#I think it’s ironic that it’s THIS episode people chose to ship the two main characters lmfao | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

kiisaes · 3 years

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QUESTION: how did your bakudeku journey begin?!?!

uhhhh hmmm good question anon LOL

technically i've always been interested in bakudeku as a dynamic i guess? i started watching mha in 2017 when s2 was airing, so when i watched the first season i was like woah! these two characters sure are connected! (this was before i realized they were narrative foils lol) i entered the series with zero knowledge of the fandom, i just saw the show online and wanted to try it out. therefore i didn't know bkdk was so universally panned at the time and i ... liked it!

but then i heard people saying that bkdk was abusive so i was like oh uhhhh u know what?

by 2017 the most prevalent ships were tododeku and kiribaku, not bakudeku LMAO since s2 introduced us to more interactions within those ships! and so i guess i felt pressured to ship tododeku and kiribaku way more than i could ever ship bakudeku. the whole "bakudeku is abusive" argument was very VERY active during this time, and i didn't want to get harassed online for liking a relationship that was deemed abusive, so i tried avoiding it as best as i could. funny thing is, though, i didn't even reach s2 in 2017 — i dropped the series after s1 bc i guess i just ... didn't want to continue??? i'm not really sure myself but mha's fandom was already pretty big then, and i was informed of kiribaku way before i even encountered any of it in s2 and s3. anyway, that's why i felt inclined to ship kiribaku far more even when i didn't see too much of it in the series yet

i picked up the series again in 2019 bc one of my friends wanted me to, and that's when i finally watched s2 and s3. during this time i was a far more active shipper in the fandom (in 2017 i technically didn't ship anything bc i didn't actually get anywhere LOL). my otp was tododeku and i liked kiribaku just as much. bakudeku was still, well, THERE but i was very scared of calling myself a bkdk so i tried to talk myself out of ever shipping it. bkdks got a horrible rep bc they were so-called "abuse apologists" (which is ridiculous lol but i digress) so i didn't want to involve myself with that whole thing. instead i played it safe and shipped the tamer deku and bakugou ships at the time. BY THE WAY i still really like tddk and krbk haha they're just not my main ships anymore

and oh yeah this was even after watching deku vs kacchan part 2 LMFAO idk what the hell was wrong with me in which i watched that episode and felt NOTHING??? even after that ep i was like lol cool. anyway tddk—

i just really tried programming my brain into disliking bkdk for a hot second. which is super ironic bc during this time i was also reading a lot of mha doujins of practically any ship, and yes, that included bkdk. but after while i kinda just got ... tired ??? of hating bkdk? like idk it seemed a little pointless to aggressively advocate AGAINST a relationship when it's just a fictional ship, and a narratively important one at that. so in october of 2019, to test the waters, i drew this:

and i got a grand total of ........ ZERO HATE COMMENTS!!!!!!!! granted i had like no followers on twitter and i don't think anyone cared on my instagram (the two sites where i posted this), plus i explicitly said this could be either platonic or romantic, but i felt ... free. i felt free!!!!!

i continued to ship tddk as my main ship, but i just felt a lot better knowing that i could ship bkdk and not get immediately cancelled on the internet for it LOL. i guess at this point i started to feel more inclined to ship bkdk bc i DID like them. i really did like them!!! they were my favorite characters when i first watched the anime, and it became such a chore to hate their relationship when it was objectively a great one to analyze and indulge in! why should i keep lying to myself just to seem "morally superior" or whatever by not shipping an "abusive" fictional ship? like what was my end goal here lmao

i chose to appreciate them in secret bc idk, i was still subconsciously afraid of haters, until i decided u know what? fuck it. i don't fucking care anymore, and thus i drew this little doodle in december of 2019 which ended up ruining my life forever:

bc u know what happened after this little doodle? a little lock opened in my brain and this small little devil on my shoulder went, "hey. hey guess what? u've crossed the threshold. u've accepted bkdk into ur heart. u can draw bkdk now. u're FREE, min. u're FREE!" and i guess i took that to heart bc after that i started shipping bkdk at an EXPONENTIAL rate. i was no longer chained by my fears. i just didn't fucking care anymore and it was AMAZING.

i still tried convincing myself that i liked tddk more, but at this point i was just lying LOL i most certainly enjoyed bkdk far more, and honestly probably would have from the start if i wasn't such a fucking pussy. AGAIN i still like tddk to this day but bkdk has cemented itself as the main ship sorry todoroki

so yea ...!!! that's the min bkdk story ヾ(´▽｀*;)ゝ” if u wanna know when i started openly shipping bkdk, as in posting bkdk art frequently and under a clear romantic lens, i'd say ... march of 2020?

#asks for becki #sorry this is so long lol #bakudeku

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yamaoni · 3 years

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The Second Great War of Remnant has begun. Once more, Vale and Mantle are embroiled in a massive conflict, only this time, they are on the same side against Atlas.

I don't think it was a coincidence that so many people drew parallels with the last episode and WWI. We've never seen people fight that way in RWBY. Grimm don't use projectile weapons the way humans do, so the benefits of the trench are diminished; especially if you compare it to the drawbacks.

Now, I understand not everyone in the Atlas military has their aura unlocked and the squishy soldiers need some cover, but if The Long Memory didn't nuke every grimm on Atlas, the lines would have been overrun and then there would have been nowhere for them to retreat to.

You think the very real hand to hand struggles in the trenches of WWI were bad, imagine being trapped in a narrow trench with a bear. Or having this thing explode out of the ground under you.

I refuse to believe no-one in Atlas ever thought, "if we put the dirt from the trench in a box, no only can we give our soldiers cover, we can also give them an elevated position to fire from."

The top of a wall has been the primary defensive position for the people of Remnant for a long time. You can see them in the establishing shots of most settled places the team has visited. So why are we seeing a trench now?

Simple.

Show, don't tell.

RWBY has done a pretty great job, especially in the last few seasons, of showing the audience what it is trying to convey without explicitly telling them. They especially like drawing from well known folk lore to give insight into the future of the show.

Only difference here, instead of drawing the parallel between characters, they're drawing parallels between worlds.

Remnant's first Great War started with Mantle suppressing freedom of expression, the destruction of Art and Color. Ironwood always has little in the way of color, but in his first broadcast since everything started hitting the fan, he has none.

That broadcast also included evacuation ships being blown up by fighter-bombers, Dunkirk. It threatend to level a city if they didn't surrender, Battle of Brittan. All delivered by a dictator trying to scare his opponents into submission through careful use of film.

Theories

If the rest of the season is WWII, I have several theories on plot direction. Considering how well they did keeping up with both ends of the battlefield it wouldn't surprise me if they followed all of them at the same time.

Operation Dunkirk

Or, the evacuation of Mantle.

Players: Penny, Nora, Ren, Happy Huntresses

The Happy Huntresses involvement is a given. Not only has saving Mantle been their goal the whole time, they're also stuck in the middle of it right now.

Penny is the Protector of Mantle. It would be a shining moment for her character to fully throw off the virus Watts implanted and overcome Ironwood's threats to do so. Just crossing my fingers that it doesn't end like the Iron Giant.

Nora is currently Penny's tether to sanity, so she has to go with, and I doubt they would separate Ren from her for the next arc so he's going too.

Surprise twist for this plot I'm betting will be the Starwars "they aren't warships, just people" scene everyone loves to rag on. After all, the broadcast went out that they needed help and, at least at Dunkirk, it was fishing boats and pleasure crafts that retrieved the 338,000 surrounded on all sides.

Why We Fight

Or, countering Ironwoods propaganda.

Players: Robyn and Qrow

For one, these two are unaccounted for and in the heart of Atlas' military machine. If anyone has means to do so, it's them.

The film, Why We Fight, also countered the dramatic cinematography of Goebbels propaganda by painting it as ridiculous and making a folksy call to action much like Robyn has done in the past.

Operation Fortitude

Or, the deception of Ironwood.

Players: Emerald, Jaune, Oscar

This is the mission to make Ironwood think the team is going after the relic. This theory is why I actually thought of and wrote out this whole thing. Thanks @maxiemumdamage, I had things I was supposed to do tonight.

https://maxiemumdamage.tumblr.com/post/644291955872890880/willing-to-bet-my-own-soul-that-emerald-uses-her

Only difference in my theory and their's, is Jaune is going to be playing the part of Penny.

I say this for two reasons. One, Joan of Arc pretended to be a man. While we've gotten both Jaune pretending to be something he's not and him in a dress, this would pose the first time in the story he could do both. Two, it would put him on a direct collision path with Cinder. It needs to happen at some point to bring his arc to a conclusion, but man I hope we're not about to watch him burn.

With Ozpin active again, Oscar has to go along to direct them to the vault. He's also one of two backing the idea of Emerald joining the team and Jaune wouldn't be willing to work with her without him.

Operation Overlord

Or, busting down the doors of Atlas Acadamy.

Players: Ruby, Blake, Weiss, Yang

Where Operation Fortitude was the faint, Operation Overlord was the real deal. For those that aren't history buffs, this is D-Day.

I think this is the reason we've only seen the main team fighting together once since their split from Beacon. And even then, that fight was at most pairs of fighters and not all four of them supporting one another.

RWBY tricked us into thinking season 4 was the post-timeskip level up we come to expect from anime when really we ended up watching the training flashbacks as they happened instead.

We've seen hints of it with the various team ups and combinations, but are we really ready for how much ass kicking they are about to do?

I'm hoping for a One Piece level of badass entrance that can give me shivers whenever I go to watch it again like the walk to Arlong Park still does to this day.

(Aside: if you try telling me RWBY isn't anime, I'm just going to ignore you. Anime is an art movement. If you don't understand what that means, watch this video. https://youtu.be/uFtfDK39ZhI)

youtube

Now last and certainly not least

Operation Valkyrie

Or, the death of Ironwood.

Players: Winter and Marrow

The long awaited defection. Plenty of speculation has already floated around about if and when these two where going to cave to their morals and jump ship. I don't know how many of us were expecting the straw to break the camel's back to be a nuke held over Mantle, but I certainly wasn't.

What worries me, is Operation Valkyrie failed and all its conspirators were executed. As if there weren't enough death flags for Winter before.

Even if it's not Winter that kills him. I don't see Ironwood surviving this season. Even if it means he goes out like another hated dictator. It's not like it would be the first time RT had a fallen hero chose to use his own sword.

Wildcards

Or, Murphy will have his due.

Players: Cinder, Watts, Neo, Tyrian, Mercury, Clover

These players can go any which way. Three we know for sure are going to be active in the coming episodes and I wouldn't be surprised if the other three play a part as well.

Oscar made a hell of a light show for Tyrian and Mercury to see behind them. Not to mention, Salem will still need a ride home when she pulls herself back together.

Clover keeps getting mentioned even though he's hospitalized. If he was truly out of commission for the rest of the season, they would have made us think he's dead before bringing him back like they did with Penny.

Up to now, what we've seen is a three way conflict. But one of the hallmarks of Remnant's First Great War, was making temporary alliances to fight off grimm.

The grimm might be gone, but the wild cards can't complete their own objectives if they are dead. The question is who's goals better align with their own.

Two surprise twists I can see here. One, Mercury stabbing Tyrian on his way to defection. He was raised by an assassin and has not going to get a better chance than that. Two, Clover joining Operation Valkyrie. He might have accepted that sacrifice is a necessary evil to ensure Atlas' survival, but might go Schindler's List on us and find horror in what Ironwood plans to do.

TLDR

I spent way too long writing this out. All the WWI imagery means we're getting a WWII movie with RWBY characters. Major death flags for Penny, Jaune, and Winter.

Also I finally figured out how to do a readmore. Apparently it's just been a long time since I updated.

Note: kept seeing things talking about clovers death and I kind of went ???? Isn't he barely alive in medical? Went back and watched that scene and though I am 90% sure he is dead still kind of weird that they have him in his own room instead of a morgue and the initial framing made my mind instantly think he was propped up on a hospital bed. I mean, I guess we needed to have all the ACEOPs there for their reaction to Ironwood... but it definitely made me think he was alive. That and they have a bandage on his chest wound... when he's supposedly dead. Also have a phantom memory of Harriet saying something about him being in critical but I think that's my memory playing tricks on me.

Having his face exposed instead of covered by the sheet and seeing him in the same frame as Winter being treated also didn't help my gut reaction of "Oh Shit! He's alive? How?!" If I'd followed up more on the "how" might not have made the blunder of writing his return as the final twist in my theory. Oops

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jaggedwolf · 3 years

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caracalliope replied to

yeah, i just had to nope out, i was like, i dislike everyone on this ship except - weirdly - Pete

it's very... i don't know. i don't even like competence kink all that much, but i hate this sense of like - team infantilization? and bad boundaries, yes. and vespa's entire thing. and just, an intimacy that felt unearned, and in fact felt less earned than when we barely saw these characters (specifically, buddy&jet together)

it feels claustrophobic i think? i'd love to hear more of yr thoughts

reconditarmonia replied to your post

yes please let's yell about season 3

i think my main takeaway is that everything they tried to do assumed a level of buy-in that i just *did not have* - the episodes about everyone else's problems and tragic backstory when we've barely met them, the godawful "family" thing (that's not what a crime family is!!!)

I felt so sorry for Sasha in the finale lol, which was probably not the intent

y’all are basically saying what I’m thinking! (though for me Juno remains the one I don’t dislike, even if I dearly miss the unhealthy-habits mystery-solving version of him)

The weirdest thing about S3 is that after the first two episodes covering Peter’s PoV, I was still entirely on-board - Buddy’s family comments seemed more ironic than sincere, we got to see Juno and Peter from interesting new angles, lots of interesting future dynamics to develop-

Except no development actually happened. You’re both right, that the season and finale relied upon a loyalty that was never actually built out, merely stated, and then the repetition of those statements made me claustrophobic and yes, feel oddly bad for Wire.

...okay this is going to become that long post on team dynamics...

Competency

How is this team this bad at their job. Forget as a team, even individually we have Rita failing to distribute her bot’s abilities because she likes a stream too much, Buddy thinking an EMP killing her is an acceptable loss when she is the one directing a mission, Peter reading a map upside-down and almost getting everyone killed because of it???

The last two tripped me the fuck up - this show made me dislike a dramatic attempt at self-sacrifice! I love dramatic attempts at self-sacrifice! But not when it would get all of your crew killed. Buddy saying Peter had merely been reading the map upside-down threw me so hard that I spent minutes wondering if she was covering for him actually being a traitor for her own reasons, but no, apparently that was the real reason.

(Juno waits till they’re literally at the Curemother Prime to have any questions about the motivations of the Prime’s keepers?)

Look, I’m not expecting superhuman rising to the occasion here, but I am expecting everyone to use the skills that I expect them to have. If Juno fucked up an attempt at leadership or Peter failed to deal with an injury correctly, that’s interesting! These mistakes weren’t.

Genuine Friendships

Putting aside that I am a sap who would rather watch teams that are friends than teams that aren’t, if you are going to say family this many times, I expect to see friendships develop. People actually growing to like each other as people and stuff.

We get the tiniest bit of that with Jet and Rita hanging out, but we already knew he thought highly of her at the end of S2. And we got some Buddy-Pete stuff at the beginning, but that was highly contextual to his role on the crew. I personally needed more overlapping groups/friendships and whatnot, and I think the season would’ve better for working on that.

Don’t wait till the finale episodes for Juno and Vespa to have the tiniest of shifts in their relationship due to Ransom’s scavenger hunt, when they started the season antagonistic and the shift could have begun earlier. Don’t wait till the finale episodes to tell me Juno and Buddy have been shooting together every week and expect me to have the same feelings as if you’d set it up as a throughline earlier.

Even the pre-existing relationships seem less earned this season than previously, for some reason (Juno/Peter, Buddy/Vespa, Buddy & Jet, etc)

So...boundaries

I don’t know how a crew made up of people who all actively chose to join it and its mission could feel this suffocating, but it did. And sure, “family” started to grate, but I can’t put my finger on why the overall dynamic itself made me feel that way.

I was listening to the getaway conversation in the final episode, right, and I kept wondering why I was getting annoyed and I think the thing is - I really didn’t like people’s loyalties getting dictated like that. I didn’t like that it left no room for discussions of tradeoffs, even though I obviously agreed it’s better than the rest of the crew bail than hang around for Ransom to pop up, because there are obviously tradeoffs even there. I dunno, man, just felt off, along with Buddy’s micromanaging in general.

And then very occasionally the season would be weird about boundaries in a different way, like Rita apologizing for looking into Pete’s real name and past. Why should she apologize! He’s a random guy on her crew who Mistah Steel is sweet on, of course she looked into him, are we genuinely supposed to think that was somehow rude of her?

-----

Ok, team dynamics rant over. Finally, maybe I’m just a grump, but Jet’s “I choose to believe” thing didn’t work for me either, because that’s not how life works. You get the good outcomes by making the right decisions, doing the right work, not by having belief in the moment it’s all going to shit.

#apologies for length #tpp #juno steel #replies #caracalliope #reconditarmonia #tpp meta

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rachelbethhines · 4 years

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Tangled Salt Marathon - You're Kidding Me

So we’ve finally come to the last of season two’s filler episodes. Let’s see if we can knock this one out real quick.

Summary: The front door of the mysterious seashell estate vanishes, trapping the group. They try to find another way out but find a spinning top whose magic regresses Cassandra and Lance into toddlers and Shorty into a baby. They’ve only have an hour to find the top and reverse the effects or the changes become permanent. Unfortunately neither of Rapunzel’s or Eugene’s parenting methods keep their now childish friends on task.

So Why Did No One Stand Watch Last Night?

They were all sleeping right next to the entrance, and after the run in with the mirror monsters, you would think that they would have taken turns standing watch.

But nope, the front door vanishes when no one was looking cause they don't have any foresight.

A Low Budget Doesn’t Excuse Filler

Like most of season two, this is yet another episode that adds very little to the overall story. It’s slightly better than the Return of Quaid or Curses, but not by much. I put it on the same level as The Forest of No Return, as I do like the mains’ development, but there’s really no reason why such episodes exist to begin with.

The meta reason for staying in certain places for three episodes, instead of only one or two, is because of budgetary reasons. The crew have to build new sets and models for every new location or person the cast comes across. This costs money to make, so the higher ups wanted to reuse assets. Which is understandable, but not an excuse for utilizing them poorly.

If you need to stay in one area or have characters reappear, then you need to give story reasons for that. Ones that tie back to the overall narrative and/or the mains’ character arcs.

