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ty-talks-comics · 5 years

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The Boys Season 1 Review and Comparison

This was so cathartic.

In an age where we’re inundated with superhero media on all fronts with their bright colors, cheery jokes and positive outlooks, it’s easy to slowly become sick of it, feel the “superhero fatigue” as it were. Where Marvel ruins some stories with far too many jokes (looking at you Thor: Ragnarok) and DC is far too dreary and serious for its own good with a lack of levity, where can one turn to for a GOOD happy medium?

Well, in comes Seth Rogan and Evan Gold, the brilliant minds behind the amazing adaptation of Preacher with yet another brutal and slightly more cynical series. The Boys absolutely stuns not only by being a genuinely compelling series, but also by being one of the few adaptations that improves on the original medium in a few aspects.

Story

The story centers around Hughie Campbell and the titular Boys as they work to expose the horrific deeds of The Seven, a collective of the world's greatest superheroes, and the company that sponsors them, Vought American.

In this world, superheroes are everywhere. They're on breakfast cereals, TV shows, movies, pretty much every piece of media and entertainment imaginable while also protecting America from crime. Sounds familiar, huh? The kicker here is that, much like every asshole celebrity that lets the fame and fortune go to their heads, these heroes are massive cunts. They take performance enhancing drugs, routinely cause accidents that hurt or kill people, sexually harass people left and right and just lie to their adoring public like they’re children.

Unlike the books, however, The Boys team isn’t the well oiled machine that’s been taking down and blackmailing superheroes for years and the first four episodes are spent introducing the different team members.This is likely due to wanting to give people time to care about them individually and the limited number of episodes in the season. This definitely works in also retooling the characters themselves for TV since they may not have seventy-two issues of character development ahead of them

For the most part, the show follows the initial story beats of the comics with a few select differences before splintering off in an entirely new direction. Hughie’s girlfriend still gets blown apart by A-Train, he denies Vought America’s hush money which draws the attention of Billy Butcher and Starlight joins the Seven after the “death” of the hero Lamplighter.

This also means that there's less time to focus on smaller plotlines and teams that are referenced to in passing dialogue like the Teenage Kix, a pastiche on the Teen Titans, or Payback, the number two group of superheroes to The Seven. While seeing the team take these guys down on the small screen would have been fun, I like the idea of keeping the plot focused on just the core group of antagonists. This way, we don’t have to slog through three or four seasons of small fry and get the big bads in the last few.

After the first half, fans of the comic may start to feel a little bit of the familiar, but then things start to take a drastic turn when Billy's pride and the rest of the teams sloppiness gets them all burned and branded wanted criminals. This never happens in the books because The Boys are funded and protected by the CIA, but here they’re just another group of concerned citizens that are completely in over their heads, adding to the tension and keeping everyone guessing as to what will happen for the rest of the season and in Season 2.

Themes

The original series was written during the latter years of the Bush Administration. Tensions were high and America was still embroiled in the Iraq War. The president was a simpering fool and companies were fucking people over left and right in the name of patriotism. Reality TV and the awful personalities on our screens were on nearly every channel and all of this only fueled the anger that is Garth Ennis’ pen and Darick Robertson’s pencils. It was a product of its time and it was perfect.

We’re now in the Information Age where superheroes and social media are the only things that matter in everyone’s mind, where women’s empowerment is stronger than ever and our leaders speak bombastically with shit eating grins full of lies. Rogen and Goldberg have kept the series modern and take everything to task.

Media. Marvel and DC are everywhere nowadays with some indie companies managing to scrape up their own part of the pie. The Boys makes fun of the seemingly endless cycle of sequels and the goody-two-shoes images of America’s favorite heroes. Everything is carefully managed and curated by a media team, similar to how Disney micromanages even the smallest details of their properties to make everything so sickeningly squeaky clean.

Not only do the heroes stop crime, but they star in their own movies about themselves as well, some have sponsorships for shoes and have to compete with each other for everything. Almost everything is done for the cameras, even intimate moments whenever Vought can find a way to make it work. The heroes are never too far from the spotlight even when they want to be and oftentimes their acts can go viral without them knowing.

Sexual Assault. In the comics, Starlight is sexually assaulted by Homelander, Black Noir and A-Train in a gross scene to establish that there’s nothing good in that world. It was good for its time in its own dark way, but today there are absolutely consequences to such things as there should have been back then. In the show, Starlight is assaulted by The Deep, her childhood crush, alone.

It’s dark and makes use of the imbalance of power as The Deep threatens to have her kicked off of the team. Soon after, Starlight comes forward with what happens to her, not allowing herself to let what happened stand and unlike in the books, The Deep gets his comeuppance. Though this also unfortunately leading to him getting assaulted as well. It’s powerful and allows for Starlight to move what could have been an image of weakness, though Vought uses this to their advantage as well, painting her a feminist icon. Best for business right?

Politics. While not everything has to be an allegory for Trump, it’s hard to say that Homelander isn’t just that. He’s what the president thinks he is, a strong, blonde haired man that the entire country loves. Homelander has the people eating out of the palm of his hands and he’s only feeding them shit. He hates the common man and will just as easily let many die if it can somehow serve his interests. He’s not above a little sexual harassment himself and he is just an evil bastard.

There’s also a subplot of military application of superheroes that I feel mirrors the discussion on the use of drones in war. Drones are absolutely deadly and have caused the deaths of hundreds, even innocents when things have gone really wrong. Even President Obama was criticized for how reckless and dangerous their use could be. The world could only imagine the hell that would rain down if superheroes were allowed to duke it out over national security.

Characters

The Boys as a comic series was an unrepentantly cynical take on the superhero genre in an established universe of heroes. The creator, Garth Ennis, didn’t grow up with many superheroes and actually felt disrespected by a few of them, like Captain America. He brought on the amazing Darick Robertson and other artists to realize this horrid world of drugs, hardcore sex and brutal violence. Many of the stories are fun and hilarious, but with the unfortunate feeling of a lot of them feeling one note due to the one dimensional nature of a lot of the “heroes” and the ever escalating level of black humor to the point of being cartoonish.

Our main character cast is absolutely fantastic. Jack Quiad’s Hughie is much like his comic counterpart, aside from being like six feet tall and not Scottish. He’s surprisingly smart with a lot of awkwardness about him. He has a good heart and doesn’t see ALL superheroes as being evil, but does have a slight sense of justice that wants to see The Seven and Vought taken down.

Karl Urban’s Butcher was the absolute perfect casting choice. He’s got that wry British wit, the fury to capture Butcher’s rage against supes and can play a manipulator like nobody's business. His character arc is one of the few regressions that I can actually appreciate for how it's done, especially as things become more fucked because of him and how he chooses to blame everyone else.

Everyone else is a slight bit of an improvement over the comics versions. The Frenchman, played by Tomer Capon, is similar to his comics counterpart, but we’re given reason to care about him and The Female. In the comics, Frenchie and the Female knew each other prior, but I don’t think it’s ever revealed how they met or became close. In the show Frenchie frees The Female, played by Karen Fukuhara, from thugs that had been keeping her prisoner and he slowly gains her trust over the course of the next few episodes after her introduction. We see their friendship grow, learn a little bit of her backstory and get a better understanding of what she wants versus just following Frenchie around and being terrifyingly adorable.

Annie January aka Starlight, played by Erin Moriarty, is probably the second best change in character in the series. She starts out as a bright eyed, bushy tailed hero looking to do good, but after being sexually assaulted on her first day in The Seven, decides that it will never happen again. In the comics, Annie stays around in The Seven and takes the abuse for a little while before speaking out and fighting back against the rest of them. What makes things even better, not only does she challenge her uber Christian beliefs during an event sponsored by Vought, but she does so while also getting Vought to force her abuser into giving a public apology at the mere thought of her causing their stock prices to crash.

Consequently, Mother’s Milk, portrayed by Laz Alonso, one of the most layered characters in the comics isn’t made better, but the more ridiculous aspects of is character have been toned down. We don’t hear of his disabled mother and his addiction to her breast milk that fuels his own superpowers, nor is his wife a crack addict that makes pornos with their daughter. He’s simply a reliable member of the team that loves his wife and will give Butcher the truth when he’s acting like an asshole.

The series actually brings a lot of grey to most of these characters. A-Train never once shows remorse for his actions in the books, but in the show he's painted as kind of sympathetic, while still being seen as a monster for what he does and the reasons behind them. The Deep could go either way after his actions with a redemption arc or a full turn to villain, but is shown to be knowingly aware of how little regard there is for him. He calls himself a "diversity hire" and acknowledges his own ineptitude, but he's still an absolutely terrible person.

Queen Maeve may be one of my favorite changes that manages to be even more sympathetic than her already pretty great comic counterpart. She, much like Starlight, did want to change the world, but she let the apathy and jaded nature of the job take her over. She's an alcoholic that sees a bit of herself in Starlight. The change comes in how she reacts to what I think might be Homelander's most heinous act in the show. She shows far more remorse and guilt over what happens than she does in the comic, showing us a side of her makes you want to root for her and to see her get better.

The best character… dear Lord, is Homelander, played by Anthony Starr. Homelander is a bastard. The worst thing imaginable because of his sheer strength and power. He’s a sociopath with all of the powers of Superman and none of the goodness. In the comics he’s simply just another asshole.

He’s the most powerful of the Seven and absolutely revels in the hedonistic lifestyle that he’s accustomed to while also hating being under the rule of Vought. In the show, he’s shown as being supportive to Vought, especially it’s current Senior VP of Hero Management, Madelyn Stillwell. He has something of a mommy fetish as shown with his interactions with her and later in the series actually expresses emotions over learning of his own tragedies, but instead of trying to change for the better, he doubles down on his hatred and anger to become an even bigger monster than before.

In the comic he just wants all of the superheroes to conquer the world, but here, he just wants to hurt everyone who hurts him. He plays games like a child, threatening and revealing secrets to toy with people before absolutely breaking them. He's horrible in a very personal way and his sneering smile only makes him so much more hateable. He knows there isn't a damn thing you can do to stop him and he revels in that fact, I love it.

Pacing and Direction

Coming in at an hour for each episode, the first two to three can feel a bit slow. Getting all of the story elements to sit just right can take time, especially as new things are introduced every few minutes. This slow burn approach easily helps to build the tension before things get really crazy by episode four. By that point, the story is unfolding at a perfect rhythm, the team is mostly together, they’ve made their plans of action and it’s all so smooth.

