#but reversed so its like ending to beginning which if applied with his story FITS SO WELL WTF I COOKED???? | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

probably-haven · 3 years

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Hello!! After seeing what you wrote about xiaoven fics I went to see what things you usually write and omg, your archon Venti headcanons????? I am absolutely in love. So if it isn't annoying, could you talk about xiaoven or Venti or Xiao or whatever ship or character you like? I don't care what you are going to say, I just want to know more about your thoughts ^^

I- is this... bestie, this is essentially a free ramble pass- kerujsgheskdfug. Trust me when I say that in no way is this, and in no way will it ever be annoying in the slightest- i literally- lets just say rambling off thoughts is kind of my specialty, especially when provided a topic to branch off of because otherwise I'm just- really indecisive about it so- iujskdh yeah- 100% definitely down to talk about Venti, Xiao, and/or Xiaoven XD. Also, yes- it may have been awhile since i last posted one(cuz again, indecisive about which direction to take part 5), but the Archon War Era Venti headcanons are still without a doubt my favorite posts I've made. It's just such an interesting topic with such endless potential that so few people actually think about or consider or even realize is there, so i always just get really psyched whenever i see someone interact with them lol.

.... this ended up being a bit of a mess: warning in advance

Anyway! onto the actual content!

- You see the thing about Xiaoven is that there's a lot of different ways that it could end up working out, and just personally my favorite way of portraying Xiaoven in my mind is as an unlabeled relationship because if anyone in genshin would give off that vibe its these two. And a number of other reasons.

- Firstly, I heavily headcanon Venti as being an aroace polyplatonic or perhaps heavily demiromantic. However, regardless of this I just don't think that Venti is really the kind of person to worry about how he should label his feelings, thinking it's silly to try to put them in one box or the other, especially with feelings and emotions being as fluid as they are in general. Plus it fits his whole God of Freedom vibe. I just- dont think he's the biggest fan of labels or social categorization in general.

- And secondly on the hand of Xiao... his defense mechanisms are very much ingrained in his personality. It's probably hard enough for him to not go into fight or flight(the answer is fight) at the slightest affection at first, at the slightest feeling of vulnerability. Even further down the line, with his fierce dedication to Liyue, I cant help but get the vibe that the moment he recognized that he was falling for Venti he would begin avoiding him, not only to avoid distraction from his duty, but to avoid corrupting him or losing him in general like he has with like basically every other person he gets close with(even believing that the cycle had repeated once more when he first heard of Morax's death)... now imagine Venti tryna slap a label on their relationship and tell me Xiao would have a positive reaction.

- The thing with Xiaoven.... honestly, i feel like theres more ways that it can go wrong than it can go right, but if they do manage to make their relationship work out, it's just simply beautiful in all terms of the word.

- Lets talk about killing. - During the Archon War, both were forced to kill a large number of people and gods alike- Venti out of a need to remain alive to protect Mondstadt, it's freedom, and the nameless bard's legacy by extent- and Xiao out of servitude to the god that was once his master

..... actually- break here- ive talked a lot about Venti on this blog but I havent actually spoken about Xiao all that much- so i should probably do that a bit first... do note though that my characterization of Xiao is pretty flexible actually- this is just- the possible characterization of him that i tend to favor as being the most- uh- "realistically complex"

Theres a line I saw this one time in a certain story: "He is a trained weapon. That's what he is, was, and always will be. You cannot change that so stop trying." And i just- think its a really interesting concept- that applies pretty well to Xiao now that i actually think about it. - the concept behind it is this: After spending more than a vast majority of his life killing or otherwise in battle, it's become a part of who he is, a normalcy that after centuries and centuries would be near impossible to get rid of or reverse, and even if it was possible, with his karmic debt constantly eating away at him its unlikely he has enough time left for that to happen. - it sounds like a cruel thing to say about him- but in context it's actually pretty layered and i think about it a lot. It's not as much a "he's a killer lol, that his whole personality" its more of a "The centuries of trauma he experienced have conditioned him into a constantly alert and battle ready mindset while also shaping his dehumanizing inferior-in-worth-but-superior-in-capability view of himself that would have likely been necessary to get through those time, and at this point he's been under that conditioning for long enough that it's essentially ingrained itself in his personality."

- the main idea is- it's a part of who he is, that needs to be accepted as who he is because its not something that he can just up and change. It's not all he is of course but his constant battle mode, as though always waiting to be ambushed or to be granted a new target to eradicate.

a couple character story quotes:

-"His past of service under the evil god had rid Xiao of his innocence and gentleness. All that remained within him was the means to kill and the weight of his sins. The only way he could be of service to mortals was in combat." -"Xiao does not feel any hatred. Having lived for over two thousand years, no single karmic debt constitutes anything more than a fleeting memory. No grudge can last a thousand years; nor is any debt so great that it cannot be paid off in this time. Xiao has spent many long years alone. But his battles have never been in vain." -"where did Xiao have to return to? He was merely leaving the battlefield." -"since Xiao wages a constant war against dark forces powerful enough to devour Liyue in its entirety, any bystanders who witness him in the heat of battle are likely to end up as collateral damage." -"The war he fights can never be won, and will never come to an end." -"Because ultimately, the one with whom Xiao wrestles is himself."

i feel like at some point this very nearly did consume his whole personality, almost turning him into nothing more than a being of slaughter under Morax's control, devoid of any "humanity" at all, consumed and corrupted by his karmic debt like his fellow yakshas before him. - until he experienced a moment of clarity- a song in the wind, the peaceful melody of a dihua flute. - and pulled back from the border of something he wouldnt have been able to return from, there a was a shift in his mind- a concept grown unfamiliar enough with time that it took him a great time to identify what it was; a curiosity. Something that there was no place for on the battlefield, something that by all means should have been completely useless to Xiao, and yet he held onto that curiosity, slowly regaining over time, a sense of who he was and who he could choose to be with each song that the wind chose to carry towards him every once in a blue moon.

and eventually that curiousity turned to longing. Longing "for a day to come when he will wear the mask and dance — not to conquer demons, but to the tune of that flute amid a sea of flowers"

...... uh- heh- if you couldn’t tell already i have a tendency to make my characterizations/analyses of characters more serious that i probably should.

to summarize: Xiao is constantly toeing the line between his ingrained nature and his humanity- almost as though still trying to decide how much of that humanity he deserves to have, how much he is allowed to have, and how much is safe to have.

^looking back after writing this, i think the best way to explain it is that this is the view that i keep in mind/the lense that i tend to most enjoy looking through and refering back to while examining and/or analyzing his character, actions, story, lines, and overall personality.

idk- i kinda got off track but i just think its a really interesting interpretation to think about because it has some really interesting implications ig- it’s not the full extent of how i view him of course, but i kinda got ahead of myself and its long enough as is so ill just elaborate as i go- Lol i actually have in progress playlists for both him and venti and just- vibes- i could ramble about the playlists alone for hours explaining everything... It’s probably a problem- uh- ill keep going now lol.

anyways! stepping off the angst path for a brief break! Brought to you by their lines in the snow: both waiting for it to get thick enough, Venti for the purpose of a snowball fight and Xiao for the purpose of a tasty and nutritious breakfast.

but its actually something of note that Xiao doesnt actually need to eat so anything he does eat is usually out of obligation or enjoyment- so like.... snow.... like i dont blame him, but of all things- an adeptus who refuses to eat basically anything but almond tofu looks at the freezing-cold-floor-water that yeeted itself from above and decided at some point- damn- that seems more edible than basically ever single actually edible thing ever.... im gonna eat it- like- im glad if eating snow makes him happy but- at the same time...

He probably convinces Venti to eat snow too though and Venti wouldnt even resist I mean he’s wind and has probably consumed worse things in his time so- 2 anemo cryptids with glowing tattoos sitting in Dragonspine monching snow in the dead of night is an amusing thought to me.

- kay, now back to more serious-toned thoughts

One of the things about the ship that i really like is the different contradicting parallels between them:

A lot of how i view Xiao’s character is someone formed largely by the things he cant control and who was forced to accept that accepted that and learned to thrive in it as much as he can. Venti on the other hand is surrounded by things he cant control and is ever adapting to control as much as he can while embracing whatever he cant as being part of the unpredictability of the world, seeing beauty in it.

both of them have lost people and do what they do to honor their memory: Xiao continues to do what the Yakshas once did And Venti chooses to do what his friend couldn’t

Xiao’s power coming from himself and Venti’s from others And both seem to appear to use their power for their own gain while truly helping others behind the scenes

both have killed a lot of people during the archon war Xiao views it as another necessary event out of his control and Venti would likely view it as a tragedy he chose to enact himself

and this is where we meet out balance

Xiao- contrary to how i think a lot of people view him as thinking of himself as a monster- seems canonically to have accepted this as part of his duty, as long as those he killed are not mortals. I dont think he enjoys it no- but someone has to do it and he’s just accepted that its a part of his duty Venti on the other hand-

See the beauty of the ship- as someone with an angst-centric mind- is this- these are two of the most traumatized mfers in the game

Xiao is by far the one who needs the most help and who can serve to benefit most from the ship- but he is nowhere near self aware enough to recognize that there’s anything wrong or unhealthy about his mindset in the slightest-

whereas you have the contrast with Venti who sorted through most of his trauma with the nameless bard alone during the archon war and while the result appears more healthy- is still really not- but he’s not self aware of that either because i mean- who’s going to tell him? nobody even knows.

however- venti is aware enough to notice flaws in Xiao’s mindset and “Venti” enough to want to help them through it-

Xiao- while not aware enough to recognize the flaws in Venti’s mindset, can recognize where it contrasts with his own, and is blunt enough to point it out- and then it’s out there to be mulled over-

they’re so similar and yet so different and a feel just conversing between the two of them, being in each others precense, just being exposed to two mindsets that are so very different could do both of them a whole lot of good.

GEEE THAT BIT OF RAMBLING HAD LITTLE TO NO DIRECTION AT ALL- LET ME-- LET ME MAKE THIS START MAKING SENSE- WITH... DYNAMICS OR SOMETHING

I don’t think Xiao needs to sleep really- and i dont think that sleeping would do anything except make him uneasy at first- he’d probably just get nightmares after all he’s been through- but with Venti he would soon learn that it doesn’t have to be that way, lulled into the first peaceful sleep he’s had in... as long as he can remember.

anywho back to not making sense cuz im fickle and i think most questions about ships are best displayed through character interactions so like- a possible exchange thats cliche but cliches exist for a reason

Xiao: Why do you try so hard to help me, it isn’t easy. I know that much Venti, with the most adoring expression: Because you’re worth it, obviously Xiao: But surely there are others more deserving of- Venti: No Xiao, everyone is just as deserving as the next person, you included Xiao: Then why me above others? Venti: ehe, cuz ur my warrior of course [O//////O oh shit, hes right] Xiao: My contract is with Morax alone [gay panic but in broody yaksha]

it’s kinda difficult cuz neither of them really address their feelings. I mean Venti does but he does it very indirectly and its rare that he ever does it with like- genuine directness- even spilling his backstory was in the form of a song- and told in the third person- so a lot of their interactions would often have some deeper meaning, especially with Venti being the bard he is.

I come up with a lot of- errant thoughts about Xiaoven- but this is making me realize that a true analysis of their ship is rather difficult because it just encompasses so many dynamics so its hard to settle on just one and not go rambling about who knows what bouncing from one end of the ship to the other- Because you truly can and thats the beauty of it

within one moment you can be having a heartfelt conversation about the archon war the impact of lost friends and times past, and the next moment Venti is trying to forcefeed Xiao an apple while Xiao screams about disrespecting the adepti and its just- so lovely

so while they have picnics with nothing but apples, dandelion wine, and almond tofu they can sit down and talk about the dreams Xiao once devoured, and the dandelion wine and apple cider that the first Ragnvindir invented from the plants that never could have grown in Old Mond. The foods that tasted of familiarity, or of the grilled ticker fish Pervases always used to eat, foods that tasted of friends and frankly family that had since passed, glaze lilies and cecilias and qingxin flowers scattered in the surroundings and woven into Xiao’s neat braids and Venti’s now messy ones, rebraided by the steady and inexperienced hands of one unused to gentle action.

and then of course Venti steals Xiao’s tofu once the mood becomes too grim and replaces it with a bottle of wine that Xiao refers to as “vile poison,” a remark that fatally wounds Venti as he collapses on the floor, proclaiming how he can only be healed by a Yaksha’s kiss. Xiao ignores this of course and simply takes back his tofu with a slight smile on his face, but as Venti persists he soundlessly places a kiss on his own palm before intertwining their fingers and pulling him back up from where he was dramatically sprawled on the floor, grumbling about how such action was “unbecoming of an archon.” A sign of affection only Xiao would ever know about. But Venti is literally wind and I hc his senses work differently anyways so he definitely knows- plus Xiao’s face is red as the blood of his enemies and the way he is pointedly not looking at Venti at all really speaks volumes anyways.

-Venti playing epic battle music whenever Xiao goes into fights in what looks like a ridiculously extra performance to anyone else but is actually doing wonders to keep Xiao’s karma at bay

-Venti preaches the practice of “kissing wounds better” and Xiao is unfamiliar with this medical treatment but views it as unnecessary regardless because adepti have accelerated healing, doesn’t mean he’s going to stop him though.

-Messages whispered on the wind

-Venti’s 1000 year sleep- an accident, not a fun time for the yaksha, and not a fun time for Venti once he woke up. Venti is actually more afraid of restful sleep than Xiao is, hence the sleeping in trees thing, but when Xiao is there, he can sleep restfully with faith that Xiao wont let another millennia slip through his fingertips.

- Xiao tends to make excuses when doing things that aren’t necessary to his duty, like in his birthday voice line “Have this, it’s a butterfly i made from leaves... Okay. Take it. It’s an adepti amulet -- it staves off evil” because at the current point in his progress it helps him to feel like he’s allowed to do these things. Not wanting to put him off from progress, Venti never comments on his excuse but never fails to whisper a quick reminder of how proud he is of how far Xiao had come.

- Xiao’s karma saddens Venti greatly- not only because of how it effects Xiao but also because its a reminder that as much as Venti tries to honor the memory of those he’s killed, there will always be those who resent him for it, and when he took the option of living away from them, he truly can’t blame them. - And when he gets too wrapped up in thoughts, whether around this topic or similar ones or otherwise, eventually, he’ll hear the sound of a flute on the wind. It’s not divine by any means, but as his own wind connects him to the source, he gets the sentiment all the same. “What impact does one individual’s remaining wrath have on the present. You have done much to help the living in the present” the unspoken idea that Xiao has included himself in that statement, because now, with Venti’s help he’s beginning to learn just how to experience living for himself.

- Venti’s form and Xiao’s mask are off limit topics though because if either mentions it the other will counter with the opposite and the mood will turn immediately bitter at the idea that both know that what they’re doing is destructive but neither are willing to change

- Venti who has different tells for negative feelings than most people because as much as he likes to pretend it is- this form isnt his, and Xiao who is able to identify those

- many fanfics and headcanons have Venti recognizing when Xiao is uncomfortable and getting him out of those situations. I see that and I love it but i raise you: - Venti taking Xiao to Mondstadt, careful that he doesn’t get to the point that he’s uncomfortable. And nothing goes wrong exactly, but Xiao notices the the way Venti’s cape is blowing in the wind, the way he’s holding his weight, barely on his feet so much as floating on the wind, connected with the ground only for the sake of appearance, all the while he looks just as happy go lucky as ever. And without a word, he grabs his hand and teleports them both out of Mondstadt. - turns out it was just a slight thing that reminded him of the archon war (cuz i will die on the hill of him having more tragic backstory than just Decarabian), and he of course gives a sincere if not flustered thanks to Xiao, because he’s really not used to people noticing.

- Venti trying to vent sneakily through fictional stories and Xiao is just like “Didn’t that basically happen to you” and Venti is just like “<_< shit”

- Venti once said affectionally that he wished he had met Xiao sooner and Xiao immediately and seriously shot it down by saying “If you had, I would have been forced to kill you” and both of them now stay up at night wondering who would have won that fight, not sure which result would have hurt more. (because honestly I have no idea who would win in that fight and that terrifies me- I like to think it would have been one of those legends that end with “and the fight persists to this day” or something along those lines)

- “How long have you been together?” “Adepti have no need for-” “1000+ years T^T how dare you deny our love” “O///O our...? ...useless”

- its disney- let me explain- i have this- i have this headcanon inspired by watching too many animatics- - so venti has a human form that isnt his- which he would have had to get used to moving in- and he’s a bard- - uh- anyway- as a third degree black belt in mixed martial arts, i can speak as an authority on this(not really an authority since i havent gone since quarantine but lets pretend). We have a thing referred to as the big three(most things do), and those things are martial arts, gymnastics, and dance. The idea is that they reflect really well off of each other and the best in any one category are good in all three. Timing, balance, form, discipline, technique, hand-eye coordination, grace, ease of motion, they all play a part- anyway-

- Venti taking Xiao’s prowess in martial arts and acrobatics and teaching him how to dance, and as someone who’s extremely skilled in the first two, the third comes easy to him, almost naturally. And it’s delicate and beautiful and lovely and it isn’t hurting anyone. And Venti points all these things out and more and despite how much Xiao insists that he feels ridiculous he truly does enjoy it and it goes a long way towards helping him form more healthy views of himself and his worth. - Verr Goldett walked in on him once and made a joke about performing at the inn. unfortunately Venti was there and agreed on Xiao’s behalf before he could protest and- and it wasn’t as bad as Xiao thought it would be... he still wouldn’t do it again though without reason, but with good enough reasoning he could probably be convinced.

- anyways point is he likes dancing to Venti’s songs and i just think that’s really cute - just picture the idea that all the animatics you see actually have the potential to be canon- ugh

- venti tries holding something out of Xiao’s reach since he’s taller and Xiao just fucking teleports

- both need their space but when they dont, all they have to do is speak the other’s name and they’ll be there.

- and because i just had to.... love languages

- lets start with Xiao- i don’t think he’d view acts of service or quailty time as a love language tbh, and he blunt but really bad with words so affirmation is out, leaving gift giving and physical touch. However, he seems to view most material things as meaningless so- - Xiao who’s love language is in his fleeting touches, something he’s only recently grown comfortable with because of Venti, and now is giving back, which he knows he doesn’t have to do, but that he want’s to, though he’ll still continue to make excuses for each one. “you were shivering” “The inn is high up, you could have fallen..... I said what I said, you’d question an adeptus?”

- and as easy as it is to say words of affirmation for Venti- he does that for everyone- i want to say his is actually acts of service - its the acts of service that let him see just how much Xiao has progressed afterall, from teaching him to dance, to playing another song on the flute, to supplying him with the almond tofu he seems to enjoy so much. Every little thing he does helps Xiao to grow and he couldn’t be happier about that.

- of course most of my headcanons for the ship do take place latter into the relationship because- y’know the less serious unhealthy vibes allow for greater range of thought, but i do still love to think about the serious implications so i kinda hopped back and forth. So sorry about how messy it is btw, i kinda- got carried away- it kinda got some kind of structure near the end tho so- maybe it’s okay. anyway- back to... lol something, we’ll see where thought forests lead.

#genshin impact #genshin xiao #genshin venti #xiao #venti #xiaoven #genshin analysis #genshin headcanons #xiaoven headcanons #xiaoven analysis #this is a mess i really shouldnt be putting all these tags but oh well #oh wow the grammar and spelling here is truly repulsive #sorry to all my english teachers i have failed you all

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rumblelibrary · 3 years

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The Diary of Doctor Laszlo Kreizler

Chapter 1

Synopsis: Alienist’s notes are private, sometimes gruesome, secrets of others and of himself.Those pages belongs to secrecy and decadence, have a glimpse to this world made of drafts, notes, accidents and reflections. Or maybe it is you the only person that should ever reach for it.

While you read this imagine Laszlo mostly at the end of his day, scraping the ideas and the thoughts, adjusting previous notes with additions, closing the day behind himself with a couple of sentences while sitting in his evening robe, a good glass of whiskey and his glasses bridged almost at the tip of his nose. Or maybe imagine yourself, you sneaky thing, reach for it from a far shelf.

Word count: 3k

Warnings: listen, this is the set of ideas and confessions of a man living in the 1890’s. Most of them will be outdated, rough, even deprecating in some analysis of the roles of men, women and social status, religion, etc.So be prepared, my point is to make Laszlo reflect upon those topics, but to be as faithful as I can to his time. Mention of death, mutilation, self harm and a minor depiction of a fight. Psychologically troubled young children ahead! Author’s note: I am a nerd for a good Victorian novel and a sexy Alienist.I have always been charmed by Laszlo’s mind and inner conflicts. So I took the chance and tried to have a run into that rollercoaster. The story is placed between season 1 and season 2.

Diary belonging to Dr. Laszlo Kreizler. This is a professional book of annotations over medical treatments of an alienist toward his patients. Do not disclose and send it back to the address if found: Kreizler’s Institute, xxxxxx, New York City (NY) L.K.

Samuel Griswold Goodrich, Illustrated Natural History of the Animal Kingdom (c1859). Contributed for digitization by University Library, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

Schiller in his “Die Weltweisen” wrote: So long as philosophy keeps together the structure of the Universe so long does it maintain the world’s machinery by hunger and love. From the philosopher point of view sexual life takes a subordinate position in human’s life, from recent studies pushed by European philosophers, everything is about sexuality and its development. I like to think of the experience of being an alienist as the process of Queen Penelope that, while waiting for her husband Ulysses return, undoes her craftwork every night. I undo the fabulous constructs of people’s beliefs to go back to the rough sketch that stands at the beginning of their loss, their complex, their pain. Maybe that’s why working with children is so motivating and fascinating. They can be saved and yet, I am well aware, some of those sketches already traced in their young lives equal to scars that not even the most advanced theories could cure. But I can sooth them. I can prevent them the torment, the anguish, the recollection at night of those monsters. I feel like a poet would be a better alienist than a philosopher, but I have got no poetry nor philosophy in my veins, but the cold experience of the razor blade judgment of Life itself.

Today I observed a fight among the children at the Institute. Age range between 10 and 12. Boys. The fight was over the possession of a side of the playground, the territory of a pack of youngsters formed under the name of Steven. Peculiar lad, coming from a military background finds comfort in replicating the schemes he lived in his family. He takes the role of the Father/Captain of the team and subjects children that come from a similar background story, but do not posses his same attitude to the command. All quiet on the front, until the space he declared is own spot got affected by the presence of others. Intruders. I knowingly let the events unfold to see how Steven would react to his challenged authority. His reaction was, at first, worded, a sketch, a stage-play of an action he witnessed over and over, and he knew the part so well that some of the contending kids lowered their stance against him. Among considering to mildly intervene into this pyramid scheme of authority, another boy, Jan, calls himself on the role of the educator and hero of the masses and proceeds to unfold a wild and well assessed punch on the newly declared dictator face. Balance is established again. No need for me to arbitrate, once more the laws of nature seem to apply to children as in a state of nature.