The shell house and Matthews should be more important than what they are as they both have connections to the ultimate big bad of the series.Adria shouldn’t be wasted for a whole episode when she’s the only one driving the plot in season two and has limited appearances. Vardaros and its people shouldn’t be a one and done thing if you’re going to spend so much time setting them up. And there’s still one off episodes, locations, and characters who aren’t brought back and add nothing

Not only does this make for a weaker story, it also undermines the cost saving measures that you tried to implement to begin with.

This Isn’t Representation!

Get it?!

She’s a top!

She’s totally gay, but like not really, cause this can also be interpreted as a dominatrix joke, and there’s no other real indication of her orientation outside her like smiling at her best friend/crush/sister sometimes and keeping that rose her creepy ex-boyfriend gave her.

And don't give me any bullshit excuses about Disney not letting the crew make Cassandra canonly gay/bi.

The Owl House aired just this year, the same year as Tangled’s final season. Also Globby and Carl from Big Hero Six were both confirmed to be a couple on screen a month after this episode came out. Both shows would have been in development at the same time as Tangled was. Both would have been subject to the same regulations and restrictions while writing their stories.

It isn’t “Disney” that stopped the storyboard artists from having Cass be a confirmed lesbian, it’s Chris and Ben, the head writers themselves, who failed to write it into the story properly, if at all.

Chris is the one who made Raps and Cass “sisters”. Chris is the one who wouldn’t tell the crew about his ‘twists’. Chris is the one who had Cass crush on Andrew, even after he tried to kill her. Chris is the one who made Cassandra ‘straight’ and has since used gay baiting to keep her fanbase in his pocket.

Like I am really damn sick and tired of Casspunzel stans defending Chris on twitter, when he’s the very one who sunk thier ship to begin with. I’m also really fed up with certain fans trying to bully others for not accepting their “Cass is a lesbian” headcanons as fact because what the storyboarders say on twitter after the show is over with isn’t gospel and isn’t real rep.

I don’t care if you ship Cass with Raps or headcanon her as being gay. Ships and headcanons are great and can be a lot of fun. But fuck you if you ever try to shame people for not sharing your ships/headcanons. Not only is it biophobic and acephobic to insist that there’s only ever a binary option when it comes to orientation and shipping, but it also reinforces harmful stereotypes and tropes about people in the queer community.

Like, yes, I personally may be an introverted angry bitch who’s an LBGTQA member and activist, but that doesn’t mean that every introverted bitchy woman in media is a lesbian. What kind of message does that send people when that’s the only character archetype that’s given representation or is loudly proclaimed as ‘gay’ by the wider audience? Fuck that noise!

I Know Humor is Subjective but...WHY?

Why did we give the baby a beard? How does that logically work? Did anyone outside of the crew actually find this funny?

TTS has like this one out of touch dude throwing out jokes that don’t really land with the target audience. Fans have called it ‘boomer humor’ but it’s actually ‘Gen-X’ humor. Not only because Chris and Ben are Gen Xers but because this is the type of crap my older brother would find hilarious.

Gen Xers are between Boomers and Millennials and so their humor is this weird blend of gross out shock humor, ironic nihilism, and out of date stereotypes that are only mildly better than those of the previous generation before them. They’re the generation who gave us Beavis and Butthead, South Park, and Clerks.

That’s not a criticism of Gen X as a generation, but rather just an acknowledgment that they’re worlds away from the neo-dada absurdism, more socially conscious, and globalized humor of Gen Z.

So Why Is the Bad Guy Telling the Heroes How to Foil His Plans?

Like he not only tells them how to fix their problem and how long they got in order to do so, but he also informs them how it happened in the first place. This goes directly against his plans. Had he simply said nothing and stayed out sight, then Raps and Eugene would have been lost for the full hour and most likely not have saved everyone on time.

I like to headcanon that Mathews is just “that asshole” that loves to taunt and tease but in a that manner that gives him plausible deniability. He also may just be bored, since he’s a ghost trapped in one place all the time. Yet that still doesn’t change the fact that he shot himself in the foot here.

Raps and Young Cass’s Relationship Is the Same as Raps and Adult Cass’s, and That Is a Problem.

Condescending, manipulative, hypocritical, and bossy is the way Rapunzel treats everyone. She doesn’t understand the actual difference between a child and an adult. She only understands who she who she can and can’t boss around. And those people that she can’t place under her thumb are labeled antagonists by the show.

Nor does she actually care about what either kid Lance or kid Cass has to say. She’s just being proformative, and young Cass can see through that BS, which why her methods do not work. It’s not because she’s not ‘strict’ enough; it’s because she’s not being honest.

Meanwhile Child Cassandra is just as combative, rude, bullying, and entitled as Adult Cassandra. In season three she regresses even further and becomes more violent than before.

Unlike Rapunzel, Cassandra wasn’t trapped in a tower for 18 years with zero human contact outside of her abuser. She escaped that fate and was raised in a loving home. That doesn’t mean that there won't be scars, but I still expect her to be more mature than her seven year old self. Just because she’s whining about not being special enough at 24 instead of screaming about the floor being lava doesn’t mean that she’s still not throwing a temper tantrum.

Like I should not be seeing a replay/foreshadowing of their main conflict here. They aren’t children. They’re dynamic isn’t that of a mother and child. It’s not even a big sister looking out for a little sister type relationship. Its two immature women dragging innocent victims into their bitchy cat fight for dominance over the other.

If you want me to take their issues seriously then give them real stakes to disagree over, mature behavior that I can root for, and a resolvement that doesn’t reverse any potential development that they could have had.

Matthews Plan Makes Zero Sense

For starters, half the group being kids isn’t enough of a reason for Rapunzel to stay at the shell house. Even if the effects of the time top became permanent, then Raps and Eugene could just leave and take the kids with them. Either to finish the road trip, or go straight back to Corona. Not that there’s any real reason to get the Dark Kingdom anyways, nor is there a ticking clock stopping Raps from trying again later if she chose to.

Rapunzel also is not obligated to become anyone’s mother. If she took them back to Corona than Cap would undoubtedly raise Cassandra all over again, and Lance and Shorty could be adopted by someone else. Any of the pub thugs might take them or even perhaps the King and Queen since they missed out on raising their actual daughter. Though for my money I’d get Monty or Xavier to take them in. They seem the most mature and both are shown to be good with kids.

Then again Rapunzel has been shown twice now to not give a damn about abandoning orphans, so even the ‘dump them at an orphanage’ or ‘leave them alone in the woods to fend for themselves’ isn’t entirely off the table either. I wish I was joking, but I’m not. Sadly, only Eugene’s love for Lance might be the one thing to stop her from doing just so, and even that’s iffy.

As for the missing door from earlier, if that was all that was stopping them from leaving then the time top shenanigans were fully unnecessary altogether.

I Actually Like Eugene and Rapunzel’s Conflict Here; I Just Wish It Was In a Better Episode.

Each of their viewpoints stem from their upbringing.

Rapunzel is unique in that she was simultaneously emotionally abused and neglected while being physically spoiled. Especially once she found out that she was princess, where she was then handed nearly anything and everything she wanted. She doesn’t recognize that getting your every possible whim come true can be damaging. Nor does she have any comprehension of what living in poverty is like and how this many toys is wasteful to someone like Eugene who had so very little and stole to survive.

She does however associate limits, boundaries, and orders with abusive behavior because she’s been denied autonomy and respect her whole life. She’s never seen what healthy parenting looks like and how rules can be applied correctly.

To Rapunzel no orders is ‘freeing’ and ‘validation’ is all that is needed to get a child to listen to you. Which doesn’t work for her because she doesn’t understand that real communication is more than just giving a compliment now and then.

Meanwhile Eugene lacked any sort of anchor at all. He was left to his own devices at a young age and had no one to rely on for emotional needs and, after leaving the orphanage, no one to provide physical needs either.

It’s telling that he and Lance latched onto Quaid as the only authority figure in their life, despite Quaid never out right adopting them. He was the only sense of stability that they had who they could trust wouldn’t hurt them, despite being strict with them.

And now that Eugene has gotten older and is reformed, he can probably understand why Quaid was so harsh on him and Lance. Quaid probably did more to try and help them turn from a life crime than even Rapunzel did. Like meeting Rapunzel was the inciting incident that inspired Eugene to make that leap, but the groundwork was already laid out for him to do so elsewhere. Things like his good communication skills, respect and empathy of others, and understanding of boundaries had to be learned from somewhere, and if not from the Sheriff of Vardaros than who?

What I’m getting at is that, while Rapunzel rejects her parents methods but then fails to break her learned habits from them anyways, Eugene is the reverse. He’s come to embrace his mentor’s teachings, but he fails to implement them correctly because he’s not Quaid. Being authoritative isn’t his strong suit. It goes against his usual nature as the easy going person that he is and so any attempts to come across as forceful fail as they’re hollow.

Kids know authenticity and genuineness when they see it. The children reject Rapunzel because she’s not being real with them, yet they also reject Eugene cause he’s not being honest with himself.

It’s a complex and mature conflict. Neither person is fully right nor wrong, and only by learning from each other and adopting both methods can they achieve their goal.

TTS can be deep when it wants to be. There’s a good foundation here for mature themes and complex characterization. It’s just the series doesn’t ever commit to it.

Whatever personal drama going on here about two young adults trying to cope with their past traumas and how that affects their current life and future goals is completely lost in the magical goofy antics and low stakes situation. Even the stuff about Eugene and his relationship with Quaid is reduced to nothing but a one off joke rather than being genuinely explored as a point of development.

Imagine how much more powerful things would have been if Angry and Red were brought along on the trip. If this argument was over them and whether or not they should adopt the two girls themselves or consider other options. That would be something with real weight. Something with a choice that had actual consequences attached to it. Something that would permanently affect all involved parties. Something that wouldn’t make the two leads look like outright dicks for abandoning two children for a second damn time in a row.

You Have 70 Feet of Magical, Indestructible Hair! Why Are You Afraid of a Bunch of Dogs!?

You’ve fought off giant monsters, killer robots, and supernatural beings with magical powers. What do you mean you can’t hold off a pack of guard dogs while busting down a stuck door? Why is Eugene the shield for everyone and not the actual unbreakable hair that you use as a shield all the damn time? And Why did we have to rely on Shorty again to be the deus ex machina of the episode?

At this point the writers should have just made him Demantius instead of the monkey.

What Happened To This New Dream? Where Did It Go In Season Three?

Most fans who do enjoy season two happen to be big New Dream fans as this is by far and away the best season for them. I’ll admit that the series, up to this point, had me actively liking them together, despite being originally lukewarm to the pairing in the movie.

Their conflicts were for the the most part mature and real. They learned from one another equally and had open communication when it didn't involve ‘marriage is a trap’ BS. Things, like compromising on differentiating future goals, honesty and communication, and making time for one another and extending effort into a relationship while being true to yourself are all relatable issues.

Even today's episode featured the topic of having kids and parenting. Which is a discussion you absolutely need to have with your prospective spouse before entering into any long term commitments and signing any legal contracts. For real, I’ve seen marriages fall apart because they didn’t agree on whether or not they wanted children.

I don’t know what went down between writing season two and season three, but things quickly took a sharp turn away from this dynamic and nosedived into a pit of uncomfortable bullying and gross sexist implications here after.

Matthews Plan Goes Against Zhan Tiri’s Plan

Yeah so Matthews is one of Zhan Tiri’s disciples, but he apparently doesn’t know of her goals/plans, cause she needs Rapunzel and company to reach the moonstone, not stay stuck here.

The meta reason for this that the Zhan Tiri’s story was altered at the last minute and the writers failed to make sure there was any sort of consistency between what they already set up and where they actually wound to actually taking the plot.

The in universe reason is that Zhan Tiri is an impotent moron, but that’s not what the writers were going for so it’s a fail.

Conclusion

I like the New Dream stuff, and Matthews is at least entertaining despite being incompetent. Everything else about the episode is ‘meh’ tho.

#tangled #rapunzel's tangled adventure #tangled the series #anti-tangled #anti-rapunzel #anti-cassandra #eugene

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aros001 · 3 years

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Going in blind: Watching season 1 for the first time. Random thoughts.

This show is kind of nice because I have no memories of the original She-Ra show, or even any of He-Man, honestly. I'm not sure if I ever watched the original, so I have no frame of reference for how the series is "supposed" to be. I can just take it and judge it as is.

Of the bat, all I know is that supposedly She-Ra and Catra get together as a romantic couple later, but I'm also a huge My Hero Academia fan and the fandom around me ships every character with every other character, so for all I know that might just be shipper wishful thinking I've been seeing and hearing. Given fandoms for Gravity Falls, Thor, and Supernatural ship even siblings together, I've learned not to trust anything except for what I see in the series for myself.

By the way, this isn't a review, just random thoughts and comments I'm having as I'm going through season 1 for the first time.

Episodes 1 and 2: Right off, I really like Catra's "No duh" response to Adora about the truth of the horde. She knows they've been lying to them and have been doing terrible things, she just doesn't care. If she and Adora play their cards right they could end up being the ones in charge and then they'd have all that power. Not necessarily to make things better but enough to where they could do whatever and live however they want. That's a good build for an antagonist. Not ignorant to the fact what they're doing is wrong, just simply so selfish that they don't care.

Episode 3: It really feels like there was no good reason why Glimmer didn't just outright introduce Adora to her mother and every reason she should have known it was a bad idea to try and hide her for a surprise. Being a former horde soldier she'd probably get treated with hostility if Glimmer brought her to the front gate but you'd almost guarantee Adora would get arrested or outright killed if she got caught while no one else knew she was there.

On the other side, we have Hordak being pretty intelligent in promoting Catra. He probably knows Shadow Weaver already doesn't like him, so it's not like he's losing anything making her upset with him, and it's clear she favors Adora way more than Catra, so that little bit of advancement towards Catra probably goes a long way in earning her loyalty to him and a person on the inside with Shadow Weaver.

Also, I'm not the only one who saw Madam Razz and immediately thought Adora had found her Yoda, right?

Episode 4: I don't know how it was in the original She-Ra and He-Man series but I kind of like She-Ra being this title from legend. Adora is not the first She-Ra, given what Razz was talking about with a Mara, so instead of being something new, impressing everyone with abilities they've never seen before, and creating the legend, Adora is placed in a position WAY over her head where she's having to live up to what came before her.

Episode 5: Calling it now, as long as her personality is genuine I think Scorpia is going to be one of my favorite characters in this show. She's...endearing, I think is the best word. She's like a mix of Kronk and a nicer Shego.

For a little bit I thought Mermista was voiced by the same actress who played Poison Ivy in the Harley Quinn animated series. She's not but they do have the same kind of Daria-ish inflections, thus by confusion. Given the prom episode, Sea Hawk feels kind of like her Kite Man.

Episode 6: Okay, now it's between Scorpia and Entrapta who are likely to be my favorites by the end of this. She's fun and quirky.

Episode 7: Quite the lore drop. Shadow Weaver was once a Mystacor sorceress known as Light Spinner. I like to imagine we'll get more on that later. Her haunting Adora reminded me of the Teen Titans' episode where Robin was similarly haunted by Slade. This didn't go as far as that but that's probably for the best, since TT had two and a half seasons to build that dynamic up with Robin and Slade while we're only now halfway through the first season.

Episode 8: Well dang. Again, I don't know for sure if Adora and Catra do end up together but boy do I buy why they're shipped together after that dance. Also, good on Bow for standing up for himself. It's clear that he'll always be Glimmer's friend and this won't change that but that doesn't mean he has to just accommodate her. I understand where her issues stem from but I am still glad he gave her a reality check. It helps him feel a little more like his own character.

Also, another nice little bit of lore and worldbuilding. Scorpia's a princess, the horde landed where her people lived, and they seemed to join them willingly.

Episode 9: Surprisingly don't have a lot to say about this other than I don't buy for a second that Entrapta is dead (EDIT: She's not). This was mostly action.

Episode 10: Not going to lie, this one kind of annoyed me a little, at least the first half. The conversation between Glimmer and her mother saved it a bit. It was a bit of a trifecta. You have the alliance breaking apart, saying that the loss of Entrapta only happened because they were all together...even though Entrapta only "died" because of her own machine obsession that caused her to deliberately walk back into the purging chamber. You have Entrapta who might be turning to the horde's side because she feels abandoned by the other princesses...even though they thought she was dead, and again it was her fault they got separated. And you have Glimmer refusing to tell her mother that Shadow Weaver's dark magic has caused her powers to go on the fritz and is causing her great pain. It just feels like none of this would be an issue if most of these people would stop being self-absorbed for three seconds and talk like any normal person would. It feels very CW drama, like something I'd see in a bad season of Arrow or The Flash. The only person whose issues I buy is Adora, who is basically a soldier who was never properly raised to deal with emotion or loss and is already struggling with the burden of being She-Ra, the legendary savior. I get why she's beating down on herself for not being able to do more even if nothing that happened was her fault.

Episode 11: JEEEEEEEEEZZZZ, that was such a good episode! Focused entirely on Adora and Catra and their past together. Like, just showing someone this episode alone could probably get them to want to watch the series. That was everything you needed to know about their dynamic and history together.

Also, that moment when Catra and her past self are looking at each other, while obviously Catra takes the opposite lesson, it reminded me of this fanart I'd once seen of Jason Todd, the Red Hood, looking at his past self as Robin. The past says to the future "You ruined everything". Catra could be happy but, ironically for someone who hates Shadow Weaver, she's probably going to be a lot like her, sacrificing everything for power and ambition.

Given the way she looked, I'm guessing Shadow Weaver is either addicted to the power of the Black Garnet or she suffered some kind of past injury and its power is the only thing keeping her going. Or both.

Episode 12: I'll be honest, Swiftwind being able to talk kind of gobsmacked and I needed a moment to recover. What a great voice they chose for that character.

So She-Ra is kind of like the legendary heroes from Rising of the Shield Hero, coming from a long line of people chosen to wield the sword. I tend to dislike chosen one types of stories because I think prophecy takes a lot of weight out of the character's actions, so this and Avatar are more what I like. The MC is special but not the only one who's ever been special and they can still easily fail. Their destiny was only to be able to use the weapon, not that they would succeed in any specific purpose.

And dang, Catra's turn against Shadow Weaver happened faster than I thought it would but I'm not complaining. That great "This is what you've really been preparing me for" speech and Hordak, again, being an intelligent villain. "Oh, this experiment could net me a MASSIVE gain and all it could potentially cost me is this rock I already gave away to someone who lately hasn't been producing any results and has been consistently disobeying me. Yeah, I'm going to let this play out."