Thankfully each episode is directed by different people to avoid each feeling so similar. The common humor and tone is kept the same, but some episodes are very hopeful almost before being met with one that absolutely makes you hate certain characters and the actions that they take. In particular, the episode where Hughie and Butcher visit a group therapy session and Butcher flies off into a rage about the weakness of the attendees as they basically lick the balls of the heroes that have maimed them was amazing. The director pulls so much emotion out of that scene and continues on as the episode moves along in a far more dramatic fashion than some of the others.

Some others lean heavier on the debauchery such as the episode where Hughie and Butcher venture into a superhero sex club and watch as these guys do some pretty amazing feats with their abilities in some really gross ways. There’s a good balance of levity and drama that makes neither feel too overwhelming.

Overall

With a great cast, impeccable acting and an unpredictability that I actually enjoyed, The Boys absolutely blew me away. I was wholly prepared to rip it apart if I felt like it didn’t do the story justice, but Rogen and Goldberg are fans and knew what we all wanted. It’s unabashedly a comic book show, but still has enough to it that people who have never heard of the series will be floored by how much they can find to enjoy.

It’s for the nihilistic and jaded comic book fan. It’s for the casual watcher who’s gotten enough of Marvel’s colorful displays of happiness and it’s absolutely for the happy person who just wants to have some fun with what they watch.

I thoroughly enjoyed this season of The Boys. So much so that I’m aching with anticipation to re-read the comic series in preparation for Season Two. It’s unlikely that it’ll follow the plot much, if at all after the ending, but with Stormfront (as a woman) being announced as the new Hero joining the Seven in the next season, I’m excited as to who else they might pull. This first season absolutely earns a high recommendation from me.

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twdmusicboxmystery · 4 years

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TWD 10x14: Look at the Flowers - First Thoughts

How did everyone like the episode? I have to say, me and my fellow theorists were really worried this would be a supremely boring episode for TD. The spoilers were just so lack luster. Nothing like last week when we found out about Rick’s boots, you know? So we just hoped we would see some good symbolism. The kind of stuff the spoilers wouldn’t ever touch on.

I’m happy to say that there really is tons of good symbolism in this episode. It does feel a bit like a filler episode, because nothing huge happens. There are basically two story lines going on here. Eugene’s group heading out to meet Stephanie, and in that respect it’s a bridge to that story line because we only see them traveling but they don’t truly “get there” before the end of the episode. And the rest is a huge turning point in Carol’s arc. Which is great, but something like that is always going to be a little less interesting to us TDers. But, thankfully, I saw plenty of things that made me super excited for what’s to come.

***As always, spoilers abound below for 10x14. Don’t read until you’ve watched! You’ve been warned!***

Eugene, Yumiko and Zeke:

I’ll give you the best one first. Out of a clear blue sky, Eugene starts taking about CHOCOLATE BUNNIES for Easter. Not only has the rabbit symbolism been around since S4, but Eugene actually mentions Easter. And what does Easter celebrate? Resurrection. The Stephanie expedition is SO gonna lead to Beth. Plus, they were next to a set of train tracks during this convo, and Eugene even points that out, so I think that’s important.

When Zeke’s group reached the city, there was tons of pink and purple galore. And that’s because of the Princess character, but those colors are important. There’s the pink theory, of course. But there is also lots of purple and fuchsia. Purple is actually a big color when it comes to the Christian holidays of Advent and Lent. I’ll get into more of that tomorrow.

Furthermore, a lot of the walkers the Princess has dressed up and chained up look exactly like the Rich Bitch walker from Still.

Also, with the police walker? They find a car with a walker cuffed to the steering wheel and the cop walker cuffed to the front buffer. The car’s airbags are deployed. Not only is there an imprisonment theme going on there, but it reminds me of Carol getting hit by the Grady car. And also of the sighting of Emily being seen driving one of the cop cars around. It’s almost like the Princess set this up like a humorous scene. A car hitting a cop. And they draw attention to it by having Zeke laugh at it. That just screams Grady to me.

Along the way, Eugene’s group saw walkers in cages with a bird. Mostly, I think it was a foreshadow of imprisonment. And specifically, an imprisoned bird.

Let’s talk Zeke for a minute. They are SO setting up his death fake out. While I still can’t say exactly when it will come, I do suspect that he won’t make it back from this trip in a conventional way. I think Yumiko and Eugene will “lose” him and think he’s dead and return to tell Carol that he’s “gone.” And then, because she finally decided to get it together and start again, she’ll have tons of guilt and grief.

I just felt like everything about Zeke’s stuff here was heavily foreshadowing that. They camped under a bridge. There was a flower graffitied on the pillar of it. Reminded me of the one by Carol and Tara in s8. His horse died of a walker bite. (And you know, this is a minute detail, but I’m wondering if it won’t be a matter of someone simply using radiation to heal his cancer, but rather, like the other fake outs, there will be a walker bite and they’ll be treating him specifically for that and sort of heal his cancer by accident.)

When his horse dies, Zeke kills it and is very emotional and wants Yumiko to promise that if he falls while in the city, she’ll leave him behind. She says no, but just feels like a really obvious foreshadow.

I also had a thought about Eugene. My fellow theorists and I have often discussed the scene from 5x05 when Eugene sits on the fire truck and reads the book, “The Shape of Things to Come” and then Maggie talks to him about Sampson. It’s just such a blatant biblical reference and we’ve always struggled to understand its significance for Eugene.

So, it occurs to me that Eugene used to have short hair and now it’s super long. Like all the way down his back. He used to be weak and afraid but he’s kind of become a badass in his own right. At least, as far as killing walkers goes. His speech about being the fool brought Sampson to mind because Sampson is often seen as Delilah’s fool. I’m just wondering if Eugene has become Sampson and Stephanie will be his Delilah.

Beta:

So Beta’s back and probably wants revenge for Alpha’s death. Dude is definitely not going gentle into that good night.

The place Beta went to definitely smacked of the golf club, and there were tons of important symbols in there. (Booze, crosses, a guitar, etc.) I’ll get to more of them tomorrow.

The song lyrics have some interesting themes.The first one is Emily’s Turtle and Monkey song. The last one is too, I believe. The one in the middle is different. I have a lot to say about the song lyrics. I’ll get into that tomorrow.

And it occurred to me that we once again have a representation of Alpha and Beta being an evil twin version of Beth and Daryl. Beta breaking the guitar could represent Beth getting shot, and he’s lost Alpha in much the way Daryl lost Beth. Then, at the end, he wears some of Alpha’s face, which is a sick, twisted version of Daryl keeping Beth’s knife. Carrying a part of her with him. Then he marches off to war, just as Daryl would participate in AOW and the Whisper Wr.

Carol:

Let’s talk Carol first. While I know the shippers are running wild, I don’t even particularly feel like addressing that. They’ll always come up with something totally ludicrous. And remember, they believed this was the episode where Daryl and Carol would hook up or declare their undying love. Or…something. Once again, that didn’t even come close to happening.

But I’ll point out some things here that will show how exactly the opposite is happening. While this is a major, turning point in Carol’s arc, she’s also a proxy for Beth here, and I’m pretty sure she returned to Alexandria to patch things up with Zeke.

Okay, Carol does mental battle with herself in the form of Alpha, right? And it’s actually really interesting if you listen to what’s being said. Everyone Carol has ever lost is mentioned, including Lizzy, Mica, Sophia, and even Ed. Alpha razzes her about being a defective parent and says Ed was right about her. It’s pretty brutal, but obviously Carol doing battle with her own soul.

Then she gets trapped under the boat and the debris from the shed. Alpha encourages her to just accept her death and let it bite her. (Insight about that in a minute.) Carol, of course, breaks free and kills the walker, saving herself. She says, “it’s never too late.”

So, I think this is very much an epiphany moment for Carol and she’s probably going back to start over, patch things up with Zeke and try to be human again. She doesn’t say that or anything, but it says a lot that she was trying hard to leave the group (a la S5-s7) but after this breakthrough, so goes back to Alexandria of her own accord.

Honestly guys, this gives me a little bit of hope for Carol. I’ve been thinking lately that she’s on a Shane-esque downward spiral that she’s really not ever going to recover from. Up until now, she’s been so all-consumed with killing Alpha, that she really couldn’t focus on anything. But now, some part of her recognizes that it’s not too late and probably wants the happiness she once had with Zeke. It’s a big enough part of her that she actually went back to Alexandria. That’s good. That’s a big change for her.

Do I think she’s going to get the happiness just yet? Mmmm….no.

I’ll talk about this more below, but I’m pretty sure Zeke’s death fake out will come before he returns from his trip with Eugene. So just when Carol gets it together and wants to patch things up with him, she’ll find out he’s “died.” Yeah, everyone’s life sucks. But it will just be a death fake out. Still, this mentality from Carol is a step in the right direction.

The insight I mentioned above? The” look at the flowers” line comes from Alpha when she’s encouraging Carol to let the walker bite her. She says, “you should just look at the flowers.” And she’s encouraging her to accept her death. I’d never thought of it quite that way before, but that phrase doesn’t just mean death. It means to accept death and not fight to live. If you think of how it was used before with Lizzie and Mica, that was true too. But Carol fights to live and kills the walker and goes back to Alexandria to start again. That’s why it’s such a big deal for her. She chooses to move forward instead of running away again. And only when she does that does Ghost Alpha disappear. Just thought that was interesting.

Okay, so how is Carol a proxy for Beth. Watching the episode the first time, I was a little mystified by the ending. It almost felt like a time jump. We see Carol say, “it’s never too late,” and Daryl and Negan decide she won’t be returning to the boundary, so they head home.

Then we see her approaching the gate of Alexandria and Daryl is already there. It was just kind of…abrupt. We didn’t see them journey home. So not a huge jump. A few hours or the next day, but still. We don’t really know if the Hilltoppers went to Alexandria or not (I’m gonna assume they did, until we find out otherwise). We don’t know if Negan is there too (again, I’ll assume he is because he was with Daryl). And we still don’t know what’s up with Aaron, Alden, baby Adam, Luke, or Lydia. It’s like they jumped way ahead in the story for some reason.