Meet John Moore over lunch. His job at the newspaper is picking up, he is charmed by the spirits and the wits that he finds in his shared office with all the other writers. He mentions many, goes on and on over qualities and troubles, gossips and tendencies, and even little scandals here and there. To be aware of all those details gives me no interest, but to see a dear friend so invested clearly gives me something to pick up. To consider also the amount of details and the way he describes this or that member of the journal, I can do a small exercise of analysis. It is almost too easy because John is painfully genuine, even some of the kids at the institute would beat him hands down in a battle of lies. The more he likes somebody, the more he goes on about all the details and the characteristics, often letting aside the physical appearance. When he doesn’t like somebody he has a couple of adjectives for the wits and around four or five for the physical aspects that usually indulge on some repulsive idiosyncrasies. John is a man that painfully fits in the storyline of The Picture of Dorian Gray: to him physical beauty is spiritual beauty and, of course, the other way around. This part of him surely intrigues me, makes me want to tease more from him. But, as a friend, it concerns me as John is way too prone to purposelessly decide that somebody with good eyes is also a good human being, which is a very romantic and admirably naive way of judging matters. I noticed some names that keep repeating in his narration. I dread that it is synonymous of a soon encounter from my side with the objects of his admiration. Fetiches, I dare to say, that I will have to annihilate before they sediment into his mind, perpetuating a narration that soon sees John being mislead by others.

Reserved: Tickets for the Eroica, Symphony n. 3 by Ludwig van Beethoven. Thursday evening.

Note on the show: the first movement lacked the pathos needed to begin with, I am not sure that the guest orchestra really managed to portray the wider emotional ground needed to withstand the whole representation. As the evening progressed there were some outstanding performances by the cellists. Still not approving the choice of reprising the early quick finale movement against the lengthy set of variations and fugue that we are used to in presence of the Eroica. Underwhelming the performance of the horn and oboe, vital in the comprehension of the genius of Beethoven.

Niki is a new addition of the Institute, quite old for the standards. He is already 16, he will leave when summer ends to some expensive college his family meant him to stay. His parents expect me to make him “normal” in the time we are allowed together. He is Austrian and I let him act it out like I don’t understand German for the first week of hist stay until today. I believe I hit his pride, which is good, in the moment I answered back to one of his sneaky comments. Now he knows. He is not safe from me, he doesn’t like it. The young man has a tendency to danger, risky tasks and edgy situations. In his mother’s own words “Niki is not afraid of anything”. The phrase didn’t raise any excitement in the father, rather some sort of painful acceptance that is role as the alpha male of the house is probably not only being challenged, but already diminished, if not abolished. I have taken in consideration that Niki will break himself a bone or two in the process of the therapy, probably out of the spite of boredom or rebellion. It took him less than few days to turn himself into an outcast among the outcasts, which only drives me closer to analyse the complexity of his narcissistic wall of self defence. I gave him a physical challenge to lift a certain weight, he is a pretty skinny one, he didn’t like the challenge, but I am sure he will take it. He is a brainy guy, he hates to be questioned on unfamiliar ground. He won’t sleep at night thinking about it. A challenge, in this first phase, can only bring me closer to the ease of his pains. To continue the observation.

It is a sad privilege of medicine, in particular the one I practice, to be able to witness the weaknesses of the human nature and the reverse side of life. Nevertheless, I oblige this same privilege of the study as life moves into shades of darkness. To be aware of it gives more solace to my soul than to be victim of patiently waiting for the inevitable unfolding of the events. To be able to understand more about psychology would bring more comfort and elevation to any human being, the times might not be there yet, but eventually something will move into the direction of a more wholesome approach.

Dinner meeting with Sara Howard, at the restaurant Jardin Des Cygnes, 7 pm sharp. Do not expect to reach the dessert. Do not know if John will be participating due to undeniable tension among the two and the fatal despise of John over French cuisine.

The case that Sara unfolded tonight to my ears feels more and more like pulled out from some gothic book or from the mind of a Roman historian that needed to justify the godly origins of an Emperor. One killing, apparently random, a very constructed iconography over the body. Signs and insults, shapes and drawings. Is this a work of art? Does the killer wants his victim to be his Mona Lisa? His David? I am charmed and destabilised. If this was a murder like any other, then why to spend so much time into it? Based on the description the act of killing itself was quick: a sharp cut over the throat, almost like not wanting to ruin too much the surface to use as base for, what? I keep rerunning those symbols over and over as Sara described them to me, my mind is flooded with the designs of greek philosophers that needed to explain themselves why the sky is above our head and never collapses on us. Hilarious how, no matter the science advancement, in the mind of many the sky stands inevitably overt their shoulders, suffocates them, brings them to a death of the soul and not of the body. Is all this graphic charade indeed only a form to scream for attention? To stress the eyes of an unaware viewer? It seems ridiculously elaborate, a scream for attention would be quick, it would be like guided by instinct, not reasoning, craftwork. Any man with a knife can paint in blood red the walls of a room and that’s asking for attention. That is the primal howl: look at me! I am here! But this one. I don’t know yet.

Spent the early morning reading anew my copy of The Metamorphosis by Ovid. Didn’t touch it in a long time and I got bedazzled by the world of terrible sensuality, anger and selfishness of those gods and mortals. I think back at all the deviances and weaknesses of human kind and I try to relate it to all of those humanoid figures. Niki would be a minotaur, the lonesome son left in the labyrinth and his strive for success is his bull’s head. Or maybe a centaur, because of his wits and strategic thinking. I might keep up the process, maybe this is the way to understand my patients better, to understand the killer better. Must remember not to romanticise it. Greek gods were probably the first form of self indulging of a society that needed gods to be forgiving and allowing favours and punishments, but only in exchange of sacrifices. But the sacrifice never comes from the God’s will, but from the will of the man that perpetuates the act of killing. To sacrifice someone or something is the sadistic response to a lack of love deeply inherited in human mind that becomes neurotic. Is the killer giving the God of his own neurosis a body to feast upon?

I talked with Jan this morning. The young boy is about 10, but he acts like a full grown adult. I could easily asses that’s the reason why he could challenge Steven in that fight. Two children mimicking adults situations they know too well. Jan is son of an industrial man, but he is also son of the dialectics of the industrial revolution. He sounds like he swallowed some of those books about working class rights and communism, probably pushed by a resentful surrounding (mother?uncle? the midwife?) over the social role of his father. As much as incredibly smart and lectured, Jan lost most of his early occasions in life by spending a considerable amount of time using his fists. The anger ever present in the young boy always surprises me, he seems to be holding a power, a strength of a full grown man in those tiny arms. Nevertheless, he is already the tallest of the group. He is surely an idealist, which makes him also tragically fragile. His strength mixed with his heart of gold can make him the best of the heroes or the worst of the villains. He apologised for the fight, he specified how he didn’t like the sound of Steven’s voice, more than the sound, the level of pitch. I can’t stand somebody shouting orders, I just don’t listen anymore. He is so mature even about his own feelings, almost a gentleman in his chivalry toward the weaker children, honest with his open heart and resentful against any form of injustice. I am not spared by his ways, he would come at me whenever he feels like I was being partial over some of the kids, his sense of justice blinds him and transform a perfectly balanced boy into a ranging animal.

Ordered book, to be delivered around tomorrow evening: Introduction à la méthode de Léonard de Vinci by Paul Valéry. Suddenly feeling myself as a gross ignorant in art themes. I always regarded myself aware of the artistic personalities and tendencies of present and past, but this new amount of perceptions over the human figure and the human body leads me to document myself more. I could ask John for advice, but he wouldn’t take things at matter that seriously. I can almost hear him say how I can make gruesome a pleasant topic such as art. I should probably wait to see the body to push any further aesthetic study, but I find myself not being able to stop. I reckon, I can allow myself a vice or two.

Today I saw the body of the killed man, courtesy of the Isaacson's. To be fair, I had underestimated it. In Sara’s descriptions, probably due to her more analytic mind, all the charm of the representation got lost in favour of a less cryptic and reasonable understanding of the act. Sara got what some alienists will call a masculine mind, which I don’t perfectly agree on. If I apply that same approach John would be a very feminine mind, all wrapped up in romanticising even the ugliest. I guess that dividing the world in “fragile and gentle” and “strong and powerful” is just easier to explain the fluctuation of something that doesn’t need a real name or a category like human inclinations on thoughts. I got a feverish sense of patience by looking at the body. Each symbol traced with sapient slowness, dense of the time that the killer spent with the body. That is a work of hours, he had time and meaning. He had resources and was able to spend not less than the time he needed to reach, a vision? An ideal? A message? Is it the message meant to be understood? Am I supposed to unravel it or it is maybe just the way the killer communicates within himself? And if I do decifrate the code, will that bring me closer to him? Or to his next victim?

Reminder: ask John to replicate all the symbols on the bodies in the correct measure and order. It might be needed some hard convincing. Addition: scheduled meeting, his house, 3 pm.

It wasn’t a day like any other when I met you. Or maybe it was, and that’s why I got so struck by it and now I am here playing it over and over through what my memory clung on so desperately. In my own experience, life was often similar to swimming in a lake. Those rich, dense lakes in the north of (illegible cancelled word) were my father used to bring us during summer. I still feel the pull, the draw down toward the abyss. It ashamed me, in a way, the fear that such a simple feeling aroused in my young mind, unaware nevertheless, that such a feeling would follow me through all my existence. It was a prophecy and, like most of the prophecies, was a riddle. I cradle in my heart the charm of those days, the mindless happiness. The foolish feeling of freedom. Little I knew that freedom would be taken away from me that soon, that the body that used to navigate me over the dense waters, helping me to fight the haul toward the unknown, would become my own cage. That day. Today. The day where I met you, the day I was afloat. The child gasping for air felt the wrench become a gentle push and now he is floating on his back over the scary waters of reality and malice. It gave me relief and it gave me terror, because since that very moment I knew that I would never be able to move on from the sight of you. From the feeling of your eyes lingering on me. From the smile you so easily shone upon me. From the whiff of imported perfume that hit me when you turned on side exploding that swan like neck. And nothing, not even my stern look, could dim that wave of hope that your sole presence washed over me. The abyss roars, calls me to a home of damnation and terror and curses my name and yet you repeated that hell-bound name of mine after me and I felt safe.

John told me so much about you, it feels like I have always known you.

The rope is gone from my neck, the guillotine won’t fall on me, I am spared, I am free.

I have read your latest article, I am thrilled to help with the case.

I am in disbelief.

Your voice.

Dr. Kreizler

How dare you? How dare you to come into my life, to appear, like a vision, mystical, in a way I despised at University when all those theology students talked about the divine. In this very moment I can’t recollect much of what you said, something about the case, about going with John at the obituary. It feels confusing, I feel overstimulated, my memory fails me, I am not sure anymore. I write these few lines and it is passed the hour of the witches and I wish, I demand, to never see you again, because life should never grant hope to a condemned man.

#dr laszlo kreizler #dr laszlo kreizler imagine #dr laszlo kreizler x reader #dr laszlo kreizler x you #laszlo kreizler #laszlo kreizler headcanons #laszlo kreizler x reader #the alienist fanfic #victorian age #v writes #the diary of doctor laszlo kreizler

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mar-s-bar-s · 3 years

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strength - a tartaglia story

(this fic is part of the series i am doing)

!genshin spoilers (specifically about childe) in explanation! i haven’t really read the lore on him but i still know a bit so apologies if i got something wrong

The card of strength upright represents, well, strength. It symbolises the courage it takes to persevere. Persuasion also is an aspect of it. Other aspects of this card include compassion and influence. I think Childe fits this card really well as a major aspect of his character is strength and desire to get stronger. Persuasion is shown in the form of both his quick wit and rough charm, along with more.. physical means as a Fatui member. Compassion isn’t obvious, it’s more towards his family, and he holds a lot of influence as a Harbinger.

Now what’s interesting is the reversal of Strength can also apply to him. He has a ton of inner strength, clearly, to have survived both in mind and body the fall into the Abyss. Does self-doubt also apply to him then? I think that since he’s constantly trying to prove his strength, even though he is extremely strong and he knows it, he suffers self-doubt towards his actions. He’s not on the right path, joined because he was chosen by the Tsaritsa as her weapon and to protect his family. His loyalty to the Tsaritsa is unquenchable, but I think there are still those shreds of doubt deep inside asking whether he wanted this. Low energy is an aspect of Strength reversed, and is shown right after his show of strength as Foul Legacy, his battered and weak human body coping with the transformation effects. In conclusion, he is the perfect person for this prompt, in my opinion. I also just wanted to show how it’s okay to be weak sometimes, that strength isn’t just physical and yeah.

gn!traveler! reader (reader is not lumine or aether, just a traveler from another world; weapon is more of a melee/close combat weapon)

warnings: genshin archon quest (liyue) spoilers, violence, aftermath of foul legacy, no one dies, but there's blood, typical golden house violence, childe is slightly ooc towards the end but that's because he’s soft and mushy, also poor medical knowledge sorry to any medical people reading this, there’s a bit of angst but a lot of fluff

in which u beat tartaglia up then look after him then kiss him to shut him up

series m.list

Blood drips from your weapon as you hold yourself up, panting heavily. Red tints your vision, the harsh crackle of lightning coming from Foul Legacy’s polearm harmonising with your pulse resounding through your ears. It’s overwhelming, yet you’ve never felt more alive.

You’ve been fighting Childe for the past hour, and the quick defeat of his first two forms is eerie. Have you grown stronger? There’s no time to wonder as his flurry of attacks force you to leap out of the way in defence. The squeaks of your shoes feel almost comical in this dark place, the only light being from the moon glinting off the Mora lying all around, piles and piles of the gold causing a warm glow across the room that was never meant to be used as a makeshift arena.

His attacks are becoming slightly repetitive, the same three slashes, and just when you think you have an opening, he summons the godforsaken whale, leaving you to sprint to the side of the arena lest you drown in the incoming flood. You’re closer to him than you thought, and you immediately get on the offensive, slashing out and barely scratching through his armour.

Childe laughs, the sound distorted by the mask materialised by his transformation. He sounds terribly amused, you scowl, and dodge his polearm swinging down at you, stabbing at the slight gap in his armour, not expecting it to connect. When it does, you slide the weapon out in shock, seeing the crimson drip off the blade, yet are left with no time to marvel as Childe immediately starts a new sequence of attacks, and you are once again on the defensive.

A slight pause in the sequence is enough for your red stained blade to rain down upon his armour, the weapon beating down upon his arms, the Harbinger countering with double blades. You’re shoved back with the force, coughing slightly at the impact. The night is still young, yet it feels like hours since you first began.

Your lungs burn and your head feels clouded. Yet as you stand there, watching Childe warily, you notice that his movements are slowly becoming sluggish. Have you worn him down? The very thought gives you an energy boost, your screaming muscles are not heeded as you circle him slowly, his movements becoming slightly easier to read. He is incredibly strong, you admit to yourself, but tonight you’re walking out of here the victor.

You spring out of the way as he speeds past you, twisting through the air as you kick him in the back, unbalancing him with his momentum just enough to hit him with the butt of your weapon, hard. He stumbles, and that is enough to bring him down to the floor with a barrage of your attacks.

He doesn’t get back up.

Unsure, you stand with your weapon poised, the dried blood a testament to his injury. Childe fought well, and you cannot tell if it is just a fluke that you emerged victorious.

A small gasp alerts you, Childe’s Foul Legacy form dissipating from his body, which is littered with cuts and bruises. Your eyes immediately are drawn to the deep wound matching your blade shape on his torso, and his eyes fly open. A weak smile is on his face.

“You fought well, comrade,” Childe grins, his face pallored and sweaty, and you drop your weapon. “Putting your weapon down? No matter how injured someone may be, never let your guard down around them. Especially a Harbinger.”

He somehow wrestles with the ground enough to sit up and kick your legs out from under you. You land with a heavy thud, a breath of air getting knocked out of you as you grab your weapon and point it at him, worry obvious in your face at his flushed, sweaty face. He looks sick. Is it the wound? You grab your belongings.

“Leaving already?” Childe’s lazy smirk is betrayed by his voice cracking slightly. You ignore him, rummaging around in your bag for needles and thread, ointment and bandages. You return, and he looks at you, lips parting in surprise as you kneel by him, your weapon left by your bag.

You wordlessly gesture to his outer clothing on his torso, and he is unusually quiet as he slowly slips his shirt off, his flushed face getting even more red as your hands guide him to lie down. You clean your hands and the wound and take out the sterilised needles and begin stitching, taking out your seelie to better aid you in seeing what you’re doing.

After bandaging the wound and helping him put his clothes back on, Childe is wordless. You’ve been so gentle with him, even though you don’t particularly like him. He calls you his friend, yet he knows deep down he’s lying to both himself and you. He knows you don’t view him as anything but an evil Harbinger with bloodstained hands, and he definitely doesn’t view you as a friend, he views you as so much more. How he longs to throw away the crimson mask he wears constantly, a brutal reminder of the role he has taken on, and join you on your travels across Teyvat. Yet reality is merciless, and his hopes are constantly shattered when you leave once again, eyes dancing with mirth as you interact with the citizens of Liyue.

But not when with him. Your face is not carefree when with him, it is a battle mask of bared teeth and frenzied eyes. He loves seeing both your faces you show, but he wishes you’d laugh when with him. His eyes are cloudy, and as you gently run your hands through his hair, they close. Just for a bit, he thinks. I’ll let my guard down just for a bit.

When he wakes up, he isn’t in the Golden House anymore, but a soft bed. Golden ribbons of light pierce through the shutters, and he immediately sits up, wincing slightly at the sharp pain in his torso. He looks down, noticing a figure slumped over the bed from a chair, and is struck at how beautiful you look when asleep. He holds his breath, hoping you stay like that for a while.

You yawn and awake, stretching your arms out and over your head as you stare at Childe. After he passed out from your ministrations, you mentally groaned and carried him out of the Golden House, all the way over to your small apartment on the outside of Liyue Harbour. Were you regretting it? Definitely. Were you feeling bad for him? Yes. Was this a stupid decision? Of course. But seeing his pretty face sleeping almost made up for it,

“Hey comrade,” Childe smirks. “Sleeping in the same bed as a Harbinger? This really wasn’t your brightest moment.”

Your nod is perfunctory and you stand. “Glad to see you’re alive.”

Childe curses at himself mentally. Why is he provoking you?

“I’ll go make something for us to eat,” you stand up, leaving to go to the kitchen. “Stay here.”

Childe looks down at his hands, confusion seeping its way into his brain. Why were you being so kind to him? Why weren’t you making the same remarks as always? He doesn’t deserve it. So why?

You return with a large plate of fried eggs and toast. Childe takes it numbly, not caring to check if it’s poisoned as he swallows.

After he’s done and you’ve gone back to the kitchen, he decides he’ll leave. Why burden you further? He grabs his scarf you’ve neatly folded and placed on the dresser, the scent of your laundry detergent lingering on it and he short-circuits. It smells like you. He wraps it slightly tighter and walks to the kitchen.

“What are you doing?” you stare at him with concern in your eyes as you make tea. The look in your eyes makes his heart pound. You’ve never looked at him this way before, and he feels his walls threatening to crumble.

“Well, I figured I’d get going,” he rambles, waving his hands as you stop what you’re doing and walk over to him. Childe’s eyes dilate slightly and he feels his pulse speed up. “You know, I’ve got stuff to do and comrades to train and you’ve been really nice-”

He’s cut off when you pull him towards you by his scarf and kiss him. His heart almost gives out before he realises that, holy shit, he’s being kissed by you and oh Archons it feels amazing. And he’s holding your waist, and you’re pulling him closer and closer and if you asked right now for the world, he’d give it to you. And he’s kissing you back, the warmth you share drives away the morning chill.

When you finally pull away, Childe looks like he’s over the moon.

“Finally, quiet,” you speak first, imitating his annoying smirk as you gesture towards the kitchen table. “Would you like some tea?”

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zippityzap · 3 years

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Sonic Tarot Card Project: explanations for character picks

Recently I completed a summer-long project where I created Sonic themed versions of the tarot major acana. I put a lot of research and thought into what characters to assign to which cards, and I wanted to explain my rationale behind each one! (Everything’s under the read more cut because this is a very long post!)

To start off, let me explain why I did this project in the first place. This summer I watched Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure for the first time, and in Part 3, Stardust Crusaders, the majority of the stand abilities are named after the tarot major arcana. Thanks to cultural osmosis I vaguely knew the meanings of a few of the cards and I realised that one of the characters suited his assigned card pretty well. I was curious if this matched anyone else and so once I finished watching that part, I did research on tarot and found that yeah, a lot of them do match! That got me interested in tarot and since I like combining things I’m interested in, I decided to make Sonic versions of the cards.

I do want to note that while Jojo did inspire this project in a lot of ways, I tried not to let my character picks be influenced by Stardust Crusader characters, although there did end up being some picks that did coincidentally happen to match nicely anyway. Also, I’m not gonna lie, ever since picking these card choices I’ve been highly tempted to draw Sonic as Polnareff.

Anyway, on to my explanations for character choices!

0: The Fool (Charmy Bee)

The Fool represents innocence, spontaneity and recklessness. I believe Charmy’s happy and carefree nature, along with the simple fact that he’s essentially just a little kid who likes to have fun makes him a great fit for this card

1: The Magician (Infinite)

The Magician represents creation and strength, but also manipulation and narcissism, a good match for Infinite and the powers of the phantom ruby. (I was also very pleased to notice that the traditional art for the card has an infinity symbol- everything lined up very well!)

The Rider Waite version of the card also depicts a sword, a wand, a cup and a pentacle; the suits of the minor arcana. I have attempted to depict these with various objects from the Sonic series, namely Infinite’s sword from the IDW Forces prequel comic, the sceptre of darkness from '06, a chaos emerald, and a ring respectively.

2: The High Priestess (Princess Elise)

The High Priestess represents secrets, repression, and the unknown, which I believe fits with Elise’s initial desire to control her emotions and her sadness. (Admittedly this is one of the looser character/card connections for this project, but my two other picks for this card I felt were better suited to different cards)

3: The Empress (Vanilla the Rabbit)

The Empress represents nurturing, fertility and childbirth, all traits that I believe make this card a good pick for a kind, caring mother like Vanilla

4: The Emperor (Dr Eggman)

A card fitting for the leader of the Eggman Empire! The Emperor represents authority, power, and tyranny, all traits Dr Robotnik desires, if not possesses in many continuities.