Episode 13: That was kind of a brutal fight between Adora and Catra. Not the worst I've ever seen even in other shows for this age range (Samurai Jack, for example) but those punches are connecting and those claws are leaving marks.

Also, maybe I'm just misunderstanding the exact situation but shouldn't the good guys' side be called the Resistance instead of the Rebellion? Being a rebellion would imply they are rebelling against an established power or rule over them, but the actual conflict we are shown is the established power and rule that is the kingdoms of Eternia resisting an outside force that wishes to establish a new order over them.

Season 1 verdict: I'm into it. I'm definitely more invested in the villains' side of things but that's not a fault of the series, that stuff is just way more geared towards me than the current princess stuff. I actively am at attention whenever the horde main characters are on screen. For the good guys it's mostly Adora and the She-Ra stuff I'm invested it. That isn't to say I have any real dislikes for that side. Bow especially I'm liking much more than I thought I might. He has kind of this gravitational pull around him. You will be his friend regardless of how much you might want to resist. He's definitely the rock for everyone else to hold onto.

Minor side note, kind of like Korra in Legend of Korra, I love how even when her powers aren't active Adora is shown to still be pretty strong physically with how easily she was lifting people up at the prom.

And I was right, Scorpia is my favorite side character.

On to season 2!

Original Reddit post: https://www.reddit.com/r/PrincessesOfPower/comments/nyll2e/going_in_blind_watching_season_1_for_the_first/

#she ra #she ra spop #random thoughts #reddit repost

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thisislizheather · 4 years

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July Jiffs 2020

This was me all month.

The key word being was. We bought an air conditioner! We’ve been an A/C-free family for some time now, but since we’re spending so much time at home, we figured now was the time to be cool. In other news, everything still blows! What a shock! Here’s how I spent July.

I didn’t even know another Halloween movie was being made but of course I’ll go see it even if it turns out to be trash, you gotta support classic horror franchises, that’s just basic horror etiquette 101.

This is the most basic, boring-sounding sandwich on planet earth, but it tastes incredible I promise you (I didn’t add bacon, but I did add fresh mozzarella) and whatever bread you use, it’ll still be great. I find myself constantly forgetting about the greatness of mayo because I, my dear, am an idiot.

I ordered a bunch of new address labels on Zazzle because they were having a Christmas in July sale, so I bought some seasonally inspired labels to use over the next few months. If you’re not seasonally co-ordinating your return address labels, are you even living?

I’m still doing Nathan’s podcast on Patreon incase you’re interested. (You can find more clips on his Instagram.)

I attempted to watch the new Baby-Sitter’s Club on Netflix and it’s really not meant for me. I was never into the books or the movie or any of it, I never liked the idea of kids caring about making money, it seemed too sad to me. “Just be a kid!” I’d always thought.

Speaking of childhood nostalgia, I have started to watch reruns online of Sweet Valley High, which I loved as a kid. It’s no Breaker High, but it’s still pretty great to rewatch. God, Jessica really was an absolute bitch.

Some other things that I’ve rewatched: Con Air (practically a perfect movie, will always love, *Nic Cage forever* might be the only tattoo I’d ever get), Supermarket Sweep is on American Netflix and I was so excited (for about three episodes) then I moved on with my life, Sleepless in Seattle (still a very nice, average, reliable movie), Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure (actually a really great summer movie, will always be a fun time to watch, will forever be a huge Keanu fan, I just feel like I could trust him??), and Dick Tracy (will always love this movie even if it has eight million too many montages, the set design is gorgeous, and this one outfit that Madonna wears makes me question… everything).

Some new movies that I’ve watched: Always Be My Maybe (so, so great! How did it take me so long to see this! So many good scenes, such a good movie), The Karate Kid (insane that I hadn’t seen it before, kids were uncomfortably mean in the 80s, favourite part was when Mr. Miyagi beats up the children, great movie), The Stepfather (pretty fun time, so happy we’ve starting watching horror movies again), Eat Pray Love (ugh, I don’t know, I do love movies about women just leaving and doing fun shit alone and abandoning their lives, but this was pretty lame, I hated James Franco’s character more than life and truly didn’t understand how Julia Roberts was even briefly into him), and finally the original The Hills Have Eyes (which I loved weirdly enough despite being incredibly tense the entire movie, I just thought it was so well done and scary and incredible, the rape scene is of course awful and I shut my eyes for that part, but that was the only thing I hated, it doesn’t make sense that I liked this movie so much).

I don’t know how to word this, but something is off with the reasonably priced (and almost too cheap) parmesan sold at Trader Joe’s. It melts weird. It doesn’t taste like normal cheese. Something is afoot and I won’t buy it any longer. I’m truly dreading and equally anticipating the day that all of Trader Joe’s secrets are exposed. Be warned.

That being said, obviously I’m in love with the seasonal summer candles that TJ just released. We have a complicated relationship.

I made this gruyere mac and cheese with caramelized onions (I used almond milk and it still came out good) and can every recipe just include caramelized onions? The world is ending, let’s just put sweet, tiny, brown onions on everything and call it a day.

Ennio Morricone passed away last month and I find myself listening to the Cinema Paradiso soundtrack on repeat.

Read this great piece about summer blockbuster movies which also has just some great ideas for movies to rewatch right now.

I have to remember that Essie’s vibrant colours just f-ing suck. Only their muted/bland colours are good. They should really just stick to those. And if you’re looking for loud colours that stand out, the summer collection at Urban Outfitters is my go-to (and there’s always a 3 for $10 sale with them).

I listened to Taylor Swift’s new album and so far my favourites are definitely: the 1 and this is me trying.

Ugh, Astoriaaaaaa, DO BETTER.

I’ve been thinking about cancelling my Ipsy subscription again (because I think I don’t care about makeup at this current moment in time) and when I logged on to cancel, they let me choose one of the items being sent next month as if they knew I wanted to leave! So I chose a Sunday Riley product (because any sample I’ve tried from them, I’ve loved) so maybe I’ll cancel next month?

I tried a sample of Drunk Elephant’s shampoo & conditioner (which smelled so lovely) and my hair did seem softer the next day. There’s something about this brand though, I feel like they might be tricking us with their beautiful packaging and minimalist persona.

I bought and tried the ancient Biore Strips and I have absolutely no idea if they did what they’re supposed to do. Are you supposed to see the blackheads or whiteheads come off onto the strip? It felt like it just tried to peel my face off. No idea what’s going on with these.

I have been in love with the Peter Thomas Roth Correction Pads, I use one pad before bed each night and I think they’re doing something good because I always wake up with no new pimples. It has even started erasing all of the redness I’ve been experiencing lately from the summer heat and sweat and mask-wearing. At this point, I can definitely see myself rebuying when I run out, and if I do then I’ll definitely not get them from Sephora because you can get them way cheaper at other online retailers.

I’ve also started using this Dr. Dennis Gross All-In-One face cleanser and I think it’s a good one. It’s hard to tell because I started using it the same day at the correction pads I mentioned above (yes that was a bad idea but here we are), so maybe they’re working together to make my face good? We’ll revisit this.

I finally opened up this Belif set I bought a few months ago and it’s really nothing special. I think the face cream is probably the best item in there because you truly don’t need to use a lot to feel moisturized. But the face cleanser? Meh. I don’t think it does very much, it definitely didn’t help any redness. And the toner? Don’t get me started on how I kind of think toner might be a scam. And the “eye moisturizer”? Seems superfluous. My eye area is plenty moist, thanks.

Perfect summer soap scent: Fresh Rainfall. If I can’t travel this year, I will escape into this scent. (Send help.)

Very excited to hear about Lindy West’s new book.

So I heard that Lady M now ships their cakes to Canada and I was able to scream in excitement for approx. four seconds before looking into it and seeing that it’ll cost you over $100 to get ONE cake sent. THE GALL, I tell you. THE GALL.

I briefly looked into the app Sweatcoin after hearing good things, but it really just seems like an app where its main goal is to track you. And yes, your phone already does that whether you’re aware or not, but I think I’ll pass on the extra tracking.

I heard that the upcoming Halloween Bob’s Burgers episode will “follow the kids as they try to deliver a burger to the hotel on their street.” It’s such a sad little bit of tiny information, but I love their seasonal episodes so much that I’ll take any crumbs available.

Actually helpful tips on how to clean your home efficiently.

Christ, why do I keep forgetting that Bareburger is absolutely nothing special? Why in the good fuck is it taking so long for a Shake Shack to come to Astoria?!

I ate on the patio at Hoja Santa in Astoria and the tacos were nothing to write home about. The service, drinks and chips were outstanding though, so I may have just ordered badly.

New favourite beer alert.

Best tweets of the month over here.

I tried Thai iced coffee and it was so wildly sweet and too aromatic, I probably wouldn’t get it again. And I also tried a Vietnamese iced coffee and it was the perfect level of sweet! What’s the difference between the two, you ask?

I finally tried the katsu sandwich at Hi-Collar as takeout in the East Village and it was absolutely nothing special. No idea why people are so into it.

I haven’t been to Bite in so many months, so it was nice to get takeout earlier this week. God how I’ve missed their ciabatta bread. They use it on their sandwiches and it comes from Balthazar each morning and it’s always heavenly.

I have found the perfect, light summer blanket and I’m trying not to focus on the fact that it came from Amazon.

I tried a grapefruit shandy and holy shit, it might be my favourite new summer drink.

I ate on the patio at L’Artusi since it just reopened and good god, that carbonara will change you. So psyched to see they have the wagyu steak tartare on the menu now, too. The burger, the panzanella salad and the charred corn were all great, but that carbonara was the standout.

Some things I’d like to do this month: I’d love to try this tomato toast with blue cheese mayo, I’m going to start using a new clothes steamer I just bought with the hopes of getting rid of my iron & ironing board, I rebought a tube of Revitalash because of how great my lashes were looking when I used it a few years ago so I’ll start using it on August 1st and track my progress to prove how great this product is, I can’t wait for Moesha to be coming to Netflix this month, and I am waiting waiting waiting until I can find time to return to Lilia (on the patio) to eat this incredible tomato focaccia & garlic butter (shown below).

If you’ve got any interest in reading last month’s roundup, you can see what went down in June over here.

#monthly post #this is liz heather #Liz Heather #July 2020

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bearpillowmonster · 4 years

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Star Wars SPOILERS Review

Ever since TLJ, the question lingers in my mind with every Star Wars related thing to come out “will they take it seriously?” It’s probably my biggest fear for Star Wars to date. Do they overwrite everything and try to reverse TLJ? And do they purposely try to subvert expectations so much that it seems like nothing matters?

I want to decrypt some of the things I said in my nonspoiler review but for the most part I will mention new things that I didn’t say. Forgive me if I state the obvious but some people haven’t realized the literal meaning behind some things.

My favorite thing about this movie is Ben and Rey. If you’re a Reylo shipper, you’ll like it but also be hurt. I wasn’t one way or the other with that. But instead of the constant fighting between Palpatines and Skywalkers, we’re given the end, the “marriage” if you will, though they didn’t get married, just kissed, between the grandson and granddaughter. It's a game of opposites, Kylo is in a way the opposite of Vader with Vader “wanting the girl until he met the dark side” vs Kylo's “wanting the dark side until he met the girl” and Rey is in a way the opposite of Palps. You see how Rey looks at him and heals him when she realizes his mom just died, she felt sorry, they were both sad and shared in that moment. Episode 3, Skywalker saves Palpatine(though they say that was just to get Anakin on his side, he could’ve beat Windu) but in Episode 9 Skywalker saves Palpatine again. Before he dies, we are given the best version of Ben. Though I did hear that Ben didn’t have any lines after he turned good...I mean...you’re not wrong? They really didn’t make him say anything though? Also I thought maybe Ben gave back the life force that Rey gave him on the Death Star, returning the gift, so to speak. Now...with that said, did we need to see Ben die? This is something a lot of people seem to be sad about, mainly the shippers. I mean I feel like people would say there weren’t any consequences if he didn’t but I also want to call back (I know it’s been shown over and over but the new trilogy doesn’t listen) to when George Lucas said during the original trilogy that nobody needed to die because we go to see a movie to be uplifted.

So really it’s kind of a mixed bag, you could say he finished his arc but then again so did Rey, so did everybody, maybe it’s punishment for what he’s done, but I feel like he could have more chances to atone for himself, is he redeemed by having that moment? Did he even need to be there? Could Rey have handled it on her own? I really don’t know what to say here.

I will say though that I felt like Ben went down the road of never coming back in TLJ, but it didn’t make it surprising that he came back, in fact it almost seemed obvious because Palpatine came back, Ben wasn’t going to follow orders again, he just took out Snoke, why would he do that? He would try and do things his own way, he would try and follow what Darth Vader always had in mind about overthrowing and we know there weren’t going to be 2 villains. Also during that end scene it looks like he’s just wearing an Under Armor shirt, you could’ve complained saying “he took all that time to get changed or else he could’ve saved Rey sooner” but still, he should’ve had a light side outfit. But I don’t like the idea that he’s the reason the original 3 died. He killed Han in the first one, had a fight that pushed Luke past his limit in the second, and had Leia try to bring him back one last time in the third. Also we get the message that you can choose your family, Rey chose everybody as her “family” then took on the Skywalker name, blood isn’t everything. The title is about her but also Ben, Ben rises as a Skywalker once again and Rey rises as a jedi.

I thought the ending would be a force ghost fight but it didn’t end up happening which I’m kind of glad but we still got the “I’m all the sith” “I’m all the Jedi” and she says it like the “And I...am Iron Man” well this all started with Korra “I’m all the Avatars” I know this would’ve been fan service and you can see some cameo ships in that one scene but you don’t see any recognizable characters, it would be more effective if we actually saw these characters. Speaking of, they have cameo voices in Rey’s head, you can barely make them out and it’s cool to hear them but still, force ghosts would’ve been cool too, not to fight but to see like maybe on Tatooine.

People complain about how Rey and Palp are too OP in the end. I heard a rant from a former Lucas prodigy that the force balances itself out so the light will take its hosts and the dark will take its. In the prequels we see tons of Jedi and sith that they have to share the force in a way but with the new sequel trilogy...those were the only ones of each side so of course the force would infuse everything it had into them, that’s why they had “all the Jedi and sith”

Also Palp died by his own hand because Rey was just reflecting his attack and he knew they could both heal/bring back the dead so which he says something like “I haven’t saw that in a long time” a callback to his master Darth Plagueis. Speaking of, what I’ve seen a lot of people complain about is that “Jedi can use healing so it breaks the universe” but that’s not the impression I got. Palp says that quote so I got the impression that only certain people can use it, it’s not a force power everybody can use and I imagine either he couldn’t use it or you can’t use it on yourself (which would make sense since you use your own life force) which then made him change his mind about Rey killing him and drain both their power. So no, I don’t think anybody could have used it before, for some reason it just so happens that these two can. So if you’re going to complain, complain about convenience. He might have been talking about the force facetime relationship the two have but still, I think he saw that they both had the power, Ben can do what Rey can and Rey can do what Ben can.

We see a tank of Snokes which leads me to believe Palp was trying to create a new body? I mean he says he “made him” either through training or literally, not much beyond that.

I knew as soon as they found D-O that he would have some sort of connection or map to Exogal and yep, he did in a way but what was the point if Rey was just going to lead them anyway? I know it connected to that Jedi Hunter but still. Turns out the writer also helped with Justice League and Batman V Superman which makes sense because Bats V Supes has similar fundamental problems as this one.

Also, how is Rey Palp’s granddaughter? Like did one of the opera members get with him? And he’s still...capable? I liked the clone theory better and even that seemed off. Then it’s “No, I am your grandfather” now. Let me put it this way, I doubt there was a meeting back when TFA or even TLJ came out where they were like “Rey’s a Palpatine” it feels like an afterthought but maybe it isn’t because I see more evidence such as how she used a lightsaber for the first time and why that vision was in the Death Star, maybe RJ just ignored it and was like “Yeah no”. It was like they were teasing it throughout TFA just to be shut down and then focused around as the main plot of the final movie, I don’t like that setup, maybe they didn’t want to make it too much like Empire by revealing heritage but still...I mean the idea that “nobodies can be made somebody (force sensitive)” is a cool idea, they did that with Blade Runner 2049, but he wasn’t any “chosen one” but he did great things but this set it up to be hype in TFA and just kept cancelling out after that. Also Luke knew and Leia knew but for how long? Couldn't they have protected Palp's son and wife and Rey? And if they knew from some kind of force power then how did Han seem to know in TFA? I'm guessing that the whole thing with Ben turning bad didn't happen until after because Rey was pretty young when she was left. I like that they had Luke on the trail of going to find him but it feels like Force Awakens "we only have a piece of the map and there's no way to tell from just that." I would think it would be obviosu one of the wayfinders would be on Endor, but I might be thinking too much into it.

I’ve since watched some interviews and some rumors since watching it, I’ll focus on the more relative and close to confirmed stuff but Episode 9 is a big thing, you had George’s version, Trevorrow’s version, JJ's version, Rian's version, Disney (Iger and Kathleen)’s version (end version) and it’s just a lot that I’d like to see explored and explained, I hate how big corporations are like “nope, to the vault.” Like let the respective people be open about it if they want to, it’s after the fact so it’s not like it’s gonna change anything. Apparently there was a version JJ wrote up with the dagger of Mordis and Son of Mordis with Matt Smith but Disney didn’t like it and this that and the other thing, which explains why there was a dagger but in a way, the characters “were” the dagger of Mordis. I think where all these versions diverged is having Luke die, he was going to die, it’s just a matter of when, Disney and Rian pushed for 8 (for whatever reason). And everybody else was for 9. George said he wanted another 10 years to develop the sequels if he were on board and Disney wanted it out as soon as they could as well as avoiding having a repeat of the Prequels but with this sequel trilogy, people love the prequels now and the sequels have become the very thing they sought to destroy, ironic. I think the 10 years (which would be soon by now) would have done these sequels good, that way we have a clear vision and there might not have been so much crap behind the scenes. George also said that they wouldn’t let him have creative freedom but had no problem giving it to Rian Johnson. So yeah, apparently people agree with me on this because there's a movement called "Release the JJ cut" just like the Snyder cut of Justice League, I don't see why they can't just put it in the deleted scenes of the dvd or take a note from LOTR and make an extended edition, it's not like they're going to recycle it or anything, even if they do refilm the same basic scene then that's just something fans can make contrast to, it's not everyone's cake but it is definitely a good amount so there is demand, release the George Lucas Scripts, release the JJ cut.