Then I rewatched it, and a particular line jumped out at me that sort of brought the entire thing together. Let’s backtrack for a minute. So, when Carol gets trapped under the boat? I pictured it differently after reading the spoiler. I assumed it would flip over and land over her and she’d be trapped in the natural dome of space beneath it, created by an upside down boat. But it’s not just the boat that falls. The entire shed collapses and there’s heavy debris resting on her chest and pinning her painfully to the ground. I had the thought that visually it looked a lot like the trapped walker Morgan killed after the credits in Coda.

But what made me really consider it was Negan and Daryl’s convo. Negan says “not to spin a broken record, but I don’t think she’s coming back.” Obviously the record thing stood out to me (and Beta also plays a record so there’s a music/record theme going on). But not until watching it the second time did the entire line of dialogue hit me.

He’s obviously talking about Carol, but the line could be applied to Beth. And should be because of the record reference. “I don’t think she’s coming back.” To which Daryl replies, “I know.” Then he leaves, rather than waiting for or searching for Carol. So, he accepts that she’s not coming back and moves on (kind of like he did with Beth). But after that, at a later time and completely independent of him, Carol shows up at Alexandria. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Meanwhile Eugene and Zeke are headed toward Grady. Um, I mean, some random hospital. ;D

Okay, I’ll stop there for today. I’ll be back tomorrow with details. What did you think of the episode?

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

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beneaththetangles · 6 years

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Plot Twists, Character Designs, and Worldbuilding: Writing in Anime (and Other Media)

One of my favorite video game-centric YouTube channels, Extra Credits, recently put out a video about “The Three Pillars of Game Writing – Plot, Character, Lore“. I definitely recommend watching this video, especially if you love video games. It explains how “video game writing” is actually split into three “pillars”: plot, character, and lore or worldbuilding. It then explains what goes into each of those pillars, and how video games in particular can execute on each pillar.

The thing is, these three pillars can apply pretty much to every single form of fictional media, including otaku-centric media like anime, manga, and light novels. So in this post, I will take a closer look at each pillar and how they apply to anime in particular (though again, they can apply to pretty much every work of fiction). Note that most stories feature elements of all three pillars, but will tend to focus on one or two of them.

Plot: Tell Me A Story

According to the Extra Credits video, plot-centric writing should either:

be something unique and not seen before

have some kind of “twist”

have a message to convey

There may be other ways to deliver a plot-centric story, but for now we can focus on these methods.

A good example of a plot-driven anime is Puella Magi Madoka Magica, which uses twists on the usual magical girl formula to create an engrossing story that quickly became popular. (It also arguably presents various messages, including something similar to the Gospel message, though then you have the movie…) My favorite plot-centric anime is probably Humanity Has Declined, which is definitely very unique, full of small twists, and even uses satire to present messages now and then.

Reanimated grocery store chicken? They (and the viewers) never saw it coming!

One type of story you might not think of as plot-centric is comedy. If you think of humor as a result of twists on our expectations of the flow of events, then writing humor involves crafting multiple of these small (and sometimes not-so-small) twists throughout a story. So something like Gamers! (used as the featured image), which uses the continual escalation of misunderstandings to create comedy (as well as the build-up to one big, comedic twist), can very much be described as plot-centric. Even something like Nichijou, which has no overarching plot line, can be considered as “plot-driven” in this way; it just uses multiple small plots rather than one large one.

Characters: Make Me Fall In Love

I already wrote a big post on characters. In that post, I talk about how we come to love characters for how they are likable, interesting, relatable, or some combination of the three. While good characters benefit pretty much any story, character-driven writing puts extra effort into what goes into the characters. They put great focus on character development arcs and relational developments. They take time to show characters in more mundane, non-plot-driving situations, just to further characterize them. Even the character designs themselves are given extra attention in order to make the characters as detailed as possible. While these stories can certainly have the plot-based elements mentioned above, even if they have very simple plots, they can still be engaging because the audience attaches themselves to the characters. The plot itself can be one that has been done numerous times, but the audience does not mind as much because their interest is not in the uniqueness of the plotline, but on how their beloved characters in particular will deal with that situation.

I can list off character-centric anime for days, but one such anime I would like to highlight is Anohana. This critically-acclaimed series shows the difference between character-centric and plot-centric writing, and how strong character writing can form the foundation of a story in lieu of plotting. If you think about it, Anohana does not really have a notable plot. Its plot is not particularly unique; stories about old friends reconciling or coming to terms with death are common, and even the whole “meeting the ghost of someone who died” storyline has been done plenty of times. There is no major twist in this “reconciliation and grieving” storyline, and it does not have a particular message to say. Despite all of this, Anohana is a beloved anime because the characters are so well-written. Their individual personalities, their relationships with the other characters, and their own history and feelings about Menma’s death are all brought out and integrated into the story, and it is very easy to get caught up in their development.

Of course, you do not have to have detailed, relatable character arcs to have a character-centric story. A story can instead focus on making interesting characters that interact with each other and the world in amusing ways. (While characters being likable are often great for character-centric stories, a character that is only likable and not interesting or relatable usually does not work in such stories except as side characters.)

Worldbuilding: Take Me To Another World

Lore, or worldbuilding, is everything that goes into developing the setting of the story. Everything from histories, cultures, world maps, magical systems, and even background art and more goes into building this pillar. This is a key element in fantasy, science fiction, and also historical fiction, but even a series taking place in a “normal Earth” setting can use worldbuilding to establish things like the culture of a school or town.

Of course, it is one thing for a story to require some worldbuilding by nature of its genre, and another thing to put the extra effort to focus on it to make a world seem alive. “Favorite anime worlds” could very well be worth an entire post on its own, but I would be remiss to not mention my favorite anime of all time, ARIA the Animation and its sequels, and its wonderful Venice-inspired world of Neo Venezia. Plenty of episodes explore everything from the work of Undines and the companies that employ them, to places in the city, other important jobs in a terraformed-Mars environment, the mysterious Cait Sith, and more.

Everything in Balance

As I mentioned, most stories will have at least some elements of all three of the above pillars. Where stories can differ is which pillar(s) they focus on, and which pillar(s) they only provide the bare minimum for. This is particularly important for anime since a given anime series is greenlit only for a certain number of episodes and a certain length of time per episode, so there is only a limited amount of screen time to present whatever writing the story has. The only anime series that can really afford to spend time on building all three pillars are ones that run for a very long time; a series that only gets 12 or even 26 episodes almost certainly has to focus on one or maybe two pillars or its story feels too thin. Even longer series may want to focus on one or two pillars in order to give its audience a more focused experience.

ARIA does provide some plot moments in the last season, but that’s only after building a strong character and worldbuilding base in its first 36+ episodes.

If a work does not really need worldbuilding, then there is no real need to spend time explaining small details about the world. If plot is not a focus, writing should not focus on creating unique stories or crazy twists. And if the characters are just there to progress the story or to fill out the world, writing extensive backstories for them might not be the best idea. (And while over-moefication of characters is arguably a problem for any story, non-character-driven stories in particular probably should avoid forcing moe tropes on their characters.) This idea of choosing which pillar to focus on becomes even more important for anime that are adaptations of longer works. A long-running manga or light novel or an expansive visual novel may have more room for exploring multiple pillars that a 12-episode anime does not have time for; a good adaptation must realize which pillars are key to the work being adapted and focus on those, carefully choosing material to exclude in the process.

Finding Meaning

While plot-focused stories can particularly choose to broadcast some message through its plot, that does not mean character- or worldbuilding-focused stories cannot have some meaning in them. Worldbuilding can be used to set up a world in such a way as to explore certain aspects of our own world. By creating cultures, religions, government systems, and the like that mirror those in our own world to varying extents, stories can explore the impact, benefits, and dangers of those parts of our world. Characters, likewise, can mirror all sorts of aspects of the human condition, both good and bad.

Relevant to this site, one can also find reflections of Christianity of each writing pillar, whether it be a plotline similar to a Biblical story, a character with similarities to a Biblical character, or a world built upon–or in contrast to–certain Biblical principles. One does not have to stick to stories focused on one particular pillar for this sort of content, and it means we blog writers have a nice variety of angles to approach Christian reflections in anime, which I definitely appreciate.

Wonderful Stories

Writing is not the only part of anime; an anime can have bad writing but still be appreciated for its visuals (animation, character designs), sound direction (soundtrack, voice acting), or whatever other aspects catch your attention. Nevertheless, when discussing anime (and other media), writing is oftentimes the one aspect that drives the most discussion and criticism. I hope that, in talking about these different pillars of writing, we can see anime writing not as a singular art, but as something that can be taken in different directions, and that we can evaluate any given anime’s writing by how well it fulfills the pillar(s) it chooses to focus on, rather than criticize it for pillars it is better off ignoring in the first place.

Anyone who complains that AnoHana has too little worldbuilding probably needs to re-evaluate their anime viewing choices.

Perhaps more importantly, I hope this piece helps you understand which kind of stories you prefer in your anime and other fictional media. Do you like plot-heavy stories that take you through twists and turns and perhaps throw a message in there? Do you like to have characters that you get attached to? Do you like to get immersed in detailed fictional worlds? I know that my preferences lean towards character-driven stories, though I also really like good worldbuilding. On the other hand, while I do not dislike plot-driven stories, I tend to not care as much for those, hence why I gravitate towards slice-of-life anime with maybe a light fantasy on the side. Your preferences may differ, and by understanding those preferences you can better understand what anime you might like, as well as why you might dislike an anime when it spends too much time on a pillar you do not care as much about. And, as I mentioned, this does not apply just to anime, but also all forms of fiction.

So which pillar of writing do you like? Let me know in the comments along with your favorite examples of good writing in anime!

#Anime #Writing #Ano Hi Mita Hana no Namae wo Bokutachi wa Mada Shiranai.#AnoHana #anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day #Humanity Has Declined #Jinrui wa Suitai Shimashita #ARIA #ARIA the ANIMATION #Gamers!#Nichijou #Puella Magi Madoka Magica #Articles #Author: stardf29

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informalmajesty · 6 years

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The Prince, The Scavenger, and The Shame Model: Speculation on Abandonment, Humiliation, Violence, and Love in The Last Jedi

Clarifications I feel the need to make because I know this site:

-The Last Jedi is not a Vice News documentary. I will be suggesting allusions to real-life events that are controversial, to put it mildly. But again these are allusions, not political statements. George Lucas doesn’t get called a Nazi sympathizer because he redeemed Darth Vader, nor should he ever be referred to as such. Same goes for Rian Johnson if anything I am about to say here is in any way true.