5: The Hierophant (Espio the Chameleon)

The Hierophant represents wisdom and tradition, and in both upright and reversed forms it has large connections to the concept of social conformity. Perhaps I’m drawing more from the various comic versions of Espio, but he comes across to me as someone who is hyper-aware about how he presents himself.

Fun fact: a hierophant is essentially another word for a religious leader, although I’ve never seen it used outside the context of tarot. I assume the religious connection is the reason why in the OST of the Jojo part 3 anime, Kakyoin’s theme is called Noble Pope.

6: The Lovers (Amy Rose)

The Lovers represents love, communication, and passion; and Amy is certainly a character who wears her heart on her sleeve! She’s a good example of a character who I feel fits a number of different cards, however there are no other characters who suited The Lovers quite as much as her.

7: The Chariot (Sonic the Hedgehog)

The Chariot represents journeys, wanderlust as well as the ambition and willpower to achieve your goals, which I believe is the perfect match for Sonic’s adventurous and heroic spirit. This was one of the first cards I decided on and it’s probably the one I’d defend my interpretation of the most.

If you’re wondering why there’s dark and hero chao in the artwork too, it’s because the original card art depicts the titular chariot being pulled by black and white sphinxes, and this is my way of calling back to that.

8: Strength (Maria Robotnik)

This card pick might seem unusual at first if you take the word ‘strength’ at face value, however considering the original card art depicts a maiden peacefully taming a lion, perhaps the Strength card represents inner strength, courage and determination rather than physical strength. These are traits that I believe Maria possesses.

9: The Hermit (Knuckles the Echidna)

The Hermit signifies awareness and independence but when reversed can mean isolation and resignation, traits that parallel well with Knuckles and his duty to be the protector of the Master Emerald

10: The Wheel of Fortune (Big the Cat)

The Wheel of Fortune represents fate, karma and luck! This is admittedly a bit of a cheeky dig at myself since I’m awful at the Big fishing levels in SA1 and mostly got through them through luck. But that’s not to say the card doesn’t apply to Big himself! His frequent cameos do have a bit of a fate/destiny vibe to them and in IDW Big is lucky enough to manage to avoid the metal virus for quite a long time.

11: Justice (Vector the Crocodile)

The meaning of the Justice cards is… pretty much what it says on the tin: fairness and clarity. Of course the Team Chaotix detective agency represents this as a whole, but that trait especially shines through with Vector himself. He may be a little money oriented, but doing what is morally right always takes priority.

12: The Hanged Man (Shadow the Hedgehog)

The thing about Shadow is that he’s a fairly complex character which means there are a number of cards in the Major Arcana that match him well, but I knew early on when tackling this project that I wanted to assign Shadow to The Hanged Man. This card represents change, release and sacrifice, which all align well with the character arc that Shadow goes through during the course of SA2 and beyond.

13: Death (Tikal the Echidna and Chaos)

Despite the morbid name of the card, (and the admittedly macabre scene I’ve depicted) the Death card is not an inherently negative card to draw. Yes, it can mean endings and grief, but it can also mean letting go and new beginnings. The story that Tikal and Chaos go through in SA1, their anguish and how they later find peace, is something that I think pairs well with this particular card.

Fun fact: this is the only card in this project that has two significant characters on it rather than just one. I felt I needed both of them to be on the card in order to fully represent its meaning

14: Temperance (Blaze the Cat)

The Temperance card signifies balance, harmony and patience, which matches Blaze’s very poised and graceful demeanour. Admittedly I had a little bit of trouble deciding on a card for Blaze since the High Priestess and the Hierophant are also good matches for her.

15: The Devil (Rouge the Bat)

The Devil card represents temptation, seduction, and materialism and well… look, Rouge is one of my favourite Sonic characters, I’d be one of the first people to tell you that there’s a lot more to her than what initially appears, she is so much more complex than just sex appeal and a gemstone obsession. However, I felt there was no other character that matched the traits of this specific card better than Rouge, and so my choice was decided by that.

16: The Tower (E-123 Omega)

The Tower card represents a number of things; disruption, disasters, sudden changes etc, however the trait that made me believe that Omega would be the best selection for the card was violence.

17: The Star (Miles ‘Tails’ Prower)

Tails’ character arcs normally centre around him gaining independence and self-confidence and learning to believe in himself. He is also largely characterised by his unyielding faith and trust in Sonic. These traits are the reason why I believe The Star card represents him well, as it symbolises hope and faith.

18: The Moon (Shade the Echidna)

The Moon card symbolises mysteries and the unknown, and when Shade is first introduced in Chronicles, she and the rest of the Nocturnus Clan are certainly presented as mysterious. The Moon can also represent misconception, which fits well with how Shade was initially unaware of the true nature of Ix’s plans.

19: The Sun (Cream the Rabbit)

The Sun, when drawn in an upright position, has a lot of positive meanings! Freedom, fun, happiness, good luck etc. Cream’s cheerful and optimistic disposition makes her a good match for this card

20: Judgement (E-102 Gamma)

The Judgement card symbolises liberation, awakening, redemption and second chances, all of which I believe represent Gamma and his character arc in SA1 well

21: The World (Metal Sonic)

In the upright position, The World card symbolises triumph, completion, strength and happiness while in reversed position can mean failure, anxiety, lack of self-confidence etc. I had both positioning of the card in mind when connecting it to Metal Sonic; he is devoted to the tasks given to him and is self-assured in his belief that he is the true/superior ‘sonic’ yet he repeatedly finds himself at the hands of failure. But he doesn’t let previous failures hold him back, thus starting the cycle anew. (Another connection to the World card as it also symbolises cycles)

#sonic the hedgehog #tarot cards #I'd be curious to hear if people agree/disagree with my choices

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inventors-fair · 3 years

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Two-Faced Commentary

People went really big this week! There were a lot of cool tropes, novel mechanics, and a surprising number of white cards with hexproof.

@alextfish - Manifold Core

The front side of this card is a very powerful cost reduction effect, especially given that it applies to a set of cards that often don’t have any colored mana in their costs. I suspect that would often function as a combo piece in decks that don’t intend to transform it, to a degree that it overshadows the rest of the card a bit, but the overall flavor is good. The card is also very aggressive when transformed on turn 4, although that you need to four-for-one yourself to get the creature serves as a powerful check.

@bread-into-toast - Guilt-Wracked Artist

A genuinely horrifying card concept. I’m not 100% sure that I follow what the treasure represents in the story (the key?), but it’s still very unnerving.

Mechanically, the card holds together reasonably well, in that if you get the card in the graveyard the “right” way, then it’s easier to pay the disturb cost, and the mutual discard plays reasonably with a graveyard-focused strategy.

@decayingbooks - Graceful Swan

This is a great transformation trope, and a very strategy-heavy flip card. Flip cards that gain value by flipping back and forth are established design space, with Huntmaster of the Fells being the most notable, but this card adds the additional wrinkle that, once you’ve accumulated enough bird tokens, you want it to be night on your own turn to take advantage of the ability to buff your tokens. (Although both activated abilities do have value on your opponent’s turn.)

While it’s doing reasonable flavor work, the ability that makes your bird creature tokens humans may be overkill. There’s nothing wrong with trinket text, and in a set with human tribal elements it could be genuinely relevant, but the card is already fairly complicated.

@deg99 - Seraph of Salvation

The creature revealing its true demonic nature (or falling angel, but my understanding is that this is the former) trope is a good fit for a TDFC. There’s a ton packed into this card - the front side on its own is very flashy, and threatening an instant-speed Mythos of Snapdax once the card is on the field changes the way the game is played significantly. (Wrathing at instant speed is a big deal.) The mechanics of each side don’t feel all that strongly connected, but they make enough sense on their own. I like the aesthetic decision to leave the demon W/B rather than making it mono-black, as its effect is more strongly associated with white.

@dimestoretajic - Zosusk, Cruel Taskmaster

The front half of this card is extremely strong. Even at four mana, a super-Ashnod’s Altar that can go in the command zone is a scary proposition, especially given that it’s also difficult to remove and can cash itself out for a treasure if it would die. The indestructibility is arguably overkill, especially as the card can generate a lot of value even if it is removed right away.

Similarly, I’m not sure if the back half particularly needs hexproof; if you’ve got any kind of board, it generates a lot of value, and I think that on balance it’s better if that’s answerable.

The idea of a card that’s sort of a side-grade when transformed is interesting, as is the tension about whether or not to cash out your creatures if it’s going to transform, and I like that the tension is abated a bit by the fact that both halves make sense in the same deck, even though they operate differently.

@fractured-infinity - Velis, Distorted Reflection

This is a really clever twist on the Evil Twin design space. The back side is very powerful, but the effort required to get there is real and meaningful, and the front side is enough of a slightly bad deal on its own that the transformation ability isn’t just a freebie. Needing to specifically see a creature with the same name die is also fairly clever, as it means that Velis needs help to transform. (You can’t just crash Velis into whatever it’s copying.) The back side does have a pretty high level of inevitability; once you’re at six mana, you can effectively “steal” any creature your opponent plays before they can attack with it, and in Commander can be used to keep other commanders off of the field. This latter feature might make this card safer as a non-legendary creature.

@gollumni - Ral, Untapped Potential

The front half of this card makes a lot of sense as a Ral card. The sparking condition doesn’t tie directly into Ral’s own sparking story in any obvious way (he sparked when he discovered his partner was cheating on him), but it mechanically ties into what the character is about and strongly enables his fairly stiff sparking condition.

If I have a quibble with this card, it’s that you often won’t be able to productively make use of Ral the turn he flips. To do so, you’d need a fourth instant or sorcery that you can cast that turn, this time at full price, and if it’s a very cheap spell then the amount of value you’re getting is pretty modest.

@greensunzenith - Escape from the City

What I think really elevates this card above the basic idea of a Saga that transforms into a creature is that it does something with the lore counters after transforming. Unless I’m missing something, haste on Hazoret is mostly superfluous, as it will nearly always have been on the battlefield from the beginning of your turn when it transforms. (It could still matter if you double proliferate or if it changes controllers, I guess.)

@grornt - Inconspicuous Youth

This card is another fantastic choice for a transformation trope. This one does a magical girl transformation in a non-obvious but flavorful way, where the character transforms specifically in response to a major threat, and then reverts when the threat is gone. That it transforms even when the major threat is your own card feels like an acceptable flavor bend for the sake of making the card playable, and that it reverts as soon as any major threat is gone is a reasonable choice for simplicity. (It could also check for 6 MV creatures at the end of the turn.)

I went back and forth on whether I liked the back half having defender. On one hand, it allows the back half to be far bigger and scarier than if it didn’t have defender; without that, the transformed half needs to shrink or the card needs to cost more. It’s also fine flavor. On the other hand, it really gums up the board, as it’s very difficult to profitably attack into the card. Additionally, it kind of creates an “...oh” moment when reading the back.

Lastly, I think that a white creature just straight up having hexproof is a bit of a bend (although not one wholly without precedent.) The flavor helps justify it (and it’s definitely mechanically relevant), but flavor can justify a lot of things.

Despite these questions, I do really think the design is very clever, and it was one of my favorites from this week.

@helloijustreadyourpost - Marchesa, Tyrant Queen

The mirrored Abyss effects are clever together, and the flavor helps to sell the shift. The nontoken clause on the first side is doing several interesting things in terms of not only making the card a bit stronger as a control tool, but in helping enable the flip. Giving opponents a natural out on the back side helps check the overall power level of the card as well, and I think it’s a positive that any wrath is an answer for the back half in Commander. While the flavor makes sense and it certainly makes the card stronger, I could take or leave the second ability on the back.

@hiygamer - Penultimate Form

I like that this card cleverly ties the “quest” condition to something that the reverse side of the card will naturally need. I also think that the triggered ability on the back is extremely clever, in that helps make the card less tricky. Without the triggered ability on the back, there’s a not-immediately-obvious interaction where casting instant spells in response to each other allows the creature to transform with five loyalty counters on it, which is a major advantage in that the card can use its -4 ability right away and survive. Stealing a creature is extremely powerful protection for a planeswalker and strong in general. However, because a similar ability is present on the back, players don’t need to recognize that stacking instants correctly allows the planeswalker side to start with five+ loyalty counters, as you can get the same effect by just casting them in sequence.

@hypexion - Sigarda, Fallen Grace

The transform condition on this card is quite difficult, even with the amount of Eldrazi token-making available and its ability to fuel itself, but the front half is plenty strong. Large, evasive, efficient hexproof creatures are something that I think they shy away from a bit now (and white rarely gets creatures that just have unconditional hexproof), although the throwbacks to Sigarda’s first card are clear. While the back half of the card is a meaningful upgrade, the front half is strong enough that it stands on its own - many decks may not worry about flipping the card at all.

@i-am-the-one-who-wololoes - Ormendhal Weakened

Ormendhal is a potent abyss effect, and having it wait until your upkeep to trigger for all players is a good safety choice - it gives your opponents a healthy window of time to respond to it. The backside is something of a consolation prize, as in many circumstances it will operate like a basic Plains, but the flavor is interesting. I don’t totally understand the decision to allow the land to tap for colorless instead of just white; outside of an environment where colorless mana costs exist, it won’t make much of a difference, and while there have been Eldrazi on Innistrad (and Ormendahl was affected by Emrakul), the connection seems a little loose to justify what’s otherwise an unusual line of rules text.

@jsands84 - Battered Lamp

This is a really fun design. That you need another creature to “rub” the lamp is a cute piece of text, and allows for other costs on the card to be pulled down to really attractive levels

The degree of inevitability on this card (5-power, evasive, bounces any blockers your opponent has, requires either artifact destruction or instant-speed creature destruction), along with its complexity, might push it to rare, although I like that the numbers work out such that this doesn’t win the game on its own.

I’m not sure whether this is intentional, but you can effectively get “infinite wishes” by having Zephyr Djinn bounce itself when you transform it for the last time. It’s enough of a tempo hit that I don’t think it’s a power level concern, and if you’ve already made (and probably attacked with) a 5-power evasive creature twice, then there’s a good chance that you’d rather attack with the Djinn the third time than to bounce it, but I felt that it was an interaction worth pointing out.

@kellylogs - Klara, Embereth Aspirant

This is a sufficiently clean, elegant transform condition that, even though this is not an existing planeswalker character, tells a clear story. I do feel like the backside of this card could be a bit stronger; if you’ve successfully attacked alone with Klara, blockers may not be something that’s causing you problems, and in an aggressive deck a 3/2 with Exalted may be at least as powerful planeswalker side in many scenarios. (Although being able to get a 2/2 Vigilance creature right away means that you don’t fall back much in terms of board presence.)

The -7 ability in particular could probably also use a bit more juice. While it’s technically a three-turn ult, its impact disappears if Klara does, and the +2 ability required to get to it is pretty weak (especially on the turn when Klara transforms, where it will generally do nothing.)

@misterstingyjack - King Pakesh II

The two sides of this card are loosely mechanically connected (they both like it if your opponents’ creatures die, although both halves can also be fueled in other ways), but the flavor helps tie them together. I think that limiting the front half to one treasure/turn is a good decision both in that it helps keep the cost of the card down and in that the card isn’t so good that you don’t care about the back half. Both halves have unique mechanics that still feel reasonably elegant and flavorful, and I like that the card doesn’t try to do too much. This is also a cool recontextualization of Disturb in general.

@morbidlyqueerious - Niko, Quizzical Javelineer

You mentioned that this card is revised from an earlier contest where the goal was to make a card that included every letter of the alphabet, and while that shows in the card’s name, the overall package isn’t stretching or squishing tooooo much to meet that criterion. Niko offers a larger amount of repeatable scry that exceeds what’s generally printed, although needing to connect with what’s otherwise a gray ogre to get it makes it such that it’s not likely to fire too many times in one game. The flip condition is challenging enough that I think the strongish +2 ability on the reverse side is justified, especially as it will often leave Niko vulnerable. If anything, I think the reverse side could perhaps be a smidge stronger.

I’m not sure whether this is intentional or not, but I do think that it’s interesting that it’s easier to meet the card threshold for the when you’re on the draw, but easier to meet the unblocked attack condition when you’re on the play.

@naban-dean-of-irritation - Will, Stoic Cryomancer

This is a pretty clever way of handling a flip walker that represents power sets found in two different colors, and the card does a solid job of feeling like a tag team. Another cool thing about this card is that it defies the legendary rule as long as you leave both copies on different sides.

If I have a critique of the card, it’s that I do think it’s a bit difficult to reach Will’s ult, however. If you play the card on curve (turn 3), you generally can’t flip it until turn 4. From there, you need to use the +2 three times to get to 10 loyalty, which is only possible if your opponent consistently has at least two creatures. That takes you to turn 7, which means that you can use the Ult on turn 8, making it a five-turn ult (or four turns if you were able to flip Will on turn 1). The ult only does something, however, if you control another planeswalker. While the ult is not a big deal on a planeswalker that’s this flexible, I think it could be a smidge cheaper. (-9 would save you no turns on building to it, but means that you don’t need to have another walker in play to use it.)

I’m also not sure if overtly making typeless permanents is something that’s worth putting on a card, given the potential confusion. The rules can handle it, and there are ways of making it happen in-game already, but similar gameplay can be achieved in more conventional ways.

@nicolbolas96 - Ugin, Last Among Elders

This is another card where the front half is almost worth it on its own, so the relatively steep flip requirement is fine, as it serves as more of a bonus. Life gain and card draw aren’t the things I most strongly associate with Ugin, but the card draw works as a mirror of Nicol Bolas, the Ravager, and the package is sort of like a miniature version of Ugin’s ult.

This is a small thing, but I wish Ugin was a bit bigger than 3/3. I realize that the similar Nicol Bolas, the Ravager, is only a 4/4, but 3/3 feels a bit small for an Elder Dragon.

The planeswalker side is recognizably Ugin, serving as a sort of greatest-hits of his associated cards. The novel ultimate will win the game on the spot in any deck built around it, but as you spent 5+8 mana on Ugin already and upticked it three times, that’s totally fine.

@nine-effing-hells - Mysterious Ruins

It’s not totally obvious which part of the ability the Revelation ability word refers to, but overall the card tells a clear story. A land that transitions into cardflow in the late midgame and a (kinda) finisher in the late game makes a lot of sense, although opponents that are too worried about the reverse side can save a kill spell for it. A land that enters the battlefield untapped doesn’t need to do much else to be good, so the high overall investment required to flip it is a good decision. Decks that want this sort of effect will tend to be controlling decks that can make better use of the mutual draw as well.

@partlycloudy-partlyfuckoff - Tender of the Wilds

The names on this card are clever, and help tell a different story than the superficially similar Mayor of Avabruck.

This is a very strong effect; the back side in particular is both large for a 2-mana werewolf and has a very strong anthem effect. While a good fit for a werewolf deck, this card is strong enough to go almost anywhere (and the front half is slightly better in a non-werewolf deck.)

This is a minor thing, but the more common templating for abilities like the backside has is to roll the stats it provides into the creature itself (printing it as a 4/3) and then to print the ability as “Other non-human creatures you control...” However, I think the templating you’ve chosen is potentially reasonable on this card for the sake of mirroring the front half.

@piccadilly-blue - Gavony Town Hall

This is a very difficult card to evaluate, because its impact on the game can vary a ton depending on how things are ordered.

This needs to go in a token deck to do anything at all, but the day-side drawback of turning off all of your creatures is harsher than the anthem on the back is beneficial, if you’re trying for an aggro strategy. On the flip side, there’s a lot of potential to gum up the board quite a bit with indestructible hexproof tokens if you play the card after your token producers. Token strategies already sometimes gum up the board, and this creates the potential for game stalls. Your opponent can get around this by passing their turn to shift to night, but that’s a fairly major tempo loss, and it sets you up well for the crack back.

I do like that there’s some interesting things that can be done with wraths and with creating token copies of cards with powerful static effects while on the day side.

@pocketvikings - Covetous Vizier

One of two “genie of the lamp” cards this week, I believe that this card is specifically a reference to the Disney movie Aladdin. (I could be wrong about that - I’m not super familiar with genies.) This card is basically Phylactery Lich on an installment plan, although you spend more total mana and some life. Additionally, your opponent has a window of time to respond with creature removal, which is not the case for the Lich. In compensation, the front half of the card can be played profitably even if you control no artifacts. Black does, as of Midnight Hunt, apparently get 2/3 creatures with upside for 1B at higher rarities, but a 2/3 for 1B with a useful effect is already, on its own, a satisfactory creature. The first question I had with this card is why it wasn’t just a lich, but not every card needs to use the most obvious or most-established flavor for an effect - and it’s more memorable that it doesn’t.

@quillpaw - Shellcrown Phoenix

A few different phoenix cards - Everquill Phoenix and Rekindling Phoenix - have used complicated tokens to try to mimic this effect, and a few DFC cards represent hatching eggs, but this card is novel in combining them, and I think it works really well.

The one slight oddness with this card is that it’s possible to miss your chance to transform it back, if you don’t have the mana (or don’t wish to spend the mana) to flip it at the time that the last counter is removed. It’s possible to play around this by attacking with fewer creatures, but I don’t think that the card as a whole is so strong that this limitation is necessary. Additionally, due to the cost of the card and the flip condition, I feel like the game will often be over before the card can flip back, but it still has utility in getting the last bit of damage in in a gummed up board state.

@real-aspen-hours - Gathering Storm

The front half of this card is very strong, offering heavy levels of card selection at a reasonable price on a card type that’s relatively difficult to interact with. I don’t know that it’s over the top (three mana is a lot for just selection), but the card doesn’t hinge completely on

I respect the decision to use a simple transform condition. I feel like the “obvious” angle is to condition it on having a certain number of cards in your graveyard, and that’s potentially safer (the current version will, I think, sometimes be flipped with just one very strong card in your graveyard), but even that requires some building around, so it’s probably not that big of a deal. I do like giving players a decision

@reaperfromtheabyss - Wavewhisper Egret

This is a lot of card for a two-mana uncommon. The front half would be an attractive card even without the ability to transform, and the transform effect will generally scry at least 4. Blue can get 2-power fliers with upside at higher rarities on occasion, but this is certainly a very aggressively-costed version of this creature profile.

I also think the decision to flavor this as a card from Kaladesh, rather than from New Phyrexia or Alara, was an interesting one. It injects a bit of light horror into a setting that doesn’t have much of that.

