how important it is to respect that courage and self sacrifice.

Yeah I get that John is not an Avenger, he was not out there fighting all the bad guys we saw in the movies. And maybe to an Avenger who fought monsters and aliens and gods, a Medal of Honor means nothing. But John was still doing things that showed his bravery and his willingness to lay down his life for others. And for Bucky to even question a Medal of Honor recipient’s ability to sacrifice themselves is a joke. It’s like asking an Olympic gymnast if they can do a flip. It’s absurd. John’s Medal of Honor citations would be public record, the Congressional Medal of Honor society has a database where anyone can go to read what each recipient did to earn their medal. So it’s not like people wouldn’t know what John had to go through to earn his medals.

This bothers me every time I rewatch the show or I see reaction videos or articles or posts written about John’s military service or his level of courage and self sacrifice. John Walker is just as willing to sacrifice his life for others as Steve Rogers did, in fact, John already did that numerous times, that’s why he has THREE Medals of Honor to begin with.

If the show really wanted me to question what John is capable of, or wanted me to think less of him as Bucky and Sam or any other people did, then they shouldn’t have given him even one Medal of Honor, much less three. They should have just had him being a regular soldier without the Medals of Honor, they should have just followed the comics backstory of being a retired veteran looking for glory and heroics. Because then the questioning and side eyeing and fans mocking or dismissing him would actually be justified by him not having done anything to actually prove himself.

You can’t just give me a character and say he earned THREE Medals of Honor, and then expect me to not call bullshit on other characters or fans treating him like he’s an idiot and ignoring his already proven capacity for bravery and self sacrifice. It just doesn’t work that way. It ignores what it entails for people to earn a Medal of Honor in real life. It ignores how people treat a Medal of Honor recipient in real life. It’s just insulting because it diminishes and mocks what real life recipients went through and what some died for.

[thegrandmemester]

John Walker 🤝 Aiden Pearce 🤝 Victoria D

Having PTSD that doesn't fit peoples ideal aesthetic of it, the "scary" kind of mental health, and being instantly disliked or labeled psychopath for it.

#You don't have to like certain characters but actually try to understand them.

[thegrandmemester]

Hey Franz, I'm gonna win this one.

+ bonus:

#wyatt russell #lewis ford #corporal ford #overlord (2018)

[thegrandmemester]

lmao, Wyatt getting his assistant to hype his drink.

The dialect coach too:

#thunderbolts #wyatt russell