-This is speculation through a very specific lens. There are many ways of looking at how TLJ may pan out. This is one of them and I am not saying it is the end all be all.

Alright. Now that that is out of the way….

“A lot of Star Wars was in response to Vietnam and a lot of what I remember talking about with JJ and Rian was this idea of terrorism and two sides being morally justified to behave however they wanted to to get what they thought was absolutely correct.” -Adam Driver, Larry King, 2017

“We talked about terrorism a lot. You have young and deeply committed people with one-sided education who think in absolutes. That is more dangerous than being evil. Kylo thinks what he is doing is entirely right, and that, in my mind, is the scariest part.”-Adam Driver, British GQ, 2017

The point that I want you to pay attention to is that The Last Jedi sends a message that things are not so clearly black and white. The boundary between good and evil becomes increasingly vague and the relationship between Rey and Kylo is symbolic of that. In fact, Kylo believes that his actions are correct. -Daisy Ridley, Yahoo Japan, 2017

Adam’s initial discussion of Kylo Ren on Larry King around terrorism and its influence on Kylo’s characterization got me thinking about similar themes that I had read about in Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov and The Demons. These themes stem from a theory in political science referred to as “The Shame Model,” which tackles the roots of terrorist motivations at the hands of western domination and humiliation of eastern nations.

“The Shame Model” —most notably theorized on by policy analyst Anatol Lievan in his essay “The Cold War is Finally Over: The True Significance of the Attacks”—is when extreme, violent reactions (terrorism) occur “wherever proud people with strong but in part irrational traditions, feel defeated or radically unsettled by aspects of Western-Dominated modernity.” Of course, this reflects on today’s modern-day debacles between the east and the west and the different forms of terror that each bring upon the other. Lievan writes that “humiliation of the Arab and Muslim world by Israel is so infuriating to them in part because it is only the last in a long history of defeats starting in the seventeenth century and extending far into the twentieth—overwhelmingly at the hands of the Christian Western world.” The consistent humiliation and defeat at the hands of more economically, politically, and militaristically powerful nations has driven the Mid-East into displaying abhorrent actions of violence in order to remedy what they see as equally abhorrent actions of violence from the west. The model attempts to look at these actions and strategize ways in which western governments and western individuals can work to reduce feelings of shame placed on eastern countries and cultures.

Given that people involved with The Last Jedi have hinted at themes of terrorism and the blurring of the lines between who is right and who is wrong, I am convinced that Rian will tackle not only the thought-provoking and often divisive feelings of shame and its accompanying violence, but more importantly what remedies these feelings. Dostoevsky has handled these themes in the past, however, they were presented through a nihilistic lens wherein a character’s shame was resolved by violently eliminating the source of the shame. This was the case for Smerdyakov in The Brothers Karamazov who had—like Kylo--committed patricide to right the negative feelings he held towards his father’s neglect. According to J.P. Moran, author of “The Roots of Terrorist Motivation: Shame, Rage, and Violence in The Brothers Karamazov”, “Smerdyakov was lashing out violently at the very source of his humiliation [by murdering his father]…after doing so successfully, his mission is complete.”

However, we know this was not the case for Kylo Ren. When Kylo committed patricide, this marked the beginning of his journey and not the end of it. As Adam Driver has pointed out, “patricide is not all it’s cracked up to be.”

While we will get a further understanding into why Kylo Ren acts the way he does, we also have reason to believe this will not be a static narrative bent on making the “villain” look one sided or irredeemable.

“Kylo, who killed Han Solo, despite the fact that he was his real father; will the hopeful small amount of light that still remains in his heart be able to undo the darkness!?” -Star Wars Japan (Thanks to @sleemo and @sakurau121 for translations!)

”[Kylo and Rey] are almost two halves of our protagonist.” --Rian Johnson, New York Times, 2017

What this tells me is unlike other narratives that have explored shame and violence, the ending of the shamed character’s arc will not conclude with violence and tragedy, but instead they will be able to gain what they thought lost: love, understanding, and belonging.

And there are roots for this in TFA, as well as all through-out what little we know of Ben’s life, particularly in a young Ben Solo’s interactions with the highly manipulative, authoritarian force user, Snoke.

Examples of Kylo Ren and Shame in Star Wars Canon

Moran explains that Dostoevsky thought shame “[could] be defined as the withdrawal of love. Shame experienced as a child can be particularly devastating. Ultimately, this can end in violence” (e.g. patricide).

Obviously—while shrouded in mystery—we have enough of an understanding of Kylo Ren’s childhood to know that he felt shamed by his parents, his uncle, and, most importantly, in my opinion, Snoke.

We know that Kylo Ren has experienced some form of neglect from his parents as a child. Most notably Kylo—during the interrogation scene with Rey—mentions that Han would have “disappointed” her, referencing some event in the past wherein Ben likely felt neglected by his father. However, to what extent we are not quite sure. How much neglect Ben did receive as a child becomes even more clouded by his relationship to Snoke.

We know from Aftermath (and comments by JJ) that Ben was “targeted” by Snoke before he was born and that Snoke was “grooming” Ben. Leia says to Han in The Force Awakens novelization that Snoke was “always” with Ben. Leia comments: “From the shadows, in the beginning, he was manipulating everything, pulling our son towards the dark side.”

While there is still a lot to uncover here, I think it’s possible that Ben’s initial withdrawal of love and shame were not necessarily due to his parents but instead due to Snoke causing Ben to believe that Han and Leia were neglecting Ben more than they actually were (if they really were at all).

I make this conclusion based on conversations between Kylo and Snoke in TFA and how Snoke speaks to Kylo in ways that shame Kylo for feeling any sense of attachment or emotion towards any other person.

In The Force Awakens novelization, Snoke tells Kylo about the Empire and its fall. He explains: “The historians have it all wrong. It was neither poor strategy nor arrogance that brought down the Empire. You know too well what did.”

Ren nodded once “Sentiment.”

Here, Snoke is shaming the Empire, and specifically Anakin, for failing to turn Luke Skywalker and instead, in Vader’s effort to save Skywalker, sent the Empire toppling down.

By equating love with humiliation (something that is rather tragically ironic since Ben’s shame is really—at the core—the loss of love), Snoke makes it easier (in theory) for Kylo to kill his father. Affirming to his master that he will not be humiliated, Kylo tells Snoke: “[Han] means nothing to me. My allegiance is with you. No one will stand in our way.”

In a highly manipulative move, Snoke doubts Kylo’s ability to stay free of his shame (shame here being giving into love) and responds: “We shall see. We shall see.”

This theme comes up later in the novelization, as well, when Kylo is unable to get the map from Rey’s mind.

Snoke begins by shaming Kylo by telling him “This Scavenger—this girl—resisted you?” He further humiliates Kylo, telling him that he has failed him by getting involved with the most humiliating of emotions: sentiment.

“You have compassion for her,” Snoke accuses Ben. He follows: “I perceive the problem…it is not her strength that is making you fail, it’s your weakness.”

Getting back to Ben’s childhood…The shame that was instilled inside Kylo either naturally via the actions of his own parents or artificially via Snoke’s manipulation was only heightened when Leia and Han sent Ben away to Luke. Leia says it herself that “that’s when [Han and Leia] lost him.” It’s possible that Snoke—attempting to make Han and Leia believe that they cared little for Ben—used Ben being sent away to Luke as a way to gain Ben’s trust.

The true beginnings of shame and the withdrawal of love begin in this moment when Ben becomes Luke’s responsibility. What transpires between these two we won’t exactly know until The Last Jedi, however, it’s obvious that the big event that solidifies Kylo’s shame and what ultimately leads him to perform acts of violence is the burning of the Jedi Temple.

There are several theories I have seen about the Jedi Temple burning. The most recent of which is that the Jedi Temple burning could have been an accident as a result of Kylo’s incredible power that he could not control. If this were the case, it’s possible that Luke, terrified by what he had witnessed, was not able to understand the situation, and thusly turned his back on Ben. This would instill a great deal of shame in Ben since yet another member of his family is turning his back on him. Humiliated by his own power, sent off by his family, and possibly manipulated to think nobody ever cared about him in the first place, Ben finally succumbs to Snoke and The First Order.

There could also have been a disagreement between Luke and Ben before the burning of the Jedi temple that could have instilled the same feelings in Ben and led him to succumb to Snoke first. This means that the burning the Jedi Temple would have been his first act of violence fueled by feelings of abandonment, shame, humiliation, and loss of love.

Regardless, Ben becomes Kylo Ren and enters The First Order where he is shamed even further. I have already explained moments in which Snoke uses love, light, and sentiment to make Kylo feel shame. However, this is not the only occurrence. Hux also loves to humiliate Kylo. For example, when Kylo cannot get the map from Rey, Hux takes the opportunity to shame him in front of his boss, exclaiming “Ren believed the droid was no longer of value to us…He believed that the girl was all we needed.”

What is interesting here is Hux has arguably been shamed himself. He has been neglected and abused as a child and thrown into the First Order. He too commits the (PHASMA SPOILERS HERE!!) act of patricide, destroying the source of his shame. However, I see no indication that Hux will break the cycle of shame and violence. Instead he will be the foil to Kylo (as Hux fans have pointed out for years) who remains static within the cycle.

The last moment of shame we see from Kylo is of course his defeat at the hands of Rey. The marketing has used the words “humiliation” to describe the event and no doubt Snoke and Hux are about to do what they do best and humiliate him further.

However, I do not think this moment of humiliation will cause the cycle to repeat. Theoretically, Kylo would want to find the source of his humiliation and destroy Rey. Obviously, this isn’t going to happen. As I mentioned above, Daisy has stated that the relationship between Rey and Kylo is vague. The Japanese marketing for the film has also mentioned that these characters “resonate,” which does not spell out “mortal enemies” to me. Additionally, the trailer gives it away that Kylo isn’t looking to kill Rey but is still looking for her to join him. What I think this all means…I’ll come back to that later.