@shakeszx - A Tempest Foretold

Having the saga exile itself and return transformed is an elegant way to kill two birds with one stone, dealing both with the sacrifice clause on the card and helpfully disposing of the now-irrelevant lore counters.

I’m not 100% sure how to parse the first ability on this card - I’m assuming that it’s meant to pull from your graveyard or cards you own in exile (and maybe the stack), since those are under most circumstances the only zones that will have instant and sorcery cards in them when the ability resolves that aren’t your hand, but as written it sort of reads as though you can grab cards from places like your opponent’s graveyard. The rules do intervene to stop you from putting other players’ cards into your hand, but I feel that the wording on this could be clearer.

I’m also not sure that the back side works the way we want it to. In cases of cards that exile themselves on resolution, I’m not sure that Izzuke will recognize that it’s the same card, and any other card will go to the graveyard upon resolution, where it won’t be recognized as the same card if it’s then exiled again. (The rules could maybe be altered to support this, but it’d create additional complications.) Additionally, I’m not sure that exiling your hand in order to slowly potentially get the instants and sorceries back one at a time really feels worth it; Izzuke is a good deal for four mana, but even with Ward 4, the blowout potential is pretty huge. If your opponent saves any removal for it, you’re very likely to lose.

All that said, the general concept of a saga that builds up a resource that the creature it flips into can expend is a strong one.

@snugz - Queen Bee

Assuming that you hit your land drops and that nothing happens to your drones, this card will flip after two land drops, having created seven 1/1 fliers. The reverse side will then make these fliers 2/2’s, three of which can attack right away (assuming this occurred over two turns). In most formats, this means that your opponent is going to be dead before the long-term value aspects of the card come into play. They are still relevant in Commander and as a rebuilding option if your drone army gets wrathed, and the flavor is good, however.

On the whole, the card may be a little too efficient at building a game-winning board, especially as it is hard to remove if not removed immediately. I think the card could do fewer things and still work as a card, even though all of the individual components make flavor sense.

@starch255 - Cursed Knight

There’s a lot of things I really like about this card. I like that its toughness is low compared to its power, so it will usually either kill something or die in any combat with another creature. I like that the Frog side is still a knight. This feels like a reasonably in-pie way to give white a well-above-the-curve creature, and if your opponent doesn’t have an answer or a body to throw in front of it, this puts out much larger life swings than two-mana uncommons normally ever do. Even if your opponent tosses a 1/1 in front of this, you’re still up a bit.

@whuh-oh - Masked Debutante

This card has a lot of moving pieces, but the overall package makes sense. The actual power level of the card hinges a lot on your opponent having at least three creatures already in play, but there are enough outs to it that it doesn’t feel hopeless in any case. I also like that the creatures have to actually hit you to get the counters, limiting the total amount of value you can steal. I also like that the card doesn’t have any sort of anti-sacrifice mechanism built in; it’s game-winning enough of the time as it is, and doesn’t need to have what answers do exist for it to be shut off.

I’m not 100% sure that the creature-stealing is really a red thing, but tying it to the survival of the creature helps, and in general makes the card much more fair.

@wilsonosgoodmcman - Venser, Close to Death

In inventing a new card subtype, this is the most ambitious card for this week. I also like the flavor of a doomed planeswalker having only minus abilities, and lining up the planeswalker so that it needs to die to using one of its abilities (or take damage on your turn, I guess) is a nice little minigame that isn’t trivial, but also is easy enough that you can usually expect to flip Venser if your opponent doesn’t have a substantially greater board presence than you.

The third ability on Venser should probably target only other permanents, to avoid confusion about what happens if it targets Venser, but that’s pretty minor. (I’m assuming that the intent is that it doesn’t flicker Venser.)

Even though it costs you (usually) a creature and the effort of flipping Venser, I think that the +1 on the reverse side might be a bit much. While all of the abilities are powerful, that one stands out as especially tough to beat.

@wolkemesser - Keepsafe Bear

This card tells a cool story, and I appreciate the work you did in balancing the difficulty to flip the card. At first, I sort of felt like it went a little overboard in terms of preventing you from flipping it (you basically need a wrath or for your opponent to block it or attack into it with a much larger creature), but the front half and back half are both strong enough that I think it’s okay for there to be some fairly specific hoops.

The back half does just enough, I think. There’s an alternate design for this card where the back half loses indestructible and the front half is harder to flip, and that version is probably a bit easier to print, but I think there’s a place for the higher-challenge version presented here as well.

#commentary #if-two faced #mtg #magic the gathering #inventor's fair #custom magic card

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ssaltbending · 3 years

Text

Ok, guys, hear me out: Zuko is a Capricorn, Katara is a Cancer —and here’s why (it would be so poetic).

Part 1: Zuko

TW: explicit mentions of child abuse.

I know this statement might seem weird and out of place, but in the last couple weeks I’ve been digging a lot into astrology and, in order not to forget my roots, I thoroughly felt the need to combine both of my most recent obsessions in one post, given that this headcanon hasn’t been able to leave my mind ever since I came up with it: if we applied astrology to the Avatar world, I’m sure Cancer and Capricorn would be Katara and Zuko’s signs, respectively. And I don’t say this in a superficial way, just by looking at zodiac memes and associating Katara with the crybabies Cancers are portrayed as or saying Zuko is a Capricorn buzzkill as people who know astrology on a surface level would assume they are —those are some of the most common stereotypes about the signs. No, I’m saying that they embody those signs on an archetypal leve: in the way their stories, especially Zuko’s, resemble the myths that originate the zodiac signs and their respective traits.

Therefore, without further ado, let me explain.

The Capricorn archetype: the sins of the father...

As any casual astrology enthusiast may probably know, the sign of Capricorn is connected to qualities such as perseverance, integrity, resilience and ambition, typically treated as the CEO or boss of the zodiac. However, the sign itself has a richer and much more complex story as we look at the deities it is associated with as well as the planet that rules it: Saturn, linked to the Roman god of the same name and the greek gods Cronus, Zeus, Hestia and Pan. Some astrologers choose Cronus as Capricorn’s patron god and others prefer his children, but that can be explained very easily.

The myth goes like this: Cronus, a giant and father of what we would know as some of the main greek gods (Hestia, Demeter, Hades, Poseidon, Hera and Zeus), was actually the son of Uranos, who he subverted thanks to the advice of his mother Gaia to use an agricultural tool to kill him. But as time went by and Cronus had started having children with his partner, Rhea, the fear of his descendants becoming stronger than him and doing the same thing he had done to his father took over him, which led to his decision of swallowing them all whole. He started with Hestia all the way back to Zeus, whom he couldn’t swallow right after he was born, unlike his other children, because this time Rhea had hid him in the island of Crete to protect him from his father. To deceive him, Rhea then covered a rock in cloth to make it resemble a baby for Cronus to eat it, thinking that it was a newborn Zeus.

Time passed and Zeus grew stronger until he was ready to confront his father and save his siblings from his womb, and when he finally did it, he managed to force Cronus into disgorge them one by one, in the reverse order they had been swallowed —which left Hestia as the last sibling to be disgorged.

After that, Zeus was left with a prophecy, where he would also be possibly overthrown by a son of his. And after Métis, the woman he was told would bear said child, gave birth he swallowed the newborn whole just like Cronus had done with his brothers and sisters. The child in question, however, started giving him headaches as it grew older and bigger inside of him and would become the goddess we know as Athena. What Zeus did with her was the repetition of a cycle perpetuated by his forefathers, a cycle of abuse and trauma that seems inescapable. What this part of the duality of the Capricorn archetype shows one of the ways in which those ideas of tradition and legacy can be carried on (a very negative one, to be honest), but that’s not the only way they can manifest, which gives the archetype this… almost cinematic quality, in my opinion. (And if we take this into account, I might headcanon Azula as a Capricorn rising due not only to the archetypal coincidences but the overall mastermind outlook she has and how much of a natural, domineering and calculating leader she is, but that’s besides the point.)

Now, let’s talk about the other side of the archetype, which gives it this incredible dual quality: Hestia’s path. Unlike her brother Zeus, Hestia was the one who not only had been devoured by her father, but she had spent the most time inside him as well. This is often associated with the emotional isolation many Capricorns experience in their youth, the lack of warmth and love by one of their parents, along with the desire not to become the abusive parent they were exposed to. Hestia is the other side of the story, the unspoken leader of the Olympians, the one who broke the toxic cycle running in her family for generations, vowing to become an eternal virgin and protector of the earth. Besides, Hestia means “hearth”: the inner fire, the one that is never allowed to go out.

(art by @elisebrave)

That is the soul of the Capricorn archetype: the crossroads of destiny, the moment when the child decides whether to become like their parents, or forge their own path like Hestia did. Do you guys see what I see now? Are the similarities clear enough?

As my dear friend @persephobeee points out in her Capricorn essay (a crucial source for this one): “The Capricorn archetype is a cycle of stuck parents putting stress on their children at such a young age so then their kid ends up making money in retaliation, but then treat their kids the same as well due to the lack of warmth and freedom they had in their own childhood. The intense pressure put onto them as a child [then] leads to isolation and depression. It’s a cycle. ‘I don’t want to be my parent, but also… how they have ruined me’. The chain can continue with Zeus (projecting sorrows and nightmares onto their own children) or it could break with Hestia (the path of love, light and protection).”

This is why Capricorn’s planetary ruler, Saturn, is also associated with ideas found in this myth: restriction, limitation, order, boundaries, leadership, responsibility… pretty much dad vibes, to be honest. Do you guys see what I see or do I have to dig deeper?

“But isn’t zuko a firebender?? Why would he be an earth sign??”, you may ask.

The way that I might be making headcanons about the Gaang’s western zodiac signs isn’t gonna be based on which element they bend, because that would be quite reductive and restrictive for me as an astrology junkie, but their similarities to each sign’s archetype and overall characteristics. And yes, I do see Zuko as an earth sun, but that wouldn’t be his only sign, there is also the moon and the rising sign, which also have an important impact on the individual. In my opinion, Zuko’s personality embodies the qualities of fire signs as well: competitiveness, drive, passion, impulsiveness and loyalty. But to me those qualities are better shown in his character through his moon sign: an Aries moon, to be specific. See those anger outbursts? The “I don’t need any [fucking] calming tea!!”? The “you never think these things through”? Aries moon behavior, right there. But I’m not going to focus on moon signs right now. Let’s get back to the behavior I am the most well-versed at: Capricorn behavior.

So, the sign of Capricorn is also a cardinal sign, a leader, since they are the ones that begin each season. In the Northern Hemisphere, Capricorn season starts right on the winter solstice, and the opposite happens in the South. However, since all the astrology lore comes from the North thanks to the Greeks, Babylonians and more, the seasonal connections are related to the seasons there. As a consequence, Capricorn is the cardinal sign that brings the coldest, darkest season of the year: winter. And incorporating that into Zuko’s character would be incredibly fitting, in my opinion, because of some stuff I’ve read here on Tumblr saying that making him being born during the coldest time of the year would make it a terrible omen for a firebender, worse in this case due to him being born into the royal family, symbols of the power and “supremacy” of the Fire Nation. The fact that he would be born in winter, if we follow this reasoning, would have made him seem as a disappointment to his father ever since birth.

… or maybe I’m just cruel, guys.

Moreover, I think Zuko embodies many of the Capricorn qualities in the way he carries himself (because no, not all Capricorns are confident managers with the world in our hands) and how hard he has to work to earn everything he gets. A key part of what this sign represents is “the path of hardships the goat has to overcome in order to reach the top of the mountain”, which along with the myth I have described before, could easily be applied to Zuko. It describes values of endurance, hard work, discipline and drive in order to achieve your goals, something that can be seen in Zuko all throughout the series, but changes its focus as the seasons go by. Besides, uhm… have you guys seen “The Day of Black Sun, Part 2”? That is literally the positive outcome of the Capricorn myth made into animation: the confrontation between an abusive father figure and his abused child who has decided to part ways with him in order to become a better person.

On another note, I think it is important to highlight how the Capricorn in Zuko could be seen based on how the rest of the Gaang treats him as well when he changes sides and he’s accepted into the group. How?, you may be wondering: as a father figure, but in a positive way. In many scenes it can be noticed how he naturally takes a position of leadership within the group as well as he takes care of the younger members such as Aang and Toph but, especially in Aang’s case, tries to ground them and teach them. As examples, take the following: Zuko reminding Aang that soon he will have to face the fact that he might have to kill Ozai, him trying to get everyone to train when the comet is about to arrive; how when Aang gets lost, it is him the one people look to in order to lead the group, etc.

Another thing that is well-known in Capricorns is our resilience and perseverance and, honestly: do I even need to explain that? When it comes to the guy who would get his ass beaten again and again and again for one season straight in order to get what he wanted which would also give him the approval of his father, what he craved most? It screams earth sign behavior to me, but with a heavy saturnian influence due to Zuko’s background which, to me, can be quite an interesting reflection of the Saturn/Cronus myth with his children. Said tenacity could also be exacerbated by the willpower and energy brought by the possibility of him having a fire moon, I don’t know, think about it. I stick to that headcanon.

That perseverance can also be seen when it comes to Zuko’s firebending, given how much he’s always trying to improve his skills. Although it could be argued that in reality he’s doing so due to the expectations put on him to be a proficient bender just like his sister in order to be accepted by his father, and his constant training to the point of exhaustion is just a manifestation of that toxic behavior. I am sorry to tell you, but that’s textbook Capricorn behavior, associated with the symbolism of the hardworking goat in general: working the hardest in order to get what you want is always on-brand when it comes to important Capricorn placements, and in my opinion Zuko is no exception.

Final thoughts.

Anyway, what I think would be most relevant is what I mentioned before about the Capricorn archetype and how it could tie in nicely to Zuko’s character arc with him as a representation of Hestia, who could grow out of the abuse she experienced and got a chance not to make her father’s mistakes and break that horrendous cycle she had been a victim of. I would go into this more deeply, but I think it has been enough for now. However, I’ll be back soon with a part two, talking about my water queen Katara. What do you think about this headcanon? Do you agree? If not, why?

Thanks for coming to my weird-ass TedTalk at 1am. I needed to vent and I haven’t been able to put the computer down since 9pm, I literally only stopped to eat, lol.

See you soon,

a Capricorn sun.

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bigskydreaming · 3 years

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Hey, any comic recs to ensure that I get Dick Grayson character right? Other batfam included, if you're willing. I'm trying to make sure I don't write a character completely ooc, because that drives me up the WALL when I read that. However, since I dubbed you the #1 Dick Grayson person, I thought I'd ask you to make sure I do him justice rather than a smear campaign or something lol! Thanks! ALSO TELL ME YOUR THOUGHTS ABOUT THE TITANS SHOW! That's all xD

LOL thanks I appreciate it, but while I’m good for the rants, for actual comics recs I would go to the likes of @northoftheroad, @hood-ex, and @nightwingmyboi because they’re a lot better than I am at knowing where to find specific stuff and comprehensive reading lists! I tend to jump all over the place in terms of my go-to comics for Dick.....I’m always on about Robin: Year One but I’m like eh Nightwing: Year One is pretty trash tbh. I prefer pre-Flashpoint continuity overall but I did enjoy some of the early Nightwing Rebirth stuff and before that the pre-Forever Evil New 52 stuff had some good beats. But for the most part, my favorite Dick Grayson tends to be him as a member of teams like the Titans....he shines most in ensembles, I think, because his strengths ultimately are that like...he gets people, he knows how people work, and he knows how to get the most out of the people he’s with, how to make people gel and get in sync and become more than just the sum of their parts.

(Speaking of nightwingmyboi, haven’t seen them posting in awhile, anyone know what they’re up to? Hope everything’s okay!)

Which brings me to the problems with the Titans show. There’s a lot I like about it - Anna Diop and Ryan Potter in particular - and a lot I was never gonna like about it - I’m heavy on the Ugh why must Dick Grayson be a cop ever why is that a thing make it stop. And so while I don’t think Brenton Thwaites does like, a bad job with the role or anything, there was always kinda a ceiling on how attached to or invested in his take on the character I was ever gonna reach.

But Season 2. Oof. Let’s talk about Season 2, and how so many of the problems with it are identical to the problems that surround Dick in the comics, but also aren’t limited to just his character or DC and just as equally show up in all kinds of media. Like, I could have (and probably did) offer an identical rant about the role of Scott McCall in TW’s S5.

The problem is one I’ve kinda taken to calling in my head “The Ensemble Lone Wolf Effect.”

This is when writers have a character they nominally want to be part of an ensemble....but that they repeatedly go back to the well of “this character should however spend most of their time on their own, or are more natural on their own, or just wants to be on their own, or also sometimes they just deserve to be on their own cuz they suck for Reasons we decline to specify.”

But its that thing of wanting it both ways....believing a character honestly NEEDS to be a loner or off on their own for the sake of their story, but also still wanting to utilize them as part of an ensemble, not willing to actually MAKE them a solo character, and so it kinda creates this never-ending feedback loop wherein they pay lip service to the character being part of an ensemble, but that’s never really on display, which creates a lot of unnecessary conflict among characters that’s to NONE of their benefits.

(And honestly in the comics, you could apply this to pretty much all the Batfam at times...not just Dick. They do it with Bruce ALL the time, they’re doing it with Damian right now, did it with Tim with Red Robin, Jason most of the time he’s not with the Outlaws and Cass most of the time she’s not with Babs or Steph or the Outsiders. As well as Babs herself at times).

Basically what I’m talking about here is like....so much of the drama in S2....and specifically the parts that most every fan I saw had issues with....came about not organically, because it made sense for the characters to behave that way, but solely in order to launch a specific plot, that the writers clearly wanted for S2:

And that was Dick Grayson off on his own, at his lowest, facing his demons on a solo journey of self-discovery the writers clearly deemed necessary before he could find himself as Nightwing and rise to his most heroic self.

Now the thing is....this isn’t inherently a bad plot or a problem. The problem lies in how they went about it.

Because rather than looking at the overall story and saying okay, that’s what we want to do with Dick Grayson, that’s what we want for HIS story, now how do we get that and where do we take it from there, rather than looking at that as just a STARTING point, and engineering a plot that grows OUT of that.....

The writers just started out by viewing that as an ENDPOINT, and reverse engineered a way to get Dick TO that point first and foremost....at the expense of so many characters who then basically turned on him and held him solely responsible for the things many of them also had a hand in....purely to get him off on his own and isolated.

But that was never necessary!

Because Dick’s character contains multitudes when it comes to guilt and self-blame, everyone knows that. He never needed anyone else to blame him for what happened to Joey because he blamed himself. So the second they conceived of the plot “Slade wants revenge for something Dick at least blames himself for”.....they had all the ingredients needed for Dick to decide proactively that the best way to protect everyone was to put distance between him and them, that he should try and hunt down Slade on his own, solve this between just the two of them.

And that should have been the STARTING point, for that narrative journey of self-exploration, not that journey resulting as an ENDPOINT in and of itself from Dick being FORCED into a kind of isolation by the others all blaming him.

Because now see what ripple effects result:

Now, the other characters are just as able to focus on their own individual storylines as they were in the show, with the additional concern of wanting to ACTUALLY find Dick and figure out what’s going on with him or tell him they still want to help....without this in any way needing to distract them from their own storylines, practically speaking, or cut into Dick’s narrative alone-time, because as part of the equation you ALSO have Slade, who has his own wants and agendas, not to mention tactics. And Slade’s perfectly capable of and willing to work with others, or utilize the long game, or engage in a game of cat and mouse as a distraction...there are numerous ways that you could engineer a plot FROM these motivations that allows him to keep the rest of the Titans distracted and even targeted individually, without allowing them to group back up with Dick or Dick to even know that they’re in danger and that his attempts to avoid that backfired.

You want the characters isolated and divided? The PLOT can do that for you. You don’t need the characters to do that to themselves.

IMO, most if not all stories are meant to advance characters, first and foremost. Take Characters A-Z and leave them different from how you found them. Move them to a different position in their lives as much as anything else, from where they began. The goal is character DEVELOPMENT.

What this means, in my book, is that the plot should serve the characters, NOT the other way around. The plot should grow FROM the characters and what they would or would not do....the characters should never have to be forced to FIT INTO a plot.

That’s backwards.

There shouldn’t be any need to reverse engineer a certain starting point, characterwise.

Just like....start the plot, plotwise....and from the moment you first introduce a single plot element, prioritize how would the characters react and BUILD from there.

The only engineering you should need to do is how to get to an eventual END point....which is still all about the forward momentum, not backing your way into anything.

Its one thing to have an endgoal for your plot, a point in character or narrative development that you want characters to reach. But its all about perspective. About keeping that what you’re working towards rather than something that you like, have to reach before you can even really BEGIN.

Which is what Titans S2 did. The real GOAL of the season in terms of Dick’s storyline, was his solo journey of self-discovery. But there’s a million different ways they could have LAUNCHED that journey, without it having to be the forced and contrived outcome of events and character decisions that literally only existed to initiate a journey that never required a forced initiation.

And so all this narrative energy gets utterly wasted and expended on stuff that it just flat out doesn’t need to be spent on in the first place....instead of just putting that same energy to use building forward-facing storylines for ALL the characters, that don’t require contrived spats of disharmony when the goal of such moments isn’t even the disharmony but rather just that they’re kept apart, the end RESULT of the disharmony.

Imagine what S2 could have built if instead of wasting time, characterization and energy on getting to a point they could have simply started from if they’d simply looked at it that way and chosen to just....start. If they’d applied all that to building across the board, everyone’s story in service to their own character first and foremost, no tangled feedback loops making characters regress or cycle through the same behavior or narrative positionings over and over again in order to not get in each other’s way or cross paths at a time when the show didn’t want them to cross paths....because rather than make all these characters work at cross purposes, they’re all on the same page, they still want the same things....you’re simply engineering from their own natural characterizations and organic decisions and reactions, ways the PLOT can be utilized as a TOOL, to keep them moving forward in their own respective chapters, WITHOUT their characters having to be bent out of their natural shapes or forced into niches that don’t really suit them, just to keep them, PREVENT them, from more naturally or organically making a choice or action that would ‘get in the way’ of the plot.

Bottom line......the plot is supposed to be there to advance the characters, because the characters are what we come to stories for. The characters are who we invest in, relate to, ROOT for.

The characters aren’t there to advance the plot. We’re not here to yell yeah, I really hope the writers do whatever it takes with characters, no matter how backwards or unnatural it seems, just to get that sweet sweet and oh so specific ending we want that is in no way dependent on how invested or not we ACTUALLY are in the characters by the time it arrives, in order for it to actually be effective or not!