I wanted Finn to lead a sort of revolution of Stormtroopers, have them rebel like he did. We saw that one deleted scene where they questioned Phasma in TLJ, that could have led to it but they just brushed past it with this one and gave “Jannah” the same backstory! I joked with my dad and said “the helmet had blood on it and everything.” “Really?! The same thing happened to me!” "No way!" Then at the end they make it out as Jannah is Lando’s daughter, apparently he says “my daughter was taken from me” at one point and I missed it and then they say they are from the same sector. It went right over my head, people say it’s a fun payoff, others say it has no impact. The way I took it was that Lando asked her what sector she was from and she said “I don’t know” and he said “Why don’t we find out?” I could’ve sworn that’s how I heard it, so I assumed to build off of that scene where everybody is hugging somebody but Finn meant that him, Lando and Jannah were going to find the homes of the defective stormtroopers, which once again would’ve just brushed right past the idea.

Even more so, Finn’s force sensitive? Pretty much like how he used a lightsaber in TFA so it lines up but they don’t go anywhere with it other than “Rey will be ok” “Kylo is on that ship” “The Nav is on that ship” it’s just used for convenience, there was no moment where Finn came in and really saved the day, I didn’t really care for that part where he drops the bombs with Jannah. Sure you could say that Leia was like that in the original trilogy but first of all, they were siblings so it made sense, and second, she had other development so she had stuff to still do, she was a princess after all, they wanted Luke to be the last Jedi to train new Jedi and she would’ve been among those as we can tell from this movie. Also we never figured out what happened to Luke’s green lightsaber, I thought that’s what he was going to give Rey but it ended up being Leia’s lightsaber, one we didn’t even knew existed until then.

Why does Finn have to have so many love interests? Honestly such a ladies man? There’s one every movie now yet he didn’t end up with any of them 😂 poor boy, almost confessed to Rey then Ben beats him to it, like some kind of Hunger Games drama. Unless he was going to say “I have a feeling which means I’m force sensitive right?”

I played with the idea of Ben seeing Han again and I’m content with it because it played out the same scene from his death but the way it should have gone...but we hear that remark from Luke that he’ll “haunt” him but he never does. They use the force touch ability pretty well in the movie, I kind of liked it, with the battle on the Death Star, I thought he was a hologram, I was surprised to see he was actually there. However Holdo is already forgettable because Poe does the same basic light speed jump over and over at the beginning of the movie, they call it a “Holdo” at the end but it just doesn’t seem special anymore.

My dad brought this up and I don’t really know what to think about it. So when Ben saves Rey at the end, he disappears, then Leia’s body does too, does that mean Leia was acting through Ben to save her? Or did they just poof together? Oh yeah! The Knights of Ren! So I thought maybe they would act like the Black Order then take them out one by one before Kylo was the supposed final boss and then Palp would end up being the big baddie instead but they don’t do that, they are called “Knights of Ren” not too sure about that considering they attack him in the end, more like Knights of Palpatine. The trope I was talking about is that they make a big deal of getting through it together but Rey just goes off and does her own thing, she stares into the distance a lot and gets sidetracked easily.

They made it seem like Anakin would return with Hayden in press events, he doesn’t other than a voice, a bit disappointed, then "that boy is our last hope." "no, there is another." well that "another" is...well...a “Palpatine”, Anakin wasn’t the foil anymore or “the other hope” it was Rey, she gave the final blow, she can take the name Skywalker, sure but I don't think Lucas would have let it play out that way, I mean Anakin saved Luke then Luke trained Rey but still. Luke was one of my main gripes for TLJ, not the acting, Mark Hamill is always great, but just the way they wrote and handled him. I remember after seeing it, someone at work told me “I loved Luke, he did an excellent job and had a great fight” and I thought “Yeah, coming from the guy who likes Alien Covenant” Idk what movie he was watching but I wasn’t a fan of that Luke and neither was Luke himself, Mark Hamill so that tells you something. This version seems to go back on that and does a 180, we don’t see too much of him but I started thinking how we didn’t see much of Ben Kenobi in 5 and 6 so I guess it’s alright, they at least treated him better with what we saw and that’s what matters.

I said this before but I imagined Luke taking down a Star Destroyer with the force in my ideal version of post ROTJ, just like Starkiller, we have a moment sorta like that with Rey and this cruiser, I got really happy seeing that, then Kylo fighting for it and drawing out Rey to use the dark side that she didn’t even know she could use. Speaking of, the reflection scene in this movie is what the one in the last one should have been, same scene but placed on Acht-To as training, you can have the whole snap thing and this and that but give it meaning, I feel like they were just avoiding being like Empire but then you did it anyway so it defeated that purpose.

The ending should have ended on Tatooine, I’m glad it did, right where it started. It’s funny how I had a very similar wallpaper before seeing the movie.

Then her YELLOW lightsaber made out of her staff is *😙👌🏻* great. I do think they partially did that out of fan service though, why Rey would want to go to a sand planet again is beyond me. However George has once said that "having a boy and a girl walking into the sunset adds 10 mill to the box office." and uh...I mean Disney again kind of just went against his wishes there.

Gotta admit, the whole star destroyer fleet were just Death Stars for the most part, Palp doesn’t know how to make anything else I guess. “Maybe we could make it bigger” “maybe we make it 3x more powerful” “maybe we could make tons of them!”

I also wanted to mention this because my dad liked TLJ and didn’t see why it was so divisive but seeing this movie he immediately understood so maybe it just makes things more clear and others hazy, idk.

So I thought of a way they could introduce Mara Jade and atone for Luke’s behavior in TLJ which was having Ben kill her and that’s why Luke went and banished himself and why the Jedi "forbade" any relationships like that, but then it would turn out she actually lived, that’s who I thought Zori Bliss was until she started flirting with Poe. Then I got the idea that they were going to do that with Rey, Luke knew that Palpatine was back and wanted to protect her so he left her on Jakku and banished himself on Ach-To, again wasn’t the case but I could see some big plot holes and opportunities in that theory too so maybe it’s better it didn’t go that way.

Another thing I thought was a theory I found online about C-3PO and how he would be hooked up to the Death Star and reactivate the droids as well as have some golden sentenials as an army (with him leading) to fight the First and Final Order, a callback to how the Ewoks made such a big deal out of him like he was their leader and how it was Anakin who made him so it would make sense to have some big surprise planned, that didn’t end up happening, the red eyes were just for reading sith language which makes sense, it’s cool.

Oh and that message that the emperor sent out, I couldn't find in the movie, but you know where it is? Fortnite. Yep and it’s kind of vague and dumb so rather than going to go find it, I will write it here for you “At last the work of generations is complete. The great error is corrected. The day of victory is at hand. The day of revenge. The day of the sith.” So...what is this “great error”? Vader?

One thing I know, but expected, is that these trailers are super misleading and I get that it’s supposed to be mysterious and get you to go but really? It made it look like they were destroying Vader’s shrine together, just an accident while facetiming. They made Rey look like she goes to the dark side, TWICE! Once in TLJ and once in TROS, at least with TLJ, I must say, Rian Johnson warned us about it like “hey, some stuff may not be what it seems in this trailer” so Disney is doing this on purpose, take what they have in trailers with a grain of salt. Turns out it was just a force vision like everyone was saying, called it, almost feels like they did that specifically for that reason, to put it in a trailer. But I there is at least an argument that Rey was struggling with the dark side and now we know why, I still think about the “Empress Palpatine” “Empress Rey” it’s got a ring to it, ngl. So them at least exploring that even just a bit was fun for me.

I’ve seen people say the complete opposite as me, that they liked the parts I didn’t and didn’t like the parts I did so it really is to each their own. It did some cool things with what it was given because it had to keep up with the other two, not disappoint people who hate and end the Skywalker saga, all in one bite while he wasn’t even set to direct it until late into it so he thought he was done which means there wasn’t a final script or any plan ready. I think it might have been more cohesive had it not had to deal with everything at once. There was a lot going on at one time to try and stuff in there. I think that if you had a path and then stuck with it then it would be more respectable, whether it was TFA or even TLJ, honestly I do believe that, pick one or the other but we shouldn't have to, just be committed to what you're trying to say, if Rey is related to someone, let her, if not, that's fine too but choose gosh dang it, don't throw the audience for a loop like we're some of the Mii's in Wii Sports, I'm not blaming anybody or any movie but this one.

Those are my thoughts on it at the moment, I'm reading the Thrawn trilogy so I should have a review for the first book eventually and I'll make reference back to this through that, you'll see why. As much as it's been said on the internet, I feel like it's true, like we're in a love-hate abusive relationship with Star Wars, so I think I need a break from it other than that. Disney has seemed to have based their movies around "avoiding" "avoid the Prequels" "avoid the Ladt Jedi" well, in the process I think they're avoiding Star Wars.

#star wars #spoilers #tros #the rise of skywalker #review #spoilers review #tros spoilers #star wars spoilers #sw

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bonesgadh · 5 years

Text

My opinion on what the future may hold for Gendrya (or a shipper’s desperate rant).

This is a very long post. It basically consists of me analizing evidence that points to Arya and Gendry being endgame. The reason why I decided to write this is because I want to give hope to some Gendrya shippers out there who were left pretty devastated after what happened on Sunday. Of course I can’t know for sure if all this shit will mean anything in the end, for all I know the failed proposal was Gendrya’s last scene and we are facing a bigger heartbreak. Still I wanted to share with you the reasons why I’m feeling optimistic and I really hope I can make you feel optimistic as well. Please forgive any grammar/spelling mistakes because, although I do my best, english is not my first language :)

First, some shout-outs:

To @chocolatecarstairs for this wonderful post that points out how Arya and Gendry are pretty much redoing their story. You gave me the idea to write this :)

To @captainfangirlll for reminding me we still haven’t seen Gendry addressing Arya’s scars. I had forgotten that very important detail.

To @miladyaryastark for proving nothing is more effective than a fan with a quest and providing evidence that the show will go back to Storm’s End at some point.

To every fan who has mentioned how this recent turn of events is basically a live action version of “My Featherbed”, especially @ladywolfandbastardbull and @forehead451 for these two wonderful analysis.

Last but not least to my mom™ for ranting with me every day of this damn week. Love you mom :)

Okay, let’s begin:

The “I reject you not because I don’t love you, but because I’m not ready to be with you” scene

I was born in the Bones fandom. Those of you who have followed me since I first got into this hellfire of a website know it. Temperance Brennan is my life guru and there’s no show, book or movie that has taught me more about love and life than Bones.

When the now infamous episode 4 aired I saw a striking similitude between the Gendrya scene and a scene from the 100th episode of Bones. I don’t know if you have ever seen the show but the main couple are Booth & Brennan. He has been in love with her for a while and on that episode he finally makes his move and tells her he wants to give their relationship a shot. Brennan rejects him but you can tell she is suffering because she also has feelings for him, although she doesn’t want to risk ruining their relationship and she doesn’t want to take a leap of faith because her life is basically shit and she has been burnt before. Eventually and after some angst —him getting into a relationship with someone else, jealous Brennan— she realizes she loves him too and decides to give her relationship with Booth a shot and they have a baby and get married —although she said she would never do it— and they live happily ever after.

The Gendrya scene follows a very similar path. There’s an undeniable attraction between Arya and Gendry, an attraction that is years in the making. Although Arya was the first one to make her move with the whole “we are probably going to die” line, you could say them having sex only happened because it was an extreme situation and because of the threat of imminent death. Now that they have left that behind Gendry makes his move and confesses his love to Arya *sobs*, only to be rejected by her in a kind but still very sad way, and his heart clearly shatters in a million pieces.

I’m gonna take a risk here and say I know Arya pretty well —I identify with her a lot, actually—, and I’m certain one of the reasons behind her rejection is her fear of giving her heart to Gendry only to lose him as she has lost everything she has ever loved. Every person who has suffered loss, especially catastrophic loss develops a fear of attachment because they know firsthand that nothing lasts forever, and they are scared of being hurt again. Like they said in Grey’s Anatomy (back when it was good): “Fears means you have something to lose”; it was obvious Arya was terrified during the Battle of Winterfell and there were also traces of fear in her face as Gendry word-vomited his feelings for her. This has been said a lot in other posts so it might come across as repetitive, but Arya has lost so much and she is not willing to lose anything else (ironically by rejecting Gendry she is “losing him”, but at least she believes he still has a chance of finding happiness with another woman like @apiratecalledav mentions here. Selflessness with a bit of the good ole self destruction).

Still, I firmly believe Arya will recapacitate and something will happen that will make her realize what she feels for Gendry is worth fighting for. My guess is it’ll have something to do with The Hound (you can read my theory below), and whatever happens will show her that it’s okay to be scared of loss, but that life is better when you are with those you love, even if it’s just for a little while. When she comes to this realization she will feel comfortable enough to let Gendry know how she really feels about him, how afraid she is of losing him again and how she is willing to fight her own demons in order to find peace and happiness with him, something that is long overdue (just like it happens on Bones. Seriously, you should watch it if you haven’t already. It’s full of life lessons).

Arya’s final lesson

I already wrote this in another post, you can read it here. The Hound will be crucial for our ship to stay alive.

Arya’s issue with letting go/Being “torn”

When Gendry tells Arya she is beautiful and that he loves her, her face is a very interesting mix of surprise, fear and awe. She is clearly so overwhelmed with what he just said that she can’t bring herself to say a word, because he literally took her breath away with his kiss. It’s quite an unusual reaction on Arya’s part as she always seems to be so calm and prepared for anything, which says a lot of how much Gendry’s lovely speech caught her off guard. I can’t help but wonder what she would’ve said if he hadn’t proposed, if his speech had ended with “None of it will be worth anything if you are not with me”.

One of Arya’s main traits is her issue with letting go. She can’t let go of her desire of returning to Winterfell, she can’t let go of Needle when Jaqen asks her to, she can’t let go of her identity as Arya Stark, she can’t let go of her list and her thirst of revenge even though she defeated the personification of death and a man gave his life for her to live. But if there’s one thing Arya hasn’t been able to let go as well is her feelings for Gendry. Maisie said it herself, the moment Arya reconnects with him she can’t help but remember the girl she used to be and how she was so in love with Gendry she was willing to follow him to the end of the world. Back in seasons 2 and 3 Arya was still a girl who wanted to be with Gendry but his mind was clearly set on something else. Now it’s the other way around, Gendry is head over heels in love with Arya but her mind is set on something else.

Now that Arya’s old feelings for Gendry have risen to the surface, my guess is they will be addressed on the next two episodes because his proposal clearly shook her to her foundations. She will be torn —as Maisie said she would— between her thirst for revenge and her desire of being with Gendry and fulfilling a dream she had when she was thirteen years old. This will obviously be very hard for her because her list is what kept her alive all those years she spent away from home, it’s like giving up your lifesaver because you are ready to learn how to swim. And I want my girl to give that step, to chose life (yes I know you are tired of reading that expression everywhere but I can’t think of a better way to describe her options).

The three acts

This fucking show loves foreshadowing and mirroring scenes. Thanks to @chocolatecarstairs amazing post I noticed we have seen Gendrya complete two full cycles.

Cycle #1

Arya and Gendry meet in King’s Landing.

Gendry defends Arya from Hot Pie.

Arya tells Gendry about her real identity.

Arya shows traces of being attracted to Gendry.

Arya asks Gendry to go with her to Winterfell and says she can be his family.

Gendry refuses her proposal in a very gentile way because he believes his fate to be somewhere else, and because he isn’t drawn to serving others forever.

Gendry leaves (unintentionally but still) and she goes with The Hound to Winterfell.

End of the first act.

Cycle #2

Arya and Gendry meet again in Winterfell.

Arya defends Gendry from The Hound.

Gendry tells Arya about his real identity.

Gendry shows traces of being attracted to Arya.

Gendry asks Arya to marry him and to be the Lady of Storm’s End.

Arya refuses his proposal in a very gentile way because (we assume) she believes her fate to be somewhere else, and because she isn’t drawn to the life he is offering her as a lord.

Arya leaves and she goes with The Hound to King’s Landing.

End of the second act.

At this point they are pretty much even. Now some people would take this as proof they have come full circle and that their story is over, but I disagree. Cycle #3 is still yet to unfold and I’m betting a large sum of money they will repeat the process one last time. If my analysis of @chocolatecarstairs analysis (Lol) is correct, my guess is their story is following the A-B-A structure.

They meet in King’s Landing (his birthplace)—they see each other again in Winterfell (her birthplace) —therefore they will reunite in King’s Landing (back to his birthplace and where their relationship began).

She is shown to be attracted to him—he is shown to be attracted to her—she will be shown to be attracted to him (although they kind of already showed that but work with me).

She told him she loved him (or that’s how I interpret the “I can be your family” quote)—he told her he loved her—now she will be the one to tell him she loves him.

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome, right? Well, if they actually want to be together, they will need to do something to disrupt the pattern (something Bones also taught me). Now, how will they do it?

Let’s play attention to this scene that has already been referenced:

She asks him to come with her to Winterfell but he refuses—He asks her to come with him to Storm’s End but she refuses—?

AHA! Here’s where the pattern will break!

My guess is the key is in the final moment that will be mirrored:

“Last time you saw me you wanted me to come to Winterfell. Took the long road, but…”

(I don’t know if he says “road” or something that sounds very similar. If I’m wrong feel free to correct me).

Thanks to @miladyaryastark’s post I learned they filmed some stuff in the Cushendun Caves, which was used as location for Storm’s End back in season 2. It was actually the last known location for season 8 although I don’t think we have any idea who filmed there (logic points to Joe because Gendry is the new Lord but who knows?) Anyway, let’s suspend reality for a second and suppose both Joe and Maisie filmed there. I would love a callback to Gendry’s quote but this time Arya is the one who delivers it:

“Last time you saw me you wanted me to come to Storm’s End. Took the long road, but…”

And this is how this scene would bring an end to the third act of their story:

Gendry leaves Arya—Gendry returns to her—Arya leaves Gendry—Arya returns to him.

It would even be a different structurem from A-B-A to A-B-A-B.

Full circle.

I would die if a scene like that makes it to the finale.

The symbolism of Arya’s target practice

We have seen Arya practicing her archery and being interrupted by Gendry twice now. First time in episode 2 and then in episode 4. My mom™ says both scenes are extremely symbolic and perfectly represent their relationship. Let me elaborate:

Arya’s archery practice is meant to represent her goal of killing Cersei. Why? Because when you are practicing archery you are basically aiming for a target. You need to concentrate in order to hit it, and a little distraction can cause you to miss. Arya’s main desire is to kill Cersei, she is her target. That’s why she looks so concentrated as she shoots and why she pretty much hides to practice, she is not willing to let anything or anyone distract her from her objective. She kills the Night King and instead of celebrating with the others, she chooses to go back to focus on her target instead. The Long Night was a distraction, but now she’s ready to return to her goal.