Kylo Ren and Dostoevsky: Similarities between Shame and Violence in The Brothers Karamazov and The Force Awakens

Kylo is undoubtedly prone to the cycle that forms the foundations of The Shame Model. Feeling humiliated and disgraced, Kylo feels validated in his violent actions, seeing them only as a solution to terrible things that had already been inflicted upon him.

In Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, brothers Dmitri, Ivan, and Smerdyakov (Alyosha has been omitted as he serves as a foil to the three brothers listed and I’m not going to be speaking about him) all feel some degree of shame after they have felt abandoned by their father. Each brother deals with this shame in their own way—one attempting to find love and belonging, one completely uprooting themselves to run away from the shame altogether, and one committing the act of patricide to right the wrong he believes has been committed against him. I believe that—while obviously not matching up with these brothers exactly—Kylo can serve as a composite of all three of these characters and how they react in the cycle of shame and violence.

Let’s start with Dmitri.

Dmitri is his father, Fyodor’s, first son and he rejects his father and his father’s abandonment of him (Dmitri was essentially raised by servants as his mother was already dead). Moran explains that “because of this abandonment and the complete lack of a mother figure, the reader is left to conclude that Dmitri has serious deficit of familial love.”

Of course this sounds like Kylo, at least in what he has been led to believe by Snoke, as he feels like he too has been abandoned by his family. Even more so, the book explains that Dmitri had almost two personas—one of his tortured soul and the other of who society wanted him to be. Dostoevsky writes:

“Others, who saw something pensive and sullen in [Dmitri’s] eyes were startled by his sudden laugh, which revealed light-hearted thoughts while his eyes seemed so gloomy.”

This is also like Kylo. The laugh and light-heartedness represent outwardly what society wants him to be. This is Dmitri’s “mask.” Kylo’s interpretation is more literal as he literally wears a mask, which represents what The First Order/Snoke wants him to be. Snoke in many ways represents the “society” that Kylo is forced to live by (which could open up another conversation on the authoritarian rule that exists in places where terrorism and shame are often rampant but that is a different analysis…). Kylo doesn’t seem to want to be in The First Order, however, for reasons explained above, he felt like The First Order was likely the last place that may be able to accept him.

Getting back to Dmitri, in order to release himself from the shame he feels about being abandoned, he does two things: (1) He attempts to find love with a woman named Grushenka and (2) he commits further acts of shame and violence including stealing from his fiancé Katarina and attacking Captain Snegiryov, an impoverished man who engages in a fight with Dmitri in a bar.

To the first point, it is alluded to through-out The Force Awakens that Kylo does have moments where, despite inevitably being shamed by Snoke for doing so, Kylo treats Rey in ways we have never seen him treat other characters in the story (e.g. see the comparison between Poe’s interrogation scene and Rey’s, as well as the comparison between Finn’s fight with Kylo and Rey’s fight with Kylo). JJ says in the commentary that the audience is supposed to consider that Kylo’s character isn’t quite right in his scenes with Rey and that something else is going on here. There has been a lot of meta written on this topic and if you’re not familiar with it, start here.

Per the second point, Moran writes that “This self loathing shame of being a thief leads to the uncontrollable rage that compels [Dmitri] to senselessly attack Captain Snegiryov.”

A similar thing happens in TFA. When confronted with Lor San Tekka, Kylo is reminded of his family. Lor reminds him how he has left them and also how Kylo believes they have left him. This likely leads to a moment of conflict and anger within Kylo, spurred on by his hatred for both himself and his parents. In the end, Kylo kills Lor San Tekka, a seemingly helpless man representative of his past, just as Dmitri attacks the impoverished Captain Snegiryov who serves as a foil for his past (Snegiryov is the foil to Fyodor. Snegiryov is a loving father to his child, while Fyodor was not).

Dmitir’s brother Ivan copes with shame in a different manner. Ivan seeks familial love through intellectualism and fame. Eventually, his ideology makes him incapable of love and he rejects what he believed in and where he came from.

Ivan admits “perhaps I was guilty; perhaps I really had a secret desire for my father’s death.” However, he never acts on it. Instead, Ivan goes through great lengths to change himself in order to reject the roots of what he was and who he was. In Moran’s words, “[he rejects] the morality and customs of Russia.”

This is of course similar to Ben Solo’s transition into Kylo wherein he “kills” the roots of who he is. “You son is gone” he tells his father on the bridge on Starkiller. “He was weak and foolish like his father, so I destroyed him.” He rejects his ability to love again or understand that Han is there to offer peace between them by at least attempting to reject the existence of Ben Solo altogether.

Finally, Smerdyakov has similarities with Kylo too, mostly because they both end up committing patricide out of extreme shame. Moran explains that “Smerdyakov is an extreme victim of humiliation and shame. He is also the most important character of the novel in displaying the effects of such extreme shame. This shame destroyed his self-esteem, ultimately resulting in rage.”

Smerdyakov’s shame stems not only from lack of familial love but also from public humiliation.

Smerdyakov is often dehumanized in the novel.

Gregory, a servant, says to Smerdyakov that “you are not a human being. You emerged from the mildew in the bathouse. That’s what you are.” Gregory also later refers to him as a “monster” who cares for “no one.”

Kylo is also dehumanized in TFA. He dehumanizes himself, of course, by putting himself behind a mask but more importantly he is dehumanized by Rey twice when she calls him a “creature” and a “monster.”

Smerdyakov also states that, “They used to call me a stinking bastard in Moscow…Gregory blames me for rebelling against my birth, but I would have welcomed their killing me before I was born so that I might not have come into the world at all…I am ready to burst with rage. I hate all of Russia.”

Now I can only speculate on the similarities between Kylo and Smerdyakov here but it is possible that Kylo’s shame may stem from the reveal in Bloodline that he is Darth Vader’s grandson and when people found out about it, this could have shamed Ben Solo. This may play into the destruction of the Jedi Temple, as well.

Where Smerdyakov and Ben really deviate is in their endings. As I stated before, Smerdyakov feels like his story is complete after he kills his father. Kylo Ren’s story, on the other hand, seems like it will use his father’s death to really kick-start his character development in the sequel trilogy. It also has become evident that Kylo’s arc will come into contact with another character who has also felt shame due to the withdrawal of love: Rey

Rey and Feelings of Shame in The Last Jedi

Rey is hard to analyze because we really haven’t seen her deal with the shame she feels for being abandoned. We caught glimpses in her force back, as well as shame and guilt for being away from Jakku. However, by accepting to take the lightsaber to Luke Skywalker, it shows she has taken Maz’s words to heart. Her belonging is not behind her, it is ahead.

That being said, it would be a disservice to Rey’s character to show her bounce back from living in a loveless state for over a decade. Rey moving on to Ahch-To does not erase the fact that she was abandoned and left alone, quite possibly just to die. I’m assuming that Rey is not Luke’s daughter and that she is going to have to deal with the fact that her parents did indeed leave her behind.

This throws Rey into the cycle of shame and violence, unless she can find a way to heal the withdrawal of love she has felt all her life. We do have some evidence, however, that Rey will at least slip in the direction of violence.

“Rey, who, even though in the previous film ‘The Force Awakens’ awakened the Force, carries a sense of being lost and unsure; will she be taken away by the darkness….”--Star Wars Japan, 2017

“And what about Rey? Does she make the right decision? Through the multifaceted nature of those characters, you can see it.”--Daisy Ridley, Yahoo Japan, 2017

From here, I think the narrative of TLJ can go one of two ways:

Option 1: The narrative can take a nihilistic viewpoint similar to Dostoevsky’s novels. This means that Rey will likely fall to the dark side as she succumbs to her shame. She will perform terrible acts of violence as she seeks to lash out against her humiliation, abandonment, self-loathing, and lack of love that she has experienced since she was a child. Kylo will also follow suit, seeking out the true source of his shame (whether this is Snoke, Rey, or Luke or all three) and destroying it This narrative continues the circular act of violence and how one wrong leads to more wrongs around and around until nobody exactly knows what they are fighting for or where they started.

OR Option 2...

Moran points out the other option in his analysis of Dostoevsky’s work. Moran states:

“If Dostoevsky is correct that shame and humiliation lie at the motivational root of [terrorism], is he also correct that these feelings among terrorists…can be mollified through humble love?”

In other words, how can these characters break this cycle? Where else can they go? How can love and understanding play a part?

My final speculation leading into The Last Jedi (because this speculation crap has officially worn me out) is that Rian will not the nihilistic view and will instead open up a discussion about how to remedy poor decisions made by those who feel as if they have been deeply wronged. As Dostoevsky explains through his stories, he believes the route to this is love and understanding; filing the voids left by other people and controlling and reversing the cycle of shame by empathizing and, more importantly, showing compassion and love for people instead of shaming and humiliating them.

Arguably, for Rey, Finn can fill this position. When Finn comes back for her on Starkiller, Rey is obviously impacted. Nobody has ever returned for her before. However, Finn and Rey are going to be separated in TLJ, making it difficult for me to conclude that Finn could be the person to help Rey through the emotional struggles she is about to go through (additionally, Finn has his own shame and neglect to deal with and it sounds like Rose is going to be the person to help him with that…).

The other option for Rey would be Luke. However, Luke seems as if he will further Rey’s humiliation and shame by rejecting her for her “raw power.” He will be unable to show Rey the belonging, understanding, or love that she needs.

So who does that leave us with?

Well, frankly I think it’s pretty obvious and I think we’ve been given the answer:

““The things that happen to these two people [Rey and Kylo] are emotional, and it’s really important for the viewer to empathize,” [says Rian Johnson] who apparently coaxed performances that would get at the inner feelings of these two characters more than the previous film.” -Rian Johnson, Excite Japan News, 2017 (thanks again @sleemo for posting!)

At the start of The Last Jedi we have two characters who have experienced extreme shame due to the withdrawal of love.

Both Rey and Kylo have also been thrown into unusual, unforeseen circumstances; Rey into the desert wasteland of Jakku and Ben into a world where the galaxy’s most well-known terrorist turns out to be his grandfather.

Both Rey and Kylo have held on to lives they thought they could belong in;. Rey believed she could have a life where her parents were present and caring. Kylo is a bit more complicated depending on which interpretation suits your perspective of his character at the moment. He arguably could still be dealing with letting go of his life as Ben Solo, or, living with his decision to belong in the First Order where he believed that Snoke was doing what was best for him.