Lol. Y’know?

So yeah, that’s my biggest gripe with Titans so far. I’m still eager to see what happens between Kory and her sister, and although I’m not thrilled it seems to be becoming Batfam Straight Outta Gotham rather than like, Titans: The Show, I admit I am curious about what take they’ll go with for Babs. As I still pretty vividly recall that weird as hell Birds of Prey show the CW or UPN or WB or whatever it was at the time did for one season, where Babs was honestly not terribly adapted despite the show otherwise bearing like, zero in common with any existing DC property or character (do not even get me STARTED on their takes on Dinah and Helena, no, blehrrible, those were bad, those were like super bad)....anyway, I’m kinda curious even if it wouldn’t have been my choice for what direction the show should take. Not that I have a specific one in mind, just, yeah. And I also kinda would not hate if we got a new Roy Harper now, to replace the not!Roy of Arrow, because I don’t know him, no seriously, who is that, its not Roy Harper.

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neptunevasilias · 3 years

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Balancing the components of a fight scene(RWBY meta)

Last weekend I sat down and watched about a half a dozen episodes of an old trading card game anime I liked in middle school, because I had a theory that the basic principles/“skeleton” of regular fight scenes could be found in card fights from this genre. Since I’m writing this meta, I’m going to say that theory was correct, because I was able to apply the stuff I realized to RWBY.

And what’s that? Basically, I realized that a fight scene is more than the fight itself, there’s multiple components that you have to balance, and fights will turn out better if you address some of these things beforehand. Here’s a small, incomplete list of things a fight scene might need to balance

The environment - where they are, how it might limit/help the participants, and being able to keep track of them as they move around

Fighting style - this includes their weapon(s), their strengths/weaknesses, their metaphorical “trump cards,” how “strong” they are(aka where they fit in the power scaling of the story, I’ll explain that later)/how likely they are to win, etc.

Story - the narrative weight behind the fight, any personal grudges or goals characters might have, etc.

Whether you realize it or not, when you watch a fight scene, you’re taking all of these into account. So it can be overwhelming if a fight scene tries to inform you about all of these at once, leading to them being confusing/hard to follow, or hard to care about.

The way to avoid this is introducing at least some of these components ahead of time, and in some cases(more on that later) at the start of the fight, so that when the actual fight comes the amount that you need to digest as it goes is smaller.

This goes hand in hand with what I call a reverse Chekhov’s gun(I do not know any actual term for this, or if there even is one, so I came up with it myself). But before I get into that, let me explain what a Chekhov’s gun is.

The definition is “a dramatic principle that states that every element in a story must be necessary, and irrelevant elements should be removed.” The motto is that if you have a gun in the first act of the story, it should be fired in the second. Basically, it’s the philosophy that everything introduced in a story should come up again later. I personally have small qualms about that(although for the most part it is true), but that’s not the point. What’s a reverse Chekhov’s gun?

Basically, it means that any elements from the second act should have been established in the first. This way, you can avoid a deus ex machina(something that radically alters the story that seemingly comes out of nowhere and feels forced).

One more thing I’ll explain before I get to my examples is power scaling. You might’ve heard of it before, it’s the concept of “ranking” characters within a story by how “powerful” they are(which really means how likely they are to win a fight) by seeing who can beat who. In a show like RWBY, there’s lots of room to establish this sort of thing.

Now let’s take all of this together and look at an example scene from RWBY with this. I chose the Tyrian vs Qrow fight from volume 4. We know both from the scene when Salem sends him to find Ruby and from his conversation with team RNJR why he’s here, what his personality is, etc. And we also see his weapons and get a grasp of his fighting style in his fight with them(which also quickly moves him up the ranks in the power scaling since he can take on four main characters at once while having fun), and we get to see his tail(and since Qrow saves Ruby from that tail we can guess that it’s poisonous). We also see them move around the environment a little bit, although they really stick to the courtyard.

On Qrow’s end, we know why he’s here(he’s been following RNJR in secret), we’ve seen him fight before, we know that his his sword can turn into something(we just don’t know what yet), and we know that he’s a renowned huntsman in oz’s inner circle that has done things like save the fall maiden from Cinder’s faction before.

So all that’s really left(from the things I outlined anyway, there are probably more things a scene needs to balance) is the environment(and of course seeing exactly how these two will clash). Qrow and Tyrian go all over the place, but it’s easy to follow them because you’re not trying to figure out anything else; the layout of the village is the only new thing your brain has to learn.

(Also an addition that I couldn’t find a proper place for so I’m putting it on its own line: while we do see Tyrian’s weapons in his fight with RNJR, the gun part of them isn’t revealed until the very start of his fight with Qrow, but it still counts because it’s at the beginning. In a way, that last reveal is showing Tyrian go “all in” to start his fight with Qrow. The same goes for Qrow turning his sword into a scythe)

The fact that all these things were established beforehand also means that there’s no twists that go too far into deus ex machina territory. We know before their fight about Tyrian’s tail, so while it’s shocking when Qrow gets poisoned, it doesn’t feel like something that happened just so that it could happen.

In summary, by laying more cards out on the table before the fight, it made the fight itself easier to follow and go more smoothly.

Another example I looked at is Blake’s fight with Ilia in her house in volume 5. This example is much more basic. A lot of what happens during this builds upon things that were already introduced in Ilia’s introduction in volume 4. I’m talking about her camouflage and her electric whip.

Since we know from her introduction that she can hide in the dark and has a whip, those concepts aren’t new to us. So in the second fight between these two, we see Blake counter those things. She shoots ice dust rounds at Ilia’s whip to freeze it in place, and she lights her house on fire to negate Ilia’s camouflage. This works better than if Blake had done that in the same fight where Ilia’s ability and weapon were introduced, because we’ve had time to process those things. So rather than introducing us to Ilia’s abilities and ways that Blake works around them in the same fight, it’s split between two separate ones.

In summary: fight scenes have many different components that need to be balanced, and you can lighten the load by addressing some of those things before the fight itself. This makes them easier to follow. It’s also important to not introduce anything late into the fight, and instead show them before the fight itself or even at the start of it. This tackles two birds with one stone. Also, RWBY.

#rwby #rwby meta #meta #uhhh what do i even tag this as #chris post

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bare1ythere · 4 years

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Tape Recorders and the Broken Camera - A Theory

This came to me yesterday and I then spent ~2 hours writing this out. It’s Incredibly self indulgent and probably a bit ramble-y but sometimes you need to let yourself say and much as you want about your hyperfixation.. as a treat.

Word count is 1.5k, let me know what you think!!

TLDR: The Tape Recorders were able to manifest within Upton House as both they and the broken camera are artifacts of the Extinction. (Reasoning under the cut!)

As a start, I think it’s important to think about how Smirke’s 14 as a categorization system is more or less useless, but only about as useless as the categorization of things in real life. As much as a lot of folks’d like it to be (me included), nothing is really clearcut. In the context of TMA, consider the fear that your life, or life in general, is insignificant. Would this belong to The Vast (Insignificance and being small in the grand scheme of things) or The End (The inevitable end of your life, and the end of your impact in the universe)? Both? I think the answer to that depends on who you ask, honestly. Not only that, but there’s plenty of statements that don’t have a clear entity attached to them. Binary, Thrown Away, and Confession are a few examples of these.

The truth is that Smirke’s list of 14 isn’t as clear cut as we’d like to think. Trying to put things into clear cut boxes is something humans have been doing for forever, and Robert Smirke’s attempts at understanding The Fears are no different. The Fears are really just one amorphous thing, a spectrum (“colours except if colours hated [us]” (MAG111)) that doesn’t really fit any one definition without exceptions.

I think remembering this is important when thinking about how Jon, Martin, and co are going to try to reverse The Change. Using the Web or the Eye or some other plot-important power to reverse the apocalypse doesn’t seem likely to me since these fears don’t Really exist, and are just the names we call aspects of the one amorphous Entity that feeds on fear.

(“the Fears[…] can never be truly separated from each other. When does the fear of sudden violence transition into the fear of hunted prey? When does the mask of the Stranger become the deception of the Spiral?” (MAG160))

This is also relevant now considering how the tape recorders were still able to manifest in Salesa’s oasis, outside of the influence of both the Eye AND the Web.

So how was this possible? For the entire podcast it seemed that Jon’s tape recorders were Eye aligned. I mean, they’re an Eye avatar’s tape recorders for a reason. However, they aren’t a staple of an Archivist’s abilities; there were archivists before tape recorders existed (MAG53), and notably, Gertrude never used them when reading statements for herself (MAG111):

ARCHIVIST: Did [Gertrude] read statements?

GERARD: Sometimes. If she was getting shaky. They perked her up, I think. Feeding the Eye, you know? I’d sometimes hear her through the wall, just reading into the air, feeling it all.

ARCHIVIST: She… she didn’t use a tape recorder?

GERARD: Not when I was with her. She travelled light. Left things behind.

That means the tape recorders are unique to Jon rather than The Archivist as a role.

I’ve seen a lot of theories about the tape recorders being manifestations of the Web instead, but despite how cool these are, I don’t think thats true. For one, how do randomly-manifesting tape recorders listening in on what is happening to you feed the fear of being manipulated or losing control? The recorders themselves are passive; they almost never impact the actions of the characters themselves. In fact, most of the time they’re completely ignored - especially in S5. Though it’s true that Web-touched artifacts like Jon’s lighter often get swept past and left unconsidered to benefit the Web’s plan, that isn’t really what’s happening here. They’re very aware that these tape recorders aren’t normal (MAG161):

MARTIN: Hey – Hey, when did you start recording?

ARCHIVIST: (confusion) I – didn’t. I only brought one, and I’ve been using it to play the tapes.

MARTIN: Oh. (sigh) That’s not a great sign.

ARCHIVIST: No. No, it’s not.

And again in MAG181:

SALESA: Now tell me, do you know why there’s a tape recorder here? I noticed it just now, but I don’t believe I actually own one.

ARCHIVIST: Uh… Not really.

MARTIN: They sort of just… follow us round.

This doesn’t really sound like something that would fit the Web. You could argue that the recorders are the Web’s way of getting information on what’s going on with Jon and Martin, but they already use spiders for that. Also, the recorders were still able to manifest within Upton House (!!!) where supposedly no power could get through. But it’s not like there’s some Other eldritch entity unrelated to the Fears that the recorders could be related to, so how was the recorder able to manifest?

I think it has to do with how Salesa’s broken camera is related to the Fears. It was unclear which fear it was aligned to in this episode, only that it feeds on “the quiet worries that come from living in hiding” (MAG181). That’s why I started this whole thing talking about Smirke’s list. I don’t really know which of the fears that would apply to. Honestly, of the main 14, it could apply to a combination: The Dark (fear of not knowing what’s out there beyond your sanctuary), the Lonely (fear of hiding alone for the rest of your life), and the End (Fear of the inevitable collapse of your safe haven and your death.) I really don’t think it could be any one of these fears alone, only a combination could explain the camera’s existence.

The weird thing, though, is that we’ve never really seen an artifact this complicated before. Most artifacts had a pretty basic, non-nuanced relationship to the fears. Never as vague as this camera.

Unless!

THE BROKEN CAMERA IS AN ARTIFACT OF THE EXTINCTION!

If you think about it, all of the aspects I mentioned above for the fear of being in hiding can be connected to the extinction.

The Dark: The Fear of not knowing what’s out there beyond your sanctuary The Extinction: The fear of what’s beyond your safe haven, what’s changed without you being there

The Lonely: The Fear of hiding alone for the rest of your life The Extinction: The fear of being the last person alive, forced to reckon with the changed world/whatever you’re hiding from alone

The End: The Fear of the inevitable collapse of your safe haven and your death The Extinction: The fear of being the last of what’s left of humanity, with the end of your life being the end of all of us

Not only that, but the camera itself is a manmade device (with the extinction having heavy technological themes). It’s also prime real estate to feed on the fears of those with bunkers/doomsday preppers, and Salesa’s acquisition of it was DIRECTLY related to wanting to survive a potential apocalypse. Even if it weren’t inherently extinction related from the beginning, its current use means that the fear it’s absorbing IS extinction related, whether or not that was the reason for its original manifestation.

So with the broken camera being an artifact related to the extinction, what does that mean for the tape recorders?

What if the reason the tape recorders can manifest within the Upton House is because they share an entity with the camera? And they can exacerbate the fear of being in hiding without removing the hiding aspect that makes it work? (after all, the tape recorders did first manifest again after the change when Jon and Martin were in hiding at the safehouse.)

Same with the creature of the Crawling Rot that paid Salesa a visit, the tape recorders can serve to remind the user of the camera that their bunker is not impenetrable. The reason it’s different from the corruption creature is that the tape recorder was Able to manifest within Upton House rather than just wander in. If it’s not related to feeding the same fear as the camera, why would the camera let it in at a risk of ruining its purpose?

The tape recorders’ connection with the broken camera seems to point to them being extinction-aligned, but they also serve as a form of record of How the World Changed and What is Left Without Us. This concept was a huge aspect of S5’s extinction statement (MAG175) as well.

This raises a lot of questions about why the tape recorders manifest for Jon specifically. Is he an extinction-aligned eye avatar? Are they not Really his, but manifest around him as they recognize his importance in the story of the apocalypse (which would make sense, since tapes have manifested for Just martin throughout S4 and S5)? What does this mean for the extinction and how the Change can be reversed? I’m not really sure to be honest!! I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

Starting at the beginning of S5, though, I thought that the podcast had to end with Jon’s death, as the tape recorders, a part of Jon, are the way we hear what actually happens in the podcast. I don’t think that’s necessarily the case anymore. The recorders, as manifestations of the extinction, wanted to drink in the fear of an incoming/ongoing disaster. It’s extremely likely they wouldn’t care to hear the relief of a saved world.

#the magnus archives #tmaspoilers #mag181 #tma #magpod #tma meta #shut up me #This is the most self indulgent thing ive ever written #I almost didnt post it bc i mainly wrote it out for myself but I thought i might as well #This idea might also be something ive reblogged in the past but its also just fun to look through the transcripts #for proof relating to the theories you like c:#MAG181: *is a relatively chill episode*#Me disentangling myself from loads of red string: WHAT

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morievna · 4 years

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Mafuyu, rings and leadership

Time for another round of speculation :D

On mix_1 cover there certain interesting detail – both Mafuyu and Hiiragi are wearing rings. What is more interesting is that they are wearing them on this same finger (index finger) though different hands (left for Mafuyu and right for Hiiragi). Of course, it could be simply token of friendship, but since I am person who likes digging into symbolism and stuff like that I had to check it XD

And you know? It fits quite good:

The index finger is closely associated with confidence and ability to lead a group. It makes sense that it's the pointer finger, because it indicates the ability to point out truths, succinctly share ideas and communicate with others. Wear a ring on your dominant hand's index finger when you're working with a team, and your leadership abilities will funnel out to everyone in the group. When you're having a tough time speaking up, wear a ring on your non-dominant hand's index finger to open yourself to the idea that you, too, can be a leader.

[source]

While Hiiragi is literally leader of his band, Mafuyu is driving force for Given too. Without him Given would be just good instrumental band, but with vocalist they became popular for real. The way his songs resonated not only with audience but with bandmates too – during practices of his songs, we see that all of them were being motivated and inspired by him. That too caused change in Mafuyu – thanks to being among people who support him no matter what, he started to learn how to express himself and look out for others. Gradually we see how he stops being passive and starts to take actions. He tries his best in relationship with Ritsuka and works on communication. While at beginning he is more clueless about others, we see how he is becoming more observant - he is no longer only focused on his pain, but begins to notice that others have similar experiences and that he is not alone in this. While he doubted his skills at first, he slowly becomes more confident and has clear vision what feelings he want to convey with his second song. After all his second song is not only about him accepting Yuki’s death and founding new love, but also wanting to help others who are lost like he was. And by all of this he is pulling others alongside him to grow up and move forward.

Of course, I don’t mean it the way that he will become literal leader – rather spiritual one. Think of it as the way where his character development is leading. All traits he is evolving are matched with those associated with leadership:

Right now Given as a band is in interesting position – all members except for Mafuyu are simultaneously working on another projects (supporting other bands like Ritsuka and Haruki, playing violin like Akihiko). I think Mafuyu will have central role and will be the one to keep others at balance. While he is having currently second thoughts about music, I think that losing CAC will only strengthen his dedication to music.

Like I mentioned in my first meta I believe that Given will have 3-act structure. Quoting Wikipedia again:

The third act features the resolution of the story and its subplots. The climax is the scene or sequence in which the main tensions of the story are brought to their most intense point and the dramatic question answered, leaving the protagonist and other characters with a new sense of who they really are.

In stories usually we have all characters meeting and working towards common goal at the end. My theory is that we will see some sort of collaboration between Given and Hiiragi’s band with Mafuyu at the center. This would bring all characters together and could result in interesting interactions and clash between personalities like we already got with Hiiragi and Ritsuka.

I think we will see callbacks to first volumes too – after all there is certain violinist, who is in similar position as Mafuyu at beginning of story – lonely and disconnected from outside world. I think that knowing similarities between them Mafuyu will try to help Ugetsu the same way it helped him - by making him going out of his hideout and playing music together with other people as band. On my wishlist is seeing them singing in a duet XD I think Ugetsu’s arc will end similar to Mafuyu’s that he will be more open and honest about his feelings with others and will get love back in his life. And all of this would cause for Mafuyu to look at his beginning from different perspective and appreciate even more help that got from others.

Honestly I also always wanted to see reverse scene between Akihiko and Mafuyu from chapter 8– it was rich coming from Akihiko to tell some else to make peace with past, while he is so entangled in it himself. It’s not like I think of him as hypocrite, but while rereading this scene I had O RLY moment, so I want him to be call out on this XD After all it is quite peculiar that after chapter 17 there is almost no interaction between them, so I think Natsuki-sensei is saving something meaty for later.

Finally, Mafuyu working on Yuki’s song together with all people he cares about would be great to fulfill this wish in different way. I think it would cause him making peace with past – this apply to Hiiragi as well. Both of them want to be forgiven and need to forgive themselves. Performing Yuki’s song together at festival would feel like catharsis – even more powerful than first live performance.

I think that it would be great for final act of story, don’t you think? Of course it is just my speculation, but I think it would work great. And by the way narrative structure, where first part mirrors final one is called often ring composition ;)

As always thanks for reading.

#given #given manga #given meta #satou mafuyu #mafuyu #mafuyu satou #ugetsu murata #akihiko kaji #ritsuka uenoyama

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CHAPTER IV THE UNION OF ATTICA AND THE FOUNDATION OF THE ATHENIAN DEMOCRACY

SECT. I. THE UNION OF ATTICA

When recorded history begins, the story of Athens is the story of Attica, the inhabitants of Attica are Athenians. But Attica, like its neighbour Boeotia and other countries of Greece, was once occupied by a number of independent states. Some of these little kingdoms are vaguely remembered in legends which tell of the giant Pallas who ruled at Pallene under the north-eastern slopes of Hymettus, of the dreaded Cephalus lord of the southern region of Thoricus, or of Porphyrion of mighty stature whose domain was at Athmonon under Mount Pentelicus. The hill of Munychia was, in the distant past, an island, and was crowned by a stronghold; the name Piracus has been supposed to preserve the memory of days when the lords of Munychia looked across to the mainland and spoke of the "opposite shore." At a later stage we find neighbouring villages uniting themselves together by political or religious bonds. Thus in the north, beyond Pentelicus, Marathon and Oenoe and two other towns formed a tetrapolis. Again Piraeus, adjacent Phaleron, and two other places joined in the common worship of the god Heracles, and were called the Four-Villages. Of all the lordships between Mount Cithaeron and Cape Sunium the two most important were those of Eleusis and Athens, severed from one another by the hill-chain of Aegaleos.

It was upon Athens, the stronghold in the midst of the Cephisian plain, five miles from the sea, that destiny devolved the task of working out the unity of Attica. This Cephisian plain, on the south side open to the Saronic gulf, is enclosed by hills, on the west by Aegaleos, on the north-west by Parnes, on the east by Hymettus, while the gap in the north-east, between Parnes and Hymettus, is filled by the gable-shaped mass of Pentelicus. The river Cephisus flows not far from Athens to westward, but the Acropolis was girt by two smaller streams, the Ilīsus and the Eridănus. We have seen that it had been occupied as an abode of men in the third millennium, and that in the bronze age it was one of the strong places of Greece. There still remain pieces of the wall of grey-blue limestone with which the Pelasgian lords of the castle secured the edge of their precipitous hill." The old wall was called the Pelargikon, but in later times this name was specially applied to the ground on the north-western slope. The Acropolis is joined to the Areopagus by a high saddle, which forms its natural approach, and on this sidewalls were so constructed that the main western entrance to the citadel lay through nine successive gates. At the north-western corner a covered staircase led down to the well of Clepsydra, which supplied the fortress with water; and on the north side there were two narrow "postern" descents into the plain, much steeper than that at Tiryns. We may take it that all these constructions were the work of the Pelasgians and were inherited by their Greek successors.

The first Greeks who won the Pelasgic acropolis were probably the Cecropes, and, though their name was forgotten as the name of an independent people, it survived in another form. For the later Athenians were always ready to describe themselves as the sons of Cecrops. This Cecrops was numbered among the imaginary pre-historic kings of Athens; he was nothing more than the fabulous ancestor of the Cecropes. But the time came when other Greek dwellers in Attica won the upper hand over the Cecropes, and brought with them the worship of Athena. It was a momentous day in the history of the land when the goddess, whose cult was already established in many other Attic places, took possession of the hill which was to be pre-eminently, and for all time, associated with her name. The Acropolis became Athenai; the folks ––whether Cecropes or Pelasgians–– who dwelled in the villages around it, on the banks of the Ilīsus and Eridănus, became Athenians. The god whom the Cecropes worshipped on the hill, Poseidon Erechtheus,was forced to give way to the goddess. Legend told that Athena and Poseidon had disputed the possession of the Acropolis, and that each had set a token there, the goddess her sacred olive-tree,the god a salt-spring. The dethroned deity was not banished; there was a conciliation, characteristic of the Greek temper, between the old and the new. Erechtheus in the shape of a snake is permitted still to live on the hill of Athena, and the oldest temple that was built for the goddess, harboured also the god. In later times Athenian "history" transformed Erechtheus into a hero, and regarded him, like Cecrops, as one of the early kings.