Along comes Gendry.

As I just mentioned, the first time he interrupts her is in episode 2 when he delivers her weapon. She makes a pause in her practice (a.k.a. her mission) to talk to him and, you know, ride him. The second time happens in episode 4, when Gendry literally comes between her and her target and she almost pierces his head with an arrow. This time she also makes a pause to listen to what he is saying to her, she even puts down the bow for a moment as she kisses him. After she rejects his proposal she goes back to shooting arrows, which symbolizes her returning to her target.

What can we conclude from this? That Gendry is the only one who can literally make her turn away from her target (wow I’m using the world “literally” too much). He can get her to forget about her objective, even if it’s only for a little while. He is her distraction, and I believe he will be the reason why she won’t be the one to kill Cersei.

Arya’s scars

Another thing my mom™ pointed out regarding Arya’s scars (thanks @captainfangirlll for reminding us the director said they will be important) is the fact that no one else besides Gendry has seen them. She noticed this, which probably caught her off guard because he is the first person she shows them to. You look at Arya and the first thing that catches your eye is her cold demeanor and seemingly overconfident attitude, you would never imagine her body is full of scars that remind her all the time someone tried to kill her and almost succeeds. Her scars represent her vulnerability, that she can be hurt, that’s why she hasn’t shown them to anybody. But Gendry saw them. The moment she catches him staring at them she demands him to take his pants off. She doesn’t want him to stare because that gives him an intel of how vulnerable she really is, and she doesn’t like that. He literally saw her scars which is very symbolic. I don’t think anyone has seen her that naked since she was a baby tbh.

The live action version of “My Featherbed”

I don’t have much to say about this because other fans have made a much better job than me (@ladywolfandbastardbull and @forehead451 for example). What I can say is I’m certain the lyrics of the song will play an important part :)

I honestly have no idea how Gendrya will end the show. Will they marry? I have no idea. Will Gendry give up his newfound fame and fortune to sail west of Westeros with her? Probably. Will Arya realize she doesn’t have to be a traditional lady and that Gendry would never ask her to be something she is not? Hopefully. Will Gendry be crowned King and Arya will go back to Winterfell, never to see each other again? God, I hope not.

But what I believe, in my heart, is that they will be endgame. How? If only I knew. Maisie said Arya’s arc this season revolves around her regaining her humanity and finding herself after years of misery. Joe said Gendry’s arc is very tightly linked to Arya’s. They brought Gendry back to make a statement, for us to see a side of Arya we hadn’t really seen before. For her to remember the person she used to be and the one she could still be. Remember this until May 19th. Don’t give into despair. For the love of God, get the fuck away from reddit and spoilers. Trust in the story they have told us since season 1.

Feel free to share your opinions with me. I only ask you, for the love of all that is holy, to NOT post spoilers or pseudo leaks. I don’t want to know and there are others who don’t want to know either. Please respect our decision :)

*Don’t Stop Believing plays in the background*

#gendrya #gendrya positivity #arya stark #gendry baratheon #arya x gendry #gendry x arya #wow this ended up being a fucking letter #my featherbed #I'm sorry it took me so damn long #I hope you enjoy it #shit it's 4 am #I should really go get some sleep #meta

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whitewolfofwinterfell · 5 years

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Can you do one of your metas on Elena, her strengths, flaws and why you (and I!) still like her despite the fact that many understandably don't?!

Yes! Thank you so much for sending this in. I love any opportunity I get to talk about and defend Elena, because I think she’s such an unfairly hated/disliked character.

I actually wrote a very in-depth meta about Elena before here, but since I did it a couple of years ago now some of my opinions and thoughts have changed since then. What I speak about in the sections about Elena being a Mary Sue and her strengths and weaknesses are still what I think, so it’s particularly worth reading that, because that’s relevant to this question.

The thing is with Elena is, yes, she’s a flawed character, but characters should be flawed because human beings are flawed. Elena’s flaws are exactly what make her relatable and real. Based on what I’ve seen in fandom over the years the main reasons people seem to dislike Elena are because she’s selfish, a Mary Sue or undeveloped as character. In my previous meta I explained why she’s not a Mary Sue, and I stand by that. As for the selfish part, I agree with it wholeheartedly. Elena is selfish, but who isn’t? I don’t understand disliking or hating on a character based on their selfishness because selfishness is a natural human trait that is instilled in all of us. In fact, most of us have to actively try to not be selfish and to be more considerate of others, because we’re naturally hard-wired to think of ourselves first. I would argue that Elena isn’t anymore selfish than any other character on the show and that rather than selfishness, it’d probably be more accurate to refer to it as self-centredness. And you might think those two words mean the same, but to me, selfishness is actively choosing to put your own well-being above others at the detriment of those around you. Self-centredness is a tendency to think about yourself first and to be oblivious to the impact that has on others around you. So, I’d say that Elena was self-centred rather than selfish. She had a tendency to think about how she felt and how things affected her and wasn’t always able to see how others around her were feeling or how they may be affected. The claim that Elena was undeveloped is also a valid argument. I like Elena but even I’m not blind to the incredibly poor characterisation and development she had. I understand the writers intentions with Elena, but unfortunately, it didn’t really work. It felt like Elena never really went beyond her original character profile. It’s like the writers sat down in a room and decided the core traits they wanted her to have in the pilot episode and season 1, but they never really went beyond that. So for me, a big part of the reason I like Elena is because of the potential her character had and the fact that I feel like she’s unfairly hated, as I’ve already mentioned.

Overall, I really don’t think Elena was that flawed, except for her self-centredness and indecisiveness. The biggest flaw of her character was the inconsistent writing that failed to fully build upon her as a character or explore her nuances and sacrificed her characterisation and development for the sake of her romantic relationship. I think that over the years people have exaggerated her flaws in open rebellion against the writers who plugged Elena as this wonderful, selfless heroine whom everyone worshipped and adored. Whenever there’s a character like that people deliberately search for their flaws. This kind of writing also tends to turns people off the character and instead they start to root for the ‘underdog’ or the character that is sidelined (in this case, Bonnie and/or Caroline). So a big part of the problem with Elena’s character comes from the writing and the way in which the narrative constantly centred on her, put her on a pedestal and tried to push her as being special, which people begrudge.

Ironically, the reason I love Elena is because I don’t think she was special. She was just a very normal girl who wanted what most teenagers want - to get through high school, have fun with her friends and live some semblance of an ordinary life with happy moments in between. She wasn’t perfect, she wasn’t special, she was just a girl that tried her best in impossible situations. She didn’t always make the best decisions and she wasn’t always the embodiment of empathy and compassion, but she showed amazing strength and resilience in the face of adversity. Time and time again she experienced tremendous traumas but she dealt with them as best she could, and in the process remained an optimistic and kind soul. Her resilience was undoubtedly her biggest strength. It still astounds me that Elena was able to overcome so much pain and trauma.

When people criticise Elena’s character, I think they fail to consider that although we’re not explicitly told it Elena consistently exhibited signs of depression. She explicitly said that after her parents death she didn’t want to live, she stopped enjoying her hobbies such as writing and cheer leading, but most significantly, she displayed reckless behaviours and suicidal tendencies. Unfortunately, her suicidal tendencies have been brushed off as being acts of “sacrifice” to save those she loved. I’m not saying they weren’t sacrifices, but her willingness to die was not normal for someone with a healthy mindset. I would die to save someone I love, but it wouldn’t be an easy decision. And perhaps that makes me sound like a terrible person, but I don’t want to die. I have a strong desire and instinct to live and sacrificing my life for someone I love is something I’d do, but I’d be absolutely terrified and heartbroken. However, when Elena was faced with the possibility of her own death, she didn’t seem to care. She passed it off as “I’m doing it to protect the people I love”, but whether that was true or not it doesn’t change the fact that she was going to die. The way Buffy reacted to finding out she was going to die is exactly how I would expect a teenager to react to receiving that kind of devastating news (x). Elena never reacted like this at the prospect of dying. In fact, when she died in 3x22 she seemed at peace, as though she was okay with the fact that she was dying. Afterwards when she woke up in transition she literally said, “I was ready to die”. It’s strange, because I always accepted that Elena didn’t want to be a vampire and that she was heartbroken at the start of season 4, but on reflection it doesn’t make sense. Elena has been around vampires and she knew that although it has it’s cons, she could still have a relatively normal life. Plus, she had a support network around her, particularly Caroline who had literally gone through the process of becoming a vampire two years previously and who had adapted to it brilliantly. I look back now and the only explanation I have for Elena’s reaction to becoming a vampire is that she wanted to die. Lets not forget that a few episodes later in 4x06 she tried to kill herself. She was under the influence of the Hunters curse, but all the curse did is bring her own self-loathing and suicidal thoughts to the forefront. And notice how in her relationships with Stefan and Damon she made some sort of reference to how they provided her with a reason to live. About Stefan: “After my parents died I kind of felt like I didn’t know how to live anymore. Like I didn’t want to. But then being with Stefan, somehow I just figured it out. And that’s what love should be. You should love the person that makes you glad that you’re alive.” About Damon: “ I’m not sorry that I met you. I’m not sorry that knowing you has made me question everything, that in death you’re the one that made me feel most alive.” Elena actively searched for something to live for in her relationships with Stefan and Damon, which just demonstrates to me that outside of those relationships she felt she has no reason to live. That’s hardly healthy and also explains why her relationship with Damon became so intense in seasons 5 and 6 to the point that she described him as being the one that defined her and felt that she couldn’t live without him.

I could continue assessing this aspect of Elena but it’ll get too long. The point is that Elena endured a lot of hurt and trauma and people crap on her for some of the shitty decisions she made (none of which are really that bad, they’re just generic incidents of self-involvement that we’re all guilty of) without taking into account the context of her character or her mental state. Even the fact that she entered into relationships with vampires as a human is indicative of self-destructive tendencies. Regardless of the humanistic qualities Stefan and Damon had, the fact that they were vampires was obviously only going to bring strife to Elena’s life, but she disregarded that and chose to be with them anyway. Elena had a lot of deep-rooted emotional issues that she didn’t really ever get to deal with because every time she tried to make progress and heal something else traumatic happened to her. People don’t want to accept that Elena was a victim because the narrative placed her as the victim, and it pisses people off, but whether you like her or not she was a victim. Almost everything that happened to and around Elena was as a result of what she was (the doppelganger) or who she was connected to (Katherine, Stefan and Damon primarily) rather than her own decisions or actions.

She was also a victim of the writing. I don’t want to bring ships into this too much because that’s a separate issue, but Elena’s entire characterisation was sacrificed for the benefit of her relationship with Damon. The writers had to change her in certain ways to make that relationship work and instead of Elena having the kind of development we generally expect characters to have (whereby they change for the better), she actually regressed as a character. Elena’s entire character was built around the idea of her being compassionate, empathetic and nurturing, and being a good friend, girlfriend and sister, but all of that immediately became null and void when she got into a relationship with Damon. How could we believe that Elena was compassionate and a good friend/sister when she willingly entered into a relationship with a man who abused and raped her best friend (Caroline), murdered her brother in front of her and kidnapped and threatened him later on in the series, brutally attacked her other best friend (Bonnie), murdered Vicki and turned her into a vampire and killed Aaron. Those are just the bad things Damon did to Elena’s friends and family that I can recall from the top of my head. And this is also a core aspect of Elena’s character that people have a problem with - her entire characterisation no longer stands when she gets into a relationship with Damon. No matter how much the writers tried to tell us post season 4 that Elena was a kind, selfless and caring person, friend and sister, being with Damon automatically invalidated all of that. For Elena to make sense as a character and exist in that relationship, they had to completely re-establish her entire personality and core traits and the writers couldn’t be bothered to do that so just swept it under the rug. The problem is that fans don’t turn a blind eye to things like that they notice it.

So the big question here is why do you, and I, and others still like Elena? Well, I can only speak for myself, but I like Elena because (prior to season 4) she was a genuinely sweet and kind-hearted person that was relatable and had lots of potential but that was done a great injustice by the writing. Elena could’ve been one of the best loved characters of all time if the writers had known how to handle her, but they lost her character amidst the triangle drama and her relationships with the Salvatore brothers (honestly, I think if the triangle didn’t exist, Elena would’ve immediately been a more well-liked character generally). She didn’t do anything to warrant the terrible things that happened to her and has been consistently bashed by fans who nit-pick the minor examples of self-centredness she displayed and overlook all the kindness she showed and the hardships she endured. The horrendous traumas she suffered through have been glossed over but honestly, as a 17 year old girl that went through everything she did, she showed incredible strength and resilience. For that alone, I cannot do anything but love Elena Gilbert.

Also, as a side-note, on a more personal level, I relate to Elena a lot as a character that’s considered flat and boring and that people see as lacking in conviction. I’m always very insecure that I’m dull, that there’s nothing interesting about me and that people will find it difficult to like me or connect to me because I’m a very neutral character. I also worry because I don’t have a specific path in mind for my future or one thing that I’m passionate about and want to dedicate my life to. And I feel like people a lot of people in real life really are like this. Not every single person in the world is super deep and multi-layered with really well-defined personalities. Not everyone is fun, vibrant, charming and charismatic. Likewise, a lot of people don’t know exactly what they want out of life (in fact, I’d argue people who know what they want are in the minority of people). A lot of people are just dull and ‘ordinary’ and don’t have their lives mapped out. We have this tendency to analyse characters based on their traits, their strengths, weaknesses, hobbies, desires, fears etc. which is fun and I love to do it, but real people are more complex than that. If I asked people that know me to describe my core personality they probably wouldn’t be able to (hell, I don’t even think I’d be able to!), because you can never really articulate the essence of what a person is no matter how hard you try. People are contradictory and personalities, feelings, thoughts, morals, beliefs etc. are very changeable. There are core aspects to who we are, but people can change the way they think or behave or what they believe all the time depending upon circumstances and experiences. Elena may not necessarily have a core personality or characterisation that is maintained across the series, but in a strange way, that makes her more human to me than any other character. And I relate so much to the way that Elena never really knows what to do when it comes to making important life decisions. It’s important to remember when analysing Elena that despite Nina looking (and being) older than 17, Elena is supposed to be a 17 year old girl. Most teenagers that age don’t have a clue who they are, what they want or who they want and are just living day to day and seeing where life takes them. That’s exactly what Elena did and since she “made it” it gives me hope that I will one day too.

Thank you so much for asking, lovely! I tried to keep this short, but I have a lot of thoughts and feelings when it comes to Elena. Hopefully I made sense, because I felt like a lot of this was very muddled and explained terribly.

#answered #my meta #tvd meta #elena gilbert #anti-delena #theofficestan

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diwatang-sirena · 5 years

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Food For Thought: Is it possible that Daenerys' storyline is going to go a similar route to Darth Vader's?

Now before you guys protest, especially the die-hard Dany stans, just hear me out on this. I’m a fan of both Vader and Dany, and as much as I wish that Dany will not turn into an antagonist, let’s not discount the possibility and try to look at her story in a different perspective. Okay? Then keep reading.

If you’re not familiar with Vader’s story in Star Wars (but how tho??), protagonist Anakin Skywalker started out as a poor, innocent slave boy who happened to have a very strong connection with the force. He’s even assumed to be the “Chosen One” from the prophecies that would balance the Dark and the Light sides of the Force. So he ends up training to become a Jedi with the hopes of freeing his slave mother whom he left behind in Tattooine, his home planet.

Eventually Anakin grows up to be a good but slightly arrogant teenager who is manipulated further by Emperor Palpatine (who’s posing as a good guy in the Senate). And because he’s fully aware of his natural talent, he’s even pushed further by the fact that the Jedi Council does not fully acknowledge his merits when he deserves them. One of the key moments in his transition is when he finds his mother murdered, which led him to his first act of madness when he massacred the tribe that stole her away.

But the final straw was when he dreamt that his secret wife, Padme, might possibly die through childbirth. This made him seek even more power to save his wife and unborn child, of which he was unable to do with his mother, and it eventually blinded him from seeing the good that his comrades and loved ones were trying to do to help him.

At this point, he concluded that by being the most powerful, most fearsome Jedi on earth, he can prevent every terrible fate that could happen to the ones he loved. So he helped the Emperor massacre the whole Jedi Council, including the innocent children, in order to be stronger using the dark side of the Force. And you know the rest, his wife died in childbirth, indirectly because of his actions, and thinking that his mentor and brotherly figure Obi-Wan betrayed him and left him to die, he eventually became reborn as Darth Vader, now completely overwhelmed by hatred.

And it’s not until the last minute when Luke, his son with Padme, helped bring him back to the Light when Vader chose to protect his son with his life instead of letting Palpatine kill him, ultimately fulfilling his prophecy as the Chosen One.

See the pattern here? Daenerys seems to be following quite a similar path, with her initially being a poor, helpless girl with a very tough upbringing who eventually gained power to protect the common folk. Not only that, but she also has something to do with the “Azor Ahai” Prophecy about the “Prince/Princess that was Promised”, although whether or not this means her, Jon, or their future child is yet to be seen.

Unfortunately, just like Anakin, Daenerys has been shown to have lingered in between the light and dark at times, such as burning her enemies or using fear to bend people to her will when her patience runs out. Of course I won’t deny that some of these actions are considered necessary considering that some of her enemies don’t do well with peace pacts or respectful discussions, most especially when they go through lengths to disrespect her as a woman.

But as much as I love Dany, I can’t deny that some of her actions, regardless of where she came from and how she came to be, are not doing her any favors with the Westerosi. Like Anakin, she has been slowly losing sight of what has been her main goal in the beginning of her pursuit; to save the people who suffered like she did and to find a place to truly call home. Now most of her focus is gaining her right to the Iron Throne, while slowly losing bits of emotion here and there especially when betrayal hits her at one front to another.

That is, until dear honorable Jon Snow came along.

Just like how Anakin and Padme’s forbidden love story ended up changing the Jedi forever, Jon and Dany’s love story seems to be a must in breaking the wheel of the current world, not just in politics, but the fate of the world itself. After all, Melisandre has prophesied that both of them have a very important role to play in the Azor Ahai prophecy in stopping the Night King.

Whether you ship them or not, you can’t deny that these two were bound to have a special connection thanks to their parallel journeys and their secret Targaryen relation. It’s interesting to note that in the beginning, all that Jon ever wanted was to become acknowledged as a Stark, arrogantly thinking that he had it worse than everyone else. Now that he’s constantly given all these burdens and high positions, he’s become more humble and doesn’t enjoy being the leader that people turn to.