Both Rey and Kylo have realized they have both made terrible decisions. Rey must realize that she has been holding out hope for a false reality and Kylo must come to grips with committing patricide. He must also face all of the violent acts he thought would bring him further and further away from his own self-loathing, humiliation, and whatever else we’re going to find out that went down between him and Luke.

Additionally, Rey and Kylo are both connected to the current sources of the other’s shame. Rey sees Kylo as the murderer of one of the only hopes for belonging she could have held onto outside of her own family and Rey is the most recent culprit of Kylo’s humiliation at the hands of Snoke and Hux.

They are “two halves of our protagonist” “two halves of the dark and the light” and “two halves of something.”

All of this pushes me to believe that Rey and Kylo will break the cycle of shame and violence together by finding love, understanding, and belonging in each other.

As much as I am fascinated by nihilism, Johnson is not a nihilist. The biggest proof of that is in his film Looper wherein a cycle of loss and violence is also broken by the protagonist.

And even Dostovesky and his “nihilistic abyss” were not void of optimism. He too left clues in his own work that such deeply rooted emotions and consequences can be broken by the fearless acts of both sides—each feeling like they are right in their own ways. Finishing out his essay, Moran writes:

“Although Dostoevsky burrowed to the root of terrorism, he also seems to have felt that there was some cause for hope. Spring will come, the path will clear, and the demons will cast themselves into the sea.”

And that, really, is what Star Wars has always been about.

#kylo ren #rey #tlj speculation #tlj spoilers #fyodor dostoevsky #the brothers karamazov #star wars #Star Wars theory #the last jedi #reylo #honestly I don't know if this is a meta or speculation but I'm calling it a speculation #ben solo #ben solo redemption #kylo ren redemption

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apsbicepstraining · 6 years

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Christian Bale: ‘I was asked to do a romantic humor. I thought they’d lost their minds’

The actor, famed for playing brooding, injury people, is back playing, well, a dwell, shattered man in the gritty western Hostiles. He talks about why the film industry has to change, balding up to play Dick Cheney and why he will never, ever, do a romcom

The interview’s firstly astounds is that a chubby, grungy flesh is filling the Beverly Hills hotel sofa set aside for Christian Bale. The phony athletics a shaved brain, heavy paunch, worn pitch-black T-shirt and khaki camouflage trousers. He looks like a bouncer, maybe, or a resting football rowdy, but surely not the man who daddies up on inventories of the sexiest stars alive. But Bale it is, fall into the seat, occupying his latest physical change.” I ingest a lot of pies ,” he says.

The actor is well known for going to extremes- gorging, starving, bodybuilding- which reshape his physique from Olympian to emaciated to portly and back. He has just done it again, parcelling on the pounds and travelling near-bald to performance Dick Cheney. At persons under the age of 43, these alterations are not getting easier.” I’ve got to stop doing it. I suspect it’s going to take longer to get this off ,” he says, marking the belly.

But the chances of Bale not going all the way for a role are, on the basis of the ensuing interview, negligible. He may be from the smaller Pembrokeshire town of Haverfordwest and speak with an emphatic , non-posh English accent, but he is America’s Zelig: a versatile talent who personifies his adopted country’s dreams and nightmares with singular physicality and intensity.

A driving force, apparently, is danger.” The information anybody hires me is remarkable ,” says the Oscar-winner( for The Fighter in 2011) hired by Terrence Malick, Ridley Scott, Christopher Nolan and David O Russell. It could be spurious decorum, but Bale seems genuinely are concerns that someday the labor- on average one or two films a year over the past two decades- could dry up.” That could be really short-lived .”

Play Video

2:30

Watch the trailer for Christian Bale’s brand-new cinema Hostiles- video

Bale reputedly has a feeling. He was arrested for reportedly assaulting his mother and sister at the Dorchester hotel in London in 2008. The experts did not press charges, citing sufficient evidence. The same time, he propelled an expletive-filled tirade against board of directors of photography on the change of Terminator: Redemption in 2009. A leaked audio recording zinged in all the regions of the internet.

Both are foreboding forebodings that set up the interview’s second stun: today, Bale is affable, chatty, relaxed. He laughter. Maybe it is because of a cold- he is under the weather and sips lemon tea- but it comes out as a wheezing gurgle that for all the world sounds like Muttley, the cartoon dog.

Asked if the nearly decade-old on-set meltdown bird-dogs him- it is the laughingstock of jokes and charades- he shrugs.” Parties don’t mention it to me, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t follow me around. I’m not well informed it if it does .”

Bale has brought glamours, anxiety and taut menace to memorable capacities straddling from Batman to Patrick Bateman, the axe-wielding yuppie of American Psycho( 2000 ). He plays- spoiler alert- another meditate, detriment, hyper-masculine persona in the potent film Hostiles . As a US army captain, he is tasked with escorting a Cheyenne chief through 1892 western badlands. Blood flows as Bale’s character kills, stabs, suffers and mourns.

Bale in American Psycho …’ I’d no idea beings met it as anything other than irony .’ Photograph: Sportsphoto Ltd ./ Allstar

The actor adversaries Robert De Niro and Daniel Day-Lewis for diving deep- physically and psychologically. He doesn’t do it for fun.” There is a much simpler mode, but I can’t do it. I don’t know if it’s because I don’t have any exercise. I ascertain actors who can just be themselves and then swap and give these really incredible achievements, and then switching over to being themselves. I find I start chuckling because I’m too aware that it’s still me. So I try to get as distant as possible. Otherwise, I can’t do it .”

Hence the metamorphoses.” It’s helpful not to look like yourself. If I look in the reflect and extend,’ Ah, that doesn’t definitely sounds like me ,’ that’s helpful .” Bale vowed to not pack on weight again after playing a conman in American Hustle( 2013 ), merely to bloat anew to play Cheney in the biopic Backseat( film after Hostiles ), leaving him now, periods after wrapping, facing another extreme nutrition.” These pants are one of the few pairs I’ve got that have these belts on the side so I can still fit into’ em .” A fluctuating waistline, he says, has consequences.” I’m not big-hearted on shop, so you end up with a lot of elasticated happenings .”

He is calmest, he says, during extreme fasting, such as the time “hes losing” 27 kg( 60 lb) for The Machinist in 2004 (” attains De Niro definitely sounds like an uncommitted wuss “, Peter Bradshaw wrote in the Guardian’s review ).” It’s an stunning suffer doing that. When you’re so skinny that you can hardly go up a flight of stairs … you’re, like, this being of pure anticipate. It’s like you’ve abandoned your torso. That’s the most Zen-like state I’ve ever been in my life. Two hours sleep, reading a volume for 10 hours straight without stopping … prodigious. You couldn’t ruffle me up. No rollercoaster of excitements .” Alas, it doesn’t last.” As soon as “youre starting” putting the nutrient back in your gut, the rollercoaster coming through .”

Sipping his tea, admiring the afternoon sunshine seeping through a canopy of palm trees, Bale arrays over a variety of topics: the US’s polarisation, Hollywood gossips, feminism, the fright of romantic comedies.

Bale in the Machinist …’ It’s like you’ve abandoned your torso .’ Photograph: Allstar/ Paramount

First, there is a movie to promote. Bale announces Hostiles a western with harsh, modern-day resonance. Based on an unpublished manuscript by the late screenwriter Donald Stewart, it is written, induced and directed by Scott Cooper, who previously directed Black Mass, Crazy Heart and Out of the Furnace.

It opens with the butchery of a white family by Comanches, then alters to Command Joe Blocker, a grizzled, prejudiced ex-serviceman of the genocidal Indian campaigns who is forced by political employers to escort a former foe, a croaking Cheyenne chief give full play to Wes Studi, on a 1,000 -mile odyssey to his tribal homeland.

The arc of polarisation and redemption grabbed Bale from the outset.” It was a gut feeling of reading it, wanting to read it again and thinking: there’s really something here that I can preoccupy with for a number of months. It’s an incredible story of American history from the point of view of a mortal who is absolutely destroyed with bigotry and hatred, experiencing his channel back to being human .”

Speaking Cheyenne dialogue was nerve-racking, but uplifting, says Bale.” It’s a beautiful conversation; exceedingly poetic, with a wonderful rhythm to it .” Chief Phillip Whiteman, a Cheyenne consultant who tutored Bale, says the actor nailed it:” The pleasure that it brought me to hear our speech being saved through a character such as Chris’s, this became me emotional. This is going to live on for ever, captured by this big screen .”

The film, fire on location in Colorado and New Mexico in the summer of 2016, objective up reflecting Trump-era topics, says Bale.” We didn’t think that when we started it, but it just started becoming clear as we experienced what was happening in America- picturing how cozy parties were becoming in showing disregard for the other .”

Revelations about sex misbehaviour in Hollywood underscore the film’s observation that” everything is run by age-old grey humen”, he says.” The richness that we could all experience if we started cuddling a much more extensive variety of sources of storytelling from dames, from minorities .” Worthy hopes, but some commentators complain that in Hostiles the native attributes are ciphers.

Nonetheless, Bale supposes the cascade of post-Harvey Weinstein scandals will permanently change Hollywood.” I can’t see that this will become a footnote and be swept under the carpet. It does feel like it will change .” Since moving to Los Angeles in the 90 s, he has worked on dozens of movies, indies such as Laurel Canyon, blockbusters such as Exodus: Divinities and Kings, and garlanded grub such as The Big Short . But he says he was unaware of sexual mismanagement in the industry.

” Some beings might announce me almost reclusive. Nothing gossips with me. I was clueless. If I’m not making a film, I don’t really socialise with that numerous people who stir movies. The throw couch, yes, I’d heard of that. But specifics? No , good-for-nothing at all. Do I believe that it has all been happening? Perfectly .”

Surprising Bale fact: he is Gloria Steinem‘s stepson. His now-deceased father wedded the feminist author in 2000.” It was news to me; I was in Germany ,” says Bale, wheeze-chortling anew.” I found out about it afterwards .” He has not discussed Hollywood’s scandals with her, he says, but contemplates himself a feminist.” If we’re talking equality, absolutely .”

Asked about Ridley Scott expunging Kevin Spacey from All the Money in the World, Bale pauses.” Ridley’s a really smart husband, a acquaintance of mine. I imagine he’s made precisely the right choice .” He says he has been too busy hitting Backseat to say more.” I don’t know if the allegations were so heinous that it was a moral choice of Ridley’s or if it was a strictly business select .”