Athena and Poseidon on a vase painted by Amasis

There was another god who was closely associated in Attic legend with Athena, and Athens was distinguished by the high honour in which she held him. This was Hephaestus, the divine smith, the master and helper of handicraftsmen, the cunning giver of wealth. But we cannot say how far back his worship in Attica goes, or when his special feasts were instituted. It is probable that his honour grew along with the prosperity of the craftsmen. An Athenian poet calls his countrymen "sons of Hephaestus," and, according to one myth, it was from his seed that all the earth-born inhabitants of Attica were sprung. At the feast of Apaturia, in the last days of autumn, when children were admitted into the Phratries by a solemn ceremony, the fathers used to light torches at the hearth and sing a hymn to the lord of fire.

The next great step in Attic history was the union of the land.We cannot be certain at what time this union took place; it recedes beyond the beginnings of recorded history; and we can only dimly discern how it was brought about. When the lords of the Acropolis had subdued their own Cephisian plain, from Mount Parnes to the hill of Munychia, from the slopes of Hymettus to Aegaleos, they were tempted to extend their power eastward into the "Midland beyond Mount Hymettus, and subdue the southern "acté," wedge of land which ends in the lofty cape of Sunium. The completion of this conquest was possibly the first great achievement of Athens, and the second was probably the subjugation of the north-eastern plain of Marathon and the "tetrapolis." Thus the first stage in the union of Attica is the reduction of the small independent sovereignties throughout all the land, except the Eleusinian plain in the west, under the loose overlordship of Athens.

In the course of time the feeling of unity in Attica became so strong that all the smaller lordships, which formed parts of the large state, but still retained their separate political organisations,could be induced to surrender their home governments and merge themselves in a single community with a government centralised in the city of the Cephisian plain. The man of Thoricus or Aphidnae or Icaria now became a citizen of Athens and his political rights must be exercised there. The memory of this synoecism was preserved in historical times by an annual feast, and it was fitting that it should be so remembered, for it determined the whole history of Athens. From this time forward she is no longer merely the supreme city of Attica. She is neither the head of a league of partly independent states, nor yet a despotic mistress of subject-communities. She is not what Thebes is to become in Boeotia, or what Sparta is in Laconia. If she had been, and she might well have been, either of these things, her history would have been gravely altered. She is the central city of an united state; and to the people of every village in Attica belong the same political rights as to the people of Athens herself. The man of Marathon or the man of Thoricus is no longer an Attic, he is an Athenian. It is generally supposed that the synoecism was the work of one of the kings. It was undoubtedly the work of one man; but it is possible that it belongs to the period immediately succeeding the abolition of the royal power.

In after-times the Athenians thought that the hero Theseus,whom they had enrolled in the list of their early kings," was the author of the union of their country. But at the period when that union was brought about Theseus was not a national hero. He was a local god, worshipped in the Marathonian district and in the east coastlands of Attica; he had not yet won the importance which was to possess hereafter in Athenian myth and history.

SECT. 2. FOUNDATION OF THE ATHENIAN COMMONWEALTH

The early history of the Athenian constitution resembles that of most other Greek states, in the general fact that a royalty, subjected to various restrictions, passes into an aristocracy. But the details of the transition are peculiar, and the beginning of the republic seems to have been exceptionally early, The traditional names of the Attic kings who came after the hero Theseus are certainly in some cases, and, it may be, in most cases, fictitious, themost famous of them being the Neleid Codrus, who was said to

have sacrificed himself to save his country on the occasion of an attack of invaders from the Peloponnesus. The Athenians said that they had abolished royalty, on the death of Codrus, because he was too good to have a successor ––a curious reversal of the usual causes of such a revolution. But this story is a late invention. The first limitation of the royal power effected by the aristocracy was the institution of a polemarch or military commander. The supreme command of the army, which had belonged to the king, was transferred to him and he was elected from and by the nobles. The nextstep seems to have been the overthrow of the royal house by the powerful family of the Medontids. The Medontids did not themselves assume the royal title, nor did they abolish it. They instituted the office of archon or regent, and this office usurped the most important functions of the king. Acastus, the Medontid, was the first regent. We know that he was an historical person; the archons of later days always swore that they would be true to their oath even as Acastus. He held the post for life, and his successors after him; and thus the Medontids resembled kings, though they did not bear the kingly name. But they fell short of royalty in another way too; for each regent was elected by the community; the community was only bound to elect a member of the Medontid family. The next step in weakening the power of this kingly magistrate was the change of the regency from a life office to an office of ten years. This reform is said to have been effected about the middle of the eighth century. It is uncertain at what time the Medontids were deprived of their prerogative and the regency was thrown open to all the nobles. With the next step we reach firmer ground. The regency became a yearly office, and from this time onward an officiallist of the archons seems to have been preserved.

FIG. 43.-Codrus, going forth to his last battle, bids a friend farewell (Bolognacylix).

But meanwhile there were still kings at Athens. The Medontids had robbed the kings of their royal power, but they had not done away with the kings; there was to be a king at Athens till the latest days of the Athenian democracy. It seems probable that, as some historical analogies might suggest, the Medontids allowed the shadow of royalty to remain in the possession of the old royal house,so that for some time there would have been life-kings existing by the side of the life-regents; it is not likely that from the very first the kingship was degraded to be a yearly office, filled by electiton. This, however, was what it ultimately became.

The whole course of the constitutional development is uncertain; for it rests upon traditions, of which it is extremely hard to judge the value. But, whatever the details of the growth may have been, two important facts are to be grasped, One is that the fall royalty, which does not imply the abolition of the royal name, happened in Athens at an earlier period than in Greece generally. The other is that the Medontids were not kings, but archons ––the chiefs of an aristocracy. The great work of the Medontids wns the foundation of the Athenian commonwealth; and perhaps one of their house is to be remembered for another achievement, not less great, which has been already described, the union of Attiea.

That union need not be older than the ninth century, and it is possible that the same republican movement which led to the downfall of the old royal house of the Acropolis, led to the synoecism of Attica. The political union of a country demands a system of organisation; and the statesmen who united Attica sought their method of organisation from one of those cities of Ionia, which Athens came to look upon as her own daughters. All the inhabitants were distributed into four tribes, which were borrowed from Miletus. The curious names of these tribes––Geleontes, Argadeis, Aigicoreis, and Hoplētes––seem to have been derived from the worship of special deities; for instance, Geleontes from Zeus Geleon. But the original meanings of the names had entirely passed away, and the tribes were affiliated to Apollo Patrōos, the paternal Apollo, from whom all Athenians claimed descent. The Brotherhoods seem to have been reorganised and arranged under the tribes––three to each tribe; so that there were twelve brotherhoods in the Attic state. At the head of each tribe was a "tribe-king."

We can see the clan organisation at Athens better than elsewhere. The families of each clan derived themselves from a common ancestor, and most of the clan names are patronymics. The worship of this ancestor was the chief end of the society. All the clans alike worshipped Zeus Herkeios and Apollo Patrōos; many of them had a special connexion with other public cults. Each had a regular administration and officers, at the head of whom was an"archon." To these clans only members of the noble families belonged; but the other classes, the peasants and the craftsmen, formed similar organisations founded on the worship not of a common ancestor, for they could point to none, but some deity whom they chose. The members of these were called orgeōnes. This innovation heralds the advance of the lower classes to political importance.

The brotherhoods, composed of families whose lands adjoined, united their members in the cult of Zeus Phratrios and Athena Phratria. In early times only clansmen belonged to the brotherhoods, but here again a change takes place in the seventh century,and orgeones are admitted. The organisation was then used for the purposes of census. Every child whose parents were citizens must be admitted into a brotherhood; and, if this rite is neglected, he is regarded as illegitimate. It should be observed that illegitimacy at Athens did not deprive a man of political rights, but he could not lay claim by right of birth to his father's inheritance.

At a much later time the constitutional historians of Athens made out that the clans were artificial subdivisions of the brotherhoods. They said that each tribe was divided into three brotherhoods, each brotherhood into thirty clans, and it was even added that each clan comprised thirty men. This artificial scheme is true, so far as the relation of the tribe to the brotherhood is concerned; but it is not true in regard to the clan, and is refuted by the circumstance that the tribes consisted of others than clansmen.

SECT. 3. THE ARISTOCRACY IN THE SEVENTH CENTURY

Early in the seventh century, then, the Athenian republic was an aristocracy, and the executive was in the hands of three annually elected officers, the archon, the king, and the polemarch. The archon was the supreme judge in all civil suits. When he entered on office, he published a declaration that he would, throughout the term of his archonship, preserve the property of every citizen intact, At a later time this sphere of judicial power was limited and he judged mainly cases in which injured parents, orphans, heiresses were involved, He held the chief place among the magistrates, having his official residence in the Prytaneum where was the public hearth, and his name appeared at the head of official lists, whence he was called epōnymus; though the archonship was a later institution than that of polemarch, as is shown by the fact that no old religious ceremonies were performed by the archon, such as devolved upon the polemarch as well as upon the king. But the conduct of festivals instituted at later times was enlisted to him. Such was the Thargelia, the late-May feast of the first-fruits, the chief Athenian feast of Apollo, introduced from Delos probably in the seventh century; such was the great Dyonisia, which, as we shall see, were founded in the sixth. The polemarch had judicial duties, besides being commander-in-chief of the army. He held a court in the Epilykeion on the banks of the Ilisus, and judged there all cases in which non-citizens were involved. Thus what the archon was for citizens, the polemarch was for class of foreign settlers who were called "metics." The king had his residence in the royal Stoa in the Agora. His functions were confined to the management of the state-religion, and the conduct of certain judicial cases connected with religion. He was president of the Council, and thus had considerable power and responsability in the conduct of the judicial functions of that body.

The Bulê or Council was the political organisation through which the nobles carried out, at Athens as elsewhere, the gradual abolition of monarchy. This Council of Elders––a part as we saw of the Aryan inheritance of the Greeks––came afterwards to be called at Athens the Council of the Areopagus, to distinguish it from other councils of later growth. This name was derived from one of the Council's most important functions. According to early custom, which we find reflected in Homer, murder and man-slaughter were not regarded as crimes against the state, but concerned exclusively the family of the slain man, which might either slay the slayer or accept a compensation. But gradually, as the worship of the souls of the dead and the deities of the underworld developed, the belief gained ground that he who shed blood was impure and needed cleansing. Accordingly when a murderer satisfied the kinsfolk of the murdered by paying a fine, he had also to submit to a process of purification, and satisfy the Chthonian gods and the Erinyes or Furies, who were, in the original conception, the souls of the dead clamouring for vengeance. This notion of manslaughter as a religious offence necessarily led to the interference of the state. For when the member of a community was impure, the stain drew down the anger of the gods upon the whole community, if the unclean were not driven out. Hence it came about that the state undertook the conduct of criminal justice. The Council itself formed the court, and the proceedings were closely associated with the worship of the Semnai. These Chthonian goddesses had a sanctuary, which served as a refuge for him whose hand was stained with bloodshed, on the north-east side of the Areopagus, outside the city wall. It is possible the the association of this hill with the god Ares is merely due to a popular etimology, for he had no shrine here; but the correct explanation of the name Areiospagos is not known. On this rugged spot, apart from but within sight of the dwellings of men, the Council held its sittings for cases of murder, violence with murderous intent, poisoning, and incendiarism, The accuser stood on the stone of Insolence, the accused on the stone of Recklessness, each a huge unhewn block.This function of the Council, which continued to belong to it after it had lost its other powers, procured it the name of Areopagus.

A sketch of what the Court of the Aeropagus is believed to have looked like.

During the period of the aristocracy, the Council was the governing body of Athens. We may be certain that the magistrates were always members; but otherwise we do not know how it was composed, and therefore can form no clear idea how the constitution worked. The Council doubtless exercised direct control over the election of the chief magistrates; but we need have small doubt that the king, the archon, and the polemarch were either elected by the Ecclesia consisting of the whole body of citizens entitled to vote, or at all events were chosen by the Council out of a limited number nominated by the Assembly.

As an achievement of the aristocracy we may regard the annexation of Eleusis. The Eleusinian kingdom bound in by Athens on one side and Megara on the other––its little bay locked by Megarian Salamis––did not play any part in any portion of Greek history of which we have the faintest record. But of its independent existence we have a clear echo in a hymn which tells the Eleusinian story of Demeter. That goddess, wandering in quest of her lost daughter Persephone, came to Eleusis, where she was hospitably entertained by the king, and would have made his infant son immortal but for the queen's want of faith. This poem is thought to have been composed in the seventh century, and, if so, the days when Eleusis was independent had not yet passed out of men's memories then.

The middle of the seventh century is marked by a further constitutional change, which is the result of various social changes.The aristocracy of birth is forced to widen into an aristocracy of wealth, The general causes of this change are to be found in the new economical conditions which have been already pointed out as affecting the whole Greek world in the seventh century. But to understand their operation and political consequences at Athens,we must look more closely into the classes of the Attic population and the social structure.

Under the rule of the kings and the aristocracies, the free population fell into three classes: the Eupatridae or nobles; " the Georgi or peasants who cultivated their own farms; and the Demiurgi (public workers), those who lived by trade or commerce. The Eupatrids originally lived in the country, and many Attic places were called from their families, such as Paeonidae or Butadae. After the synoecism, many of them came to live in the city. The Demiurgi had their settlements in the neighbourhood of the city––for example, there was the quarter of the "potters" north of the Areopagus––and also villages in the country, such as Pelekes or Daedalidae. But besides these classes of citizens, who had the right of attending the Assembly, there was a mass of freemen who were not citizens. Among these we can distinguish the agricultural labourers, who, having no land of their own, cultivated the estates of the nobles. In return for their labour they retained one-sixth of the produce and were hence called "Sixth-parters" (Hektemoroi).There were also the craftsmen who were employed and paid by the Demiurgi, and doubtless small retail dealers and others.

Although Attica seems to have taken no part in the colonising movements of the eighth and seventh centuries, the Athenians shared in the trading activities of the period and were profoundly affected by the economical revolution in the Greek world. The cultivation of the olive was becoming a feature of Attica, and its oil a profitable article of exportation. At the same time Attic potters were actively developing their industry on lines of their own, and Attic pottery was in the course of another century to become disseminated throughout the Mediterranean countries from Tuscany to Cyprus. Jars of this age have been found in tombs near the Dipylon gate on the north-west side of Athens, and these Dipylon vases, as they are called, give us a glimpse of the Attic civilisation of the period. We not only see a new style of vase-painting,with geometrical ornament and a symmetrical arrangement of the space at the painter's disposal; but in the pictures of funeral processions we can observe with what pomp and cost the Attic nobles buried their dead. In the graves where these vases were found, offerings were laid beside the dead, pottery and sometimes gold ornaments; and the sepulchral pit was surmounted not by a mound but by a tall clay jar with an opening below, through which drink offerings could be poured. But it must be noticed that soon after this epoch, the influence of Ionia made itself felt in Attica, and the custom was introduced of burning the dead; burial, however, was not discontinued; the two customs subsisted side by side. Ionia also influenced Athenian dress. The woollen peplos fastened with a pin was given up and the Ionian sleeved tunic or chiton, of linen, took its place.

Dipylon Vase, with ship (British museum)

It would be interesting if we might see in the rude representations of ships on some of the Dipylon vases an illustration of the beginnings of Attic seamanship. The sea traffic of Athens must have been rapidly growing in the first half of the seventh century. It is easy to see how the active participation of Athens in trade began to undermine the foundations of the aristocracy of birth, by introducing a new standard of social distinction. The nobles engaged in mercantile ventures with various success, some becoming richer, and others poorer; and the industrial folk increased in wealth and importance. The result would ultimately be that wealth would assert itself as well as birth, both socially and politically; and in the second half of the seventh century we find that, though the aristocracy has not been fully replaced by a timocracy, or constitution, in which political rights depend entirely on wealth, all the conditions are present for such a transformation, For we find the people divided into three classes according to their wealth. The principle of division was the annual yield of landed property, in corn, oil, or wine. The highest class was the Pentacosiomedimni. Before this name had any official meaning it was perhaps in popular use to designate those large proprietors whose income reached five hundred medimni of corn, at a time when oil and wine had not been much cultivated. When it acquired an official sense, it was defined to include those whose land produced at least so many measures (medimni) of corn and so many measures (metrētae) of oil or wine as together amounted to five hundred measures. The second class included those whose property produced more than three hundred but less than five hundred such measures. These were called Knights, and so represented roughly those who could maintain a horse and take their part in war as mounted soldiers. The minimum income of the third class was two hundred measures, and their name, Teamsters, shows that they were well-to-do peasants who could till their land with a pair of oxen. The chief magistracies of archon, king, and polemarch were confined to the first class, but the principle was admitted that a successful man, although not a Eupatrid, was eligible for the highest offices if his income amounted to 500 midemni, It was natural that the rating should be expressed in terms of wealth derived from land; but it is not a necessary inference that the handicraftsmen were entirely excluded, or that in order to win political rights they were forced to purchase estates.

At first this concession of the Eupatrids to their fellow-citizens did not practically amount to much. Most of the richest men in the state still belonged to the old clans; but the recognition of wealth as a political test could not fail to undermine ultimately the privileges of birth. The organisation of the lower classes into bodies resembling the Clans of the nobles, and their admission into the Brotherhoods, have been mentioned. It is probable that the institution of the Thesmothetae also marks a step in the self-assertion of these classes. The Thesmothetae were a college of six judges, who managed the whole judicial system of Athens. It was their duty to examine, and call attention to defects in, the laws, and to keep a record of judicial decisions; and they seem to have taken cognisance of all cases which belonged to the scope of the Council of Areopagus, except trials for murder. In fact, it looks as if they were practically a committee of that Council. They were elected annually, and it has been plausibly supposed that the number of six was determined by the fact that they originated in a compromise between the orders, three being Eupatrids, two Georgi, and one a Demiurgos. They were soon associated with the three chief magistrates, the archon, basileus, and polemarch; and the nine came to form a sort of college and were called the Nine Archons, Each of the Nine when he entered on his office took an oath that he would act in accordance with the laws, and vowed that if he committed any injustice he would dedicate in gold a man's statue of life-size. It was a penalty which no archon could have discharged.

Outside these classes were the smaller peasants who had land of their own, of which, however, the produce did not amount to two hundred measures of corn or oil, and the humbler handicraftsmen.These were called Thêtes, the name being perverted from its proper meaning of "labourers." The Thêtes were citizens, but had no political rights. Yet they were beginning to win a certain public importance. The conditions of a growing maritime trade led to the development of a navy. As the sea power grew, a new organisation was found necessary, and there can be little doubt that the duty of serving as marines in the penteconters mainly devolved upon the Thêtes, This gave them a new significance in the state, a significance which would strengthen their claim to political rights when the time for pressing that claim should come. We shall see hereafter how closely connected was the democracy of Athens with her sea power; and we can hardly be wrong in surmising the faint foreshadowings of that connexion at the very beginning of her naval history. Each of the four tribes was divided, for this purpose, into twelve districts called Naucrariae; each naucraria was probably bound to supply a ship. Thus the fleet consisted of forty-eight ships. The administration was directed by a body of naucrari, at the head of which were presidents; and the organisation might be found convenient for other than naval purposes. Thus the naucrari formed an important administrative council.

We see then that, in the middle of the seventh century, society in Attica is undergoing the change which is transforming the face of all the progressive parts of Hellas; wealth is competing with descent as a political test; and the aristocracy of birth seems to be passing into a timocracy. The power is in the hands of the three chief archons, who always belong to the class of wealthy nobles, and the Council of Areopagus, which is certainly composed of Eupatridae. But the classes outside the noble Clans, the smaller proprietors and the merchants, are beginning to assert themselves and make their weight felt; possibly the institution of the thesmothetae is due to their pressure. They also obtain admission into the Brotherhoods, which had been hitherto exclusive, Attic trade is rapidly growing. The commercial development promotes these democratic tendencies, and has also led to the creation of a fleet, which, since the poorest class of citizens are required to man it, renders that class important and prepares the way for its political recognition.

As yet, however, the naval establishment of Athens was but small compared with her neighbours Chalcis and Corinth, or her daughter cities of Ionia. And Aegina, which had come for a while under the influence of Argos, outstripped her. It is interesting to find these two cities, Athens and Aegina, which were in later times to be bitter rivals for the supremacy in their gulf, in the seventh century taking part in an association for maintaining the worship of Poseidon in the little island of Calauria, over against Troezen. Other coast towns of the Saronic and Argolic bays––Epidaurus, Troezen, Hermione, Nauplia, Prasiae––belonged to this sacred union; and the Boeotian Orchomenus, by virtue of the authority which she still possessed over the sailors of Anthedon, was also a member. There was no political significance in the joint Calaurian worship of these maritime towns; their seamen propitiated Poseidon at Calauria, just as they sacrificed to Panhellenic Zeus on the far-seen Mountain of Aegina. And they were not grudging votaries.They built a house for the sea-god in his island; its foundations have been recently uncovered, and it is one of the earliest stone temples whose ruins have been found in Greece.

Restos del templo de Poseidón de Calauria.

Attica, like the rest of the Greek world, was disturbed in her economic development by the invention of money. She had naturally been brought into close commercial relations with her neighbour Aegina, which at this time began to take a leading part in maritime enterprise. Accordingly we find Athens adopting the Aeginetan coinage, and using a system of weights and measures which was almost, if not quite, identical with the Aeginetan. The introduction of money, which was at first very scarce, and led to the accumulation of capital in the chests of successful speculators, was followed by a period of transition between the old system of the direct exchange of commodities and the new system of a metallic medium; and this transitional period was trying to all men of small means. But the inevitable economic crisis did not come at once, though all conditions of social distress were present, and a conflict between the rich and the poor was drawing steadily near. An event happened about thirty years before the end of the century which shows that the peasants were still loyal to the existing constitution.