Dany, on the other hand, was a meek and afraid little girl, having no idea in the beginning that she was capable of becoming more, no thanks to Viserys’ abuse. But as time went by, she began to grow as her own person and became more and more powerful, which unfortunately led her to become quite arrogant at times.

While Jon’s been shown to have a harder time killing more and more people out of duty, especially when he began to realize that not everything is in black and white, Dany has been shown to be having an easier time disposing people who defy her, even the ones who used to be on her side. It’s not to say she hasn’t tried doing things the gentler way, but a lot of if not all the peace talks she’s attempted with her adversaries have never really gone smoothly. Not to mention, most of the people she had placed her trust in in the beginning have either betrayed or left her at some point.

To be fair, we can’t have two exact copies of “Jon Snow” in the GOT world. That wouldn’t make much of an interesting story now can it?

With that said, it seems possible that Jon’s role in GOT is quite similar to Luke’s trope as the reluctant hero of the story, the one who saves the whole world by saving their loved one from being completely immersed into the Dark Side.

Of course, we haven’t seen Dany turn completely mad just yet, and I personally hope it would never happen. But the first two episodes of Season 8 has compelled me to imagine the uncomfortable possibility of what it would be like if Daenerys does end up becoming a villain. Her thirst for the crown has been focused on too many times to deny in the first two episodes of the final season, and it seems that not even her love for Jon would let her set aside her quest for the crown completely, at least not yet.

But there’s also a possibility that their future child, if the constant foreshadowing in Season 7 comes to fruition, might also be a strong factor in changing her mindset, just like how Vader’s love for Padme and his children compelled him to eventually turn away from the Dark Side. Most importantly, their child might also have a huge role in stopping the second Long Night from happening, however possible that is, if he/she/they have something to do with the prophecy.

Another interesting possibility that’s been pointed out by some fans is that the only person other than Jon that might stop Dany from her road to Mad Queen status is the woman who currently checks up all the boxes of said status.

Cersei may not have the pure intentions that Dany has, but they do have a common factor of wanting to gain and remain in power no thanks to their past experiences of having their father/brother control most of their lives in the early parts of the series (Tywin with Cersei, and Viserys with Dany). I’d personally wager that Dany is still far from Cersei’s “Mad Queen” level, because at the very least Dany still has a few good and true comrades to help keep her feet on the ground. As Tyrion told Cersei, at least Dany has enough brains and empathy to listen to their advice at times, whereas Cersei would never do so unless it benefits only her.

This Cersei-Dany parallel would be a pretty similar situation with, again, Darth Vader and Luke. Just when Luke battles with his father and was almost on the verge of killing him, he stops when he sees his father’s robotic hand, realizing how similar they actually are and how much the Dark Side has affected Vader in the worst ways, which he himself almost fell into if he didn’t see the truth with his own eyes.

After the Battle of Winterfell is over, and Daenerys sees the remnants of the Night King's power while also coming to terms with Jon’s status as the rightful heir, perhaps Dany might reconsider and reflect on her true purpose in attaining the Seven Kingdoms. True there's also a huge possibility that she'll turn even darker than before, especially if her close comrades die/leave her, leaving her feeling more alone and out of place. But perhaps after seeing Cersei the way she is, with no true friends, no family, and no love left in her except the crown on her head, this might lead Dany to see the hard truth; The Iron Throne isn’t worth her humanity.

With that said, whether or not Dany turns into a true antagonist is yet to be seen. Contrary to some fans' predictions of her dying in the end, I actually believe that she'll survive, but not without huge consequences of course, which is carrying the guilt with her for the rest of her life. For some people, continuing to find the will to live can be much harder than dying a quick death.

Having her killed off easily as a villain without redemption or in childbirth for me is a very big disservice to those who have watched/read her whole journey since Season 1 and the 1st book. I doubt that George R.R. Martin created Dany only to make her a Cersei 2.0 in the end. It would be the such an injustice for the series to conclude with Dany’s faults completely overshadowing the many good things she has done for the ones without power, especially during her time in Essos.

We have yet to see how low Dany would go to seize power as Vader would, and I’m extremely worried about how much it would affect everyone’s view of her till the very end, especially as a character that was so beloved for the whole 7 seasons, only to have her hated by most without proper redemption at the final season. Yes, as a GOT fan I’m glad that Dany’s being given a wakeup call that her idea of ruling has its flaws and does not suit everybody. But if she is really meant to betray Jon and the rest, I seriously wish that whatever payoff the writers have for Dany will be worth it in the end. Especially when there’re only a handful of episodes left.

And if people really think that Jon would easily leave Dany just like that, then boy, have they not been paying attention to Jon’s character development. Jon has already chosen duty over love several times, with one of those choices leading indirectly to his first love’s death. I highly doubt that Jon would ever leave Dany alone like that, even with all her faults, especially if she’s with child and if they do get married even if out of duty.

Just like how Padme never stopped believing that there is good in Anakin till her dying breath, it’s in Jon’s persona that he would do everything in his power to keep Daenerys from falling completely into the dark and feeling alone. I won’t be surprised if Jon would choose to take the fall for/with Daenerys if she is to be punished for whatever wrongdoing she’s about to do. That’s just the type of guy he is.

With that said, we have no choice but to wait until Episode 3 and 4 to really see where Daenerys’ morality will be going. As with every season, with every new episode that comes out, anything is possible. I still hold onto the hope that the writers know exactly what they’re doing with Daenerys and that it’ll be true to what George R.R. Martin really intended for her, although I’m already a bit wary at how they’re currently handling her responses. If her path is to go the same way as Vader’s like I guessed, I can only hope that they can do enough justice to make her memory worthwhile.

If not... there’s always hope for the books. And fanfiction.

#daenerys targaryen #a random thought #darth vader #got #got spoilers #game of thrones #jon snow #jonerys #star wars

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occupyvenus · 7 years

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Do you think that maybe the reason why Jon didn't share anything personal with Dany is because he was trying to deny his feelings for her by keeping things less personal as possible? And 7.07 he was finally deciding to love her?

Hi, nonny!

You know what, the first thing I’ll have to admit is that is that’s a valid argument. It’s completely possible and I have no real way to just outright refute it. It would be mostly in character for Jon, I would expect D&D to be more clear about (in the writing itself, not the additional commentary. That’s not a very reliable source for anything in my opinion… Jon snow is dead as dead, y’all) it if it was the case, but that isn’t a very solid argument on it’s own either.

Before I go on to explain why I believe it’s unlikely, at least in my opinion, I would like to point out tree thing considering the “political jon” theory and j0nerys in general. Buckle up, I will go off topic here.

1) While the theory gives a sufficient explanation for Jon’s behaviour in ep6 and ep7 without him having any romantic feelings towards Dany, it does not necessarily mean that he has none at all. It’s plausible that he is at least attracted and/or intrigued with her. He might even have stronger feelings than this. I’ll go into why I personally don’t believe this a bit later, but there’s no way for me to objectively deny it either.

2) I honestly expected Jon and Dany to have some sort of romantic entanglement (unintentional incest is something that grrm would definitely do), but even with this in possibility in mind, it would still be bad storytelling. I’m not talking about the way it was presented per se, but the implications for Dany’s character development in particular. What really bothers me, or rather what makes me question the romance presented by the show, is the fact that both Jon’s newfound political conviction (Dany should rule the seven kingdoms, he gives up Northern independence to Dany freely because he believes in her cause) seems to perfectly align with his personal feelings (he’s genuinely in love with her). It’s too easy. Dany doesn’t has to give up either to gain the other. Her relationship with Jon comes without cost.

This actually halts Dany’s character development. Or at least, it doesn’t actively further it. She gets everything she wants, both another kingdom’s allegiance and the man she has feelings for. There is no lesson for her to be learned by entering this relationship. She doesn’t have to make a hard choice, there’s no more interpersonal tension for her. No tension means no drama. No drama means no arc. No arc means no story. No story means no point. In the end, she doesn’t even have to decide between fighting the dead or fighting for the Throne. Though this will mostly likely be an issue next season. It all adds up too nicely. Dany should have to make some hard decisions, because that is how a character grows. This should also apply to her relationship with Jon, something that should be of foremost significance to her overall character development. That’s just something I would expect from a romantic relationship between two main characters. Dany should either remain unrelenting on her position on Northern Independence, straining her personal relationship with Jon, or she should be willing to enter a personal relationship with Jon, without also gaining his political support as a subject. Jon saying something like “I love you, but I can’t bend the knee because my people and all.” and Dany being all “I don’t care and stuff” or “I’ll bend the knee, but just so you know I’m not happy about it. I hate that you force me to do this.” and Dany being “I’m sorry you feel that way, but I’ve been working towards this goal half my life and I can’t give you a pass because I’m into you and stuff”.

Some people might accuse me of thinking so because I begrudge her both political and personal happiness, but it simply doesn’t make for a compelling character arc or story. These issues could/should be resolved at the end of the series, not when we still have 6 feature-film long episodes ahead of us. Even if you could explain the, in my opinion unsatisfying development of their romance by saying Jon was simply denying his feelings, this is a critique that remains. Even the revelation of r+l=j would be a rather weak source of conflict if Dany and Jon are in a mutual, deep, sincere relationship AND agree on her being the rightful queen of the seven kingdoms.The romantic relationship between two major characters having no real personal tension during the entire finale season … just sounds implausible to me. Even if their relationship was later hindered by external sources, there should be internal sources of conflict as well, something that they have to resolve in the course of the next season. This is something from a pure story-telling perspective that bugs me about the j0nerys romance in season 7. In my opinion, the marge!Jon theory builds a compelling case in remediating this little problem (in addition to explaining some of the other ooc moments of the season). Don’t get me wrong, all these things can line up … all conflict should be resolved eventually, but not before the conclusion of the story. Not this soon into Jon and Dany’s shared arc.

3) My opinions about all this are of course influenced by my other ideas about the series’s final conclusion. I’m trying to stay as unbiased as possible when talking about the actual direction the series could take (compared to my personal preferences), but my opinion on something as important as the relationship between two major characters is not going to be unaffected by my other opinions, expectations, speculations, theories, conclusions, etc. I do not believe that Dany will win the Iron Throne (a believe I already explained in other posts, and I won’t go into more detail here. This is already long enough), I actually believe her to take an antagonistic role at some point before the finale (I will refer you to the grrm approved “Untying the meereenese knot” essays, or anything on my blog tagged as dark!dany. But be warned: there’s probably an equal amount of warranted critique and salty wank in there.) I obviously believe Jonsa to be a thing by the end of the series (again there are many, many posts and metas on why I believe this on my blog), and while I don’t believe that a romance between Dany and Jon would necessarily forecloses the possibility of my ship happening, which means I’m not desperate enough to oppose “the other ship” by all means, it obviously makes me more critical and suspicious. Claiming anything else would be dishonest. But since believing in the ship, or at least seeing it as a foregone conclusion, makes you less critical and suspicious… you know what I’m getting at. There’s no escape from confirmation bias.

Now, back to the original topic (and this is probably the most biased thing about this entire answer): My biggest argument against this (beside from the one mentioned in point 2) is that Jon has no reason to be in love with her. He certainly has reasons to be attracted to her or intrigued. But I can’t find something that would lead him to develop deeper feelings.

Other than saving him from a suicide mission he only went on because she wouldn’t help him without proof for either herself or Cersei, Jon hasn’t really seen anything that would endear her to him. She does not leave a good impression at their first meeting, she later basically makes him her prisoner, refuses to form an alliance on any other basis than him bending the knee (in contrast to the one she formed with Asha and Theon), he does not seem too happy about her decision to use her dragons (even if she burned an army instead of a city) and as I already mentioned in my political Jon posts, her prioritizing her position in the south over the survival of his people should not exactly make him like her better either. It should be really hard for her to redeem herself for all this in Jon’s eyes, especially to the point where he develops genuine romantic feelings for her.

Some people will argue that saving his life north of the wall was enough, I would argue that since she’s the main reason he even had to put himself in such danger in the first place … it wouldn’t be. So that’s something we could argue about to no end. He says that she has “a good heart”, but we never see Jon witness anything that would bring him to this conclusion. Missandei compliments Dany and tells Jon that “she is the queen we chose”… when Dany is demanding he bends the knee to her … even though his people chose HIM …and not her. He even questions Danys goodness of heart in this very conversation when asking Missandei whether she truly believes that Dany would allow her to leave.

I don’t think that Dany’s wish to be “extraordinary”, her lamenting the confinement and subsequent demise of dragons because it changed her family into “being just like everyone else” after listening to Jorah explaining what makes dragons so dangerous they had to be locked away in the first place, is something that Jon could relate to or appreciate or find particularly attractive. To me, his response “you’re not like everybody else”, sounds like him simply telling her what she wants to hear. Not like him expressing his own thoughts. And despite what some people think Jon is really observant and knows what buttons to push:

Guest right or no, Jon Snow knew he walked on rotten ice here. One false step and he might plunge through, into water cold enough to stop his heart. Weigh every word before you speak it, he told himself. He took a long draught of mead to buy time for his answer. When he set the horn aside he said, “Tell me why you turned your cloak, and I’ll tell you why I turned mine.”

Mance Rayder smiled, as Jon had hoped he would. The king was plainly a man who liked the sound of his own voice. “You will have heard stories of my desertion, I have no doubt.“

ASOS, Jon I

He has appealed to this certain characteristic before, when Dany asks for his opinion on the beach: “The people who follow you know that you made something impossible happen….”. Btw, I don’t think that Dany lashing out against her advisors left a particularly good impression either…. Not that Dany didn’t have a reason to be upset, but despite just coming from their “romantic” cave scene (romantic in lightning, setting, score and some facial expressions. Not so romantic when you think about the topic they talked about… but that’s another issue. Let’s just note this one as a bonding moment), the first real bonding moment between them this is his reaction when Dany tells to him to stay during their little war council:

I don’t know, this doesn’t look like repressed romantic feelings to me. (I actually managed to add both a book quote and a gif.sry about the shitty quality, I made this rather quickly.)

And even if Jon was simply hiding his true feelings, the show could have easily done a better job at showing this. Most notably when he leaves Dragonstone to go beyond the Wall. When Dany is taking another step to close the gap between them and he doesn’t react. When Jorah turns around to take a last look at the woman he loves, only emphasizing the fact that Jon doesn’t. The show could have easily written in a scene to make Jon calling her “Dany” in ep6 more plausible. To make this sudden shift from “I wish you good fortunes in the wars to come your grace” less … random. A scene where she offers to converse on a first-name basis, but he declines because “it wouldn’t be appropriate”, for example. Something to stress that he is fighting against these feelings. They could have written in a scene of Jon sharing something before the dragonpit meeting at the beginning of ep7, after the first time he appears to reciprocate her feelings on the boat, or even at some point between the dragonpit meeting and their journey back north. If this was the grand love story of the series I’m sure they could have sacrificed 1 or 2 minutes of screentime to give them some proper, mutual bonding time before doing the deed. Why not replace the group discussion with both of them having a private conversation about their journey north? They could have discussed the same issues. Instead Jon gets another one-one-one scene with Theon, where they talked about their shared daddy issues. (… btw, Jon saying that he isn’t always as good as it seems … it’s just…) Instead we get Jorah worrying about Dany’s safety, while Jon cares more about how her arrival should look like to the north. Then of course there is the issue about how their sex-scene was filmed (no first kiss, no undressing, etc.), but I’m going to leave this discussion for another time. Other people have already talked about this as well.

Now of course all of this is open to interpretation and different people will have vastly different views on this. This is just my own. I simply can’t refute the possibility of Jon denying his feelings because of that. But in my opinion there are still so many things that don’t add up. For me, there are simply one too many indications for Jon lying about or exaggerating his feelings (though… he never actually said anything about them) and too many missed opportunities to establish an actual romance.

Also, this doesn’t fit into Jon’s theme of learning from his predecessors mistakes. Robb did the same thing, “betraying” his people by giving in to love (at least on the show. Something that was brought up again in s6 for no reason by lord glover … though D&D might just love to use the word “whore”, who knows?). If we consider Jon to be the final big “hero” of this story he should learn a lesson from every “hero” that came before him. Now, if he had decided to love her by the end of the season, while still refusing to “betray” his people and their trust by bending the knee it would be a different story entirely.

I will leave it at that. I’m not sure most of this even makes sense and I let my mind run free about this little innocent question for long enough.

#Anonymous #ask #marge!Jon #undercover jon #political jon #the northern fool #anti-jonerys #i suppose #my stuff #meta #ish #got #long post

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willidleaway · 6 years

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Star Wars, episode 8

There’s been a lot of divisive back-and-forth about The Last Jedi on the Internet, with opinions diverging so hard towards the three groups of

it was the worst thing ever

it was the best thing ever

it was okay I guess

that as I prepared to do my part in helping fund Disney’s Fox acquisition, I couldn’t help but wonder whether people were seeing three different movies.

And as a matter of fact, they kind of were.

In short: Having three subplots just because you have three main characters ... maybe wasn’t a good idea. One of them had a lot of good moments if you could overlook some gaping holes (and giant regressions from the original trilogy), one of them wasn’t terrible but was also kind of pointless and didn’t have to be, and one of them was just mostly needlessly stupid.

Overall, I came out of the theatre more impressed than not, but this movie isn’t one that stands up terribly well to any extended thoughts about it. I also fear that in many places Episode IX may have to bite off more than it can possibly chew, as if this movie hasn’t done enough of that as it is.

Spoiler-y thoughts behind the Read More break.

In less short:

the Finn subplot was kind of okay;

the Poe subplot was inexcusably flawed;

and the Rey subplot was—well, it wasn’t the best thing ever and had a few critical points of badness, but it had a lot of good moments and I can’t help but enjoy them.

I really can, for the most part, treat these subplots as three different movies. Finn’s subplot branches a safe distance away from Poe’s subplot rather quickly and never really integrates properly back into it. Rey’s subplot doesn’t join back up with either of them until the very end.

This was true of Episode V too, to a large extent. But there, at least, the trio had the decency to split into two groups, with Luke’s subplot seeing Yoda teach him and Vader pursue him, and Han and Leia’s subplot leading them (eventually) to Cloud City. But Episode V had just those two subplots for the most part, and a relatively tight ensemble of characters and locations.

This episode ... not so much. I personally would really have liked to see Poe join an expanded version of the Finn subplot, with the existing Poe subplot dropped or considerably downsized, and I really think this would have improved the movie. But as this will never happen, I may as well give thoughts on the triple feature as it stands. So, thoughts on ...