In Empire of the Sun with John Malkovich. Picture: Everett Collection/ Rex Feature

In playing Cheney, Bale strove “pathways to understanding” George W Bush’s vice-president.” What you discover when you start investigating any person is nobody is singularly bad or singularly good. He’s a wonderful family man, by all chronicles. He didn’t hesitate for a second when his daughter Mary announced that she was a lesbian despite the fact that was complete anathema to his party at that time .”

Bale withholds his own opinions on Cheney’s politics.” I don’t want to do this as a’ nudge-nudge, wink-wink’ action. I don’t want to be divulging my own political bends and then making a little joke. It’s totally irrelevant what I contemplate. I’m an actor, I’m a vessel of that persona .”

Bale was born in 1974 to atypical parents. His father, Jenny, was a circus musician and his father, David, an entrepreneur and flair administrator. They moved frequently- Bale recollects an idyllic stint in Portugal. The future Batman cracked into acting aged eight in a commercial for the fabric softener Lenor. Two year later, he was on the West End in London, playing opposite Rowan Atkinson in The Nerd. At 13, he property the starring role in Steven Spielberg’s adaptation of JG Ballard’s memoir Empire of the Sun.

Overnight, he grew famed- and the family’s primary earner, which motivated a love-hate rapport with playing.” There was none( else) to make any fund. At that age, it was,’ Oh, Christ, I’ve got to be the breadwinner .’ That was no fun. So there’s always been a bit of disliking because of that .”

After his mothers divorced, he moved with “his fathers” to Los Angeles. American Psycho, based on Bret Easton Ellis’s novel, launched Bale as a leading man with a very sharp rim.” When I read the book, I was chortling straight away. I’d no idea beings envisioned it as anything other than parody .”

Then came acclaimed recitals in Chris Nolan’s Batman trilogy, though Bale is self-critical. He wanted the superhero, for once, to be more interesting than the villains. Then Heath Ledger transformed in a sublime accomplishment as the Joker in The Dark Knight, leaving the caped reformer comparatively vanilla by comparison.” I didn’t attain what my design was there .”

Bale has admitted conflicted thoughts over Ben Affleck acquiring the role , but denies any finding on Batman v Superman and Justice League, saying he hasn’t seen either.

His two children- the product of his marriage to Sandra Blazic- have not pictured his own movies, but taunt his thespian efforts during games at home, he says.” They reckon I’m the worst actor ever. My daughter can’t believe that anyone pays me .”

Time’s up, so a final query: has he examined nostalgic comedy?

Bale bats the question back with what is just like a challenge.” Have you ever enjoyed a nostalgic slapstick ?” I pause and he presses the time.” Have you ever enjoyed a romantic comedy ?”

A few, I say, but my recollection blanks.

” Can you name’ em ?”

Er, When Harry Met Sally.

” That’s going back quite a roads, isn’t it? You’re hard pressed .” He shakes his head.” I was asked to do a romantic slapstick lately and I thought they’d lost their thinkers. Felines have those insane half hours every evening. I think it must have been that for the yield fellowship. I don’t know why anyone would ever give me a nostalgic slapstick. I find American Psycho very funny .”

Hostiles is released in the UK on 5 January 2018

The post Christian Bale: ‘I was asked to do a romantic humor. I thought they’d lost their minds’ appeared first on apsbicepstraining.com.

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twdmusicboxmystery · 4 years

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TWD 10x12: Walk With Us - Details

Okay, let’s talk details. There are a lot of them!

***As always, spoilers abound below for episode 10x12. Don’t read until you’ve watched! You’ve been warned.***

Ezekiel:

I want to go over his mini arc here a bit more because I think it’s important.

We start with him looking for Judith as Hilltop is falling down around them. That’s a direct parallel to Beth looking for Judith and the kids when the prison fell.

Much like Glenn in S4 (and probably Beth in S5) there was a big disaster and he was left behind. As I said yesterday, I think the metal roofing might have been part of the Hole in the Roof theory, which equates to Beth being shot in the head. Now, understand, I’m not saying I think Zeke will get shot in the head. Just that there’s symbolism to equate these two sequences. With Glenn at the prison, the bridge blew up. So it’s really a matter of something happening at ground zero of the disaster that kept them there when everyone else left. So they got left behind, and the others in the group don’t realize they’re still alive and back where the disaster originally occurred. (Glenn at prison, Zeke at Hilltop, Beth in Atlanta.)

Then, once they realize he is alive, Zeke leads them to the children. While watching the episode, I kept having a head canon about Beth finding the kids and bringing them back. I’d already read spoilers and knew it wouldn’t play out like that, but with all the child/baby symbolism around Beth, it just would have been the perfect time. But there’s also symbolism here that, in my mind, makes Ezekiel a Beth proxy. So the child/baby symbolism is still present.

One more thing of note: last episode, they had a whole scene where Daryl and Ezekiel talked about one of them getting the kids out. But…neither of them actually did. Earl did. So why did they have that entire scene about Daryl and Zeke? Well, I talked in THIS ASK on Sunday about some of the symbolism in that scene, but I think there’s more to it than that. It foreshadows something we haven’t seen yet.

Magna and Connie:

Magna arrives with the walkers, much as the Whisperers might, except sans skin mask. She talks to Yumiko about how she and Connie survived the cave in, and moved back into the cave, looking for a way out. She says they took a sharp turn, which caught my ear.

We’ve seen lots of arrows and sharp turns symbols before. I don’t even know if we’ve settled on what it means, but the obvious meaning is that their story or arc or path is heading in a new direction, and it’s usually not a good one. For example, we saw this at the school in S9 where Cyndie and the Oceansiders were killing the Saviors. And that led to the bridge and all the camaraderie between communities falling apart.

Magna also talks about how they made a sharp turn and ran into Alpha’s walker horde. They started walking with the dead, as the Whisperers do, but as the horde pushed forward, she lost Connie’s hand and they became separated. So once again, we have Connie being a missing girl, a type of death fake out, and it has to do with a walker horde.

Also, Magna does have an “I get it now” line during this scene.

I have to mention this goofy little scene with Negan and this walker. I don’t know if they were going for humorous here, but I couldn’t stop laughing. It was like they were the only two at a club and pretending not to dance with one another, but secretly they were.

Carol and Eugene

I don’t have tons to say about Eugene right now except that I’m really side-eying this arc with him and Stephanie and the hospital. I’m feeling more and more like it will be the one that leads to Beth. I think there were callbacks here to him lying about the cure in S5, and some stuff with Carol that is foreshadowing future things. I won’t have time to get into them this week, and I need to re-watch episodes to check some stuff anyway, so just know that I’ll bring it up again eventually.

His scene with Carol was really sweet and I did notice that they focused on the walker at her feet that came up out of the ground. Only it’s arms and shoulders were really free, and at first, Carol just sort of swatted it away, rather than killing it.

I wasn’t sure what to make of that, other than that her unwillingness to kill it shows her state of mind. Her guilt. But some of my fellow theorists and I have found some similar instances and are talking about them. I don’t have a concrete theory yet, as I need to do some more research, but it’s obviously something they wanted us to notice.

Carol does tell Eugene to go to Stephanie. And I felt like this is proof that she still loves Ezekiel and knows what she should be doing (making a life with him) as opposed to what she is doing (trying to get revenge on Alpha). She says that his choice is simple. If it’s important, he needs to go to her (Stephanie). Yeah, she really needs to take her own advice where Zeke is concerned. But this might also foreshadow his death fake out and the guilt she’ll have for ignoring him for so long once she thinks he’s dead. Time will tell.

Kelly/Alden/Gamma

Just the fact that they jumped into a car to escape walkers is important. We’ve always thought Beth was put into a car (specifically the trunk) to keep her safe from walkers. But we’ve seen this other places on the show as well, such as when Daryl and Aaron jumped in the van in 5x16 after they triggered the wolf trap. It’s a common theme, and the people who dive into the car for safety generally survive, so…

We also learn that Gamma’s sister was named Frances. That brought together a number of factors for me. Several people pointed out this painting at Hilltop from last week. We saw it multiple times behind both Lydia and Gamma. One of my group members found some info about it.

So this woman was known both by the names Mary Sears and Mrs. Frances Shaw. Gamma is Mary and her sister is Frances. So this is a sister theme.

Kelly asked Gamma if her sister was “everything to you.” We’ve heard the “everything” theme many times before. The one that came first to my mind was when Rick said it to Daryl in 4x14. He said that Daryl being back with them was ‘everythang.’ So I think they use this to show what’s most important to the characters, and sometimes, as with Gamma, it can take them a while to realize what that is.

Meanwhile, Gamma leads the walkers away so the others, including her nephew, can survive. A lot like Daryl did so Beth could get out of the funeral home in 4x13. So, Alone parallel. Then they did this thing where Gamma managed to kill all the walkers and had a really sweet moment of triumph. They even did the soft music and the sun coming through the trees. It would have been really beautiful if Beta hadn’t shown up to stab her in the gut.

After killing her, he puts her against the trunk of a tree and waits for her to reanimate. If you don’t know why that’s significant, read THIS by @frangipanilove. I also notice that in this scene, they show shots of walker bodies and the lake, and the shots kind of fade into one another to show the passage of time. I counted. Gamma reanimates on the third shot. Just saying.

When Daryl and his group get to the rendezvous point, and no one is there, I noticed that there were three buildings. A house, a barn, and a shed of some kind. Couldn’t help but be reminded of the moonshine shack.

Of course there was a definite cabin theme going on here. There was that one, the one Earl and the kids hid in, the one Negan stashed Lydia in, and the one he took Alpha too. So yeah, I’d call that a motif.

There were diamonds on the window of the cabin Earl and the kids were in.

Negan and Alpha

Most of the stuff I saw with these two weren’t exactly TD smoking guns, but still worth noting.

Basically Alpha wants Negan to take Lydia’s place as her protégé. He has a line where he says, “you want me out there preaching your gospel?” That caught my ear for many reasons. The gospel bit is obviously a Christian reference, but we’ve specifically heard it referenced around Beth. We’ve also discussed how Alpha is sort of the anti-Beth. And in a way, this labels her as an anti-Christ.