The example of tyranny was infectious, and, as it flourished at the very door of Athens––in Megara and Corinth,––it was unlikely that some attempt should not be made at Athens too. A certain Cylon, of noble family, married the daughter of Theagenes, tyrant of Megara; and, under Megarian influence and with Megarian help, he tried to make himself master of the city. Consulting the Delphic oracle, he was advised to seize the Acropolis on the greatest festival of Zeus. Cylon, an Olympic victor himself, had no doubt that the feast of Olympia was meant; but when his plot failed, it was explained that the oracle referred to the Athenian feast of the Diasia in March, which was celebrated outside the city. Cylon enlisted in his enterprise a number of noble youths, and a band of Megarian soldiers were sent by Theagenes; he had no support among the people. He succeeded in seizing the Acropolis, but the sight of foreign soldiers effectually quenched any lurking sympathy that any of the Athenians might have felt for an effort to overthrow the government. The Council of the naucraries summoned the husbandmen from the country, and the summons was readily obeyed. Cylon was blockaded in the citadel, and, after a long siege when food and water began to fail, he escaped with his brother from the fortress. The rest were soon constrained to capitulate. They sought refuge in the temple of Athena Polias, and left it when the archons promised to spare their lives. But Megacles, of the Alcmaeonid family, was archon this year; and at his instigation the pledge was disregarded, and the conspirators were put to death. Some feud among the clans may have been at work here. The city was saved from a tyrant, but it had incurred a grave pollution. Such a violation of a solemn pledge to the suppliants who had trusted in the protection of the gods was an insult to the gods themselves; and the city was under a curse till the pollution should be removed. This view was urged by the secret friends of Cylon and those who hated the Alcmaeonids. And so it came to pass that while Cylon, his brother, and their descendants were condemned to disfranchisement and perpetual banishment, the Alcmaeonids and those who had acted with them were also tried on the charge of sacrilege and condemned to a perpetual exile, with confiscation of their property.And the bodies of those of the clan who had died between the deed of sacrilege and the passing of this sentence were exhumed and cast beyond the boundary of Attica. The banishment of the Alcmaeonids had consequences in the distant future, and we shall see how it comes into the practical politics of Athens two hundred years later. The tale is also told that the city required a further purification, and that a priest named Epimenides came from Crete and cleansed it. But it has been thought doubtful whether Epimenides is more than a mythical name like Orpheus, since another story brings him to Athens again, for similar purposes of atonement, more than a century afterwards; and then both tales are conciliated by ascribing to the seer a miraculous sleep of a hundred years.

Epimenides of Cnossos

In the course of the next ten years, the state of the peasants seems to have changed considerably for the worse. The outbreak of a war with Megara, in consequence of the plot of Cylon, aggravated the distress of the rural population; for the Attic coasts suffered from the depredations of the enemy, and the Megarian market was closed to the oil-trade. Whether the peasants, who groaned under the existing system, found leaders and extorted concessions from the government, or whether the ruling classes themselves saw the danger, and tried to prevent it by a timely concession, it was at all events decided that a code of law should be drawn up and written down. Probably men had been clamouring long to obtain this security for life and property; and what the thesmothetae may have already done by recording judicial decisions in writing was not enough. Dracon was appointed an extraordinary legislator (Thesmothetes), and empowered to codify and rectify the existing law. We know only the provisions of that part of his criminal law which dealt with the shedding of blood; for these provisions were not altered by subsequent legislation. In later times it was thought that Dracon revealed to the Athenians how harsh their laws were, and his name became proverbial for a severe lawgiver. An Athenian orator won credit for his epigram that Dracon's laws were written not in ink but in blood. This idea arose from the fact that certain small offences, such as stealing cabbage,were punished by death. A broader view, however, of Dracon's code will modify this view. He drew careful distinctions between murder and various kinds of accidental or justifiable manslaughter. In Dracon's laws we meet a body of fifty-one judges, called the Ephetae. They were chosen from the Eupatrids, but it is not clear whether they formed a part of the Council of the Areopagus or were a wholly distinct body. Those cases of bloodshed which did not come before the court of the Areopagus were tried by the Ephetae, in case the shedder of blood was known. According to the nature of the deed the Ephetae held their court in different places: in the temple of the Delphinian Apollo, in the Palladion at Phaleron, or at Phreatto, a tongue of land on the Munychian peninsula. This last court was used in the case of those who were tried for manslaughter committed abroad, and as they might not set foot on the soil of their country, they had to answer the charge standing in a boat drawn up near the shore. When the shedder of blood was not known, the case came before the King in the Prytaneum.

It is unfortunate that we are not informed of Dracon's other legislation. We know that the laws relating to debtors were stringent; the creditor could claim the person of the insolvent debtor. In general, he was bound to provide for the interests of the rich power-holding class; but it was at all events an enormous gain for the poor that those interests should be defined in writing.

SECT. 4. THE LEGISLATION OF SOLON AND THE FOUNDATIONOr DEMOCRACY

Dracon's code was something, but it did not touch the root of the evil. Every year the oppressiveness of the rich few and the impoverishment of the small farmer were increasing. Without capital, and obliged to borrow money, the small proprietors mortgaged their lands, which fell into the hands of capitalists, who lent money at ruinous interest. It must be remembered that money was still very scarce, and that the peasants had now to purchase all their needs in coin. Even in Attica the small peasant could not cope with the larger proprietor. Thus the little farms of Attica were covered with stones, on which the mortgage bonds were written; the large estates grew apace; the black earth, as Solon said, was enslaved.

The condition of the free labourers was even more deplorable. The sixth part of the produce, which was their wage, no longer suficed, under the new economical conditions, to support life, and they were forced into borrowing from their masters. The interest was high, the laws of debt were ruthless, and the person of the borrower was the pledge of repayment and forfeited to the lender in case of inability to pay. The result was that the class of free labourers was being gradually transformed into a class of slaves, whom their lords could sell when they chose.

Thus while the wealthy few were becoming wealthier and greedier, the small proprietors were becoming landless, and the landless freemen were becoming slaves. And the evil was aggravated by unjust judgments, and the perversion of law in favour of the rich and powerful. The social disease seemed likely to culminate in a political revolution. The people were bitter against their remorseless oppressors, and only wanted a leader to rebel. To any student of contemporary politics, observing the development in other states, a tyranny would have seemed the most probable solution. A tyranny had already, once at least, and probably more than once, been averted; and now, as it happened, the masses obtained a mediator, not a demagogue, a reform, not a revolution. The tyranny, though it was ultimately to come, was postponed for more than thirty years. The mediator in the civil strife was Solon, the son of Execestides, a noble connected with the house of the Medontids, He was a merchant, and belonged to the wealthiest class in the state. But he was very different from the Attic Eupatrids, rustic squires, of old fashions and narrow vision. We may guess that he had not been a home-keeping youth, but had visited the eastern coasts of the Aegean, whither mercantile concerns might have taken him. At all events, he had learned much from progressive Ionia. He had imbued himself with Ionic literature, and had mastered the art of writing verse in the Ionic idiom; so that he could himself take part in the intellectual movement of the day and become one of the sages of Greece. He was a poet, not because he was poetically inspired, like the Parian Archilochus of an earlier, or the Lesbian Sappho of his own, generation; but because at that time every man of letters was a poet; there was no prose literature. A hundred years later Solon would have used prose as the vehicle of his thoughts. His moderate temper made him generally popular; his knowledge gave him authority; and his countrymen called upon him, at last, to set their house in order, We are fortunate enough to possess portions of poems––political pamphlets––which he published for the purpose of guiding public opinion; and thus we have his view of the situation in his own words. He did not scruple to speak plainly.The social abuses and the sad state of the masses were clear to everybody, but Solon saw another side of the question; and he had no sympathy with the extreme revolutionary agitators who demanded a redistribution of lands. The more moderate of the nobles seem to have seen the danger and the urgent need of a new order of things; and thus it came to pass that Solon was solicited to undertake the work of reform. He definitely undertook the task and was elected archon, with extraordinary legislative powers, for the purpose of healing the evils of the state, and conciliating the classes.

Bust of Solon, copy from a Greek original (c. 110 BC) from the Farnese Collection, now at the National Archaeological Museum, Naples

Instead of making the usual declaration of the chief magistrate,that he would protect the property of all men undiminished, he made proclamation that all mortgages and debts by which the debtor's person was pledged were annulled, and that all those who had become slaves for debt were free. By this proclamation in that summer, memorable for the rescue of hundreds of poor wretches into liberty and hope, the Athenians "shook off their burdens," and this first act of Solon's social reform was called the Seisachtheia. The great deliverance was celebrated by a public feast.

The character of the remedial measures of Solon is imperfectly known. After the cancelling of old debts he passed a law which forbade debtors to be enslaved. He fixed a limit for the measure of land which could be owned by a single person, so as to prevent the growth of dangerously large estates. And he forbade the exportation of Attic products, except oil. For it had been found that so much corn was carried to foreign markets, where the prices were higher, that an insufficient supply remained for the population of Attica. It is to be observed that at this time the Athenians had not yet begun to import Pontic corn.

All these measures hit the rich hard, and created discontent with the reformer; while, on the other hand, he was far from satisfying the desires and hopes of the masses. He would not confiscate and redistribute the estates of the wealthy, as many wished. And, though he rescued the tree labourer from bondage, he made no change in the Sixth-part system, so that the condition of these landless freemen was improved only in so far as they could not be enslaved, and in so far as the law limiting exportation affected prices. And Solon was too discreet to attempt to interfere seriously with the conditions of the money market by artificial restrictions. He fixed no maximum rate of interest, and his monetary reforms must be kept strictly apart from his social reforms. Hitherto the Athenians did not coin money of their own. They used the Aeginetan currency. Solon inaugurated a native coinage, but he adopted the Euboic, not the Aeginetan, standard. Thus I00 of the new Attic drachmae were equivalent in value to about 70 Aeginetan drachmae. The Attic coinage introduced by Solon is to be brought into connexion, not with the domestic reform, but with the foreign policy of Athens, to which new prospects were opening. The old coinage attached her to Aegina, with which her relations were strained, and to her foe Megara; the new system seemed to invite her into the distant fields beyond the sea, where Chalcis and Corinth had led the way in opening up a new world. A generation later, a new monetary reform introduced a distinct Attic standard, slightly higher than the Euboic.

What Solon did to heal the social sores of his country entitled him to the most fervent gratitude, but it was no more than might have been done by any able and honest statesman who possessed men's confidence. His title to fame as one of the great statesmen of Europe rests upon his reform of the constitution. He discovered a secret of democracy, and he used his discovery to build up the constitution on democratic foundations. The Athenian common-wealth did not actually become a democracy till many years later; but Solon not only laid the foundations, he shaped the framework. At first sight, indeed, the state as he reformed it might seem little more than an aristocracy of wealth––a timocracy––with certain democratic tendencies. He retained the old graduation of the people in classes according to property. But he added the Thêtes as a fourth class, and gave it certain political rights. On the three higher classes devolved the public burdens, and they served as cavalry or as hoplites. The Thetes were employed as light-armed troops or as marines. It is probable that Solon made little or no change in regard to the offices which were open to each class. Pentacosio-medimni were alone eligible to the archonship, and for them alone was reserved the financial office of Treasurer of Athena. Other offices were open to the Hippês and the Zeugitae, but the distinction in privilege between them is unknown. The Thetes were not eligible to any of the offices of state, but they were admitted to take part in the meetings of the Ecclesia, and this gave them a voice in the election of the magistrates.

The opening of the Assembly to the lowest class was indeed an important step in the democratic direction; but it may have been only the end of a gradual process of widening, which had been going on under the aristocracy. The radical measure of Solon, which was the very corner-stone of the Athenian democracy, was his constitution of the courts of justice. He constituted a court out of all the citizens, including the Thetes; and as the panels of judges were enrolled by lot, the poorest burgher might have his turn. Any magistrate on laying down his office could be accused before the people in these courts; and thus the institution of popular courts invested the people with a supreme control over the administration. The people, sitting in sections as sworn judges,were called the Heliaea, ––as distinguished from the Ecclesia, in which they gathered to pass laws or choose magistrates, but were required to take no oath. Having in its hands both the appointment of the magistrates and the control possessed theoretically the sovereignty of the state; and the meting out of more privileges to the less wealthy classes could be merely a matter of time. At first the archons were not deprived of their judicial powers, and the heliaea acted as a court of appeal; but by degrees the competence of the archons was reduced to the conduct of the proceedings preliminary to a trial, and the heliaea became both the first and the final court.

The constitution of the judicial courts out of the whole people was the secret of democracy which Solon discovered. It is his title to fame in the history of the growth of popular government in Europe. Without ignoring the tendencies to a democratic development which existed before him, and without, on the other hand, disguising the privileges which he reserved to the upper classes, we can hardly hesitate to regard Solon as the founder of the Athenian democracy. It must indeed be confessed that there is much in the scope and intention of his constitution which it is difficult to appreciate, because we know so little of the older constitution which he reformed. Thus we have no definite record touching the composition of the Council of the Areopagus, touching its functions as a deliberative body and its relations to the Assembly, or touching the composition of the Assembly itself. We can, however, have little doubt that under the older commonwealth the Council of Elders exerted a preponderant influence over the Assembly, and that the business submitted to the Assembly, whether by the magistrates or in whatever way introduced, was previously discussed and settled by the Council. The founder of popular government could not leave this hinge of the aristocratic republic as it was. He must either totally change the character of the Council and transform it into a popular body, or he must deprive it of its deliberative functions in regard to the Assembly. Solon deprived the Council of Elders of these deliberative functions, so that it could no longer take any direct part in administration and legislation. But on the other hand he assigned to it a new and lofty rôle. He constituted it the protector of the constitution, and the guardian of the laws, giving it wide and undefined powers of control over the magistrates, and a censorial authority over the citizens. Its judicial and religious functions it retained. In order to bring it into harmony with the rest of his constitution, Solon seems to have altered the composition of the Council. Henceforward, at least, the nine archons at the end of their year of office became life-members of the Council of the Areopagus; and this was the manner in which the Council was recruited. Thus the Areopagites were virtually appointed by the people in the Assembly.

Having removed the Council of the Areopagus to this place of dignity, above and almost outside the constitution, Solon was obliged to create a new body to prepare the business for the Assembly. Such a body was indispensable, as the Greeks always recognised; and it is clear that in its absence enormous powers would have been placed in the hands of the magistrates, on whom the manipulation of the Assembly would have entirely devolved. The "probuleutic"Council which Solon instituted consisted of four hundred members; a hundred being taken from each of the four tribes, either chosen by the tribe itself or, more probably, picked by lot. All citizens of the three higher classes were eligible; the Thetes alone were excluded. In later days this Council––or rather a new Council which took its place––gained a large number of important powers, which made it to all intents an independent body in the state, but at first its functions seem to have been purely "probuleutic," and it has therefor rather the aspect of being merely a part of the organisation of the Assembly. It must always be remembered that it does not represent the Council of Elders of the Aryan foreworld; it does not correspond to the Gerusia of Sparta or the Senate of Rome. But it takes over certain functions which had before formed part of the duty of the Council of elders; it discusses beforehand the public matters which are to be submitted to the Assembly.

The use of lot for the purpose of appointing public officers was a feature of Solon's reforms, According to men's ideas in those days, lot committed the decision to the gods, and was thus a serious method of precedure––not a sign of political levity, as we should regard it now. But a device which superstition suggested was approved by the reflexions of philosophical statesmen; and lot was recognised as a valuable political engine for security against undue influence and for the protection of minorities. It was doubtless as a security against the undue influence of clans and parties that Solon used it. He applied it to the appointment of the chief magistrates themselves. But, religious though he was, he could not be blind to the danger of taking no human precautions against the falling of the lot upon an incompetent candidate. He therefore mixed the two devices of lot and election. Forty candidates were elected, ten from each tribe, by the voice of their tribesmen; and out of these the nine archons were picked by lot. It is probable that a similar mixed method was employed in the choice of the Four Hundred Councillors.

Solon sought to keep the political balance steady by securing that each of the four tribes should have an equal share in the government. He could hardly have done otherwise, and yet here we touch on the weak point in the fabric of his constitution. The gravest danger ahead was in truth not the strife of poor and rich, of noble lord and man of the people, but the deep-rooted and bitter jealousies which existed between many of the clans, While the clan had the tribe behind it and the tribe possessed political weight, such feuds might at any moment cause a civil war or a revolution. But it was reserved for a future lawgiver to grapple with this problem. Solon assuredly saw it, but he had no solution ready to hand; and the evil was closely connected with another evil, the local parties which divided Attica. For these dangers Solon offered no remedy, and therefore his work, though abiding in the highest sense, did not supply a final or even a brief pacification of the warring elements in the state. He is said to have passed a law––so clumsy, so difficult to render effective, that it is hard to believe that such an enactment was ever made––that in the case of a party struggle every burgher must take a side under pain of losing his civic rights. Solon, if he was indeed the author of such a measure, sought to avert the possible issues of political strife by forcing the best citizens to intervene; it was a safeguard, a clumsy safeguard, against the danger of a tyranny.

It is interesting to observe that in some directions Solon extended and in others restricted the freedom of the individual. He restricted it by sumptuary laws and severe penalties for idleness; he extended it by an enactment allowing a man who had no heirs of his body to will his property as he liked, instead of its going to the next of kin.12 One of Solon's first acts was to repeal all the legislation of Dracon, except the laws relating to manslaughter. His own laws were inscribed on wooden tables set in revolving frames called axǒnes, which were numbered, and the laws were quoted by the number of the axon. These tablets were kept in the Public hall, But copies were made on stone pillars, called in the old Attic tongue kyrbeis, and kept in the Portico of the King. Every citizen was required to take an oath that he would obey these laws; and it was ordered that the laws were to remain in force for a hundred years.

Solon had done his work boldly, but he had done it constitutionally. He had not made himself a tyrant, as he might easily have done, and as many expected him to do. On the contrary, one purpose of his reform was to forestall the necessity, and prevent the possibility, of a tyranny. He had not even become an aesymnetes––a legislator (like Pittacus) who for a number of years supersedes the constitution in order to reform it, and rules for that time with the absolute power of a tyrant. He had simply held the office of archon, invested, indeed, with extraordinary powers. To a superficial observer caution seemed the note of his reforms, and men were surprised, and many disgusted, by his cautiousness. His caution consisted in reserving the highest offices for men of property, and the truth probably is that in his time no others would have been fitted to perform the duties. But Solon has stated his own principle that the privileges of each class should be proportional to the public burdens which it can bear. This was the conservative feature of his legislation; and, seizing on it, democrats could make out a plausible case for regarding his constitution as simply a timocracy. When he laid down his office he was assailed by complaints, and he wrote elegies in which he explains his middle course and professes that he performed the things which he undertook without favour or fear. "I threw my stout shield," he says, "over both parties." He refused to entertain the idea of any modifications in his measures, and thinking that the reforms would work better in the absence of the reformer, he left Athens soon after his archonship and travelled for ten years, partly for mercantile ends, but perhaps chiefly from curiosity, to see strange places and strange men.

Though the remnants of his poems are fragmentary, though the recorded events of his life are meagre, and though the details of his legislation are dimly known and variously interpreted, the personality of Solon leaves a distinct impression on our minds. We know enough to see in him an embodiment of the ideal of intellectual and moral excellence of the early Greeks, and the greatest of their wise men. For him the first of the virtues was moderation, and his motto was "Avoid excess." He was in no vulgar sense a man of the world, for he was many-sided––poet and legislator, traveller and trader, noble and friend of the people. He had the insight to discern some of the yet undeveloped tendencies of the age, and could sympathise with other than the power-holding classes. He had meditated too deeply on the circumstances of humanity to find power a temptation; he never forgot that he was a traveller between life and death. It was a promising and characteristic act for a Greek state to commit the task of its reformation to such a man, and empower him to translate into definite legislative measures the views which he expressed in his poems.

Solon's social reforms inaugurated a permanent improvement. But his political measures, which he intended as a compromise, displeased many. Party strife broke out again bitterly soon after his archonship, and only to end, after thirty years, in the tyranny which It had been his dearest object to prevent. Of this strife we know little. It took the form of a struggle for the archonship, and two years are noted in which, in consequence of this struggle, no archons were elected, hence called years of anarchy, Then a certain archon, Damasias, attempted to convert his office into a permanent tyranny and actually held it for over two years. This attempt frightened the political parties into making a compromise of some sort. It was agreed that ten archons should be chosen, five Eupatrids, three Georgi, and two Demiurgi, all of course possessing the requisite minimum of wealth. It is unknown whether this arrangement was repeated after the year of its first trial, but it certainly did not lead to a permanent reconciliation.

The two great parties were those who were in the main satisfied with the new constitution of Solon, and those who disliked its democratic side and desired to return to the aristocratic government which he had subverted. The latter consisted chiefly of Eupatrids and were known as the men of the Plain. They were led by Lycurgus, and numbered among them the clan of the Philaidae––distinguished as the clan of Hippoclides, the wooer of Agarista, and destined to become more distinguished still as that of more than one Cimon and Miltiades. The opposite party of the Coast included not only the population of the coast, but the bulk of the middle classes, the peasants as well as the demiurgi, who were bettered by the changes of Solon. They were led by Megacles, son of Alcmaeon, the same Megacles who married Agarista. For one of Solon's measures was an act of amnesty which was couched in such terms that, while it did not benefit the descendants of Cylon, it permitted the return of the Alcmaeonidae. Their position severed them from the rest of the Eupatrids and associated them with the party which represented Solon's views.

— John Bagnell Bury

Obtenido de “A History of Greece to the death of Alexander the Great“. pps. 155-181

#Theseus #Codrus #Acastus #Cylon #Epimenides #Theagenes #Megacles #Dracon #Solon #Excesestides #Archilochus #Pittacus #Damasias #Lycurgus #hippoclides #cimo frankel #Miltiades #Alcmeon #Agarista

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Polyhex Wars, Book 1 Part 2: The Timeline for the Robots Being Gay Goes Back Further Than I Thought

Ratchet wakes up from that whole, “mystical passing out” thing to find himself strapped to a table with his head all poked into with wires. Optimus and Prowl are also being subjected to this treatment, but they’re not awake yet.

I guess we all have that one character we just latch onto, don’t we?

Chromedome was there when all three of these guys collapsed, and went to go get help. Ratchet explains that there was black fire and breaking glass and it was all like some god-awful acid trip.

No kidding, doc.

Ratchet seems to think that all that actually happened, but it turns out that it was all in their heads, much like everything else that they’d seen. Chromedome just saw them drop with a flash of light.

Optimus wakes up, and First Aid explains that their mental trips into Limbo are coming closer and closer together, and becoming more violent as a result. There’s a good chance that the next time they have an attack, they’ll be sharing a dreamscape.

Prowl hasn’t woken up. Optimus is worried that he’s stuck in Limbo, and demands that they be put back under to guide him back to the land of the living. First Aid has his reservations, but what is he gonna do, argue with the space pope? Optimus and Ratchet are sent back in with the power of mind-transfer.

Let’s take a quick look at some Chromedome canon before we move on to the next chunk of story, because I want to try and get a feel for why Roberts seems to like him so much.