Finn’s Big Adventure: It was okay.

I did find Canto Bight interesting—it’s a side of the galaxy you don’t normally get to see in Star Wars, which is normally all about either the military and political centres of conflict or the grimier parts of town. We get a peek at the economic elite life here, and it’s apparently equally disgusting in any galaxy.

But Rose never really developed into her own character, I’m afraid. She had a cursory backstory of suffering and a consistent compassion, but was mostly defined by love for her sister and for Finn. The codebreaker took so many moral swerves that it was impossible to ever get a great handle on him as a real character, and his apparent argument of ‘well the First Order and the Resistance both use machines from the same suppliers so it’s all part of the system, man’ was just weird and frankly kind of disconcerting. I’m sure I’ve oversimplified that in some way, but not by much, I think.

This subplot also had to quite rapidly manage its own mission expectations, going through a few stages:

we’re going to get hold of a master codebreaker to gain access to a critical weakness in Snoke’s ship

okay, we’re just going to use whatever codebreaker we've found to gain access to a critical weakness in Snoke’s ship

okay, we’re just going to die on Snoke’s ship and hope the Resistance survives because we can’t actually do anything now

okay, everyone else is just going to die too

wait is that the Resistance cruiser ramming into Snoke’s ship

and that probably didn’t help this subplot being so utterly unremarkable. Really, it was a little odd that this was the subplot they kind of chose to end on, with the Force-sensitive child slave sweeping and looking up at the sky.

And really the worst thing is that Captain Phasma (and by extension Gwendoline Christie) was simply tragically wasted as a villain, which is bad because Captain Phasma is clearly one of the more competent and awesome First Order military personnel. Plus, more screen time with Captain Phasma could have given us more development of Finn. It wasn’t too late to show more of her after Episode VII. It is now.

Who Framed Poe Dameron: Be careful what you wish for. I wished for Poe to have more screen time, and look what happened.

What we’ve got here, to quote Cool Hand Luke, is failure to communicate—not just between the Resistance personnel, but also between the writers and the audience. Let’s take this one failure at a time:

Poe’s demotion. Why does Holdo bring this back up as if it’s that important? How far down is the rank of Captain from Commander? (In most real-world navies and air forces, isn’t Captain actually one rank above Commander?) Is that proportionate to his act of insubordination per se, or more proportionate to the severe losses he caused through that insubordination? And how rigorous is the Resistance ranking hierarchy anyway? Can they even afford to be rigorous about it, given how short-staffed they are (even before the Battle of Crait)? Han went from starship captain to a General in the Rebel Alliance basically right after he had been frozen in carbonite for a good long while. Are you telling me that it would be so difficult for Poe to get that far back up in no time at all?

The secrecy around the evacuation. Why wasn’t there just a standing plan known to all Resistance fighters of ‘look if things get really bad we have a base we can fall back to with a decent set of resources, and its location is definitely on a need-to-know basis but just so you know we will fall back to it if the First Order really start hurting us, so please don’t mutiny’? If no one else, how did Leia not trust Poe with this plan when she trusted him with retrieving a piece of the map to Luke?

Crait. How is this place uncharted to the First Order? Is their map information just that bad? Shouldn’t it be on the First Order’s maps given that the son of erstwhile Generals of the Rebel Alliance is in the First Order leadership? Where do the First Order maps come from? And regardless, wouldn’t it have become charted the moment the Resistance cruiser came out of hyperspace to try and make a run to somewhere within reasonable distance of it? How does galactic cartography work, anyway? Is that even relevant, given that a First Order flagship should probably be able to detect transports launching from the cruiser with or without life signs and track their trajectory anyway?

Some of this, I think, is hurt by lack of significant context about exactly what the Resistance is, what the First Order is, what their relations are to the Empire and the Rebel Alliance and the new (short-lived) Republic, what their standing is in the galaxy, what resources they have, and so on. Certainly the original trilogy was never quite as rigorous in this sort of thing as the prequels were, but after just a few minutes of Episode IV, you saw enough to know that the Empire ruled the galaxy under an iron fist, and the Rebel Alliance was a ragtag volunteer army. Here, the First Order is ... governing? Is it governing anything? Does it have provinces? Is Snoke on billions of propaganda pamphlets, pictured in his best dressing gown? Does it claim to be a legitimate continuation of the Galactic Empire, or merely a de facto one? And what of the Resistance? Is it funded by the new Republic? Well, I know their political centre was wiped out in Episode VII, but maybe they actually have a civilian government in exile ... or don’t they? If they have access to old Rebel bases and equipment, how did they end up with only one cruiser by the start of this episode?

This seems like nitpicking, but I am genuinely left a bit confused by the scope of the Resistance, which is apparently fine to rebuild even if the new Republic it sought to defend is in tatters, its allies have abandoned it, and its military strength is now small enough to fit in its entirety inside the Millennium Falcon.

I get that this episode is going for an ominous ending like that of Episode V, but as of the end of Episode V, the Rebellion still actually had bases and cruisers and fighters and Admiral Ackbar. It was just that Leia was shaken by the apparent loss of Han, a capable if reluctant member of the Rebellion, and Luke was shaken by revelations about Darth Vader. As of the end of this episode, the Resistance fleet is just the Falcon. There are people skilled enough to take down an entire military fleet with one starship, but most of them are Time Lords in a TARDIS and they aren’t in this universe.

Also, I’m not sure whether to file this under Poe’s subplot or Rey’s, but ginger!Tarkin is just hilarious. I’m sorry, I’ve got nothing against Domhnall Gleeson as an actor, but I’m pretty sure he’s being directed to ham it up as much as he can and it’s ridiculous and silly to the point of being wonderful. At the same time, his character’s a bit useless and the movie seems painfully aware of it.

The Last Jedi (that is, the parts of The Last Jedi that were actually about, you know, The Last Jedi): Oh, Luke, what happened to you?

No, really, I want to know and these movies won’t tell me. I want to see what happened to Luke between Episodes VI and VII in this brave new Disney-enforced canon, and it’s really unfortunate that this was not a core concern of the sequels. We got some inkling of it in Episode VII, sure, and now get unreliable tellings of what happened between Luke and Ben/Kylo specifically. But this simply isn’t enough.

As it stands, everyone telling the story seems to agree that Luke definitely showed intent to kill Ben, however transient. And that is so jarring given that we’ve been here before and overcome it, in Episode VI. The original trilogy was all about Luke succeeding where Anakin failed, overcoming his darker side and even pushing Anakin to do so in the very end. Given this, where Luke stands at the start of this episode—having attempted to kill Ben, mistrusting Rey so much—is undeniably a very abrupt regression that lacks any significant development to support it. What did it take to break the unbreakable cinnamon roll?

This is a fundamental problem with the plotting of the sequel trilogy. In fact, I wonder if it should really have been a trilogy. The prequels, of course, were forced to be a trilogy because Lucas had pre-emptively numbered Episodes IV through VI. But while there is a massive gap between the prequels and the original trilogy—and even within the prequels, which jumped from precious child Anakin to teenaged Anakin to war-weary Anakin—that was excusable because nothing terribly interesting happened in that gap to the Skywalkers or the Jedi. Darth Vader kind of kept on Darth Vader-ing, Luke had a fairly peaceful moisture farmer’s life with some occasional piloting excitement, Obi-Wan and Yoda went on their eccentric hermit ways, the Emperor kept on with his Galactic Empire, and most of the Jedi stayed dead.

The gap between Episodes VI and VII, as it stands ... not so much. Apparently in that gap we had

the re-establishment of a peaceful Galactic Republic

the establishment of a new Jedi Temple

the training of Ben Solo

the rise of Snoke

the fall of the new Jedi Temple

the rise of the First Order

which frankly should have been a movie or two, maybe even a television series. (It really could work. The gap between Episodes II and III were the entire Clone Wars, which of course had its own lovely series, cut short by the Disney/Lucasfilm acquisition.) In fact, I’m beginning to think the rise of Snoke and the Knights of Ren should have been the core of Episode VII, with Luke going into self-imposed exile at the end, until one day a mysterious young woman shows up and holds out a lightsaber, her face full of hope ...

... but that will never happen now. I wonder if it even could have happened in the 2010s, given the age of the original cast and the scenes that would be required of them. And frankly, I wonder if Disney/Lucasfilm, instead of making the abrupt jumps that they did between the original trilogy and the sequels, should instead have been making what they now plan to after this sequel trilogy—movies following completely new characters with their own stories.

And this is the good subplot, huh? Yes, yes it is.

There are moments in this subplot that I can’t help but enjoy, which is not actually true for either of the other subplots. Luke reuniting with Artoo was when Luke felt most like himself. The return of Yoda, with a surprisingly faithful CGI rendition and perhaps a moment of overpowered mischievousness, was kind of amazing. Rey and Kylo joining forces (Forces?), however briefly, was frankly surprising in just how effective it was. Kylo has actually risen above being ‘a child with a mask’ and become a far more credible character, if not a credible villain. Rey’s moment of self-reflection was ... not subtle, but still worked for what it was. The revelation of her parentage was exactly what it needed to be.

And Luke’s projection ... was a bit ridiculous—hadn’t he cut himself off from the Force for quite a while? Wouldn’t he need to retrain a lot before he was able to do that again and/or possibly for the first time ever, given that this is the first time we’ve seen Force Telepresence, which I would have thought was some kind of transient Force bond with every living thing in the vicinity, except apparently even droids can detect your projection? (So it’s definitely just a new Force power, because we didn’t already have enough of those and definitely had rules around those sorted out really neatly ...) I mean, it was awesome, but kind of odd and didn’t seem to really have concrete rules.

And really, if you were willing to overlook Luke not being himself for the majority of the movie and what might be a fundamental flaw in the planning of this entire sequel trilogy, this subplot was pretty good (and the one that I’d wager the critics paid most attention to). It sounds like I’m saying that facetiously, but I’m only saying it half-facetiously.

The one rather unsatisfying thing was the fact of Snoke’s anticlimactic end after all of the buildup around him (more so than how it played out)—but if Darth Maul can come back from being sliced in half, perhaps Snoke can too. Hmm, maybe not in this case. And that’s a pity, because Snoke’s motivations surely more or less inform Kylo’s motivations, and both would have been great to learn more about.

Final thoughts: So, basically what the writers of Episode IX have to do is

figure out how the Resistance is going to be a credible threat to the First Order when right now it fits inside an old Corellian light freighter

work in Leia’s off-screen death and pass her part of the story on to someone appropriate

complete Kylo Ren’s arc, without Leia

figure out if Poe actually has an arc to complete given that Poe’s screen time was taken up by setting up Finn’s subplots and inciting mutiny without much of a result, and given that the only ship he can now fly is a light freighter

figure out if Finn is actually going to do something useful this time

make ginger!Tarkin look like a competent second-in-command

actually show Poe being competent and not deceived by his superiors

congratulate themselves on outdoing RTD and Moffat in writing themselves into a massively tight corner for the final episode

That seems like a fairly tall order, and I don’t hold out much hope for answers here. If George Lucas were in charge, we’d have more answers than we needed. But JJ Abrams is in charge, and I’m afraid any answers we get here are going to just give rise to a thousand-fold more questions.

Miscellaneous thoughts:

On the droids: BB-8 was fantastic, as always. I still can’t get over just how expressive the design is compared to Artoo or frankly even Threepio.

I guess we also saw BB-8′s Imperial—erm, excuse me, First Order counterpart, which I really wanted to see do more. Kind of like Phasma.

On slot machine guns: Professor Layton did it better.

On the critters infesting the Falcon: Chewie, how dare you eat them.

Also, I think we’ve now potentially got the Star Wars equivalent of Tribbles. How quickly did those things take over the ship, anyway?

On originality: Say, do you remember a Star Wars movie where

the rebels are chased off their main holdout on a snow-white planet;

the Force-sensitive protagonist trains with a reluctant teacher on a remote planet with a submerged X-wing, dips into a cavern to confront the dark side of the Force, and ultimately interrupts their Jedi training to help the rebels;

the non-Force-sensitive protagonists seek out a rogue to help them, but are double-crossed and face dire prospects;

someone says ‘I know’ in an unusual context;

and the Force-sensitive villain reveals the parentage of the Force-sensitive protagonist, who is then asked to join them so that together they can rule the galaxy?

I mean, it’s not a straight-up recycled Episode V the way that Episode VII was a blatant remake of Episode IV, and the original trilogy codified a lot of modern sci-fi filmmaking to the point where it would not be possible for a sequel to not have some overlap with the original. But, to quote the judge from Ace Attorney, two coincidences at the same time seems more like a pattern to me.

Thinking about the submerged X-wing makes me a little peeved, actually, because it feels like the writers basically throwing the regression of Luke’s character in your face through one succinct image. It also feels like lifting the X-wing out of the water and flying to Crait in person would have been a less cheap way for Luke to go out, and actually would have also made for an extra nice callback to Episode V. Really, it’s surprising that this was so overlooked.

Random thoughts on the trailers I saw before the feature presentation:

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom looks like it’s going to be gloriously silly. Also, Jeff Goldblum’s memetic line ... finds a way.

Ready Player One looks good (did I spot an Overwatch character?) although that could just be the Van Halen music. In fact, I’m pretty sure it’s mostly the Van Halen music.

Eek, creepy large lifelike anime eyes in Alita: Battle Angel. It looks like one of those images you see on the Internet where you splice real-life photos together to represent a cartoon character, except now with a multi-million dollar budget.

Incredibles II. This is where it’s come to, is it, Disney/Pixar? I mean, I’m going to reserve judgement because the trailer was astonishingly short on content, but are you going to really start ruining every perfect movie you ever made?

I have no opinions on Avengers: Infinity War since I don’t follow the MCU, but involving the GotG makes me worried for their safety.

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him-e · 7 years

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Did last night's episode change your opinion of the Jon/Dany relationship at all? What do you think will happen between them next season? I'm not a jonerys shipper and the idea of watching a full season of them in love makes me miserable.

It mostly confirmed what I thought. There’s going to be a baby (which squicks me out for a variety of reasons, but I won’t go there for now). This doesn’t mean that next season is going to be all rainbows and unicorns for them. Surely their sexual relationship is going to take an uncomfortable turn once Jon does the maths and realizes that his biological relationship with Dany is the same he has with Ned, and he’s about to have a child from her.

It won’t be just the incest, but the political implications of his parentage. As d&d said in the inside the episode, this information is going to “complicate everything”, on a “political level and on a personal level”. Which reinforces my idea that Aegon VI’s storyline in the books hasn’t been cut completely, but split between Cersei and Jon. The golden company is going to be part of Cersei’s plot, and the “male Targaryen heir popping out of nowhere to steal Dany’s claim” narrative will be played by Jon, only that, unlike book!Aegon, he’s the real deal.

Some kind of conflict (probably not an actual Targbowl or dance of dragons 2.0) will happen, which… I’m afraid is just one more reason for them to marry to reunite the two claims, but first we need to see how Dany takes it (she signed up for romancing one of her future vassals, NOT someone who CAN technically sit on the iron throne in his own right without her, and to whom she’d be only a queen consort if Westeros’ patriarchy still stands), and how Jon takes it, and how the Starks take it, and so on.

Anonymous said:

jon/dany would be the reverse of the jon/arya original storyline tho? cause in the outline jon and arya are tormented by their feelings until they find out they’re just cousins. jon/dany start out not knowing that they’re related and will eventually find out they’re related. why would they still want to be together? what would then make their dynamic any different than jaime and cersei’s if they still wanna bone knowing they’re related lol

yes, it would be the reverse of the original jonrya romance, which is a separate trope from ~not blood siblings~, but still related and not uncommon in romantic literature. Also worth clarifying that:

while sibcest is definitely considered an abomination in Westeros, avunculate (second degree of consanguinity) and cousin (third degree of consanguinity) marriages are not frowned upon the same way, and definitely legal. We have examples of avunculate marriages in house Stark (two of Cregar Stark’s sons, Jonnel and Edric, married their nieces, respectively Sansa and Serena Stark), and house Targaryen (Rhaenyra and her uncle Daemon Targaryen).

jaime and cersei’s dynamic is toxic for a variety of reasons, including but not limited to the incest, that in their case started at a young age, when they were living in the same household, and continued to affect their development and their entire adult life.

I don’t really get the sense that asoiaf has a SUPER strong stance against incest, to be honest. Yes, one the one hand you have jaime and cersei, on the other hand… the main heroine is a direct product of incest, the main hero is a also a product of incest on his biological father’s side, and the other main hero’s parents were cousins, and I surely don’t expect the incestuous aspect in JxD to be portrayed as toxic or morbid, but bittersweet and tragic. And of course, for all that house Targaryen is criticized and often presented in an appropriately bad light within the text, it’s not entirely villainized either—it’s still a powerful, borderline magical dynasty of prophesied heroes, so in a sense, the text almost justifies the need to ~~keep the blood pure~~.

Anonymous said:

The truth is easier for me to ship tyrion and dany than ship jon and dany, cause I loved the scene when dany gives tyrion the pin and other scenes between them but I haven’t feeling the scenes between jon and dany, I mean, was it that hard to at least kiss instead of going to the full boat sex?

Anonymous said:

Im glad im not the only one who didnt care for the boat sex. But like their entire build up this season, it was rushed. Meanwhile they dedicated a large chunk of an episode to greyworm and missendei sex which was nice but still. I wouldve like to have seen who made the first move. What their first kiss was like. How they even got to the bed. It like the door shut and then boom their naked lol. Also the narration with Bran ugh. Do they really think we need to be spoon fed this at this point?

I thought the boatsex was okay but somewhat underwhelming, both compared to how the leaks described it and to what I personally expected. It lacked build up, yes, like most of this storyline—most of the storylines in this season, actually. Bran’s voiceover made the whole thing kind of awkward rather than hot (who doesn’t want your younger brother talk over you while you’re fucking?).

And the lack of a proper kiss scene is strange and anticlimatic. Kiss scenes are more important than sex scenes in fictional romances! And Jon and Dany didn’t get one! Why on earth? They had the perfect opportunity in the first boat scene, the one right after viserion’s death when Dany is comforting an injured Jon. They could have easily slipped a kiss in there, yet they went for that ridiculous “thank you dany” dialogue.

I still don’t want to read too much into this, because at this point I no longer expect any surprising twists from the show’s narrative, but I understand why people are buying into the ~undercover jon~ spec. Jon knocking on Dany’s door with the specific intent of making love to her (as opposed to the sex scene stemming naturally from a passionate kiss, for example) CAN give the impression of a stilted, calculated gesture on his part.