Negan also talks about how his wife died, including mentioning cancer and chemo. I think that’s a hint at Ezekiel’s coming hospital arc and may also play into the water poisoning motifs we saw so strongly at the beginning of the season.

I think they were purposely juxtaposing Alpha’s parenting with that of Jerry and Daryl. We had the scene where they found the kids and hugged them and were so relieved to find them alive and well, and then it cuts to Alpha trying to convince Negan that killing Lydia is the right thing to do.

I noticed that Alpha said “thank you” to Negan. She was thanking him for finding Lydia for her. And that just reminded me of Nicholas saying thank you to Glenn right before he died. In both cases, the person saying thank you died almost directly after saying it. In both cases, they were weak characters in some way (mostly emotionally) who were really not going to survive much longer anyway.

And finally, we have Negan rolling Alpha’s head at Carol’s feet. This makes it plain that Carol is the one who let him out of his cell, and obviously they had some kind of understanding. The thing is, Carol obviously didn’t have tons of confidence that Negan would hold up his end of the deal. If she had, she wouldn’t have been trying so hard to kill Alpha herself. My fellow theorists and I also discussed that maybe, when Negan first left Alexandria and met that woman and her son, he truly wasn’t planning to do what Carol asked. He would rather have gone off with them. But when they were killed, that spurred him to go kill Alpha so he could go back to Alexandria.

And we have no idea what Carol promised. Chances are, she won’t really be able to deliver. This is yet another example of her, much like she did in S4, making a command decision that affects many other people, without actually consulting anyone else. And that never turns out particularly well, no?

So the next episode will be about Michonne, but I’m interested to see where we end up going from here.

And, on the Michonne topic, I want to address what we see in the trailer for next week. I’ve commented many times about the possibility of this Michonne/Virgil story line leading to Beth. But based on what we see in that trailer, I’m thinking not. I was envisioning her finding a civilization much like Alexandria: mostly thriving but with some problems. Another place they might become allies with. But from the trailer, it looks like Virgil is lying about everything, and things are going to go really badly for Michonne. In short, she’s in big trouble. There’s a part at the end of the promo where a door slams, and it really focuses on that.

So, I’m wondering if, rather than finding out about Rick and choosing to go get him, she’ll actually be taken captive against her will. That would explain what we talked about, about how it doesn’t make sense that Daryl wouldn’t want to go with her. Maybe she just disappears and doesn’t radio them because she really can’t. So, they don’t actually know what’s happening.

And if Beth isn’t returning through the Michonne/Virgil story line…that leaves Eugene and Stephanie. And we already know they’re headed to the Grady hospital location, so…

Thoughts?

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

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twdmusicboxmystery · 5 years

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More Evidence That Beth = New Dawn and Rick = Capt. Hansen

Okay, this is something I’ve been thinking about for about a week now. Before S7, I did THIS THEORY about how useless it was that they gave us Dawn and Capt. Hansen's back story while at Grady. It was useless and really kind of a waste of screen time...that is, unless Beth is alive. She was the only one who heard and could have learned anything from that back story. There were scenes when Dawn talked to Beth about things and nobody else was in the room. Dawn died, so obviously having that back story isn’t about Dawn growing from it. And certainly no one else in TF heard it or can benefit from it in any way. So, if Beth is really dead, that was a complete waste of air time.

Of course, I don't think that's the case. As I said in THIS POST, I think it was a foreshadow for what would happen with Beth. Dawn talked about Capt. Hansen being her mentor and how he started to crack, and she was forced (she thought) to kill him and take his place.

I’ve always thought that that would play out in some way with Beth and Rick. Rick because he was the first sheriff and Beth’s mentor and she is supposed to be the new sheriff in town, which makes her his protégé. The difference is that I don’t think Beth will kill Rick. She’s a better person than Dawn and that simply wouldn’t be her solution, no matter what Rick did. I think the scenario will be more like her stepping in as a leader if for some reason, Rick can’t lead for a time.

Now, over the seasons I've theorized many ways in which this could come to pass. For example I thought perhaps when Negan showed up and we saw Rick cracking under the strain of what happened to Glenn and Abraham, perhaps she would show up then to take over. Obviously not. I've had several theories about how this would play out. And, as we haven't seen Beth yet, none of them have proved correct.

So, last week @wdway was hashing out some of her awesome theories in our group. She started to talk about the Empress tarot character (I reblogged the post about this yesterday). Basically, she's one of the tarot card characters and most of the symbols around her are things we’ve seen around Beth. So we've theorized more than once that they use the Empress as a template for Beth’s arc and her character.

For some reason, that got me thinking about the story around Beth and Rick and what it might mean moving forward. So I’m gonna throw some pretty wacky theories out for you guys to consider. So, let’s call this a predictions post.

If you need any more evidence of Beth = Tarot Empress, check out THIS DESCRIPTION, specifically the parts under “description” and “history.” Also, check out this picture.

The emblem on the shield is an eagle. The positioning of the bird looks like a Phoenix and a lot like the one we saw in the moonshine shack in Still.

So, the first thing the first epiphany I had has to do with the 12 stars on the Empress’ throne above. We've definitely seen a number 12 quite a bit. I’ll talk about this more in subsequent posts, especially in regards to the opening credits, but right now there is a walker in the opening credits that appears to have a 6 in his eye with two lines to it. We think it represents a double 6. In other words, 12. Then there’s episode 6x06, which was a huge Beth-symbolism episode (again 6+6=12). There are lots of other examples two but I’m not going to go into all of them.

So I suppose the major worry here is that may be waiting until S12 to bring Beth back. Don’t worry. I don’t think that will be the case. I have another idea of what the twelve could be referencing.

It occurred to me that Gimple has said many times that he has planned through season 15 of TWD. Gimple took over at the end of S3/beginning of S4. So, if you start at S4 (because he wasn’t show runner in the first three seasons) 12 seasons out from that would be season 15. So, I'm thinking 12 seasons represents the entire arc Gimple planned when he took over in 3x16. The Empress’s arc reigns over those 12 seasons.

That should give everyone hope because in 3x16, which is an episode he rewrote, he put all kinds of resurrection symbols into it, including a very obvious scripture about resurrection.

I think it’s meant to show that the arc he planned for the next 12 seasons would be full of resurrections. That goes well with what we know Beth and her arc, as well as everything else we’ve seen in intervening seasons.

Again, I don't think until S12 to bring Beth back. We know a coda is the final passage of a piece of music and represents something different than the stuff heard earlier in the piece. Bringing her back in season 10 is still late enough in the 12 season musical piece to count as a coda, imho.

This got me thinking about other things too. I’ve said a few times that the more I think about it, the more convinced I am that Beth and Rick will end up in the same place, possibly at Grady.

We’ve had a lot of evidence for that (Rick’s hallucination, the helicopter, etc.) So in conjunction with the Dawn/Capt. Hansen stuff, I think that might back this idea up. Dawn and Capt. Hansen’s story being a template for Rick and Beth would make a lot of sense if Rick ends up at Grady. Suddenly, Beth would be there with her mentor. If she somehow trained directly under Rick to be a leader for a while, it would definitely make her the new sheriff in town.

You could even argue that's why they had Rick place the sheriff’s hat on Beth’s head in 4x16. The symbolism there is Rick sort of anointing her his new sheriff, especially now that Carl is gone.

Dawn flat out says that Beth reminds her of herself and she was young. That pretty much proves that Beth will become the new Dawn at Grady (New Dawn Theme). She’ll return as a leader and of course become new sheriff in town.

@wdway also pointed out that back in 4x02 (again, right Gimple officially took over and the 12 season arc began) we saw a “new dawn” picture on the wall during the council meeting behind Daryl and Carol.

Kind of interesting because all the other members of that council—Glenn, Sasha, Hershel—are all dead now. So that might have been a purposeful foreshadow that the New Dawn (Beth) wouldn’t arrive until only Carol and Daryl were left.

We also saw this theme printed on two different books. One with Bob in the veterinary college, which incidentally looked exactly like Grady and was an obvious foreshadow of it.

The second one was this season on a book Daryl had in his camp when Carol went to get him (can’t seem to find my pic of it, but I’ll take an other one to post later). That happened in the episode entitled Stradivarius. In other words, the musical episode.

Coincidence?

We’ve also discussed that perhaps Beth will show up at some point, without Rick, and tell Michonne where he is. That could still work with this scenario. I was thinking that her leaving Rick behind (turn of the tables, anyone?) might constitute a betrayal of Rick on her part, which could account for the analogy to Dawn killing her mentor. Really just throwing out ideas here.

Of course the show often uses anti-parallels. So maybe Beth doesn’t need to betray Rick at all. It will be more of an anti-parallel in that aspect. And that brings me to Trevitt. (Remember, he’s the guy that was brought into Grady with internal injuries and died when Edwards had Beth give him the wrong medicine.)

I’ve always thought we should read something more into Trevitt’s role in Beth’s story, but it’s hard to say what. This may not work out across the board, but Trevitt was brought into Grady badly injured. I was thinking that the last we saw of Rick, when he left on the helicopter, he was pretty badly injured. Wouldn’t it be interesting if he was taken to Grady and brought in as an injured patient, just as Trevitt (and later Carol) were? The anti-parallel there would that Rick doesn’t die, as Trevitt did.

Also, consider that Trevitt fell out of a window to the ground and Rick was blown off a bridge. Those injuries do have certain parallels, such as flying through the air. It's not like either of them was dealing with a walker bite, or gunshot wound.

I also considered the fact that Trevitt was a doctor at St. Ignatius. It’s still hard to make heads or tails of the St. Ignatius reference, but Ignatius did start the society of the Jesuits, a Christian organization that became a huge force for good at the time. Maybe it points to them starting a new group or a new community?

We’ve talked about the possibility of Beth showing up in FTWD or in other places. Just keep in mind that this doesn't negate any of that. It's been six years now since Rick disappeared. If he went straight to Grady, it's obvious that neither of them make it back very quickly. They have a long journey ahead of them and a lot of the other things we've seen could still be true of how she returns. It will all fit together at some point, we just don't know how yet.

All these things point to the New Dawn/Beth/The Empress arriving very soon. And again, I have no idea if it will pan out in any of the ways I’ve mentioned here. These are just some things I’ve been thinking about. Most of them are loose ends that still need to be tied up, in terms of the symbolism.Thoughts?

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

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