In the Marvel comics, Chromedome was kind of a reclusive computer nerd, who very much disliked the fact that all his programming skills were only being applied to the war effort as opposed to literally anything else. When Fortress Maximus decided to up and leave, he went along gladly. He ended up getting paired with a very outgoing, vain Nebulan partner named Stylor when the whole Headmaster thing happened. They had their differences, but ultimately were brought together by the common goal of kicking Decepticon ass for the greater good. Comic Chromedome is a relatively nice guy, if a bit cowardly- his final entry in the series was heading for the hills when Unicron showed up, but honestly I can’t really fault him for that.

And then there’s the Headmasters anime. Yeah, Chromedome was an anime protagonist back in the 90’s. Anime Chromedome is a completely different entity than his comic counterpart. His whole thing is that he wants revenge for the murder of his friends at the hands of Sixshot. He’s also a Headmaster- no shit- but it works a little differently, in that he’s the only one involved with the process. Chromedome himself IS the head, and the big body he plugs into is just this sort of inert mecha that he pilots when he wants to be able to reach the higher shelves at the supermarket.

Anime Chromedome is the second-in-command to Fortress Maximus, and he’s a bit of a jackass at times, but he seems to have his heart in the right place. You know, when he isn’t busy beating Decepticons to death. Anime Chromedome goes hard.

Getting back to the story, we return to the scene we left at the end of Part One, with the 40 Autobots having been caught in a trap in Darkmount.

Well that lasted all of five minutes. Poor Grandpa.

This starts a chain reaction, and it isn’t long before all the Autobots are throwing punches. Blaster goes full cowl, taking four guys on at once, and potentially kneeing someone in the nuts so hard they flies up into the air and are promptly exploded by gunfire. Blaster throws a gun to Sights, who is a sniper, and then is right back in the center of the fracas.

Sights is a sniper here, but it looks like the only Sights in Transformers canon is a bird who can turn into a fusion cannon. They probably aren’t the same character, unless there’s something I don’t know about birds.

Sights hauls himself up to a ledge using a grappling hook, and starts picking off Decepticons. Things seem to be turning around for the Autobots at this point, because Sights is the best.

Sights is what some might call a Mary Sue- he’s the best at sniping, rivaling Optimus Prime himself with his accuracy, everyone seems to know him, and he singlehandedly has turned the tide of this fight. As the Autobots escape, he manages to explode a key piece of Decepticon equipment, killing over a dozen enemy troops.

This is an earlier work, if you couldn’t already tell.

We do see some neat transitions in the writing, though.

Ratchet and Optimus have entered Limbo, and are feeling a little manic about the whole thing, especially since the space is just filled with corpses from the Time Wars. Like, it’s a carpet of dead bodies.

Roberts was all about that edge from the get-go, huh?

The two robots start walking, looking for Prowl.

Over with Red Alert on the Celestial, he’s not really feeling the vibe on this spacecraft. Neither is Hot Shot, but neither of them can really pinpoint why exactly that is. Sideswipe points out that Getaway doesn’t have his Nebulan partner with him- for this particular story, we’re going with the take on Getaway as a Powermaster, which means he has a smaller person who plugs into his body to act as a battery, kind of like a reverse parasite.

Comic books are weird.

Toy gimmicks are also weird.

This cues in the Autobots that things might not be on the up and up here. You know, that and the whole “Witterquick” thing. The boys load their weapons, but keep them concealed as they approach not-Blaster, who’s beginning to worry that he’s been caught after all this time. He must have sort flavor of social anxiety, because he’s kept his cool over the video chat for the last few weeks, but the moment Red Alert enters the room, he blows his cover and orders the Decepticons to attack.

Back at Darkmount, it seems we’ve lost a few people, as the count has gone from 40 to 29. The boys are running through the halls, completely clueless as to where to go in order to escape.

Don’t be shocked by the language, this is G1 Silverbolt, not the one who fucks is a complete gentleman to a spider.

I’m still convinced that this Courier guy is evil. You should be tossing him out the window, not looking to him for help.

The Decepticons are gaining. Hound, exasperated, asks as nicely as he can for Silverbolt to try and wake Courier up as they attempt to keep the distance between factions as wide as they can. Laser fire quickly becomes involved, and Swerve and Bumblebee go from the back of the pack to the front. Little fellas can move when they want to.

While Sights does another cool thing with some guns he stole, Courier wakes up and says- with some trouble, since he’s just woken up and still bleeding from that leg wound- that they should jump into the sewers to escape.

That’s all well and good, but if they intend on doing such a thing, they’ll need to put a bit more distance between themselves and their assailants. Everyone starts shooting at the ceiling, attempting to bring it crashing down. Everyone except Sights. No, instead Sights goes on picking off any Decepticon who gets too close for comfort, until they manage to bring the house down.

The strong, silent type, Sights is. Tall, dark, and handsome, too, most likely.

Back in Limbo, Ratchet’s starting to crack.

As if on cue, the ground starts to crack, revealing lava of all things, and the whole scene turns into Dante’s Inferno-flavored Hell. Yeah, proper noun Hell. Optimus and Ratchet are exploded by contact with a downpour of acid rain, then their bodies reconstituted, only to be burned to crispies by the lava. When they wake up from that, they find themselves stuck on a spinning silver plate in the sky, where they have an excellent view of where Prowl’s gotten to- he’s stranded on an asteroid with a big, scary Decepticon, who’s about to complete wreck his shit.

You know, the snark has always been there in Roberts’ writing, but it didn’t really hit its stride until after this piece of work.

Meanwhile, in the sewers, our Autobots aren’t doing so hot. Courier’s probably going to die if they don’t get him medical attention soon. I guess they just didn’t have any sort of medic on the Celestial when it was overtaken, which seems like a massive oversight. Or maybe they’re dead.

We don’t have time to worry about the hiring practices of the Autobots right now though, because a few Decepticons just arrived on the scene.

Well, there goes the token girl character.

Seems like nobody told these ‘Cons to not hit their deep cover operative. There goes several thousand years of Autobot secrets, dumbasses. Soundwave’s going to be so pissed.

The Autobots quickly fall into formation and start defending themselves. Turns out Rev-Tone’s on the scene.

Hi Rev-Tone!

Someone gets shot and proceeds to explode, which causes enough chaos for a Decepticon to load up a missile launcher without being noticed and fire it into the crowd.

Things are looking hopeless, so that means it’s time for Sights to make his Heroic Sacrifice™. Hound begs him to stay, because he can’t bear to lose anyone else.

Unfortunately, the Hound/Sights coffeeshop AU slowburn fit written by Rewind will have to have a fix-it fic tag, because Sights is almost immediately and literally ripped apart by a smattering of Decepticons. Knowing his time is running out, he busts out the big guns.

Oh my god he’s got fucking laser vision.

That isn’t quite enough though, so he initiates self-destruct, thereby saving his fellow Autobots and dying a hero.

You know, if you stack Sights on top of what was left of Quark after the interrogation scene, you make a whole robot. Worst. Duobot. Ever.

Not to worry though, because Wheeljack’s taken the opportunity to be all weird and cryptic, and insinuates that they potentially COULD bring Sights back from the dead. Because of course he can.

We don’t get to find out how that magic’s going to happen though, because it’s time to check in on Optimus and Ratchet.

Things aren’t going great. They crashed the disk, and it turns out that the giant Decepticon threatening Prowl and throwing body parts at him is Galvatron. Optimus leaps into action, attempting to use his magnetic repellence on the enemy.

I guess that’s a thing he has.

It works, but it’s taking a lot out of Optimus, so they need to figure something else out fast. Optimus, ever light on his mental feet, surges the power so that Galvatron explodes. Ratchet goes over to Prowl to see what his deal is, and it’s looking like he’s going to need brain surgery.

“Now back the hell up, Optimus, you’re breathing contaminates all over Prowl’s exposed brain.”

Back on Cybertron, it turns out that things might just be okay after all, as Hound and company have stumbled across the lost city of Subterrainia. Subterrainia did not exist in Transformers canon at the time of this writing, but it would in 2012, when Roberts used his immense power as a hired writer for the franchise to make it so.

Now that they’re in a place that has medical equipment, they can heal their wounded and indulge in a little lore. Trasher provides us with the backstory of this lost city.

Long before the War, Transformers lived on the surface of Cybertron. Then, one day, someone said, what if we didn’t do that? Then they built Subterrainia and lived there instead. Then the War happened and people sort of just forgot that it was there. The end.

That’s literally it.

After that riveting explanation, we check back in with Optimus, who I suppose forgot to put on his patience hat this morning, as he asks Ratchet to hurry up with the life-saving field surgery he’s currently in the middle of. Ratchet calls him out on it, as he should, and Optimus apologizes, going back to worrying about his troops outside of Limbo.

Over on the Celestial, Red Alert’s just had his arm shot off, and there’s a continuity error running amok.

You are supposed to be back at base, mister!

The Autobots are getting their asses kicked, and it’s not hard to see why- a lot of the Decepticons on this spacecraft are heavy hitters. Starscream’s here, the entire Combaticon team, it’s wild.

Then Starscream calls for escape plan 3 to take place, and they just… leave. It’s strange, and it’s sudden, and the Autobots can’t help but agree. Red Alert decides to see what’s on the computer to try and figure out what they’re planning, and ends up setting off the countdown for a bomb. Slapdash yells at him for being an idiot.

Back down in the City of the Mole People, Getaway’s come back from checking out the place, and informs Hound that it’s completely abandoned. He theorizes that the Decepticons killed everyone who lived here, an will probably come looking for them sooner rather than later. That’s all fine though, because Courier’s back and better than ever.

I still don’t trust him.

He says he knows how to get out of Subterrainia- which only chalks up more points against him being a true Autobot- but hold on! What about Sights?

Sights just got Goldbugged. It’s Ammo now.

Roberts will never let a pair of robot titties go unnoticed. I can’t believe that Wheeljack, with the limited time they had, would go and make Ammo this attractive, and then have the audacity to show him off with a dramatic reveal. It was completely unnecessary, but here we are, staring at Ammo’s strong arms and thighs, wishing to be held by Hotbot 9000 over here.

Hound is all about this overhaul. Look at him, getting all flustered.

Ammo as character is present in the IDW run of the comics, but in name only. They are very different creatures, much like the different iterations of Quark. Roberts is very into recycling, and here is no exception.

After Ammo’s debut, the narrative checks in on Autobot City, where things aren’t nearly as sexy; Starscream made a beeline for the place the moment they left the Celestial, and they’re wrecking shop. He’s doing this without orders to do so, by the way. This is just how Starscream wants his Monday to go, I guess. It’s looking pretty grim for the Autobots, and Optimus is still stuck in Limbo. Hopefully he gets back soon.

#transformers #jro #polyhex wars #book one #part two #maccadam #Hannzreads #text post #long post #prose writing

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jaimetheexplorer · 5 years

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PROBABILITY DISTORTION - Or why Jaime Lannister is less likely to die than you think (part 3)

Once the narrative arcs and foreshadowing analysis pokes enough holes in the “inevitable death” prediction, the arguments to support it usually tend to turn to non-text-based points such as writing style and tropes. Most of these arguments generally revolve around the idea that GRRM is evil and kills characters off to traumatize his readers, and that Jaime’s story is a redemption arc and therefore will end in a redemptive death like all redemption arcs do. These arguments, however, do not really hold much water once you take into account that GRRM actually isn’t the sadist people like to think he is (including sometimes George himself, because it makes for good PR), and that one thing this series prides itself on is trope and expectations subversion.

GRRM is a realist, not a sadist

“If you think this has a happy ending, you haven’t been paying attention.”

Of all the quotes that have come out of the show, this, right here, is the one I have come to hate the most. Not only because it is often irritatingly used as an empty argument against anything that suggests a non-tragic ending for a character (especially one like Jaime), but it’s thrown around as if it’s the most representative of ASOIAF/GoT ever. In part, I get why. It’s catchy, and the series has broken a lot of boundaries by actually killing people off, putting them through terrible ordeals, maiming and traumatising some for life. It gained its notoriety for killing off the perceived main character of the story at very beginning, and for the shocking bloodbath of “good guys” that was the Red Wedding. But I feel there’s a tendency, amongst fans and journalists alike, to exaggerate how gloomy and sadistic the story/GRRM really is, relative to the context it is set in (medieval war time).

GRRM often explained the reason why he kills characters off as fundamentally being down to two reasons: wanting to depict war realistically and annoyance at stories where the heroes are untouchable and survive, unscathed, any situation (which ties into the topic of trope subversion, too - more on this later).

“You can’t write about war and violence without having death. If you want to be honest it should affect your main characters. We’ve all read this story a million times when a bunch of heroes set out on adventure and [...] the only ones who die are extras. That’s such a cheat. It doesn’t happen that way.” (GRRM)

GRRM is a realist, not a sadist. And I would argue he’s not as bloodthirsty as people perceive him to be, when it comes to main characters. If you think about it, only *two* POV characters have been killed off so far: Ned and Cat. Jon, the other main POV to be killed off in the books, we know will be resurrected thanks to the show. And just as GRRM inserts POVs for a reason (when he needs that new perspective, or when a character’s story needs to be told), there’s a similar reason in his killing too. It usually comes when the characters have fulfilled their purpose in the story, or if their death is a plot point for someone else’s. In Ned and Cat’s case, they die after falling into Littlefinger’s scheme that pits Lannisters against the Starks, kicking off the War of the Five Kings. Ned’s purpose was to discover the true paternity of Robert’s children and Cat dies after tasking Brienne to bring Jaime to King’s Landing in return for her daughters (which sets off a massive domino effect of plotlines). They also both needed to die in order to break down centralized parenthood in the Stark family so that the Stark children could go their separate ways and have their own stories and development.

While POV and non-POV deaths alike can be shocking and/or heartbreaking, they aren’t thrown in there just to fill some death or shock quota for no other rhyme nor reason. This is not The Walking Dead. And “realism” also means a ton of other options that have nothing to do with death. It’s not just an issue of “death vs. survival”, to post another excerpt from the quote above:

“They go into battle and their best friend dies or they get horribly wounded. They lose their leg or death comes at them unexpectedly.”

Having a loved one die, or horrible injuries are also part of realism for GRRM, not just death. Does that “lose their leg” sound familiar? Thought so. So saying that Jaime (or any character) will most likely get killed anyway because GRRM is a sadist is not only a weak argument, but a big misrepresentation of GRRM’s writing style. Jaime, who has already added his contribution to the “realism” jar by losing his hand, might die if and when he has fulfilled his purpose in the story, but not because “GRRM is a jerk”.

Subversions

Perhaps a stronger case for Jaime’s survival odds is the fact that, if there is one thing this series loves to do, it’s subverting tropes and expectations, and, alongside Ned’s death and the Red Wedding, Jaime is perhaps one of the most famous examples of how this story does character trope subversion so well.

Right out of the gate, it wants us to hate him, because he’s arrogant, ruthless and incestuous, he betrayed and murdered the King he was sworn to protect and he pushed a child out of a window. From book/season 3 onwards, that initial perception is slowly challenged and eventually subverted, especially throughout his journey with Brienne and with the revelation of why he killed the Mad King, but also in how he takes risks to protect Tyrion and Sansa from his own family. In the show this is particularly fun, because once you go back to earlier seasons, you notice several subtle moments of writing and acting where the seeds of these revelations were already being planted. While I understand he is not everyone’s cup of tea and some hate him just as much as day one, I think that we can all agree at least that this is what the story is aiming to do, even if not all readers/viewers embrace it. And that’s the most important thing when making a point about authorial intent.

I already mentioned when discussing narrative arcs, that the difference between the classic redemptive character trope and Jaime is that, in Jaime’s case, the story is exploring the process of redemption, rather than seeing redemption as the last minute goal, and how that makes a classic redemptive death less likely. But there is another difference with the traditional trope that makes Jaime not only subvert expectations but, partly, also subvert the redemption trope itself. And that is that many (not all, but many) of the things we are initially supposed to hate Jaime for, actually turn to be misconceptions or prejudices from other characters’ perspective (a huge point of having a POV structure). While Jaime undoubtedly goes through a transformation through the story, for many things it is our initial perception of Jaime is meant to change, not Jaime, the character (again, POV structure!). Looking at Jaime as the trope of the “bad man who is turned good by the good woman” (i.e. Brienne) is a complete misread of the character. Brienne exists to reawaken what Jaime used to be like in his past/can potentially still be, not to transform him into something else (it is Beauty and the Beast they are based on, after all - the beast used to be a prince, and gets turned back into that prince). Therefore applying the outcome of the traditional tropes to Jaime (i.e. a redemptive death) makes little sense when Jaime is meant to be a subversion of that trope to begin with, if not even a different type of character altogether.

Another trope worth considering is the “all the bad guys will die” trope.

Not only this view fails to acknowledge that most characters and families in this series (and its extended universe - see the Targaryen as portrayed in Dunk & Egg) aren’t 100% “good” or 100% “bad”, they sit on a spectrum, but even if you wanted to see a specific character or family as “evil”, that doesn’t necessarily mean they will die or go extinct. We can go back to his quotes about why he kills off characters to see how “bad guys will die” is also a trope he might be interested in subverting.

“It’s really irritating when you open a book, and 10 pages into it you know that the hero you met on page one or two is gonna come through unscathed, because he’s the hero. This is completely unreal, and I don’t like it.” (GRRM)

This quote above can be looked at in reverse too: just as it is annoying to open a book and know 10 pages in that the hero will survive (and GRRM subverted that trope with Ned), it is annoying to know 10 pages in that the villain will die (and Ned’s villain counterpart in book one is Jaime), or that the family that is perceived as the “evil family” (i.e. the Lannisters) will go extinct in the end (let alone if it’s with the exception of the “good” Lannister, Tyrion, playing right into the trope of both “good vs bad” guys and “good vs bad families”, since the only Lannister allowed to survive is the “good” one).

So even if one doesn’t want to buy into Jaime’s redemption and trope subversion, and wants to hold onto the book/season one interpretation that he’s an awful human being, if the author(s) intend for Jaime to be a subversion of the redemption death trope, or to subvert the “all bad guys must die” trope (or both), then his odds of death or survival are not really influenced by whether the audience agrees with that or not.

GRRM is both a gardener AND an architect

As I wrap up my 3-parter, one final aspect of GRRM’s style is important to note, because it ties it all together.

GRRM says he is a “gardener”, who likes to plant seeds and see how they grow. So one might argue that there is no guarantee that just because he set off in book one to make Jaime the subversion of the villain who must die (through redemption), he will never decide at some point that, actually, a death will be a fitting and satisfying conclusion.

However, it is important to remember that when he talks about being a gardener he means it in the sense that he finds knowing the *details* of how a story will develop to be a turn off for his inspiration and motivation, not that he does not plan anything ahead and has no idea where the story is going.

“For me, writing a book is like a long journey, and like any trip, I know the point where I start the journey and the point I wanna get to. I also know a little bit of the route, such as the main cities in which I wanna stop by, and even a few monuments I would like to visit. What I do not know is where I will eat the first night or which songs will be on the radio. I discover all that details while I am writing the book and that’s the reason why I go so slowly: because sometimes I have to go back to change certain things.” (GRRM)

While he creates the story as he goes along, he does work with the broad strokes of the endgame and the final fates of the main characters in mind:

"I know the broad strokes, and I've known the broad strokes since 1991. I know who's going to be on the Iron Throne. I know who's gonna win some of the battles, I know the major characters, who's gonna die and how they're gonna die, and who's gonna get married and all that. The major characters. Of course along the way I made up a lot of minor characters, you know, I, uhm...Did I know in 1991 how Bronn, what was gonna happen to Bronn? No, I didn't even know there'd be a guy named Bronn. [...] So a lot of the minor characters I'm still discovering along the way. But the mains-"

[question if he knows Arya's and Jon's fates]

"Tyrion, Arya, Jon, Sansa, you know, all of the Stark kids, and the major Lannisters, yeah." (GRRM)

Furthermore, he absolutely loves to drop cues, hints and foreshadowing to future events and plot twists, something that would be completely impossible for him to do if he were writing with no clear ending and direction in sight. So he sets out to make sure his story adds up and makes sense, even if it means having to give up the surprise factor, either because someone already figured it out (e.g. R+L=J):

“The fans use to come up with theories; lots of them are just speculative but some of them are in the right way. [...] They say: “Oh God, the butler did it!”, to use an example of a mystery novel. Then, you think: “I have to change the ending! The maiden would be the criminal!” To my mind that way is a disaster because [...] the books are full of clues that point to the butler doing it and help you to figure up the butler did it, but if you change the ending to point the maiden, the clues make no sense anymore; they are wrong or are lies, and I am not a liar.” (GRRM)

or because the show surpassed the books:

Though he used to worry about it getting to the end before him, he's not even about that life anymore.

“I said, to hell with that. Worrying about it isn’t going to change it one way or another. I still sit down at the typewriter, and I have to write the next scene and the next sentence … I’m just going to tell my story, and they’re telling their story and adapting my books, and we shall see.” (GRRM)

Jaime’s fate, as a “main Lannister”, is therefore already clear in GRRM’s mind and he has been seeding and foreshadowing and working towards it, even if *how* he will get there is anybody’s guess (and the show and books have already substantially diverged in that sense). It will likely not change on a whim, invalidating everything that has been written all along.

So, as we reach the end of part 3 and take all the stuff I’ve discussed in this 3-parter in consideration, I think it’s safe to conclude that: given Jaime’s arc and related foreshadowing, knowing that GRRM develops his stories sloooowly, carefully and purposefully, always with a goal in sight, going back to change things if they don’t fit or contradict, relying heavily on the concept of butterfly effect across arcs and characters, and with a penchant for trope subversion sprinkled on top, you can see why I feel that the odds of Jaime’s death in the fandom and general audience are HIGHLY overinflated, and mostly due to selectively attending to one or two pieces of evidence, without considering how they fit in the overall picture. While this is still no guarantee he’ll definitely survive, I’d argue that a likelihood of survival follows from the material (and general writing style) more than death.

Now, if you’ve made it this far without falling asleep, congratulations! I’ve addressed pretty much everything I wanted to address to estimate Jaime’s survival odds from a relatively non-speculative angle, using the current material and quotes available, rather than theorizing too much about what I think are likely future developments for his story. I tend to dislike when people use events that have not yet happened and may never happen (looking at you, valonqarists), to make a case for their arguments, so I refrained from doing it as I don’t really think it’s helpful or even necessary to make my case. BUT, if you’re interested in taking a wild leap into theory-land and how that may further affect his survival odds, I’ll be posting a more speculative part 4 hopefully soon (which will be heavily Jaime/Brienne friendly - you’ve been warned).

#jaime lannister #jaime lannister meta #game of thrones meta #asoiaf meta #asoiaf #game of thrones #my meta #essay

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