Again, I don’t believe that’s the case (I’m much more inclined to blame the writing, as it’s not uncommon for male writers to use proper build up/slow burn only to a certain point and then squander it all with a perfunctory sex scene because they are under the impression that once the mutually romantic feelings are revealed to the audience there’s no need to ~waste anymore time~, which, ugh), but I get why it can come across this way. They had every opportunity to make it different, but they chose to film it this way, so it’s on them. In addition, the whole final episode was riddled with a ton of subtext about lying and even Jon’s reaction to being accused (by the whole dragonpit meeting team) and praised (by Theon) for telling the truth felt like he was hiding something. Also, his pouty “everybody tells me I’m too much like my father!” is kind of hilarious in hindsight, because his biological father was absolutely the type of man who’d initiate an affair with a woman if he believed it was necessary to save the world.

I believe Jon’s feelings for Dany are REAL, just like they were for Ygritte, buuuut that isn’t necessarily at odds with his having a second agenda about it. A second agenda that is in plain sight, he needs Dany and her dragons on his side, and he needs her to WANT to fight for the North, EVEN if that means forsaking the iron throne in the south, which a simple political alliance wouldn’t guarantee. The fact that he’s really falling for her is SUPER CONVENIENT, but that’s a systemic problem in Jon’s narrative, as especially in the show he’s hardly ever forced to make TRULY difficult or morally compromising choices.

#anon #asks #got asks for ts #got for ts #got wank #ship wank #boatsex for ts #got7 #jon x dany for ts #undercover jon for ts #crack theories

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bethgreeneishopeunseen · 7 years

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Genekie: A Familiar, But Missing Romance

In my last big Genekie meta (X), I broke down Genekie’s dynamic, the root of that dynamic, and its similarities to Bethyl. The big ships of the show, as of now, are Gleggie (r.i.p.), Richonne, Bethyl, and Carzekiel. Genekie will probably appear on that line-up next season. Season 8 will cover the All Out War arc, which will bring characters closer, and accelerate relationships already accelerated by the apocalypse. It will be the Season of Love™. @bethgreenewarriorprincess, @flying–forward, and I (also known as the Genekie Support Group) were discussing Genekie a few weeks ago. Christy and I both agreed that the Genekie hug hit us hard. It was reminiscent of the Bethyl hug from 4x01.

When we watched 7x11, we both felt an immediate shift in Eugene’s character dynamic, and suddenly possibilities had opened up. So many parallels have been made between Abraham and Frankie, in relation to Eugene, for a reason. Eugene was most loyal to Abraham, his protector and friend, and now his loyalty will shift to Frankie. He will become the protector for the woman whom he will fall in love with. We’ve never seen anyone interact with Eugene on that physical-emotional level, just as we’d never seen anyone interact with Daryl like that until Beth. Eugene did hug Abraham in 6x16, but that was because Eugene didn’t know if he would come back. He was going to sacrifice himself so the group could get Maggie to the Hilltop. Frankie initiated the contact, and she is nearly a stranger, and one of Negan’s wives. Not only a Savior, but inappropriate contact with her would carry heavy punishment. And yet Eugene let her hug him, and he didn’t flinch from her touch. He may have grunted when she smiled up at him, but he also had the trace of a smile, as she softened his hard exterior. Overall, Franke is the only person who’s been like that with him.

7x11 was like a dark mirror of 4x01 in certain ways, especially since the Sanctuary has elements of the prison. The Genekie hug is a mirror of the Bethyl hug, born out of wanting to share joy instead of shared grief. 7x11 also mirrors 4x12. Frankie called him “Dr. Eugene” as he set up the experiment, paralleling Beth calling Daryl, “Mr. Dixon.” One born out of interest, the other out of anger. bethgreenewarriorprincess even described Genekie’s experience at the Sanctuary as being “stuck in a ‘suck-ass camp’ together. On another level, Eugene and Frankie are stuck in their own version of the country club.

In the episode commentary, Angela Kang explained that Scott Gimple created a whole backstory for the former inhabitants of the country club (X). The phrase “Welcome to the Dogtrot” referred to the workers who became slaves of the country club members. There was a class struggle. While this Easter egg foreshadowed Beth’s arc at Grady, the egg also alludes to the Saviors, which Grady was a rehearsal for. The country club workers were the people “who ate shit” at Pine Vista.

Frankie represents the “Rich Bitch” at the Sanctuary. She is part of its upper class, and it’s not unreasonable that lower-level Saviors would resent her or write her off for marrying Negan. She chose him, without the need to, unlike Amber, who needed meds for her mother. There is also an element of sexual violence, as Negan rapes wives like Amber through coercion.

Frankie makes me think of Beth. It takes a strong person to remain so kind, especially in the Sanctuary. And someone who actually really has the will to survive, and to LIVE, to an extent, by becoming a wife. Because even though she’s married to Negan, she lives a pretty good life in terms of comfort and luxury. With that in mind, I also think that Frankie’s belief in the world was compromised a long time ago, hence why she hasn’t left the Sanctuary (yet). She needed to believe that Eugene was a good man, explaining why she appealed specifically to his goodness to help “Amber”. Furthermore, Elyse DuFour mentioned in an interview that Frankie doesn’t really care about anyone except the other wives. They’ve all been hurt by Negan one way or another, and they’re each other’s family. Frankie is the kind of character who doesn’t cry anymore.

As Frankie inspires Eugene to find his courage, he might inspire to find her belief and faith in the world and in people. He’s the good man that she needs in her life.

In summary, Genekie is a dark mirror of Bethyl, had they never gotten out of country club. All of Gimple’s ships go back to Bethyl, the OTP of the show. From a Team Delusional standpoint, so many parallels wouldn’t be showing up unless Bethyl was important to the story and to the writers, specifically Gimple. He is the show runner, and the man responsible for Richonne, Carzekiel, and Genekie. All of those ships parallel each other and parallel Bethyl.

From a narrative standpoint, Genekie exists to round out the story in terms of romance. In an interview, Elyse mentioned a possible romantic development between Frankie and Eugene (X). The quote always stood as strange to me because it doesn’t make sense for the actress of a tertiary character to think a romance would be possible, with a main character like Eugene, unless it was already there. Elyse probably dropped her comment about a “maybe not, maybe” romantic development because she’s discussed Frankie’s arc with the writers. She seeds the possibility while also keeping said possibility ambiguous. It’s reminiscent of the kind of statements Emily would give about Bethyl (X). Even with all of its parallels to Bethyl, Genekie would still be a fresh storyline for the audience. The relationship would be illicit, because Frankie is married and married to Negan. She could not leave him for Eugene, and so they would be forced to fall in love at a distance, hiding their true feelings. As I mentioned in a past meta (X), Genekie would be darkly ironic as Eugene and Frankie are both professional liars. Eugene lied about the cure and being a scientist, while Frankie lies about her feelings for Negan. They live their lies, and if they fall in love, then they would have to lie to protect the other. Cue the angst. The show has never done a forbidden romance, as the apocalypse kind of wipes out the reasons for something to be “forbidden”. When society falls apart, morals adapt. But Gimple is all about romance tropes, evident by how he has developed his other ships:

Bethyl: The Love That Defies the Odds, That Defies Death, and is the Damn Romance Novel. Hades/Persephone, Beauty and the Beast, the Princess and her Knight.

Richonne: The Couple That Slays Together Stays Together, Freyja/Frigga and Odr/Odin. (X)

Carzekiel: the King and his Queen, through a Hades/Persephone lens.

Gleggie: Star-crossed lovers. Because even though their relationships is from the comics, I just know that Gimple added the line “Maggie I’ll find you”. That bit is not in the comics, and that scene was pretty much directly ripped from the comics. It was added for a reason, and I think it’s because Gimple isn’t a fucking pseudo-intellectual nihilist like Kirkman. Odysseus/Penelope. (X)

That leaves Genekie. Forbidden love goes back to Greek mythology, in Western culture. The most notable story is that of Pyramus and Thisbe (X). They were a partial inspiration for Romeo and Juliet. In the myth, Pyramus and Thisbe live next door to each other, but they were forbidden to see each other let alone to marry. The couple made it work by speaking through a hole in their garden walls. Eventually they planned to run away together and were to meet at a tomb. Thisbe got to the tomb first, but she had to hide from a lioness, and she dropped her shawl in the process. The lioness, who just had killed an animal, nuzzled her shawl, bloodying it. Pyramus saw the shawl and thought the blood was Thisbe’s. He killed himself. When Thisbe saw what happened, she killed herself too.

Forbidden love stories include Romeo and Juliet (of course), Cleopatra and Mark Anthony, Anna Karenina, Tristan and Isolde. The list goes on, in fiction and in history. Genekie will balance out the relationships on the show, as they will be a different kind of power couple. They will be more like Bethyl, because Richonne and Carzekiel are more of the standard form of power couple. Genekie will be a story of two very different people completing each other, body and mind coming together, akin to the famous Leonard and Penny relationship from The Big Bang Theory. And knowing Gimple, he will find a way to incorporate mythical/archetypal traits into Genekie. I bet he will use Aphrodite and Hephaestus.

For those unfamiliar with Greek mythology, Aphrodite is the goddess of love and beauty and sex. She was born from sea foam, and Zeus married her to his son Hephaestus. Hephaestus was thrown from Mount Olympus when he was born, usually by his mother, due to his ugliness. The fall crippled one of his legs. Still, Hephaestus became a great engineer and the god of fire. Neither party loved the other, and Aphrodite was known for her affairs, most famously her affair with Ares, the god of war. If Gimple reverses the story, Frankie as Aphrodite would be married to Ares (Negan) and would fall in love with an awkward, unconventionally-attractive engineer. If you need further proof of this possibility, please also read this amazing piece on how Aphrodite and Hephaestus could be written as a love story: X.

Gimple is telling a modern epic, and he taps into our cultural, literary roots to codify his story. It is a fresh take on an age-old story of good versus evil, in which hope wars with fear and in which love conquers even the most insurmountable odds.

#genekie #genekie meta #team delusional #bethyl #bethyl evidence #parallels #otp: you're one of us

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phosphorescent-naidheachd · 7 years

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_____ said:

on one level i will always enjoy watching a cool lady ride jon's face or w/e so i am not anti-dany getting some of the old King In The North. otoh - the whole epic meet cute destined thing is too grand for me. it's like an archetype? i prefer how rooted and grounded and layered jon/sansa is as a ship - everything has resonance and a kind of unexpected joy, like Persuasion, where neither person thought they could repair the past and find happiness and yet happiness is there for them. it's just more my jam. i hope jonsa shippers have enough to work with for fic purposes after the show ends

another thing - i wish dany could have a male family member who doesn't want to bang her, especially given that monster of a brother she had... jon is a wonderful family member. i wish they could have been that to each other

^^^

I’m not inherently against J0n3rys -- written as an epic ‘our fates were written in the stars long before our birth’ archetypical relationship or not -- as long as it’s executed in such a fashion that feels true to the characters and that resonates emotionally with me... but I highly doubt D&D are going to manage to do that. I have approximately 0.12% trust in them as writers/directors and that’s a generous estimate. Add in the fact that D&D have a fairly limited amount of screen time to build a J0n3rys relationship up from nothing, and the chances of D&D sacrificing true character/relationship development on the altar of expediency rise considerably... as do the chances for an increased amount of ‘telling’ rather than ‘showing’. Just my opinion, though.

GRRM isn’t perfect, but -- partially because of the medium, partially due to his own skills -- his writing of the J0n3rys relationship will doubtless be a lot more nuanced and believable when the characters finally meet in the books.

Actually, one thing that’s really neat about Jon’s relationship with Dany (and with Sansa, among a few other characters!) is all of the narrative parallels and contrasts drawn between their individual experiences. I recently read a piece that argued that GRRM isn’t just deconstructing fantasy tropes with ASOIAF, he’s also very much reconstructing them -- “not tearing the genre apart so much as reminding readers of why it was worth falling in love with in the first place” -- and that really struck me. I like to think that if J0n3rys does end up being endgame in the books, GRRM will use his particular “existential brand of romanticism” to make that archetype feel fresh and real and worthwhile.

Ughhh, I feel you there. Dany deserves kind, platonic, supportive family members. Like Jon, she’s always had a strong longing for a home and family and belonging, and Jon (and through him, perhaps some of the other Starks too) could really fill that role well under the right circumstances. Which isn’t to say that he couldn’t still fill that familial role in a romantic/sexual capacity, but it’s not quite the same thing, y’know? As you said, Dany has never really had someone love her who doesn’t want to bang her (maybe Missandei, but I always thought there was a faintly femslashy subtext between the two of them on the show), and I think it would be good for her to have that kind of relationship in her life.

My feelings re: show!J0n3rys are a lot more complicated than my feelings re: book!J0n3rys, mainly because my feelings re: show!Dany herself are very conflicted. I think most of the criticisms leveled at Dany by the fandom contain validity, but I also think that most of those criticisms are also strongly influenced by fandom’s sexism/misogyny and its attendant double standards. I think that Dany -- both in the books and on the show -- is a very complex character, and frankly I don’t think D&D really get that; I think they see her purely as The Once Underdog, Now Conquering Heroine(TM), and that the GOT narrative is going to reflect this sadly limited viewpoint.

I have a lot of sympathy for Dany’s position and understand why she acts as she does; her traumatic past and the culture(s) in which she was brought up have absolutely shaped who she is today: her fears, her desires, and her methods of achieving those desires. I would also argue that although show!Dany is pretty self-centered, she generally has good intentions. Nonetheless, I’ve become less and less a fan of show!Dany over the years. I have issues with some of the choices she’s made, with her frequent (albeit unintentional on her part) hypocrisy, and with the racist undertones both GRRM and D&D have (accidentally?) inserted into some of her major story arcs (indeed, to the point where I have a hard time mentally separating her from said arcs). If Dany undergoes further character growth that positively alters how she acts going forward, my feelings towards her may change again, but in the meantime… I don’t know. As I said: it’s complicated, and my thoughts about her sometimes even vary from episode to episode. (Heaven knows my thoughts & feelings re: Tyrion and Jaime often shift depending on the episode lol. But that’s a topic for another time.)

I don’t want to see Dany humiliated and humbled, the way many antis do, but I also don’t want to see her as she currently is on the Iron Throne, the way most stans do. I don’t believe she’s insane or currently in danger of becoming insane, as many antis think, nor do I believe that she’s an unusually cruel/terrible/[insert negative term here] ruler and warrior for the society in which she lives. However, none of this makes her inherently the best person to rule Westeros, either.

Although it isn’t entirely Dany’s fault, she knows almost nothing about Westeros -- past or present -- and what little she does know was understandably given to her through a pretty pro-Targaryen lens; this lack of understanding of facts -- and more crucially, of attitudes -- will serve her (and more importantly Westeros) very poorly if she ever becomes Queen of the Seven Kingdoms. Yes, having Westerosi advisors can help, but only so much. The monarchy of Westeros doesn’t seem to have much in the way of checks and balances, after all, outside of ‘it’s probably not a good idea to offend any of the major Houses too badly and definitely not multiple Houses at the same time’. Dany is still relatively inexperienced at ruling and is certainly more than capable of learning and improving... the question is whether she’ll allow herself to. Especially now that she has the ultimate power in the form of fully-grown dragons, which makes it even more difficult and dangerous to question or challenge her actions than it would a dragonless monarch like Robert Baratheon.

(Although, since we’re mentioning Robert Baratheon... I get the sense that Dany, like Robert, much prefers the fighting and ceremonial parts of being monarch over the day-to-day administrative parts. YMMV.)

It’s my opinion that Dany has gotten increasingly good at convincing herself that her personal desires are actually selfless and/or inevitable, that her way is the Right Way, that too much compromise is weakness, and that an increased volume and degree of violence on her part is both justified and necessary. This is an excellent piece of meta on the subject; although it’s about book!Dany, it’s still by and large applicable to show!Dany too... in fact, I would argue that in many ways, it’s even more applicable to show!Dany. Dany isn’t the only “good” character in ASOIAF/GOT to harden herself to violence or to make some of these sorts of mistakes, of course -- Jon probably would have been an even bigger disaster if he’d somehow wound up as the ruler of Meereen, for instance -- but that doesn’t remove the validity of these criticisms towards her, either.

Actually, speaking of Jon and Dany, there’s one argument that antis make that really bugs me: that Jon was chosen by his people, while Dany chose herself; meritocratic monarchy vs. hereditary monarchy, if you will. It’s not entirely wrong, but it’s not the full story either. Davos falls prey to this same trap when talking to Dany on Dragonstone, in fact: "He's not King in the North because of his birthright, he has no birthright, he's a damn bastard. He's King in the North because those hard sons of bitches believe in him."

I mean, yes, Jon was chosen by his nobles to be their king, and they do believe in him, but you can’t act like his heredity didn’t play a significant role in that decision. If Jon hadn’t been the ostensible son of Ned Stark, do you really think all the nobles of the North would have called for him to be King, no matter how worthy he was or how much they believed in him? Just look at part of Lyanna Mormont’s speech, for crying out loud [italics my own]: “I don’t care if he’s a bastard. Ned Stark’s blood runs through his veins. He’s my king, from this day until his last day!” *rolls eyes* But I digress.

Moving on to address your comments on Jon/Sansa:

Unlike many J0nsa shippers here on tumblr, I don’t think J0nsa is ever going to be canon. Definitely not on the show, and probably not in the books either. And I’m mainly OK with that; that’s what fanfiction is for, after all. (Which isn’t to say I wouldn’t be delighted to be proved wrong re: canon lol.)

I’m very much a multi-shipper in GOT/ASOIAF, and my main fannish wish is that my favorite characters survive to the end of the series. Ideally, none of them irrevocably betray other characters I care about and they all survive and they’re all at least marginally happy, but that’s probably way too much to ask. As I said, I’ll take ‘alive’. Because as long as they’re still alive, a happier ending is still a possibility somewhere ‘off-screen’ after the series ends. Dead, on the other hand, is dead. Sure, I can create AU ‘so-and-so-lives’ headcanons, but I’m still acutely aware that they’re AUs, y’know? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Yessss, Persuasion is such a great comparison! There’s something very bittersweet and healing about that kind of ship. Shades of a shared past paired with hope for a better shared present and future. The gradual realization that it isn’t too late to find/create happiness. idk, I just have a lot of feelings about this dynamic.

#wow this turned into a MUCH longer answer than i'd meant for it to be #phos replies #3~~#4~~#5~~#GOT meta #daenerys targaryen #jon snow #jonerys #jonsa #meta #things done by phos #long post #GOT spoilers #well sort of but not really

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